Comics and Idolatry

I didn't go to Comic-Con this year, for various reasons, but I did go walk around downtown San Diego on Sunday with some friends and people watch (and of course eat at Cafe' Diem). I unfortunately missed the crazy Westboro Baptist Church people out protesting, and even more unfortunately I missed the Comic-Con attendees protest of the WBC protest. At the Comics Alliance link you can see images Con attendees counter signs - which are great, particularly the Odin is God one.

While I've heard of the WBC, and am continually appalled by their anti-American, anti-military, anti-Semitic, and homo-phobic views, I somehow find myself surprised that they also take out their rage and hatred on American Idol, Twitter, and Comics. At some point I realize that false idolatry, as they see it, is kind of a big deal in organized religion - but I fail to see the damage to any God in respecting and looking up to an iconic figure, whether it be Obi-Wan Kenobi, Captain America, or Lady Gaga.

Maybe I have trouble with the idea that celebrating comics endangers one's soul because I am more likely to believe Batman is real than that a God created me. I believe that any God who denies humans role models on Earth is not a very self confident one and he/she is pretty lame. Comic books, science fiction, and fantasy are meant to teach you life lessons; they are meant to allow you to explore notions, choices, feelings, and ideas in the safe world of a comic book, a novel, or a movie; they are meant to allow you to grow into your life as a more mature, well thought person.

Look at some of our biggest comic book/nerd/fantasy heroes: Batman, Superman, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk, Aragorn, Frodo, Spider-man, Dorothy Gale, Alice, and the X-Men. Each of these characters deals with some sort of unfathomable tragedy, responsibility, or hurdle and must make the right choices to save a loved one, a planet, the human race, etc. These struggles and choices are meant to teach us to be better people. Comic-Con, and other comic/nerd conventions, are meant as celebrations of the mythos of nerdom, as celebrations of the human condition and spirit.

I'm a proud nerd, and I love Comic-Con, and it hurts me that people look down on it as being something ridiculous and look down on nerds as being less than human (although many are less than normal). I realize that I write this while watching Star Trek and wearing an Empire Strikes Back t-shirt - but I hope you get the pretty biased gist.

May the Force be With You.

Outside Comic-Con 2010

Comic-Con 2009 - Cafe Diem

Comic-Con 2009 - Main Hall

Comic-Con 2009 - Stark Industries Booth

Photo Friday - Shooting with the iPhone

A fellow Etsian turned me on to this video on fstoppers about shooting a full fashion shoot with the "worst camera possible". Aside from the great joke about Olympus, and the entertaining phone call interruption, its a pretty insightful look at how to do great photography without the greatest camera. Of course you have to have a good shoot set up and lighting, but that kind of goes with out saying anyway.


The iPhone Fashion Shoot - Lee Morris Shoots With The 3GS Fstoppers from FStoppers on Vimeo.


In addition to the video, I'm sharing some of my favorite photos that I've taken on my iPhone 3G (which doesn't have a flash or any type of manual focus):

Dumpster in Downtown LA [Camerabag app]

Chilean Tsunami day - Encinitas [Camerabag app]

Bailey [Hipstamatic app]

LA Gay Rights Rally [straight iPhone camera]

published with NowPublic.com

Disneyland [some photoshop work]

Happy Friday everyone!

The Last M. Night Shymalan Movie

The Last Airbender may wind up being the last M. Night Shymalan movie I ever see.

Before driving back to San Diego yesterday, a few of us decided to check out The Last Airbender. Quiet possibly one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. Its a terrible terrible movie. I really would like to find a way to get my 8 bucks and 2 hours back. 

The concept is great - the world is made up of tribes of people who can call upon the 4 elements: Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. These nations are at war with each other - with the Fire nation trying to dominate the other three elements. Legend has it that once a lifetime, an Avatar - one who can "bend" each of the 4 elements to his will - will come and unite the nations. Great idea for a story - from the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender - absolutely horrible execution. The writing and directing were way off the mark, and as a result the acting was strained and canned. It was painful to watch. I'm in the process of trying to renew my faith in Sci Fi/Fantasy movies - given that this is my favorite movie genre, I think that goes to show just how awful The Last Airbender was.

Earlier in the week I did see a pretty hilarious sci fi parody type movie called Free Enterprise - about 2 20 somethings who grew up on Trek, Logan's Run, Star Wars, and other genre related series/movies. Fantastic movie, trailer below:

Back and fighting off a cold

I've been somewhat absent from my regularly scheduled life the last few weeks. We had a family reunion of sorts at my parents' house here in San Diego. The last couple of weeks have been incredibly exhausting but also incredibly awesome! With trips to the Zoo, Disneyland, the Del Mar Fair (yes I still call it that), and a family camping trip to Sequoia and King's Canyon life has been pretty jam packed.

I'll get photos up on facebook and flickr soon I'm sure. For now you'll have to be content with the photograph below of some of the family at Disney's California Adventure and at Disneyland. And yes, we had matching shirts...

The Boston portion of the family headed back East on Sunday morning, after which I promptly drove up for a vacation day in Long Beach with Tay, D, and C. Fireworks next to the Queen Mary, while sipping on Sangria on the sun deck at D's place overlooking Long Beach Harbor were the perfect end to a great couple of weeks.

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. Now back to my regularly scheduled programming...