Episode 214 Topics Include:
- An update on Rian's comic book situation
- Kickstarter: Begging for handouts or a perfectly legitimate way to get your comic made?
- The Dark Knight Rises: Jesse asks the important questions
- What we've been watching
- Featured Review: The Shadow
Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Episode Songs:
Where Did We Go - LexiconDon
The Fight Of My Life (Zeds Dead Remix) - Colin Munroe feat. Pusha T
This Podcast May Include Some Explicit Language
...It Also Most Likely Contains Some Spoilers
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Here is a great reason why Kickstarter is a good thing:
ReplyDeleteThere is an indie band I like called The Forecast. They really wanted to make a new album, but weren't sure if they could afford the cost of recording, producing, pressing, distribution, etc. So, they started a Kickstarter campaign. If you gave a certain amount you would get the CD, a signed CD, a CD and a T Shirt, all the way up to a private live show. As a fan of The Forecast, I wanted new music from them, and I certainly didn't want them to break up. With all the money they raised, they were able to either afford to record through a label or do all the work themselves. I got the new music I wanted!
(For the record, I missed the Kickstarter campaign, but I did buy the album on iTunes.)
James Cameron gets nothing. He's rich beyond our wildest dreams. It would be insulting if he asked for money. There will be a mega edition of the Avatar 2 blu-ray regardless.
I have no problem with anything independent. I love the idea of people that would not normally be able to publish/print/record something and sell it having the opportunity to do it. I have a problem (and this is where Rian totally disagrees with me) with people that don't need it. And you could argue who is classified as needing it. James Cameron doesn't need to run a Kickstarter campaign (not saying he would) but if he did it would just feel wrong.
DeleteAs you know, that makes absolutely no sense to me. Why does it "feel" wrong? Who would it be hurting? No one. I don't get why Kickstarter falls under some ludicrous moral banner that says just because a person has X amount of money, they should have to put it on the line to get something done when they could just as easily have the people who are going to pay for it anyway fund it in the first place. Whether you give money to a project before it's available or after it's finished, what difference does it make?
DeleteImagine some guy you've never heard of named John Smith puts up a Kickstarter campaign for a new graphic novel. You go to Kickstarter and see it and think, "This looks like something I'd really like to read and I've never heard of the guy, so he must not be a bigshot" and you donate to the campaign. John Smith raises his money, prints the graphic novel, you get it and read it and enjoy it. Then a week later you read an interview with John Smith on some website which reveals that he is independently wealthy. Would you feel cheated just based on how much money the guy has? You got what you wanted the same as you would have if you'd found it on Amazon a year after it was printed by other means than Kickstarter.
I really, really don't see how a creator's personal station in life should factor into whether or not they should be allowed to raise money for a project they'd like to bring to life and share with the people who want it. I literally cannot see the logic in the argument you're making.
Brian, what exactly is it about the theoretical idea of James Cameron funding a movie on Kickstarter that insults you? Who the hell is it insulting? What is the harm?
Why must a band/artist be on the verge of financial ruin in order to use Kickstarter? If The Forecast had plenty of money and just felt like making an album on their own for the hell of it, would you not have donated toward it on Kickstarter even though you like them just because they wouldn't need to "resort" to Kickstarter to make it happen? Would you turn your nose up at a new Max Bemis And The Painful Splits album funded by Kickstarter since Say Anything is on a label and doesn't "need" your $10 to make a new CD?
part 1:
ReplyDeletei LOVE We Need To Talk About Kevin!!! that movie blew me the hell away, one of the best movies i've seen in years. the book is supposed to be super good, too. sorry to hear you didn't dig it, though, Rian. :( i'm surprised to hear you were expecting a "twist" or something supernatural, though, since i felt like the entire premise was laid out pretty early on in the film that it wasn't anything supernatural. i guess that's also why i liked it so much, that it was real, that there ARE psychopathic kids like this, there are even special schools that deal with them, etc. i felt like what Kevin does for having children/child-rearing is what Jaws did for the water, haha. not that i was planning on having kids but after i saw this movie it's out of the question now, because people do have kids like this and i can't take that gamble!!! such a nightmare!!
