Fox to Buffy fans – We Don't Need You
Oct 17No, no, they didn’t, but they may as well have said it. It’s October in Vancouver, and that means I’ve been walking around seeing posters for the Buffy Musical Sing-A-Long being held locally. This has been going on for at least a couple years now and it’s a rousing good time (particularly if you’re a guy, because it’s a ten-to-one ratio of male/female. But I digress.) What I didn’t realize is that the posters are useless.
You see, Fox has pulled the plug on the screening of the Buffy TV episode, Once More With Feeling, in several cities. I can’t seem to find a reason why, other than corporate lawyers are always looking for shit like this so they can keep busy.
The reasoning is simple to them – a theatrical showing, organized by fans, is a couple hundred people in a room watching one copy of a DVD, which isn’t as good as a couple hundred fans watching individual copies at home. The enforcement of copyright is easy to reason out from a strict monetary sense. It’s also kind of ridiculous from a broad, franchise establishment and promotion sense.
Reality – though exact numbers are difficult to gauge, since nobody has taking a poll or anything – is that most everyone in that audience already has the DVD. And the other DVDs. And the books, comics, figures, etc. Fox has made money off of them. These gatherings have an important role then – it helps reinforce the love existing fans have for the show or better yet increases that love in some fans. If someone brings along non-fans, you could have new fans. All in all. More. Money.
But lawyers don’t think that way – they are not allowed to think laterally about strategies for building a fanbase. And the marketers and execs who are allowed, never think to give the lawyers standing orders to talk to them before dropping the hammer.
Actually, it might not matter – business culture is a strange beast. “It’s not personal, it’s business” actually means something to them – to them, standard operating procedure is to crush the other side and if it gets worked out, you can do business again. They forget sometimes that a consumer isn’t thinking the same way – to them it is personal. It would be a shame if there actually is an executive strata at Fox that seriously thinks they can shut down the sing-a-longs, then figure out a policy, and then everyone can be friends again. No, no, Fox. They’ll be mad at you. They ARE mad at you, and really you should be thankful you have Joss Whedon talking directly to them. They are not beholden to you, but they are beholden to him and if this gets sorted, it will be Whedon that smoothed their ruffled feathers.
But wait – I have and idea.
JLI in Hardcover: Bwah-ha-ha…oh, wait, you're SERIOUS?!
Oct 16Big news in the latest DC solicits: Justice League International is finally returning to print…sorta. Or something.
First, there were the comics, and a generation of fanboys grew up on them; the series hit its stride just as a flood of tweenagers were flocking to comic shops on a high from the Michael Keaton Batman film. For someone of that age, like me, it was an ideal book–unexpected laffs, superhero action, a fairly tight grip on the era’s continuity. Great stuff, and for my money, it still is.
There were trades, two of them, but they went out of print, except the first one, which I think returned to print. Then there were two “sequel” miniseries, both of which made it to trade as well.
Now we get this:
JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL HC
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Cover by Maguire & Austin
Art by Kevin Maguire, Terry Austin and Al Gordon
A new hardcover collecting the classic JUSTICE LEAGUE #1-6 and JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #7 from the late 1980s! Can an unlikely new Justice League line-up work as a unit to stop terrorists at the U.N., a brigade of Rocket Reds, the Royal Flush Gang, and other threats — or will they succumb to in-fighting and bad jokes?
Advance-solicited; in stores March 12 • FC, 192 pg, $24.99 US
First of all, they’re NOT BAD JOKES, ASSHOLES. They were, and some still ARE, quite funny. Corny? Sure. But still funny. And eons beyond any of the “clever” crap you churn out on a weekly basis, where corpses have to pile up to amp the “drama” and it ain’t a good cover unless it’s got tits hanging out all over it.
But more importantly, there’s the issue of format. I simply do not understand the JLI hardcover. There’s no indication in the solicits that there’s gonna be more hardcovers, or softcovers, or anything; it’s just like, “Here, fanboys, chew on this while we focus on more important things, like getting TIME MASTERS into trade.”
Of all the formats available for publishing the material, this one honestly makes the least sense. The material doesn’t even deserve it; it’s great and funny and holds up, to me at least, but a slender hardcover almost seems too…swank? High-falutin’?
This feels like some kind of Giffen contractual obligation or something. I hope it leads to more–I may buy it, just to support the reprints–but it don’t seem right somehow.
England's most famous Star Wars fan to be in Star Trek
Oct 12Well, the word on the street (and by street, I mean, Internet) is that Simon Pegg has been tapped to star in the new Star Trek movie. I didn’t give a crap about this movie until this very moment. The question is, who will he be playing? We have Spock, we have villain. As rah rah as I am for his career, he’s no Kirk – plus, they’d be yelling it all over the place if he were. “We’ve found our Kirk! We’ve found our Kirk!”
Scotty? Accent. Light comedic relief, but some gumption when it’s time to act all mean, ‘n shit.
That’s my bet. Any takers?
Why aren't you watching Jekyll?
Oct 10
I know the new season of shows has arrived, but as ever, I’m becoming less of a broadcast man and more of a when-I-can man. Which is good, because it tends to allow me an opportunity to check out shows we might not get here.
One, which I’m hoping will show here soon (if it hasn’t already) is Jekyll. As you’ll guess from the title, it’s a new take on Jekyll and Hyde, which sounds boring, but thanks to some clever BBC writing and some awesome acting, isn’t.
I’m not going to say a thing about the show, except that it has the Bionic Woman (for those of you that need prompting like that) and the titular star, James Nesbitt is fucking incredible. A different hair-style, brown contacts, and the rest is him acting his ass off – the result is that you actually have a tough time seeing the two characters as being played by one actor.
Hoorah for the BBC!
Vacating My Link-Packed Bowels
Oct 10I keep saving up crap, and thinking I’ll post on it, but then it just rots there, and so I’m clearing the decks.
Via Blake Bell, an interesting audio clip pitting Gary Groth against Todd McFarlane. I haven’t listened yet but it’s supposedly quite a ride.
The Dark Lord of the Shit has found a new calling: Band management.
Honestly? These spoilers on the story for the upcoming Justice League movie don’t sound half-bad.
And bringing the defecation metaphor around full circle, I’m proud to have done my part to bring the critical “Does Superman poo?” conversation to a wider audience, via Mike Sterling’s exceptional site.
Among the issues of the day, this one is perhaps closest to my heart.
