9
Oct
Cannon and Saber (ironically named, because the assassin who uses guns is Saber and the assassin who uses blades is Cannon) struck an early blow for comics equality everywhere by being a gay couple who avoided traditional gay stereotypes to become a pair of deadly killers instead. Admittedly, noted family activist Donald Wildmon might say there is no difference and all gays are in their own way killers, but Donald Wildmon is whining about the erosion of the traditional family model and Cannon and Saber kill people with guns and knives, so I would suggest: different.
I am not being facetious or snarky, either. In the comics, Cannon and Saber were quite clearly a gay couple – the subtext was, as they say, text. And on top of that, years later some fans to whom this was important asked the writer who invented Cannon and Saber (I believe it was Doug Moench, but don’t hold me to that) if the pair were a gay couple. The writer’s response was essentially “well, duh.” Cannon and Saber are a gay couple. It is canon. (And saber.)
Cannon and Saber are further made good by appearing in the second Vigilante’s comic. The second Vigilante probably had the best run of comics, despite the fact that the first Vigilante (the cowboy with the motorcycle who showed up on Justice League Unlimited a few times) is probably the more iconic Vigilante. (As for the later Vigilantes, let’s just pretend they never happened. At some point you know Geoff Johns will make it so that this was the case anyway.) This means that there is an active lack of bad Cannon and Saber stories, which is always a nice thing.
Because they are skilled assassins who are nonetheless capable of making tolerant second-year university chicks go “awwwwww!”, and that is a skillset both rare and in demand in certain quarters.
8
Oct
Quite a nice start to the show, overall. The judges are excellent – even the previously kind of iffy Luther was good, and Tre, Jean-Marc and Blake all offered excellent, detailed critiques of every piece.
On the downside, Leah Miller is absolutely horrible – I mean, it’s not just that she isn’t Cat Deeley, it’s that she isn’t anything. She is terrible. Absolutely terrible. She is worse than Ben Mulroney on Canadian Idol, and that is hard to do. Furthermore, the editing on the show is awkward at best; not for the numbers, but the editing of the judges’ comments is very blatant and visible, which is exactly what editing is not supposed to be.
Anyhow.
Arrasay and Nico: salsa. (I see the former Nicolas has chopped off part of his name. Such is life.) This was a very strong salsa routine, far more street salsa than performance salsa (I approve heartily of that choice) with a couple of quite difficult tricks which the two of them pulled off quite nicely. Nico needed to stiffen up his upper frame a bit, but that’s a very minor criticism of an otherwise excellent performance. Arrasay was predictably fantastic. This looks to be a strong partnership.
Natalli and Kevin: hip-hop. This was moderately eh. (And what the hell: “The Way I Are?” Come on, it’s not a year and a half ago.) Natalli was off and Kevin was severely whiteboy, especially in the second half. The judges tried to play nice by pointing out that Kevin was on time and Natalli had charisma, but it fell apart halfway through and was not very good. The first half was actually decent, but the second was ugly. I think they’ll squeak by this week, but they need to shape up. That having been said, I think they’ve got the capacity to do that.
Bre and Francis: smooth waltz. (Didn’t Bre spell it “Bree” in tryouts? Well, whatever.) This was not very good, and that’s mostly on Bre – Francis clearly knew what he was doing and did his best to cover up her problems, but her footwork was bad – not just weak but actively at points unsteady, I mean, you can actually pick out where she was correcting herself through the piece – and it’s clear the choreographer was trying to cover for it by giving her those contemporary-ish short running bits that, you know, really shouldn’t be in a smooth waltz. Smooth waltzes that are not smooth just irritate the shit out of me, because I sit in front of my TV yelling “BE DREAMLIKE YOU FUCKERS” and I do not need that kind of stress.
Allie and young Hugh Jackman – no, wait, Danny: jive. The judges gave this one a bit of a tonguebath, and I’m not saying it was undeserved because the routine was fun and they’ve got good chemistry together. That having been said, the extension on the kicks was occasionally lacking (particularly on Allie’s part, which should not be unexpected because good extension on jive kicks is tricky for a relative newcomer) and that big lift did get bobbled a bit (but not unforgiveably so). But on the whole this was good dancing, and worked out quite well.
Kaitlyn and Izaak: “theater” (which means “Broadway” outside of the United States). This was perfectly okay, as Broadway – excuse me, “theater” – numbers go, and the judges went to town on it, mostly because I think Izaak was playing his part more for laughs than anything else, mugging his way through his highlight parts of the routine. Kaitlyn was perfectly decent if not remarkable. Very middle-of-the-road, which for a first performance is all right.
Lisa and Vincent: contemporary. (Vincent-Olivier has also caught the name-contraction bug, I see. By week six, he will simply be “V.”) This was crazy good. Not much of a story beyond your standard contemporary boy-and-girl-dancing-through-pain-and-love thing, sure, but my god, the extreme difficulty of this piece was obvious and the two of them just fucking nailed every single moment of it. I’m not kidding – this was intensely fantastic. Seek it out on Youtube or wherever if you missed it – it was that good. This was the best routine of the entire night; nothing else even came close.
Lara and Miles: disco. Well, more of a contemporary-ish disco-themed piece as opposed to a standard disco, but whatever, I’m just going to be thankful that I didn’t have to sit through yet another Doriana Sanchez “let’s have seven thousand lifts” disco. I think the much-ballyhooed kiss was designed by the pair of them for a cheap audience pop, but the thing is that they really did dance better afterwards, so maybe the pop gave them some confidence? Anyway, technique not quite there entirely, but the charisma was and it was fun enough for me to give it a thumbs up.
Romina and Daario: hip-hop. Firstly: obligatory Can-con music geekout! Kardinal Offishal! Awesome. (Although if this show sets a piece to a Barney Bentall song, I will not be pleased.) Secondly: the judges all told Daario he wasn’t dancing at Romina’s level, which is true, but Romina was seriously off the hook tonight and Daario was merely quite good, which normally is no great sin but when Romina kills it like that, etc. The routine was great fun, not showy with big tricks but very tight on the floor. I liked this.
Tamina and Joey: tango. Oh god was this bad. Joey was a bit better than Tamina, this was bad on multiple levels. Absolutely zero chemistry between the two of them, for starters (they don’t even seem to like each other all that much). No sense of pacing in the steps, no build to the big dramatic moments that makes a good tango. No real technique, and although I don’t expect a hip-hop dancer and a contemporary dancer to have perfect tango technique, I do expect at least a rudimentary display of it, and there wasn’t even that. Worst routine of the night by a mile and a half.
Caroline and Jesse: jazz. Ersatz comedy piece with giant Afros = fail. Not on the part of Caroline and Jesse, who danced the routine acceptably well if not superbly, and at least got to show off their individual tricks – but damn, this was a stupid routine, pure and simple. Clowning took up much of the time that should have been spent dancing. The double flip was really nice, and the two of them covered up their mistakes (and there were more than a couple) well enough that they should get by. But, yeah – stupid routine.
I’m voting for: Lisa and Vincent; Arrasay and Nico; Allie and Danny.
Bottom three predictions: Tamina and Joey, Bre and Francis, Natalli and Kevin.
Going home: Tamina and Joey.
8
Oct
“Prisoners”?
Pick one: McCain is either using ridiculously over-the-top rhetoric to describe how American citizens are trapped by debt, or he’s starting to lose it.
8
Oct
The world’s first commercial-scale wave power generators are online in Portugal.
7
Oct
Debate number three for America! A town hall! Undecided voters! Any good town hall debate is really just a chance to recite stump speeches in the most creatively repetitive way possible, which is why John McCain wanted to do so many of them. Rather than watch the debate on CNN, I am considering watching it on CBC Newsworld this time around. Not that there is much difference once the thing gets started, but I am a patriot.
(Meanwhile, here in Canada, someone is attempting to murder Liberal party supporters, so anybody complaining about people in Republican crowds shouting “nigger” and so forth – well, there’s still a ways to go, is my point, and all is darkest before the dawn, et cetera.)
