Tagged: Marc Alan Fishman

Martha Thomases: All You Need is Love

thomases-art-131122-150x136-4745173The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story by Vivek Tiwary and Andrew C Robinson, with Kyle Baker. 144 pages. Dark Horse. Available in both hardcover and electronic editions.

This week, I’m kvelling all the time. The Fifth Beatle is finally in the stores.

Let me explain. About a dozen years ago, I met Vivek Tiwary and we quickly became friends, even though it’s only recently I’ve pronounced his name properly. We met because we had friends in common, friends who inspired us to do some good, in Vivek’s case quite amazingly. (Really, watch the video at the link. It’s wonderful.)

Community service is all well and good, but what really bonded us was comics. We are totally geeks together. We would walk around various conventions (both Book Expo and the San Diego Comic-Con), sharing the kind of fangasms such events inspire. I even helped him take his young son around.

During these walks, and on other occasions, we would often talk about his various projects, He was working on turning Green Day’s American Idiot album into a theatrical musical, and he was working on a screenplay about Brian Epstein. Vivek is quite passionate on the subject of Epstein, the Beatles’ first manager. He first looked tried to find out about him 21 years ago, when he was in business school. There was hardly any information. Over the decades, he pulled the story together. Vivek had a lot of experience as a theatrical producer, but film was a new medium for him. He had written a screenplay, but getting it made was an arduous process.

Why not make it into a graphic novel while you wait, I suggested.

And so he did. He found Andrew Robinson to collaborate on the art (and I introduced him to Kyle Baker, who drew the hilarious scene in the Philipines), and off they went. Thanks to my ComicMix co-columnist Michael Davis, we got the book to Dark Horse.

Vivek didn’t fall into the trap that catches too many writers from other media, including me. He doesn’t cram the page with words. He knows how to let the pictures tell the story. He trusts his artist to convey the pace, the emotions, the energy of the story. Andrew doesn’t let him down. The likenesses are evocative without being overbearing. People who knew some of the characters in real life tell me he nailed the body language as well as the bodies. The use of Beatle lyrics is lovely.

There is a rhythm to the story that is like a great rock’n’roll song. You get caught up in the energy when you read it the first time, and then you can’t get it out of your head.

And now, you have the book in your hands. You’re welcome.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Martha Thomases: Ratings and Warnings

thomases-art-131115-127x225-3161884We had no ratings systems back in the days of my youth. The Catholic Church circulated listings to the faithful, but as a young Jewess in America I could go to anything I wanted, as long as my parents approved enough to drive me there and buy my ticket.

In many ways, there was no reason to have movie ratings. The studios agreed to the Hayes code, which uphold certain standards about language, nudity and gruesome violence.  Arbitrary, ridiculous standards, but generally understood by the audience.

By the late 1960s, all this fell by the wayside as film, like other popular media, responded to an opening up of the culture and a liberation from repressive societal standards (and instituted some new ones, but that’s another sixty or seventy columns). Filmmakers wanted to show how people really talked and really looked and really acted.

Hence, a rating system. It wasn’t great. I remember, after seeing it was rated “M” (Parental Discretion Advised), my parents decided that we, as a family, would go see Carnal Knowledge, directed by Mike Nichols from Jules Feiffer’s play. I was 18, certainly old enough. And we might have had a fine time… except we took my grandparents, too.

(Side note: Has anyone ever looked more like a flesh-and-blood Feiffer cartoon that Art Garfunkel?)

In any case, movie ratings are a fact of life, along with ratings on all sorts of other things, including television, music, comics and video games. I find them relatively useless. As a parent, my standards for what was inappropriate for my child had little to do with what the ratings board thought and everything to do with my understanding of my individual kid.

The ratings continue to be useless, in no small part because in an attempt to be critically neutral (that is, to not to a position on the artistic merits of any particular film) they provide no context. A recent study showed that PG-13 movies have as much gun violence, for example, as R-rated movies, but this doesn’t necessarily tell us how violent the movie is, nor how much that violence is glamorized.

That is information thoughtful parents want to know.

Now that I’m no longer the parent to a young child, my interest in movie ratings is more selfish. An R-rated comedy is a usually a different animal entirely than a PG comedy. If there is nudity, I want to know exactly who is naked, and how inadequate I’m going to feel in comparison. If the R rating is only from cuss words, that means something entirely different from an R for violence.

