Buffy Animated Trailer FINALLY Online
Aug 04Sarah caught this and Twittered it…I’m gonna blog it real quick too…
Via Comic By Comic and Ain’t It Cool, the fabled demo reel for the Buffy Animated Series…and a quality article to fill in more blanks.
I’ve been waiting for this to leak onto the interwebbe for years. Sweet!
QUICK UPDATE: Okay, so after reading the article I linked (yes, I linked it before I read it–I’m not made of time) I noticed this intriguing quote from Ms. Jane Espenson:
My understanding is that what has been voiced and is being animated is a presentation – a ten minute chunk of one of the scripts that we wrote years ago. So it is Joss’s pilot, but it is being used as a demonstration piece as much as anything.
Hmm…the YouTube clip is about 3.5 minutes…does that mean there’s 6.5 minutes of this stuff someplace?! Somebody leak!!!
Also, not sure what the date is on that article, but it mentions the project being revived while Joss was on the set of “his movie,” which I’m taking to be Serenity…was that in 2005 that it filmed? So it’s been three years since then…wonder if there are any updates. I have to believe that if Futurama can be reborn on DVD thanks to a rabid fandom, Buffy would have a great shot too.
I interviewed Jeph Loeb way back when on the series, for the Buffy magazine, back when it was done stateside and I worked full-time for it. I’ll have to see if I can dig up my notes, or at least the article itself.
Why Does DC Suck at Marketing & PR?
Jul 29I don’t usually try to shit where I eat–that is, I work in PR and marketing for a living (business to business mostly) but I don’t necessarily feel a great urge to dissect the PR and marketing campaigns for the entertainment I shovel into my mouth like so much Laffy Taffy.
Over the SDCC weekend, though, as I watched the events unfolding from afar, I was overwhelmed with a very specific, very unfortunate sensation, and it’s this:
DC Comics is doing a piss-poor job at marketing and promoting their product.
SDCC08 Postscripts
Jul 28My last SDCC 2008 post. Promise.
* In the Marvel vs. DC news battle, I’m not sure there was a clear winner; DC’s Sunday announcement of Gaiman doing Batman was pretty explosive, but other than that, DC seemed to be offering lots of old shit warmed over–“We got the Archie characters! And Milestone! And Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver doing another Rebirth mini for another fetishized Silver Age hero!”
Marvel’s news was at least NEW, but none of it shattered my earth, at least–a sorta-side event to Secret Invasion, a few new exclusive artists, Andy Diggle on Thunderbolts…I can’t even remember what else.
In the battle for ownership of geek minds, however, DC clearly emerged victor. As fabulous as the Wolverine footage may have been on Thursday, Friday’s Watchmen panel was without a doubt the convention’s great gigantic orgasmic buzz event, or at least it seemed that way from a distance.
* I’ve given Hero Complex, the new LA Times “geek blog,” a college try, but it’s not for me. This post pretty well sums it up–shameless star-fucking disguised as golly-gee-whiz fandom, and the “OMG Comic-Con’s not about comics anymore” rant delivered three or four years too late.
I know comics reporters get a lot of shit from others for their verbatim recitation of regurgitated hype bullet points–me, I slurp up second-hand PR gasbaggery like it was candy–but that site has them all beat. If you have a few hours to kill and want to spend it reading thousands of words about less than nothing, read some of those celebrity interviews. Absolute wasted access to famous and occasionally interesting people. It made me dumb.
* Over at io9, Graeme McMillan scrapes a bit at the unusual step by Paramount to show no footage from the Star Trek reboot at Comic-Con. He’s right; it’s silly to blame Fox for Paramount’s strategy, but it was a bone-head move regardless, right? Maybe they feared (and rightly so) that Watchmen’s buzz would sweep Trek’s buzz tidily under the carpet?
* This piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune features several high-profile comics retailers complaining about Comic-Con’s loss of comics focus, and by extension, what a hassle it’s become to sell actual comic books there. Here’s a fascinating quote from Mile High Comics’ Chuck Rozanski:
“There’s actually a movement afoot to pull all the comic-book dealers out of Comic-Con and move to a separate venue,†he said.
