And there's new merchandise this year via Le Cafe Press, just in case you always wanted a Double Steak Day tote bag or a clock:
*I mean "you" in the less frequently used sense of "no one in particular."
**And a suprisingly poor grasp of modern video editing software!
]]>At its heart, Social Security is an insurance program. (And a public option buy-in, at that.) But what other insurance program pays out, even if you don't need it?
That's like buying fire insurance and then getting a payout even if your house never burns down. Social Security is the only insurance program that pays out if things DON'T go badly for you. It's death insurance. It pays out if you, through no fault of your own, don't die.
How crazy is that?
People who are rich, don't need Social Security. The idea that we continue to give money to people who don't need it, in an era of deficits and debt, is just ridiculous. Heck! It'd be ridiculous in an era of surpluses.
Democrats are supposed to be the party that fights against income inequality. Democrats are supposed to be taking a stand against taking money from the working class and giving it to the rich.
Why do the 99% pay payroll taxes to give Social Security to the 1%?
]]>I'm sure this won't happen, but what I really want to see in STAR TREK 2 is:
Older Spock, realizing time won't rip apart if he tells the new crew about his timeline, spills about Khan. Khan, in this timeline, is still in suspended animation in his spaceship (The Botany Bay) drifting lost in space. So Kirk and crew decide to secure the ship before Khan can wake up, get crazy evil, kill Kirk's son and sort of briefly kill Spock.
(Older Spock's perspective allows us to trade not just on how big of a threat Khan was in his first appearance, but on the threat he turned into years later in Wrath of Khan.)
Meanwhile, the crew of a Klingon ship have also identified the Botany Bay, and they want to dissect Khan to learn more about genetic augmentation. The crew of the Klingon ship are sort of a Bizarro Enterprise, both in terms of casting (get Kal Pen to play a sword-wielding Klingon) and character/competency.
Basically, it's crew against crew in a tactical battle in the middle of a dangerous area of space, and the ticking time bomb is "What if Khan wakes up." Which of course he does, forcing the Enterprise and the Klingon crew to team up in the third act.
I figure the Klingons "beat" the Enterprise, "win" Khan, and then he wakes up, takes over their ship, kills half of them, and then the Enterprise have to work with the survivors to beat Khan.
STAR TREK 2 is in pre-production now, and will presumably not remotely resemble any of the above.
]]>The priest places a hand on his shoulder and smiles and says, "Remember, my son, this too shall pass."
"You're right," the man concedes, and he leaves.
A few weeks later, the man returns. "Father," he says, "I caught my wife cheating on me with another man! I think she's going to leave me!"
The priest places a hand on his shoulder and smiles and says, "Remember, my son, this too shall pass."
"You're right," the man concedes, and he leaves.
A few weeks later, the man returns. "Father," he says, "My wife has left me, and I've caught my son doing drugs! I worry that he will end up in jail or dead!"
The priest places a hand on his shoulder and smiles and says, "Remember, my son, this too shall pass."
"You're right," the man concedes, and he leaves.
A few weeks later, the man returns. "Father," he says, "You were right about everything! I've found a new job! My wife and I have reconciled, and our marriage is better than ever! My son has gone to rehab and has sworn never to do drugs again!"
The priest places a hand on his shoulder and smiles and says, "Remember, my son, this too shall pass."
]]>And there's new merchandise this year via Le Cafe Press, just in case you always wanted a Double Steak Day tote bag or a clock:
DC Comics and other comic book publishers sell digital comics through a service called Comixology. You can buy comics through their website or an app. And starting right about now, Comixology is offering physical comic book stores the opportunity to host Comixology storefronts through their websites.
So you could go to the Comixology website and buy your digital comics, or you could go to your retailer's website and buy your comics there. But Hibbs doesn't like Comixology's terms.
Wait. What?
]]> The whole idea of retailer portals for digital comics baffles me. It's essentially charity, right? "Buy a digital comic today, and a portion of the purchase price will help to feed a struggling retailer in St. Louis!"I mean, seriously, what's the difference between this and creating a Red Cross branded Comixology portal? What extra value do I get buying digital comics through a retailer site besides the retailer's good will?
Hibbs' argument seems to boil down to "I'm pleased that you're giving me free money, but I'm angered that you're not giving me more of it!"
I understand Hibbs' plight. I know that retailers have their backs up against a wall. But if I've decided to buy digital comics, I want as few entities in the transaction chain as possible. Every extra link in that chain means more people who are splitting up my money, and that means they'll need more of my money to go around.
Digital comics prices are already artificially inflated to avoid stepping on print sales. This is just giving publishers one more reason to keep those prices artificially high.
