No, there hasn't. And the productivity suites that run on Unix/Linux still haven't caught up -- and even if they did, we still lack a coherent, consistent, elegant and usable "desktop" interface.
A shame, no doubt, but Microsoft doesn't have that either, and they're number one.
Well... I'll give them one thing though: the latest versions of windows have very bright colors. AGH! MY EYES! #*&J>n.
Does oxidation affect heat dissapation, or would it increase thermal insulation and result in a lower transfer of heat from the inside of the computer to the case?
No clue really, but regardless, I suspect a very thin layer of oxidization isn't going to provide any significant amount of insulation.
I think polished copper looks nice. Oxidised looks grotty. It doesn't just go green, splotchy and everything darkens too.
Naw, the "splotchiness" is part of the charm -- it makes it look organic, and more interesting than a simple shiny surface, without physically degrading the material like rust does to iron.
You might have a case if this were The Last Predicta. But it's not....
Um, you should read the post to which you're replying more carefully -- you just said exactly the same things I did, in a tone that suggests you're disagreeing with me!
What if I was an art collector who decided that my vast collection of classic art, some of which are considered historical milestones, would all look more modern with a few splashes of neon paint and some blinking LEDs embeded in the subject's eyes?
Some guy might also object if you deface your cheerios box, or scuff up that velvet clown painting you picked up at the flea market. You'd probably say he's nuts, and we'd probably all agree with you -- but between him and people crying out in horror when you paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa is a continuum.
Fans and collectors of these old TVs are probabably going to place them nearer to the "art" end, but it's not really clear to me whether most people would agree that they're rare enough, or unique enough, that defacing them is analogous with defacing one-of-a-kind priceless masterpieces.
The suggestion to "just use a replica" is hardly uncontroversial either -- some people who are doing modding want to use the "real thing" because it adds an air of authenticity that simply isn't going to be there with replicas (even if they're very good).
You make a good point, I'm just trying to say that things are not quite so clear cut as you seem to think.
And at one point netscape kicked the snot out of *their* competitors technically and also had an overwhelmind mindshare among the public.
And they went....? (free hint: they blazed the trail that google is now following).
This is a completely bizarre thing to say -- netscape blundered around cluelessly for an amazingly long time before they finally failed. Google has not blundered around cluelessly at all.
Google's recent "troubles" are pretty damn trivial to be honest; they essentially forgot to dot some "i"s when dealing with government regulations.
So: they're technically, organizationally, financially, and philosophically strong, with good marketing; minor problems dealing with bureaucracy.
Just curious, for what reason do you think it should be in the list of worst movies?
I agree Titanic wasn't really bad enough for this list, and I have a soft spot for it since I saw it with my girlfriend at a particularly romantic time.
However, it does have unbelievably sappy, formulaic, writing, and worse, for what's supposed to be a love story, the two main characters have zero chemistry between them; watching them try to act besotted with each other was downright painful at times.
In history it's gonna be remembered for "lots of money earned" and "good special effects (at the time)".
Copper doesn't look as good as aluminium, and it oxidises at a higher rate.
Why is this a problem? Oxidized copper actually looks quite nice, sort of a pleasant pale green... much better than yet-another shiny silver case (yawn).
Indeed, the more I think about it, the better it sounds -- get away from the shiny technical look, and do something a bit more muted and organic (without the heat problems that come from making your case out of wood!). Too bad nobody will really make one...
It's done, stick a fork in it. Google has offically jumped the shark.
Oh, yeah. Since, as we all know, the fact that they still kick the snot out of their competitors technically, have an overwhelming mindshare among the public, a world-class forward-thinking research department, enlightened management, and the coolest, most elegant home page on the net... well all those things count for nothing.
I tried the Sony reader mentioned in the story (the "Librie" I think), and it sort of solves that problem: the screen is big enough and high-resolution enough that it's pretty much capable of displaying a normal paper-back-sized page at a very high resolution, so you don't need to scroll.
Unfortunately the Sony reader sucks in just about every other way. Not only is the new display technology not quite there -- it's slow to update to the point where turning the page is a problem, and using menus is a very strange experience -- but the user interface (both hardware and software elements) is just plain badly designed.
You can kind of forgive them for the former, since it is bleeding-edge technology, but the latter looks like simple laziness to me. I get the feeling they never really expected to sell very many of these, and just wanted to get something on the shelves so the research department could fulfill some quota for "products developed" (Japanese companies often do this sort of thing).
