Episode 179 Topics Include:
- And then there were two...
- Thinning out the herd
- The DC New 52 Week 4
- What we've been watching
- Featured Review: Horror Of Dracula
Running Time:1 hour, 28 minutes
Episode Songs:
Immigrant Song - Trent Reznor & Karen O
This Podcast May Include Some Explicit Language
...It Also Most Likely Contains Some Spoilers
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Jesse, Congratulations! That's great news.
ReplyDeleteRian, I agree with you on Wonder Woman and it was nice to hear your thoughts matched mine, it had been getting a lot of hype, which I'm not against by any means, the story just didn't do much for me. Sounds like we're trying out many of the same 52 titles. I liked Animal, thought it was the best written one of the ones I read, didn't care for the artwork though, made me wish Jeff was doing the art as well. And Batwoman, love the look of it. I wasn't too impressed with the writing, definitely missed Rucka, but I'm staying on that title for sure.
I think I expect more from Azzarello after reading 100 Bullets, but I don't know if he makes a good fit for Wonder Woman.
ReplyDeleteI like Travel Foreman, but it his art on Animal Man does feel un-finished. I wonder why they didn't give him an inker. As for Jeff Lemire, I read the first issue of Sweet Tooth and felt that it just wasn't for me. I'm personally not crazy about his art, either.
I didn't really feel a noticeable drop in the quality of the writing on Batwoman. I've hardly read any of Rucka's other work though, so maybe I'm just not familiar with his "voice."
Jesse, congratulations on the new baby!! that's awesome. i hope you name it Ross regardless of sex.
ReplyDeletei feel like ever since i started listening to you guys all i do is show up and say something contrary and be all long-winded in your comments section, so i guess i won't stop now. re: Catwoman/Starfire/focusing on good comics: when has ignoring something ever solved anything? "starving out" the bad stuff by not paying for it so that it'll ostensibly go away without your support is kind of a reductive, almost fantastical way to look at it, it's like the equivalent of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand and hoping whatever's happening will just stop as a result of one individual action. i wish things worked like that but they don't. books with stuff like Catwoman and Starfire or even worse have been canceled before but the same sort of stuff keeps happening again and again, so i'm not sure voting with your dollars even works, not to mention how many great comics that people talk a lot about have gotten canceled while the stuff people criticize doesn't. and it's not an either-or situation, you can still criticize something, even if you paid for it, you can still call out the bad while also talking about and paying for the good things. if all people did is focus on the good, the bad would still come and nobody will say anything.
and you're also sort of assuming that everyone criticizing these things are the ones buying them, which isn't always the case.
imagine if these sorts of ideas came up in film or some other medium, imagine if nobody wrote negative movie reviews. speaking as a fellow grouch to another, you should understand this, Rian. ;) i expect you not to pay to see the Thing prequel because your dollars will be telling Hollywood to make more like it.
anyway, i'm going to check out some of the Hammer movies based on your enthusiasm for them, but where did you watch Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll? it's not available on netflix! :(
I'm not naive enough to think that the (most likely small overall percentage of) people complaining about the sexist stuff in DC's books will bring about their penniless demise. What I'm getting at moreso is that if you don't like it, don't complain about it and KEEP buying it. Just stop buying it and read something else. If that turns out to be enough of a hit to their sales to realize that people aren't liking what they're doing and forcing them to cancel those books, that's probably a positive thing. If not, at least you're hopefully reading something else that you're not complaining about constantly.
ReplyDeleteAs for the ostrich with it's head in the sand metaphor, if there are enough people enjoying (or at least buying) these books to keep them afloat even if you don't give them YOUR money, no amount of bitching online is really going to change anything unless a news outlet picks up on it and people who wouldn't have an opinion on it otherwise jump on the bandwagon and increase the vocal numbers is going to change anything. So in this case, why not just ignore the problem and let the people who want that stuff have it while you stop worrying yourself with it? If we were talking about rampant child abuse or a new holocaust or something, no, this would not be a good method of dealing with the problem. We're only talking about a form of entertainment that people spend their disposable income on, though.
Also, there are plenty of examples of books disappearing from the racks based on low sales, so I'm not sure why you'd say this method doesn't solve anything. If more people had paid attention with their wallets, Wildcats V.3.0, which has been highly praised for it's originality and great writing, wouldn't have been cancelled. That's a clear case of the vast majority of people saying "this is not what I want to read, so I won't spend my money on it," causing the series to be ended abruptly. You can say "Wildcats is no Catwoman," all day, but if enough people felt that the book was unworthy of their time, it WOULD make a difference. Of course, since Catwoman is Catwoman, this most likely will not happen, but she has had series' cancelled in the past due to low sales figures.
