I was just reading
Paul Sloboda's review of
God(tm)...again (I'm much too lazy to cut and paste the complete title right now, and at some point I ought to memorize it)
One of the things he likes is the pixellation of corporate logos.
The usage of low-resolution pixellation in the comic is a brilliant touch. I'm sure more than one person will think it's a problem with their browser. He employs this approach on a number of corporate names and logos, and it seems to walk hand in hand with the contractually obscured nature of the comic's title. Legally, I'm sure Elan couldn't stretch the copyright concept of "Fair Use" far enough to use the real St*tb*cks logo in every instance he has it obscured in the comic... but artistically, why would he want to? If copyright laws don't allow him to do it, it's their shortcoming he's illustrating, in their bold and clunky pixellated matrices.
There are several reasons why I do this:
1) I don't want anyone to sue me but I do believe in fair use. Its weird that modern media has to be a little careful to use corporate logos in order to artistically comment and express the realities of our modern world. After all, these billboards, t-shirts, banner ads, etc. etc.
have invaded our world are part of the flora and fauna of our modern world. And depicting this or that fast food logo or this or that erectile dysfunction ad should be natural when we contribute to this culture.
I mean, I could use the real logos. But when this book sees print, I might be over using the logos so much that I could get sued.
2) I find it distracting when artists use fake logos. Look at Geof Darrow's work on
Hard Boiled. There's familiar red cans that say "Cola Cola" in nice friendly letters and fake advertisements that whirlwind into the visual noise of urban life. I'm not criticizing Darrow's brilliant work, but you tend to pay more attention to the ads than you would to the ads in your everyday life.
I wanted something familiar, like when you see a guy on COPS and his t-shirt is all blurry. Or when you're out and about, past bus billboards, and you only give the ad half a thought because you realize your date stood you up (you know who you are).
There's something impressionistic about the cacophony of advertisements these days. And I chose to make it literal.
3) Some ads are just squiggles I draw in Photoshop and then I hit the mosaic filter. Making obscured ads is less time consuming than drawing fake ones. I'm also a very lazy artist.
4) One theme that is apparent, or will become apparent, in this story is equating corporate entities to deities. Corporations have the same rights as people. That's so the individual(s) who own a corporation don't have to deal with the fuss about paying taxes or buying pencils or going to jail.
But corporations have sort of become our pagan gods. We pray to them by buying their goods and services. They employ middle management and accountants as their priests. When we appease them, they make our economy prosper.
And when we say their name in vain and slander, they send their lawyers down from the heavens and hand us a cease and desist notice.Don't get me wrong. I'm not some liberal who hates anything and everything corporate. But I am a moderate who looks at corporations with a weary eye, just like I look at the guy who asks me for change. I have benefited from corporate goods, services, and employment (especially employment) over the years. I'll be good to them if they shower me with electronics and movies and processed food. But corporations aren't gods. They're more like a cow that has walked into your living room. You want its milk and meat, but you don't want to have to plan your life around a cow that is in your living room.
And that's why we should vote for leaders who will (hopefully) take the cow outside and milk it for us, or in some cases, take it to the slaughter house.
Corporations are creatures that will do anything and everything to eat money. If what they do is helpful to us, we should reward a corporation for making our lives easier. They will tell us lies and half truths to make them believe in their brand, but in the end, you'll realize that this deodorant isn't helping you get laid, despite what the magic box says. But you like how it makes you smell because its a better option than how you'd usually smell.
5) Pixellation looks really cool. I wonder why it isn't used more often.
6) By obscuring a logo, since the colors were chosen to be associated with that brand, you still understand what that brand is.
Anyway, I hope this all makes me sound really smart and that I never get sued. If I ever do get a cease and desist notice, then that cease and desist notice will be used to obscure that logo.
Labels: blog, God(tm), my work, religion, review
