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This thread is for the growing conversation regarding the outside world of comics. This thread is not about the content of comics. If you have a problem with a storyline this is not the thread for you. Please find the discussion thread that suits your need for that. This is where we get into the deeper issues of comics that are bigger than what's on the page. Gross Assholes on Twitter? This is your thread. Gross Assholes employed by companies? This is your thread. Gross business practices that make it hard to justify your hobby? This is your thread. These are the rules of thread. It's pretty simple. 1. Don't be an rear end in a top hat. This is going to be he toughest for all of us. 2. Make substantive posts. No one liners. No one word replies. 3. You can disagree all you want but don't make it personal. Keep on the subject and not each other. Remember just because someone doesn't see a situation the same as you it doesn't give you the right to attack them personally. 4. Seriously, don't be an rear end in a top hat. I know it's gonna be tough. We all want to want enjoy our funny books and sometimes it's hard. Let's at least be civil when we talk about why. X-O fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 6, 2017 |
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Oct 6, 2017 23:48
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Marvel's recent move to precipitate the dystopian nightmare world portrayed in Shadowrun is highly unwelcome. I wonder if any of the writers or artists currently employed are going to say anything about it. Or people who used to work for Marvel but probably won't again, for that matter.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:05
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It's baffling to me that Marvel would go for this, while one of their biggest characters right now is a guy whose motivated by trying to make up for his shady past as a weapon's dealer.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:07
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The overwhelming majority of Marvel's creators have been progressives of all stripes and they have several dozen villains who are thinly veiled pastiches of real life weapons manufacturers and other gross capitalist profiteers who ruin the world. It's very off-brand, to say the least.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:09
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Like already said by someone else in the main thread the real surprise for me is how proud they were of it. Like, the big NYCC announcement and all being met with overwhelming 'we don't like this' in a lot of circles speaks to a major disconnect between marketing and fans.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:11
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Disney's money guys have no idea what the fans want, and that's getting increasingly obvious. https://twitter.com/gerryconway/status/916371266424246272
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Oct 7, 2017 00:13
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For context, this is about Marvel teaming up with a defense contractor to promote it in an all-ages comic, recruitment ads, etc. https://twitter.com/Marvel/status/916317209017937920 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman   
Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 00:14
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Roth posted:It's baffling to me that Marvel would go for this, while one of their biggest characters right now is a guy whose motivated by trying to make up for his shady past as a weapon's dealer.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:16
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achillesforever6 posted:I'm going to go with my pet theory of Ike Perlmutter making a deal with Northrop Grumman because he is an awful human being I'm not going to lie, the first thing I thought was that Perlmutter probably had something to do with it. The last time I looked into the situation, half the problem at Marvel was that its offices are so understaffed that a lot of things are slipping through the cracks, and most of it was due to Perlmutter's notorious reluctance to spend money if he thinks he can avoid it somehow.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:21
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Lurdiak posted:Disney's money guys have no idea what the fans want, and that's getting increasingly obvious. Ha! I didn't hear they (very rightly) cancelled Punisher's sneak peek before this. Did they put Goofus and Gallant in charge? "Ok guys something horrible involving guns happened like a couple days ago, let's not make a big hype for our 'horrible guy with guns does gun to people he doesn't like' show, may disappoint some fans but I think that's the tasteful thing to do" "Also let's REALLY hype our war profiteer collab, like REALLY show how woke and cool the guys bombing Yemen are."
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Oct 7, 2017 00:22
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Roth posted:It's baffling to me that Marvel would go for this, while one of their biggest characters right now is a guy whose motivated by trying to make up for his shady past as a weapon's dealer. The terrible truth is that it's not actually baffling at all. This is perfectly in line with what Iron Man represents. Just think about how the movies depict Stark "trying to make up for his shady past as a weapon's dealer" by having him fly to Afghanistan to kill people., This is nothing new or exceptional, we're simply seeing what was there all along. This image: Is completely true. Northrop Grumman is the reality of the Tony Stark fantasy.
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Oct 7, 2017 00:26
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I'm a little unclear on whether this will be a comic that will be on sale at comic stores (unlikely?) a freebie at direct-market places, something they hand out at job fairs and such, or, like, one of those advert inserts they run sometimes. I'm disgusted by this but I have to cop that I was totally unaware that, as E&C pointed out, Marvel has apparently been doing these kinds of promo comics for the US military for years. Which I totally buy-- I'm sure they do all kind of giveaways and cheapo vanity projects like this all the time. I have no idea why this is getting such a big PR push though. What the hell did they think would happen?
