The Mix : What are people talking about today?

John Ostrander: Upsides & Downsides of Writing

Ostrander Art 140102There are some days that I love being a writer. When the everything is cooking, when the words are flowing, when the characters are speaking to you, when you’re on the top of your game, it’s all magic. That’s not every day. Not by a long shot.

There are the days when you’re staring at the screen and it stares back – and the screen does not blink. You pray and the gods/patron saints (depending on your belief system) do not smile, do not answer, do not share their favor with you. There are days when I have considered offering blood sacrifices to these gods/saints. On those days, the cats hide.

I make my living off of my writing. There are upsides and downsides to that. On the upside, I’m my own boss. On the downside, I frequently hate my boss. He always knows when I’m goofing off and I can hear his voice in the back of my head saying, “Are you making money doing that?” It’s hard to get a day off; there’s no paid holidays, there’s no paid sick days, no paid vacation.

On the upside, I work out of my home. The commute’s a breeze. The only traffic jam is when one or more of the cats gets in front of me as I head towards the office and decides to stroll or flat out lie down right in my path. A semi jack-knifing in front of you is not as likely to stymie your passage as completely as a downed cat. Swearing sometimes clears the path; sometimes it just gets me a blank look.

On the downside, it’s hard to get away from the office. It’s always there and that damned boss keeps on asking “When are you getting back to work?” Yes, I have my own separate office in my home and, yes, I could close the door. I’ve done that. I think there’s a small gravity well at my desk and it keeps sucking me back.

There’s the Freelancer’s Disease. If you’re offered work you tend to say “yes” even if you’re overbooked because you fear if you say “no” the aforementioned gods/patron saints won’t send you any more work. And there’s the corresponding Freelancer’s Nightmare when the work does stop flowing. Will the work ever come again; how will you pay bills, how will you eat if the work doesn’t come back? It’s not a rational fear but it’s a very real one and you can wake up in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning with an attack of it. Been there; felt that.

There’s a corresponding hope that lightning will strike. I was on a plane once and the guy next to me began talking. We were both in our forties. I told him what I did and he told me he was a corporate lawyer. I expressed some envy at him; he had a steady paycheck. He agreed and he said that was the problem: he knew how much he would make this year, and the next year, and pretty much ten years down the line. “You,” he said, “on the other hand, could be hit by lightning.” I could write something, come up with an idea or a concept that could make me millions. It could happen at any time. It hasn’t yet… but it still might.

That’s one of the things that keeps me at it, that and the joy I get when the writing works. I’m also too damn old to work in an office. I can’t see anyone hiring me. I really don’t have any marketable business skills and no résumé.

Nope, for better or worse, for all the upsides and downsides, writing is what I do. I’d better get back to it before the boss yells at me. Again.

The bastard.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Jen Krueger

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Marc Alan Fishman: The Powerpuff Pituitary Problem

What’s one more  pundit’s perspective on the recent Powerpuff hullabaloo, right?

For those not in-the-know, let me catch you up mighty quick. The Cartoon Network and IDW publish a Powerpuff Girls comic book each month. Recently, artist Mimi Yoon’s variant cover to issue #6 hit the Internet, and soon thereafter, everyone went crazypants. Or maybe it’s more apropos to say crazyintheirpants. If you look at the art for today’s article (above) you’ll see Yoon’s piece.

Are you lighting your bra on fire yet?

It depicts Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles as pin-up inspired… shall we say… more mature versions of themselves, feeling victorious after defeating an oddly gigantic Mojo Jojo. All three look at us, the viewer, with kewpie-doll-meets-smoky-playboy-cartoon eyes. Their outfits true to cartoon scale, but their proportions now in an uncanny valley inches shy of legal jailbait. They exist as true ‘toons; impossibly impossible in every way.

For many a’ person, this is ludicrous, angering, and a smite upon the very Earth. But much like last week’s Wonder Woman crisis, I’m not lighting the torches, nor and I leading the mob towards Castle IDW.

