Did someone say war against Christmas? If there is one, General Custer must be leading the charge. The season to be jolly is upon us and unless you find somewhere that’s very, very remote, and you leave your laptop at home, you won’t escape it, and the astute, or the cynical, among you will notice that it’s more about greed and profit than religion. There are a lot more Santas on the streets (and on the television and in the magazines and newspapers and candy wrappers and and and… ) than Baby Jesuses.
This is not news.
For at least a century, mammon and the Savior have been sharing year’s end. They’re crammed together in a season that grows longer every year and Santa’s elbows are bigger and sharper. The Lord is still present but, you know, kind of an afterthought – the kid in the corner.
In days of yore – extremely yore – the church was often the biggest building in the village because worship was considered the most important of communal activities. Everybody went to pray. Now… hey, anyone feel like comparing the house of God to the shopping mall?
But don’t come looking for the grinch at my back yard. Despite what some of you may have concluded after reading the paragraphs preceding this one, and despite what a Fox News pundit might say, I am not a Christmas hater. I think that it, in its various guises, is a genuine holiday, one that has served an evolutionary need.
We celebrate the holiday because it is useful. It is a festival of light and it comes when the trees are bare, the fields barren, and each today is shorter than yesterday. Somewhere deep inside, where our primal selves live, we’re scared. What if the sun shortens to extinction? What if the world will be forever cold?
Our ancestors found an answer. Have a party! Laughter and feasting and song and gifts and, yes, light, and feel the gloom lessen and hope begin.
Once, it was called Saturnalia. Now – Christmas. Next?
And if the buying and selling smothers the hope? Not good. Because we haven’t evolved past needing that hope.
A couple weeks ago, Jessica Jones premiered with much fanfare. The internet vomited up so much detail about the character you would have thought Alias had been Marvel’s biggest selling book since Amazing Spider-Man. Fans are tripping over themselves to talk about Jessica and her abusive relationship with Kilgrave. But another, more disturbing line of conversation has emerged: the competition between female superhero shows.
Yes, people are taking to the Internet now saying Jessica Jones should and will get Supergirl cancelled. Because those two shows are exactly alike, have the exact same audience, and must compete as per the laws of the Internet.
Oh wait, none of that is true. But sadly, this type of fear mongering will always continue.
In geek culture, we are taught from a young age, that things we love will get cancelled by the network, the creative team will get taken off the book they made big, our childhood loves will be rebooted into a steaming pile of crap or our favorite character will get ret-conned into an asshole. Just because we have suffered through that kind of trauma doesn’t mean we need to succumb to it. Right now there are geeks who are saying Supergirl should be cancelled because Jessica Jones is a better show. I’d surmise that each has their own place in entertainment. I’d also like to point out that I don’t think Netflix shows can be considered anything similar to network television due to the differences in distribution. The entire show structure has to be thought out better since viewers are more likely to binge watch. Though, that is really an argument for another column day.
My point, long and rambling as it is, is that geeks seem to need to compete against other geeks, like we are all fighting for a limited spot in the geeky quota. Yes, the quota does seem to show up on occasion. In comics, we’ve seen a limited expansion of diversity on creative teams and in characters. At DC Comics, they were even told to stop “Batgirling” a.k.a. stop exploring new things.
Entertainment as a whole has stuck with the basic “meat and potatoes” idea. But when a new idea takes off, it does explode with similar stories and genre exploration. I don’t see why superheroes, which is having an amazing renaissance in television, would be any different. Would it be great if there was more? Of course. But that is no reason to take two slightly similar shows and say one can’t be on the air because another show is. Then we wouldn’t have 30+ different cop shows on TV. (That is an entirely arbitrary number. I was going to count but it already seems like a lot. That’s probably closer than TV would want to admit.)
Show the entertainment companies what you love and you might get to keep it. Just don’t knock other creations in the process.
Most of us are aware of the professional sod Jeremy Clarkson, who is now working for Amazon teevee (coming soon to an AppleTV near you). I haven’t been burdened with him as long as our British friends and therefore my opinion of the guy is somewhat more favorable than that found across the Great Pond.
