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honoka-marierose · 4 months

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Black Widow's track record in the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't always been flawless. The highs ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier") were certainly high, but the lows ("Avengers: Age of Ultron") were just as low. Still, the operative otherwise known as Natasha Romanoff was always the MCU's secret weapon. She practically ran away with every film she appeared in, and for a large part of the franchise's initial run, she was one of the few female characters making a consistent impact. But as Johansson continued to turn in solid supporting performances, it was hard to ignore the fact that she'd yet to get a chance to stand on her own.

By the time Marvel finally delivered a solo Black Widow project, it felt like way too little, too late. "Black Widow" found itself somewhere in the middle of the franchise's 15-year output: it did its title character justice, in a way, but it wasn't exactly worth the wait either. It didn't help that the film came hot on the heels of Natasha's shocking sacrifice in "Avengers: Endgame," perhaps as a conciliation prize for over a decade of demand for more female-centered stories.

"Black Widow" was only the second MCU film to feature a female lead after 2019's "Captain Marvel." Why exactly did it take so long for Marvel to give the people what they want; to recognize that the future is, in fact, female? The answer is tangled in a whole lot of red tape, but the behind-the-scenes book "MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios" boils down years of conflict to one pervasive issue: the obstinance of former Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter.

A tentative start

A Black Widow movie had been a topic of discussion even before the formation of the MCU. Conversations were taking place as far back as 2004 when Lionsgate optioned the rights to adapt the character in a feature film. Back then, Black Widow was considered the easiest Marvel character to bring to the big screen: there was already a precedent for spy films with the rise of Jason Bourne and his gritty, jet-setting contemporaries.

"X-Men" screenwriter David Hayter had been tapped to write and direct for Lionsgate — but whatever progress he made was halted by a new wave of ill-received action vehicles. "Unfortunately, as I was coming up on the final draft, a number of female vigilante movies came out," Hayter told the "MCU" authors. Some — like "Tomb Raider," "Underworld" and "Kill Bill" — were bankable hits. Others, however, weren't so lucky. After the less-than-auspicious release of the Charlize Theron-led "Æon Flux," Lionsgate pulled the plug on its Black Widow movie.

"'Æon Flux' didn't open well," Hayter recalled. "And three days after it opened the studio said, 'We don't think it's time to do this movie.'"

Hayter went on to develop Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" and Netflix's "Warrior Nun," but still looks back with regret on Lionsgate's canceled plans. "I accepted their logic in terms of the saturation of the marketplace, but it was pretty painful," he continued. "I had not only invested a lot of time in that movie, but I had also named my daughter, who was born in that time period, Natasha."

Designing Natasha

When Black Widow made her MCU debut in "Iron Man 2," Hollywood was still acclimating to the idea of a female-fronted superhero film. Fans seemed to want a solo Black Widow film right off the bat, but Marvel and its notoriously meddlesome Creative Committee remained lukewarm to the idea.

Johannson, meanwhile, was working hard to prime Black Widow for an imminent solo film. With the help of Joss Whedon, Nastaha's appearance in "The Avengers" felt much more grounded and nuanced. "Joss Whedon and I talked about her past," Johansson said. "Who is she? How does she get to be a mercenary? What path do you follow in order to get to that place? We both wanted to see the darker side of her — why did she have to learn those skills?"

Johansson's conversations with Whedon would lay the groundwork for Natasha's long-gestating solo film. "The Avengers" established her strong relationship with fellow Avenger Clint Barton, spun a compelling tale of her time before S.H.I.E.L.D., and reintroduced her as an operative with her own agenda. Johansson seemed much more at home in the role, which only made her performance that much more captivating. Natasha was holding her own with a handful of superpowered men. But that, in turn, raised an "obvious question": if Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man got to continue their arcs in their own films, why couldn't Black Widow?

Trouble in the toy aisle

As years passed, Marvel continued to drag its feet on a solo Black Widow movie. "There's no definitive plans," Kevin Feige said in 2011. "But we have started talking, and talking with Scarlett, about what a Widow movie could be."

But despite Feige's claims of progress, Marvel seemed no closer to greenlighting a Black Widow film. At the end of the day, the argument kept circling back to merchandise sales. "Toymakers will tell you [female heroes] won't sell enough," Whedon said in 2013. And given that the head of Marvel at the time, Ike Perlmutter, had made his name in the toy business, he had no problem clinging to that philosophy. For years, Black Widow action figures were conspicuously missing from toy shelves. The same goes for the female characters that followed in her footsteps, like Zoe Saldaña's Gamora from "Guardians of the Galaxy."

Things seemed to come to a head in 2015 when IndieWire's "Women and Film" blog uncovered an email sent from Perlmutter to a Sony executive. The message was brief, containing a short list of female-led superhero movies and their respective box office takeaways. Perlmutter cited "Catwoman" and "Elektra" as financial disasters, likely to discourage Sony from investing in a female action hero. (In 2014, Sony had announced its plans to develop a female-centered story for the Spider-Man Universe — just days before Perlmutter sent his email to Sony's Michael Lynton.)

Kevin Feige's last straw

By the time Perlmutter's email was leaked to the public, the outcry had reached its zenith. Female fans seemed more visible than ever, but female heroes continued to be sidelined in the MCU. It wasn't just Black Widow; fans were also disappointed in Marvel's decision to exclude the Wasp from "The Avengers," despite her being a founding member of the supergroup in the comics. Though she'd later appear in "Ant-Man," the 2015 film didn't do quite enough with her character. "Guardians of the Galaxy," meanwhile, had pulled a large female audience in its theatrical run (more than 40% of the audience was female). Change was certainly in the air, but Marvel remained unmoved by it.

