Monomyth (n.) - A term for the common structure of heroic stories, particularly in mythology. Also known as the hero's journey, the term monomyth was popularized by Joseph Campbell in his seminal comparative mythology treatise The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Campbell broke down dozens of epic tales from major mythological traditions and identified 17 common stages of any hero's story -- effectively writing the outline of seemingly every successful adventure story subsequently published.
The geek blogosphere was ablaze after Moore's comments, hitting apogee when Charles Stross explained why he hates Star Trek -- because it sublimates ideas to story, effectively using the structure of the monomyth and dressing it up in technobabble drag. Thus we re-open up the can of worms as to why TV genre fiction seems so formulaic and facile when compared to prose genre fiction. Because, ultimately, we're a prisoner of the monomyth and use Joseph Campbell shorthand as the basis, rather than the framework, of the story. There are worse guides, but its hard to be taken seriously when everything looks and reads and sounds the same. Who says cloning is a future technology?
Retcon (v.) - Short for "retroactive continuity," it is the geek-slang term for the rewriting of backstory or fictional history to accommodate a new chapter in an ongoing franchise. This is a pretty common practice in comic books (and, quite frankly, soap operas) where characters are revealed to have very different pasts than previously assumed. For example, at various points Spider-man was said to have received his powers from either a radioactive spider-bite, because he was a totem warrior of a spider-god, or because he was a clone of the original Spider-man. (Currently, I think we've doubled back to option 1, radioactive spider-bite, but don't quote me.) Of late, George Lucas has cornered the market on cinematic retcons with all his Star Warsprequel nonsense rewriting Jedi history.
I bring it up because: The summer movie season has a lot of retcons going for it, either from Wolverine's rewriting of X-men movie history to Terminator: Salvation's resetting the date of Judgement Day--again--and ignoring pretty much everything that happened in The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which was just cancelled). Retcons should not be confused with reboots, which is when a franchise just chucks everything and starts over, much like Batman Begins basically ignored the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher lineage of batfilms. Thankfully.
Fanboy (n.) - Quoth Merriam-Webster, "a boy who is an enthusiastic devotee (as of comics or movies)." Once upon a time this was perjorative within geek circles, describing fans who had lost objectivity about the subject of their passions (like, say, people who can't admit that recent Star Wars movies are pale imitations of original Star Wars movies). Female fanboys are called fangirls. The term has of late been reclaimed by by geeks as a self-described badge of honor, denoting "true" geekdom as opposed to the passing contemporary coolness of being called a "geek." Bottom line, if I call myself a fanboy--as I do in the right column of this blog--it's okay. If you call me a fanboy, it's usually an insult.
I bring it up because: The movie Fanboys, about a group of guys trying to break into Skywalker Ranch in 1997 to see Star Wars, Episode I before its release, comes out on DVD tomorrow. Also, because of the recent backlash against the I am a Geek campaign, which conflates using a computer (or, more specifically, Twitter) with actual social geekdom. The term fanboy has some nuances that both these memes highlight, to varying degrees. Discuss.
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