your daily bowl of serial.

This is the class blog for AMES 390s Serial Fictions: The Art of 'To Be Continued...' at Duke University. We will be looking at the forms that seriality has taken: from Arabian Nights and Journey to the West, Victorian serialists like Dickens and Conan Doyle, to daily newspaper and installment comics, anime and manga, contemporary genre fiction and never-ending movie sequels, this course will focus on diverse media (oral traditions, modern novels, cinema, soap operas, graphic novels, fanfiction, social media) that use the serial form as expressive medium, audience lure and aesthetic device.

[bbcthree]

Well we’ll be throwing our hopes of marrying Benedict Cumberbatch on the bonfire tonight.

[porcupine-girl]

BBC3 is LITERALLY the only blog on my dash mentioning the engagement who’s not gushing about how happy they are about it.

[violethuntress]

BBCThree, you suck. Benedict wasn’t going to marry you anyway, because…, well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re a television channel.

[elizabethminkel]

It’s a good day to see who exactly enjoys perpetuating an entrenched and false media narrative!

The interesting thing here is definitely that BBC Three is claiming to be the child of BBCs One and Two. I’d never really thought of it that way before. (You know, it’s not really the sort of thing you ever think about, with them being television channels and all.)

[dailybowlofserial]

sevnilock

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil! Since it's 18 years, I wanted to tell you that Neverwhere is a huge part of the reason I love to read. I had a very hard time learning to read as a kid. It caused me so much frustration that I refused to read anything I wasn't assigned. When I was 15, my mom convinced me to read Neverwhere. It's the first book I ever read that was worth the frustration, and now I can't ever stop reading! I still read slowly but it's brought me so much joy and comfort in life.I'm thankful for Neverwhere!

That’s glorious! I’m so glad.

[theartofangirling]

[mid0nz-deactivated20170516]

Sherlock BTS: A Steadicam Shot of Moriarty in ASiB

What are we looking at?

Shiny board! This is a reflector they’re using to shine a bit of light on Andrew’s face so the shadow from the direct sun doesn’t obscure anything adorable.

The Steadicam operator. The Steadicam is a marvel of human ingenuity and silliness. It allows the camera operator to follow actors on foot.

Steadicam is a brand of camera stabilizer mount for motion picture cameras that mechanically isolates it from the operator’s movement. It allows for a smooth shot, even when moving quickly over an uneven surface.

The motion of the shot is side to side but without the up and down bounce so the viewer feels as if they’re walking or running along, but they don’t get seasick! In these shots of Moriarty you get a real sense you’re walking along with him. The camera and the rig is all attached to one guy’s body and he often has a spotter to made sure he doesn’t fall on his ass.

Windscreen!  This guy is protecting the Steadicam rig from gusts of wind that can make the picture shake.

That’s Andrew Scott as James Moriarty. But you knew that.

Sue Vertue, the producer is taking a walk with the crew.

The boom microphone operator. He’s there to record Moriarty’s raspberry to Mycroft. The fuzzy bit covering the mic at the end of the boom is the muff (or “dead cat”) it protects the mic from picking up the sound of the wind. Not only is he keeping up with the gang while holding a really long stick, he has to make sure that stick a) doesn’t kill anybody and b) is never, ever in the camera frame.

[theconsultingtranslator]

This arrived today!! From the author’s afterword:

『SHERLOCK』にインスパイアされた現代物のホームズ・パスティーシュ短編を、これまで書いてきました。《ミステリマガジン》誌に断続的に掲載されたのですが、その際、編集部が日本BBCさんに「このようなものを載せますがよろしいでしょうか」とうかがったところ、なんと快くOKいただけました。それらの作品五篇に、書下ろし一篇を加えてまとめたのが、本書になります。

So, these stories are a kind of authorised fan fictions, cool!

[tea-and-liminality]

Oh, thank you thank you! I think my copy is coming today - woo hoo! AMAZING that they got BBC’s okay for it. Just amazing. BTW - a reader of the book tweeted this, and Hayakawa shobo retweeted it:

[theconsultingtranslator]

Oh my, this is genius!!

[tea-and-liminality]

It’s all hurting my head in a way - the publisher is promoting the book through fan-produced ‘art’ (?), the book is BBC-sanctioned ‘pastiche’, I’m still unclear about the distinction between ‘pastiche’ and ‘fan fiction’ in this context, unless it’s that one is written by men and one by women? There’s, like, a whole essay right. here.

[theconsultingtranslator]

Maybe they call it “pastiche” because he is a professional writer and these are stories written with the purpose to be published, so they aren’t a non-commercial work written by fans for fans.

[tea-and-liminality]

Yeah, I think that’s probably the key distinction. As MAFM said, “he asked.” 

[sweetlatejuliet]

Happy 100th anniversary to The Valley of Fear!

Arthur Conan Doyle’s fourth and final Holmes novel was serialized in The Strand magazine from September 1914 to May 1915.

image source read the story read finalproblem​’s Sherlock theory (is it series 4 yet??)

[cooketimm]

"World’s Finest" by Bruce Timm

[seiphirai]

A Surprise Pride and Prejudice Engagement

(Note: This isn’t me)

[dailybowlofserial]

forever reblog

[chowleen]

Classic first lines of novels in emojis: A quiz.

slateinbrief dailybowlofserial

[comicsreporter-blog]

The great Jack Kirby, King of Comics, would have been 97 years old today. He is remembered in images here.

[adhousebooks]

HAPPY KINGDAY!

[elizabethminkel]

Over the weekend I reblogged some Doctor Who meta for the first time ever. No one is more surprised than me that I’m now penning one…

[elizabethminkel]

At the risk of spamming you all by reblogging every single response to this, can I highlight a few AMAZING new responses that...

