Since opening worldwide, the summer blockbuster (even though it is officially spring time, the summer movie season practically starts in spring now) THE AVENGERS has made Disney and the people responsible for the movie a lot of money (well, except for Jack Kirby and Don Heck’s families but that’s another story). And rightfully so. They- well, mostly co-writer and director Joss Whedon- has created Disney / Marvel’s best superhero movie next to SPIDERMAN 2 and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS.
With millions of people flocking to theaters worldwide, Marvel Comics (who is owned and operated by Disney) missed- yet again- a golden opportunity to potentially enlighten movie patrons on the source material for this blockbuster. An opportunity which could have led potential customers to comic shops and digital comic sites.
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As a huge comics fan, my taste in what kind of comics has morphed and mutated over the years. When I first started “reading” comics (which mainly consisted of reading a word balloon occasionally, focusing more on the flashy and cool art since I was around 4 or 5), I was a young Marvel zombie who ventured into DC territory with BATMAN. I stayed loyal to Marvel through my teenage years as I moved from reading such classics as Spiderman, The Avengers, Captain America, and Conan to new titles like Uncanny X-Men, ROM, New Mutants, and Daredevil.
It was during these teen years when independent comics got my attention. I can thank this to reading one of my favorite comic news magazines COMICS SCENE. There was no internet back then (well, no internet for the general public), so for me, reading COMICS SCENE was like heaven. I would find out about all the latest news from a month or two months ago, read interesting articles and interviews with creators I not only followed but also with ones I never heard of like Dave Sims and Matt Wagner.
I was fortunate that the same store which carried COMICS SCENE also had a spinner rack. This spinner rack was usually filled with only Marvel and DC Comics but one week, they started carrying titles from the now defunct comic publisher, COMICO. So one weekend trip to this store proved to be a turning point in how I looked at comics. Stuffed between the latest issues of DIAL H FOR HERO and DAREDEVIL was the first issue of Matt Wagner’s GRENDEL. I only had enough allowance to get two comics, sometimes more if I got to mow my granddad’s yard. So I got my favorite UNCANNY X-MEN by Chris Claremont and John Byrne and this new indy comic which I remember reading about in COMICS SCENE.
My love for comics hasn’t been the same since. Read More…
In this post over at The Beat, Stan Lee (the man whom Marvel would have you believe created just about every major superhero in their stable) in an interview with Moviefone about the upcoming THE AVENGERS movie stated the following:
Moviefone: Fans of Jack Kirby are concerned that his name appears nowhere on the credits of “The Avengers.” What’s your take on their concern?
Stan Lee: I don’t know how to answer that because in what way would his name appear?
While there was a short-lived shit storm of criticism thrown at Lee over this remark (it turns out Jack Kirby and Stan Lee both receive credit for creating The Avengers during the end credits), it doesn’t necessarily remove Lee’s foot from his mouth.
I think what got most people ticked off (including myself) is how Stan The Man has a tendency to let people think he was the brains behind the majority of Marvel’s greatest characters including Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, Thor, Captain America, and others. And this is simply wrong.
Granted, I haven’t seen every Stan Lee interview and I’m in no way a scholar when it comes to comic book history. But I have read articles on the history of Marvel and I have also seen my fair share of comic-related docs and interviews with Stan Lee to determine that he has, indeed, taken the credit for creating these classic characters more times than stating he and some other creator created them together.
And maybe this is what has real comic fans upset. When Lee makes statements like this, it is like reopening an old wound that will never heal. It doesn’t help that he’s in every freaking Marvel movie. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a slap in the face if he was holding a head shot of the other creator responsible for the character the movie is based on when he makes his cameo.
After languishing in limbo since 2008-2009, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s CABIN IN THE WOODS has finally been released on mainstream cinema and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
Mainstream horror has essentially been non-existent for the last five years. It has been mainly comprised of horrible remakes of classic staples of the horror genre. Nothing truly original has came out till CABIN.
If you’re any type of horror fan, then you probably already know the plot of CABIN. Most articles and reviews on or about the movie have tried to keep the plot under wraps as to not spoil the fun. I’ll follow suit despite the fact that if you’re a horror nut, then you’ll be able to get a good idea of what the twist is by the time the beginning credits end. But that doesn’t necessarily take away any enjoyment from watching it.
While it is far from perfect, CABIN IN THE WOODS takes a hard loving look at horror movies including their cliches, their stock vanilla characters, and plot contrivances, then it dissects them in order to show why the horror genre is so great and beloved by many including myself.
If you have not seen it yet, then do yourself a favor and go into it knowing as little about as possible. It’s tempting to see what all the fuss is about but don’t! One thing the internet has killed is the mystery surrounding entertainment- especially movies. Don’t spoil things by peeking behind the curtain. Go into the theater just knowing it’s about these kids who go to a cabin in the woods and some weird stuff happens. I promise you’ll see one of the best horror films of the last decade.
