Forgot to do Fan Art Friday Fortnightly, but I’ll do it over the weekend. Promise!
In the meantime, here’s CL, Minzy, Dara, and Bom of the Korean girl-group 2NE1 with their latest video, “UGLY” . . .
Archives
Your Manga Questions, Answered
Good news: the Forums are working again! But as you can see the interface doesn’t look all Leviathan-y anymore, which is sad. We’re going to get that fixed, but I figured it was more important to make them work again before making them boo-tiful.
That was not scheduled maintenance, by the way, just a tech’splosion followed by some updates that we had to do anyway. Sorry for your withdrawal symptoms! I hope you spent the extra time learning French or something useful like that.
Better news: the paperback of Behemoth is officially out today! You may purchase it at better bookstores everywhere.
Okay, now for your manga questions! (All taken from the last comments thread.)
Do you know where you will be going on the Goliath tour yet?
It’s almost confirmed. I will be posting the tour dates soon! Most of you will hate me, but that’s the way it works, because you outnumber me and are widely distributed. (You should, like, all clump together.)
People on the west coast will certainly be happy, and some people in the middle too. No plans for anything outside the US yet, but I will be doing something in Australia this next southern summer. (If you’re Brazilian, write my publishers and demand me! I want to go to there.)
Any particular reason you chose left to right instead of right to left?
This is original-English manga, which are usually read from left to right, cause that’s how we English speakers roll. I read both ways without much bother, as I’m sure most of you do, so I didn’t actually think about it.
Regarding the Uglies light novel in Japan- did you try to branch out and make the characters look different from that one?
My artist never saw those editions (even though he’s in Japan), so we weren’t starting with those characters at all.
Where can we buy this manga?
AT ALL THE STORES (that sell manga or graphic novels) and on the usual internets. The publisher, Del Rey, has very wide distribution in stores, schools, and libraries, so it should be pretty easy to find.
Do you know when they’ll be available in stores?
May 2012. That’s as specific as I have so far.
You should, like, give us a slight sneakity-peakity every so often. Just enough to make us want it more, you know?
Yes, I do know. And I WANT you to want it more.
Luckily, there are lots of pages to show.
How, if at all, do you think the creation of this manga will influence the making of the movie? Do you think the casting director will try to chose actors based on their appearance in the manga, etc.?
Casting directors will probably pay no attention. With actors, it’s more about stuff like fame and chemistry and salary. But I have sent manga pages to Lola (the vfx company involved with the Uglies movie), and they’re doing “pre-visualizations” now, so it’s possible that the architecture and tech in the film will be influenced by Steven’s work.
There’s no concerted effort at consistency, however.
So….which big announcement was the Croy project?
The manga! As one of the original Crims, he’s in volume 1 quite a bit. Do you want to SEE HIM?
Anyway, will any pages be in colour, or is it all going to be in black and white?
Just black and white and shades of gray.
I honestly pictured dorm uniforms having a plaid kilt EXACTLY like the one in the illustration! Maybe someone important read my fanfic…JK LOLZ.
Yes. We ALL read your fan fic. And, yeah, manga is all about school uniforms.
What IS manga, anyway? What sets it apart from plain old comic books?
Well, as someone pointed out in the comments, “manga” is just the Japanese word for “comics.” Here it means, of course, comics in a style that started in Japan but that has become global in reach and influence.
Steven has done both manga and western comics, and co-created Tokyopop’s Pantheon High with his wife, Megumi. (He pencils, she inks.) And like I said, he lives in Japan. And our toner, Yishan Li, hangs out a lot in Edinburgh, but does loads of manga for Yaoi press in the US and has been published in China as well. (SINO-SCOTTISH MANGA!)
But the reason I thought manga would make sense for Uglies is simple: manga has a set of codes for dealing with beauty that western comics do not have. And most of these codes match up with the pretty operation in the books.
Like, big eyes, anyone?
Pretty! (Whether or not you’re into purple hair.)
There’s a wonderful thing about text-only novels: you make things happen with words alone, so you can convince your audience of all sorts of things that would be hard in a movie.
For example (*SPOILER ALERT*), in the The Last Days I write about a band that rocks so hard that they can call up giant monsters from the underground. Now, if you adapted a film of that novel, the band would have to ACTUALLY ROCK THAT MUCH, or it would be stupid when the giant monsters arrived. And even if the band rocked a lot, some people would still hate the film because they simply don’t like that sort of music.
