You Can’t Please Them All All Of The Time

Originally I posted the comments below on the IDW Publishing Forums and I thought I’d post them here as well. It’s nothing ground-shaking — just thought in this time and age of fans posting their opinions on the internet that I’d share mine.

Honestly, harsh “criticism” or just plain declarations of dislike are to be expected to surface when producing a project such as Star Trek, or even Transformers and Angel. The one element that properties like these share is a strong, dedicated, and above all else, passionate fanbase. It is the passion of these fans that make these properties what they are — what makes them great.

We’re never going to be able to please 100 percent of the people a 100 percent of the time — no one can. What we can hope to accomplish is to please as many fans as we can — new and old alike. Personally, If I had the means to produce the perfect Star Trek comic book for each and every individual Star Trek fan I would — but that is an inconceivable feat in which to accomplish. The perfect Star Trek comic book for a 20 year-old fan attending college at Berkely, or a thirtysomething mother of three that attends sci-fi conventions, or a middle-aged dentist in Boston who grew up on The Original Series, or the guy who is thrilled to have the opporunity to Edit Star Trek comic books is going to be different from one another.

Unfortunately, it’s those that are unsatisfied for whatever reason that are more likely to make their opinions public. And that is fine — that is their right. If they don’t like something they’ll let it be known. Sure, some of the neigh-sayers might not be willing to give a project a fair chance because of a cover they didn’t like, or someone else’s opinion that they read on a blog or message board — but they’ll share their thoughts nonetheless. It is this “camp” of fans which tend to be lounder than the others.

For the most part, it has been my experience that if a reader of a comic book enjoys and/or is satisfied with the end result they’re not going to necessarily go out of their way to spread the word of their content. Sure, they might make a point to truly express what they did like about the comic or come to the defense when they read unflattering posts and it is honestly appreciated by everyone involved with the project.

Having vested what we have in Star Trek (or Transformers, or Angel, or 24) I make it a point to hear and read — good or bad — what is being said. I probably hear and read more across a larger expanse of venues than your average poster who feels compelled to express their opinions with a blog or message bost. I can honestly say that the favorable has outweighed the unfavorable — it’s just that those on the unfavorable team tends to turn the volume up a bit more.

As a Star Trek fan I can honestly say that I’m proud of what we’re accomplishing as a team. Are we batting a thousand? No. But like with any maiden voyage there’s going to be a bit of a “shakedown” at first. Having the knowledge of what is in store as well as seeing what is soon to come I’m not worried. The volume is sure to adjust and equalize and I foresee a pleasnt voyage.

To quote Mr. Erik Larsen, “But that’s just one fan’s opinion.” Like so many others out there.

Thanks.

As the current Editor on IDW’s Star Trek comic books, I welcome the thoughts and opinions of Star Trek fans regarding the current titles — just drop me a line.

My Love Letter To The Princess Of Mars

Late in 2005 I began work on writing a six-issue comic book adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars scheduled to premiere the summer of 2006 with art by Ted McKeever. Unfortunately, the project was never published — but as they say, “them’s the breaks.” I was really jazzed about the opportunity to adapt one of my favorite works from one of my favorite authors that I read while growing up — Edgar Rice Burroughs. I’ll admit the the while I relished in the opportunity, the task was somewhat daunting — but I wouldn’t have passed it up for the world.

Why am I bringing it up now? Well, I figured that although my comic book adaptation of A Princess of Mars may ever see the light of day, I’d go ahead and share the script for the first issue that I wrote. You can find it here. If you give it a read, please be sure to let me know what you think.

Century Post

This post represents my 100th post since I started using WordPress. Of the various blogging methods I’ve tried over the last couple of years, WordPress has by far proven to be my favorite to use.

While I’m on the subject of blogging… For some reason since my return to blogging earlier this month it appears that my blog is visited the most on Wednesdays. I mean it really spikes — something like two to three times higher than the average daily hits. Not sure why.

No real reason to this post other than to get post 100 out of the way.

My Oscar Picks

Alright gang… It’s that time of the year again — Oscar time! The nominations were released under the cloak of pre-dawn darkness last Tuesday and some were surprising and some weren’t so surprising. Now note, I didn’t see many of the nominated pictures from 2006 so this is petty much a “Speculative Preview” of my picks for this year’s winners.

