…after going to the County Fair last night, and boy, are my arms tired…or, er, something like that. Anyway, pretty wiped out, and Mike no think good, so I’m taking a pass today.
But I did want to mention that one of things at our fair is a building filled with displayed collections. Disneyana, model railroad stuff, toy cars, even a Twilight display, and here’s half of the Doctor Who display:
— a commenter on this story about a 3D adult film being made in Hong Kong
And why was I looking at an article about a 3D adult film being made in Hong Kong in the first place, you may ask? Well, 1) wouldn’t you? — and 2) because I was seeking out some choice material for a new side project: Estate 4.1, where I pick out some charming and witty samples of the sorts of comments you’ve come to expect from any online news source allowing The People to affix responses to their stories.
…We laugh so we don’t cry, friends.
Keeping it as short ‘n’ sweet today as I can manage, since I’ve been under the weather…but I’ve recently been rewatching some early episodes of Lois and Clark, the mid-’90s Superman TV show starring Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher, spurred on a bit by some recent discussion of the show on the Twitter, due mostly, I think, to the show’s entire run being available via streaming Netflix.
And I have to tell you, seeing the pilot episode for the first time since it aired in 1993…boy, they sure got a whole lot right. Clark’s inherent niceness and caring for humanity, the most perfect Perry White ever (“Great Shades of Elvis” and all…which, let’s face it, isn’t any more ridiculous than exclaiming “Great Caesar’s Ghost”), a great Jimmy Olsen (actor replaced after the first season, of course), the wonderful relationship between Clark and his Earth parents, a sufficiently bastardly Lex Luthor, and so on. And I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before on the site, but this is the one instance of the live action transformation of Clark into Superman and honestly thinking “hey, maybe the glasses thing actually would work.”
Now, I watched the show through about the third season, when I just sort of lost interest, I guess. But after watching a handful of the early episodes…well, there was enough good stuff going on that I think I will continue revisiting the series via Netflix for the time being. I may just stick to the more interesting-sounding episodes, though I did spot one episode which had a Netflix-written description that included the words “guest-starring Sonny Bono,” and baby, that’s next in the queue.
A couple of memories of the show:
ADDITIONAL READING:
Reader Leroy had a question in response to yesterday’s post:
“…Do the ‘Deadpool’ books sell as well for you guys as Marvel claims they are across the country?”
“…I just keep finding it harder and harder to believe so MANY ‘Pool books are being supported by such a fragile market. It’s just hard to believe, seeing as though the character made a brief, mostly-horrible appearance in the “Wolverine” movie, he’s suddenly seen such a huge resurgence, which I assume will only peak and crumble once Deadpool sooner than later has his own movie. And is this trend in your opinion caused by people STILL thinking they can retire on comic books sparked by movie interest?”
I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but in general, as each new Deadpool series appeared on the stands, sales dipped slightly across all the series across the board. Not at first…sales were reasonably consistent and stable, if not high. Deadpool was in the lower-middle tier of sales for us, but in recent months it’s dipped lower than even that. A major problem is that as each new Deadpool title (or any other new title that effectively duplicates an already existing series) is released, there’s not suddenly another 30,000 new readers entering the marketplace to read that comic. It’s the 30,000 people already reading the one (or two, or four) Deadpool comics that suddenly have to decide to 1) ignore the new title and just keep reading what they’re already reading, 2) expand their comic budget to add yet another series to their regular reads; 3) stop reading another title to make room for this new title, or 4) decide that it’s too much to keep up with, and drop most of them, if not all. For a while, we seemed to be experiencing more of #2, but #4 is on the rise, it appears.
And if you’re curious, the multiple Avengers titles are going through #2, since it’s all Fresh and New…er, relatively speaking…but I suspect we’ll be going through #4 soon enough, with sales shaking out so that the comic actually called The Avengers will be the top seller, with the other titles selling only about a half or a third as much. I hope not…as a funnybook seller, I want every comic to sell lots and lots of copies, and for our customers to shove tons of money our way in order to buy them all, but realistically, something usually has to give. (I’ve written before on the topic of different sales levels for what are essentially the same books.)
As for movie interest sparking interest in Deadpool…there was some excitement for a while over the possibility of a forthcoming Deadpool movie, but mostly among the already-converted. If/when an actual movie actually approaches release, we may get some increased sales from new readers curious about the character…though, depending on the advertising blitz and the public’s reaction to it, I’m thinking those new readers may simply come from people already buying comics and not, um, “civilians,” I guess.
At this point in time, I don’t think too many people are buying movie-related comics in the hopes that they’d be good investments. I’m sure some people are (like the fellow who bought all our copies of Amazing Spider-Man #252, the first appearance of the black costume, in anticipation of the third Spider-Man film), but a lot of the interest in the comics spurred on by movies seems to be genuine interest from curiosity, not from financial concerns. Like I’ve said plenty of times before, that curiosity is usually satisfied by the actual film, rendering the comics redundant.
Well, that was a lot to write, considering I was just planning on slumming it today. Ah, well. I hope that sort of answers your question, Leroy. If you (or anyone else) have any questions or need for clarification, hie yourself hither to my comments.
…featuring the Harlequin of Hate squaring off against the Scarecrow:
