Why You Hate Comics

Right up until 4-5 years ago, you hated comic book movies.

And I know this is true because *I* hated comic book movies, and I didn't dislike comics. I remember seeing "Spawn" as an impressionable youth, and thinking, "Well. THIS sucks."

And years later, other people had to educate me. They showed me Batman comics and Captain America comics and ... well, things that don't qualify as "comics."

I am not, by any means, a nerd about that stuff. I own less than two-dozen graphic novels, and 12 of them are the same authors' multi-volume set of "The Punisher" in which the "hero" distributes vigilante justice (via the "bullet" method) to an average of 20-30 criminals per book. It is sold in the "absolutely no children beyond this point" portion of the comic shop. If it were a movie, it would be NC-17. Even the R-rated "Punisher" movie(s) had to tone themselves down to be R-rated, compared to these books.

WHICH IS THE PROBLEM.

Robert Downey Jr. said "Yes" to Iron Man, and suddenly it was cool for mainstream actors to be in comic book character adaptations again, for the first time since "Batman Returns" in 1992. (Val Kilmer and George Clooney as Batman is what made it UNcool again, a few years later). But even now, not a lot of mainstream American actors are following in his footsteps.

Scarlett Johanssen? Yes. Chris Evans? Hardly a household name. Chris Hemsworth? Who the fuck is that.

So we're back to square one.

And people on the street, commenters on message boards, and my mom, all say things like, "Isn't that based on a comic book? It'll probably be silly."

...

Then I had an epiphany as to why people automatically assume comics are silly:


WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT.

There are a billion "Cathy" comic strips, and all of them are less funny than this one. Even humor itself, peeking its head out from under a rock, would not recognize this comic as anything remotely familial. It is anti-humor, designed to earn the author a steady paycheck. It is roughly five square inches in your daily newspaper, and there's not a fucking thing you can do to stop it.

And there's MORE LIKE IT. Dozens. Dozens of other unfunny little childish comic strips in your newspaper, distributed en masse by the millions, every day. Crazy, redonkulous exercises in non-jokes like Beetle Bailey and B.C. and One Tree Hill... I don't even read this crap anymore, because it wasn't even funny when I was twelve. When I was twelve I had to ask my parents what the joke meant, and wait for a response before I then realized it wasn't funny. By 13, I had cut out the middle man. What the hell is going on?

This runs in newspapers all over the country, and is seen by MILLIONS. Someone was PAID for this. There was probably even a first draft before it, where the author said, "No, no, wait... ten dollars isn't funny enough. It needs to be FIVE dollars."

But even that is giving it too much credit. Strips like this one have been manufactured by a computer program since 1988. I am sure of it. There is no possible way that a person could create that, and THEN an editor would read it and say, "Ha, yes, good work," and THEN pay the man. Unless the comic strip racket is run like Saturday Night Live, where you tell one funny joke then get to collect a paycheck for seven years while doing nothing at all.

Which is entirely possible. It's not like anyone is paying attention to this shit. Except for this person, my new hero:

"The Ten Newspaper Comic Strips that Need to Fucking End."
by Alicia Ashby

.......... I had ignored this crap for years, this cheap, pandering free money for bad artists, but as an adult without a great income, it pisses me off that the person who draws "Mamaduke" got paid more last year than I did. The last time I got drunk and pissed on the bathroom wall it created more interesting art than this bullshit. It is market-tested, color-coordinated, guaranteed-not-to-offend-anyone.... "art." Which would be fine, if there were five of them, but there's like EIGHTY in your newspaper every day.

And so that is what we, as a society, think comics look like. Also, comics are drawn, and as we all know hand-drawn animation is Disney's gift to the world. If it's a cartoon, it's for kids, yup yup yup!


When you write a movie, you have to make it easy to understand for the widest possible audience. There are rules, rules which most people aren't even aware of or care about: You cannot show violence against children, and if you do, it's not the hero committing such acts. The hero cannot beat women, take a dump, do drugs, and if he's shown stealing car it is always, ALWAYS for a good cause. There are never any consequences. He always wins in the end, the bad guy always dies (unless they want a sequel), any character who broke the law along the way also typically dies, lest any tiny corner of the audience feel uncomfortable.