8:56: I am curious to see whose lines CNN will be showing tonight, I must admit. Gotta love them lines!
8:58: Dumbass says “the debates don’t really change the polls,” two weeks past the first Presidential debate since when Obama has opened up a national lead of between four and eight percent depending on who you ask. Way to go, dumbass! You’re earning your money!
9:00: Tom Brokaw is your moderator. Thrilling. And the lines are… uncommitted Ohio voters, again, because Ohio is like the only potential swing state left John McCain can win. Note that they aren’t bothering with uncommitted Virginia voters any more. OH SNAP!
9:02: Tom Brokaw just told me I don’t have to be polite! THANK YOU TOM BROKAW! And here are your candidates. McCain already has his trademark creepy smile going for him, so that’s nice.
9:04: Alan “bald old guy” Schafer wants to know what the quickest way out of the financial crisis is. Not the BEST way! Just the FASTEST way! The answer is “nuclear war,” Alan, but maybe you should have asked a slightly less stupid question.
9:05: Obama goes for some populist points by attacking greedy executives at AIG, then talks about national infrastructure projects and fixing healthcare and fixing energy, only a very small amount of which answers Baldy’s question. See what I mean about town halls?
9:06: John McCain: “Americans are upset, they’re angry, and they’re a little fearful.” McCain talks about spending! OH MY GOD I MAY DIE OF SHOCK. He talks about the $10 trillion debt, then says America will “have to do something” about home values. And that something is – buy up all the bad mortgages and pretend they are expensive again. Or, as experts call it, “the worst idea humanly possible.”
9:08: “Who will you replace Henry Paulsen with?” McCain obviously doesn’t know right off the top, but it should be someone trustworthy! Like Warren Buffet, or Meg Whitman! Who invented eBay! (Well, not really, but cut him some slack.) Because running an auction site is JUST LIKE MACROECONOMIC THEORY! Obama says Buffet would be okay, but says what matters more than a name is picking somebody who is not a fucking idiot. The lines like “not a fucking idiot” type policy rather greatly.
9:11: Oliver Clark, who is black and therefore IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA, asks how the bailout will actually, like, help anybody. McCain explains that he suspended his campaign to make sure there were taxpayer protections, and how he managed to do this through telepathy and pointedly not saying anything. He then blames Obama for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, because Obama is simultaneously a completely inexperienced individual not ready for the Presidency and also the mastermind behind America’s financial downfall.
9:13: How does John McCain pat himself on the back so well when he cannot raise his arms above his shoulders?
9:14: Obama: “I have to correct a bit of Senator McCain’s history – not surprisingly.” TWO SNAPS IN A CIRCLE! Then points out that he saw it all coming and how, you know, he’s on the record on all that. Also, McCain is a lying liar, not that he says anything about Mr. Honorable Soldier Man who suffered for all free peoples everywhere.
9:16: Brokaw: “Is it gonna get worse before it gets better?” (Oh my yes.) Obama: not if we take action immediately and it works! (Which, I suppose, is not exactly untrue.) Lines love the idea of things working! McCain: it depends on whether we do. If we do something everybody says that won’t work, then maybe. Also, workers are awesome! America is the biggest exporter! (No.) The biggest importer! (Why is that good?)
9:19: Teresa “squeaky old lady” Clarke: How can we trust either of you, because all politicians are equally crap? Obama: lady, look at the numbers, will you? Also, healthcare and energy, in case I didn’t already mention those six times! (But the lines love it even more this time. Healthcare and energy!) Lady lines stay up forever, men drop down after he talks about a spending cut.
9:21: McCain: “I have been a consistent reformer, ever since I got caught helping Charles Keating illegally.” Oh no not really. Obama has never taken on his party on a single issue, which implies that the Democrats have had as many bad ideas as the Republicans over the last eight years. And now he’s talking about spending again! Spending is John McCain’s healthcare and energy, except that the lines don’t like him much at all.
9:23: Money spent on a projector for a planetarium? I think McCain really, really thought this was going to win him the election, the way he was grinning when he said it. Maybe he has a private poll that shows that Americans hate planetariums.
9:24: Entitlement reform, energy, healthcare – what order are your priorities? McCain says “all three” to duck the question, then explains that he wants to cut future Social Security benefits. (Annnnnnnd there goes Florida.) First mention of clean coal! Hooray for clean coal! You can wash with clean coal! It is better than soap! Obama: energy! Which means gas prices in stupid-talk, but lines love the idea of cheap gas or driving around in electric cars. Also, jetpacks. Healthcare is number two. Education, which was not on the list, is number three. Obama starts talking about earmarks, I suspect simply to piss off McCain, who sits there grinning like the Joker.
9:28: Tom Brokaw whines about time limits, then asks a question from the INTERNET. “HEY OBAMMA MICKANE I CAN HAZ CHEEZBURGR?” No, actually it’s a question about sacrifice and what the candidates are willing to cut. McCain talks about types of defense spending and YES IT’S EARMARKS! But apparently now there are GOOD earmarks! And a President has to know the difference between good earmarks and bad earmarks. SPENDING FREEZE! Oh, please, Obama, translate that into benefits-lost-ese.
9:30: “We’re not rifleshots here! We’re Americans!” …what the fuck does that mean?
9:31: Obama compliments Bush on the first bits of 9/11, then attacks him for “go out and shop,” and talks about service. The lines kind of like that. This segues into individual responsibility, and then… drilling? Oh, god, Barack, don’t piss me off. I know you’re talking to idiots tonight, but come on. And then says the young people are going to serve, and doubling the Peace Corps and so forth. The lines love all of this, because if it gets those kids out of baggy pants and into coveralls, hooray!
9:33: Brokaw: “How would you encourage Americans to stop spending money they don’t have, at the individual level?” Obama does some rhetorical jiujitsu to relate this back to taxes somehow, and how giving rich people lots of tax cuts makes people not want to save money somehow.
9:35: McCain says Obama has like seven billion tax proposals, which isn’t true and makes no sense, so it’s exactly what McCain should say. He starts blathering about small business revenue, which isn’t true either. Lines are NOT GOOD for this. Then says that he isn’t in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy, which is, you know, not true. Man, McCain is just saying whatever the fuck he likes now. “I think we should all pay our taxes in lollipops!”
9:37: Obama wants to address this, but Brokaw won’t let him because, you know, it’s important to get to another question about Social Security going broke and the need to reform Social Security and Medicare, which is Brokaw’s question. TOM BROKAW IS VERY IMPORTANT. Obama takes the opportunity to mock McCain and the “Straight Talk Express,” and points out that McCain is, you know, full of shit about everything. Lady lines love him. Men lines are less enthusiastic. McCain has the death-grimace again, reading his cheat-sheet.
9:41: McCain says it’s easy to fix Social Security! Medicare won’t be easy, because McCain’s campaign has said he wants to cut it. No, wait, that’s not it, instead… what the FUCK is McCain talking about? He’s babbling, pure and simple. Then attacks Obama again with the “94 times voted for tax raises” thing.
9:43: Ingrid Jackson wants to know how fast McCain would move on the environment. McCain has no fucking idea how to answer this. Myfriends myfriends myfriends Lieberman myfriends. “I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants!” WHAT. Babbles about nuclear energy. My god, he’s so hyper. Did somebody make McCain snort some coke before the debate or something?
9:45: Obama parallels green jobs to computer jobs over the last few decades, then points out that computers were invented by the government. Points out that McCain votes against alternative fuels all the time. McCain laughs, either because he is visualizing strangling Obama or because he had a good gas-pass. Obama mentions that, whoops, you can’t drill your way out of the energy crisis, so drilling is a bad idea. THANK you, Barack. Yeesh.
9:47: Brokaw whines about time limits again, then asks whether or not the research effort for energy should be centralized or private. McCain talks about the last energy bill, practically seething at Obama, calling him “that one” (WHAT) and talks about offshore drilling being “vital.” He really really wants to drill.
9:02: Lady whose name I missed: should healthcare be treated as a commodity? Obama talks about his healthcare plan, which does not actually, like, answer the question or anything (TOWN HALL!) but at least it’s a clear, concise explanation of his plan. Then explains how the McCain plan will lead to nobody having healthcare and Road Warrior-like battles in the New Mexico desert.
