House of Ideas: One Man's Rants

(To the tune of the Theme from The Monkees)

Here we come...
To your comic shelves...
Having stories from current plots,
Or standing by ourselves...

Hey hey we're the Annuals!
We're gonna sell out in a flash!
We'll try hard to entertain you,
But mostly we'll just steal your cash...

We're just trying to be issues,
That tell the story you want to see.
But before the whole thing is over,
You'll probably file for bankruptcy...

Hey, hey, we're the Annuals!
You'll never know where we'll be found!
We'll take what little patience you have,
And drive it right into the grooooound!

So the mighty annual is back among us, ready to regale us with stories and drive us further towards debt. And while some of my favorite childhood memories are attached to annuals, I'm hard pressed to say that I'm really jazzed about the notion of them being back.

This is probably due in no small part to what the annual issue was. See, back in the olden days (like "the 80's"), most comics had exactly 12 issues a year. No more, no less. And unless your favorite comic was on a different schedule, that was all you ended up with. Until...

The Annual! It was an extra special issue that had all kinds of cool things. There was normally some big story involved, possibly crossing over into other annuals depending on what the company was trying to do that year. Then, on top of that was mini-stories, articles, pin-ups and other random junk just tossed in for the heck of it. Sometimes all of that stuff was more fun than the actual story was.

Then, one day, however many years ago, all the major companies decided that Annuals weren't really necessary anymore. And while a few popped up every now and again, they were pretty much dead and gone.

Until now! Now, they're back. Both Marvel and DC seem to be reviving them at around the same time (what a coincidence!). But the real question is, is there really a need for them anymore?

Like I said earlier, some of my favorite issues when I was a kid were annuals. Mind you, the reason I liked annuals was because they were special. It can hardly be said that there's a need for special issues in this day and age, since every other issue of something is special. There's either an epic mini-series, epic crossover, or some other "special" issue of something coming out at any point in time. If you're unlucky, the epic mini-series connects to the epic crossover, which in turn has a "special" issue.

So why, in this particular environment of all kinds of special issues and one shots, do comic companies feel it necessary to produce an extra issue in the form of an annual? The obvious answer is to make more money, and you can't fault them for that. Comic companies, after all, have to be about making money just as much as anyone else. But you have to ask yourself, "Aren't they making enough?" Well, I'm hardly an economics major, so I'm not sure I could answer that, but the companies definitely feel like there's space for more books.

Me? I think the market's already saturated as it is. DC has been running a major event for the past year now in terms of connected mini-series, one shots, and specials. Marvel has been running their own connected sagas, and this summer is poised to run mulitple events at the same time. And it's unlikely they'll be letting up any time soon.

Now as I've said before, I'm not one to foretell the fall of any indsutry. In fact, I really hate it when someone decires something as "the beginning of end of" random company. I can only speak for myself, and personally, they're just about to make me lose interest. I've never been a person that had to have their hands on everything a company offered. So if I end up trimming back to a few select titles and it looks like I won't enjoy those specific titles unless I'm "in the know," then I'm more likely to drop books than I am pick up more.

I say that understanding that I may not be the target demographic for said upcoming titles or even in the majority of readers when I say things like this. But I imagine that there are a good many people who take a look at their spending budget, notice just how much is going into an expense like comics (and my word, I hate to think about that actual number some days... I know there's a little South American orphan that could be put through law school right now if I didn't have a Spider-Man jones...) and decide that the money could be spent better elsewhere (tort law, Paco... go into tort law...).

I don't really have a point here. That's kind of the whole premise of a rant. It doesn't have to have a point. But if it has to have one, I guess the point is that I'd be a little happier if the big companies would space out their big events so that you could recover from one before the next one started. Otherwise, they cease being "big events" and just become "regularly scheduled things that you claim are big just to sell more books."


Fear the Future

Okay, I know it's not fair to be overly critical of things you hear on the internet. Heaven knows anyone and their grandmother can post in places when they want to. But sometimes you see something in print and just want to wonder what, if anything, the kids are learning today. This my outlet for my fear, rage, and concern over what the current and future generations do. Sometimes, you must fear the future.

A popular trend these days seems to be trying to come up with a cool or witty reason for why you don't like something. Here's a tip for the uninformed: sometimes, it's better to just say, "I don't like it," and leave it at that than to try and elaborate and make yourself seem dense while trying be witty.

Someone on one of the forums tried to show their disdain for the new CBS show "The Unit" by referring to it as a "24 knockoff." Aside from the appearance of Dennis Haysbert on both shows, there's almost no connection at all between the shows. Okay, so there's also a paramilitary type atmosphere, but there's a good many shows that use that type of format, and I'd hardly refer to it as a clone by any stretch.

Someone noted how interesting it was that the game show Hollywood Squares uses the phrase, "For the win..." because it makes the contestants sound like internet users, who often use the phrase as part of an exclamation, ("Presidential pardon for the win!") or in abbreviated form ("Chuck Norris FTW!"). The whole thing would be an interesting observation, if not for the fact that Hollywood Squares has used that expression a good 10-20 years before the internet ever existed. Which means that some internet user borrowed it from the show, not the other way around. I just find it odd that anyone would think that it's the other way around when it's pretty clear that most internet fads are a product derived from other sources.

Someone noted that the TV show 24 made an error because the President and Vice President were in the same room at the same time, citing that they can't do that because of a law in the Constitution. The Constitution? Nope, not there. While for security purposes, the two senior members of the Executive Branch are normally kept separated (especially during a crisis), there's no law that requires them to do so. Least of all would such a provision be in the Constitution. Kind of makes me worry about what people think is or should be in the Constitution. No wonder amendment ideas get tossed around so much.

System purged. Fear subsiding. Venting successful. If you happen to be reading this and your someone who either A) said the above or B) was unaware of the truth of any of the above, please don't take it personally. Now you know, and it's always better to learn about new things than to walk around being ignorant of them.


T-Mail!

Okay, here's something I learned about last week. Some person(s) think it's a really cool idea to spam other people's comment logs with links to pay sites and other weird offers. I'm sincerely at a loss for why anyone would think this was a good idea. I'd assume that all of the suckers that could be mined with this type of tactic would be mined by now. Not only that, but trying to reach anyone through any of my posts is just a useless tactic.

For one, I don't have any readers, and if I do I'm sure they already know exactly where to find their porn.

Second, anyone that knows me knows that I'd never endorse a product or website out of the blue for no apparant reason. Except, of course, for the Gillette Fusion. With 5 blade shaving technology.

Gillette Fusion: The Best a Man Can Get.

Need to vent your own rage? Need to teach me something I've got wrong? Can't picture the evolution of shaving unless it involves some robot that shaves you in your sleep? If you have any ideas/suggestions/comments, feel free to leave them here or contact me at th_houston75@hotmail.com. Please reference either "Waiting for Wednesday" or "House of Ideas" in you subject, so I have some idea why you're mailing me.


Remember: the day you stop learning is the day that you die. So keep learning stuff. Or die. Wait. That came out wrong...