So I was delighted to see that, in Sweden, there is demand for information about whether or not a movie passes the Bechdel test. As a consumer, I appreciate knowing if characters of my gender will be treated as independent human beings.

And I wondered, what other information would I appreciate getting from ratings? Here is where I would start.

• Affordable Housing. Under this new ratings system, the audience would be informed ahead of time about the credibility of the housing situation. I was watching It’s Complicated, a movie where Meryl Street has a fabulous house with a fabulous kitchen (I’m coveting kitchens these days) and a fabulous little store and fabulous men who want to have sex with her even though she is the same age they are. And I realized that this movie is, essentially, porn. It’s porn for women, but it sets up the same impossible expectations about reality as conventional porn does for men. Only in this case, the money shot isn’t ejaculation but white carpet that stays clean.

• Traffic. Children need to be protected from unreasonable glorification of dangerous driving. Even worse, it strains credulity to believe, for example, that Jack Bauer could drive across Los Angeles in the daytime in 20 minutes.

• Product Placement. Will I walk out of this movie and then be forced by my over-stimulated toddler to go to McDonalds or Toys’R’Us to buy some piece of crap that was used by the hero in the film? And can there be a parallel rating system that tells me what pro-social, non-consumer behavior is shown?

• Calories. It used to bug me a lot that the characters on soap operas, always extremely thin, spent all of their time meeting in restaurants for meals, or sundaes, or creamy coffee beverages. If I’m going to watch people eat delicious, fattening foods, I want to either see them exercising, or complaining about gaining weight.

• DQ. No, not Dairy Queen (see above), but Drag Quotient. Several years ago, when the Barb Wire movie came out, I saw a little kid run to her mother and point at the poster. “Look, it’s RuPaul!” squealed the child, with joy. No, it was Pamela Anderson, but that’s besides the point. If the movie, television show or comic book features women who have had so much work done with the implants and the hair extensions and the facial injections that they can inspire such a response, please let me know in advance.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Martha Thomases: It’s No Longer Your Mother’s Verisimilitude

Thomases Art 131108When Siegel and Shuster first designed Superman’s costume they didn’t have other superhero costumes to copy. Instead they modeled his outfit on circus performers, which made sense. Circus performers needed outfits that sparkled, that attracted the eyes of the audience, but also were flexible enough to permit them to perform their amazing feats. In case you were wondering, that’s why Kal-El wore his underwear on the outside – like a circus strongman.

When it came time to dress super heroines, the same rules applied – almost. The outfits seemed to be modeled on magicians’ assistants as much as acrobats, that is, for women who were there to be stared at, not to move. This is perfectly understandable when you think about it. They people designing the clothes were the ones doing the staring, not the wearing.

Anyway, this has bothered me for at least the last twenty years, when the costumes (and the physiques they covered) became more extreme. Women with enormous breasts, tiny waists and legs longer than stilts wore costumes that defied gravity and exposed their most vulnerable parts. The costumes provided no breast support and most gave the wearer a permanent wedgie. Even when I was running and wore lycra tights (feeling like The Flash, and always wishing DC had licensed that product category), I didn’t wear them so tight that you could see my individual ass cheeks in such detail.

Clearly, no man had ever tried to move in such an outfit.

Last week, thanks to the wonders of the Internets, I saw some examples of what super heroines might wear if they had a choice. A woman I’d never heard of, Celeste Pille

, sketched a few examples.

They are wonderful. While I don’t share her antipathy for capes or long hair (although I agree that both are impractical in a physical fight), it’s breath of fresh air to see costumes a woman can wear and still move.

Gone are high heels. Gone are costumes cut down to, or up to there. If the character needs armor, it covers the places that are most likely to get stabbed or shot at, or that she most wants to protect. Characters who might get cold wear pants.

And while I don’t know that I would hire Ms. Pille to draw comics (not enough information on her story-telling abilities), she does know a few things about how women’s bodies fit together. Women who are human and need strength have big arms and thighs. If they have big breasts, they wear sports bras because while men might find flopping breasts arousing, most women find them inconvenient at best.

