Thursday, February 3, 2022

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Star Wars: The Mandalorian’s Luke Skywalker Recast in ‘Book of Boba Fett’

Posted: 03 Feb 2022 09:38 AM PST

 

When Luke Skywalker made his surprising return in this week’s episode of The Book of Boba Fett, the character was still created using a mix of a live-action actor and some CG alterations to make him look like a younger Mark Hamill, who played Luke in six movies between 1977 and 2017.

 

This time around, though, the actual actor on set for the role wasn’t the same guy who wielded Luke’s lightsaber in the season finale of The Mandalorian, setting up the character’s return. Actor and voice artist Graham Hamilton took on the role of Luke’s motion capture character in The Book of Boba Fett, along with some improved de-aging and deepfake technology that makes him look more real. After fans pushed back on the subpar deepfake work done on the Mandalorian, an intrepid and talented YouTuber who goes by the name Shamook did his own version. Lucasfilm was so impressed they hired him, and it appears to have paid off.

 

YouTube Video

 

As for Luke’s stand-in, Hamilton has appeared in NCIS, The Orville, and provided additional voices in The Last of Us Part II. He also provided the voice of an Overseer in two Dishonored games.

 

In The Mandalorian, the body of Luke was played by Max Lloyd-Jones in the episode. Lloyd-Jones, who was responsible for Blue Eyes in War of the Planet of the Apes, has also appeared in a number of TV and film projects, including the 2016 Adventures in Babysitting movie. Ironically, he is credited as playing Lieutenant Reed in The Book of Boba Fett Chapter 5.

 

Luke generated a lot of buzz this time around, getting a chance to do a lot more than he did in The Mandalorian. In addition to sharing the screen with Ahsoka Tano, Luke also told Grogu about Yoda — something that would be fresh in his memory, since this series takes place shortly after the events of The Return of the Jedi.

 

Have you been watching the Book of Boba Fett? What were your thoughts on this episode?

The post Star Wars: The Mandalorian’s Luke Skywalker Recast in ‘Book of Boba Fett’ appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

The 2021 Box Office Post-Mortem: What’s Really to Blame for the Bombs?

Posted: 03 Feb 2022 04:45 AM PST

 

While everyone has been focused on the incredible box office performance of the latest Spider-Man sequel, we have to admit that a lot of movies and franchises put out some real flops in 2021. Studios executives and marketing departments like to blame their box office bombs on the waning pandemic, and while it is true that many cinemagoers were frozen by the fear porn put out every minute by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, and Rolling Stone, quite a few of these flops can't use that excuse.

 

I'm looking at you Matrix Resurrections.

 

It probably didn't help the latest Matrix sequel that it was released day and date in both cinemas and on HBO Max, but when you compare it to the other Matrix films and adjust for inflation, this thing was a flop in any meta timeline. Let’s face it, this movie was terrible, and a mere shadow of its former glory, especially with the abysmal box office, which calls into question why Warner Bros. claims they hope to keep Lana Wachowski on their franchise, particularly after so many of their other franchises released day and date in 2021, such as Looney Tunes, Mortal Kombat, and the Conjuring ended up trouncing Matrix Resurrection‘s numbers.

 

 

Smaller films like King Richard, The Little Things, Malignant, and Cry Macho struggled at the box office as well.  It’s unusual for guys like Denzel Washington, Clint Eastwood, and Will Smith to do as poorly as they did with those movies.  The Saints of Newark also totally underperformed, but rather than pandemic-itis, that movie was just a very, very poor prequel to hit series The Sopranos. But although the movie just sucked, it probably got plenty of people to go watch the original series on HBO, so the studio probably didn't mind. Another cost factor for the studios is the fact that they had to pay out any of their performers that had not originally agreed to same day and date streaming releases in their contracts, so that cost still remains an unknown factor, but it won’t happen this year.

 

Further up the charts is another surprise flop, The Suicide Squad, from James Gunn. The sequel to 2016’s Suicide Squad only brought in around $167 million globally, and just under $56 million domestic. While those numbers might not be considered a "flop" by some, it's less than a fifth of what the original did back 2016, and this was by far a better film. Could it have been suppressed by the day and date streaming release strategy? Moviegoers stayed home because of the pandemic? Or could people be avoiding James Gunn movies after all his gross pedophile jokes? Maybe a combination of all three, it's hard to say, but the movie severely underperformed.

 

 

Perhaps the most shocking flop of 2021 is Steven Spielberg's musical West Side Story which pulled in about $35 million domestically and only $25 million overseas. When you calculate that with a $100 million production budget and an untold amount on marketing, this is a major flop. The director does have a handful of flops in his career, notably the BFG and Amistad, some very solid movies. For this flop, Spielberg didn't help his earnings by deciding not to include subtitles during the Spanish speaking portions of the film. Over 2 billion people speak English making it the most prominently spoken language the planet. There also wasn't a lot of excitement for this remake, and the lead actress has made several controversial comments in the press and on her social media, and the lead actor had been accused of sexual assault. So going into the season, West Side Story had a lot going against it other than just the pandemic. At least it beat In the Heights, which barely made $55m globally. We shouldn't even mention Dear Evan Hansen, which couldn't even shake $20m globally. Musicals overall are generally a tough sell to mainstream audiences.

