What Would YOU LIke to Talk About, Vol. 1

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

I figure every so often I”ll just toss out a general “anything goes” topic. Anything you want to discuss, feel free to throw it out there. You may want to try for stuff that isn’t being covered elsewhere. Anything topical, anything that’s caught your interest and you want to bring up, go right ahead.

PAD

UPDATED: Okay, this isn’t actually going the way I thought it would. This wasn’t intended to be an “ask me questions” thing. I figured it to be more along the lines of, “Here’s something that’s bugging me at the moment or that I’d like to speak out about” space. If I’d intended it to be, “Ask me about things,” then I would have called it that. I didn’t want this space to be about me; I wanted it to be all about you guys.

312 comments on “What Would YOU LIke to Talk About, Vol. 1”

  1. so i happen to find out my fav writer has a blog and he also would like to hear what we think made my day.Theres a few things thats bothering me, being who i am and all…so i’m just gonna fire my gun(no pun intended) Ok since its my dream to write comics one day(Ive been writing since i can remember…and my art well…just think frank miller on a acid trip(I like it all the same but I chose writing in the end haha)) I just wanted to know not just you peter but from every one as a writer in the comics field today what would you prefer fans bought the ever abundance of omnibuses or the single issues them selves?(dámņ marvel sure knows how to milk something for all its worth haha) as a collector my self I tend to go for the single issues
    but what would benefit the writer more in the end?

  2. Bill Mulligan mentioned a New York Times poll that referenced 77 percent of respondents. While it’s possible that Bill, in a bit of shorthand, simply cited the percentage and left out the number of people surveyed, it wouldn’t surprise me to find that nowhere in the article itself does it state how many people were polled.
    .
    The use of percentages by media outlets without mention of the number of people surveyed really bugs me. I see it all the time, regarding a variety of issues. To cite X percentage of people is meaningless without knowing the number of people involved. For the average person to do it is one thing, but the media should know better.
    .
    To give an example, suppose I reported that 75 percent of people surveyed are unfamiliar with Peter David’s writing. Doesn’t sound good for PAD does it? Well, no, until I reveal that my “survey” consisted of my 7-year-old nephew; my 9-year-old cousin; a Masai warrior and PAD’s wife. Not only have I only polled four people, but three of them, by virtue of either their age or the culture they live in, are less likely to have heard of PAD then, say, your average person in a local bookstore or comics shop. And the fourth is hardly part of a random sample.
    .
    But even if I’d conducted my hypothetical poll at my local comics shop or at Borders (and didn’t include a member of PAD’s family in the poll), if I only talk to four people that 75 percent isn’t as impressive as it seems. And there could be any number of reasons why three of the four wouldn’t know PAD’s name.
    .
    I don’t know why various news organizations tend to cite percentages without telling us the number of people in the survey (or when this trend began), but I remember once when Ted Koppel (who should have known better) did it on Nightline. I kept waiting for him to tell us how many people were surveyed, but he never did.
    .
    This tendency to cite percentages but not the actual numbers is either laziness or poor research or both. How hard can it be for, say, a local news organization to report something like “of the 900 people we surveyed, 85 percent believe the mayor is doing a good job.”? If we know 900 people were polled, that 85 percent carries more weight than if, say, 19 people were polled. But if we don’t know how many people were polled, why should we give that 85 percent any weight?
    .
    For myself, whenever I write an article involving percentages, I make sure to include the number of people surveyed; and if someone sends me statistical information which only has percentages, I insist that they also tell me how many people were polled. Otherwise, as I said, those percentages are meaningless.
    .
    And 100 percent of people surveyed (me) agree with that.
    .
    Rick

    1. The poll is found at http://documents.nytimes.com/latest-new-york-times-cbs-news-poll-on-health#p=1
      .
      I assumed that the N=895 meant that 895 people were polled. Whether that is a good or bad number depends on the skill of the pollsters, I suppose. The poll has come under criticism for one glaring mistake; of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama. The actual vote was 48% McCain. That suggests that the poll might have had results that skewed toward the left. though even with that we got 77% expressing some level of satisfaction with their health care.
      .
      You’re quite correct that you have to carefully watch these polls. A lot can be manipulated just by the way the questions have been asked. (there have also been questions about how neutral the questions in the NYTimes poll were). What struck me was how even a source as sympathetic toward Obama’s goals as the Times seems to be showing what other polls have shown–not a great deal of support for changing the health care that the individual polled are receiving or, at least, little evidence that the arguments made thus far have impressed the majority.