If you are an adult, and writing a graphic novel for yourself... you can kill anyone you damn well please. If it entertains YOU, who cares if it's going to sell well in a mall? Trade it with your friends. Put it online.


You can't put that shit in the cineplexes. 100% entertainment value only. The author has set it in the near future and the Rapture occurs, except the Pope doesn't go because he's been too busy doing drugs and fucking whores. The populace is, as you can imagine, quite confused as to why the POPE didn't get called up in the Rapture... but luckily Yonder Pope is a mighty warrior in his spare time, and helps defend his fellow man against the evil left on earth.

If you read that... and you created "Funky Winkerbean" ... you should rightly hang your head in disgusted shame. You are a boil on society and you need to be lanced.

There are a thousand brilliant, multi-layered stories to tell here. And while some newspaper comics do still generate honest political commentary, or a genuinely funny gag-- you can count those comics on one hand. Doonesbury. The Boondocks. The art and content of "Get Fuzzy" is usually entertaining, and "Pearls Before Swine" has some clever wordplay.

And then there's fifty comic strips from the people who brought you "The Wizard of Id" just waiting there to suck. "Family Circus" is still allowed to exist, like a remnant of the 1950's that everyone forgot about. Alone they are nothing. Together they are skewing the perceptions of an entire nation. If YOU had lived in a foreign country all your life, and someone showed you "Garfield," what would YOU think of America?

Everything you know about the animated medium is wrong. People who write humorless, poorly drawn comic strips do it because they are contractually obligated to do so, and are under no individual obligation to be funny or interesting. It's rather like receiving tenure.

People who write movies must specifically write to appeal to the most number of people possible, particularly for a summer blockbuster (because that's what most often the stories lend themselves to), though there are a fair amount of graphic novels, too, that do not feature explosions. ("A History of Violence," for example, did not have a single car chase or flying robot).

People who write Graphic Novels do so because they honestly love it. They don't have a house in Hollywood Hills, they're not appearing on Letterman (though neither do screenwriters, really).

Screenwriter Scott Frank, who received an Oscar-nomination for adapting "Out of Sight" for the big screen, but also adapted "Get Shorty" and made his directorial debut two years ago with "The Lookout," once said...

"Writing a screenplay is like raising a child for adoption."

Telling, that. You labor over it for hours, weeks, months... then you hand it over to the studio and the director will do whatever the fuck he wants with it. You hope for the best.

Comic strip writers don't have their work changed, but that's because their editor never actually reads it.

Authors of Graphic Novels? These people, and their editors, are passionate about telling stories, and have written some good ones.

Some of them don't even have Batman in them.

Check them out, but... don't leave them lying around where your mother can find them. Just because there's a panel where someone dies does not mean we should ban all comic stores to protect the children. Context is everything, and a dramatic story well-told can teach us a lot.

But your mom doesn't know that, because she grew up reading "Family Circus."

Educate ya-self.

How to Be a Geek (in Six Easy Lessons)

So. You've decided to become a geek.

While I commend you on your choice, it must be stated at the outset that it won't be easy. Many have tried and failed. Many have succeeded, only to discover they then failed to get laid, repeatedly. This is not your fault. This is leftover high school residue and we can assure you, as you venture out in the real world of adulthood, now more than ever, you have made the right decision.

Before we begin our lesson, let's address some current, common misconceptions about geeks.

a) Geeks are ugly.

This is the most common misconception, mostly because whenever one meets a geek, they're ugly, or otherwise fat, smelly, socially awkward, or staring at your boobs. The key thing to remember here at the outset is: Cops are actually pretty cool.

Wait, what? How'd we get THERE?