Best Picture

• The Departed
• The Queen – Basically because it did well at the Golden Globes.
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Babel
• Letters From Iwo Jima

Achievement in Directing

• Martin Scorsese The Departed
• Stephen Frears The Queen – See above.
• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Babel
• Paul Greengrass United 93
• Clint Eastwood Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Original Screenplay

• Babel
• Letters From Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• The Queen – Once again, see above.

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• Children of Men
• The Departed
• Little Children
• Notes on a Scandal – This just looks like the kind of screenplay the Academy digs.

Best Actress

• Helen Mirren The Queen – From what I understand, she is a “goddess” to work with and a master of her craft.
• Judi Dench Notes on a Scandal
• Meryl Streep The Devil Wears Prada
• Penelope Cruz Volver
• Kate Winslet Little Children

Best Actor

• Forest Whitaker The Last King of Scotland – Basically to see if he can pull of a better job with his acceptance speech than he did with the Golden Globes.
• Peter O’Toole Venus
• Will Smith The Pursuit of Happyness
• Leonardo DiCaprio Blood Diamond
• Ryan Gosling Half Nelson

Best Supporting Actress

• Jennifer Hudson Dreamgirls
• Cate Blanchett Notes on a Scandal – Hudson got the Golden Globe and Breslin is too young and not Dakota Fanning.
• Abigail Breslin Little Miss Sunshine
• Adriana Barraza Babel
• Rinko Kikuchi Babel

Best Supporting Actor

• Eddie Murphy Dreamgirls – Shot in the dark on this one. Is he ready to be recognized? I don’t think they’ll give it to “Kelly Leak” — he has been out of the limelight for a long time.
• Jackie Earle Haley Little Children
• Alan Arkin Little Miss Sunshine
• Mark Wahlberg The Departed
• Djimon Hounsou Blood Diamond

Achievement in Cinematography

• The Black Dahlia
• Children of Men
• The Illusionist
• Pan’s Labyrinth – This film just looks amazing.
• The Prestige

Best Film Editing

• Babel
• Blood Diamond
• Children of Men
• The Departed
• United 93 – I get the feeling that in order to keep this movie taunt it relied heavily on the editing.

Achievement in Sound Editing

• Apocalypto
• Blood Diamond
• Flags of Our Fathers
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Saw — and heard — this one.
• Letters From Iwo Jima

Best Foreign-Language Film

• ‘Water’ – Canada
• ‘The Lives of Others’ – Germany
• ‘After the Wedding’ – Denmark
• ‘Days of Glory (Indigenes)’ – Algeria
• ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ – Mexico – The “adult fairy tale” — I’m sold.

Best Original Song

• ‘I Need to Wake Up’ – Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge An Inconvenient Truth
• ‘Love You I Do’ – Music by Henry Krieger; Lyric by Siedah Garrett Dreamgirls
• ‘Our Town’ – Music and Lyric by Randy Newman Cars – Isn’t Randy Newman due for another Oscar for a song that sounds so much like the others he has had nominated before?
• ‘Patience’ – Music by Henry Krieger; Lyric by Willie Reale Dreamgirls
• ‘Listen’ – Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler; Lyric by Anne Preven Dreamgirls

Achievement in Sound Mixing

• Apocalypto
• Blood Diamond
• Flags of Our Fathers
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Sound Mixing goes with Sound Editing.
• Dreamgirls

Best Original Score

• Babel
• The Good German
• Notes on a Scandal
• Pan’s Labyrinth
• The Queen – Total guess on this one.

Best Art Direction

• Dreamgirls
• The Good Shepherd
• Pan’s Labyrinth – Agian, this movie looks amazing.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• The Prestige

Best Animated Feature Film

• Cars
• Happy Feet – I didn’t see Happy Feet, but I did see Cars and I wasn’t impressed.
• Monster House

Achievement in Makeup

• Apocalypto
• Click
• Pan’s Labyrinth – Some pretty trippy looking creatures in this movie.

Achievement in Costume Design

• Curse of the Golden Flower
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Dreamgirls
• Marie Antoinette
• The Queen – I’ve been to enough Renaissance Faires to appreciate these costumes.

Best Visual Effects

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – A lot of visual effects for a “pirate” movie — and they looked damn cool.
• Poseidon
• Superman Returns

How many will I actually get right? Dunno. Check back after February 25th.

T-Shirt Tuesday: Ninja Bandito

I’m starting something new this Tuesday — a little shameless self-promotion and and an attempt to drum up some support for my various projects (the ones on the front burners as well as those off to the side) in the works. I’m not sure if it’ll happen every Tuesday, but Tuesdays will be the days that you can expect to find T-Shirt Tuesday here at the ol’ blog. What it will be is a showcase for various t-shirts and the like that I’m offering at my CafePress store GeekPunk Gear. Like I said — shameless self-promotion.

