(via)
5
Jul
3
Jul
(NOTE: Due to a staggering lack of home internet connectivity, no Who’s Who entry this week. Sorry.)
The problem with having Napoleon and Tabitha as judges is that apparently the only other hip-hop choreographers available to SYTYCD right now are Cicely and Alyssa. This is problematic, because Cicely and Olisa’s specialty is a subsection of hip-hop popularly known as “shitty.”
Jessica and Will: Jive followed by jazz. The theme of this week’s judging of Will is “you’re just too good for Jessica.” Jessica gets buried by the judges and takes all the blame for her and Will’s mediocre jive routine, which is dramatically unfair because he was struggling just as much as she was. This is not to say that Jessica is great shakes; she’s arguably one of the weakest female dancers remaining. But that fact doesn’t mean Will is being held down by her; he’s just not as great as the judges keep pretending he is.
The jazz routine with the shirt is better (albeit still somewhat laboured), but the judges fall over themselves praising Will’s technique and carefully ignore the fact that his performance with Jessica was kind of bland; it was very much a “do the moves right” sort of performance, with very little connection or chemistry. Still, that is about as great as Will and Jessica ever seem to manage. SO HOORAY FOR WILL (but not Jessica).
Comfort and Thayne: Broadway and smooth waltz. The good news: somebody other than Tyce-fucking-Diorio doing choreo for “Broadway” style. The bad news: it still kind of sucked. Comfort is a one-trick pony and Thayne isn’t good enough to cover for her. Still, the judges give them both a reasonably nice judgement, mostly I suspect because they want Comfort to stick around until top 10.
The smooth waltz, though, was honestly pretty decent. Thayne’s hands were kind of all over the place, but his lines were decent and he led Comfort well enough. Comfort did not screw up and was entirely tolerable.
Kourtni and Matt: hip-hop and mambo. Nigel really doesn’t like Matt much, do he? Because in the hip-hop (which was barely a pop number, but oh well – btw, Cicely and Olisa are terrible) Matt was easily the better of the two, what with actually being on time and all. But every judge criticized Matt to death for not hitting the beats hard enough, while Kourtni was doing her best impression of Mr. Heavyfoot or something and got mostly ignored. With a better partner Matt would have been fine.
The mambo was genuinely good; a bit laboured in places, but what do you expect, it’s Alex da Silva, who gets off on creating insanely difficult choreo that untrained dancers will have an insanely difficult tie with. (I firmly believe he is genuinely an asshole.) The judges got nitpicky and went to the “no chemistry” well, which is a fair comment because Matt and Kourtni don’t have chemistry, and gee whiz sometimes that happens. This is the flaw in the “stick with partners for the first half” model the show follows. But what are Matt and Kourtni supposed to do, go to the Chemistry Store and ask for a half-litre of chemistry each? They’re a bad pairing and they’re suffering for it.
Chelsie and Mark: jazz and foxtrot. Mark’s really starting to remind me quite a bit of Rhys from SYTCTD Australia in that he’s a weirdo who can do just about anything really well. The jazz routine was excellent; he and Chelsie complimented each other nicely and it was just generally fun and exciting.
The foxtrot was a bit tougher for them; were this a first-week performance I think the judges would have creamed their pants, because really the only flaw was that it failed the Foxtrot Test of appearing completely effortless. You could see the strings, so to speak, and just as much on Chelsie as on Mark. Still, it was fine.
Kherington and Twitch: paso doble and contemporary. Well, this was a great week for Kherington, as she overcame her two biggest criticisms in one night: first, by dancing in heels and doing so splendidly (there is a conspiracy theory over on – you’ll be shocked here – the TWOP forums that Kherington can’t dance in heels) and secondly by not having a big fake smile for her performances.
Twitch got slammed for the first half of his paso doble, which isn’t entirely his fault because, come on, paired unison cape-swirling? Ugh. Once he got rid of the cape, he was actually able to enter into proper paso doble mode by pumping the macho up to 11 (seriously, that was some goddamned manly paso doble in the old-school “looks like he’s about to grab his woman and throw her across the room just to show her her place” way). And the Mia Michaels was a Mia Michaels in the good way.
