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Marc Alan Fishman: WWE and A Future For Comics

Fishman Art 140118Last Wednesday, Vince McMahon announced the launching of the WWE Network. Suffice to say it was well received by his hardcore fans just as he’d hoped. To use a bit of hyperbole – which all things considered, seems apropos – the self-made millionaire stands to become a billionaire with the launch.

It’s many things, but above all else, it’s a stroke of genius in the modern era of content delivery. Comic companies might want to take note… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The WWE Network would appear to just be Netflix for hillbillies, but truly those who aren’t in-the-know, and quick-to-judge are missing out the insane deal the WWE is offering. For $9.95 a month (purchased in six month blocks, with a potential discount for year long subscriptions forthcoming), users get access to every pay-per-view since 1985 from the WWE, as well as rival companies WCW and ECW. They also get access to newly created content like countdown shows, reality shows, and plenty of documentaries and retrospectives.

Oh, there’s more. Users get every pay-per-view coming out. At present, purchasing a pay-per-view from VinnyMac sets you back 45-60 dollars, depending on the event, and the quality – SD or HD.

Do the math, kiddos. If the WWE just offered you the pay-per-views at ten bucks a pop, you’re saving anywhere between $440 – $620 a year. But if someone were to offer you an 83% discount, and you were even just a normal fan, certainly you’d find that to be worth considering. Add that insane discount to an increase in content, somewhere around 1900%, and now you’re starting perhaps to see why this is a big deal.

Obviously there are plenty of folks scoffing at the financials of all of this. With an 83% discount on a product, WWE’s PPV buy-rate profits will appear to tank. Vince and family are of course looking for volume profits to achieve the balance. In addition, newly minted subscribers will now be marketed to (in essence) exponentially more than they ever have in the past. This of course creates new advertising revenue streams. Imagine having an audience with decades of trend data sitting in wait, where your product can be hocked to them every single time they decide they want to indulge in their vice. This is internet ads the way companies dreamed they’d exist. Paint me impressed, at very least.

In covering the announcement, Gizmodo said “…[T]hink about what you’d rather pay for: Netflix and its vast but unpredictable movie library and unproven original series? Or the entirety of [thing you love]?” Truly, as I’d said: this may very well be the way to save our always-in-a-state-of-dying medium of comics.

Marvel and DC have set to revolutionize content delivery in the digital realm many times over. They’ve offered subscription services in the past (and may still do) and never once have I heard from fellow comic fans “this is how it’s done!” Instead, too many apps produce access to the same material, forcing fans to choose a vehicle, and then commit to it. Same as iTunes vs. Amazon MP3 vs. Rhapsody, etc. Vince McMahon chose instead to Spotify his industry-leading content library. Could any of you imagine a service that for the price of your books perhaps for a single week… granting you access to decades worth of content, as well as keeping you current on your favorite titles for the month? Could you fathom a service that could be easily accessed on your tablet, desktop, laptop, and/or phone? And dare I dream… what if that service gave you Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, Boom!, Avatar, the works…?

A boy can dream, but a man faces reality. Warner Bros. and Disney have no need or desire to combine their libraries of printed materials. Nor could they ever negotiate a way to create a subscriber base, and split profits. And they certainly wouldn’t give a rat’s patootie about any smaller publisher, even if say they made The Walking Dead. Instead, our comic books (both in print and digital) will continue to be a publisher-to-publisher game. ComicXology, Graphic.ly and other providers will continue to create proprietary filetypes that prevent the average user from controlling their ala carte purchases in a single easy-to-manage collection. The key of course falls back on the broad shoulders of you-know-who.

When Vince McMahon created Wrestlemania in 1985, he officially buried the original independent scene of professional wrestling. Over the next 20 years he slowly but surely eliminated his only competition. Over the next 10 years after that, he spent his profits slowly building and secretly digitizing the libraries of not only his content, but that of his antagonists. Nearly a decade after that, he’s set to launch a single product to unite every fan he’s gained and lost throughout those 30 years.

I, for one, can’t wait to sign to up. While my recent return to the comic shop has proven that industry still trips over itself with the sins of the past I can at least enjoy one publicly mocked genre in peace, and personal profitability.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Jen Krueger

 

The Point Radio: BITTEN – Who’s Afraid Of The Big Blonde Wolf?