Hopefully they'll improve the technology and come out with a real product in a year or two.
... but what about GNU/Linux's use in the military? For example, a member of the Los Angelas LUG resigned over the use of Linux in the military.
Do we really want the government using open source? We really dont want to limit it, because that would be a limit on the freedom, but do we want it being used for evil? Perplexing!
The military (and government) are not "evil", though they can be used for evil purposes. If a bad war happens, the fault lies with our political leaders (and us to the degree that we support them), not the soldiers who are sent to die by their orders.
I had a workmate who hated the "military", he was a peace-activist etc. Because he was a noted expert in some field or another, he was invited by the army to participate in some project; naturally he was horrified, and had every intention of refusing, but someone convinced him to just go to one meeting (maybe they pointed out he could refuse in a more dramatic manner).
What he found (to his great surprise) is that high-level military people there were completely different than he thought they would be: thoughtful and not at all gung-ho, in dramatic contrast with the defense contractors present (as some general said "if there's a war, we die, but the contractors make more money...").
They convinced him to continue working on the project, pointing out that reliable military software will save lives, and certainly won't cause wars.
War is a political problem; if you want prevent it, worry about the idiots in the white house, and the morons in congress. The military will do what they are ordered, regardless of whether they need to use linux or windows to do it, and if using linux can save the lives of a few soldiers -- or civilians -- isn't that a good thing?
Gmail's 1 GB mailbox without the option to (1) forward the messages, (2) move the whole mailbox elsewhere, looks just like locking the consumers in.
You might think about doing a slight bit of research first.
Forwarding is easy -- there's a "forward" button in the message display!
As for bulk downloads, the gmail help system has this to say:
Q: Does Gmail support automatic forwarding and POP3 access?
A: Not at the moment, but Google believes in helping people access information whenever and however they want to do so. In the future you will be able to access Gmail messages from non-Gmail accounts for free or at a nominal fee.
Given that google has proved trustworthy and reliable in the past (far more so than, e.g., yahoo), I see no reason not to take them at their word.
GNU Hurd gets no attention because its leadership is too focused on idealogical matters and vanity.
What a silly statement -- as if the Hurd were just waiting for RMS's OK before it could get going!
GNU Hurd gets no attention because other projects captured the attention of the mass of hackers (for various reasons: easier to hack on, more accepting of random patches [no assignment hassle], or whatever), etc.
RMS (try as he might) really doesn't set the agenda. People hack on that which pleases them.
The one significant thing which the FSF `leadership' determines, which seems to strongly affect GNU projects, is the policy about copyright assignments -- and they have very good practical reasons for that (as recent events attest!).
The distribution network may be xenophobic (I have no idea really), but I'm pretty sure the great majority of consumers don't give a crap -- indeed, being non-Japanese may actually be an advantage because you might end up being considered fashionable (and yeah, a lot of American stuff is currently pretty hip in Japan).
However Japanese consumers do care about good games, in genres they like -- which MS pretty much completely failed to provide. The success of the PS2 was also strongly influenced by (1) hype (which Sony pegged, and MS -- though they tried a bit -- didn't), (2) compatibility with existing PS games, especially important near launch, (3) being a familiar and trustworthy brand-name that has in the past come out with plenty of popular games, and to some extent (4) good industrial design (design-wise, the xbox was a bloated mess).
In the case of the Xbox, distributor discrimination doesn't seem to have been a factor either, as the Xbox was promoted heavily and received a lot of prime display space in stores (to an extent completely unjustified by its sales, so I assume MS was paying a bundle for it), even in many small independently owned stores (which I figure might be a bit more um, patriotic). This was true for quite a long time, though in the past year xbox games seem to have been relegated to the back shelves (presumably because nobody buys them...).
This is all based on my personal observation, as someone who lives in Tokyo. As far as I can tell the ultimate reason the xbox failed was because most people said "I already have a PS2 and there are lots of games I like; why would I want an xbox?"
BTW, I don't own either one... (I have a gamecube:-)
zsh also has some extremely annoying properties, especially its tendency to assign essentially every[*] single non-alphumeric character a "magic" meaning (e.g., = as a filename prefix seems to be something like "which").
Personally I think zsh is a great example of "lots of features and no taste."
