On the passing of an extraordinary personality

The Wife's Mom, Jacqueline Kehoe, died back in December from complications of Pulmonary Fibrosis. We had her memorial service this last Friday. It was well attended and nobody started a fistfight, so I'd say it went well. As several people got up to say a few words, everyone made mention of the fact that they "had a few good stories" about her. Since no one actually TOLD one, I figure someone ought, so I stepped up. It follows hence...


When The Wife was yet but a little girl, her mom took her to the movies. About half-way through the film, she started wiggling in her seat. "What's wrong?" asks Jackie. "There's something wrong with my seat." says she.

Jackie turned around to discover that some unbalanced gentleman had sat behind the innocent waif, had slipped his hands up between back and seat of her chair, and was feeling her little patootie up.

Now, this was the early 70's. The average person might have simply moved seats, perhaps made a complaint to the manager. Jackie was not "the average person". She stood up and proceeded to verbally rip the creep a new one, punctuated with pelts from her prodigious pocket book. The man likely injured his back slinking out of the theater.

Jackie would go through hell and high water to protect her children, and make sure they were safe. I learned this every.single.day of my married life. She was a glorious person with a life full of high points and strong emotions. She was difficult to forget, and gave you no reason to wish to do so.

We shall miss her.

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On the revamping of women and girls of the Battish persuasion, and the reappearance of avian predators

For all the questionable and outright poor choices DC (read "Dan Didio" if you like, you know you want to) have made, I am still quite surprised that anyone still considers keeping Babs Gordon as Oracle, and NOT making her Batgirl again, to be a BAD move.

Babs was one of the few examples of a character undergoing a radical and shocking change and actually coming out the other side a newer and better character. Originally paralyzed by the Joker in Alan Moore's Killing Joke, John Ostrander couldn't stand the fact that such a great and classic heroine was taken off the board. So he (and the divine Kim Yale) created Oracle, turning Babs into a viable character again. And since then she's become FAR more important a player in the DCU than batgirl ever could.

The current version of the story goes that when DC Editorial decided to bring back Batgirl again, returning Babs to the role seemed the slam-dunk move. But they got talked out of it, and they went with Spoiler. And for the life of me, I can't get why anyone sees that as anything but a plus. Oracle is jut plain a great character. A rare example of a topical character (the "hacker") having the staying power to rise above the cliches of the trend. There's the argument about her being an inspiration to the handiicapped as well, but I don't neccessarily see her being tied to the wheelchair as intrinsic to the character. Yes, she chose this role because of her inability to help physically, but if she regained mobility, I don't see that making Oracle any less a strong character. In a universe where character lose major portions of their body and become better strong faster thanks to technology, Babs' paralysis has always stuck out like a sore thumb to me. It seemed much more like she needed to stay in the chair for narrative as opposed to "real" reasons. The only other major wheelchair-bound character I can think of in the DCU (and I'm sure y'all will bring others to my memory) is The Chief from Doom Patrol. In a weird way, I can actually see him CHOOSING to stay wheelchair bound, for two reasons. One, making his enemies underestimate him, and two, the Guy Caballero motive of "respect". But Babs, I don't think she'd really turn down a legitimate fix, as opposed to magic or prosthetics or what have you. But I, to borrow a catch-phrase, digress.

Whether or not the new Batgirl should have been Babs, Spoiler, Cassandra Cain, someone else or no one is another issue, and one that'll likely never die. The point was that turning Babs back into Batgirl would have been a step backwards in a lot of people's eyes. It's one of the few times that the chestnut about making the characters (back) into the version that the most people know is not the better move. Like Dick Grayson into Nightwing, trying to turn him BACK into Robin would have been almost laughable, let alone a poor use of the character.

As the tale goes, Dan wanted to kill off Nightwing as well, but was talked out of it by people (spearheaded by Marv Wolfman) who convinced him that there were more and better stories to be told with the character alive than dead. So Dan changed his mind. And if he hadn't, we wouldn't be reading the current Batman stories, which you have to admit have been pretty damn good. If he was as poor as his job as so many say he is, he'd have stuck to his guns, forced through the plot he wanted, and very likely seen it go up in flames faster than Conan at 11:30.

