Is There Product Placement in Comics?
By Dan BrownMaybe it’s because I’m a naive fool, but I don’t ever remember seeing an instance of flagrant product placement in a comic book.I’m talking about the classic kind of product placement, the same type you see in movies or on TV where products are written into the plot of the show in return for brand exposure.(I’ll get to advertising partnerships in comics in a minute. They are a different animal.)For example, in an old episode of Big Bang Theory Raj gets a new iPhone. We know it’s an iPhone because after he and Howard unwrap the device, Raj has a conversation with Siri, Apple’s digital assistant. Not very subtle.Product placement like this would in theory be easy to do in comics. The reference could be written into a comic’s script and then the brand’s product would be drawn by the penciller.We all know Wolverine – being Canadian – loves beer, right? So in a scene in which the deadly mutant walks into a bar, he could order a Budweiser or other brand, and the artist could reproduce the label on the bottle or can in Logan’s hand. Easy-peasy, providing you can get the creative team on board with the idea.As straightforward as the process would be, it doesn’t seem to happen much. Maybe I’ve got feeble eyes, but I don’t recall much along those lines taking place in Marvel or DC Comics. There are opportunities aplenty, it’s true.Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne, might prefer a certain make of sports car. Ben Grimm could make his preferences known for a specific type of cigar. Photographers love to talk about the equipment they favour, so why would Peter Parker be any different?The argument in favour of product placement in comics might go something like this: “We live in a world of brands, so superheroes having brand preferences would make them and their milieu seem more realistic. If advertisers want the exposure, publishers could use the extra revenue.”I’m talking solely about comics here. I know there’s plenty of product placement in motion pictures that feature the same superheroes. That’s a whole other column.Nor am I talking about the advertising partnerships comic publishers occasionally embark on, which are embarrassing because they’re so blatant.For example, Marvel characters such as the Hulk and Spidey were loaned out to Hostess in the 1970s to go on adventures in which the villains were all defeated or distracted the same way: By being fed Twinkies. These appeared as clearly marked ads, not part of a comic's storyline.Likewise, about a decade ago, motorcycle maker Harley Davidson signed a deal with Marvel to feature their fine wares in a series of one-shot issues. This led to odd situations in which the Avengers, instead of using the full range of their powers, including that of flight, would ride Hogs to do battle with evildoers.I did once read a Hawkeye storyline set in Madripoor in which a specific brand of credit card was name-dropped, but I can’t recall having seen anything like it since. And I can't say for sure it was the result of a deal.Perhaps the reason for the dearth of product placement in comics is publishers might have to share the fee with creators. Or maybe comic creators who consider themselves "artists" feel they’re above crass product placement.Or maybe it goes back to the traditional perception of comics being stuff for children, and therefore product placement being viewed as unfairly taking advantage of kids. Of course, both you and I know the average comic reader today is in their 40s or 50s so that argument no longer holds water.Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Alien: Romulus Comic Short, but Intriguing
How the Alien: Romulus comic fills in Alien franchise story gaps and more reasons to read the comic explained in columnist's Dan Brown's comic book review.