But in a novel, you can just declare things and they become true (if you can write well enough, that is).
The same problem obtains with Uglies. In text, I can make you and your friend both think pretty Zane is wicked hot, even though you both have totally different tastes in lanky emo dudes. The power of the word!
On the other hand, when the movie is made, if you think the main actors cast as pretties are totally not pretty, or were way hotter back when they were “ugly,” it sort of messes up the reality of the story. (This is why I’m working with a facial visual effects company as a financial backer, so they will have a real-world motivation to get that stuff as right as possible, and we can do computery tricks with people faces.)
But back to manga. In most manga, “pretty” is a style: big eyes and sparkles. (Not that we’re going with sparkles, but you see what I mean.) Manga comes with a pre-existing package of ways to communicate beauty, even if your audience doesn’t all agree on what’s beautiful!
Remember when Hollywood used to do “ugly” by putting a fantastically pretty woman in chunky glasses with her hair in a bun? Her being unattractive was signaled by codes rather than actual unattractiveness, a polite fiction. (This, of course, created a generation who react to chunky glasses and hair-in-bun by saying, “Whoa. Hot!” But I digress.)
Anyway, that’s where I started from. We’ll see if this works.
And just so I don’t look dumb, let me say that I do realize that western comics have beauty codes as well. But they’re mostly kind of like this:
And I didn’t want to go there.*
_________________________
*Yes, literal-minded denisons of the internet, I KNOW that manga has sexy girls and boys as well. But I think the codes are genuinely different, and the manga ones line up better with the Uglies canon. The proof will be in the pudding.
Behemoth in Paperback (US)
The day after tomorrow, Tuesday August 9, is the release date of Behemoth in paperback! So Keith and I made this poster for you all.
Click here for a wallpaper-size version.
And now for some more exciting news: The Uglies manga!
For those of you who haven’t seen this elsewhere on the interwebs, my OTHER big announcement at Comic Con was the upcoming manga based on the Uglies series. I say “based on” but rest assured, this isn’t simply the same story in graphic form. Instead, we’re telling much the same story as in the novels, but it’s all from Shay’s point of view. (So who’s we, you ask? More on that later.)
Now as you Uglies scholars know, Shay taught Tally everything she knew. Shay was involved in subversive activities long before the novels open, and was part of the Crims back then they were an ugly clique headed by . . . Zane. (Ugly Zane!)
And remember how Shay and Zane almost ran away to the Smoke together, but they both chickened out? Well, that’s the story they told Tally. But what really happened back then?
In these manga—three of them, about 180 pages each–we will tell all!
Okay, we includes me, Devin Grayson, Steven Cummings, and Yishan Li. That’s right, there are four of us. Here’s what we all do:
Devin is writing the scripts. She’s written lots of superhero comics, including a ton of Batman titles, but I was won over by a miniseries she created for Vertigo called User, which is about the fantasy lives of gamers in the real world.
Now you may be thinking, “Why didn’t you write it, Scott? Arne’t you, like, a writer and stuff?”
Rest assured, I outlined every book in detail, rewrote some bits, and approved every word. But, seriously, I don’t know how to write comics scripts! And part of wisdom is knowing what you can’t do. It’s been amazing to see Devin adapt this story to another medium, and get into the mind of Shay. (A great learning experience that I may put to use one day . . . )
Steven is the artist for the series. He’s drawn many western titles for DC and Marvel, and manga books for Tokypop and Udon. He lives in Japan, and has worked bravely through earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear meltdowns. Again, I’ve paid close attention to everything, approving all the characters, costumes, technology, and the architecture of the Smoke, New Pretty Town, and other locales. Of course, Steven brings his own flair to the characters’ expressions and movements, and to the look and feel of the future. For me, it’s kind of like directing actors who have their own style.
Yishan is doing the toning and lettering for the series. In other words, she shades Steven’s art and adds the word balloons. Key steps, and ones I never really thought about much before this project. But you’ll see below how Yishan’s shading “lights” the scene.
Let me show you how this all works, starting with page 12 of the first manga.
We start with the script:
PAGE 12, panel one
ECU on Shay’s interface ring as she gently puts it down on a bedside table.
