Or, yesterday, actually. I was too lazy to open up Photoshop yesterday. I was surprised the article wasn’t corrected overnight.

Notice a problem with this AP article on Food & Wine magazine’s accidentally spoiling the results of Top Chef’s second season?

Or did the series switch networks while I wasn’t paying attention to this awful season?

• Radar Magazine examines stereotyped characters from cinema history, “From Borat to Mammy”.
• Ugh. Can we please kill the idea that eating unhealthy food makes you butch?
• Which food service chain has the most easily accessed nutrition guides? Having worked in food service, this is a challenging issue. If your marketing strategy is focused on introducing new products and constantly tweaking old recipes, sometimes you’re faced with the choice of making the information hard to find or putting out the outdated data.
• I doubt I’ll end up purchasing a video game based on crude British sketch comedy show Little Britain but it’s certainly exciting to see such an unexpected development.
• Fox puts its sensationally-titled Are you smarter than a 5th grader? against Betty, Earl and The Office. Oh, yeah, it’s also up against another Mark Burnett series, something called Survivor.

Ah, the superheroes vs manga rivalry has returned to the blogosphere, starting with a discussion on art style but moving on to a discussion about distribution and the how the different audiences are treated. One thing I often find interesting about the topic is how it touches upon problems the comics industry has faced for decades, problems that were once acknowledged with an attitude of ‘Oh well, too bad there’s nothing that can be done about that’ and now falls on deaf, rationalizing ears that try to deny that there’s much of a problem.

To a large degree, the manga boom came about when one publisher, Tokyopop, succeeded in overcoming a number of the factors that held back comics — the way the direct market enforced the status quo, the halfhearted promotional efforts and that whole self-perpetuating cycle of ‘Girls don’t read comics because there aren’t enough comics they’d like to read./There’s not enough financial inventive to publish more than a few comics aimed at girls.’

For the big two of American comic publishers, this could have been a big opportunity to address the issues that have been slowly dragging them down — the increasing reliance on the biggest franchises and the inability to nurture new ones, marketing focused only on comics that would sell well with minimal marketing, plot points devised with marketing copy in mind over the actual story, increasingly pursuing high frequency customers. The manga boom could have been seen as a chance to break out of a downwards spiral. Unfortunately, very little that DC and Marvel has done since then has shown any understanding that manga has succeeded by correcting the comic industry’s failings.

That’s why I find the attitude that manga has stolen shelf space that rightfully belongs to Western comics to be incredibly galling. For the most part, Western comics gave up the market that is now reading manga.

Take a look at romance comics. At one point, they were one of the most popular comic genres but they faded away in the 70s. When comics writers gave the genre a post-mortem, the conclusion is typically that the genre’s weaknesses lead to its demise. Superhero comics could learn to have continuity and long-term character development and daytime soap operas could learn to incorporate action-oriented storylines and complicated mysteries, but romance comics continued to be short stories that didn’t learn lessons from its competition. ‘Romance comics can’t work in the current market’ became the consensus and, Strangers in Paradise aside (for all its faults, SiP was the only Western comic that seemed to fully get what the medium was missing and be rewarded for that insight with commercial success), the majority of attempts to revisit the romance genre were only interested in smug mockery like Vertigo’s Heart Throbs, Two Fisted Romance and Last Kiss — all titles I’ll admit to enjoying while wishing the genre could get taken seriously.

So. For decades, romance was one of the biggest genres in publishing but barely existed in comics. For the most part, that was perceived as a consequence of the genre’s failings — TV can be racier, it’s hard to be visually dramatic in a story that doesn’t include violence, there’s enough romance to be found in superhero comics. Now, however, take a look at the manga bookshelves and note the amount of shelf space titles like Nana, Happy Hustle High, Fruits Basket, Hot Gimmick and Wallflower get. Was it the genre that failed or did the comics industry fail a significant audience?

Look, too, at the long list of short lived superhero titles that would fit on a comic version of “Brilliant but Cancelled”. Most of these titles were ignored by a market apathetic to anything that’s not a well-established superhero franchise. Superheroes aren’t good enough, superheroes in a popular shared universe aren’t good enough, only the well-established franchises can sell in the Direct Market. Then take a look at Runaways, a title that struggled in the direct market (receiving those same ‘It’s a good series, it’s too bad something like this can’t do well nowadays.’ eulogies that series like Young Heroes in Love and Hard Time got) only to become a genuine hit in bookstores.

Several months ago, I wrote a post titled “Why Manga Can Be A Gateway Drug to Western Comics” that basically said that even superheroes can compete with manga if only superhero publishers considered where manga publishers deliver a more appealing product. There may be some hard lessions to learn in there, but there’s still potential for DC and Marvel not to get left eating dust.

