I reached the final page of Avengers Academy #31, a title I like reading, and saw the team gearing for battle against the Phoenix Force-led X-Men. That page looks like this. (Click for bigger.)
It's a fairly typical 'we're going to fight you!' superhero team pose, drawn by Timothy Green II, inked by Jeff Huet. However, the way the White Tiger was standing struck me as remarkably silly. Look, here's a closeup:
First, it doesn't appear that she's actually putting any weight on her feet, especially that one extending off the page. Weirder, though, is how she's pulled her arms back. No one prepares for a punch by forcing their elbow behind their back. That pushes your fist out to the side, not drawn back to hit. The other arm's just kind of hanging there in space, as though she's showing you she has a bicep. This is a 'I've got boobies!' pose, not an 'I'm going to kick your ass' stance.
It shouldn't surprise me that this was considered a reasonable drawing, given the usual state of superhero comic art, even that used in books with a really good balanced and diverse cast of characters. I think I was struck by the pose because it was the last thing I saw in the book as my eyes tracked down the final page of the story.
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Per the official Tokyopop Manga Twitter account, the question was asked at last weekend's Anime Expo convention whether Tokyopop would consider returning rights to the creators for the OEL manga (original graphic novels) they are holding onto. The two-part answer was
' the creators need to come to him to get the rights back. He can't track them all down. And since they all have contracts, there will need to be some negotiations. But it's not like Stu won't give rights back at all.
Stu is Stu Levy, owner of the company. Followup Tweets didn't sound quite so optimistic:
But this is business. If one party owns partial rights of a property and the other party wants all the rights' That party would buy the others out. Works like that in every other business, no? I know that sounds so insensitive, but we did pay the creators for these works. It's not as though we got them for free. ^_^;;;;
The smiley face there really makes the message, don't you think? Without knowing what conditions Stu wants to impose upon this deal, it's hard to determine how serious this 'offer' actually is. If, for example, Stu wanted full repayment for all money spent by Tokyopop, including page rate for original creation, I would imagine those negotiations wouldn't go very far. Without more specifics, this appears to be a way to attempt to paper over the poor reputation Levy has with fans without actually taking any action.
More significantly, an actual OEL creator indicated that this was either a recent change or a misrepresentation, tweeting
Huh, about 6 months ago, Stu was a blanket 'no' when we asked to buy back rights. This has def changed?
At that point, the Twitter account backed off the claim:
I was under the impression it had yesterday, but obviously you need to speak to him directly.
This might be another sudden Levy change of mind that messes up the business, much like his abrupt decision to stop publishing last year. Let's hope he actually meant this one, instead of just saying what he thought the questioner wanted to hear.
By the way, a number of fans were disappointed that the much-plugged Tokyopop panel at the show didn't allow any time for questions and answers, instead spending time recapping a history of the company and Stu Levy's accomplishments. Another mismatch between fan and publisher wants appears to be the company's desire to continue with film and TV projects, such as the disappointing America's Greatest Otaku. Fans just want the series they were following completed in print.
Update: I just discovered Stu himself weighed in on his Twitter account:
I have an open door. Any creator can come discuss w me whenever. Some have; many haven't. I am an always have been a fair partner. Each OEL contract is individual and if there is a fair proposition we work it out. but please understood there are multiple partners involved and any agreement has to consider the interests of each partner.
The multiple uses of the word 'fair' are discouraging, since that's such a nebulous concept in business and can't be quantified. I'm guessing we're not going to see any actual OEL right status changes as a result of this.
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Saw this apocalyptic comedy romance this afternoon, and we enjoyed it, although I wanted to argue with it at times.
Steve Carell does an excellent job playing much the same character he portrayed in Crazy, Stupid, Love (but he does it so well), while Keira Knightley (Bend It Like Beckham, those pirate movies) is his wacky, confused, yet adorable neighbor. What sets this apart from any other getting-to-know-each-other odd-couple film is the premise ' the world will end in 21 days when a meteor crashes into it.
The two go on a road trip together, after various misadventures. That was my favorite part, seeing the methods people use to cope ' or not ' with the certain knowledge that the world was going to end. The supporting players are particularly good here, with Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights), Melanie Lynskey (Rose in Two and a Half Men), Rob Corddry, Patton Oswalt, T.J. Miller (She's Out of My League), and Gillian Jacobs (Community) as various folks driven mad in different ways by the coming destruction. You can see some of it in the trailer here, but I actually advise not watching it because the more surprises there are, the more interesting the movie is.
My favorite was Mark Moses (Duck on Mad Men) as the newscaster who's staying on the job to the end. As the news gets worse and hope fades, he becomes more Cronkite-like in his determination to do his best until the end.