Digital comics need to be half the price they are right now, at least. $1.99 or $0.99. Retailer portals are a step backwards. Retailers quibbling over how much of my money they should get is... um...
...a step backwards with quibbling.
]]>What’s really interesting isn’t that all of DC’s comics will be available digitally the same day they’re released in print. What’s really interesting is that ALL of DC’s comics will be available digitally the same day they’re released in print.
]]> Up till now, most comic book companies' digital offerings have been scattershot. Maybe a few titles day-and-date, a few others that are a few months behind, and then a random assortment of issues from older titles.In contrast to “day-and-date,” we might call the current approach “if-ever.”
But starting in September, DC has made the commitment that every new comic they put out will be available online in digital format immediately and forever.
I’ll say it again: AND FOREVER. That means that from September on, as long as DC stays in business, a customer will be able to buy any comic they’ve ever put out (from September on) at any time for or less than the original cover price.
Since the mid-70s, comics have existed as a niche collector’s market. Scarcity and demand drove cost both for older comics and for the next big thing. The first appearance of Spider-Man is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The latest sold-out buzz book from Image might go for $100 on eBay.
In recent years, we’ve seen this change somewhat. Publishers have found a new revenue stream repackaging their older comics into collections and selling them through comic stores and book chains. But they can’t reprint everything, and they can’t print an infinite number of copies.
With the move to day-and-date, DC has effectively decoupled the content from the collectible forever. There’s no longer such a thing as an obscure, hard-to-find comic. Storylines never go out of print. And no comic will ever be under-ordered again.
DC can put out a war comic or a horror comic or a cowboy comic, and if it doesn’t sell enough copies in September, they can sell the exact same comic in October, in November, and in 2015. Comics that they couldn’t afford to keep in circulation as collections, comics that would become hard to find and potentially expensive to collect as back issues, will be available forever and instantaneously in digital format at cover price or below.
Reading habits will change. Ironically, day-and-date distribution means that there’s no need to buy every comic the Wednesday it comes out. Want to wait a week or two to hear what people are saying about the new Blackhawk title? It’ll still be there when you’re ready. Heck, want to wait a few months and buy a few issues at once for a meatier reading experience? All of those issues will still be available, and they might even be cheaper!
We saw a similar phenomenon, “trade-waiting,” rise up around collected editions, but the danger there was always “If the comics don’t sell well enough, who’s to say there’ll be a collection?” But with day-and-date, those comics will always be available.
The only real risk is cancellation. If you don’t buy the comic now, they’ll stop making new ones. But there’s even a novel solution to that! Imagine DC putting out a press release:
“Sales on Jonah Hex have been slumping. If sales don’t increase, we’re going to have to discontinue the book.”
Within minutes, everybody’s who’s been waiting to pick up new issues can log in and download the issues they’d been holding out on. They can also reach out to friends and followers on social media to sample their favorite comic. And it doesn’t matter whether new readers start reading from the beginning, the latest issue, or the greatest hits in between. It’s all new money contributing to DC’s bottom line.
While DC will still be operating a periodical business day-to-day, they’ll also be maintaining an infinitely extensible backlist. This is essential for comics, because most comics are such quick reads. To encourage long-term reading habits, you need a library of comics available to potential readers. Enjoy this issue of Superman? Here’s 20 more. Like Grant Morrison’s writing? Here are three more series he’s written.
Of course, the ultimate barrier to entry is cost. There seems to be a growing consensus that comic books, and digital comics in particular, need to cost 99 cents. It seems to be the magical number at which each purchase becomes an impulse buy. With infinite availability and an “impulse price,” comics could finally have a chance to go mainstream.
(Here “mainstream” means something your average person would download while waiting in line at the bank.)
For various reasons which I won’t get into today, it’s not practical to sell comics for 99 cents just yet. But DC is at least thinking about ways to make their digital comics more affordable. Though their new digital comics will still be $2.99 at launch, same as their print comics, they will be lowering the price to $1.99 after 30 days.
Twice the right price isn’t good, but it’s better than thrice! And it provides some interesting options for those of us who plan to make the transition to all-digital come September.
I will certainly be buying the big new series on or very near to “day-and-date.” That includes the new Justice League, Action Comics, Batman, etc. And there are a number of other titles that I’ll be picking up, here and there, throughout the month as the mood strikes me. For instance, I’ll probably sample Omac and Hex and Nightwing before the end of the month.
Based on what I enjoy the most, I’ll decide what I want to stay up-to-date on. What do I really, really want to read as soon as it’s available? For everything else, I’ll wait a month or even two or three, picking up a few at a time at the reduced price.