9:53: McCain wants to do all sorts of things! “Let’s have medical records online, because that will stop… medical errors, I guess they call them.” My god, people will vote for this guy? Then talks about his stupid-ass plan, which – and I say this as someone who has talked his fair share about healthcare – is kind of the “hey let’s blow everything up” option.
9:55: Is healthcare a right, a privilege or a responsibility? McCain: responsibility! By which he means he hates socialized medicine, like for example the health care he has gotten for his entire life. Obama: it’s a right. (Lines jump upward right away.) Then attacks insurance companies and the lines love him even more. Then explains McCain’s race-to-the-bottom strategy, and just tears McCain a new one.
9:59: Foreign policy time! But McCain wants to make fun of Obama again. (Lines dip a bit.) Phil Elliott, on the other hand, wants to know how the fiscal crisis will affect national security and America’s ability to be a peacemaker. McCain replies that America is awesome and that America needs to be careful about picking the right battles and America is really just kind of huggable, you know? The lines love him when he saying nice things about America, and plummet when he starts attacking Obama. Also, and this will amaze you, he did not answer the question.
10:02: Obama attacks McCain on Iraq. The ladylines love that. More attacks on Iraq. The menlines join the ladies. My god, it’s almost like picking a dedicated antiwar candidate was a good idea or something!
10:04: Brokaw wants to know if there is an Obama Doctrine and a McCain Doctrine for sending in troops when there’s no immediate national security issue. Obama: “If we could have stopped Rwanda…” Uh, Barack? Just pointing out that, you know, the United States could have done that. And so could everybody else, in fairness. Regardless, Obama’s discussion of moral responsibility scores very highly with the lines.
10:02: The McCain Doctrine: don’t die! No, just kidding, McCain wants to talk about Iraq and how Obama was wrong about the surge. The lines don’t care. Please talk about the surge some more, Old Man McCain! Then, and I cannot believe this, McCain says that being President needs a “cool hand at the tiller,” because when you think “somebody not commanded by a powerful and irrational temper,” you think John McCain! John McCain has been in situations that needed that cool hand all his life! When, exactly, he does not specify.
10:08: Katie Hamm: Should the US respect Pakistani borders, or dis Pakistani borders, or what? Obama: Afghanistan distracted Iraq blah blah blah you know the drill. The lines like it well enough. McCain: Teddy Roosevelt is my hero, and Barack Obama is no Teddy Roosevelt, because he is A) black B) not dead C) lacking an impressive moustache. Then John “Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain accuses Obama of talking too loudly.
10:13: Obama asks for a followup. McCain whines that he should get a followup too. Brokaw officially gives up on having any control over the debate at all, which is probably the wisest thing he could do. TOM BROKAW IS IRRELEVANT. Then BEATS THE SHIT OUT OF McCAIN HOLY SHIT listing off all the times John McCain has said something fucking stupid about a potential enemy. The lines like this rather well, considering Obama is attacking McCain on his strength. McCain understands what it’s like to send Americans into harm’s way, because he crashed his plane into an aircraft carrier this one time and killed like a hundred guys. THAT’S harm’s way, Obama, you pussy.
10:16: American generals say Afghanistan is a failure. What do you do? Obama: get troops out of Iraq, put them in Afghanistan, tell Karzai to shape up and make a functioning democracy in Afghanistan. McCain: General Petreus will save us in Afghanistan! AH-AH-AHHHHHHH! PETREUS! Then complains that Obama still won’t admit that he’s wrong about everything! WHY won’t Obama just concede the election to John McCain? WHY?
10:19: A question from the INTERNET? “Are you going to give me up? Are you gonna let me go? Are you gonna run away and desert me?” No, it’s about starting a new Cold War! McCain: Vladimir Putin wants to conquer the Ukraine and Georgia and John McCain will make the Russians understand there are penalties for this kind of behavior. Obama: we need to anticipate these problems ahead of time, and I said stuff about Georgia well in advance. Then talks about energy again, because people looooooove energy!
10:23: Russia! Evil empire: Yes or no? Obama: Kinda? McCain: Maybe. POLITICS!
10:24: Terry Shirey, a retired Navy person, wants to talk about Israel. What if Iran attacks Israel? WHAT DO YOU DO? McCain shakes the guy’s hand, because they were both in the Navy and that’s what you do. Talks about what if Iran gets nukes? Obama would talk without preconditions to Iran (seriously, this is like the eleven hundreth time McCain has said that and I still don’t get his issue with it). Obama doesn’t shake the guy’s hand, and I expect National Review Online will explode with rage over failing to honor this brave serviceman. Obama says he’ll use all the tools in the toolbox, even the corkscrew that gets in there by accident that you sometimes use to clean under your nails.
10:30: NEW HAMPSHIRE INTERNET QUESTION: “What don’t you know and how will you learn it?” No, that’s not my lame PostSecret parody, that was the actual question. Obama: it’s not what you see coming that gives you problems. Also, I was poor, but I worked my way up now and hey I’m running for President! McCain: myfriends tough times myfriends myfriends serving my country myfriends POW myfriends I believe in America myfriends steady hand at the tiller put my country first myfriends.
10:34: Tom Brokaw whines that McCain and Obama are standing in front of the TelePrompTer, which is just the capper on this evening. Cindy McCain, the fearsome Republican she-robot, makes an appearance. Michelle Obama shows up as well, looking foxy. (Seriously: sexiest potential First Lady EVAR.)
Bottom line: pundits will likely say something about it being a tie, but god, McCain was just flailing all over the place like an idiot. And… wow, Wolf Blitzer is actually saying that it was obvious that McCain has “disdain” for Obama. WOW. I never thought that would happen.
7
Oct
6
Oct
My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
6
Oct
So a lot of people have been emailing me excitedly about how Legion of Super-Heroes got cancelled by DC Comics, making the logical leap that if DC is cancelling the title, clearly I suddenly have a shot at it. Which is flattering and all, but let’s be realistic here: no matter how many readers I get per month, this is still just a rinky-dink blog and I am still a rinky-dink blogger, and if they weren’t willing to let Jim Shooter ride out his storyline I don’t think they’ll be willing to hand it over to me, a quantity unproven and unknown. Call it a hunch.
But I see no reason to let that stop me from offering completely unsolicited advice about a potential relaunch of the title! Because if there is one thing the internet is good for, it is allowing unproven and unknown quantities to offer their opinion, uneducated though it may well be. So, in vague order:
Give people a reason to care about it. The direct market these days is not entirely unpredictable, and one element of the comic-buying public that is quite obvious is that comics that are generally considered to be Important sell better. This is problematic for a title like Legion, which is divorced from current continuity by a thousand year temporal gap. In the past, DC has tried to rectify this somewhat by including clunky Legion crossovers into major storyline events. This was stupid and only produced generally shitty comics. (One word: Jamm.)
Thus, if you can’t give Legion that aura of Importance through storyline implications on its shared universe (although there are ways to do that over the long term), you need to find another way to do it.
Some will say “hire big-name creators,” but that’s a red herring, frankly. Big-name creators can make a comic (All-Star Superman), or they can have no impact at all (like how the Millar/Hitch Fantastic Four sells about as much as the McDuffie/Pelletier Fantastic Four did). I don’t think you could launch a title with much bigger names than Mark Waid and George Perez, and over the course of a year that book (Brave and the Bold) simply cratered, from 90,000 to 30,000 copies. (And that was, additionally, a very good comic.) Hell, DC launched Legion the last time with Waid and Barry Kitson, a pretty top-flight creative team, and only managed to kick off with 60,000 copies at the debut – and they shed half of their readers within a year.
Ultimately, all big-name creators can do is generate some initial excitement and give you a better shot at producing some really good comics. Which is not nothing by any stretch, but there are plenty of lesser names who can make the book and give you good comics, and if the initial excitement doesn’t last – and it traditionally doesn’t on Legion no matter who you put in charge – you might as well save money on production costs.
