Besides my own books, almost all of my reading during the pandemic has been comic books. Because they're short and easy to pick up and put down at will. I didn't go to comic book stores before that but since those were closed my two sources were Comixology and Amazon Prime.
On Amazon Prime they have a lot of Marvel's Star Wars ones. I already had read the Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra series on Amazon Prime. There were a couple of other ones I hadn't read yet.
Having watched Clone Wars and Rebels on Disney+, I decided to read a couple of standalone miniseries Darth Maul comics. The Darth Maul series by Cullen Bunn takes place before Episode I. Impatient with waiting and wanting a challenge, Maul abducts a Jedi Padawan and duels with her. This gives him a new respect for his enemies. This miniseries was OK, though not as good as the TV shows. Better was the one called Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir. It takes place after Palpatine defeated Maul on Mandalore. Maul attempts to rebuild his criminal empire, which would lead into his cameo in the Solo movie. This one wasn't bad, though if you hadn't watched Clone Wars recently then it might have been a little confusing.
The other Star Wars series was the Poe Dameron series. Oddly Amazon Prime had volumes 2-4 to borrow but I had to buy the first volume from Comixology. So I waited until it went on sale and then bought it. It's a fun series that like the Star Wars Resistance show tries to fill in some blanks between Return of the Jedi and Force Awakens.
It starts shortly before Episode VII with Leia giving Poe command of Black Squadron, which is just 4 fighters for the most part. She sends them to look for Lor San Tekka, the guy played by Max von Syndow. They have a couple of near misses where they get in trouble with Hutts and the First Order. One particular First Order officer named Terex, a former Stormtrooper-turned-pirate-turned-First Order officer, makes it his mission to hunt down Poe, until he gets a cyborg implant installed by the First Order that basically lobotomizes him. After freeing himself of that, Terex decides to go back to piracy to explain why we don't see him again.
Meanwhile Poe and company have to help Leia rescue Tekka after he was captured. For the most part the series was fun. On the whole more fun than Doctor Aphra, which as I said before was only fun in the first two volumes. The fifth volume, which I also had to buy when it was on sale, takes place after the Force Awakens. The first issue mostly creates an explanation for how Poe got "thrown from the crash" of the TIE he and Finn stole while his jacket remained. Basically the jacket got stuck and so he slipped out of it when he escaped. Then some friendly aliens gave him a lift back to the Resistance base. Because why not? The rest of the volume mostly follows the rest of Black Squadron as Leia sends them to recruit allies after the destruction of Starkiller Base. That's to explain why they weren't in The Last Jedi. The squadron goes to a couple of planets but only run into First Order forces until Poe borrows a fighter from a Hutt to rescue them. This wasn't all that good because like Rise of Skywalker and Resistance it was trying to fix what Rian Johnson broke. It makes sense that after that volume they cancelled the series altogether.
Besides that I got a couple other Marvel ones from Amazon Prime
The first two volumes of Captain America by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Like I said in my Goodreads review it was a bold move to hand over the whitest superhero to a black author. The only real drawback to these 12 issues is that it takes place after the "Secret Empire" thing that I hadn't read. I got the gist that thanks to the Cosmic Cube Steve Rogers was a secret Hydra agent who somehow took over America until he was stopped and a different Steve Rogers came back to replace him.
So in this Steve Rogers is back and trying to be Captain America, but America doesn't really trust him. Things get worse when someone is murdered and the weapon appears to be Captain America's shield. Steve surrenders himself and ends up in prison until Sharon Carter and the "Daughters of Liberty" help him to break out. At some point I should get some more of the series to see how Steve can redeem his good name--if he can.
Black Widow: Deadly Origin was a meh miniseries that was probably free on Amazon Prime because the movie was supposed to come out this summer. Natasha Romanoff and her friend/lover/husband Ivan are injected with something back in the 50s that allows them to not age as fast. In the present someone is using nanobots or something to turn Black Widow's allies against her. And then somehow she blasts off into space to fight Robo-Ivan. Like a lot of Black Widow comics, this hasn't really had any lasting impact, at least I don't think so. If we can ever see the movie, maybe it'll prove otherwise.
I also bought a couple of Transformers comics that were on sale and I hadn't caught up on. Unicron was the conclusion of IDW's Transformers series before it was rebooted to correspond to the new series of toys. It gets most of the Hasbro-verse of GI Joe, Rom, and Visionaries into it as Unicron threatens to destroy the universe until they sort of poison Cybertron to kill him. Hooray. Requiem of the Wreckers was a second sequel to Last Stand of the Wreckers. The Wreckers were sort of an Autobot version of SEAL Team 6 or Delta Force. This last double-stuffed issue doesn't really add much and wasn't really necessary.