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Oct 7, 2017 00:37
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I am not saying this to normalize the Northrop Grumman thing (which I flew off the handle poorly informed about in the main thread, I did not understand the actual nature of their business) but in terms of "why would they proudly announce this at a con", it's probably part of the contract. Previous cons are riddled with (far more benign examples of) this sort of "corporate synergy". Panels co-sponsored by LG or Siemens and Harley Davidson or KFC, and a few years back an enormous banner touting a Sears Craftsman/Justice League team-up where a white dude with Snap-On Tool Technology was placed front and center in the New 52 Justice League group shot while Cyborg was pushed back to a little head poking up over Green Lantern's shoulder towered over the DC comics booth. This was all likely negotiated by people almost completely divorced from the day to day production of the comics books. If you look at Marvel's Twitter page (where they tweeted out about this 'partnership') bizarrely this industrial comic is almost the only tweet about a comic book on the entire timeline. In terms of tweets sent out today, the entire TL is: 1) Iron Fist TV show 2) New Hasbro Toys 3) Marvel is doing a comic with the band Starset! 4) Contest of Champions mobile game 5) Lego Marvel 2 Video Game 6) Marvel is doing a custom comic with Northrop Grumman 7) A hashtag contest 8) Mighty Muggs 9) Thor Ragnarok 10) Funko Pops 11) More Funko Pops 12) Joe Quesada and Stan Lee in Conversation 13) Cosplayers 14) The Gifted TV Show 15) Thor Ragnarok 16) A TV & Games panel 17) Spider-Man Homecoming 18) Cloak & Dagger TV show 19) Follow Marvel Twitter! 20) Contest of Champions mobile game 21) An artist does a quickdraw 22) Cosplayers 23) Marvel vs. Capcom 24) Marvel Live Stage Show 25) Lego Marvel sets 26) Follow Marvel Twitter 27) Runaways TV show 28) Joe Quesada panel This may seem superfluous and isn't directly related to the NG business, but for this thread in general, the general inconsequential nature of the comics branch of Marvel/DC as corporate entities is kind of important. For good and ill, it informs a lot of these discussions. Clearly people are making decisions way above the level of the comics offices. Being so low on the radar allows for toxic staffers to fly under the radar (though it took forever to get rid of people in higher profile positions in higher profile corporations too), but it also allows for more experimental/niche characters and concepts to survive longer since the profile is low. I'd love for niche stuff to last longer and shitbirds to get ejected quicker, but so long as the comics department isn't actively loving up the film/television/game/merchandising machine, the comics industry part of things is often left alone. Archyduke posted:I'm a little unclear on whether this will be a comic that will be on sale at comic stores (unlikely?) a freebie at direct-market places, something they hand out at job fairs and such, or, like, one of those advert inserts they run sometimes. quote:I'm disgusted by this but I have to cop that I was totally unaware that, as E&C pointed out, Marvel has apparently been doing these kinds of promo comics for the US military for years. Which I totally buy-- I'm sure they do all kind of giveaways and cheapo vanity projects like this all the time. I have no idea why this is getting such a big PR push though. What the hell did they think would happen? Edge & Christian fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 00:44
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Teenage Fansub posted:For context, this is about Marvel teaming up with a defense contractor to promote it in an all-ages comic, recruitment ads, etc. Kojima was always right. The man is a prophet who makes his prophecies interactive. We are slowly coming to the beginning of MGS IV.
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Oct 7, 2017 01:54
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If have no fear of getting my limbs blown off since comics have taught me that prosthetics are superior in every way.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:03
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To be fair, Grumman is primarily an Aerospace and Military Aviation company, not exactly Colt. Defense contractors are pretty much necessary for the country as it currently stands to keep moving with regards to militarization, and demonizing them so heavily seems a little weird to me; I mean, after a certain point, do you just not want the military to have planes? Marvel has been doing the "military good" thing for a while, considering Cap and all other sorts of heroes, and they're inevitably going to be all about glorifying someone punching someone else in the dick while in a tight spandex costume.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:13
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David Heinrich posted:To be fair, Grumman is primarily an Aerospace and Military Aviation company, not exactly Colt. Defense contractors are pretty much necessary for the country as it currently stands to keep moving with regards to militarization, and demonizing them so heavily seems a little weird to me; I mean, after a certain point, do you just not want the military to have planes? Yes
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Oct 7, 2017 03:38
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Well, too bad, I guess, Navy and Air Force need Wingnuts.. I've always sort of figured that Marvel and Disney in general were on the progressive train until the exact moment it lost them a cent of money, at which point they would hop right the gently caress off. If they see the ad deal with this corporation as being more likely to recoup cash than the comic sales they'll lose from it, it's pretty understandable to me why they'd go for it.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:41
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quote:2. Make substantive posts. No one liners. No one word replies. Try again. I realize you're answering a question he asked, but give a bit more detail. This thread is for discussion. If you don't want to discuss then don't participate.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:47
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This Grumman marketing really feels like "How do you do, fellow kids?" poo poo. Is some 24 year old fresh from MIT with an electrical engineering degree going to be open to getting a job there because the Avengers said they were cool? I realize that isn't the point, but it just feels like a waste of time on their end. I guess it's more about PR and attitude shiftingDavid Heinrich posted:Well, too bad, I guess, Navy and Air Force need Wingnuts.. I've always sort of figured that Marvel and Disney in general were on the progressive train until the exact moment it lost them a cent of money, at which point they would hop right the gently caress off. If they see the ad deal with this corporation as being more likely to recoup cash than the comic sales they'll lose from it, it's pretty understandable to me why they'd go for it. To be fair it's not like the editorial staff sat down and said "We're losing money from being #WokeAsFuck, we'd better reach out to a military contractor and offer to make them a comic." Most likely Grumman approached Disney or Perlmutter himself, and they made the deal. It's unrelated to anything but that.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:51
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X-O posted:Try again. I realize you're answering a question he asked, but give a bit more detail. This thread is for discussion. If you don't want to discuss then don't participate. Ok
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Oct 7, 2017 03:56
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I don't think a lot of people -want- the country to keep moving on its current course with regards to militarization. I know I don't. I mean as far as that goes we're already pretty drat far down the rabbit hole but any further glorification sure isn't making things any better.
