Legion of 3 Worlds #5
Jul 23On the heels of our ruminating about Geoff Johns’s penchant for metafiction in big event comics, this week saw the release of Legion of 3 Worlds #5, a comic book in which Superboy Prime, who has always been shorthand for the DC fanboy (though Infinite Crisis made him a disgruntled fanboy railing against the current editorial direction of the publisher), is relegated back to Earth Prime, where he lives in his parents’ basement and makes angry posts on DC’s message boards.
If you are a comics fan who is active online, this doesn’t automatically mean that Geoff Johns is making fun of you. Is some fun being had at the hands of some of the fanbase? Clearly. But Superboy Prime is not every fan, he is the fan that feels entitled to have the story go his way because he is paying to read it. It is a position that this thread on Newsarama validates by throwing a tantrum about how dare the author mock me.
I understand being invested in the hobby. I have friends who work in the comics industry. I have been reading the things since I was a very little kid. I have made friendships and hooked up with girls and had engaging conversations with complete strangers because of my comic book geekiness. But I don’t have a damaging level of investment in entertainment – at least I think I don’t. When I’m confronted with something that I don’t like, I tend to not consume more of it and then rail at the creators because I haven’t enjoyed myself.
If you are this fan, or some fan like him, the advice I give you is this: Whatever story it is that you’re trying to superimpose onto Superman or Stingray or Cyberforce, whatever truth you want to impart to yourself via these characters, tell that story on your own. Make it your own thing and run with it, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for you and becoming petulant when they don’t. It is the ephemera of our geekiness that is important, not the artifacts of it.
In summary: you’re doing it wrong.
Five Last-Minute, Poorly-Researched SDCC 2009 Predictions
Jul 22
1. Avatar will be HUGE. This is perhaps not much of a prediction, as a monkey using a banana to type this post could anticipate this. I think we’ll see the first true public viewing of actual footage from the film, complete with 3D glasses. In fact, it will be so seismic that I would not be surprised if they replayed the footage on Sunday for a second panel, thereby creating their “big crazy event” for the day, which Sunday supposedly lacks at this point? That’s what I’ve read, anyway. Or what my computer has read to me; I’m functionally illiterate.
(Fanboy) Masturbation Can Be Fun
Jul 21(Isn’t that a lyric from Hair or something? Why do I remember lyrics from Hair? I saw it once in college. That’s it.)
So Valerie D’Orazio brought up an interesting point in her review of Blackest Night #1 (which, OMG NAME DROP, quoted me in its opening lines):
But the oft-tossed phrase "fanboy masturbation" seems to imply that masturbation is somehow bad. That fanboys should not be engaged in the act of masturbation. What would be the opposite of "fanboy masturbation?" Resisting the urge to buy that copy of Blackest Night and instead take a chance on a graphic novel like Alex Robinson’s Too Cool To Be Forgotten?
That’s a fair point. It would be highly cool if we all bought more Alex Robinson graphic novels, and there really isn’t anything wrong with fanboy masturbation. In fact, I indulge in it frequently. Then I write about it here. (EWW)
I think where I was going in my original convo with Pal Jeff was that if you decide to judge something like Blackest Night (or any mainstream superhero comic) based on its ability to engage/attract/make any fucking sense at all to “new readers,” you’re fooling yourself. Which is where my brain latched onto the “fanboy masturbation” concept.
Stuff We Like This Week: July 17 Edition
Jul 17
In an effort to combat our occasional…okay, okay, near-constant negativity, we give you a regular feature full of nothing but love — Stuff We Like This Week. Appearing every Friday, SWLTW will recap the things that have set our little nerdly hearts aflame within the past seven days.
Jeff and Matt BS About Comics: Blackest Night #1, Part 2
Jul 16Matt and Jeff have been confabbing about this week’s Blackest Night #1. Matt is turned off by the violence; Jeff is tolerating it. Part 1 ended with a precarious cliffhanger of the “Cyclops is dead!” variety. Is Cyclops really alive? Keep reading.
Yesterday, in our discussion of Blackest Night #1, Matt asked, “…this is all really just fanboy masturbation, right?”
Potential SPOILERS after the pic!