Even Marvel head Kevin Feige had seemingly had enough and all-but-directly addressed Perlmutter's emails in a 2014 interview with Comic Book Resources. "I very much believe that it's unfair to say, 'People don't want to see movies with female heroes,' then list five movies that were not very good," he said. "And they don't mention 'Hunger Games,' 'Frozen,' 'Divergent.' You can go back to 'Kill Bill' or 'Aliens.' These are all female-led movies. It can certainly be done."

Feige's "unusually blunt criticism" of Perlmutter and the Creative Committee was one sign of his efforts behind the scenes. In 2017, Vanity Fair reported that Perlmutter had been "quietly sidelined" in "a long-overdue" management restructuring at Disney. Sources close to Marvel cited Perlmutter's "outdated opinions about casting, budgeting, and merchandising" — as well as his financial support of then-President Donald Trump — for the studio's switch in leadership.

The next generation

Once Feige was promoted to Chief Creative Officer, the MCU immediately pivoted to make its projects more inclusive. With films like "Black Panther" and "Captain Marvel," the franchise was finally beginning to mirror its audience. Those efforts paved the way for "Black Widow" to finally bow in 2021 — but even with all that red tape finally cleared, the film would have its own set of problems.

Still, for all that frustration, at least we know why it took so long to get more women-centered films off the ground. Marvel has since introduced a handful of powerful female heroes, all of whom owe some measure of debt to Black Widow, and to Johannson. It is, of course, a shame that she never got to truly enjoy the fruits of her labor: with Natasha's death in "Endgame," the MCU lost one of its most nuanced characters. "Black Widow" proved that she still had plenty to give, all while offering a brief glimpse into the sort of blockbuster vehicles that fans (and actors) have been denied for years.

Alas, such is the nature of a trailblazer. Marvel is still grappling with a new set of issues in its latest phase, but with Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, it's safe to say that the Black Widow mantle is in good hands. Hopefully, we won't have to wait another 10 years to see her solo vehicle.

#marvel #marvel comics #marvel cinematic universe #marvel studios #mcu #black widow #black widow movie #black widow mcu #iron man 2 #scarlet johansson #kevin feige

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wikiuntamed · 8 months

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Five steps of Wikipedia for Thursday, 28th September 2023

Welcome, שלום, Bienvenue, Willkommen 🤗 Five steps of Wikipedia from "Peek-A-Poo" to "1908 Nobel Prize in Literature". 🪜👣

Start page 👣🏁: Peek-A-Poo "Peek-A-Poo: What's In Your Diaper? (originally titled Mag Ik Eens In Je Luier Kijken?) is a 2010 picture book for children pertaining to toilet training, catered to children of ages two to five, written and illustrated by Guido van Genechten and published by Clavis Publishing on January 1, 2010. It..."

Step 1️⃣ 👣: Allen & Unwin "George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It went on to become one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and to establish an Australian subsidiary in 1976. In 1990, Allen & Unwin was..."

Step 2️⃣ 👣: Bertrand Russell "Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer..."

Image licensed under CC0? by Anefo

Step 3️⃣ 👣: 1906 Nobel Prize in Literature "The 1906 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Italian poet Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) "not only in consideration of his deep learning and critical research, but above all as a tribute to the creative energy, freshness of style, and lyrical force which characterize his poetic masterpieces."..."

Image by R. Borghi

Step 4️⃣ 👣: 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature "The 1910 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German writer Paul Heyse (1830–1914) "as a tribute to the consummate artistry, permeated with idealism, which he has demonstrated during his long productive career as a lyric poet, dramatist, novelist and writer of world-renowned short stories."..."

Image by Nobel Foundation

Step 5️⃣ 👣: 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature "The 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German philosopher Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846–1926) "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, and the warmth and strength in presentation with which in his numerous works he..."

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#FiveStepsOfWikipedia #GemsOfWikipedia #WikiQuest #WikiExplorer #WhereNext

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remixinc · 1 year

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vimeo

Vogue "I Love New York" from Peter Spark on Vimeo.

Created and Directed by Bardia Zeinali Written by Jeremy O. Harris Fashion Editor: Jorden Bickham Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg Produced by Peter Spark and Natalie Pfister for One Thirty-Eight Productions

Cast: Paperboy Prince, Julia Fox, Paloma Elsesser, Emily Ratajkowski, Richie Shazam, Misty Copeland, Sean Bennett, Tashawn “Whaffle” Davis, LeeRock Starski, May Hong, David Byrne, Dara Allen, Ceyenne Doroshow, Tyshawn Jones, Raquel Willis, Akira Armstrong, Nicholas Heller, Tic and Tac, Ari Serrano, Naomi Otsu, Indya Moore, Bella Hadid, Erma Campy, Parker Kit Hill, Soul Tigers Marching Band, Kitty Kitty, Josephine Giordano, Ashley aka bestdressed, Eman Abbas, the Rockettes (Jackie Aitken, Tiffany Billings, Katie Hamrah, Alicia Lundgren), Joan Smalls, Leiomy Maldonado

Director of Photography: Chayse Irvin

Edited by Will Town at Modern Post

Production Managers: Hye-Young Shim, Hayley Stephon Wardrobe Coordinator: Leo Becerra Location Manager: Miles Sobeleski Production: Andrew Carbone, Andrew Gowen, Auguste Taylor-Young, Ben Elias, Francis McKenzie, Hased Ike, Henry Pskowski, Jacob Gottlieb, Liam Wahl, Lucas Veltrie, Luis Jaramillo, Matt Nussbaum, Max Thuemler, Zach Berry

Hair: Mustafa Yanaz Hair (Indya Moore, Joan Smalls): Hos Hounkpatin

Makeup: Emi Kaneko

Set Design: Hans Maharawal

AD: James Woods

Main Unit 1st AC - Camera A: Philey Sanneh Main Unit 2nd AC - Camera A: Emma Penrose Main Unit Loader: Helen Cassel Main Unit Key Grip / Gaffer: Iain Trimble Main Unit Grip / Swing: Greg Waszcuk B Camera Op: Sam Ellison B Camera - 1st AC: Carolyn Pender B Camera Loader: Olivia Kimmel B Camera - 2nd AC: Alex Dubois Sound Tech: Matt Caufield 2nd Unit DP: Mika Altskan Exquisite Human DP: Jac Martinez Exquisite Human 1st AC: Alice Boucherie Exquisite Human Camera PA: Royce Paris