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Oct 7, 2017 03:57
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Cool. I'll consider this you declining to participate further. So don't.
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Oct 7, 2017 04:01
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X-O posted:Cool. 👍 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 7, 2017 04:06
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David Heinrich posted:To be fair, Grumman is primarily an Aerospace and Military Aviation company, not exactly Colt. Defense contractors are pretty much necessary for the country as it currently stands to keep moving with regards to militarization, and demonizing them so heavily seems a little weird to me; I mean, after a certain point, do you just not want the military to have planes? Marvel has been doing the "military good" thing for a while, considering Cap and all other sorts of heroes, and they're inevitably going to be all about glorifying someone punching someone else in the dick while in a tight spandex costume. I was thinking this way too until someone pointed out: ImpAtom posted:Vinnell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnell) is a direct subsidiary of them. Now, Vinnell does seem (after my maybe 30 seconds of research) to be less "we shoot dudes" PMC and more "we teach you how to use the expensive killing machines our parent company sold you" PMC, but I can't really blame anyone for getting irritated at Marvel for hooking up with the dudes who teach the Saudi military how to blow poo poo up and who got the contract to train the New Iraqi Army.
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Oct 7, 2017 04:10
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aside from them owning Vinnell that's actively training death squads in Iraq and Saudi Arabia Grumman isn't exactly peacefully making planes and telescopes. They're constantly pushing bomber tech and drones and poo poo that we're selling to places like Saudi Arabia to go level towns in Yemen. They're super actively profiting off war, they're not just nice guys giving us pretty planes and hoping they never get used. Like, yea Cap is all 'military good' but you never see him doing ads for gun makers. That's kinda the difference.
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Oct 7, 2017 04:47
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I've seen a few of those Marvel military comics (they were given out for free) and to be honest they seemed just like breezy little bits of "YOU GUYS ARE THE REAL HEROES" fluff. Granted I haven't read all of them, and maybe some are a bit more "SEE YOUR LOCAL RECRUITER TODAY" than others, but the ones I read seemed pretty inoffensive This, comparatively, is a bit more dubious because there's not even a pretense of it being anything other than one company paying for a nice promotional reacharound from another. And to top it off, it's not just any old company.
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Oct 7, 2017 04:54
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The way that the military works in this country can be a little uncomfortable, at times, but that's sort of the actual way of it, in the end. For why Marvel wants this, like I said, Grumman probably just dumped a bunch of money on them. It's very possible they want to do some recruiting comics to grab some engineering bodies, whether that would actually work or not, and Marvel is still a company; I never really expected they would, as a company, turn down dosh just because it wasn't progressive. I don't think anyone sat down in an office and said "Progressiveness bad, get me on the line with a defense contractor" they probably just got approached by someone from a company that has a massive amount of government money to dump on advertising and immediately chucked all thoughts of morals out the window because of a metaphorical bag with a dollar sign on it. Marvel has always been on the side of the military being primarily good and heroes, and I think they were just hoping people would see this as an extension of that, but it fell flat.
