First the part that will have Sean McKeever and I doing a jig — TV Shows on DVD is reporting that Profit will finally get a DVD release. I loved this show when it first aired, it was a dark soap opera about corporate politics where the audience felt mixed about cheering for the schemer to succeed. It’s main character, Jim Profit, was an oddly complex villain. He was coldly calculating but the reasons for his actions weren’t always clear, especially since he seemed to look at his company like a family he desperately wanted acceptance from.
This good news comes just as Trio will lose a majority of its audience. The loss of the DirectTV audience has started rumors that the network will be going away soon, which is too bad because Trio’s been a network with a strong and interesting voice. It was aiming to be the network for smart pop culture junkies, a niche that is definitely lacking on cable. They definitely managed to come up with programming that generated ink for the channel whether that be the "Brilliant but Canceled" umbrella that aired quick-to-die critical darlings like Profit and EZ Streets, "Good, Clean Porn" and making Quentin Tarrantino guest programmer for the weekend when Kill Bill opened in theatres.
Tying it all together, Trio first got my attention when it aired the original series of Profit. I finally got to see how the show ended (but I missed the second episode, easily the series most memorable) along with the music video for Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s "Murder on the Dancefloor" (which eventually became one of my favorite bits of pop music in 2003).

It’s that time of the year again for me*. I’ve been a part of the comic book committee for the GLAAD media awards for a few years now and around this time we have to look at queer representations in the year’s comics and submit scores to determine the nominees.
In the past I’ve avoided talking about being on the committee, mostly out of concern for being mistaken as speaking for more than myself (I’m the overly cautious sort if that hasn’t become abundantly clear, yet), but as some of the others on the committee have talked about their experience I’ve learned to worry about that less.
One controversy the comic book nominations have faced has been the question of "mainstream" vs "independent" publishers. Denise Sudell wrote about this at Sequential Tart a while back. This has been a battle the committee has tackled off and on over the years. I understand the discussion came up about Strangers in Paradise (which eventually won the award and got nominated twice more) and Charm School brought it up again.
In the end, GLAAD’s policy became that only titles coming from DC or Marvel (edit: I double checked and I got the detail wrong, it’s any of the front of Previews publishers, including DC, Marvel, Dark Horse and Image)would be considered. Titles from other publishers could be considered at GLAAD’s discretion if members of the nominating committee finds a title particularly worthy. A few years earlier, back when the potential titles to consider were so sparse that Books of Magic got a nomination for characters that barely appeared, I would have had a problem with that separation, but representation has gotten much better since then.

This year, I am taking a stand that Fake is worthy of consideration. Publishing Fake was a daring move for Tokyopop. With the exception of Banana Fish (where our heroes’ relationship is limited to the two heroes saving each other from danger while the villains are pedophiles with no regrets about who they’ve hurt in the past) shounen-ai stories hadn’t made it to American shores. Before Fake’s success, the idea that there was a mainstream audience that would cheer for two guys to work out their differences and fall in love seemed like one most publishers weren’t ready to try out.
Thanks to the success of Fake (and, sigh, Gravitation) other manga publishers are putting out shounen-ai and even YAOI titles. Manga has seen a huge growth in the past few years, bringing non-comic readers to the hobby and finding an audience and Toykopop has been one of the format’s leaders, reaching a large number of readers who mostly buy their graphic literature in a place more accessible than the specialty shop.
So, to my eye, Fake does a good job of accomplishing the political goals that GLAAD is trying to reward. It’s not the best story, the "cop drama" part of the series are just excuses to bring Ryo and Dee emotionally closer**, but the romance is convincing and the characters have more than two dimensions. At the least, having a same-sex romance at the heart of the story that has sold well enough to bring on "more of the same" is a huge step forward for LGBT representation.