 

Another noteworthy director also had a notable disappointment in 2021. Nightmare Alley ranks as one of the worst performing films of Guillermo del Toro's career, only pulling in around $14.5 million dollars globally. Other notable director flops include Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho and Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch.

 

I'm not sure how much of an impact the day and date streaming, if at all, if the audience doesn’t see the movie as an “event” . For instance Godzilla versus Kong, or Dune. Those are event movies, the kinds of movies that people insist on seeing in the cinema on the big screen. A sequel to another bad D-listers superhero flick directed by James Gunn is probably only going to inspire a few people to watch from the couch. 

 

And obviously, the entire point of doing a same-day streaming release is to bump up those subscription numbers. 

 

 

When you look at the the HBO Max / HBO subs in 2021, HBO Max had 61 million at the beginning of the year which increased to 73.8 million at the end of the year. That’s a 20% increase. When you compare that to another streaming platform like Disney+ they ended up with 118 million going into 2022. And if you include Disney’s Hulu and ESPN bundle numbers, that subscriber base increases to 179 million.

 

And of course the ‘Goliath’ in the streaming wars is still Netflix, even though they've seen a severe slow down and subscribers. While they still  currently stand at around 220 million subscribers, their stocks have been slipping, along with subscribers.

 

These companies are publicly traded companies, and need to continue to have strong subscriber numbers, to be able to show growth, and looking at the horizon there doesn't seem to be any other avenue for them to grow much more. When was the last time there was a thirty-dollar ‘premier access’ release on Disney+. Clearly that strategy wasn't working.  Not to diminish the amount of profits and revenues that they’re earning even if things don't increase all that much going into the rest of the year. What they need to do is prevent attrition, because subscriber churn is a real thing. 

 

So was it the pandemic? Day and date release strategies? Weak marketing? Behind the scenes controversies? Or just poor quality or unexciting films? These are all important factors to consider.

 

Did I miss anything? Are there any films coming out this year that you think we're going to flop? Sound off in the comments below

 

Numbers via Box Office Mojo

The post The 2021 Box Office Post-Mortem: What’s Really to Blame for the Bombs? appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

Comic Book Continuity, Timelines, and Verisimilitude

Posted: 02 Feb 2022 03:55 PM PST

NOTE: While I didn't mention it at the beginning of my first post, I want to make something clear about my posts on comic books: I do not strive to be either academically rigorous nor authoritative in my analysis. Other authors have spent a great deal of time interviewing the principle actors and performing rigorous historical research. I lean heavily on those individuals who did the heavy lifting on this topic. My posts are meant to review some results of these researchers' data and findings, as well as examining other artifacts of comic book history, to attempt to find general or overarching patterns that may inform and guide current and future creators of comics. References to the sources I use will be provided at the bottom of this and future blog posts.

 

 

How do we get comics get into our hands?

These are a few brief opening thoughts on comic book distribution. I will return to the topic in a later post. Much like Pulp Magazines, comic books started out their existence as print matter distributed by the same or similar organizations that distributed other magazines and periodicals. From 1937 to 1978, the Newsstand Model was the only way other than mail-order subscription that comics could be obtained, which was no different than the Pulp Magazine distribution model of the previous era. Comics were generally not well regarded by distributors due to their low profit margin (comics were priced at 10 cents per issue from 1937 to about 1960) and high return rate.

 

"Return rate"? What ever do you mean by "return rate"?

 

Return rate was the fraction of the total print run that was returned to the distributor by the retailers. Newsstand distribution in the years before the 1990s was based on a model of 'pay for what you eat'. As an example, consider a retailer who orders 20 copies of Whiz Comics #25 from the distributor and places them on display until the pull date when they are supposed to go off sale and be removed from the rack. Over the course of 30 on-sale days, the retailer sells 17 copies of the comic book, then pulls the remaining three from the stand, likely to replace it with some number of Whiz Comics #26. The three remainder copies would be sent back to the distributor for a full or partial credit that could be applied to a future order. The return rate in this case would be 15%. See this Comichron page for an example of a Postal Service 'Statement of Ownership' and the yearly return rates versus actual sales.

 

 

Over time, rather than shipping back the entire book, the retailers were allowed to deface the cover and return proof of this action to the distributor. This usually entailed tearing off the top third or so of the front cover with the title and masthead, then returning these portions. While the retailers were supposed to dispose of the periodical after the book was defaced, it was not uncommon that these defaced copies would be quietly sold for half price or given away to customers. High return rates meant lower profits for both distributor and publishers.