      2. The validity of the polls (or lack thereof) aside, if a majority of U.S. citizens are unswayed by arguments in favor of health care reform because they like their current plans, I have news for them — they’re about to get blindsided by the private sector. I was quite satisfied with my health insurance, but my employer nevertheless today told us he’s replacing it with a high-deductible plan that limits my choice of doctors. The government had nothing to do with it — he’s trying to cut costs, and he’s not alone.

      3. though even with that we got 77% expressing some level of satisfaction with their health care.
        .
        Wait a sec, though — why does “some level of satisfaction with their health care” necessarily equate to being opposed to Obama’s goals? I’m fairly satisfied with my own health plan as it currently exists, but I also realize that that’s at risk from year to year or even more often. (My school switched insurance providers last spring, and it’s not like we get any choice in the matter.) You seem to be drawing an equivalence that’s somewhat questionable here.

      4. I should add that although I’m far from satisfied with every aspect of Obama’s plan (among other things, I think it’s been heavily watered down by insurance companies), I do support the plan as it currently exists, as it still represents a significant improvement over the current system. And when many of those opposed are doing so by disrupting meetings and/or ranting about “death panels,” that certainly makes the plan itself seem even more reasonable.

      5. You seem to be drawing an equivalence that’s somewhat questionable here.

        Perhaps he is. On the other hand, the last opinion poll I saw on CNN showed that a slight majority of those polled viewed Obama’s handling of health care reform unfavorably. Assuming the polls are accurate, there may be some correlation between people’s satisfaction with their own health care and dissatisfaction with what they perceive the various reform bills to be.

    2. I insist that they also tell me how many people were polled.
      .
      Which wouldn’t tell you anything, really, unless you have a degree in statistics and you also know the demographic composition of the sample, and the methodology of the poll. I think it’s safer instead to regard all opinion polls with a healthy degree of skepticism.

      1. I wasn’t trying to draw an equivalence that satisfaction with one’s own health care situation = opposition to health care reform but I would think it a fairly uncontroversial opinion to say that people who are satisfied with something are less likely to support change to it than people who are unsatisfied. All else being equal, the chances of being able to persuade people to take a gamble on a new health care plan is considerably easier when they are already unhappy with the one they have. Unless I’m missing something this seems to obvious to be a terribly contentious point.

      3. Unless I’m missing something this seems to obvious to be a terribly contentious point.
        .
        I’m still relatively satisfied with the health insurance I have now (even though the plan I had until yesterday was better), but I know if I become unemployed the šhìŧ will hit the fan. Sure, I can buy coverage at reduced rates under COBRA but that would still be an extra expense of a few hundred bucks a month at a time when I’d be strapped for cash! Also, if for some reason my insurance coverage lapses, my pre-existing conditions could prevent me from buying new insurance.
        .
        It’s possible to be satisfied with what you have today and still see the need for reform, which is Tim’s point. Unless he and I are total anomalies, there are probably other people who feel the same way but the opinion polls may not have asked the right questions to ferret out that information.

      4. I belong to the 14% who don’t really trust statistics.

        Which is odd, because I took Rick Keating’s advice and discovered that only three people had been surveyed.

      5. Knowing how many people were polled is important, but even more so is having a baseline comparison. A former mayor here used to hold ‘bear pit sessions’ (town hall meetings under another name). I attended one which saw the front of the hall littered with graphs and charts. Looked real impressive, until you realized it was all meaningless. Yes, say one of those charts showed the region had seen a 12% improvement in statistic ‘X’. Yay! But there was nothing to compare that to. If the average for similar-sized cities in the country was a 38% improvement, all of a sudden, that 12% doesn’t look so good and we need to question why we’re not matching it. And the graphs showed no inkling of that sort of useful data.

