In this issue: Listeners are concerned about a relaunch, others are frustrated about trying to break into the biz, and still others hate cheap knockoffs.
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6 Comments
Would Rodrigo be interested in a Play-By-Post Exalted game in the forums?
To Stephen’s comment about the ‘addict’ who will be back, don’t be so sure. Everybody has a threshold, when I reached mine and I broke the monthly floppy habit I was reading about 15-20 titles a month, Marvel, DC and a few Image and Dark Horse titles. Look at the monthly sales numbers and it seems lots of people are getting over that addiction. Will this DC relaunch bring back old readers? Maybe. Willl it bring in new readers? Sure. Will it alienate some current readers? Absolutely. Will there be a net gain or a net loss of readers at the end of the day? It all remains to be seen.
It’s funny that the fan fiction discussion toward the end of the podcast came up, because that is exactly the problem Rodrigo was laying out when you guys were talking about the relaunch the ‘Neo Silver Age’. The need of current creators to either bring back, retell or ‘fix’ given characters reeks of a fanfic mentality. Geoff Johns has his Silver Age fetish, and so his Barry Allen and Hal Jordan fanfics have become the ‘canon’ of the DCU. I jumped ship when I felt like nothing was new, and every creator seemed to be hellbent on fixing anything and everything that led the character to be something other than the nebulous ideal of their youth imprinted ideal. The reset button seemed to be the only tool that writers needed, unless it was the ‘everything you know is wrong’ button. Which of course led to the next creator to use the reset button again.
If DC genuinely has a vision to pull a Silver Age change (in scope) to their superhero titles, the fanfic mentality really needs to go. Tell new tales, don’t give me a rehash of stuff we’ve seen a thousand times, give each title a chance to develop genuine narratives with some new ideas and don’t derail those stories with a universe-wide crossover every 3 months.
I hope this relaunch really means something truly new and fresh for DC, but I’m extremely skeptical.
My old room mate who was a 3.5 DM really made me mad because it was my first attempt at building a character, and then a few sessions in, he had my character knocked unconscious and when he awoke, the poor guy was striped of all his possessions, his owl was gone, and there was some mad scientist dude that did something to my character so that I wasn’t even the same race as I used to be. I was incensed, especially about the physical changes. He was confused because he was telling me that the wacky magical surgery thing gave my character new cool powers and stuff, but I was trying to get him to understand that it didn’t matter… I was mad because this was my first time ever building a character and he completely rewrote everything I spent 2 days doing after a couple sessions. We ended up compromising and he let me keep my character as-is, but my stuffs were still gone and my owl, when I later found him, had been turned to stone.
Escaping from the cell actually lead to some of my favourite D&D moments… when I critically missed a stealth check, my character covered his hands and yelled “I’m invisible!” over and over again (riffing of the idea that very young children believe that if they can’t see you, then you can’t see them).
About writing and breaking into the biz: but Rodrigo, aren’t people writing what they want to read already? I mean, unless you are a purely commercial writer that seems like the main motivation for creating anything.
…just a thought. Great job as usual, guys!
there’s a difference between trying to write an AWEXOME!!! idea and writing a solid piece of writing. You may want to write “What if batman gained all the powers of a king!?” but it might not make a good story.
Now you’ve done a 180 switch – or perhaps I remember the podcast wrong! Eh, there’s no point in nitpicking either way.
I agree completely with your sentiment that not every story should be written, but at the same time I think that almost each and every one of those that exist was created because the author would like to read something like it.
Wow, I’m almost sure that I botched some grammar in that sentence! Once again, thanks for all the entertainment… and Rodrigo, as a fellow M:TG player, do you plan on getting Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012? I enjoyed the first one immensely (despite some technical glitches) and I already pre-ordered the new one. Or do you prefer real cards in your card experience?