If I have any criticisms, it’s that almost everybody needs more pockets. But that’s my criticism of real life as well.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

John Ostrander: The New Breed

ostrander-art-131103-150x140-7201015Last weekend I was at the Detroit Fanfare (which is why I wasn’t here) and I enjoyed myself immensely. It’s a good Con, well organized, and they took good care of me. I had a chance to say hello to old friends like Bill and Nadine Messner-Loebs, Paul Storrie, Howard Purcell, Norm Breyfogle and others and make new friends like Whilce Portacio. And, of course, talk with fans and sign books and stuff which, for me, is the main reason I go. I love meeting and talking with fans and having a chance to say “thank you” for their support.

I was ferried there and back by my cohorts in Unshaven Comics – Marc Alan Fishman (my esteemed fellow ComicMix columnist), Matt Wright, and Kyle Gnepper (the cute one). Marc drove and we blathered together in a wonderful fashion.

Da Boys (as I refer to them and, being from my home town of Chicago, they’ll understand) are indie comics creators, notably of the Samurnauts (which you can learn about and buy at their website here and they make the rounds of Cons, setting up shop, and hawking their wares at their booth. They do nearly a dozen a year and FanFare was the last one for 2013.

They were in a separate but adjacent ballroom to mine so I would touch base with them throughout the show and we had eats together. At the end of the Con, I wandered over while they broke it all down and packed it up. I was really struck with how organized they were and how compact it all became. Da Boys really know their stuff. Their book is wonderful but they also have a better business sense than I did at that time or have even perhaps now.

They sell their books, sure (and go buy them at the site) but I saw buttons and posters and cards at the table and they did (and do) sketches and so on. I looked around the room, which was mostly Indie folk, and this was a trend. My friend, Paul Storrie, who was nearby, also has a very professional set-up.

I don’t know but I suspect this is a trend among the younger creators. I suspect they wouldn’t sneer at work from the Big Companies but they have their own creations that they own and that they are hard at work selling.

You should also read Marc’s column from yesterday. Yes, I’m very flattered by the kind words directed at me – although if they eat with me a few more times I suspect they’ll get over the novelty – but what I was really struck by was how they evaluate which Con to go to. They know the numbers in terms of what they sell, of the costs of going to a certain con, the bottom line of each venture. They factor in the time away from family and having to go to their day jobs. They – and I suspect the other Indie creators – know their business far better than I did when I was their age. Hell, I’m not sure I had started writing comics when I was their age.

I salute them and I intend to support them. This is the future of comics, boys and girls. This is where the really good stuff, the fresh and exciting stuff, is coming from. So I’m going to urge you, next time you go to a con, to seek out Unshaven Comics and the other Indie producers, look at what they’re doing, sample the books, get the buttons, and be a part of something that is alive and vital in the comics industry.

As another innovator in the field was known to remark, ‘Nuff Said.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Martha Thomases: Sweet Lou

loureedWord of Lou Reed’s death spread across the Internet on Sunday. For me, it was Sunday afternoon, so I can’t make this allusion. Nor will I call it a perfect day.

That’s what Lou Reed was to me. From the time his first album came out, he provided not only a soundtrack for my life, but a running commentary. His New York-inflected nasal vocals seemed to perfectly capture my own yearning for something I couldn’t define, but wanted desperately.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, this made me unusual, especially in Ohio, where I lived. Lou had a hit in the mid-1970s, but there still weren’t a lot of people who would admit to liking him. I can only believe that people bought “Walk on the Wild Side” without acknowledging that they knew it was about drag queens.

He wrote about drag queens, and heroin, and despair. He also wrote about domestic violence, video games, and Doc Pomus. It didn’t matter. It felt like he was talking to me. It felt like he knew what mattered and who cared what anybody else thought. A valuable point of view now, but absolutely priceless to me when I was younger and even more insecure.

I’m not the only one. There were millions of us. Even though his sales never reflected it, he had millions of fans worldwide. He played for a pope. It’s possible to argue that he was part of the inspiration for the people’s revolution in Czechoslovakia.

It always seemed to me that Lou would like comics. Maybe he’d like Marvel superheroes, or maybe he’d just like cool, outré stuff like World War 3. He was in a comic as himself. And, according to Neil, he was an important inspiration to another.