One of my main problems with We Need To Talk About Kevin was that I felt like I'd seen it before. The Omen is an obvious example, but I think WNTTAK is even more similar to a film called "Joshua" which came out a few years ago (and which I mentioned on the show, I believe). As for Kevin himself, I have no experience with or noteworthy knowledge about kids with mental/emotional issues, but Kevin didn't seem like a real person to me. Maybe that's why I thought something supernatural or otherwise unusual was going to happen. Rather than a kid with some kind of real problem, he seemed as though from the time he could walk he had some kind of vendetta against his mother and only his mother. The fact that he played his father against her by acting mostly normal around him while acting out in bizarre ways around his Tilda Swinton made him seem like he had some kind of motive. It didn't seem like he had an actual problem to me. It seemed as though there was some kind of outside influence on him (possession, son of the devil, alien implant, etc...I dunno). As soon as Kevin was highschool-aged, I could have easily bought his character just being realistically unstable, but that scheming way he acted when he was a little kid made him come off...not like a real kid to me. I'm perfectly willing to accept that there are probably real kids out there with problems similar to Kevin's, but especially at a young age I have a hard time believing that in real life one would be so methodical at that age.
Deleteread this awesome article. i had coincidentally read that article right before i saw Kevin and it made the movie resonate even more for me.
DeleteI must admit, that article backs up A LOT of the behavior that Kevin exhibited in the movie. The one thing that still rings false to me is the fact that John C. Reilly never seems see Kevin the way Tilda Swinton does.
DeleteDid you know specifically what the movie was about or what the "twist" was before you saw it? I knew very little about the film before I watched it and right from the beginning I was dying for the reveal of what the big event was. I had no idea what to expect.
he never suspects because he's both a dolt and because Kevin is so diabolical and machiavellian!!! XD
Deletei knew what the story was about before going in, yeah, i knew it was about a school shooting and a psychopathic child. i think it was mentioned in the plot summary i read somewhere, heh. i'm glad it wasn't anything supernatural. i should check out that Joshua movie, is that any good?
I really wonder how you would have viewed it if you hadn't already known it was about a school shooting and how I'd have viewed it if I did know. I don't think it's obvious that that's where the film is going if you don't know beforehand.
DeleteI don't remember a ton about Joshua, honestly. I saw it like 5 years ago. I know it's played more as a horror film than WNTTAK was. The kid is a bit more of a straight-up villain than just a troubled child like Kevin.
i guess it's impossible to say if i would have felt differently not having known anything, but i don't usually put much stock in beforehand knowledge or expectations affecting how much i like or dislike a movie, because if the movie is really good enough, if it's successful in what it does, then it won't matter, it'll transcend the knowledge/expectations! i think knowing what Kevin is about is the same as knowing that Jaws is about a killer shark, it's the most basic concept of the film. why do i keep comparing Kevin to Jaws...?
Deletei'll still check out Joshua, i'm always up for a good killer kid movie. :)
I don't want this to turn into an argument (so I should probably just shut up), but I disagree with your Jaws comparison. Jaws has a giant shark on the poster and the movie opens with a scene where a girl is dragged screaming under the water, immediately followed by an entire movie about some people trying to kill a shark. We Need To Talk About Kevin doesn't give anything away on it's posters and (I can say from experience) doesn't ever even hint at a school shooting until it actually happens. You find out as the movie goes on that Kevin is unusual, that Tilda Swinton now lives alone, and that some people are really pissed at her for some reason. Again, I went in with absolutely no knowledge about what the climactic event in question was, and while I can't say that "school shooting" would never cross a viewer's mind while watching the film, I definitely don't thing that it's a foregone conclusion until the big reveal toward the end.
DeleteJust saying...I wonder if I would have liked the movie more if I was just watching and enjoying it instead of waiting for the/a twist.
my initial super-comment was too long and then my second one was also too long. so now for part 3!
ReplyDeletethat said, there are some people who Kickstart their books who either already have a publisher lined up or take the book to a publisher after it's Kickstarted. i think in those cases it's also fine, like they just want a page rate so they can pay the rent while working on this book for somebody like Image who doesn't pay up front. and yeah, one way to look at that is that the pledgers are paying for the creator's rent and electric bill, which the comment thread on that The Beat article discusses, but i still think Kickstarter is more than just a pre-order/distribution system, and again, the people are willingly handing over their own money.
i'll admit that if somebody like James Cameron did a Kickstarter, i would laugh, but i think that's too much of an extreme example because he's literally a billionaire and Kickstarter would be a hindrance and a hassle for him, it doesn't make any sense why he would ever do it. and even if he did, sure i'd be wondering what the hell he was doing and what his goals were since with the amount of money he already has he can Kickstarter himself, but if people want to fork over that money they can knock themselves out.
what the hell, did it eat my part 2??? shit.