 

Both newsstand distributors and comic book publishers were anxious to find another method of distributing comics during the Superhero heydays of the 1960s and early 1970s.

 

A brief aside: who were these retailers? Local comic shops? In the period between 1937 and the 1960s, exclusive comic book dealers were rarely found, and if found, they would likely not be outside a major metropolitan area. Newsstands were more common, but even they were not common outside heavily urbanized areas. The retailers of concern were located in urban, suburban, and rural areas: drug stores/soda shops, grocery stores, Five & Dime stores (such as Ben Franklin), gift shops, book stores, restaurants, convenience stores, and toy stores. Most any shop willing to devote about four square feet to a spinner rack and sign up with a newsstand/periodical distributor could have comic books.

 

 

These spinners or magazine racks were almost as common as paperback spinners, and served the same purpose: to catch the attention of customers browsing the store, or to occupy the attention of those accompanying the shopper. Often these tag-alongs to the shopper would be children. Many introductions to the comic book as an entertainment art form were made waiting for mom to finish the grocery shopping or while picking up that prescription at the drug store.

 

Direct-sale market proposals for comic books were considered, and a method acceptable to retailers was chosen in 1977/78, leading to a dual distribution transition period. Comics books were marketed to retailers by both newsstands and direct-market distributors for a period until about 1987 when the transition was essentially completed. After this point, direct-market distribution was almost exclusively to local comic stores that had grown up while the transition occurred.

 

Over the next decades, subscription services for comics would also vanish, leaving the local comic store as essentially the only game in town for comic book sales. Two significant changes resulted from direct-sales distribution: no returns ("eat all you take"), and potential minimum order numbers of selected issues ("take all we want you to eat"). While good for distributors and publishers, these conditions would become a point of contention over time for both comic stores and their customers. These changes also made tracking the actual sales numbers of titles much more difficult, as distributors often didn't release those data to the public.

 

The question I will leave at the end of this brief introduction to distribution of comic books is: who services the comic book readers in rural and small suburban areas that aren't large enough to support a comic book store? Do hard copy readers even exist in these locales in the 21st Century?

 

 

Local comic shops (in my admittedly limited experience with only several dozen) don't often appear in areas with populations under about 30,000 people. Few retailers of the newsstand method mentioned above chose to keep comics in their establishments with the overhead of using a second distributor for low-volume, no-return, low-margin profit items such as comic books. Comic books vanished from the pre-1978 retailer locations over an 8- to 10-year period. Much like the Thor Power decision, this impacted used book stores that traded in comics, as well as beginning to remove the comic book hordes from rummage and yard sales, swap meets, and other locations where used comics might be found. The old comic book owner was suddenly in the middle of a collectors market.

 

Enough of that discussion for now. It will serve as an opener for a more detailed distribution discussion later.

 

What contributed to making 1960s Marvel Comics a success, and what killed it:
The 1968 Sale.

 

NOTE: I lean heavily on two sources for much of this section. The first is Chris Tolworthy's site, "The Great American Novel", which is a work-in-progress love letter to "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine". While I don't agree with some of Chris' analyses on what Kirby's artwork intends, disagree with his interpretations of the FF saga character-by-character, and believe that the "Stan vs Jack" debate is a false dichotomy, his site provides a wealth of information on the Silver and Bronze Ages of Marvel Comics, as well as some pertinent DC Comics data. The other site of interest is Comichron. It gathers comic book distribution and sales data from the 1960s USPS Statements of Ownership, as well as Direct Market data from distributors (yes, plural–there was once many more of them than just Diamond) to provide rough snapshots of comic sales and popularity year-on-year.

 

The transition for comic book companies out of the Golden Age of Comics was not an easy one for most of the companies that survived the downturn in superhero comics popularity after World War II, the congressional hearings on suitability of comics for children (Fredric Wertham), and their own poor planning for the audiences of the 1950s. Timely/Atlas was the precursor of Marvel Comics and was owned by Martin Goodman. Their superhero titles were pretty much shuttered by 1949 due to falling sales. These cancelled titles include Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Human Torch, and Captain America. Stan Lee was the company's Editor (essentially the Editor-in-Chief), taking over from Joe Simon in 1941 until 1972 when he left that position to take the role of Executive Vice President and Publisher, roles he would hold until 1996.

 

 

But, Stan was more than an editor at Timely/Atlas. He was one of the primary writers for their stable of comics, which included horror, western, romance, mystery, and crime/detective books. Due to the loss of his distributor in 1957, Goodman was forced to cut and drop most of his current titles (see this article for how many books stop at 1957) and sign a contract with National Periodical Publications to distribute Atlas/Marvel comics. If you recall, National was the publisher of Superman, Batman, and other comics that are today known as the DC Comics stable.

 

Yes, that's right. DC Comics (National Periodical Publications) distributed the 1960s Marvel Comics titles that eventually overshadowed their own titles. What a world! What a world! What a world!

