Before Comics Were Cool - The Gen-X Recollection Project: Ryan (It is I! Your humble blogger!)

Howdy!  And welcome to a not terribly special edition of Before Comics Were Cool - The Gen-X Recollection Project.  Because, it's me.  Writing about me.  And, settle in, kids, because this entry is entirely TL; DR material.

Fair being fair, I thought I'd partake in my own memory-gathering exercise.

The questions I put out there reflect some of what I've pondered of late when it come to how the notion of nerd-dom has changed, and as we watch the world embrace the same culture we reveled in, the same geek-type-stuff that once left us hated and feared by the very world we sought to protect, what it was like in The Before Times.

In putting finger to keyboard, it's a bit hard to think back on the past with genuine honesty.  The period we're talking about - when we got into comics and the fog of raw emotion that dominates your world in middle and high school - is one with which we all grapple.  My primary emotion during those years was "confusion".   Any tertiary emotions stemmed from whether my confusion was increasing or decreasing.

There are folks who read this site who will quibble with my assessment of how things went down, but that's the way of history.  I have tried to adhere to reality, but I know the years have painted over some of the truths, wounds have healed as the memories recede and the decades in between has provided a barricade from the days when everything felt like an open wound.

This may be the longest I've ever worked on a single post in all my years of blogging.  Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, this has also turned out to be one of the longest posts I've ever written.  So, if you're going to read it, go get your coffee now.

And, without further ado...

Howdy, y'all.  It's me.  Your friendly blogger.

Your name: Ryan (yeah.  I'm doing this, too.)
Your current occupation:  I am an Assistant Director at a Digital Library consortium.  My job is essentially "make the things work/ run a team of devs and sys admins/ other duties as assigned"
Your current place of residence: Austin, TX
Your current personal family status: Married, no kids, two dogs, extended family up in my business (everyone lives in town these days)


What was ground zero for you getting into comics/ science-fiction/ fantasy? About what year was that? Do you remember what was going on in your life?

These are the raw materials we were working with

It's probably important to mention, first, that my earliest memories of superherodom are tied to Adam West in Batman, which I reportedly watched in reruns before I could even speak.  As per sci-fi/ fantasy - my parents bought into Star Wars lock, stock and barrel.  My dad took my brother and me to see the first movie during its original theatrical release (take that, parents who aren't sure their two-year-olds can take Uncle Ben's charred skeleton!).  My Mom, who still likes Star Wars, had us in Star Wars wallpaper, figures, bed spreads... all that.  

But, yeah, I suspect I was imprinting on all of that stuff like crazy.

The Admiral took me to see Superman during its initial run (1978), but that took much later.  I vaguely remember watching (and playing) Gatchaman/ G-Force, as well as Super Friends in the late 1970's, and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.  We had lots of capes around and a few Batman and Spider-Man toys.

The first actual comic books I read included Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny, maybe circa 1981, and I didn't like them.  It felt like the rushed, cheap work it was.  At some point, I got a Clash of the Titans comic book, and I liked that a lot.  Between the funny pages and that comic, I now knew not all comics were necessarily as hacky as the knock-offs of animation.

But none of this was exactly nerdy.  Just a kid consuming nerd-adjacent juvenile pop culture detritus.  However, that was not to last.

Before Comics Were Cool - The Gen-X Recollection Project: My Brother! Jason S.

Well, well, well.

My brother, Jason "Steanso" Steans has decided to show up and get his two-cents in before I have a chance to set the record properly.

There's no doubt that having an older brother was an advantage in getting introduced to things a couple of years before others of my peers and friends.  Jason's almost exactly two years older than me, so we were in the same school sometimes, and close enough in age that we shared interests and did a lot of things together, even if I was on the losing end of any brotherly fist-fights over the years.

When it came to sci-fi, in particular, while growing up, we were often of one mind on what we liked.  We usually had to jointly agree on what movie we were renting until some time in high school, so we had moments like the time we decided to just spend the summer watching James Bond movies.  But he also was the person who told me to check out Evil Dead, brought home a lot of sci-fi classics from the video store, and, as he'll mention, was key in my transport to the comic shoppe once he had a driver's license.

He got into some things I didn't care about, and I was always more of a comics devotee than him.  And he's always been more willing to try on sci-fi TV shows than myself.  But to this day we compare notes on movies and TV, even if we're watching them on separate sofas in our respective homes.