Also in the past queer year, I see:
The Authority — Based on what I’m hearing it sounds like Apollo and Midnighter have spent the past year being "the gay ones". I guess I’m just prejudiced towards Ellis’ handling, where they were just two members of the team and so much didn’t center around their sexual orientation. For the most part, I think it strikes me as lazy writing since they are the team members with the most obvious story springboard, especially after they adopted Jenny.
The latest series, by Ed Brubaker, is the best I’ve seen the team in a while, which doesn’t necessarily say much –  the few times I’ve given it a glance at an Authority comic it hasn’t impressed me. Apollo and Midnighter are still at the forefront, but I’m getting the feeling this story might go differently then the others. Fingers crossed.
Catwoman — Holly’s been around less this year, partly due to War Games and Selena being kidnapped by the premise of a bad movie, but even when other stories weren’t keeping Holly out, she hasn’t been very prominent this year. She’s still a competent aide to Selena and still in a positive relationship (with problems) but she’s also been pretty far in the background.
Ex Machina — I dislike those "ripped from the headlines" episodes of Law & Order because, if I know much about the original story, those episodes don’t offer commentary and insight into the headline, just throw the characters into a situation that sounds enough like the headline to get people to tune in.
The most recent issues of Ex Machina has the title’s Mayor of New York City debating if he wants to preside over a same-sex wedding and has that same feeling. The Mayor decides that it’s the right thing to do and I guess that’s supposed to make him seem like the kind of person who follows his principles, consequences be damned, but in the end it just felt like a device that doesn’t really say very much.
Hard Time — Amongst the large cast is Cindy, an inmate who dresses like a girl and insists that she isn’t a boy when asked. Overall, Cindy remains a sympathetic character who doesn’t wallow in stereotypes, but hasn’t done anything significant in terms of representation other than not offend.
My Faith in Frankie — LGBT themes in Mike Carey books always feel like afterthought to me, like they’re characters for whom the gender or their S.O./crush’s was changed after the script was mostly done. I kinda feel that way about this story.
Promethia — It’s all very well done, but Promethia hasn’t managed to get me excited from a representation standpoint for a while… perhaps that’s because I feel like it’s written for an audience that’s expected to accept the queer Promethia’s out there.
Strangers in Paradise — Not as strong as the last two years, but SiP has had another good year. I was initially impressed with the series for throwing all those damn romance cliches at a same-sex couple, but the last two years tackled queer issues with Francine debating coming out and getting married instead. The current story line is kinda muddling along, with the couple going through yet-another obligatory break up, but its still pretty revolutionary for a standard soap opera (much less one of the few successful romance comics created by an American writer/artist) to be about dragging out the courtship of a same-sex couple.
X-Statix — Millgan really pushed the mutant=gay metaphor out of the realm of subtext this year when Miles underwent an operation to remove his mutation. Despite how heavy-handed that story initially sounded, the story turned out to be a pretty good one, especially when his family presumed he’d be getting rid of, uhm, other genetic variances. It might have gotten the few X-book zombies who hated the book but couldn’t not buy an X-book to think at little more. Maybe.
Y: the Last Man — The doctor came out some time this year and I have to admit I’m happy to see a gay Asian character. She’s a prominent and competent character. I wish we could find out about her relationships, but this title has become more interesting.

Again, I’m speaking solely of my own impressions of the title. Others in the committee probably think differently.

(These are not all the titles that has been suggested that the comic book award committee consider, just the ones I’ve looked at and will be scoring for myself. Happily, there are more instances of representation than I can follow, a far cry from the days when groups like the Gay League first popped up.)

* Okay, the time has passed since I started. I take too long with these posts.
** That is a nice way of saying that as a police procedural it makes as much sense as Fawlty Towers does as a case study of effective hotel management techniques.

I remember the quizzes Brian used to post regularly at the CBR forums fondly. They were always interesting to look through, even if I couldn’t get any of them. He brings the blogosphere a holiday quiz.

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He also weighs in about writers from different forms:

Now, basically, I believe that, if you’re a good writer, you’re just a good writer, no matter what the genre is. However, I think people totally underestimate the difficulties of moving from one medium to another. For instance, we do not automatically think each good screenwriter will be a good novelist, do we? Or vice-versa.

I remember Fay Weldon commenting that its very different to write a novel that’s meant to be read aloud (which, she pointed out, was Jane Austin’s audience) and one that’s meant to read in solitude — in one case you’re writing prose for the ear and in the other you’re writing for the eye. Being a screenwriter helps, but the difference is similar — dialog that sounds natural to the ear and dialog that looks natural to the eye do have a different dynamic and not everyone can negotiate that difference.

