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Recent Comments:
Ask Chris #51: Because You Actually Demanded It, Pokemon vs. Ponies vs. Wrestling {ComicsAlliance}
Mar 25th 2011 2:21PM This was everything I had hoped it would be when I asked for it. And more. Much, much more. Best Friday of the year to date.
ComicsAlliance Recaps 'Smallville' Episode 10.2: Shield {ComicsAlliance}
Oct 4th 2010 2:45PM "And I am pretty sure that is not how antidotes work"
Hey, didn't 60's Batman once drink buttermilk knowing he might/will have to ingest a toxin later, because the buttermilk coated his stomach thus preventing the toxing from working?
Please, Just Kiss Digital Comics On The Mouth Already {ComicsAlliance}
Sep 1st 2010 7:05PM The problem with the Netflix/Blockbuster comparison is that it's related to Diamond and whatever other distributor there was that Blockbustered, and not Publisher/LCS.
Netflix doesn't care about Blockbuster going under. They get their content from 'publishers' (Sony, NBC Universal...). Comic publishers HAVE TO care about the LCSs going under, at least for the near future.
The (paying) customer base for digital comics is a small percentage of the overall customer base right now. It's going to continue to grow over time, as iPads and other tablets spread, but it's still small. I'm not sure where the improvement to reading comics on a computer monitor comes in to provide an iPad-ish experience (monitor aspect ratio is bad for comics currently), but it'll probably happen too.
So, publishers need to figure out how to move customers from print to digital without killing the endpoint for print sales (LCS), *until* the digital customer base has grown large enough. It's possible to gain enough digital business that you lose more in print business and come out with a net loss.
Obviously, there's a problem with that. The LCS probably isn't interested in dying slowly as it helps publishers cut them out of the loop.
Do publishers care? I don't know, but it sounds like they do (or at least use caring as a cover to punt for now). Should they care? probably not, at least in the long term.
The massive backlog can act as a levee of sorts, buying time for someone to figure out a solution. It also has the advantage of both crushing the speculative market (again), and at the same collecting (some) revenue from sales that would have otherwise happened w/o them (buying back issues at an LCS). Of course, that's killing the other (and probably higher marging) revenue stream for an LCS.
I don't know what the future should be, but I don't think flipping a switch and going to day/date digital today is the best plan
Please, Just Kiss Digital Comics On The Mouth Already {ComicsAlliance}
Sep 1st 2010 6:38PM People aren't going to stop pirating digital comics if publishers "get on the bandwagon". That assumes that pirates do it because they want day/date digital, and they can't get that now. That's a false assumption.
Pirates steal because they can and they don't care that they are stealing. Comics could be sold digitally day and date for 10 cents and they would still be rampantly pirated (see Radiohead's In Rainbows).
FunkyWatch: The 10 Most Depressing 'Funky Winkerbean' Strips for August (With Bonus Despair) {ComicsAlliance}
Aug 31st 2010 12:27PM I'm going to pretend that you got the "This is the entirety of the strip in a nutshell" wording from my tweet on Saturday.
I know you (almost certainly) didn't, but deluding myself will give me a brief moment of happiness during a crappy work week. A moment that will last about as long that bird stayed oil free, but I'll take what I can get.
The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling {ComicsAlliance}
May 6th 2010 5:56PM Great article, Chris. (One minor, not-really complaint: How did Milestone not get mentioned here? An entirely separate imprint to shuffle off an entire minority group! Worse, when they "merged" the Milestone U into the DCU there was almost nothing done with it aside from a 3-4 issues arc with JLA.)
One of the first questions that hit me as I was reading it was "Can this be related to 'Kick Ass'in any way?"
Specifically, it was your earlier piece(s) on 'Kick Ass' and how the villains are all minorities. I believe one of your main points was that Millar wasn't necessarily racist but that he might believe *comics fans* are racist (as a generality).