Two of my favorite series were from Marvel, which is unusual for me.
Spider-Man: Life Story was a neat 6-part series. Each issue checks into a certain decade of Peter Parker's life. The first issue takes place in the mid-60s with Peter dealing with issues relating to Vietnam. Then the second issue takes place in the 70s. And so on with Peter aging normally so that by the last issue in the 2010s, he's an old man going on one final mission to save humanity with the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales. It works in a lot of the most famous Spider-Man stories like the death of Gwen Stacy, the black parasite suit, the Clone Saga, and Civil War. Because it's only six issues it has to compress and mash up some things that I don't think work as well as they could, but overall it was a great read even for casual Spidey fans.
The Immortal Hulk is an ongoing reboot Hulk series by Al Ewing. In the dumb Civil War II story Hawkeye kills Bruce Banner--at Bruce's request when he thinks he's going to turn back into the Hulk. This series starts off like the old TV show with Bruce having risen from the dead and traveling discreetly around the country, searching for places affected by gamma radiation. There's also a reporter who is on his trail.
Eventually Bruce's Hulk gets into a fight with Sasquatch, the Canadian Hulk-like hero. And then somehow he winds up in a weird gamma radiation Hell called "the Green Door." Emerging from that, Bruce and the Hulk take over a shadowy government agency. Most of it was good, though it was a little disappointing when it starts veering from the more down-to-Earth first issues to weirder stuff, especially the last issue where some alien race at the end of time is trying to create something to destroy the Hulk, who by then has killed the rest of the universe or something. It's a lot like Grant Morrison's New 52 run on Action Comics where it started off as a pretty grounded Superman story and then just kept getting farther away from that, so I'm a little wary about continuing this series, but I'd probably try at least one more volume.
A couple more odds-and-ends:
Nightwing: The New Order is an Elseworlds comic where Nightwing uses an alien weapon to take away superpowers from everyone. He starts his own not-so-secret police force, but then things start falling apart when his own son is diagnosed as having the metahuman gene. He has to run from his own police force and join with some of the few heroes left to make things right. There are some good concepts but it wasn't really given enough time to fully explore them. The superhumans losing their powers was done better in Tom King's novel A Once Crowded Sky. The thing with his son is like in the Amazon TV series The Man in the High Castle. Just saying.
Spider-Man and the X-Men takes place after Wolverine "dies" and Spider-Man takes over teaching for him at the Jean Grey School for Mutants or whatever it's called. Spidey and his class of misfit kids have some wacky adventures and run into trouble with villains and heroes alike. It's fun but not really essential reading.
Superior Spider-Man: Full Otto: The original Superior Spider-Man was about Otto Octavius (aka Doctor Octopus) taking over Peter Parker's body and becoming a "superior" Spidey. This new version takes place after some thing with clones where Doc Ock gets a sexy new non-Peter Parker body and goes to San Francisco to become a superior Spider-Man. It of course doesn't go that well. It was OK but not as good as the original series. Maybe if more issues were on Amazon Prime or something I'd read them but not something I'd pay a lot of money for.
And a couple of smaller press comics:
Freshmen was a series from the 2000s co-created by Seth Green of Family Guy and Robot Chicken infamy. As you'd guess then, it's kind of a foul-mouthed, potty humor take on superheroes. A bunch of freshmen are near a science lab when an experiment goes wrong and gives them powers. Not necessarily traditional powers. One couple only has powers when they're near each other. One guy's "power" is having a really huge dong. And so on. The nerdy kid who really wanted superpowers wasn't around at that time to get any, but he tries to use his knowledge as the team leader. It was OK but not really great. As funny as they might be, some of the "superpowers" really had no practical application. For decency reasons the guy with the huge dong couldn't really be involved much so they finally just wrote him off by saying he went out to Hollywood to work in porn. With a little better planning it could have been better.
Die is a series my Blogger buddy Arion turned me on to. It's like a gritty version of the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. That was about a group of kids who are transported to a fantasy world based on Dungeons & Dragons and they have to find their way home. In this case a group of British kids were transported to a fantasy world a long time ago. They came back--except for one of them--but many years later they're brought back to the fantasy world and have to deal with the consequences of what happened back then. Interestingly one of the dudes in the real world seems to be a girl in the fantasy world, which isn't really explained. At some point I need to look for the continuation of the series.
There you go, a lot of pointless rambling about comics. Because, why not?
