Highlights From Comic-Con 2012 74
Comic-Con 2012 got underway yesterday, and some interesting bits of news have been filtering out. Digital comic sales boomed over the past year — something to be expected given the trend with ebooks and newspapers. But oddly, print comic sales are up as well, to the tune of 18%. At a Firefly panel, Joss Whedon spoke briefly about how the series would have ended if he could have done it on his own terms. "I don’t think I would have killed anybody," he said. TV shows are a strong theme this year, which much discussion around The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. All in all, about 80 television programs are represented at Comic-Con. The show is also highlighting the recent trend away from strict superhero stories. "Image Comics is indeed banking on 'superhero-ed out' readers, not only with Kirkman's The Walking Dead, (Kirkman has been called the 'unofficial mayor of Comic-Con') but with books like the spy-fi The Activity. The title's second issue, out next week, was co-plotted with actual Navy SEALs."
Re:Let me summarize (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, they're fat, white nerds. But this is slashdot. They're *OUR* fat, white nerds!
Re:Let me summarize (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, they're fat, white nerds. But this is slashdot. They're *OUR* fat, white nerds!
Hey! That's unfair to the slightly off-white blueish nerds, freckled pinkish nerds and all the other myriads!
To paraphrase Roy: It's a delicate ecosystem!
Re:Let me summarize (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, they're fat, white nerds. But this is slashdot. They're *OUR* fat, white nerds!
I'm still waiting for the 250lb Princess Leias on mobility scooters.
Re:Let me summarize (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, they're fat, white nerds. But this is slashdot. They're *OUR* fat, white nerds!
I'm still waiting for the 250lb Princess Leias on mobility scooters.
I'm afraid most of them are 250lb Galadriels, hanging out at the various Renfests.
Re:Let me summarize (Score:5, Funny)
Lots of fat white people.
Hey I once thought comics were cool. Then I turned 13 and discovered girls. Never been back to comics since.
Then you discovered Slashdot. Never been back to girls since.
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Troll much?
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That's called Freudian projection.
Sometimes a projection is just a projection...
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Get married. You'll be back on the comics, umm, I mean graphic novels soon enough.
So I'm told.
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A summary generally has a verb somewhere in it. Here are some alternatives for what you wrote, all of which include verbs (some even include direct objects!).
"Lots of fat white people talked."
"Lots of fat white people met together."
"Lots of fat white people got to see things that I wish I could have been there to see."
"Lots of fat white people, many of whom look quite similar to me, got to bask in the glory of celebrities that I've been dying to meet."
"Lots of fat white people with comic collections larger
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Yea, sure. But "Highlights" from Comic-con should be from the persistent photographers that comb through the throngs of fat geeks to find the rare hot chicks dressed in skimpy fantasy costumes. False advertising, Slashdot! Where are the pics?
Dammit./p?
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Lots of boobies. Not many pussies.
yeah yeah whatever (Score:3, Interesting)
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Some of us can only afford to go to NY Comic-Con. (Score:2)
At least I'll get Mike Mignola's autograph.
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"Does this [blogspot.com] answer your question?"
Your faithful student,
Pinkamena Fourthwallbrecha Pie.
P.S.: Can anypony help animator Lauren Faust find Derpy [derpyhoovesnews.com]?
Re:yeah yeah whatever (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot Bronies represent! *brohoof*
(I feel silly doing that but what the hay)
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brohoofs all round.
Re: But were there ponies? (Score:5, Informative)
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Do females have any idea how incredibly shallow and stupid "grrl" is?
About as much as guys do calling each other "bro", or the, *shudder*, "bra".
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...and this is precisely the sort of thinking that awesome people like Lauren Faust is trying to get rid of.
Thank you for providing an excellent example of the problem!
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Serenity Spoilers (Score:2)
I have a friend that wrote off Joss Whedon and all his 'stuff' because of what happened in Serenity. (Even Dr. Horrible.) While he understands the dramatic tension aspect of it, and agree's that it worked completely, he said, "NOTHING was worth that."
Pretty funny.