Clarkson was co-host of the BBC teevee show Top Gear, which is to reality shows what, well, Jackass was to reality shows, although much more funny and somewhat less inspirational. He just did a 2 1/4 minute commercial for Amazon’s threatened drone delivery service. Perhaps you’ve seen it; if not, here’s the link.
This is a highly political move. Amazon isn’t selling a service it offers presently, and they can not and will not be able to in the near-future. Right now, the service Amazon is proposing is illegal, at least here in the States. The Senate is considering laws that would render such commercial use impractical – proposed by my very own Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal – by prohibiting such craft from flying above 400 feet. You will note Clarkson quite specifically states “400 feet” in the promotional video. If passed, this is bad news for Amazon.
The purpose of Amazon’s video production is to create a demand for their half-hour drone delivery service, a demand that they hope will be so strong the politicians will be swayed from their jobs of protecting the public. I know, it’s hard to imagine such people selling out the electorate to extend the interests of corporate America.
Of course, Blumenthal is a Democrat so it’s likely his bill will go nowhere, or, more likely, be eclipsed by a Republican bill making Amazon Prime Drone Delivery mandatory for the shipment of firearms and ammunition.
Personally, I think Amazon is barking up the wrong tree. The first time they drop a package through the wrong person’s roof, that great American is going to pick up one of his many high-powered weapons and shoot one of those delivery birds right out of the sky. As we know from our cultural history, this quickly would start a fad akin to shining laser pointers into the eyes of airplane pilots, which has been quite the rage for several years now.
If I’m going to lust for an airborne delivery service, I’m going to call Planet Express. I trust Hubert Farnsworth a lot more than I trust Jeremy Clarkson.
Yes, that’s right, The North American Discworld Convention, previously held in 2009, 2011, and 2013, is coming back to an as-yet-unannounced North American location in 2017! And yes, I’ve ordered my con-runner’s straitjacket, as I will be co-chairing the Con along with the Chair from the 2013 Con. (For those who are not aware, I also co-founded NADWCon from 2005-2009, Vice-Chaired the 2009 Con, and Chaired the 2011 Con. In other words, I know a bit about con-running.)
Despite knowing I’m probably going to lose a healthy dose of sanity before the end, I’m super excited to be helping to bring back this awesome Discworld Con for North American (and world-traveling!) fans. We took a break in 2015 (due in large part to Discworld creator Sir Terry Pratchett’s declining health and sad passing in March) but even with Sir Terry gone, his creations and fans live on, and we will continue to celebrate that “until the ripples they cause in the world die away.”
For further convention news, please stay tuned to the new NADWCon website, and check out our first press release there, reprinted in full below.
Fourth North American Discworld Convention to Take Place in 2017 – Convention will celebrate Discworld and the works of Sir Terry Pratchett
The North American Discworld Convention (NADWCon), a literary convention focusing on the works of Discworld series author Sir Terry Pratchett, will be returning to the fandom convention schedule in 2017. NADWCon, which debuted in Tempe, AZ in 2009, and has since taken place in Madison, WI in 2011 and Baltimore, MD in 2013, is a four-day convention of approximately 1,000 attendees which consists of themed Discworld and other Pratchett-related programming and guests.
The 2017 NADWCon will be organized by RavenQuoth, Inc., a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that was responsible for NADWCon 2013, which raised over $24,000 in charity funds that were split equally between the Orangutan Foundation UK and Alzheimer’s Research UK. The 2017 NADWCon will be co-chaired by Emily S. Whitten and Richard Atha-Nicholls. Emily S. Whitten was co-founder of The North American Discworld Convention, Vice-Chair of NADWCon 2009, and Chair of NADWCon 2011. Richard Atha-Nicholls was Chair of NADWCon 2013 and is President of RavenQuoth, Inc.