Casting: Sergio Kletnoy, Felicity Webb, Nicholas Heller Movement Director: Vinson Fraley Tailor: Cha Cha Zutic Assistant to the Fashion Editor: Austen Turner Medic: Paradocs

Color: Tim Masick at Company 3 Stills Post Production: Dtouch Music Supervision: Jessica Gramuglia, HiNote Sound Design: Raphaël Ajuelos Music: “Rhapsody in Blue” performed by Philharmonia Orchestra; “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad” performed by Moby Title Design: Naomi Otsu Motion Design: Rinaldi Parungao for Mango Motion Design Visual Effects: Ilia Mokhtareizadeh at The Arcane Collective, Zdravko Stoitchkov at ZeeFX Assistant Editor: Lauren Friedman Archival Research: Maggie Reville

Filmed At: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Park Avenue Armory, Radio City Music Hall, Top of the Rock

Special Thanks: Kodak, Millennium Hilton New York Downtown, The Smile

Vogue: Mark Guiducci, Creative Editorial Director; Robert Semmer, Vice President, Head of Video; Marina Cukeric, Executive Producer; Samantha Adler, Visual Director; Sergio Kletnoy, Entertainment Director; Felicity Webb, Bookings Director; Janelle Okwodu, Senior Fashion News Writer; Jenna Allchin, Producer; Olivia Horner, Visual Editor

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marvelousescapism · 3 years

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okay so I saw you rb a serpent society post (and while ik it would've been a better MCU story than civil war), but I don't really know anything about it except that it actually IS a Steve Story™️ not a story with Steve in it...

can you shed some light pls? what is the serpent society storyline

oh mannnn Serpent Society haunts me. incase anyone else doesn't know what Serpent Society is/was going to be lemme give a little rundown: it was the original title for the third cap movie when it was first announced, here's proof:

and basically it was going to be about.. you know.. Captain America, because originally it was an actual Captain America movie, not just Avengers 3 or Iron Man 4, which it turned into when they decided to write Civil War instead 😒

and they'll try to tell you it was just a fake name to throw people off the scent of Civil War but THAT'S A LIE because there's a nefarious Paragraph™ out there that they started writing before they were told to write the Civil War plot instead (I can't remember whether M&M said it was Kevin Feige or Whedon who stuck his head around the door and said "what about Civil War"? but I'm pretty sure it was one of them) and we all know one of the main reasons they decided to change it to the Civil War plot was because they wanted a big Superhero Vs Superhero movie to rival DC's Batman Vs Superman because creativity is bankrupt within the mcu

and essentially Serpent Society was going to be about the Cap Quartet, hunting down Bucky, taking out Hydra, but that's all we know. and we can theorize also that it would have included the comic book team of bad guys called - you guessed it - the Serpent Society! (all the bad guys in that group have snake-themed names and the leader is a guy called King Cobra, but that's the extent of my knowledge)

she could have been the best movie in the cap trilogy. she could have given us the found family content we crave. she could have changed the course of the mcu for good. but she's gone now and i mourn her

also i’m pretty sure they were gonna give us a juicy flashback to steve’s childhood and his momma sarah but they decided instead to give that to tony when they changed it to civil war, but that's just me theorizing in my bitter little brain

#does anyone have the paragraph btw? istg i've seen it floating around but idk #anti mcu #anti cacw #serpent society #captain america #ask #into-a-ship-or-2

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land-of-brains-and-chocolate · 4 years

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here’s the entirety of the paywalled businessinsider article interviewing charles beacham about marvel’s racism in staffing and editorial decisions!

In the early 2010s, Marvel's comics business focused on a diverse slate of new characters, but by 2017 comic sales had fallen, which resulted in the exit of editor-in-chief Axel Alonso.

Three former Marvel editors and one current editor told Business Insider that in the years since, Marvel has recommitted to nostalgia and classic, mostly white characters, often at the expense of some of those diverse characters like Miles Morales, a biracial teenage Spider-Man.

That shift was guided by an editorial department that lacked diversity, particularly in leadership roles. Today, there are no Black staffers on Marvel's editorial team of about 18 people, and only two people of color, Marvel confirmed.

"My voice and what I brought to the table wasn't valued equally," said Charles Beacham, one of two Black editorial staffers to work at Marvel in the past five years.

Have a tip? Email the author at [email protected] or DM him on Twitter @TravClark2.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Miles Morales was the character who pulled Charles Beacham into the world of comics.

Beacham was studying journalism at Brigham Young University, in Utah, when he walked into a comics shop in 2011 and picked up a copy of Morales' first appearance. Beacham, who is Black, said he was amazed to see Morales — a teenage Spider-Man who has a Black father and Puerto Rican mother — in its pages.

"When I was growing up, I always wanted to be the red Power Ranger, and the other kids would say I had to be the black Ranger," Beacham said. "The same thing happened with Spider-Man. They'd say, 'You can't be Spider-Man because Peter Parker's not a Black dude.' Seeing Miles Morales made me wish I had that as a kid."

Morales propelled Beacham into comics and into Marvel itself, where he worked as an assistant editor.

"I didn't have job prospects when I moved to New York in 2013, but the goal was to work for Marvel because of Miles Morales," Beacham said. When he landed a job at the company the next year, he loved it.

But Beacham, now 31, was living in New York City with a child on a $38,000 salary. He said that after three years as an assistant editor, from 2014 to 2017, without a promotion, he was ready to leave. It wasn't about the money as much as the lack of a path forward.

