raul grau
Jul 27, 2005, 10:49 am
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/logos/cfdlogo.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="Comics For Dummies logo">By Raul Grau, RJacknite@aol.com
The Surrealism of Reality
Television shows are massively expensive operations. Writers, directors, actors, script supervisors, boom mike operators, and even caterers are capitalist dogs who insist on being paid... the nerve of some people. The duty of the writer is to put words into the mouth of an actor, but anyone capable of stringing together a coherent sentence (so roughly 60% of the population... lower in some states) can speak for themselves, so it is more honest (and cost-effective) to fire the fiction-makers, and call the product Reality. However, comic book pages (you knew that I had to get to those eventually) have the same base cost whether your heroes are drawn fighting an intergalactic war, or drawn fighting an intergalactic war while being filmed, so why have comics joined the Reality trend? It's not as if publishers can ignore the need for writers, and fill each issue with pretty pin-ups... again.
Some would say that superheroes with financial aspirations violate the basic tenants of nobility... but those people are probably poor, and, therefore, their opinions do not matter. Thanks to the capitalistic 80s, most heroic teams, from the Avengers to the Justice League, began offering a paycheck along with membership. Some crimefighters still maintain day jobs (most working for inept major metropolitan newspapers, or some other sort of freelancing, allowing for unexplained absences while trapped in alternate dimensions), but a growing segment see adventuring as a full-time duty, and replacing torn costumes can get terribly expensive if you are not a bored millionaire playboy. Therefore, it is only logical that the superheroic community would embrace reality television as a means to do good with good pay... and getting a whole fifteen minutes of fame must be nice too.
Of course, not every hero is ideal for every reality television parody... I mean, could you imagine Batman wanting to be a Hilton? (Personally, I could see Batman as The Rebel Billionaire, offering management of Wayne Enterprises to the winner, since the Dark Knight cares little for corporate life, save redirecting company funds to supply himself with Bat-Shark Repellant.) Much like the faux reality of reality television, reality comics can be subdivided by category based on several factors, including prizes, purpose, and the relative level of heroic humiliation.
The Voyuerists. Yes, those shows dependant entirely on watching, taking the viewer behind the scenes of a world which we could not access before... whether that is the world of cops, airlines, stuck-up twenty-somethings, the offspring of a deposed Mafia kingpin, or, in this case, superheroism. The first insider look into the realm of crimefighting came with the 1995 miniseries Blood Pack, which was basically The Real World if Puck were a mutant (generating 'snot-rockets' is still not a valid superpower). The Pack were the product of Bloodlines, the summer crossover of two years prior, wherein alien monsters spinal tapped a random cross-section of North America, and those who survived developed superpowers (for more information on this, or any other ridiculous concept, please revisit 'classic' installments of Comics For Dummies, and save me the effort of retyping).
Anyway, seven of these 'New Bloods' were cast as Blood Pack, allowing viewers to experience typical reality show stereotypes projected onto superheroes. Mongrel was the angry minority, Sparx was the naive farmgirl, Loria was the bitch, Geist was the quiet one, Nightblade practiced self-mutilation, Ballistic was the perpetually annoyed peacemaker, Razorsharp hated the attention (though she did agree to have her life broadcast nationally, so someone clearly did not read their contract)... just a shame that Blood Pack was not a Vertigo series, since a drunk, bisexual, nymphomaniac might have helped ratings. Multiple cameras filmed their bickering, their adventures, and their bickering during adventures. That is the beauty of voyeurism-based shows-- every pointless, inane conversation is forever captured and shared.
With some digital retouching and a few reshoots, the heroes almost looked heroic... of course, unbeknownst to the team, their fights were actually staged (which would make losing all the more embarrassing), and their producers were a consortium of corporate moguls plotting world domination using 'borrowed' alien technology, but that's Hollywood for you. Loria (who might have been a spy, or the vanguard of some greater evil, or just a bitch) had an unfortunate encounter with an energy cannon, but those wacky producers reconstituted her as a psionic siren, attracting more New Bloods... the logic of recruiting more angst-filled freaks when they could not control the seven they already had is lost on me. In the end, good triumphed over crazy capitalists, and the Pack were partially responsible for canceling themselves... even if your producers are soulless, they are still the only thing standing between you and unemployment, so try not to foil them.
The Contests. Whether you are being judged by a snarky Brit, a snarky chef, or a snarky Lorenzo Lamas, contest-based shows spice up mere voyeurism, with a pinch of competition, and just a hint of greed. Imagine what you would do for a Klondike Bar, then factor in one million dollars (fifty thousand if you are on basic cable). Of course, competition is nothing new to the comic book world... granted, there is the epic struggle between good and evil, but that is rarely ever decided by phone vote (utilized only when a sidekick really needs squishing). Nearly every team, from the Avengers to the Titans, have had their rosters realigned by reader reaction, but WildGuard was the first to let the heroes know that crimefighting is basically a popularity contest... 'cult following' is just another way of saying 'occasional cameo'.