      6. I know that it is quite possible to be happy as a pig in feces with one’s own health care and still be passionately committed to a complete overhaul of the system. It’s also possible to be completely dissatisfied with your own healthcare but be more willing to stick with the devil you know than take a chance with something new. All things are possible, people are complicated.
        .
        Now tell me–do you really think that if the numbers were reversed–if 77% of the population were dissatisfied with their own healthcare–it would not likely be far far easier to pass reforms? If the answer is yes then I don’t see where we have any disagreement. There are a lot of issues that cause people concern and they are most likely to support big expensive solutions to the issues that they feel are affecting them.

      7. Bill,
        .
        Actually, the number of people polled would tell me something– whether the percentage cited really means anything. Let’s say I’m doing a story about Bill Myers Inc., and you tell me “our customer satisfaction is skyrocketing. This year, 90 percent of our customers who’d bought our X-1 Widgets last year, bought twice as many this year.” I’m going to want to know how many customers bought your widgets last year. If you sold them to 1,000 people, then having 90 percent of them as return customers is impressive. But if you only had 10 customers last year, then 90 percent of them as return customers is less impressive. Unless your competition had both fewer customers than you last year, and a lower percentage of returning customers.
        .
        And yes, knowing the demographics and methodology of a poll can also help. I’m sure that if someone polled 1,000 men who have no women in their lives about abortion, you’d get a different result than if you’d polled 1,000 men with female friends, relatives, wives, etc., or if you’d polled 1,000 women. I don’t know what the various poll results would be, but I’d suspect they wouldn’t all be the same. But whatever the percentages cited, in all cases, it’s important to know the number of people polled.
        .
        Rick

      8. But whatever the percentages cited, in all cases, it’s important to know the number of people polled.

        I think it’s safe to say that most of the polls cited on the T.V. news — from Gallup, Harris, and other professional pollsters — aren’t polling only one or twelve or even nineteen people. Their sample sizes range from several hundred on up.
        .
        Let me ask you — what would the difference be to you if the sample size of a poll were 800, or a thousand, or 1,324? What would it tell you? I studied polling methodologies for a semester as part of an undergrad class about mass media research methods, and I couldn’t tell you the difference. I suspect only a statistician could.
        .
        There is a formula statisticians use to determine the margin of error based on the sample size among other characteristics. It has something to do with the sample size compared with the overall population. I used to know it, but that was 20 years ago and since then it leaked out of my brain and through my ears while I was sleeping.

      9. Bill’s right, the vast majority of people would only be confused by sample sizes. Is a sample size of 500 a lot?
        .
        Plus, there are many other factors that are just as important. How did they phrase the questions? Did they ask other questions before the important ones, other questions that might lead the respondent down a certain path? Do they call the same people several times to make sure they get a truly random sampling, or do they just use the first 200 who answer the phone? How do they account for cell phone users, who they aren’t allowed to call?
        .
        I could keep going. There are a ton of factors that affect a poll, so throwing one more number at readers of an article doesn’t really tell them anything. The only thing that really matters is reliability. If an article mentions a statistic, it’s worth mentioning how reliable the polling company has been in the past. Some are known to have more bias than others.

  3. Re: your “update” note – Well then, I’ll use this entry’s comments as a place to say I’ve been meaning for awhile to bounce on over here and tell you that I’m continuing to enjoy your writing on Wolverine: First Class (kept forgetting, as planning the 900-person Discworld convention that happens in less than a month tends to eat up all my brainpower these days!!). 🙂 And I do so love the cute relationship b/w Logan and Kitty. So thanks for that!

    P.S. I see Potato Moon is still going strong! I’ll have to catch up on the story since my chapter, after the con is over. Heh.

  4. In case it’s not clear, my previous comment was to Bill Myers. I clicked “reply”, so thought it would appear directly under his post about having a degree in statistics.
    .
    Rick