Despite his reputation as a serious poet (or maybe because of it), he could also be hilariously funny. He was the reason I went to see what would turn out to be one of my favorite movies, Get Crazy where he played Auden, a singer-songwriter clearly satirizing Bob Dylan. If you don’t have time to watch the whole movie, you should still take ran minutes and look here.

(In our family, when we’re running, we sing, “We’re late for the show.”)

I only saw him perform a few times, not enough, and I never met him. If I had, I don’t think he would have liked me. He had a reputation for being mean to people he didn’t like. A woman I know who attended the dinner Neil describes above says he was vicious and dismissive to her and to the other woman at the table.

And yet….

He didn’t have to sit for an interview with Punk. Lots of musicians less famous than he would have refused to talk to a couple of kids with no published clips. He didn’t have to perform at Farm Aid.

In “Sweet Jane,” one of my favorite songs, he sings,

“Anyone who ever had a heart

they wouldn’t turn around and hate it

anyone who ever played a part

they wouldn’t turn around and hate it.”

Thanks for the life and the work, Lou Reed. I’m glad I spent it with you.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Martha Thomases: Send In The Crowds

thomases-art-131018-150x109-1426669I’m not a Communist. I’m not a Marxist, unless you count Groucho. And I’m certainly not a Maoist. However, I’ve always enjoyed quoting this passage from Mao’s Little Red Book: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.”

I’ve always heard that as a call for diversity, not only of opinion but of style, of subject matter, of voice and rhythm and flavor. It’s what I want not only in the market of public opinion, but even more in my popular culture.

Especially in comics.

For many years American comics came in only a few flavors. You had your superhero comics, and your underground comics. If you wanted something that wasn’t “Biff, Bam, Pow” or political satire, you had to look to Europe or Japan, and hope one of your friends could translate for you.

Luckily, that hasn’t been true for years. Yes, Marvel and DC continue to dominate the direct market, but there are many more outlets that sell graphic novels, including bookstores and the Internet. More publishers putting out more kinds of books meant there were more potential readers. The marketplace grew, and, as a result, not only are there massive, crowded events like last weekend’s New York Comic-Con, but best seller lists of graphic novels in the newspaper of record.

In the past couple of years, the market has opened even wider because of crowd-funding. People who are passionate about an idea for a book can raise the money themselves to put it together, and then either try to find a publisher or do it themselves. It’s the same spirit, but light years advanced technologically, from the zines I loved searching for in the 1970s and 1980s.

My pal, Bo Hampton, one of the finest artists working in comics, has a western super-natural horror story up on Kickstarter. It looks amazing, and it’s exactly the kind of book that neither DC nor Marvel would publish today. And even with so many mainstream publishers in the graphic novel business, there aren’t a lot of places that will do 80 pages of full color.

Sometimes, crowd funding demonstrates the pent up demand by the audience. That was the case with the Veronica Mars movie on Kickstarter, and it also seems to be the case with ComicMix Pro Services’ first campaign.

Dwayne McDuffie once said that the Internet is like a junior high school cafeteria but on a global scale. Even though there are billions of us here, we still find our own little cliques and nerd groupings.

And garden plots, where we plant a million flowers.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

 

 

 

 

Martha Thomases: Terry Crews, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

thomases-art-131011-150x213-2317308The fall television season isn’t the big deal it was when I was a kid, but it is still the time when a lot of new shows debut, a lot of old shows get a refurbishing, and a lot of Oscar-bait movies get advertised.

The rules have changed. The market is much more fragmented than it used to be, and the broadcast networks compete with the cable networks compete with programs on the Internet.

Still, September means it’s a new season. There is an equinox. Even astronomy knows it’s important.

There’s fun new stuff this season. I’m liking Sleepy Hollow a lot, and The Blacklist is better than I expected (and much better, so far, than Hostages, which I wanted to like so much more). I like The Crazy Ones because Hamish. American Horror Story: Coven began this week, promising a whole mess of strong women.

Naturally, the two shows that most interested me from the pre-hype are broadcast at the same time. Like a good geek, I was psyched about Marvel: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D  not only because it has Marvel in the title, but because it has lots of Whedons behind the scene. A superhero universe and snark? Come to Mama.