The misconception about cops is, they hate you and want to make your life miserable. And the reason for this is, the only time you ever see a cop, statistically, is when you've just done something wrong: driving too fast, walking around somewhere other than a bar after a few too many drinks, maybe even jaywalking. There are a small percentage of times where you'll see a cop because you called them to rescue you, but I'm 35 and luckily, knock on wood, I've never been in a situation where I've had to summon one (or many). So it's pretty statistically small, at least from where I'm sitting. But the times I've interacted with officers outside of "I just fucked up" have gone pretty smoothly. They're people too. They just don't know you except, unlike when you work at Starbucks and can just be snarky, when a cop first sees you, he doesn't yet know if YOU'RE gonna be cool too, or if you're a meth-head about to shoot him (or her). Then again, I've tried to make friends with them during traffic stops, and they're routinely uninterested. But back to my original point:

That geek you met was weird because he's a fuckin' WEIRDO GEEK. That cute boy (or girl) standing behind him that isn't bothering you, is JUST as obsessed and/or knowledgeable about Star Wars or John Hughes movies or plantlife or something, but they're not advertising it. Because they are a well-integrated member of society with all their brain cells where they should be. How many dentists walk up to you on the street and go, "HI I'M A DENTIST!!!!!!" ... not very many. But we know dentists exist. Mine is quite nice.

b) Geeks are socially awkward.

See above. Only the geeks who are awkward are the ones you interact with; if you have a friend who's a geek, you've seen into their obsession maybe, but that was after you became friends with them first. Otherwise, they're a WEIRDO GEEK, or, to use a more accurate term...

c) Geeks and Nerds are the same thing.

WEIRDO GEEK is another term for a "Nerd." You know the stereotype? Tape around their glasses, pocket protector, plaid shirt, looks like their mom dressed them? Nerd. Chances are they get good grades, but are they obsessed with any one subject? Probably not. Most days they just obsess over books and not simple social interactions, and miss out importation cultural events like the 2011 Ford Mustang, or Vin Diesel movies, or the fact that nobody has actually worn a pocket protector since 1987. Pen technology has greatly improved since then.

Essentially, citizen, if you're getting down to brass tacks:


The general rule, if you want to be a geek is, "Keep left." Granted, most people don't get much of a choice, often following their obsession from an early age until they somehow missed out on simple social learning experiences, like, "How to dress," or "How to flirt with the cute girl and/or boy behind the counter at the bank," or, "How to bathe."

You're lucky though, gentle reader, as you have DECIDED to be a geek, rather than have geekdom thrust upon you. You can control the outcome. You can monitor your progress and make corrections as needed. You can be a geek, AND still have sex. Yes, it's entirely possible, and proven to be true.

WHY BE A GEEK?

Society, particularly American Society, has been obsessed with beauty and popularity for as long as we can remember. Everyone wants to be beautiful, to not only be desired, but to FEEL confident, sexy, and worthwhile as they walk into any room, and meet new people.

And on an aesthetic, surface level, these corrections can theoretically be made. Change your hair color, change your eye color, nip this, tuck that. Physically, you CAN be "fixed," and then you'll be normal and popular like those good looking kids in high school.

An important note: The least important part of your life was high school. You're not even fully formed until you're 18, then you get a couple test years for trial and error. Sure, we naturally want to stand next to beautiful people, but as we enter the 21st century, being intelligent is "in." Geeks are making a ton of money. Meanwhile we look at pretty people without smarts, and are given Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan as role-models. Society notices shit like this. Especially parents.

But since there's no surgery that can make someone smarter, physical beauty remained the norm for years. Geekdom was associated with being a rocket scientist, or calculus major. Comic books? Sci-fi novels? Very different. And so we shift toward geekdom, as a society, though not wholly there, as physical beauty and simple popularity still presently hold the norm....

For proof, note that we keep electing Republican presidents.

Okay, that's a dig, there's lots of other evidence too, but that one's my favorite.

"What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness."
--Leo Tolstoy

That's a good one, too.

LESSON #1 - Become interested in something you can internalize.

Or, put simply, an idea. You can go to parties and meet people, learn about their jobs or what they had for breakfast that morning, but these are just events, memorized. It's a list, albeit a personalized one. What about something that doesn't exist? Like, say, "Star Wars?" Sure, they movie exists, but Han Solo didn't ACTUALLY shoot Greedo. It's just a movie. That never really happened.

