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Jason Fliegel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 December 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 639
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | 1
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Every time you go to a website and see a post from someone bitching about MAN OF STEEL, or the Clone Saga, or the Death of Phoenix -- or, for that matter, even just discussing these twenty and thirty year old stories -- you see how inbred fandom has become.
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Or how much comics history is now in print. Some of my favorite comics are Eisner's Spirit, Cole's Plastic Man, and Drake and Premiani's Doom Patrol. All of that stuff was created years before I was born, and until relatively recently, was almost completely inaccessible to me. Now, it's waiting for me on the shelves of my local library.
So perhaps people are still discussing Man of Steel, the Clone Saga, and the Death of Phoenix because they are still reading Man of Steel, the Clone Saga, and the Death of Phoenix.
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David Whiteley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 2748
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | 2
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Jason, great way to look at it. I don't see anyone getting flack for discussing the Beatles or "Dark Side of the Moon."
I'm sure anyone getting royalties from any reprints of those stories likes the extra bit of cash too :)
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133571
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | 3
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So perhaps people are still discussing Man of Steel, the Clone Saga, and the Death of Phoenix because they are still reading Man of Steel, the Clone Saga, and the Death of Phoenix.••• Undoubtedly some are. But before we start up the Hallelujah Chorus, we must factor in a couple of things. •Many of the names I see attached to the bitching and moaning posts are the same names I saw attached to bitching and moaning letters, twenty and thirty years ago. This is something purely of the internet. That missing editor, who, in the comics, used to print a few letters, a representative selection of good and bad, and then, as the bad dropped off, stop printing any from that segment of fandom, until everyody (or mostly everybody) moved on. On the internet, nobody "moves on". (Look at me bitching about STAR WARS!!) •Many who come new to comics do so thru a miasma of bitching and moaning that is already in place. They cannot get to the work without being told what they should think of it, good or bad. This was one of the bad things about the Shops. On the internet it is magnified to cosmic proportions. So those people might be reading MAN OF STEEL, or the Clone Saga, or the Death of Phoenix as something new to them, but how many have already been infected with the old thinking? Already been told what they should think? •One of the questions I like least, when I see it at the top of a new thread is "Is Thus-and-Such worth getting?" Once upon a time, this question could only be asked of oneself, and it was up to oneself to make the call. Shall I pick up this new book called GREEN LANTERN? I don't know the character. I sort of recognize the artist. 10¢ is a lot of money… Now, ask that question and get 400 posts overselling or shredding the product.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133571
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:11pm | IP Logged | 4
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I'm sure anyone getting royalties from any reprints of those stories likes the extra bit of cash too.••• And the very fact that you can or would make that statement brings us to another place where fandom should not be. I never thought about what Stan and Jack were making off FANTASTIC FOUR. It was not even remotely a part of my interest, of why I was reading the comics.
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David Whiteley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 2748
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:14pm | IP Logged | 5
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JB, it has nothing to do with why I like comics or why I was reading it. I am old enough to know that people get paid to create these things, though. I certainly did not ask you what you or any other creator may have been making on those royalties.
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Mike Thorn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 February 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 22
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | 6
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JB:
And the very fact that you can or would make that
statement brings us to another place where fandom should not be. I
never thought about what Stan and Jack were making off FANTASTIC FOUR.
It was not even remotely a part of my interest, of why I was reading
the comics.
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You seem to ascribe this sort of thing to comics however, and it exist for everything. If you go to soap opera forums, sports forums, music forums, this sort of thing exist everywhere and that's not going to ever change. Fandom in general isn't is the same place it was, that's both a good and a bad thing I think. Certainly if it were all bad, then the companies and creators wouldn't be participating in it.
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Todd Hembrough
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 4171
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | 7
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Fandom in general isn't is the same place it was,
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Partly, or completely because 'fandom' nowadays are adults and in the old days it was kids listening to baseball games on AM radios under their bedcovers. Or reading comics in a treehouse.
Times change. The companies have changed. There is no going back.
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Mike Farley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2701
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | 8
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The deconstruction/dissection group is nothing new. They always been there. They just used to pass their opinions around in hard to find mimeographed newsletters and fanzines. Now they're readily available with a click over the internet. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that they are almost the only fans LEFT. If they were only 10-20% of the market while the bulk was made up of 8-12 year olds (who read the books, enjoyed the books, rolled the books up in their back pockets and traded them off for other books) then things would be fine and their influence would be minimal.
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Thomas Tryon
Byrne Robotics Member
Red Sweater Model
Joined: 06 June 2007
Posts: 33
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | 9
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Welcome to my cyber suicide I guess, but sometimes a response is demanded regardless of consiquence:
"Firefighter" my ass!
I work with firefighters.
They save lives and property.
They don't get paid anywhere near what you do (did).
They don't get royalties when their prevention efforts are successful.
I could go on and on about the financial inequities between
life savers and members of the creative community,
but I'm sure you get my point.
I think you should apologize to the people who run IN to danger, while you collect checks in your stately manor.
The comparison is insulting.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133571
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | 10
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I'm sure you get my point.
•••
What a pity you so completely miss mine.
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Jeff Albertson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 March 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 451
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | 11
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JB,
What (if any) positives do you see to the internet as far as comics go? What motivates you to continue with the Forum?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133571
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| Posted: 05 July 2007 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | 12
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Sorry I don't see how the hobby or the fans would benefit from being alone. Would Baseball be better if everyone believed that they alone were watching the game, and had no contact with other fans? How about -any- hobby? ••• You need to find a better analogy. Sports are almost by definiton group scenarios. Groups on the field, groups in the stands. Fans of baseball gather physically first, in stadiums. Then comes TV. Then comes the internet. But the structure is already there. To create a workable analogy, you need something that comes from a similar source, and followed a similar arc. Fans of Tom Swift or Nancy Drew, for instance, consumed huge numbers of the books, yet were not known for getting together in person. The experience was personal, as comicbook reading used to be.
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Topic Closed)
