Month: April 2018

As we continue in the pages of the comic with our first ever rendition of the Zombie Ranch opening credits, the question did roil in my brain of if whether it still just represented needless redundancy. The audience knows all these characters already, right?

Well, maybe. And then again as an avowed audience member of things myself, I often find myself forgetting names and other character details even for my favorite shows. Agents of SHIELD is on its fifth season and, although it does its best with its “Previously…” segments in terms of bringing up elements from its past that might resurface in the episode to come, those segments are brief enough that more often than not, I end up consulting Dawn with endearing questions such as “What was the astronaut about?”

They didn’t bother to explain in the show, probably because it was kind of an important part of Season 3. Integral, even. And yet there I was completely blanking on things until Dawn jumpstarted my synapses by pointing out I was forgetting an entire character who was something of a big deal.

In a sense going over “known” information can be annoying and seem pointless to those who have been keeping up, and there are certainly recent examples where I would argue it was a good call. Spider-Man is one of the most popular superheroes on Earth and that was even before he starred in five Sony movies, two of which spent time retelling an origin story. So by the time he was recast for the third time to appear in the MCU’s Captain America: Civil War they just decided to skip it and get on with things.

But with lesser known properties and people, an introduction or re-introduction is sometimes sorely needed, and there’s still the hope that if I hammer it in enough people might at least stop mixing up Frank and Chuck. As noted above though, that may be a case of glass houses and stones…

And hey, now I get why in reality shows they’ll always put the person’s name on the screen during “interview” bits, sometimes even with a reminder of their job or position. And perhaps something I should think about adopting for Season 3.

There are theme songs that are so widely recognized you can start humming them just about anywhere public and someone will know them. Star Wars is a great example, but not too far behind are the opening songs for certain famed television shows such as M.A.S.H. or Cheers. Harry Anderson just passed away recently and what was the first thing that popped into my head? It was not “R.I.P.” (though may he), but those first few slap bass notes of the Night Court theme.

It used to be that every show (for better or worse) had opening music, but these days it seems to have become less fashionable to have one, or if there is one it tends to be truncated after the first few episodes as if  everyone’s impatient to just get it out of the way. Agents of SHIELD remains a current favorite of mine but it’s a good example of a show that has a theme but exiles it to the end credits, while the beginning is a cold open that will eventually flash onto the title card before continuing. Supernatural was the same way. Screw this opening music-and-montage nonsense, let’s get down to business.

Yet on the other hand, prestige television revels in embracing opening sequences and more often than not on my Netflix binges I would find myself watching the beginning credits of, say, Daredevil over and over, whether or not a cold open was involved. Properly composed, such sequences can be a hypnotic gateway into the other world. Or as Cheers so aptly put it, “Wouldn’t you like to get away?”

But yeah, a TV show that chooses to theme has that multimedia luxury of drilling the theme into your head. Zombie Ranch (or technically, the show-within-a-show of Zombie Ranch) has a theme, a theme I actually got some talented individuals to record soon after the comic started, and yet to this day there are long-time readers unaware it even exists. We don’t exactly shove it in the face of new readers, either, it’s buried away in an Extras section which people may not even ever see if they use a reader or feed rather than visiting our site directly.

Also, other than brief bits we’ve never taken the time to show it in the comic; perhaps understandably so given the problems inherent in just trying to represent a musical experience with little note graphics.

But y’know, new arc. New opportunity. So what the heck, it’s about time to give it a try.

What Stan Lee situation, you ask? Well I’ve been hearing rumblings for awhile but The Hollywood Reporter has it all laid out for your perusal, if not necessarily your conclusion:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/stan-lee-needs-a-hero-elder-abuse-claims-a-battle-aging-marvel-creator-1101229

Long story short, there’s been a steadily worsening shitstorm around Stan pretty much ever since his wife died several years ago which is now coming to a head, mostly because people are starting to report that his indefatigable appearances at various comic conventions aren’t so indefatigable any more. I used to joke that advertising your convention would have a Stan Lee appearance was only as big a deal as there was a lack of conventions in your area, because at least around SoCal he’d show up at just about all of them.

Now honestly? The man is 95 years old and that’s a pretty damn good run. He lived to see his co-creations become famous and then even more famous, getting to share the big screen with them, and his name will probably echo as long as there are comics.

But man, the amount of drama surrounding him right now is beyond any amount of Secret Wars. Ugh, I probably shouldn’t joke about it. It’s all really gross.

Personally I feel Stan’s not the Saint some seem to want to make him out to be and wasn’t always the best guy to his creative partners, but the thing is even if the extend of his contributions to the creation of Marvel’s characters are debatable, he *did* have a hand in creating them and he absolutely worked tirelessly to promote the Marvel brand and get it to worldwide recognition. None of the people around him now had a hand in any of that. If this were a throw down between Stan and Jack Kirby, I’d have trouble picking sides, but as it is? Screw all these vultures and their fighting over the fortune of a man who isn’t even a corpse yet. One literally drew his blood and mixed it into ink for profit, and whether or not that was with Stan’s consent it’s still creepy as all hell.

Sad stuff. I just pray my own Autumn years are spent in the company of a lot more love, even if there’s a lot less money involved. And maybe having a lot less money will be exactly why.

I take you where you want to go 
I give you all you need to know 
I drag you down, I use you up 
Mr. Self Destruct

— Nine Inch Nails

Have you ever had a strange thought in your head, an inner voice suggesting actions that at best would be counterproductive (“jump in that pool with your clothes on!”) but often go straight to the outright fatal (“jump over the guardrail of this hundred foot high cliff!”)?

I by no means consider myself a suicide risk and have never seriously contemplated taking my own life, much less tried to do so. Hell, I don’t even like rollercoasters and have no idea why people would subject themselves to dangerous hobbies like skydiving and rock climbing. But that voice can still come up. I think no one likes to talk about it out of fear it will be misinterpreted as a cry for help, but it turns out the phenomenon is common enough the French even gave it a name: L’appel du Vide. “The Call of the Void.”

More scholarly studies use the less poetic term HPP, or “High Place Phenomenon”, but as the article I linked above points out that term can be misleading since L’appel du Vide can just as easily manifest as that thought while driving that just one swift tug of the steering wheel could send you against a retaining wall or into oncoming traffic. Or the flash vision you get of jumping in front of a subway train as it pulls into the station — visions I’ve at times had so potently I wonder if somewhere out in the theoretical multiverse there’s a Clint who did just that and so had his particular storyline come to an (assumed) abrupt end.

But it doesn’t even have to be a life-or-death situation. I remember one time being in a port-a-potty absolutely filthy from a long weekend of festival attendees, staring into that malodorous hole and pondering that just one slip and the iPhone I was holding would go tumbling right in, and then what would I do? And does the fact I’m even envisioning that mean there’s a destructive (and disgusting) part of me wanting to see what happens?

Well, it’s a comfort to know I’m not alone. And in fact that studies of the phenomenon suggest that what seem on the surface to be destructive and suicidal thoughts may in fact be the opposite, that the “Call of the Void” is in fact a wake-up call, a manifestation of survival instinct reminding us to pay very close attention when the line separating safety and disaster has gotten perilously thin. You envision yourself plummeting off that bridge or driving into the railroad crossing precisely because it would be so easy to do it, and nothing could stop you except your own awareness. And for that matter you’ll hold your cellphone just that much tighter as you lean over that port-a-potty hole or cruise ship railing, keenly aware of the consequences that being less mindful could bring.

And while this blog might not specifically relate to Zombie Ranch at first glance… it sure could give a new perspective on Repops, couldn’t it?