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On Vacation

Johanna — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:27:37 +0000

I’m taking some time off to clear my head, so posting will be light-to-nonexistent for the next week. I know the same thing’s been true for the last week, which wasn’t my intent, and I’m sorry about that. When I’m back, I’ll be catching up on reviews and such. Thank you for your patience and for reading the site.

2010 Convention Schedule

Johanna — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:50:48 +0000

As this year’s convention season ends, I’m already looking forward to next year’s shows. Here’s what I’m planning on attending:

Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), Chicago, April 16-18, 2010. Reed Exhibitions spins off its successful New York show into a Midwestern location. I love an excuse to visit that area of the country — we usually tack on some time to return to KC’s home state of Wisconsin as well — and spring seems a lovely time to do so.

MOCCA, New York City, April 10-11, 2010. I was looking forward to returning to this celebration of art comics, but it may be too close to C2E2 to make it feasible. On the other hand, I may be able to do a flying visit again, just one day. Yet I’d like to experience more of the city next time. Decisions, decisions.

Heroes Con, Charlotte, NC, no date yet, but likely to be June/July. My favorite show, due to its reasonable size — lots of guests, but not overcrowded — the affordable price of its location, and the great mix of superhero and indy creators.

Small Press Expo, Bethesda, MD, no date yet, likely September/October. A local trip for me, and a wonderful way to sample all kinds of up-and-coming and art comics.

New York Comic Con, New York City, October 8-10, 2010. It combines with the New York Anime Festival this year, making for yet more to do in the East Coast’s biggest comic show. It’s also the only chance I have to see manga publishers, who are mostly headquartered in California yet come to this show.

I was considering San Diego, but five shows seem like plenty, and it’s so expensive to go coast-to-coast for a week. On the other hand, if anyone wants to hire experienced booth help for a reasonable fee for SDCC, I’m available.

What shows are you planning to go to?

Reveal Those Review Copies, Bloggers

Johanna — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:04:44 +0000

If you’re in the U.S., as of December 1, the Federal Trade Commission has made it mandatory for bloggers to disclose any payment or free items they receive in return for reviews. If you don’t, “penalties include up to $11,000 in fines per violation.” No specifics were provided on how the items must be disclosed.

(Update: The FTC has clarified through questions from the affected: the fine potential is for advertisers, not bloggers.)

Last time the subject came up, at the beginning of the year, those who were in favor of explicitly disclosing review copies were told they were acting like amateurs because old-school media didn’t make similar disclaimers. However, the FTC has clearly demonstrated that they see online media, especially blogging, as different, with different rules applying.

Update: To go into more detail, this excerpt is from the FTC press release:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers –- connections that consumers would not expect –- must be disclosed. … [T]he post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

Update 2: More links. Key quote from this interview with an FTC representative:

A book falls under “compensation” if it comes associated with an Amazon link or there is an advertisement for the book, or if the reviewer holds onto the book.

That’s two out of three that this site falls under, Amazon links and keeping the books. (In part because I don’t have a postage budget to return books at $2.38 and up a pop.)

And having skimmed through the actual government notice, I’m more convinced than ever that this site, and others like it, need to run disclaimers listing review copies, as we have done and will continue doing. Given this statement,

advertisers who sponsor these endorsers (either by providing free products –- directly or through a middleman –- or otherwise) in order to generate positive word of mouth and spur sales should establish procedures to advise endorsers that they should make the necessary disclosures and to monitor the conduct of those endorsers.

I am very curious to see how the press releases and boilerplate instructions I receive with review copies of books and DVDs change, if at all.

My thanks to all the commenters for providing additional information and viewpoints on this issue. It’s been helpful in refining my opinions and decision on how to proceed. There’s already a lot of anger out there about the double standard between new and traditional media (such as a newspaper, which is not required to disclose), although it doesn’t bother me. I still don’t understand why people are resistant to saying “I got this for free”. Heck, how you found something you liked is often a neat part of someone’s story about their reactions to a new book.

Quick Advice on Press Copies

Johanna — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:25:43 +0000

This came up at last weekend’s SPX, and it surprised me how many people hadn’t thought about it, so I thought I’d share.

When you’re unpacking your books, comics, or minicomics for a show, you’ll notice some copies don’t look as good as the others. Maybe they’re print errors — an uneven trim cut off a small part of the cover, for example, or the tail end of the run printed a little too light — or packing damages — a cover corner got folded back in the box. Set those copies aside, and give those out as review copies or press freebies. Save the good ones to sell. Most press members won’t mind; if you explain, they’ll even understand. (Me, I’m impressed with people who are thinking so smartly about their business.)

