glennsim

June 3, 2013 12:50 pm I'm always a little wary of the notion that the popularity of the Avengers movie means that being a fan on the Avengers is no longer "nerdy". For several reasons. One, how many of the people who went to see the movie went to see "The Avengers"? I think many of them went to see "The action movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans". I remember asking around the time when both Thor and Green Lantern movies had been out, why "normal" people seemed to like Thor better than GL, and generally got answers along the lines of "I thought the guy playing Thor was better-looking". Had "The Avengers" been the first movie, featuring all no-names, by a directory with no following, would it have been as successful? Another, how many of those people actually went on to try to learn more about the Avengers? For most of them, it was just a movie. Going to a movie does not a nerd make. Another way of looking at it is, was "The Avengers" a geeky movie, or did they take a geeky subject and suck all the geekiness out of it and make it into something cool? I haven't seen the Circus of Crime or the Toad Men from Saturn showing up in any Marvel movies. I don't know that it's about people being "persecuted", but there's still a social ladder. Let's say I go to a party and meet some dude for the first time. He brings up pro football as an interest of his. I don't know anything about pro football, so we can't talk about that. I could bring up comic books as an interest of mine, but he doesn't know anything about that. So we have nothing to talk about and move on. But in that situation, which of us is "lacking social skills"? Many people would say it's me, because I don't know anything the thing that is supposed to be very popular and well-known, and instead prefer things are are "obscure" in the minds of many. Finally, I don't know that any particular item is nerdy/geeky, it's how you go about it. Liking "baseball" in the sense that you watch the games on TV isn't nerdy. Liking "baseball" in that you have a computer database with all of the players' stats since the game was invented and creating computer programs that pit different historical teams against each other, that's nerdy. Which brings me back to the Avengers example. Going to the movies to watch "The Avengers" isn't nerdy. Having a monthly pull list to buy the comic books of the Avengers is.

March 29, 2013 10:00 am I realize being a full-time cast member actually means more than this, but in this day and age where TV shows don't have those opening sequences that list all of the stars, for me it doesn't seem like as big a deal. It just means "they show up more often". Like, if for some reason they didn't have Manu Bennett in an episode, would they still list him in the credits, if he's a full-time cast member? I don't know why having the opening sequence re-cut to include that cast member was such a big deal to me.

March 9, 2013 9:26 pm Does it count that he appeared in this episode and I actually didn't think "what a douche" at any point?

March 9, 2013 6:08 pm I slowed down the video during the credits as I happened to notice that they have "....created by" credits and was reading those, and when I happened to see the list of voice talent credits for this cartoon, I suspect I understand why these are so expensive and prone to being cancelled. There are a ton of different characters and it seems like ALL of them have different actors. That's got to be expensive. It's not like a Batman cartoon where you have 3-4 voices and 1-2 that you can re-use a lot.

March 2, 2013 4:00 pm Lagoon Boy is a douche. Glad he got dumped.

February 24, 2013 3:35 pm This is all fine and good, but I suspect that people who are sufficiently invested in comics to visit sites like iFanboy are not the ones who have this problem. It's the more casual readers.

February 15, 2013 10:11 pm The Samnee piece works fine if you're talking about a Supergirl who has adopted Earth and put her Kryptonian origins behind her. But since we currently have a version who was raised on Krypton and therefore wears things that fit her old culture, I think having her suddenly adopt some sort of Earth teenager fashion wouldn't make any sense.

February 13, 2013 3:18 pm I think yes, but not just because of the "protect the loved ones" thing, but also I think you'd end up with all of the bad parts of celebrity (people constantly wanting to take your picture or whatever) without the good stuff (the $$$). One element that sorta figures in is that if you had super-powers in the real world, a big chunk of the world would be scared of you just for existing (in addition to those who simply wouldn't believe it was true). So I think also it's not so much about criminals getting revenge as it is crazy people wanting to kill you, oh spawn of Satan! One trick to having a secret ID, by the way, is not letting yourself get photographed (as best you can) and certainly don't hang out with the same people in both identities. That last bit is the part that seems like something that really needs to be removed from modern super-hero comics.

February 4, 2013 5:55 pm I think if I was an editor on a book and my job relied on having the sales on that book be as strong as possible, and I thought the writer wasn't doing enough to get the sales up, I'd probably impose some changes on that writer. Writers are freelancers, editors are employees. I'm not sure which is harder to find other work, but the editor is likely more invested in his current job.

February 4, 2013 5:52 pm I recall a poll on CBR a while back that was "characters or creators", and it seemed like it ran about 50/50, and that was among people who are invested enough to get on CBR and post. I can tell you I'm a character person. There are some creators I get more or less excited about, but if I'm going to read something it will be based on the characters. There is no writer or artist so bad that I won't buy a book about a character I like. As a result, I rarely drop stuff once I get started on it.