"I thought I'd be at Marvel forever," he said. "If they had promoted me I'd probably still be there and surviving on ramen."

Beacham is one of two Black editorial staffers to have worked at Marvel in the past five years, the company confirmed. The second Black staffer, also an assistant editor, left this year after five years without a promotion or raise, a person familiar with the matter said. The editorial team of about 18 people now has two people of color.

"I want to be back there all the time," Beacham said. "But when it comes down to it, my voice and what I brought to the table wasn't valued equally."

Disney-owned Marvel has grown into a cultural force that extends beyond its comic books and into movies, video games, and other media. The comics are the foundation for it all, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has become the highest-grossing movie franchise of all time.

The stories that Marvel's small editorial team helps shape are central to popular culture in the US and around the world.

"Who works on these stories can help broaden them," said Regine Sawyer, the founder of Women in Comics Collective International, which helps to spotlight the comics work of marginalized people.

That was clear from 2011 to 2017, when Marvel ushered in a new era for its comic books under then editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, who is Mexican American.

New and diverse characters like Morales took center stage instead of Marvel's decades-old classic characters, who were primarily white. These characters inspired new fans like Beacham, and continue to inspire new fans as they make their way to other media.

But by 2017, Marvel's comic sales had fallen. Marvel's president of sales, David Gabriel, publicly blamed it on diversity. Alonso exited the company and was replaced by a white man in the role of top editor. Marvel reversed course.

Now, in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd and the protests that followed, Marvel is promising to once again introduce more diversity to its ranks and its stories.

Marvel chairman Ike Perlmutter sent a letter to employees on June 18 saying the company would "support more Black voices."

And in a memo to staff sent July 6, Marvel's president, Dan Buckley, outlined three areas of focus for Marvel moving forward:

broaden Marvel's creative landscape, which includes identifying "what has traditionally prevented us in the industry from recruiting and fostering more BIPOC talent."

build a foundation of lasting growth by "examining our internal culture and rebuilding our long-term process for talent recruitment, retention, and outreach to communities of color."

create new initiatives and expansion opportunities by "looking to explore new projects that will enable us to reach and represent an even broader audience."

In addition to Beacham, Business Insider spoke with two former Marvel editors and a current editor. Aside from Beacham, the Marvel insiders spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their stance at the company or job prospects. They said they weren't confident in Marvel's latest initiative.

"The guy who made a commitment to diversity and wanted to try new things was fired," a former Marvel staffer said, referring to Alonso.

'Spider-Man with an asterisk'

Alonso led Marvel through a bold era during his time as editor-in-chief starting in 2011, helping to establish a diverse slate of characters.

Jane Foster was the new Thor. Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, a Black character, replaced Steve Rogers as Captain America. Riri Williams, a Black girl, was introduced as an Iron Man-like character named Ironheart. Kamala Khan, a Pakistani American Muslim teenager, was the new Ms. Marvel.

It wasn't a new phenomenon in comic books. Characters are regularly passing on their mantles, at least for a while. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, was DC's Batman for a time in the early 2010s, for instance. Sam Wilson wasn't the first person to take over as Captain America. This era at Marvel Comics, however, was notable for how it emphasized diversity.

But by 2017 — Alonso's final year as editor-in-chief — the company's print sales had plummeted (Marvel in 2014 said that Ms. Marvel's solo title was a top seller digitally, but digital comics sales aren't released to the public).

"What we heard is that people didn't want any more diversity," David Gabriel, the vice president of sales at Marvel Entertainment, said that year in an interview with ICv2, a website that covers the comics business.

"I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales," Gabriel said. "Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up."

What Gabriel meant by "core Marvel character" were the classic, decades-old characters being sidelined for new, younger, and more diverse characters.

Seven months later, in November 2017, Marvel's Alonso stepped down from his role and was replaced by C.B. Cebulski, a white man who faced controversy when he was hired after admitting to writing comics in the early 2000s under a Japanese pseudonym.

"The comics that [Alonso] made me think I could work in comics," Beacham said. "But when a Latinx guy is scapegoated for diversity and replaced by a white dude, and the sentiment was that Marvel was 'getting away from its roots,' what does that mean?"

In a statement after his 2017 comments, Gabriel emphasized that "our new heroes are not going anywhere."

But in the months between that retailer summit and Alonso's exit, Marvel introduced an initiative for editorial staff that had been discussed internally for some time: Phase out the familiar superhero codenames for some newer, diverse characters and give them their own, two former assistant editors including Beacham said.

Marvel confirmed to Business Insider that it had previously considered stripping Morales of his Spider-Man title and giving him a new name, but has no plans to do so right now. Marvel added that it discusses status quo changes for all of its top characters.

Today, some of the classic characters have been thrust back into the spotlight. Steve Rogers has taken back the mantle of Captain America, and Thor is a man again. Miles Morales shares the Spider-Man title with Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man.

Morales has grown in popularity beyond comic books, having starred in Sony's Oscar-winning animated "Into the Spider-Verse" movie in 2018 and in a coming PlayStation video game called "Spider-Man: Miles Morales."

Beacham said he was glad that Morales continued to be a Spider-Man.

"It would have made him less important," Beacham said of Morales' losing the Spider-Man title. "He becomes Spider-Man with an asterisk. It takes away the power for kids who relate to this character."

'There's not a lack of people who can do the work'

Now, Marvel's comic-book slate is once again largely focused on classic characters, though characters like Morales and Khan remain. And there are some comics starring diverse characters from creators of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Black Panther." But their stories are in the hands of an editorial department run by an establishment of white male leadership.

"There's not a lack of people who can do the work," said Yumy Odom, the founder of the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention, which helps to showcase the talents of creators of color. "But it's about how receptive the industry is to them. I can think of 20 creators, mostly African Americans, who would be ready to work at Marvel."