Mark Moses in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
I was surprised at how much Seeking a Friend for the End of the World reminded me of a classic screwball comedy, much in the vein of It Happened One Night. They both even involve trying to get a somewhat lost and wrongly romantically matched young woman back to her family. The only difference is that, where those other movies had an undercurrent of the world being bad (due to the Depression), only we could improve it if we all pulled together, this one shows the world in worse shape, and how much people crave connection yet no longer know how to achieve it. The older films had much more comedy and optimism; this one is a sadder movie underneath, deep down.
Oh, and there's a bit of High Fidelity in there, too, with the importance given to records and the way the right music captures our feelings.
I was a little blase above about Carell's portrayal being the same kind of role he's played before ' an insurance agent who's moving through life without much feeling or emotion, going through the motions ' but he's very good at it, showing much depth through just the right expression or look in his eyes. It's a position many adults can relate to, where you've made what seem to be the correct choices but you wind up in a place where you no longer know what you want any more, until an extreme event pulls you back into yourself.
SPOILERS follow, so if you don't want to know, stop now.
That's where I found myself wanting to argue with the film. It's not that I disagreed with it, but that I would have liked to have talked further about the ending, where these two people find each other, even if only for a short time. I think we're supposed to believe that they're really in love and good for each other, but I wasn't quite convinced. It seemed to me that there was a component of 'if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with' to the conclusion, and I didn't think that they would work particularly well together if the world wasn't ending.
There are nods made to them accepting some of the pain points in their lives, mostly involving parents, and better understanding how they came to be who they are, but some of that material reads as a bit superficial. Writer/director Lorene Scafaria previously wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, another film with indie sensibilities and a belief in sudden true love, and it worked better for me there because the leads were so much younger.
Still, it's nice to think of people having someone to die with when the world is ending, if that's what they want.
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The always-smart Christopher Butcher has posted some thoughts about professional publishers using Kickstarter. He's referring to Digital Manga, which is putting out works by Osamu Tezuka using the crowdfunding site. They started by bringing Swallowing the Earth back into print, then listed a new license, Barbara (not a book previously published by them). Their newest effort is Unico, a color children's series. Chris has collected a set of his thoughts on the topic, of which these are only a few. (Some of the ones I skipped quoting are the more positive ones, too.)
- It is disconcerting to see what should be a well-invested professional publisher need to take 380 preorders before a book is published. It's only 380 pre-orders, that's not a huge amount, but that is presented as the crux upon which the project will happen, or not. It is incredibly disconcerting as someone who is worked in the publishing industry in which this publisher operates for the past 16 years. It is disconcerting as a fan of Osamu Tezuka.
- I feel it speaks to a lack of confidence in the product, and a lack of confidence in the publisher to see a return in their investment of licensing this property, or has been hinted, 'these properties'. '
- The basic acts of publishing are printing and promotion. If you are a publisher but you can't print or promote, are you still a publisher? Some very smart people say yes, and I'm honestly not sure, because you're unable to fulfill your basic roles and are counting on others to do that, and that's where my conflict is. '
- I have no doubt that the future is going to continue to change the definition of 'publishing' a great deal, and this is likely one such change. But it's a change and it's worth talking about and considering, rather than dismissing it as a new iteration of 'pre-selling' or 'pre-orders' or whatever.
Like Chris, I question how responsible this tactic is. It's working for them, but if a publisher doesn't even have the cash to cover printing bills, as they said in the Swallowing the Earth case, then what value are they providing? I don't have much to add beyond that ' this post is really just a way of saying, 'Yeah, what he said, we should be talking about this.'
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Wrath of the Titans is out today on Blu-ray and DVD!
Rosamund Pike as the warrior queen Andromeda
For this week's contest, thanks to Warner Bros., I have a copy of the Blu-ray combo pack to give away to one lucky reader. If you'd like to see more, Warner has posted a YouTube playlist with the movie's trailer and video clips, and here's the official description:
Sam Worthington, Ralph Fiennes, and Liam Neeson star once again as gods at war in Wrath of the Titans, under the direction of Johnathan Liebesman. A decade after his heroic defeat of the monstrous Kaken, Perseus (Worthington), the demigod son of Zeus (Neeson), is attempting to live a quieter life as a village fisherman and the sole parent to his 10-year-old son, Helius. Meanwhile, a struggle for supremacy rages between the gods and the Titans. Dangerously weakened by humanity's lack of devotion, the gods are losing control of the imprisoned Titans and their ferocious leader, Kronos, father of the long-ruling brothers Zeus, Hades (Fiennes), and Poseidon (Danny Huston). The triumvirate had overthrown their powerful father long ago, leaving him to rot in the gloomy abyss of Tartarus, a dungeon that lies deep within the cavernous underworld. Perseus cannot ignore his true calling when Hades, along with Zeus' godly son, Ares (Edgar Ramrez), switch loyalties and make a deal with Kronos to capture Zeus. The Titans' strength grows stronger as Zeus' remaining godly powers are siphoned, and hell is unleashed on earth. Enlisting the help of the warrior Queen Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), Poseidon's demigod son, Argenor (Toby Kebbell), and fallen gob Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), Perseus bravely embarks on a treacherous quest into the underworld to rescue Zeus, overthrow the Titans and save mankind.
