Bleeding Fool |
- Shooting Up: The Religious Zeal of Pop Culture Consumers
- Indie Comics Showcase #161: Crazy 9, The Embrace, & Bardic Fury 3
- Common Ground: How are Disney’s Hawkeye and Netflix’s Daredevil Connected?
- It’s Marvel Studios, Not Star Wars, That’s the Backbone of Disney+
- THR & Vice Reviving Campaign for Unsuccessful Comic Workers Union
- Losing It or Letting Go? Hasbro Licenses Rumored to Depart IDW
- Why is Hollywood Intentionally Destroying of Our Heroes?
- Not Spider-Man’s Endgame: Tom Holland Doing 3 More Spidey Films
- No Way Home’s Pre-Sales Just Beat Avengers: Endgame & Last Jedi
- Rumor: Sam Raimi & Marc Webb Brought In to Consult on Spider-Man 3
| Shooting Up: The Religious Zeal of Pop Culture Consumers Posted: 01 Dec 2021 03:55 PM PST
A striking phenomenon increasingly on display as the generation raised by Nickelodeon turns 40 is the redirection of man's natural religious impulse to pop culture artifacts. A while back, I termed those who make idols of action figures, comics, and video games the Pop Cult.
The reason Generation Y is especially susceptible to recruitment by the Pop Cult is their upbringing in materialist consumerist households defined by transactional relationships. They may have gone to parochial schools as kids or to church services on Sunday. But their parents' self-absorption, all too often manifested in divorce, scandalized them away from the God who made them and who alone can make them happy.
As a result, many Ys are spiritual nomads, left to wander the alien landscape that replaced the world they were raised to survive in. They were never taught the self-mastery or courage needed to fully engage with Clown World, so they cling to scraps of flotsam from the shipwreck of Cultural Ground Zero.
That's not to mock or belittle Gen Y. Remember that they are the Mugged by Reality generation, raised in gilded pleasure domes only to be cast out of paradise into Purgatory without the tools to adapt.
If you think that's an exaggeration, consider that more than two close Gen Y friends recently gave me almost identical accounts of their rude coming-of-age. In both cases, their transaction-minded Boomer parents kicked them out of the house at 18. Both lived in vermin-infested flophouses which required them to walk for miles to dead-end fast food jobs to pay rent. They endured that loathsome existence for years.
Today, both are successful, with families of their own. Their parents pat themselves on the back and say, "See? The school of hard knocks did you good!"
Both of my friends disagree. What the school of hard knocks did was nearly destroy their ability to trust anyone–including God. In reality, they credit the friends who banded together to lend them a hand when their own flesh and blood turned their backs.
Not all Ys found their way back to healthy relationships and a place in society. Not all found their way back to God.
If you want a perfect case study in what happens when a member of Gen Y is utterly consumed by the Pop Cult, watch the first three minutes of this video:
For the video-averse, here is a partial transcript:
The video starts innocently, if a bit hyperbolically, enough. Only a plain mush-eating stick in the mud would deny that those products made for good fun and better times.
Yes, those IPs were a lot of fun. Note, however, the gradual onset of wild-eyed snake-handling fervor of the kind Hollywood loves to caricature Christians with.
If you listen closely, you will hear a young boy crying out from the man he never wanted to become. He pleads for a solid rock to cling to in the tempest of pop ephemera that is his life.
And know that you live in a country where Ellen Ripley and Optimus Prime played foster mother and father to a lost generation. Now you understand everything.
Behold the litany of the Pop Cult saints!
Something grasping and desperate lies beneath the religious zeal on display above. It is the thirst of the addict, forever seeking his next fix and forever needing to consume more and more to get it.
An entire video game genre that references shooting up. This poor heathen's channel couldn't be more aptly named.
Do not despise him. Instead, take warning from the spiritual void of his life and offer prayers for his–and your–conversion.