  5. I said: “But whatever the percentages cited, in all cases, it’s important to know the number of people polled.”
    .
    Bill Myers said: “I think it’s safe to say that most of the polls cited on the T.V. news — from Gallup, Harris, and other professional pollsters — aren’t polling only one or twelve or even nineteen people. Their sample sizes range from several hundred on up.
    .
    “Let me ask you — what would the difference be to you if the sample size of a poll were 800, or a thousand, or 1,324? What would it tell you?”
    .
    Bill,
    .
    I agree that Gallup, et al. poll several hundred people, not less that 20. My example of 75 percent of those polled only being three people was meant simply to illustrate how an impressive-seeming figure (75 percent) becomes less so if the actual numbers are relatively few. All I’m saying is that anyone (especially a media outlet) quoting a poll or survey, or otherwise citing percentages, should let their readers/viewers/listeners know how many people were involved. Does that answer every question people might have about the reliability of the statistic(s) in question? Not at all. But it would give some indication of whether the percentages really mean anything. And there’s really no excuse not to mention the number of people if percentages are involved.
    .
    Let’s leave aside the big-name pollsters for a moment, and consider a narrower focus: The hypothetical small city of Otisburg and the controversy surrounding mayor Otis Oracle (bonus points to anyone who recognizes that name and where it’s from. Hint: not the same source as “Otisburg”). The local news reports this: “90 percent of the people who turned out at tonight’s city council meeting say Mayor Oracle should resign, following revelations he used city money to take his family to the French Riviera for a vacation— even as the city spirals deeper into debt.” Personally, I’d agree with that sentiment, but if only 10 people showed up at that meeting, that 90 percent = 9 people. Hardly impressive. One would hope that if this hypothetical news outlet were to conduct a poll concerning the people’s view of the mayor’s political future, it would try to reach a significant segment of the town’s population; but would it surprise you to see such a story on your local news (or to read it in the paper) without a mention of the number of people in attendance?
    .
    Call me cynical, but I’d bet that the more sensationalistic “90 percent of citizens at meeting want mayor gone.” slant would win out over the “9 irate residents say mayor should leave office.” slant.
    .
    For the record, if I were covering that city council meeting, my story would mention that it was sparsely attended, since I think that’s as significant a fact as the issue of the mayor’s personal use of city funds. And if there were so few people there, I’d say 9 out of the 10, rather than 90 percent. And as I said before, if I’m doing a story that involves X percent of people surveyed, I indicate how many people were surveyed. Or if I’m unable to get that information, I’d include a line like “Jones Corp. officials would not say how many people they surveyed.” And I’d let readers make up their own minds about whether they should trust the cited statistics.
    .
    Rick

    1. Frankly, after the knee touching scandal of ’81, Oracle was lucky to still have his job.

    2. >KEATING
      >
      >Call me cynical, but I’d bet that the more >sensationalistic “90 percent of citizens at meeting >want mayor gone.” slant would win out over the “9 >irate residents say mayor should leave office.” slant.

      Nah. a Sensationalistic slant would have been. “Mayor has support of only one attendee”

  6. Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere on the site, but why is X-Factor missing from the recent Marvel solicits? Please don’t tell me it’s been canceled!!!

    1. Okay, I won’t tell you.
      .
      But I also don’t know if it has been cancelled. I’d guess either the solicit has been withheld (purposely or not), or that the book is taking a month off. Sales levels are fine.

  7. Roman Numerals. What were they thinking? Were these just for show or did they really use them in every day life?
    These people built some seriously complicated šhìŧ, that would seem to require more then a passing knowledge of arcitecual and mathmatical skill. While elogant for telling us which sequel we’re watching, Roman numerals almost instantly betray their usefulness in any sort of higher mathmatical function. “Let’s see, the Colliseum is XXXXVVVXIIIXVIIft. by XXXVXVVCCVIIIVIXCCft. That means, let’s…carry the “X”, plus “C” equals “VII”…., That means we’re going to need XXXXXXXXVVXXVIIICXVIIIIsqft. of title to cover it.” That can’t be what happened.

    1. They used an abbacus.

      The roman system is based on numbers that resemble units like III. That’s obviously three I’s. CCC, is obviously three centa=hundreds.

      In the other allegorical arab-indian system you have weird drawings that represent the number, like 3. You can’t tell from that symbol that you have a three here. It looks more like a magical symbol. And what is 300 supposed to mean? What kind of number is 0 anyway? You don’t have 0’s and 3’s on your trusty abacus or checkered table. With an abacus you have three units on the line of the one’s and you have three units on the line of the hundreds. And it looks better on movie sequels and king’s names.

