Day: June 27, 2006

In the June 26-July 9 issue of Variety, there’s a story on page five headlined “Entourage Floats Faux Feature.” The article discusses the two-page ad that ran in June 16’s Variety congratulating James Cameron and Vince Chase for the $116+ million opening of Cameron’s “Aquaman” feature. Anyone who watches the hit HBO series knows full well that this record-setting event happened two Sundays ago in the fictional showbiz world of “Entourage.”

Yet the bogus ad has stoked interest in the prospect of Cameron directing a genuine “Aquaman” feature (although astoundingly the WB, missing the opportunity to cash in on it, passed on the proposed “Aquaman” TV series “Mercy Reef.”) And Denise Martin’s article concludes with the following:

“The ad has lit a flame under Cameron fans, who hope the director will make the pic his follow-up to ‘Titanic.’ “Now all we need is for Cameron to really make an Aquaman film and we’re good to go,” Aquaman’s comicbook scribe Peter David cracked.”

Somewhere, DC execs are spitting tacks over THAT one.

And hey, Jim…if you’re reading this…I’ve got some great ideas. Have your person call my person, we’ll do a thing.

PAD

We’re trying to track down some performance problems and server errors. We hope to have them up for later this afternoon. –GH

So Kathleen happened to have the radio on this morning, tuned to a sports radio talk show. And it seemed that the volume and intensity of the discussion was inversely proportional to the degree of importance-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things that the subject matter had.

And all I could think of was how grotesquely unfair it is that science fiction and comics fans are tagged as nerds and dweebs and treated in a condescending manner when sports fans are just as “bad” if not “worse.” I mean, where the hëll does the media get off being snotty about fans who are dressed as Klingons when you can go to any Yankees game and see 1800 guys wearing jerseys that say “Jeter” on the back. The Klingon language may be incomprehensible, but no less so than watching two sports fanatics tossing around stats, names and abbreviations (“When he wasn’t able to DH he was HBP and wound up on the DL when his ERA was 0.73, or else he would have been MVP.”) How is it 1500 people, mostly sober, spending a weekend enjoying a mutual interest at a hotel and talking about space exploration, how to avoid global warming, and whether the Hulk can beat Superman…how is that automatically inferior to 43,000, mostly drunkly drunk, spending a day enjoying a mutual interest at a stadium and talking about playoffs, how to avoid the line at the bathroom, and whether the 1953 Dodgers could beat the 1962 Yankees?

Plus science fiction fans have only the Sci-Fi Channel. Sports fans have ESPN, ESPN 2, ESPN Classic. Golf. There’s a golf channel. A whole channel dedicated to Golf, for God’s sake. That’s like having a whole channel devoted to “Voyager.” And how are fantasy baseball leagues any weirder than local chapters of Starfleet? And where do people get off being snotty about Renfaires when there are those fantasy baseball camps that some organizations offer, where you pay big bucks to dress up like a baseball player for a week? At least Renfaire’s don’t set you back a few thousand bucks.

So what makes us nerdy and them “mainstream? Because it’s “big business?” Maybe the only way science fiction and comic book conventions will gain genuine respectability is if they become designed, not for socialization or debate, but about being as aggressive as possible about separating fans from their money. You know: LIke pro sports.

PAD