If, after a few months, I start hearing good things about a title I’m not buying, I’ll start at the beginning, rather than trying to jump on with the latest issue. If I like what I’ll see, I can either pick up a new issue every few weeks, like I’d do for any other series, or I can catch-up and start following the new releases.
If I find that I’m buying too many comics, I don’t need to drop any of them. I’ll just buy them less frequently. Instead of picking up the latest Aquaman every four weeks, I’ll pick it up once every six weeks. I may fall behind, but those later issues will always be there waiting for me, and they might even wind up being cheaper to boot!
That’s me in the short term. What really excites me though is the future. I’m thinking of the reader who discovers comics in ten years. For them, it’s all new and it’s all available instantly at the click of a button. They could spend the rest of their lives reading and loving comics, pouring through the best the industry has ever had to offer, and never, ever read a comic “day-and-date.”
]]>Oh, nevermind. Point being, GREEN LANTERN wasn't a great movie. A lot of people are coming out and saying "This proves that superheroes are done for in Hollywood!" or "This proves that B-list heroes can't carry a movie!" or "This proves that comic book types shouldn't muck around in filmmakers' business!"
To the last point: I certainly can't prove that Geoff Johns wasn't to blame for everything wrong with the new GL movie, but I can tell you that his GREEN LANTERN: SECRET ORIGIN trade is light years better than what we got in theaters last week. So you'll have to do the math for yourself.
In the meantime, here's a short list of what they could have done better to make GL really fly:
[Because he flies, get it?]
]]> 1. Let the audience discover the mythology along with Hal. You're setting up a universe where Hal Jordan is the first human to be a member of the Green Lantern Corps. Why on[As a note, I'm restricting myself to non-fanboy criticisms. There are things that rubbed me the wrong way as a fan, but those aren't the things that make a movie good or bad. For example, why is Amanda Waller a scientist? And skinny? Why does Abin Sur's escape pod land on the beach? Why are there so many building on Oa, but everyone's always hanging around outside?]
2. Include a plot. There's so little happening in this movie! Now, I don't expect every movie to be THE DARK KNIGHT, but that was a movie with tons of characters, all with competing agendas that were themselves an expression of their characters. In GREEN LANTERN, Hal get a ring, feels sorry for himself, and then shows up for some fight scenes. Hector Hammond didn't so much has a masterplan as a list of places to show up for fight scenes. Parallax had a motivation (revenge, I guess?), but his plan basically amounted to: (a) show up, and (b) be a monster. The plot of GREEN LANTERN all boils down to "Will Hal Jordan accept his destiny?" He's the hero, right? I'm guessing the answer is yes.
[Although if Guy Gardner showed up 2/3 of the way through the movie, took the ring from him and told him to stop being such a wuss, that would be HILLARIOUS!]
3. Seriously. A plot! Please. There are plenty of ways to add a plot to the movie they put out. For example:
Anything that pushes the story to be about more than: "I'm afraid!" "Now, I am no longer afraid!"
4. Earth and one other planet is NOT Epic. Shuttling back and forth between Earth and one other planet (where everybody is made of CG and all they do is stand outside in big crowds) does NOT entitle you to compare your movie to Star Wars. Star Wars featured a wide variety of aliens and environments spread out across a quest-style story. If you want to go cosmic, go cosmic! Set the story largely in space and have Hal Jordan visit multiple alien worlds and interact with characters from those worlds and get to know the other Green Lanterns as people lifeforms. Or don't! But then you need to use Oa better (perhaps more sparingly?) in the narrative. For instance: towards the end of the movie, Hal visits the Guardians to ask their permissions to defend the Earth from Parallax. And he needed their permission why? When you have a PLOT, you can ask "Does this scene serve the plot?" But when you have NO PLOT, you cannot ask "Does this scene serve the no plot?"
5. Sell us a movie first. Then toys. If you're old like me, you'll remember the old STAR WARS action figures from the original movies, where every background alien got its own figure. That was cool, because it allowed kids to recreate a lot of different scenes in the movies and to imagine new stories around all the minor characters. I can't help but feel that the makers of STAR WARS watched that movie and said, "Why are they building out all these different scenes and locations to introduce all of these action figures? Why not just feature them all in one scene where they stand together in a crowd?" I get that DC wants to introduce all this stuff to new audiences. But to invest such time and energy into detailing out what's essentially set decoration in the story strikes me as a misplaced priority.
