Rant Archives — Page 11 of 38 — As in guillotine...

5 Good Reasons Against Opening a Comic Book Store

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 8, 2007
Post category:Personal Pop Culture
Post comments:5 Comments

1) "Bookshops' latest sad plot twist" THIS is the paradox of modern bookselling. Even in an entertainment-saturated age, people still buy books. But the casual reader has many other places to get bestsellers and topical books, from warehouse stores to the mall. Meanwhile, book nuts -- the ones who simply must buy several volumes a week -- are lured online. Few businesses can survive that lose customers from both ends of the spectrum. In 1995, anyone seeking a book that was the least bit uncommon had to have a store special order it from the publisher. If it was out…

Blogaround Challenge 2007 "Winners"

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 4, 2007
Post category:Uncategorized
Post comments:4 Comments

Well, damn! Who knew giving away FREE comics would be harder than selling gas-guzzling SUVs when gas prices are $2/gallon and rising?!?!I was corresponding with a fellow blogger recently, one who's been around since the Usenet days, and she noted how the Comics Blog Boom of the past couple of years seems to have faded a bit. It used to annoy me when I'd read self-proclaimed 1.0 bloggers reminiscing about the "good old days" when, as I understand it, Journalista! and the Warren Ellis Forum were the focal point that ultimately birthed the Blogiverse.Since I started blogging about comics back…

For Black History Month: Flashback

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 1, 2007
Post category:Media Pop Culture
Post comments:5 Comments

I have a love-hate relationship with Black History Month, simultaneously appreciating the thought behind it while despising its continued necessity. As such, I'm not planning to make a big deal about it 'round these parts; it's a thing for less diverse sites and blogs to take note of, an opportunity to pay lip service to diversity for the next 28 days before returning to the status quo. (Cynical? Not me!) That said, in light of some recent relevant discussions across the blogiverse, I thought I'd "reprint" the first really good post I ever made here (and to-date, still one of…

Numbers Game: Shuffling Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 29, 2007
Post category:Media
Post comments:2 Comments

Marc-Oliver Frisch's always enlightening sales analysis is now posted at The Beat, looking at DC's estimated numbers for December 2006, and buried towards the end is a very interesting breakdown of the Average Sales per Title of their three primary imprints. I've spotlighted the DCU as a point of interest:DC UNIVERSE12/2003: 29,26312/2004: 36,92512/2005: 44,99312/2006: 44,641---------------6 months: -12.6%1 year : - 0.8%2 years : +20.9%3 years : +52.6%As would be expected, the main DCU has seen some impressive growth over the past three years, fueled largely by Infinite Crisis and its numerous lead-ins, crossovers, tie-ins and spinoffs. What's hidden beneath that…

Suburban Dysfunction & Blaxploitation

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 24, 2007
Post category:Personal Pop Culture Reviews
Post comments:1 Comment

Ghost World By Daniel Clowes (Fantagraphics Books, 1998; $11.95) I skipped the movie version of Ghost World when it came out because I could tell from the previews that it wasn't my cup of tea; stories of suburban angst make my skin crawl (ie: I hated American Beauty), suburban teenage angst even more so. But, I convinced myself a while back, there's no way I could not read the critically acclaimed graphic novel it was based on, right? In retrospect, that was as silly as thinking I couldn't just skip House of M and Infinite Crisis, and in all three…

Stephanie Fierman: Villain, Victim…or Scapegoat?

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 17, 2007
Post category:Media Personal
Post comments:2 Comments

According to Rich Johnston, as reported in yesterday's Lying in the Gutters, DC's outgoing SVP of Sales & Marketing, Stephanie Fierman, "is still on contract at DC for another year and will work on special projects with DC Publisher and President Paul Levitz while she looks for a new position within Time Warner." If true, it suggests that what's happening is very likely personality-driven and not based solely on her performance, because contract or not, if it were the latter, they'd simply fire her outright and offer her a severance package. My wild guess is that her primary "special project"…

Much Ado About Cowboys & Aliens

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:January 10, 2007
Post category:Media Pop Culture
Post comments:5 Comments

I knew a lot of people in the comics industry didn't like Platinum Comics' Scott Rosenberg, but holy cow!Comics writer A. David Lewis (the excellent The Lone and Level Sands) absolutely flipped his lid last Friday upon seeing Entertainment Weekly's sporadic comics sales chart showing Cowboys & Aliens in the top spot, according to Midtown Comics:"What smarts most is that C&A is listed as the top-selling graphic novel. Yes, Entertainment Weekly crowns it as #1.First, that's crap. I think we all know that's crap. And, by 'we,' I mean people who actually go to comic book shops on an almost…