[*] Yes, I'm exaggerating -- I'm sure there are a few without...:-)
you just need a development team with the courage to say "no, you're wrong, it's better this way" and stick to their guns
No, that's no enough -- you also need a development team with enough sense and taste to pick the correct places to make a stand, understand the tradeoffs, and know their (possibly quite disparate) user communities well.
No team does this perfectly of course, but some are notably better than others (Mozilla seems to do a reasonable job, but Gnome, for instance, can sometimes be too adamant, looking more like they're just repeating dogma rather than making informed decisions).
So, let's just drop the absolute declarations like "U.S. artwork is inarguably better", since they are obviously not only subjective, but in this case being made without extensive knowledge of both bodies of work.
I just noticed that actually said you "have yet to see" manga with artwork superior to the best U.S. artists -- which is hard to argue with, but on the other hand is pretty meaningless unless you have experience with manga on the same level as you do with U.S. comics, and that's clearly not the case.
BTW, if you ever come to the Tokyo area, contact me somehow (not sure if this is possible with slashdot), and I'll take you to some good manga shops/cafes; the language may be a barrier, but guaranteed your mind will be blown by some of the artwork...
The issue is character development, plots and artwork.
Sure.
I've yet to see a manga with artwork superior to the best of the US artists. That's a given.
No. That's your personal opinion, one which in my experience is not shared by most people (who are involved in comics).
Suggesting that the characters in a one-shot or two-shot manga can compare to the history of Wolverine, for instance, is a joke. The only character I can think of in manga that might be equivalent is Lone Wolf and Cub.
There are many long-lived manga series. I don't know in years, but a typical one is probably oh, around 25 volumes of "tankoubon" (each typically about 200 pages); that's not as long as, say, the history of superman, but often such series will have a much more coherent approach, because it's done by a single author, and -- sometimes:-) -- with a grand plan for how the series will develop.
Actually, thematically unified manga "novels" seem typically to be in the range of around 20 tankouban, whereas I think the really long running series (> 40 tankouban, like 8000 pages or more!) are a bit more like U.S. series, with an episodic nature (but while writer/artist changes occur, the seem to be much more rare than in U.S. comics).
U.S. superhero comics often have long histories, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they are somehow "deep" or "well-developed" -- most of the history of these comics is rather shallow puttering about, with the occasional explosion of development (such as the Dark Knight stuff, and what occurred in its wake).
It's a bit hard to argue on the details, because it's clear that you are much more knowledgable about U.S. superhero comics than I am -- and it's also clear that your knowledge of manga is pretty limited (again, I am no expert, but it's obvious even to me).
So, let's just drop the absolute declarations like "U.S. artwork is inarguably better", since they are obviously not only subjective, but in this case being made without extensive knowledge of both bodies of work.
Seriously; while Claremont and Steranko are well-respected comic-book artists, what I've seen of their work lies firmly in the traditional superhero ghetto, where what seems to matter most is how tight your spandex and exaggerated your musculature (with painfully saturated colors and stiff dialogue for good measure). Clearly it's a matter of taste, but I think even by superhero comic standards that stuff is pretty pedestrian!
A bit more interesting (both art- and story-wise) are the various attempts to broaden the field, e.g., Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns."
"The Ghost in the Shell", which the original poster cites for having "bad artwork" is not to everbody's taste -- Shirou has his own weird idiosynchrasies in character design -- but it's far more intricate, expressive, and assured than anything I've ever seen from Chris Claremont. [I far prefer the same author's (Shirou) "Appleseed".]
I can't claim to be an expert on manga artwork, but one series I'm currently really enjoying is "20th Century Boys" (by Naoki Urasawa) -- the story is utterly compelling, and the artwork suits it perfectly; of particular note are the extremely intricate backgrounds, which perfectly set the scenes; you really feel like you're there...
I am saddened more by PBS seeking to go with modern trends than PBS not being able to use the F-word.
Like many here, I spent my time with Sesame Street and Electric Company, and then of course Monty Python, Nova, Sagan's Cosmos, Dr. Who, and many more.
Hey I liked Nova and Cosmos too, but it sounds like you missed a lot of stuff on PBS. At least while I was growing up (70s/80s), PBS was not just nature and science programs -- they were also the place to watch things like documentaries with extremely hard-to-watch uncut violence, and really weird dramas featuring vast quantities of nudity and non-stop swearing. As a kid if I was looking for a thrill I'd always check PBS first...
[I suppose it depends on your local PBS station too, but I suspect at least those in major metropolitan areas are pretty similar.]
