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Box Office Democracy: “The Interview”

The Interview is a movie doomed to collapse under the weight of all the external nonsense forced upon it. It is not a movie worth being called an act of war. It is not a movie worthy of being the standard bearer for free speech against real or imagined tyranny. It’s not a movie worth the total public embarrassment of Sony Pictures. It’s just a stupid comedy. I don’t even mean “stupid” pejoratively here, it is in the same grand tradition of stupid comedies that has brought us movies like There’s Something About Mary and Caddyshack. Both movies I like a great deal, neither of them worth an international incident.

When it’s on, The Interview is quite funny. The bit with Eminem that I saw all over Facebook this weekend is my favorite so it’s a shame that that’s in the first ten minutes of the film. Otherwise the film hits on more joke attempts than it misses. Seth Rogen and James Franco have an undeniable comedic chemistry and it’s just fun to watch them bounce of each other. Randall Park is outstanding playing Kim Jong-Un, as is his Veep co-star Timothy Simons in a terribly small part. It’s also important to recognize Diana Bang who is fantastically funny as the leading lady in this film, a part that often doesn’t get a ton of space under the Apatow-Rogen film umbrella but Bang is electric and hopefully gets to do bigger and better things in comedy going forward.

The entire movie is dragged down to mediocre by a poor second act. After the first round of North Korean hijinks, the movie grinds to a halt as the characters slowly get in to their positions or the finale. This leads to a seemingly endless number of scenes of conversations that move the plot along at a glacial pace while not being particularly funny. It’s inexcusable. Add this to the frequent book-report-esque need to put in North Korea facts and statistics and there’s a lot of drag pulling down what might have been a better movie set in a fictional country.

I appreciate that Rogen, along with his directing partner Evan Goldberg, are continuing to be ambitious with their visuals. It would be very easy (and probably profoundly more profitable) for them to continue making Superbad knockoffs until they all died when their houses collapsed from carrying too much money, but much like This is the End there’s a lot going on here. Sure, they’re taking advantage of the fact that no one has any idea if North Korea looks like the outskirts of Vancouver but there are some real sets here and an honest-to-goodness war at the end. When you compare it to the costless dreck that you get from Adam Sandler or the Twilight movies and it’s just so nice to see people take a simple guaranteed paycheck and make a movie that’s actually interesting to look at on a screen. This sounds like an incredibly backhanded compliment but it’s becoming less and less common.

Tweeks Draw 2014

drawouryearthumb-300x275-3999147We seemed to watch a lot of “Draw My Life” videos this past year, so we felt it was appropriate to recap our 2014 with a white board and some dry erase markers. In under 3 minutes, we quickly doodle this year’s top movies, tv shows, books & comics.  We also draw our favorite Con experiences, the pop culture headlines that stuck with us, and the best hair of the year (belonging to Blythe from IDW’s Littlest Pet Shop Comics)!   Lots of wishes for a fabulous 2015, everyone!

Dennis O’Neil: Good Guys and Bad Guys

breyfogle_4-9414016Just because it’s that time of year – and you know what I’m talking about and don’t pretend you don’t – don’t for one second think that I’ve become some sentimental goo brain and if you do think that come over here and I’ll make you a damp spot on the rug. Or at least give you a stern look. (Or at least consider giving you a stern look at some future date, maybe in an alternate universe.)

But despite my loud and proud misanthropy, there are a few things, as we creep past the solstice, that make me believe that there’s really no reason to be ashamed of my species. Leading the list this week, if there were a list, would be the comic book community’s response to Norm Breyfogle’s misfortune. Norm, who I’ve long considered a storytelling artist, suffered what seems to have been a bad stroke that left his drawing hand disabled. I wondered how his colleagues would respond. Splendidly, is how. Within 24 hours, the comics folk had raised over $20,000 and flooded the emails with offers of help and messages of support. Norm has a long way to go – months of therapy and sundry other problems to be solved – but at least his fellow storytellers have given him a start.

Then there was the movie brouhaha. As most of you surely know, cyberterrorists threatened nine-eleven type action against any exhibitor who showed The Interview, a comedy about an assassination plot directed at North Korea’s national big cheese, Kim Jung Un. At first, all parties caved, including the flick’s producer, Sony. Ah, but now the happy ending. At virtually the last minute, over 200 smallish, independent theaters got exhibition rights and showed the picture over the weekend. And it was made available for streaming on three Internet venues.