Katee and Joshua: contemporary and West Coast swing. On the other hand, this Mia Michaels started to veer a little bit into Bad Mia Michaels – when she’s on, she’s on, but Mia Michaels does have a definite tendency to occasionally just choreo a bunch of hyperactive flailing and call it a routine. (See: Danny and Lauren last year.) But it only went that way a little, and there were a couple of moments of genius in it (Katee’s suspended “run” across the dancefloor was brilliant). And they were both quite good in it.
The West Coast swing was frankly pretty bad; this was no Pasha and Sara from last year, and Joshua in particular didn’t seem comfortable with it and Katee wouldn’t stop with that hideous grin. Still, Katee is probably the best of the girls overall and Joshua is Joshua and will do fine, and the judges lurve them, big duh.
Courtney and Gev: hip-hop and broadway. Gev took a lot of slack for not doing Cicely and Olisa’s routine well, which to me says he understood that the routine was terrible: the same boring, generic crap Cicely and Olisa always seem to come up with for this show. (How do they get work? Are they much better professionally and just slacking off for the routines here?) Courtney was fine doing the boring routine. P.S. Napoleon has no business complaining about anybody not being “ghetto” enough. Don “No Soul” Simmons is more ghetto than Napoleon is.
The Broadway was pretty fun; it’s no shame on Gev that he couldn’t quite imitate Gene Kelly because most people can’t. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Bottom three: Matt and Kourtni, Jessica and Will, Comfort and Thayne.
Going home: Jessica and Matt.
2
Jul
As a further bit of explanation, and to demonstrate where I’m coming from, I will go through this week’s offerings and tell you how I plan to consume them. My rampant downloading will no doubt anger some comics professionals, but until that new copyright bill gets ass-rammed through Parliament I’m not technically breaking the law (since I’m not offering the items for download and thus “trafficking” the materials).
Note that wherever I mention “download,” it is shorthand for: “download, read it, then delete it soon thereafter.” The stuff I tend to download and keep tends to be either stuff I don’t own and is out of print (Golden and Silver Age stuff), or stuff I already own and want a digital copy of for my own use (my complete runs of Starman, Hitman, et cetera).
So:
ALL NEW ATOM #25: Download, if it’s not too much trouble to find it. This is the sort of comic where I am not really invested in the story; if I were at a shop, I might pick it up, leaf through it, then put it back down and never think about it again. Mostly because I have downloaded probably about half the issues of this comic, and every time my reaction is the same: “….eh.” It’s not a bad comic, it’s just kind of there. (Sorry, Gail Simone!) This probably adequately describes at least half – if not more – of my comics downloading.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #564: Download and read. It’s really easy to find the newest Spider-Man comic for downloading, and I like following the storyline. I just don’t particularly want to pay for it. When the first trade is released, if it’s a reasonable price (read: less than the pure chiseling that was the pricing on the World War Hulk trade), I might pick it up on a whim; the stories in the comic thus far are enjoyable Spider-Man stories but entirely disposable, so I don’t feel any particular urge to own this.
(Sidenote: I own the entire run of JMS’s ASM in trade, which is another run of Spider-Man that I first read online through downloads. Yes, I (mostly) liked JMS’ Spider-Man run, and especially liked it when he was working with John Romita Jr., so sue me that the new, unmarried Spider-Man isn’t as interesting to me. Maybe in fifteen years when death’s cold fingers are a bit closer to me and I desperately want to relive my childhood, okay?)
Also, I can’t remember if this is a Dan Slott issue or not, but I download anything Dan Slott writes just in the hopes that it pisses him off a little. I even download Avengers: the Initiative, which I don’t even read or like. FEEL MY FIT OF INTERNET PIQUE, DAN SLOTT!
ANGEL AFTER THE FALL #10: Maybe download? This is probably on par with All New Atom for level of interest; I just find it mediocre. Whatever interest I have stems from leftover curiosity about what “officially” happens to Angel after the show ends, but that’s dropping fast thanks to the incredibly ugly art on this comic.