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Tuesday, August 18, 2020
DC's Other Snyderverse Isn't Much Better
DC fans who use the term "Snyderverse" are typically referring to the 2 1/2 movies made by Zack Snyder: Man of Steel, BvS, and Justice League. (Maybe Watchmen though it's not really connected.) While moderately successful financially the movies were mostly panned by critics and a lot of moviegoers. But DC Comics has another Snyderverse in the comics of Scott Snyder and to be honest it's not a lot better.
Scott Snyder first gained recognition as part of DC's Vertigo imprint. He also did a couple of stories for Batman when it was Dick Grayson in the costume. But in 2011 when they unleashed the "New 52" Snyder took over the main Batman title.
The first storyline for that was the Court of Owls. I talked about it in a couple of my early blog entries back in 2012. I got the first volume free from Amazon Vine and liked it enough that I bought the rest of the story. A brief summary is that the Court of Owls is an ancient society of rich Gothamites who secretly use their money and influence to control the city. Not even Batman knew about them until Bruce Wayne's plans for the cities finally caused the Owls to target him
So Snyder's Batman run started out pretty good--to me anyway. And plenty of other people not named Tony Laplume. But after that it pretty much fell off. First there was the disappointing "Death of the Family" story arc where the Joker takes Batman's allies hostage for...reasons and...really does nothing. I think part of the flat ending was because the current Robin who might have been killed in that story wound up being killed in the Batman Incorporated title--for about five minutes until he was brought back.
Recently I read the "Zero Year" storyline and it was pretty lame. It was Snyder's Batman origin story, which was a mashup of a bunch of other Batman stories: Year One, Killing Joke, No Man's Land, Batman Forever, Batman Begins...maybe some other shit. Bruce Wayne returns to the city and becomes Batman to take on the Red Hood Gang but behind the scenes the Riddler launches a plan to cut off Gotham and its power until Batman can stop him. It was...really dumb. Like I said there are so many things it seems to mash in there so it feels like a lot of stuff you've seen before only done better.
After that came the "Endgame" storyline where the Joker returns to unleash a killer Joker virus on Gotham--and the Justice League. That ends with Batman seemingly dying to kill the Joker, though really Bruce Wayne just has amnesia about being Batman. That was OK but not really great.
While Bruce has amnesia, Commissioner Gordon takes over as Batman in some kind of robot suit. This was during the almost entirely forgettable era between New 52 and Rebirth where Batman wasn't Batman, Superman didn't really have powers, Wonder Woman had pants, and...some other shit no one cared about. I think the only thing that really survived for a time was the "Batgirl of Burnside" thing with the purple suit that was pretty neat even if I found the comics meh.
Unlike Azrael Batman or Dick Grayson Batman, Robo-Bat doesn't get much time to prove his worth. He doesn't take on any iconic bad guys like Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, or Mr. Freeze. He takes out a couple of superpowered henchmen of "Mr. Bloom" before getting his butt kicked by Bloom. Who is...don't know. And he wants...something. For...reasons. Since Robo-Bat totally sucks, Bruce Wayne downloads a bunch of old memories into his head and then get a new costume and defeats Bloom with Robo-Bat's help. It might have worked better if it had been given more issues to develop Gordon's Robo-Bat and develop Bloom, but I guess they were kind of on a compressed timeline with Rebirth coming after issue 52. So they only had about ten issues to introduce Robo-Bat, get rid of him, and bring back Bruce Wayne. AzBats and Dick Grayson got a lot longer than that to win over readers--or not.
Of course at the end of Snyder's run Bruce Wayne becomes Batman again, surprising...no one. I mean it's like when Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, or Steve Rogers "dies" or "retires" you know they aren't going to stay dead or retired or whatever. That's just how comics are.
Amidst all this was also the 52-issue weekly series Batman Eternal. It was better than some of Snyder's regular Batman stories. Still not the greatest thing ever. It worked in a lot of Bat villains like most of the traditional ones and more recent ones like Bane and Hush.
Snyder also wrote a Superman limited series Superman Unchained that was just another story about Superman fighting some alien dude who pretty much has the same powers as him. Only I don't think this time it was actually Kryptonian. Still, not overly original or anything.
After his run on Batman ended, Snyder did a big event series Dark Knights: Metal, which I found really, really dumb. It introduces something called a "Dark Multiverse" with a bunch of evil Batmen led by "the Batman Who Laughs" or a Joker-ized Batman who looks like a bad guy from Hellraiser.
Unfortunately a lot of other people didn't hate that so Snyder got moved up to the Justice League title. Which I haven't read because it seems stupid as it spins off from that stupid Metal thing. I did recently read a couple of other things from Snyder. The 12-issue Batman Who Laughs comic didn't really provide any insight into the Batman Who Laughs. Mostly it's just about regular Batman who gets dosed with Joker gas and so starts becoming A Batman Who Laughs but has to stop the original Batman Who Laughs and his henchman the "Grim Knight" that's one of those lame Punisher-type Batmen. It was boring and lame because like I said, it didn't really provide any insight into the characters.