This has very little to do with The Interview. Might be a good flick, might not, might be somewhere in between. But what’s important here is that those who championed the movie refused to be bullied. Anyone who’s had extensive dealings with bullies – teachers, let’s have a show of hands – will probably testify that bullies can’t be appeased. You can’t get rid of them by simply meeting their demands. They don’t really what they’re asking for, they want the power that got it for them. Give it to them and they’ll just want more. Under the threats, they’re probably scared and that’s sad and pitiable, but irrelevant. You can feel sorry for a rabid dog, but you still have to stop his attack.

A final note and then I’m gone for the rest of the year: Norm Breyfogle still needs help. There’s a link on the ComicMix home page. Please give him some. Oh, and if any of you even dare to accuse me of being a nice guy…

 

Mike Gold: Comic Books Are Heavier Than Ever!

simon-and-kirby-4558504This time around the honor of writing the last ComicMix column of 2014 falls to me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to taunt the gods and goddesses of irony once more before the Cherub of the New Year arrives, gets a good look around, and shits his diaper.

Many, if not all of my friends seem to be happy that this year is coming to an end. String theory tells us that such optimism is silly, but since I’m starting 2015 with a left arm different from the one I had last January – and the anesthesia almost killed me – well, sayonara old bastard and take your scythe with you. (more…)

Emily S. Whitten: Deadpool’s New Year’s Resolutions

deadpool-3484898As everyone knows, it’s a time-honored New Year’s tradition to not only make resolutions about all of the things you are really going to do better in the coming year, but also to share them with friends so they can encourage you to not be a bum and totally forget about all of your well-meaning promises. So naturally, my bestie Deadpool sent me a draft of his list and, just as naturally, I figured all of you would want to see it so you can be inspired towards your own lofty New Year’s goals. Therefore:

Deadpool’s List of Stuff I’m Definitely Going To Do Sometime In 2015… Probably:

  • Wash that weirdly pulsating pile of uniforms in the corner of the bedroom before it escapes and eats New York. Use actual detergent and stuff.
  • Kill/maim/otherwise injure more bad people
  • …Don’t kill/maim/otherwise injure any more good people?
  • Send Ryan Reynolds flowers (again) (and another cell phone with me as #1 on speed dial!)
  • Make paper-Mache Dogpool sculpture with that pile of Taco Bell receipts I keep tripping over (fulfills therapist’s requirement for “fun therapeutic crafts”)
  • Karaoke with Doctor Doom! (Track down Doctor Doom and drag him to karaoke)
  • Break record for Most Twinkies Eaten In One Sitting
  • Be in the next Avengers movie! As Iron Man’s best bud. (freeze Cap again?)
  • Finally figure out how to get drunk with a healing factor
  • Read all of my back issues of Soldier of Fortune
  • Be nice(r) to old ladies (in memory of my beloved Bea)
  • Replace Spider-Man’s web shooter fluid with neon Silly String. Again. :D :D :D
  • Perfect my patented Triple-Decker Killer Hot Fudge Sundae (needs more caramel?)
  • Always get paid for jobs before accepting them. Especially when Taskmaster is involved.
  • Find Bob a life.
  • More. Chimichangas!

Hope that helped you to figure out all the amazing things you want to resolve to do in 2015! Good luck with that.

And until next time, Happy New Year and Servo Lectio!

 

Mindy Newell’s Year-End Bests And Worsts

So here we are at the end of 2014, which is the time for media folk to opine about the best and the worst of the year in all the different areas of our overcrowded, put-upon lives. So though I rarely think of myself as part of the media folk crowd, I’ll include me in that description for this column, since all of you have so kindly considered my words, thoughts, judgments, attitudes, and so forth important enough to peruse over the last twelve months.

So here we go, in no particular order, and not divided into “best” and “worst”…

I applaud Marvel Comics’ writer G. Willow Wilson (great name, by the way, so alliterative!) and artist Adrian Alphona for introducing the comics world to Kamala Khan, an American Muslim teenager from Jersey City, New Jersey. Kamala’s parents and family are traditional, observant Muslims (for the most part), but Kamala just wants to be what every teenage girl wants to be – not different from her peers. But she is. Not just because she’s Muslim. It’s because she’s also Ms. Marvel.

In a time when bigotry is rampant in these United States – our President is a Muslim Kenyan socialist dictator terrorist determined to destroy America, and, oh, by the way, he’s *gasp* B-L-A-C-K – I just absolutely love that the House of Ideas has embraced the opposite of the disease named xenophobia. There is no better cure.