So how do you make people care about it? More on that in a bit.
Remember that this is a brand. You can tinker with it around the edges, but the thematic core of the Legion should remain stable, just as Superman shouldn’t go around killing people in an angstful fashion or anything like that. The Legion is/are
– idealistic
– superheroic
– either directly or indirectly (depending on version) the spiritual future-heirs of the Superman legacy (not “the DC hero legacy.” Superman specifically)
– typically defenders of a utopian status quo (this is one of the reasons the Waid reboot never really worked)
– numerous
– a team with a familial feel to them
– in the future (duh)
– and start off young, but unlike most comic characters have the option to grow/age/change over time to a certain degree.
There. That’s the brand. Whoever’s making the comic has to keep those bullet points in mind, because the brand has been wholly tarnished by questionable editorial decisions and mediocre comics, to the point where the casual fan’s mental image of the Legion is “they’re the comic where the continuity went to shit ten years ago and never came back” and that’s all they know or want to know. That’s what you have to overcome.
Think about what the title has to offer. I’ve already discussed some of the drawbacks of writing Legion from a current comics market perspective. Here are some of the pluses: it offers a larger storytelling window than any other comic the Big Two prints. It offers a relatively high degree of creative freedom as Big Two super-comics go (you don’t have to worry about anything else happening in the line, because from your perspective it all happened a thousand years ago). It offers scope and scale (whole freaking galaxies) like no other comic on the market, combined with the tight familial nature of the Legion offering character-based plots whenever you want them.
At its peak, a good rendition of Legion should have the scope and crazed power of the Morrison-era JLA (on steroids) combined with the soap opera plotting of the early Claremont/Byrne Uncanny X-Men, with a giant dose of space opera, a good dash of humour and a little mad science thrown in for kicks. That’s what the comic should be.
For crissake don’t listen to the whining fanboys. Well, other than me, obviously. But seriously: every fanboy who claims he’s just waiting for a return of the Paul Levitz Legion? Ignore him. Never stop ignoring him. These are fans nostalgically griping about a past you’ll never be able to give them; it’ll be one month of “YAY THE REAL LEGION IS BACK” and then the next month they’ll complain that these aren’t as good as (insert favorite era here) of Legion and why can’t Paul Levitz stop being executive vice-president of the company and instead do what’s really important, anyway, and write Legion again? You will never, ever, ever please these people, so don’t even start trying.
Never mind that we know exactly where the market for the Levitz Legion caps out now, thanks to the “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes” storyline in Action Comics, which sold about 54-58,000 copies over the course of that storyline. And remember – those are sales boosted by variant cover editions, so if you do a little math it turns out that said run of Action Comics barely saw sales increase at all as a result of people wanting to pick up comics with Geoff Johns’ I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Paul Levitz Legion in them. Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #1 did better, with 68,000 copies for its first issue, but again you have the double boost of variant covers and the Final Crisis sort-of-a-tie-in to boost sales there. (The Final Crisis miniseries that featured the new Spectre and Renee Montoya as the Question sold about 57,000 copies for its first issue, and neither of those two characters typically sell anywhere near that many books, so my guess is that the Final Crisis name is moving more sales on these books than anything else.)
The point to be made here is this: the benefits from going backward to the Levitz Legion again are almost entirely illusory. Do not go back into the desert, no matter how much the fanboys tell you they love pounding sand.
Expand, expand, expand. This point is something that really applies to comics in general, but I don’t mind shrinking it down. Legion is a comic which at this point has a fundamentally small audience, and one which is shrinking steadily over time; you aren’t converting enough people to follow the brand, not nearly enough to compensate for those drifting away and losing interest. Legion is a comic which vitally needs to expand its market presence.
The way to do this is simple: give it away for free. At least a taste. Give people a chance to get hooked first, then reel them in. There are two ways I can think of to do this, and were it up to me I would do both of them.
Firstly – and I’ve said this before – I would put the entire run of the current Legion online. All of it, in page-per-click webcomic format (with advertising, of course – no reason not to make a little spare change where possible), in black-and-white (if people want to read in colour? Well, that’s what trade paperbacks are for). Use the website as a loss-leader to attract attention. (The average popular webcomic collection these days probably sells better than Legion does anyway.) When you put out new issues, put them online a month or two after the new issue comes out, again in black and white – if people want to read the story right away, and in colour, they need to buy it.
Secondly, I would launch the new series on Free Comic Book Day. And I would give it away for free. Hell, I would make it a 64-page special edition, with 32 pages of original story and 32 pages of background information for new readers. I want that new series of Legion kicking off when comic shops are doing their utmost to drag in new readers. Is this a bit of a gamble? Sure, maybe – but come on, DC’s offerings for Free Comic Book Day last year were a reprint edition of All-Star Superman (which was a good idea) and a terrible “Teen Titans Special” comic which was A) meaningless and B) lousy. And at this point I think the failures of the Brave New World dollar sampler and the unimpressiveness of the Final Crisis dollar sampler have shown that loss leaders only work when the comic sampler itself isn’t incomprehensible on its face.
And the reason I’d do this harkens back to my first point: you have to make people care about Legion again, and at this point I think the way you do it is treating the comic like it’s a big deal, because if you do so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you go balls-out with a new marketing scheme and product rollout that just isn’t like how the comic industry does things, people will be interested – and if the comic is good, people will stick around.
3
Oct
I’ve moved to mostly editing work for Thecourt.ca during the school year, but I do occasionally contribute a new original piece still. This time around, it’s about rights of young people during police interrogation and why “subjective” and “objective” are just law-talk for “stuff we don’t like” and “stuff we like” respectively.
3
Oct
The Canadian leaders’ debate! Electric! (Well, no.) Exciting! (Probably not.) Substantive! (Actually, there is a reasonable chance of this last one, due to Canadians having a low tolerance for electing intolerant fundamentalist Muppets to office.)
Minute one: Your contestants are Stephen “please give me a majority” Harper, Stephane “please don’t give him a majority” Dion, Jack “I will laughingly pretend I have a shot at a majority” Layton, Gilles “the French language debate already happened so I can totally fuck with everybody and it won’t matter” Duceppe, and Elizabeth “it’s an honor just to get to debate” May. They are sitting at a “roundish” table, so described by Peter Mansbridge, so it is officially “roundish.” Canada: the country where approximating language is not only traditional but mandated.
Minute two: Steve Paikin of TVO is your moderator, and then we can go back to not bothering to pretend to care about TVO.
Minute three: Vince from Alberta wants to know: how are you going to protect the economy? May: national investment, keep Canadian companies Canadian, et cetera. Dion: da Libruls have da official plan what I release yestaday dat will keep da Canadian economy afloat and protect your savings and your pension-es. Harper: Don’t panic. Dion, you panicked. You’re a pussy and your platform sucks. Layton: Effective regulations of the financial sector ASAP, national investment in real Canadians (rather than fake ones). Duceppe: Stephen Harper is like George Bush. (Stephen Harper gives Duceppe his dead-eyed death-stare, or, as we call it here in Canada, “his normal face.”)
Minute seven: Open discussion period of the question. Dion is offended by Harper claiming it’s a “panic.” Harper smirks. Harper points out that Canadian fiscal and financial policy are different from America’s, and that the government is running a surplus, not a deficit. (Well, for now we are.) May complains that Harper asked for additional debate time on the economy and that all Harper’s done is say “nothing’s wrong,” then boosts a carbon tax. Layton attacks Harper on corporate tax cuts, then says Harper is out of touch, and concludes with “either you don’t care, or you’re incompetent.” (Ah, Canadian politics, where being polite is for pussies.) Harper counters that of their last tax cut package, three-quarters went to families, and then says families aren’t worried about taxes, but about their investments. Duceppe busts in that Canada needs tax credits for research and development very badly. Dion comes back pointing out that the Harper government has overseen a productivity drop, a drop in economic growth, and then mocks Jim Flaherty for saying “don’t invest in Ontario” on the basis that that was retarded.