I also read the double-sized single issue Tales of the Dark Multiverse #1 only because it was supposed to be about a universe where Azrael defeated Bruce Wayne to remain Batman. It was really disappointing because it somehow wound up being a Bruce Wayne story and not an Azrael story. Basically Azrael keeps Bruce Wayne's head and torso alive somehow to torture him for 30 years while maintaining a tight hold on Gotham. But then Bane's son and some other people rescue Bruce and use some kind of nanobots to restore his limbs and so he becomes a brutal, killing Batman. Whatever. I guess I shouldn't have expected Snyder to have any insight into a character he never really wrote until then.
Because it was on sale I also read Last Knight on Earth that was kind of like a Batman-themed version of Old Man Logan. Except instead of an old man, Batman is a young clone of the original Bruce Wayne. This was something Snyder mentioned in the regular Batman comic; the cloning machine is how Bruce got his memories of being Batman back. This then was taking that idea and using it more how it was supposed to be used. He wakes up into a world that's been decimated for...reasons. I mean I read all three super-sized issues and still didn't really get it. Lex Luthor was doing...something and killed Superman...somehow and people went crazy for...reasons. Accompanying Batman through the wastelands of the DC Universe is the severed head of the Joker that's in a glass jar and alive...somehow as sort of a sidekick. It was...meh. It was the rancid cherry on top of the garbage sundae that was most of Snyder's Batman run.
So other than the original Court of Owls and Batman Eternal, I haven't liked the comic book Snyderverse any more than the movie Snyderverse. But there are plenty of people who do. Unfortunately. Like Zack Snyder, when you give Scott Snyder too much rope, he winds up going in strange, dumb directions. They both need someone to keep them under control.
Scott Snyder first gained recognition as part of DC's Vertigo imprint. He also did a couple of stories for Batman when it was Dick Grayson in the costume. But in 2011 when they unleashed the "New 52" Snyder took over the main Batman title.
The first storyline for that was the Court of Owls. I talked about it in a couple of my early blog entries back in 2012. I got the first volume free from Amazon Vine and liked it enough that I bought the rest of the story. A brief summary is that the Court of Owls is an ancient society of rich Gothamites who secretly use their money and influence to control the city. Not even Batman knew about them until Bruce Wayne's plans for the cities finally caused the Owls to target him
So Snyder's Batman run started out pretty good--to me anyway. And plenty of other people not named Tony Laplume. But after that it pretty much fell off. First there was the disappointing "Death of the Family" story arc where the Joker takes Batman's allies hostage for...reasons and...really does nothing. I think part of the flat ending was because the current Robin who might have been killed in that story wound up being killed in the Batman Incorporated title--for about five minutes until he was brought back.
Recently I read the "Zero Year" storyline and it was pretty lame. It was Snyder's Batman origin story, which was a mashup of a bunch of other Batman stories: Year One, Killing Joke, No Man's Land, Batman Forever, Batman Begins...maybe some other shit. Bruce Wayne returns to the city and becomes Batman to take on the Red Hood Gang but behind the scenes the Riddler launches a plan to cut off Gotham and its power until Batman can stop him. It was...really dumb. Like I said there are so many things it seems to mash in there so it feels like a lot of stuff you've seen before only done better.
After that came the "Endgame" storyline where the Joker returns to unleash a killer Joker virus on Gotham--and the Justice League. That ends with Batman seemingly dying to kill the Joker, though really Bruce Wayne just has amnesia about being Batman. That was OK but not really great.
While Bruce has amnesia, Commissioner Gordon takes over as Batman in some kind of robot suit. This was during the almost entirely forgettable era between New 52 and Rebirth where Batman wasn't Batman, Superman didn't really have powers, Wonder Woman had pants, and...some other shit no one cared about. I think the only thing that really survived for a time was the "Batgirl of Burnside" thing with the purple suit that was pretty neat even if I found the comics meh.
Unlike Azrael Batman or Dick Grayson Batman, Robo-Bat doesn't get much time to prove his worth. He doesn't take on any iconic bad guys like Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Riddler, or Mr. Freeze. He takes out a couple of superpowered henchmen of "Mr. Bloom" before getting his butt kicked by Bloom. Who is...don't know. And he wants...something. For...reasons. Since Robo-Bat totally sucks, Bruce Wayne downloads a bunch of old memories into his head and then get a new costume and defeats Bloom with Robo-Bat's help. It might have worked better if it had been given more issues to develop Gordon's Robo-Bat and develop Bloom, but I guess they were kind of on a compressed timeline with Rebirth coming after issue 52. So they only had about ten issues to introduce Robo-Bat, get rid of him, and bring back Bruce Wayne. AzBats and Dick Grayson got a lot longer than that to win over readers--or not.