Why people need to leave dead franchises
The post Shooting Up: The Religious Zeal of Pop Culture Consumers appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Indie Comics Showcase #161: Crazy 9, The Embrace, & Bardic Fury 3 Posted: 01 Dec 2021 01:10 PM PST
Welcome back to another installment of Indie Comics Showcase, the weekly blog where we signal boost a few truly independent comics that are currently crowdfunding their projects, crowdsourcing their funding in some way, or just completely self-publishing on their own. Every little bit of support for these creators matters, from a single dollar pledge to the twenty-five dollar bundle, and of course the higher tiers are usually fun too! Even if you can’t back a campaign or buy a book, you can share or tweet about these projects to your friends and followers.
On Indie Comics Showcase, we interview the creators, show off some art, and tell you how you can check out the product for yourself. Below we have some outstanding crowdfunding campaigns this week for you to learn about, enjoy, and hopefully support by backing one or more of them! Thanks for checking these out and for being the best part of Indie Comics Showcase. Let's jump in!
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| Common Ground: How are Disney’s Hawkeye and Netflix’s Daredevil Connected? Posted: 01 Dec 2021 10:55 AM PST
Has the new Hawkeye series already made a connection to the Netflix Daredevil series? And does it prove any of the rumors of Vincent D'Onofrio's return as Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin? The Disney+ series is introducing Echo/Maya Lopez as played by Alaqua Cox, who is tied directly to Fisk and Matt Murdock in the comics, but another connection we saw already could be quite telling.
According to Pierre Chanliau at The Direct:
the hotel we see in the first episode, the one with the ballroom and then the black-market auction going on downstairs in the wine cellar is the Lotte New York Palace Hotel in real life. And while it doesn't get a name in Hawkeye, it does get a name in Daredevil, the Presidential Hotel and it's a prominent set piece in season three of the Netflix series. This is the hotel where Fisk serves his house-arrest, and it becomes his de facto headquarters throughout the season.
This makes the hotel a prime spot for criminal activity and a good place to host a black-market auction if you're hoping the Kingpin will be in attendance. In the comics the Track Suit Mafia is run by Fisk, and I could see him deciding to use his muscle instead of his wallet if there was something at the auction he really wanted. While this is just speculation, and the hotel could just be a great place to shoot… it otherwise makes a good connection between the two series if they wanted to go that route.
We first reported back in January that Vincent D'Onofrio was in talks to reprise his role as Wilson Fisk AKA Kingpin in the MCU. Could this be another confirmation that the talks ended with a deal? The post Common Ground: How are Disney's Hawkeye and Netflix's Daredevil Connected? appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| It’s Marvel Studios, Not Star Wars, That’s the Backbone of Disney+ Posted: 01 Dec 2021 08:25 AM PST
In a recent survey by Whip Media, it has become pretty obvious that Marvel Studios is the backbone of Disney+. Variety broke down the numbers in the survey of TV Time app users where 96% of them said they had used Disney+ before. The big question was how important are the Marvel TV series to you when deciding to subscribe and 55% said it was the main reason they subscribe with an additional 8.5% saying it was the only reason and another 26.1% who say its not the main reason, but they do watch.
Only 10.3% said it wasn't important to them at all. That means that Marvel is a deciding factor for almost 90% of the subscribers. They went on and asked about series that the respondents have completed watching and 72.4% had finished WandaVision, 66.7% finished Loki and 64.7% finished The Flacon and the Winter Soldier. That number drops significantly for the animated What If…? with only 42.5% having finished watching. Even 31% had finished watching Agent Carter and another 18.8% watched the Inhumans.
80% of respondents had finished at least one of the Marvel series. As for upcoming series like the recently debuted Hawkeye, 65.9% of respondents said they were definitely intended to watch the series with another 11.5% likely to. Only 9.8% said they wouldn't be watching. Marvel has been carrying the streaming service this year since their other big series, The Mandalorian, wrapped it's second season at the end of 2020 and the only new offerings in this year for Star Wars was the animated series The Bad Batch and we'll get one episode of Book of Boba Fett right near years end.