I’m not sharpening the blade to thrust at the fire-starters either. As I read it, said blaze was started by a friend of mine, Dennis Barger, who owns and operates a great store in Taylor, MI. His point is valid: a book clearly aimed at children has little to gain over what might be construed as a less-than-wholesome depiction of the titular (‘natch) characters. He, as a parent and a store-owner, felt that it was a poor choice for a cover – even if it was only a variant cover – and as such sought to spread the word amongst the socially interconnected in order to create discussion. He succeeded. And, it would seem it also vilified him to those looking to stand up for the artist, and the artistic choices made therein. Debate is debate though… and for creating one? I tip my hat to Dennis. He got us talking, as we are all prone to do, about feminism on one hand, and the over-sexualization of children’s properties on the other.

When I saw the cover in question, I giggled. Then I paused. Then I thought “Huh, that really is a bit much, right?” Then I moved on. Arguments abound circle the choices of the artist here. Why age the kiddie property in this manner? What does an image of a Powerpuff Girl, nay, Powerpuff Young Woman do for a li’l lass (or lad) who reads the book? More to the point: How does this art in particular seek to become a commodity, had it not been canceled, and released to the public without any more fanfare than an ad in Previews?

To answer my own questions: The artist was working in the faux-pin-up style that is clearly rendered beautifully, and that style wouldn’t allow the Puffs to be pre-pubescent in order to fit the style. For a little guy or gal, the cover is fantasy: what might Blossom, Buttercup, and Bubbles look like a bit down the road? Oh, they’re taller.

I’m not much for overly sexualized underclassmen in mini-skirts and mascara. If IDW saw the work and thought that there would be a subset of customers out there who would pursue the book because of the cover, I guess they are entitled to an opinion, and I wouldn’t shake the hand of any man buying the book because of it.

It’s simply an evil that exists for reasons that should shame all of us within the industry. Certainly we can debate the merit of Wonder Woman donning doomed pantaloons, or the need for Power Girl to have a boob-window versus the current feminista costume designs of the newerish Captain Marvel and Smasher. But when that debate turns towards an innocent property like the Powerpuff girls or the oddly matured My Little Pony Equestria license? Well, that’s where gentlemen like Mr. Barger make themselves loud and clear.

Children are the future and we shouldn’t make them feel like they need to grow up faster than they already are. Seeing blossoming buttercups bubble out from a skin-tight spandex suit is simply a dart hurled at a target that misses by a country mile. Had it come out, would it have created a generation of young girls praying for their own set of mosquito bites? Would it have let loose a cadre of boys with ill-fitting trousers chasing those aforementioned lasses skirts? Hardly.

The cover was a wink and a nod towards the adult purchasers of a children’s title. It was a variant cover that any responsible parent – or parent simply not looking to answer several questions they’d rather not deal with – would have purchased the normal cover. The debate is out there, and where controversy is birthed, so too will new bullets be fired into the fray. Common sense dictates to us the truth behind the yelling.

Next time, keep the kids as kids. Let the ‘shippers keep their fanfic fantasies to themselves… or you know… their Tumblr accounts.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Jen Krueger

 

The Point Radio: LEGO Voices And BLACKLIST Reveals

It’s Superman, Wonder Woman and even Batman on the big screen. Move over Affleck, Will Arnett talks about how he found just the right voice for The Dark Knight in LEGO THE MOVIE, plus more on THE BLACKLIST as cast member Parminder Nagra and show runners John Eisendrath and Jon Bokenkamp teased us on when we can expect some big reveals.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE on ANY mobile device (Apple or Android). Just  get the free app, iNet Radio in The  iTunes App store – and it’s FREE!  The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE  – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Martha Thomases: Pete and Me

thomases-art-140131-150x146-2040142Pete Seeger died Monday evening. He was 94 years old.

