When Slogans Overlap (OR) The Misdiagnosed Viral Marketing

As in: Comics , Media , Memes

One of my favorite comics of the last few years is Warren Ellis' Global Frequency. I'd heard rumors (that have since proved to be true) that the comic had been optioned for television. Awesome. Then, I saw what I could only think was a bit of viral marketing: a sign that said "Are you on the frequency?"

A bit of investigation yielded confusing results:

Me (to one of my students who reads comics): Does the phrase "Are you on the frequency?" mean anything to you?
Hip student: Global Frequency?

and...

Me (to a trendy member of the office staff): Does the phrase "Are you on the frequency?" mean anything to you?
Trendy staff member: Doesn't that have something to do with Columbia?

Another quick search reveals that Columbia's on-campus TV station is called Frequency Tv.

So I'm curious about viral marketing. If the goal is to spread a meme, how important is it that the meme be unique? One could suggest that the "Are you on the Frequency?" sign fired both synapses for me. Does this make Frequency TV cooler? Does it make Global Frequency cooler? Could the connection be accidental, or is there someone in the Frequency TV marketing group who also checks both Columbia College and Warren Ellis Fan boxes? More importantly, if the "Are you on the Frequency?" poster was meant to lead people to Frequency TV, it's a bad thing for them that the top hit on Google is about Warren Ellis.

braindump

As in: ComicBlog , Comics , Thoughts from the "L"

Mack Bolan: Executioner

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

When I was in high school, my knowledge bowl team often traveled to "away" tournaments, sometimes hours away or even far enough that we had to stay overnight. When we did, I always enjoyed buying cheesy "men's action" novels from gas stations along the way. One of the cheesiest was the Mack Bolan: Executioner series. Needless to say, it was fun to find an Executioner comic.

When I started reading the comic, though, I was appalled. Not only trite and cliche, the comic was downright offensive. It fulfills the worst stereotypes at every opportunity.

The storyline is also libelously close to that of Frank Castle's (The Punisher). Namely, both are vietnam vets with special forces training who came home to find their family dead. In The Punisher's case, his family was killed in cross-fire, I believe. In The Executioner's case, his father got in debt to a loan shark, who captured Mack's sister in some bizarre prostitution scheme. Both go on murderous rampages designed to clean up the mafia because the police can't or won't.

Here are a few more panels:

The worst-dressed gangsters ever: This looks a bit like the villains are dancing as he shoots at them. Alas, every woman in Don Pendleton's world is sexxed up: I can't resist a bit more commentary, so read below the fold for more panels and grousing.

The Punisher is one of Marvel's least interesting heroes. He kills pretty much everyone he thinks is a villain. In the past few years, though, Garth Ennis has added a bit of depth by giving him some self-conscious bile. As at the end of Unforgiven, Ennis' Punisher knows his soul is gone, knows his killing does little, but he does it anyway.

All that said, The Punisher has his own code of violence. While he will murder thieves or drug-dealers for being themselves, he will never kill a police officer. In recent issues, he's even stepped up to defend children and victims of slavery-prostitution rings. Here's where he parts company with Mack Bolan. In the short flashbacks of the comic, we learn that Mack's sister had a promising college career until her father got in debt to loan sharks. To help (and thus prevent her father from having a fatal heart attack under the stress), she starts working as a prostitute for the gangsters. When her father finds out, he goes crazy and shoots his whole family and kills himself. Mack's little brother survives to tell the story. Not surprisingly, Mack decides to murder the people responsible.

Oddly, though, he does so by infiltrating their organization. Rather than just killing everyone, as The Punisher does, he meets with them and gets a job. In order to get their confidence, he hangs out at their pool and gets himself in this jam:

And he sleeps with the prostitute. While he does hesitate for a moment, his libido wins out over his ethics. He seems to show no remorse about his situation, unaware, perhaps, that his seductress was likely just as coerced as his sister. So goes the uber-masculine world of Mack Bolan.

Alas, I won't learn how the story ends. I don't plan to buy the next issue.

Bonus gripe: Why are there quote marks around his thought in the last panel? Don't quote marks imply he's remembering an aphorism from somewhere or something? I don't think that phrase is in Barlett's quotables.

Hobarthy Collages (1)

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Since October marks the 6-month moment in the Hobarthy project, I thought I'd take a stab at a collage. I used the panels from Kiss and Tell and Hand of Fate. These images are 750x1000 pixels, and will open in pop-up windows. Enjoy.

Kiss and Tell (September)

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

I bought this comic for the Hobarthy project in September and never got around to posting it. I bought it thinking it would be noir crime comic. It ended up more like a noir superhero comic. It's issue 7 of a Samson story; the lady on the front of the cover is the story's Delilah.

Here are a few panels (not in the order they appeared in the comic):

American Flagg!