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Lastly, Brain puts together his own "Best of the X-Men" collection. It’s an interesting list and a good discussion afterwards but I’m finding that I don’t know the X-books well enough to find a diverse group of "best" X-Men stories. I disagree with him about Morrison’s run, though. I think "Riot at Xavier’s" is the highlight of Morrison’s run for giving some smart evolution to mutant culture… even if those developments seem to go a bit too far considering that the recent history of the Marvel Universe is supposed to fit in a seven-year timeline.

 

Found recently at the Little, Yellow, Different mini-blog:
The Crazy Asian-Drink Lads sounded interesting at first, it contains reviews of oddball Asian drinks from non-Asians. Unfortunately, the reviews are very repetitive — anything whitish gets compared to semen — and don’t seem to have much going on except for sarcasm. Overall, the entries read like there was a predetermined conclusion to each taste testing — to discover ways to call each drink gross or weird in a variety of ways.

Speaking as a banana, Ramune is equal parts toy and drink — there’s some fun and novelty in the marble. It is overly sweet and the “original” flavor tastes like Japanese bubble gum… though if Mountain Dew Pitch Black isn’t too sweet for you, you might like Ramune. Lychee is a pretty tasty fruit with a floral taste and an oddly meaty texture — I like to make lychee ice cream. I’ve never tried undiluted Lychee juice but it tastes okay mixed with vodka and served as “Lychee Martinis”. (My recipe for Lychee Martinis involves shaking the vodka with pureed, canned lychess and then straining it, which give the drink a pearly appearance.) Soursop is an odd and temperamental (if you buy it you have to buy it ripe, it tends to rot if picked green) fruit that tastes like lemon-lime syrup — I can’t imagine it as juice though I do have a can of (a Latin American brand) that I’ve been meaning to try to turn into sorbet. Someday I’ll brave enough to try.

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Ernie says that this is the gayest music video ever made. Before I clicked the link I thought “Hm, that sounds like he hasn’t seen Steps’ video for ‘Tragedy.’* Then I went to the link… hoo boy, I can’t think of anything that comes close, though I’ve yet to see more than a couple Captain Jack videos… Captain Jack holds the dubious distinction of covering a The Village People song and managing to camp it up.
*Unfortunately, those screen caps don’t really do it justice and fails to capture the distraught look on whoever-plays-the-bride’s face as she lip synchs Bee Gee lyrics while walking down the aisle, or the part when everyone seated on the grooms’ side starts dancing in unison, starting with that odd head-framing pose.)

Got to watch The Christmas Special Christmas Special on Trio tonight. It met the usual levels of excellence Trio documentaries usually achieve. The first part examines the history of Christmas Specials, first looking at the variety show style of special then reviewing the  animated classics. After that the special proves why Trio is the network for the smarty-pants pop tarts, looking into how the holiday became secularized to maximize its commercial potential — Santa, winter and family became a key theme to Christmas specials and songs about snow and cold became preferable song topics over religious ones. It may seem odd today, but producers initially balked at the scene where Lunis told the story of Jesus’ birth in A Charlie Brown Christmas. The special also examined how TV has influenced our perceptions of Christmas. I’m not someone who would say this lightly, but this special managed to chang how I look at Christmas. I’ve long been testy about the secularization of Christmas, but now I think I’ll be seeing it more than before.
Overall, it was typical Trio fare — a lightweight topic handled by people who can’t help but look at things intelligently.

Wow, yesterday was a really good day to follow the comics blogs. I’m guessing people were trying to get that really good post out of them before heading off on holiday.

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At The Beat, Heidi ponders the manga divide in terms of comics news sites:

Just what is “newsworthy” in the comics realm? It seems any press release from Marvel or DC is usually given priority treatment at Newsarama, The Pulse or CBR, even when it’s just some “sell-out” announcement that may have been from a pamphlet that had a press run of 30,000 copies.

Meanwhile, news from manga companies like TokyoPop and Viz are relegated to the sidebar position if they are published at all…. Just to put this in perspective, trade paperbacks like RUROUNI KENSHIN routinely sell 40-60,000 copies or more in bookstores. That’s far more than ANY Marvel or DC book that isn’t written by Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman. In dollar amounts, manga is catching up to superheroes.

It’s a wonderful world of diversity and growth that’s we’re developing here. The tribes are getting more and more scattered. And getting the complete picture takes a little more digging, perhaps. But that’s why The Beat is here after all.