Harper argues that net job creation is up and that raising taxes is a bad idea. May says Harper is out of touch for saying that people aren’t worried about losing their homes, then attacks Harper’s tax package for not cutting income taxes. Layton calls Harper “cold and callous” and then points out that Canadian manufacturing is collapsing. Stephen Harper stares daggers at him and his smirk vanishes. Harper continues to plead that at least we don’t have a subprime mortgage meltdown. Dion points out that Paul Martin and Jean Chretien are directly responsible for the regulations on Canadian banks which largely kept them from doing what has fucked half of the banks in the world (which is mostly true). Duceppe mispronounces “sustainable development” and then says that Harper’s Tories are being irresponsible for not adhering to the Kyoto Protocol and creating the next-gen green economy Canada needs. Harper brags about tax-free savings accounts, which are nothing but tiny sops that benefit rich people more than poor.
May points out that unemployment insurance is disappearing, and that the new jobs Harper’s creating are mostly shitty service-sector jobs, and cites the OECD report on Canada’s economy. Layton says May is right, then adds that Canadian families are working 190 hours per month more than they used to “just to make ends meet.” Duceppe points out that income tax reductions for manufacturing companies are useless when said companies are losing money, and demands, yes, DEMANDS reimbursable tax credits. Harper talks about where he’s directed the government to invest money. Dion argues for centrism, IE, the Liberal party, which will “invest in the infrastructure” while remaining fiscally solvent. Layton complains that Dion wants to have corporate tax cuts and that Dion kept Harper in power for way too long, then says that corporate tax cuts cannot be the lynchpin of a new fiscal strategy. Dion responds that the Liberal Green Shift plan is mathematically sound and has a three billion dollar “buffer,” which is who the fuck knows what, really.
Minute twenty-two: Steve Paikin: are the manufacturing jobs we’ve lost gone forever? Harper: they are, but we can replace them with new, emerging manufacturing jobs, and we can’t guarantee that certain jobs will remain forever. Duceppe asks yet again why emergent manufacturing jobs aren’t getting reimbursable tax credits to help them out in the beginning. May: we need jobs all across the country, and not just in Alberta and Saskatchewan excavating the tar sands. Coast Guard vessels should be manufactured in Canada. Layton: we shouldn’t be sending off raw timber to other countries – we can make stuff with wood right here. We should have been making green cars but Harper (and Paul Martin before him) didn’t invest in the sector. Harper’s corporate tax cuts benefit banks and oil companies. Dion says the manufacturing sector is vitally important to maintain Canada’s economy in the longterm and not to rely on resource exploitation, then attacks Jim Flaherty again.
Harper again says that Canada is not in the same situation as the United States and that the Tories are investing in important national industries. Paikin jumps in and asks Harper if his policies are working. Harper says there is a slowdown, but it’s not a recession. Duceppe jokes that the only party promoting a “Buy Canadian” act for government is the Bloc Quebecois, which is indeed amusing. Jack Layton says that’s a good idea and the New Democrats support it, then complains about bad trade deals which are eroding manufacturing jobs and that the Tories don’t have a good replacement strategy. May also supports the Buy Canadian policy for the government and attacks Harper for a “profound structural shift” about which she does not elaborate upon.
Dion says something about investment and energy efficiency which is mostly meaningless. Harper tries to say something and everybody jumps down his throat. (American readers may be wondering where all the jokes are, but jeez is it hard to make jokes with a high degree of substantive discussion.) Layton complains that the Tories haven’t presented an economic plan yet at all, and cracks that Harper must be hiding it under his sweater. Steve Paikin asks if people are willing to go into deficit to stimulate the economy in case of a recession. Harper: won’t be necessary. May: hopes not, and Harper, you’re an asshole. Dion: something something something pollution tax. Layton: the NDP balances budgets better than anybody else, just ask the Department of Finance. Duceppe: like it matters what I say, I’ll never be in charge of the country anyway.
Minute thirty-three: Manfred from Toronto: how do you reconcile environmental protection with economic growth? Dion: fossil fuels are just going to get more expensive, so the Liberals plan to shift taxation to fossil fuels and pollution to create instant market incentives to be clean and green, and if you’re clean you save money. Harper: it’s a tax increase, and you have to be honest and admit that environmental improvements will cost money, and our emissions plan is better than other parties’ plans. Layton: the Tories aren’t going to do shit and Harper is full of crap about his plan, and we need strict emissions limits, the government revenues from which need to reinvested in green economic initiatives. Duceppe: apply Kyoto, have absolute targets rather than “intensity” targets like the Tories have, which allow one to declare success while still increasing overall emissions, and the tar sands have to pay up. May: the climate crisis represents the single biggest economic opportunity in history, and it’s stupid to pretend that polluting is free, because it isn’t.
Open discussion! Paikin asks Harper about the tax cuts in the Liberal plan. Harper says the carbon taxes are twice as much as the income tax reductions. Dion flat-out calls him a liar, and says that countries which have adopted carbon taxes do better than those without. May agrees with the idea of carbon taxation and says her plan is more ambitious than Dion’s, which means nobody will vote for it. Duceppe says – fuck, do I really have to keep pretending that Duceppe is anything other than a generator of “gotcha” questions in the English language debate? Although it is amusing hearing him totally mangle the words “sustainable development.”
Harper blathers about hard targets and soft targets for carbon emissions, full of sound and fury, signifiying nothing. Well, not so much “fury.” Layton, on the other hand, has lots of fury, and again links Harper to George W. Bush, then mocks him for intensity-based targets, explaining why the concept is bullshit. Dion emphasizes how important the climate change crisis is, and states firmly that if the changes have to be made immediately to maximize economic benefit. Harper responds by saying the Tories have a plan for the tar sands. May attacks Harper for ignoring Kyoto, and the Tories in general for being useless at the Bali conference, then points out that municipalities and provinces are trying to have climate strategies without the federal government because Harper is a limpdick. Duceppe explains in funny broken Franglais why intensity targets are crap, May nodding emphatically all the while. Layton’s moustache quivers with indignity! Dion talks more about how the Green Shift drops taxes for poorer Canadians. Harper responds by talking about how he’s protecting land near cities and have expanded the parks system. PARKS! May outright calls him a fraud.
Minute forty-seven: Candace from Montreal wants to know about healthcare, and how will these people alleviate the doctor shortage in Canada?
Layton: the NDP will increase by 50% the number of doctors training in Canada, and will forgive their student debts if they commit to ten years in family medicine, unlike the Tories, who gave out a corporate tax cut and told the provinces to go pound sand. Duceppe: it’s a provincial responsibility, but the feds can’t help sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong, and also Aboriginal health conditions are a joke. May: budget-cutting in the 90s hurt the healthcare system in the long run, and only additional reinvestment can handle the issue. Dion: it’s even more important because a lot of our doctoral population is aging, and the feds have to take action to make sure we can handle this, presumably by chaining them to their offices. Harper: May is right! the Liberals cut your healthcare funding! It was all their fault! We’ve been working with the provinces! And so forth.
ROUNDISH TABLE TIME! Layton points out the Tories were asking for more cuts when the Liberals were cutting, and that Harper himself led a citizens’ group that wanted to privatize healthcare, and the NDP is for public healthcare and Tommy Douglas Tommy Douglas TOMMY MOTHERFUCKING DOUGLAS. Harper attacks Layton for using a private clinic at one point, his eyes saying “I will rape your flesh and wear it for a hat.” Layton says “fuck you” as nicely as possible. Harper says “fuck you” back then talks about some of the money they’ve spent. Dion says that the 90s were necessary and that the Tories broke their promises about waiting lists. May: there are international pressures to cut down our public healthcare system. (Harper smirks like an asshole.) May paints a picture of hungry American businesses trying to move in and attack healthcare, and follows Layton’s lead by pointing out that Harper used to be a pay-for-pray rightie extremist. (Who had dead eyes, like a hitman.)
Duceppe says… I’m honestly not sure, and it had nothing to do with his accent. He moves his hands a lot, though, so maybe it’s important. Dion complains about private medication costs being in the t’ousands and t’ousands of dollahs and promises public funding for catastrophic-need drugs. Layton points out the need for better Aboriginal care, for more family doctors, and then says Dion and Harper are both useless twats and the NDP is the way to go and did he mention how corporate taxes suck?
