Why does DC waste three pages of space in my comics?

Back when both Marvel and DC Comics were inching their way to a cover price of $3.99 for a 22-page comic book, there was a pretty big outcry from fans.  This represented of a 33% price hike at a time of economic turmoil and it quite obviously wasn't very warmly received.

Because of the backlash, Marvel seemed to slow the rollout of these new prices to the point where there are still $2.99 books on the shelf (though they are being replaced with some regularity).  DC, on the other hand, brought nearly all of their comics back to the earlier $2.99 price and crowed pretty loudly about it - releasing ads proclaiming that they were "drawing the line at $2.99".  In general, this was seen as a win for the angry consumer, and for a while it was.  But fairly soon afterwards, DC revealed that in order to keep the price the same, they would cut down the page count of most of their books to 20 pages instead of 22.

Two fewer pages meant that DC was cutting out nearly 10% of the story (or, perhaps, forcing writers and artists to squeeze more material into 20 pages), but something like this might be the best compromise readers could have hoped for.  For a while, letters pages came back to take up those two lost pages.  In the last year, though, DC has been filling up their empty pages with spreads like the one at the top of this post - it's a cover gallery promoting the upcoming "zero month", something that DC did, oh, 20 years ago as well.

The two pages are very short on text - it's basically "hey guys, buy these!  See ya next month!!" and then a splattering of covers.  I get that DC wants to promote other books and events that are upcoming, but when I turn the page again, I see this:

It's another in-house ad with little-to-no useful information.  In this case, it's basically "hey guys, see you at Comic-Con lolz!" and then the convention logo, which takes up two thirds of the page.

Are these really necessary?  It seems to me like it's a monumental waste of time for them to even include these pages in the comic.  If DC is really hurting for money so badly that they have to trim stories by two entire pages, why not sell those pages for advertisements?  And by that I mean outside advertisements, not just pages that no one pays for and ones that don't add anything to the comic in general in terms of content or revenue.  It boggles my mind and is annoying as all heck.  DC, at least since it's been owned by Warner Bros., has always been a corporation interested in making money above all else, and I understand that that's the way it's got to be.  But it's seemed a lot more corporate lately.

I'm glad that Marvel, even though they're now owned by Disney, doesn't pull cheap stunts like this when there's no basis for --

OH DAMMIT!

"The Dark Knight Rises" at Heinz Field

Rumblings of the new Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises", have been frequent around the Pittsburgh area in the last few months, though the anticipation has far outshone any actual information on filming, at least to me, before earlier today when I learned that the Warner Bros. tentpole will be filming on Saturday, August 6th at Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  I found out about this from the website of the Pittsburgh Film Office, which posted this casting notice and a link to this website.

This is set up to be a scene with thousands of extras, which will be a pretty big undertaking on the part of the movie crew.  I'm a little surprised that this will be filming at Heinz field, which is a fairly recognizable stadium - when I first heard about this, I thought this scene might take place indoors at the nearby Consol Arena, home of the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Arena Football League team, the Pittsburgh Power.  It seems that they're going big for this scene, though, and that's just fine with me.  We're told to expect special effects of the explosion variety, which will be a interesting to see.

While I am absolutely excited to sign up for this and get a chance to be in this scene, what stood out to me most was just how awful the "Be in a Movie" website really is.  The pictures I'm posting up here are all screenshots from the website.  If you take a few seconds to read some of the actual text that appears on this site, I think you'll see what I'm talking about.

Beyond looking like a high school PowerPoint presentation, a lot the information on this site is exactly what gives people the wrong impression about what being an extra is like.  That is to say, when people first show up to be an extra on a show or movie, it's not uncommon for that person to expect a party.  My best response to that mentality is this: even production scenes that are supposed to take place at a party are not like a party.  Or maybe they're like the worst party you've ever been to.  My point is, being an extra is tedious work over unreasonably long hours.  It can be fun, but it's not the type of fun that this website seems to be promising.

Just look at the abundance of exclamation points and unnecessary capitalization.  The picture at top starts simply with "YES!!!".  The next has one line that just says "WOW!", followed by the pseudo sentence "This will be an action packed unbelievable fun day of Movie Making Experiences You'll Never Forget".  In the photo directly above, you'll see that as part of appearing on set, everyone will receive a more than 30 page booklet on how to become a paid extra.  Thirty pages?!  Here, free of charge, I'll tell you how to become a paid extra in one sentence: SHOW UP AT THE DAMN SET WHEN A MOVIE NEEDS EXTRAS.  Oops, now I'm using too many caps.

This next screenshot might be my favorite, because beyond promising to send "drivnig" directions (and improperly using "you're"...my goodness, people), the site gives you a preview of how popular you will become by being an extra in this movie.  Under the heading "Here's Some Things People Will Say After We've Made This Movie With You!", the following conversation questions are posited: "You really got to hang out on the set with all those stars?"  The answer is supposedly "Yup!", even though I will guarantee absolutely zero extras will get to hang out with Batman or any other main actor.  The next question you're sure to hear is "Hey! I saw you in that film.  Way cool.  Was it fun?"  Again, the answer is sure to be a dopey "Yup!"  In reality, there is no chance that you'll be seen other than for a picosecond in a blurry pan across the field.