He'll never mention it, but in high school he won a state-wide award for his short story, Death of a Netrunner, his, ahem, homage to the Cyberpunk works of Bruce Sterling, et al.

Here he is.  My brother and nephew, two of my favorite people.

Master Blaster

Your name:  Jason Steans
Your current occupation:  Mental Health Prosecutor- Travis County Attorney’s Office
Your current place of residence:  Austin
Your current personal family status:  Married with one child

What was ground zero for you getting into comics/ science-fiction/ fantasy? About what year was that? Do you remember what was going on in your life?

I don’t honestly remember a time without comic book characters in it. I remember watching the old Batman TV show in syndication when I was like 4 or 5. I remember running around in a Superman Cape while Ryan wore his Batman cape (yes- he used to favor Batman!). I got story books of each of the Star Wars movies and read them so that I already knew the plots when the movies came out. I remember playing Dungeons and Dragons (but probably not getting the rules quite right) in the third or fourth grade. Some of my first driving experiences were to take my brother and one of my friends to comic book shops and comic conventions.

Before Comics Were Cool - The Gen-X Recollection Project: Daniel F!

I've known today's subject since 6th grade.  We had a parting of ways that lasted for... 20 years?  But then Daniel and I started working at the same company in April of 2007 and were reunited.

Daniel was a classmate of mine in middle school, and we ran in the same circles, waited for the doors to open in the same pack and ate lunch together and whatnot.  So, lots of the sort of chatting one does at that age.  But, we lost track of each other for a long time.  But, now we know where each other are!
When he's not doing his day job, he takes pictures and creates art in a wide array of forms.  He's a fellow Austin resident, and a bit of a traveler.  Get to know Daniel better!

He's responded to my request for folks to participate in interview fashion, so... here goes!

Your name: Daniel Fu
Your current occupation: User Experience Strategist/Visual Designer
Your current place of residence: Austin, Texas
Your current personal family status: Single

he's on to you

What was ground zero for you getting into comics/ science-fiction/ fantasy? About what year was that? Do you remember what was going on in your life? 

My head's been in the clouds for as long as I remember. Seeing Star Wars for the first time definitely sparked my early interest. I became a voracious reader, but mostly focused on genre books... Sci fi, fantasy, mystery. I started drawing in high school, based on my interest in comics and cinema, investigating how the two related and how they translated story and images into 2 dimensions. Only recently have I started to break this down, a bit. Turns out, I'm drawn to stories with a bit of a mythological bent to them, some aspect that's larger than life. Comics, sci fi, and fantasy tend to fall into this pretty easily. But I also very much enjoy movies like Amelie, Sliding Doors, Blue Ruin, and No Country for Old Men that don't fall into those genres, but have that mythological quality to them. As far as timeline... I think G-Force (Battle of the Planets), Knight Rider, Star Wars, Transformers, and GI-Joe really got me started. So early 80s to mid-80's were formative. Our family had moved around every couple of years at this point, so I wouldn't say I was able to make lasting friendships.

Before Comics Were Cool - Gen-X Recollection Project: Peter from Denmark!

Hey, everyone!  When I sent out the call for your recollections, I didn't expect the second response to appear in my inbox to come from someone I hadn't previously met, let alone someone from the fair land of Denmark!  That's pretty exciting, in my book.  And, to today's contributor, I can only say:  Jeg vil gerne hav en kop kaffe.*

We're collecting the stories of folks born before 1982 or so who grew up on comics, sci-fi and fantasy - back when that was maybe not the coolest thing to do.  There are a lot of different stories out there that defy the stereotypes and show what life was like before the internet and social media - and we want to hear them.

If you'd like to also participate in this grand experiment, please visit the info page we've put together.

Without further ado, here's our first surprise contributor:  Peter from Copenhagen!

My name is Peter Ravn Rasmussen. I'm an historian, mainly working as a teacher. I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, with my three sons. I am divorced.

I was born in 1965, the child of two people who came from working-class families. By the time I was a small child, my father had managed (despite very little education) to rise quite high in the ranks of one of the world's largest shipping companies, so I grew up in a fairly affluent home. But my parents were not academically inclined, and they were not habitual readers. To a certain extent, this meant that I was a "cuckoo in the nest" -- because I learned to read at a very early age (just before I turned 3). My earliest reading material was Donald Duck comics and, later, Tintin. By the time I was of school age, I was already reading voraciously and at very high speed, which caused some friction with my classmates (some of whom were just beginning to read).

