Rant

Read more about the article Is Print Advertising Dead?

Is Print Advertising Dead?

Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke
Vintage Baby Ruth Ad by dklimke

Check out @themediaisdying on Twitter for a glimpse at the convulsions of an industry that’s either at death’s door or, for the more optimistically inclined, in the midst of a violent but necessary transformation.

I’ve worked in magazine publishing for 15 years now — consumer, B2B and non-profit — and as has been noted pretty much everywhere recently, 2008 was an ugly year.  Mass consumer and B2B brands are getting hit the hardest, but even local and niche brands with strong subscriber bases are getting hammered by this perfect storm, and surprisingly to almost no one with any sense some people, the Internet has turned out to not be the magic bullet it was proclaimed to be.

(In fact, in many cases, online publishing is effectively “trading dollars for pennies“, and the economic fallout that’s affected print advertising is undoubtedly going to affect online advertising, too. ETA: It already has.)

Flip through the most recent issues of your favorite magazines and you’ll probably notice they’re a little bit lighter than they used to be. Less editorial content; thinner paper; deeply discounted, sometimes desperately worded subscription offers.

Almost all of them likely have less ads (and in many cases less relevant ads) than they used to, too.

I was cautiously optimistic that the major damage might be limited to 2008, and 2009 could be a rebuilding year for most brands on flat revenues, with some going under and a few even pulling off a Miami Dolphins-style turnaround, but 13 days into the new year, it looks like things still haven’t quite hit bottom.

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Read more about the article The Mind Reels

The Mind Reels

With only a few days remaining for last-minute surprises, 2008 has been one for the books on so many levels — personally, professionally, globally — the mind truly does reel.

And reels, and reels, and reels… perhaps somehow what I imagine bonefishing might be like?

(h/t to one of my newfound loves of the year, Garden & Gun.)

But I digress. Kind of.

On January 1st of this year, I posted a brief recap of 2007 and a to-do list for 2008, the latter of which I predictably missed the mark on by a mile. Perhaps because 2007 had been a year defined by so much transition, my focus was more internal, and nowhere on that list is there any hint of what 2008 actually had in store, from becoming a new (first-time) homeowner to taking two huge steps forward in my career.

In the midst of it all, this blog went from an intense flurry of passionate political punditry to a, once-again somewhat unfocused and occasional mix of publishing, poetry, politics and pop culture. Plus, I attempted to add a more personal, anonymous blog to the mix to talk about our life as new homeowners which I’ve discontinued and rolled into this site. (“Bloomfield” tag will get you all of them.) I’m okay with that, though, as my primary goal for this blog has always been more selfish than anything else, a place for me to keep the creative juices flowing in the most rudimentary of ways by offering an outlet, when necessary, for whatever’s running through my head, and my intent at the beginning of the year was to consolidate my “platform” anyway.

But I’m rambling again…

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Read more about the article Outrage, Humor, Context

Outrage, Humor, Context

Burn, baby, burn
Burn, baby, burn

David Brothers was one of the smartest comics bloggers on the scene a few years back when I was at my peak of following the industry, and he’s remained one of the few whom I still follow despite my current pull list being a shadow of its former self.

[Side note: Have to get to Midtown soon before they cancel my bare-minimum pull list again. Particularly looking forward to Joshua Dysart’s Unknown Soldier.]

He has a great post up at his site, 4thLetter, called SuperHHero KKKomics 200Hate: A Year In Review, an exponentially more substantiative response to the knee-jerk (but cleverly illustrated) 2008: The Year of Misogyny, that starts as a typical rant about the poor treatment of blacks in comics, but quickly becomes something much, much better.

Some of my favorite highlights of 200Hate include:

Barack Obama– leader of Dark Reign, gullible enough to trust Norman Osborn
Crispus Allen– killed his own son, has to have some old white lady re-ignite his faith in God after he tries to kill his best friend for being a lesbian, probably Pro Prop 8, forced to wear goatee as racial identifier, likely never-nude
Falcon– lost his best friend, hasn’t appeared in Captain America lately, was set on fire once
Manhattan Guardian– tossed aside the second a WHITE Guardian shows up
Martian Manhunter– murdered with a spear (martians count as black, see also Lil Wayne “We are not the same, I am a martian”)
Spawn– blows own head off in own comic, promoting the suicide of strong and proud black men
Spawn (Michael Jai White)– Killed by the Joker in The Dark Knight, movie goes on to make a billion dollars
Storm– taken from high profile X-Men appearances to be a supporting character in some lower-selling book, forced into arranged marriage, needs Emma Frost (who once enslaved her) to call her names just so she can feel like she belongs somewhere
Tyler Perry– still not invited to write a Black Panther story where T’Challa remembers how his big grandma was the one that scared him into following the path of the warrior, leaving untold the story of Bg’mama, the true power of wakanda

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Continue ReadingOutrage, Humor, Context
Read more about the article Review: The Incredible Hulk

Review: The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk

I skipped The Incredible Hulk in theaters because I was fully expecting to be disappointed, but my son really wanted to see it and Iron Man was unexpectedly good, so we picked up the DVD and I was pleasantly surprised.

Ed Norton isn’t as dynamic an actor as Robert Downey, Jr., unlikely to carry a blockbuster superhero movie on his own shoulders, but he brings the right level of intensity to the Hulk’s conflicted alter ego, Bruce Banner, that combined with some precision casting — and, according to several rumors seemingly backed up by many of the DVD’s bonus features*, exerting influence far beyond his own character — makes for a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Tim Roth and William Hurt shine in their roles, and Liv Tyler manages to escape the confines of the cliché “female interest” as she and writer Zak Penn (who takes an impressive step forward from Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand) make her character work as the emotional centerpiece of the story.

It’s a well-paced action movie with just the right dash of drama — many of the deleted scenes featuring psychiatrist Dr. Samson are deservedly so — and the CGI Hulk and Abomination are even more impressive than last year’s Transformers triumph, especially their final battle which is arguably the best balls-to-the-wall fight scene put to film in recent years.

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Read more about the article Apology Unnecessary

Apology Unnecessary

The K Chronicles: Tales From the Campaign Trail
The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

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Read more about the article Bloomfield Cuban

Bloomfield Cuban

Havana Sandwich Cafe, originally uploaded by bloomfieldguy.

When we restarted our search for a house in Bloomfield earlier this year, we made an effort to explore some of the restaurants here and in the surrounding area (trans: Montclair) and were delighted to come across a solid assortment to choose from, both in price and cuisine, and so far have only experienced a handful of duds, including the State Street Grill (overpriced, glorified diner), Nevada Diner (bland diner food) and Stamna (beautiful Greek decor; bland, uninspired food).

Among the places we’ve enjoyed are Aki (unpretentious sushi in a relaxed setting), Vinnie’s Pizzeria and Restaurant (solid Italian food with decent pizza), Señorita’s (great Mexican food and margaritas), and even the Glenwood Diner (solid breakfast) and the IHOP on Bloomfield Avenue (great off-menu specials with a southern twist; kids eat free Mon-Fri evenings), next to Watsessing Park. Our favorite to-date, though, has been Cuban Pete’s in Montclair, a high-energy restaurant that combines authentic Cuban food with a sense of style and atmosphere that avoids feeling like a chain.

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Read more about the article Cruising the Center

Cruising the Center

Sweet Rides, originally uploaded by bloomfieldguy.

The Bloomfield Center Alliance sponsors two events in the summer that nicely represent one of the more appealing differences between living in the sortaburbs and living in the City: Cruise Night and the Farmer’s Market. While a Farmer’s Market isn’t terribly unique — I haven’t visited yet, but after walking through Venner “Park” last night, I don’t imagine ours is terribly big — the central location of both events makes for a nice community-building opportunity in a relatively small town like Bloomfield.

If it were about 5 degrees cooler when we headed uptown for Cruise Night last night, we would have walked there, but instead we drove — those carbon offsets alleviating a bit of the guilt — parked on the south end of the Glenwood/Broad Street intersection, and walked the two block stretch of classic (and not-so-classic) cars on display. There were approx. 25 cars there and at least as many people milling around them, checking them out and talking to their owners.

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