It’s an interesting mission statement for 2005. There is a gap to be bridged, as there does seem to be people who read superheros or manga but few who follow both.

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At Comic World News, Rich Watson tries something interesting… analyzing the past year based on what got canceled. He does come by some interesting observations, that way.

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The announcement of Marvel Next promotes the theory that Marvel’s marketing has a vision that’s still as clear as mud. (via Fanboy Rampage) Kevin Melrose has some good observations:

Someone apparently forgot to tell the solicitations guys about the big “Marvel Next” initiative, because those titles have been scattered to the winds:Spellbinders #1 appears under “Marvel Next,” but X-23 #4 is under “Marvel Knights” and Arana #3 is under “Spider-Man,” while Livewires #2, Runaways #2 and Young Avengers #2 are under “Marvel Heroes.”

Steve Pheley at Gutterninja observes:

I just find it bizarre and disappointing that half of the “new” concepts are just second-generation versions of the ones they’ve already got. It really boggles me that a company whose main interest is in developing properties for movies and other media is so resistant to…well, actually developing any properties.

Me, I’m just as cynical as I’ve always been. I’m expecting Marvel to forget about “Next” faster than DC forgot to keep marketing the Focus line.

More cynical and snarky thought: Developing properties, I thought that job was taken over by Marvel’s legal division?

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Sparky at Trusty Sidekicks highlights a striking bit out of a pre-Crisis Wonder Woman comic where Diana ponders:

It seems privacy is a thing of the past in this brave, new world. There are children growing up today who will think nothing of having their purses opened or having their suitcase x-rayed all in the name of public safety. But I wonder how safe will the pubic be when its people have no more secrets?

I used to have a fondness for the pre-Crisis Wonder Woman that I’ve yet to find recaptured. Perhaps its the outsider perspective that we see here? Rucka has touched upon it and perhaps that’s why this run has worked for me when others haven’t.

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My holiday plans involve spending time with different sets of loved ones and taking time off from work, so I should be blogging through the week. Merry Christmas everyone!

Overall, I have to say the Lemony Snicket movie is one of the rare films that realize that, when trying to stay true to the source material, it’s more important to capture tone and attitude than to depict as many details as possible from the books. The visuals are amazing, the actors capture the characters well and director Brad Silberling managed to capture the feel of the books.
I’ve two major complaints about the film. The first would be that the film’s Sunny Baudelaire doesn’t match the tone of the books. Subtitles translate Sunny’s gibberish, a sensible tool, except that somewhere along the line Sunny’s lines were changed to typical sitcom fare. My second complaint is — why bother hiring actors with great comedic skills like Catherine O’Hara and Jennifer Coolerigde if they’re barely going to get used?
Jim Carey is nicely restrained in this one. His portrayal of Count Olaf reminded me of Robin Williams — Carey’s Olaf is the actor who is always "on", except that Olaf’s entertaining only in the way that Pink Lady… and Jeff was entertaining. I was very worried that his Count Olaf would be too big, but he fulfills the role nicely.
Emily Browning is hilariously deadpan as Violet Baudelaire. She manages to hold a look throughout the whole film that shows that the wheels in her brain are constantly turning. At first I thought I would’ve preferred if Siberling could’ve gotten a similarly deadpan performance out of Liam Aiken, who plays Klaus. About halfway through the film, however, I realized I liked the balance he provided to Browning’s deadpan.
I loved Meryl Streep’s Aunt Josephine. Streep knows how to do farce and manages to make the character even funnier than in the book.
One of my big reservations about the movie was that a lot of the books’ humor is the support that works better read off of a page than acted on the big screen. Thankfully, the people involved seemed to understand this and made some very smart choices towards additions and deletions.

(With apologies to those who are working tomorrow for the post title.)

I’m out of the habit of following web columns nowadays, so it took Kevin Melrose pointing out that the new manga column at Comic World News is written by the same David Welsh who has been writing some engaging observations over at Precocious Curmudgeon.
His first column sets up an intriguing premise:

I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but my enthusiasm
for manga grows with every title I try and everything I learn about it.
I want to understand it better both as an art form and as a cultural
phenomenon, and this seems like an ideal opportunity to do so.

