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Rob3E

Name: Rob E

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January 23, 2019 7:17 pm I just listened to this and wanted to echo what's said above: I did not feel like any character was meant to represent the 616 Spiderman. Peter B. Parker, in addition to being an older, broken down Peter, also appeared to be Jewish, or Mary Jane was, based on the brief, wedding flashback. Also this felt like the perfect, comic book movie the me. I'm surprised it didn't resonate as much with you all. But a fun episode to listen to. Keep em coming.
May 22, 2013 6:04 pm I see what you're saying about we haters being the old curmudgeons, and that the new generation, without all that baggage, will see things differently. My wife, not a huge trekkie, but with some affection for The Next Generation, and no memory of Wrath of Kahn, liked the movie very much. She liked it far better than the previous movie even. But when I explained about the part that was ripped right from WoK, she got it instantly. Then she just kept saying, "but why would they do that?" "How could that do anything but piss off the fans?" and the like. The idea that we aged Trek fans are not the target audience has merit. Except for the fact that that whole section of the movie from Spock's appearance to Kirk's death came across to me as pure fan service. It's just a service that many of us did not want. If they weren't at least hoping to appeal to we aged Trek fans, that whose section seems completely unnecessary or, at worst, lazily plagiarized. I can't bring myself to believe that it was put there hoping that most of us would not recognize it for a blatant parroting of the original. It was the forced deliberateness of it that pulled me out of the movie. It was disappointing, not because I felt that I was a curmudgeon, too mired in the past to "get" this scene, but because it felt like this scene was deliberately aimed at me, and I did not want it. I wanted to be the new fan who could see this without the baggage. I can't help but think that the scene(s) in question were meant for us without realizing how many of us would react. It's like getting socks for Christmas. Fuzzy, pink socks that you will surely get beat up for wearing.
May 14, 2013 4:25 pm I'm still too cheap to pay digital prices, even when DC drops the price after a month. I feel like at some point digital prices should drop to at or lower than trade prices, and that seldom happens. So I jump on a .99 sale. iFanboy constantly tempts me by reviewing current stuff, but my thrift outweighs my curiosity. Plus I was away from comics for a while, and in that time some great stuff came out, so I can often grab old stuff at decent prices while waiting for newer stuff to go on sale. Then Marvel released the Unlimited app for the iPad. I figured even waiting for .99 sales, I was already giving them that much money. So now I'm not waiting for prices to drop. I'm just waiting for it to show up in Unlimited. But even though my sweet spot is .99, I paid more for Private Eye. They are finally doing what I wanted digital comics to do from the beginning: Give me an actual file for my money that I can read where ever I want on whatever I want. Comixology gives you the illusion of buying something, and Marvel charges you as if you were buying something, but in the end it's no more ownership than Marvel Unlimited, just more expensive. Marvel Unlimited has been great for getting me my Marvel fix and horrible for every other publisher. My backlog of books to read is now so huge that even those .99 sales feel like I'm just throwing money away on something I may never get around to reading. And I'll get to Hawkeye, and to Daredevil. I just need to finish with Runaways and Journey Into Mystery, and some old Spider-Man runs I'd like to read, and that Simonson Thor stuff, and the Hickman FF stuff, and on and on. If DC would do the same thing, I would probably jump on that, too. Then I'd no longer feel like I'm missing out on anything from the Big Two because it would all show up eventually. Then it's just the Other Guys, which still accounts for about half of my reading, so I guess I won't break out of my digital purchasing habit any time soon. But with a couple of subscription services, there's no chance of running out of stuff to read while I wait for sales.
January 18, 2013 2:45 pm I looked at it a while back and agree with the folks who don't enjoy reading on a computer screen. It wasn't until I got my iPad that I really got into digital comics, and they're going to have to make that experience pleasant before I will be tempted again. But even then, my digital buying habits have become: wait for something that I want to read to go on sale, buy all the issues (or at least as much as I'm willing to spend), and read them at my leisure. That method keeps my spending fairly low, and yet I seem to have a never-ending virtual pile to pull from. The all-you-can-eat approach is tempting,but since I don't ever seem to run out of new stuff to read, I wonder how much I'd use it. Add to that the fact that it's per publisher. I'd be at least as likely to subscribe to a DC service as Marvel, so, assuming similar pricing, that's $100/year, and I'd still be hitting those .99 sales to stock up on my indy stuff. I guess the fact that it's months or more behind the current titles doesn't bother me much because I'm already waiting for the sales. And really, you own none of your digital comics, at least not if you buy them through Comixology. There doesn't seem to be much danger of losing your collection at the moment, but that sense of ownership you get from buying a digital comic is purely imaginary. All the subscription service does is further strip away your illusions. Of course with the Comixology model, you have your comics as long as Comixology persists or as long as you have the device they were loaded on to. With subscriptions, they vanish as soon as you stop paying. But that seems like the only real difference, and, as a result, I probably would not be tempted to buy comics in another digital form if I had access via subscription. If they were offering me a real file that would persist beyond the life of the seller, that would be different. There are probably enough titles out there where I'm waiting for sale prices that the subscription services might be worthwhile as long as the subscription offerings were somewhat current (say a year or less). And it would help recapture my attention from some of the great independent stuff. Looking at my Comixology stuff, I see more Other Publisher stuff than what I've bought from the Big Two. A subscription service could having me diving into one publisher for longer periods of time.