My goodness, I'm full of vitriol tonight.  I guess I'm a little miffed at the fact that this website is going to mislead thousands of people about this opportunity to be an extra in what is sure to be a cool scene and a great movie.  Though this scene may be the closest thing anyone will ever get to having a party during the filming of a movie, it will most certainly not be a party.  It will be lots of waiting around for setting up, shooting, re-shooting, re-shooting again, re-shooting a dozen more times, moving equipment, rehearsing, rehearsing with stand-ins, rehearsing with principle actors, rehearsing with sound, rehearsing without sound, shooting, re-shooting again...you get the point.  This is going to take all day and there will be a hours and hours of downtime.

In case anyone's wondering, HECK YES I will be doing this.  It's the Batman movie, and it's filming in Pittsburgh!  How could I stay away?  Man, I think I've been too hard on this whole process and this website.  Look at me, getting all worked up over nothing.  Oh, there's one more picture from the website, I wonder what it --

"Where did you here about this"?  Where did you HERE about this?!  HERE?!?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME>!?!1?!  Holy crap.

Who owns Superman ice cream?

The answer to the above question is, of course, "the people".  The people own Superman ice cream, and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.  But let's consider, just for a moment, that a concept as grand as Superman could actually be owned (and trademarked and copyrighted) by a person or corporation.  Would said corporation be willing to let other companies make an ice cream based off of its intellectual property?

The answer is apparently "yes", because Superman ice cream does, in fact, exist.  It may be glorified vanilla, but it carries the name and color scheme of the DC Comics icon.  There are a number of ice cream manufacturers (can you manufacture ice cream?) with their own version of Superman ice cream, and as far as I can tell, no company has made any kind of licensing agreement with either DC or Warner Bros., its parent company.  In a world where companies hold on to their money making properties as if they were made out of...well, money, how is this possible?

If Superman ice cream were made by one single, local company, I could chalk this disparity up to the company slipping under the proverbial radar - the same could be said if "Superman" were just a flavor at an ice cream parlor.  But that's not the case.  While maybe it's not absolutely ubiquitous, it's not all that hard to find this kind of ice cream, regardless of where you live in North America (who knows if Luxembourg has it in stock).  The color scheme is red, blue and yellow, so it's not like any claim can be made that this is the Friedrich Nietzsche superman.

Don't get me wrong - I like Superman ice cream and I'm glad that I can run down to the local Kroger and pick up their "party pail" (it already feels like a party with it in my freezer!).  I just don't know how DC allows this to happen.

Sometimes I'm embarrassed by Superman.

I'm a big fan of Superman - at least in theory.  The character is such an important icon in pop culture and I'm convinced that he's one of the most important figures in American mythology, right up there with, say, Paul Bunyan and Uncle Sam.  He's the fictionalized embodiment of the story of immigration to this country, with Jewish and Christian allegories thrown in the mix.  In short, he's a very deep, complex character.

That's not to say that Superman always lives up to his potential, though - being owned by DC Comics, and by default Warner Bros., means that the character is almost sure to stay stagnant as long as he remains financially lucrative, and that's a shame - he's got such potential as more than just a logo to slap on lunch boxes (but those are cool, too).

Superman recently eclipsed the #700 mark in his self-named title, while Action Comics climbs closer to #900.  Around such "anniversary" issues, companies often try to change things up a little to bring attention to the characters featured in those books.  Of course, we often get the illusion of change in lieu of real, meaningful change, but new things are nonetheless tried in times such as these.

In the a recent issue of the title Superman, a woman confronts the Man of Steel and accosts him for not saving her husband from a heart attack (or some similar ailment).  This apparently affects Superman to such a great degree that he decides to walk across the country to meet "real" people.  Why this would make any sense is beyond me - it would seem that Superman would realize that he can't save everybody, and by giving up his quest for global harmony to walk from Atlantic to Pacific seems rather self defeating in any case.  But, I suppose the editors of the book thought this would make Superman more relatable, and hey, it's their book.

Issue #702 was released recently, and it brings Superman to some fairly economically burdened cities in the state of Michigan.  Here Superman meets some young men playing a game of basketball, and proceeds to talk to them in the most embarrassing way possible.  Superman, you see, apparently needs to work on his "street" lingo, as he says Hey fellas!  Mind if I dial in?  "Dial in"?  Really?  Superman?  You can knock the sun out of the sky but you think it's okay to talk like you're on a very special episode of Full House?

Superman, the jerk he apparently is, goes ahead and humiliates those he's playing against, but wait!  It's for a good reason.  He invites the outcast of the group to play, and lets that kid strip the ball away from him - and then, miraculously, the rest of the group accepts the weaker kid as a friend.  As if they're stupid enough to believe he actually beat Superman in a game of basketball.

I don't know.  I realize that Superman comes off sometimes as a big Boy Scout, but sometimes the people in charge seem to want to make him out to be the biggest nerd alive, and I just don't get that.  He's a nice guy, a guy you'd want to be friends with, a guy you'd find it easy to trust and depend on - not the kid who was home schooled his entire life.