I
want to explore why people like it, why they hate it, where the market
is going, and how it got where it is. Why is it booming while the
audience for western comics stagnates or shrinks? Is there a bubble,
and why might it burst? I want to talk about titles I’ve loved and ones
that have left me cold. And I want to find out what other, smarter
people have to say on the subject.

This sounds like it could turn out to be a very interesting journey. I’m looking forward to see where it goes.

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Shane puts together a nicely balanced review of Identity Crisis over at Near Mint Heroes. I like how he spots the series’ good points and agree with him on those. I’d quote him for highlights, but it’s all good so just give him a visit.

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I don’t often pay attention to the news from E! Online but they did a decent article on how the Martian Manhunter gets ignored by Hollywood.

Martian
Manhunter is one of the seven original members of the JLA, the all-star
superhero collective founded by DC Comics in 1960.

The other founding heroes: Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash,
Aquaman and the Green Lantern. Each character has a movie on the way, a
deal in the works or a rumor in the mill.

You know, unlike Martian Manhunter.

I’ve always been underwhelmed by the character, myself, but I see the potential. (Found via Mark Evanier who is quoted in the article.)

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Shawn Fumo points to an announcement that another anthology magazine featuring Banana Fish has been canceled. Apparently the magazine went to an all-shojo format a while ago — I had never realized this or else I would’ve considered picking it up (depending on the shojo titles). Hopefully we’ll get a shojo anthology marketed as one, because I’ve always liked the concept.

 

Detective Comics #801 — Now that I’ve read it, I see what Dead Chicks and Mayhem means by "depravity" because I’m not sure how else to grade the content myself. The new story arch opens up by giving an overview to how dark everything is in Gotham City. We meet a couple who’s arguments turn to violent threats, a middle-aged man attempting to seduce an underage girl (who he thinks is more underage than she really is), a senseless murder, child abuse, contemplated rape and rich kids who do drugs out of boredom with life. The opening pretty much portrays Gotham City residents as either  perpretrators or victims, something that gives me pause. It’s a good comic, but I’m not sure if I’m in the mood for a Batman arc as dark as this first part. I think I’ll wait for one more issue to get a better idea of what the story is going to follow first.

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Fables #32 — Plot threads move on but I’m not really feeling it.
Right now it’s feeling like we’re biding time until the characters in
the right place for the next storyline.

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JLA #109 — There’s a lot of talking in this one, but I’m not
sure I know what’s going on. I know I need to play catch-up in reading
this, since I haven’t read Earth-2 yet and Quard is a part of DC continuity where I’m completely clueless. Still, I feel like I jumped into Babylon 5 halfway into the fourth season.
I’m
curious if Busiek’s characterization of Superwoman the same as
what Morrison established. I don’t have a problem with a villainess who is acknowledges
her sexuality, but something in the way she’s written in this issue
felt more like a bad cliche of comics — she’s coming off more like the
evil temptress without much more behind it.
Ultimate Spider-Man #70 –
Uhm, okay, it’s now been a couple days since I read the issue and I
remember noting about it, except that the Ultimates show up and act
like jerks.

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The Authority: Revolution #1 & 2 — It’s an interesting opening to the series. In honesty, I miss the way Warren Ellis handled the team, where we got almost no interpersonal interactions and the team was just a batch of soldiers doing their job. Seeing Apollo talk to Midnighter and adress him as "My love" felt off to me, if only because my interpretation of how Ellis wrote them. I’ve always thought of Apollo and Midnighter as the "I don’t have to say it, he knows" types, so I guess I’ve missed a lot of development in the past few years.

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Birds of Prey # 76 & 77 — Not bad, I see the Charlie’s-Angels-gone-independent vibe Gail is going for here. It’s fun, but hasn’t fully grabbed me yet.

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Ex Machina # 6 & 7 — I bought these to see how the book addressed same-sex marriage, based on a recommendation and well, yawn to that part. There wasn’t really anything going on in that area. Otherwise this title looks like it may have potential. They guy’s got intriguing powers and a superpowers mayor of NYC certainly does have

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Heroes Anonymous #6 — How do you wrap up what’s essentially an anthology series? This issue tries that and almost succeeds. This title is always a daunting read for the density of dialog bubbles and that’s a bigger hurdle than usual this time because the story doesn’t quickly settle into focusing on one character and instead focuses mostly of the characters who filled out the therapy group, meaning that there’s a large number of characters to meet in this issue. That settles down, however, and the book returns to its usual level of wit.

