Pop Culture Archives — Page 9 of 56

Ghost Rider’s Qualified Success and What it Means for DC

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:March 4, 2007
Post category:Media Pop Culture Reviews
Post comments:7 Comments

With the estimates for its third weekend in ($11.5m towards $94m to-date, domestic) it’s safe to consider Ghost Rider a qualified success as it’s quite likely that it will surpass director Mark Steven Johnson’s previous effort, Daredevil — which topped out at $102m after 22 weeks in release — by the end of next weekend, despite receiving even worse reviews; and its final domestic take should, at least, cover its pricey $120m production budget. In doing so, it will also likely match, or beat, the combined box office of Daredevil and its ill-conceived spinoff, Elektra, which bombed two years ago with a mere $24m domestic take.

Did anyone other than Avi Arad, Johnson and Nicolas Cage (for whom Ghost Rider represents his widest initial release and best opening weekend box office ever) really see this coming? Suddenly, the decision to postpone its release from August 2006 and invest in some top-notch special effects seems to have paid off immensely as it’s hard to believe it would have found this level of success in last summer’s crowded schedule, lost in the shadow of the likes of Pirates of the Carribean, X-Men: The Last Stand and Superman Returns.

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On the Shelves: 2/21/07

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 20, 2007
Post category:Personal Pop Culture Reviews
Post comments:2 Comments

Reading is fundamental. Read what you like; don't waste your time reading bad comics out of habit! My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 2/21/07. The full shipping list, as always, is available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a pre-ordering service, be sure to take advantage of it. If not, find another one; or try Khepri.com or MidtownComics.com] PICK OF THE WEEK House of SugarDARK HORSE COMICS Conan #37, $2.99 I'm finally caught up on my post-Busiek Conan reading and am happy to see…

Marketing Monday: No-Brainer Marketing Efforts

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 19, 2007
Post category:Media Pop Culture Reviews
Post comments:2 Comments

Thanks to Adam Kubert, today's Marketing Monday column will be delayed until later this evening.* So far, we've looked at the five basic steps to developing a simple marketing plan and how they specifically relate to marketing comics. Last week, I put forth five specific marketing efforts, no-brainers that every aspiring publisher should be ready (and able) to implement in order to separate themselves from the hobbyists with a Previews solicitation, a blog, and idiotic message board posts** whining about the state of the industry and how stupid superhero comics fans are. (Oh, look! Another one. Sigh...) This week, we'll…

Comic Book Commentary v2.0 and Other Stuff

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 18, 2007
Post category:Media Personal Pop Culture
Post comments:3 Comments

Random, somewhat connected thoughts on the site, traffic and future plans... ITEM: Ever since I got back on the blogging horse late last year, traffic has been on a steady upswing, which is very nice. January was our best month since our peak early last summer, and February is tracking quite nicely. Many, many thanks to Dirk Deppey in particular, who drives a ton of traffic here every time he posts a link on Journalista!. Thanks also to Johanna Draper Carlson, whose Blogs Worth Reading link sends a regular stream of traffic this way, too. ITEM: Speaking of Deppey, If…

More Uncle Sam & the Freedom Fighters, Please

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 15, 2007
Post category:Pop Culture
Post comments:2 Comments

Newsarama has an interview with Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters co-writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray that includes some commentary on the evolution of the mini-series from Grant Morrison's initial revamp of the characters -- with no credit given to Will Eisner, Lou Fine, Arthur Peddy, Paul Gustavson, Len Wein or Dick Dillin for the original creations -- to the story I've been enjoying far beyond my expectations when it was previewed in Brave New World.Justin Gray: It's interesting how the series has evolved behind the scenes. Two years ago we started working with a blueprint developed by Grant…

The Difference Between Juvenile and Wizard

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 14, 2007
Post category:Pop Culture
Post comments:5 Comments

My kids are juvenile.Wizard is simply pathetic.[via: Wizard's New Low][via Wizard Magazine: Pay No Attention To The Industry Behind The Curtain]Wonder how the new Editor-in-Chief is working ou--, oh wait; the position is still open! The optimist in me wants to believe that this means there's still hope for the nominal face of the comics industry to stop trying to be a low[er]brow Maxim, because the chances of any serious competition coming along to challenge them are slim-to-none since they'd need Marvel and DC's support and clearly neither company gives a damn about the industry's image as long as the…

On Soliciting Reviews, Entitlement and Reaction Sheets

Post author:Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Post published:February 14, 2007
Post category:Media Personal Pop Culture Reviews
Post comments:18 Comments

“You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.”
–Isaac D. Gonzalez, 6 years old

An interesting debate broke out over the weekend at Johanna Draper Carlson’s blog, Comics Worth Reading, in response to a post entitled, Stupid Publisher Tricks: Review Copies and Guilt Trips (and its follow-up, Another Argument Against Review Copies), that took an unnamed creator to task for attempting to make her feel guilty about not having reviewed his unsolicited work:

I know you’ve never been a fan of my work…but despite that…I took my marketing guy’s advice and added you to our review copy list. I just wanted to say that I was quite disappointed when I saw not even a week later that you had both [books] up for sale on Amazon.

I waited weeks to see if you would do the right thing and either write a review (good or bad) or at least contact me to let me know that you received them. All you had to do was say “thank you but no thank you” and I would have paid to ship them back.

Johanna is one of a handful of comics bloggers I genuinely respect, as do many professionals in the industry, so I was surprised by the creator’s wrongheaded approach to the situation.

An overblown sense of entitlement isn’t something that’s limited to continuity obsessed fans, and the worst thing a creator (or publisher) can do assume that their work deserves a review. Challenging a reviewer on anything other than a purely factual level is a no-win situation; the creator is usually the one with more at stake, especially if the challenge occurs in a public forum. While this particular communication was via a backchannel email, the tone of it suggests someone who is prone to getting into public pissing matches*, which is an excellent example of bad marketing.

Remember, “marketing is everything a company does to acquire customers and maintain a relationship with them”, and that includes interactions with the Press, especially online where Google remembers everything.

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