I was in New York during the Pope’s latest visit and when I got back to Boston, I mentioned the terrific adoration shown by the many, many Catholics who came out to see him ride around in his Popemobile. Many had worked themselves into a frenzy, with tears running down their face, reaching out for him.
“I don’t get it, honey. He’s just a man whose been chosen as the Church’s mouthpiece,” I said to Kristin over dinner. “They’re worshiping him as if he were God himself.”
“Kevin, think about how you’d feel if you’d been able to meet Jack Kirby.”
“Oh, that’s not fucking fair.“
Tom Spurgeon had this to say about my two recent posts about That Local Retailer:
This is for the pair of you that keep e-mailing to ask if I think this material about a retailer that suggests people don’t buy certain comics is an example of backseat driving someone’s business: I suspect it is. I understand why folks might think that kind of thing worth commentary as an example of comics’ twisted values. I’m sure someone has posted “Never tell your customers not to buy something!” somewhere, and I bet someone has brought up some horror stories about being made fun of at the cash register. At the same I also think it’s pretty common in retail on a lot of levels. I’ve even had the owner of a restaurant tell me he didn’t particularly like the white fish he had in the house at the moment and I should stick to the crab cakes. It was an owner of a restaurant where my father and I ate — you guessed it — every Wednesday night. I have no idea how this retailer conducts business from day to day so I can’t testify as to how his telling people not to buy something fits within the overall tone of his establishment. To be honest, I’d rather have the retailer that told the truth about some comic he didn’t like as opposed to all the retailers I’ve had that failed to tell the truth about the availability of books I wanted.
1.
I find it odd that Tom, of all people, fails to see the difference between “good individual customer service” and “poor overall marketing practices.” Someone telling a regular customer “You know, that’s just probably not what you want to buy” is distinctly different from sending out an email to a few hundred people that says “Don’t buy this – we think it sucks.”
Tom’s example of restaurant owner telling two regular customers he wasn’t crazy about something on the menu that night is an example of the former: the owner knew Tom and his dad, knew their tastes, and knew he’d see them next week. This comics retailer was doing the equivalent of emailing his customers and saying “Wow, don’t come in and eat the white fish.” No mention of the crab cakes or anything else on the menu.
2.
And he’s sending that out there to people who may have only visited once and left their email. An email newsletter sent out to your customer base as a whole should serve one purpose: getting people into your store. I’ve never been to this retailer’s shop, but I am on their list after attending a small convention they had set up at. I’d happily ignored these emails until curiosity struck and they they sent out two emails that said “Don’t buy this comic that’s coming out” prior to the first one I posted, with the second featuring no other comics, just a long, poorly-spelled and unedited screed against the current Marvel editorial team and Amazing Spider-Man.
That doesn’t really make me want to shop there, and I buy way, way too many comic books. In a business where no small amount of readable, enjoyable material comes out every week, it’s not hard to find something you can recommend to your readers.
3.
Other people have brought up the fact that their retailers do the same thing, and mentioned some shops that have a considerable presence in the blogosphere. (Which, let’s face it, is the equivalent of having a considerable presence at the Poughkeepsie Flea Market.)
I wouldn’t shop at their stores, either. Call me weird – I don’t want or appreciate preemptive negativity in my retail interactions. Yes, that probably comes across as jargon, but this is what I do for money: I think about how businesses present themselves on the web (and in print, of late.) If a customer is reading and enjoying Amazing Spider-Man, there’s a chance than an email like the second one discussed would sour their opinion of the shop in question.
4.
Now, I’m not saying I don’t want their opinion on something, but I am saying I don’t want them telling me that they don’t like something without knowing my tastes and buying habits. There are some retailers who I solicit advice from pretty often, particularly when it comes to niches they obviously enjoy and know a lot about.
5.
A lot of people have said “Well, that means he cares about me.” No, he cares about his little clubhouse of nerds and making sure you know what they think about how things should be run at Marvel or DC. The small group of nerds who feel some sort of validation by their retailer “telling it like it is” is vastly outweighed by regular people who just want to buy some funnybooks and maybe pick up something new they’d like.
6.
Yes, the irony is apparent to me too, even if I think the term “backseat driving” is a bit much.
1.
So, Jeff Robinov, president of the Warner Brothers Pictures Group, tells reporter that they’re going to make Superman “darker” in their upcoming new film that they hope relaunches the franchise.
2.
“Darker” isn’t necessarily something I associate with Superman.
3.
However, “complex” is, and I get the feeling that Rubinov may have conflated the two. Superman’s strength as a character, once you get past the Depression-era common-man power fantasies and Silver Age weirdness, lies in the fact that he is actually hampered by the fact he can do almost anything. His ethical center (and all-American upbringing, natch) forces him to be restrained. While he could easily take over the world and rule with an iron fist, he doesn’t – he provides a touchstone, a guidepost for us. (And the other heroes in a shared comics universe, but let’s switch over to the single-character, movie-friendly take.) He’s also bound to a morality that forces him to work within the law, unlike Batman or even Spider-Man, and has to take the high road, which is likely to be very difficult when you can shoot lasers from your eyes with an offhand thought.