AVENGERS INVADERS #3 (OF 12): Download, because I am curious to see if they can go anywhere after the deeply retarded second issue, where the Invaders figure out that they’re in the future and then more or less arbitrarily decide that the Avengers are Nazis because of an offhand comment made by Bucky. Likelihood that I will ever pay money for this comic in any form: practically zero, because it is terrible. But I love a trainwreck.
BATMAN #678: Download because it’s Morrison. Might buy in future, I dunno. Grant Morrison is a great writer and all, but a lot of fans tend to forget that when he screws up, he pancakes hard. Then again, I have lots of Grant Morrison stuff on my bookshelf, so the odds are generally good I buy it eventually. Then again again, I don’t have The Filth. Then again again, when they put out the inevitable one-volume collection of All-Star Superman i will probably buy it, despite having already bought the initial hardcover.
BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #1: Download, read, strictly first issue “try before buy” basis.
BLUE BEETLE #28: Download and read with eventual plan of purchasing trade if/when it comes out; I already own the first three trades of this title and will buy the fourth when it comes out, and the fill-ins thus far have been decent so I figure the fifth will join them.
BOYS #20: As Blue Beetle. I own the first two trades, eagerly await the third. I just don’t like having to wait for the trade and I refuse to buy a fucking comic book twice.
Some may argue that the cost of the floppies is a purchase price for immediacy, and that is a fair argument. It’s just one I’m going to ignore entirely. Guess what, comics: I’m your market. There are a lot more of me than there are completists willing to buy every issue they’re interested in reading right away, and I spend a fair amount of coin on you so it’s not like you don’t get anything out of me.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #16: Download, wait for trade again, already have the first two, thoroughly entertained by this title, happy to buy it in trade, not going to wait.
FABLES #74: Same again: I have every Fables trade and the 1001 Nights of Snowfall hardcover.
HOUSE OF MYSTERY #3: Download, because you know what? I missed the first two issues entirely. (This is the downside of downloading comics as your primary means of reading them on a weekly basis.) I’m curious, what can I say. (This, incidentally, shows one of the strengths of the downloading-at-very-low-cost delivery model for comics; there’s a lot more opportunity to try out a book. It’s a lot less common now for someone to pick up a random issue of a book like this for a tryout basis.)
JOKERS ASYLUM THE JOKER #1: Prior to copypasting the “coming out this week” list from Savage Critics, I didn’t even know this existed, so what the hell. Back in my purchasing days this might have been an impulse purchase. Now, not so much.
JONAH HEX #33: I’ve been thinking about getting the first trade of this for a while now. Not that downloading this issue will influence me one way or the other. But it’s on my “maybe” list. The problem I have is that most of the stories in Jonah Hex tend to flow together in a sort of same-ish way.
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #43: Will buy the actual issue. Legion is the one comic of which I buy single issues because I just like having the single issues, even though I buy the trades. Which is fine. I understand that for some people this is what they feel for every comic. (Not for me, though. The trade paperback release this year that made me happiest were the reprints of the old Denny O’Neil Question series, because I thought “thank god, I can finally get rid of those fucking single issues.”)
MANHUNTER #32: Probably download? I’m not emotionally connected to this book like it seems the entire rest of the comics internet is. If it’s stuck in front of me I’ll read it, I guess. (And yes, I read the earlier issues, I know it’s quality product, it’s just not a story I’m really that interested in.)
MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #41: Same as Manhunter. I’m not in any rush to find this and read it, but if I see it, I’ll download it, read it, delete it, and fifteen minutes later I’ll be hard-pressed to tell you what the story was about, but I’ll remember being vaguely entertained.
NORTHLANDERS #7: See, I love Brian Wood’s other work, but this is another case where I read maybe the first two issues, liked it, then lost track of it entirely. I’ll probably pick up the first trade when it comes out, because my memory of it is good. (Of course, sometimes that backfires – I read the first few issues of Desolation Jones online, thought it was good enough, then bought the trade and hated the ending and sold it at a used books place.)
PATSY WALKER HELLCAT #1 (OF 5): Wait, there’s a Hellcat limited series? Well, huh. I don’t care, but I’m impressed there is one. (This really has little to do with the topic at hand. I am digressing.)