In 1973, my father was asked to relocate to Hong Kong, and (after conferring with us all) accepted. I learned English in short order, and this must have happened at a favourable time, for English became functionally my second native language. It was while I was in Hong Kong that my interest in science fiction and fantasy, and comics (and all the other trappings of geekery) first began to grow. I watched classic 1950s and 1960s sci-fi movies on TV, I read superhero comics, and I came across some of the first science fiction books that I can remember reading. In particular, I remember reading many of Heinlein's juveniles, including "Farmer of Ganymede" and "Tunnel in the Sky", in this period. After a few years, we relocated again, this time to Singapore -- and I continued my exposure to these interests. I watched "Star Trek" (both the original series and the animated series), and I remember buying many of the Star Trek-themed Meco 8-inch dolls (this was before the term "action figure" had become common) to play with.

Before Comics Were Cool - Gen-X Recollection Project: Stuart W.

This is the first in what I hope will be a long-running series wherein we collect the memories of fellow Gen-Xer's recalling their experiences with comics, science-fiction and/ or fantasy, from back when these things were far from the coolest activities one could get up to, the internet didn't really exist, and the words "nerd" and "geek" were intended to cause shame.

By the way, I haven't really come up with a name for this project yet, so if you have ideas, email me.

Our first submission is from Stuart, a frequent commenter and a fantastic guy.  Stuart and I met in person last summer at the Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, and in between checking out The Superman Museum and eating fried foods, we go to hang out and talk quite a bit.  Stuart is a solid guy, and as we chatted, I realized he had this kind of amazing story, so I'm glad he chose to share it with us.

I know you all have stories, too, and we're here to collect them.

Stuart is a father, husband, and I personally know about one terrific act of heroism he performed that he cannot discuss and which is totally legit.

And so, without further ado...  

Stuart sits upon the Kryptonite stone, sharing his wisdom with all who seek it out

My first memory of buying comic books is off the spinner rack at the Navy Exchange in Keflavik, Iceland. My mother was a Foreign Service Officer stationed at the embassy in Reykjavik, so I lived there when I was nine and ten years old. This was during the height of the cold war, and the famous peace summit between Reagan and Gorbachev occurred while I was there.

As a Foreign Service dependent (“brat” is the common term, but it’s not derogatory) I moved with my mother every couple of years to a new country, or occasionally to the DC Area. As soon as I made a friend or two or started feeling at home, it was about time to move. So from a pretty young age I generally felt like an outsider and avoided emotional attachments.

Foreign Service Officers and their dependents usually live in civilian housing near the embassy or consulate they're stationed to. So it’s not like living on a military base surrounded by Americans with a familiar sense of cultural identity who speak English. Generally, you shop and live and do everything in-country. When I wasn’t being homeschooled, I went to foreign schools.

"I Remember When No one Knew What An Avenger Was!" Signal Watch Comics/ Sci-Fi/ Fantasy Gen-X Recollection Project - Call to Participate

Hey all!

If you've been considering participating in our Gen-X Nerd 1980's Recollection Project, we have some additional tools to do so.  (Basically, we're interested in your experience as a young nerd back when being a nerd could land you an atomic wedgie.)

We've had a pretty good response rate early on, so we started thinking a bit about possibly, maybe, one-day collecting the stories into an eBook or something. You know, for the people.

So, if you're trying to remember what we're up to - review the original post.

Y'all a diverse bunch and a better picture of what the comics/ sci-fi and fantasy scene was really like back in the day, so I'm hoping we can capture some of the pre-internet, pre-billion dollar movies world of nerddom here on these pages.

We've created some questions to get you going, but don't limit yourself to those points.  It's your story, tell it how you want to see it in digital print.

Click here for the questions.

But, I am asking that if you'd like to participate, you also make it semi-legit and make sure we're square in the future if we go the eBook route, I've got a release I'd like you to sign.  Sorry if it feels formal, but they beat it into us in film school to get those releases so we wouldn't have any confusion in the future.

If you're uncertain how all this works, I've got a couple of posts that will go up starting this week.  You'll see you're in good company.

If you'e got questions or want to participate, just email us here at The Signal Watch!