In the summer of 2014, RavenQuoth, Inc. received approval from Sir Terry Pratchett to organize future North American Discworld Conventions. Sir Terry, best-selling adult fiction author in the UK, award-winning writer of over 70 books during his career, and creator of the Discworld series, passed away on March 12, 2015 at the age of 66 after living with Alzheimer’s disease for eight years. NADWCon 2017 will be held in memory of Sir Terry, in honor and celebration of his works, and in the style which Sir Terry so enjoyed while attending as the Guest of Honor at prior Discworld conventions.
NADWCon 2017 and RavenQuoth, Inc. will provide further announcements and details about the 2017 convention in the upcoming months. Further information will be available at http://nadwcon2017.org.
Until next time, The Turtle Moves! And Servo Lectio!
Hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a nice one. I used some of the time off from the work I had to finish up Marvel’s Jessica Jones. I’ve read articles like this one about how the show is queer-inclusive, and have seen that term being thrown around elsewhere since. I’m using my column this week to make what I feel is an important point: Jessica Jones is in absolutely no way queer-inclusive.
Please be advised that there are SPOILERS ahead for both Jessica Jones and Daredevil.
Prior to Jessica Jones premiering, speculation was abound that she may end up being Marvel’s first queer lead. She is not. The speculation was based on her close relationship with Trish (Patsy) Walker. Trish and Jessica are sisters through adoption. They do tell each other they love each other. That’s because they are sisters. No other reason. This isn’t opening the door to a queer relationship later on. They both have a very full and active sex life with exclusively cis male partners in the show.
The fact that this caused speculation of any kind shows just how starved audiences are for queer representation in comic book properties, and I hope that Marvel takes note. That being said, let’s please end any continued speculation on Jessica Jones’ sexuality until we have a real reason to think of her as anything but straight.
Jessica Jones features one important queer character, Jeri. In the comics the character of Jeri was a man, so in the show they gender swapped that character while keeping the sexuality of that character the same. You could make the argument that she could easily be swapped with a man and it would have had no impact on the show at all outside of reducing the queer representation.
Jeri is a cis white lesbian, or at least an assumed lesbian since we don’t know about her sexual history beyond her ex and her current lover. Her lovers are also cis white and assumed lesbians. Unlike Jeri, they’re both blondes. We even get a “steamy” fully clothed almost sex scene in Jeri’s office with her assistant that goes out of its way to make sure we don’t see anything too scandalous, despite the show being described as “sex positive.” Wow, that’s some extensive queer representation there! Seriously though, one of those characters couldn’t have been openly bi, nonwhite, or something else to be even a little more inclusive?
Making Jeri an assumed lesbian in the show was a smart move for Marvel. It allows for two additional, albeit minor characters, to also be queer, thus upping the level of perceived queerness in the show. However, that’s not how being queer-inclusive works. This is New York City in 2015. Even more so, this is Hell’s Kitchen.
This is a place in New York City that currently has a fairly large and well known queer population. Largely cis white gay or bi men, but still very much a queer population. By not showing queer characters in the background, active queer bars or clubs that Jessica could have gone into, a case someone can try to hire her for involving a queer character, even openly queer people living in her building, Marvel is hetero-washing New York City. Whether this is intentional or not, it’s something that needs to stop happening and we can and should demand better. This isn’t a demand for more representation than we deserve. It’s a demand for accurate representation of the world as it is now, and without that I can’t consider this show queer-inclusive and you shouldn’t either.
Getting back to Jeri, she’s also not a particularly good person in the show. She’s shown as more likely than not being unfair to her ex and trying to keep her ex from money that she’s entitled to herself. Jeri also seemingly manipulates her current lover into killing Jeri’s ex. That’s right, one of the minor lesbians kills the only other minor lesbian. This all occurs while Jeri thoroughly betrays Jessica in a way that results in people getting killed and Kilgrave gaining the upper hand.
So not only do we have little queer representation, the representation we get drops from three characters total to two. One of them winds up in prison and the other one continues being a cutthroat lawyer and an untrustworthy friend of Jessica’s. Clearly queer viewers got some strong characters in this show to look up to!
Marvel’s Jessica Jones is not queer-inclusive. If anything, it hetero-washes its setting, just as Daredevil did. I’m not discouraging anyone from watching and enjoying this show, but I am discouraging people from spreading around the notion that this show is queer-inclusive.
