James Sturm, founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies, explains it better than I can over on Slate, in the course of explaining why he’s boycotting the Avengers movie, due to Marvel’s recent courtroom slapdown of the Jack Kirby estate. Marvel has been on a roll lately in court, also winning a case against Gary Friedrich, the man widely acknowledged (by everyone except Marvel and the US legal system) to be the creator of Ghost Rider, and having the nerve to send him a very large bill for their lawyer’s fees.

Then there’s the controversy over the Watchmen prequels, which I’ve talked about myself over here.

I do believe that that last case is a little different than the first two, but what do I know? I know nothing. All I have is my own uninformed opinion. Nothing, I tell you, is what I know.

Well, okay, there’s one thing I do know.

Boycotts don’t work unless they are real.

By which I mean this: you can’t selectively boycott a company’s products over a short period of time to get them to take care of a systemic problem with the way they do business. If you want to get them to change the very system under which they do business, you’ve got to completely turn your back on the corrupt company that you’ve targeted, until they change their ways.

If you refuse, for example, to buy the Watchmen miniseries, but you use the money you’d have otherwise spent on it to buy Justice League International trade paperbacks instead, DC Comics isn’t going to listen to your concerns. They know that they’ve got you, and the firestorm will blow away. Corporations (legally, anyway) are people — but they are more-or-less immortal people, who are playing the decades- and centuries-long game, not the weeks- months- or years-long game, like you and me. You and your outrage will be gone in a hundred years — and Alan Moore will probably be dead by then, too, maybe — but Watchmen will still be in print, and will still be making money for DC or whatever hydra-headed corporate singularity monster owns it by that time.

Likewise, if you don’t go see the Avengers movie over Marvel’s treatment of Jack Kirby, but you still pick up the latest issue of The Avengers (or X-men or Fantastic Four or …) from the comic book shop, your “boycott” will be seen, by Marvel as well as other observers, as nothing more than momentary posturing.

If you want to make real change, you have to make them hurt, and you have to make them hurt for a good, long time. Take this from an old GLBT activist: boycotts are serious business, and can make a real difference, but only if they are drastic, complete, well-publicized (in a friendly and inviting manner), organized, and long-haul. Anything else is a tantrum.

For me, and for most of my friends, it would be very easy to boycott these companies — my interest level is fairly low anyway. I only started picking up monthly product just recently, when Comixology started having lots of “same day as print” offers, and my interest was piqued, but I am not sitting on the tail-end of a decades-long hobby, and could drop the practice of buying a handful of books every Wednesday very easily. Likewise, it’s easy enough to go see some other movie rather than The Avengers. I want to see it, but I also don’t care all that much if I miss it.

I expect that if James Sturm does buy any regular superhero books, he could drop them easily as well. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate what he’s doing. His essay is the very definition of a friendly, persuasive invitation to boycott. For it to really work, though, Marvel’s going to have to suffer a lot more than just one bad weekend at the box office. The run-of-the-mill fan whose blood boils over these decisions is going to have to give up all his/her monthly books, stop going to all the movies, and refuse to support the companies whose policies they claim to be outraged by.

Do you think that’s going to happen? I don’t think that’s going to happen. Neither do the corporate boards of Marvel and DC. Which is why these policies will continue.

You’re probably wondering if I’m going to boycott. The answer is that I don’t know. Yes, I am part of the problem. If you’re honest with yourself, and you’re reading mainstream comics today, or watching movies based on Marvel and DC properties, ever — so are you. I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do about the fact that I’m part of the problem. But that’s really none of your concern. We each make our own decisions. The real question you should be asking yourself is this: what are you going to do? If you really want to make change, you’ve gotta do more than you’re doing, because change isn’t anywhere near about to happen. Right?

Maybe someday I’ll tell you what I had to say to him, and he to me.

Artwork from Wonder Comics # 1. It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!

One time when I lived in San Francisco there was a beggar in a wheelchair in the McDonald’s dining room. He went all the way down the line of people waiting to order, asking for money. I was not the only one who said no! We all did. After I got my food — a Double Quarter Pounder combo, if I recall correctly — I realized I had to pee, so I left it on my table and went to pee. When I got back, the guy in the wheelchair had pulled up to my table and was eating my food like a maniac. Like a fiend! Nobody else in the dining room would meet my eye.

I was so angry! This makes me an evil capitalist, like Mitt Romney. I went across the street and ate at Boston Market, I was so angry.

Artwork from Detective Picture Stories # 1 (not to be confused with Detective Comics # 1). It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!

Not my own, don’t worry. I’m fine.

These thoughts originally arose because of a coming plot twist in my webserial. But no matter. That’s not what I’m talking about here.

I woke up thinking about how good death is.

Let’s say we invent immortality tomorrow (which, I’ve been led to understand, we may be in danger of doing). At some point, we’d all get bored — no new ideas, no new movements, no new generations, just the same old people living and living and living and living. Might take 10,000 years. Or 100,000 years. But eventually we’d want to die. I try not to take my philosophical talking points from pulp fiction, but I can’t help but think of Robert E. Howard’s immortal race of sorcerers, each of whom, one day, wakes up and decides it’s time to throw himself off a cliff. And nobody is surprised. That’s no good.

