Blackest Night #6 Leaked

Update: From the comments in the thread on CBR about the article, it would appear less likely that the mention of the scan being "lower quality" was pulled from popular opinion of other readers of the illegally available comic book. Given that CBR banned a member who posted a few images from the book, it seems more and more likely that the comment may have been made to discourage others from seeking it out.

Original Post:

OK, we all knew that Blackest Night #6 would not successfully be embargoed when there are no proper checks and balances in place to keep it from getting out. There are no carrots and no sticks; any retailer who sells a few copies early to their best customers will likely be found out. Probably the only DM retailers that wind up following it are just the online variety (and even then, I don't think there are any that are STRICTLY online, so just the online segments of full service retailers).

But one of the things I found odd is the following in an article on CBR about the leak, specifically discussing the scanned book offered via torrents:

The scan itself was of lower quality than is typical of the pirated books, indicating that it was scanned, compiled and distributed in a bigger rush than usual.

The above quote was not placed in any context as being based on comments culled from the sites offering the torrent, but put forth as a statement of fact or judgment by the author of the column, Kiel Phegley.

If that statement is completely genuine, it suggests that a regular contributor to one of the top two sites covering comic books downloads and reads torrents on such a regular basis as to be able to compare and contrast scan qualities enough to make that assertion.

If that statement just isn't in its proper context (it WAS, in fact, made based on the opinions of others, not the author), then it runs the risk of people drawing the incorrect conclusion that Phegley is a connoisseur of scanned comics.

The third less likely option is that the statement is being made regardless of the real quality of the scan, only being there to serve as a slight attempt to dissuade readers from seeking it out.

I'd be curious to know which, if any, is true.

Tiger Woods CGI Reenactment

I'm all for celebrities having the privacy they desire. But seeing how whatever went on between Tiger and his wife destroyed public property and could have put other lives in danger if it didn't happen in the wee hours of the night, any claims by Woods of making this purely a family issue just ring hollow. The FHP backing off is an example of unfairly applying the law, whether it is because of the fame of the suspect/victim or the gender of those involved.



That's part of why I had no problem clicking on this YouTube video and having a bit of a laugh, despite not being able to understand a non-English word.

Great: Now I Might Have To Abandon Amazon

Amazon is being sued over labor practices. Thing is: this is something basically every company I've ever worked for has done/gotten away with. Well, at least every non-union job I've had (which is all but one).

So many employers more or less require you to be in before your shift starts. If you clock in right on time, you're effectively judged as being late. While law prevents employers in most states for penalizing you for being just on time or less than five minutes late, it is well known that you are expected to be at your station (desk, fry-o-lator, what have you) and working several minutes before the start of your shift.

Similarly, there is an expectation that you'll stay a few minutes past your shift to wrap things up. There's normally a culture that discourages employees from trying to claim their rightful quarter of an hour, even if the time ahead of shift and after shift add up to a full 15 minutes, let alone just fall into the amount that should be rounded up to the nearest quarter hour.

There's always been this imperfect balance between the worker and the employer. To a certain extent, failure to pay for all those extra minutes here and there seems reasonable, as settling little disputes over this amount of time would cause lost man hours and tons of frustration. But, at the same time, these employers are legally obligated to pay for the time and exert a silent coercion against their workers, with most employees having the feeling that haggling over a few hours of pay a year isn't worth killing their chances at advancement or a merit raise.

In all seriousness, my patronage of Amazon won't be effected. If they lose this case, they won't be the only company in America having to change how they handle this sort of payroll issue. You'll, also, have no end of fiscal conservative railing against the decision as the death knell of American business, especially the small variety.

For All Its Hype...

Champions Online, the City-of-Heroes-warmed-over MMORPG that skews more towards action, couldn't even come close to selling out Amazon's allotment of half-priced copies of the game.

Selling for under $20, only 7% of copies were claimed by Amazon buyers. As video games go, $20 is as much an impulse buy price as a pack of gum in the supermarket checkout line. But on the biggest online retailer's site, they couldn't even move 10% of the stock set aside for the deal.

Is the game that bad? Has the market for MMOs not named World of Warcraft just dried up that much? Is this an indication that many dismissed it for its similarities to City of Heroes (including being made by the same studio)? Or is this a preview of how any super-hero MMO (cough DCU Online cough) will perform in the marketplace?

On a side note: they made Marvel change the name of a comic book for THIS?!?

Only Real Wizards Can Magically Make Mistakes Disappear!

As you can see in the press release below, Wizard Entertainment's CEO bought New England Comic Con. Apparently, it gets them into Boston in a big way.

You're shitting me, right? They already had a WIZARD WORLD BOSTON that they ran into the fucking dirt, but they want to laud this as a way to get into a market in a big way. It just shines a light on the fact that they fucked it up so bad before that they don't even want to acknowledge that it is their RE-ENTRY into the market, doesn't it?

You know, I shouldn't be surprised by this sort of thing coming from them...but when people won't learn from their mistakes, it is dumbfounding.

GAREB SHAMUS, WIZARD ENTERTAINMENT CEO, ACQUIRES NEW ENGLAND COMIC CON

Wizard World Comic Con continues Tour Expansion

New York, NY (November 20, 2009) - Gareb Shamus, CEO of New York based Wizard Entertainment, announces today that he has purchased New England Comic Con, in a move to further expand the Wizard World Comic Con tour.