That’s not the only diversity related issue Marvel’s Netflix shows have been lacking in, like how both shows feature only one older black man in a senior position helping our heroes that gets killed towards the end. What’s up with that? But that’s another story for another column.
Clara:I don’t know where I am. It’s like I’m breaking into a million pieces and there is only one thing I remember: I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different. I always know it’s him. Sometimes I think I’m everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. Just to save him. But he never hears me. Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf. I’m still blowing. I don’t think I’ll ever land. I’m Clara Oswald. I’m the impossible girl. I was born to save the Doctor. • The Name of the Doctor, Doctor Who, Series 7
Last week’s column (Paul Is Dead) was my bitchfest against the suits of the BBC and their relentless “wink-wink” interviews and spoiler-y “previews” of what’s to come on this season of Doctor Who. That it’s gotten so bad that “I’m expecting any moment to see an announcement… that Peter Capaldi wiped his ass after taking a shit.”
At least I’m not alone. Here’s what Simon Brew said in his review of Doctor Who’s Season 9’s penultimate episode, Heaven Sent:
“Doctor Who is a globally enjoyed TV show that continues to make serious and heavy inroads around the planet. It’s also a programme that therefore has to – even though it’s a BBC show – dance to the ratings game a little. As a consequence of that, the decision has been made somewhere along the line to release what I’d class as fairly significant spoilers in the build up to this episode, a few weeks ahead.
“I think – and it’s easy for me to say this from my perspective – that’s a mistake. Worse: I think it hurt the ending of Heaven Sentfor those who had read what should have been a more spoiler-light synopsis – or at least a more time sensitive one – for Hell Bent, the series finale.
“Appreciating that Steven Moffat, a year ago, already began teasing the cliffhanger of this episode, for those of us who were exposed to spoilers ahead of time – and thiswasn’t Internet chitter-chatter, they were formally released in a piece of publicity by the BBC – the reveal at the end of the episode lost a good chunk of its impact. Because we knew the Doctor was going to end up on Gallifrey. A big, geeky, nerdbump-generating moment had been sacrificed for many at the altar of the publicity machine, and that’s a real pity.”
Anyway, having experienced Clara’s death last week as an anti-climatic fallen soufflé, I stayed away from the Whovian universe – okay, I did read reviews and comments about Face the Raven at my favorite sites, which include Forbes, Vulture, Den of Geek, and Entertainment Weekly – and watched Heaven Sent with very little foreknowledge.
It made a huge difference, as I was able to not only simply watch Peter Capaldi’s amazing solo act, but also figure out what was going on, instead of waiting for the fait accompli.
SPOILER ALERT. In no order at all:
Not just the castle, but also the Doctor’s life is being continuously reset; those billions of skulls at the bottom of the sea are his.
Room 12 is his room, the twelfth Doctor (purists can shut up right now about Capaldi being the 13th reincarnation), which is why Clara’s portrait hung there.
The portrait is so old that the paint is cracked and flaking away. (This was actually when I realized that the Doctor had already been in that castle for centuries, if not thousands, of years.)
The Veiled “Thing” was something born of the Doctor’s own nightmares and fears and guilt and lies, which was why telling the truth stopped it. (Here I was expecting the Doctor to admit that he was ultimately the cause of Clara’s death, since her arrogance and recklessness was patterned on the Doctor’s own behavior.)
The word “Home” written on the “impenetrable” wall – I knew what that meant: Gallifrey.
But I didn’t expect to see the TARDIS, nor did I expect to see Jenna Coleman in the flesh.
That was the best part of the episode for me, as (perhaps?) for one last time, the “Impossible Girl” who has been there at every crisis in all the Doctor’s numerous lives pointed him in the right direction and told him to “get up off your arseand win.”
Why was it the best part of the episode for me?