 

Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap. Showtime has canceled one of the best shows on television. I loved Dead Like Me for its cynical wit that never lost track of the emotion it was trying to hide with cynicism. I’ll miss George Glass and her crew. Couldn’t they have waited to make this announcement until I had my Wonderfalls DVDs as consolation?

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Tom the Dog writes about something I’ve been complaining about — the recent "high conflict" seasons of The Amazing Race. TAR used to be the Tiffany standard among reality competition shows. It used to work like a grand, epic game show with stunning settings and exotic challenges. There’d always be conflict-prone teams (who can forget Tara screaming at Will as they raced to the finish line in season two?) but that was never the source of the excitement. Last season, the show was about sullen, whiny people stepping over each others’ toes (plus Chip and Kim who tunefully won) and this season sounds even worse.

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I’ve been meaning to link to the two columns Tim Goodman wrote after Jeff Jarvis’ investigation into FCC complaints, where it turned out that the vast majority of FCC complaints originated from one activist group (who don’t get a linky). I liked Tim Goodman’s suggested response:

…the FCC is supposed to be a sounding board for people who view a TV show, are upset about the content and seek a place to complain outside of the network that aired it. But the process is being hijacked by people who in all likelihood aren’t even watching the shows but are responding to a group that tells them the content is wicked. Meanwhile, thinking people with minds that actually open and function are not sending in e-mails to Powell that say, "I saw something I didn’t think was appropriate for my kids, so I changed the channel. I handled it. No need to start a holy war about it. I’m looking forward to ‘Deadwood’ on HBO. You should TiVo it if you haven’t already. Anyway, have a nice day."

If the FCC takes action only after the public complains  –  and it’s clear now that only members of the Parents Television Council are complaining  –  then to counterbalance their worries about what constitutes indecency, less reactionary viewers will now have to rise from the couch and join the debate.

So much for television being passive, escapist entertainment.

And goodbye to the quaint notion that you can vote with your remote. Apparently, freedom of choice is out of vogue. Using the government to tell everyone else what they can and can’t watch is the new black.

I loathe politics. On all sides. I’d rather do almost anything than involve myself in that tainted, broken process. But neither do I want the Parents Television Council wagging the tail of the dog that bites the writer’s hand in Hollywood.

So I’m going to write an e-mail to Michael Powell (you can, too, right here) and tell him these things:

–  "I’m a relatively upstanding citizen. I have two small kids. They only watch what I let them.

–  "I know how to use my TV remote. I know how to turn my television off.

–  "On my television, I like violence. I like nudity. I like guns going off. I like people having sex. I like swearing. I like shows with gay people in them. I like shows where gay people have sex. I like shows where gay people shoot guns. And swear. I like stuff that blows up.

–  "I also like ‘Little Bear.’ And shows about architecture and design. And C-SPAN. If that helps.

–  "I hope this e-mail offsets another from the Parents Television Council. I hope you get a lot more just like this. Because I want the PTC out of my living room. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion they’re going to end up in my bedroom.

"Yours sincerely."

It’s a better reaction than Atrios’ suggestion that people just make a mockery of the system by looking for excuses to complain about other stuff, as much as I like the idea of the guy facing an indecency fine.

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Elsewhere in media lameness, it sounds like the co-host of MSNBC’s upcoming daytime show has been caught plagiarizing in the past. Sigh. How is it that she gets her own show while Cynthia Tucker only gets occasional appearances on The News Hour?

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Meanwhile, checking out The Futon Critic, I see that there’s a "Fox Reality Channel" in the works. Okay, first reaction: ew. However, the channel won’t contain reruns of current Fox reality hits (wait is that supposed to be plural?) like American Idol out of fear of overexposure. It will instead feature classics like "When Animals Attack" and "Temptation Island".
Better informed reaction: Retching.
I’m having a hard enough time with someone thinking "I can’t wait to see John Stevens butcher ‘Rocket Man’ again!" but who’s waiting for another chance to watch "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" (Ah, the sanctity of traditional marriage.)