Showing posts with label Self-Awareness Saturday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Awareness Saturday. Show all posts

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Self-Awareness Saturday--DC Execs Again Master The PR Game

In an interview on Newsarama, DC Vice-President Of Marketing John Cunningham had this to say when asked whether it having so many Batman titles might dilute sales:

Well, I don't think it's quite rational to assume that the sales level of a current book would maintain if you created a second title in a different series of book. It would be great in the abstract if you could say, "Well, we can maintain a book here at this level while launching another one." But I don't think that's realistic in any way.

 Oh, wait, sorry, my mistake...that was an answer to why they didn't keep the Hellblazer title going while launching the nu52 Constantine title.

Because 14 Bat titles a month? No problem. But the idea of 2 Constantine books? "Irrational" and "not realistic."

I should point out that Cunningham and DC Senior VP Of Sales Bob Wayne do a masterful job of dismissing every question asked by Newsarama's Vaneta Rogers as the product of a deranged mind who knows nothing about comic books. Amongst their responses (For what it's worth, none of the questions was anything other than what many of us have been asking based on recent DC actions):

Cunningham: No, I think that sort of analysis is extremely surface and doesn't deal with the facts at all.
Nrama: What facts? What facts am I missing?
Cunningham: I don't know. I didn't hear enough of your thesis to know how that works.

or

Cunningham: That's a bizarrely speculative question. I don't really understand it.

or

Cunningham: I don't know. What a heck of a question. I guess I'm going to respond to that by saying that framework is weird.

or

 Wayne: I find this whole question kind of odd. 

or

Cunningham: You use that phrase "seems to indicate," and that seems to me to be the problem here...So some of these questions sort of veer into this weird speculation that I don't understand where the basis in reality even comes from.

Yes, that's all from the same interview. No, those are not all of the examples.

Obviously, DC sends these two out on PR runs because they've mastered the sophisticated task of "pretend not to understand every question and then turn them back on the interviewer and imply that she's stupid for having asked it." Well played, sirs, well played.

Non-Self Awareness Satruday: The Stupidest Pull-Quote Of All Time

So, I'm sitting in Taco Bell, reading issue #3 of The New Crusaders...

...a pleasant enough book, nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad in any way.

But then, when I was done, I glance at the back cover:

So, the back cover is filled with pull-quote reviews of the book.

I'm not sure how effective that might be--how many potential customers are going to look at the back cover of a comic before deciding to buy?--but hey, that's why I don't run a comic book company.

But then I actually read some of the quotes, and, well, there was this:




What? I mean...?!?!

Not only is the quote pretty incredibly stupid, it's even stupider in the original full quote: "It's like Watchmen only with 100% less blue male gentitalia." And, yes, genitalia was misspelled in the original.

But, it's so stupid a quote, it makes Red Circle themselves look stupid and clueless for running it.

So all parties involved richly deserve this:



However ,if they'd like to turn "a pleasant enough book, nothing to write home about, but certainly not bad in any way." into a pull quote, well, be my guest!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Self-Awareness Saturday--The Mighty Thor #21

From this week's Mighty Thor #21:

Dude, you're only 40 years late in demanding the guy put on a damned shirt!! (And I mean that literally, as any shirt he wore would no doubt be damned...)

What, he can't get a tunic or T-shirt with the cursed emblem on it?

The ladies ain't impressed, is all I'm saying, Daimon.

Self-Awareness Saturday--New Avengers #31

From this week's New (New) Avengers #31:

In the story, Daredevil is addressing this to Luke Cage.

But it's pretty damn hard not to read this as his questioning writer Bendis, right? Bendis moved heaven and Earth and the laws of rationality around to get DD onto the Avengers, and now Bendis is leaving the series??

Of course, foisting us with unlikely Avengers, and then proceeding to do absolutely nothing interesting with them--or anything AT ALL with them--has been one of Bendis' motifs on his Avengers titles.

Remember when Echo joined, and...? Really, she was a member--look it up!!

Or Storm? Oh, the grand adventures we had with Ororo as an Avenger, right? Right?!?

Noh-Varr, or Protector, or whatever he was called any given week? Vital member, well used...

Quake? Hello, remember Quake? Of course you don't...

Interesting but sad fact: Squirrel Girl received more time and attention than the above 5 combined.

So congratulations on your time as an Avenger, Daredevil...long will it be remembered as an obscure line in your Wikipedia entry...

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Self-Awareness Saturday--Journey Into Mystery #

Oh, Kieron Gillen...

...if only more modern comic writers felt that way...

From Journey Into Mystery #638

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Self-Awareness Saturday--Pot, Meet Kettle

In the Bendis-scripted portion of Avengers Vs. X-Men #0, the Scarlet Witch confronts a particularly yakkity villain, and...

You know, if you're gonna make my job this easy, Slay Monstrobot Inc may fire me and replace me with a robot...

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Self-Awareness Saturday--Journey Into Mystery #630

I unreservedly acknowledge that this is probably just me and my warped perceptions...but it sure seems that, in this scene in this week's Journey Into Mystery #630...

...that maybe, just maybe, Kieron Gillen might be making a wee bit of a veiled comment on the lameness of the Big Bad in Fear Itself, and the way he was pretty much unnamed, unexplained, and uncharacterized throughout the series.

I'm just sayin'.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Self-Awareness Saturday--Batman #1

Almost certainly I'm misreading this...

...clearly I'm wrong...

...but I'm pretty sure that Bruce Wayne's little speech here...

...is intended as a metaphor for DC's New 52 initiative...

...and probably the first meeting with DC staff...

...went a little like this...

...but I'm probably wrong, so never mind.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Self-Awareness Saturday--Spider-Girl #7

Spider-Man comments on a recent addition to the Avengers line-up:

Thank you, Paul Tobin, for having Spider-Man express the opinion that you would have thought he'd express in an issue of Avengers. Of course, that would have involved characters in the Avengers actually interacting and having characterization beyond comedy routines and such...

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Self-Awareness Saturday--Avengers #13

In Avengers #13, Ms. Marvel is lusting after Thor, and she wants Spider-Woman to go ask him if he's seeing anyone right now:

Hmmm. Could this actually be Bendis' way of self-critiquing his handling of his characters, of subtly acknowledging that he's done absolutely nothing with Spider-Woman over the past 13 issues of Avengers? Or even more broadly, coyly admitting that he's done a terrible job of having everyone on the team interact with each other, that the book hasn't been so much a team book as "Tony Stark and the Seven Dwarves" for the first two storylines?

Nah.

Special bonus that you would have demanded had you known about it: a panel of Spider-Man "heaving" inside his mask!!

Thank you, Bendis and Chris Bachalo, for that contribution to the medium!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Self-Awareness Saturday--Red Robin #23

While escorting a felon, Tim Drake shows that it's not just the fans who think his alter-ego has a pretty stupid name:

You're preaching to the choir, Tim...

Fabian Nicieza shows that even Red Robin thinks that Red Robin is a really, really really stupid name in Red Robin #23.

Self-Awareness Saturday--New Mutants #25

Apparently, Scott Summers has been reading a lot of X-Men comic books lately:

True dat, Cyclops...true dat.

Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning implicitly critique the X-franchise in New Mutants #25.