The work of NY Times best selling author, Kelly Armstrong, is brought to life in the new SyFy series, BITTEN. We talk to Kelly and BITTEN star Laura Vandervoort about the challenges of going from page to production, and portraying a strong, female character. Plus more on the Starz series BLACK SAILS and another epic fail for Wonder Woman.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Martha Thomases: Whatever It Is, She’s Against It

thomases-art-140117-150x116-9924058When Brooklyn Nine Nine won the Golden Globe for best television comedy on Sunday, my first thought was, “That’s the end of that.”

I mean, I love the show. I thought the episode that came after the Globes on Tuesday was really funny (although I don’t want to see any romances develop within the department. None. At All. Ever.).

But now I know that other people like it. It’s not cool anymore.

You may ask yourself, “Why does a woman who is 60 years old care about what is cool?” And you would be right. I have long held the belief that no one can be cool once he or she has children (exception that proves the rule: David Bowie). My colleague, Mike Gold, disagrees, telling me that his daughter’s friends think he is. I suspect they do think he’s cool – for a parent.

There is something ridiculously satisfying about being the one of the only people who likes something. It’s a secret that you share with only a favored few. I have felt the way about Peter Bagge, back when John Holmstrom first published him. Once he started working with Fantagraphics, I still liked his work, but felt let down that I had to share him.

Comics fans are especially bad about this, in my experience. I can remember several times when I would go to a comic book store, select my choices (mostly superhero comics) and go to the cashier, only to have him (always a him) tell me I had terrible taste and shouldn’t shop in that store. This never happened to me at any other place I shopped, not even at Pat Field which, before Sex and the City, was far too cool for me.

And so, I can only conclude that comic book fans are more rigid in their idea of exclusivity than even the fashion police. It’s almost enough for me to enjoy some schadenfreude about comics fans being squeezed out of the San Diego Comic-Con, except that I am one of them.

Speaking of which, if one wants to continue to enjoy one’s super-cool object of joy, one should hope it catches on enough to become uncool. Yeah, Firefly was awesome and I want to be a brown-coat until I die, but what I’d really like are more episodes which we would have had if the ratings were higher.

Which brings us to a useful definition, found in this article. Key quote: “The great video blogger Ze Frank once said, ‘Being cool is about not participating in traditionally enjoyable experiences and creating the illusion that happiness can be found in alternative, less enjoyable experiences. The degree to which other people around you try to emulate your alternative lifestyle and fail determines how cool you are. You’re only as cool as people wish they were.’

“‘Cool people starve themselves, get neck tattoos and listen to bands the rest of us have never heard of. These things are not fun, and they are not popular, and that is exactly the point.”

Coolness is not something one can achieve by trying for it. I was never cool, because I was always too enthusiastic about my pleasures. That’s okay, I’d rather have joy than admiration or envy.

Personally, I question how much longer tattoos can be cool. Eventually, people’s mothers will have them.

REVISED COLUMN SCHEDULE FOR THIS WEEK:

LATER TODAY: Michael Davis

SATURDAY: Back to our normal schedule with Marc Alan Fishman!

 

Dennis O’Neil: Disney, Woody and Me

Dennis O’Neil: Disney, Woody and Me

A week or two back, our own media goddess, Martha Thomases, observed that in real life Walt Disney was not the debonair and avuncular presence he wanted us to think he was. I’d heard rumblings over years, now and then, that Walt was guilty of anti-Semitism and racism and maybe sexism and that he was chummy with Nazis. I noted these rumors and then, no outrage, no anger – I pretty much forgot them.

But why didn’t I get upset? It might have been because I wasn’t a Disney fan. What he was selling was not high on my shopping list. In fact, I’m only a casual consumer of animation, which may seem odd, given how I’ve earned my living for the past half-century or so: all those comic books…

But at least the cartoons in comic books have the decency to stand still.

Understand, I don’t hate animation. I remember thinking highly of Mighty Mouse when I was in elementary school, and when Bugs Bunny appeared on my neighborhood movie screen, I enjoyed a few funny minutes. And today, I consider The Simpsons and Family Guy pop culture treasures, though I probably respond more to the writing and voice acting in those shows than to the (bouncing/hopping/jiggly) images. I could even enjoy Donald Duck and his pals. But if the Disney empire had never existed, my life would not be impoverished.

