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Friday, September 30, 2016

Random pet peeves

Note that pet peeves are, by definition, some of the following: idiosyncratic, irrational, trivial.



You know I'm all about comic creators getting credit for their work. But one place I draw the line is when artists sign their names on comic pages on anything but the cover, title page or final page of the story. It's just so distracting when a random interior page, usually a splash, has the signature of the artist for no good reason. I know I should just ignore it, but I literally have to stop, put the book down and wait for a few minutes, or go do something else before I can continue.

I remember one particularly weird example from back in the 1990s, where it seemed that the artist had his signature on every page. I'm not sure why an editor would even allow that (this was a work-for-hire book), but I couldn't get more than a few pages into it.



On a related note, I might be the only person this bugs, but I wish Marvel would stop putting ads in the inside front and inside back covers of their tradepaperbacks. Every other publisher either leaves those pages blank, or puts some endpaper design there, or uses them for content (contents page, indicia, reviews, author bios). Marvel sticks a big ad on those pages, usually a house ad for other books, but sometimes even a paid ad. It's somewhat understandable when they have other books by the same creators, then it's sort of an overly gaudy "also by this author" page, but sometimes it seems random (do you really think Squirrel Girl readers want a book by Greg Land?). For some reason I don't mind when the last few interior pages are used for similar ads by other publishers, but it really stands out when it's the inside covers, especially the inside front cover.

Seriously, Marvel, it just looks cheap, and I really don't think it's helping you sell books. Leave them blank, maybe the printer will cut a few cents off the bill and you can call it even.



Related to the recent DOCTOR FATE book I read, I really don't mind when comics have a distinct font used for dialogue or captions by a particular character. Sometimes it can lead to clever stuff or provide some clarity. They can go overboard when it's used for too many characters in the same story, then it's just a design mess. But if you're going to do it, you have to do it consistently. in that FATE book, they just switch to a different, more legible font for the lead character three stories in. I know it can't be that difficult, in this computerized age, to go back and change the handful of examples of the other font for the reprint.



With the number of channels I get on TV, why are programs still delayed by sports events going into overtime? And why can't my DVR anticipate that? I've had to set my recording of Colbert to run an hour long because it's sure to be bumped by some random amount of time by, I want to say, football(?) once a week. This is 2016, why must we still watch TV like animals?


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