To enter to win, please leave a comment below. Tell me who your favorite god is and why! A winner will be picked randomly from all entries on Wednesday, July 4. And tell your friends! Links and retweets are much appreciated.
(U.S. addresses only, no PO Boxes. Winner will be emailed to confirm address. If email is not answered within 24 hours or a valid email address is not provided, a replacement winner will be selected. Your email won't be used for any other purpose.)
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Matthew Dow Smith, comic book artist, has begun a series of posts at his blog covering his career in comics so far. He's a good writer, and beyond the fun of hearing how someone's life developed in an industry we both care about, his posts carry key lessons.
First, breaking into comics, teaches us that artists are easier to hire than writers.
Second, technological changes in delivery, the difficulty of coping with change in spite of its inevitability, and the change to digital comics.
Third, Disney and DC, learning that companies rarely want to pay you to be you; they prefer whatever's commercial.
Fourth (and the one I enjoyed most), a brief history of CrossGen, and the conflict between creator-owned and corporate. That's become a hot topic lately, but it was one ten years ago, too, because there still hasn't been a workable compromise between the two in the industry.
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Early this month because I'm going to be swamped, and I know I'm not going to have a chance to watch any more films.
Movies
Horrible Bosses (2011) ' I wasn't offended at some point, as I am with a number of modern comedies that feature gross-out scenes, but watching this was a complete waste of time. I don't feel as though as I gained anything after seeing the movie that I didn't already know or laugh at after seeing the trailer. I like Jason Sudeikis (Hall Pass), but I wish he had better taste in films, since I don't think he's done anything yet that's lived up to his talent.
Ladies They Talk About (1933) ' Barbara Stanwyck is a woman in prison in this pre-Code that's still enjoyable to watch today. She's a well-dressed distraction for a bank robbery who refuses to squeal on her compatriots, so she goes to jail. Her hard eyes reveal her schemes, even when she's pretending to be a silly rich woman, although later, her motivations are all over the place.
The characters and situations in the clink are entertaining, although I never believed that Stanwyck's hard cookie was stupid enough to engage in one of the later plots the gang drags her into. Watch for the moment when, new to prison, she's warned away from the cigar-smoking woman who 'likes to wrestle'. More interesting is her relationship with crusading reformer David Slade (Preston Foster), who's got a huge crush on her, and the jealousy it creates in another prisoner (Dorothy Burgess). That woman's mixture of hero worship and revival-style reformation is a potent cocktail of crazy.
Outcast Lady (1934) ' Constance Bennett stars as Iris, who can't be with the man she loves. Although they're neighbors and from the same background, she's penniless and her father was a drunkard (as is her brother), which means she's not good enough for Napier (Herbert Marshall, who's too old for the role of a struggling young man who does what he father tells him). So Napier (not the stupidest name in the movie, that's coming up) heads back off to India (they're all British, you see), and Iris winds up marrying Boy Fenwick (Ralph Forbes), a rich friend of the family who's loved her from afar all these years. (Yes, that's the stupidest name. I spent the first third thinking it must be 'Boyd' until I saw it written out.)
Then the movie gets strange. On their wedding night, Iris gets an anonymous note accusing Boy of an unspecified horrible crime that he spent time in prison for! Worse yet, it's true, so instead of living with the guilt of his secret, he jumps out the window! Iris won't have the real reason for his suicide revealed, for fear her brother's worshipful idolization of Boy will be shaken, so everyone thinks Boy killed himself because of her. The relationship between the brother (Hugh Williams) and the friend is fruitfully rich with symbolism, if you're into that kind of thing. Trying to save the brother doesn't help, since he winds up drinking himself to death anyway, this time out of hate for his sister.
That sends her into a downward spiral, and only seeing Napier will keep her from dying from an unspecified illness, only he's now married to a proper little thing named Venice (Elizabeth Allan) who calls him 'Naps'. I found the way people flat-out told others what they wanted and what they were thinking, especially this other family friend who kept showing up whenever anyone had a problem or concern so they'd have someone to explain it to, ridiculous. I have no idea why they were making such stage-y versions of the problems of the rich during the Depression. I guess for the same reason people today watch the Real Housewives shows.