So, while Disney will definitely want more Star Wars series to get subscribers on board, the Marvel series are currently doing the heavy lifting for the streaming service. The post It’s Marvel Studios, Not Star Wars, That’s the Backbone of Disney+ appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| THR & Vice Reviving Campaign for Unsuccessful Comic Workers Union Posted: 01 Dec 2021 06:20 AM PST
The Hollywood Reporter has a puff piece penned by one of the “Whisper Network” allies, Graeme McMillan, telling more about the new union formed by Image workers, which still sounds more like an advocacy for political correctness than an effort to get paid well and retain good working conditions, which I thought was what most past unions were formed for:
I wonder if that’s phony what they’re telling about opposition to unions within comicdom? Though if the industry was once against unions, it could’ve been because they were perceived as troublemakers who could undermine the ability to run a business well, though that’s obviously not been the case for over 20 years already. For now, this article makes no direct mention of what the union really seems to stand for: blacklisting anybody whose politics don’t coincide with their far-left beliefs.
And just what do they expect this to lead to? A situation where nobody will be hired on merit? Something actually already lacking badly in much of the mainstream, but this would only make it an even more farcical affair.
Their ideological leanings are self-defeating, so what’s the point here? It’s unbelievable they even work in the medium if what they really care about is blacklisting anybody whose politics they detest.
Another news source fawning over this pretentious union is Vice’s Motherboard section, which they call the “future” of comicdom, and there are some pretty fishy people involved too, including:
Brothers was a writer for the ultra-leftist Comics Alliance, and a decade ago, he wrote a predictably negative take on Frank Miller’s Holy Terror. So he’s not somebody on whose word one should put much value. If Image didn’t grow with times, it’s because of all the leftists they employ in turn, one of the worst being Erik Larsen, who won’t publish any stories by outspoken conservatives. The article continues:
I would think it’s only members of the union who’d get paid on time. What if they won’t go to bat for a right-winger? Besides, there’s all sorts of legal motions available to ensure workers get their wages. I get the strange feeling this is more like an excuse not to work too hard, outside of payment issues, considering that there’s only so many jobs where you could have to deal with heavy workloads, and provided you get paid well, that’s what people are in many businesses for. And then, somebody else decidedly fishy, this one more a veteran, is brought up:
Gee, that’s pretty big talk coming from somebody who continued working for the Big Two long after Image’s founding. And who, as noted, co-wrote one of the most overrated, overblown stories of the early 90s in the Man of Steel’s line. During which time, as noted before, Cat Grant’s son was murdered at the hands of the Toyman. Was all that Jurgens’ way of expressing his disdain for writing stories for one of the most famous – and regrettably, one of the most misused – superheroes in history?
No matter what one thinks of work-for-hire, it’s no excuse for ruining other people’s work so badly. Something the other interviewee seems unconcerned about. Nor do they seem particularly concerned about censorship, which did affect some of their products, such as Howard Chaykin’s work, the leftism notwithstanding:
Ah, now this is definitely a left-wing leaning here. Diversity training? Why not simply training to make a distinction between good and bad taste? I don’t have a very high opinion of Chaykin, but these are not the people qualified to go about making decisions. What they did is practically what’s spoken about in the union’s agenda, and is even mentioned shortly after:
Well doesn’t this basically prove the point for anyone worried it’s more a political statement than an effort to ensure decent pay rates? I don’t care about Ellis’ work, but from what I know, he argued none of his relations were on the violent side, and if not, then provided they were between consenting adults, you can’t exactly call him a predator based on that. Though a valid argument can be made he shouldn’t have cheated his lovers out of any chance to get through to publishers, if they were interested in making their way into the medium. And Ellis doesn’t even have to be at the office; he can always work at home, if the women opposing his presence really don’t want him around. And they really see nothing wrong with censoring Chaykin’s work, no matter the intent? “More properly”, my foot.