 

The agreement did come with restrictions that Goodman could only publish a limited number of titles, which is thought to be one of the reasons that Tales of Suspense hosted both Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish variously paired Ant-Man/Giant-Man & the Wasp, Sub-Mariner, and the Hulk, and Strange Tales had split features of the Human Torch, Doctor Strange, and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. It would also explain why the original book for the Hulk was cancelled after its sixth issue. If it wasn't selling up to par–they needed that space for another title that did!

 

Stan started under the new distribution contract with the at least these titles in his stable:

 

  • Patsy Walker
  • Patsy and Hedy
  • Millie the Model Comics
  • My Own Romance
  • Love Romances/Teen-Age Romance
  • Journey into Mystery
  • Strange Tales
  • The Outlaw Kid
  • Two-Gun Kid
  • Rawhide Kid
  • Kid Colt, Outlaw

 

There may have been more titles that made it into the Marvel Superhero Era beginning in 1961 (I'm still researching that detail), but these 10 were there for certain. However, the biggest bonus Stan had at the time was the group of artists that gravitated to Marvel to work on these books. Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott, Gene Colon, Steve Ditko, George Roussos, Dick Ayers, John Buscema, Paul Reinman, and others who would form the core of the 1960s Marvel Bullpen of artists were among the creators working on these books, then stuck around for the fun later.

 

 

Stan and company saw the success of National Periodical's reboot of The Flash and Green Lantern, and then the rolling these two heroes plus Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter into the Justice League of America in early 1960, courtesy of Gardner Fox. Lee and Kirby's first foray into superheroes would be the Fantastic Four in November 1961, followed by introductions of Ant-Man, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Thor in 1962.

 

I'm not going to recap the Marvel Superhero play-by-play. Been done elsewhere, and likely done better than I could. What I do want to point out are Stan's writing and editorial responsibilities under Marvel from 1961 through mid-1972 when he left the Editor-in-Chief job to become Marvel's Publisher. He was not coasting, as some might think.

 

This image shows Stan's responsibilities from this period. Click the image to scroll around–it's a large image. The light blue areas are those titles that Stan was credited with writing. Stan may have had other people editing in the mid- to late-60s, but that is uncredited if he did. Therefore, Stan is assumed, by me at least, to be the sole editor from 1961 through 1972 when he left that position.

 

Current counts on the image to the left (click for larger view) for all years in January (except November 1961 / Fantastic Four #1) indicate that Stan was responsible for and credited with writing and editing the following number of titles PER MONTH at Marvel Comics (data from the Grand Comics Database):

Nov 1961 – 11 titles*
Jan 1962 – 12 titles*
Jan 1963 – 14 titles*
Jan 1964 – 17 titles*
Jan 1965 – 19 titles*
Jan 1966 – 14 titles + 3 editing
Jan 1967 – 9 titles + 9 editing
Jan 1968 – 7 titles + 11 editing
Jan 1969 – 6 titles + 14 editing
Jan 1970 – 5 titles + 15 editing
Jan 1971 – 4 titles + 14 editing
Jan 1972 – 2 titles + 9 editing

* Monster/SF stories in Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, Strange Tales may also be done by Stan.

 

Yes, Stan had other writers for some of this period, but GCD data is designed to accurately reflect credits as listed in each of these books. GCD also reflects those other writers' work as Stan steps away as writer through the 1960s. Some of the titles were staggered bi-monthly, so that provided some breathing space, but Stan held responsibility for the book month-to-month. Can credits be fudged? Sure. But, we will run with the info as given in the books and collected by GCD. Imagine that workload every month for twelve years. If this is accurate, then I am surprised Stan and the Marvel Bullpen survived it, even though there were 27 titles at Atlas/Timely before the 1957 distributor loss.

 

As I stated above, I believe the "Stan vs Jack" debate is based on a false dichotomy. Did Kirby and Ditko create plots and characters apart from Stan Lee input? Probably so. Was Stan only providing dialog for many titles, not full plot and scripts? Not a doubt in my mind. Did credit for some activities get mis-attributed over time and due to faulty recollections (and owner and executive-level shenanigans)? Can't believe that it didn't.

 

But, nothing may have come of the Marvel Universe if this team had not come together. The creative engines of Kirby, Ditko, Heck, and other artists in the Marvel Bullpen generated the art, some of the plots, co-created characters, and crafted events, while Lee crafted the dialog and overall story continuity that held the whole together with common threads and events. Pull away one or two of this cadre, and Marvel might have gone the route of a failed experiment.

 

What this insane writing and editing method created was internal consistency and continuity over the whole of the superhero line through the 1961 to 1968 period.