You can read about his life here in the newspaper of record. A simple Google search will get you a bunch more versions, but these are the facts.

And the facts are so incredibly inadequate at this point.

The first time I saw Pete Seeger perform was on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. I’d heard him sing on the radio occasionally but had never seen him, nor did I think about it a lot. I was 14, so please cut me some slack. As a big fan of the Smothers Brothers I found out bit about him before the show aired, including the fact that the reason I had never seen him was that he had been blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. You can see his performance here. Rather than grovel his way back into the public’s perception, he instead proceeded to piss off those who were upset about him before. Here’s a story from The New York Times about his performance. To me, this is the key quote: “Mr. Seeger’s political views, which sometimes get into his songs, have often aroused controversy. He was convicted in 1961 of ten counts of contempt of Congress for refusing in 1955 to answer questions of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The conviction was reversed in 1962.”

It still took them five years to put him back on the air. Here’s a transcript of his testimony.

You kids today probably don’t understand what it was like to have a popular culture that influenced the political discourse, that made a difference in people’s lives, that was about more than selling cars or phones. Pete Seeger not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk. He celebrated our musical heritage and used it to urge us to live up to our highest ideals. And he made it fun and uplifting to join him.

Was he a Communist? Yeah, for a while. So what?

I want you to watch a few of these clips. There’s this one, an antiwar song from the Johnny Cash show in 1970 . And this one from a British television show in 1964. This is a nice version of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

In 2008, he performed during the weekend celebration of Obama’s first inauguration. Bruce Springsteen had just put out an album inspired by Seeger’s life , so they performed together. You can see them singing Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”  Is that George Lucas singing along in the crowd? It’s certainly our President singing along… on my favorite verse!

In September 2013, not even six months ago, he performed the same song at a benefit for Farm Aid in upstate New York. According to his son, he was chopping wood last week.

As you watch these performances, let me point out a few things. He plays a banjo that is inscribed, “This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.” Most important, he always looks like he’s having a great time. Singing songs brings him so much joy, and he wants his audience to sing with him and share the joy. That’s the most radical position of all.

What does this have to do with comics? Everything. When Pete Singer lead his audience in songs, he was never really “in charge.” He’s sneak in each line of the lyrics before he sang them so we could sing, too. He never suggested we might be terrible singers, because that was not the point. We sang because it felt good. When it feels good, it is good.

Comics seem to be learning that lesson. More people make comics for the fun of it than ever before, publishing on line, distributing any way they can. You can see more styles of art and storytelling than I could ever imagine when I first started reading them. Do I like them all? Of course not. But I like the energy and the joy these folks bring to telling their own stories. They don’t need the Big Two (or any corporation) telling them how to go about their art.

When I was working at WIN, an antiwar weekly, in 1974-1975, I would occasionally get a note from him, complimenting me on some piece I wrote, always signed with a little doodle of a banjo. Although we never met, I was tickled that he took the time to encourage me.

When all the other kids his age were listening to Raffi, I played Pete Seeger songs for my son as a kid. Those were our family values.

Thank you, sir.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

Dennis O’Neil: S.H.I.E.L.D and the Long Game

O'Neil Art 140130So there it was, that kind of news item. We might once have seen something like it – a second cousin? – in the comics fanzines hobbyists published now. I find stuff like it virtually every day in Yahoo’s news section. This particular item speculated that Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which is, as you must know if you access this particular website, a television series broadcast on Tuesday night on ABC stations, is playing a long game. (Where do I collect my tortured syntax award?)

It is maybe also common knowledge among you aficionados that the program is a disappointment in the ratings. Not doing too well, there on Tuesday night. We can speculate, as some already have, that viewers may feel that they have been prey to the old bait-and-switch gaff, promised one thing and presented with another. The TV honchos make a big deal of the show’s comic book origins, even including the word “Marvel” in the title, and prefacing every episode with the same montage of comic book images that precedes Marvel’s movies. So it’s reasonable to expect the kind of entertainment Marvel is most associated with, superhero stories. (If you’re a Marvel fan who cherishes the memory of Millie the Model, well… bless you!) But instead of superheroes, what do they give us?  An action show. No flying, no awesome feats of strength, no grotesque superfoes, not even the odd cape or mask, Just, you know, fights and guns and car chases and stuff.

