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This Week’s Sermon – “You Had To Be There”
By Britt Schramm
January 23, 2005
I’m back, finally.
First off, I’m sorry abandoning you guys during my second annual Christmas/New Year’s flake out. I don’t know what it is about the holiday season but I can’t seem to get my head wrapped around comic books during that time. Maybe it’s due to the fact that there’s really not that much going on in the industry. Or that I’m not all that focused on comics since I’ve normally have to read about a million assembly directions in order to put together those high-tech Christmas presents for the kids. It could be that I suffer from low-grade L-tryptophan poisoning after every Thanksgiving and I don’t fully recover from it until I eat field peas and snaps on the New Year. (Okay, I don’t even believe that and I’m writing this thing).
But in all seriousness, I’m sorry for falling asleep at the Longbox pulpit during the whole month of December but this time, there’s really a reason for it.
Are you ready?
(Drum roll please…..)
Ya see, I’m writing this column from the future. Tada! By the way, it’s amazing what a humidifier, a bunch of tachyon crystals, a pair of rollerblades and a relaxing bath in the Speed Force can do for a slow-ass white guy like me.
How far in the future do you, my dear reader, wonder? Let’s just say that I’m about one year later (or 52 weeks for some of those DC readers out there). And let me tell you – man, things are crazy here in 2007. There are so many new things and changes to the world that your head would spin both figuratively and literally.
To help all of you look forward to this year in comics, I thought that I’d play one of Dionne’s psychic friends and give you some highlights from the year that was 2006. And believe you me; it will not take 52 weeks to tell them.
All Monthly Titles; All Interconnected – Due to the insanely successful marketing campaign and weekly schedule of 52, both DC and Marvel decided to have an annual weekly mini-series that would last the entire year. The actual plots of these weekly series were yet to be determined but as one comic book insider stated, “We don’t care. Most of the storylines will be retconed during the next year’s mini-series. It’s not our job to be concerned about any of the characters’ continuity. All we care about is getting either Bendis or Johns to write these books. I’m telling ya; it’s pure gold, Jerry!”
Gail Simone suddenly retires from comic book writing - The 4-color industry was rocked by the unexpected retirement of Gail (Birds of Prey) Simone from active writing. This retirement comes on the heels of the one-year anniversary of former colleague Lea Hernandez's similar announcement. Emails or calls made to either person were not returned.
However, I think that there was a somewhat underplayed announcement in the week prior to Simone's decision that may have pushed her to go down this path of polyester leisure suits and early bird specials. Oni Press publicized that Killer Princesses was optioned by Vivid Entertainment for a direct-to-DVD release as well as a recent press release from DC stating that Frank Cho was signed away from Marvel for a huge amount of money to be the main artist for the new comedy title written by Frank Miller called Birds of Prey: The Sorority Years.
Same title, same problems – For those of you that are curious by nature, Ultimates, Volume 3 Number 1 finally shipped near the end of the year. The new artistic team of Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira provided a solid first issue but it was fraught by numerous delays and resolicitations. A question was originally posed to Mr. Loeb when he and Madureira were first named as the team to replace Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch that stated something to the effect, “What would be different with this new volume of Ultimates?” And if you based those changes by the time it took to deliver issue #1, then it would be safe to say that the answer to said questions would be “No much.”
80s Revival Part Deux – After the big time commercial success of Image’s sitcom mini-series Truth, Justin & The American Way, comic companies were jumping all over each other trying to sign old TV action/adventure shows and sitcoms to 5-issue mini-series. IDW lead the licensed way with their offering of the late 70’s sci-fi tinged comedy Mork and Mindy written by Warren Ellis with pencils by Kevin Maguire as well as the updated The A-Team '07, a series that re-teamed former Preacher and Punisher collaborators Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. As you can imagine, those guys took a significantly more violent turn than the old Stephen J. Cannell NBC show.
Dreamengine goes belly up; CEO still keeps private plane – In a move that shocked no one, Dreamengine, the Roger and Pat Lee-helmed graphic design company, filed for bankruptcy by the end of 2006. The company left a couple of series unfinished, more than a few creators and creditors with outstanding debts and tens of readers with the pained look of being fooled once again. When asked about the filing, Pat Lee stated from his private airplane that all prior contracts and agreements would be fulfilled as previously agreed upon in their contracts. Yet, all confirmation calls that were made to the corporate offices in Canada were forwarded to a cell phone with a number based out of Rio de Janeiro.
Small Press books get “faced” out of speciality stores - As the year went on, it appeared that there was a race between the Big Three Companies to have the highest comic book count on the rack every Wednesday by a single publisher. The fight to get facings on the comic book store shelves was becoming getting tougher and tougher. And companies like AiT/Planet LAR, Speakeasy, and even Dark Horse were feeling the pinch of the ever-shrinking rack display.