Of course at the end of Snyder's run Bruce Wayne becomes Batman again, surprising...no one. I mean it's like when Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, or Steve Rogers "dies" or "retires" you know they aren't going to stay dead or retired or whatever. That's just how comics are.
Amidst all this was also the 52-issue weekly series Batman Eternal. It was better than some of Snyder's regular Batman stories. Still not the greatest thing ever. It worked in a lot of Bat villains like most of the traditional ones and more recent ones like Bane and Hush.
Snyder also wrote a Superman limited series Superman Unchained that was just another story about Superman fighting some alien dude who pretty much has the same powers as him. Only I don't think this time it was actually Kryptonian. Still, not overly original or anything.
After his run on Batman ended, Snyder did a big event series Dark Knights: Metal, which I found really, really dumb. It introduces something called a "Dark Multiverse" with a bunch of evil Batmen led by "the Batman Who Laughs" or a Joker-ized Batman who looks like a bad guy from Hellraiser.
Unfortunately a lot of other people didn't hate that so Snyder got moved up to the Justice League title. Which I haven't read because it seems stupid as it spins off from that stupid Metal thing. I did recently read a couple of other things from Snyder. The 12-issue Batman Who Laughs comic didn't really provide any insight into the Batman Who Laughs. Mostly it's just about regular Batman who gets dosed with Joker gas and so starts becoming A Batman Who Laughs but has to stop the original Batman Who Laughs and his henchman the "Grim Knight" that's one of those lame Punisher-type Batmen. It was boring and lame because like I said, it didn't really provide any insight into the characters.
I also read the double-sized single issue Tales of the Dark Multiverse #1 only because it was supposed to be about a universe where Azrael defeated Bruce Wayne to remain Batman. It was really disappointing because it somehow wound up being a Bruce Wayne story and not an Azrael story. Basically Azrael keeps Bruce Wayne's head and torso alive somehow to torture him for 30 years while maintaining a tight hold on Gotham. But then Bane's son and some other people rescue Bruce and use some kind of nanobots to restore his limbs and so he becomes a brutal, killing Batman. Whatever. I guess I shouldn't have expected Snyder to have any insight into a character he never really wrote until then.
Because it was on sale I also read Last Knight on Earth that was kind of like a Batman-themed version of Old Man Logan. Except instead of an old man, Batman is a young clone of the original Bruce Wayne. This was something Snyder mentioned in the regular Batman comic; the cloning machine is how Bruce got his memories of being Batman back. This then was taking that idea and using it more how it was supposed to be used. He wakes up into a world that's been decimated for...reasons. I mean I read all three super-sized issues and still didn't really get it. Lex Luthor was doing...something and killed Superman...somehow and people went crazy for...reasons. Accompanying Batman through the wastelands of the DC Universe is the severed head of the Joker that's in a glass jar and alive...somehow as sort of a sidekick. It was...meh. It was the rancid cherry on top of the garbage sundae that was most of Snyder's Batman run.
So other than the original Court of Owls and Batman Eternal, I haven't liked the comic book Snyderverse any more than the movie Snyderverse. But there are plenty of people who do. Unfortunately. Like Zack Snyder, when you give Scott Snyder too much rope, he winds up going in strange, dumb directions. They both need someone to keep them under control.
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Ad Wars 2
For the past month Pluto TV has been torturing me with this stupid commercial for MTV's Siesta Key. Pretty much any channel, any commercial break you can see spoiled, entitled young white people partying and whining about...whatever. Hoo-fucking-ray. It's to the point where I mute or change the channel any time I can to avoid it. Not that it really matters since I could probably recite it from memory by now.
The thing is, though, they can show me this commercial a billion fucking times and I just won't care. I'm not going to watch that show. Ever. I'm not in the age demo the gender demo or any other demo. Why keep advertising it to me?
It reminds me of when I first used Popcornflix on my Roku. The entire movie I was watching they showed commercials for an HTC phone that starred Robert Downey Jr. They had a couple of slight variations but basically the same commercial 3-4 times every commercial break for like 2 hours.
I can say that the ad was effective in that I remember what it was years later while I don't even remember what movie I was watching. But no I didn't buy an HTC phone. I didn't even look it up to possibly buy it. I didn't care. I didn't need a new smartphone so whether you show that ad once or one thousand times it makes no difference.