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Now This is a Fun Godzilla
By Dan BrownAs you may have heard, this Saturday (November 2) is Godzilla Day at L.A. Mood Comics & Games. It’s the store’s way of celebrating the giant lizard’s 70th anniversary on the silver screen.So here’s my two cents.Godzilla has appeared in a lot of comics over the decades, but few are as fun as the Essential Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which collects all 24 issues of Marvel’s 1970s series featuring He-Who-Stomps-Tokyo.Marvel jumped on just about every bandwagon in those days. Does anyone remember Dazzler, the mutant who had all the powers of . . . a glitter ball? The thinking was, if disco music or Alice Cooper or kung-fu movies or the Human Fly are a sensation in pop culture, then surely a comic featuring the same trend du jour will be a hit.Those comics – generally done on the cheap – are the ones that defined my childhood. And the fact this Godzilla series lasted two years is a testament to how popular it must have been.The first issue appeared in 1977 (the same year Star Wars, and the ensuing Marvel adaptation, took off) and within the first few pages the book’s creative team (artist Herb Trimpe and writer Doug Moench) effectively meld Toho Productions continuity with that of the Marvel Universe. Surprise! It turns out Godzilla was always in the same world as Spider-Man, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four! That opens up a lot of possibilities.The challenge for the creators was in having a central character who is kind of like another big G, Galactus, except not as talkative. Godzilla is a force of nature, so he doesn’t really speak a lot, unless utterances like these count as dialogue:– Shreeaww– Hrahhh– Graww– Mraww– Reeaww– MeeawrrMan, I love old-timey sound effects! I’m sure Trimpe and Moench had a ball coming up with them.And as with Galactus, there is a running debate in this series about Godzilla’s essential nature. Is he like a snowstorm, and therefore beyond morality? Or is his trampling of landmarks like the Hoover Dam proof of malevolence? Is he driven solely by animal instincts, is Godzilla – as one character exclaims – an “overgrown gila monster”? Could there even be a noble heart under that scaly hide?So, back to those Marvel guest stars.Nah, they didn’t use them to full advantage.I’m guessing the editors who were in charge of other Marvel heroes at the time didn’t want to loan out their A-list characters. The ostensible human star of the Godzilla comic is Dum-Dum Dugan, who is in charge of SHIELD’s Godzilla capture team. Yeah, they couldn’t even get Nick Fury.You know Dugan as the Second World War veteran with a bowler hat and walrus moustache who was somehow still wah-hoooing 30 years later. At least with Fury Marvel's writers made up some story about a de-aging formula making him immortal (or something). And where Dugan was on the winning side in the battle against the Nazis, he is forever being bested by Godzilla. You will also recognize Dugan because he says things like “Looks like it’s time for old Dum-Dum to bail outta the jaws o’ death. Never could stand bad breath,” the latter being a reference to Godzilla’s ability to spew nuclear fire.Later, some bigger stars do appear, but funny thing: I never remember Spidey or Mister Fantastic or the Vision referring to Godzilla in their own titles. You’d think, because he was a menace to all of North America in this series, word would have gotten out to the larger Marvel Universe. But does Godzilla fight other monsters, you ask. You bet. Among his foes are Batragon, Centipor, Ghilaron, and Lepiraz, any of which could easily pass as the brand name for a depression or weight-loss medications. Next up: Godzilla takes on Ozempic!While Godzilla’s Marvel days may have lasted a rollicking two years, the comic version of that other movie from 1977, Star Wars, helped Marvel stay afloat back in the day. In fact, the company continues to produce Star Wars content to this day, proving that if even just one trend-inspired comic series pans out, it can be a boost to a publisher’s bottom line for a long time.And if comic books aren’t your thing, just take a look around L.A. Mood on Saturday as Godzilla Day unfolds. The friendly staff will have whatever merch you crave! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Sentinels is Dark and Looks to Get Darker
By Dan BrownSentinels No. 1 has an intriguing premise, but man is it dark. With such a grim start, I’m not sure where the new series will go from here. Can it get any more dystopian?Billed as Marvel’s token “bad-guy book” among the company’s 18 (by my count) X-titles, it features a cast of military types who have been implanted with sentinel technology. They are machine/human hybrids whose goal is to forcefully corral mutants, then bring them to prison.In keeping with the dystopian theme, the prison is housed in the basement of Professor Charles Xavier’s former school for gifted children i.e. mutants. But where Xavier’s dream was to find a way for mutants and humans to co-exist, the sentinels are programmed – and kept in line with mood-regulating drugs – to use violence to bring them in. It’s a world turned upside-down.This all takes place in Marvel’s post-Krakoa universe. Last time I checked in with the X-Men, they were living pretty much as immortal gods on the sentient sanctuary island. I wondered what Marvel was going to do with its mutant characters once that storyline ran its course, and now readers are beginning to find out. (Marvel has said it will be concentrating more on solo titles featuring the likes of Wolverine and Storm as the mutants reintegrate into society.)Not to be trusted with their genocidal instincts, the giant sentinel robots themselves have been powered down in favour of these cyborgs. The danger for the bad guys, who have code names like Lockstep, Drumfire and Sawtooth, is that the cybernetic implants have a tendency to take over their minds and bodies completely, a process called “full grafting” which destroys