Mixed Day, I guess

Well, today was an interesting day.


So last night I got some solid sleep, which was different than the rest of the week. I guess I'm getting back to feeling comfortable in my bed here. Anyway, this morning I heard back on my GRE results and I got a 6 on the Analytical Writing section (It's on a 1-6 scale)! So that was actually amazing. That made me quite happy, but it was a bit dreary, so I headed to the library. I got a decent amount of work done, but I was sort of inefficient. I have so much writing to do for these applications to seminary, and a lot of the writing questions are unique for each school.

But either way, Drury Men's Basketball came from behind to defeat the Lewis Lew-sers, or whatever they are. It was a great game to go to and there is something so great about cheering at sports events like basketball. There is so much excitement and yelling (my voice hurts a lot from the two back to back games and last night's party).

So after that I came home, did some more work, then I went out to pick up a nostalgic video game. Anyone who is familiar with the Twisted Metal dynasty understands. So we went to this amazing store called Vintage Stock, found the game, and also found the elusive Ghostrider #24 and Marvel back issues were buy one, get one free! So I got 2 Ghostrider's and 2 Captain America's for six dollars. If you know anything about comic books or back issues, you know that's a great deal. So I was happy about that...

Well, we decided to go to get food at Jimmy John's. And for some reason, I was so excited about getting my delicious vegetarian sub with avocado spread that I left the keys in the car... Wow, I was absolutely frustrated. So luckily I was with people who had an Smart Phone (Thanks Nic/Brian) and we contacted a locksmith to come unlock my car.... for 60 flipping dollars!?!?! Exploitation at its finest...

Anyway, the guy shows up, opens my car and says to me "Alright, that will be $65." I'm sure my face was priceless because I was already livid that I had to pay $60 to get the car opened, and now I was going to have to pay more? I said something to the effect of "Are you serious, you told me on the phone $60." Well, he relented and said $60 would be fine, so I guess he thought I was made of money and wanted to get a little extra out of me. Little did he know he had me wait in the rain for 15+ minutes to pay $60 dollars do make up for a stupid mistake... he was not getting any of my generosity... And to top it off, Twisted Metal Black for the PS2 was waaaaay more frustrating than I remember... So let's add all of that up:

+ Great GRE Writing score
-/+ Semi-productive at the library
+ Drury defeats Lewis
+ Bought Twisted Metal Black for $5
+ Got Buy One, Get One Marvel back issues, filled in Ghostrider collection
- Locked keys in car, paid $60 to have a jerk to unlock it
- Twisted Metal Black fairly frustrating

Well, I guess it looks like it was good day, but man, it was an expensive day...

Will the Comic Book Survive?

Well, I was looking for what to post up on the last day of this wonderful month of August, and it was clear as soon as I logged on.

The headline on NPR was that Disney plans to purchase Marvel Comics and its nearly 5,000 characters pending an anti-trust authorization...

I want to be optimistic. I really do. I'm an optimistic guy. But I know that now it won't be the same reading my favorite Ghost Rider, Captain America, or even Iron Man. And you can be sure that Spiderman will be weinier than ever now. I am afraid that this new partnership will be part of the long trend of franchises gobbled up by mega media giants and then whored out to the point of irrelevance.

Now let me be clear. Marvel before this deal was certainly no bastion of independent artistic creation. Did you see the marketing and what not for Iron Man, Fantastic Four II and X 3? Shameless. And they were piss poor movies... Oh yeah, let's not forget Spiderman 3 as well. So clearly, Marvel was already a media monster in the comic book realm. But that is completely different from this new hypersphere of Disney. And Marvel may have been a media giant, but at least they were still a comic book company at heart. They understood what the real fans needed in the comic books and what we needed to see in the movies (although they had a hard time delivering there... anyone else vomit after Ghost Rider?). But now I'm afraid for the future of Marvel characters. Will they still be edgy? Will they still have character flaws, complex relationships, and the ability to wrestle with not just the best supervillans but also social/political problems. Would the "Civil War" series that Marvel just completed that had overt discussion of the rule of law, liberty vs. security, and the morality of vigilantism/the state have been as compelling under Disney ownership. Will Disney "clean up" the images of certain characters (i.e. Tony Stark no longer a recovering alcoholic)?

But at the end of the day, I'm not too worried about the comics because they know that if they change those, the fans will leave. What I am most saddened by is that you can count on a lot of crappy new Marvel movies to show up. Marvel will be plastered on more things now that it could have ever dreamed of.

The most interesting thing of all of this will be to see how DC acts. It seems to me like DC will be looking for a buyer if they aren't already part of a mega conglomerate, in order to keep up with the market value/recognition of Marvel. And in the end, this may produce a generation of kids who grow up thinking that lame comic book heroes and their movies aren't worth their time. I may have to write about what comic books mean to me sometime because I don't have the time to go into that, but I am trying to be optimistic about this deal...

Maybe Donald Duck and The Hulk will team-up for some hilarious... nope. Not working...