RANN THANAGAR HOLY WAR #3 (OF 8): I read the first issue and it was so bad it almost became good. (Almost.) I might download this just for laughs, if I don’t have to look too hard for it. That “looking hard” for a download of this title involves maybe a minute’s worth of clicking tells you how invested I am in reading another issue of this comic.
SECRET INVASION FRONT LINE #1 (OF 5): Another train wreck waiting to happen. I eagerly await the new adventures of Sally “Stupidest Bitch In The Marvel Universe” Floyd. What stupid thing will she say this time? Truly, Paul Jenkins is one of the great comedic minds of our time.
SQUADRON SUPREME 2 #1: Yeah, I’ll give it a look. And then probably lose interest again, just as I usually do with this revamp of the Squadron Supreme.
SUPERGIRL #31: I kind of download this one every month, in the hopes that I will see a Supergirl that I actually want to read about and maybe even spend money on. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’m optimistic.
TRINITY #5: Maybe this week it gets good.
WALKING DEAD #50: Another “download until the trade comes out” one. I like Walking Dead.
And that’s that.
2
Jul
Lister Sage, in comments from the previous post:
Maybe the biggest problem with comics is not the direct market, it’s not the price, it’s not even that kids aren’t reading them, maybe the problem is the general reluctance of people nowadays to just sit down and read. Newspaper sales have been getting poorer and poorer as well.
The problem with this hypothesis is multiple.
Firstly, kids love to read them some manga. Remember, when we talk about declining sales of comics, we’re only talking about western comics. Manga sales are great and manga publishers (other than TokyoPop, which has its own special set of individual problems) are entirely content with the current state of affairs (or at least a lot less worried than American publishers are).
Secondly, kids love to read in general. Three out of four kids still read for pleasure according to most studies, and in an age where they have TV, video games and intertubes, seventy-five percent is actually a hell of an achievement as far as the simple joy of reading goes. So it’s not that either.
Third, the decline of newspapers has less to do with people not liking to read and more to do with the fact that I’m not going to spend fifty cents on a newspaper when the same news is available on the internet for free, and usually from the same newspaper anyway. The newspaper industry is currently trying to figure out a new revenue model in an age where their old model has lost relevance. (Sound familiar?)
And I would say that the entry barrier to kids reading comics is hell yes price. Individual issues are expensive investments for kids, especially considering what you get (twenty pages of story for two bucks minimum?). Compare that to an issue of Shonen Jump or even an Archie digest. (Again: why don’t the big two issue digest editions of comics? DC used to do this. Their digest editions of Adventure Comics were formulative for me as a youth.)
2
Jul
I’ve argued before for a new delivery model for comics as necessary to keep the business alive in the long term.
Before I go any further discussing it, let’s tack on one more reason why going to a download-supporting sales model is a good move for comics companies: the electronic transfer of .cbr files is vastly more environmentally friendly than the continued printing of single issues (“floppies”). I’m not suggesting that .cbr files immediately replace floppies on a permanent, one hundred percent basis; however, I think that the gradual shift from floppies to digital is already underway, and it is healthier for comics companies to accommodate it and profit from it rather than fight it on the basis of supporting an outmoded method of sale which has only resulted in a gradually decreasing audience.
So, what should this model look like? Well, let’s make a few bullet points, first, about what people like about digital comics right now.
They are free. Now, obviously, a for-profit business can’t offer all of its product for free, but this tells me that the individual price of a downloadable comic (whether a definite, tagged price or a price derived from average use of a purchased e-collection) has to be low. Very low.
They should be .cbz or .cbr files with high-quality images. Some will argue that comics companies should pursue a more protectable format. This is stupid because there is ultimately no such thing; copy protections are more easily broken every day, and besides, the success of .cbr and .cbz files is not something that arose out of a vacuum; people tinkered with zipped collections of jpegs and PDF image collections before finally settling on .cbr and .cbz for their online comics reading.
This is a perfect example of the market determining its preference for delivery, and it is stupid to fuck with the market – especially when .cbr and .cbz files can so easily be encoded with ad pages and when the interface doesn’t easily lend itself to skipping the ads sight unseen. (Hell, some comics scanners already include the ad pages.)