Okay, I think that's all the NerdPlotRage I can manage for one post. I leave you with a quick round-up of links that mock the GREEN LANTERN:
]]>And there's the other side to this to. In the hours after the shooting, a lot of liberals were jumping to the (somewhat understandable) conclusion that this was a political shooting. That the person behind this WAS a Tea Party radical. If that had been the case, it would have played to their political advantage. It would have validated a lot of liberal concerns about Tea Party rhetoric and code words like "Second Amendment Solutions."
And it would have been wrong.
I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about this case. The best evidence so far suggests that the shooter was just a mentally ill kid. If you find his YouTube page, you'll find a video that outlines his incoherent philosophy, conveyed with grammar and a wavering grasp of logical argument. (The kid makes bizarre use of "If > Then" constructions.)
As a non-mental health professional, this certainly looks to me like someone who's either mentally ill or perhaps doing a LOT of drugs. In either case, it's a tragedy that there was no one to reach out to this kid and get him on the right path.
It's too soon to excuse him of any moral culpability, but from the little I've seen, it doesn't seem like he had a clear grasp on reality.
But even if this kid WAS affiliated with the Tea Party, would that mean that the Tea Party was to blame? I don't think so. Because, let's be honest, the Tea Party, for all it's rhetoric, hasn't produced any killers. (I know that's a little bit of a circular argument, but bare with me.)
The Tea Party is a broad movement with large pockets or radicalism and presumably other, quieter pockets of comparative moderation. They've been around for a couple of years and, despite some politics I disagree with and some occasionally troubling rhetoric, nobody's assassinated anyone. That means that, despite the anger, despite their frustration, despite a lot of people thinking or at least saying that they think that Obama is a Muslim or a Marxist or a Marxist Muslim, these people, deep down, know it's not OK to shoot someone.
To the extent that someone actually picks up a gun and kills someone and says it's because the Tea Party made them do it? Well, I'd submit that there has to be something more involved. Something that went wrong with that particular human being. And that, and not their political affiliations, is what's really to blame.
I guess the problem is that when what you're dealing with is one broken kid, you don't really have anyone to punish. And when people are dead, when a little girl is dead, you want someone to punish. So you pick something about the person who did it, and you make that "the reason" and you find other people with that thing in common and you make them "part of the problem" and then you punish them.
It's a small blessing, perhaps, that in this case, it's not so easy to find a scapegoat.
I think we're best off dealing with these shootings as the freak occurrences that they are. Horrible. Tragic. But not something that we can base our understanding of the world around. Not something that we can pivot our ideologies on. And certainly not something that we should shape whole blocks of public policy on.
But I suspect it's going to be unavoidable.
]]>For more on this outrageously awesome holiday/minor medical health risk, check out the official website at DoubleSteakDay.com. You'll note that there's no new merchandise this year (i.e. all the T-Shirts still say "2009") but that'll make the 2010 shirts super-rare and valuable and something something when they finally roll out in early 2011!
New rulings for this year:
Here's a picture of my first steak today, a simple 8 oz. from Chez Pizzeria Uno:
Expect a second update later today! And possibly some tweets!
First steak of the day today
I found my hard drive! Yay! Pretty great news, right? So great that you probably don't want to ask any additional que--
Right. Good question. Yes, well, as it turns out...
...THEY WERE ON MY HEAD THE ENTIRE TIME! I know, right? I was all like "where's my hard drive?" And you were all like, "Did you check to see if you were currently wearing them? Like, in the headal region?" And I was like, "Don't be ridiculous!"
And then you were all pointing to your heads, and miming sliding them down over your eyes, but I wasn't paying attention, because I was on the phone with Amtrak saying, "How could you have lost my beloved hard drive! Your probably stole them, didn't you!" Ha! That must have been pretty funny.
Good thing that I didn't offer a reward! You probably would have just taken a picture of me to collect the money!
Oh well. Fun's over, boys and girls! You can all go about your business now.
*Sigh*
Man, I haven't been this embarrassed since that time I forgot I left a pair of glasses in the side pocket of my backpack...
]]>Case in point, compare the percentages in the graph below (from her 11/16 show) to the size of the bars used.
In her segment tonight, Rachel wanted to demonstrate that Republican Presidents increase the debt far more (by percentage) that Democrats do. And the numbers bare her out.
But Rachel (and her staff) weren't content to stick to the pure numbers. Instead, they distorted the graph to make the disparity between Republicans and Democrats even larger.
The first distortion that you may notice is that the band covering "0 to 50%" is noticeably shorter than the higher bands. George W. Bush increased the debt by 77.4% vs. his father's 53.8%, but if you compare the size of their "stacks," you'd think that Bush had more than doubled his father's record!