Collecting Memories Project: You Were Into Superheroes, Fantasy and Sci-Fi Before It Was Cool

If you're over a certain age, you remember a dark era in the long, long ago when superheroes were not cool.  Reading science-fiction, fantasy or comics got you labeled a "geek" and "nerd" in an era when those words were legitimate slurs, not a comment vis-a-vis "I have an interest outside eating and breathing".  There was a time when the average person on the street did not know the name of the company that published Spider-Man comics, was pretty sure there were only four super-heroes (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Spider-Fellow) and they had never heard of The Avengers.  Many people found it inconceivable that all comics were not just published by one company.  

Reading an article in Cracked.com was actually a pretty good reminder of what it was to bear the secret shame of your hobbies.  As I begin so many posts here:  "The kids will never know..."

When I came back to The Signal Watch after a hiatus, it was, in part, because I realized that when I felt like talking about comics and pop-culture, it was from a perspective of an elder statesman.  It's one thing to be young and full of excitement about comics and movies.  It's another to be older and have been around the block a bit.  And, of course, remember the time before a Comic-Con in every city, when being seen with a Superman comic would get you assigned "permanent virgin" status, when you only let folks in an elite inner circle know about your extensive knowledge of X-Men trivia, and - really - in a time when comics had no internet, and it wasn't necessarily a very social thing to do.

As much as I think of my experience as typical of comic nerds, there really isn't a typical experience.  Everyone's story is unique.  Not everyone was a straight white dude living in North Austin pedaling their bike to Ballard's gas station to grab some funny books, candy and soda on a summer afternoon.

Here's the thing:

I want to hear your stories.  

They Say It's Great, But I Hate It! - We Want To Hear From YOU!!!

As Fleetwood Mac Sez: You Can Go Your Own Way

As folks who are regular visitors to the site may have gleaned, I don't take any particular pleasure in disliking things which are either popular by mass appeal or critical consensus.  For example, the entire thrust of my discussion of The Revenant was really about how I thought it was a good movie, but maybe not a great movie.  And how I figured this meant I'd spend the next six months trying to decide if I needed to be polite in mixed company, or if I'd just be "that guy" and make noise about my opinion.

A few days ago, an old high school pal, JoeC, started asking folks on facebook about what bands people hated that folks seemed to really dig.  You could say why, and some folks did.

Today he asked folks about what movies people hated that had popular or critical acclaim.  He volunteered his own answers and gave some great explanations why - some were logical, some visceral - and then invited others to join in.

I am afraid I came off as a pretentious jerkface for bitching about Whit Stillman, but, man, I cannot stand that dude's work.

I love the idea of us all working through our cognitive dissonance together.  So, I'm going to ask the same thing Joe asked:

What movie do you hate that seems to get all the kudos, laud & honor - and you think it's just terrible?

End of the Year Lists and Whatnot

Ann Miller ringing in New Years 70 years back

It's December, which means "Best Of" lists are imminent.

After doing this off and on for almost 13 years, it's pretty clear nobody gives a damn what I think was the best of anything in any year, but I'd point you to Sound Affects as Gerry has started his countdown of his favorite albums of the year.  I know we've got more than one music snob in the house, so go over there and nod with him or shake your head in disgust.

I think the only new album I noticed this year was by Adele, and I'm pretty sure that even if I were in a deep coma since July and woke from it, I'd still be aware of Adele's new album somehow.

Please send me your own Top Ten lists of 2015 if you'd like to see them printed here (use that Contacts tab or message me on the social medias).  Make sure they're relevant to the site content and include a JPG or PNG for me to use with the list.

Again, I'm not sure I'll do anything like that.  More likely, I'll break down the numbers for My Year in Movies, and you'll either care or you won't.  I like numbers, so, there you go.

In the New Year, we'll be dropping that whole "blogging every movie we watch" business, but we'll keep it up in some respect.  I ran out of steam in October, which, happily, coincided with all my TV shows coming back on, and I don't blog those, so I've been enjoying the Not Blogging Movies All the Time aspect of my life.

We'll see what we morph into next year.  Hopefully you'll stick around.

I don't have any personal news, but in 2016, I hope to be pointing you guys to a new site by a friend of the blog, so we've all got that going for us (you're right.  It's Adele.  And she and I are best friends.*).



*this is not true, but I pretend it is.