First up… The Ninja Bandito T-Shirt. The perfect shirt for Ninjas and/or Banditos. Fresh from the creative endeavors of artist Dustin Evans and yours truly, the Ninja Bandito is sure to take the world by storm. Be the first on your block sport this snappy tee and rightfully claim that you were with the Ninja Bandito from the very beginning. Additional Ninja Bandito swag is available. Domo arigato, amigo.

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip – “Monday”

Finally… Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip returns to its regular timeslot (Monday 10:00 PM) on NBC tonight. Seven weeks is way too long of “a break” between new episodes of a freshman series looking to get a foothold with viewers in the primetime schedule. If I didn’t know better, I would think that NBC was actually trying to sabotage this show so they can wipe if from their program board and make room for yet another hour of Deal, Or No Deal (shudder). But, NBC and I seem to have a love/hate relationship when it comes to certain television shows. For example — my other favorite NBC (probably any network) program, Scrubs. Over the years they’ve done plenty to bounce that show around the schedule and delay season premieres.

But Studio 60 is back tonight. Hopefully with the 7-week hiatus this means that I’ll have a healthy string of new shows for a couple of months. Tonight’s episode:

Monday (Episode 12)

The staff comes back from the holiday break to prepare for the first show of the year; Danny is in full pursuit of Jordan; Matt bids in an online auction for a date with Harriet.

If you watch Studio 60 then you’re in the same happy camp as I am. If y0u’re not familiar with the show you should check it out — episodes are available at the iTunes Store.

The Space Between Begins Now

It’s Comic Book Wednesday! But not just any Comic Book Wednesday. Let this serve as a little reminder for comic book readers and Star Trek fans that the first issue of IDW Publishing’s Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between hits comic book store shelves today! I’m not only excited about this because I am the Editor for this series, but as a comic book fan and a Star Trek fan. It is my honest opinion (completely non-biased, of course) that Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Space Between will not dissapoint. And from what I know on the inside, things are only going to get better for IDW’s Star Trek line.

So far the early reviews have been good… From good reader gone bad:

The bottom line first: Everyone working on this comic clearly has an appreciation for Star Trek and I think Star Trek comics fans are in good hands.

And from Fractal Matter:

Not just good STAR TREK but good science fiction, this is a great debut in the TREK universe for IDW and completely deserving of your time.

And there are a couple of more interviews with the creative team to be found online — writer David Tischman at ComicBookResources.com and artist Casey Maloney at Broken Frontier.

If anybody has any questions regarding IDW’s Star Trek comics feel free to drop me a line.

Ladies and Gentlemen… The Ninja Bandito!

I couldn’t hold out any longer — here’s the big reveal… Ninja Bandito! This is a character concept that I’ve been kicking around for some time. Then I asked artist Dustin Evans if he’d be game on giving a little Ninja Bandito character design a try — and voila!

Dustin did a bang-up job — inspiring me to do much more with the character than originally planned. Exactly what are the new plans for Ninja Bandito? There will be a web site — ninjabandito.com. Ninja Bandito has a myspace page. And, I’m trying a few test products out at cafepress. This is all just the beginning leading to… Ninja Bandito: The Comic Book! Stay tuned.

UPDATED: Free Ninja Bandito Preview available here.

Retooling and Housekeeping

I did a few modifications to the ol’ blog. Added a bunch of fresh links as well as a plug for Super Deluxe Hero Happy Hour available for purchase online at the IDW web store. I moved the sidebar widgets around–shouldn’t confuse anybody.

In fact, I’ll offer up a little contest. The first person who leaves a comment listing at least ten new links that I added today will win a copy of Super Deluxe Hero Happy Hour.

And the retooling and housekeeping doesn’t stop with the blog. I’m hoping to get a lot of busy work done this weekend. I’ve got a number of projects on various burners, web sites that need to be updated, and I seriously need to get some eBay auctions rolling.

Tischman Talks Trek

An interview with David Tischman has been posted at Comic News International where he discusses writing the new Star Trek: The Next Generation comic book series for IDW. You figure he could have mentioned how valuable and helpful my input as editor has been. And how without me and my Trek knowledge at the helm he would be lost amid a void of confusion and self-doubt. But I only get the briefest of mentions. Oh, well… You just wait Tischman.