Next time, bring some kind of small stickers (red dots) or flags, and mark your damages as you see them so you’ll be easily able to find them when you need them. If you have more damages than you’d like or want to give away, sell them at a discount to bargain hunters.

Heading to SPX on Saturday

Johanna — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:44:54 +0000

The Small Press Expo, a highlight of the convention-going year, will be held this Saturday and Sunday in Bethesda, Maryland (near Washington D.C.). I will be there Saturday only. Some bloggers and critics will be getting together for dinner Saturday night; please let me know if you’re interested in joining us.

Speaking of which, the Comicsgirl blog has posted some restaurant recommendations within walking distance as well as a must-read set of advice on enjoying the show. I would add to her excellent points this: check out the exhibitor list beforehand and make yourself a list of the people you really want to see or things you really want to buy, so you don’t find yourself losing track of your priorities.

Also, creators, if you’d like me to stop by and check out your comics, please let me know. I’m making my “must-see” list now.

Update: The Daily Cross Hatch has a preview list of appearances and debuts.

Great Unresolved Comic Stories?

Johanna — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:20:16 +0000

Are there any great unresolved comic stories? From when a book was cancelled, perhaps, and loose ends weren’t resolved, or when a creative team changed and a book went in a different direction?

The World According to Twitter

Johanna — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:46:56 +0000

It’s a crowd-sourced book. NY Times technology columnist David Pogue posted various questions on Twitter, then assembled selected responses from his over 500,000 followers. (If he picked one of their answers, they got a free copy of the book. Information on Pogue’s payment from the publisher was unavailable.)

The World According to Twitter
Buy this book

This is what I call a time capsule book. It’s perfectly of the moment, as when there were lots of books on internet communities and horror stories about hackers in the mid-90s, but it will seem outdated immensely quickly. In the meantime, though, it’ll catch the eye of lots of people who either know Twitter, and get the concept, or those who have heard about it and want to see more.

It’s a good selection for a bathroom or other pick-up-and-put-down dipping location. Each question (of 87) has 2-4 pages of responses, selected to be the most entertaining. Many of them are. My favorite questions were the geeky ones:

140-character recipes
Movie sequel titles
Famous quotes if they were left in online speak
Movie cliches
Best and worst boss stories

And the cute kid sayings actually made me laugh out loud. Some are meant to be touching — greatest achievement, greatest regret, memorable first kiss — but, since we’re reading about strangers, without even the ability to easily see their history of tweets, they can err into sappy. Many many are based on puns. Some are enjoyable due to wallowing in other people’s misery, like the ones about the worst romantic dumping, but if they can talk about them, I can laugh about them.

The introduction, after talking about how Pogue became a Twitter convert, hints at some of the technical problems they faced in capturing all the responses, creating tracking databases, and then hunting down contact information for the winners. I’d like to have read more about that. (A complimentary copy for this review was provided by the publisher.)

The Origin of Ada Lovelace

What Happened to the Empowerment Fund?

I’m on Twitter

Love*Com Book 5

How to Do Comics Journalism

How to Fix the Harveys

Johanna — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:31:54 +0000

Another announcement of the Harvey Award nominees, another round of complaining about how poor the results are. I can’t say I disagree, but it’s terribly easy to say “it should have been better”. What is the award organizer supposed to do, give up his objectivity by making judgment calls and ruling out certain titles? Force people to fill out nominating ballots?

(Along those lines, accusations of “ballot stuffing” are misguided. It’s not about stuffing — which generally implies a surfeit of questionable votes — it’s about a lack of participation giving those few professionals who do bother to submit nomination lists disproportionate power to affect the results.)

In the spirit of setting a good example, herewith are my suggestions for possible improvements.

1. Create an awards committee. There’s too much work for any one person to do in running the awards. Careful selection could also result in more balanced representation. I would recommend picking members with different areas of comics knowledge, such as superheroes, art comics, manga, or webcomics.

With a committee, the awards would not be dependent on just one person and could ensure current and diverse knowledge of the field. With that awareness, it would be easier to make eligibility rulings on whether a comic has to be carried by Diamond in the previous year, or whether a limited release hand-selling to customers at conventions counts. Or how reprints should be considered. (This is different from the Eisners because the committee members would not be judges but administrators.)