But it DID. In your HEAD.

Other examples of ideas you might want to choose from: The continuing voyages of the Starship Enterprise. The triumphs and failures of Bruce Wayne, billionaire (aka Batman). Dragons. Elves. Cybernetic alterations to living tissue, or any possible tech, real or imagined, that couldn't be available before 2021. TREES (yes, really!). Cars. But not, and I'm sorry ladies: shoes.

LESSON #2 - Read.

The reason shoes don't work (and I'm not being sexist, I just needed an example of something there's a lot of, that doesn't work) is because they're static. You can obsess and memorize the many (and there are many) facts about them, but there is nothing about them individually that can be integrated with other shoes. You can be a FASHION geek, say, but shoes just aren't specific enough. While there are a lot of cars, cars have many moving parts and options and customization. No one ever bought a shoe and then said, "Okay, now let's take it to the shop and change the straps to be purple and twice as wide."

Well, maybe they did, but it's my understanding that if you do that to a Manolo Blahnik, Sarah Jessica Parker will come to your house and beat you to death with her Prada handbag.

I am not a fashion geek or a shoe nerd, by the way. But my geek-like tendencies allow me to pick up snippets here and there. That, or I think I learned it ironically.

.... The reason everything else on the above list DOES work is because there are varied and diverse ideas you can assemble together in your own head. Star Wars alone has six movies (three excellent, three that weren't) plus about 150 bazillion books taking place in the universe. You can actually look up the reason, in said books, that spooky cave existed on Dagobah (non-geek speak: Remember that scene in Empire Strikes Back where Luke's all like, "What's in that cave?" and Yoda is all like, "Only what you take with you," and then Luke goes in there anyway and there's a trippy sequence where he sees his own face inside Darth Vader's helmet?). My point is, there's a lot of information to be had. There is always more to be learned. If you learn enough of it that you can make someone ELSE'S eyes glaze over the way I just made YOURS glaze over... you are well on your way to geekdom.

It does not have to be Star Wars, by the way. That's perhaps the most mainstream choice, and probably not a good one to get into, post-Jar Jar.

But be it science fiction, fantasy, or something more real-world like sports or fashion or the aforementioned cars.... there is resource material available. You must spend a LOT of time reading up on it, beyond what's mentioned in tonight's episode of "Two and a Half Men."

.......................... So now you've read up on it a bit. Not boring reading like that stuff you hated in high school... but exciting things you WANT to read about, with as little or as much literary merit as you personally feel up for. What now?

LESSON #3 - Obsess.

You are now aware that in addition to Kirk being the captain, that Spock was the First Officer, "Bones" McCoy was the chief medical officer, and Uhura was the communications officer. Memorizing all that alone has put you ahead of the average person who by and large ignores Star Trek unless J.J. Abrams is making a movie about it. Now you can dig deeper, on the internet and in stories, about not just things within the world, but outside of it.

For example, within the world of Star Trek, Spock is actually only half-human, and had to work harder to suppress his less logical, more emotional, human half.

Outside the world of Star Trek, its creator Gene Roddenberry struggled with how to have an alien (Spock) as a lead on his show, but still have human viewers relate to him. So, he wrote to noted sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, who advised him, "Make them (Kirk and Spock) the best of friends. That way whenever you think of one, you'll think of the other."

Now, maybe Star Trek isn't your thing. But above is an example of the different types of bullshit (technical term) you can seek out on your own. And both have their uses:

In example #1, only the information there was explicitly stated on the show, and repeated again in the recent movie. What is NOT specifically stated, but we can GLEAN from this information, is that Spock is atypical of most Vulcans, and therefore not the perfect example of what one would be like.

In example #2... well, there's nothing to glean there. But if you find that sort of random factoid interesting, YOU ARE WELL ON YOUR WAY TO BECOMING A GEEK. (also, knowing who Isaac Asimov is, would help).

LESSON #4 - Own a conversation piece.