Just a few weeks ago at my daughter’s birthday dinner, we got into a discussion of the state of music these days. I said that I think there is nothing out there that can compare to the music produced during the ‘60s, certainly nothing like the great concept albums of the Beatles, the Stones, and so forth. Not for the mass public, anyway. It’s all manufactured pop crap. Certainly nothing that is going to hold up to the test of time. Said brother Glenn, “So where do you think great popular art is being produced?”

“Television,” I said instantly. “We in a new ‘Golden Age.”

“When she’s right, she’s right,” said Glenn.

There’s been a lot of really fantastic television these days. Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Transparent, Outlander, and certainly comics are rocking our personal screens with The Flash, Arrow, Gotham, and Marvel’s Agents of Shield. But my vote for the best TV show of 2014 – as if regular readers can’t guess before I type out the letters – is Homeland.

Homeland not only made everyone forget – well, sort of – Brody (for more see my earlier column on the series here), but it amped up the tension to equal the heyday of 24 – and beat Jack Bauer at his own game by never forgetting that it is also a study of the emotional, and psychological scars borne by those who serve their patriotism in the coldest of wars.

Best taking on of a role already inhabited by fan favorites: Peter Capaldi as the Time Lord in Doctor Who. David Tennant and Matt Smith made indelible marks on the saga of the Gallifreyan, between them raising the Doctor into the realms of a worldwide phenomenon shared by only two modern myths – Star Trek and Star Wars. I can well imagine the trepidation with which Mr. Capaldi must have felt when he was given the keys to the TARDIS, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t slept the night before the his debut premiered. But he made it his own; an original interpretation in which, im-not-so-ho, the Doctor had to figure out if, of if not, he’s a good man. “I don’t know,” said Clara. And I’m still not sure if the Doctor can accept that maybe he is, even if he did, at long last, salute Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.

Politics and World Affairs 101. (Hey, you know me – I wasn’t going to let this topic slip away.) This year was definitely one that went way beyond any introductory college course. The most “do-nothing” Congress in the history of this country, all based – again, im-not-so-ho, on the biases held against our President. (Reference first sentence in fourth paragraph of this column, please.) ISIS, jihadist Crusaders determined to raise the Ottoman Empire from the dust of history using beheadings with modern-day scimitars and social media propaganda, is the biggest threat to any type of peace in the Middle East – and the world – since Adolph Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party. And yes, that is really how I feel.

Meanwhile Vladimir Putin seems determined to lead a new Soviet Union – and for those who may point out that the Russian economy is in freefall…well, countries have gone to war because of failed domestic policies. And homosexuals in Russia are the new scapegoat, replacing Jews.

Best (and worst) on the domestic front this year. It seems to me that the American people have finally woken up and are marching in protest again against our own “black boots” (not to reference Nazis again, but…) who – shades of the pre-Civil Rights Act era – seem to feel they have a right to kill black men and anyone else who doesn’t “salute” them fast enough. I only hope the protests continue to the level of the social activism in which I grew up during the ‘60’s, and now dwindle away like the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Worst “Oh, God, I knew this was going to happen” moment: “The Mystery of Malaysian Flight 370” was televised on CNN. Just waiting for it to show up as an episode of “Ancient Aliens” sometime in 2015.

Dumbest comics controversy of 2014 (though I can understand the uproar) was that cover. Yeah, you know the one I mean. Jessica Jones as Spider-Woman with her ass up in the air.

The other dumb comics controversy – the stupidest, I mean – was DC’s decision not to allow Batwoman to marry her long-time love, civil rights lawyer Maggie Sawyer. Not only does it reek of bigotry and ignorance, not only does it go against the biggest non-issue in recent American history, i.e., gay marriage, but it’s based on an edict that “no DC superhero is allowed to be married” as “heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives” because it would make for “less dramatic stories.” As if marriage is always a state of bliss. Um…no. And kudos to J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman for walking away from such ignoramity.

Most exposed comic character: Starfire. Once upon a time, back in the Wolfman-Pérez days of New Teen Titans, she was a nuanced character. Now she’s just…exposed.

Speaking of DC and stupidest. How about their contest concerning Harley Quinn? the company asked for tyro artists to draw a scene from Harley Quinn #0 which specifically asked for: “Harley sitting in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances, all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before her inevitable death. Her expression is one of, ‘Oh, well, I guess that’s it for me,’ and she has resigned herself to the moment is going to happen.”

Announced just before National Suicide Prevention Week.

Oh, wait, a lot of that happened in 2013.

Well, it’s still “worst of” bad news.

So what kind of stupidest stuff has DC done in 2014?

Turned Wonder Woman into a caricature of a feminist icon – whiney, spoiled, and bitchy.

