We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore’s graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with game engines (Quake, Doom, Halo), the whole metastasized library of Dean Scream remixes, genre-warping fan fiction from the universes of Star Trek or Buffy or (more satisfying by far) both at once, the JarJar-less Phantom Edit (sound of an audience voting with its fingers), brand-hybrid athletic shoes, gleefully transgressive logo jumping, and products like Kubrick figures, those Japanese collectibles that slyly masquerade as soulless corporate units yet are rescued from anonymity by the application of a thoughtfully aggressive “custom” paint job. —William Gibson —God’s Little Toys (Wired)
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I like Gibson's take on intertextuality as a relationship between record and recombinant. Last fall semester, I was a TA at UW-Eau Claire with Dr. Elizabeth Preston, helping her teach a course with Moore's "League" as its focus. My primary task was to reveal intertextual links between the graphic novel and whatever text we studied at that time (Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula, Dorian Gray, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and the movie version of "League"). However, Gibson's approach sounds semiotic, receptive, or aesthetic. Fascinating.