And, at the same time on Tuesday evenings, there is also Brooklyn Nine Nine, a sit-com with Andy Samberg (about whom I had no strong opinions) and Andre Braugher , whom I have loved passionately since I first saw him on Homicide: Life on the Street and have watched ardently in some pretty mediocre shows since then.

I didn’t expect to like Brooklyn Nine Nine. I thought I would just DVR it out of loyalty, and because maybe they’d someday let Pembleton back in the box.

But here’s the thing. I like it. I like it a lot. I think it’s not only well-written and well-acted, but it also passes the Bechdel Test. A workplace comedy that takes place in a police precinct in Brooklyn (go figure), the cast features a diverse crew that not only reflect the city (at least more than most television shows) but also talk like people, not like tokens. The October 1 episode featured a subplot in which the three women (two cops and a civilian) teach a class to local high school kids. None of it was about dating or sex or even shoes. The writers have become comfortable enough let Braugher’s character stop explaining how he’s an out gay in every speech.

Also, Terry Crews assembled most of a dollhouse. It was awesome.

The gender politics of S.H.I.E.L.D. are more complex, but I still think they come out okay. I seem to like it more than my sister suffragette, Mindy Newell. It’s taking me some time to get into the dynamic. which feels somewhere between The A-Team and Fringe. Also, the handsome hardcore alpha male agent keeps reminding me of John Barrowman, except he’s not a time-traveller nor a Big Bad on Arrow.

I got a lot of the complaints. There are a lot of generically good-looking Hollywood types on the show, and it can be confusing to tell them apart. So far, Clark Gregg is the only character with a really distinctive style of speech (or maybe the only one with the acting chops to sound distinctive). There’s a lot of expensive action scenes, but not a lot of character development.

There were similar criticisms for Dollhouse when it started, and I had a good time with that. I realized that the key to the show, at least for me, is to understand that Skye is the protagonist. She’s the fish out of water. She’s the one who doesn’t know what’s going on, just like the audience. Her discoveries are our discoveries.

While Hollywood continues to think that women won’t go to see movies with women heroes, Joss Whedon is going to prove them wrong. I hope he passes the Bechdel Test on his way there.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Dennis O’Neil: Daily Devotion

O'Neil Art 131010Pretty day outside, if you like bleak. Mist, rain, a world of grey. October in the northeast. Bleak.

Not much better inside. It’s becoming a chore to watch some of my favorite television programs. The other night, after sitting through about 10 minutes of The Daily Show, I walked out of the room. I deeply admire Jon Stewart: he’s a national jester and as such, one of our treasures. Four nights a week, he manages to inform and entertain simultaneously, and he does this nifty trick consistently, show after show. He was riffing on the shutdown of the national government and suddenly I didn’t want to hear about it anymore, not even when Jon Stewart was the messenger and the message was leavened with comedy. To hear yet again of the antics of that herd of egotistical narcissists who are our elected leaders – enough! Let them take the nation to hell. I’ll just shut my eyes and cover my ears and try not to breathe in the dust.

Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice can not sleep for ever.”

I’m not blaming the politicians. They are what they have to be. In a system that values greed above all else, in which congressmen, who are charged with regulating an enormous and ever increasingly complex commonwealth must spend 30 hours a week on the phone begging for money instead of learning what they should know, and in getting what they beg for place themselves in indentured servitude to the check writers, who were taught that education is passing tests, whose egos might need to be damaged before they can even aspire to the jobs they hold, and who have begun to behave like history’s great mischief makers, zealots who are incapable of questioning their zealotry, who are unable to identify with human suffering other than their own…yeah, they are more to be pitied than hated. But such creatures can foster ruination, pitiable or not.

There’s nothing I can do about the Washington mob that’s shaping our collective destiny. But please don’t ask me to share an elevator with any of them.

So I ducked an episode of The Daily Show. Then, the following evening, I got over my snit, stopped wishing that reality to be something other than what it is, and tuned in for my eleven o’clock Jon Stewart fix.