DC, Marvel, all the comics companies have copyrighted and trademarked characters which they need to keep using on a regular basis, or you end up with the scenario where Captain Marvel can't appear in a book with his name on the cover, or toys named after him. So we will ever see hero names re-used. There's no point grousing over it. It's why all the classic Superman characters started to re-appear oin the books after Byrne's famous "get rid of all the silly stuff" revamp. So for Batgirl to reappear is not a shock. Again, want to argue who it should have been; go ahead, and sei gesund.

The same is so of Batwoman. Not nearly as popular or as well known a name, but a name that needs using every so often. They got it into that Batman Beyond movie a while ago, but it needed using again. Greg Rucka created a very good and very intersting character in Kate Kane, one that has far outpaced the initial rowdy-dow about her interpersonal predilictions. That doesn't happen often; usually those re-vamped characters are sad shadows of the original, requiring years to find redemption in the proverbial "right hands". The plethora of Starmen (Starmans?) leap to mind. So to actually get a good, even great character from such pedestrian needs is quite a treat.

One of the single best revamps of a character in recent years (IMHO) was The Calculator. As much as I have to say against Identity Crisis (suffice to say I am a rabid Ralph and Sue fan, and let that be the end of it), taking Calculator from one of those aforementioned "trend-born" characters and revamping him into Oracle's opposite number was nothing short of brilliant. Gail Simone took the ball and ran with him, using him regularly in Birds of Prey, often in virtual battles against Oracle, and at least one face-to-face meeting. Gail eventually left the book in the capable hands of Tony Bedard. Tony's a very good writer, and delivered some solid character issues, but right at the end of the run, the direction they chose to take both the book and The Calculator bordered on embarassing. They chose to have him not only survive an attack by the Kilg%re, but survive with powers similar to the cybernetic beast. Which I found to be utterly pointless. Already a great villain with lots of resources and abilities at his command, giving him powers is like adding a spoiler and neon to a Dusenberg. This, combined with the choice to retroactively make him the father of Wendy and Marvin from Teen Titans was an attempt to make Calculator more than he needed to be.

Birds of Prey ended, immediately followed by the mini-series "Oracle: the Cure". This begged the question "cure for what"? The rumors ran rampant - Babs would walk again, Babs would become Batgirl again, she'd become a cyber-being like that guy from Psyba-Rats, and who knows what else. As I mentioned, I didn't see an issue with Babs being able to walk again and still remaining Oracle. A lot of people were really against that - they maintained that her position as a role-model was too important. I found that almost cruel; would the same people have begrudged Chris Reeve the ability to walk because he was too important as a role model, or Stevie Wonder to "get a peek" as chris Rock described it? Yes, I know, fiction and reality, but I still found/find it an odd position to take.

Ultimately...nothing happened. It was a protracted (and suffuciently entertaining) fight in the virtual and real worlds against the Calculator for possession of a facet of the Anti-Life Formula which ended in a sort of tie, with his daughter Wendy awakened from her coma (apparently the titular "cure") but paralyzed. Basically, nothing happened to Babs. The book ended with an entreat to read the upcoming Batgirl series, a book that now nobody had any idea who it would star. People complained that the book didn't deliver what was promised, never quite realizing that nothing was promised. People assumed it was Babs' "cure" we'd see, so all it could be accused of was that it didn't deliver what they THOUGHT is was supposed to.

The new Batgirl book is quite entertaining. Since I've already said I didn't care for the idea of Babs returning to the purple tights, and never really having to great an attachment to the young Ms. Cain, I am happy with the choice made. I do look forward to seeing Ms. Cain appear (and hopefully the narrative backflips she was put through resolved) and I wish the book a long life. But I dod suspect the most recent announcement might make the book feel redundant in many eyes.