1 SHAY: Good night, stupid room.
Page 12, panel two
Pull back for our first establishing shot of Shay’s dorm room. It’s very small and very basic, the only truly decorative elements (IMPORTANT!) being huge software-generated pictures of Shay as a pretty taking up whole walls, larger-than-life and overwhelming (not all identical, though – some variations on the theme; some with weird plastic surgery, cat-like or whatever, but all recognizably Shay). Scott says wall screens are cheap tech in this world, so the images can be animated, changing between frames (though Shay would be used to this, so no need to draw undue attention to it, just let it give the visuals an extra futuristic kick). But these aren’t just projections, they’re mammoth, digitalized photo-posters.
There’s also a bed (see references at end of script), the previously mentioned bedside table with some kind of post-modern light, maybe a super utilitarian desk, and her hoverboard leaning beside a window just big enough for her to crawl through.
Shay has just put her interface ring down on the bedside table and is pulling down the blankets on her bed. She’s not dressed for bed, though, instead wearing her normal day uniform including her hoodie.
NOTE from Scott: we need one specific balloon shape (and maybe font) for objects talking. It can be fairly obvious and zappy.
2 ROOM/ tailless: Sweet dreams, Shay.
2 SFX: TOK
Page 12, panel three
Shay pulls off the parka and shoves it under the covers…
3 CAPTION/SHAY: Got the coat-interior set close to body temp…
Page 12, panel four
…before shaping it to look as much like a person sleeping under the covers as possible.
4 CAPTION/SHAY: …not perfect…
Page 12, panel five
Shay then grabs her hoverboard…
5 CAPTION/SHAY: …but neither are the sensors in this bogus dorm.
Page 12, panel six
…and climbs with it out the window with a brief glance over her shoulder.
6 CAPTION/SHAY: Sometimes I think they want us to sneak out.
END OF PAGE
Okay, first I take a look at the script and add notes or edit dialog. Then Steven reads it and emails me and Devin with any questions. Once everything is clear to him, he does very rough “thumbnail sketches,” which look like this:
At this stage, I approve things like the furniture and the general flow of the page. I love all the high camera angles and such. We’ve already discussed ugly dorm rooms, which are really basic, kind of like a rustic summer camp. And of course Shay and her dorm uniform have already been drawn a few times and approved.
With my blessing, Steven moves onto the pencils stage.
As you can see, lots more details have appeared. I still love the page, but I’m leery of the books on the shelves at first, because there aren’t a lot of physical books in Tally’s city. But Shay does take handwriting classes, so I can imagine her keeping a diary or maybe having some old-fashioned books around. Plus, technologies don’t completely disappear. There are people who still write with fountain pens, after all.
Speaking of fountain pens, the next stage is inks!
I don’t usually have comments at the inks stage, because everything has already been approved (and it’s hard to erase now, dude!). But that’s okay, beacuse it’s starting to look pretty real.
Next it goes to Yishan for toning and lettering. And thus we have the final version:
So that’s basically how it works, except with more emails between me and Steven and Devin (and our editor) than I’ve let on, plus lots of up-front design work on costumes and characters, x 180 pages for each book.
Phew.
But we are on our way, and the first manga will be out from Del Rey in May 2012. Of course, there will be lots of previews between now and then, especially after I get back from the Goliath tour.
Hope you like the look of things. Ask any Uglies manga questions you have below, and I’ll try to answer them in my next post.
Uglies Movie Press Release
DAVIS ENTERTAINMENT AND LOLA VFX TEAM TO PRODUCE SCOTT WESTERFELD’S NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING FUTURISTIC TRILOGY. “UGLIES” BEING PREPARED AS FIRST OF THE PLANNED LIVE ACTION FEATURES
Project Signals Premier Visual Effects Company Move Into Film Production
LOS ANGELES (JULY 24, 2011) – Producer John Davis and the founders of Lola Visual Effects (Lola VFX) will team to finance, develop and produce a theatrical, live action feature based on Scott Westerfeld’s New York Times best-selling “Uglies,” the first of his futuristic trilogy first published in 2005.
The filmmakers have also acquired Westerfeld’s PRETTIES and SPECIALS, the remaining trilogy installments published by Simon Pulse, a Simon & Schuster company, with total sales of over 3 million copies. Jacob Forman (“All The Boys Love Mandy Lane”) will write the screenplay.
