Steven Grant looks at the crazy goings on of the past week, specifically the “Dan DiDio is getting the Willie Randolph treatment!” rumor and how it becomes morphed into fanthink:

Fanthink is an interesting beast. It starts with the premise, which perhaps not coincidentally is what the DC comics universe has been based on for the last 20-some odd years, that reality is whatever you want it to be. Which is perfectly fine for a fictional world controlled from on high where any unpleasant complications can be explained away, rebooted or ignored as desired, as long as you’re aware that anything done will have fans unwilling to accept your explanations, reboots or willful ignorance. In the real world? Mmmmm… doesn’t work so well at all, like when you invade a country while figuring all you’ll have to do in the aftermath is dropping a malleable new government into place and sweeping up the flowers its grateful citizens strew in your armies’ path. Nonetheless, it has become a popular game among Internet comics fans especially to decide on the outcome they’d prefer to see, act as though it’s already reality, and extrapolate their arguments backwards.

Steven nails a very important part of today’s internet culture, and one that’s very difficult to deal with for a site like this. For instance, there are a couple of assumptions Steven makes in his column that I could refine based on well-sourced information that I have heard. But is it worth it? Every time bits of actual inside information are posted on the web, the fans go ape-shit spinning-off all sorts of totally bogus claims and reverberations about that information.

So is it even worth it? Usually not.

Fanthink is bad enough with popular movies and TV shows, But in the comics industry where everyone knows everyone else, it’s downright deadly.

Nerd on nerd alignment charts at Mighty God King. [Via Laura Hudson]

[While we STILL try to get our shit together to post the last of our MoCCA photos and our Licensing show photos, we keep you amused with this report on another event last week. Above, the author and Malcolm MacDowell]

By Steve Bunche

I don’t know about you, but even though I’m a dyed-in-the-wool geek there are times when I dread the siren call of the comics/toy/art/sci-fi convention. Nonetheless I always attend (when it’s affordable) and more often than not I find myself aggravated by the crowds, the poor layout of the floor that doesn’t allow said crowds to move, and the promoter’s naked desire to make a buck at all costs, not giving a rat’s ass about the experience that the fans are shelling out their hard-earned cash for. Sadly, that’s been more or less par for the course with New York City cons, and having been a regular NYC con-goer since 1975 I think I’m entitled to grouse.

The sole exception to this sorry state of affairs is the Big Apple Convention, a regularly scheduled event held at Manhattan’s Penn Plaza Pavilion during the end of spring and the end of the fall, respectively, and even bears the endorsement of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Big Apple Con is the epitome of how a homegrown convention should be handled, providing the eager fan with just about collector’s item back issue, toy, t-shirt, or DVD they could want within easy reach, to say nothing of the opportunity to meet and greet with celebrities ranging from iconic A-listers to obscure pop culture personalities, all to be had for a shockingly affordable entrance fee.

This season’s con fell on the 7th and 8th of June, unfortunately the first sweltering days of a brutal heat wave, but the fans showed up despite the heat and entered an engaging nexus between their fantasies and the mundane reality of the New York weekend. The show’s first floor housed the admissions area - tickets could also be obtained online at www.bigapplecon.com - and a few tables offering movie memorabilia and assorted books, as well as the signing table and photo-op section for some of the celebs, chief among whom were A-listers Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and my favorite actor of all time, Malcom freakin’ McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Caligula, Heroes). If I may gush like the unrepentant fanboy that I am, I never thought I’d get to meet McDowell, much less chat with the guy and get my picture taken with him - by the excellent Froggy, who can be reached at froggy@froggysphotos.com - so I found myself bursting with geekish delight for the whole weekend.

(more…)

A reader by the name of Laura Hale writes to tell us of Fan History, a new website given to a wiki of the histories of various fandoms. There’s a Comics history page and Laura would love it if readers could contribute. Now this could be interesting, especially since highly anal fandoms often have highly detailed feuds over what happened and when. Keep watching that site!

Studio chieftain Harvey Weinstein struck a devious blow to the dreams of fanboys everywhere when he decreed that cuts must be made to FANBOYS, a long awaited films about some, er, fans who sneak onto the Skywalker Ranch for a sneak peek at PHANTOM MENACE. One of them has cancer, making the beak-in a matter of great urgency. This film has been in the can for two years, and with the involvement of such now-well known players as Seth Rogen and Kristen Bell and delighted screenings at Comic-Con you’d think all would be well, right? Not so fast, says the Hollywood Reporter. The movie has lain frozen in carbonite while Weinstein demanded a recut:

(more…)

Two takes on mixed marriages:
This St. Louis Today columnist grows excited when he sees his wife reading a comic:

I’ve never known Colette to have any interest in comics. She rolls her eyes at the thought of her almost-40 husband repeatedly asking for video games and comic books for his birthday. But there she was, on the Marvel web site.

“Whatcha doin?” I asked.

“I read on Laurell K. Hamilton’s web site that she’s putting out a graphic novel,” she said. “It said this comic-book company was publishing it. I’m trying to see if it’s out yet.”

Meanwhile a comic book wife writes touchingly of her husband’s lifetime of collecting on the occasion of his donating his collection to a school.

Sometimes I’d watch him in our New Haven apartment, one leg thrown over a metal arm in the blue canvas butterfly chair, reading his comics. What was going on in that head when he read this stuff? Did he identify with Superman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Spider-Man? Or was it the adventure that held his rapt attention for hours? Good over evil? I still don’t know.