Ha ha, yeah, the A-team had the best shootouts ever: 20 minutes of non-stop machine-gun fire and huge explosions, all at point-blank range -- and when the ammo runs out and the smoke clears, nobody actually got hurt except that the bad guys are stunned so that the A-team can nab them. Every week.:-)
The best comics from Marvel (and occasionally DC) have always rivaled manga for plot and intensity and usually far better artwork as well.
You have got to be kidding.
It appears as if your exposure to manga consists of a few glances at whatever happened to have been imported and is sitting at your local comics shop. Maybe the particular manga you saw are crap I don't know (I've never liked GitS), but the manga industry in Japan is vast in both quantity and variety. There's a huge amount of crap to be sure (90% of everything is crap), but there's a lot that isn't crap -- and much that is far better than just about anything DC or Marvel ever turned out (it's sort of surprising that you even mention those companies; they're hardly the high point of American comics industry!).
The concept that this vast and intricate industry is categorically inferior to DC and Marvel is just... laughable.
If you ever make it to Japan, you really ought to check out a good manga shop -- you will be shocked.
I've always noticed a lot more America bashing than French bashing on/.
Seriously, though I think that's more a slashdot thing.
I'm American, and am pretty disgusted at the state of the U.S. these days -- having gone so far as to spend 10 of the last 14 years living outside the U.S. -- but even so, I find a lot of the America bashing on/. childish and embarrassing (despite being essentially on the same "side" as many of the bashers, e.g., I hate Bush and his cronies [but who doesn't these days...], I'm liberal, environmentalist, etc.).
However reasonable their basic complaint, people do not seem to think very critically about what they say, and despite the huge number of valid criticisms end up spewing bile almost randomly. It's as if people somehow believe that they won't be taken seriously in their complaints unless they're entirely against everything American.
That's something refreshing about Moore: though he sometimes succumbs to the temptation to rant, he avoids just attaching himself to simplistic labels -- he isn't "anti-American", "anti-gun", or whatever, he's just "anti-bad-stuff".
Slashdot Mirror
No, there hasn't. And the productivity suites that run on Unix/Linux still haven't caught up -- and even if they did, we still lack a coherent, consistent, elegant and usable "desktop" interface.
A shame, no doubt, but Microsoft doesn't have that either, and they're number one.
Well... I'll give them one thing though: the latest versions of windows have very bright colors. AGH! MY EYES! #*&J>n.
Does oxidation affect heat dissapation, or would it increase thermal insulation and result in a lower transfer of heat from the inside of the computer to the case?
No clue really, but regardless, I suspect a very thin layer of oxidization isn't going to provide any significant amount of insulation.
I think polished copper looks nice. Oxidised looks grotty. It doesn't just go green, splotchy and everything darkens too.
Naw, the "splotchiness" is part of the charm -- it makes it look organic, and more interesting than a simple shiny surface, without physically degrading the material like rust does to iron.
You might have a case if this were The Last Predicta. But it's not. ...
Um, you should read the post to which you're replying more carefully -- you just said exactly the same things I did, in a tone that suggests you're disagreeing with me!
What if I was an art collector who decided that my vast collection of classic art, some of which are considered historical milestones, would all look more modern with a few splashes of neon paint and some blinking LEDs embeded in the subject's eyes?
Some guy might also object if you deface your cheerios box, or scuff up that velvet clown painting you picked up at the flea market. You'd probably say he's nuts, and we'd probably all agree with you -- but between him and people crying out in horror when you paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa is a continuum.
Fans and collectors of these old TVs are probabably going to place them nearer to the "art" end, but it's not really clear to me whether most people would agree that they're rare enough, or unique enough, that defacing them is analogous with defacing one-of-a-kind priceless masterpieces.
The suggestion to "just use a replica" is hardly uncontroversial either -- some people who are doing modding want to use the "real thing" because it adds an air of authenticity that simply isn't going to be there with replicas (even if they're very good).
You make a good point, I'm just trying to say that things are not quite so clear cut as you seem to think.
And at one point netscape kicked the snot out of *their* competitors technically and also had an overwhelmind mindshare among the public.
And they went....? (free hint: they blazed the trail that google is now following).
This is a completely bizarre thing to say -- netscape blundered around cluelessly for an amazingly long time before they finally failed. Google has not blundered around cluelessly at all.