UGLIES will be produced by John Davis (“Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” “I, Robot”) and Jordan Davis (“Jump In”), along with Colin and Greg Strause via their Hydraulx Entertainment banner. Lola’s Edson Williams and Thomas Nittmann will executive produce along with Adam Schroeder
Lola is the groundbreaking visual effects company paving the way for an entirely new level of story-telling, most recently transforming Chris Evans into the 90-pound weakling Steve Rogers for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER. The company was founded by Colin and Greg Strause, Edson Williams, and Thomas Nittmann.
?
Set in an Orwellian future in which teens undergo surgery on their sixteenth birthdays to become supermodel “pretty,” UGLIES is the story of Tally Youngblood, one such “ugly” teen who is forced by authorities to forgo her transformation until she infiltrates The Smoke, a community of rebels who choose to retain their appearance and live outside of normal society. Tally soon discovers appearance isn’t everything and her world is not all that it seems.
“’UGLIES’ is a smart, youthful, and edgy trilogy peopled by sophisticated characters who have to navigate through a dangerous but fascinating world,” stated John Davis. “We are at this time in the development of cinema magic where we have the proper technology to fully realize Scott’s vision for the screen.”
In addition to CAPTAIN AMERICA, Lola is the company behind Brad Pitt’s youthification in THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON and flawless twining of Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss in THE SOCIAL NETWORK. With this technology and expertise, Lola will handle the dramatic transformation of characters into the “pretty” versions of themselves while Hydraulx will create the futuristic world of UGLIES, an exquisite yet eerie dystopian future.
Stated Greg Strause: “With UGLIES, Scott created a visually stunning world that capitalizes on the strengths of both Lola and Hydraulx. Our partnership demonstrates the expanding possibilities of enhancing creative storytelling with innovative visual effects.”
Hydraulx is an award-winning visual effects facility with work including 300, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, 2012, BATTLE LOS ANGELES, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, and AVATAR, the latter two films in 3D. Founded by Colin and Greg Strause, the company leverages the Brothers’ extensive filmmaking experience to provide a comprehensive and unparalleled photographic and photorealistic approach to visual effects.
DAVIS ENTERTAINMENT
Chairman of Los Angeles-based Davis Entertainment, John Davis has been a producer on more than 80 feature films and movies for television that have earned more than $4 billion worldwide.
Davis’s three divisions–-feature film, independent film, and television-–develop and produce film and television projects for the major studios, independent distributors, networks and cable broadcasters. The Company, established in 1986, has enjoyed a long-standing first-look production deal at 20th Century Fox, though also produces projects for all studios and mini-majors.
Some of Davis’s films include the Jim Carrey starring “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” “Gulliver’s Travels” starring Jack Black; the hit sci-fi thriller “I, Robot” starring Will Smith; “Norbit,” starring Eddie Murphy (in their fourth film together) for DreamWorks/Paramount; “Garfield,” which earned $200 million at the worldwide box office, for Fox; the $100 million-plus hit Eddie Murphy comedy “Daddy Day Care;” the blockbuster “The Firm,” starring Tom Cruise; “Courage Under Fire,” starring Denzel Washington; “Waterworld,” starring Kevin Costner; “Predator,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; the two hugely successful “Dr. Dolittle” films, starring Eddie Murphy; the Jack Lemmon/Walter Matthau trilogy “Out to Sea,” “Grumpy Old Men,” and “Grumpier Old Men;” “Alien vs. Predator,” an action thriller combining the two classic creatures, and its sequel “AVP2,” for Fox, among many others.
Forum Meet-Up Transcript
Yesterday at 2PM, me and a hundred-ish fans from the WesterForum hung out for about an hour and a half, and I answered many questions. For those of you who weren’t able to attend, I’ have compiled them into this blog post, typos and all! (So. Many. Typos.)
Enjoy:
“What kind of juice do you like?”
There are many juices I love. Mango! Pear! (Especially pear cider.) Apple!
“So Scott there’s been a rivalry going on (on the forum obviously) , based on the question : If the crew of the Leviathan got in a fight with Special Circumstances who would win? What’s your opinion?”
I think in a close-quarters fight the Specials would win, because they’re too quick. But in a proper battle, the Leviathan could mess them up with strafing hawks or bat-poo without ever being in danger.