 

 

As Chris mentions in his discussion on Continuity, the concept of continuity need not fetter creative writers or artists, any more than pointing out that Ben Grimm doesn't wear a cape. There are rules and history to comic book characters in the 1960s Marvel Universe that give it something that Edmond Hamilton and Gardner Fox were slowly working toward with the Superman Family, Krypton History, the Legion of Superheroes, the Justice League of America, and the reboots of Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and Atom–namely filling out a history for characters that had only been portrayed as having unconnected adventures and disconnected timelines from those events.

 

Specifically, 1960s Marvel provided verisimilitude and continuity to characters, allowing characters to experience consequences that mattered to the story, and thus to the readers. When Sue and Johnny's father died in Fantastic Four Issue 32, it was a permanent change for them and the rest of the team. When the Thing crushed Doctor Doom's hands in Issue 40, it was a driver for Doom's revenge twenty issues later in Issue 60 — there was memory of the insult and damage, the thirst for Doom's revenge upon the Thing, creating an element of verisimilitude for the readers. This is how readers expected the arrogant Victor von Doom would behave–it made sense and it felt "real" to them.

 

Chris' page on "How to Make Great Comics" highlights this formula, but I believe that Chris, Stan Lee, and Jack Kirby were on the wrong track by calling it "Realism". I believe the word they wanted was "Verisimilitude"–it needs to feel or appear real enough to generate belief. It does not necessarily need to be "real", but rather "real enough". The scientific jargon Reed Richards uses doesn't have to come from a real-world physics text, but it needs to be believable enough to the reader to give that impression to the story. The verisimilitude benefits from continuity and is reinforced by it. Discontinuity tends to pull the reader out of the story.

 

 

What is clear is that when Marvel was sold in 1968, the bonds of continuity and verisimilitude were being damaged and ultimately removed. With that removal, the quality of the books began to suffer. Under the sale, Marvel was no longer under the agreement with National Periodicals to limit the number of its titles, and that number almost doubled in two years. But, the creative engines that built the 1967 Marvel were leaving or had left. Working within those externally imposed limits may have also contributed to the 1960s Marvel's sharp writing, tight pacing, and innovative art. The quality of the books declined rapidly with the onset of the 1970s, and this was quickly seen in the sales.

 

I re-created the graph that is on Chris's page discussing the Marvel Universe and how it lost its way. My version removes some of the sharp peaks and adds a few real-world events against the sales curve. Note that the Marvel upward peak in 1977 is likely from Roy Thomas convincing Marvel senior leadership to allow him to create a 6-issue mini-series of the new movie Star Wars, which is credited with saving the company from bankruptcy.

 

 

That 1968 sale and the change in the fortunes of Marvel are well-aligned, though not causally linked via this data. So we have correlation vs causation event here — but correlation is strongly predictive. Stan brought over 35 years of experience managing creative teams and writing dialog for comics to the fore for Marvel's success. Notice how many people attempted to assume the Editor-in-Chief role after Stan left it, and were only in the job a year or two. It was not until Jim Shooter took the Editor-in-Chief position that Marvel's sales fortunes began to turn around. Shooter demanded hewing to a universal continuity for Marvel. Though the creative talent chafed against it, sales improved throughout Shooter's tenure, and declined after his departure.

 

 

It is worth observing that the two Editors-in-Chief who practiced or demanded continuity were the most successful in financial benefit to the company.

 

Chris has several pages on his site under the headings "Marvel Comics" and "What Went Wrong". These are all worth your time to read if you are interested in how Marvel Comics lost its way, partially recovered under Jim Shooter, then resumed its downward decline with DC Comics.

 

What conclusions can we draw from this information?

History should be a good teacher when it comes to running a business in a specific sector. Look for mistakes that others make, and learn from them, rather than making the mistake yourself. Based on the following examples, I'd guess that business leaders just don't learn without a solid PowerPoint summary slide.

 

In the early 1940s, Lev Gleason Publications was waxing poetic on the competition with only four published comic books in their stable — Silver Streak Comics, Daredevil Comics, Crime Does Not Pay, and Boy Comics (starring Crimebuster), and featuring art by the stellar Charles Biro. In 1948-1949, the publisher was smelling money and chose to more than double their line in that period. The company talent couldn't keep up with the pace and quality suffered. Gleason went out of business in 1956.

 

Over a three month period in 1975, DC Comics launched the "DC Explosion", releasing 57 new titles into their stable. This was during the 1973-1976 comic book downturn. Economics forced DC to reverse their decision in 1978, resulting the "DC Implosion", where the leadership chose to cancel 40% of their entire line. Cancellations were made before many story lines in the titles were concluded, further angering readers who had stuck with the company through this period.

 

A third example was Martin Goodman's Seaboard Publications' Atlas Comics. Formed by Goodman after his sale of Marvel Comics in 1968, Atlas Comics began releasing a flood of titles in mid-1974, including 5 magazine titles and 23 comic book titles. Even though some well-known and regarded creators worked on these books, creative teams were swapped out at the issue 2 or 3 mark, characters were redesigned and renamed mid-storyline, and no connectivity between titles existed. No book made it past issue 4, and the company shuttered in late-1975.