“Don’t it always seem to go,
“That you don’t know what you’ve got
“’Til it’s gone”
Though I loved her incarnations as a Dalek and as a Victorian barmaid/governess, I never really “got” the modern-day Clara. She never felt truly defined for me – though now that I think of it, perhaps that was the point. Clara the individual stopped existing the moment she stepped into the Time Vortex – and because of all that “time-winey stuff,” she had done it before and would do it again – so that even the Clara we saw through Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor, and even now with Peter Capaldi, is still only a shade, a shadow, a piece of shattered personality. Which is why we saw modern-day Clara as a babysitter, then a teacher, then a lover and would-be wife and mother, a “member” of UNIT, and, then, finally, as an adventurer and “Time Lord.” It was as if Clara was trying on and discarding clothes in a department store fitting room, or walking through a funhouse Hall of Mirrors looking at all her distorted reflections. She seemed to be constantly asking herself, “Which one is the real me?”
Print sales for the debut issue of Paper Girls were 75,000. That’s impressive. This accomplishment is even more impressive when you realize this story includes no capes, superheroes or zombies and was not published by Marvel or DC. But the more you understand the discerning appetite of Geek Culture; the more it makes sense.
Although it’s one of the hottest comics right now, at first blush it’s an unlikely candidate for such strong sales. As a monthly comic that will soon be collected into a trade paperback, Paper Girls follows the exploits of four middle school girls in suburban Cleveland. Their part-time jobs are part of an old distribution model for an outdated form of mass media – delivery morning newspapers. The story is set in the wee hours after Halloween in 1988. But quickly it careens from the ordinary to a wildly intriguing thrill-ride.
Paper Girls is published by Image Comics, a publisher dedicated to helping creators bring their visions to life. Brian K. Vaughn is the writer and co-creator, and as his ongoing series Saga is such a huge hit, it makes sense that his fans would follow him to this new series.
But this series offers so much more – there’s 80s nostalgia, Matt Wilson’s brilliantly innovative coloring, unconventional protagonists (tough girls who smoke and swear) and this crazy, keep-the-reader-off-balance story. This is one of those stories where you kind of think you know where it’s going, but you quickly realize you have no idea. And then you think, “it’s ok not know what the hell is going on.” And maybe it’s even more fun that way too.
There’s something to that tried-and-true entrepreneurial idea of “offering value” too. The creators clearly are innovative small business people. The first issue had double the standard number of pages, but was still priced at $2.99, less than a standard Marvel or DC Comic.
But even beyond the moody story, the stark, deceivingly straightforward artwork from Cliff Chiang is a huge part of what makes this series enjoyable and masterful. Cliff’s a brilliant guy with an impressive background, but you need only enjoy his comics work – from Beware the Creeper to the more recent Wonder Woman – to know he’s a real pro at the peak of this game.
Even when he’s busy, Cliff is one of those guys who is affably professional – so much so that he almost seems like he’s a throwback to a more civilized age. As you have probably guessed, I recently caught up with Cliff Chiang to get his thoughts on the series.
Ed Catto: Paper Girls employs such a unique, fresh and clear voice, especially in contrast to not only other comics but other movies/books/TV Shows. Was that your intent and what are you, and writer Brian K. Vaughan, trying to accomplish?
Cliff Chiang: We wanted to tell a different kind of story, both personal and unpredictable (hopefully). The book definitely harkens to the ’80s adventure films we all loved as kids, but it’s not purely that. As the series progresses, we’ll show more of an adult perspective, too.
EC: It’s easy to tell that you push yourself with this book’s composition, characters and even jagged lifework. How do you approach new projects and did you approach this one differently?
CC: I try to imagine what the book needs visually and see what I can do to adapt to those needs. With Paper Girls, we’re seeing a lot of everyday life, which needs to be rendered in a style that’s a little looser and more evocative than usual. It needed a lot more personality, whereas in superhero books, you’re often just trying to make things look believable.
EC: There’s a real 80s nostalgia in this series. What was it like when you were growing up and what was your favorite part about the 80s?
CC: I think everyone’s somewhat nostalgic about his or her childhood, but I really wanted the book to feel authentic rather than a caricature of the ’80s. Being a latchkey kid, I remember having a lot of independence in those hours between the end of school and my mom coming home from work.