Adults I know own Star Wars memorabilia and display it proudly. But if you choose to obsess over cars, have a specific make and model and modification of a car, in art form, on your wall. Let people know you like that sort of thing. Same with fashion. If sports is what you choose to geek out over, have World Series logo art on your wall. If design, hang something you've done, or else something done by someone you admire. Perhaps both-- my little brother is a graphic designer but by no means a geek. He has his own art sporadically placed in his home, but he has no artists he admires or has an opinion about. Not a geek. If YOU want to be a geek, you must find some piece of this subject matter and display it proudly, making it known without shoving it down each others throats.

It is very similar, in that regard, to religion. Nature has, as of yet, not popularized the term "Bible Geek."

Though if you have religion and keep it to yourself, you just may qualify. If you have religion and do NOT keep it to yourself, then you're a nerd, and nobody likes nerds.

LESSON #5 - Find like-minded individuals.

I don't read a plethora of comics, but I'm vaguely aware of a few superheroes who have not yet had Hollywood movies made about them (yes, there are many). My favorite may very, and in fact who is writing that character weighs heavily upon it, but even when I meet someone who likes a character I would never follow... we have common ground. Because these things take place in the same universe.

Ford and Chevy are both cars, and enthusiasts have common ground.

Macs and iPhones are both Apple products, so the disciples of Steve Jobs have common ground.

Etc. Even if you've followed the first four steps and truly feel you've learned EVERYthing there is to know about (x), there is always someone who knows more. Or, alternatively, they read the same thing you did and interpreted it differently. The willingness to listen and consider new ideas is what differentiates the geek from the nerd, after all, as geeks never stop learning. Nerds are incapable of learning, only memorizing.

Car conventions, comic conventions, fashion conventions (aka "Shows") are pretty damn diverse. There will be shit there you didn't even WANT to know. Yeah, they're pretty broad. It gives you options. But even if you don't pick anything up... you may just get to impart.

Which brings us to our final lesson,

LESSON #6 - Have Strong Opinions

I'm a film geek, and the biggest problem I run into is someone who doesn't just hate or love a movie, but just is "Eh" on the whole thing. "Oh, I saw the movie. It was alright." WELL THEN WHY DID YOU SEE IT? The studio gets your ten bucks whether you'd give the movie five stars or three, so why waste your time seeing three-star movies? If you liked individual bits about it, what were those bits? If you liked the visuals, see more movies from that director. If you liked the lighting and shot composition, see more movies with that cinematographer. If you liked the actors and wanted to see them naked, buy a subscription to Us Weekly and/or the internet, and don't go see more movies (seriously. I've saved like $100 by NOT seeing movies with Lindsay Lohan in them).

Even outside of film: If you love your Chevy but hate Ford, know WHY you hate Ford. If you love your PC but hate Macs, know WHY you hate Macs, not just, "I've always used a PC." Someone is eventually going to find out you're a geek, and ask questions. You better have answers ready. And even if no one ever asks you, it's important that YOU know, otherwise you've only selected your geek-subject arbitrarily. And that just makes you a high school student doing a book report.

Overall, love it. Quantify it. Look at it from all sides, and whatever you do, do NOT... under ANY circumstances... use it as a substitute for sex. That way lies nerd-hood, or worse yet, dweeb-dom.

Unless of course you're choosing to be a Sex Geek, in which case... well. Probably nobody wants Stephen King to read the novel they're writing. I'm just sayin'.

IN SUMMATION:

Lesson #1 - Find a story, unverse, idea, or concept that excites you creatively
Lesson #2 - Read up on said subject. Know more than the average bear and/or Joe.
Lesson #3 - Obsess over it until the average bear and/or Joe can no longer understand what the fuck you're talking about.
Lesson #4 - Have a conversation piece. You may never use it, but in theory if your obsession makes you happy, so too shall this.
Lesson #5 - Find like-minded individuals, such as at a convention or other social gathering. Discuss.
Lesson #6 - Have strong opinions on this subject. You have learned about it to interpret, not to memorize.

This concludes this publication of "How to Be a Geek (in Six Easy Lessons)."

