Doktor Sleepless: Personification of Sci-fi as cognitive estrangement

From doktorsleepless

Doktor Sleepless: Personification of Sci-fi as cognitive estrangement AKA new guy on forum adds hugely pretentious thread

Posted by BattleGar Stalactica on October 9, 2008 at 2:33am

ok so I'm new here but wanted to say that you guys are doing a heck of a job. basically i was doing an editorial for my crappy comic blog thingy and it occured to me that Dr. S is a personification of the way that Sci-Fi examines the real world and its science albeit by providing a critical distance by its outlandish setting. Hense a fetishized mad scientist using relatively real science is more likely to get something accross than a normal john reinhardt. Any thoughts? It is late and i've had too much coffee and never been on a forum before, Tell me to piss off if you must. if you want to check out the post i made at (http://onepunchcomics.blogspot.com/2008/10/editoriaseries-review-do...) it's a bit rambly

Reply by Spiraltwist on October 10, 2008 at 2:00pm

I like it - good ramblies. I'll comment more once I've had more sleep.

However, Jacen Burrows doesn't do the Warning Sign variants, Ivan Rodriguez does.

Reply by BattleGar Stalactica on October 10, 2008 at 2:44pm

gah...i have been misinformed. lies and subterfuge abound. thanks for the info...well amend in due course

Reply by Mark Crabtree on October 16, 2008 at 11:39am

Yep. SF always tells you more about the present than the future, and I think cognitive estrangement is just the phrase my vocabulary needed.

Part of the beauty of DS is that it inherently embraces that concept John Reinhardt becomes Doktor Sleepless to create the cognitive estrangement necessary to get the citizens of Heavenside listening to him. And then out in the other direction we have here, the wiki and grinding.be trying to show how little of the science fiction is fictional.

Which is why I'm still bugged by the mind reader.

Reply by Spiraltwist on October 16, 2008 at 3:48pm

cognitive estrangement

My phrase of the day.

Reply by BattleGar Stalactica on October 16, 2008 at 7:06pm

Ya it's probably not the exact term I needed but I'm glad I made an impact, though now I feel under pressure to top that,,,Shmoop is a word right? But seriously it does seem to me that there has been a resurgence in pop culture of the 'mad scientist' and mad science in general as if by making the sci-fi as ridiculous as possible it reduces the barrier between the reality that the film/comic/novel is about and the one it is engaging with....anyone seen Southland Tales? But the thing that gets me is that, within the comic the fictional character John Reinhardt becomes fictional...that just boggles me a little...i wonder if there is something going on there a la the fictionaut in Planetary? That's my ramble for today. Today's ramble was brought to you by the word Shmoop and the letter C...for caffeine.

Reply by 444 on October 20, 2008 at 11:00am

...John Reinhardt becomes Doktor Sleepless to create the cognitive estrangement necessary to get the citizens of Heavenside listening to him.

Not only listening to him, but following his plans and acting on his behalf.

This also gets me thinking to what extent did the Doktor Sleepless persona need to be created by John in order that he create the cognitive estrangement from himself so that he becomes able to undertake such seemingly atrocious acts? I mean, from what we know of back-in-the-day John, he wanted to save the world, whereas Sleepless seems mostly intent on destroying it. Quite the psychic/cognitive transition to have make.

Reply by Spiraltwist on October 22, 2008 at 2:45am

Not only listening to him, but following his plans and acting on his behalf.

And those that don't, maybe that's what the zombie maker is for?

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