Monster Watch: The Monster Squad (1987)

When I was about twelve, one of the signs that The Admiral was secretly listening to me, and not just thinking up new and interesting fatherly pearls of wisdom to dole out, was when he took the afternoon off from work to take me to see The Monster Squad (1987).  I'd wanted to see the movie, no one else did (except for him, I guess), and so one day he took the afternoon off in the middle of the week - I guess it was summertime - and we hit the Showplace 6, ate some popcorn and watched Wolfman take one in the crotch.

I recall we both liked it, it was darker than I expected, maybe even a little grittier, and Dracula was straight up frightening in my twelve year old eyes.  And, as anything you consider to be not-dinner-table-conversation occurred, I sort of cringed at having to let my dad know I knew what a virgin was outside of the Christmas story.

The prior year, he'd also taken me to see Little Shop of Horrors when no one else wanted to go, so apparently The Admiral was into taking me to see movies that would bomb at the theater, but gain a following on home video.  But he also got really jazzed at the opportunity to watch old sci-fi movies like War of the Worlds with me, and was always up for a trip to see something like The Last Starfighter or The Untouchables.  Way to go, man.

But, man, it really seemed like nobody else but The Old Man and myself had seen this movie until the last fifteen years.  Although, eventually friends did see it on VHS or cable, as did I.

At some point, maybe in 2008, pal JackBart and I caught a screening at The Alamo Drafthouse with a good chunk of the cast, director Fred Dekker and screenwriter Shane Black in attendance.  The place was packed, the Q&A was great, and the cast and crew pretty forthcoming with details.  I was one of five people who let out a loud whoop when Black mentioned he was working on Doc Savage.

One thing that really stuck with me from that screening was the honest recollection of studio compromise, of what was originally envisioned, and a script that the director felt had been very watered down to serve studio hopes for a Goonies-type film leading to franchise dreams, rather than a movie about adolescents growing up when you know, Dracula shows up.  I'd love to read that original script some day.

MONSTER SQUAD! 2NITE (in, like, 1 hr, 45 min)

Hey, y'all.

It's been pointed out that I have not reminded folks enough that we're watching Monster Squad tonight.

Movie: The Monster Squad (1987)
Day: Friday, October 23rd
Time: 9:15 PM Central, 10:15 PM Eastern, 7:15 PM Pacific
Stream From: Netflix
hashtag: #wolfnards

Let's Watch "The Monster Squad" this Friday!

Movie:  The Monster Squad (1987)
Day:  Friday, October 23rd
Time:  9:15 PM Central, 10:15 PM Eastern, 7:15 PM Pacific
Stream From:  Netflix
hashtag:  #wolfnards

This Friday I'll be barreling across Texas in the afternoon to make it home in time for a screening of The Monster Squad, the 1987 adventure/ horror film.  It's a great Halloween, all-ages fright-fest with a post-Spielbergian depth to our suburban characters.

Note the Shane Black screenplay.  No, it doesn't take place on Christmas, but good question.

Who Wants to Live-Watch "Monster Squad"?

Stuart, who kicked off the whole Masters of the Universe live-watch, has pointed out that the 1987 horror/ adventure movie The Monster Squad is now on Netflix.

I'm going to go ahead and pitch the movie as our Halloween Live Tweet Meet-Up.

I'll propose October 23 at 9:15 Central Time for our meet-up point.  I'm travelling on the 16th and figure the 30th will be a little busy for folks with kids, so the 23rd is really the best compromise I can do.

If you've not seen the movie, it's about the mainstays of Universal Horror flicks descending upon a small town in California and the middle-school aged kids with whom they must do battle.  I have extremely fond memories of the movie from when I was a kid and when I saw it a few years ago at the Alamo Drafthouse with a bunch of the cast in attendance.

I'd love to do this one with you guys, mostly because we can all talk about how Jon Gries and Tom Noonan are totally underappreciated as actors.  Also, their makeup in this movie is pretty awesome.  Way better than it needs to be.

He-Man Watch: Masters of the Universe (1987)

Friday night we had our first organized Live Tweet event with The Signal Watch when we got together on Twitter and partook of Master of the Universe, the toyline/ cartoon turned into a feature film and probably Burger King glass ware.

I want to thank everyone who came out online and made the event so much fun!  That was pretty great.  I think we had a good time, had our say and I think nothing got broken we can't fix.

We'll do it again at some point, as soon as we find something on Netflix we all want to watch.  So, send your candidates our way.

