A few weeks ago, none other than former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins published an essay in The Wall Street Journal called “Inspired by a Bunny Wabbit“, wherein he extolls the virtues of Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes cartoons. He outlines their influence on his work, and even includes four poems from his first published collection written about the four pillars of Looney (“Bugs”, “Daffy”, “Porky” and “Elmer”). I love this highbrow-meets-lowbrow mentality, discussing the pleasures that can be derived from these works that most English professors would probably publicly deride – and it’s not just knee-slapping humor that Collins advocates, but also the bizarre takes on sexuality and cosmopolitanism that run rampant in these classic animations. I’ve long believed that there’s plenty of rich material to be found in classic popular culture, and hearing a poet laureate share that opinion is wonderfully vindicating. Now to write my epic poem based on Terry and the Pirates…
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