Google's recent "troubles" are pretty damn trivial to be honest; they essentially forgot to dot some "i"s when dealing with government regulations.
So: they're technically, organizationally, financially, and philosophically strong, with good marketing; minor problems dealing with bureaucracy.
Netscape? No. Netscape was a mess.
Just curious, for what reason do you think it should be in the list of worst movies?
I agree Titanic wasn't really bad enough for this list, and I have a soft spot for it since I saw it with my girlfriend at a particularly romantic time.
However, it does have unbelievably sappy, formulaic, writing, and worse, for what's supposed to be a love story, the two main characters have zero chemistry between them; watching them try to act besotted with each other was downright painful at times.
In history it's gonna be remembered for "lots of money earned" and "good special effects (at the time)".
Copper doesn't look as good as aluminium, and it oxidises at a higher rate.
Why is this a problem? Oxidized copper actually looks quite nice, sort of a pleasant pale green... much better than yet-another shiny silver case (yawn).
Indeed, the more I think about it, the better it sounds -- get away from the shiny technical look, and do something a bit more muted and organic (without the heat problems that come from making your case out of wood!). Too bad nobody will really make one...
It's done, stick a fork in it. Google has offically jumped the shark.
... well all those things count for nothing.
Oh, yeah. Since, as we all know, the fact that they still kick the snot out of their competitors technically, have an overwhelming mindshare among the public, a world-class forward-thinking research department, enlightened management, and the coolest, most elegant home page on the net
Uh-huh. Yup.
Based on my experience, there's really only thing that will work:
Professor Leonardo Dicaprio.
I tried the Sony reader mentioned in the story (the "Librie" I think), and it sort of solves that problem: the screen is big enough and high-resolution enough that it's pretty much capable of displaying a normal paper-back-sized page at a very high resolution, so you don't need to scroll.
Unfortunately the Sony reader sucks in just about every other way. Not only is the new display technology not quite there -- it's slow to update to the point where turning the page is a problem, and using menus is a very strange experience -- but the user interface (both hardware and software elements) is just plain badly designed.
You can kind of forgive them for the former, since it is bleeding-edge technology, but the latter looks like simple laziness to me. I get the feeling they never really expected to sell very many of these, and just wanted to get something on the shelves so the research department could fulfill some quota for "products developed" (Japanese companies often do this sort of thing).
Hopefully they'll improve the technology and come out with a real product in a year or two.
... but what about GNU/Linux's use in the military? For example, a member of the Los Angelas LUG resigned over the use of Linux in the military.
Do we really want the government using open source? We really dont want to limit it, because that would be a limit on the freedom, but do we want it being used for evil? Perplexing!
The military (and government) are not "evil", though they can be used for evil purposes. If a bad war happens, the fault lies with our political leaders (and us to the degree that we support them), not the soldiers who are sent to die by their orders.
I had a workmate who hated the "military", he was a peace-activist etc. Because he was a noted expert in some field or another, he was invited by the army to participate in some project; naturally he was horrified, and had every intention of refusing, but someone convinced him to just go to one meeting (maybe they pointed out he could refuse in a more dramatic manner).
What he found (to his great surprise) is that high-level military people there were completely different than he thought they would be: thoughtful and not at all gung-ho, in dramatic contrast with the defense contractors present (as some general said "if there's a war, we die, but the contractors make more money...").
They convinced him to continue working on the project, pointing out that reliable military software will save lives, and certainly won't cause wars.
War is a political problem; if you want prevent it, worry about the idiots in the white house, and the morons in congress. The military will do what they are ordered, regardless of whether they need to use linux or windows to do it, and if using linux can save the lives of a few soldiers -- or civilians -- isn't that a good thing?
You might think about doing a slight bit of research first.
Forwarding is easy -- there's a "forward" button in the message display!
As for bulk downloads, the gmail help system has this to say:
Given that google has proved trustworthy and reliable in the past (far more so than, e.g., yahoo), I see no reason not to take them at their word.
GNU Hurd gets no attention because its leadership is too focused on idealogical matters and vanity.
What a silly statement -- as if the Hurd were just waiting for RMS's OK before it could get going!
GNU Hurd gets no attention because other projects captured the attention of the mass of hackers (for various reasons: easier to hack on, more accepting of random patches [no assignment hassle], or whatever), etc.
RMS (try as he might) really doesn't set the agenda. People hack on that which pleases them.