Last week, DC announced that Gail Simone would returning to Birds of Prey. I've yet to hear this news accepted as anything other than a triumph for good comic books everywhere. Gail will be able to write characters like Black Canary and Oracle again; characters that many have said no one has been able to write as well since her departure. But for those who have been buying Batgirl for their monthly required dose of Babs, will the re-appearance of this title see their desire to read Batgirl diminish? Will DC decide that the best place for Ms. Brown to receive further training is among a large number of female heroes? I am curious, but hopeful, about Batgirl's future. The title? We shall see.

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On the latest chapter in a thousand year long tale

You ever see that cut scene from Pulp Fiction where Mia Wallace talks about "Beatles people and Elvis people"? People like Elvis, and people like the Beatles, and some people like both, but NOBODY likes them both the same. It's a great scene.

I think that can easily be applied to X-Men and Legion (and/or Teen Titans), and to a larger degree, to DC and Marvel. People really are either DC People or Marvel People. For a long time the primary difference was optimism vs pessimism. DC was primarily a nice place to be - heroes were treated as such, evil was punished, and in the far-flung future, people generally got along as well as people can do. Marvel, OTOH, was where heroes were mistrusted, even by each other, and people had more "real" problems. Yeah, the two sides have grown more similar, as the cynical spies always say in espionage movies, but there's still the perception that it's what the two companies represent, and the desire of its most dedicated readers that it's where they will eventually return.

Well, DC has made a series of announcements this week, all tied to the new bi-weekly series Brightest Day, that suggest that DC may just be tiptoeing back to that happier place and time. New books and creative directions include:

Keith Giffen returning to the Justice League International, as well as taking over the reins of Booster Gold with former JLI collaborator J.M. DeMatteis

Gail Simone would be returning to Birds of Prey

Both Justice League and The Flash would carry the "Brightest Day" trade dress, and their stories connect to the over-arcing plot of the main mini.

This is in addition to the War of the Supermen and return of Bruce Wayne plotlines that had already been talked about.

But so far the news that had me the mst hopeful was the announcement that Paul Levitz would be writing TWO Legion titles - A continuing story in Adventure Comics and a NEW eponymous Legion of Super-Heroes book.

I read lots of Marvel and other titles, but I'm still a "DC Person" to the core. I liked Teen Titans (I still...try to), but I LOVED (add sparkles and shimmery letters to that) the Legion. Maybe it's that I was already a sci-fi fan, maybe it's cause they were a younger team, young like I was at the time, maybe it's because some amazing people wrote some of those early stories, people like Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton... but Legion was just the best. And it stayed the best, right up until the Byrne-reboot, and it REALLY wasn't his fault, really. But after that...well, you ever try to patch a hole in the wall? First you have to make the hole bigger to hold the plaster, then you realize the paint doesn't quite match, and now one wall is a different color than the others, and before you know it, you're buying a new house.

So seeing a Legion that's as close to the one I loved come back, and then telling me that it's going to be written by the guy co-responsible for one of the book's classic runs, a guy who has the same fire in his belly about the book that I do, well that's just awesome.

Because believe me, the Legion is the kind of book you really do have to LOVE to do really really well. Dozens of characters, just as many home planets, alien races, not to mention a thousand years of future history to keep track of. It's true of most comic characters, but it's even more so with the legion. You can't look out the window and see what you're writing about - it's totally new. Yes, the people will deal with the same things - good vs. evil, love and hate, chunky or plain, but visually, everything has to be made up. Yes, for a long time the Legion Shuttles looked a lot like the Enterprise, but hey, the flying "7734" cameras in the Superman books right now look exactly like the flying sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea; that's almost tradition.