Plus, having more than one person running things would mean splitting up the workload and having continuity if, heaven forbid, something happened to someone or other obligations arose.

2. Require publisher and/or artist submissions, similar to how the Emmys work. A submitter would send in her/his/their best work for evaluation. This would help winnow the field while still allowing a kind of “campaigning”, but only those from who were willing to spend some money instead of just sending email to all their friends. (Later, these works could then be donated to a library or university for an archive.)

3. Provide guidance in nominations. It’s understandable that nominators don’t want to face the blank page in determining the best of last year. A list of suggestions could be created from submissions above, and/or committee members could create a comprehensive list of options in their particular areas of awareness.

4. More outreach to publishers. (Although this has been done in the past few years, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference.) If every publisher could be counted on to distribute ballots to their list of working professionals, with or without suggestions, perhaps more would participate to build the nominating ballot.

5. Reward nomination participation. This is perhaps the goofiest part of my suggestions, but maybe something could be done to recognize those who submit valid nominating ballots. Not in public, of course, not with names, but some kind of bonus to be sent to those who submit? A discount offer at an online comic store?

6. Here’s an even worse idea, but I provide it for discussion: You have to be present to win. Very few nominees are present to receive the award, which again creates the perception that it’s not very important, leading to more people not taking it seriously. The awards deserve more respect than that.

Which sums up this catch-22 — until creators take the awards more seriously, they won’t participate, and if they don’t participate, skewed results will continue to occur, making people take them less seriously. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, when potential voters say “I won’t nominate manga because the awards are all about superheros” or “they’re indy focused, no point in me recommending a great webcomic”.

Update: Or, like Tom Spurgeon, you could just say “kill ‘em and be done with it.” He’s much nicer about it, but he says they don’t add anything special and people obviously don’t care. He also has this take on the award history:

… the Harveys have always been subject to the manipulation of one or two devoted individuals, it’s just that it used to be the very smart and genial Kim Thompson and his admirably, relatively catholic-comics reading circle of influence on behalf of a certain kind of comic instead of random and self-interested flashpoints popping up year to year on behalf of specific projects.

Should Press Get in Free to Conventions?

Johanna — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:12:26 +0000

Site reviewer Ed Sizemore pointed this out to me — Otakon, the Baltimore anime/manga convention, has an unusual policy on press attendance. In short, you apply for a press badge, which gets you into press-specific areas … but only some press attendees are given complimentary membership to the convention. The rest have to pay $55-65 for a weekend badge. (There are no one-day passes.)

Now, I’ve worked press registration for the Baltimore Comic-Con, and I know that there are a lot of people out there who may not qualify as traditional press, and their online credentials may be skimpy or questionable. But to say “yeah, you can cover our show, but you still have to pay” … that strikes me as rather odd. Certainly, it’s the first time I’ve run into such a policy. Especially from a group that bills themselves as “an educational non-profit that promotes understanding and appreciation of Asian culture”.

Are there any other shows that operate this way? Is it a clever or greedy approach?

Email Frustration

Johanna — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:51:35 +0000

I had an email crash on Monday and lost all my saved messages. Recovery efforts have not been successful, so if you are expecting a response from me, please resend your message.

I’m trying to look on the bright side and see this as a fresh start in getting to Inbox 0, but it’s not easy. It’s not just that I lost messages I wanted to act on going back a year, it’s that I’m not even sure what I lost. (Who knows everything that’s in their inbox right now?)

Why I Dislike Anthologies

Johanna — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:16:18 +0000

I’ve had a stack of anthologies waiting my attention, some for a year now, and I dread reading them.

I used to love anthologies. They were wonderful ways to discover new artists and sample alternative comics. But now we have the web for that. I know they’re easy for young creators, who only need to put together a few pages instead of a full comic of their own, but not many of them have the experience to create a really satisfying piece in a shorter space.

My least favorite kind of anthology is when a group decides to put out an anthology to draw attention to themselves or even for a charitable purpose. In these cases, the contents can be of widely varying quality. They give the impression that they don’t have many submission guidelines, or that knowing the right people overrides standards of entry, or that good intentions (helping out someone in need) can take the place of good work.

As a reader, it’s tough evaluating them. There’s a tendency to remember the worst stories instead of the best and to judge the value of the cost on that basis. There’s never enough of the good work and too much of the bad. Plus, for a reviewer, they’re an awful lot of work, if you’re going to cover them thoroughly, since every story and its creators needs to be mentioned. In the time it takes to read and write about an anthology of 10 stories, I could cover at least half that many graphic novels or manga volumes.