The one significant thing which the FSF `leadership' determines, which seems to strongly affect GNU projects, is the policy about copyright assignments -- and they have very good practical reasons for that (as recent events attest!).
1. Japan is EXTREMELY Xenophobic.
:-)
The distribution network may be xenophobic (I have no idea really), but I'm pretty sure the great majority of consumers don't give a crap -- indeed, being non-Japanese may actually be an advantage because you might end up being considered fashionable (and yeah, a lot of American stuff is currently pretty hip in Japan).
However Japanese consumers do care about good games, in genres they like -- which MS pretty much completely failed to provide. The success of the PS2 was also strongly influenced by (1) hype (which Sony pegged, and MS -- though they tried a bit -- didn't), (2) compatibility with existing PS games, especially important near launch, (3) being a familiar and trustworthy brand-name that has in the past come out with plenty of popular games, and to some extent (4) good industrial design (design-wise, the xbox was a bloated mess).
In the case of the Xbox, distributor discrimination doesn't seem to have been a factor either, as the Xbox was promoted heavily and received a lot of prime display space in stores (to an extent completely unjustified by its sales, so I assume MS was paying a bundle for it), even in many small independently owned stores (which I figure might be a bit more um, patriotic). This was true for quite a long time, though in the past year xbox games seem to have been relegated to the back shelves (presumably because nobody buys them...).
This is all based on my personal observation, as someone who lives in Tokyo. As far as I can tell the ultimate reason the xbox failed was because most people said "I already have a PS2 and there are lots of games I like; why would I want an xbox?"
BTW, I don't own either one... (I have a gamecube
zsh also has some extremely annoying properties, especially its tendency to assign essentially every[*] single non-alphumeric character a "magic" meaning (e.g., = as a filename prefix seems to be something like "which").
:-)
Personally I think zsh is a great example of "lots of features and no taste."
[*] Yes, I'm exaggerating -- I'm sure there are a few without...
you just need a development team with the courage to say "no, you're wrong, it's better this way" and stick to their guns
No, that's no enough -- you also need a development team with enough sense and taste to pick the correct places to make a stand, understand the tradeoffs, and know their (possibly quite disparate) user communities well.
No team does this perfectly of course, but some are notably better than others (Mozilla seems to do a reasonable job, but Gnome, for instance, can sometimes be too adamant, looking more like they're just repeating dogma rather than making informed decisions).
Eh? HDTV uses a 16x9 aspect ratio (1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080)... [Or did the manufs manage to fuck things up?]
I wrote:
So, let's just drop the absolute declarations like "U.S. artwork is inarguably better", since they are obviously not only subjective, but in this case being made without extensive knowledge of both bodies of work.
I just noticed that actually said you "have yet to see" manga with artwork superior to the best U.S. artists -- which is hard to argue with, but on the other hand is pretty meaningless unless you have experience with manga on the same level as you do with U.S. comics, and that's clearly not the case.
BTW, if you ever come to the Tokyo area, contact me somehow (not sure if this is possible with slashdot), and I'll take you to some good manga shops/cafes; the language may be a barrier, but guaranteed your mind will be blown by some of the artwork...
The issue is character development, plots and artwork.
:-) -- with a grand plan for how the series will develop.
Sure.
I've yet to see a manga with artwork superior to the best of the US artists. That's a given.
No. That's your personal opinion, one which in my experience is not shared by most people (who are involved in comics).
Suggesting that the characters in a one-shot or two-shot manga can compare to the history of Wolverine, for instance, is a joke. The only character I can think of in manga that might be equivalent is Lone Wolf and Cub.
There are many long-lived manga series. I don't know in years, but a typical one is probably oh, around 25 volumes of "tankoubon" (each typically about 200 pages); that's not as long as, say, the history of superman, but often such series will have a much more coherent approach, because it's done by a single author, and -- sometimes
Actually, thematically unified manga "novels" seem typically to be in the range of around 20 tankouban, whereas I think the really long running series (> 40 tankouban, like 8000 pages or more!) are a bit more like U.S. series, with an episodic nature (but while writer/artist changes occur, the seem to be much more rare than in U.S. comics).
U.S. superhero comics often have long histories, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they are somehow "deep" or "well-developed" -- most of the history of these comics is rather shallow puttering about, with the occasional explosion of development (such as the Dark Knight stuff, and what occurred in its wake).
