I attempted to us the new Blogger interface for this. Horrible experience. I'll be keeping the old interface for a while, thanks.
RE-SOMETHING
DC has officially kicked off its reboot with JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 this week. I haven't been to the comic shop, so I haven't picked it up. Oh, and there's another reason, I think this entire reboot thing is stupid, and don't intend to pick it up. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, here you go.
So while the video says "everything will be alright" after listing a ton of reasons why I'm not on board with this, it turns out everything is not alright and the word is getting around that this new Justice League book isn't very good at all. Its basically Batman meets Green Lantern. Batman's back to being a jerk. Hal Jordan is still a douche. They go try to beat up Superman, who is now a young douche, and that's about it. Meet the new DCU, where you can see the heroes try to beat each other up and posture in "badass" manners. Screw this. That's not even getting into some of these horrible designs. My kids can't even recognize these characters anymore.
I'm not totally against reboots and/or remakes. I think there's some things really important to consider when these are undertaken. Primarily, are you doing this for the right reason? If you truly believe that it needs to be done in order to create something better, then you're on the right intentional track. That's one of the main problems with the DC re-boot. They're trying to gain new readers, so its a stunt to gain money. Not good.
If you remain true to some key themes in the original work, you're probably on a good track as well. Its sort of the same rule has handling an adaption from one medium to another. Alterations are more readily forgiven if they keep the spirit of the original work.
What can be a problem is re-imagining a work. That's when you take a work and then put your own spin in it. A great example is the Mortal Kombat web series. Kevin Tancharoen re-imagined the concept and removed a lot of the mystical aspects of the storyline, but kept a bit of the fantastic nature. He made a video, Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, and it was a huge hit with Mortal Kombat fans. It got the go ahead from Warner Brothers to do a web-series, but it had to get Ed Boon, one of the original game creators and current head dude of things Mortal Kombat, to give the final go ahead. Well, Tancharoen's vision pretty much got squashed, and the web series ended up being a series of videos telling the origins of various characters from the games. The videos were still very good, pretty much a let down from what Rebirth promised. That's with the exception of the "Raiden" episode, which really was a great video, and the best of the series.
Mortal Kombat is about two things: martial arts and brutal finishes. Tanchareon switched the other worldly characters with twisted serial killers, but maintained incredible martial arts fighting and a brutal edge to things in the Rebirth video. But his vision didn't get the go ahead, so we're kind of left to wonder how awesome his take on things really could have been. I would love to sit down with him and talk about it though.
It does really boil down to change. On one hand DC is trying to change what they have in order to gain fans, and the fans they have are backing away from it. On the other hand, you have a fan who made something great and generated a lot of buzz and new fans, but the original creator put the breaks on things and might have shut the door on something really promising.
I've done it too. My old comic NIGHT LIFE got a bit of a reboot because when I did the original comic in college it was much later on in the character's lives. I wanted to go back and start telling their stories from an earlier spot. Sure some things got altered a bit, but my abilities and sensibilities as a storyteller have changed quite a bit sense college.
Hitting the get "Do Over" button doesn't automatically make something bad. You just have to make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.
MUSIC!!
Here's something a bit different your ya: The Oakridge Boys covering The White Stripes.
That's all for me guys. I'm getting out of here for the weekend. I haven't visited my dad in far too long and decided kind of last minute to take a trip to the mountain to see him. I'll be back Tuesday, so definitely no Sunday update again, and possibly no update next Wednesday. Yes, yes, I'm a bad blogger. See y'all later, and enjoy your Labor Day weekend.
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