Minute fifty-nine: Dale Anne from Saskatchewan asks about arts funding! Ha, and Karen Whaley said she didn’t want to liveblog this debate! WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, WHALEY?
Duceppe predictably is angry at Harper for cutting arts funding. May likes arts funding and thinks it’s important and that it can make money, but it’s more than just a profit centre, it’s about being Canadian. Dion likes art because “it’s fun” (hokey, but effective), and because it can make more money through tax receipts than is spent by the government itself, and because it’s our identity. Harper “enjoys the arts immensely,” rubbing his hands as he imagines strangling a small puppy to the strains of Ravel’s “Bolero.” Harper then talks about a child tax credit, which parents could presumably spend on arts education! (If they aren’t spending it on food.) Layton rightly mocks the shit out of Harper for this utterly stupid idea, pointing out that artists are poor as shit.
Steve Paikin wants to know if the other four leaders think Tories are barbarians. Dion says he thinks Harper considers artists “enemies,” and Harper shouldn’t do that, and that Harper’s personal tastes shouldn’t dictate arts funding. Duceppe slams Jim Flaherty, who is definitely providing a lot of fodder for everybody tonight, saying that Flaherty made it clear the arts funding cuts were ideological. Harper says that the arts and culture budget has increased. May says she doesn’t think Harper hates the arts, but she thinks he uses the government to increase his own political power wherever possible, and that artistic funding cuts are part of that strategy.
Layton accuses Harper of censorship of his cultural opponents. Harper demands an example, and May butts in naming names. Dion says it is “clear” that there have been ideological cuts and promises to restore artistic tax cuts and funds. Harper again talks about how much more money they’re spending, and how the government “evaluates” programs, which just sounds… creepy. Layton points out that other countries invest in cultural spending because it generates jobs, and then again says Harper would rather give the money to banks.
Minute seventy-one: Sameer from Markham wants to know about violent crime. It’s getting worse, you know! What are you going to do about it?
May: You’re wrong, Sameer from Markham – the violent crime rate hasn’t gone up. That having been said, bail conditions for violent offenders need to be stricter, and we need to ban handguns and semiautomatics, and a cheaper system for regulating hunting rifles. Dion: Treatment model – fix the problems before they become violent crimes. Harper: Well, there are some increases, in gang violence for example, and youth violence repeat offenders, and we’re going to do things about that. (Harper, incidentally, barely looks at the camera when addressing it. It is downright weird.) Layton: we need to ban handguns and semi-autos, and we need treatment and youth programs, and Harper promised youth programs which never showed up so he’s promising it again. Duceppe: punishing young offenders doesn’t work, and we need anti-gun laws, and tougher measures for armed criminals, and victims’ rights.
May: we need to invest in literacy programs, because they’ve been proven to reduce crime rates and criminal activity in youth, and the Tories cut it. Harper: the program didn’t work, and we cut programs that don’t work. Layton complains that Harper’s cuts are just political gamesmanship, and promises a family credit for children’s education programs. Dion says he trusts judges and Harper doesn’t, because Harper wants zero tolerance laws, and that’s idiotic. Harper responds by saying he just wants to give judges the option to give harsh, draconian sentences, and what’s so wrong about that? And house arrests don’t work for young offenders. Duceppe links Harper’s governing philosophy in criminal law to the United States. May points out that longer sentences don’t reduce the crime rate and just end up being more expensive to the state, and that treating young offenders as adults is ridiculous.
Layton mentions that the crime rate among Aboriginals is sky-high because native reservations have the shittiest status around and it’s a national disgrace, and that an apology isn’t enough. Harper says he could talk about that, but he’s not going to, and that violent criminals get off too easy in Canada and it’s time to do something about it, gosh darnit. Dion says sure, let’s do something, but not adopting American judicial models, and then gets into a fight with Layton about Liberal responsibility for Aboriginal policy failures. Layton: “if you’re not going to be the leader of the opposition, I don’t know why you’re running for Prime Minister.” BURN.
Minute eighty-four: Barmak from Kitchener wants to know about Afghanistan. Should we stay there until 2011, or later, or earlier, or what?
Harper, unsurprisingly, likes Afghanistan and what we’re doing there. Layton: we’ve always been against Afghanistan, but we love our soldiers, nay, because we love our soldiers, and we should engage in a comprehensive peace process. Duceppe: us too. May: Afghanistan is where armies go to get their asses handed to them, and we need the United Nations to take over. (What?) Dion: I love me some soldiers and if anybody says different I will beat them to death with a crowbar, and as for Afghanistan, we should stay until 2011.
Harper: we can’t pacify Afghanistan by ourselves, we need the Afghanis to do pitch in, it’s a United Nations mission already. Layton argues that Harper can’t be trusted and that his philosophies come straight from the Bush neocon wing, and you can’t trust Dion either because he changes his mind. Dion: I never broke my word, I agreed to stay longer because leaving Afghanistan without preparing them would be disastrous, and we are so out of there in 2011. Harper points out that Obama wants to increase troop counts in Afghanistan, all you lefties, so what do you say to that? May knocks Harper for having wanted to go into Iraq, then says it has to be a United Nations mission because if it’s an American one the mission is screwed, and points out that too much foreign aid goes to Afghanistan now. Dion: Harper Bush Harper Bush Harper Bush Harper Bush Bush Bush Harper Bush. Harper: Not Bush! Not not not not not Bush! (Yes, it is really getting that bad that fast, folks. Come on, we had ninety minutes almost of substantive debate, it had to collapse sometime.)
Minute ninety-six: Dennis in Toronto: he’s a retiree, and he wants to know what the first thing each of them would do as PM, and no bullfeathers, either!
Layton: remove the corporate tax cut and replace it with infrastructure investment and job creation and stuff like. Duceppe: I’m not gonna be Prime Minister, and nobody else but Harper is gonna be either, so I’ll just make sure to keep pushing Harper to help the manufacturing sector and seniors and lots of other people. May: we have to fix our electoral system to bring proportional representation to Parliament, and we need to deal with carbon emissions yesterday and eighty percent of Canadians agree with me. Dion: I’m going to deal with the economic crisis that’s coming even if Harper says it isn’t coming. Harper: More tax cuts.
OPEN ROUNDISH TABLE! Layton attacks Harper – again – about the corporate tax cuts, and then points out that Harper is fundamentally crap at working with provincial leaders, and so is Dion. Dion says if he’s elected he’s got a mandate from the Canadian people, not that this is going to happen but hey. He also talks up the Green Shift again. May pushes the Green Shift concept and says it’s exactly what we need to do right now for all the usual reasons, then argues for income tax splitting in marriages. Harper says that they eliminated the marriage penalty, which is not exactly the same thing at all but it sounds kind of the same, then says they’ll bring in income splitting for couples acting as caregivers for non-kids (IE, parents and elderly types). Harper says he will never, ever raise taxes, which is exactly the type of flexibility a leader needs. Duceppe asks for national securities regulation common across the provinces; Harper says he’d like that, but it’s not going to happen any time soon. Dion says “hey, remember how Harper screwed you on income trusts? Think about that when he complains about the Green Shift.” Harper responds by saying that it was necessary and they compensated by offering income splitting for pensioners.
Minute one hundred seven: Aimee from Halifax hasn’t voted in the last couple of elections, so how can she trust any of you assholes?
Duceppe: Just look at it this way: Harper lies like a rug, so there you go. May says she used to be a lawyer and now a politician and feels loathed, and it’s because politicians break promises, so ignore party and vote on the issues, and be more engaged, because you deserve better than what you get. Dion: you, young lady in Halifax, you’re wrong. There are concrete differences between the Tories and the Liberals. For example, the Liberals are nice, and the Tories hunt the endangered condor for sport. Harper: I am pro-condor and have always been pro-condor. Look at our platform. (May: “where IS it?”) Layton: Harper doesn’t have a platform, he has a sweater. And we’ve had the Tories and Liberals in power forever, one or the other, so if you’re sick of the same old same old, vote the NDP into power and guess what, we’ll fuck up in all sorts of new ways.