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Oct 7, 2017 05:03
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https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/10/06/marvel-pulls-northrop-grumman-comic-website/ Marvel's pulled the comic from their site and a sweepstakes competition page that went with it. Teenage Fansub fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 05:38
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https://twitter.com/RosieMarx/status/916524490368212993David Heinrich posted:To be fair, Grumman is primarily an Aerospace and Military Aviation company, not exactly Colt. Defense contractors are pretty much necessary for the country as it currently stands to keep moving with regards to militarization, and demonizing them so heavily seems a little weird to me; I mean, after a certain point, do you just not want the military to have planes? Tbh im not sure why we need to keep throwing trillions of dollars towards new planes when we havent had a war where similar jets have been used on the opposing side in real sorties since like what Vietnam? And the next time we fight countries with similar air capabilities nukes are gonna fly anyways, so yeah it seems like a waste of money to me site fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 05:50
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It's hard to imagine Marvel having enough circulation to justify them getting a contract like this based off the comics alone. I wonder what else is on the backdeal table to get a booth at NYCC while Punisher gets pushed back, cripes.
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Oct 7, 2017 05:53
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The hilarious thing is how utterly myopic the whole thing is. Did no one at any point stop and ask, "hey this might look bad to most people"? I assume they were too busy counting those fat stacks of war profiteer cash. We live in a world where the Kendall Jenner Pepsi thing happened and that might not even be the dumbest corporate PR move this year.
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Oct 7, 2017 05:55
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Henker posted:The hilarious thing is how utterly myopic the whole thing is. Did no one at any point stop and ask, "hey this might look bad to most people"? I assume they were too busy counting those fat stacks of war profiteer cash. I'm willing to bet that the original plan was to have it fly under the radar and perhaps some overzealous young exec thought publicizing it was a good idea. HIJK posted:It's hard to imagine Marvel having enough circulation to justify them getting a contract like this based off the comics alone. I wonder what else is on the backdeal table to get a booth at NYCC while Punisher gets pushed back, cripes. I don't think the circulation of their regular comics matters, it's a freely distributed ad utilizing incredibly popular characters.
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Oct 7, 2017 06:02
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Lightning Lord posted:I'm willing to bet that the original plan was to have it fly under the radar and perhaps some overzealous young exec thought publicizing it was a good idea. Nah, I'd bet that some degree of publicity was a part of the deal N-G made with Disney. As for "did no one stop to think this might look bad?" remember that the big two comics companies have been doing this poo poo for years with other companies; I'd bet that no one thought anyone would care about it any more than they cared when the Sears Craftsman Tools guy or Colonel Sanders from KFC or Jared from Subway (hilarious in hindsight) helped comics characters save the world. It's just that whoever made this deal was probably assuming everyone'd say "oh another lovely corporate tie-in comic, who gives a poo poo" and move on, but instead people noticed that "uh guys the makers of the B-2 stealth bomber and the guys with the seven secret herbs and spices are not functionally or morally equivalent." EDIT: Like, seriously, this is not in any way an uncommon practice for either Marvel or DC; you just typically don't hear about it that often because literally no one gives a gently caress. And if you're looking at Northrop Grumman the way a corporate exec probably does - that they're "just another corporation" - it probably seems like it should be no big deal. Except they're not just another corporation, they're a major military contractor. DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 06:12
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They tried to warn us with the Eminem/Punisher thing but we didn't listen.
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Oct 7, 2017 06:15
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I'd really love to read an insider expose on how this deal happened and how they explained it to the writers/artists
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Oct 7, 2017 06:23
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AlmightyBob posted:I'd really love to read an insider expose on how this deal happened and how they explained it to the writers/artists
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Oct 7, 2017 06:27
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Nah, I'd bet that some degree of publicity was a part of the deal N-G made with Disney. Was the Justice League Craftsman comic tweeted out though? Or did it just happen and was handed out at Sears or whatever achillesforever6 posted:Do the writers and artists have a union, because if they do they should have just boycotted this poo poo the second they received word what their next project was. No, Neal Adams spearheaded an attempt to establish one in the 70s but it didn't take off. http://comicsalliance.com/comic-creators-rates-1978/
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Oct 7, 2017 06:29
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Lightning Lord posted:Was the Justice League Craftsman comic tweeted out though? Or did it just happen and was handed out at Sears or whatever I don't know if anyone used the megaphone that is Twitter, but I do know I saw several news stories about it, some even in publications that do honest-to-gosh journalism. The KFC one I know was tweeted about and written about. E: yeah, BTW, there's no union for comics professionals. poo poo, they're not even employees; the writers and artists are self-employed independent contractors. Even guys with an "exclusive" deal are just signing a contract that says "I won't work for your competition, and in exchange when you do buy my stuff I get a decent rate and maybe, if I'm well-established, a guaranteed number of projects per year." DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Oct 7, 2017 |
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Oct 7, 2017 06:33
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site posted:https://twitter.com/RosieMarx/status/916524490368212993 I am 100% for them cancelling the event but someone should point out to the person that tweeted this that A) comic books are not for children and the industry tossed that pretense out the window over a decade ago and B) NYCC is not aimed at or geared towards children specifically.
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Oct 7, 2017 06:38
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