It seems like that meshes well with you point here. If we accept the argument that the changes toward nostalgia that DC has been making are because that's what the fans are interested in and what they are spending their money on then I think there are two explanations:
1) True nostalgia. "I don't want to read about Ryan Choi, to me The Atom will always be Ray Palmer!" "Hal Jordan is the Green Lantern that should be starring in stories!" "I don't care about Jamie Reyes, the Blue Beetle is just boring now that Ted is dead."
The catch-22 here is that new characters can't get established because they don't have the history to use the nostalgia hook, and they can't GET the history because people don't want to give them the time (and thus money) to have long enough runs.
2) Racism. I don't know if it would be overt, or subconscious, and it'd be very hard to really know. It's very easy to say "The new Blue Beetle is boring" as a reason why you don't buy it when what you *mean* is "I don't care about a Mexican hero on the border living in the world of illegal immigrants."
I could be wrong (haven't done the research), but it almost feels like the few "successful" minorities (those that have managed to stick around) are those that are part of teem books (Mr. Terrific/JSA, Cyborg/Teen Titans, John Stewart/Green Lantern(s) ).
'Blackest Night' In 60 Seconds {ComicsAlliance}
Apr 7th 2010 5:47PM *sigh*
At some point you'll get that Death isn't *supposed* to be an emotion, it's supposed to be the *absence* of emotion. Since all of this maps to the "simplified" spectrum of light, where black is the absence of light/color and white is the presence of all color.
Black:Absence of Light/Color :: Death:Absence of Life/all Emotions
White:Presence of all Colors :: Life:Presence of all Emotions
I'm not a Blackest Night fanboy, and back at the beginning said "I know this ends with the White Lantern(s) saving the day, which will be dumb". I also think the whole "random people come back to life because we want to use them, and we're not explaining why not everyone comes back" combined with "I guess dead means dead now." nonsense is stupid (and been done before).
But, this constant misunderstanding of Black Lanterns/Death is frustrating.
The Queue: That paladin doesn't know what he's talking about {WoW}
Mar 1st 2010 3:25PM I'm a Prot Pally, and what I generally to to prevent mana problems is just skip Consecrate in my rotation. That saves over 1k mana per rotation, and it's really un-needed to keep threat. There's plenty of DPS to cover not using it.
I agree with the folks who are fed up over "snobs" who bitch about whatever (DPS "too low", not pulling fast enough, can't keep threat from a guy doing 4.5k DPS, not enough heals...) because it's keeping them from finishing a heroic in 15 minutes. My two thoughts:
- I'm not here to max out your ability to grind emblems. If you want to run 10 heroics in 4 hours, go find 4 other people as defective as you are. I'll pull as fast as the *group* can handle, not just the healer (unless someone is griefing on the slow end or something). I'm not going to leave the DPS behind because I'm in a hurry. They're here to have fun too.
- One of the points/strengths of the Dungeon Finder is that the overgeared can help the undergeared get gear. I'm happy to run with newly minted 80s, or people who aren't averaging iLvl 242+ gear. It's nice to see someone actually roll need on boss drops, instead of 5 people spamming disenchant. If someone doesn't have a heroic achievement (with a few exceptions), I feel like I've failed as a party member if they *don't* get the achievement. As long as you're trying, and willing to listen to advice (don't stand on the oddly colored ground, try to get behind bosses instead of next to me...) you're fine by me.
The Queue: That paladin doesn't know what he's talking about {WoW}
Mar 1st 2010 3:15PM What the paladin was wrong about was his belief that overheals would give the 10% mana bonus that "normal" heals give. He wanted his healer to keep overhealing him so he'd have enough mana.
Breakfast Topic: How many of you play on a Mac? {WoW}
Nov 21st 2009 10:13AM Where is the option for both? I have a MacBook Pro laptop, and a custom built PC home desktop, and the WoW client installed on both. My one beef with the Mac client is that I have yet to find a way to make the CMD/Splat key be the ALT key. I'm so accustomed to ALT being just left of the space bar, and that's just not the case on the Mac. Not a big deal, in the end.
