I liked this comment from Dyuken on my recent comic con post so much, I decided to just run it here:
"I agree that the current trend is a juggernaut created by us comic fans constant need for stimulation. However, it is something far more insidious, in that these large media conglomerates are PIMPING US.
They have realized, being creatively bankrupt as they are, that comics and geek culture is a very creative force. So they MINE the culture and try to find nuggets that can me massmarketed ie have CROSSOVER APPEAL.
Since our culture is so insecure, we are more than happy to invite any mainstream outlet that pretends to recognize the culture's value access to our culture.
So its kinda like the victims of a vampire. We are being drained of our life blood and exploited for it, AND WE ARE LOVING IT.
But, using the vampire analogy further, we will be discarded when the media conglomerates move on to something else to exploit."
My mentor once said that the problem with the current generation is that they are being exploited, they know it and yet don't care.
ReplyDeleteSo true.
Wow... he's absolutely right.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how many "screen writers" and "producers" came up to talk to me at SDCC about licensing my comic's movie rights. Mind you, I write a webcomic with a pretty small audience. Nobody knows who the hell I am and they want to license the rights to the MOVIE??
Seriously.
Hollywood/Mass Media absolutely wants to exploit comics. ANY comics. And it's the little guy like me who's most likely to get screwed. I'm not happy Hollywood talks to me and others like me for this purpose. I'm nervous and defensive.
Whatever happened to just leaving the little to his books and just letting him build his fan base on that? Why must the giants complicate and pervert things just to make a buck?
Has it ever been different? I've seen this outrage in many different venues, about different subjects and it's the same story with different actors.
ReplyDeleteHas there ever been a time or a people who did not relentlessly exploit every resource and creative advantage available to them, including the cultural heritage of others?
Yeah, and..... ?
ReplyDeleteEverything is exploited.
I mean, I agree with what he is saying, but that's just how things GO.
Ignoring the fact that not all comics WORK as movies. Friend of mine brought up a point about how Dazzler should've been a movie AGES ago. Think about it, it's got the lead actress, the visual hook, it's easy to produced AND the soundtrack actually ties into the movie.
ReplyDeleteDaredevil, meanwhile, in his opinion, is a horrible idea for a movie and never should've been made because it works better as a comic book. In hindsight, I'm inclined to agree.
It really isn't any different than what happened in music before that industry collapsed. Some city gets a cool indie music scene. The big corporate dollars sweep in and gobble it up.
ReplyDeleteComics were such a backwater for so long that there is a huge quantity of unexploited material. The Superman and the Burton Batman films were like those first punk bands in this analogy.
It is amazing how fast nearly everything of value Marvel has produced is getting consumed.
Not to excessively self promote, but I wrote a bit about this very topic the other day. I sat down and gave myself five minutes to name all of the comic movies due out in the future, not even counting the older ones. The length of the list shocked me, and I am sure that I left a few out.
ReplyDeletehttp://geekwhisperin.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/geeksploitation-in-hollywood/
I'm always a bit bothered by people who "Love" the Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, or other comic films but have never given the source material a second thought.
Yeah, pretty much. But it's happened before, in the '90s with the speculeeches.
ReplyDeleteYou know, this would be like Raymond Chandler complaining about all the work he got, or Elmore Leonard complaining about being exploited.
ReplyDeleteIt's the popular genre right now, so Hollywood is going to mine everything until its dead.
Like Film Noir and the Western before it.
And, about 5 years after its death, many attempts to redefine the superhero genre will come about, and the whole thing will settle down.
I say we enjoy it for the moment, and if one gets paid, just look out for your rights and everything is fine.
"I'm always a bit bothered by people who "Love" the Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, or other comic films but have never given the source material a second thought."
ReplyDeleteThere's really nothing bad about this.
They have realized, creatively bankrupt as they are, that comics and geek culture is a very creative force.
ReplyDeleteFunny how the comics industry is such a creative force when 90% of the product it produces is either over 40 years old (and some of it more than 75 years old) or it's licensed or adaptated crap from films, television, novels, video games, et. al. The other 10% - the stuff that you might potentially argue a case for as being original - that stuff is thoroughly and completely ignored.