Not a bad action show, actually. Decent acting and dialogue, and stunts that seems to me to be a bit better than what’s usually found on the tube. And the plots are often flavored with science fiction, which could partially justify the superhero connection.

But, at the end of the hour… no superheroes. Wonder what’s on the Comedy Channel?

So they’re playing the long game? I interpret “long game” to mean that they’ll take their time, and ours, introducing characters and plot elements that will justify membership in the superhero club.

Comics got there first.

Twice, in my years behind editorial desks, the long game question arose, though we didn’t call it that. In one instance, a previous editor had promised the writer a five-year story. Awkward. I didn’t want to disappoint the writer, a good guy, and I may have been reluctant to make my predecessor a liar. But I doubted that any comic continuity of that era could be stretched so far. That’s the kind of decision editors are paid to make and sometimes the job can be a bitch.

We struck a deal. The long storyline could continue as long as sales remained above a certain number. Lagging circulation got the title cancelled and I was off the hook, and I hope the writer bears no ill memories of the incident.

The second long game was not being played on my turf, exactly, but because I was a big honkin’ group editor I had to notice it. If memory serves (and won’t that be the day?) the scripter planned to reveal certain crucial story elements several years into the run. The book didn’t last that long. Not even close.

The lesson we can take away from all this is that the long game won’t work unless you build an audience. Give ‘em solid reasons to keep coming back, episode after episode. Promising something, even implicitly, and then putting it on indefinite hold is not a good strategy.

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Tweeks!

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY MORNING: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mike Gold: Adolf Hitler, All Rights Reserved

Gold Art 140129One of the rights comics creators have been fighting for lo these many decades has been obtaining ownership of their work, or at least getting some control and a decent percentage. We think this is fair and necessary… as do even a few modern publishers.

Much of this revolves around how our copyright and trademark laws work. Neither are elegantly written – go figure – and our copyright laws are and have just about always been woefully outdated. Given the ludicrous growth in technology, this is likely to be true for a long, long time. The good news for creators is that these laws are understandable (by and large) and all talent, no matter what media helps pay their rent, should read these laws very carefully. If the laws sound like they were written in Klingon, there are plenty of resources out there to help you.

So… I’ll make it easy for you. Check out this website: http://www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp.

Which brings me to a story.

One artist who was particularly knowledgeable about trademark and copyright law was an odd guy named Adolf Hitler. He sort of looked like Moe Howard, but he spoke more aggressively. Oh, and unlike Moe, Adolf wasn’t Jewish… we think. But to be fair, he did do at least three things that were quite remarkable. The first was design the Volkswagen. Now, I wouldn’t drive a Beetle even if I won it in a contest and it came with an alluring model, but its enduring popularity is above reproach.

Second, he built the Autobahn. Hey, people had to have a road upon which to drive their bugs, right? The Autobahn was such a great idea that, after the war, President Dwight Eisenhower ripped the Little Vegetarian off and created our Interstate highway system. Ike (he was called “Ike,” after the Rube Goldberg comics character) did run the European theater of operations during the Big One so he knew the strategic benefits of such a network of roads.

Third, and most significant to my oft-derailed train-of-thought, Hitler trademarked his likeness. Then he mandated his visage must appear on German postage, posters and other official papers, including some currency. Adolf earned tens of millions of dollars off of this little maneuver. Combined with his Mein Kampf royalties, the Little Dictator make quite a substantial fortune off of owning his trademarks and copyrights.

