and
If that last one seems a little too innocent and childlike for your tastes, I suppose I should point out that there is actually some pretty extreme violence in it.
Check it out:
Did you see that?! That cute little dog on the cover? It totally set that dude on fire!
Or how about this. See that chick on the cover?
She punched that little monster so hard that she knocked its eyeball clean out the socket!
Damn,those are some hardcore little all-ages fantasy comics characters right there.
And while I'm link-blogging, here are some links to things that I didn't write...
—You’re likely familiar with this Dick fellow, the one who’s not terribly fond of your blog, right? Well, this recent post of his deserves a bit of metaphorical underlining (via linking), I think. He sits his wife down for a sort of Rorschach test of recent comics controversies, showing her such images as the MJ “comiquette,” the “Heroes for Hentai” cover and Michael Turner’s Power Girl cover, and asking her opinions on them (And I wonder how often, if ever, Marvel and DC’s marketing people do the same with their significant others, or focus groups?)
She’s not a regular superhero comics reader, but she is someone who has read comics before, and could conceivably be in a comic shop with her husband Mr. Hatesyourblog some day. In other words, from DC and Marvel’s perspective, she’s a potential customer.
Her answers are thus especially fascinating, because in almost every case, her initial reaction is to laugh at the images and/or call them stupid, despite the fact that she gets the aesthetic references they’re going for, like Adam Hughes’ allusion to classic cheescake or Marvel’s tenatacle rape homage. And then, once her husband further clarifies things, like what the zombified MJ cover refers to, for example, or who exactly is on the Heroes For Hire roster, then she sees the icky sexual politics at work in sharper relief.
So, based on a test audience of one, it seems like in the cases of almost all of the products in the experiment, the reaction of a "civilian" was that the product was stupid, and to those that get the “jokes” and/or know the context (i.e. direct market consumers like us), the products are likely to be actively offensive.
If you’re selling your products with images that elicit responses ranging from thinking they’re stupid and thinking they’re offensive, chances are you’re doing something wrong.
—Tom Spurgeon writes the single best comic book review (and one of the better reviews in general) that I’ve read in a long time. It’s of the much talked-about Flash #13, which I didn’t even read, but Spurgeon’s review is a smart, entertaining reading experience all by itself, regardless of whether or not you’re personally familiar with the work he's discussin.
—At The Beat, Marc-Oliver Frisch examines DC sales data from May, which is of greater interest than usual (at least to me) because that was the month Countdown launched. Looks like it began selling at levels lower than the very worst selling issues of 52, and dropped down to just under 80,000 by the fourth issue (Which, while not as good as DC's last weekly series, is still a lot better than a bulk of their DCU line). I’m somewhat morbidly curious to see what happens in June, given that I think quite a few people—myself included—generously gave the title a few issues to improve after that disappointing first issue.
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