Ignored by the publishers. Ignored by fans. Ignored by the media. Ignored by the Hollywooders.
Just telling you all how it REALLY is.
As for the culture being so insecure, oh please. You're no more insecure than the rest of the socially arrested developed people who obsess over sports, or gambling, or suffer from drug addictions. The answer to that problem is to simply GROW THE HELL UP.
"But I wanna dress in my Jedi Robes and play Star Wars!" Fine, do that on the weekend. The rest of the time, act like a civilized, responsible adult with a modicum of budgetary sense. Do you NEED everything that was ever put out with STAR WARS on it?
No. No you do not. (STAR WARS just being an example. You can put Trek, Marvel, DC, Babylon 5, Harry Potter, Twilight, Buffy/Angel/ whatever Whedonverse crap you want, whatever you want in there instead.) And for gods' sakes, if you already have it, don't buy it again in a different format, and if you don't like it, don't buy it at all.
We are being drained of our life blood and exploited for it, AND WE ARE LOVING IT.
But, using the vampire analogy further, we will be discarded when the media conglomerates move on to something else to exploit.
Well, the comics industry does THAT. Look at all the crappy crossovers and spinoff series you all still buy despite bitching and moaning about the expense of it and how bad the stories are. So why point the finger at Hollywood?
Hey LBR, you may want to calm down.
ReplyDeleteYes, D's comment was fairly ridiculous, but nowhere in there was there any hint that he was a frothing at the mouth idiot that buys comics just because. So I'm led to assume that you simply have a generalized problem with everyone that reads comics. Excuse me, a GENERALIZING problem. Sadly, you will probably never read this. Take your offensive BS somewhere else. I can't believe you thought you could get away with posting this crap on a blog about comics.
Brian:
ReplyDeleteDon't know why you thought I wouldn't see your response. Perhaps you thought Val wouldn't post it.
"I'm led to assume that you simply have a generalized problem with everyone that reads comics."
Well, Brian, you know what they say about people who assume.
I don't have a problem with 'everyone that reads comics', just the readers / fans who act like they're 'victims' (as Dyuken's column emphasized in it's tone), or act like drug addicts / people who suffer from pre-conditioned obsessive compulsive disorder, and do nothing to correct their own problems. That, sir, is the truly offensive BS, not the fact that I call people on it. If you can't handle that, that's YOUR problem.
I don't want to hear about how comics movies exploit comics fans, because hey, the movie isn't for fans to begin with, if you actually THINK about it.
What are comics movies? They're usually an adaptation of origin stories or stories that were very popular that most fans of the property have already read or own. In which case you are buying to see / own a copy of something THAT YOU ALREADY OWN.
How stupid is THAT?
Or, in some cases, they are drastic reinterpretations and 'new' story that isn't in the comics, and then all you diehards do is bitch about all the changes made, completely missing the point that the movie is something that is SELF-CONTAINED and has nothing to do with the comics and is meant for an entirely different audience!
So how are YOU exploited? Only in the sense that you allow your own addiction / obsession with the character property to get the best of you and you buy something you don't need.
And whose fault is THAT?
Am I really supposed to find sympathy or pity for you in that? Well, tough noogies, Sunshine, because it ain't gonna happen.
And hey, I understand that the entire Direct Market over the past 30 years has tried to precondition all of the readers to effectively become comics junkies (and yes, Brian, I am putting that drug addict reference in there, because I'm sorry, but it is apt) and thus they are partly to blame, but it is up to each one of us to take responsibility for our own choices and actions. And that's all my telling you all to grow up was about. And frankly, Brian, whether you're crying victim over Hollywood exploiting you, or the publishers doing the same with their crosover events and spinoff books and jacked up cover prices, it's all the same sob story.
And I'm not saying people haven't got a right to be mad about it. But as long as you buy it yourself or allow others to buy it without trying to guide them to something else while complaining about how "unfair" it is, you're just as much at fault as the other side of the equation.