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[teddog]

Rick Green? Is a cool guy in real life.

I got to help interview him today. We were dissing the quality of the first season of Prisoners of Gravity together. I didn't speak up too much, but I was honestly in awe for most of it and generally felt like a nervous wreck. I was totally made of fail. D:

There are things said in that interview that are... big and interesting things! Like...
- How he got the job hosting the series.
- The reasons why the first season Prisoners of Gravity is "lost" (I now feel bad for digging it up).
- The future of History Bites.
- The possible future of Prisoners of Gravity.
- Some goofy bits with Rick Green acting as Commander Rick. If they keep the full opening... OMG... it's SO over the top. Rick also did the "Prisoners of Gravity" rant from season one.

As soon as it's posted, I'll be linking it. This was the secret thing I was working on, although word had gotten out a couple of days ago. It was also one of my big life goals - those who know me know that Rick Green was my media hero since grade 5 and one of the reasons I decided to chase an education and job in media. Not to recreate his stuff, but to do cool crap like what he did and still does. :)

I've also been welcomed into the staff of This Week in Geek. Heaven help me, I have no idea what I have done.

How did this happen? A couple of weeks back, I got an email from Mike, one of the hosts, thanking me for my site and asking me if I wanted to involved with the interview. Turns out that he had visited my site waaaaay back when I was probably back in high school and was shocked at how much it had grown. So, this somehow spun off into me actually being on the phone during the interview. 0_0

I'm still pretty dazed.

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That rocks. ^.^

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

It kicks ass!

Seriously. There's been rumours of new PoG for a while, with Mark Askwith making a vague comment last year about how if PoG returned, it would be in different format.

That comment finally makes sense. As I understand it, the series MAY return in the same format that History Bites currently has taken; a series of TV specials.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to be an interviewer or researcher for the old show. I should keep my eyes peeled.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

You know what would be awesome? Flooding the potential staff positions with fans!

I want to design the Nan-Cy computer screens!

[mbehemoth.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmmm Rick Green is dreamy...

I'm glad it went well and I'm sure your not completely made of fail :P. So any hint as to what the future of PoG is? History Bytes? Can I finish my BA so I can become a media researcher? Why did I go to college for something technical! /bonk

So what are you doing in TWIG?

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Future of PoG MIGHT be a series of TV specials. I wanna see Second Nature wraps for those. "This week on Second-- OH NO NOT AGAI-- (signal cuts out)". However, if it's like the History Bites specials, the format probably will be tweaked somewhat.

I'm TWiG's cheese expert right now. I'm going to be helping interview people at Fan Expo and things will go from there. It's just stressful that my first interview was with Rick Green, of all people.

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what it was! :D

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

That's so awesome. Really, really glad to hear it went so well. I would dearly love to see the PoG come back in some form; I truly believe it served a really important role in broadening the awareness and acceptance of comics and spec fic in general. Nice job.

Still insanely jealous, though!

Von

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

I'm so excited about the possibility new PoG. If the results from video uploads are any sign, there's still a demand for the series.

If it happens, I would be very curious to see what the reaction would be. The other week, one of my friends was discussing the current state of fandom with me and pointed out that the big draw right now is television-based fandom. I'm not sure what position fandom was back during PoG's original run (curse my age, but I think comics were in an upswing back then...), but right now you have packs of young geeks looking for something through TV and PoG has the potential to funnel people into more "paper-based" fandoms.

Yeah, I'm thinking too deep about it, but it's just a thought.

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. Marketing right now is a massive, massive problem. For a great example of this, take a look at Craig Taillefer's experiences with his Free Comic Book Day edition of Wahoo Morris and and what the fallout has been.

Things are extremely difficult right now, for a variety of reasons, but I often think back to PoG and how it helped launch titles like Jeff Smith's Bone or even Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

Von

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

My issue with Free Comic Book Day as a marketing tool is, well... getting people into the stores. Yes, free stuff, wooo, but STEPPING into comic book is still a major chore for many people, let alone shopping. Joe Public is still freaked out by us. Your typical manga reader (who is "not a comic fan" in name only) will not buy from a comic store. From what I've seen, they usually shop at big chain bookstores because they can read before buying or, in the worst cases, read through the volume and NOT buy, which is a growing problem. And if you're a young female geek, I can tell you personally going into a comic book store (or any geek store) for the first time is one of the most unnerving moments of your life. So, you're pretty much only feeding the existing market of fans.