As for your comment about the Thing prequel, I know you're just trying to get a rise out of me, but I really won't know what that movie's like without giving it a chance, the same way that I won't know what Catwoman #1 is like until I give it a chance (keep in mind, I haven't read it yet). If I read Catwoman #1 and don't like it, then I have reason not to buy #2. If I see The Thing and don't like it, then I'll have reason not to see a sequel to the prequel if they make it. I have a lot of doubts about the quality of the new film, but I must see it before making final judgement.
Most of the Hammer films aren't available on Netflix. When I decided I needed to see them all, I unfortunately had to track them down online, which wasn't always easy.
i think it's more a case of a necessary evil, paying for this stuff. my guess is that most of the people doing the really in-depth criticism of this stuff, not just "this sucks, look at Starfire's costume!" are very interested in the act of criticism, bringing these sorts of issues to people's attention, and that usually involves having to buy the comics in order to critique and examine them and the problematic stuff they might have in them. it's like accepting a necessary evil, even hypocritical evil, in order to deliver a message. like Avatar being an environmental thing, while the production of the movie probably created more greenhouse emissions and garbage than many small countries, but sometimes you gotta take the hit to get the word out to more people.
ReplyDeletewriting off comics as just disposable entertainment not worth the time it takes to complain about them is a mistake, i think, since this stuff happening in comics isn't happening in a vacuum independent of anything, it reflects bigger things in culture itself. people are making these decisions to make comics a certain way, and it's not as simple as just "because it sells" because a lot of different things sell for different reasons. i think comics are absolutely worth complaining about and critiquing just like anything else.
the Wildcats 3.0 example isn't quite the same; it got canceled, yeah, but i wonder how much of that was because people weren't interested or because they didn't know it existed, and name recognition is a huge thing like you said, it's not Catwoman. but i'd eat my words if Wildcats 3.0 was canceled because of some kind of mass movement of people speaking out against it because of social injustice or something, that's more what i'm talking about, not just a book simply not interesting people or being boring. i doubt Wildcats 3.0's low readership was some kind of deliberate animosity toward the book. maybe it was, i don't know.
anyway, i'm sure there are many people not coming back for the #2's of these comics, but like you said the stuff people are currently complaining about are #1's, gotta buy them to make a judgment, you know?
other factors are like.. for a lot of these types of fans, there isn't much else out there. there are some things, yeah, like Batwoman, the old Question stuff, some X-Men, but it's tough because you don't always know when this stuff will crop up. it's like you'll read a bunch of great issues then suddenly one issue comes with something sexist or shitty or whatever in it, but it's your favorite character(s) so it's a tough call, do you write it off or keep buying it while continuing to call out the problems? again, it's not just "this is boring" it's "this offends/hurts/makes me uncomfortable as a woman/gay man/etc." and it's tangled up in something you love so it's not that cut and dry for a lot of people. it's like you're a double agent working on the inside or something.
anywayssssss, bwahaha, the Thing crack was a total dig, i admit, i'm sorry. i realized it was stupid on my part, it doesn't really have anything to do with the discussion. but i do like riling you up so it was fun. >:D
(A little late, but) Nice show... Must say that from last episode and this one the Hammer films have me interested from what you said. Maybe it's contagious?!
ReplyDeleteThat magic show interests me, too, if I get time.
Told you on Twitter, but congratulations Jesse!
P.S.- It's tough being a "Nico" with a last name people don't know how to pronounce. I feel for Nikos Koutsis, but glad Fco is coming back. :D
Thanks, Nico Ess-enn-arrow (See? I can learn.)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny. After talking non-stop about the Hammer Horror films lately, I've gotten 4 different people interested in them when I didn't even really know about them until a few weeks ago. Well, I knew about them, but never had any interest in them before...you know what I mean. I urge anyone who is interested in giving Hammer a try to start with The Curse Of Frankenstein, The Revenge Of Frankenstein, The Two Faces Of Dr. Jekyll, and/or Horror Of Dracula.
If you like Penn & Teller, you will love Fool Us. It is excellent television. Give it a try for free on YouTube. As I mentioned on the show, every episode is on there in their entirety.