Tagged: Martha Thomases

When San Diego is too far away…

  • News
  • July 29, 2007

Yeah, I guess I’m missing San Diego, in more ways than one.  But then again, they’re missing the Del Close improv marathon here in NYC, so that makes us even.  Not.  Ah well, on to this past week’s ComicMix columns:

I haven’t even begun to keep track of all Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s Big ComicMix Broadcasts, so why don’t you do it for me?:

Tomorrow’s probably going to be a slow day while my colleagues travel and sleep, so it’s a good time to get all caught up!

MARTHA THOMASES: Like a Virgin

  • News
  • July 28, 2007

martha100-4663510In many ways, this will be my first San Diego ComiCon. Oh, sure, I went to ten of them before, but that was because I was working for DC Comics. This will be my first San Diego without booth duty.

At DC, I was Publicity Manager from 1990 to 1999. I had a great time showing off our ever-expanding list of titles and, eventually, imprints. Turning people on to Vertigo, to Milestone, to Impact and to Helix was really fun.

Unfortunately, I never got to leave the booth. I mean, I could take bathroom breaks, and if one of my many media contacts came by, I could walk that person around to show off what was cool in comics. For the most part, however, it was four solid days of standing in the booth.

There were chairs at the booth, lots of chairs. Unfortunately, these comfortable pieces of foldable furniture were not for those of us in the Marketing Department. The chairs were for the talent. Now, I agree that the writers and artists who work on comic books, who interrupt their work to come to conventions (where they don’t get paid) should be made as comfortable as possible. They deserve to be treated like rock stars. The Marketing team should be there to make life easier for the talent and for the fans, and to assure everyone of a good time.

That’s my belief, and I tried really hard to live up to it with a smile on my face. Usually, I got through Thursday and Friday pretty well. By Saturday, even with my best running shoes, my feet would be hurting. By Sunday afternoon, my face would hurt from smiling. There would be lots of news and excitement I’d overhear among the fans that they’d picked up at panels, which I could never go to because I was at the booth.

There would be some weird things I’d have to do that weren’t, strictly speaking, in my job description. I’d get the talent bottled water, because the water in San Diego gives me horrible headaches, and talent shouldn’t have headaches. I’d be the bitch at the end of the signing line, the person past whom no one else would get their books signed. It’s a horribly thankless task, because you have to tell people they can’t have something they really want. The worst is being the bitch at the end of the Neil Gaiman line. Neil will have agreed to sign for two hours. After these two hours, I would get in line to stop it, but the line would grow behind me. By the time I got to the front of the line, Neil would have been signing for more than three hours. I’d tell people they couldn’t get anything signed, and Neil would say, ‘Oh, no! That’s alright, I’m happy to do a few more.”

On the plus side, I had an expense account. I could take journalists and talent out for dinners and drinks. DC had travel agents who put us up at the Marriott, and then the Hyatt, which were close to the convention center. My feet might hurt, but I didn’t have far to walk.

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Once you’ve finished That Book…

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  • July 22, 2007

Nerds, geeks and thinking people everywhere are settling down to read J.K. Rowling’s latest and last adventure of Harry Potter prior to packing for sunny southern California.  At least that’s what they tell me; I’ll wait for the easier-to-heft paperback, thanks.  But there are no queues at all to read ComicMix columnist contributions from this past week:

If you see Mellifluous Mike Raub at San Diego, speak loudly and clearly into the mic!  Here are his contributions as he hits the Big Seven-Oh:

Have a safe flight of fancy, everyone!

MARTHA THOMASES: Dorothy Parker

  • News
  • July 21, 2007

dorothy-parker-200x218-3330504Dorothy Parker was a poet, short story writer and critic for The New Yorker in its heyday. When I was first writing, I wanted to be Dorothy Parker. Well, actually, I wanted to be Nora Ephron, who wrote a column in Esquire at the time, and who said that she had once wanted to be Dorothy Parker. A quick trip to the library, and I had an entertaining week reading her poetry. You probably know at least one of her poems, “News Item,” which goes:

Men seldom make passes

At girls who wear glasses.

Her literary and theatrical criticism, under the nom-de-plume of Constant Reader, was also hilarious, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can catch up with her poems, short stories and reviews in the omnibus Portable Dorothy Parker.