Batgirl featured a literal “cartoon” of transgender characterization in the imposter Batgirl, who was actually a dangerous, deranged man. Um, btw, that’s not transgender. That’s cross-dressing. Either way, it was incredibly insulting to too many individuals. (The creative team of Brendan Fletcher, Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr apologized…and meant it.).

Merchandizing sexualized and insulting t-shirts with Superman “scoring” with Wonder Woman, and mottos like “Training To Be Batman’s Wife.”

Releasing a book for toddlers and early readers called “Superheroes Opposites” in which “Wonder Woman pushes a swing” with a little girl on it, while Superman, on the opposing page, “pulls the machine,” which looks like some combination of a Deere tractor and deep-sea oilrig. Anyway, it’s enormous and definitely very heavy. Yeah, I’ll be buying that book for my 15-month-old grandson soon.

DC sure isn’t Jenette Khan’s company anymore!

But DC didn’t just become the leading anti-feminist comics company in 2014. I found this at www.Whatculture.com:

“2014 also saw DC leaning on some wonderfully old-school gimmicks to try and boost sales, including falling back into the nineties speculator boom trope of providing shiny covers to try and entice people into buying flagging books. They planned to provide 3D variant covers for climactic final issues of their year-long crossover event Future’s End, a process which apparently requires certain special chemicals.

“One of which is called microcystin, and is highly toxic. Exactly the sort of thing you wouldn’t want to, say, get into a municipal water supply.” Woops, that’s exactly what happened though! Some sort of spill at the printing plant where the books were being published caused the deadly toxin to end up in Lake Eerie, which provides the water supply of eleven million coastal inhabitants in Northwestern Ohio.

Yes, DC poisoned the water supply of eleven million people. Lex Luthor would be proud.”

Okay, I’m sure DC comics weren’t the only books being published at the printing plant. But I just have three things to say:

How come stuff like this doesn’t happen at Marvel?

And, at least based on this list of “worsts,” I don’t think I’ll be working for DC anytime soon.

And, based on this list of “worsts,” I’m not sure I would want to.

 

John Ostrander: Odder Ends 2014

This week I’ve got a bunch of different topics and themes but none of them seem to be developing into a coherent column. So I think I’ll take parts of all of them and just stitch together into a hodgepodge column. It’s the end of the year so maybe I can get away with it.

If you’re doing a SF tent pole movie, you want to hire Zoe Saldana and use her prominently. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Uhura in the two latest Star Trek films, and Gamora in Guardians Of The Galaxy and she’s going to be in the next installments of all these films. They all made what is technically called a shitload of money. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be cast as Amanda Waller. (Sorry, Oprah.) I really want the upcoming Suicide Squad movie to sell like hotcakes and spawn sequels and Amanda Waller related merchandise. Okay, I’m crass. Still, think about it. . .

Peter Capaldi has finished his first season as the new Doctor and I like his Doctor McCrankypants. It’s a nice variation of the past few Doctors. Not as crazy about all the writing, tho, and I really am beginning to feel it’s time for showrunner Steven Moffat to move on. When Moffat is good, he’s really good and he’s rarely outright bad but he’s often becoming mediocre. He seems, to me, to not always think things through. Or he gets clever for the sake of being clever.

Best Animated Film I Saw This Year – How To Train Your Dragon 2. The animation was better than the original and the story wasn’t a re-hash of the first but actually advanced the characters. It was fun but also had real emotional depth and impact. In fact, it was a better film than many live action serious movies I saw. It took chances.

Best Marvel Film I Saw This Year – a lot of people would say Guardians Of The Galaxy and I loved it too. It was just wonderfully entertaining. However, I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more. Chris Evans is to Steve Rogers/Captain America what Christopher Reeve was to Superman. Why doesn’t Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow have her own movie? How the hell did they get Robert Redford go play the main villain? (Oh, right – money.) And Samuel L. Jackson just has deep reserves of cool to call on. The movie also had a major impact on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was an added bonus.

Just finished reading Alexander Mcall Smith’s latest installment (number 15!) in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, titled The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The series is set in Botswana, Africa, and features Precious Ramotswe, her partner Grace Makutsi, and their friends, co-workers, and clients in and around the city of Gabrone. The characters are all African and the author is white, born in Rhodesia, now living in Scotland. He writes the characters with great love and understanding, along with a great love for Africa in general and Botswana in particular. Reading each new book is like visiting old friends. The mysteries are mostly small matters and not really the focus of the series. It is the people. I recommend the series and, while I suggest starting at he beginning, each book is admirably written to be accessible even if you haven’t read the others. I will warn you that they are quiet books, slow paced, but wonderful reads.