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I still think it was done to prevent any possibility of there ever being a sequel or a continuation of the series. The rightsholders wanted it to end, and they got their wish.
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I still think it was done to prevent any possibility of there ever being a sequel or a continuation of the series. The rightsholders wanted it to end, and they got their wish.
Nothing is ever over. Haven't you seen enough ret-coning, re-imagining, re-booting to tell you that, yet? Besides, there's always room for a Prequel and one that forks the story at that (a la Prometheus.)
Tee-vee (Score:5, Insightful)
So its TV-Con now, with a highlight being yet more discussion of a short lived, long dead show that still manages to be at least as interesting as anything that has been made since.
Re:Tee-vee (Score:5, Funny)
...let me tell you about Star Trek
Re:Tee-vee (Score:5, Insightful)
So its TV-Con now, with a highlight being yet more discussion of a short lived, long dead show that still manages to be at least as interesting as anything that has been made since.
All in all, about 80 television programs are represented at Comic-Con.
It's becoming Media-Con and people are letting it. Which is why I have no interest in attending. I'd rather go to a show closer to home which Hollywood isn't trying to take over. It's called Comic -Con and should seriously consider getting back to the business of Comics.
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Why would they ever do that? This is more profitable.
</cynic>
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Why would they ever do that? This is more profitable.
</cynic>
I know.
Attendance is higher and with all those feet (and in a few instances, wheels) paying to get in, why change .. unless the act of selling out dilutes the original attraction of the show and comics fans lose interest in attending. I think this has happened before ...
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Attendance has been capped as what the fire marshalls will allow in the building (about 140,000, IIRC) for years. It's not about money, it's about the organizers getting meet the A-listers, without having to stand in line.
Re:Tee-vee (Score:4, Insightful)
Missed the mark. Comic-Con, the Comic-Con, is non-profit, run by unpaid volunteers. Last I heard, the biggest convention in the world run by amateurs.
No, the reason they've sold out utterly and completely to Hollywood is that the people who make those decsions, the organizers, get "all access" badges. That means they can go anywhere and everywhere, inlcuding the green room, to rub elbows with Angelina Jolie (that was the year the sell-out really started) and Hugh Jackman. So far as I can tell, the organizers would perform human sacrifices under the Sails if it kept the A-list Hollywood types coming every year.
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Why would they ever do that? This is more profitable.
I kind of agree with you, but it's worth mentioning that Comic-Con is run by a nonprofit organization.
Re:Tee-vee (Score:5, Insightful)
It's becoming Media-Con and people are letting it. Which is why I have no interest in attending. I'd rather go to a show closer to home which Hollywood isn't trying to take over. It's called Comic -Con and should seriously consider getting back to the business of Comics.
A comic book is just a medium for telling a particular story. The notion of a "comic strip" was originally telling a story with a sequence of pictures. Television and film is arguably just an evolution along that path. In other words, focusing on stories regardless of the medium they're told in is going back to the original business of comics.
Personally, I have a hard time seeing Comic-Con as anything but a win for everyone involved. Fans love it for the interactivity, writers, artists and actors love it for the chance to get fans excited about their work, and I'm sure it makes plenty of money for the ownership. I suspect very few people in those groups want the event to go back to focusing solely on comic books.
Re:Tee-vee (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I have a hard time seeing Comic-Con as anything but a win for everyone involved. Fans love it for the interactivity, writers, artists and actors love it for the chance to get fans excited about their work, and I'm sure it makes plenty of money for the ownership. I suspect very few people in those groups want the event to go back to focusing solely on comic books.
I suspect that MTV, the cast of Jersey Shore and their millions of "fans" (i.e. people that get a sick thrill out of watching trashy idiots humiliate themselves) wouldn't want MTV to go back to showing music videos. However, the fact that MTV has abandoned its original premise in order to chase cheaper content and easier ratings is not a "win" for music videos. It is a "win" for an alternative form of entertainment and its fans, perhaps. It is certainly a win for MTV, which likely get better ratings for content that clears a much lower bar, and which can be churned out ad nauseam.