4.
This connects with Superman’s biggest villain and best cinematic rival: Lex Luthor. While the Luthor/Superman conflict may be a bit played out on film at the moment, I could argue that the core of their animosity makes for a compelling central point that the movie audience could relate to with very few changes from the source material. Luthor’s a regular human being who is convinced that this alien has to have an ulterior motive – that no one is as perfect and ethical, as good as this man appears to be. He may be a criminal, true, but it takes Superman to drive him to the outlandish lengths he goes to, as seen in comics like Action 510-512, where the man brainwashes himself and becomes the Kryptonian’s BFF just so he can betray him. I feel like the hammy, if enjoyable, performances by Hackman and Spacey probably should be left behind and remembered fondly and replaced with something a bit more reserved and mannered, where the nastiness comes across as that much more brutal.
5.
The irony of an alien representing the best we have, fighting against the worst isn’t lost on me, and hopefully won’t be lost on the filmmakers. If played properly, this struggle would make for drama at least as interesting as the whole baby daddy thing (and the attendant stalkerism) that muted a great deal of my affection for Superman Returns once I got past the atmosphere and feel of the piece.
6.
Mind you, I’d pay non-matinee prices for a proper Superman vs Braniac vs Metallo brawl with lots of destructoporn if it looked like it had half a brain.
7.
I’d also be happy if they went a bit Morrison and reduced the origin story to eight words over a montage and started with Clark Kent walking into the Daily Planet at the start of just another day. I doubt they’ll go that way, as producers and screenwriters and directors love to do “their” take on the origin, but at this point, the audience that’s going to see Superman knows the broad strokes by heart, if not through the comics or the movies, then through Smallville. Spending time on an actual Superman story versus remaking the first (fantastic) hour of Donner’s movie means that the screenplay gets a chance to hook the audience properly and, hopefully, touch on some of the themes I mentioned. (I liked the flashbacks to Kansas in Superman Returns a lot, is what I’m trying to say, and think that’s all the viewers need at this point.)
8.
Finally, I’d really, really appreciate it if they’d cut back the Christ Metaphor stuff a bit. We get it. Also, I always thought the Moses angle worked a bit better.
Because it’s Monday and you’re trying not to work yet.
“After I submitted it and had the New York editor say it was the best tie-in novel he’d ever read, the licensing person at DreamWorks required me to cut everything in the novel that wasn’t in the script. That I was the creator of the property held no sway. I was made to butcher the book down to 40,000 words.”
And both my kids love Asoka, the girl Jedi who acts as Anakin’s protege and foil. And you know what? I love her too — she’s a great character, the teenage girl who seems to be the only person in the galaxy who doesn’t seem that impressed with Anakin Skywalker. She gets a lot of screen time, she’s a girl of action, she’s smart and funny and she doesn’t take shit from anyone, much less Anakin. (Okay, she’s stuck holding the baby for a stretch, but credit where credit is due — she’s a huge improvement over the whining, helpless Padme of Sith.)
“As of today, I can’t point to any given space like this. I think we’re pretty unique in what we do and I am a little surprised that no one caught up yet. I guess having done this so many times I’m aware that people are moved by it and that’s the driving element that keeps me consistent. But even without that I think I would’ve continued to explore, because there’s a natural evolution in the art form and I think space is just so inherent in life today. I mean, it’s a major element in humanity, we’re spacial species and its inevitable we’re going to move in that direction. “
1.
No new Rack today. Apparently Birdie’s computer hates rendering certain things in Photoshop. We may have to do a fundraiser to replace Bessie, as she’s starting to look a mite bit peaked. We talked about a postcard set instead of the usual print/button route, but if you have any input into Swag You Like, please feel free to let me know.
2.
The only “big two” superhero comic I read this week was Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, but don’t take my word for it – Chris Sims talks about why it’s so much better than it has any right to be. The penultimate issue of Rex Libris was also very enjoyable, but that series has been a sure winner for me since I first read the words “James Turner does a comic book about an asskicking librarian.”
3.
I’m waiting on two boxes from DCBService right now: apparently my old debit card being stolen meant they couldn’t ship me stuff. Whatever. I straightened it out, so expect some more of the usual half-assed thoughts about out-of-date books in the near future!
4.
Speaking of boxes, I got a fantastic birthday present from Ryan at Westchester Is For Lovers . Thanks, Ryan! I will treasure it always and forever, much like the item Chris Sims got me. No, I won’t tell you people what either of them were, but they are beautiful.
5.
I don’t even have a Blu-Ray player yet, but that doesn’t mean I can’t point out this Amazon sale on movies and TV shows. You can get up to 50% off on such high-quality fare as Crank, Delta Farce, and Step Up 2: The Streets.. This deal expires August 29th.
6.
The previous post was my 4,000th on this blog. Mom would be so proud!
It was produced by the National Center for State Courts, a nonprofit describing itself as an “organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice by providing leadership and service to court systems in the United States.”(I am not going to talk about how patently evil this comic makes the RIAA look, because I think we’re all pretty familiar with how that particularly organization operates, right?)
…
Yeah.