To say the Legion has had a spotty record since the Great Reboot Saga is an understatement. Each new attempt to fix (read: "change") things raised the hackles of numerous old fans, and none ever drew enough new fans to take up the slack. And alas, "go back to what worked" was never an accetable option, so they just kept trying new things. Eventually Mark Waid and Barry Kitson literally started from scratch and brought us a whole new Legion story, one where the Legion wasn't a group that fought evil as much as it was a youth movement. And while Legion fans stayed away in droves, it was a DAMN fine book. Great dialogue, strong plots, really a new concept, presented well. But with each issue, in the back of your mind, there was still that nagging thought... "Imagine how good this book would be if it were the REAL Legion!"

They brought in Supergirl, and sales picked up. And that hung a lampshade on what a lot of people had been saying all along - the Legion is a great book, but that connection to the Superman mythos is crucial. Now, at the time she was appearing in Legion, Supergirl was also appearing in her own book, acting COMPLETELY differently from how she was acting in Legion (i.e., like a total bitch, as opposed to the pretty damn good way she was getting used in Legion) and people got so insistent for an explanation as to how this could be that they couldn't see the forest through the logs in their eyes. So Mark left the book (and has had no small words for the people who spoke against it, and quite rightly) and they replaced him with...

Jim Shooter.

Now, this was not just a surprise, this was a drop-dead-from-a-heart-attack shock. There were people at DC who allegedly said they'd walk if Shooter ever came though the door. Well, nobody walked, but there he was at the Baltimore Comic-Con, smiling and shaking hands and talking about the 16-part story he'd got ready for the book.

This was Namath coming back to the Jets. This was Hogan coming back to the WWE. This was the guy that took the Legion and almost single-handedly, using the creations of those giants of comics and sci-fi and built the future almost by himself. I couldn't believe our luck. Surely this was a guy who could take the book by the horns and drag it back to glory.

Yeah, right.

Almost as soon as that happened, The Lightning Saga began in JLA. This was the "real" Legion that people were waiting for, or at least the closest we could get. Immediately, people "knew" (read:"assumed") that the Real legion was coming back, and the LoSH title became a Dead Book Walking. People didn't want to bother following a book thay "Knew" was gonna be cancelled in favor of the real thing any time now. And like Waid's run, those people missed out on some damn fine work.

The end was not pleasant. There are a number of versions of what happened out there, and most of the come from Jim Shooter himself because the other parties refused to comment. All we know for sure is that DC wanted to end the book with issue #50, likely to make sure there'd be no confusion with the upcoming "Legion of 3 Worlds" story. This was several issues short of the 16-part plot Jim had planned. Jim either wouldn't or couldn't cut the story short, and the last issue, credited to the house pseudonym "Justin Thyme", was a slap-dash deal only slightly more acceptable than if someone had just written "He rode off into the west and everything was okay" in the back cover of issue 49.

Don't get me wrong - the work Geoff Johns has done to bring the leion back has been nothing short of spectacular. He's done what he does best - take a decade plus of bad choices and hasty revamps and woven them into a coherent explanation that will leave long-time fans if not happy ever after, at least reasonably so, while setting a new start point for new fans to hop on. But I still wonder what shooter could have done had DC not already chosen to switch horses.

So the questions arose - would Geoff be writing new Legion stories? Where would they appear? Which of the new set of Legionnaires that he set up would appear? We started to see new Legion stories in the re-started Adventure Comics, and all seemed well with the world. But as Legion fans know, it's always darkest before it gets even darker. Geoff wasn't going to stay on Adventure, and wouldn't be writing Legion. So cast adrift again, we all wondered who would pick up the baton.

Paul Levitz stepped down from his position as President of DC Comics, following the creation of the new DC Entertainment. And in his farewell/resignation letter, he spoke of a desire to write again, and a cryptic comment about an eye toward the future.

.....

nnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........

Yeah?

Yeah. Dan announced that the new writer of Legion would be Paul Levitz. Possibly the one guy more responsible for its success than Shooter. It's been a few months since that announcement, but as of this week, we found out we'd get TWO books. All of a sudden it was the 80's again, with Levitz in charge of two Legion titles. There's even been talks of Keith Giffen drawing something.

Maybe...just maybe...we legion fans might get a happy end to our tale. We shall see.