However, reality tv is not music tv, regardless of the venue. MTVs ratings don't change this fact. Nor are television and film the same as comic books. You are into the meta "its all just stories" angle and don't care about the distinction? Fine. But that doesn't change the fact that there are distinctions that matter to others.
Its not like there is no venue for TV and film to showcase their projects and talent. Let Comic-Con be about comics.
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MTV had to change because showing music videos is cheap and there are dozens of other channels doing it. They would have been lost in a sea of copycat dross, channels run by a bloke in a basement doing little more than creating YouTube playlists for the audience mixed with some ads. Original programming was necessary.
I agree most of what they do is crap, but since there are plenty of other channels doing what MTV used to I don't think we have lost anything.
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Ride the trolley in; from what I saw yesterday, trying to get a car in and out of downtown, unless you're doing something like going straight to Horton Plaza to eat at one of the places up on the top floors, then heading straight out, is going to leave you stuck in traffic for far longer than you'd ever want, with hordes of people utterly ignoring the traffic signals.
On the whole, I miss Comic-Con, too; looking back over the years I've attended, the years I worked, and the years I was on committee, what I'v
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Becoming? It's been a Hollywood trade show for about a decade.
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That's like saying we should all abandon the web and go back to gopher. Media evolves - and comic books cover all sorts of topics these days. From TV shows and movies having backstories filled in by comics, to cancelled programs living on th
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Reboot (Score:2)
Spider man recently had a second "reboot".
Superman has been somewhat rebooted.
Batman has been rebooted countless times
Star trek... many different series, and now a TOS reboot.
There are a lot of book or even game-based movies/series coming out. Nnot that it's bad, some are very good, but sometimes the networks seem to scrape fairly far down the barrel for original stuff. Why not reboot Firefly? Hell, they could probably make a killing by turning it into a kickstarter project or whatever.
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Reboot .. Retcon .. Reimagining .. it's all about the money.
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If you think Spider-man is bad, you should look at Punisher [wikipedia.org] or . I think that literally every single live action film or TV series in both of those franchises has been considered a reboot (with the exception of The Avengers, which, while using a different actor for the Hulk, is considered to be in the same continuity, nonetheless), and both of them stretch back a few decades and include some rather hilarious '80s editions.
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Superman has been somewhat rebooted.
If there's an immediate kernel panic, does it still qualify as a reboot?
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What is this? 1988?
Superheroes have been less and less dominant in comics for 20+ years, walk into any comic shop and you'll see many more genres these days on shelves once dominated solely by the super-powered set.
Superheroes have also turned into Soaps. How many of them are now being explored for personality issues, character flaws, self doubt, etc.? To be fair, in the mid-50s, before the Comics Code, there were some pretty deep stories in some of the EC comics, one I recall featured bodies of dead soldiers floating down a river in Korea. But these were soldiers and reality inspired publications, where Superman, Batman, et al are about as unreal as you can get.
Neil Gaiman Sandman Announcement (Score:2)
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The most exciting news out of Comic-Con so far for me has been Neil Gaiman announcing his Sandman prequel. Official announcement video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GndnR7oSYYk [youtube.com]
That was truly very exciting. I couldn't contain myself.
MLP? (Score:1)
What about all the pony news? :D
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Pfft... Slashdot is for Nerds.
For News that Matters, you've gotta trot off elsewhere. [equestriadaily.com]
Duh (Score:2)
Farewell to Fringe (Score:2)
Really, it had practically everything a sci-fi guy could ask for in a series:
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Don't forget it had Eric the Midget's head explode.
Here it is - real "highlights" (Score:3, Informative)
Dude - seriously. When you post a headline that says "Comic-Con Highlights", people click on your click on your link looking for THIS [youtube.com]. I mean, come on, right?.
The purported ending of Firefly (Score:1)
1:33: A fan asks how Firefly would have ended if Joss had known it was going to be canceled: “I don’t think I would have killed anybody,” Joss says and Tudyk raises his hands in victory. “A film is a different animal and has different needs,” Whedon continues. “We would have learned about the Blue Sun conspiracy, Inara and Shepherd Book.”