As in: Comics , Hobarthy , Science Fiction

I'm a bit late getting this comic up, but this was the comic I found in the bins during my random search. I must admit--I've heard of this before and was pretty excited about finding it. Nonetheless, I've scanned a few panels for the Rose Hobarth project:

Leaping Lizards!

As in: Comics , Hobarthy , Science Fiction

Month 3:

This title is your standard Western adventure story, but with alien reptiles as the heroes. Hence, Interplanetary Lizards of the Texas Plains.

I didn't find a sub-story in this one to arrange here, but there are lots of amusing panels. Check 'em out:

1:	2:
3:
Do Gauchos really pee on cacti? Lucas wasn't stealing from Streetcar, but from IPLotTP. In a classic sign that a writer isn't confident in his artist, the narrator box tells us what the picture obviously shows. I find the last panel of this part really funny. The authors constantly give the old man lines like this, to make him seem more "Western", I guess. At one point he says "Don't forget all that stuff I teached ya." 'Teached'? I like the overhead shot. The contrast between the top panel and the bottom one in the quality of the art show that this guy would be really good drawing landscapes and backgrounds with a partner to draw the action. Also, this is one of several places the authors use "Yikes", which makes me laugh.	4:

Posted by briley at 9:45 AM

Two funny panels

As in: Comics

From Brenda Starr


From Get Fuzzy

The Unseen Hand

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Month 2:

There were lots of panels that could port to a larger story, as long as your character's name is Mike. Here are a few, arranged in a vaguely amusing way. I imagine the man with bandages as either a man in a hospital bed or a space mummy (the bandages + the weird sci-fi tube) from Mike's subconscious. I like choice 2 better.

Tales from the User-Interface battlefield

As in: Comics , Design

Reasons everyone should read Donald Norman.

1. The recent run of Agnes has been interesting:

2. When Jenny and I went to see Revenge of the Sith, the person in front of us in the line for the pre-bought tickets machine was apparently new to the device and didn't know that he was supposed to swipe his credit card through the credit card reader slot. Instead, he folded up his confirmation printout so that the misleading (and unused) barcode rested at the end of the page; then he swiped the barcode through the credit card reader. Just as I was telling him that he needed to use his credit card, an employee redirected us to a ticket window—apparently the machine was just booting up and didn't have the right display on the screen. As we walked toward the ticket booth, I saw someone else walking up to the vending machine, folding her confirmation printout to swipe the barcode through the slot.

Aside: Donald Norman looks a lot like c-list actor Michael Lerner (whom I remember as the evil warden from the Ray Liotta vehicle, No Escape).

Channeling Josh

As in: Comics

Channeling Josh, the Comics Curmudgeon, here's my take on the strips today.

Blondie 26 May 2005

Dean and Dennis have, with this strip, embodied the modern American ideal. Not a workplace where a loyal (if lazy) worker gets to make ends meet, but where he slowly gets further and further behind. As Dagwood tries to explain to his boss the problems of living in an inflation economy on a 1930's wage (because really, has he EVER actually gotten a raise out of the old miser?), Dithers stares at us with the perplexity only a well-paid upper manager can muster.

Then, surely recalling his days as a strikebreaker working for his father, he bounds from his chair to poke Dagwood in the chest. "Don't come to me with that namby-pamby cost-of-living hooey," he says, "Just go into debt." And thus the tenuous symbiosis of the J.C. Dithers company is thrown in to chaos—no longer is Dagwood just trading a nap for Dithers' occasional kick in the ass—he's also earning the privilege of running up credit-card debt. Dithers makes clear who wears the light-blue polka-dotted Zubaz in this company. Notice Dagwood's face in panel three: he's really afraid Dithers is going to do something crazy, like rip the giant gold button from Dagwood's shirt.

Next week: Blondie and Dagwood refinance the house.

The Experiment Begins

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Month 1:

February 1980. Oddly enough, art by Howard Chaykin (with Al Milgrom). I swear I didn't look at the inside before I bought it. Totally random that it's HC's art. Or fate, one of the two. (See extended entry).

I'm thinking that, in the long run, I'll use a bunch of single-issue comics to do a Rose Hobarth kind of comic. Totally lawsuit worthy, I bet. Anyhow, here are three juicy panels from House of Mystery 277 (in a new order, obviously):

Seems like a bizarre coming out narrative, eh?

Impending experiment

As in: Comics , Hobarthy

Today is the first work-day after the first of the month, so I get to stop at the comic shop on the way home. I'm starting a new experiment today. I'm going to go into one of the numerous old-back-issue boxes and pick a comic out based entirely on its cover/art. I'm going to try and ignore the title if it has any meaning for me and concentrate on getting something cool. Then that comic will be about art-supplies rather than about narrative (which is why I buy most comics). We'll see how it goes.

Corny pun

As in: Comics

Every comic should have a corny pun like this once in a while.

Engineers

As in: Comics

This stereotype is so common.