No news yet on Dan Jurgens' new assignment now that he's leaving Booster Gold, and nothing yet on my beloved T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but I live in hope.  Stay Tuned.

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On the danger of asking an obvious question

The other day, Marvel Comics (the other company that is not DC, the one with the spider-guy) sent out a teaser image for the Fantastic Four, with the tagline "FANTASTIC FOUR 2010- Will They Survive?"



Short answer - yes. I mean c'mon, they're Marvel's first family, they've had three films (I'm including the Corman one, because like Guy Fawkes, nothing should ever be forgot), three or so TV series and they're clearly not going anywhere.

Tom Brevoort, however, has taken umbrage that the literal-minded among us have chosen to answer that rhetorical question. He's remarked on the electric-type Twitter that he's:

"A little bit irritated with Newsarama posters responding to the FF promo we
sent out. Rather than reacting to the gorgeous art, they all ...instead pick at
the e-mail title."

Well, I must say, the tag line was surely intended to start conversation, so it's a bit odd to get upset when it succeeds.

But honestly, when you ask comics fans if character or group ABC (I can't use "X" as a variable here, as they actually HAVE such a team) is going to "survive", the answer is going to be "That will depend on sales". Threatening or tantalizing us with death or destruction just doesn't hold the weight it might in less "fantastic" fiction. Reed and co have already gone to Heaven and brought back Ben Grimm - death is no longer a challenge.

Might the FF break up? Absolutely. It happens as often as the leaves falling off the trees. It just happened a year and change ago. But unlike a team like The Avengers or some such, the FF is a set group of four, a family. As interesting as a new person coming to the title is, it's going to snap back to the original team eventually. It's all part of Alan Moore's point that comic fans "don't want change, but the illusion of change". I could also add in that the licensing department doesn't want much to change either, but let's stick with creative here.

It's a lovely piece of art, and there's certainly a lot going on in it, implying that there will be a lot going on in the book. I've been enjoying the book, both its recent run and as far back as the Byrne age. They are the single most important characters (gramatically questionable, that, but I'll go with it...) Marvel has. Both recent teams have done something that I think needed to happen to the book, namely brought back the Cosmic. As interesting as stories about social workers trying to take away Franklin and Valeria (because their home is too dangerous) are, the FF should be dealing with dimension-shattering problems. They have more experience with the Big Big Picture (if I may co-opt a phrase from Larry Marder's Beanworld) than anyone else in the MU, and that's the stage they should play on. Based on that image, that seems to be where they'll be working.

There's a few themes we're seeing come back around, and that's fine - they're standard ideas, and re-occur all the time. We've seen some emotional distance between Reed and Sue, mainly because of Reed's dedication to The Work. While in the past it was Franklin that was going to end up eclipsing Reed in intelligence and power, now it's going to be Valeria. That's all well and good as well. Tho I do hope they manage to "allow her to be a child". Too often when you have these super-intelligent kids in fiction, they become little adults. From a purely emotional point of view (and perhaps ascribing too much real-world mindset to the idea than really should) that can cause some messed-up people as they approach adulthood. I'd like to see a story where that incredible intelligence gets used for wholly fun things, as a kid would. And don't go for that "We have to lock this intelligence away until she can handle it" either - a lobotomy is a lobotomy, no matter how many polysyllabic words you choose to wrap it in. Always hated those stories.

If you've not read the FF in a while, I suggest you give it another look.

Tom continues in his 140-chracter long comments:

"Also, just for the record, I never said we had no plans to make FF important. I
was asked if FF was going to become a franchise like Avengers or X-Men, and I
said no. Not remotely the same thing."

Good.

"Franchise" has several meanings. Here, I think he's using it as "base upon which to build more titles", something I agree that isn't needed for the FF. There's no need to have a second FF book, or solo titles - it's four people, f'pete'sake.

