Posts from — December 2008

When I moved off of Blogger and onto Wordpress, it effed up Sims’s links to my 30-Second Recap posts.  So, if you’re here looking for them, my recap of Grant Morrison’s 7 Soldiers is right here, as is my recap of J. Michael Straczynski’s Thor.

As for this year’s 30-Second Recap, I have something fun planned; now I just have to hope I don’t ruin it in the execution.

I’ve been hyper-critical of DC Comics’ marketing efforts for a good half a year here on Conditional Axe, and have griped about them offline for longer.  And it’s gotten to the point where I read more Image books than DC books each month (when Noble Causes ends, they’ll be neck and neck).

Maybe, though, I should give DC the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe they want to craft a long-term strategy that capitalizes on the most valuable outposts available to them.  Maybe they want to create a message that truly communicates with their userbase.  Maybe they don’t want to half-ass it, and rushing in blindly can lead to half-assery.

But I could be wrong.

The DC_Nation Twitter initiative lasted for about 48 hours.  It updated 18 times, 12 of which are links to aggrandizing press about DC.  There’s also one possibly combative reply to Marvel Art Director Rich Ginter and four Good Morning/Good Afternoon messages.  There’s no give and take here, no community, and no promotion of the artists and writers and other staffers under the DC umbrella.  It did help me find Karl Kerschl on Twitter, though, so that’s a good thing.

It’s entirely possible that DC didn’t set up the account; that some zealous fan did, and that’s why it stopped.  But then DC’s publicist is following it.

I would love to see the account come back in the new year with a new direction. I don’t hate DC; I just want them to be better.
EQUAL TIME: Several of DC’s imprints do have a good, interactive Twitter presence - like Zuda - and it’s no surprise that the social media webcomic arm of the publisher is doing it right.

I didn’t go to see “The Spirit” on Christmas day.

I go to the movies every Christmas. With the Coat Rack Tree not making a return appearance this year, it is perhaps my only Christmas tradition. On Christmas Eve, I thought to myself, “I am going to see The Spirit tomorrow, and I am going to write an excoriating blog post about it.” It was barely a thought, more like a cunning, animal urge.

I clung to the urge all the way to the theater. I was going to hate The Spirit and pay eight dollars for the privilege. I would then go home and proceed to be comically caustic about the rage I felt after watching a movie that I knew I was going to dislike before I even sat down in the theater’s lush stadium seats.

I bought a ticket for Bolt.

I don’t know why. I mean, Bolt has Miley Cyrus, John Travolta and adorable cartoon animals and none of those make for destination cinema in my mind. But it’s a strong Disney film, not on par with the string of 90s gems but much, much better than any of the House of Mouse’s non-Pixar stuff in the last five to six years. It’s no Wall-E, but then Wall-E will be very close to the top of my ‘Films of the Year’ list (if I ever get around to making that list, that is). I think I was prompted by Steve’s horrible revelation about the film, and Steve and I are on the same page about most things.

The following night, I went to see a movie with a friend. We saw Bedtime Stories. It was entertaining, if a bit overcute. I laughed. I was reminded how adorable Keri Russell is. It was a good, thought-free diversion of the kind that Sandler has been dishing out of late. It’s no Happy Gilmore or Punch Drunk Love, but - and I guess this is the takeaway I’m angling for here - not everything has to be.

So I set out to see one movie this holiday and saw two others that I never intended on watching. I enjoyed them more than I thought I would and I don’t regret missing the one that I passed over. It was, as Alan Moore would say, “positively energizing.”

I want to be a liker again. I realize that at some point I quit focusing on the things that I like and started paying way too much attention to things I hate. Maybe because it gets comments. Maybe because I was severely unhappy in my personal life and I wanted to do what friends do to other friends: share their pain. Maybe I grasp my vitriol tightly, like a child forcing the last remnants out of a tube of toothpaste, because I feel like it makes me more valid. But all of that is bullshit. I like things, and I want to be vocal about liking them again, not focused on how much this or that sucks.

Of course, there are some bailiwicks I won’t let go. Will I still bitch about DC’s marketing? Probably, at least as long as they continue to do it poorly. But I won’t be bitching about the content of their books, because I’m only reading the books I like now. I’ll be blogging about these things not because I’m some curmudgeonly, ever-vigilant, burrito-eating watchdog, but because I’m a marketer and a comics geek, and the intersection of the two means that I have Thoughts.

I can’t promise an end to the Things I Hate posts, but I think you’ll see less of them. In an effort to keep my New Year’s resolution manageable, I’m going to simply say that I’m trying to correct these things. I may slip. But 2009 has the potential to be one of the best years I’ve had in a long time, and I don’t want to spend it focusing on the things that I don’t like.

My boss at Solid Cactus has started to ambush some of his favorite employees and subject them to a dreaded “six questions,” the first round of which led to some intriguing revelations about a coworker’s, err, um, fascination with Lindsay Lohan.

It was very funny, until the camera turned on your humble Jefferson Stolarship:

Notice how I lied about my TV consumption in order to stall on that last answer.  I didn’t think shouting “I’m Chuck Bass!!!” would have been apropos.