That would be a fascinating development. I’m not sure what it would mean, or how it would even work–is there any alternate space in San Diego large enough to host a couple hundred comics dealers the same weekend as Comic-Con?–but it would certainly put some pressure on Comic-Con organizers to take a more “poop or get off the pot” approach to the whole “Where will Comic-Con be after 2012?” question.
SDCC08: News I Can Use – The Rest
Jul 28It hit me sometime Saturday afternoon, or rather, maybe I hit it: The Con Wall.
It’s a sudden, overwhelming feeling of disinterest mingled with mild disgust. It’s like you’re at an all-you-can-eat buffet, featuring only foods you love, and you go up for plate number five, and you feel overwhelming nausea, and not only can’t eat another bite, but can’t bear to even look at the food itself, or think about the idea of the food existing. You’re done.
I was done. This happens to me at actual conventions as well, but I was surprised it would happen while I was breathlessly following events at a convention across the country from the comfort of my couch. Usually at the actual conventions, it’s combined with a sudden sensation of self-loathing and paranoia. Thanks, clinical depression!
So after Saturday, I stayed relatively far away. Instead I did stuff I could never do while clicking “reload” over and over on Newsarama; I visited IKEA, I played with my kid, I caught up on Mad Men with my wife.
Now I’m catching up only for the sake of finishing what I started. I scroll Google Reader, skim bullshit, and try to find interest. It’s going to be fucking endless. Come with me; let’s stare into the abyss, and let the abyss vomit in our faces.
SDCC08: News I Can Use, Day 1 (Cont) & Day 2
Jul 25Just before the show, I added a few new blogs to the RSS reader, including the new geek-centric blogs from the LA Times and Hollywood Reporter. And I have to confess–I think they’re not doing such a good job.
I guess their beat really isn’t true geek coverage; it’s coverage of the limited mainstream-ish crap that they think non-geeks or casual geeks may like. And sure, the bloggers themselves may be geeks in good standing; I don’t know.
But I’ve read enough banal interviews with vapid celebrities who think Comic-Con is “so cool, man” to last me ten lifetimes.
Anyway. Here’s stuff I think is cool that happened at Comic-Con while I was stuck on the wrong coast.
* I don’t watch the videos that often, but I like that Comic Book Resources has a boat. It’s a kick-ass idea.
* Here’s a video I did watch: the trailer for the new Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon series. LOVE the music and the vibe–fast, light, big and fun. There was a panel, too.
* Agent_M is using this amazing new app, CoverItLive, to liveblog their panels. You get real-time news updates AND images. It’s like being there minus the stink.
* So much crap happens at SDCC and the bloggers are so busy transcribing Geoff Johns (JK! LOL! BFF!) that news continues to leak out from Thursday even as it’s Friday afternoon. For example, this exceptional Publishers Weekly report has plenty of juicy nuggets, including a bit more on Vertigo Crime, the new Vertigo imprint announced Thursday that at first made me shrug, but now has me intrigued thanks to these details:
And, speaking from the Con floor about Vertigo Crime, DC’s Karern Berger provided PW with a few more details about the new line. Editor Will Dennis, who worked on 100 Bullets, will be overseeing the line which will focus solely on standalone graphic novels. The titles will all be 6×9 and black and white. Berger, who said the idea behin Vertigo Crime was to allow the imprint to do more standalones in the genre, described the books as “really smart, edgy, sexy, fast-paced crime stories that have a modern noir sensibility.” DC will be revealing more details about future titles, beyond Ian Rankin’s announced Dark Entries and Brian Azzerrello’s Still Too Rich, at the thriller festival Bouchercon.
I may be oversimplifying here, but isn’t this just Minx with guns? Love it.
* The DCU MMO may get me to fall off the wagon and play all night again, like my brief love affair with WoW.
* More Thursday news: TR2N! The Tron sequel! With fucking JEFF BRIDGES!!! I’m not even a Tron fan, but shit: JEFF BRIDGES. Everything he does, in any capacity, from taking a piss to making a movie, deserves front-page news coverage. This is no exception.
* It’s been years since I read a Star Trek novel, but every once in a while, I get the itch. I usually scratch it by sticking the handle of a plastic fork into my ear until it bleeds. I’m still curious enough to maybe check out the Destiny series coming this fall, especially if it seems like a relatively easy jumping-on point. Then again, I don’t know if Trek has had a “relatively easy jumping-on point” since 1966.