 

Post-1968 Marvel is a similar case of assuming your resources are expandable without sacrificing quality. Typical 'suit' move. And this would not be the last time this would be tried. Both Marvel and DC have difficulty with 'lessons learned'.

 

A number of points for consideration are raised by Chris in his analyses of what made Marvel great and the cost of comics, and they deserve your attention and time to read.

 

 

These points stand out for me:

(1) Don't make Stan's cardinal mistake of Post-1968 Marvel ("Fans don't want change; they want the illusion of change.") No. Your audience wants meaningful change, change that matters, and change that impacts the story. They want verisimilitude with their story, and continuity aids that verisimilitude. Don't be afraid to set out some basic rails that bound your story, your characters, and your book. Continuity is appreciated by the audience. Continuity is not your enemy.

 

(2) Quality is vitally important with verisimilitude and continuity. Quantity may have a quality all it's own, but in comics all that means is that you may be creating fireplace kindling rather than audience entertainment. That doesn't mean that all your art must be at the level of Alex Toth, or that your script features award-winning prose every time. You cannot gloss over the need for your best effort in your work. Producing more books or titles probably will not cover over your unwillingness to deliver quality. In fact, there is strong evidence that ignoring quality for quantity may destroy you in short order.

 

(3) Listen for, ask for, and act on quality feedback. Your customers may not always be right, but you'd better understand what they are saying and why. Your artistic muse needs to be balanced with what the audience wants for its entertainment. None of this means compromising your morals or ethics. As modern comic stories have demonstrated, retrofitting popular characters, or killing off then resurrecting characters repeatedly, then putting those scenarios on reset-and-replay, probably will create some heartburn with a significant portion of your audience. And, you may never know it because the majority will likely just walk away and not come back to tell you.

 

That's it for now. More on distribution next time.

 

Background Links.
Kleefeld on Comics – Sales Figures
Charles Biro
Progress and Process, Part 1
Progress and Process, Part 2
Comic Book Prices versus Minimum Wage
Grand Comics Database
The Cover Browser
The Comichron
Chris Tolworthy's 'The Great American Novel'

The post Comic Book Continuity, Timelines, and Verisimilitude appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

Peak Trek: Paramount+ Threatens Star Trek Fans with Even More Shows

Posted: 02 Feb 2022 01:15 PM PST

 

 

Paramount Plus is currently the home of five different "Star Trek" Universe TV series — "Discovery," "Picard," "Strange New Worlds," "Prodigy" and "Lower Decks" — but its programming chiefs don't believe the streamer has hit that Peak Trek threshold yet, with its Michelle Yeoh-led "Section 31" in the works and potentially other projects.

 

"Yes, we are still in development on 'Section 31,' so there will be more news on that soon," Nicole Clemens, president of original scripted series at Paramount Plus, told reporters during an executive session alongside chief programming officer Tanya Giles at the Television Critics Association's press tour Tuesday. "And two, the question about 'critical mass' on 'Star Trek,' I think we have some fantastic offerings in our always on slate," in reference to "Star Trek" shows lined up back-to-back on the Paramount Plus rollout schedule.

 

 

Clemens added: "And I think you may see a few more very curated additions coming."

 

I wonder if Gene Roddenberry would be as positive about these developments?

 

YouTube Video

 

Back in February, Paramount Plus' "Star Trek" universe chief Alex Kurtzman and then-Paramount Plus exec Julie McNamara told Variety there are still "conversations" about a new "Star Trek" series around Yeoh's Philippa Georgiou and the mysterious "Section 31," and there are other "Trek" shows in development that haven't been previously announced. But they emphasized that the current five-series slate will likely not expand further until at least one of the shows runs its course.

 

Do we really need anymore of Kurtzman’s version of Trek? This fellow doesn’t think so. Do you agree?

 

YouTube Video

 

Doesn’t matter what the fans think, Alex Kurtzman recently inked a nine-figure deal with CBS Studios, and will therefore be the captain of the ‘Star Trek’ franchise for the studio and ViacomCBS through at least 2026.

The post Peak Trek: Paramount+ Threatens Star Trek Fans with Even More Shows appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

Indie Comics Showcase #166: Partizan – Supervillain Assistant

Posted: 02 Feb 2022 11:00 AM PST

 

 

Welcome back to another installment of Indie Comics Showcase, the weekly blog where we try to signal boost truly independent comics that are currently crowdfunding their projects, crowdsourcing their funding in some way, or just completely self-publishing on their own without the benefit of an established publisher. 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 one of their books, 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 another outstanding selection to feature this week for you to learn about, enjoy, and hopefully support by backing one or more of them! Thanks for being the best part of Indie Comics Showcase. Let's jump in!

 

PARIZAN
by Dennis Liu

 

Check out Partizan here!

 

Chris Braly: Tell our readers your elevator pitch for Paritzan!