In the above I’m assuming, by the way, that we stop reproducing when we become immortal. I hope we do! Otherwise, though we’ll have new generations and new ideas, we’ll also fill up the planet, the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe in fairly short (for an immortal’s definition of “short”) order: deathless couple gives birth to deathless children who do the same in turn, and so do their children, and so on. That’s no good.

Or maybe we ration out immortality, give it only to a few — I guess using money, the way we manage all other scarce resources, as the gateway to godhood. That’s no good.

What do we mean by “immortal” anyway? Do we really mean that each and every one of us would be around for the heat death of the universe, floating in what’s left of space, gasping for air that doesn’t exist (though we can’t die), all billion billion billion of us and our immortal spawn, spiraling down the drain of the final black hole, where, by the way, we will continue not to die? No. That’s no good, either.

Death is good.

This is how they answer the phone at St. Martin’s Press, publishers of my first novel:

Thank you for calling Macmillan, formerly Holtzbrink Publishers. You have also reached St. Martin’s Press, Henry Holt, Tor Books, Holt, Metropolitan Books, New York Times Books, Picador, Palgrave(?) Macmillan, Thomas Dunn, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and Bloomsbury.

Try it yourself: 1-800-221-7945

After you’ve done so, please explain to me how Amazon is scarier than that multi-national, multi-headed hydra.

My feeling is this: small publishers, and small retailers, stand a better chance, not a worse one, now that Amazon is destabilizing the giants at the top of the food chain. And ebooks are creating new readers — and causing existing readers to read more than they were before. I don’t see how these are bad things!

Artwork from Detective Picture Stories # 1 (not to be confused with Detective Comics # 1). It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!

Snake-Boy Comes Out: Part One

I demand fan-art. Please do not delay. Put it up on Twitter with the hashtag #sblsp and @joeymanley

The day that I was originally signed into the system, I was listening to the “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” audiobook. I still haven’t finished listening to that.

I made this while you were watching the Madonna half-time show. Just FYI.

Artwork from Detective Picture Stories # 1 (not to be confused with Detective Comics # 1). It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!

The books. I made it sounds so simple, but I knew better. I had read the first three books in 2000, more than a decade ago now. When the fourth came out, five years into that gap, I bought it, but I felt like I should re-read the first three. It had been so long. I had forgotten so much. It’s been longer, still, and I’ve never gotten around to re-reading them, which means the fourth, and now the fifth book, released eleven years to the month, almost, from the time I finished book three, remain bought and unread, as well.

Meanwhile, what I had neglected to consider, in my wait-for-the-DVD-and-get-it-on-Netflix calculation, was the hysterical meltdown of Netflix’s business model and my subsequent cancellation of the DVD portion of their service.

The first-season DVD set is available for pre-order now from Amazon.

And I dunno.

My relationship with this series generally — not just the TV show, but the book series upon which it is based — feels like it has reached a breaking point. I’ve put things off for too long. I either need to a). buy the damn DVDs, read the rest of the books, and continue to follow this story, or b). not.

Complicating matters is the fact that even the book series isn’t complete, and Martin’s lack of perspicacity in getting his books out has become a famous sore point among Internet grousers. While I, of all people, have no standing to complain about an author not getting a book out in a timely manner (George R. R. Martin is totally not my bitch, I get it), I also wonder if I’m willing to recommit myself to this series now, only to have to face the same quandary (feeling like I need to re-read everything — by that time there will be more than five books to re-read) six or seven or ten years down the road, when the story is finished.

I think probably not. Maybe I’ll pick it up then, when I’m seventy, and I can read (and watch) all of it. Something to look forward to in retirement, along with flying cars and subservience to the AI gods.

What are you gonna do?

“I think I know you from somewhere,” is what he said. They realized that it was the gym. “I hope I see you there again sometime,” he said.

I was jealous. I’m not sure if I was jealous because he was flirting with my boyfriend, or if I was jealous that he wasn’t flirting with me.

Artwork from Detective Picture Stories # 1 (not to be confused with Detective Comics # 1). It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!

I used to joke that ex-smokers were the meanest and most militant of the anti-smoking crusaders. It’s true. For one thing, I have just about zero patience when people say they can’t quit. I quit. They can. For another, I am still completely addicted to the glorious chemical compound nicotine and can suss it out, drug-dog style, from only the micro-est of micrograms hanging around your clothes. Barber dude did a great job on my hair, but he took forever (something you generally want in a barber, a certain amount of attention to detail) with those smelly, smelly hands flapping around my face. I didn’t say anything. I tipped him well. But I won’t be going back. Sorry, cigarette-smelly barber!

Artwork from Detective Picture Stories # 1 (not to be confused with Detective Comics # 1). It has been represented to me that this artwork is in public domain. Even if it isn’t, I claim Fair Use, bitches!