Based on Brothers’ past attacks on Miller for penning Holy Terror, we can only wonder who those creeps are he’s talking about. Do they also include people far more right-leaning than Miller’s ever been? (Let’s remember he’s since fully realigned with the left.) For example, if Image won’t work with Chuck Dixon based on his conservative leanings alone, doesn’t that serve as a troubling example? This also mentions a veteran who reportedly tried to work on unionization:
Well that’s the difference between then and now. It wasn’t politics, but creators rights and residuals. If a new union is formed putting politics at the forefront, it’s not a reliable movement. Besides, something tells me the new Image union ultimately won’t prevent sexual misconduct at workplaces.
All that’ll do is lead to bigger blacklisting situations, based on partisan politics, not to mention more destruction of creativity. Most intriguing they mention the now defunct Gawker, the leftist site with some of the most atrocious people working for them, which used to own Gizmodo a few other shoddy sites. The parent site’s company lost a lawsuit with veteran wrestler Hulk Hogan nearly a decade ago, and had to sell off its other assets to pay their legal bills. If this is the kind of news sources they consider worthy, no wonder this puff piece falls flat. At the end, it says:
A wave based on political correctness is not what we need at all. There’s already far too many cases of communist blacklisting going on, spilling out of universities and into businesses and other such institutes around the USA. It does not help creativity one bit, mainly because in the end, both liberal and conservative creators alike will suffer, based on petty issues, and all the wrong reasons. But, it’s hardly a surprise a site as awful as Vice happens to be would go this route. Image is bound to be screwed soon anyway, and so will Dark Horse, if they keep on with their far-left directions, and unions like these will only prove farcical in the end.
Originally published here.
The post THR & Vice Reviving Campaign for Unsuccessful Comic Workers Union appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Losing It or Letting Go? Hasbro Licenses Rumored to Depart IDW Posted: 01 Dec 2021 04:45 AM PST
Here’s a new rumor that was alleged to have been circulating at SDCC Special Edition 2021 last week. According to a scoop by uncle Rich, IDW Publishing’s license to print Hasbro comics, which include Transformers and G.I. Joe, could potentially expire next year. This could be another serious blow to the struggling publisher, since this is not the only horse to recently depart IDW’s stable. Licenses for both Marvel and Star Wars also left for greener pastures earlier this year.
Wes Daugherity weighs in on the rumor and takes a look at IDW’s sales numbers:
Since 2005, IDW has been banking heavily on Hasbro’s Transformers, so much so that one could argue the two brands are nearly synonymous. But when it comes to the comics side of franchise, the print industry is seriously losing ground to anything streaming these days. At five bucks or more per issue and fewer and fewer pages every issue, comicbooks are simply no longer as exciting as they once were. And even though they brought Larry Hama back to take over the G.I. Joe series, some fans feel like he’s been wrecking the property with new continuity and unwelcome changes. Some don't even consider his IDW run canon anymore.
Perhaps the company is simply not renewing the license rather than “losing it”. IDW has been struggling for years and their G.I. Joe, Transformers, and R.O.M. comics, etc, have not been selling very well. This may only be a financial decision on the part of IDW if they feel they’ve exhausted every approach they can come up with to push the Robots in Disguise after 16 years. Does that mean another publisher is waiting to pick it up? Could Hasbro have persuaded Marvel Comics to take the license back, or maybe even take it over to BOOM! Studios, who have had some success with Power Rangers, to take the licenses?
Hasbro still hasn’t confirmed this rumor, but it certainly rings true. However, there were two new series just announced, one for G.I. Joe Saturday Morning cartoons comic, and then Transformers: War’s End. So until it’s announced by IDW, or the trades, or the new licensor, this is still just a rumor.
No matter the outcome, perhaps now will be the time to see more original content from the team working with Mark Doyle, who was brought in earlier this year to help develop their original line. Let’s see what happens next. The post Losing It or Letting Go? Hasbro Licenses Rumored to Depart IDW appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Why is Hollywood Intentionally Destroying of Our Heroes? Posted: 30 Nov 2021 03:55 PM PST
The “Critical Drinker” holds forth on why modern Hollywood is so very bad. It is by design.