They want to download the issues and possess them themselves. Or, more simply, Marvel’s “storing house” plan is, for the moment, a bad one. Maybe down the line consumers may become more receptive to the idea of “stored ownership,” of owning the right to consume an artistic work stored elsewhere. But right now it’s probably not great shakes.
They aren’t interested in locked material. No consumer ever is, and DRM-laced creative product only enhances the public desire for an unlocked, pirated version. This is why music companies are finally giving in and releasing unlocked mp3s.
They prefer individual issues. Although in a digital world there’s no need for arbitrary issue individualization (if I want one megafile of, say, Preacher, I can have one rather than individual issues), readers still prefer that the serial format continue to be recognized as such and distributed in such a manner. This is worth knowing because some people have suggested removing the monthly serial format altogether as part of the digital move, and I think this point argues otherwise.
Now, if we consider these points, what potential business models exist for online comics vending? (Marvel and DC will both, no doubt, try to have their own online store, regardless of the fact that this is stupid and we already know, thanks to the music industry, that it won’t work, so let’s ignore company-specific strategies and look at broader concepts.
The “dip a toe in” model. This is the most timid strategy I came up with beyond “do nothing and hope it works.”
Pick a low-selling title in which you have critical faith. Let’s say Blue Beetle.
Put the entire thing online in the following manner: Webcomic-style page layout (“one page per day/one page per click”). Your online version of the comic is black-and-white, rather than full colour, and it publishes one to three months behind the actual issue on the stands.
This is the most timid model because at heart, it uses the internet not as a delivery system but as a marketing tool; revenues will still primarily be derived from hard-copy sales of the comic (in floppies or trades), relying on fans to want to read the story “the moment it’s available” rather than in three months’ time, relying on fans to want to spend money to read the comic in full color, et cetera. In short, it’s a stopgap solution at best, designed to placate the internet-hungry crowd by doing as little as possible while still being able to honestly point at it and say “hey, internet!”
And it’s still better than doing nothing.
The “iTunes.” .cbr files available for download on a pay-per-issue basis. Simple. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Downloads of this sort should be relatively up-to-date; initially maybe a month behind printing schedule, tops. (The beauty of an online delivery system is that when the time is right, switching to simultaneous digital delivery is essentially instantaneous.)
The benefit of the system is simple: it’s a familiar model that already has some success. The downside is that its cost to the consumer ramps up very quickly (AKA “who the hell actually spends ten thousand dollars to fill up their iPod” syndrome) and it’s really a very poor model for profiting most highly off the enormous back catalogue possessed by most major publishers. Finally, it becomes difficult to balance pricing – companies tend to become enamoured of a single tier price (“99 cents an issue, cheap!”) regardless of whether that price is, you know, any good or not. (And digital comics should be way cheaper than 99 cents per issue.)
The “eMusic.” .cbr files available for download from a central site via a subscription model: ten dollars a month gets you, oh, let’s say thirty downloads. These are full-color, high quality downloads. Ads are permissible so long as they aren’t perniciously overexposed. Again, you may start out delivering digital issues on a delayed-action basis then shift forward as the market alters.
Many companies aren’t fans of this strategy because they always look at the model in terms of lost potential revenue. “Fifteen dollars for thirty downloads, that’s thirty-three cents an issue! If comic fans were buying those thirty issues in the store, they’d be spending over a hundred dollars on our books! A hundred is more profit than fifteen, even when you account for additional cost of production!”
The reason this argument is crap is because New Avengers sells one hundred thousand copies per month and Thunderbolts sells thirty thousand copies per month. Many of those New Avengers readers, reading a Marvel comic regularly as they are wont to do, are presumably at least willing to read an issue of Thunderbolts – they are not, however, willing to spend the three dollars plus to buy the copy of Thunderbolts. Thus, the revenue loss is essentially neutralized, with one key difference; under the eMusic scenario, the consumer may, after trying out an issue or two of Thunderbolts, go buy the trade paperback.