However, in the sense of "Important character or concept, driving force" the FF are absolutely a franchise of the MU. They're a tentpole. In a world where the general public has a varyingly-guarded view of heroes, the FF are universally adored. They are the go-to team, the people other heroes go to for advice, ether scientific, emotional or how to be a better hero-related.

I feel the need to call out one creator for special compliment when it comes to his recent work on the FF - Dwayne McDuffie. Viewed by many as a transition title-holder, he came up with some truly wonderful stories in his brief run on the book. His one-shot "My Dinner with Doom" is truly one of my favorite FF stories in recent memory. In a weird parallel to his run on JLA, he was handed the book and then basically told he wasn't going to able to write the actual FF. But no matter - he still came up with a few great batches of lemonade, on both books. I just thought that needed saying..

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On the use of Presidential Privilege to destroy Christmas

For the record, no, President Obama did not deliberately pre-empt "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as part of a concerted effort to further eliminate religious references from the public media.

But it WAS a spectacularly boneheaded play.

He had an important message to give, he requested the time from the networks, and his media team either didn't realize what he'd be talking over, or they figured it wouldn't be a big deal.

*sigh*

It's exactly the kind of thing that that people LOVE to grab on to and blow up into importance. It's pointless, stupid, distracting, and serves only to elicit an emotional response - perfect for the 24-hour media cycle.

Once again, this is another play in the concerted campaign to prove that President Obama can do NOTHING right, positive or helpful to the American people. Any and everything he does or doesn't do, via action, speech or unspoken thought, is actively intended to destroy America. While I could easily go for the "Big Lie" comparison here, it's just too damn easy (and tends to veer the discussion off the rails) so I'll pull out the Brave New World quote - "62,400 repetitions equals one truth." The theory is, if ENOUGH little unbelievable accusations fly at the same target, more and more people will start to think, "Well if THIS many stories are popping up, surely SOME of them must be true". And that's all you need, the suspicion.

The President tends to ignore these stories, or has his lackies address them. His lackies do not have much patience, and it takes very little to make them sound shrill and insistent. And shrill and insistent people tend not to sound believable. Just listen to the people who call in to Talk Radio. They talk progressively louder and faster, as if trying to get in their point before they're cut off.

No, Obama should not address each of these issues personally, it does tend to give them more credence. But once in a blue moon, in inverse ratio to the importance and plausability of the charge, he ought to come out against one with such withering sarcasm that it makes anyone who tried to put the accusation forth look like a damn fool.

I'd love to see him at a press conference, answering the Charlie Brown Christmas accusation by clearing his throat and saying "Mwah-wah WAH wahwahwah waaahhh."

But again, since he's under the Everything He Does Is Wrong attack, even THAT would somehow mean he's demeaning those who love the special. Humor has become a casualty of the political process. Half the time, the opponent of a politician can not grasp that an opponent can be telling a joke, and the rest of the time it's just them trying to convince YOU that he can't be telling a joke.

ABC is doing the EXACT right move in the wake of Charlie-gate- taking shameless advantage of the mini-frenzy and re-running the special TWICE - once on December 8th, and again a week later, both at 8PM, and both on the real ABC, not pawned off on ABC Family or something. And I'll lay odds it'll get better ratings than any time it was broadcast in the last five years. It's AMAZING the reaction people have when you take away something they haven't looked at in years, but simply expect to be there. If it's not called "New Coke Syndrome", it should be.

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On the Spectacular Return of the Homeless Shopping Spree

I'm a big fan of Opie and Anthony, the morning radio guys appearing on XM/Sirius Satellite radio on channel 202, known as "The Virus". As Howard Stern's closing time on regular radio descended into talking more about himself (I always compare it to the end of Lenny Bruce's career where he would read the transcripts of his court appearances, neglecting to make them funny), O&A filled the hole with rampant funny. With Jim Norton's savage and unfiltered wit as part of the mix, the show is a guaranteed laugh for me, with equal parts news commentary, strong interviews, and the sage knowledge that a well-placed joke about bodily fluids will ALWAYS be funny.