Rest assured, Hitler’s family does not make any money off of this today. These rights are in the hands of the state of Bavaria and any income goes to charity. And the German government discontinued the Hitler stamps almost 70 years ago.

Hey, I’m just citing history, folks.

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Tweeks!

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Michael Davis: Steranko – Who Is He, And What Is He To You?

Davis Art 140128My subtitle is the title of a great Bill Withers song, but an even greater Creative Source song. If you are of the age where you think of Twilight as a classic film, chances are you have never heard of Bill Withers, Creative Source or that song.

Pity.

I could understand not being aware of Creative Source. They were a bit off the beaten path. However any music fan not aware of Bill Withers should drop less Ecstasy and lighten up on the trance. People, Boom, Boom, Boom with an occasional auto corrected voice may be music, but a song it is not.

Whatever age you are, if you are a fan of comics you should have heard of Jim Steranko, or simply Steranko as he is better known.

A comic fan, a true fan of the medium, not aware of Steranko is akin to a history buff thinking Lincoln is only a carmaker.

I’m not about to, nor am I qualified to give a detailed overview of his work. Please, yes I’m saying please, do yourself a big favor and look him up.

As I said, I can’t even begin to cover his contributions to our industry but I will share with you what I hope is a small indication of his importance to an industry he changed forever.

In the mid to late 90s I ran Motown Animation & Filmworks, (MA) Motown is the most famous record company in the world and if you doubt that name three record companies and do so without Goggle.

Oh. I’m sorry. You’re quiet now.

MA was a film and television division of Motown that at the time Motown was owned by Polygram and both were Phillips Companies.

Phillips is a enormous corporation and anything what comes under their umbrella is protected with an army of lawyers that will crush any affront to their intellectual properties (IP), patents, products and the very saying of their name is like a lone Klan member yelling “jungle bunny” at the Black Murderer convention.

On the flip side, if you make any move while within a corporate structure that has even the smell of being problematic you could be bitch slapped.

Bitch slapped like I was when I appeared on a CNN financial news show and answered “Fine” when asked how I thought what I was doing would affect the stock price.

The show was live and after I unclipped my lapel mic – if that long – my cell rung. The booming voice of Clarence Avant, Chairman Of The Board of Motown Records told me to, “Never, ever, comment of the stock price, anywhere, anytime for any reason!”

He was not happy.

And that was just over one word.

That was a serious blunder on my part. I simply didn’t know but ignorance when you head up a key division of a major company is no excuse.

I learned fast that without first running some decisions past Business Affairs I’d run the very real risk of a very bad day.

IP was at he very heart of my core business at Motown and because of such I created a comic book division called Motown Machineworks. One of the titles was a book and character called Stealth.

As soon as the press broke on that book I got a call from a fairly well known artist. I won’t mention his name because what I’m about to say may cause him to pop some shit in my face when next we meet and I don’t need that kind of noise in my life. Hell, I’m already on probation because of the last two people who popped some shit in my face.

This creator said he had a friend who was producing a book called Stealth. I said that was a problem. He agreed. But he said the problem was mine.

I explained to him that MA owned the trademark to that character name and suggested whatever he was smoking he stop. He boldly told me that he would create a P.R. nightmare for me if we did not “Cut the kid a check.”

“So let me get this straight. I pay someone to stop you from causing Motown a public relations problem over a trademark we own.”

Yep, that’s what he meant.

“Fuck you.” I cheerfully said with a pretty good chuckle. “Tell that kid to lawyer up and I’ll make sure he knows you were the one to clue me in.”

C L I C K.

Never heard a word from him on that matter.

Even if I wanted to cave like a little bitch when I had no reason in the world to do so, the amount of time and effort dealing with this would be a needless waste of resources and resources mean money and losing money in corporate America is bad but wasting money on a non issue?

I may have been shot.

What, pry tell, does this have to do with Steranko and his importance to the comics industry? I’ll tell you.

A couple of days later I get a call from Jim Steranko.

