Emergency Separation
In some ways, it’s odd seeing Luke run from a fight. Here is a Flash Gordon type hero who took on the Death Star from the inside and out and won, sans lightsaber! Sure, his one-on-one with the Imperial Walker and Jabba’s Rancor had yet to come, but for once we see Luke actually get the hell out of danger in a very unexpected way. Who thought that a Y-Wing could split like that? Not quite as lame a space fighter / bomber as we all first thought, huh?
Notice how every time Luke breaks out the macrobinoculars something incredibly dangerous appears right in front of him. The Tusken Raider for example… Those binoculars have got to make Threepio extra antsy.
I am so sick right now. Ugh. Nauseous (which I had to look up to spell correctly), incredibly weak, dizzy… it’s nasty. I woke up from a nap to schedule this update and chances are high I will be asleep before I even finish this post. Could it be the effect of the mystical talisman? Maybe. Leanne is improving after spending the last couple of days suffering with the same mysterious affliction. I’m telling you, that talisman is better destroyed than falling into the hands of anyone. It’s like the One Ring.
Leanne found a great article about the comics vs digital comics situation which underscores what I’ve been telling people for a couple of years now. If any of our readers are interested in what Leanne and I do on a professional level and what we plan to do in the future, then this article will be of interest because it talks about the problems in the industry. There’s this scary sense of almost willful denial among the big two publishers (Marvel and DC) AND the comic retailers about the industry.
COMIC PUBLISHERS: IT’S TIME TO TAKE DIGITAL SERIOUSLY
Watch the opening of the animated short below, courtesy of YouTube.
To start reading Blue Milk Special from the beginning click here.
I have found new respect for the Y-Wing.
I have been wondering why they haven’t been taking it seriously. The kinds of people who enjoy comics are usually nerds, and nerds like digital shit (I know I do) . They don’t want to go out and buy a 20 or so page comic book every time there is a new one released .
Exactly.
Hey, will you be doing any comics with Kyle Katarn? or does this only revolve with the main characters from the original trilogy?
Shoot me an idea through email and if we like it then we might give him a cameo at least.
I second this , Katarn is the man.
Very interesting article Rod and all of it makes perfect business sense. I still like to hold thing in paper though.
If it all goes digital, I bet printed comics in 50 years will be even more valuable and sought after. Assuming they haven’t disintegrated of course. I love my ‘Tomb of Draculas’!
It’s not so much a print vs digital issue, but rather a matter of realizing (from a publisher’s POV) that you have massive exposure through iTunes and to a much bigger market than existing shrinking comic readership. The industry is so sick and the efforts that have been made by the guys at the top have never truly understood the depth of the problem. It’s like full blown denial and perhaps its an ivory tower syndrome.
I completely agree with the digital comic thing, sounds like marvel and DC are cutting their noses of to spite their faces – bloody stupid. They should open their eyes a bit wider to the amount of good digital comics out there. Its one of the reasons I started doing my own comic in the first place, I went one step further with mine and decided to use 3d software – I have a slight advantage with it as I work in the film industry so I know how to use it properly. Everything is custom made, no pre- bought stuff either. My point being here is that assets are reusable in 3d too so theres no guess work over redrawing stuff and you can turn a page out faster most days quicker than a ‘2d’ page. The possibilities are endless with digital, and I think viewing wise its would be stupid not to go digital, most people own a pc of some sort these days, ipod or whatever. I know I still enjoy a good read of a graphic novel or comic, but usually read it once or twice then revert back to new stuff on the web as the choices are greater too. Most people spend their down time on some form of computer based equipment so…..wakey wakey MArvel and DC!!!!
Wow. Your professional skills in 3D animation truly show through in your comic pages, Jay. I am sorry I did not even know about Outlaw Tales until now. I had heard the name, but this is the first time I have checked it out. Amazing! It truly is movie quality and the storytelling / directing is in a class of its own.
