Bent Corner

I think I understand the Hollywood writers strike much better after watching this YouTube video. Some of the cast members of The Office who also write the episodes give clear and concise reasonings behind the strike.

Diamond Comic Book Distributors warned retailers not to give copies of ALTERNATIVE COMICS #2 to children. This is the free comic Georgia comic book retailer Gordon Lee stands accused of giving to a 6-year old and his 9-year old brother.

According to Alternative Comics Publisher Jeff Mason, Diamond made sure that all of their retailers knew that the book was intended only for mature readers. Diamond even sent out the following written warning to retailers:

Please don’t give Alternative Comics #2 to children without adult supervision!!
From Diamond Daily:

FCBD: Watch for Mature Readers Titles
Free Comic Book Day, Diamond Daily, Thursday, June 17, 2004

As in Free Comic Book Days past, all of the Gold Sponsor titles (those required to be in participating stores) are all-ages appropriate, in order to make certain that the event has a family-friendly character and to make it easy for stores to participate regardless of their regional standards.

The Silver Sponsor titles — being optional — are not required to be all-ages appropriate. As in the past, some are intended for mature readers only and were solicited as such.

As you receive your FCBD editions, be sure to bear in mind that the following titles were solicited as being for mature readers, and be certain to hand them out only to the appropriate customers.

Diamond No. Title

APR040027J ALTERNATIVE COMICS #2 FCBD EDITION (MR)
APR040041J ADVENTURES OF BARRY WEEN SECRET CRISIS ORIGIN FILE FCBD EDITION (MR)
APR040042J LOVE FIGHTS #1 FACING THE GODDESS FLIP BOOK FCBD EDITION (MR)

Gordon Lee is charged with two misdemeanor counts of Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material, each carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison and up to $1,000 in fines. The comic contains nudity and adult language. It’s unclear why Gordon Lee chose to give this particular book to young children, especially if he had been warned a head of time by the distributor that it wasn’t intended for children.

From the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund:

Lee and his legal team, paid for by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, appeared in court this morning for jury selection and returned in the afternoon to begin the actual trial. Before the jury was brought in to begin the trial, lead counsel Alan Begner argued an oral motion in limine asking the judge to instruct prosecutors that they could not admit statements from their witnesses alluding to Lee’s character and previous legal actions Lee has been party to. Prosecutors assured the court that they had instructed their witnesses not to address Lee’s previous conviction for selling adult comics to an adult. Then during opening statements in front of the jury, prosecutor Tully said witnesses will testify that Gordon was defensive and that Gordon had told police, “I’ve been through this before,” a clear reversal of his earlier statement to the judge that prosecutors would not be entering such statements into the record.

Who would have guessed that instructions prohibiting witnesses from bringing up Lee’s previous conviction also included any statements made by Lee himself? I guess I can understand barring witnesses from mentioning that they knew that Lee was convicted in 1993 of “distributing obscene materials“. I wouldn’t have guessed this also included any statements made by Lee to the police. So much for, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Lee’s prior conviction was for selling two porn comics, Final Taboo and Debbie Does Dallas.

Talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers ended with the two sides not being able to agree to a new contract, resulting in television and movie writers going on strike. The conflict seems to be over on how to divvy up money generated from DVD sales and the Internet.

Much of the disagreement seems to be over how earnings will be generated in the future using technology or mediums that may not even exist today.

Jay Leno and David Letterman will be in reruns until the strike comes to an end. Evidently they both need their zany wisecracks written out for them before hand. The same applies to The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. No new episodes until the strike is over.

I’ll be perfectly honest and admit that I don’t understand the concept of residuals and perpetual earnings. I’m a simple electronics technician. I repair frequency drives used to power three-phase AC electrical motors. I work for the company that makes these drives. When I repair a drive and ship it back to it’s owner, I don’t continue making money from the profits generated from the drive I repaired.

I don’t understand why somebody that wrote something for Jay Leno to say on TV should be paid more then once. I don’t understand why they should continue getting paid for said writing on a continuous basis. Its hard for me to grasp.

There’s been an uproar on some comic book blogs over the fact that Wizard has decided to crown itself the #1 men’s pop culture magazine. The idea is that by Wizard declaring themselves to be a men’s magazine, they are purposely and unnecessarily going out of their way to exclude female comic book fans.