ReplyDeletegood thing i had it copied. here's part 2. make sure to read them in order! haha. i hope i don't double-post this.
ReplyDeletePART 2:
anyway, Kickstarter. i can see where you're coming from, Jesse, most people would probably agree that there's something off-putting about asking for money for artistic pursuits, not to mention in general there's kind of a taboo in our society against asking for help and accepting money offered to you. i'm totally with Rian on this one, not even his argument that Kickstarter functions like a pre-order system, it CAN be that but it's also way more than that, i've donated to campaigns and clicked "no reward" because i just want to see the project made for various reasons, it's not always about donating just to get a product, it's about helping something come into being that you think should exist and be out there, or furthering and broadening the landscape of comics (since we're talking comics here specifically). but i think the main thing to remember about Kickstarter is that even though you're asking for money from people, sometimes for much more nebulous things than a book pre-order or print run, regardless if there's an incidental tangible product that the pledgers get in return, is that nobody is being coerced to pledge. people are giving the money because they want to, they're making an informed decision to fork over their own money, and that should be the end of it. Kickstarter just makes it easy for them to do that, it's an efficient delivery system conduit that gives access to people who want to pay you money to do something.
this is a great comment thread about how Kickstarter works and its merits and flaws and stuff: http://www.comicsbeat.com/2012/06/21/when-a-kickstarter-fails/ this guy's podcast is also interesting, although it focuses mostly on game Kickstarters: http://www.buzzsprout.com/4646/52048-funding-the-dream-on-kickstarter-ep-63-with-seth-godin
Jesse, i think it's interesting you think something like "why don't they just do with Image?" or whatever, since going with a publisher like Image and Kickstartering your book are pretty different things. Kickstarter is definitely "worse" than going with a publisher like Image or Dark Horse, in traditional publishing terms, because publishing the book yourself you don't get the distribution, the advertising, the exposure, the "cred," getting your book into libraries, etc. that the publishers will give you. with Kickstarter, you're pretty much only selling to your fanbase, there isn't much readership growth potential there, like how a book from a publisher's further-reaching distribution will make it into a library or used bookseller place or accidentally fall into the hands of a new reader. but i think the appeal of Kickstarter is that you sacrifice that stuff so you can control literally EVERYTHING about the project. there's something really satisfying about that, keeping everything in your own house, that even full-ownership and creative control at Image or Dark Horse won't give you. plus even with publishers like Image and Dark Horse, there's still people you have to deal with or hoops you might have to jump through or the process might be slow in getting the place to publish your book, etc. while with Kickstarter, it's 100% you, and everyone paying you wants to see that. not that either one is better, just different.
I was curious to hear what you thought about on the subject. Thanks for your input.
DeleteI think I'm starting to see the light and letting go of my hang ups.
I just wanted to let you guys know I'm completely caught up on the podcast. I don't think I can add to the Kickstarter thing, but it was hilarious listening to the back and forth between Jesse and Rian (and Jesse). In fact, the last dozen episodes (Simpson stuff included) have bee so ENTERTAINING! You guys have been really on top of your game! The back and forth, or just funny lines you've been throwing out have been great. Good job and good show, really makes my commute fly by.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Nico. It's good to hear from you, and to hear that you're enjoying the show. I thought maybe Joel and I had scared you off in Boston since you hadn't commented in a while. ;)
DeleteThanks man. After all this discussion I think I'm feeling less "indifferent" about kickstarter. I'm starting to see the light.
DeleteThanks for listening man!
Rian: LOL! No, not scared off. Really, I lost my ipod cord and my laptop is OLD so I can only run Photoshop or iTunes, but not both (and I've gots ta draw!). It was awesome meeting you guys; was weird, like I'd just seen you the other day. Next time, I'll plan a bit better and try to go to dinner with you guys or something.
DeleteJesse: No problem. When is the Kickstarter for Broken Legacy happening?
I just wish I'd caught you the second time you came by the booth. You've gotta sign my copy of Man-Gull for me next time. Oh, and you certainly did miss a damn fine dinner at Fire And Ice for the record...
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