Another time, maybe for a different app, they did the same thing only with a Lexus commercial that didn't star anyone so I don't remember what specific car it was for. But the same thing of 3-4 times every commercial break. And it didn't matter. You could show this ad once or one thousand times and it won't matter because I still can't afford a Lexus.
I get on traditional broadcast networks you have to just shotgun ads, but you'd think Internet apps could do a little better job. I think even cable channels probably do a better job at tailoring commercials to their demographic. Like I don't think you'll probably see a lot of tampon commercials on Spike TV or Spike TV commercials on Lifetime. Not a lot of crossover right?
So maybe whoever's running Pluto TV should wonder how many people who are watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax, Star Trek, or the Sci-Fi channel are in the age/gender demo for Siesta Key. Or other MTV reality shows. Or VH1 or BET reality shows. I'd wager there's not a huge crossover. Even without age/gender demos, all those channels I watch feature scripted shows, so why are you constantly advertising reality TV to me? It seems pretty obvious to me. I mean sure you get paid for showing ads, so maybe that's why they just shotgun them. If you're the thing being advertised, though, maybe it's time you insist on your money being spent better.
The thing is, though, they can show me this commercial a billion fucking times and I just won't care. I'm not going to watch that show. Ever. I'm not in the age demo the gender demo or any other demo. Why keep advertising it to me?
It reminds me of when I first used Popcornflix on my Roku. The entire movie I was watching they showed commercials for an HTC phone that starred Robert Downey Jr. They had a couple of slight variations but basically the same commercial 3-4 times every commercial break for like 2 hours.
I can say that the ad was effective in that I remember what it was years later while I don't even remember what movie I was watching. But no I didn't buy an HTC phone. I didn't even look it up to possibly buy it. I didn't care. I didn't need a new smartphone so whether you show that ad once or one thousand times it makes no difference.
Another time, maybe for a different app, they did the same thing only with a Lexus commercial that didn't star anyone so I don't remember what specific car it was for. But the same thing of 3-4 times every commercial break. And it didn't matter. You could show this ad once or one thousand times and it won't matter because I still can't afford a Lexus.
I get on traditional broadcast networks you have to just shotgun ads, but you'd think Internet apps could do a little better job. I think even cable channels probably do a better job at tailoring commercials to their demographic. Like I don't think you'll probably see a lot of tampon commercials on Spike TV or Spike TV commercials on Lifetime. Not a lot of crossover right?
So maybe whoever's running Pluto TV should wonder how many people who are watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax, Star Trek, or the Sci-Fi channel are in the age/gender demo for Siesta Key. Or other MTV reality shows. Or VH1 or BET reality shows. I'd wager there's not a huge crossover. Even without age/gender demos, all those channels I watch feature scripted shows, so why are you constantly advertising reality TV to me? It seems pretty obvious to me. I mean sure you get paid for showing ads, so maybe that's why they just shotgun them. If you're the thing being advertised, though, maybe it's time you insist on your money being spent better.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Missed Connections
Recently I was rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Amazon Prime. Like when I rewatched Earth Final Conflict they had been showing it on Pluto TV but it's more expedient to watch it on Amazon without the commercials.
Anyway, there were a couple of times when there was stuff that didn't really add up with stuff that had happened earlier. The first time I thought that was in an early 6th season episode when the neurotic Lieutenant Barclay thinks he sees some kind of monster in the transporter beam. At one point when Barclay is nervous about transporting, Geordi LaForge tells him about how transporter accidents hardly ever happen.
The thing about that is only 4 episodes earlier (though admittedly it was in the previous season) LaForge and Ensign Ro were believed to be dead when a transporter accident put them out of phase with the rest of the universe. So it's like, wait, why are you saying how safe these are when just a few episodes ago you had a transporter accident? You of all people should know how dangerous transporters can be. It would have been nice to have referenced that.
A couple of episodes later a girl named Amanda Rogers comes on the Enterprise as an intern. But soon it's found out her parents were part of the Q Continuum and as a result she has pretty much god-like powers. She gets a crush on Commander Riker and at one point beams him into a romantic fantasy.
The thing about what happens between them is that back in the first season, Q gave Riker powers like his, or like Amanda Rogers's. So he of all people could relate to what she was going through. But there's no mention of that at all.
In the seventh season there's a planet with a primitive culture where Worf's human brother is stationed as a hidden observer. The planet's atmosphere is disappearing and Picard is going to just let all the people die because the "Prime Directive" says they can't interfere. Worf's brother uses a holodeck simulation though to convince the people they're still on the planet when they're actually on the ship. They go through a "Journey" to a new home, which is actually an uninhabited planet.
