Pen-Elayne on the Web

Meme Warfare

Two interesting articles brought to my attention this morning. Via an e-mail from Cat Simril Ishikawa, this Salon article about his longtime acquaintance Kalle Lasn and his latest venture in culture jamming. You probably know the drill - if you want to read the whole article you need to click through an ad to get a Salon Premium Day Pass, which today is sponsored by the good folks at The Well.

And speaking of shaking up memes, Neil Gaiman points to this great Bookslut column about comics by Karin Kross, which impressed me so much that I've added Karin's own blog to my Kultcha section on the sidebar. My favorite bit: she quotes some good comics reviews, and then notes that "in each case, the bad reputation of the comics form is brought up again, ostensibly with the intent of demolishing it by demonstrating that there really are good comics out there. This sort of thing has been going on since Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer for Maus. (Which, mind you, was 11 years ago.) To these critics, and to all others who are listening, I have one thing to say. Stop it... please, please, I beg you, stop it already with the condescending asides like these here. They do not help. They only reinforce the idea that the comics form as a whole is unworthy of serious consideration." You go, Karin!