Women faced an uphill battle at Marvel as well, the Marvel editors said. A female former assistant editor told Business Insider that she was never promoted or given a raise from her $30,000 salary in her three years at the company. She said she got promoted within a year at her new company, a different comics publisher.

Marvel declined to discuss employee salaries.

The Marvel insiders said a notable exception was Sana Amanat, who is Pakistani American and a former editor. She is now Marvel's head of content and character development, a leadership role outside the editorial department.

'There's a whole cohort of young readers'

Marvel has significantly bounced back from its 2017 sales decline, which might suggest that the refocus on its classic characters reeled longtime readers back.

Of the top 100 best-selling comics of 2020 so far, 69 belonged to Marvel, as of Wednesday, including four of the top five, and the company has accounted for 41% of comic sales this year, according to industry website Comichron. Three years ago, Marvel was lagging behind DC, its biggest competitor.

An example of the start of this resurgence was the first issue of Marvel's "Amazing Spider-Man" relaunch — starring the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker — which ranked fifth in 2018 out of all comics, according to data from Comichron. In contrast, when Marvel launched a series called "Miles Morales Spider-Man" in that year, the debut issue didn't crack the top 200 best-selling comics.

"People of a certain age have a connection with Peter Parker, not Miles Morales," a former Marvel staffer said. "Years from now, that may be different."

The current and former Marvel staffers Business Insider spoke with said they were hopeful that readership could broaden, particularly now that characters such as Morales and Khan are being introduced to audiences in other media like movies and TV. Khan is to appear in a Disney Plus TV series and the upcoming "Avengers" video game, for instance.

There are signs that the comics industry is going through a larger shift in how people read and who is reading, which could also spur change.

Last year, comic sales through the "book channel" — which includes chain and independent book stores and online retailers like Amazon — surpassed comic-book stores for the first time, driven by the increased popularity in children's graphic novels, according to an analysis by ICv2.

Milton Griepp, the chief executive of ICv2, said at the New York Comic Con conference last year that the shift could usher in a new audience for superhero comic books.

"There's a whole cohort of young readers that are being introduced to this medium and may graduate to other forms of content in the comic format over the course of their lifespans," Griepp said.

Beacham said: "Marvel needs to figure out the next stage of its core demographic because it could change rapidly."

#marvel #businessinsider.com is going to hunt me down like a wild animal

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roscgcld · 3 years

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i wanna give my two cents on the whole nsfw content!!

i dont mind it really i actively indulge in it myself so i can really get on it too much especially since it something that you just cant stop no matter like if its on the internet there’s gonna be p*rn of it 😭😭

my only issue is like when some people kind of get upset with you when you say you shouldn’t make nfsw content bout minors characters like i never thought i’d ever be in situations where im virtually getting my ass beat for saying “hey isnt it kind of weird to write bout fucking that 15 y/o” and they always respond with “well its fiction!” “its not real” “well i aged them up” and like okay that’s still a 15 y/o at the end of the day so what now baby 😭😭

its especially upsetting with jjk cause like gege has mentioned that he doesn’t want any sexual related content bout his main trio but click on the jjk x reader tag on here and the first thing you see is probably gonna be smut about his main trio idk its really wild to me and ik i cant force everyone to stop but its still makes me feel icky yknow

but yeah thats all i wanted to say sorry if this was kind of vent-y i just been thinking about this recently and i had a lot to say 😭😭

- L anon

I think it depends on how you see it.

For example, for me, I know there is no way to deny that smut is widespread here. And for me, I do not mind if something is written for minors if they are written in an aged-up scenario because to me, JJK and any cinematic universe (regardless of country), is just a fictional reality of a sort. Where whatever is done in that world stays in that realm of 'reality'. Also - some mangas and animes have time skip eras too - so characters can be written in that sense as well.

Before you say "oh but fiction affects reality" - that is not a fully valid argument in a sense. Many fully legal and normal people can tell the difference between what is reality and what is fiction. It is also why people who write 'dark content' will always encourage underage readers to not interact or read their works because they are worried that people who cannot differentiate people between 'real life' and 'fictional life' will start to develop their own twisted version of what is acceptable in society and what isn't.

Hence why JJK is for readers who are 16 and above - because this is around the age where you learn where the lines of 'fiction' and 'reality' starts and ends. And the people who usually can't differentiate that already have a set of issues going on with themselves, so this is where the phrase 'the consumer controls what they consume' come into play - because at the end of the day, you, as the consumer, is the one in charge of what you consume and how you choose to understand the content in your own way. Of course, there are a few who slip through the cracks, but that small majority should not be the reason as to why you ostracize an entire community who writes/produces content that is 'questionable' in terms of your own individual morals/what we are used to consuming in media. It's an art form that some people chose to use to express themselves, and it isn't harming anyone.

But this also comes down to the reader - for example, I am 19 years old. I am a legal adult in many countries, and I should not be pining over a 15-year-old child because hello; that is illegal lol. So while I know in the canon material, which I think JJK is sent in 2018 (which is an entire argument on its own), I should not be like lowkey simping for these people. But in my head, I keep thinking they are of my age? Like when I read JJK I forget that the main trio and the second years are high school students? Because the content doesn't necessarily follow the entire high school education and such? It's a trope that is used in the storyline, but the high school itself does not play a huge role in the story besides the titles given to characters, their uniforms, and how they are referred to by other characters in a sense? You know what I mean - like the high school is just a 'home base' that the characters return to, but if you take the high school aspect out, I don't necessarily think it affects the main storyline too much.

And I know Gege-sensei means well when he says he does not want people to lewd his main trio and such, but I think at the same time he knows he can't stop it. There are obviously people who are going to respect his wishes, and there are others who had no idea (like me, like I had no idea he said that 0-0) that will not know that, and will write it because they personally want to.