EC: What’s next for Paper Girls?
CC: We’ll get a glimpse of the larger conflict surrounding Stony Stream, and the girls wind up in some very strange places.
EC: Thanks, Cliff.
Paper Girls is available at your local comic shop and issue #3 will be on sale this Wednesday. Give it a try and I’d love to hear what you think.
I can tell by the saturation of TV trailers that Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens is opening real, real soon in a theater near, near to you.
Of course I’m going to see it, probably around March when seats will become available. Pre-sales have been incredible. And I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers. Originally, I read the Star Wars novelization before the first movie (a.k.a. Episode IV) so I knew the plot twists and turns. I was determined to be spoiler-free for Empire Strikes Back but, at a Chicago Minicon I attended, a ten-year old boy came up while I was talking with Larry Charet, the event co-organizer, and asked him, “Do you know if the Star Wars comic adaptation is like the movie?” (The adaptation had come out ahead of the movie.) Larry didn’t know so the kid continued, “Because in the comic it says the Darth Vader is Luke’s father.”
Gaaaaah!
Well, I didn’t kill the kid. (And no, you didn’t get a Spoiler Alert from me. If you don’t know that little item from the movie after all this time, you didn’t care anyway.) And J.J. Abrams and the folks at Disney are being very parsimonious with information other than what they want us to know.
Not knowing anything hasn’t kept fans from idle speculation, When has it ever? So I’m going to do a little idle speculation of my own. I don’t know anything more than any of you do but, since I wrote Star Wars comics for ten years, some people may think that I have an inside track on all this. I don’t. Anyway, here’s my big theory:
Han Solo is going to die in The Force Awakens.
I’m not the first person to speculate this. It’s been back and forth over the web but I have some reasons.
Harrison Ford is getting up there in years. He’s 73 right now. A really good looking 73, I’ll grant you. I wish I looked even half as good as he does. Star Wars Episode VIII isn’t due to come out until 2017 and it has just barely started filming. Episode IX won’t be out until 2019. Ford is getting ooooold, folks.
Ol’ Harrison is a tad bit reckless, my fellow fans. He crashed a plane recently. He walked away but he could’ve just as easily been killed. So maybe the Powers-That-Be (aka Disney) don’t want to take that chance.
Maybe the way they lured Ford back to the role (outside of a big paycheck) is to promise to do what Ford wanted them to do back in Episode III – kill off his character.
Star Wars consistently kills off characters. Death is a prominent feature in the films. Qui-Gon Jinn, Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, Amidalalala, almost the whole freaking Jedi Order, Luke’s aunt and uncle, Obi-Wan Kenobi, everyone on the Death Star (both 1 and 2), Yoda, Emperor Palaptine, Anakin/Darth Vader – the list goes on and on. Han’s death would have a shock and a strong emotional impact for even the casual fan. If whoever kills him escapes, it provides a strong plot element for the next two films. The fans will want to see the killer brought to justice. Guaranteed continued high attendance.
It’s not like we’ll totally lose Han. A Young Han Solo film is scheduled for 2018. If it’s young Han Solo then it’s a guarantee that Harrison Ford won’t be playing him. He’s oooooold.
I’m standing by this one for now. Han Solo is going to take the dirt nap. If he doesn’t? Hey – that’s fine by me too. Just remember you heard it here first. Or second. Or forty-fifth. Let’s think of this as an experiment – will I become an anonymous source? Will anyone quote me? That would be a giggle.
Hello. My name is Marc Alan Fishman, and I am … a collector. I’ve attempted many times to stop. I thought getting married, having a mortgage, and a kid would get in the way. It didn’t. I even have another kid on the way, and yet, I can’t shake off my problem. Shiny toys, gadgets, and brick-a-brak litter my life like dumbass xenophobic one liners litter Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. I’d heard once that the first step to overcoming a bad habit was to admit you had a problem. Well, I’ll be honest: I don’t actually have a problem collecting stuff. But I do have a budding problem with the crateculture that’s being cultivated out and about in this age of the Interwebs.