So Uncle Walt was a stinker? Well, that’s regrettable, but many things are, and I have no emotional investment in Mr. D.

That’s not true of every entertainer.

When the Woody Allen’s shenanigans with his step-daughter, Soon Yi Previn, became public knowledge, I had a twitch of distaste, because, no doubt about it, I liked Woody as a comedian, a writer, an actor, and most all, as a film maker. I’ve liked him ever since I first saw his young self do standup, probably on a black-and-white television screen, and I’ve liked and admired him ever since. The Soon Yi business? Yeah, that was regrettable. But since Woody and Soon Yi did not share DNA, no real, biological, incest was involved, and Woody did do the honorable thing and marry the lady. To quote my favorite line from Shakespeare: “Use every man after his desert and who shall ‘scape whipping?”

But now, on the occasion of Woody’s receiving a lifetime achievement award, his son, Ronin, and Ronin’s mother, Mia Farrow, claim that he once molested a seven-year-old. Sexual exploitation of children is hard to forgive, especially when it’s done by someone with whom you identify – one of your heroes. The Soon Yi affair was ugly; molesting children is monstrous.

I try not to judge anyone. But don’t expect to see me at the next Woody Allen movie.

REVISED COLUMN SCHEDULE FOR THIS WEEK:

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Martha Thomases

LATER FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

SATURDAY: Back to our normal schedule with Marc Alan Fishman

 

The Mandarin in a Clip from “All Hail the King”

The Mandarin in a Clip from “All Hail the King”

The opening sequence of the new Marvel One Shot, All Hail the King, has been released by Disney. After the events of Iron Man 3, Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) is locked up in a high-security prison. He has gained widespread infamy and is the subject of an in-depth profile for a documentary film.

Directed by Drew Pierce and starring Sir Ben Kingsley and Scoot McNairy, All Hail The King will be available on Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World releasing in 3D and HD Digital February 4th, 2014 and on 3D Combo Pack (3D Blu-ray™, 2D Blu-ray, Digital Copy), Single-Disc Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand February 25th, 2014.

Mike Gold: Doctor Doom Is Obsolete

gold-art-140115-150x127-1516171A great many of our finer super-villains in the heroic fantasy world are bent on world conquest. Admittedly, a few simply want to destroy the planet, but at Lord Cumulous said to Prince Chaos in Warp, “Destroy the planet? Where are you going to live?”

For the life of me, I don’t understand why anybody would want to run a single nation, let alone the entire blue marble. Nonetheless, everybody from Doctor Doom to Ming the Merciless have tried time and time again. That’s how we know they’re insane: they keep on trying, and they never succeed.

These people spend a lot of money on their sophisticated Jack Kirbyesque machinery and even more money on henchmen. I’m sorry; henchpeople – just because you are evil, you don’t have to be sexist as well. And, by the way, are your henchpeople covered by minimum wage laws? How about health insurance? Obamacare? But I digress. Add the cost of your hidden lair, costume design and manufacture, those little flying television cameras that allow you to read the hero’s word balloons (today we call them “drones”), and you’ve spent the gross national product of Latveria and then some.

There is a better way to take over the planet. It’s probably less expensive and its got the benefit of being safer than, to site merely one example, the stunt the Masked Meanie pulled on Wonder Wart-Hog (Help Magazine #26) where he dug a hole several miles wide and as deep as the center of the Earth, filled it up with gunpowder, and lit the fuse.

If you’re a super-villain-in-training and you’re thinking about taking over the world, here’s what you do, in eight easy steps:

1) Start a Super-PAC http://www.fec.gov/pdf/forms/ie_only_letter.pdf.

2) Decide which of your henchpeople will follow your orders in the Senate and the House. You’ll need at least 60 Senate seats and 218 in the House. Make your henchpeople trade in their villain costumes for Brooks Brothers suits.

3) Use your Super-PAC funds to get your henchpeople elected.

4) Abduct and terminate the vice president.

5) Have your henchpeople vote you in as the replacement vice president.

6) Have your House henchpeople impeach the president and then have your Senate henchpeople vote to remove the president from office.

7) As president, go to the next U.N. opening and, during your welcoming speech, have your henchpeople slaughter all the representatives.

8) Declare yourself “King of the World!” Don’t worry; James Cameron won’t sue you. You’re king of the world! Tradition dictates you have a crown and you place that crown on your own head. It’s also a swell image on the teevee.