That and the whole movie tie-in idea doesn't quite work with me. If comic book movies lead to new comic fans, then why is it that I'm the only living member of my family who visits comic stores on a regular basis?

This is why I like the idea behind "Word on the Street" - it gets books out into the public and it's books for the sake of books. It probably could be done better, though, since I don't care to crowd surf in order to reach a booth. :(

Oh. Speaking of Bone, I think volume 6 of the coloured reprint is now out, but I promised myself "No geek spending until the dealer's room on Friday". The waiting is painful. I'm starting to get the shakes.

[mbehemoth.livejournal.com]

but STEPPING into comic book is still a major chore for many people,

Maybe its the comic book store that needs to change? I mean, I'm not one for mainstreaming my niche interests but I've never found the comic book store scene appealing. Holt Refrew meets Grey Region? I kid but actually I found Silver Snail to be much more approachable then say Comic Connection in Westdale however still there is something If you really want such fandom to become broader in appeal though there are things that will be lost. I sure I've ranted to you about the changing state of video games. Anyways its a difficult line to walk as much of these fandoms are a little too geeky (or introvertedly appealling) for the average Joe. So do you want status quo as a niche or to dilute and possible change just to appeal?

That's why we should open a gaming/geeky interest store. But we would do it with flare, style and sense of posh while still allowing those men of great girth to ogle Emma Frost or whoever.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

It's an extremely thin line. I like the Silver Snail, but it has it's own group of haters that consider the store too commercial. If you're too niche, you shut off everyone and if you're too open, you've sold out.

At the same time, it's not all fault of the store. The manga problem is rooted in the fans and their sense of entitlement. The public, well, I can't really speak for them. I believe it's caused by both sides, although everyone points their fingers at each other; we aren't the most welcoming bunch and everyone on the "outside" thinks we're strange. The girl issue IS one rooted in the fan community. In a bad situation, everyone either stares at you, assumes that you know nothing or assumes that they have you already figured out.

Case in point: the HMV on Yonge has a decent anime section at good prices, depending on what you're looking for. I stopped in a couple of weeks ago to pick up a DVD from their basement-o-geek. The guy at the cash chatted a bit with me... and then started pushing yaoi on me. Heaven bless the fanbrats but I have no interest in romance stories of any colour. I wasn't even giving off any "fangirls vibes" or anything! I was picking up The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which is closer to yuri then anything else. -_-

However, it's not everyone and every store that's the problem. While I was at 401 Games, I was treated the same as the male customers and was even asked by a clerk to help explain the local geek stores to an older tourist couple.

[vonandmoggy.livejournal.com]

FCBD does work in some markets, but the stores that have been doing well with it (creating new customers both you and old) are the ones that are already progressive. In Ottawa, FCBD is a horrible event - I could have participated at one store this past May (along with other artists) and turned it down as a result of how poorly they've been managed. At least IMNSHO.

The problem Craig has found that even the stores that ordered his FCBD version of Wahoo Morris didn't do anything to "put bums in seats" as a follow-up. A 32 copy conversion rate based on 10000 copies? That's a horrible conversion percentage no matter how you slice it. Ouch...

Comic shops are one of those "things" that really can vary, but most suffer from the same stereotypes that they've always had. A place for socially awkward boys and young men to hang out in. We need more really good ones (say like Comic Relief in Berkeley) that show the breadth and scope of what comics, as an art form and a medium, can offer. But this is a rant for another time.

The movie tie-in idea has failed mainly because there haven't been "entry level" titles for fans of the various movies to grab. This, to me, is one of the biggest mistake both Marvel and DC have made over the past 15 years. There was a time that there was only one X-Men title (or rather, mutant title) with an occassional mini-series to fill it out. If you like the X-Men movies, where do you start with the comic? Which one? Aside from regular continuity, there's also the Ultimate line that throws even more barriers up. Ditto for Spidey. Even if you're a lapsed fan, there is no simple way to get back into it. A real shame.