“WHATS GOING ON WITH CROY?! CAN YOU GIVE US ANY INFO ON HIM?! ”
That info will be released at Leaky Con and Comic Con. THAT’S ONLY A FEW WEEKS. But I can’t tell you anything now, except maybe . . . you will SEE HIM.
“Did you use the same models on the cover of Goliath that you used on Leviathan and Behemoth?”
Yes. Same models, same photo shoot on the same day. Sometime I’ll show you guys the unaltered photos.
“At any point in Behemoth, does Dr. Barlow know that Deyrn is a girl? It has been a topic of great debate.”
Hah! Not saying now, but you WILL learn the answer to that in Goliath.
“Have you ever met someone in real life who reminds you of your characters?
Or vice versa.”
Hmm, not really. Although sometimes I see someone and say, ‘Whoa, he/she’s a total pretty!’
“Nice to meet you, btw. (and tell hi to Justine (Mrs. Larbaleister (sp?)) for me, please!)”
It’s Dr. Larbalestier, in fact.
“Can Justine cook?”
She’s a great cook of Thai food, and she wants me to add that she’s a good boxer too. (She’s been taking lessons.)
“What TV shows do you watch?”
Game of Thrones, Treme, just finished Vampire Diaries,
“This isn’t really a question, just a comment. I thought you’d like to know that I used to like history, and Leviathan made me love it again. I might even try writing something historical-ish myself. ”
Yay!
“Is Lilit lesbian/bi? (Please say yes.)”
They didn’t really have those categories for women back then, but she would be if she was alive today. (Strange but true fact: Male homosexuality was illegal in England back then, but female homosexuality wasn’t because lawmakers REFUSED TO BELIEVE IT EXISTED.)
“In Uglies, there are many messages, some obvious, some not so much. What messages/lessons do you want readers to take away from Leviathan?”
Hmm. I think that the big theme is about how different sides of a conflict (war or just ideological/technological) see each other, and how that can change when people are forced to work together.
“What kind of music do you like? (Do you like Florence+and the machine?)”
I like minimalism and trip-hop, and I don’t know of this Florence person.
“What is your opinion on the Hunger Games? (Will you see the movie?)”
Want to see the movie. Liked the first book, but didn’t read the others.
“When will you go on tour?”
September 17. DON’T KNOW WHERE YET! NOT MY CHOICE WHERE.
“Would you like to join my band of Ninjas?”
I have already infiltrated your band of ninjas!
“Do you like writing about diseases? Peeps was about parasites, Innoculata had to do with a virus and in So Yesterday the main characters dad is a Epidimiologist (I think).”
I love all kinds of biology, like beasties too. Studied philosophy of biology in college. (Yes, that’s a real thing.)
“Scott-la, in the Uglies series who was the most interesting character to create?”
Hmm, maybe Mr. Simpson Smith, because he talked funny and had a very different view of the world from everyone else.
“Is there a ball, wedding, or some other formal scene in Goliath?”
Yes!
“Will we ever see Deryn in a dress in the final book?
I need some hope..
Fan Art Friday
At last! Here is another edition of Fan Art Friday for your art-viewing pleasure.
But first . . . it’s time for another meet-up on the Forum. For those of you who don’t hang out there, the Forum is roughly 99% of this site. It has over 30,000 members and about half a million posts. And once every couple of months, I hang out there and answer ALL the questions.
So let’s do one next Saturday, June 25, at 2PM, US-EST. (Sorry, I know that’s the middle of the night for Australia.) Come one, come all, and I shall try as always to answer as many of your questions as humanly possible.
And now to the fan arts . . .
As previously moaned about, I have read a bajillion fan fics, and it’s really too hard to choose just a few, because so many are so good. But I will choose just ONE, because it was quite off-center and unexpected. Even original.
It’s set many years before Alek or Deryn were born, when the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife-to-be Sophie first met. Now because there are historical characters, this might not have been a Leviathan fan fic at all. But there is a big WALKER at the beginning, so it totally counts.
Check it out, “Prague”, by fanfiction.net’s Cardboard Edward.
And while we’re talking fan fic, here’s some fic-related art, a cover created by LinnetLove for a piece of fan fic by Victorian Bombshell (Hah, I got two fics in there):
From Brazil, here is Irwin Dias’ dyptich of disturbing delight, featuring Dr. Cable and Special Tally:
Scary Special teeth are scary!