For those still living in a cave, let me bring you up to speed. The Internet is a large interconnected web of sites that offer news, information, and yes, means to buy and sell objects and services of interest. Taking a page out of the subscription services of yore, Loot Crate, Nerd Block, and umpteen other startups have opened their digital doors in order to pair nerds with extra cash with stashes of objects of unknown origin. Or to be a little less cryptic, a combination of overstocked items, and cheaply-produced trinkets by manufacturers looking for quick turnaround.
I freely, and sadly, admit to succumbing to peer pressure when I bit the bullet two months ago. Loot Crate must have paid a fine fortune to market themselves in my Facebook feed several times a day. And there, in all his Doctorly glory, stood a static Peter Capaldi telling me that the month’s crate was Time themed. He beckoned to me in his notorious brogue. “C’mon, ya wee bugger. Why not see what you’ll get? Ye only need to part with a little of that wasted PayPal money you’ve got stashed away fer’ a rainy day. Certainly if they’re showing me pretty face here, I’ll be waiting fer’ you in the box!” And then they sealed the deal with a First Timers discount. Three dollars off bought my love, damnit.
When the crate arrived, I was elated. Loot Crate promised it’d be like Christmas morning. Being Jewish, I didn’t know exactly how that would feel, but my goyim friends always made it sound like a big deal. So, I cracked open the “crate,” which was a cardboard box. I got a limited edition fifth-scale authentic replica of the Back to the Future II Hoverboard, a Doc Brown Funco Pop™ toy, a Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure tee shirt, and a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver spork. Oh… and a collectible button.
Is Christmas morning supposed to feel empty and hollow? Where I was shown promotional images that hinted at an item celebrating my favorite Doctor, I was gifted a plastic eating utensil – erected in the form of the previous Doctor’s iteration of the aforementioned Screwdriver. The shirt was nice. The Pop was cute. The Hoverboard was authentically replicated, and boxed in a nifty reflective package.
Had anyone in my life gifted these items to me otherwise, I’d be pleased as punch to have received them. Yet, upon unboxing, I felt no twinge of glee. Perhaps I simply was being too dismissive. I should wait another month, and see what new and lovely trinkets would arrive on my doorstep. What good is that twenty bucks doing in that Paypal account, anyways!?
And then Combat showed up on my doorstep. Inside? A pair of sunglasses with a bolted-on 2-D Shredder helmet from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, a Vault Boy bobblehead from Fallout 4, a tiny plastic SD Blizzard villain figure, and a Loot Crate Exclusive Street Fighter II comic book. Again, I’d hoped for that unwieldy sense of joy at the box of goodies before me. Instead, I felt the pangs I often feel when I peruse the show floor at comic con.
I often find myself reflecting “All of these tchotchkes are cute, but really, do I need them?” And the answer has always been an abrupt No. While I admitted earlier to being a collector, that term comes with the weight of individualism behind it. As much as I’m a nerd-of-the-world – well-versed in the minutiae of Blizzard video games and Back to the Future – I’m also a finicky little fuck. Pardon my French.
The appeal of a random box of appropriately nerdy wares is certainly there. It’s the brown-paper bag stapled shut at the comic shop. It could contain an issue of The Atom that’s the bee’s knees! Of course it could contain Voodoo #1 from the New52 as well. The chance for something cool often sparks us to roll the dice. Loot Crate and their kin bank on this feeling. They hedge their bets by appealing to our shared culture of collectability – that even if we don’t personally love the items in the box, someone will, and will pay more for the item than we did. Suddenly Loot Crate is a micro-transaction investment! But nay, I say, my dear nerds.
Loot Crate is, at best, a great way to cultivate a collection of crap for someone who wants to be hip to nerd culture. For the well-versed dorks like myself, it’s the crib-note version of Crisis on Infinite Earths instead of the Absolute iteration. Good on the surface, but not much else.
Could I spend twenty bucks better? Probably. Will I? Maybe after next month’s box. While I’d love to cancel my subscription knowing full well two months has brought me little in the way of childish joy… the crate for December has a Star Wars collectible in it, and my wife called dibs.