As you move forward in your life, do remember that there isn't anything wrong with being a geek, as while knowledge IS what separates us from the apes, it was Einstein who said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

Of course, Einstein had plenty of both.

In the end, though, people with more things in their brain have much to talk about and ideas to exchange, while people with not much knowledge and/or imagination can only really repeat things they've memorized, like what they had for breakfast this morning and that funny kitten they saw on YouTube this morning.

Good luck, and Happy Geeking.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out this one kitten on YouTube, I hear it does this hilarious thing.

XOXO

You Can't Go Back if You've Never Been

Or,
Why Back to the Future teaches us that time travel is impossible

Much like vampires, virginity loss, gun shot wounds, every movie and every story has a different way of explaining its own unique universe. In movie (a), vampires are evil and sociopathic, in movie (b) they are sparkly and misunderstood. In movie (a) some character gets shot and immediately rendered unconscious until the paramedics arrive, in movie (b) a character is shot and just sort of grunts stoicly at the pain, like he's stubbed his toe.

While I wouldn't think guns were any longer in the realm of science-fiction (except for the ones Doom made up), it is sci-fi and fantasy where the most egregious examples of inconsistency will arise in film and literature.

"But Blogger Guy, it's just a story!" you might say, if you talked back to blogs, which is a weird thing for you to do. "The writer can make up anything he or she wants!"

Yes. Yes they pretty much can, and while even that still has some negative examples ("Twilight"), any author is free to create whatever they want within the realm of fantasy, be it bathroom graffiti, a blog, or a novel about dragons and elves. Have at it. Elves don't exist, so anyone who says "elves wouldn't do that," is just kind of being an asshole.

ALTERNATIVELY, from that, is science fiction. Not fiction: SCIENCE fiction. Existing science extrapolated with a little ingenuity, or a little imagination, into a fantastical tale of action and adventure and occasionally some naughty bits. But it's the science people forget, particularly people who don't give a good goddamn about science. And I know, I'm one of them-- even this blog post (recently reposted by geeksaresexy.net) points out the importance of science in our daily lives and musings:




Is this a dick move? Rachel probably thinks so.

Is it scientifically accurate? The internet tells us that it is.

Did I post this on Rachel's facebook page? No I did not, I don't know any Rachel, but GeeksAreSexy apparently does and I'd recommend them if my loyalties weren't already aligned with toplessrobot.com first and foremost.

So:

What my point is here, is even science fiction must have sort of an internal reality check, even if it's the most fantastical story or just a real-world story with science fiction elements. Something like, say, Star Trek, with its transporters and faster-than-light travel, uses concepts that are completely impossible for anything 2011 can imagine, BUT, they all do follow their own internal logic. What a transporter does one week, or in one movie, does not contradict what happens in the next episode, or sequel. Nerds have spent countless hours in forums and at conventions discussing the consistencies and hints given in the text as to all the things that a transporter can and can't do, and ditto with a holodeck, warp drive, light saber, or sex robot. Yes, I know these are different movies. No, it's not important if you didn't understand half those words.

But these are fantastical worlds of wall-to-wall sci-fi. What of the real-world stories with only minor science fiction elements?

As usual with me, it seems to take me quite a few paragraphs to get to my point:

One thing I've never really seen addressed in science fiction writing is the fact that time travel is impossible.

"Pshaw, Pope," you might snort, because again you're talking to your computer and that's not really healthy. "Duh it is. So is warp drive and midi-chloriants and rainbow-farting unicorns."

Not so. While certainly unicorns are just a flight of fancy, invented from thin-air, and midi-chloriants are at least as ridiculous, it is something like a warp drive, or a holodeck, or light saber, that scientists look at and begin to work out how to create it in the real world. Hell, the Star Trek communicator from the original 1960's TV show actually ALREADY exists, and has been rendred obsolete... it's a big, bulky flip-phone that went out of fashion in 2002. And with Wii and Kinect technology, can we really be very many decades away from a 3-d image we can kickbox with, or solve mysteries with, right there in our living room?

