House to Astonish Episode 124
Happy Easter! We’re back with another 90 minutes of comics chat, discussing Amazon’s purchase of Comixology, the launches of Grayson, Multiversity and Earth 2: World’s End, and Warren Ellis’s relaunch of the Project: Superpowers universe. We’ve also got reviews of Skinned, Batman: Eternal and Transformers: Windblade, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe slices, dices and makes Julienne fries. All this plus Warren Ellis’s bungee transport, 800m Hurdles Man and Batman wearing a Spider-Man mask.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, via the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page.
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I think it’s always appropriate regard Amazon’s actions suspiciously. But in addition to the Audible purchase that Al mentioned, it’s worth looking at Goodreads. There’s a lot of interference they could engage in, that a lot of users were expecting they would, that they just haven’t.
Indeed, with Audible, they’ve made one change that’s genuinely a good one: you can buy a Kindle e-book and get the audiobook at a discount (or get the audiobook and then get a discount on the Kindle edition), and with more and more books, they’re linkable. You can listen to to the audiobook a while then switch to a Kindle device or app and it’ll sync up to where you stopped listening, and the same vice versa. I don’t know what the equivalent for comics might be, but someone’s thinking usefully about cross-platform usage at Amazon.
Still braced for all kind of mustache-twirling ugliness, but it may be neutral to good for readers.
For every thing Amazon have bought and kept going with no change, there’s something they’ve bought and effectively neutered. LoveFilm has stopped offering game rentals and is gradually turning into just another video streaming site (I wouldn’t be surprised to see their rental by post being discontinued soon).
The Book Depository used to be a competitively priced alternative to Amazon (and one of the main factors in them offering universal free postage for a good few years) but now rarely seems to out-price Amazon.
I can definitely see a shifting focus for Comixology to Kindle from other reading platforms over the medium term.
The problem with Arcee has always been that there’s very little to her character BUT the fact that she’s overtly female, which is why I liked Furman’s IDW version. Yes it was a drastic change from the 80s version, but I thought it was an interesting look at how introducing gender (male or female) to a member of species without gender (which the IDW TFs were under Furman) would affect a person. John Barber should get credit for adding some development to that in RiD though, exploring the fact that Arcee essentially has Asperger’s and struggles to interact properly with others.
I think Scott put a few noses out of joint while doing promotion for Windblade by saying she was going to ‘fix’ the story that introduced Arcee, which was a bit of bolshy thing for a relatively new writer to say, especially about a Transformers comic written by Simon Furman.
Im old and nerdy enough to appeciate the Five Doctors reference.
No Eisner nominations talk?
It’s “Arcee” to be a pun on “RC” or “Radio-Controlled.” Unless she’s supposed to be a Roman Catholic…which would explain the buns.
As in, Princess Leia. Having not seen the Elita-One & Orion Pax origin story “War Dawn” until much later, Arcee’s appearance in the movie was a surprise to 11 year-old me. Figured it was pretty much a way to create a Princess Leia-style character for the girls to attach to, plus it gave the movie a neatly understated if borrowed love triangle with Arcee, the Lukey Hot Rod and Hanny Springer. Funny how Hot Rod outgrowing both Daniel and Arcee threw them together as substitute siblings in the end, huh? (Furman touches on that idea as well, in a Arcee/Metroplex/Matrix-less Hot Rod story)
I always wanted a Metroplex toy. I’d’a broke it on day one, mind, so just as well. Bost my Megatron and Hasbro sent me a new one, only for me to break that one as well in the same weak-ass arm joint place. Man!
Jazz was always my favrit. What’s he up to?
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“for the girls to attach to”
PS: in addition to all the non-female characters the girls already loved. /presstherubsigntocheckyourprivilege
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I love the idea of the Transformers embracing democracy and electing Starscream as their first president!
Surprised gruenwald didnt add Stiletto to Batrocs brigade, as he seemingly would have fit in well.