Final note: just an update since so many of you expressed concern following my recent triple bypass. I’m healing nicely and recovering well. My general practitioner, on my last visit, pronounced me “medically boring.” I’ve never been so glad to be called boring.

Well, that’s 2014. Drive carefully, drink responsibly, party carefully, and we’ll all reconvene in 2015.

Happy New Year, y’all!

 

Interview: Steven Moffat – No Sheets for Companions

In a recent interview with Steven Moffat, I had the opportunity to discuss The Doctor’s companions with him.  He shared his opinions on whether or not we always need to have a dramatic departure for his friends, and whether or not we couldn’t see a more polite and happy departure where his friend says “Thanks for the fun, I’m off to buy new sheets now”. His response was rather emphatic:

“Yes that would be the least talked about moment in television history wouldn’t it? I mean really if you did a scene ‘I’m going to buy some sheets now,’ no one is ever going to write a fan letter about that one. So no, we’re not going to do that”.

He also called foul on the popular thought about The Doctor’s companions always ending up worse for the wear.  “I mean, that’s not true about all the Doctor’s companions. It’s maybe what the Doctor thinks in his darker moments and when he’s dying in “Let’s Kill Hitler.” He worries that he might’ve done them terrible harm.  But Rose is off in a parallel universe. She’ll be with her – with a human version of the Doctor. She’s fine. Martha learns to stand up for herself and got over her crush on the Doctor and she soars off. Yes Donna has a more miserable thing. But she doesn’t know she’s miserable. She ends up actually quite happy and married to a good bloke. Rory and Amy are perfectly happy in New York. They’re dead, but, you know, everyone from that year is dead so that’s all right. They lived to a ripe old age and had a lovely time.

“The Doctor – so he’s not – they all don’t leave under terrible circumstances at all. I think the tragedy when Amy and Rory went was the Doctor lost them not – and that in the end they, you know, of course that, you know, Amy would choose Rory over the Doctor in a heartbeat. And he actually had some trouble quite dealing with that.   But the fact is, no he doesn’t ruin their lives. He can induce a certain amount of trauma, it must be said. But no they’re not all destroyed by any means. And no, every time, every time the Doctor loses a regular character from this show it will happen in a moment that makes people talk. Because the episode that you described no one would talk about that. That wouldn’t be thrilling.

“If a friendship is severed for good or for bad reasons, that’s a big moment in your life. And if you walk away from a great friend but then you’re not crying a little then you’ve not been reading the memos frankly. You’ve not been paying attention. So, no, Doctor Who will not take the un-dramatic path because we’d like to stay on television and popular.”

So far in the new series, all the Companions have been from modern day Britain.  That wasn’t always the case in the old series. You’ve got Leela. You’ve got Dodo. You’ve got folks from different places, different times. Still human looking so you save money on the makeup. But how likely or how perhaps harder or different to write is it to write for a companion that isn’t just from modern day Earth?

“Well if we found that difficult,” he replied, “then we’d have tremendous difficulty writing the main character wouldn’t we? It’s not a question of whether it is difficult to do or not. It’s a question of whether it’s the right thing to do or not. Now in fact, the old series doesn’t do a hell of a lot of it. If you looked at the vast majority of the companions come from contemporary era. Even the ones who don’t come from contemporary era are pretty much normalized ones like with Jamie and Victoria. Then it’s hardly any time at all before Victoria is wearing short skirts. No Victorian would actually do that. You know, so the problem is – and I don’t say it’s an unsolvable problem, but the majority solution will always be a contemporary companion. But the problem is you need an anchoring point for the audience. You need someone who represents their world and their point of view. And the simplest, purest and best answer to that is somebody from their world.

“Now somebody who’s watched Doctor Who for an unseasonably long time like I have, like possibly you have, I don’t know, might get bored of that and say ‘I wish it was, you know, a two headed alien from the planet Prang’. The new audience don’t think that. They want an anchoring point on that mysterious alien the Doctor. Doesn’t mean we’ll always do it this way. But the reality is it’s always going to be somebody from contemporary era or somebody who ends up being very like somebody from contemporary era.

“I think it was great – the one that broke the mold really I would argue was Leela. We actually went for somebody who was quite different. I would sort of say that Jamie and Victoria ended up – when I was a kid watching I wasn’t particularly aware that they were historical characters. And I do remember watching them. And Romana just came across as, you know, in the end like a very, very clever young woman. She wasn’t that different from Liz Shaw. It’s going to be – it’s going to be the relatable half of the partnership. Keep in mind Doctor Who has to not just appeal to sci-fi fans, it has to appeal to a huge mainstream audience who dwarf the sci-fi audience. You sort of need that way in for them. Having said that, you know, who knows maybe there’ll be a robot dog next. I don’t know.”