And now for a big bunch of pencil pieces. First, from Mercedes Amanda, here’s a picture from the ever-popular (and complicated) theme of The Lilit Triangle!
A cool split personality Deryn from Michelle, The Clanker, and color pencil sketch by her:
From Angel Sun, a CUTE manga-style Deryn and Bovril:
And finally from Ellyn, here’s a pre-crossdressing Deryn, looking discontent in her non-uniform!
It’s actually kind of weird to think of Deryn in a dress, isn’t it? And that’s the way it should be, too.
Enjoy your weekends!
The Curious Case of Klout
Because I wrote Peeps, everyone emails me the latest news on parasites. Thanks to writing Uglies, I’m always up on hovercraft and tattoo technologies. And thanks to the Leviathan series, I get a lot of mail about walking machines.
Being the author of Extras means I hear a lot about Klout.
Klout is a company that generates face-ranks of Twitter users. They have software that constantly scries the “Twitter firehose”—the sum total of everyone’s tweets—and boils them down to a set of rankings. Basically Klout behaves like the city interface in Extras. People following you, retweeting you, mentioning you, and using twitter to converse directly with you makes your score go up. People ignoring you makes your score go down.
Unlike Aya’s city, Klout doesn’t give everyone their own unique number, but gives everyone a score between 1 and 100, with higher scores representing more influence. The scale is logarithmic, like the richter scale, so the distance from 10 to 30 doesn’t mean a lot, but the distance from 80 to 100 is vast.
Here are some examples of Klout scores:
Scott Westerfeld: I bounce between 60 and 62
Youtube Magnate John Green: 71
YA Twitter Queen Maureen Johnson: 74
US President Barack Obama: 88
Genuinely Famous Person Lady Gaga: 94
As you can see, Twitter Klout and real-world clout don’t necessarily match up. I mean, Lady Gaga can’t dispatch Navy Seal teams . . . yet. And possibly running the federal government doesn’t leave a lot of time for @replying with your pals. But a high Klout score is a measure of one sort of celebrity, notoriety, fame, and influence. And the idea of scoring everyone in the (online) world is so inherently Extras-like that I knew you guys would be interested in it, so I took a closer look at what Klout were doing.
Last week I had a short phone conversation with the Klout CEO and Co-Founder Jed Shearer. Here are some interesting factoids he unleashed on me:
1) The Twitter firehose that goes into your Klout score includes direct messages. (Note to self: DMs aren’t as private as I thought.)
2) The overall scores listed above are the tip of the analysis iceberg. Klout also scores people with regard to specific subject matter. For example, you could have a big sports or literature score, but a crappy cooking or politics score.
3) Klout keeps that more specific data secret, and then sells it to marketing companies, who want to find Twitter “influencers.” For example, if you are the biggest manga expert on Twitter, you might get invited to the opening of Akira. (This is actually more So Yesterday than Extras.)
4) There’s only ever one person at a time with a Klout score of 100. Basically, they’re like Nana Love in Extras, or Christopher Lambert in Highlander. And at the moment that person is . . . Justin Bieber. (Of the clan McBieber.)
There’s obviously a lot to talk about here, but it’s nice (for me) how the themes in Extras keep popping up. I’ve seen articles about people with higher Klout score getting hotel upgrades, and of some tech parties only allowing in people with a certain Klout score or above. This is a very mild equivalent of what happens in Aya’s city, where your face-rank determines how big your apartment is, how many resources you can consume, etc. Perks for influencers is very old, of course.
My social media expert friends tell me that people have begun “gaming” Klout. That is, they change their online social practices with the sole intent of boosting their score. Some of you may recall the Reputation Bomber clique in Aya’s city, who chant one member’s name all night to spike his or her face rank. Same basic thing.
Klout seems to me to be simultaneously silly and the first stage of something important. We humans are social creatures, so it’s a survival skill to determine the status of the people around us, especially when we’re in an unfamiliar environment (or an environment that is being newly created, like Twitter or the internet in general).
You will remember this scene from pretty much every high school movie: The new kid arrives at school, and is led on a social safari by a savvy new friend. Usually set in the cafeteria, this scene often contains the dialog “That’s the jocks’ table over there.” Like Klout itself, these little expository set pieces are an oversimplification, an exaggeration, and a kind of a joke, but they’re also useful for learning the lay of the land.