His most recent video on the topic is well worth viewing:
He's right.
There is also simply an element of Marxism involved.
The Frankfurt School, long ago, realized that they could not compete with any capitalist economists on any rational argument, so they quite deliberately and openly adopted a policy of merely accusing capitalism of being responsible for any and every evil and ill imaginable, including things having no relation to economics, such as race relations and the war between the sexes.
This was called "Critical Theory" of which one branch "Critical Race Theory" has been making headlines of late.
"Deconstruction" is Critical Theory in regard to art and entertainment: it is the approach that all stories, films, and so on, serve as propaganda for the class interests of the oppressors to cow the oppressed, including innocent boy's adventure tales. By this theory, everything is a sinister attack by the oppressor class attempting to maintain its power; everything is evil.
Hence, the only good storytelling is propaganda exposing the stories of the oppressor class as frauds: the false mask of heroism must be ripped away.
A flawless heroine from the oppressed group must be propped in place, and this is done as a revolutionary act meant to shock the bourgeoisie. The more shocked and annoyed they are, the more revolutionary hence admirable the work.
By placing an oppressed-group heroine in the shoes of the oppressor-group hero, audience expectations are subverted, as part of a Pavlovian attempt to reorder their thinking into revolutionary socialist conformity.
Now, actually showing the diversity hire strong female character actually going through the steps of actually doing something heroic, something involving sacrifice or selflessness or suffering or self-awareness, would affirm the bourgeoisie social values and moral thinking it is the firm purpose of the revolution to overthrow.
Having the Wizard of Oz hand out rewards to scarecrows, tin men, or talking lions simply will not do, since the whole charm and point of that famous scene is that these humble heroes had in themselves the virtues they sought all along, as the audience saw when they rescued their friend from a wicked witch. In Critical Theory, to deconstruct this narrative, the wicked witch must be glorified as good, and the white-privileged farmgirl must be humiliated.
And when a Marxist gives out rewards, he is a bigger humbug than any wandering carnival wizard. Marxism grants them to those who do not deserve them and never will: the oppressed identities that he thinks actually are brainless, heartless, and craven: as when elevating military officers not for bravery but for gender dysphoria; or christening warships for sodomites.
Likewise, in a deconstructed narrative of the heroine's journey, the diversity girl must be simply given the medal, the diploma, and the testimonial of hero and scholar and philanthropist without ever being shown earning any of those things.
The purpose is not to entertain the audience with tales of soldiers and saints shown doing admirable acts. The purpose is to condition the audience to invert normal morality.
Got that? Under Marxist theory, entertainment is not meant to entertain the audience but to shock, annoy, and anger them.
Mission accomplished, Hollywood.
The post Why is Hollywood Intentionally Destroying of Our Heroes? appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Not Spider-Man’s Endgame: Tom Holland Doing 3 More Spidey Films Posted: 30 Nov 2021 01:10 PM PST
Although it’s being billed as Spider-Man: Endgame — a Spider-Man movie so big and so historic, it’s pulling in characters from across 20 years of live-action Spider-Man movies. This third film in the “Homecoming” trilogy, Spider-Man: No Way Home, will wrap up a trilogy of films that began with 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, and continued with 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, but it won’t be the last we see of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Fandango reports.
Not by a long shot.
With tickets now on sale for Spider-Man: No Way Home (in theaters December 17), Fandango spoke with producer Amy Pascal, who was not only an integral part of the earlier Spider-Man film franchises starring Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, but she was also a key figure in negotiating the game-changing collaboration between Sony Pictures, which owns the film rights for Spider-Man, and Marvel Studios, which makes films and TV shows for Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pascal was quick to confirm that Sony will continue to collaborate with Marvel Studios on Spider-Man movies, and those movies will indeed star Tom Holland.
“This is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel – [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie,” Pascal revealed. “We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel. We’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three. This is not the last of our MCU movies.”