Paul (2011) ' This kept pleasantly surprising me, from the way it beautifully expressed the joy of going to Comic-Con to Jane Lynch showing up as a waitress at an alien tie-in roadside store and cafe. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are two sci-fi nerds touring America, checking out places like Area 51, when they find a runaway alien voiced by Seth Rogen.
Great cast, with Jason Bateman as an agent, Kristen Wiig as the fundamentalist daughter of an RV park owner, a voice cameo by Steven Spielberg, and Sigourney Weaver as a mastermind. The whole film is a love letter to geekdom, cute and funny.
Sin Takes a Holiday (1930) ' Not nearly as spicy as the title suggests, this is a rather predictable filmed play starring Constance Bennett as a secretary who marries her boss (the unknown-to-me Kenneth MacKenna). He proposes it as a way to deter his girlfriend, a woman planning to get divorced and marry him. Yes, that's right, he doesn't want to get married, so he gets married. Bennett accepts because it will give her enough money to travel and buy some nice clothes.
If anyone watches this today, it's probably for Basil Rathbone, who plays the charming roue' Bennett meets on her trip to Paris. As expected, when she returns home, her makeover, now that she can afford it, and her bringing a 'lover' makes her more attractive to her husband-in-name-only, and the couple then falls in love and makes their marriage real. The purpose of these types of films is to perpetuate the view of marriage as an important thing to respect, with almost a magical ability to bring those under it together, even if they enter it casually or for other reasons.
While watching this, KC asked me why there were so many arranged or otherwise paper marriages in these movies. I suspect it was because it allowed the writers to put the characters together more easily. We're looking at a time where single men and women weren't supposed to be alone together ' consider their reputations! Having them married allowed them to share more intimate settings. Plus, it forced them to keep being thrown into contact with each other.
DVDs
Ally McBeal Season 1 ' For a variety of reasons, most involving David E. Kelley and Robert Downey Jr., we bought the complete series when it came out, and we're just now getting around to watching it. I remember seeing the first episode when it was released ' actually, before, since I was splitting an apartment at the time with a TV critic who kept saying how terrific a portrait this was of the modern woman. I'm not so sure about that, but now, this is another memory time capsule of a time when everything was uncertain but people were still doing well enough to spend time agonizing about relationships between the sexes (instead of, say, how to keep food on the table). As with many of the more enjoyable series these days, it takes it a while to get going. I've missed Fish-isms and 'Bygones!'
Glee Season 1 ' It's quite odd watching this show get started, compared to where it is now. Matthew Morrison doesn't sing so much these days, and we see less of the teachers overall. The music was a bit more diverse back then, I think, as they had fewer choices available to them (back when they were an untested project). There were more fantasy numbers, too, whereas now they just throw the cast onto a stage. I don't miss the pregnancy plotlines at all, nor do I miss crazy wife.
I'm left full of questions about things I forgot the show did. When did Artie stop playing guitar? What happened to Matt Rutherford, the black football player/dancer who joined when Mike Chang did? Why did they stop writing Quinn as so sure of herself and knowing what she wanted, even if her desires were shallow? When did Tina quit looking like a goth skater? Does anyone remember that Rachel and Puck were together? Or that Kurt was on the football team? AND the cheerleaders?
Speaking of which, it's still powerful watching Kurt grow up and into himself. Otherwise, the show doesn't age well, since the plotlines are all over the place. It may end up being TV from a particular era, a touchstone at the time but quickly forgotten as people move on.
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) ' This is the fourth time, I think, I've tried to watch this, but this time, I finally finished it. It's got a good cast, anchored by Simon Pegg, but it's all just so unpleasant about everything. Pegg plays a British journalist who thinks he's so smart about how shallow Hollywood is but really wants to be part of that celebrity world, even if it means abasing himself and being hated by the famous. He jumps at the chance to write for a major American magazine and moves to New York City, where he has misadventures.
Pegg's character makes lots of comments about being too smart to be taken in by the celebrity culture, but his actions belie his words. He hates it verbally because he loves it so much internally. Jeff Bridges is his editor, Kirsten Dunst a fellow writer, Megan Fox the actress lust object represented by publicist Gillian Anderson. Lots of cringe comedy as Pegg's character gets embarrassed and humiliated. Based on Toby Young's memoir of his time at Vanity Fair, although revised to be a more traditional romantic comedy. Predictable, and not particularly funny.
Whisper of the Heart (1995) ' I was reminded of this movie due to its recent release on Blu-ray, so I dug out my DVD. The bit about rewriting the lyrics to 'Country Roads' doesn't get any better with age, but I could appreciate much more the suburban and country settings now that I've seen other Ghibli films. The boy's goal of becoming a violin maker strikes me as one of the odder job choices in fiction, but it's handled well. It makes me wish that Only Yesterday was available in the U.S., since that's josei to this film's shojo approach.
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