It’s just that simple. No muss, no fuss. And it has the benefit of not destroying the place where you live.

Any villain can do it.

REVISED COLUMN SCHEDULE FOR  THIS WEEK:

FRIDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Martha Thomases

LATER FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

 

The Tweeks Review 2013
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The Tweeks Review 2013

This week the Tweeks look back at the rest of 2013, giving us a twin tween take on what worked and what crashed and burned.

REVISED COLUMN SCHEDULE FOR  THIS WEEK:

THURSDAY 5:00 EST USA: Mike Gold

FRIDAY: Dennis O’Neil, Martha Thomases, Michael Davis

Jen Krueger: A Mislabeled Meltdown

krueger-art-140114-150x132-9234258At least three nights a week, I do long form improvisation. Sometimes I do this in a blackbox theater for a handful of other improvisers, and sometimes I do it in a hall at the Staples Center for hundreds of comic book convention attendees. Either way, I get in front of my audience, take a suggestion, and spend the next 15 to 60 minutes pulling things out of thin air in the hopes of making that audience laugh. I’ve been doing improv for almost five years now, and though I’ve sharpened the skills associated with it, that doesn’t mean it is (or ever will be) easy to get in front of people and make something up.

I’ve also done my fair share of working with something written. Whether it be public speaking or performing from a script, I’ve gotten in front of a group of people with the objective of delivering some manner of copy more times than I can count. While some people find a script to be a comfort when speaking or performing, I definitely do not. There are hundreds of ways improvisation can go well or poorly, but having scripted lines means all you need to do to get it wrong is flub one of those lines. I feel pressure to be faithful to what’s been written and it makes this endeavor at least as challenging as improv, if not moreso. But whether dealing with improvisation or something scripted, it’s a pretty universal human feeling to be nervous in front of an audience since no one wants to look bad or mess up.

So why is everybody giving Michael Bay so much shit about the Samsung CES press event?

Look, I get that some of Bay’s works are so big and silly that they’ve been the source of many punchlines in the past. I’m sure I’ve even made a Transformers 2 joke or two myself at some point. So when I saw tons of tweets and Facebook posts about Bay having a “meltdown” on stage, I figured someone moved beyond good-natured ribbing and into mean-spirited mocking of his work to his face, prompting the director to lose his temper and storm off. Curious, I watched a video of his supposed “meltdown” and (god help, I’m going to sound like a Buzzfeed headline) I was amazed at what actually happened.

Bay later explained on his blog that after he accidentally skipped one of the lines of the host speaking with him onstage, the teleprompter feeding them both their copy tried to compensate for the jump and went on the fritz. Watching the video, the moment the script is lost is clear even before Bay tells the host that he’s lost the prompter, and it’s this moment that made me feel bad for him. The nerves jangling as he tries to continue after that are palpable, and it’s not long before he’s simply unable to continue and walks offstage with an apology. The clip I’d thought might give me a chuckle actually ended up making my skin crawl because it and the way people have been labeling it made me so uncomfortable.

Admittedly, there are better ways Bay could’ve handled losing his place in his copy. He could’ve vamped for a moment while the teleprompter operator got the script back on track, or taken a deep breath to shake off the prepared text entirely and fully committed to winging it. I’m sure the fact that he’s a hugely famous film director means many people assume he’s used to speaking off the cuff, but the difference between speaking from a script and improvising is the difference between having turn-by-turn directions to get somewhere and just going out for a drive. When you’ve left the house with turn-by-turn directions, losing them suddenly is nerve-wracking, no matter how many times you’ve been behind the wheel. So what exactly is it about Bay’s response to this script flub that bears labeling what happened a “meltdown”?

Nothing. There was no yelling, no veins bulging, no expletives or accusations laying blame. Bay left the stage calmly and quietly to save face when he knew the snafu had unnerved him beyond the ability to continue, which is a fairly tame reaction when all things are considered. I suspect Bay’s preexisting status as a pop cultural punching bag is the only reason he’s being mocked over this. If the same thing happened to a student in a high school play or a scientist giving a TED Talk, the reaction from those witnessing it would likely just be sympathy. Personally, I’ve never gotten so flustered on stage that I’ve had to walk off, but I hope that if I did, I’d handle it as gracefully as Michael Bay.