Manga hasn’t taken away any shelf space that rightfully belongs to DC or Marvel. Those two gave up that shelf space a long time ago. It’s going to take a major change in corporate cutlure — as well as an acknowlegement of their responsibility for their current position — for either publisher to become competitive with manga.

…apparently, is Ugly Betty. Unlike every other show to face television’s Death Star, the Mexican edition of the extremely popular franchise, La Fea Mas Bella, is holding steady:

Bella’s” two highest-rated episodes last week, the week ended Jan. 28, aired opposite “Idol” on Tuesday and Wednesday, when it averaged a 2.8 rating in adults 18-49. In terms of total viewers, it was the show’s second-most-watched week ever in that demo, averaging 3.5 million 18-49s.

And in adults 18-34, it ranked second behind “Idol” on both nights, averaging a 3.1, a full 0.8 points ahead of anything else airing against “Idol” on either night.

Further, against the season premiere of the Fox show two weeks ago, “Bella” had its most-watched week ever, averaging 6.2 million total viewers in the 8 p.m. weeknight timeslot.

So. The Consumerist is posting about YAOI being sold at Walmart.com again… and what do they use to illustrate it? A drawing by bara (not YAOI) artist Masanori. As far as I know, Masanori’s work isn’t available through Diamond except as an untranslated import… speaking as someone who’d buy Masanori’s work if I could. Is it that hard to find a YAOI title on Walmart.com and take an image from there?

Also, am I the only one trying to finding the opening sentence a bit offensive for gay baiting and for crimes against bad writing:

Here’s the real deal on why there was Japaneses cartoon porn on Walmart.com, much of it of the homosexual male, or, as its known to connoisseurs,”yaoi” variety.

Now, from my understanding , the volume that first got noticed was an OEL YAOI title, but based on the problem is much of the “Japaneses cartoon porn” of the MSM variety? Or is teh gay all that’s getting noticed?

I remember noticing problems with Free Enterprise the last time I saw it, but reading Ami Angelwings rant on fanboy attitudes towards gamer girls made me realize a reason to appreciate it. (found via Johanna) Ami writes:

I keep hearing that we dun exist. That there are no gamer girls. But what these guys mean are that there no gamer girls that fit THEIR fantasy. >:|

What they want isn’t a girl who shares their interests, or knows as much about comics as them, or who plays video games. What they MEAN is that they want a girl who is

a) attractive

b) like a “normal” silly girl

c) is INTERESTED in everything they like, but has less knowledge than them

A gamer girl isn’t a girl who games, it’s one who will watch in awe as their boyfriend games and tell him how awesome he is and complain about how much trouble it is to get to lv10 with her blaster. XD

What they want is a girl who says “omg Batman is awesome, but I like Robin too” and then when they respond “Oh, Robin died, this is the third Robin actually” and we’re supposed to go “REALLY? I didn’t know that! OMG you know so much!”

They want a girl who’s not gonna make them do things they dun want b/c they love everything they love, but wun hog the computer to play their video games. They’ll just sit there in ever loving adoration.

That made me realize that, even though the female characters in Free Enterprise don’t do much more but react to the guys’ personal issues, the film’s geek girl is portrayed as knowledgable about sci-fi as Rafer Weigel’s romantic lead.

In case you haven’t heard of Free Enterprise, the romantic comedy focuses on two sci-fi geeks, Robert and Mark, who meet William Shatner just as they’re heading into their thirties. Their childhood hero fails to live up to their expectations, however, as he turns out not to be someone they should have spent years admiring. The film focuses largely on Robert, who is good looking and charming, but has seen several relationships end when his girlfriend doesn’t understand why he would rather spend money on a Star Trek collectable than pay his electricity bill. He thinks the problem is that he can’t find a woman who shares his love of sci-fi, but that idea gets to confront reality when he meets Claire when buying comics.

Ami’s post gets me thinking to Free Enterprise’s romance scenes, where Claire comes off as knowlegable as her geek boyfriend and the two are shown bonding over their shared fandoms. I recall finding her character being rather poorly-defined, but she was more respected than the gamer girl ideal that inspired Ami’s rant.

The Fox Noise Channel’s attempt at a <em>Daily Show</em> designed to have a conservative-perspective recently filmed two pilot episodes and Radar Magazine received a report on the result, noting that “It’s looking like the satire program… will combine the timeliness of Newsweek with the incisive wit of Mallard Fillmore.”

The show apparently has a new title (the working title got scooped up by an AOL broadband channel), “The Half-Hour News Hour”. Man, it’s been at least a decade and a half since I heard anything like that.