One thing that has changed about the companions in the new series is we’ve seen much more about their family lives.  Time was they’d be whisked away and dropped off with nary a word about who they left behind, save for the odd joke about a maiden aunt of perhaps a pot on the stove.  Clara doesn’t even travel with The Doctor full time.  Is that the “New Normal” as Peter Pachal from Mashable asked, or will we see a more traditional companion relationship in the future?

“Well, I mean there’s never going to be a ‘new normal’. Everybody who comes aboard the TARDIS will have a different story and do it a different way. You know, it’s not a dictate of any kind it’s just – Clara’s personality did not suit the idea of simply abandoning everything else she does and running off with the Doctor. I mean you wouldn’t believe it if I wrote that scene. Yes I’ll just go move into the TARDIS with you and I’ll keep in the spare room and you tell me where to go and you drive. That’s just – Clara’s never going to do that in a million years, just wouldn’t.

“But Amy the night before her wedding, all anxious about whether she’s getting married too young. She can run away from awhile. But once she gets married of course she’ll do that. I think you’ve got to look at the Doctor as somebody who’s got a fantastic car that likes to take you for a spin now and then. That doesn’t mean you move in.  Now Rose was in a very different place, wasn’t she? She lived in a council estate. She didn’t like her job. She had a vexed relationship with her mother. She had a, you know, she had a boyfriend she wasn’t sure of. She ran away because that was right for her character. It’s purely whether or not you want to run away. And whether or not you might need the idea that you might be number two in this particular relationship.

“Clara is never going to – from the first moment you meet her she’s never going to be somebody who thinks that they live in the spare room while his nibs drives the TARDIS. That’s just not what she’s like.

“Doesn’t mean that the next one won’t be like that. Who knows?”

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The Mystery of Crowdfunding

First thing is first: I hope you had a most festive holiday – be it Chanukah, Christmas, Festivus, Kwanza, or the Winter Solstice. Second thing is second (geez, now I sound like a Katie Cook Facebook post…): I’m truly perplexed over crowdfunding these days.

Recently I’ve backed a pair of Michigan-based Kickstarter campaigns that were right up my alley. The first was for a table at the upcoming Detroit Fanfare  comic book and pop culture convention. Unshaven Comics has attended this show several times, and we’re big fans. The show-runners are nice, honest, and bring a solid block of comic-focused attendees every year. But, as it would seem, their show is under some kind of duress. With a shorter runway then I’ve been privy to seeing prior, they launched a campaign seeking $10,000. The rewards range from tickets to the show for attendees (with optional collectible artwork, etc.), tables for creators, and then tables for vendors. As of my writing of this article, they are still about $4,000 shy of reaching their goal, with less than a week to go.

Note: Right prior to Christmas, the managing team behind Fanfare closed down their Kickstarter campaign. With only a few days to go, and thousands away from reaching their goal… they opted to simply end things, sadly.

The second project, The Luminous Firefly is a little indie book being put out some passionate fans-turned-creators. The fact that the creative team behind the book – Rapid Fire Entertainment – are big supporters of Unshaven Comics made my backing a no-brainer. Their concept is pretty straight forward, straight out of the Stan Lee-meets-Milestone playbook. They’ve spent considerable time and effort perfecting a memorable costume for their titular hero. Suffice to say, for what little they were seeking from the campaign – $2,000 – I figured supporting them would be a no-brainer. For such a little amount being sought after, all things considered, I’m apt to join the rank and file of those who support the arts and artists who are trying to succeed and do so modestly. Sadly, they too are not close to completion of their goal. With about two weeks left, they are still shy upwards of $1500.

What has me confused, to a point, is how crowdfunding seems easy-peasy one minute, and dreadfully impossible the next. In the day and age where a person selling potato salad can see over 6,000 backers, and a check upwards of $50,000 – all when the initial project was literally meant as a joke… and legit creators and passionate artisans can’t scratch the surface with actual projects? It’s enough to cross the eyes of any Gen Xer (or am I a millennial?).

As a point of reference, my own brother-from-another-mother, Kyle Gnepper, is set to launch his own campaign for an upcoming project. He was all set to go, and then opted to wait until the new year – citing several sources that proved December crowd-sourced projects are less-likely to succeed due to people using their disposable income on holiday related purchases. Obviously, come January, we’ll see how good that knowledge is. Even more obviously, I’ll be likely to pimp Kyle’s project to see his success. But I digress. Actually kiddos, I don’t!