My dad bought me that bricklaying tool so I could build a wall for him, about 2006. He watched the infomercial several times before buying it…
(I was just picturing the deleterious effect of the economic downturn on Hammer industries as I listened to your talk of handing out sporting goods and construction equipment to villains with attempts at marketing spin! 😀 )
As for the Amazon question on acquisitions. I look at the total hands-off approach to Audible, imdb, Zappos, and many others, and think that the doom & gloom from folks about ComiXology is overblown. Like you said, They’re likely looking at getting the Guided View technology for use on the Kindle. Frankly, if history is a judge, they’ll most likely leave the actual company alone to run itself with just an added Amazon logo and a small cut of profit in exchange for a Amazon doing a lot of advertisement on their larger network of the program (see how Audible is now a thing folks have heard of since the purchase, despite its still walled-off neutrality).
Much of the threat that comic stores have from Amazon, I think, comes from the fact that Amazon’s success isn’t just pricing. As a storefront experience, they do a great job of matching products, giving samples to read through, offering reviews, alerting members to affiliate specials — basically the sort of curation expected of a physical storefront. That said, they’re behind on comics vs books (I mostly purchase nonfiction, so Amazon works spectacularly for my needs). If ComiXology’s knowledge base can help with the data needed to populate a curated storefront comparable to the specialty shop experience, that’s the point of danger in many cases.
BTW, I can proudly say that my childhood Metroplex is still in one piece at my father’s house (even if some accessories and weapons are in other places within the house that I can no longer locate)! Of course, both my original Shockwave and my Megatron basically exploded on the original Christmas mornings that I received them* — I replaced Shockwave at a yard sale decades later but still never got hold of any G1 Megatrons — so, I know that the original Transformer toys (even the fabled diecast) didn’t always last. My original Optimus Prime lost one of his legs early on…
(*as we grew up, my brother and I alternated between jokes about Autobot plots or anti-2nd Amendment plots about the two gun-TFs being the ones to instantly break)
The gender issue with Transformers is always interesting, since the “gendering” of them came after-the-fact, with the designs themselves being based off other Japanese toylines of non-sentient vehicles, whose blockier (thus construed “masculine”) robot shapes came more out of fitting in the vehicle — hell, some of the robots (the planes, the vans, even Megatron) in toy form could be arguable more feminine.
Even in the pre-cartoon comics, uses of “he,” wouldn’t preclude a genderless species, with the rules of English writing for neutral gender and economy. It’s when you get into cartoon voicing and start interpreting whether the use of male voices (even those purposely pitched higher like Welker or Latta) are meant to be expressly male or representing an industrial notion of the mechanical as something more guttural still in the American & even Japanese imagination.
Come Season 2, however, you DO get the introduction of distinctive “Female Transformers” and the outright expression of the characters we’ve seen as male — IN THE CARTOON. The question remains however, whether that outright gendering of a robot species would mean to continue in the comics (the “branding” issue of Arcee, for example, and I’d need to go back to the issues with the Pretenders where those in “male” shells are dealing with gendered society). Through BEAST WARS and such, as the mechanical origin of the species is altered more dramatically, you *do* get a distinctive gender breakdown (which makes more sense after BEAST MACHINES, despite folks distaste often for it, if there’s a biological aspect to Cybertronian history).
Personally, that’s my exit point to Transformers fandom aside from some of the comics (I’d love to catch up on the IDW comics — I had to drop them, along with all the rest of my collecting hobby out of financial issues). I think that part of the issue is the tension between Hasbro’s and affiliates’ desire for ONE TRUE UNIVERSE encompassing all Transformers (notice all the universes that I *didn’t* cover, for example) with fans across thirty years who notice major discrepancies with what they understand and try to figure out how their fandom is supposed to slot in. With many timeline issues and character personality/identity questions, that’s problematic enough. However, those issues are neither as political or historically problematic as that of gender.