Plus, not gonna lie, Japan anime/manga culture and the unofficial comic books that are essentially manga fanfiction can get quite lewd and PG18 as well - so in a sense whenever you produce a body of work, I don't think you can expect it not to be lewded. It's bad, since it makes it feel like I am invalidating the creator's wish, but coming from a very like common sense and practical point of view, there is no way you can stop everyone from doing what they want in a way. You can advise and you can tell them nicely, but there are always people who are just going to do what they want.

So might as well just respect them and their decision on how they want to express their creativity, and if it is not hurting anybody, I don't see an issue with it.

#roscgcld asks #roscgcld rants #L nonnie #jujutsu kaisen #jjk

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whileiamdying · 3 years

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CULTURE: The Final Word on Tina Turner

The HBO documentary Tina gives the singer the last say on a life that was, for long periods, out of her own hands.

HANNAH GIORGIS March 27, 2021

📷 RHONDA GRAAM / HBO

Before “What’s Love Got to Do With It” was a Grammy Hall of Fame record, the title of an Angela Bassett–fronted biopic, or a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, it was a breathy little ditty sung by the British pop group Bucks Fizz. After the ABBA-reminiscent band recorded its rendition, the songwriter Terry Britten took his track to a very different artist who initially disliked it, before she brought it to life with a new vigor. “They weren’t used to a strong voice standing on top of music, but I converted it,” Tina Turner recalls in Tina, a new HBO documentary about the famed musician. “I made it my own.”

Turner did with that sleepy song what she always did with rock and roll as a genre: claim it. When the music industry didn’t open its doors to her, or to Black women more broadly, she found a window to climb through—or kicked the door down altogether. Just look at what she did for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” in 1971. “Turner upped the intensity of [John] Fogerty’s country-rock anthem by a factor of 10,” the author Jason Heller recently wrote. “It’s Turner’s soulful ecstasy that sells it.” The song may have helped liberate Tina, as Heller notes, but her cover also pushed the genre forward.

The documentary, from Oscar winners Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin, premiering today, isn’t a neat story of one woman’s triumph against the odds. Instead, it follows the artist’s constant battles for control of her life, career, and legacy. Through 2019 interviews with Turner at her home in Zurich, as well as archival footage, the film chronicles her fight for personal and creative autonomy. “Look what I have done in this lifetime, with this body,” she says at one point, her voice sounding at once triumphant and incredulous. The gravity of that contradiction hangs over Tina, which reminds its viewers not just of the star’s talent but of all the turns at which that vibrance was nearly cut off from the world altogether.

The struggle of navigating public life as a high-profile Black woman musician has been explored in other recent works: The December documentary Billie and the February biopic The United States vs. Billie Holiday both track the blues singer’s contentious relationship with the media and the music industry. And like those films, past documentaries and biopics about Whitney Houston and Nina Simone, in addition to forthcoming works about Aretha Franklin, all lack an element that differentiates Tina: the subject’s voice. In works of biographical entertainment, the impulse for an artist to control their own narrative can lead to hagiographies that strip their subjects of unflattering histories. But, like the biopic and musical before it, Tina doesn’t avoid the darker chapters of the star’s life. Framed as Turner’s farewell to public life, the documentary instead allows her to define her story in its totality, in part by revisiting—and in some cases rewriting—the eras in which others wrote it for her.

Tina homes in on two related struggles: Turner’s insistence on making it as a rock musician and her commitment to owning, and reinventing, her name. Born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, Tina Turner wasn’t destined to perform for crowds of more than 100,000 people around the world. The first of Tina’s two acts introduces her early years and the subsequent move to Missouri, where she met the locally famous musician Ike Turner. It was Ike who first called her “Tina,” a name that he chose partly for its closeness to “Sheena,” the name of a racy, jungle-dwelling comic-book character. By attaching his own last name to Tina when they became a musical duo in 1960, and then marrying the young singer in 1962, Ike hoped to keep her from abandoning him after they found success, she explains. “I was truly a friend to Ike, and I had promised to help him,” Tina says of their embattled marriage and creative partnership. “So I was still trying to help him get a hit record.”

Without glossing over the wrenching details of Ike’s physical and emotional abuse (the late singer admitted to hitting Tina, but claimed that the abuse allegations are exaggerated), the documentary highlights the moments when Tina got some respite. Recording with the producer Phil Spector in 1966, she was able to sing without Ike controlling her arrangements only because Spector had paid him not to be present. “That was a freedom I didn’t have,” Tina says of singing with boundless might over the monumental orchestration of “River Deep – Mountain High.” “You’re like a bird that gets out of a cage.” The song didn’t become a hit in the United States—unlike in the U.K.—but it planted the seeds for Tina’s genre-defying musical repertoire separate from Ike.

In the film, Turner explains why she doesn’t consider Private Dancer, the first commercial success she achieved following her divorce from Ike, a comeback record: “Tina had never arrived,” she says. “It was Tina’s debut for the first time. This was my first album.” Most often, she speaks about the immense toll of wresting her identity back from Ike—and from the subsequent media attention. Speaking about her 1978 divorce proceedings, for example, a younger Tina corrects a journalist who comments that Ike wanted to own all of the duo’s artistic work. “No, he wanted to own me,” she says.

It’s no wonder, then, that the 1986 autobiography in which Turner detailed their relationship was titled I, Tina. The journalist Kurt Loder, with whom she wrote the book, appears in the new documentary, as does Katori Hall, who co-wrote the 2019 Broadway musical about the singer’s life, also titled Tina. Hall notes that the musician’s decision to claim her name in court during a divorce in which she got nothing else was its own rebellion against Ike: “You gave me this name,” she imagines Tina thinking then. “But watch what I build with it.” There’s no shortage of works that detail or recreate the abuses the singer has suffered. But Tina, importantly, also doesn’t lose sight of how she’s remade herself after her traumas with rigor and acumen.

