Give Us Your Roundtable Ideas

Posted on by

01stein600.1

So, I was thinking about trying to organize another roundtable, though I’m not sure what the topic would be. I’d love to hear people’s suggestions, or what people would like to write about.

Here are some things I’ve been toying with:

— Afrofuturism

—Birth of a Nation (it’s the 100th anniversary)

—Carla Speed McNeils’ Finder

— Death Note

—Saga

—Saul Steinberg

—Judith Ivory’s “Black Silk”

I’ve gotten a couple of other suggetions…someone wanted to do J.M DeMatteis a while back, someone wanted to do Garfield, someone suggested a meta-HU roundtable, where people revisited or responded to old posts.

So…let me know which or when or what of those might appeal to you, or if you have other ideas.

38 thoughts on “Give Us Your Roundtable Ideas”

  2. Comics:

    Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?.

    Chris Claremont’s X-Men.

    Film:

    Richard Linklater. He’s fairly polarizing these days.

    Fiction:

    Kazuo Ishiguro. His new book, The Buried Giant, just came out, and I’m sure enough people are familiar with either Never Let Me Go or The Remains of the Day to create an extended field for contributions. An Ishiguro roundtable might also bring a certain sorely missed former HU contributor back into the fold, at least for a time.

  4. movies: franchises vs. creativity

    pop:Are comic-book t.v. shows actually good?

  5. Frank, the “are comic book t.v. shows actually good?” is not so much a roundtable topic as a question with an objective answer. That answer would be “no.”

    Philip K. Dick is interesting…as is Mad Men though I”m reluctnat because I don’t actually want to have to watch it. Chast and Claremont are both good ideas as well….

  6. — The history and meaning of the term objectification. (That one has always bugged me)

    — An overview of modern fringe genres (Japanese Cyberpunk, Dogma Movies, Flash Fiction, Bizarro Novels, Feminist Porno, Permadeath, Walking Simulators)

    — A piece on the woefully overlooked comic artist Kája Saudek. Image search here:
    http://www.google.com/search?q=Kája+Saudek&tbm=isch
    (I discovered him when watching WHO WANTS TO KILL JESSIE, in which a cure for bovine nightmares causes his comic book characters to gain human form)

  9. Death Note’s got my attention. Actually Feminism and the treatment of women in anime could get a lot of mileage.

  10. I want to sufggest my meta-HU idea again. I know Noah suggested to wait for the 10th anniversary, but anniversaries are arbitrary, so why not be arbitrary about it?

    My other suggestion is a round table on toys.

  11. I just have trouble imagining anyone would read a meta-roundtable…and I’m a little leery of the navel-gazing aspect I guess…I’ll think about it though.

  12. If you did Death Note, I’d have to participate, and I’m too busy to participate… :(

  13. A Johnnie To roundtable would be phenomenal. An anime/mana roundtable of some sort sounds excellent too, but Death Note is a bit old hat/narrow a subject, yeah? Kill la Kill would be a bit more contemporary and even more interesting, or maybe the treatment/depiction of women as suggested by someone above? Afrofuturism gets my vote of Noah’s suggestions, though.

  14. I’m intrigued by Kaspar Hviid’s suggestion of fringe genres, but I suspect it would be as low-traffic as the underrecognized music roundtable. I’d be down for any of Noah’s original suggestions.

    I vote no on Mad Men because I just don’t have the stomach for the inevitable week of “Mad Men: Neither as Good Nor as Progressive as Petticoat Junction” that would result.

  15. Hah…it would be fun to have a roundtable sneering at Mad Men, the ubiquitous enthusiasm of which I rather resent (I saw one episode and was deeply underwhelmed…though maybe I’d like it if I could stomach more; anything’s possible….)

  17. Every word of those 6000 pages! No skipping the text pages.

    Birth of a Nation seems like an interesting topic, but maybe as part of a more general roundtable on works that are unsound but are still thought to have some value. Or not, as the case may be.

  18. Btw, that wasn’t intended to draw a parallel between Griffith and Dave Sim (I like Cerebus)

  20. Digging my grave here, but Death Note’s gonna open as a musical in Korea (starring JYJ Junsu) in a bit, so it’s still current… for what it’s worth…

  21. Em Liu on twitter suggested the Fast and Furious movies; any interest in that? sort of be fun to have one review of each film…though possibly no one cares?

  22. Actually Chris Claremont would probably be great. Whatever ya’ll pick, I think it’ll be better if you pick something that at least some writers are enthusiastic about. Wall-to-wall hatefests are draining over the course of a week.

  24. Jeez, I’m not the most highbrow reader in the world, but by the time I was in my mid-teens, I thought Chris Claremont’s work sucked. “I’m Wolverine, darlin’, and I’m flamin’ mad!” “Great Lenin’s Ghost, my Canadian friend! In Mother Russia, we have a saying–” “Stuff it, bub! I ain’t takin’ orders from no flamin’ Ruskie!”

  29. Rich Buckler’s DEATHLOK THE DEMOLISHER in ASTONISHING TALES 25-28, 30-36, MARVEL SPOTLIGHT 33, and the SPIDER-MAN/DEATHLOK MARVEL TEAM-UP 46.

  30. The Comics Code Authority: Which is better, “Spider-Man No More” or EC’s “Foul Play”? (Question mark outside quote marks to avoid confusion about title.)

  34. +1 Claremont run on X-Men. It was awful and it was great, and the discussion of why would be entertaining.
    +1 Fast and Furious movies. I’ve only seen one (it was on at my brother’s house), but while I ignored them, they became a cultural phenomenon, and now I suspect there’s something to it — like they snuck meaning into the dreck while no one was looking. As a mainstream comic fan, I’m all about that kind of subterfuge.
    +1 Steranko. Innovative work, fascinating life, and a nice man to talk to at conventions.

  35. For the love of all that’s holy pleeeease do not run a roundtable on Mad Men. You can’t go to Slate, Salon or the Atlantic sites without someone rabbiting on about the show (or about Game of Thrones.)

    “Today’s podcast discusses Don draper’s decision to…” There’s no lazier form of Internet “journalism’ than a podcast about a TV show, is there?

  37. You mean the ones that just cut ‘n paste the publishers’ PR emails?

    Point.

  38. Has anyone ever heard the word “flamin'” used as a substitute for “fuckin'” outside of Chris Claremont dialogue? Did they do that in the X-Men/Wolverine movies?

Comments are closed.