The thing is, there was a second season episode where they found a colony that had been started long ago by humans who left Earth in the 21st or 22nd Century. The culture had regressed to about 17th Century technology. Their planet was dying so without any crap about the "Prime Directive" Picard beamed them up into the cargo bay and wound up taking them to another planet from that same expedition that had a more advanced civilization populated by clones in dire need of new DNA. So why was it OK in one episode to move primitive people off a planet and not another? It didn't make much sense to me.
That's not to say the show has sloppy writing all the time; they are plenty of times when they do reference stuff that happened before. But when you have a show like that, there are plenty of different writers and so they might not all know every aspect of the continuity. And it's really a lot easier to notice these things when you're binge watching than when you're watching these episodes weeks, months, or even years apart.
This same thing happens sometimes in stories. Especially stories that are longer and I might have started writing weeks or months ago. A recent case in Swapp: Jailbreak was near the beginning I referenced some guns the good guys had in their headquarters. But near the end when the good guys are taken captive in their headquarters there's no mention of the guns. Why? Because I'd forgotten about them. So when I was editing (basically binge reading) I saw that first part and thought, Wait, what happened to that? I eliminated the reference to the guns because that was easier than rewriting an entire scene to work them in.
In extreme examples you can have entire characters or plot lines that just get forgotten. That's why it's always good to edit so maybe you can see some of these things that you missed. Nobody's perfect.
Anyway, there were a couple of times when there was stuff that didn't really add up with stuff that had happened earlier. The first time I thought that was in an early 6th season episode when the neurotic Lieutenant Barclay thinks he sees some kind of monster in the transporter beam. At one point when Barclay is nervous about transporting, Geordi LaForge tells him about how transporter accidents hardly ever happen.
The thing about that is only 4 episodes earlier (though admittedly it was in the previous season) LaForge and Ensign Ro were believed to be dead when a transporter accident put them out of phase with the rest of the universe. So it's like, wait, why are you saying how safe these are when just a few episodes ago you had a transporter accident? You of all people should know how dangerous transporters can be. It would have been nice to have referenced that.
A couple of episodes later a girl named Amanda Rogers comes on the Enterprise as an intern. But soon it's found out her parents were part of the Q Continuum and as a result she has pretty much god-like powers. She gets a crush on Commander Riker and at one point beams him into a romantic fantasy.
The thing about what happens between them is that back in the first season, Q gave Riker powers like his, or like Amanda Rogers's. So he of all people could relate to what she was going through. But there's no mention of that at all.
In the seventh season there's a planet with a primitive culture where Worf's human brother is stationed as a hidden observer. The planet's atmosphere is disappearing and Picard is going to just let all the people die because the "Prime Directive" says they can't interfere. Worf's brother uses a holodeck simulation though to convince the people they're still on the planet when they're actually on the ship. They go through a "Journey" to a new home, which is actually an uninhabited planet.
The thing is, there was a second season episode where they found a colony that had been started long ago by humans who left Earth in the 21st or 22nd Century. The culture had regressed to about 17th Century technology. Their planet was dying so without any crap about the "Prime Directive" Picard beamed them up into the cargo bay and wound up taking them to another planet from that same expedition that had a more advanced civilization populated by clones in dire need of new DNA. So why was it OK in one episode to move primitive people off a planet and not another? It didn't make much sense to me.
That's not to say the show has sloppy writing all the time; they are plenty of times when they do reference stuff that happened before. But when you have a show like that, there are plenty of different writers and so they might not all know every aspect of the continuity. And it's really a lot easier to notice these things when you're binge watching than when you're watching these episodes weeks, months, or even years apart.
This same thing happens sometimes in stories. Especially stories that are longer and I might have started writing weeks or months ago. A recent case in Swapp: Jailbreak was near the beginning I referenced some guns the good guys had in their headquarters. But near the end when the good guys are taken captive in their headquarters there's no mention of the guns. Why? Because I'd forgotten about them. So when I was editing (basically binge reading) I saw that first part and thought, Wait, what happened to that? I eliminated the reference to the guns because that was easier than rewriting an entire scene to work them in.
In extreme examples you can have entire characters or plot lines that just get forgotten. That's why it's always good to edit so maybe you can see some of these things that you missed. Nobody's perfect.
Thursday, August 6, 2020
Did I Outgrow Robot Chicken or Did It Outgrow Me?
Probably no one who reads this blog watched Robot Chicken, but it's been one of my favorite shows for about ten years. Recently the show finished its 10th season since 2005 but I found I didn't enjoy it as much as many of the earlier seasons.
The show is on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and each episode is only about 11 minutes long. It uses stop motion puppets mostly of pop culture subjects in satirical skits. A lot of the early ones featured 80s toy properties like Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Thundercats, and Masters of the Universe. Which as a child of the 80s really put it right in my wheelhouse. They've also had specials dealing exclusively with Star Wars and DC Comics.