their remaining humanity.The issue is a finely crafted comic, with art by Justin Mason and writing by Alex Parknadel, creators whose work is new to me. Let’s just say the result is not something Jack Kirby and Stan Lee would ever have dreamed up.There’s also friction between the civilian who pulls the team’s strings, the mutant Lawrence Trask, and the military commander on the ground. It’s reminiscent of what happens in pro sports when a coach can’t get along with his or her general manager.The issue starts with the team dropping into an isolated Russian village to take the homicidal mutant “Omega Red” into custody. Naturally, things don’t go according to plan.There are dark hints as the issue unfolds about how the incarcerated mutants are being treated, which seems to be even worse than the sentinels themselves. They operate in a world in which there are no clear moral lines between human and mutant or organic and mechanical.Some of the team members rationalize their missions by stressing that all they are is hunters – what is done to the captive mutants once they have been put into a cell is none of their business.We also get a glimpse of Trask’s motivation when he recalls the story of two neighbouring villages in thirteenth-century England during a wolf cull. Once the animals victimizing the two communities have been dispatched, he explains, the residents turned on each other.Trask reasons that his role in backing the sentinels is to keep humanity and mutantkind in a kind of equilibrium or stasis so they don’t massacre the other. The sentinels are the “necessary monsters” who keep a “fragile peace” between humans and homo superior. Speaking of Magneto, he doesn’t appear in this issue, but his former ally the Blob does. There’s a different archvillain from the X-Men’s past who graces the story’s final page. You’ll never guess who it is, but I didn’t see his appearance coming. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Let’s Stop This Comic Trend While We Still Can
By Dan BrownIt started, as far as I can tell, with Watchmen back in 1986.And it ends now, if I have anything to say about it..What am I on about?I’m not even sure what the correct term is. Some call it “back matter,” others say “supplemental material.”I’m referring to the several pages of prose that appeared in every issue of the landmark DC series back in the day. The same material was reproduced when all 12 Watchmen issues were collected into one volume and sold as a graphic novel.In Watchmen, it took the form of faux newspaper articles or documents or book excerpts that shed light on the rest of the story and the characters in it. Alan Moore came up with the stuff when DC was unable to sell ads in the individual issues of what was then an experiment in more mature storytelling.I don’t honestly know how many other comics have used the same device. I have noticed that at least one other series – the alien-invasion tale Wild’s End by Dan Abnett and I.N.J. Culbard – features the same kind of afterword section. I recently read the collected Wild’s End for L.A. Mood’s graphic-novel group, it was one of the books we covered this summer. And each chapter ends with supplementary material.In individual Wild’s End issues, which started appearing in 2015, the back matter takes up as many as five pages. The goal appears to be the same as with Watchmen — to give readers pertinent information in a way that adds context and shading to the story told in comic panels in the front of the book.Maybe you’ve read comics with the same device. I know there is a vast audience out there of comic enthusiasts who don’t even bother to read these pages, which are akin to the bonus material you get with a DVD.In the ideal case, these back pages would flesh out certain aspects of a given story, supplying readers with an even deeper reading experience. That’s fine, but what I fear is these prose epilogues will become the norm.I’m not opposed in every instance to non-comics material in my comics. I grew up reading Marvel Comics in the 1970s and at least two pages in every issue of, say, the Uncanny X-Men, were devoted to a letters column and Bullpen Bulletins. I loved that stuff, it was fun. Those pages made me feel like I was a part of the Marvel community at a time when there was no global communication device like the internet (you can imagine how crushed I felt to learn Stan Lee had made up reader letters in some early Marvel issues). But enough already.This is a pet peeve of mine I’m hoping comes to an end before other creators take it up and it becomes a full-on trend.For starters, five pages out of an individual issue is just a huge chunk of space. I know the justification is that certain aspects of a story are better told in text, but if you’re like me, you don’t like chocolate in your peanut butter. Prose already has a showcase, they’re called books.Taking five pages away from a powerful creative team is too much of a sacrifice. With five extra pages an issue, a creator like Jack Kirby could have launched whole new universes full of interesting characters, concepts and locations.And, frankly, those prose pages never have the same impact as the rest of a chapter or a specific single issue. Reading them feels like homework, frankly. At least it does to me.Also, they just reek of literary pretense. Comics don’t have to be more like books. They are a perfectly legit artform without text passages, so let’s nip this incipient trend in the bud.Creators, the work you do with drawings and word balloons is perfectly fine on its own. You don’t need a prose section at the back of your latest comic to give you credibility, comics are perfect the way they have always been presented.Disagree? I’d love to hear why in the comment box below!Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
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Let's have a place where comic fans, comic creators and the professionals who study comics could all gather to share their love for the medium.
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