The constant media coverage of Ike’s alleged abuse was not the only persistent tedium the singer faced. Plenty of the documentary’s second act focuses on the barriers Tina encountered in trying to establish herself, explicitly, as a rock artist. She speaks candidly about the calculated choices she made to push back against an industry that saw her as too Black to make “white” music, listeners who suggested that she was straying from her roots, and rock critics who accused her of toying recklessly with the genre. She wonders aloud how listeners would have responded to her music if it had been released without her face—without any indication of the artist’s race—on the marketing materials. “My dream was to be the first Black rock-and-roll singer to pack places like the [Rolling] Stones,” she muses.

Undoubtedly, many of the objections to Tina’s ascent were rooted in racist perceptions of who could lay claim to rock music. One particularly revelatory moment in the documentary quotes the late John Carter, the Capitol Records executive who signed Tina as a solo artist, remembering the racist, vitriolic response of a label co-worker at the time. But other industry players recognized that her artistry pointed clearly to the genre’s Black origins. Though many of the most celebrated rock stars have been white men, its earliest pioneers were Black artists such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a multi-instrumentalist whose early-20th-century recordings brought the ecstatic expression of Black southern gospel to secular music. Along with Black radio stations, the Black church shaped the musical stylings of white rockers such as Elvis Presley. As the cultural anthropologist Maureen Mahon writes in Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll, “Turner was arguably the genuine article, someone who had the vocal sound that white rock vocalists from Mick Jagger to Janis Joplin to Robert Plant to John Fogerty were trying to achieve. She had the wrenching strain, the effortless rasp, the wails, volume, and passion, as well as the ability to somehow sound both hot and cool.”

The HBO film is certainly a celebratory work, but it doesn’t feel like a sterile product of image management. In capturing the 81-year-old singer’s reflections while she is still alive to give them, Tina offers an intimate examination of what it means for any artist—and especially a Black woman whose music has challenged the narrow confines of genre—to create her own mythos. It lets viewers, even those familiar with the arc of her career, appreciate the monumental work it took for Tina to make rock her own.

HANNAH GIORGIS is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.

#Tina Turner #What’s Love Got to Do With It #Hannah Giorgis #The Atlantic Magazine #Angela Bassett #Terry Britten #HBO #John Fogerty #Proud Mary #Creedence Clearwater Revival #Daniel Lindsay #T. J. Martin #Anna Mae Bullock #Phil Spector #Kurt Loder #Katori Hall #Mick Jagger #Janis Joplin

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

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angelicyoongie · 3 years

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Hello!! I'm kinda torn and I need an advice. I am a fanfic writer too, and I've been in tumblr for almost 4 months now. The reason why I joined Tumblr is to, like, promote my fanfic book of yoongi that is published on wattpad. So yeah, it didn't get much attention so I continued writing other fics to gain followers and I did. And then, I kinda got distracted from writing the book. I only posted the Prologue and didn't manage to continue.

On Wattpad, an editor approached me and said that my writing is what they're looking for their app called 'Webnovel'. I was so excited cuz, you know, i felt like i was about to become famous (silly, ik). And so, I kept in touch. I started writing the book; I can't post it on other platforms and fanfics were not allowed so I had to change the title, the names and other stuff. Honestly, I wasn't enjoying it. I liked it better when it was a fanfiction, and also, i can't express/write comfortably because there might be some forbidden words, italic and bold. I can't back out because I'm not sure if I'm doing it because it's for the best OR, I was just getting pressured for being forced to write 4k words a chapter per week.

So yes, I need help. What do i do?? Btw, I love your fics. I hope you respond shhshs.

-🧁🍊

Hi! I’m not sure I’m really the right person to ask this, but from what I can gather it doesn’t seem like this is really the right thing for you? Like you’re saying yourself, you enjoyed your work more when it was a fanfiction and you didn’t have to compromise on your creativity. There’s a huge difference between writing for yourself and writing for others, and I think that’s probably what you’ve been experiencing? If you want to pursue writing as a job then this is obviously a good opportunity, but if you find that you liked writing better when it was just fanfiction and less serious, then you should probably take a step back and reconsider. :) Hope you figure it out! 💖

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papermoonloveslucy · 3 years

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GRAFIC LUCY

April 26, 1953

On April 26, 1953, Lucille Ball appeared on the cover of the Chicago Sunday Tribune’s Grafic Magazine. Inside, the article is titled “Lucille and Desi. $8,000,000 TV Stars” by Hedda Hopper.

The photo on the cover is very similar to one that also appeared on this 1954 issue of Dell’s “I Love Lucy” comics. It is likely the phots were taken at the same time during the same photo shoot.

By HEDDA HOPPER

LUCILLE BALL, and Desi Arnaz. in their wildest dreams during their upsies and downsies, never imagined that one day they - a couple of strolling players - would be signed to a two-and-a-half year television contract for $8,000,000.

That's a heap of cash in any man's language, and in American money it's like finding the Glory Hole gold mine or stubbing your toe in your own back yard and starting an oil gusher. For actors to sign that kind of contract it's a Disney fantasy come to life.

Lucy has used a lot of gold dust in her hair, but she's certain now that Peter Pan came to life and covered her from head to toe with pixie dust. But, being Lucy, her one comment after signing the fabulous deal with her TV sponsors was: "It couldn't happen to a nicer pair of kids. I mean our two children, of course."

And those kids are as famous as their ma and pa. All over America last January, second in news importance to Ike Eisenhower's inauguration, was the birth of Lucille Ball's baby boy. The interest in the big event was fantastic. Tho they've been kicking around Hollywood for a long time, Lucille and Desi have grown into an American Institution in two years via TV. They've received more than fifty awards; their names have become household words.

I was In Washington for the in inauguration, when Desidero [sp] Arnaz was born.