And then they talked some more but my wireless connection on my laptop died, so fuck it, there was only five minutes left anyway and they were mostly done.
Bottom line: Harper needed a strong performance to rebound from the French language debate and this was definitely not it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good. I don’t think he’s getting his majority.
2
Oct
Setting up shop to liveblog tonight; thanks to Newsworld replaying the Canadian leader’s debate later tonight, it’s going to be the American VP debate at 9 PM and then the Canadian federal debate when Newsworld replays it.
Probably important to note in advance that Sarah Palin is not going to set her podium on fire or do anything remarkably stupid; the form of the debate allows her to do what she does well, which is relentlessly attack Biden and Obama in scripted manner and ignore any question she can’t answer by talking about something else instead. (This was, of course, not accidental.) Regardless of what happens, Palin’s expectations are so low that if she manages to speak in complete sentences it will be portrayed as a massive victory. My personal hope is that Biden ignores the attacks and simply concentrates on being a grown-up who can offer intelligent solutions for problems America faces.
8:59: Campbell Brown explains that most people are stupid and will be more inclined to vote for Sarah Palin if she comes across as nice rather than competent. Well, that’s honest, at least.
9:00: Your moderator: Gwen Ifill, who is, I understand, completely in the tank for Barack Obama and who hates all white women everywhere.
9:00: Tonight the lines are for uncommited male and female Ohio voters! Ohio! The state that always matters far more than it really should!
9:01: “Nice to meet you! Hi! Can I call you Joe?” And it’s Perky Sarah out of the gate!
9:02: First question: the bailout. The lines like Biden! The lady lines like him more than the men lines, but the men lines seem to like him fine. Biden says he and Obama will focus on the middle class.
9:05: Palin starts out talking folksy about soccer and the lines just DROP to neutral so fast it is scary. They rebound a bit when she starts talking about sound oversight, then she obliquely says Biden is stupid for not listening to McCain about reform. Lines drop again when she starts talking about McCain suspending his campaign. That shit ain’t fooling nobody, lady.
9:07: Biden wants to respond to Palin on McCain’s economic brilliance, and goes with the “fundementals of our economy” line. Palin responds with the “he was talking about American workers” bullshit response – the lines like it but only a bit. Early trend about Palin is that her lines tend to drop the longer she talks. She hasn’t dropped into negative numbers yet.
9:09: “Maverick” count: 1.
9:09: “Who’s fault is the subprime meltdown?” Palin wisely blames predator lenders. Biden looks terribly pissed off when she talks about how she and McCain will clean up Wall Street, mostly because OH MY GOD THE BULLSHIT.
9:10: “Hockey mom” count: 1. But her message of personal responsibility rings strongly! People like personal responsibility in Ohio!
9:12: Biden: McCain wants to deregulate everything and that’s no good. Palin: taxes! Democrats love taxes! Lines not very convinced by this. Government must be more efficient! Everybody likes efficiency! Then she spouts the “tax increase on families worth $42K less” line, which is bullshit. Biden calls her on it and points out that McCain voted exactly the same way, then points out that by Palin’s standard McCain voted to raise taxes eleventy billion times and Palin didn’t answer about deregulation at all. Biden is grinning like an evil shark person.
9:14: Palin: “I may not answer the questions the way you want me to…” IE, “at all.” Biden looks at Gwen Ifill. Palin looks at her notes.
9:15: Ifill: hey, McCain wants to tax employer health benefits. What do you think about that? Biden points out that the middle class has had a bad time of it lately with taxes and talks about the Obama tax plan, of which the lines greatly approve, then points out McCain wants corporate tax cuts. Palin’s smile is WEIRD. Then Biden mentions Reagan, because men in Ohio get hard when you say “Reagan.”
9:17: Palin claims that she and her family are “middle class.” She has to be prompted to even mention the health care plan because she is busy lying about taxes. My god, this woman lies slickly when she gets a chance to prepare. Attacks socialized healthcare and the lines are NOT impressed. Talks about the health care credit, because five thousand dollars helps a lot when you have cancer!
9:20: Biden: John McCain wants to tax your health benefits and give money to insurance companies. This is undeniably true, which unfortunately does not wake up the lines, because it is difficult to understand, this “paying of taxes” and “costing of money.”
9:21: If things get tough, what disappears from your plan: Biden: foreign assistance (good call, Biden – Americans hate helping foreigners. Sorry, people, but it’s true), corporate tax cuts. Women OFF THE CHART with the lines for Biden. Then, Biden says he and Obama will look in the government’s cushions for spare change to make up the difference, and finishes by attacking overseas tax shelters.
9:22: Palin says McCain doesn’t flip-flop depending on who he talks to. This is true. McCain flip-flops regardless of who he talks to. Palin says how she “took on” the oil companies in Alaska, presumably with a shotgun and a bear trap. Palin is playing it so folksy it is like she is trying out for a remake of The Beverly Hillbillies.
9:24: Palin claims her area of expertise is energy. Oh, please, Biden. Destroy her. Destroy her and make her your own.
9:25: Biden points out that the windfall tax Palin instituted in Alaska is part of Obama’s economic plan and something John McCain opposes. OH SNAP.
9:26: Bankruptcy bill. Palin would have supported it. LINES NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT. Odds Biden mentions that he voted for it: very poor. Palin’s answer is… blather. Oh my god, is she coming apart already? SHE IS. Sarah Palin Podium On Fire Equivalent: .3 podiums.
9:27: Gwen Ifill, in the tank for Obama, points out that Biden voted for the extremely unpopular bankruptcy bill. Biden umms and ahhs and then says Obama is awesome and knew about the subprime meltdown way in advance, and says that bankruptcy courts need to be better for the people and stuff. Bad answer, but eh.
9:29: Sarah Palin wants to talk more about energy (lines NOT happy) and says that we need to drill – excuse me, “exploit domestic energy sources”, then attacks “east coast politicians.” Tupac, up in the sky, waves his forty-ouncer for her.
9:30: Gwen Ifill wants to ask about climate change, and asks Palin “what is true” about climate change. Palin equivocates and admits that there are changes, and doesn’t want to argue about the causes. Oh my god she is falling apart again, just tripping over words. How did this woman get elected to anything? Jesus Christ. She has said “we gotta become energy independent” like fifteen times now, then attacks foreign countries for polluting, and then claims that she is for conservation.
9:32: Biden: “It is manmade, you dumb cunt.” No, not really, but wouldn’t that be great? Says “we’re the cause,” then points out that McCain doesn’t vote for alternative energy like, ever, and then says “clean coal and nuclear power” because he needed to make me irritated, then attacks China for burning dirty coal, which is not like the sparkling, gleaming coal you find in America. Finishes up with saying that drilling won’t produce oil for ten years.
9:34: Sarah Palin says “drill baby drill” because she is a dumbass. Then complains that drilling is great and why don’t Obama and Biden want to drill more? Man-lines LOVE drilling! Women, not so much.
9:36: Biden points out that drilling for oil doesn’t do shit about global warming. FINALLY.
9:36: Biden is unequivocally for same-sex marriage benefits. And the lines are SUPPORTIVE, because he does it right: he talks about basic fairness. HA HA EAT THAT YOU CULTURE WAR FUCKERS.
9:38: Palin says she’s against gay marriage (basically) and then points out that just because she doesn’t want gay couples to get married doesn’t mean she’s intolerant! YES IT DOES, YOU STUPID BITCH. (My god, I am hardpressed to think of the last woman I loathed quite as much as Sarah Palin.)
9:39: Men, surprisingly, much more for same-sex marriage benefits.
9:40: Gwen Ifill asks about a pullout strategy in Iraq. Palin talks about the surge, which is, you know, the exact opposite thing. Blathers about Obama voting against funding the troops, which is bullshit. The lines are just generally not enthusiastic about any of this particularly. Lumps together the Shia extremists and Al-Qaeda, because she is an idiot.