Aside from the ever-mentioned bit that got them thrown off WNEW back in the day (look it up yourself; that bus has left the depot and they've been thrown under it enough), one of their classic recurring bits has been the Homeless Shopping Spree. The concept is simple - gather up a number of homeless people, give them a sizable amount of money each, bus them to the most upscale mall the show can find, and set them loose. Stores would lose their fudge as these unkempt forgotten men tottered towards the Ralph Lauren polo shirts. Some would pull their gates down, keeping other people from shopping, not to mention trapping people inside, rather than let these indigent inebriates sully their cookware. Bear in mind, these men were being chaperoned at all times, not only by staff of the radio show but often scores of fans and Friends Of The Show (who would usually contribute to the homeless shoppers' billfolds), so there was no chance of anything really unpleasant happening. But inevitably, security would arrive, and these propertied gentlemen, some sporting HUNDREDS of dollars to spend, would be ushered out of the establishment in a blaze of hypocrisy.

They'd be accused of exploiting the homeless, exposing them to ridicule, and endless other claims. But these well-meaning busybodies never grasped that no one was laughing at the homeless. Like Borat and Bruno, it's "candid camera comedy" - the humor is not in the homeless people, but in the reaction of those around them. The comedy was not in these homeless guys getting enough money to buy warm coats and clothing for the wonter but in the reaction of the shop-workers who would stop short of lighting firebreaks to keep them out of their stores.

It's a gag you're heard before - some smart-ass invites ACTUAL homeless people to a buffet benefit for the homeless, and the partygoers all act frightened and uptight. The Homeless are a group that most people want to help, but not actually interact with, preferably not see at all. The stores and people at those malls likely donate sizable sums to help the poor, they just assumed that the money would be spent...elsewhere. Some "elsewhere" far from their golf courses and Neiman-Marcus locations.

In protecting their wares, these stores make themselves look like rich, entitled Sissy-headed Ninny-hammers. And that "Not in my Back Yard" mindset is then broadcast nationally. A smart store would find out the event was happening, and (after making sure that indeed the event was being well controlled; that's only fair) offer the stars of the day sizable discounts in their establishment. Instead, like the targets of Michael Moore's ambush interviews, they come off looking like the villains. Which is, of course, what makes the whole thing hilarious.

The Homeless Shopping Spree is returning this year. Considering the level of skittishness XM (and the entire radio industry) has right now, it's possible there will be a great deal more "advance notice" given to the mall in question. Indeed, it'll likely be just as entertaining to hear about the malls who decline to participate - I hope those phone calls are recorded and played on air as part of the build-up.

Althought this year, considering the ever-mentioned "state of the economy", more stores might come to the realization that it doesn't matter how smelly the person who has the money is, as long as their money is going in the store's coffers. The whole thing might just backfire into another form of comedy, as malls and Big Box Stores actually jockey for the right to have a busload of homeless spend money in their establishments.

Merry Fuckin' Christmas.

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On the challenge of waiting a week for comics

As you may know, December 30 will be The Day Of No Comics in the US. Given the fact that Christmas falls in an odd position of the week, resulting in delays across the board for UPS (from whom most dealers get their books), Diamond Comics Distributors has decided that it will make for less headaches all around to ship NO books that week.

That's got the potential to be bad news for stores. It means that there's no new items that week to spend Christmas money on, and most people will just go find something ELSE to spend it on, rather than wait a week. To be fair, a lot of people are away, not at work (where they usually get their books at lunch or after work) so the shops may be slow already, and a week without books might be a chance to take a vacation.

But enough stores have groused, and enough publishers have seen opportunities to make a bigger noise in a quieter week, that alternatives have popped up. Many small publishers ave created Indy Comic Book Week - a number of books that WILL be available the week of the 30th, in the hopes that regular buyers itching to buy SOMEthing will try their books out.