[sharedsmoke]

[bokayjunkie]

[get to know me meme] 9 TV Shows - Past(1/9): The Lizzie Bennet Diaries

[brentofthefabulouswild]

As the release of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 01" draws closer, a series of striking propaganda posters from The Capitol have been released; proclaiming a false sense of peace and unity within the conflicted post-apocalyptic nation by promoting the rallying cry of “One Panem" as a means to distract the population from the rising rebellion sparked by The Girl on Fire, Katniss Everdeen. The collection of posters above features ‘everyday heroes’ handpicked by the Capitol Ministry of Information and endorsed by President Coriolanus Snow himself, who declared the following statement upon their public debut: “Today we celebrate the proud men and women who live and breathe their Districts. Today we are One Panem.” The various Panem citizens featured in the propaganda posters represent some of the outlying Districts that provide specific needs to the Capitol and the rest of the country. They are:

Fibre Bissette, age 32, from District 3 (Technology)

Naida Dolan, age 22, from District 4 (Fishing)

Malcolm Kastel, age 31, from District 6 (Transportation)

Elias Haan, age 26, from District 7 (Lumber)

Triti Lancaster, age 17, from District 9 (Grain)

Felix Stam, age 35, from District 10 (Livestock)

Lily Elsington, age 6, from Distrct 12 (Mining)

[parallelfiction-deactivated2015]

I think my single biggest problem with the Marvel universe (in terms of world building) is the lack of support of the X-Men/mutantkind by the rest of the Mavel Universe.

Like, I want writers to look me in the eyes and say that freaking “I served in World War 2” Steve Rogers…

[fuzzybat]

There ARE actual differences between mutants and other superhumans, but they’re never explored in any meaningful way, thus allowing the status quo horse to be beaten silly. Allow me to explain:

Mutants differ from other superhumans (such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk) in that they have a near-certain prospect of gaining powers as it is in their very genetics; they typically manifest in puberty, as a natural part of their growth. The naturalization of superpowers into the human experience separates them from those who gained their powers and are ‘first generation’.

All that being said, so what? The counterpoint to any differences between those genetically evolved from conception/birth and those altered far after the fact, is whether those divisions really matter in the long run. Of course, some can and will use points of divergence in order to discriminate, but if these points were ever brought up concretely in the first place, at least there could be an active opposition that supports mutants and show that, yeah, their efforts actaully are going somewhere, instead of the constant one step forward, two steps back pattern that makes the entire narrative seem pointless.

That’s without even bringing up the issues of both the sliding timescale and the ever-growing single generation of heroes who are always the same people. (Though DC has not been much better in this regard)

[dianoetic-deactivated20150105]

I think the way Mutants are treated differently for acquiring their powers naturally IS important and very telling, even without a 600 book arc dedicated to it. Allow me to explain:

Reed Richard is literally one of the absolute worst, morally gray, assholes in Mavel but he will never face the discrimination a mutant will because he got his powers in an accident. Everyone pretty much lets him do whatever he wants— good or bad— because he is a white, educated, middle/upper class, dude. There have been many times where he has disregarded peoples’ lives just because he simple didn’t give a fuck or it got in the way of science or whatever. To most of the Marvel world, he is an ally.

Now take Magneto. Also morally gray (to put it lightly), a Holocaust survivor, Jewish, smart, and mutant who, like Reed Richards, has his own agenda. Do the Avengers view him as an ally? Sometimes. Do people in the Marvel world as a whole trust him? Rarely. But when they do it’s usually with deep suspicion and concern that Magneto is going to fuck things up for everyone because he can’t be trusted.

Now take Spider-Man. The Marvel world is sort of split on how they feel about him (some writers write the public as loving him, some write the public as feeling he’s a menace— depends) but generally, people like Spidey. They actually have no idea if he’s a mutant or not (I’m pretty sure? Correct me if I’m wrong) but because he hangs around the Avengers, very publicly, he’s given the benefit of the doubt. He generally is on the side of the good but sometimes he fucks up.

So, if we’re using the mutants as an analogy for let’s say… gay people, here we have a straight guy (Reed), an outwardly gay man (Magneto), and someone ambiguous who the world assumes to be straight because that is the norm, right?? (Spider-Man). I think we can all agree even with my super simple examples that superhumans who acquired their powers unnaturally and hell, even ALIENS, get treated a LOT better than mutants.

Why? They all have powers, don’t they?

Because mutants represent a minority and minorities still face institutionalized bigotry.

[prettyarb]

What I don’t get is, how do people know?

Like, sure, everybody knows about Cap and the super-soldier serum.  But, like, the Wasp?  She shrinks, grows wings and zappy-blasts.  Unless she went on record somewhere as not being a mutant (granted she probably has by now, but even when the Avengers were still into secret identities, nobody gave her guff about this), how does anybody tell whether she’s a mutant or a human science experiment?

And yet the only non-mutant superhero anybody’s ever spread mutant rumors about is Spider-man.  Because JJJ loves riding his case, of course, but it doesn’t make sense that he’d be the only one.  Well, and maybe Daredevil, but he spends his life deliberately terrorizing people, so.  Half the West Side thinks he’s an actual demon.

Like, what about freaking Hawkeye?  Dude never misses, joined the Avengers the same time as the Scarlet Witch, and he can keep up with superhumans and Cap, but the public’s first assumption is that he’s just human?

I’ve just always been baffled by this.  It’s not like public opinion is psychic.

[gerrycanavan]

DC Announces Cast of JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017)