I don’t see why that is such a bad thing. To be excluded from the intended demographic of this particular magazine can only be looked at as something positive. To be excluded from Wizard is a good thing.

I can’t imagine why anyone - man or woman - would want to read Wizard. Anything that can be learned from the pages of Wizard could have been learned months ago online on Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. When was the last time something broke in Wizard? It was the New York Post and not Wizard that broke the story that Spider-Man was going to take his mask off in CIVIL WAR #2. It was the New York Daily News that broke the story that Captain America was going to be killed in CAPTAIN AMERICA #25.

It wasn’t Wizard magazine that broke these stories.

Wizard has become irrelevant and outdated. I get my comic book news and information from sources that update content on a minute by minute basis, not on a month to month basis like Wizard. That’s not to say there wasn’t a time for a monthly comic book magazine that could be purchased at any grocery store. That time has simply passed.

Sometimes I wonder if the only people still reading Wizard are female comic book fans looking for something that offends their feminist sensibilities. One has to look no further then to the website When Fan Girls Attack to see this strange phenomenon in action. Why else would they go out of their way to read something they know they’re going to find offensive?

If Wizard is in fact the #1 men’s pop culture magazine, whatever magazine came in at #2 must be really bad.

Pakistan’s president dictator Pervez Musharraf has declared emergency rule and suspended the country’s constitution. Pakistan’s Supreme Court was about to rule on the legality of General/president dictator Musharraf’s recent election victory. The court was to decide whether General/president dictator Musharraf was even eligible to run for re-election while remaining the army chief.

Evidently things weren’t looking too good for president dictator Musharraf.

Chief Justice Chaudhry and eight other judges refused to endorse the emergency order, declaring it unconstitutional. President dictator Musharraf responded by dismissing Chief Justice Chaudhry and replacing him with Supreme Court judge Abdul Hameed Dogar, one of president dictator Musharraf’s supporters.

Link

The trailer for WANTED, a movie based on the Mark Millar and JG Jones comic is now up on the movie’s official website. I guess means that it really is going to be made into a movie.

It says on the website that the movie has not yet been rated. If the movie is anything like the comic, that means it will either be NC-17 or R.

The trial for Georgia comic book retailer Gordon Lee is scheduled to start Monday. Lee will stand trial for two (2) misdemeanor counts of of distributing harmful to minors material. The charges stem from a Halloween 2004 incident in which Lee handed out copies of ALTERNATIVE COMICS #2, an artsy comic featuring both female and male full frontal nudity and language of a sexual nature to children.

The case has drug on for three years. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is managing Lee’s defense and has already gone through $80,000 defending Lee. They plan on spending at least another $20,000. That’s a lot of money for two misdemeanor counts. Especially when it is money that has been donated by comic book readers.

If Lee is convicted on both misdemeanor counts, he faces a maximum sentence of up to two years and $2,000 in fines. In a perfect world, this case would have ended along time ago with a simple plea bargain. The problem with that is Lee doesn’t seem to feel as though he did anything wrong. He has equated this comic book to the Sistine Chapel and even the Bible. Also, the The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is managing Lee’s defense. They have a not-so-public policy of only taking on cases where the defendant agrees not to accept a plea deal in exchange of a lessor penalty.

I think this policy is dumb. It makes cases drag on a lot longer then they should and cost a lot more money then they should. This dumb policy is the reason I refuse to give any more money to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

SUBURBAN GLAMOUR creator Jamie McKlevie has decided to take an interesting approach with comic book downloaders. He has posted a PayPal button on his blog and asked people that download his comics to pay for them.

This from his blog:

Obviously I would much, much rather people bought the actual comics I produce than torrent them. Not only does it mean I earn money for the long hours I put into the work (and as it’s my fulltime job, it’s the only money I earn), it also shows my publisher AND retailers that there is an audience for my comics, improving my chances of continuing in this career. Not only that but my publisher benefits from a better-selling book, and as they’ve been very good to me that’s something I am keen to encourage.

I’ve never downloaded any of Jamie’s comics. I still sent him $3 through PayPal. Though he may prefer people to purchase the actual comic, I would prefer to purchase my comics like I do with my music. Through a paid download with iTunes.

I don’t need to read a paper pamphlet like people did 70 years ago.