Wait, did I just use “Michael Bay” and “gracefully” in the same sentence? There’s a first time for everything.

Ba dum ching!

REVISED COLUMN SCHEDULE FOR  THIS WEEK:

THURSDAY 2:30 EST USA: Tweeks!

THURSDAY 5:00 EST USA: Mike Gold

FRIDAY: Dennis O’Neil, Martha Thomases, Michael Davis

Batmania Returns in 2014

  • News
  • January 15, 2014

The much anticipated home video release of the 1966-1968 Batman teleivsion series has been confirmed by Warner Home Video. A complete box set of the trend-setting 104 episodes will be out later this year in a date to be determined.

The announcement was made on the Conan O’Brien Show complete with a breaking news tweet.

Conan O'Brien tweets Batman TV Series coming via WBHELast year, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox reached an agreement to allow licensing from the ABC series to begin which spawned action figures, Barbie & Ken Collector’s Set, the well-received comic book Batman ’66 from DC Entertainment, and related merchandise. There were high hopes that the DVD announcement would be made at last summer’s Comic-Con International but it was not to be.

No details have yet been released regarding how this arrangement was completed but it has been long understood that there were legal entanglements between DC, 20th Century Fox, and Greenway Productions, the latter being William Dozier’s production company which actually created the pop series.

Dozier had been asked to turn some comic hero into a television series and after attempts with others failed, they settled on Batman, whose sales had been slipping for years as the static art from co-creator Bob Kane and his ghosts failed to keep up with the maturing look of comic books and the writing had gone down hill, mired in science fiction concepts unbefitting the world’s greatest detective.

He decided to play it as straight as he could and with Lorenzo Semple, Jr. at the typewriter, they came up with an approach that worked. The story would be split in two, with the first thirty minute part concluding on a cliffhanger with Dozier’s own narration promising results if fans merely tuned in “same bat time, same bat channel”. One show split up ion this manner had not been done before but ABC, then a distant third in the ratings, was desperate to try anything.

The series arrived on January 12, 1966 after being in development for less than a year. However, it shattered the ratings charts and became an instant smash success, spawning countless forms of apparel, books, records, and other collectibles. It turned journeyman actor Adam West into   a superstar and newcomer Burt Ward into a youthful sex symbol. All manner of actors, actresses, and celebrities clamored to play villains on the series or make cameo appearances during the famed climbs up buildings.

The series arrived at a time when pop culture was enjoying a colorful renaissance, inspired in part by an art movement fronted by Andy Warhol and a renewed interest in super-hero comics. It used odd camera angles, a bright colorful palette (at a time when color TV was still considered something new), and had jazzy music. Kids adored the action sequences while adults cackled at the corny jokes and seemingly ludicrous plots. There was something for everyone.

The show quickly spawned a big budget film which arrived in August 1966, between the first and second seasons, allowing the producers to add a Bat boat and Batcopter to the growing arsenal of bat-themed weapons. It also pitted the Dynamic Duo against a quarter of foes, something heretofore untried on the series.

By that fall, though, the bloom had quickly faded and ABC was scrambling to find ways to sustain interest in the series. They asked DC for a Batgirl and rather than resurrect Kathy Kane, editor Julie Schwartz and art director Carmine Infantino created Barbara Gordon, who was introduced in Detective Comics #369 that November. Yvonne Craig, a dancer turned actress, nabbed the role and became an object of lust for young boys everywhere when she arrived the following September.

Even though ABC reduced the series to a single night, the ratings continued to plummet and the show was canceled, airing its final episode in March 1968. Soon after it went into syndication and it has been playing on some channel, somewhere ever since.

REVIEW: Miracleman #1

Miracleman #1 cover by Joe Quesada

Miracleman #1 cover by Joe Quesada

I won’t lie to you… I never thought this day was coming.

I never thought Marvel Comics would be able to untangle the legal Gordian knot that was the history of the character originally known as Marvelman when they announced they’d secured the rights from creator Mick Anglo nearly five years ago.  With all the people involved, all the hands through which the rights had passed, actually and allegedly, it seemed insurmountable.  But Marvel took its time, with the patience of a father untangling the box of Christmas lights, and now here we are, a couple weeks after Christmas, but given a wonderful and shiny present.

(more…)

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