One of the reported comedy sketches on the show will include Rush Limbaugh playing himself as the president, with Ann Coulter as his vice-president. That probably says plenty to set expectations — expect this show’s humor to resemble what passed for snark three months ago on right-wing message boards. Maybe this’ll be the beginning of unintentionally hilarious “Actual Half-Hour News Hour Quotes™”

The San Francisco Chronicle’s Tim Goodman thinks that Courtney Cox’ critically panned series Dirt deserves another chance:

FX, which went on an incredible streak of can’t-miss quality — a run that made HBO look like it might be struggling in comparison — occasionally clanks one off the front rim. In fact, its latest, most high-profile offering, “Dirt,” received less-than-stellar reviews. Courteney Cox makes her first post-”Friends” TV appearance as the series’ star and executive producer, so perhaps the examination lamp was burning a little brighter than normal on this one. In any case, the first three episodes showed a series that tried too hard, a star that might be miscast (Cox) or, at the very least, playing against her most appealing characteristics, and a milieu (celebrity-obsessed tabloids) that had no clear heroes, giving viewers no real reason to care…

After playing an all-too-obvious puppet master — lots of straight sex, gay sex, lesbian sex, “shocking” sex, drugs, mental illness, chopped-off heads, dead women giving birth to kittens, suspect journalism and egregious use of vibrators — “Dirt” finally gets focused in its fifth episode. And becomes more interesting.

But is it too late? If you wait five episodes for it to get good, will anyone be there to see it? And, truth be told, “Dirt” doesn’t just wake up in Tuesday’s fifth episode to find its stride. You really need to have endured — yes, that’s kind of what it was like — the first four episodes and the concomitant growth of the story line and characters to truly appreciate the feeling you get in Episode 5. This is where, perhaps for the first time, a viewer could truly imagine being dedicated to the series for the full season run (you know, right up until Aniston appears to get even more headlines in the tabloids and the acceptable press, lesbian kiss or no).

I’ve been enjoying the series more than most people who’ve commented on it publicly, I’ve liked Courney Cox’ protagonist who had her <em>She-Devil</em> moment last week when she toasted her mother’s re-marriage with a “May the truth never intefere on your happiness.” Damaged lead characters are pretty common on FX series, but <em>Dirt</em> gets additional leeway from me by bringing fx’ first female lead, if only because lead characters like Lucy Spiller are very rare. At the least, I’m spending far more time trying to figure out Spiller — a very cynical woman who doesn’t believe in love and has gained power by manipulating a world built on illusion — than I did trying to figure out <em>Rescue Me</em>’s Tommy Gavin.

• TV scheduling alert: Critically popular comedy The Knights of Prosperity moves a half-hour earlier this week to avoid American Idol. Correct your DVRs now. Also, COPS meets The Surreal Life series Armed and Famous has been pulled from CBS’ schedule… not that many people will notice.
• Aw, I want an Alternate Universe TiVo too! I need to catch up on Profit from season two onwards, the 65-hour adaptation of The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, the Scrubs/Footballers Wives spin-off/crossover Hazel and the Coxes, subtitled episodes of El Show de Cristina and the talking heads on Best Telenovela Week Ever.
• If you want to know who won Top Chef, apparently someone at Food & Wine magazine spoiled it. (Update: Food & Wine claims that two profiles were written and only one discovered.)
• Is the Oscar-nominated documentary Jesus Camp an instant camp classic?
• Here’s some interesting stats about American Idol. I’m no fan of the show, but it’s interesting to see all the numbers put together for comparison’s sake.

Supplemental tags: The Knights of Prosperity, Jesus Camp

The February 2007 issue of Shojo Beat includes a preview of a new series by Full Moon creator Arina Tanemura. The story follows Haine, a reformed juvie who now attends a private school with a strict social caste system. Haine has a crush on the boy at the top of the social ladder, Shizumasa, because of a picture book he wrote as a child and the kindness he displayed to her on a brief meeting. As the president of the student council, however, the cheerful gentleness Haine previously observed is gone from Shizumasa’s face — now he appears dour and unhappy. That makes Haine even more determined to overcome the societal barriers that get in the way of her dream relationship with Shizumasa.

There’s some potential here, but for me the biggest stumbling block is Tanemura’s art style. This is all a matter of personal taste, but I find her work to be excessively embellished to the point that my eye has a hard time following the story. Tanemura’s art also fails to serve the story at a few points, like when a big deal is made over Shizimasa wearing a ribbon or a necktie around his collar and the next several drawings of him are drawn from angles where it’s not clear what kind of neckwear he’s sporting. More notable, Haine is drawn with such a cute and cheery disposition it’s hard to buy into her past as a juvenile delinquent, except as a writer’s excuse to make the heroine an outsider.

Still, once I got into the story, I find myself intrigued. At the end of the first chapter Haine learns that Shizumasa has been conducting a secret affair with the male student council vice-president, a twist that differentiates The Gentlemen’s Alliance from a typical shoujo rom-com. That leaves me wondering where the series will go from this point, even if there are so many points where it could go wrong. Still, at the very least, for a story that starts out with so many all-too-familiar elements, its a twist that takes the story a couple steps off of the well-worn path.