So, one by one, the smaller press companies began moving towards a better business model than the old monthly serial that was held as the gold standard in comics. Manga has been thriving with their bookstore market share by packaging their serials into book volumes. Since there was no room for their books in the direct market stores, those books started to appear in greater numbers in the bookstore chains and their sales numbers actually started to increase.
A couple of companies reaped the benefits of more shelf exposure. Slave Labor Graphics and BOOM Studios both received news of books getting greenlit as SLG’s Street Angel was optioned for a Warner Brothers movie deal with Dakota Fanning as the lead. While BOOM’s Hero Squared was signed to be a mid-season replacement deal with FOX Television with a rumor floating around the project that Demi’s recent separated husband needed a new vehicle to resurrect his career.
Marvel goes for the (over)kill - Not satisfied with their current Q-rating with adults, Marvel tried to find more ways to license its characters throughout the calendar year. Some of the new products that were highlighted through out the year were Wolverine brand never-need-sharpening ginzu knives, the Jessica Jones ultra-sensitive home pregnancy test, and the Iron Man-endorsed Nut Chopper/Juicer Bullet, sized perfectly for those at-home mixed drinks.
Title Fight Held in Chi-Town – In the biggest hyped event of the year, the “Brawl To End All” was seemingly born from an out-of-context conversation during bar –hopping in San Diego. Soon, the on-line message board postings on the Bendis’ Image Board became heated and were borderline unreadable (there is no editorial control on those boards, ya know). In an effort to stop the petty squabbling, Chris Staros and Charles Brownstein came up with the idea of creating a four-way championship bout within the square circle at Wizard World – Chicago with the title of “Most Prolific (and Pugnacious) Writer in Comics” up for grabs with all proceeds to benefit CBLDF. In fact, I have forward myself (backwards in time as I possibly warp our current continuity - mind you) the poster from the fight:
Participants Brian Michael Bendis (draped in a Marvel black and red silk robe with the name of his website URL and the MOB logo spray-painted on his back), Geoff Johns (covered head to toe in the DC Spin logo), Keith Giffen (looking like Gaylord Perry with his numerous Marvel/DC/Boom Studios logos on his leather jacket), and Robert Kirkman (bucking the logo trend by coming in with a plaid flannel shirt, jeans and boots) came into in the ring with their corner men in tow (Michael Avon Oeming, Judd Winick, J.M. DeMatteis, and Tony Moore respectively). The fight was hellacious with all four men getting to use their finishing moves. Bendis’ “Carpel Tunnel Claw” almost had Giffen tap out if not for an elbow-drop from DeMatteis while Johns’ “Continuity Figure Four Crossover” brought Bendis to the brink of submission until it was broken at the last minute by a flying Moore head butt from the top rope.
Unfortunately, to prevent any further fraying of our already tenuous space/time continuum (eerily similar to what happened in Back to the Future 2 if you can remember back that far), I cannot divulge the winner of said fight. All I can say is get your tickets early and bring a good beverage as it’s a long one (and truthfully, I didn’t think that the bastich had it in him.)
It’s a Barbie World - Finally, in what may have been called a modern miracle (if such a thing wasn’t considered media overkill), an actual Preachin’ from the Longbox column was posted on the MoviePoopShoot website in between Thanksgiving of 2006 and New Year’s Day 2007 amid to very little fanfare. After submitting his last column of the year, the columnist was found on Christmas morning, by his wife, passed out amid several bottles of Mountain Dew Pitch Black lying next to a half-finished Barbie townhouse and was overheard mumbling that incessant Aqua song, “It’s A Barbie World”. He would’ve been left that way; if not for being the recipient of a 18-watt electric shock ouput from the taser gun that he would’ve opened up as a Christmas present from his “loving” wife.
That’s it for this week. I’ll catch ya next time. And as always, keep you bags and boards together and your continuity straight.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER – The following column was recorded for satirical purposes only. All documented occurrences have been fictitiously created by the author. Any claims to lost wages as a result of illegal betting or bad investments in Marvel stock will not be acknowledged by Movie Poop Shoot, its editors, or staff. You should instead try making a profit by doing something that you know will make a return on that investment like betting on games that you know are being fixed – i.e. the NFL Conference Semi-Final games. Passing interference, my ass. Let me tell you right now - I’ll give you a Mile High Salute with only one finger, pally…
Send column-specific e-mail using the link below. You can also read about my thoughts on Survivor's Richard Hatch, Q-Tip's solo joint, and Celebrity Fit Club 3 as well as my current eBay auctions at brittschramm.com. Plus, check out my reviews of anything and everything that has to do with Pop Culture at Kung Fu Rodeo.
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