By the time this reaches your eyes I will have completed my first SmithsonianX course; The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact on Pop Culture. My good friend Josef, who you may recognize from some of his own blogs I have reposted, suggested it to me as I am a huge comic book fan. I signed up and decided to write a weekly summary of the course and share it with you all.
WEEK 1: I opened the first module and found that the free online course was a little more in depth than a few videos and some multiple choice questions. I had to really think just to decide if I wanted to take the creative track or the historical track. Do I write a paper on a character or do I build my own? I had a cup of coffee and debated my choice. If I choose the history I build a dossier on a character starting by identifying the mythical parallel of the character and examining it, research and lots of I haven’t done that in 21 years, judging by a few projects from high school even longer than that. If I go creative I would be creating a character or fleshing out one I already had in mind and making it public, do I want to put my intellectual property out there uncontrolled? I was barely half way into lesson one of six and my brain was racing…this is awesome. I chose. With great hesitation but I did it, I had a character in mind and when I thought about it I was too enthralled not to chose the track to fully flesh him out. Research it is.
Also noticed that I can get a certificate of completion for a relatively small fee…could be worth it. Let’s see how the next week of research goes.
WEEK 2: Well research sucks. Plus I chose a character who parallels a not so easily defined mythological figure. I have learned a great deal and read a ton of scripture, so Mom would be proud. I should probably explain to her further my vague questions. I haven’t submitted last week’s homework yet but my morning coffee and a good night’s sleep will fix that. Then by lunch I will get into the next module.
Next on the list us the early creators and the evolution from pulp magazines to the first superhero. Anyone care to guess who that was? Here’s a hint Superman. The evolution of the creative process and the absolutely baffling price Superman was sold to the publisher for stunned me. $130 dollars and it would be decades before the creators got anything more for the most profitable character in comic history. The era between WW1 and WW2 and the shift from pulp fiction stories to super heroes and the creators has me thoroughly engrossed. The assignment is to do a dossier on a creator. I’m torn do I go with Chris Claremont and tie into my week 1 assignment or do I go with Frank Miller my favourite creator….
WEEK 3: Uh…fuck….how did I get this busy? Golden Age of Comics has always fascinated me, birth of Superman, Batman and Captain America…I’ll get to it tomorrow I hope.
WEEK 4: Ok So I cleared 48 hours (good movie maybe I should grab the remote…no! FOCUS!) I catch up. I chose to take a historical track over creative and that means research. This time is a hero, Daredevil, I got this…right? OK turns out not so much, there was a great deal of stuff to learn, so awesome and filled in a few holes in my knowledge, which means I need to fill a few holes in my comic collection, later though. On to the fourth project! Super Villain, no brainer for me, the baddest mother fucker in the Marvel Universe (Hi, my name is Matt I am a Marvel Zombie…) Thanos, the big purple dude in Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers. This one should be easy. Damn, I must stop saying that, granted it was probably the easiest of the four so far but also the least history given his less than constant history. I caught up! WOOOOOOOO! 26 hours until Week 5 drops. Side note the Comic Code Authority was a jaw dropping revelation. How did that come to be in a democratic and free list of countries again?
WEEK 5: I’m so all over this. Right here on the day it drops and ready to go. We get into the emergence of the super hero genre in the late 50’s early 60’s. This is what I love, the dawn of the pop culture super hero. I probably know more about this era than any other, the infancy of the creative that would be come industry juggernauts (bitch) of Marvel and DC comics. The mimicry of each other and process differences really explain the wide gap in the story telling, art and themes over all. I have to pick a team to profile now, it isn’t easy I have several I would like to do. In the end I chose the early 1990’s X-Factor team, the second team if you will, I loved that title since it was a new approach to the racism theme the X-Books tackled and the team was recast in new roles based more on potential than history. One week left then two weeks to finish the last project, due July 5.
WEEK 6: Wait where did that go? Fuck.
36 HOURS BEFORE DEADLINE: Well shit. Did anyone see the ball I dropped? Okay, two paragraphs left on week 5 then a quick week 6, I skipped ahead and saw…oh crap I skipped to far, there is some more to it than I thought. Well it’s my own fault.
26 HOURS BEFORE DEADLINE: I managed to squeak out the last two paragraphs with my notes and the final unit was incredible. I think my favourite part of the whole course was the three screen break down of the car fight in Deadpool, they show the CGI rendering, the live action shoot and the finished film in a picture in a split screen fashion, incredibly fascinating. I’m a little sad the course is ending as we get into the film era, the comic history sort of dropped of in the early 1990’s era. The project is to profile something in m life that has been changed by the pop culture explosion of comic books…that’s my book shelf, not the comic boxes but the one in my living room. I had to go back and cut out vast swaths of text because I rambled on.
So there it is, my first SmithsonianX course. If you like to learn or have something you want to explore more be it a hobby or life time passion I highly recommend you scroll though the website and see what you find. There is an extension of two more units that I signed up for but the don’t begin until later and I decided to let this release on schedule. My friend did not find the time in his life to fit this course in and I had to cram a few times but I can’t say a bad word about this course or the program offering it. I am going to complete the next units and perhaps Ill write about it in a few weeks, but don’t sit around waiting to see what I have to say, go find a course for yourself and enjoy, i may be more work than you expect but you will find it very worth while it the rest of the courses are as well put together as this one.
Here is a link to their home page. If you sign up post on The Matt Harding Blog Facebook page (like it while you are there too https://www.facebook.com//TheMattHardingBlog )and tell the readers what you are doing, maybe you’ll find a learning partner. https://www.edx.org/school/smithsonianx
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