"We've known Larry for many years, and his exceptional 35-year old New England Comic Con gets us into Boston in a big way. New England has a long legacy of cartoons and comics embedded in their history, making the fans there very appreciative of comics' impact on society and pop culture," said Shamus. "I'm excited to bring these discerning fans an even better Con experience and everything they expect from a Wizard run show."

Larry Harrison, owner of Harrison's Comics & Collectibles, and Jimmy Tournas, the former owners of New England Comic Con, will be intimately involved in the new show production to ensure fan favorite traditions are maintained.

"Working with Gareb is an awesome experience. The folks at Wizard World have a great sense of how to grow the show in a way that I've always wanted to see it flourish. This should be the best comic con the city of Boston has ever seen," said Harrison.

The New England Comic Con acquisition is the first of several Comic Con tour expansion announcements expected in the weeks ahead.

“We bring together more fans, in more cities than anyone, to celebrate their passion for pop-culture. We've had such a strong positive fan and industry reaction to our new show launches that expanding the tour just made sense," said Shamus.

New England Comic Con venue and dates will be announced soon.

About Gareb Shamus:
Gareb Shamus founded Wizard Entertainment in 1991. Today, Wizard Entertainment publishes consumer magazines Wizard, ToyFare, FunFare, and numerous books about pop-culture's top talent, comic books and toys. Gareb also produces a North American Comic Con tour.

Wizard World 2010 Comic Con Tour:
Toronto Comic Con, Direct Energy Centre, March 26-28, 2010
Anaheim Comic Con, Anaheim Convention Center, April 16-18, 2010
Philadelphia Comic Con, Philadelphia Convention Center June 11-13, 2010
Chicago Comic Con, Donald E. Stephens (Rosemont) Convention Center, August 12-15, 2010
Big Apple Comic Con, Pier 94, October 7-10, 2010
New England Comic Con, TBD

Quantcast Physics

I got the following from someone claiming to be Mr. Anonymous. It was a different address than normal, but what I fact-checked of the list seems to check out...so I'm running it anyway, in light of all the hub-bub that started recently around TCJ's tweaking of their web-strategy. Mr. A, if this isn't your stuff, my apologies...but it's worth displaying, regardless.

I compiled these on Quantcast. Post them if you want.

CBR 303,000 US

Newsarama 269,000 US

However, Newsarama led the month before; trending, they switch places about every other month.

At 183,000 US, Ain’t It Cool is still almost 100,000 US BELOW Newsarama in total readers; they don’t have a comics subdomain.

Now, the other "big name" sites and subdomains:

ComicsAlliance.com 86,000 US (benefiting from being part of AOL)

Blog@Newsarama 76,000 US (113,000 world)

Comics.ign.com 49,000 U.S.

Robot 6.comicbookresources.com 47,000 US (71,200 world. Yes, Blog@ has a higher U.S. than Robot 6's world.)

WizardUniverse.com 46,300 US

Comixology 37,600 US
The Beat 37,600 US

ComicsBulletin 33,600 US

Comicmix 29,100 US

SplashPage.mtv.com 26,400 US

Major Spoilers 19,000 US

ComicMonsters.com 18,700 US

ComicsContinuum 17,000 US

ComicsReporter 11,800 US

ComicRelated 11,600 US

Comicon.com (Pulse) 11,400 US

Broken Frontier 10,600 US

Comics Worth Reading 9,900 US

Bleeding Cool 8,800 US

4thLetter.net 6,000 US

SavageCritic.com 4,000 US

ComicNewsI.com 3,600 US

TCJ 3,400 US (Journalista doesn't chart as a subdomain)

Factual Opinion 2,700 US

Later,

Mr. A

Champions Online: Shades Of CoH Issues?

Many of you will remember how NC Soft/Cryptic Studios got in trouble for how players could create virtual carbon copies of established IP from Marvel Entertainment and DC Comics in their CITY OF HEROES offering.

Well...Cryptic Studios is the group behind Champions Online. In IGN's review, they clearly show how they were able to create a Superman copy in the game, a character that seems to have been around for at least the first few weeks of the game being live without removal by the studio.

Their recent Blood Moon event?

It involved an undead villain raising fallen heroes from the dead to attack the heroes. Unless I'm mistaken, it appears those heroes are all wearing black versions of their previous costumes.

With DC Comics not only having plans for their own MMO involving their IP, but it nearing completion, one wonders if they won't approach this situation much the same way Marvel did last time. With some people having complaints that they can't be an existing DC character in the DC Universe Online game, there can be a legitimate argument that allowing people to recreate those characters on Champions Online negatively effects their ability to draw subscribers.

THE UNKNOWN: THE DEVIL MADE FLESH #2

I plan on reviewing this book sometime in the next week, so I thought I'd pop up this preview of the book that BOOM! Studios provided. Enjoy!

Wow, Has It Been Over A Week?

Sorry. Certainly didn't mean to leave the blog stagnant for so long. Been working on some side projects and attempting to be gainfully employed with what I lovingly call a "day job". Led me to be completely oblivious of how much time had passed since the last update.

I'll be posting more often, I swear.

Whoa...deja vu. It feels like I've said that before.

This time...I mean it.