You see, that to me is exactly where I was headed when this piece began. Crowdfunding in the modern era (as opposed to what era, I don’t know) is really just an ongoing marketing experiment. How one chooses to shape their projects – from the goal amount, to the backer prizes, all the way through to the day-to-day promotion of the campaign – all becomes a massive undertaking that literally makes or breaks a creator’s livelihood.

I did my due-diligence and took Wesley Sun (a multiple Kickstarter funded creator) out to a nice dinner to pick his brain. Over sumptuous Chinese food, Wes was quick to point out all the common sense tactics I myself largely considered must be par for the course these days. Creating a pre-launch marketing plan. Building backer prize packs that are both affordable, and often built to up-sell to the next price point. Setting a goal that isn’t insurmountable, but does absolutely cover the costs necessary to complete the project… and to shamelessly promote it as if your life depended on it.

Of course, when one does all of these things and one still comes up short? That leads to sobering conclusions. Especially when Wes’s biggest successes came in part to being promoted by Kickstarter itself, in “picks of the week” e-mail blasts. How one gets on said blasts? To quote Two-Face from the absurd comedy that was Batman Forever: “Blind, stupid, doo-dah lllllllluck.”

Crowdfunding largely remains a mystery in my mind. How success can be earned versus hitting the lottery is seemingly becoming a business unto itself. A new marketplace of analysts and marketers sprout up weekly boasting their ability to turn your campaign into a success. And my initial reaction to most of their pitches is akin to those attempting to sell me diets and exercise equipment at two or three in the morning: I don’t buy it, even if it sells me in my most desperate of moments. Seeing my Motor City cohorts grasping at air in the dead of December only compounds the feeling. Because at the end of the day, how often do people put aside money they don’t have to launch a successful crowd-funding campaign in the first place? The old adage of spending money to make money seems oddly inappropriate given the very nature of crowd-funding. But I could be wrong.

At the end of the day, the best chance one has at succeeding at crowd-funding is inherently tied to the ability to reach out in every possible direction with as succinct a pitch as possible. Much like selling at a comic-con, I’m apt to believe that creators only have 30 seconds to really grab someone by the brainstem, and make them pay attention. After that, they have minutes at most to then convince the would-be backer that they create a worthy product, can deliver said product on-time, and with proper quality for the price asked.

Beyond that, the project has to feel like it’s something someone won’t get otherwise. In few other cases could I say that part of what must make a crowd-funded campaign successful is the je ne sais quoi of the project itself. And even having to type that confounds me. I’m open to you, my faithful friends and readers… what your take is on all of this.

And in the mean time, I’m going to dump some potato salad down the garbage as a precaution.

 

The Law Is A Ass

BOB INGERSOLL: THE LAW IS A ASS #338: SHE-HULK IS TRYING MY PATIENCE

she-hulk_vol_3_9_textless-7490561I guess it’s just an occupational hazard with the lawyering game; assuming your clients are lying to you. Lord knows, I was guilty of it enough times. Of course, it’s easy to do that, when your initial conversations go something like this.

“I didn’t burgle that house, Mr. Ingersoll.”

“The police found your fingerprints in the house.”

“The police planted my fingerprints there.”

“The police found you in the house.”

“The police planted me there.”

Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. My clients don’t actually know the difference between burgle and rob. But you get the idea.

So, as I said, it’s an occupational hazard. And it affects all of us. Even Jennifer (She-Hulk) Walters. Even when her client is Captain America.

So, if you guessed today’s column is about Part 3 of “The Good Old Days,” from She-Hulk v.3 #10, you’re right. Now as this was part three of a three-part story, let’s get you up to speed.

In 1940, Harold Fogler left his home in Brooklyn and went out to Los Angeles http://www.discoverlosangeles.com to make his mark. He failed like a wino with bad bourbon. Largely because he hooked up with some “bad people,” who were planning to cause a riot on the Los Angeles docks. Harold’s younger brother, Sam, and a pre-Captain America Steve Rogers came out to LA looking for Harold. They found him. But the bad people found them.

The bad people ordered Harold to shoot Sam and Steve. Harold refused. Then Steve started telling the bad people how weak and cowardly they were. According to Harold, the leader of the bad people told Steve if he didn’t shut up, he’d kill Sam. Steve didn’t shut up. The leader killed Sam.