You know, those awesome homemade magazines that have all but vanished now that we all have blogs?  My friends and co-bloggers at Alert Nerd still produce a quarterly (mostly) zine we call Grok.  And it’s awesome.

This issue’s theme is Nameless Horror, and there’s lots of mythos and monsters, but also the dread of picking a screen name and the specter of a committed relationship.  There’s also this thing I wrote about my ride-along with some real-life ghost hunters. And some insane nightmare fuel from Internet pal Stephen Graham Jones.

Go ahead and give Grok a read.  At the very least, print it out and use its 69 jam-packed pages as a weapon or a pillow.  We know it’s tough out on the streets.

Here are some phrases that will not make me more interested in you.

“I love to read - my favorite author is Ayn Rand.”

“You like horror movies, right? You should see Twilight. It’s about vampires.”

“My husband would be pissed if he knew I was flirting with you,” and its corollary, “I guess the counseling isn’t working.”

“I’ve only seen the first three Star Warses, but not the older ones.”

“What does that word mean?”

I know that there are a ton of organizations that need your money this holiday season, and that most of you are all for helping out a good cause.  Which is why, if you’re local, I urge you to come out to Cork for happy hour tonight and support the area SPCA.  Tips and donations will all go to the organization, $2 drinks and free food.

Cork is at 460 Madison St. in Wilkes-Barre.

The confluence of the first major winter storm of 2008 to strike the eastern seaboard and the unreasoning tizzy created by the announcement of Geoff Johns’ departure from Justice Society of America threaten to shut major eastern cities down entirely for the rest of the week.  Meteorologists are predicting that “heavy winds and incessant whining” are the biggest potential dangers and cautions everyone with a 4 wheel drive vehicle or a tolerance for Alex Ross’s unsubtle Silver Age revisionism to stay off the streets.  “It’s going to be terrible,” one scientist warned.

Some are speculating that the cold front may replace Johns on the DC Comics title.

Posting about comics with something approaching regularity again?  Say it ain’t so!

Noble Causes #38: Noble Causes is always one of my favorite books on the week it comes out, and this week was no exception.  It was a solid, sometimes poignant one-off about Rusty Noble, the character on the team that’s been given the shortest shrift since the 5YL story began.  The revelation at the core of this story is satisfying but not shocking in the least, though it’s good to hear it out of the character’s mouth.  Yildiray Cinar’s clean, emotive art shines here, especially because he loves drawing Rusty.  With only two more issues left, I’m missing Noble Causes already.

X-Men Noir #1: What I’ve read of Fred Van Lente doesn’t make him my first choice to write a hard-boiled crime saga, but this first Marvel Noir title really kills.  The best alternate take on the X-Men since Age of Apocalypse 12 years ago.  Yeah, no powers, but there is a taut, moody, desperate story that nails what the X-Men have always been about.

X Infernus #1: Picking up where Kyle and Yost left off with New X-Men’s Childhood’s End V. 5, C.B. Cebulski writes a compelling first issue of the series that seems poised to bring Magik back into the Marvel U proper.  It’s competent and gives readers a few scenes that they’ve been wanting to see: Colossus confronting Cyclops about his sister’s fate, Nightcrawler coaching Pixie on teleportation.  Also, beheadings.

Secret Invasion #8: Unlike some other people, I read it.  While Bendis always gets me with his long-view plotting, the short-term stuff is unsatisfactory and honestly, though the set-up intrigues me, I think the execution of the finale (especially in the way the story abruptly changes from as-its-happening to after-the-fact narration for the final installment) loses some of the series’ energy.  The major death, in particular, does not play as emotionally as the narration says it does - which may be a function of Leinil Yu’s art.  Bendis does nice character work, as always, but I feel like Secret Invasion could have done more.

New Avengers #47: What a thoroughly solid issue of Alias.

BONUS: Ghost Rider: Hell Bent and Heaven Bound: Why did I not read this sooner? Jason Aaron delivers what is basically the perfect Ghost Rider comic book, even in light of the character’s drastically changed status quo.

Yesterday, Cory Doctorow talked about Atompunk, which is apparently like Steampunk except rampantly nostalgic for the 1950s instead of the 1850s.

It strikes me that the -punk suffix has only really held any meaning when attached to the word ‘cyberpunk’ and even then, only tangentially.  I’ll grandfather in ’steampunk’ too just because it’s used so often, but everything else?  Come on.

- Biblepunk: the blatant fetishization of pre-christian architecture, most notably including clay masonry and Solomonic gates.

- Merpunk: the blatant fetishization of living underwater, most notably by organizing large groups of people to sing “Part of Your World” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

- Beardpunk: the blatant fetishization of facial hair, most often perpetrated by hipster d-bags and stoners who partake in asocial rituals like “No Shave November.”

-Presentpunk: the blatant fetishization of current popular culture, most notably by watching The Soup, Best Week Ever, and listening to Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” for hours a day.

-Muppetpunk: Like steampunk, except with Muppets instead of gears.  “Hey, check out the cool Muppetpunk watch I found at the Disney store!”

- Punkpunk: A bit of a fakeout, punkpunk is the blatant fetishization of blatant fetishization, not of the actual punk culture.