Using math to improve survival skills (the whole Klout enterprise is about computers crunching numbers) is what the last few centuries of human culture has mostly been about. So I’d be surprised if the world didn’t wind up with many tech companies whose sole purpose was the tracking, scoring, and gaming of reputations.
So where did I get the idea for the face-rank culture in Extras? From a much simpler source: authors sitting around and checking their books’ Amazon rankings. (Amazonomancy is the technical term for this.) A humble beginning, but in a way Amazonomancy is more grounded in reality than anything Klout does.
Book sales are, after all, a reputation marker you can eat.
On Twitter? You can look yourself up here. Or check out my detailed score here.
New Uglies Covers
I’m headed out to the Blue Mountains for a weekend of birthday fun, so there will be no Fan Art Friday this week. Instead, allow me to belatedly roll out the new Uglies covers!
They’ve been around on the internets for a while, but I haven’t shown them here. The new covers are finally leaking into stores, though, so now is a great time to show them.
Click here for the bigger and zoomable version.
Of course, whenever new covers appear online, they create dissent and controversy. Fans mostly don’t like new looks for books, because the old covers are the ones they’re used to. If you’re a fan, after all, that old look was probably the reason you picked up the books in the first place!
So really, the new covers aren’t for fans at all. You guys already HAVE my books, after all. These are for all the people who’ve never picked up Uglies because the old covers looked boring or stupid to them. Maybe they never even noticed the series on the shelves. It’s for non-fans (who probably don’t read this blog) that this new look exists.
So feel free to complain!
For me the Original Style covers are still classics, but I get why S&S has to hit the refresh button after, what, six years? And you have to admit that these new covers are very lovely indeed, and are unified in a way the Original Flavor ones weren’t. (Pretties had a different designer than the other three, in fact. You can tell.) The new ones also have a cool, clinical feel that nails a lot of what the series is about.
But I will take this opportunity to express my appreciation to Rodrigo Corral for his awesome work on the first cover of Uglies. Covers matter, and a lot of you, possibly many thousands, would never have seen the Uglies series without his strokes of genius. And that would mean less food, clothing, and shelter for me. And I like food, clothing, and shelter.
So, thanks, Rodrigo. The rest of you should click here for an archive of his other work. I think you’ll agree that the dude rocks.
Fan Art Friday
Back in my younger days, when people would ask where I went to high school, the conversation would often go like this:
“I go to Arts Magnet.”
“Oh. So you’re a painter.”
“No.”
“A sculptor?”
“Um, no.”
“What? You just draw?”
“Nope.”
“But . . . you’re an artist, right?”
“Yep. I compose music and direct and act in plays.”
“Oh, right. Artssss Magnet.”
*sighs*
One of the fudgeries of spoken English is the way we often use the word for a subset to mean the whole set, and vice versa. To some people, “artist” means “painter,” “American” means “from the USA,” and “animal” means “multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdoms Animalia or Metazoa BUT NOT HUMANS CAUSE WE’RE SPESHUL.”
Of course, we’re starting to get rid of a lot of these fudges, but it’s still tricky. I often use “USian” instead of “American,” but as a southerner I correct Aussies who call me a “yank.” The politics of who’s the subset in these verbal habits can be very problematic, you see. (But at least pretty much everyone has given up saying “man” for “humanity.”)
AND YET, here I’ve done more than a dozen Fan Art Fridays, and about 99% of the fan art I’ve shared with you is drawn or painted (or the digital equivalent). Apparently I’ve been colonized by my painterly high school oppressors without even realizing it!
So here we are at last, a special edition of Fan Art Friday in which NO art is drawn or painted. (Well, some of it is, partly. There is no escape.)
Let’s start off with costumes. Here’s an awesome piloting jacket by DA’s WaxesNostalgic, based on Alek’s from Leviathan:
Cool, huh? You don’t see enough leather in cosplay.
And here’s some self-portraiture by bano–kagi, which is partly cosplay, but also involves the art of resembling Deryn Sharp without even trying.
I mean, seriously. It’s like she jumped out of the book.
SPEAKING OF WHICH:
This one is sort of on the border between drawing and sculpture, but you will agree it’s totally cool. See if you can find the Leviathan characters in “Jump Off the Page” by ThePrinceOfParties.