Firstly, I want to avoid getting in trouble as best I can by broaching the topic of a lot of recent issues back and forth in comics media on sex & gender (I’m reminded of stepping on metaphorical landmines in grad school seminars on cultural studies). I have not, as I mentioned, been following the discussions on Windblade. However, I have been following the fallout of gender discussions on CBR falling out to The Beat, for example. From an outside point of view of someone no longer actively involved in comics collecting or attending conventions, but following along with media, one sees inexcusable bad behavior by vocal subset of ne’er-do-wells, then being broadly categorized in editorials as gendered or cultural behavior (I’m specifically not categorizing accusations as “blame all men,” as that’s neither helpful or quite accurate, despite counterclaims). I’m reminded of debates of how bad behavior on online multiplayer gaming could/could not be applied to a larger gamer population (especially as that demographic expanded in age/race/gender ranges) and wonder — in a way that probably doesn’t apply to discussion here at HtA — how comparable the broadening comics demographic is to such a conversation.
What question I *am* asking, since I’m neither privy to — nor would know where to find — the discussions on gender in the Windblade decisions (gender versus fan control, as in always the questions of the wisdom of majoritarianism in creative works versus the assumed compromise of full authorial/editorial curation). I recall the Drift controversies, for example, much of which weren’t merely Mary-Sueism, but the question of very distinct Japanese characteristics in the first new character of a new regime and the constant tension (as I described above) of fans over Truth in Transformers History — including American versus Japanese concepts (certainly there’s also the subset of British history in the Marvel comics, but I’m describing a generation whose first, more visceral, thoughts, are likely to be animated. It’s the irony of a property that changes entirely every few years that fans go ballistic at the creation of any new characters (often attributing odd intentions or misunderstood “outsider” culture) — I’m reminded of the confusion (even my own) at having some new names of robots in the Michael Bay movies instead of always just reusing property names for wholly unrelated characters (as TRANSFORMERS, as an Intellectual Property, has been wont to do since 1984 at least).
In a property so steeped in a constant mythological war against a disguised Other, is it any surprise that fans seem to distrust change and apparently media has seemed to be unsure how to interpret that distrust? At least that’s my rambling attempt at thinking through a question mark that popped into my head when Al & Paul were talking the Windblade comic and questions about gender in Transformers. Apologies if I accidentally said anything awry in this first-as-final draft comment! (I said that I was reminded of grad school — I got a lot of dirty looks bad there too as the guy who played Devil’s Advocate on general principle for the sake of examining all sides)
I’ve got an intact Metroplex lying around somewhere. But I also managed to break Megatron twice in that same place.
My brother in law reattached Jetfire’s arm when it came away at the left shoulder. Put a Philips-head screw into the joint. Ratchet couldn’t’ve done a better job.
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“Arsey” would be a good name for a certain kind of character.
Re Skinned, huh. I paused the review for a bit after you’d described the basic setup, and my reaction was that it sounded brilliant. I toyed around with that basic notion for a science fiction gizmo, oh, 15 years ago or so. But I never came up with any sort of decent plot to match the idea.
To me, a rebellious princess and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks seems like a perfect (traditional) plot idea to go with the notion, because it all reinforces the idea that what you see isn’t necessarily what you get. I was really excited about the idea.
And then I unpaused and heard the rest of your review. Sigh.
Since it’s pronounced R C, it’s speculated Arcee’s name began as shorthand for “Robot Chick”.
Drift was very much a Poochie when first introduced. Transformers fans are used to new characters, but fan favourites become so organically. Drift was a clichéd fan fiction character (he’s a badass fighter, he has swords, he’s a bot of few words, he’s a bad guy turned good) that TF fans were told they would love.
It also didn’t help that the All Hail Megatron series that introduced him, meant as an alternate universe but made “real”, threw away almost of the setup of the IDW series at the time for a gritty reboot of the 80s cartoon.
Another part of the reason Drift wasn’t liked, existing but unused characters could have filled his role. James Roberts has redeemed Drift and also shown in MTMTE that there’s a dozens of existing toy characters that can be interesting if given a shot.
There was a worry among TF fans that Windblade would be more of the same but she’s quickly shown to be a character rather than a cliche.
