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i disagree. first of all, comics are more successful as a visual medium than as a literary one. second, movies are more successful and, arguably more important as a result, than books are right now and for the foreseeable future.
This is opinion, of course, but I think both counts are balderdash, unless by "successful" you mean "lucrative." "Literary" and "visual" are not really opposed qualities, and movies have been running on plagiarism for a least ten years (When did Batman come out? '91?). If this is only about making comics more profiable, then I guess this is an okay idea, but raising the cost of entry is not likely to make for better, more original or interesting--or "literary" or "successful"--comics.
A serious effort to get comics into libraries, the NYT book review, school curriculum, and so on, would be smarter.
i don't think this would work. there are all sorts of issues with class and prestige and such involved here which you can't force. comics are pop, good comics are indie-pop.
If you used the cash earmarked for celebrity endorsements to bribe reviewers and book-buyers instead, I bet you could force it. This is illegal, though, I think.
I don't think celebity endorsements really do effect cultural behavior that much.
i think this belief is staggeringly naive.
It's not, though. It works the other way around. MTV and Hollywood and whatever other culturemakers you want to reference are consistently behind the curve by at least a year, and that's when they're really on the ball--I think it was Roseanne who first pointed this out. What does work is when a celebrity endorses a specific product over another one, but that has nothing to do with trendmaking or whatever. Ad execs, tv producers, publicists, etc, are parasites that comics don't need.
they haven't successfully raised the profile of, say, Dianetics or mountain climbing.
bullshit, they haven't. Dianetics, in particular, has gained massive amounts of clout and exposure from celebrity endorsements.
I chose Dianetics specifically because of all the celebrities involved. The Church of Scientology (or whatever it's called) succeeds because it runs a really good line of bull and as a result has very deep pockets, but its credibility has only been hurt by flakes like Travolta and Cruise--and you don't see them talking it up much anymore.
Vin Diesel or someone else with some buzz started mountain climbing, and having big celeb-studded mountain climbing expeditions, and MTV and People started doing little featurettes on how all the cool people are getting into climbing, then climbing would get buzz by association.
For a couple of months, yeah. Then you'd have millions of greenhorns hitting the slopes, fucking up the scenery and falling on all the expert climbers who have a real passion for the sport on its own merits, raising the cost of everything... and eventually the fad would pass and look faintly ridiculous for the next 20 years or so. "Gee, remember when all those idiots were following that thicknecked dillweed Vin Diesel up a mountain?"
that's what this campaign is trying to do. people see comics now and think "Comic-Book Guy from the Simpsons." If they started looking at them and thinking "Madonna," that would be an improvement.
Well, fair enough. But I'd find it a lot more palatible if these comics people with the celebrity friends, like Kevins Eastman or Smith, Neal Gaiman, or the allegeds like Morrison, Ennis, or Moore, organized promotional activities based on and inspired by genuine love of the form than these lucre-driven ripoff ad campaigns. Kevin Smith's Daredevil may've been underwhelming, but it was a lot better than those old rock-n-roll comics clearly designed to cash in on a fad.
Most of these people have been in comic book movies, but there's no evidence that they give a shit about comics in general.
that's not true, actually.
While I will accept a charge of shooting my mouth off here, since I can't really prove my negative assertion, I did say "most." Aside from Affleck, Amos, Shaq and Quentin, I don't know of any of those guys saying or doing anything comics related that didn't involve a multi-million dollar paycheck--and I'm not even sure about Quentin.
And, rather off-topic, I have a funny second-hand account of Patrick Stewart's sexual practices, if anyone wants to contact me privately. |
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