[Art]

If you've been following my site for a while, you probably remember my posts about "Live Music" (the first-ever crowdsourced animated feature) and "Twitterdammerung" (the first-ever crowdsourced opera). "Live Music" has managed to earn its share of fans and enemies -- which was expected -- but very few people, me included, thought a Twitter opera would fall flat on its face.

"Twitterdammerung," the Twitter opera, was pieced together over the last several months from contributions from 900 Twitter users. Contributions naturally were only 140 characters or less, and what London's Royal Opera House had come up some time back -- the first act, where the protagonist was kidnapped by a flock of birds and a talking cat makes an appearance -- kind of made me shake my head.

Well, "Twitterdammerung" made its debut in London's Covent Garden -- to a surprisingly positive reception. Reviews have returned that the opera was simply silly from start to finish, and the audience was roaring with laughter throughout most of the show. And while many parts obviously needed some touching up (there's only so much you can do with three days of rehearsals), some parts, particularly the musical ones, were pretty good.

Opera critic Igor Toronyi-Lalic was there when it happened, and like most of us, he expected the entire Twitter opera to be an embarrassment (judging from previews that made him say "Yikes"). He said that, in the end, the Twitter opera was a cheap gimmick, but was a pretty good one as far as cheap gimmicks go.

Then again, maybe it wasn't fair to include the Twitter opera in the normal "old-fashioned" opera stereotype. You can't really expect a Michael Bay experience in the opera house.

I'd love to see the Twitter opera myself, but finding an opera house in the region where I work is harder than getting out of a Malaysian traffic jam, so I'll wait for it to come out on YouTube. :)

The Walt Disney Company has just announced that they're planning to buy the comic book giant Marvel Entertainment for a massive sum -- $4 billion. The cash-and-stock buyout will give Disney ownership of Marvel and its 5,000 comic book characters. This is obviously a huge development between two of the most dominant entities in the entertainment industry today.

Interestingly, Marvel Entertainment started out similarly as the Walt Disney Studios did. Martin Goodman, a struggling publisher fresh out of the Great Depression, came out with Marvel Comics #1 in October 1939 -- almost 70 years ago. A few years later, Stanley Lieber -- the great Stan Lee, then only 19 years old -- joined the team, and he would propel Marvel into mainstream popularity over the next several decades.

Marvel today has been enjoying some great success in the movies. It all started with "Blade," a little-known Marvel comic book character, becoming a sleeper hit and grossing $131 million worldwide. The first "X-Men" movie followed and did even better, and "Spider-Man" enjoyed enough success to spin two sequels (with a third in the making). Robert Downey, Jr.'s "Iron Man" has also enjoyed its share of the spotlight, with films about Thor, Captain America, and the Avengers in the works.

The buyout is obviously going to be very good for Marvel -- if Disney gives Marvel free creative reign (as it does with Miramax), then the comic book giant stands to benefit from the massive exposure, advertising, and marketing prowess of Disney. It showed overnight -- Marvel's stock price jumped 26% when news of the buyout first reached the press.

On Disney's front, it's clear to me, this deal has acquired them Marvel's comic book character library. This now gives Disney direct access to the young (and adult) male demographic.

Then again, it does leave one to think -- just what does Disney have in mind? It doesn't stand to gain much unless it exerts some form of creative control over Marvel, which fans will definitely dislike. The edgy violence of Marvel also doesn't seem to fit into Disney's wholesome, feel-good image either. Apparently Disney shareholders think along the same lines -- share prices dropped 2% overnight.

I've seen worried bloggers say that Wolverine and Mickey Mouse wouldn't get along at all. I doubt this is what Disney has in mind, but let's see how things pan out.

You might remember my article on "Live Music," the first-ever crowdsourced animated film. It only ran for five minutes, and the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque plot wasn't something to write home about, but it was good enough to merit a screening by Sony. The simple fact that hundreds of thousands of Facebook users lent their talents to bring the short to life was by itself "Live Music's" main draw.

Of course, "Live Music" wasn't the first crowdsourced work of art to be created -- what makes it so special is the fact that it made mainstream fame. Crowdsourced success stories are hard to come by -- for instance, there were attempts to create crowdsourced novels, which all ended up dead on the water. (Sometimes the road less traveled doesn't make all the difference, after all -- the greatest stories are almost always told from a single mind.)

But apparently that's not going to stop London's Royal Opera House to announce the first-ever crowdsourced opera. The writers are creating an opera based on ideas by contributors on Twitter. That means you could contribute to the storyline one line, one scene, one action at a time -- in 140 characters or less.

So far, so good -- Act 1, Scene 1 has already been completed, with the protagonist being kidnapped by a flock of birds and is now held captive in a tower, awaiting rescue. Oh, and there's also a talking ginger cat in the cast, too. Hmmm.

Okay, so I've never really been a fan of opera. But I AM a fan of crowdsourcing and other advances the Internet has gifted civilization, and this is enough to make me keep an eye on this story. If this proves so popular that it gets young people interested in opera all over again, then I might need to tweak my preferences in the performing arts.

Now I'm wondering if John Mayer, Miley Cyrus, and Lil Wayne are going to contribute too.

Seems that Marvel has a few special powers up its sleeve this year. I wrote an article a few days ago about the Marvel Animation's latest double DVD release, “Hulk Vs,” which pitted our favorite big green badass against two popular Marvel mainstays, Wolverine and Thor. If people liked THAT one (and they did, by the way), they'll love what's coming up in 2009 – if the hype and fanfare at the New York Comic Con (NYCC) 2009 is to be any indication.

Marvel Animation has reported some really good reviews and returns from its latest brainchild, “Wolverine and the X-Men,” which premiered in the US Network Nicktoons two weeks ago. According to reports, Nicktoons viewership increased by a whopping 8 times than the previous year when the firs

Stop-motion, like hand-drawn animation, is enjoying a sort of repressed popularity these days, thanks in part to the massive popularity of CG animation and the rise of 3-D. But that doesn't mean that the art form will be relegated to the archives of the film industry anytime soon – stop-motion still has many advocates, such as Henry Selick, the man behind 1996's “A Nightmare Before Christmas.”