The last area of innocence and corporate-free bullshit has been invaded; COMICS. DC and Marvel have sold the last piece of their souls to Corporate America and their books will now have fucking PRODUCT PLACEMENT. Already in New X-Men, one of the characters was sporting a Nike logo t-shirt. And this is just the beginning - DC is about to launch a new book called Rush City where the main character's car is the new Pontia Solstica GXP which will be "the character's car of choice and a key part of his adventrues." Now, before the new book is launched, the character and car will first appear in issues of "Battle for Bludhaven, Birds of Prey, Batman: Journey Into Knight and Nightwing." Ugh! The Vice President of Advetising and Custom Publishing for DC Comics said comic book readers will soon see "health and beauty care, shaving cream, razors and other products" in their montly books.
This goes beyond typical advertising within comics. Now, when stories are collected in trade - there will be the products. It pulls you out of the story, for one. The Principle of it makes me want to bail out of comics. This does nothing for the reader except throw advertising at you. With an ad page, I can simply choose to not look at it. Now, its in the artwork itself. By opening this door, they are allowing the potential to snowball out of control to creep in. What's next, sponsors on the costumes? Like in "Mystery Men" where Greg Kinnear's superhero character's costume looks more like a NASCAR suit plastered with corporate sponsor logos? Look at sports....its no longer "The Orange Bowl" (just grabbing that name) its now "The Doritos Bowl". Within the next 10 years I bet we'll see "Coca-Cola Presents The Amazing Spiderman" inside instead of "Stan Lee presents"...or it on the cover itself.Kick to the nuts? Prices aren't even coming down. So this is a move on the Publishers' part to put more money in their pockets, while doing nothing to help ours. F**k em. My wife will be thrilled that I won't have a inflow of comics into the house anymore. Perhaps this is a blessing. Its nice to see Corporate America moving into the last safe area. Now there is no escape. We're heading down a very dangerous path. There are now generations of people who have known nothing but living under this corporate umbrella - its normal and ok to them. ARGH! Now I'm going off.....
Seriously, I'm truly considering bailing out on comics over this, which makes me sadder than sad. I know it sounds silly, but this really upsets me.
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7 comments:
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Don't give up on comics, Jim. You'll have to give up movies too, if this is your standard, because there's usually plenty of product placement in them.
I'm all for it if it reduces the amount of regular ads in the books, replacing it with more comic. Or, if it keeps the price of comics down.
I hate product placement in movies, tv, video games, everything. Comics was the last safe place. And you know they'll keep the same amount of regular ads and prices will not come down at all. :( :(
Stop buying comics marketed towards the generic population. Go for the indies, the oddballs - they're the ones that are pushing the medium anyways. That's where you'll get your state-of-the-art comic lovin'.
What the HELL are you doing reading anything with an "X" in the title, man?!?! You should know better! That shit turned into market porn years ago. Let go of that drivel and go read something else - I know you've got a wider selection at hand.
Don't take any of that the wrong way, man. :)
I've checked out pretty much every single comic available. While some of the Indy stuff is fun, I just prefer the ole Superhero stuff. And yes, I've been painfully sticking with the X-Books these past 10-15years...but they appear to finally be heading back in the right direction (fingers crossed). VERTIGO is usually a safe bet for great stories. And I feel that the Indy stuff was pushing the medium in the 90s, but now they are a cliche of themselves. Maybe "cliche" is too harsh, but you get my meaning. Have any recommendations?
http://litanyofschist.blogspot.com/
Go there - my buddy's blog - he used to edit comics like Gen13 and collects a wide range of comics. He's always on the prowl for new stuff and focuses both on good story telling and art. I trust his reccomendations.
He writes about new comics almost every week. He lives down in Studio City.
Me? I usually just go for what looks good - and yeah, sometimes that means an "X" title. Call me a hypocrit... My weakness is Hellboy.
Hellboy kicks ass! Pure genius stuff.
Thanks for the link! I'll check it out!
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