Since it’s Doctor Who Reference Day, I think that’s a good example of what a showrunner is. The editor would be equivalent to the “practical” executive producer – Julie Gardner, Piers Wegner etc. – whereas Wilson is RTD or the Moff – the “creative” exec who’s also a writer. I think.
On Skinned:
Vernor Vinge’s book RAINBOWS END (not a typo, it’s a statement of finality rather than location) has a similar “skinning” as part of its world setting, though that’s only a small bit of what the device can do. He doesn’t discuss physical fashion, but does talk a lot about how a great deal of content is user-generated, with people adopting others’ work and paying for it to control how they appear within a certain “belief circle” of the world. Major film and book franchises have reached a point where they’re almost entirely fueled by fan creations appropriated (and paid for) by the studios who own the trademarks, and really bad fan-art can utterly destroy a franchise in a very short time (as it apparently did, in-story, to Vinge’s own Zones of Thought stories.) All of this is really tangential to the plot of the book, but it was a cool bit of worldbuilding nonetheless.
I’m not sure Amazon’s increased presence in the digital market will have the effect on prices that you imagine. Just looking at what they sell right now:
The latest John Grisham book is $16.36 in hardcover and $15.67 digital.
The Game of Throne books are $6 in paperback, $11.49 digital.
For movies, FROZEN will cost me $20 for just the digital copy in HD, while the DVD is $15 and a Blu-Ray that includes a DVD and a digital copy is $25.
For TV, MAD MEN Season 6 costs $34 for the Blu-Ray and $35 to get digitally in HD.
The latest Bob Dylan Bootleg Series will cost me $18.99 to download, or $18.88 for the 2 CD set, which includes a digital download. They’re actually willing to pay me 11 cents to also get the physical copy!
And all those physical versions are eligible for free shipping.
Clearly Amazon has no problem with the idea that a digital copy of something can cost as much, if not more than, a physical copy. Amazon doesn’t want prices in general to be low, they just want to make sure that the Amazon price is lower than their competitors’ prices, until such time that they don’t have competitors.
Re: the talk of Marvel going it alone with their own digital app – they do already have the Marvel Unlimited app which includes its own reader. I don’t know about other platforms, but the iPad version is perfectly usable.
Currently it gives you comics up to 6-9 months old (plus a huge library of back catalogue), but as an established tradewaiter, I have no problem reading at that pace. And I imagine that’s why the subscription price is so low.
If they launch Marvel Unlimited NOW (or something) with a higher price and day-and-date new comics, probably do alright. Build in the functionality to buy individual comics too, and they’ve more or less replaced Comixology.
(Note: I’ve not listened to the podcast yet. That’s being saved for a big drive on Friday).
The problem with the “Transformers don’t have gender” argument that’s been thrown about is that they clearly do. Even if they’re not reproducing via some sort of sex analogue, Optimus Prime has always been male. From the very beginning, “he” was the pronoun used, they had male voices actors… They were male, even if only in the “male is the default gender” sense. And the problem with all this is that when female robots were introduced, they were treated as being unique, or at least “different from standard”. Which is a pretty horrible message to give to females.
Likewise, I can see Furman’s attempts to give IDW a different origin that just “being a girl” as being somewhat laudable, but when the new story becomes “forced to become transgendered against his/her will, which then drives the character psychotic”, I’m not sure we’re much better off. (Besides, Scott was very careful to be complimentary about Furman’s work when interviewed. Whereas Furman basically accused Scott of saying things she hasn’t said and showed a fair lack of class about the whole thing. And again, his whole argument was “there is only one Transformer with gender, and she’s a she.” Again, it’s the women who are the unusual one, where as the rest of the genderless ones, who are pretty obviously male, are “normal”.)