Dennis Liu: I always thought Jafar's Iago, Gaston's Lefou, and Hydra's Henchmen were vastly underrated. They do so much to help their bosses, right? Like in Aladdin, would Jafar get genie’s lamp if it weren’t for Iago?? That sort of thing happens all the time in films – the overlooked second in command. So that’s where this story comes in — PARTIZAN — an Asian American supervillain series, told from the point of view of a villain’s assistant. 

I love writing comics from a diverse and side character's point of view. Partizan recognizes the power assistants have in organizations. Often passed over and underestimated, smart assistants are sometimes the most informed players in a company. So this is the story about JUSTIN JIN, the younger brother and assistant of a terrorist supervillain TAIHEI. Since Justin's so good at his assistant job, his family assigns him to become a corporate spy, and things get complicated when he falls in love with his brother's newest enemy, CEREUS. Justin is conflicted with pursuing the love of his life, while carrying out his brother and family's commands to kill her. It makes for great drama, and a really cool comic. 

 

 

CB: Cool concept! It sort of reminds me a bit of Superior Foes of Spider-Man by Nick Spencer. What was the genesis for your project?

DL:  I still think we have a long way to go with Asian American representation in comics. Historically in film and media, we've been seen as "villains." In boardrooms and in corporate America, we’re often overlooked for leadership positions and are dubbed second in command. There’s many papers written about it – it’s called the bamboo ceiling – the processes and barriers that serve to exclude Asians and Asian-Americans from executive positions on the basis of subjective factors such as “lack of leadership potential” and “lack of communication skills.” There's a lot of “Asian Hate” going on out there since the pandemic began … and I wanted to challenge the idea of what a villain is.

 

This story touches a little bit about Japanese Internment camps and The Chinese Exclusion Act — these are things that actually happened. Obviously this is a fictional story, with superpowers and what not, but character motivations are based on things that really happened in US history.  I also love that this story explores farming as a major story point. I don't think sci-fi has talked much about vertical farming and the advances in GMO and genetic engineering.   Drones are dispersing pesticides, robots are harvesting our crops – I think how food goes from farm to table is fascinating and changing rapidly. 

 

CB: Fascinating! What made you decide to self-publish?

DL: Kurt and I self-published because we got tired of waiting for publishers to get back to us. I think the tools are there to do great work, and you can go to market faster with your ideas. I'm tired of waiting for a yes. That being said, it's an extremely crowded marketplace and you really have to have innovative work to stand out, and  That goes for the major publishers too. We're all in the same fight for time and space for our audience.

 

CB: Good for you! So what kind of comic fans are you aiming for, or rather who do you expect this comic will entertain the most?

DL: I think anyone who's felt overlooked will love this story. Of course it's Asian American, but this is a story about what it's like to have a demanding boss. I hope other indie authors and fans look at me as someone who just keeps putting out content and it will work out. I mean RAISING DION started as an indie comic,  And Netflix took it straight to series. So it's possible. But I think you need great art, a great story design, and a kick ass short film doesn't hurt either. 

 

 

CB: Let’s get into the creative and production side a little. Tell us a bit about your creative team that have contributed to this project?

DL:  Like in my films, it's important to have diversity both in front of and behind the camera. Kurt Chang illustrated these beautiful pages.  We would just do weekly calls and work on it. People don't realize how long it takes to write even a 28 page book. Not only that, but the story has to make sense, with good hooks and turns.  I think it took us like a year. It's crazy. I think each one of my indie books took a year. The story design takes a lot longer than people think. And the art of course, man  That's really hard work too. Kurt is a saint. He does my storyboards for my films and commercials too, so we have a little bit of shorthand, which helps.  And he always picks up the phone no matter when I call. I wish all artists did that. That’s a plus!

 


 

CB: Great sidekick. So how does this arrangement impact your workflow?

DL:  I write the comic and the panel instructions. I treat the first issue like a pilot of a tv show. I pick the wardrobe, I cast it, I pick the locations, and I pull tons of references. And Kurt goes off and draws it. I write character bios for everyone and try to design compelling conflicts between all the characters. I do a lot of research. So I did a deep dive in what I'm writing about. 

For RAISING DION, I interviewed many African American single mothers. People sometimes wonder how a Taiwanese American dude wrote about an African American single mom, and I think it's empathy, reading, and research. For PARTIZAN I read a lot about farming. Some of the genetics research on Raising Dion spilled over so that was useful. I think pencils are really important so you don't make changes too late in the game. Get it all right early. 

 
CB: What is your purpose for telling this story and what are your plans beyond this book? Are there more stories to tell?

DL:  We have a much longer series run. I'd like to do more! We’ve had an offer, which was exciting but it didn’t work out due to scheduling.  But there’s some great inherent conflict and storytelling here; I love watching characters squirm under immense pressure and challenges and I think moving forward it's going to be fun seeing Justin juggle his family life and his life love and his work life. 

 

CB: What have you been learning from indie publishing and comics creation through this process?

DL:  Indie comics are challenging. I just love doing it. It's like writing and directing music videos; I spent my 20s doing that, and it probably wasn't the most lucrative thing, but it was so much fun.  I think marketing in indie comics is important. Blogs that support indie artists like Bleeding Fool is dope. We need more of that. 

A lot of blogs are taking press releases from major media companies and are just publishing those instead of doing actual journalism. I've noticed that with streaming networks gaining more power — there’s been a bit of laziness with journalists. Where is the effort? Honestly — is that what running a good blog is? Just having PR contacts and publishing whatever they send? There's all these complaints of a bottleneck of content coming from the major networks and studios — and we need better non advertising centered blogs to do good work and find the great indie gems out there. Blogs should not be run on clicks but they are slowly becoming all about that because of advertising. So I really appreciate Bleeding Fool still featuring projects like this. Because I know we need to diversify the content that’s being made out there or newer artists will never make it. 

 

 

CB: Thanks Dennis. I’ve enjoyed the discussion. So how can readers grab a copy? I see you have digital books available. Will there be any physical copies available?

DL:  Right now we’re just digital, but hopefully we can move to tangible copies soon. Readers can grab a copy at my website: dennis-liu.com.

 

CB: Thanks for chatting with me, Dennis! Best of luck with Partizan!

DL:  Thanks so much!

 

Check out Partizan here!

 

That’s it for this week’s installment. Support indie comics!

 

 

Follow Indie Comics Showcase on Twitter at @Indie_Comics and reach out to them if you want us to consider featuring YOUR crowdfunding comic project! Or just drop us a line at contact@bleedingfool.com and request an interview for your indie comic.

 

The post Indie Comics Showcase #166: Partizan – Supervillain Assistant appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

Scream 5 Manages to Slash Its Way Through $100M Globally

Posted: 02 Feb 2022 08:25 AM PST

 

Besides  Spider-Man: No Way Home, Scream was the only other film in the month of January that kept the box office from freezing over and, in its third weekend of release, this fifth installment of the famous slasher series crossed the $100 million mark worldwide, Collider reports.

After a very successful opening weekend which saw Scream make over $30 million, the horror sequel managed to make another $7.35 million in its third weekend which was only a 40% drop from its second weekend gross of 12.4 million. This brings its domestic total up to $62.13 million. On top of that, it also made $6.5 million internationally this weekend bringing its foreign box office up to $44.1 million. Add both totals together, and you cross the $100 million mark at roughly $106 million.

The fifth Scream movie has passed Scream 4's entire worldwide box office run which made only $97 million. The $62 million is already way past the fourth film's domestic total of $38 million, almost doubling it, and it is also supported by the fact that the new Scream's reported budget was almost $20 million less than Scream 4's $40 million budget at $24 million. This more than likely means a sixth Scream film is on the way. Hopefully it will improve upon this sequel.

Scream 5 is playing in theaters now.

The post Scream 5 Manages to Slash Its Way Through $100M Globally appeared first on Bleeding Fool.

TKO Studios Announces Distribution Deal with Simon & Schuster

Posted: 02 Feb 2022 06:15 AM PST

 

Upstart indie comics publisher TKO Studios has announced a distribution agreement with Simon & Schuster, Inc. to manage worldwide trade book sales and retail distribution for the publisher's catalog effective February 1, 2022.

 

TKO Studios publishes comics, graphic novels, and literature by a critically acclaimed array of creators, authors, and artists. Notable TKO titles include DJELIYA, by Juni Ba, THE BANKS by N.Y. Times bestseller Roxane Gay (Hunger, Bad Feminist) and Ming Doyle (The Kitchen), the Eisner Award-nominated SENTIENT by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Gabriel Walta (Vision), SARA by Garth Ennis (Preacher, The Boys) and Steve Epting (Captain America: Winter Soldier), GRAVENEYE by Sloane Leong and Anna Bowles, as well as the upcoming illustrated novellas, BROOD X, by Eisner nominee Joshua Dysart with M.K. Perker, and ONE EYE OPEN, by N.Y. Times bestselling author Alex Grecian (The Yard) with Andrea Mutti. Both titles are scheduled for print and digital release under the new TKO Rogue literary imprint on March 11th.

 

"We're excited for this partnership with Simon & Schuster to dramatically expand the reach of our extensive, bestselling catalog and bring TKO titles to the attention of an even wider range of retailers and fans around the world," says Tze Chun, TKO Studios President and Co-founder.

 

"We are delighted to welcome TKO Studios to our family of distribution clients," said Michael Perlman, Vice President, General Manager of Simon & Schuster Publisher Services. "We look forward to working together to take their business to new levels."

The post TKO Studios Announces Distribution Deal with Simon & Schuster appeared first on Bleeding Fool.
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