Mostly, however, she was celebrated for being the only woman at the Algonquin Round Table. In a group that included Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, George S. Kaufman, Harpo Marx, Alexander Woollcott and others, Parker was the only woman considered witty enough to be a regular (although Edna Ferber and Jane Grant, Ross’ wife, sat in occasionally).

It was an attractive fantasy for an unpopular girl in boarding school. I was not a person who got to sit at a table with boys. The only males who listened to me were my teachers, who were paid for it. Naturally, I looked for a way to be sought after, instead of merely tolerated. I spent the next twenty years writing, trying to earn my place at the table. If only I had known that the easiest thing to do was to work for a comic book publisher.

I’d freelanced for Marvel in the 1980s, but being on staff at DC was an entirely different animal. All of a sudden, I had everyone’s telephone number, and if I called someone for no apparent reason, my call was still answered happily. I could go to one of the Warner Bros. movie screenings and have people save me a seat. I could sit at any table at any bar near a convention and be welcome. In fact, I was often the only woman at the table.

It was heady stuff. True, these were not the prep school boys whose attention I had craved in my teens, but instead comic book editors, artists and writers. They were often smart and funny, but hardly ever blond or WASPy. Still, it felt as if I was sitting at the table with the cool kids. I was getting laughs telling jokes to guys who weren’t my husband. This was better than therapy!

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A midsummer’s weekly reading

  • News
  • July 15, 2007

Another glorious summery weekend here in the New York metro area, so with the necessary errands all done (why is it that most of them seem to involve spending money?), it’s time to catch you up on what ComicMix columnists have written this past week:

Hey, Mellifluous Mike Raub has reached a milestone with his big ComicMix Broadcast #65 and beyond; does that make him eligible for senior citizen privileges?

Lastly on a personal note, a huge thanks once again to Andrew Wheeler for all his comics link posts during my extended day-job swampitude! I hope to be back here full time before y’all know it (but not before Sandy Eggo)…

MARTHA THOMASES: That’s What Friends Are For

  • News
  • July 14, 2007

martha100-8504049Over the weekend, I read the entire trade paperback collection of The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen. I had anticipated a rollicking journey through my childhood, since I’d read most of these stories as a kid.

Alas! It was not to be.

The stories are fun, don’t get me wrong. Jimmy Olsen, the Everyboy of the DC Universe, is transformed from a working guy into a futuristic genius, a fat man, a werewolf, a porcupine, a turtle boy, a giant, a Bizarro and more. He travels to the future with the Legion of Super-Heroes, and he’s courted by two separate beauties from other worlds. As a kid, even a girl-type kid, I identified with Jimmy, and wanted to be Superman’s Pal.

Now, reading these stories as an adult, I still find them funny, but also oddly bleak. Jimmy Olsen is a lonely, lonely man. Superman may be his pal, but their interaction in these stories seems limited to story set-ups. Superman brings Jimmy a collection of stuff he found in outer space, leaves it for the young reporter to write about, and mayhem ensues. Sometimes Superman saves him, sometimes the bad stuff wears off, and sometimes Jimmy is sharp enough to save himself. In every case, he’s terrified that he won’t fit in, and his friends will shun him.

Professionally, Jimmy is on thin ice. He gets fired time after time, and often is forced to go and join a carnival freak show to earn a living. For some reason, there is always a freak show conveniently in town, with a side-show slot for him. Maybe things were different when these stories were written, but I thought most newspapers required at least a high school diploma to get a job. Doesn’t Jimmy have any other marketable skills? Why doesn’t he consider a related career, maybe in advertising or public relations, where his writing ability and photography skills would earn a more reliable income? (more…)

MARTHA THOMASES: Mansion on the Hill

martha100-4981614Every weekend, when I walk by the newsstands, I see cover stories in gossip magazines about Brad and Angelina, Jennifer, Reese, Lindsay, Britney and others. Although I only read these magazines at the hairdressers, I am fascinated by the lifestyles of people I will likely never meet. On Sunday, I enjoy the Real Estate section of The New York Times, looking at pictures of homes that can cost tens of millions of dollars.

And then, there are my favorite comics.