After seeing how impressive the latest film’s pre-sales are, this should be no surprise.
The post Not Spider-Man’s Endgame: Tom Holland Doing 3 More Spidey Films appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| No Way Home’s Pre-Sales Just Beat Avengers: Endgame & Last Jedi Posted: 30 Nov 2021 10:55 AM PST
While some in the industry are still trying to blame a lackluster box office on the pandemic, think again: Sony's Spider-Man: No Way Home in its first day of pre-sales yesterday on Fandango already beat that of 2019's Avengers: Endgame; that movie ultimately turning into the biggest domestic opening of all-time with $357.1M. In addition, the presales for Spider-Man: No Way Home, which opens on Dec. 17, outstripped the first day advance ticket sales of Black Widow in two hours time, that Disney/Marvel movie previously owning the online ticket retailer's best record of 2021.
The first day presales for Spider-Man: No Way Home are higher than those for pre-pandemic titles such as Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In a Fandango survey of 2K moviegoers, Spider-Man: No Way Home was chosen as the winter's most anticipated movie.
via Deadline The post No Way Home’s Pre-Sales Just Beat Avengers: Endgame & Last Jedi appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
| Rumor: Sam Raimi & Marc Webb Brought In to Consult on Spider-Man 3 Posted: 30 Nov 2021 08:20 AM PST
Another day, another rumor about the impending Marvel sequel Spider-Man: No Way Home, this time with very surprising reports claiming that previous Spider-Man series filmmakers Sam Raimi and Marc Webb were consulted on the web-slinger’s next adventure. Following Peter Parker’s identity as Spider-Man being revealed by Mysterio at the end of 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, the next sequel will likely begin with the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler’s life and reputation turned completely upside down, so he turns to his friend and colleague Doctor Strange to use magic to help him restore his secret identity. Unfortunately for both Parker and The Sorcerer Supreme, the spell goes catastrophically wrong, allowing supervillains (and perhaps even superheroes) from different universes who have already fought a Spider-Man to enter the current Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Of course, like almost everything else about Spider-Man: No Way Home, this is just a rumor at this point, but given all of the confirmed cameos (as well as a couple that are still a rumor), Raimi and Webb’s perspective would make sense. In fact, the source indicates that the production team behind Spider-Man: No Way Home is dealing with the already established Spider-Man universes in a very intriguing way.
Pay close attention to the second No Way Home trailer that dropped last week, specifically to the part when Stephen Strange says, "They all die, fighting Spider-Man." Given that these iterations of Spidey villains are the same ones we saw in the previous films all those years ago, some of these characters' deaths don't line up. The first example would be Sandman from Spider-Man 3, whom we know Peter Parker forgave and let go be free following their confrontation. The other example would be The Lizard from The Amazing Spider-Man, who was jailed at the end of their conflict. So how would they have died, according to what Strange says? Sources close to the production have informed us that the lore from the universes of these 2 Spider-Men (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) will be expanded upon during the film. We'll be given some backstory as to what the Spidey’s have been up to in their world since their sagas ended. This includes learning about how Sandman died in the years following Spider-Man 3 and how Lizard passed away years after The Amazing Spider-Man. Another significant point addressed during this film is the kind of toll that being Spider-Man has taken on Maguire's and Garfield's adaptations.
This type of world-building plot is going to be significant for the fans of these franchises. Jon Watts had the uphill task of not only developing his own iteration of Spider-Man but continuing and building upon the previous iterations that are already such recognizable characters in pop culture. Luckily, sources also tell us that the former directors (Raimi and Webb) were consulted during the development of these characters, so at least knowing their vision will be continued as the directors intended should be reassuring for some fans.
What do you think of this rumor? Spider-Man: No Way Home is scheduled to be released in the United States on December 17, 2021, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. The post Rumor: Sam Raimi & Marc Webb Brought In to Consult on Spider-Man 3 appeared first on Bleeding Fool. |
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