Like the dweeb I am, I spent last weekend watching television on my computer. First (because I’d already seen the first two episodes), The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime, and then Marvel’s Jessica Jones on Netflix. I suppose there might have been other things to do for two days, but all of them involved wearing pants.
This isn’t going to be a review, or even a comparison of the two shows. Instead, I want to talk about trigger warnings. Still, you might want to beware of spoilers.
A trigger warning is a note, usually on a book cover or syllabus or other preview piece, that informs the potential user that some material in the specific piece might be disturbing. If you watch the network news, you’ve probably heard some version of a trigger warning before the camera cuts to pictures of starving children or corpses of people shot down in the streets.
The term “trigger warning” has become a cause du jour because some people think it means a particular book (or movie or newscast) is banned when it comes so captioned. To those people, a trigger warning is just another way we are coddling kids today, with their crazy music and their hair, who don’t appreciate how good they have it and they should just get off my lawn already.
Anyway, some people think that there should have been a trigger warning on Marvel’s Jessica Jones. And, I confess, I hadn’t thought about that until I read the essay in the link.
Here’s what I think is the key quote: The point of a trigger warning is not to tell people “Don’t watch this.” Or “You’re too weak to handle this.” The point of a trigger warning is to empower all viewers by informing them of what they can expect so they can make the best decision for themselves, cognizant all the while that the viewer’s personal response is just that: personal.
Maybe I would have understood if I had read the comic book on which Jessica Jones is based. I did read the first issue, and I didn’t like it much. To my reading at the time, it seemed to me to be trying to hard to be shocking and gritty. I watched the series because I totally love David Tennant. Yes, I’m shallow. Don’t judge me.
If I’d read the series, maybe I would have known that Jessica Jones is the victim of the violent sexual and emotional abuse perpetuated by Kilgrave The Purple Man, the villain who uses his mind control powers exactly as you’d expect if you imagine David Tennant to be the embodiment of a houseful of frat-boys. Still, because I heart him so much, I found myself, after the first episode, wishing he would come to me in my dreams and lick my face, as he did to Jessica.
After a few more episodes, I didn’t want that anymore. If anything, I felt kind of soiled for having wanted it at all.
I haven’t experienced the kind of comic-book violence Jessica Jones went through, nor have I experienced any more than the daily insults and bruises that any woman gets in this culture (and as a straight cis woman with gray hair, I get less than many of my sisters). The violence in the Netflix series seemed more harsh than what we see every day on network television, but I didn’t have to look away except for the parts about needles in the eye.
Still, there are millions of women who have experienced actual criminal violence, and they might have been disproportionately upset by the fight scenes on the show. (When I say “disproportionately” I don’t mean they are too sensitive, I mean that their reactions are not what the creative people intended.) If Netflix put some kind of warning or disclaimer in the descriptive materials (like cast information and plot summaries) they post before the user clicks to play, this wouldn’t be an issue at all.
There wasn’t a warning on Amazon Prime for The Man in the High Castle either, and I haven’t seen anyone ask for one. So I guess it’s just me.
If you haven’t read the Phillip K. Dick novel on which the show is based, you can still enjoy the show. I haven’t read it in decades. The premise imagines a world 20 years after the Axis won World War II. Germany controls the East Coast of the United States across to the Rockies. Japan controls the West Coast. There is a narrow neutral zone in between.
The world-building on this series is awesome. Everything, from the cars to the clothing to the outdoor advertising to the streetlights, reflects a world in which the American way has been perverted by fascism. It takes a while to notice some of the detail (like the lack of anyone but Aryans in Manhattan) but it’s chilling when it sinks in.
I didn’t experience concentration camps (I’m not that old), but I have been freaked out by the imagery for my entire life. I also have trouble looking at old footage from Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bombs destroyed those cities. There’s a bunch of both of these things in this series. You have been warned.
Even if the shows had been labeled, I would have watched. Again, trigger warnings are not censorship. If anything, more people would probably enjoy them if they knew what they were getting into.
Now, if we could only lobby Marvel into that Dakota North series…