"You might not think so much of it now. But your KIDS are gonna LOVE it."

... That quote, while germaine to the previous paragraph, is also a quote from the original "Back to the Future." Which is why I've gathered you all here today.

Time Travel is impossible.

It's not something that's going to be invented down the line by some enterprising (no pun intended) scientist, it's not just around the corner, you can't orbit the edge of a black hole or go really fast around the sun or accidentally nuke your fridge and wake up in 1865. Let me clarify:

Time travel into the future is readily possible and easily done. You're doing it right now. You are travelling into the future, one second at a time. And while it is possible to accelerate this (orbiting the edge of a black hole), or manipulate this perception in relation to your own awareness (if you accelerated away from your living room, at the speed of light, for one year, you would see your cat remain completely still for the entire time, because the visual information carried in the light would remain the same in relation to your eyeballs. At the end of one year, if you accelerated back TO your living room at the speed of light, the cat would appear to move at double speed, so that when you arrived back on your couch, two years would have passed and your cat would be two years older)... that's all it is, is just parlor tricks or variations on your present acceleration into the future, one second at a time.

... All that assuming, of course, that you had called someone ahead of time to feed your cat.

And that you had a telescope that could see into your living room from one light-year away.

But the black hole thing is real, too, you can wiki it: But that's not my point. This is real science and sort of makes time travel boring. You could even put yourself in a coma for a year, and when you wake up, you've travelled a year into the future. Etc. Not so exciting.

TRAVELING TO THE PAST: Impossible. Let's look at the example of "Back to the Future," which of course you've seen, because if you haven't you're in Al Qaeda.

9/10ths of the movie deals pretty straightforward with time travel: Marty travels back in time, fucks up some shit, fixes some shit, then returns to his present day and things are different. Every movie deals with time travel like this. Most do it badly. There are never any ripple effects or consequences. Things you change remain changed, but miraculously, everything else in the entire universe remains exactly the same.

Standard sci-fi tropes withstanding, let's look at the final few minutes of the movie: Marty decides to return a few minutes BEFORE he left, but his car breaks down. He has to run, on foot, to the place where he originally departed for 1955. He gets to the parking lot just in time to see himself, shouting, then returning back to 1955.

The question we must ask ourselves is: What if the Elder Marty (as he is now one week older than the Marty in the parking lot) shouted out to Junior Marty? You know, stood up, waved his arms around, said, "Hey! Hey you! Watch out for the Photo-Mat!"

Well, in theory, Junior Marty (and the Libyan Terrorists) would then look up and be baffled by a second Marty standing on top of the hill.

This is, however, impossible.

Had Elder Marty shouted out, this means Junior Marty would not have gotten into the Delorean. If he doesn't get into the Delorean, he doesn't go back in time. If he doesn't go back in time, THERE IS NO ELDER MARTY TO SHOUT AT HIM, and thus, with no one to interrupt, he could not have NOT gotten in the Delorean.

Still with me?

I'll use another example, from another movie, before returning to the Back-to-the-Future example:

In "Terminator," a robot from the future returns to 1984 to kill the mother of the lead human resistance fighter. She succeeds in killing the robot, and survives. In "Terminator 2," it is revealed that parts of that robot survived, and were being held in a government lab where it was being reverse-engineered to find out how to build the technology, technology which will be used to build the very same Skynet that sends a robot back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. The future could not exist without the past, but the past in this case, was changed by a future it did not have the ability to create.

Therefore, logically, one possibility remains: as Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." There are infinite possibilities for the future. In one, you went to work and got paid. You used that money to buy a new car. You drove to the mall and met an attractive member of whichever gender you're attracted to (for the sake of this example, we'll say it's the opposite sex). You have sex and make a baby. That baby grows up to be President of the United States. ... OR ... you don't go to work, stay home all day except to go to the 7-11 for cigarettes; while there you meet a member of whichever sex you're attracted to, go on a date, have sex, and make a baby that grows up to be a serial arsonist. YOU DON'T KNOW. And while I'm not knocking 7-11, these things are impossible to predict. But for whatever reason, in one possible future, Skynet exists and sent something back to 1984 (and something else to 1994). Had it not done that, it never would have existed. But it didn't know that. Going backwards, there's only one timeline. Going forwards, there are many, just like you can only decide which direction to go on a fork in the road, when you are at the fork, assuming your car didn't have the ability to reverse.