This is a crop. You must follow this link for the whole thing!
Characters jumping out of books makes me happy.
More sculpture! Of a Huxley Ascender! This one from Parker-Strom.
And in a more jewelry mode, Heather L. offers up one of the Leviathan‘s fabricated bees:
It’s so glittery, kind of like I describe the bees in the gut.
And now . . . something that will keep you Midnighters fans in stitches.
Heh, in stitches. (Bada-BOOM.) From Kristen G, who is clearly awesome, because those midnighters symbols are really detailed.
And in the photography category, Ren W. and Sammy sent me shots of the sky that might be related to Leviathan, of course. But which might also be somehow related to a CERTAIN LINE at the beginning of the Uglies series!
That one’s by Ren W, and this next one’s by Sammy.
Okay, we’ve covered Leviathan, Midnighters, and Uglies, and EIGHT pieces of art, so I think I’m stopping here. (Still fluey.) Rest assured, though, there will be more non-painterly art next week, including the bajillion pieces of fan-fiction you all sent me. (So. Much. Fan. Fiction.)
There will also be a tattoo, or perhaps even two. Seriously.
If you’re coming to BEA or simply live near New York City, don’t forget
my appearances next month. I’m coming 10,000 miles for this BEA, so I don’t want any empty chairs!
And just a reminder, you guys know I’m on Twitter, right?
Dyslit Essay
Just in case you thought I’d given up serious blogging to spend all my time trolling (or perhaps trawling) Deviant Art, let it be known that I just wrote a real essay about Literary Things.
It was for Tor.com‘s Dystopia Week (to which I say, ONLY A WEEK?) and was an analysis of why teenagers like tales of dystopia.
The funny thing is, lately everyone wants dystopia essays from me, because dyslit is BIG and I am officially a famous fake expert in how teens think, especially about dystopian fiction, thanks to the whole writing Uglies thing. (Score.)
A snippet:
Teenagers’ lives are constantly defined by rules, and in response they construct their identities through necessary confrontations with authority, large and small. Imagining a world in which those authorities must be destroyed by any means necessary is one way of expanding that game. Imagining a world in which those authorities are utterly gone is another.
It’s little wonder, then, that a lot of YA dyslit embraces both extremes of hyper-control and of chaos, wedding an oppressive government with post-apocalyptic ruin . . .
Click here to read the rest. And then comment here or there with your gentle sledgehammers of correction. Don’t let us fake expert adults define you!
And now . . . back to trolling Deviant Art! Because it’s Fan Art Friday. (Well, not here in Sydney, or even in New York, but somewhere in the world. Like, say, Hawaii.)
Here’s a cutie from strawberrycream17:
I mean, seriously: Awww. Happy times. Check out strawberrycream17’s stuff at DA.
And another quiet moment from Tobuishi, who, after last week’s Fan Art Friday, quite understandably requested that I use a piece of hers that didn’t have the word “boobs” in it:
Click here to see her other stuff at DA.
I love how a lot of fan art and fan fic shows characters doing, you know, sort of nothing. Fan artists like showing the downtime that’s part of everyone’s real life, but doesn’t ever quite get shown in canonical texts, because doing nothing isn’t part of the uber-dramatic Story we authors are telling. Believe me, if we put it in there, editors would probably edit it out!
Fans actually want to see the downtime, though, or at least imagine it, because that makes the characters more real, more like someone you could hang out and do nothing with. So downtime becomes a major theme of the para-literature of fan fic and fan art.
Maybe I’ll save these thoughts for another essay about Literary Things. But you know I’m right.
And speaking of just hanging out, here’s another example, by Irrel, of everyday life aboard the Leviathan:
HAH! GOT YOU! Awkward moment is awkward! (Here’s the source on DA.)
Okay, some fan art is totally dramatic, telling its own fantabulous non-canonical story, or even predicting what will happen in a not-yet-published book like Goliath. This is why writing Serious Essays is a pain, because you have to keep second-guessing yourself.
Awkward, heh.
So for the next Fan Art Friday, let’s do something different. Send me art that’s not regular two-dimensional drawings and such. You know: fan fic, sculpture, cosplay, music, models, video, photography, or whatever else you can come up with or find out in the interwebs.
I’m curious as to how much is out there. And I think we’ve had quite enough of a certain couple’s canoodlings!
See you soon.