  8. Hi Peter ( X-Factor rules )

    I actually have a Larry Stroman question.
    I don’t understand why this artist is so declaimed.
    His first issues of X-Factor have still a great impact upon me, as important than the ‘Static’ issues by John Paul Leon ( who would be great onto X-F ); I’m not here to tell how an artist have to draw but his latest works surprised me at a point I was asking if what I appreciate with him was not essentially due to the work of the inker.
    Anyway this is someone who take risks, and even if I understand that his work doesn’t fit with your actual direction of work , I hope to see more from him.

    I wanted to know how you feel about that.

    In any case feel free to send him my contact, or at last my best wishes.

    friendly yours,

    ian-

    1. All I know is that I have never lost readers on any title as fast as I did during Larry’s run. Readers didn’t just declaim. They fled the book. It’s months later and we still haven’t recovered. There were sequences where I didn’t get what I asked for on the page (a moody establishing shot of their headquarters, standing isolated on the street during the rain, was transformed into broad daylight with a host of passersby that looked like extras from a Todd Browning film; storytelling where I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and I wrote the script.) Yeah, Larry takes risks, and while he was taking risks, we hemorrhaged readership. Cause and effect? I don’t know; but I’m pretty sure it didn’t gain us anyone.
      .
      PAD

      1. I’m a fan of Larry’s stuff, but even I’ve been driven buggy by a lot of his work.
        .
        Very unique and very visually impressive when it works. But it’s also an extremely limited style when applied to anything that’s “mundane” or simple day-to-day stuff. When he’s on it’s great. When he’s off it’s actually painful to decipher.

      2. Hi Peter ( X-Factor rules )

        thanks very much for your answer.
        I remember an X-Men cosmic story Larry did who was very impressive, it almost remembered me the work of the French author Andreas – not less, so I have been kinda disappointed as many other people when I saw his take-o return on XF.

        I still like the unusual sequencing and the goofy
        backgrounds characters,it could have worked with Mutantown, but what you said with the
        liberties he took with the script is quite questionnable and I think I can understand your feelings. I hope his future at Marvel is not compromised anyway.

        Once again, thanks for what you’re doing,XF is all I dream about what a comic-book should be.

        best,

        ian-

    1. Oh, and the Brits. Very clever. They’re at least covering it. Our “News” is just talking about trivial things like health care reform.
      .
      What the hëll good is heath care reform to me when society has collapsed under the weight of the zombie uprising that the U.S. has failed to ready itself for.
      .
      If God is on our side at all, then at least Obama has read the works of Max Brooks, PHD in Zombieology.

  10. I saw District 9 last night. At the very least, that film deserves a Hugo nomination.
    .
    The film mixes both documentary style and straight narrative. It’s somewhat jarring the first time the switch happens, but the story as told couldn’t have been told as a straight documentary.
    .
    And I suspect it would have lost something had it been done as straight narrative.
    .
    The parallels with Apartheid are in your face, especially given the South African setting; but I wonder how many other people will pick up on a few subtle things concerning the news media. When Wikus van de Merwe is forced to go on the run (I won’t say why to avoid spoilers), there’s a scene of a news broadcast warning people about him, a broadcast which presents lies about his condition and how it came about. Now whether this station knowingly and willingly lied or simply didn’t bother to confirm what they were told from an independent source isn’t clear, but the result is the same.
    .
    All the news coverage seems somewhat one-sided. While there are no blowhard commentators ranting and raving about the “Prawns”, there is also no coverage (not even the slightest hint, for that matter) that anyone might object to A) isolating the “Prawns” in District 9 and/or B) relocating them to more distant District 10. Or if there was, it was glossed over so perfunctorily that I missed it.
    .
    It’s possible that this one-sided news coverage was meant to evoke coverage in Apartheid-era South Africa, but I wonder if it’s a commentary on the news media in general.
    .
    I have to admit I didn’t expect the story to take the direction it did. When people interviewed for the documentary talked about things Wikus had done, I was thinking that this quiet-looking office worker would degenerate into a cruel tyrant as relocation efforts got underway. Certainly his attitude toward the Prawn was more than a little condescending to begin with. Though one wonders if he would have become petty and dictatorial if the incident hadn’t happened to him.
    .
    Anyway, it’s a film worth seeing. It has some flaws, but it’s still one to see.
    .
    Rick
    .
    P.S. Jerry, regarding your zombie concerns. Don’t worry. As it turns out, most of those zombies have fake death certificates; so they’re not really dead, and thus not eligible to be zombies.

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