What follows is the word for word exchange between Jim and I. This I know because I have journals going back to high school. The time of the entry is 2:20 pm. That means I did not wait to get home to write about it.

 “I’ll get to the point, I created a character called Stealth some time ago and I read recently that you are launching a book about a character with the same name. I’m sure my character predates yours and I call on you as a gentleman to step back from that name.”

“Take it. It’s yours.”

How important is Steranko to comics?

His impact in the field commands and deserves that kind of respect.

He’s that important.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Tweaks!

 

Jen Krueger: Apparently I’m Kermit

Krueger Art 140128Of the myriad of characters that exist in Westeros, apparently I’m most similar to Tyrion Lannister. When it comes to the cast at Hogwarts, I could stand in for Hermione. And in a galaxy far, far away, I’m interchangeable with R2-D2. All of these results were drawn from online quizzes, but I probably didn’t have to tell you that. Your Facebook feed is likely as full as mine of results to the same (or similar) questionnaires.

The first memory I have of a “where would you fit in the world of (insert pop culture reference here)” quiz is one featuring the Hogwarts Sorting Hat placing the user in one of the school’s four houses. I recall seeing it online shortly after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone became a huge hit in theaters, and my reaction to it was, How cute, I bet little kids will get a kick out of doing that. Today though, this bite-size pop culture personalization is a daily occurrence amongst my adult friends. With so much of ourselves represented in social media, it’s natural to want our interests in entertainment reflected there, but lately I’ve been wondering why that expression now comes so commonly in this quiz form.

I’m sure some of the draw is in the unique style of fan service these quizzes offer. They encourage geeking out by breaking down shows and movies in a way only fans would understand, and do so in an interactive and personalized manner. Obviously anyone could take a quiz to learn which companion they’d be if they found themselves in the TARDIS, but only a Doctor Who fan would appreciate the difference between being told they’re a Donna or an Amy. This active invitation to the user to move beyond simply thinking about the property’s world and into thinking of themselves as part of the property’s world is hard to replicate in other things aimed at fans. And since fancying yourself similar to a character you love is obviously going to be flattering, it’s no surprise the bulk of these questionnaires are aimed at telling people which character they’re most like.

So the impetus to take the quizzes makes sense. But why post the results on Facebook? Sure, sharing our favorite entertainment with friends is nothing new, but proclaiming I love the BBC’s Sherlock is very different from posting that I got Sherlock Holmes in a “Which Sherlock Character Are You?” quiz. The former reveals one of my pop culture touchstones, but the latter takes things a step further by letting me define a bit of myself with that specific touchstone acting as a yardstick. And silly as it might be, I have to admit it’s actually possible to tell things about people based on their results.

This week, a questionnaire telling the user what Muppet they would be was particularly popular amongst my friends. Looking at which Henson creation everyone got, I saw a correlation between the traits of their designated Muppet and the traits those friends prize in real life.

Is this a shallow way to think about people? Yes. But, weirdly, it works, at least to a certain extent. It also explains something I hadn’t ever understood before: people answering the questions in a way they think will yield a particular result, or re-taking a quiz until they get their desired answer. If we put enough stock in the results to be pleased when aligned with a favorite character, and we find other people’s results to the same quiz to be generally accurate, then I suppose it stands to reason that receiving a result comparing ourselves to characters we don’t like would be undesirable.

At the end of the day though, the lifespan of the results of these quizzes is the same as that of the quizzes themselves: extremely short. Accurate or not, today’s Downton Abbey questionnaire will be replaced by one about The Hunger Games tomorrow, and both will be forgotten by next week. But maybe this actually contributes to the popularity of these quizzes in a way; they’re quick bursts of fandom made no less fun for their brevity. If movies and TV act as pop culture meals, then these questionnaires are pop culture amuse-bouches. And they fulfill that role well.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can get someone other than Lady Edith on this Downton quiz.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

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