Bone: I'm actually a fan of the black and whites myself. But I'm weird that way.

Von

[(Anonymous)]

>> The reasons why the first season Prisoners of Gravity is "lost" (I now feel bad for digging it up).

What, you mean it was "lost" on purpose because they were embarrassed by its stink?
haha ... I now feel good for digging it up. Rick's [pun alert] Green spiky hair gimmick was abandoned after that first season -- his coif must've had a temporary bout of "space radiation poisoning"... They also ditched much of the ambient graphical distraction that littered the screen during interview segments. The bits featuring Clive Barker were the only intellectually engaging content from that whole season. Even the episode on sex was bland, despite the ripeness (boobs!) of the topic. (boobs i say!)

I considered that you might freeze up when confronted with your childhood media idol (too close to the subject, feeling clumsy beside Rick's easy ad-libbing,) but I didn't caution against it beforehand because I thought that might only have worsened your anxiety. You must have performed well enough regardless of nerves to have been invited aboard TWIG. :) In case of emergency, you can always intimidate geeks with your radioactive girl power. (boobs i say!)

~ G.

[commanderteddog.livejournal.com]

Nah, I only feel kinda bad because according to Rick, Mark Askwith carries a lot of guilt about how the first season mistreated the interviews and subject matter. This would explain why the Merrill has nothing from before season one - Mark decided to cause the season to disappear.

I don't regret obtaining episodes of season one, nor do I regret sharing the infomation about it online. Is it going to stop me from posting more material? NOPE. Mark might have guilt, but I've been working on that site too damn long to delete the season one material that I have. It's a shitty season, but it happened and there's no sense pretending that it didn't. Also, forcing media to "not exist" is a touchy personal issue for me.

Speaking of season one material, sorry about the delay in cross referencing the episode dates you have with the ones I have. Things keep coming up in the evening, but I'm going to put forth an honest effort to check that out tonight.

HA! THE HAIR! I should have asked him about that. That season was so messed up.

Part of the problem is that on our end of the interview there was Mike, Steve, uh, some other girl who's name has slipped my mind and myself. Mike and Steve picked off all of the easy questions and a lot of the ones I was left with were ones that came out from years of working on Signal Loss. So, not really questions that the general public would have any interest in. I did manage to ask him on air about what he thought caused the shift between season one and season two, going from a crappy kid's series to a more mature one. We did discuss the state of the masters and TVOntario, but I think this was after the proper interview when we were chatting. In short, Rick had assumed that TVOntario was still holding onto material. I mentioned that I'd heard that TVO was destroying old material, and Rick got extremely concerned and said that he'd have to talk to Mark about securing any material that TVOntario still has. If anything good came out of the interview, it's that.

[(Anonymous)]

No rush on the season list checking, whenever you have the time is fine.
But (re: flooding staff positions) it would be nice :) if you could weasel me into the production end of your new geek coverage gig... especially if any involvement comes for a future PoG series. *gleeee!!* Are these intended as TWIG "bumper spots" for SPACE channel or just online articles/podcasts for that website? (And do you get paid? lol) Congrats in any case! Girls remain a rarity among geekdom, so a female voice always adds a nice contrast to the testosterNerd mix, softening market perception.

Oh, I was thinking that if wanting for questions, you could've asked Rick for confirmation about the supposed chair desecration anecdote noted in the wiki article so that the podcast could later be pointed to as a citation. (Rick answers, "Yes, it's true." ... *crickets chirping*...)

So... the S1 absence at Merrill is merely Mark's attempt at revisionist history and he's secretly hoarding those tapes in his closet... I will plan my break-in accordingly.;)
I wonder if they'd omit that season altogether from any (im)possible DVD release. Some of the aforementioned early Clive Barker chat did make its way into later season episodes on horror/fear, iirc, along with brief soundbites from McFarlane at a convention. Also, TVO staff might have fed you bogus information about trashing stuff just to quickly dismiss your fannish requests, but it's good to hear that Rick will check up on it.

~ G.

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

Fantastic!

Lee.