I’d like to straighten out one point. Lucy didn't have her baby by caesarean to please her sponsors. The operation was necessary. She had her first child by the same process, and since the caesarean operation could be set for a definite date, the birth was worked into the script of the show. The writers took full advantage of it. Since the show deals with an average couple, the pre-natal period reflected that of millions who have, or were having, babies. And to make sure that nothing in poor taste crept in, the Amazes had a Catholic priest a Jewish rabbi, and a Protestant minister check each script.

Lucy wanted a boy, and her doctor told her she'd have one. "I didn't pay any attention to his prediction," says Lucy. "He told me my first baby would be a boy, too. So I had a girl."

Their show sticks to real life situations and mirrors the trials, tribulations, and fun of marriages enjoyed by millions of average men and women.

Desi credits the success of the show to that fact "Its an average love story with humor," he explains. "Audiences believe I'm in love with Lucy, and I am. Lucy ' could be a straight dramatic show. In fact, I think there's no really good comedy that couldn't be turned into drama. I believe the average man gets a kick out of Ricky (the name he uses on the show), because he somehow always manages to dominate the woman, tho the victory is not great. Women love Lucy since she gets by with things they'd like to do, but wouldn't dare try."

A fan wrote Desi: "I used to think my wife was crazy. But after following Lucy, I'm convinced all women are that way, so I'm reconciled to my wife's behavior."

Desi is proud of the fact that he and Lucy help many couples in distress. “Lucille and I used to fight a lot," says he. "Then we discovered a sense of humor about situations that came up at home. We learned to live together and like it just as Ricky and Lucy do on the show. In real life, we still have our differences, but we never go to bed without speaking. We may have a peeve between us, but one of us will always say, 'All right What are you mad about? ' That either settles It or starts a real battle, which gets the beef off our chests."

I wanted to know how much Lucy and Ricky resembled the real life Amazes.

"A lot" Desi laughed. "For example, we can never agree on the temperature of our home. I like it hot Lucy wants it cold. We put that In the show. For television the characters have to be exaggerated for the sake of comedy. But sometimes situations come up at home that give our writers ideas. For instance, our baby. Writing him into the script was completely natural. We knew what happened to couples expecting a baby."

“It was the first nine-months' pregnancy that lasted only seven weeks," said Lucy, meaning that the baby business was only on seven programs.

“And neither of our writers, Madeline Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr., is married," said Desi.

"But they know whereof they write," said Lucy. "Within three weeks after the baby was born, we received 20,000 letters, 2,000 telegrams, and hundreds of packages.”

"How many products do you indorse?" [sp] I asked.

"It's easier to tell you what we haven't indorsed, [sp]" said Lucy. "We haven't indorsed [sp] locomotives or aircraft. We have art office now on 5th Avenue in New York just to handle merchandising."

I asked how much money they could keep from their $8,000,000 contract.

"About four dollars and fifty-five cents," said Desi. "In the dear old days before taxes we could have retired for life In one year. But the government needs money. We're not complaining. Lucy doesn't have much business sense anyway. When it comes time to pay taxes, she doesn't bother trying to get exemptions. She just says, 'Bring me the check, and I'll sign it.'

"And you're still expanding instead of cutting down?" I asked.

"Yes," said Desi. "I put in 10 hours daily at my office."

"I don't bother with business," said Lucy. “That's Desi's department."

“We've got over a hundred people working for us now," said Desi. "We'll do 32 television films a year, and I'm getting a man to take over the business management so I can devote more time to the creative phase of our work. We. plan to produce other shows. Then there are pictures."

"I'm happy you two are going to make 'The Long, Long Trailer,' " I said.

"That," said Desi, "is a dream. I read the book and tried to buy it But I didn't have the money to compete with Metro. So Pandro Berman called me up and asked if Lucy and I would be interested in reading the script I told him sure, to send it over. And It was 'Long, Long Trailer.”

"It's a honey," added Lucy. "I once lived with my family in a trailer. It was all right until we all got claustrophobia. That's bad enough when you get it alone, but when it hits a whole family at the same time whew!"

"We can make pictures any time we like," said Desi "But we'll concentrate on television. But if either Lucy or I wants to do a movie, we can always pile up a backlog of TV films that will tide us over."

"I'm not particularly interested in going back to movies," said Lucy. "TV is my dish. We don't see a script at least I don't until 10 o'clock Monday morning. On Tuesday, we read from 10 to 12, then lunch. After that we start shooting. The writers usually aren't even on the set If I don't understand something, either the producer, Jess Oppenheimer, or our director, Bill Asher, explains it to me. We work four days and rest three. You cant do that in picture-making.”

"Incidentally, Desi's malapropisms aren't written into the script. The script is written in straight English. But If Desi butchers the King's English during a rehearsal, it stays in."

"Bill Frawley and Vivian Vance are wonderful additions to your cast," I said.

"We were lucky to get them," said Lucy. "When Bill's name was mentioned, I almost dropped dead. He was a big star and we couldn't afford him. But somebody said it wouldn't hurt to try to get him. Remember this was two years ago; and everybody here was scoffing at TV. Nobody knew."

People didn't know many things. For years I've watched Lucy's work and considered her one of our finest comediennes. She has versatility and great timing. But nobody gave her break. Tho he'd done several pictures, Hollywood just couldn't see Desi for dust. He had to make a living with his band, and this put him on the road for long periods. Result: "I Love Lucy."

"When we got the idea for the show, people said audiences wouldn't accept us as husband-and-wife team," said Lucy. "They didn't think audiences would believe that a girl like me and a Cuban like Desi could be married. I remember telling you this, Hedda, and you yelled back, 'But for Pete's sake, you' are married!'".

Because the Amazes finally decided to portray life as they found It regardless of how dizzy it was, they found their way of life, says Lucy. "If you have a hunch, back it," is Lucy's advice.

The headline of April 26, 1953.

#Chicago Tribune #Hedda Hopper #Lucille Ball #I Love Lucy #Desilu #Grafic Magazine #TV #1953

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