Since the vast majority of consumers under this model are the sort who would only purchase one or two books per month, what the remaining downloads per month amount to is nothing less than free advertising. Needless to say, this is the model I support, as should all right-thinking individuals.
1
Jul
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get me some ribs. Happy Canada Day.
30
Jun
On the rare occasions I eat at McDonald’s, I almost always get the same thing: two regular hamburgers and a medium fries.
It’s what I like at McDonald’s. The bigger hamburgers, I have discovered, after much consumption thereof and time spent actually tasting the food, are nasty and I do not like them. And large is just too much fries. (Note, of course, that I refer to Canadian portions, which are all about a size down when compared to American portions. The last time I was in an American McDonald’s, I ordered a medium Diet Coke and got this frigging vat of pop.)
On very rare occasions, when it is available, I will indulge in a McRib. However, since Loblaws introduced the President’s Choice BBQ Riblet (cheaper and better), these occasions have become even rarer.
But I have one fatal weakness when it comes to McDonald’s: whenever they introduce a new large sandwich, I feel compelled to try it. I am not sure why this is, since inevitably the same thing happens: the sandwich is terrible and leaves me feeling nauseated and gross for hours afterwards. The latest culprit is the Southwestern Chicken Sandwich, which was like a bag of ass sandwiched between two slickly slippery buns with hot sauce on top.
(Traditionally at this point a hippie shows up and tells you something about commercialism.)
30
Jun
My weekly TV column is up at Torontoist.
30
Jun
The old standby: the movie quote quiz. Full points for guessing movie title, actor, and character, so a possible three points per flick, up till question #34, which is a trick question and therefore worth one point. NO FAIR USING GOOGLE. If I find out you cheated and used Google (I am not sure how I would do this, but I have ways and means), Ima cut you.
Of course it’s relatively easy to cheat off other people’s answers as well, but it’s not like there are valuable prizes at stake here.
As a special bonus to make it easier for you: no actor has more than one quote on the list. (One director is represented twice.)
continue reading "A Monday Morning Diversion"
29
Jun
29
Jun
#2,491,017: Spaniards, when they are excitedly celebrating a football victory, will play impromptu games of “toreadoro” with oncoming bicyclists as the bull, themselves as the matador and the Spanish (or sometimes Canadian) flag as the cape.
#2,491,018: If by doing this, a Spaniard causes you to crash your bicycle into something hard and unpleasant when you swerve to avoid the sudden thing in your face you weren’t expecting, they will be very apologetic and immediately offer to buy you a beer or a coffee or a gelato. (I heartily recommend that if you are, by chance, near La Paloma on St. Clair, that you exercise the third option.)
29
Jun
I’ll just let Emma Donoghue say what needs to be said, as she was so eloquent on the CBC earlier this month:
In Ireland, it’s a constant fight for basic civil rights. Chris wouldn’t be recognized as the parent of my children and every day would be a struggle. Here in Canada, though, I can go months at a time without thinking, “hey, I’m a lesbian.” Once you get the civil rights out of the way, you can just worry about your mortgage like everybody else.
Damn straight.
28
Jun
Everybody else has already said it and probably more eloquently, but: if you have not already done so, go see WALL-E as quickly as humanly possible. It is probably the best picture Pixar have ever made.
Let me repeat that to make sure it sinks in: this is the best movie that Pixar Studios have ever made.
(If there is a creative force on this planet equivalent to Shakespeare in his prime, folks, it’s working for Pixar.)
EDIT TO ADD: And since a couple of people have asked me now: yes, it’s also a fantastic children’s movie. I always try to catch a matinee of any Pixar release because I like to see how the intended market takes it, and A) my theatre was crammed and B) the kids around me were goggling, enraptured, completely and absolutely lost in the story.
People forget that storytelling without using words is exponentially more difficult than simple dialogue, and vast chunks of this movie are completely dialogue-less, which just makes the creative achievement here all the greater; this isn’t just Pixar topping their previous works (which already set the bar for excellence in animation and in movies in general), this is Pixar topping themselves after they intentionally handicapped themselves. It’s utterly unbelievable how perfect their achievement is.
Also, the short (“Presto”) is ludicrously good.
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