9:41: Biden: “All due respect, but I didn’t hear a plan.” SNAP
9:42: Biden promises to end the war. Lines VERY VERY HAPPY.
9:43: Palin accuses Biden and Obama of being surrenderers. Lines BELOW THE MIDDLE. And mostly staying there. My god, women really really do not like Sarah Palin. At least not in Ohio.
9:44: OH GOD SARAH PALIN SO ANNOYING SHE IS MAKING ME WANT TO TURN GAY no no I like the ladies BUT SHE IS A LADY OH THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE pretend she is a pre-op tranny maybe that will help
9:45: Biden: “I love McCain, but he is a fucking idiot, only suitable to be kept behind a stairwell and hidden from polite company.”
9:45: Iran or Pakistan? CHOOSE ONE! Biden says Pakistan, because they already have nukes, whereas Iran does not yet have nukes. Iran getting a nuke would be bad, but Pakistan already has them! Lines firmly on his side. Then says again that McCain is wrong about Iraq. Lines like him even more.
9:47: “Which is worse, Palin?” She picks both, then says “hey, Iraq is pretty bad you know!” Then, in an ironic moment, she accuses Ahmadnejad of being dangerously unstable. HEY LADY LOOK WHO YOU’RE RUNNING WITH. Then accuses Obama of being dangerously naive, unlike a woman who believes dinosaurs lived with cavemen.
9:49: Dictators HATE America! They hate tolerance! And respect for women’s rights! Like the right to choose! Um! Pretend she didn’t mention that bit! Anyway, Obama is willing to talk with them! And that’s bad!
9:50: Biden absolutely tears apart Palin on foreign policy yet again. I genuinely don’t think at this point Palin is coming anywhere close to hitting it out of the park, or even a double. Maybe a single on base.
9:51: Biden pulls out McCain-and-Spain in the most gloriously assholic way possible.
9:52: Sarah Palin’s answer on Israel is possibly the least coherent thing she has said all night. She just says anything vaguely related to the topic at hand and hopes it sticks. She is a human bullshit shotgun. She is a thesaurus gone retarded.
9:53: Biden tears apart the Bush adminstration’s foreign policy step-by-step. He is being such a jerk. The lines love him, because he knows what he is talking about and it is obvious.
9:54: Palin is so happy that everybody loves Israel! And then complains that Biden and Obama are playing the “blame game” and are fingerpointing, which is convenient because the fingers are all pointed at her useless idiot party.
9:55: Biden: “Past is prologue.” Oh YES. Then does a very good job, policywise, of linking McCain to Bush. Lines like this very much.
9:56: Palin boldly comes out against nuclear war. Secretly, she hopes that Joe Biden will say he is PRO nuclear war! Then she will win the debate for sure!
9:58: Palin: America needs a surge in Afghanistan like they do in Iraq! And how dare Obama say that soldiers have accidentally killed Afghani civilians! They’re building schools, you know!
9:59: Biden: “Our commanding general in Afghanistan said TODAY that a surge won’t work there.” OH SNAP. Biden is just pwning Palin on foreign policy so fierce it is crazy. I mean, this isn’t even close. This is like me playing Kasparov at chess. No, this is like my mom’s cat playing Kasparov at chess. “No, kitty, don’t eat the rook.”
10:00: Palin’s starting to lose her temper.
10:01: Biden talks about Kosovo. The lines like Kosovo! (What the hell are “Bosniaks,” though? They sound like a type of sneaker.) Then says America can lead in Darfur if it’s willing to do so. The lines really, really like this.
10:03: Palin tries to say that Biden is a flip-flopper, then tries to compare him to John Kerry, all while playing her cutesy small-town chick rule, then blathers some more. My god this woman never should be in charge of anything ever. Then starts talking about the Alaska Permanent Fund, and how they divested themselves from Sudan, because – Christ, I don’t know any more.
10:05: That was an uncharacteristically weak response by Biden and the lines showed it.
10:06: “John McCain knows how to win a war!” This is true. McCain won the War Against American Airplanes, and the War Against Being Faithful To His First Wife, and the War Against Coherence. Military wars, no, John McCain hasn’t won any of those.
10:08: “What if the president died?” Biden: I’d keep carrying out Obama’s policies, because they are awesome sauce. The lines love him. ESPECIALLY the ladies. That is why Joe Biden is called the Silver Fox. Palin: “I would wet myself, then go into a corner and cry.” No, actually she says she’d do whatever she wanted to do because they are a team of mavericks (current maverick count: seven), which means putting government on the side of the people and fighting corruption and bringing small-town values to Washington, because what the country needs is the viewpoint of one-tenth of its population in charge. The lines like this. FUCK OHIO. FUCK OHIO RIGHT IN THE ASS. (Which would be, what, Cincinatti? I have no idea about Ohio.)
10:10: “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” You kinda get the feeling she’s been waiting to say that all night, doncha? And she starts talking about education, which means talking about the teachers in her family in lieu of anything about, you know, policy or anything like that.
10:13: Ifill brings out the “what does the veep DO, anyway?” Palin says “we all know!” Then says “presiding over the Senate,” and not a lot else. Talks about energy independence, because that is her area of expertise, god save America.
10:14: Biden: “as veep, I would shove Obama’s legislation down the throats of Congress and make them love it and ask for seconds. Also, I have a big mouth.”
10:16: Oh god Gwen ifill is asking Sarah Palin a question about the Constitution. Palin, predictably, talks about nothing for a couple of minutes and doesn’t actually answer the question in any way. Blather blather blather. Sarah Palin Podium On Fire Rating: 0.4.
10:17: Biden slags Dick Cheney, because that is the easy road to popularitytown. Says that the VP has no actual enumerated power beyond deciding tie votes. Whew.
10:18: Oh god, a question about Sarah Palin’s experience. She is qualified, I shit you not, because she is connected to the heartland of America. SHE REALLY SAID THAT. Then she talks about how they’ve “been there” worrying about healthcare, despite having been a public servant for most of her adult life. She is also an agent of tolerance, because when you think about small-town America, you think “tolerant.”
10:19: Biden’s experience. He admits to having a big mouth. Well, duh. Talks about being a single parent (lines very appreciative). Nearly breaks down for a bit talking about how he knows what it’s like having to worry about having a child who “might not make it.” Lines SKYROCKET for that.
10:22: Palin: Maverick maverick maverick maverick maverick maverick James Garner maverick. Mentions how Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani love McCain. Oh, please, Sarah Palin, mention two of the least popular politicians in America some more!
10:23: Shorter Biden: “Maverick? BULLSHIT.” Lines are VERY VERY big on this. Veep candidates are attack dogs and Biden just chewed up McCain and spat him out.
10:24: Ifill: “What did you change your opinion on, issuewise, because of changing circumstances?” Biden: I didn’t think Supreme Court justices mattered because all candidates were responsible. Then I learned what shit really goes down. Palin: I didn’t veto budgets, and it was the right thing to do, even though it left my town twenty million bucks in the hole after three years, which was not my fault because other people put together those budgets, not me.
10:27: “How will you change the tone?” Biden: I have a history of working across the aisle to get shit done. Look at my record. I don’t question people’s motives (yeah, sure). Palin: I appointed people regardless of political affiliation, be they Republican, Libertarian, or Scientologist.
10:29: Palin’s closing statement: I’d like more debates! (Suuuuure you would, Sarah.) I like talking directly to the people, rather than being asked questions by pesky “journalists” who might “know things” about my “record and stated beliefs.” I’m lucky to be an American, and so is John McCain, and Reagan said something, and fight fight fight fight fight fight fight maverick fight fight maverick maverick change fight fight go Huskies fight fight fight. Lines: a little bit likey.
10:30: Biden’s closing statement: middle class needs to do better, we need to do better, John McCain is a fucktard, and the only reason I’m not saying “this woman at the other podium is a retard” is because I don’t have to by this point. Time to get up off the mat, America! Lines: love him to death.
And that’s it. I suspect the pundits will declare Palin’s performance to be all right but not exactly a solid win, because that’s the best way to discuss things.
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