•     •     •     •     •

And now to answer a question you may or may not be asking: can’t we please, for the love of Pete, end on a cheerier note? Okay, how about a dose of…

RECOMMENDED READING: The DC Comics Guide to Creating Comics: Inside the Art of Visual Storytelling, by Carl Potts. There are a number of books like this currently available, including one I wrote. This one, I think, is the best.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Martha Thomases, Goddess With Portfolio

thomases-art-131004-150x78-9976668You probably know me as a ComicMix columnist, someone with keen insights into the art and commerce of modern popular culture. My experience as a writer, a journalist, and a public relations professional give me a unique perspective on the various aspect of this subject. And also, you know, a fan and the mother of a fan.

I am also, however, a person with a job. That job is Vice-President, Corporate Communications, for ComicMix.

Which sounds really good, and made my father happy, but it means that I spend a lot of time telling people about all the cool stuff we do here at ComicMix, both on the site and behind the scenes. This week, we had a really big announcement.

A big announcement means I’m really busy, and don’t have as much time to tune into comics and television and movies and books (although Dr. Sleep is totally worth your time, and your weekend, and your peaceful dreams). Which means I don’t have a subject about which to opine.

This announcement is more important than whether or not Batman can ever get laid. This announcement is more important than who will be the villain in a third Thor movie. This announcements more important than what happens to Jesse after the end of Breaking Bad. This announcement is even more important than the real identity of the Dr. Sleep of the title of that book I just mentioned.

This announcement means more and better comics. For you, for me, for anyone who enjoys reading. A worthy goal, in and of itself, made even more important because it means the people who make the comics will have more control over their work, and more control over their contracts, and ultimately more control over their money.

This announcement is so important that I’m going to send you to another website to read it. Go ahead. We’ll still be here when you get back.

Coolness, right?

Maybe you have an idea for a story you want to tell, but never knew how to get it together. You can go get information about the nuts and bolts here.

Or maybe you want to show your support for truly independent comics in a way that guarantees a high level of production values and joy. In that case, definitely check out the first campaign here.

If that campaign isn’t your taste, don’t be discouraged. There will be more.

And that brings us to the most important part of this story. One of those upcoming campaigns will be for a book written by me. Martha Thomases. Media Goddess. Queen of Spin.

You’re welcome.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Martha Thomases: Cosplay Everyday

thomases-art-130927-146x225-3832893I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, it’s Comic-Con everywhere. I’m not just talking about the crowds of people from out of town, the ones who don’t know how to walk down an aisle (or street) in a way that allows for the existence of other pedestrians.

I’m talking about the outfits.

The way I figure, it all started out at Disneyland. First, and from the beginning, it was a place where seemingly mature adults would wear hats that made them look like giant mice. More recently, they have this deal where little girls can spend the day in princess outfits. A little girl arrives in shorts and a t-shirt, complains for a while and gets to change into royal gear. She spends the day on rides, in her gown, and then changes back to her civvies when it’s time to go home.

Once we’ve seen people in formal wear on roller-coasters (and before 6 PM!), what else is there shock us? The geek have inherited the earth.

We control the eyeballs that Hollywood most wants. Look at the fall television line-up. I think most of the new shows have an element of the fantastic, whether it involves witches or zombies or believing Robin Williams could have fathered Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

I don’t particularly want to dress up in a costume. I mean, I wore a uniform in boarding school for four years, so every day, when I get dressed, and I get to choose my own outfits from clothes that weren’t selected by Episcopalians, it feels like a costume. I just went shopping for a dress to wear to a formal event next month, when I will be in costume as a responsible adult, maybe even one with a little skin in the game. That’s enough fantasy for me, thanks.

Cosplay is everywhere, and it’s not just for kids anymore. It’s not even just for nerds anymore. There are reality shows starring cosplayers. There are major Internet arguments about who is and who isn’t the real deal.

So cosplay has gone mainstream. Maybe no one is going down the street dressed like Wonder Woman, but the stuff designers are offering for sale are just as unrealistic. Actually, I take that back. I think Seventh Avenue (the New York fashion industry) and the magazines that rely on Seventh Avenue would go bankrupt if women were encouraged to find our inner Amazon.

Still, at least in New York, people walk down the streets in all kinds of outfits. I’m not surprised that Fox had trouble attracting attention to one of their new shows if this was how they thought they would get attention. A headless horseman? As long as he isn’t wearing a backpack, he’d get no attention at all.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander