Born to a destitute existence,
J.Hues quickly rose to the prominent level of uncomfortably poor. His real name
is shrouded in secrecy but if you ask him he might tell you it's Jason Hughes
(Dammit!).
Nothing much happened until he
graduated from college with a completely useless degree in English, and then...
nothing much continued to happen. Subsequently, J.Hues found himself working
at a toy store. Later, through some strange accident he fell sideways into the
IT field and has been trapped there ever since.
To keep his sanity, he writes:
novels, poems, comics, grocery lists, checks (too many checks), fake doctor's
notes... Maybe someday he'll get paid for all this.
A genius in his own mind, J.Hues
uses various grammatical no-nos to mask his complete and total inability to
craft a single genuine or unique idea. He's never happy unless he is blathering
on with his own obnoxious opinions and ideas. Wait, are you still reading this?
Read the damn column already!
“If I had X-Ray vision, I’d probably never get around to saving anyone, but I would be checking YOU out.” --mankind (deep down inside)
ROUND 1
Are You Hot? The Search For America’s Sexiest Fanboy! Tell me you wouldn’t love to see those doughy couch potatoes strutting their all in speedos for the judges.
Pointless judge one: I like the contours of your ponch there. The man breasts are well proportioned and appear to be equal in size. No, I’m serious this is an important thing, most women can’t even claim that. I give you a .4 for your face. Buddy if you would just smear some of that grease off I might be able to see the face. The reflection from the lights hitting that is downright blinding.
Pointless judge two: (Pointing with a laser light at the speedo). You should be thankful that your gut covers most of that. And what’s with this superman S-logo tattoo on your bicep? With thorns. Do you think thorns make a Superman logo cool?
Pointless judge three (female AND British): I think you’re charming in a totally harmless way. Give us a spin and let us see your backside.
At this point, the contestant (registrant name Bruce Banner) attempts to turn but slips in the pool of sweat that has spilled around him because some hot chick is talking to him…
And that’s just the beginning folks! If comics are to take on the mainstream in any real sense, then we really need to buck the negative stereotypes of comics FANS. I saw a commercial for some product, I can’t remember it and wouldn’t endorse it if I could, that continued to poke fun at the comic fan. It started with a lottery commercial where the premise is… ‘What are your lucky numbers?’ for a Pick 3 type of lottery.
They show a series of 3 digit numbers and explain what they are, as if these are the numbers you would choose. One had ‘789’ (number of comics in collection) followed up with ‘000’ (number of dates). This is offensive to the industry and reaches a huge television watching audience.
The latest commercial was a take on fantasy women (who would actually support the stupid and immature things that guys like—the point being that this would NEVER happen and these things are perpetually UNcool). At one point, a gorgeous woman says, ‘Oh what a coincidence, I collect comic books too.’ The moral of that story is that NO ONE who collects comics will ever have a chance to score with a hot chick. Of course, WE all know that’s not true, but apparently the world at large doesn’t. And in fact they think it’s a funny enough thing to say that not only are advertising firms coming up with different ways to say it, but corporations are so enamored with the power of these stereotypes that they are willing to use them to represent themselves, their companies and their products! That my friends is a major uphill battle to fight, and one that can’t be fought or won here, in comic shops, in Wizard or any other place comic fans are. It needs to be fought on the outside.
And it would be as simple as someone like Brad Pitt saying in public, yeah I collect comics. Man, I think The Ultimates is awesome right now. Someone with influence and ‘cool’ factor standing up and saying with pride that comics is a legitimate entertainment form and not one that must come with shame and embarrassment as if it were pornography.
ROUND 2
Tobey Maguire may be sidelined from Spider-Man 2 and they may have to recast the role. I bet Nicolas Cage will be vying for it.
ROUND 3
I’m really getting psyched about what’s going on in Soldier X and Agent X. What? Cancelled? Crap. Well, at least Vertigo is keeping to their guns with the unique voice of American Century and the perennial Hunter series. It’s like nothing could ever-- Huh? Well, really? At least books that are targeting a new and unique audience like Spider-Girl are – well dammit!
Has anyone else noticed that the books that get cancelled at Marvel are the unique books that have a different take on the standard superhero crap.
Spider-Girl - a book that was targeted to the elusive young female audience. And yet, we know that this audience is reading Tokyopop manga collections (in the smaller size). So how many of these collections has Marvel made for SG to put in B&N and Borders and wherever else? What? None! And there’s been one (two at the most) collections at all of this series). Look, we know that young girls aren’t going out of their way to find comics shops so shouldn’t we be going out of our way to get a book targeted to them to the shops they do go to. Like the mall? Marvel could’ve made back the money they’re losing on the monthly version (imagine the sales when the movie came out had their been five or six cheap trades out in the bookstores) and then directed fans of the collections to comic shops for the latest adventures. It’s so simple and brilliant that no one will ever come up with it. That’s why you dearies have me!
And I don’t know about you, but I think it a little less than coincidental that we stand on the brink of a potentially devastating world war just as DC is pulling the axe on American Century. I guess Paul Levitz decided that he didn’t want to read it anymore and that was it. It went from five copies to four copies sold (one for each of the creators involved) and as we all know FIVE is the least number of copies a Vertigo comic can sell to be considered viable. However, if it were collected into trade collections and sold that way, as some issues have been I believe, then it will stand a greater chance of success.
Here’s the deal of this kids. Superhero comics that go on and on forever and ever a la Superman and X-Men are well tailored for the monthly format. Nothing else really is. Everything else is designed for collections and reads better that way. It’s a 100% guarantee, and I don’t make those lightly. I mean I 100% guaranteed my fiancé that RWTP would make us millionaires within two months and that didn’t happen but I blame the Big Kahuna for that. If he’d only MARKETED the thing better then I would have supplanted Stephen King as the #1 all time forever and ever lord of all media writer by now. Bastard.
On another note, remember when DC upped the prices of several of their books to $2.75 and now only Hellblazer and The Power Company remain of those books. Well, Marvel recently upped the price of several of their books (as in VERY recently) and already THREE of those books are set to bite the bullet, with plenty more coming if you can see the writing on the wall (and it’s in neon colors twenty feet tall for some titles). So it is safe for me to say that no matter what the companies say, when the prices are jacked up on a select number of books you can start planning your budget for the cancellation of those books.
I miss Azrael. And Young Justice. And The Spectre. And The Titans. And Codename: Knockout. And Hunter: The Age of Magic. And American Century. And Agent X. And Soldier X. And Spider-Girl. And… who’s next?
But most of all, I miss you Lab Rats. Hey DC, where’s my Lab Rats Archives Vol. 1!
ROUND 4
So CrossGen claims they’re the fourth biggest publisher in the industry now (presumably bumping ahead of Dark Horse). What the hell does it take for them to move to the front of the bus in Previews? They’re slated to be still in the ‘ghetto’ of small publishers in the next installment. One would presume it’s only a matter of time. I’m surprised, quite frankly, that Geppi hasn’t made the announcement that due to the acquisition of the Disney license, Gemstone Publishing will be upgraded to ‘Executive Status.’ This puts them in front of the ‘Premier Publishers’ and in fact gives them four pages per product to promote themselves. To make room for the extra pages, all publishers in the back of the catalogue will be limited now to their title and six words of solicitation information to promote their products. Further, they must sell in excess of 20,000 copies to retain their status in the catalogue… and oh yeah, no more cover images. Or ads. Space is limited and Marvel wants to be able to get a page for EACH comic. No more sharing of up to (GASP) four comics on one page.
Should be good. This has a ‘I give it three more months tops and CGE will be sitting atop the catalogue unless the other four come up with some spin-logic reason that alphabetizing is no longer a good idea… maybe Marvel will say it should be reverse alphabetical so they can be first (no pun intended)’ value of eight sigils!
ROUND 5
Semic is set to publish an all-new Spawn tale in French. Apparently this came about when Todd McFarlane called them up to ask about possible publishing ventures and in a moment of panic they surrendered to him.
ROUND 6
Marvel, proving that they have no respect for the long history of their characters, and also that (contradictorilarily – is that even a word?) they respect the long history of SOME of their characters, have unceremoniously canceled Wolveine to replace it the following month with Wolverine. No word yet on whether the double-numbering will apply.
My question is… what the hell kind of logic are they using here? Do they think a new #1 will boost sales of Wolverine’s book; itself already one of their top books? And why arbitrarily reboot a title for no real reason in this instance? Nothing about it really changes. Thunderbolts is now NOTHING like it was, the only thing the same is the title of the book, and yet it retained it’s numbering? Why? When X-Force became something else entirely, it retained it’s numbering. And yet, Wolverine is only getting some new creators, nothing else is changing and it gets a new #1, making Uncanny X-Men from pre-‘90s in the Marvel stable to retain it’s original numbering. How long will that last I wonder? And they better watch out, because New X-Men is the only one with numbering over 100 for now but those damned ‘Heroes Reborn’ reboots are zeroing in on it!!!
Wouldn’t want fans to think there was some history and continuity and publishing stability here.
Bill should call up Steve about Walt Disney’s Comic & Stories and tell him that it’s a bad idea to pick up the original numbering, even if it will make it one of the three highest American published comics (in terms of issue numbers) currently in publication (and in fact ever, I think—if we don’t count Four Color). They should reboot it with a new #1 and a new Ultimate Disney attitude.
They could have Mickey bitch-slap Minnie in the first issue and then the next four chronicle Navy SEAL Donald Duck tracking him down to lay a royal ass-whoopin’ on him. And when Donald loses his temper, the blood starts to fly! And then in a month or so, do the obligatory Witchblade crossover where Daisy Duck becomes the next wielder and takes on Pegleg Pete.
I can’t wait for the gold variant foil embossed nude variant! Polybagged with an exclusive Plutomon trading card!
K.O.
disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this column don’t necessarily represent those expressed by any sane and rational adult; they barely represent the views of the author and they barely resemble coherency as it is; nevertheless this column is chock full of satire and parody (as protected by laws protecting such things) and as such don’t sue me. look at it this way, this is all for fun, don’t believe a word of it (even if it is true), don’t take it too seriously, and if you do take it, take it all with a grain of salt—better yet have the truck back up to your house.
