Originally published February 16, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1422
’Tennnnn hut! Eyes front, maggots. The following e-mail (I hardly get regular mail anymore) arrived from Commander R.A. Benson, USNR:
Why Don Mirscher knows squat
Who is Don Mirscher? The executive producer of the Emmys, who apparently took exception to another year of criticism for the egregious omissions of this years nominations. No “best series” for “The Good Wife.” No “best actor” for James Spader. Most shockingly, no best actress for Tatiana Maslany.
What was his excuse?
““The Emmys are not a popular choice award. The Emmys are an industry award. The Emmys are determined by the men and women who create television. That’s why for those of us who are lucky enough to win an Emmy, it means a lot because it’s our competitors and our peers that have given that to us. I think the way it’s set up and the way it’s going to work again this year is that the nominations came from people in the industry who make the product. How many people watch a particular product I don’t think is as important as the quality of the product, and that’s been reflected in the nominations that you’ve seen four days ago.”
Here’s why this excuse is idiotic.
Chattacon
Originally published February 9, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1421
I’m rapidly reaching a point in my life where it’s split pretty much dead even between the time I spent as a fan versus the time I’ve spent as a professional… well, whatever I professionally am. Since fandom is where my roots are, however, I was more than willing to go along when my fiancee, Kathleen, wanted to head down to Chattacon in Chattanooga, TN, a convention she and her siblings frequented since she was a teen. (Indeed, her brother Sean’s theme parties have become an event in and of themselves.)
Here’s my concern about the Mets
I’m reasonably sure that I remember them going into the All-Star break on a high note in previous seasons.
And then invariably they come out of the break and promptly go into a massive losing streak. They were moving up and then they lose thirteen out of fifteen games.
So it’s kind of hard for me to feel good about their current winning ways.
PAD
Retcons and Stetcons
Originally published February 2, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1420
Once upon a time in comics, it was simple: No one really gave a dámņ about what other people were doing.
So when a new origin for a character cropped up, it needed no reason other than that a writer or editor (or both) had come up with what they thought was an interesting twist on the hero’s origin. Or perhaps it was nothing more complicated than that they had a ten-page space to fill that month and they were fresh out of ideas for new stories, so they decided to recycle the hero’s birth one more time.
DVD Dread (circa 2001)
Originally published January 26, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1419
They almost had me. They almost had me totally sold on DVDs.
Several years ago, I complained quite bitterly, in this very column, about the new format which was rendering my beloved laser disks obsolete. This upstart, this annoyance. Sure, my lasers were taking up a ton of room, but the picture quality was great, you could jump around for specific chapters instead of trying to fast forward with video tapes. And then these… these little frickin’ coasters called DVDs come along, with patchy transfers and totally different players, threatening to push out my movie format of choice.
How the Grynch Stole Fandom
Originally published January 19, 2001, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1418
How the Grynch Stole Fandom
By Doctor Spoofs
All the fans who were fannish liked Fandom a lot,
But the Grynch who lived up in Dotcom
Did not.
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