Rushkoff Live in NYC

Before I hunker down and get started on my next book (and comic, and documentary) I’m going to do one last live free public event in New York City – both to download the last thoughts on my current projects (Testament, Get Back in the Box), share where I’m going with my next projects (a book on “Corporatism,” a new column in Discover magazine, and an as-yet unannounced comic). I hope it also makes up for the fact that I haven’t been teaching, anymore.

So officially, this is a talk and signing about Testament – but I hope we can also talk about censorship, radicalization, whether the American Jewish Committees were right to blame me (and some other writers, including Tony Kushner) for the future extinction of the Jewish people, and the ways our media and currency may be responsible for keeping us utterly trapped in a “scarcity” model of life. I’m also particularly interested in the way we seem incapable of siezing on the promise of our new media, whenever they come around.

(We can even talk about what it’s like to get mugged in front of your apartment, and then again online by people afraid that their property values will be challenged if too many people find out…)

This should be a small gathering because I don’t think there’s been any publicity for it other than this post – and that’s not a bad thing, because it means we can have a real conversation.

FEBRUARY 28, 7pm
BARNES AND NOBLE, ASTOR PLACE
NYC

Comic-Con

Yes, I’ll be at NY Comic-Con (and not San Diego this year). This is where you’ll be able to find me. If you can’t make or don’t like the panels, please do swing by the DC booth when I’m signing. I get a lot out of meeting people, and promise to incorporate your suggestions and wishes into my current work.

Friday 2/23 – 4-5pm
Signing at DC Booth.

Friday 2/23 – 6:30-7:30pm
Panel: “Vertigo Looking Ahead” (less a panel than announcements of upcoming Vertigo projects – but I’ll be there).

Friday 2/23 – 8-9pm
Panel: “Drawing the Battle Lines: Graphic Novels at War” room 1E14 (with friends Dan Goldman, Rick Vietch)

Saturday 2/24 – 11am-noon
Panel: “Future Shocks – What Imaginative Literature Tells Us About Who We Are and Where We’re Going.” room 1E15 (with China Mieville and my great friend of many years Grant Morrison. Likely to be the one where I’ll contribute the most to the conversation)

Saturday 2/24 – 2p-3p
Signing at the DC Booth

HEEB reviews Testament

JahFurry aka Jeff Newell just published this nice review of Testament in Heeb magazine. I saw an earlier version, which had a rather extensive and very entertaining tract on his own experiences reading comic books in the back of the class at Hebrew school, but they cut it for space. Maybe he’ll post some of it in the comics section…?

Epic Trip
Doug Rushkoff’s Testament

Text by Jeff Newelt

Testament, by media theorist and culture critic Doug Rushkoff, is serialized as a monthly comic book from DC/Vertigo and then collected into a graphic novel every five or six issues—Testament Volume Two: West of Eden was just recently released. The series ranks among the triumvirate of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Grant Morrison’s Invisibles and Alan Moore’s Promethea, and alongside Jack Kirby’s ’70s psychedelic cosmologies/comics, The New Gods and the Eternals.

“Originally, I wanted to do the Eternals,” says Rushkoff. That was my first pitch—I wanted to play with a big universe like that. “The Eternals wasn’t available, but it turned out that the Bible still was. Rather amazing, given how much mythology it has to offer. I mean, the Bible is a bigger universe than even Jack Kirby’s.”

Regarding the aforementioned trio, Rushkoff says, “You’re talking about the trippiest and most comic-specific uses of the medium in the past 20 years. That’s the whole point of it, for me: to write a story that can only be told properly in this medium. That means pushing the medium itself—doing the unexpected with narrative and layout, in order to dimensionalize the whole experience. Every great comic needs to be the one that did something not just with comics, but to comics.”

Rushkoff retells the book of Genesis by way of a sophisticated parallel narrative, half of which takes place in biblical times and the other half in the near future. For example, in Testament, we not only see Abraham and Isaac, but we also see Professor Alan Stern in the near future pushing his son to have a mandatory RFID (radio frequency identification) implanted. Ultimately, Professor Stern helps his son evade the requirement rather than sacrificing his freedom. There is a third narrative that runs perpendicular to the other two, with gods acting out of time and influencing goings-on from outside the panels. When they reach into the panels, their actions are perceived as elements or consuming emotions. A godly finger breaks one comic book panel to reach toward Abraham, transforming into the flame that lights the torch at the sacrificial altar beside him. Rushkoff edges into what some might deem subversive territory when the near-future parallel narrative starts to veer away from its biblical counterpart; he shows that Lot’s wife doesn’t always have to look back. “The point is that the story is still being written, it’s not a closed book.” Rushkoff explains.

Could Rushkoff imagine Testament ever actually being taught in Hebrew school?

“I know of a few rabbis’ lists online where it’s a regular topic of conversation, so that’s another form of beit midrash, where they’re finding use for the book,” he says. “But the sex and violence make it a bit inappropriate for officially teaching to kids.”

Vote for Testament

If you like my comic book Testament, and want (as I do) to see it published for another year or more, please consider nominating it for the Eagle Award for Favourite New Comic of 2006.

It’s not too hard to get through the form (you don’t have to nominate in more than one category) and the top five nominees get voted on in March for the prize. Once you’ve filled out the top with your name and an email address, you can nominate my category about halfway down the page. (Please also consider nominating Liam Sharp for artist, and me for creator/writer. But I think the only place we stand a true chance is Favourite New Comicbook.)

Eagle Awards are based in the UK, and represent the voice of real readers as opposed to those of just creators or industry types. And publishers really do use them as a gauge on how successfully their titles are reaching an audience.

So please help keep this book alive. I want to make it at least through to the Romans! You can do it right here.

ABC Nightline

I’ll be on ABC Nightline tonight (sans Koppel, alas) talking about “guerilla marketing” – no doubt tied to the recent Adult Swim fiasco in Boston, where some mysteriously placed ad displays were mistaken for bombs.

The trick will be getting across the point that news media tends to be most interested in stories about media, itself. This is a classic Media Virus, in that it’s got nested shells of media within media. I’ll also be interested if they ask me on my take of whether this campaign unfolded like this intentionally or by accident. And I’m not yet sure how I’d respond.