Now, compare that to the Democrats (both admirably under 50%) and you'll see not only is the 0 to 50% band shorter, but Bill Clinton's stack in no way matches his percentage. Why is his 40.6 less than half the height of George Sr's 53.8%? Why is it a mere 25% of George W's 77.4%? Heck, why is it more than a hair's width off from Jimmy Carter's 41.5%?
Well, obviously it's because Team Maddow wanted to make a graphical point that exaggerated the difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Clinton's numbers have to be made extra tiny to make W's look extra big.
Here's my crude photoshop cut and paste to underscore my point:
Note that we can fit 7 of Jimmy Carter's stacks into one Reagan stack (41.3% times 7 = 186.1%?) and over 4 of Clinton's stacks into one W stack (40.6% times 4 = 77.4%)? Really?
Well, here's a graph especially for Team Maddow, because I understand that they like data:
Needless to say, if you happen to have found this website based on a URL you found in files on a hard drive you just found, I'd really like it back.
Or if anyone happens across a red and white portable hard drive that's just laying out discarded on the street somewhere...
I can be reached by email at harddriveless @ drewmelbourne.com. (Actually, you can put anything before the @ sign and it will get to me.)
Will go curl into a ball and cry now.
(In lieu of flowers, Drew would like the last year of his life back.)
]]>That probably deserves an explanation, right?
]]> Well, I should preface this by saying that I recently got rid of my comic book collection. I was moving and really didn't want to drag around 5,000 comics I barely read. So I pawned them off on my brother, and have spent the last couple of months bulking up my graphic novel collection to compensate.As a result, I've read a LOT of really great Superman stories recently. (And a few mediocre ones.) The best stuff is no surprise:
Anyway, I've been spending a lot of time reading about and thinking about Superman recently, and that may be part of the reason that Earth One rubbed me so completely the wrong way.
As I've observed before, one way that stupid people befuddle smart people is to say one thing that is stupid in two unrelated ways. It makes it very hard to form a coherent response.
Earth One isn't stupid, but it is doing two unrelated things: It's seeking to tell the Superman story in a serialized graphic novel format, and it's seeking to make Superman "relevant" to modern audiences.
I believe that one of those goals is a good one and one is a bad one. Can you guess which is which?
Let me take this in reverse order. First off, I think the idea of making Superman "relevant" is misguided. The problem with Superman isn't that he's a naive creation of a bygone age. It's that he's generally written through a cynical lens. Superman is just as relevant today as he's always been. It's just a matter of writing him as a man who's capable of getting angry, but who's in control of that anger.
Heck, today's world cries out for a hero who's capable of voicing our moral outrage while showing us a compassionate way forward.
It's clear from the way that JMS writes about Superman that he loves the character, but I'm not sure that he really understands the character. His Superman is young and, I apologize for saying this, "emo." And the core of his moral code is apparently the concept that if someone hits you, you need to hit them back, which -- call me a wimp -- strikes me as a bit thuggish.
Also, his Superman is super-smart for some reason, but never seems to do anything super-intelligent. That's neither here nor there, but I thought I'd mention it.
And all that's a problem. JMS presents a Clark Kent that doesn't really feel like Superman to me. I just don't buy it.
The other problem is with the format. Now, I'm all for telling Superman's story as a series of serialized graphic novels. It's actually something I've thought a lot about over the years.
If you think about DC's big graphic novel sellers (Sandman, Watchmen, Dark Knight) they're all self-contained stories. A serialized Superman saga, taking Superman from birth to death, could become a perennial best-seller of that magnitude.
But if you're going to do that, you need to really approach it as "This is the story of Superman's life." By contrast, Earth One feels throwaway, with a slight story that unnecessarily adds and complicates the classic story without adding much of note.
It reinvents Jimmy Olsen, but barely scratches his character. Lois is a similar cipher. JMS made a big deal of leveraging his experience in the newspaper business, but the Planet feels as generic as any depiction I've seen.
We don't get enough of Krypton or Smallville to really appreciate their loss. We get a villain with a questionable design and an unsatisfying origin...
Mostly, this just feels slight. If I'm going to read "The Superman Saga: Part One" (which this is and it isn't), I want to feel like I'm reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or at least the first Scott Pilgrim). I want a substantial experience.
And this feels like an annual.
From the 90's.
Also, John Hamm should play Superman.
I'm just saying.
(Sorry if this is a little stream of consciousness, but I'm writing from a movie theater lobby. About to go see Paranormal Activity 2. Happy Halloween!)
]]>Everyone else, if you need to get a hold of me, be advised that I only check the email address attached to this website about once a week. If you need to get a hold of me faster than that, you will need to intuit the super-secret, spam-proof new way to email Drew at drewmelbourne.com.
Hint, hint.
]]>