You may or may not have known this but I run Digital Comic News, a blog about digital comics. The blog has been running for about a year now. I started it for two reasons: networking and to have another income source. While it has allowed me to meet and interview some digital creators it hasn’t exactly been a gold mine.
In order to make money with any kind of blog or web site, you need traffic. This is especially true if your blog sports any type of ads which DCN does. The traffic to the blog hasn’t been bad but as they say: “Content is king”. The content for DCN is mostly press releases and therein lies the problem. You see if comic-related blog gets the same press releases. So while “content is king” is true, having original content is even more important.
Which brings me to the title of this post. I realized the traffic to DCN wouldn’t increase unless I changed the content. So now I’m focusing more on putting up original content in the form of interviews and articles. I realized what I was doing with the blog wasn’t working so I changed it.
It seems like common sense but sometimes we need to take a step back from something, access it honestly, and change what isn’t working in order to produce different (and hopefully better) results.
We’re almost a quarter of the way through 2012 and it is already shaping up to be a potentially great year for comics. Yet for every great, hope-inspiring thing I see coming from the comics market, I’ll see something which makes me want to smack my forehead in disbelief and/or frustration.
For example…
$3.99 is way too much to pay for a 20-page comic book, Marvel!
I realize comic creators have to make a living and I know Disney’s main concern is to make money but I have cut the number of Marvel titles I read to just two as a result. And if you frequent any popular comic book-related forum, you’ll see a lot of comic readers are doing the same thing.
Speaking of Marvel…
Enough with the f**king event / sagas / war / whatever crossover events which require you to buy pretty much every comic you publish!
Anymore, I see these “this time, we mean it when we say the Marvel Universe will be shaken to its core by how earth-shattering THIS mega-crossover is” as that girl who will say or do just about anything to get any guy’s attention. These SUPER-COLOSSAL EVENTS are Marvel’s attempt at getting some kind of attention as well as tricking their loyal fan base into buying multiple titles unnecessarily. If you’re going to do it, do it like DC did with their CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS mini-series. It was a self-contained mega-crossover which didn’t require readers to purchase more comics- never mind comics they usually didn’t read or want to- in order to read and enjoy the story. I refuse to buy any of these crossover events and I wish more would do the same so they would focus on their regular titles.
Read More…
I have to admit, I’ve sometimes let movie reviews decide whether I’ll see a movie or not. It’s hard to argue against the Tomatometer over at Rotten Tomatoes. Which is why I’m glad I didn’t “listen” to the critics and other online sources regarding JOHN CARTER because it is definitely worth seeing.
It’s disappointing to see all the negative press this movie has been getting. Even months before it’s released, various industry pundits were bashing it over how much it cost (rumoured to be around $250 million), how even the title JOHN CARTER confused people as to what the movie was about and how it would appeal to different target markets, and so on. All of this scrutiny for no apparent reason. You would think certain media outlets and blogs were chomping at the bit for this movie to fail. Even now with a $30 million US opening (I think it’s over $100 million world wide), those same blogs and media outlets have tagged JOHN CARTER as a financial and critical bomb.
Then there are those blogs and news sites which actually enjoyed the movie. And like me, they don’t understand where are the vile and dislike is coming from. True- it isn’t perfect (the middle sags, and the back story of Mars can be confusing at times) but other than that, I found JOHN CARTER to be better and funner to watch than CAPTAIN AMERICA and THOR combined.
So don’t listen to the critics and bloggers who would have you believe it’s a horrible movie because it isn’t. JOHN CARTER deserves to be seen. It’s a great sci-fi action movie full of charm and adventure, has a great story, and is a visual treat.
Being a huge comics fan, I tend to buy a large number of comics every month. And like any other self-respecting comics fan, there are those comics which are must-reads. These are the ones you get excited about the days leading up to their release. Then when that special Wednesday comes, it’s like fucking Christmas! That is how it is for me when a new issue of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s masterpiece, LOCKE & KEY arrives.
LOCKE & KEY is a series of mini-series (it’s up to five mini-series now with the next wrapping up the entire story) published by IDW Publishing. Exactly what genre LOCKE & KEY falls into is hard to figure out: there’s drama, dark fantasy, romance, suspense, mystery, and lots of horror. So there’s a little bit of everything in it which only makes it all the better.
The series focuses on a family (three siblings and their alcoholic mother) who move into their recently-murdered father’s mysterious family estate in Lovecraft, Massachusetts. The kids soon discover their father’s childhood home is the home of a series of keys which possess various powers- one of which is a key to another dimension full of nightmarish nasties, itching to come into our world.
I’m just skimming the surface with all the different subplots, twists, and turns this series takes. If there is one comic being published right now which I truly can’t live without- this is the one. Comixology has the series available at .99 cents per issue. You owe it to yourself to, at least, try out the first issue (which you can get by going to this link). I promise- you won’t be sorry.
My name is Wesley Craig Green and I'm a writer of comics and movies, an entrepreneur, a gadget freak, and a pop culture nerd.