The article is important, because comic readers and publishers in general are so afraid of bursting their little bubble and many are willfully contented in the belief that their bubble is somehow surviving and not shrinking. They think things like the big budget movies are re-energizing comics and that sales will somehow, someday get back to healthy levels. They wrong. The world is moving and leaving them behind. I love holding a comic in my hand too. There will always be a print medium for comics, but the point is that comics on iTunes (not all, but many) have had enormous sales figures. Part of that is the simple ease of download with your iTunes account. Bored on the train? Just browse through the available comic apps on your iPhone or iPad (or soon your Sony reader, or Droid phone) and simple click to buy the $1.99 app. BOOM! It’s there on your mobile reader. This is a new phenomenon that has come along with the switch of CD based music to digital downloads. People on a whim download their favorite songs or albums for .99 cents or whatever, and there it is. iPhone / iPad users are a much bigger market that the niche market of comics and that means so much new blood, looking for something to kill time with on their mobile device are exposed to the comic apps that are available and can easily have them downloaded within seconds.
Even if you’d given up on comics and the trip to the local store, this makes reading comics accessible again. If you never read comics, but liked the movies and are bored, voila, you can check out the comics much easier than having to go to a store and pay more money for a less than 10 minute read. And the most important thing for the stick in the mud industry to remember is that even though you’re selling issues for less digitally, you’re sales figures through this bigger market are potentially 10x more.
LOL @ “Un-Click”
Nope, if a Trekkie wrote the script, the captain would have either shot or humped the dinosaur to death.
Hope you and Leanne feel better soon!
Yeah, fortunately Han was not around! 🙂
Yeah: Han and Chewy probably would have done that (either shot or humped the dinosaur to death) at least in the BMS universe
When I watched the Y-Wing separate in the clip, it reminded me of a toy spaceship I had at around the same time this came out. (Yes, I actually remember watching this originally air on T.V.) It would make rising/climbing sounds when you pointed it up and decending sounds when you pointed it down. The “head” of the ship could also be pulled out and you could move the booster from the main body of the ship to it.
BTW I love the creativity in the choice of sound effects…”un-click”.
I also remeber a lego mini-model of the y-wing (you needed to have other mini-models to get the entire y-wing, one part in every package as a bonus, the left wing, the right wing, the body, and the cockpit respectivley) it was assembled in that way you could easily separate the cockpit from the main body. I used to too that and imagine it was for safety reason in case the rest of the ship was going to blow up in dogfighting or such. the interesting thing was, i thought of this long BEFORE i ever heard of the holidat special 🙂
you know, i like the y-wing…it’s so useful in empire at war. i get like 3 or 4 squad together, and ion charge a destroyer w/o the ion cannon…then continue to kick the shit out of it with said y-wings
I thought the detaching thing was just the lego versions
As an author, I’ve been published in three different mediums. I can personally attest that publishers of ALL kinds of print media are starting to feel the pinch. For decades they have wielded all of the power of publication, and they have used that to treat authors with scorn.
An editor once took the time to write a scathing rejection letter to JK Rowling in which he ordered her to go back to waiting tables. Her fiction was “unmarketable drivel.”
Ms. Rowling recently became the first BILLIONAIRE author in history. If I were her I’d hire that jackass to wax my Ferrari with his hair.
A couple of years ago I waxed rather eloquent in a four part blog series called “A Castigation of the Publishing Industry.” Most of the principles I discuss can also be applied to comics.
The bottom line is this: publishers are scum. They don’t care one whit about you; they’re in it for the money. As a capitalist, I support this completely– except that the book that took me six years of my life to write is NOT there to enrich Del Rey or Bantam publishing. I wrote it, so I should damn well get more than 3% of the royalties from it.
Publishers are so terrified right now of vanity press, self-publication, and digital media that they are starting to do everything from shrinking comics to unreadable sizes (to “cut costs”– paradoxically driving readers further away) to signing new authors to draconian contracts that eliminate or reduce authors’ rights. I put newspaper publishers in with book publishers, but truthfully, they’re the dumbest of the lot.
Frankly, if you are willing to accept rejection letters or argue with moronic editors over the content of your life’s work, you’d be better served spending $199 on a copy of Adobe Postscript, typesetting your own book, and hiring a webmaster to perform three hours labor (less than $150) to set up an online marketplace where your book can be downloaded on YOUR terms. You set your own prices. You control your own formatting, and you make your own decisions.
I don’t care whether you write prose or webcomics. Step one of turning a decent profit out of it is eliminating the publisher you don’t need. They’re not even dinosaurs. They’re protoplasmic slime long overdue for extinction.
un-click?