As to Drift, I’m pretty sure the initial hatred for him was the Poochie-ness, not the Japense-ness. Transformers: Animated was airing at the time and Prowl in that series never got the same level of hate, despite also being a slightly stereotypical Ninja character. Drift was a writer coming up with a new character and intoducing us to that character by having him be awesome and show everyone else up. Windblade, however, was Hasbro saying “hey everyone, we’re going to create a new character, give them a toy and a miniseries, and you get to say what they are like”. AND THE FANS THEN VOTED FOR A FEMALE TRANSFORMER! She’s not being “shoved down our throats”. She’s being marketed. That’s a huge difference.
Paul Fr: Arcee was indeed meant to be “RC,” albeit as in “Radio Controlled,” a pun off of toy cars (RC cars being a *big* thing back in the mid-80s, as folks can recall).
It’s pretty painful to look back at the growth of bad puns in naming later-G1 Transformers (Horri-Bull, anyone?) as they needed to pump out more and more toys at a time…
You’ve just created The Blue Rajah from Mystery Men.
Hey guys –
FYI. Tom King is a novelist and podcaster of some note. He wrote a very well received titled A Once Crowded Sky: A Novel and some great Kindle World Valiant yarns. You can see all his work here: http://www.amazon.com/Tom-King/e/B0066F3XJS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1.
The podcast that Tom is on is diametrically different then House to Astonish. More like EOC but a little more crass and racial. It really is the most diverse comic podcast that I know of. It is not for the faint of heart or easily offended. Lots of racial and sex discussions http://thetaylornetworkofpodcasts.com/no-apologies/.
Just sticking up for a man I respect since he was give a bit of short change on the show (which I love and listen to religiously).
Really it is kind funny – I put House To Astonish and Wait, What in one camp of comic podcasts and Eleven O’Clock Comics and No Apologies in the other. Love them all but immensely different in style and substance. Recommended one and all.
Thanks.
Sean
Thanks for the info Sean; no slight intended on Tom, just hadn’t heard of him before.
“Arcee was indeed meant to be ‘RC,’ albeit as in “Radio Controlled,” a pun off of toy cars”
Brian, I’m curious if you have a source for this? I’ve seen this speculated on TF fan boards but I’ve never seen it confirmed in interviews or BotCon panel reports or similiar. (If only so I can note it on TFwiki!)
It’s an attribution that I’ve heard over the course of the past thirty years at various points and have just assumed to be the case, having been an RC-car collecting kid at that height of the crazy at the same time the character was created, but I’m not sure where I’d find a source on it at this point (which, as a historian, I’m kicking myself on to realize, mind you)…
BTW, Al & Paul, I forget to mention amidst all the talk of Amazon and Transformers: no one’s brought up the topic of Jason Bard. He’s actually a minor Bat-character dating back to the late 1960s, involved in Batgirl and Man-Bat stories back in the Pre-Crisis days as a PI with a bum knee from Vietnam who was Barbara Gordon’s on-and-off romantic foil. Post-Crisis, he was a former Gotham cop injured in the line of duty and previously engaged to Barbara who appeared in BIRDS OF PREY and later in “One Year Later” Batman books as the PI that Batman kept on retainer to be his ‘daytime face’ during investigations. So, this appearance in BATMAN: ETERNAL seems to be a character reboot. One has to wonder if his role in Gordon’s arrest will impede the natural progress of his trying to date Barbara for a third straight continuity? 😉
I never really followed Transformers, but the discussion of “genderless robots” = “male by default”, and then there’s “the girl one”, reminds me of Gladys the Golem in Discworld.
For those who don’t read Discworld; a random golem is put in a dress and named Gladys so she can clean the women’s privies in the Post Office without the Postmistress deeming this improper in some way. That’s all that happens. And that changes the way people react to her, so therefore changes the way she acts. And then suddenly the golems who aren’t wearing dresses are “male golems”. (But again, they’d been referred to as “he” since the they were introduced in Feet of Clay.)
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There was a female character called “Stiletto” in British comics: she was part of Storm Force, so you may have come across her in Battle or Eagle. (Clicking my name should give a link to an info page.) Her main gimmick was that she could pull off the high heels from her boots and throw them at people as small knives.