Batman has always been one of my favorite characters, at least in part because of Bruce Wayne. I am moved by the image of that little boy, watching his mother’s pearls scatter on the street as his parents are murdered. As a child, I was afraid the same thing could happen to my parents. As a parent, I wanted to spare my child from that tragedy.

bruce_wayne-2660942(To his credit, my son wanted to do the right thing. “Don’t worry,” he assured me when he was five years old. “If you’re ever gunned down by criminals, I promise to avenge your death.”)

Most of the people who have written Batman over the years have concentrated on the Caped Crusader and his underground Bat Cave, not the billionaire playboy who lives in the manor above. Most of the more recent writers believe that Bruce Wayne is the disguise, that the little, traumatized boy grew up to be Batman, not Wayne.

That premise allows for many interesting stories, and I understand that it’s more fun to play with the driven, rage-filled Batman, the character with the high-tech equipment and the regimen of martial arts training. A person who fights bad guys is more likely to work in stories that require a beginning, a middle and an end than a single man rattling around in a mansion.

Except …

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ComicMix columns declare independence

Between the final episode of this season’s Dr. Who airing on the Beeb last night, and this afternoon’s "live" (read: an hour delayed) VH1 running of the Concert for Diana (sure, I could have seen the actual live stream online, but then I wouldn’t be able to do anything else with my computer), it seems this weekend as though England must have won that war a couple hundred years ago, at least the cultural end of it.  Nonetheless, our ComicMix columnists have been doing our all-American best to keep you entertained this past week, and here’s your weekly wrap-up of our latest:

Did you catch Mellifluous Mike Raub‘s "Words and Pictures" below?  If you want to relisten to the Big ComicMix Broadcasts to which he’s referring, here they are again:

Lastly, we extend a laurel and hardy handshake welcoming Andrew Wheeler to our happy little gang!

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MARTHA THOMASES: Gotta Serve Somebody

  • News
  • June 30, 2007

martha100-6378567This past month has been a very busy one for me. I’ve been out of town three times, twice on business, and I’ve attended two trade shows and three comics conventions. It’s a lot of time to be thrust into crowds of people, whether waiting at an airport, a synagogue, a taxi line or a display booth.

This past month has exposed me to a variety of interpretations to the phrase, “customer service.”

I first started to think about this nearly 20 years ago, when I saw a presentation by Peter Glen, the author of It’s Not My Department: How to Get the Service You Want, Exactly the Way You Want It. At the time, I was working in the special events department for a large retailer, and we were just starting to feel the first effects of Wal-Mart and other discount stores. According to Glen, the way to compete was not by cutting prices, but by offering more service.

He doesn’t just mean stores need to hire more sales assistants. He means the customer must be treated with respect, as if her time has value, and her needs are important. Customer service includes displays that feature all available sizes, quality merchandise that doesn’t break, and efficient check-out. This shows the customer that the merchant understands her, and provides the best value.

“Value?” you say. “How can you say value is important when you first said stores shouldn’t compete on price alone?” Well, I’m glad you asked. Would you rather shop at Wal-Mart, where costs are kept so low that they won’t hire a security guard to patrol their notoriously dangerous parking lots, or at another store where the management demonstrates a concern for your safety? Would you rather by a cheap coffee-maker (or other small appliance) that you need to replace every year, or a good one that lasts a decade or more?

As a comics reader, would you rather buy a comic that has a cover that’s teasing or unclear, or would prefer one that clearly represents the story inside?

When I worked at DC Comics, I was astounded at how obscure some of the covers for the trade paperback collections could be. “Where’s the title?” I’d ask. “How can I tell who wrote and drew the story?” Often, this information would be on the back of the books, invisible to the customer looking at the display. “It doesn’t matter,” I was told. “By the time the book is racked, we’ve already been paid for it.”

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Overloaded on cons?

  • News
  • June 24, 2007

The older some of us get, the more tendency to burn out.  Transportation troubles and physical limitations may conspire to prevent us from getting the full con experience, but when you can keep up with everything from the comfort of your own computer, things don’t seem so bad.  Here’s your weekly wrap-up of ComicMix columns:

It was great seeing Mellifluous Mike Raub and Kai and Matt yesterday; as usual, they’ve been busy as well with their podcasts:

And don’t forget this week’s special bonus:

Remember, summer’s just started — pace yourself!

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