Seventy-four years later, Harold Fogler related this story for the first time while on his death bed. Then Harold’s heirs sued Captain America claiming that Cap wrongfully caused the death of their uncle Sam when he didn’t stop talking. Jennifer Walters represented Cap and Matt (Daredevil) Murdock represented the Foglers.

Matt introduced Harold’s deathbed statement as his main evidence. He also called Cap to the stand. Cap admitted that everything Harold said was true. And with that the plaintiffs rested their case. (And promptly lost, by the way, because the plaintiffs never introduced any evidence covering what damages Sam’s death caused his great-grandnewphews, so the jury couldn’t award them any money. But that’s another matter.)

Jennifer cross-examined Cap who told the jury his side of the story. It was basically the same as Harold’s side but it added two important things that Harold left out. First, the “bad people” were Nazi saboteurs and American fifth columnists working with the Nazis. Second, the leader didn’t threaten to kill Sam. He said, “Stop talking or someone will die.” Steve didn’t stop talking and the leader told Steve, “I should kill you.” But he didn’t want to kill Steve. He regarded Steve as weak and wanted Steve to marry and have kids so as to infect his country with his weakling genes. So the leader killed the “strong one,” Sam.

And there’s the difference: in Cap’s account, the leader didn’t threaten to kill Sam, he threatened to kill someone. Steve thought the leader was going to kill him, so didn’t know his talking would cause Sam’s death. That being the case, Steve didn’t act negligently in continuing to talk, so didn’t wrongfully cause Sam’s death.

The case became what, I used to call a swearing match when I was lawyering. No, I don’t mean the witnesses got on the stand and started cussing; although that happened often enough. No, it means one side’s witnesses testify and swear the events happened one way. The other side’s witnesses testify and swear they happened another way. Then it was up to the jury to decide which side’s swearing it believes.

She-Hulk was worried about the case. Steve couldn’t verify his version with any records because the matter had been classified. I think She-Hulk was over-thinking the case and worrying for nothing. Personally, I think it could have been the shortest closing argument in history. “Hey, jury, you have two versions of the story. One from a fifth columnist Nazi saboteur and terrorist, the other from Captain America. Who are you going to believe?” But She-Hulk worried. Probably because, lawyers believe their clients are lying, and she feared the jury would too.

Cap had anticipated She-Hulk’s doubts. But he needed She-Hulk to believe in his veracity, so that she could convince the jury of his veracity. So he had She-Hulk’s investigator, Hellcat, break into a government facility and steal the classified documents. He gave them to She-Hulk to prove he was telling the truth. But he told She-Hulk she couldn’t use the documents in trial.

Let me get this straight. Cap had no problem with Hellcat breaking into a government facility and stealing classified documents, but had qualms about introducing them in court? Hey, Cap, I have a suggestion for you. Should this happen again, call your contacts at S.H.I.E.L.D. or the White House and have them declassify the documents. They were seventy-four years old, for crying out loud, and had only been classified because back in the 40s, the government didn’t want the American people to know that “Nazis were working on U.S. soil.” Seventy-four years later, the government wouldn’t even care about this secret anymore. They would have declassified the documents for you in a second. Then you could have used them at the trial.

Anyway, armed with her new-found confidence in Cap’s veracity, She-Hulk gave an impassioned and convincing – because she was convinced herself – closing argument. She said exactly what I said in my version of the closing argument. Only longer. And the result was …

Actually, I don’t know the outcome of the case. Right as the forewoman of the jury was saying “We find the defendant…” the story cut to a new scene. I can’t tell you whether the jury found the defendant guilty or not guilty. Which is good. That way I don’t have to issue a spoiler warning.

So, I can’t tell you what the jury decided. I can, however, tell you this; despite what the forewoman started to say, the jury didn’t find the defendant either guilty or not guilty. This was a civil trial, remember. Juries don’t find defendants guilty or not guilty in civil cases. They either find for the plaintiff or find the defendant. But guilt doesn’t enter into their deliberations.

One little follow up and for this I do have to issue a

SPOILER WARNING!

Cap deduced that someone was behind this plot against him. Someone who wanted to discredit Cap and tarnish his reputation. Someone who convinced Harold to come forward after all this time, then convinced Harold’s heirs to sue Captain America, and leaked other evidence in the case. That someone was Dr. Faustus. So Cap, She-Hulk, and Daredevil fought their way past Dr. Faustus’s guards and into Dr. Faustus’s hideout, where Cap punched out Faustus cold.

Which created a whole new problem for She-Hulk. Cause when Dr. Faustus sues Cap for assault and She-Hulk represents him, if Cap denies his involvement, she won’t just assume he’s lying, she’ll know.

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