New format intro; Basic Instinct observation

BUT I DIGRESS, Originally published May 1, 1992

So here we are.

The first issue of the much-awaited new, new new format of “The Comics Buyer’s Guide.”

I must admit to being a little depressed about the changeover. After all, when I got my college degree (back in the days of the dinosaurs), it was in journalism. Even though I subsequently decided not to go into newspapers, I still felt a sense of gratification every time I’d get another issue of CBG with my column in it, because at least I was still nominally participating in the career that I’d trained for.

But we live in a world where everything is shrinking (including the world) and everything has to be smaller, niftier, flashier, more compact. More do-able.

Newspapers aren’t smaller: You have to open up the large pages, and they don’t fit neatly into convenient display spaces in stores. Newspapers aren’t nifty–the paper’s cheap, the newsprint can come off on your fingers. Newspapers aren’t flashy–they’re down and dirty, cold type on a page, without zippy music or newscasters or even a slick, glossy appeal. They can’t stay in mint condition: Unlike a comic book that you can ever-so-carefully read and then slip back into its bag without anyone the wiser, with newspapers it is absolutely impossible to make it look the same once you’ve opened it. Newspapers certainly aren’t compact–the parts get spread wide and tend to wind up all over the place.

With the combination of increased glitz in packaging, and the rise of instant communication through television news, the newspaper would appear to be a dying breed. A dinosaur.

My father, a reporter, went from newspaper to newspaper, and they kept folding under him. Eventually he got out of newspapers entirely. How long before newspapers are gotten out as well?

This new CBG package will probably be easier to display. Certainly be easier to read. And even I admit that I would never be thrilled when I’d receive CBG in the mail, only to find that a section or two was missing. Presumably that won’t be happening anymore.

It might also wind up garnering some new readers for the publication, which means that there might be some of you who are reading this column for the first time. So it would seem to me that this would be the appropriate time to issue a statement of intent, as it were. A description of what “But I Digress” does every week–what the parameters are, what the purpose is, what the need for it is.

The answer to all of the above questions is, frankly: Beats the hëll out of me.

Every single week I thumb through CBG and wonder what in the world I’m doing here.

I started this as a lark, really. Nearly two years (two years?!) ago, Don and Maggie ran a series of short comments from readers. And one of those nameless commentators ventured to say that he or she thought that it would be a nifty idea if I wrote a weekly column. To which Don and Maggie replied something to the effect of “Sounds good to us. Peter?”

I haven’t a clue as to who wrote in. Nor do I know why this person was of the opinion that my writing a weekly column would be interesting, not to mention feasible. I had never done a regular column anywhere before, on anything. It’s not like there was a basis for comparison.

But this nameless letter writer voiced his or her opinion, and Don and Maggie’s reply, in turn, prompted a number of people to start asking me when I was going to begin a column for CBG. And I figured, just to shut them up and prove that I couldn’t do it, I would go ahead and give it a try.

I gave the entire notion six months at the outside…a year if I was incredibly lucky and ignored all the requests likely to be forthcoming from readers, asking why I, of all people, was being inflicted on the CBG audience week after week.

That was, as I noted, nearly two years ago.

This column is, by and large, an opinion column about comics or the comics industry. Not always, though.

Sometimes it’s satire: In those instances I will usually fabricate transcripts of panels from fictional conventions, populated by pastiches of comic book professionals and moderated by my all-purpose fanboy from hëll, “Vic Chalker” (who will, occasionally, make a frightening amount of sense.)

Sometimes it’s autobiographical, when I offer journals of some of my more extensive trips to conventions.

Sometimes it’s a vehicle for “Useless Stories,” a recurring feature in which I run stories of mine that, for one reason or another, are not going to see print anywhere else.

Sometimes it’s opinion pieces about matters outside the comics industry. These are usually the things that get me into the biggest trouble. For example: I might say that I just saw “Basic Instinct,” a movie hotly protested as being homophobic because of its unflattering portrayal of lesbian and bi-sexual characters…and that I think such protests are missing a major point. Yes, the characters played by Sharon Stone and Leilani Sarelle are hardly sterling representatives of the gay community. But there’s nothing in the movie that implies “Gay = Cretin.”

Why do I say this? Because everyone in the movie is a cretin. The heterosexual cop played by Michael Douglas has a history of alcohol abuse and shooting unarmed civilians. The most repulsive sexual sequence in the film is not the relatively (relative to the rest of the film, that is) tasteful portrayal of lesbian encounters, but rather when Douglas’ character has sex with his therapist girlfriend in a manner so violent that it crosses into rape territory.

The only remotely sympathetic character in the film is Douglas’ partner, and even he’s hardly a paragon of police conduct: In one sequence he’s depicted getting behind the wheel of his car and driving off while clearly intoxicated.

Frankly, I think that if anyone has a truly legitimate beef with this film, it’s cops. Yes, gays are portrayed as murderous in “Basic Instinct.” But cops are portrayed as murderous and alcoholics and heavy smokers and extortionists and drunk drivers and rapists and…well, you get the idea.

Are all gays unflatteringly portrayed in movies? Well, the movie I saw right before “Basic Instinct” was “Frankie and Johnny” (on a transcontinental flight), and in that there were a couple of gay men who were talented and smart and had all the best lines.

So for you new readers, you now know the parameters of this column…those parameters being, mainly, that I talk about just about anything that catches my attention. The one thing I don’t generally do is comic reviews, basically because I’ve been asked to leave that to the auspices of other columns for which that is their raison d’etre…although if I were to review comics, I would second the comments offered elsewhere about how entertaining “Bone” is.

Lastly, “But I Digress” has generally, over the last year or so, been run towards the back of the newspaper. The reasoning (I am told) is the same that prompts supermarkets to put such necessities as milk, butter and eggs towards the back of the store–namely it means you have to go past all the other stuff to get to it. Since “BID” was named as the most popular feature in the publication, it’s always featured in the back so that the reader will (theoretically) flip through all the other news and (even more importantly) ads to get to it. (Of course, “Oh So” is the second favorite, and that’s always up front. Go figure.)

So now I understand that “BID” will always be on the very last page of the new format. And the new format is partly so that CBG can get decent display in comic stores. And also “BID” is the favorite feature of CBG (or so the readers say).

Well here’s a genuine upside of this new format, then. Just think: By putting “BID” on the last page of every issue, it means that those of you who are in stores and whose main interest in CBG is reading my opinions (for some bizarre reason) have been done a tremendous service by Krause. Whereas once you couldn’t read the column in the store because it meant flipping through the paper (and it wouldn’t look mint anymore), now you can quietly pick up this new edition, turn to the back page, read the column, and put it back without anyone being the wiser.

Ah, modern conveniences.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at To Be Continued, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, New York 11705.) Write before midnight tonight and receive absolutely nothing of value.)