Some of those books will be available from smaller distributors who aren't taking the week off. This is also a great idea, as most shops buy from Diamond and no one else. When Diamond raised its minimum order limits recently, a number of books dropped out of Previews, which meant that to a lot of stores, they vanished off the face of the Earth. An event like this can help remind stores there are other sources for those books, sources they might keep in mind moving forward.
Other books will be shipped a week early from Diamond, and be embargoed with a street date. This includes the highly anticipated Blackest Night #6. DC has decided to make the book available on the "week off" to help give readers a reason to hit their stores that week, giving the stores a chance to get some extra sales.

Now, just about every other industry has street dates. CDs, movies, books, videogames, all are shipped varying amounts ahead of time to ensure that the stores have them first thing on the date of release. This allows stores to do midnight release parties or any other events they like, as long as they don't sell the item early. The street dates are carefully enforced, both by the publishers as well as by the stores. Some stores will gleefully snitch on their competitors, while others will follow the "Well, if HE's selling it early, I have to or I'll lose sales" mindset, usually resulting in BOTH getting in trouble. Penalties for breaking street date vary, from fines, to losing the ability to get advence shipments for a period of time. And for items like this, not having the items The Very Moment it comes out means you've lost those sales. So the system works, or at least works often enough to call it a success.

According to Bleeding Cool, DC will be asking/making comic stores sign an online affadavit verifying that they agree not to sell BN#6 before its street date of 12/30. Those who break street date could lose their early-ship preveleges if they have them. Also, if Diamond receives no complaints about a store, they'll get a limited edition copy of BN#1 as a thank you/reward.

Now, a lot of stores have already said they'll sell the book(s) as soon they get them, and hang the free book. The argument is that the fans will not wait a week for the book, and will find the one guy who sells it early, and that's sales lost. There's a lot of validity to that argument. But it doesn't mean that ship dates can't work, since they work perfectly well with all the other aforementioned indudtries.

This may turn into a very useful experiment.

If we can get street dates to stick in the comics industry, it opens a great deal of doors for new distribution methods. The most obvious is the potential for books to be shipped a day early (maybe even more) for ALL dealers. Folks who get their books a day early have the luxury of putting the books out at night after close, and having them available minute one on New Comic Day. Yes, it means you have to stay after and put them out, paying more to your employees or just using up more of your time, but ask a dealer how much of a pain it is to put the out in the middle of the day, either shooing the customers out of the store or trying to keep them away from the shelves as they get filled. Just about every other store stocks the shelves when the customers aren't there - it's just more efficient.

Also, consider trade paperbacks and hardcovers. Right now, they're shipped along with the regular books. They're shipped one or two-day rate. That's expensive. If a valid street date system was in place, the heavy and expensive TPBs and HCs could go out a week ahead of time, ground rate, and get to the stores before the street date at a tidy savings. That's money right back in the store's pocket, making those books that much more profitable.

Enforcement is always an issue for things like this, but in most cases an honor system with teeth would likely work fine. If store A puts out its books early, Store B would likely be happy to file a complaint against them. In larger cities, odds are something akin to those secret shopper services could potentially be set up - a rep for Diamond would visit stores, see if the books are out early, and let them know they've broken the agreement. I know of at least one store in my area that I'd LOVE to help catch if they were doing that.

As for the punishment, there's a couple of possibilities. If a store has a complaint registered against it, they might warrant a warning, or at least a notification of the complaint. It's certainly possible rival stores might turn each other in out of malice, so it's not a perfect way of finding out. If a store is proven to be breaking street date (a rep showing up, photos, whatever) they might lose a "preferred customer" status. That status might include that prevelege of getting the books a day early, and perhaps even a better discount. Maybe only a percent or two, but that can mount up but fast. The key is to make the penalty harsh enough to make the average store think twice if the benefits are worth it.

If you write the rules for the 90 percent (to make up a number) of people who'll follow them, the 10% who don't won't make too big a dent against the 90% who are. Again, similar rules are in place for industries FAR larger than comics, and they pretty much work. It doesn't seem that big a hardship asking the comics industry to behave as well as other retail sectors do, considering the potential benefits.

Just sayin'.

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