Down to business:

I wasn't a He-Man kid.  The only one of the figures I spent my own allowance on was Mer-Man.  For some reason, I really liked the sculpt on ol' Mer-Man.  No idea why.

I confess, I just really identified with this guy

But I really liked underwater adventure toys as a kid, so that probably had something to do with it.  Who knows?

In the summer of '87, when the movie was released, I would have already been 12, and, as recently discussed with pals JuanD and PaulT, just past the age where you didn't really know how to play with an action figure anymore.  I might still watch the He-Man cartoon after school, but it was kind of that or stare at a wall until my mom got home from work (lord knows I wasn't going to read, do my homework, or get exercise).

Who Wants to Watch "Masters of the Universe: THE MOVIE"?

Well, technically, only Stuart.

What day:  Friday night, October 2nd, in the Year of Our Lord 2015
What time:  9:15 PM start (have your popcorn ready) Central Time
How:  Streaming on Netflix
Live Twitter:  look for me @melbotis
Hashtag:  #noorko (although we're taking better suggestions in the comments and to twitter)
Breaks:  whenever I have to pee
Pre-show:  we'll start rounding people up and talking He-Man around 9:00

Anyone up for a "Masters of the Universe: The Movie" Live Tweet-a-Thon?

A few weeks ago Stuart alerted me to the fact that the 1980's He-Man live action movie, Masters of the Universe, was coming to Netflix.  He pitched a joint tweet-a-thon/ live-blogging of the movie, and I'm inclined to jump on this idea.

Now, I am aware that He-Man is something a lot of people take seriously, and it is something that I absolutely do not take seriously, so I expect this will be an interesting mish-mash of an evening if we do it.

So, if anyone wants to think about doing this, maybe even this coming Friday, say something in the comments.

GUEST POST: AmyC talks "Fifty Shades, Forty-Three Dollars"

Editor's Note:  Every once in a great while, there's a particular need to bring in an expert here at The Signal Watch.  I posted on Fifty Shades of Grey on Monday, and mentioned I'd seen the movie with longtime pal, AmyC.  She was game, and I hadn't had opportunity to hang with her in a long time, so it seemed the ideal opportunity.  I want to thank Amy, because not only did she go to the movie, she brought a perspective to the whole event that made it all seem like less my usual descent into madness with a movie like Santa with Muscles, and, instead, she was a fantastic sounding board as we discussed "what does this movie mean?" en route and on the return trip from the movie.  

Without further ado, here's Amy's post...


Fifty Shades, Forty-three Dollars

Ever since The League pitched the idea of going to see Fifty Shades of Grey, I’ve been excited about going to see a movie that I would have otherwise done my level best to ignore, mostly because I think that bad movies transcend themselves when shared, and become transformed into good experiences through the alchemy of shared derision. I actually consider myself something of an aficionado of horrible movies, having snickered my way through The Room, Showgirls, Goblin 2, and various other legendarily bad pieces of dreck. And while I hadn’t managed to get through the book, despite a heroic effort on my part, I’d managed to absorb enough of the story indirectly to be dead-certain it was NOT going to be a good movie. Most of my exposure to the content was through YouTube videos featuring parody-readings of excerpts from the books.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4

I suppose it’s also worth mentioning that I have spent a good portion of my professional life teaching classes about sexuality. Generally, most of my time was spent talking about sexually-transmitted infections, birth control, and the ins-and-outs of human reproductive anatomy, but I also took every chance I could get to talk to people about consent, the value and power of mutual pleasure, and respect for one’s self and the person or people one becomes intimate with throughout one’s life. I’ve also had the great privilege of helping some people deal with the aftermath of sexual assaults and abusive relationships, which has made me wary of how our culture portrays love and sexuality in our entertainment.

However, since I knew I was going to be seeing it with a friend, in a theater full of people that would mostly be sincere fans, instead of ignoring it or tut-tutting it, I started psyching myself up for seeing it by actively looking for information about tie-in (heh!) products and things that fans were hoping to see in the film. I got a good chuckle about the sex toys, lubricants, and various other odds and ends for sale at Target , and an actual belly laugh out of the existence of a Christian Grey teddy bear in a wee little grey suit, kitted out with a little Venetian mask and a tiny pair of handcuffs. I read a surprisingly thoughtful essay about the transition in the Anastasia character’s make-up and styling from the film’s makeup artist (the lip color gets darker throughout the film since it’s part of the book that Christian is fascinated by Anastasia’s lower lip) that accompanies a set of cosmetics assembled by a high-end cosmetic company Make-Up Forever that’s being sold through Sephora. There’s a lot of official product out there, and it’s fascinating in its variety and far-ranging price-points.

