In comic books, superhero is the king of genres. But over time there has been strong representation of other genres like war, horror, cowboy, humor, science fiction, police, and romance. Some genres, like the family saga and literary have never found a place in comics: Odyssey can be a comic but Ulysses never will be. […]
In its first weekend out, the latest 20th Century Fox offering for slaughter racked up $25 million, coming insecond to Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, which was in its second week. That’s with 3995 theaters. Given three days, Friday to Sunday, and 30 sessions all up, that’s at best about 20 people per session on […]
Americans experienced 1344 days of World War II, about three and a half years. Many Americans were defined by those years for the rest of their lives. Some of them even until today. It defined America. Every candidate for office was questioned about their war record – Kennedy was accused of staying on crutches for […]
Of all the superheroes, Henry Pym was the first of his type and there are now only three. This has not served the character well but may serve him better in the future. Henry Pym first appeared in Tales to Astonish 27, which was back in its all-monster days. In fact, Tales to Astonish […]
We may think of pulps or pulp fiction as gritty crime noir in which cynical not-the-cops characters fight the basest kind of criminal committing the basest kind of crime. But “pulp” is actually a kind of paper, just as “tabloid” is actually a newspaper with a single, central fold. But the pulps took on the […]
Pulp noir fiction is a medium and genre that is dark and cynical in tone and involves crime. The person investigating is not an official like a police officer or detective, which would make it hardboiled fiction. The hero of the story is a victim, a suspect, a perpetrator, or a vigilante. The system itself […]
Al Ries and Jack Trout came up with a theory about advertising. They called it positioning. Basically, you can’t own the whole market for long so you have to associate your product with a position in the mind of the prospect and own part of the market for a long time. So Coke is the […]
In the beginning, and in fact before that, superheroes had girlfriends. It was a significant part of the story but virtually every history only looks at heroes as a group but the girlfriends (and occasional boyfriends) are treated almost as an afterthought. The evidence isn’t really happy with that assessment. The original super powered crime […]
No other movie studio has become part of western culture more than Disney. Sure, Warner Brothers has recognition for Bugs Bunny, but you don’t say something that doesn’t work too well or is ineffective is a Bugs Bunny version. You can have a Mickey Mouse car, not a Bugs Bunny car. But with ubiquity comes […]
Marvel was long known as the company of the superhero teams. By design or coincidence, each Marvel team has its own theme, though the theme could change. The Fantastic Four are a family. The Avengers started out as the premier league, but later became a reform school when Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch joined. […]
Let’s start by looking at Vertigo as a typical DC business model. DC is the place of multiple, similar Earths. It is the place of Vertigo and Tangent comics. And at the very beginning, when comics were unformed and no one was certain how to tell their stories, there were three companies. National Allied Periodicals, […]
Spider-Man was Marvel’s chief cash-cow for decades. Sure, he’s been replaced by Wolverine in that role of late, and his movies aren’t as good as those Disney has control over. But you cannot escape the fact that for years Spider-Man was the masked face of Marvel that most people recognized. So, why? That’s a very […]
WARNING: WARNING: DANGER WILL READER: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS LOTS OF SPOILERS AND IS ONLY MEANT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY SEEN THE FIRST EPISODE. BUT THAT’S PROBABLY ALL OF YOU. From the first scene we are wrapped not in Batman, but in the events surrounding him, starting with a panoramic view of Gotham City. The […]