What do you think? Do you enjoy reading anthologies? Has their time passed or is there still a place for them? What are the really good anthologies today, the ones that put the lie to everything I’ve just said?

How to Find Me at MOCCA

Johanna — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 00:51:01 +0000

MOCCA Festival 2009 starts tomorrow! I’ll be attending for the first time. In case you want to say hi, I’ll be carrying this lovely large red tote bag to carry all my wonderful comic finds and wearing this black floral scarf. (This is a compromise, since I don’t like posting pictures of myself.)

Probably no blogging tomorrow as a result, but I’ll be back on Sunday.

What Is Your Geekiest Thing?

Johanna — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:19:54 +0000

Many of us are geeks and proud of it, but just out of curiosity… what is your geekiest thing?

Me, it’s using this ringtone for my cellphone. It’s the sound used for the special phones on the unsuccessful Global Frequency TV pilot. I don’t think anyone but me recognizes it, but whenever my phone rings, I’m reminded of just how obscure that is.

How about you?

Animation Category Added to Site

Johanna — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:44:14 +0000

The Movies/TV category was getting a little unwieldy, I thought, so I’ve broken out cartoons, anime, and the like into a new Animation category to make either easier to follow.

Best TV Licensed Comics?

Johanna — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 00:50:23 +0000

A thought struck me after reading Ed’s Battlestar Galactica review … what are the best licensed comics?

There are a ton of not very good ones, but which ones really capture the feel of the original material? Just for discussion, let’s stick to TV shows. It would also be nice if they were good comics whether or not you know the characters. Here are a couple of my suggestions.

The Muppet Show — Maybe it’s too early to declare, with only one issue out, but it was really good. This title also has the advantage of not having to match likenesses of people, since it’s about puppets.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 — Having the original creators involved means a lot.

Historically, KC nominates Dobie Gillis for its great Bob Oskner artwork. He also mentioned that Alien, by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, is generally considered one of the best adaptations of all time, but that’s different, because it wasn’t new stories with the same characters.

Licensed comics are difficult. Artists need to be able to do likenesses and have a style well-suited for the property. Often, they’re selected on other qualities (like availability). The reader often misses the subtleties of performance and movement and the actor’s personality that they got on the show. What you wind up being left with is plot, and then you can’t do much with that, because the show wants to maintain control. If it’s still running, then nothing big is going to happen in a comic, and if it isn’t, then many of the viewers aren’t going to care. Writers also can’t make a change the series isn’t going to reflect.

Given all that, maybe it would be smarter to adapt sitcoms instead of the big-deal science fiction properties that are frequently chosen, but the latter has more natural audience crossover with comics.

Another advantage was demonstrated in the recent Eureka miniseries (which was disappointing otherwise): they were able to use characters played by actors who they couldn’t or didn’t get to return and continue working with them.

Has anyone read the Ghost Whisperer adaptation? That seems like it would be a good property to use, since the material is episodic, and there isn’t a lot of character development on the show anyway.

Ultimately, it boils down to creators — if someone talented knows, likes, and respects the property, you’re going to end up with something better than someone doing a job on a book that exists just because the publisher could get the license.

So, which licensed TV comics are Worth Reading?

Update: Now I see that Tokyopop is going to be doing a book called CSI: Interns. That appears to be the most minimal level of licensing: name only. The characters and story sound like they’ll be different from the show.

Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum Visit

Johanna — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:12:17 +0000

Today, I visited the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame here in Seattle. I went mostly for the second part, the SF content, because I’ve already been to the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

In addition to the expected material (lots of Star Trek mentions), these were some of my favorite things to see:

* The Rocketeer costume and props.

* Barbarella’s crossbow.

* A Muffit costume and a copy of the TV Guide article about the chimpanzee (!) that wore it. (I can’t believe I didn’t know that.)

* The occasional dress. They had a cute little frock that Anne Francis wore in Forbidden Planet, as well as Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ costume from Logan’s Run.

* Ship models and the Twiki suit from Buck Rogers. They looked a bit shabby, which reminded me just how long it’s been since that show aired.

The best thing about the exhibits was the way they grouped props and books by theme, highlighting how particular subjects were covered in different stories and eras. (Although there were a couple of movie posters for lesser-known films where I would have appreciated plot descriptions.) I found myself making notes of books I needed to read or movies I wanted to see based on the descriptions (once just on the cover). I’ve now got a reading list of novels to try or re-read. It was always fun to get that thrill of recognition, when I saw a particular paperback edition I had owned and read. I wanted a lot more discussion of the concepts raised and key points in the science fiction canon, but I suppose that kind of material is better found on the web these days.