Answering Questions - The Picky Girl asks Where One Should Start When it Comes to Comics

Picky Girl placed the following in the comment box

Ok, I have a question. So I was not a comics girl growing up. I read a ton - and a lot of stuff that was probably way above my head - but the only comics I ever came in contact with were Archie and Veronica at my grandmother's house (in the bathroom...).

In college, a prof handed me Watchmen, and I loved it. I read some graphic novels and did a lot of reading about comics and the superhero, but when it came to comics, I never knew where to begin. There are so many iterations that I don't know where to begin. Any suggestions?

I'll go ahead and ask my fellow comics dorks to weigh in down in the comment section.  I know you've got your opinions, and my suggestions are just that.  They're just some suggestions by me.  So, chime in, buddies.

First of all, I think if you get down to it, a lot of people had their first and often their last exposure to comics through Archie Comics.  There's a reason everyone over a certain age recognizes Archie and Jughead, and enough people are aware of the Archie-Veronica-Betty love triangle so that you can use it as cultural shorthand.

I'm one of those kids, too.  I have a warm spot in my heart for Archie, even if I can't imagine how one remains a lifelong reader, but people do that, and that's kind of cool.

yeah.  every high school guy has two girlfriends who are cool with this situation.

Back in the 90's, you got to ride the wave of 1980's envelope-pushing comics and academics for whom bringing in anything on the edge of culture to teach was kind of a novel thing.  Watchmen has sold a lot of copies to kids taking a blow-off course where they could read comics, but it earned its rep as one of the very, very few comics that reads like a sprawling novel and talks to an audience of people who also read Thomas Wolfe.  I cannot stress how rare this is in capes and tights comics.  Less so in other genres of comic.

The 1970's brought in the first writers that wanted to push beyond kiddie-stuff and you wound up with Green Arrow seeing his ward shooting up smack (no lie!), but it still read as a 22-page adventure with only loose tethers to the past and future.  And, 95% of the time when comics think they're writing for adults or to make a point, it's still basically Speedy doing smack.

First it's comics, then you smoke one rock of pot, and then wham-o!  You've riding the white pony and defending Jethro Tull in public.

Almost nothing in capes and tights before or after Watchmen is Watchmen, and I've written extensively about how comics have learned all the wrong lessons from a superhero comic that wrote up to a literate audience.  We can cover that again some other time, and surely will, but that wasn't really your question.  What I'm doing here is: expectation setting.

The Single Question Posed is Answered - Star Wars or Star Trek?

Gerry asks:

Not sure if you've ever come out on either side of this, but the public demands an answer: Star Wars or Star Trek?

The short answer is:  Planet of the Apes.

pew pew pew!

The real answer is - I grew up loving both, and never understood why I had to pick one over the other.  To me, that was sort of like picking Dragonslayer over The Secret of NIMH.  I kind of felt they were two different animals (one is fantasy, one is space adventure) and I could enjoy both, but I do get that it's like the need to pick either DC or Marvel and then go online and defend your stance from a religious perspective.  It's the internet.  You want to feel that there's logic to your gut feeling.

In my youth, Star Wars certainly got a lot of extra weight as it was the franchise that was being merchandised like crazy.  I never had any official Star Trek stuff until college, I think, when Jamie's Dad got me a Next Generation badge for Christmas (I was touched).

But let's not take any short cuts.  Let's take a really, really long look at this, shall we?

Your Questions Posed and Answered: What Can I Do For You?

It's been a pretty good start back to blogging.  It's been a lot of fun for me, so I hope both of you reading this site are enjoying my triumphant return.

So, are there any questions I can answer?  Solve any burning mysteries for anyone?  Anyone have any suggestions or requests before we get much further along?

in this scenario, you shall be the Luthors and Mss Tessmachers, and I shall be the all-knowing space-head

Just drop your questions in the comment section!

Keep it clean, and keep it friendly.  We'll see what we can't do to answer that which is posed to us.

And, don't worry about the topic.  I guess.  You know what this blog is about, so... consider that before asking me anything about astronomy or baking.