But this last season I noticed that a lot of the references were for things I didn't really know a lot about, like girl toys from the 2000s or 2010s maybe that my nieces would probably be better acquainted with. Or references to shows on Netflix or wherever that I had never watched. The thing about reference humor is that it works best if you're familiar with the reference. Otherwise it might be amusing but I won't really GET it, you know?
It makes me wonder what happened. I suppose part of it is that TV shows often have turnover with writers, so they probably brought in some new writers, maybe more younger and/or female writers who were familiar with properties and shows I was not familiar with. And the other thing is I suppose there are only so many jokes you can get from those 80s properties and even 90s ones I was slightly familiar with like Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers.
But as I ask in the title, did I outgrow it or did it outgrow me? I think the latter is more likely. If they made more jokes about the properties I'm familiar with, I'd still be with it.
The show is on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and each episode is only about 11 minutes long. It uses stop motion puppets mostly of pop culture subjects in satirical skits. A lot of the early ones featured 80s toy properties like Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Thundercats, and Masters of the Universe. Which as a child of the 80s really put it right in my wheelhouse. They've also had specials dealing exclusively with Star Wars and DC Comics.
But this last season I noticed that a lot of the references were for things I didn't really know a lot about, like girl toys from the 2000s or 2010s maybe that my nieces would probably be better acquainted with. Or references to shows on Netflix or wherever that I had never watched. The thing about reference humor is that it works best if you're familiar with the reference. Otherwise it might be amusing but I won't really GET it, you know?
It makes me wonder what happened. I suppose part of it is that TV shows often have turnover with writers, so they probably brought in some new writers, maybe more younger and/or female writers who were familiar with properties and shows I was not familiar with. And the other thing is I suppose there are only so many jokes you can get from those 80s properties and even 90s ones I was slightly familiar with like Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers.
But as I ask in the title, did I outgrow it or did it outgrow me? I think the latter is more likely. If they made more jokes about the properties I'm familiar with, I'd still be with it.
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Ad Wars
Last year I read a how-to-market book and then questioned whether I should put the ad for my mailing list at the end or the beginning. Either way I figured that people--or their Kindles--would skip it. I decided to try putting it not at the beginning or end, but a little way in the book, usually after the first scene break.
I hadn't really noticed a huge difference in the newsletter audience, but there was a slight increase. Then last week I saw this review for the Eric Filler book Derelict:
The naivete is kind of funny in this "review." The whole reason the ad wasn't at the end was because you would just skip it that way. There's no point in me putting the ad in if no one is going to see it. It's why they don't put billboards out in the middle of nowhere or why in magazines and on broadcast TV they run ads all through them--so people might actually see them.
Readers can be a pretty selfish lot, though. I mean when a book is free, you give a lot of copies away, but of course when you charge money, people don't buy nearly as many. Then of course there's pirating because "books should be free" say people who don't rely on the income from selling books to pay their rent. (And note that this review doesn't say "Verified Purchase" which means the reviewer didn't actually buy the book, so I assume they're part of that "books should be free" crowd.)
I suppose I would be annoyed with an ad in the middle of a book I was reading, but it's just one ad for my newsletter, which actually benefits people by telling them about my new books and usually has a free book listed on it. It's not like it's six ads for beer, Nike shoes, the new iPhone, and whatever else. It's an ad that benefits you--and me!
It's of course hard for readers to imagine how difficult it is for small-time authors to sell books. We have to do whatever it takes to get noticed and sell our books. It's not always pretty or fun, but we're just trying to muddle through.
I hadn't really noticed a huge difference in the newsletter audience, but there was a slight increase. Then last week I saw this review for the Eric Filler book Derelict:
Readers can be a pretty selfish lot, though. I mean when a book is free, you give a lot of copies away, but of course when you charge money, people don't buy nearly as many. Then of course there's pirating because "books should be free" say people who don't rely on the income from selling books to pay their rent. (And note that this review doesn't say "Verified Purchase" which means the reviewer didn't actually buy the book, so I assume they're part of that "books should be free" crowd.)
I suppose I would be annoyed with an ad in the middle of a book I was reading, but it's just one ad for my newsletter, which actually benefits people by telling them about my new books and usually has a free book listed on it. It's not like it's six ads for beer, Nike shoes, the new iPhone, and whatever else. It's an ad that benefits you--and me!
It's of course hard for readers to imagine how difficult it is for small-time authors to sell books. We have to do whatever it takes to get noticed and sell our books. It's not always pretty or fun, but we're just trying to muddle through.
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