January 4, 2013 12:25 pm Wow, if Adventure Time comes in at 9, then I may be missing out by not reading some of these other titles. Planet of the Apes has been tempting me. I may have to give Godzilla a try based on this recommendation. I read Kingdom of Monsters and Gangsters and Goliaths and didn't love them enough to keep trying the later stuff. I've been enjoying Conan. I'm not sure it's the best Conan I've read, but it's good. Also the first 10 issues are on sale from Darkhorse Digital this weekend, so if someone's curious, this is a good time to check it out. I will say that after picking up Adventure Time on a whim, I decided maybe giving a series a pre-emptive knock for being a TV-spin-off wasn't fair. So I think some of these titles I am going to have to try out. I could always use more Doctor Who.
October 26, 2012 2:45 pm I feel like Howard would be one of the last to go if I started selling my collection. Already a fan, I gained a new appreciation when I found myself stuck in Cleveland for a few years. I used to have two campaign pins from that presidential campaign, but I haven't seen either in years. I hope they turn up again. I have some concern that I might have decided that one to spare meant one to sell and ebayed one, but I'm not sure. I always want to find it when election time rolls around.
October 19, 2012 4:17 pm It would have its plusses and minusses. And it would probably work better for some types of stories than for others. And while doing a series in some type of "season" might give someone a good jumping on point, it would also give you a good jumping off point. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have stuck with a series longer than makes sense out habit or stubbornness. If someone had given me an easy way out in the form of a break, I would have taken it. Plus, while I like the mini-series idea when it's appropriate, I have to consult a reference source when reading through Mignola's works if I want to read them in order. At least with Spider-Man, I know that the next issue is very likely one higher than the current issue. But if an indy publication could use that idea to keep to a schedule, I'm all for it. Lately I don't even buy anything until a whole story arc is available, but one of the last titles I was reading before becoming a trade-waiter was a creator-owned title that I just never knew when to pick up the next issue. Finally decided it was cheaper and easier to wait until a whole arc was out. Now, thanks to digital, nothing ever sells out, so I can wait for an arc and a sale. Truth is that it's hard to imagine going back to reading a piece of a story a month at a time, but I'm sure there are people who would do that more willingly if they had confidence that their titles would come out on schedule.
October 16, 2012 10:03 am There was very nearly a spit-take when I read the phrase "and teaming up with Adam Strange.” Has Adam made an appearance in the New 52? I've always had a soft spot for him. Maybe he needs a DC Histories, because while I'm always excited when he turns up, I don't know that I have coherent picture of his story. For the longest time he seemed to be simply forever chasing the next Zeta beam back to Rann and his lady. Then there was some darker hint in Swamp Thing that he had been deliberately imported as a sperm donor to an otherwise sterile Rann, and I don't know if that was pure Alan Moore or if that was an existing plot, and I don't know if anyone ran with it afterwards. But whatever is up with him, Adam Strange is one of those characters that I'm always happy to see pop up again (like his appearance on Young Justice), so, even though I haven't gotten into Hex, this might make me take another look.
October 16, 2012 9:47 am I admit that as I scrolled down to each new item, I was going "Still no Vibe?" Really that mid 80's Justice League line-up could have been the whole list.
October 9, 2012 1:31 pm "Most everyone else that 'samples' ends up buying books they wouldn’t have otherwise purchased. " This assumption is based on the idea that what everyone wants is a physical book, and that pirating digital copies is a compromise you're willing to make to try something out for free before buying it. I think this is less and less the case. More media is bought and consumed in as entirely digital format. There are plenty of people who want a book in their hands, but there are an increasing number of people who are focused on the content, not whether they read that content off of a piece of paper rather than a screen. For my part, you hand me a bunch of quality scans of a fantastic series, I have zero incentive to go buy that material. I could by the "legit" digital version, but that wouldn't be any better than the scans. I could by the paper version, but my bookshelves are full enough. I think the effect of piracy on the industry is unclear, but I think we're coming to the end of the digital-piracy-leads-to-physical-purchase idea. For years this idea was supported by the comics industry itself. Not that they in any way endorsed piracy, but that their digital sales strategy was seemingly focused on leading people to print, rather than serving an audience that might prefer digital. Now with most publishers offering day-and-date availability, people with a preference for digital now have a legal option, but it is still an option that is more expensive and less versatile than piracy, but at least it's there, it's easier, and it's legal. Now that an option finally exists for people who prefer the digital experience, it's harder to argue that piracy is going to lead to more sales, and is not going to cut into the profits of the legitimate versions.