It's a bit hard to argue on the details, because it's clear that you are much more knowledgable about U.S. superhero comics than I am -- and it's also clear that your knowledge of manga is pretty limited (again, I am no expert, but it's obvious even to me).
So, let's just drop the absolute declarations like "U.S. artwork is inarguably better", since they are obviously not only subjective, but in this case being made without extensive knowledge of both bodies of work.
Ok?
Seriously; while Claremont and Steranko are well-respected comic-book artists, what I've seen of their work lies firmly in the traditional superhero ghetto, where what seems to matter most is how tight your spandex and exaggerated your musculature (with painfully saturated colors and stiff dialogue for good measure). Clearly it's a matter of taste, but I think even by superhero comic standards that stuff is pretty pedestrian!
A bit more interesting (both art- and story-wise) are the various attempts to broaden the field, e.g., Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns."
"The Ghost in the Shell", which the original poster cites for having "bad artwork" is not to everbody's taste -- Shirou has his own weird idiosynchrasies in character design -- but it's far more intricate, expressive, and assured than anything I've ever seen from Chris Claremont. [I far prefer the same author's (Shirou) "Appleseed".]
I can't claim to be an expert on manga artwork, but one series I'm currently really enjoying is "20th Century Boys" (by Naoki Urasawa) -- the story is utterly compelling, and the artwork suits it perfectly; of particular note are the extremely intricate backgrounds, which perfectly set the scenes; you really feel like you're there...
I am saddened more by PBS seeking to go with modern trends than PBS not being able to use the F-word.
...
Like many here, I spent my time with Sesame Street and Electric Company, and then of course Monty Python, Nova, Sagan's Cosmos, Dr. Who, and many more.
Hey I liked Nova and Cosmos too, but it sounds like you missed a lot of stuff on PBS. At least while I was growing up (70s/80s), PBS was not just nature and science programs -- they were also the place to watch things like documentaries with extremely hard-to-watch uncut violence, and really weird dramas featuring vast quantities of nudity and non-stop swearing. As a kid if I was looking for a thrill I'd always check PBS first
[I suppose it depends on your local PBS station too, but I suspect at least those in major metropolitan areas are pretty similar.]
Ha ha, yeah, the A-team had the best shootouts ever: 20 minutes of non-stop machine-gun fire and huge explosions, all at point-blank range -- and when the ammo runs out and the smoke clears, nobody actually got hurt except that the bad guys are stunned so that the A-team can nab them. Every week. :-)
"I pity the fool!"
The best comics from Marvel (and occasionally DC) have always rivaled manga for plot and intensity and usually far better artwork as well.
... laughable.
You have got to be kidding.
It appears as if your exposure to manga consists of a few glances at whatever happened to have been imported and is sitting at your local comics shop. Maybe the particular manga you saw are crap I don't know (I've never liked GitS), but the manga industry in Japan is vast in both quantity and variety. There's a huge amount of crap to be sure (90% of everything is crap), but there's a lot that isn't crap -- and much that is far better than just about anything DC or Marvel ever turned out (it's sort of surprising that you even mention those companies; they're hardly the high point of American comics industry!).
The concept that this vast and intricate industry is categorically inferior to DC and Marvel is just
If you ever make it to Japan, you really ought to check out a good manga shop -- you will be shocked.
And so it goes. He wins, but at the cost of being ostracized as a poop-sniffer.
And grows up to a bitter adulthood living in his parents' basement and posting to slashdot?
Man, children are cruel, c-r-u-e-l...
[Yeah Mom, I'll be up to dinner in a sec!]
I've always noticed a lot more America bashing than French bashing on /.
/. childish and embarrassing (despite being essentially on the same "side" as many of the bashers, e.g., I hate Bush and his cronies [but who doesn't these days...], I'm liberal, environmentalist, etc.).
Seriously, though I think that's more a slashdot thing.
I'm American, and am pretty disgusted at the state of the U.S. these days -- having gone so far as to spend 10 of the last 14 years living outside the U.S. -- but even so, I find a lot of the America bashing on
However reasonable their basic complaint, people do not seem to think very critically about what they say, and despite the huge number of valid criticisms end up spewing bile almost randomly. It's as if people somehow believe that they won't be taken seriously in their complaints unless they're entirely against everything American.
That's something refreshing about Moore: though he sometimes succumbs to the temptation to rant, he avoids just attaching himself to simplistic labels -- he isn't "anti-American", "anti-gun", or whatever, he's just "anti-bad-stuff".