So: Back to "Back to the Future."

Had Marty shouted to Marty from outside the parking lot, he would cease to exist, because that means Junior Marty would take a different path and Elder Marty would never be outside the parking lot in the first place. Lazy sci-fi would have you believe that Elder Marty would just remain on the hilltop, cut off from the timeline which spawned him, except for the fact that he RETURNED TO IT. If his parents don't have sex, he doesn't exist at all; if himself doesn't get into the Delorean, he doesn't exist running sweatily to the parking lot.

So therefore he is UNABLE to shout to himself, because if he did, he never went back in time. This timeline can only exist in reality if he DOESN'T shout to himself. Anything else would erase a link in the chain of events, and create a new chain.

Meanwhle, Marty has just returned from 1955. His parents still hooked up, and had three kids, but when he returns to 1985, they're the EXACT SAME THREE KIDS (of which he is the third), just with more motivation. They all now work in an office, despite looking exactly the same. Marty is still a pot-smoking guitar-player, except now his parents suddenly approve of him having underage sex with his girlfriend. And he has an nicer truck.

So the movie expects us to believe that despite this MASSIVE change he has instigated in his parents past, that (1) they still conceived three different children on the exact same dates as in the old timeline, and (2) the exact same sperm reached that egg, three different times, as in the old timeline. Considering George is now a successful author, and they seem a LOT more sexually attracted to each other than previously, I find this hard to believe. Every bit of visual evidence supplied states that (a) They have sex more, and (b) They have a lot more money.

Plus, even though they remember this kid who helped them out back in high school, named Marty... who they never saw again... they wait until their THIRD kid to give him a tribute? Okay, not unreasonable: Maybe they had family obligations to name kids 1 and 2 after an uncle and aunt, or something. But still. Marty is 18 in 1985, which means he was born in 1967. His horny, randy, crazy-in-love parents in CALIFORNIA IN THE 1960'S only had three kids over twelve years? These are some incredibly responsible parents. Kudos to them.

Plus they moved into the same house, on the same street.

My point is, by doing all this shit, Marty of course negated his own existence. Even if his parents have sex ONE TIME on a day they didn't previously, then it's an entire different set of kids they end up with.

Therefore if Marty went back in time, and did anything that affected George or Lorraine in any way, he would cease to exist.

Therefore he couldn't have. The only time line that can move forward is the one in which he didn't affect anything about the past, whether it was days-younger Marty in the parking lot, or decades-younger George and Lorraine at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance.

Even just sitting in Doc's house, he'd be eating food, utilizing molecules, air, and food, that would have gone someplace else in 1955, and ended up somewhere entirely different in 1985. He's going to the bathroom, adding mass to the world in 1955 that wasn't there before. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed, but the atoms that make up Marty still existed in 1955, as something else. He has CREATED matter in 1955, which didn't exist before. What would happen, for example, if an atom ran into ITSELF?

"Time Cop" would have us believe that these two atoms would cancel each other out, and both cease to exist. But that's a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, and ridiculous. I don't even know why you brought it up.

More realisitically-- scientifically-- the atoms never co-existed at all. Because Doc struck his head, had the idea for the flux capacitor, stole some plutonium, put his dog in the Delorean, flipped the switch, accelerated the car to 88 mph........ and nothing happened.

Except, wait. That dog went one minute into the future. To his shock and delight, he succeeds.

Minutes later, Marty dives into the car, forgetting the controls are set to November 5, 1955. He accelerates to 70, 80, 88, punches the clutch.... and nothing happens.

The terrorists catch up with him.

Hill Valley news, 5 a.m., a teenage boy and a fifty-something doctor are found gunned down in a mall parking lot, the dog remains unharmed.

Film at eleven.