video

Hey pals, if you noticed an offensive comment on this site in the last day or so, I apologize. I didn’t get around to checking recent comments ’til late Thursday night and spotted it then. Deleted, and they can go be hateful somewhere else.

In more useful comments, Thom said in response to yesterday’s post and that news footage of a Dark Horse Comics office visit:

“The comedic tone irrationally bothers me, even though I realize it probably stems from some combination of a) copying the same tired formula for comic news pieces and b) getting to actually report on something fun for once.”

That’s a fair assessment, I think…surely during a story about comics is better than, say, a murder/suicide or a plane crash. Looking at it that way, I’m willing to give a pass even to the clichéd “bam/pow” sound effect graphics referencing a TV show from literally decades before. Though I have to admit the “CRASH” one they used for the computer was a good gag.

“Having said that, it’s cool that they showcased a variety of adult jobs at a comic book company. I bet some kids saw this (or similar) and became curious about how to break into comics.”

Yes, I was glad to see that, too. Given how short a segment it was, and how much time was given over to the reporter goofin’ around, you got brief snippets of People Working, presenting this as an actual business and not some kind of hedonistic beach party (though to be fair, I’m not sure what CrossGen’s office experience was like).

They certainly did a better job of getting that across than this early ’90s series of segments on MTV, where one of their onscreen personalities spent some time in the Marvel offices mostly introducing the next video. However, occasionally some minor production stuff gets presented, and there are short chats with Bob Harras and Mark Gruenwald:

Anyway, I’m always keeping my eye out for more period videos like these. These are a lot of fun, reminding me of a time early in my comics retailing life.

Okay, I know I’ve been dipping into the “here’s another old comics video from YouTube” well a few times lately on the ol’ site here, and sorry about that. I’ll have Genuine Content™, again soon.

Part of it is that I’ve been spending a bunch of time searching through YouTube looking for period piece comic book videos, trying desperately to avoid newer uploads by the openly deranged — “WHY WOKENESS DESTROYED MY LITTLE PONY,” “A GIRL…DRAWING A SUPERGIRL COMIC, WTF!?!?!” — that sort of thing. But I’m enjoying these clips of old news reports, weird and flawed as they are, as somewhat condescending as they can be, still provide nice looks at the World of Comics That Had Once Been.

This particular example is a short look at Dark Horse Comics from the 1990s, where we get to see Ron Randall drawing some Predator pages, and the reporter trying to do “bits” and not really succeeding (but I’ll give him the “get thee to an anatomy class” line, which is pretty good).

At least this had a little closer look at the actual production of comics. Some shade thrown at Frank Miller’s all-black page from Sin City: “I can do that!” “Yeah, no you couldn’t.”

That pic above is a still from the video I’m featuring here, a brief TV news story about the 1974 San Diego Comic Con. The image represents the sort of thing I want to see more of: vintage videos of old comic racks and folks pulling comics out of back issue bins. Watch in horror as someone flips through a bunch of unbagged Marvel Tales! And I think that Silver Surfer #1 is unbagged, too! Alas, very little comic-flipping is present beyond what you see there.

At any rate, you can kinda see what this sort of thing looked like 50 years ago, and (cough) what some shops look like now. However, you have to peer past the story’s focus, which is on what everyone’s wearing. (WARNING: the quick-cutting between a photo of William Shatner as Kirk and a person dressed as Kirk may cause seizures.) It’s really sort of frustrating, as I want to see what’s one everyone’s tables, what comics are the “hot” ones, what merch (official and otherwise) is being offered.

There are other, better, videos, that show a little more of the comics themselves (often with a breathless “this was once 10 cents, now it can cost as much as FIFTY dollars!”). Many of those are like this, however, with less focus on the comics and more on the attendees, but not quite as unbalanced as this clip.

Gee, it only took me eleven years to do another one.

Anyway, the other day I was showing the niece and nephew the “Dancing Groots” video (WARNING: OBNOXIOUS) on my phone, and after it was over my niece immediately swiped or touched or whatevered the app to see what other videos I had. And, lo and behold, there were the first two Half-Minute Mikester vids.

After watching those (and kind of cringing at the reference to the long-ago crotch-roversy over this Alex Ross cover that maybe my niece and nephew shouldn’t have heard), I thought “well, you know, maybe it’ll be fun to try doing that again, only maybe in my store and not in the laundry room at my house.” And, thus, there you go, “Half-Minute Mikester #2,” the third installment in the series because I thought I’d be cute and start with #0, just like the big funnybook publishers.

Nowadays the process seems a lot less involved in actually getting the videos out into the world…before I had to download the video from the digital camera, upload it to YouTube, wait for it to be processed, blah blah. Now on my phone, with just a little clicky-clicky, you get my dynamic action and mellifluous voice coming right at you directly out of your devices in your very own home and/or office. Yes, Old Man Mike is excited about this newfangled technology all you kids are into.

Another plus side to using the phone: the reason they were “Half-Minute” was because that the was limit of the digital camera I was using. I think maybe 40 seconds tops. Now I guess I’m just limited to however many gigabytes are this phone…and seems weird just calling it “a phone,” but I suppose “tricorder” is taken. I don’t know if that means you’ll be seeing two-hour widescreen comics-reviewing epics from me at some point in the future, since about 30 to 40 seconds is about as long as I can talk in one burst without tripping over my tongue (and it’s not like it didn’t take me a dozen tries just to get through the thing).

But at the very least I do plan on doing more videos, not just for blogging purposes but as a promotional thing for my store (that store being Sterling Silver Comics in beautiful Camarillo, CA). Maybe I’ll even show my face in one or two of them, so consider that your fair warning.