My biggest complaint is that what should be entire galleries on their own are simply single exhibit cases. I wanted so much more, both in terms of content and depth. What’s there is great, but it only scratches the surface. The more you know and enjoy the eras covered — 50s and 60s print, 70s and 80s movies and TV — the more you will get out of the material. I found myself wondering what defines science fiction for today’s kids. What could they include to seem relevant, the way Star Wars was cool to people my age or Star Trek was to our parents?

I enjoyed the experience, but I’m not sure it’s worth the price (especially since parking fees doubled my cost of admission). I found it easy to do everything I wanted in three hours (for both), although I will say I didn’t do very much with the interactive exhibits. With an adult admission price of $15, it’s expensive for what it is. I wish I could have visited next month, when a traveling Smithsonian exhibit about the Muppets will be on display.

Stupid Publicist Tricks

Johanna — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 15:13:35 +0000

Or, how to get me to ignore your press release.

1. Misspell the name of your comic. If you can’t bother to re-read the thing before you send it to me, I can’t bother to pay attention to it. In the particular case I’m thinking of, spell-check would have caught the error, since it turned a word into something that wasn’t English.

2. Forget the basics. If you’re promoting a convention, every message should include the full date of the show and the location (with city AND state for those not local). If it’s a comic, include the title, publisher (or URL for a webcomic), creative team, and when/how it’s available for purchase. (Presumably, that’s the final goal: to allow people to buy your product.) I once got a press release that somehow had neglected to include the title of the comic they were trying to promote. That was dumb. I’ve also gotten PR that left me wondering whether I could buy the item now or later, since there was no mention of release date.

3. Confuse me. Your press release should have a clear message. After reading it, I shouldn’t be left wondering what the “news” is you’re announcing. If you want me to talk about your product, I have to know what makes it special or interesting.

4. Be demanding. I got a message recently from someone who told me to review their comic on a particular day of release. First off, I’m too backlogged to make that happen, but more to the point, you don’t get to tell me what I write about when. Now, it is a very good thing to mention when you’re trying to time your publicity, but do so professionally and politely. In this case, the wrong tone was the problem.

5. Clog my email. Don’t send me 8 or 9 meg attachments out of the blue. Send me a query, first. A link to a private download site (that doesn’t require creating some kind of account) is much better.

Just some thoughts on how to make things easier for all of us.

KC Loves Me

Johanna — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 03:42:24 +0000

There are many many reasons I know KC loves me, but here’s the latest: He schemed with a dear friend (Yay Marc!) coming back from Disney World to get me a life-size Stitch (last seen in the last picture here) of my very own! Here’s the newest member of our family sitting in the oversized recliner:

Tom Lehrer’s Smut

Johanna — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:14:45 +0000

My darling husband, several years ago, got me the impressive Rhino box set “The Remains of Tom Lehrer”, containing just about every song the gifted parodist/mathematician did on 3 CDs along with a hardcover lyric/notes book.

The Remains of Tom Lehrer
Buy this CD set

Like most impressive Rhino box sets, it is now out of print. However, the individual albums are still available (and often at very reasonable prices), such as 1965’s That Was the Year That Was, from which this track comes. I’m astounded that satire written over 40 years ago can still be so fresh and funny (and boy, that’s what I needed to listen to this week, hilarious skewering of sacred cows). Take, for example, the pro-porn march Smut, which begins, after a spoken-word intro,

Smut!
Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can’t shut,
If it’s uncut,
And unsubt (le).

I love his wordplay! Who else could rhyme quibbled, ribald, and nibbled? The couplet about Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz, well, that takes on a whole new context these days, doesn’t it?

Anyway, this might have been more timely a month or two ago, given the last comic blog round-about on obscenity, but I couldn’t resist sharing. Sign me up for the movement, Tom! Dirty books are fun!

Why Posting Has Been Light Lately

Johanna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:17:03 +0000

KC and I just got home from the hospital, where he’s been since Wednesday. They think he had a mini-stroke, which would explain his vertigo and dizziness (even more than usual). Here he is getting his brain scanned, one of the many tests they ran. (The dots are electrodes.)

He said it was like watching the best Pink Floyd laser light show. He’s fine now but still resting up. Just in time for me to feel like I’m coming down with a cold.