WildGuard: Casting Call was American Idol for the superhero set, with hundreds of hopeful auditioners, though for every Bo Bice, there were ten William Hungs. The Shingle, Adhesor, Road Rash, Locklord, Kid Citrus, and Headlight should be hailed for their sheer determination, if not their naming skills. Unfortunately, fate intervened (as it often does, in the form of an extraterrestrial slavery ring), and the wannabes (including the aptly named 'Wannabe') were forced to prove their mettle in battle, while fighting for camera time, and being filmed before a live audience of aliens. The contestants had finally been winnowed down to the top twelve, when the Wandering Eye, a rejected applicant (with good reason... a floating eyeball is not terribly photogenic), tried to bring the show to an explosive finale. When they finally finished picking eyeball pieces off their spandex, the final five were announced, including the viewers (well, readers) choice, and we had a WildGuard.
In the subsequent special and recently run miniseries, WildGuard has moved into the voyeurist family, documenting the trials and tribulations of a superhero team... some of which actually involve fighting crime. They have faced sociopathic soap stars, greedy goths, and New York Fashion Week, all without interrupting their reality show style asides... but, honestly, how impressive can they be without the Shingle?
Home Improvement. The past decade has moved us away from Tim Taylor (codenamed 'The Tool Man'), and towards designers who are a little less power-crazed, and a little more queer. Makeover shows continue expanding outward, from your clothes, to your home, to your entire town, if a certain barefoot designer deems it worthy for an overhaul. Keeping up with the Carsons, the New Warriors have opened their third (soon to be, failed) incarnation with a new twist on an old premise... If your town has a problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them (one would imagine they have an 800 number)… maybe you can hire... the New Warriors... though Microbe, the germ empath, is no Mister T. Like Scooby Doo, but with a mobile editing studio for a Mystery Machine, the newest New Warriors travel across America, foiling evildoers, mugging for the camera, and bringing smiles to every reader... well, every reader with a sense of humor, you other people worry me.
So far, the photogenic five have freed Fairbury from a pair of D-list supervillains, and successfully saved Salina from an invasion of the animal kind... both without going over budget. For you conspiracy theorists, there is something suspicious about the relationship between the network and the team (and something icky about the relationship between Microbe and microbes), but hopefully we are not in store for another psionic siren-based world domination plot... Namorita is the only female member, and I would hate to see her sliced.
Whether you love it, or desperately wish that networks were willing to shell out an few extra hundred thousand dollars just to ensure that the drivel passing itself off as dialogue was (at the very least) pre-planned drivel, reality shows are not budging from the airwaves. In the sequential fiction form, however, faux reality is just beginning to gain its footing, but do you remember when the highest rated 'reality shows' were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (before Trebek shaved the mustache)?
In the not too distant future, the shelves could be littered with reality knock-offs, with Janet Van Dyne as the waspy Bachelorette and Tony Stark looking for an iron-willed Apprentice. How about a fictionalized Jerry Springer Show, where Rachel Summers and Cable confront Cyclops about his poor parenting skills, and Jean Grey miraculously returns from the dead for the second time, only to be the surprise guest, forcing her formerly widowed husband to choose between her and the homewrecker? Would you pay to read superpowered versions of what can abundantly be found on television for free?
Well, I know I would. On television, reality shows are the easy answer to a cost equation, but with comic books, the reality format is a healthy addition to the mainstream superhero cycle. These series are quirky, and funny, and still rife with action, but the fight scenes never overshadow the self-referential silliness. The market is not yet ready for I Want To Be A Richards or Survivor: Savage Land, but any reminder that comics can be comical is a welcome one. Plus, the radically disproportionate physiques of most superheroes almost guarantee that there will never be an Amazing Average Joe.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau does not actually watch as much reality television as this column might lead you to believe. He chooses to get his reality direct from the source... reading mainstream comic books.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.
The Surrealism of Reality
Television shows are massively expensive operations. Writers, directors, actors, script supervisors, boom mike operators, and even caterers are capitalist dogs who insist on being paid... the nerve of some people. The duty of the writer is to put words into the mouth of an actor, but anyone capable of stringing together a coherent sentence (so roughly 60% of the population... lower in some states) can speak for themselves, so it is more honest (and cost-effective) to fire the fiction-makers, and call the product Reality. However, comic book pages (you knew that I had to get to those eventually) have the same base cost whether your heroes are drawn fighting an intergalactic war, or drawn fighting an intergalactic war while being filmed, so why have comics joined the Reality trend? It's not as if publishers can ignore the need for writers, and fill each issue with pretty pin-ups... again.
Some would say that superheroes with financial aspirations violate the basic tenants of nobility... but those people are probably poor, and, therefore, their opinions do not matter. Thanks to the capitalistic 80s, most heroic teams, from the Avengers to the Justice League, began offering a paycheck along with membership. Some crimefighters still maintain day jobs (most working for inept major metropolitan newspapers, or some other sort of freelancing, allowing for unexplained absences while trapped in alternate dimensions), but a growing segment see adventuring as a full-time duty, and replacing torn costumes can get terribly expensive if you are not a bored millionaire playboy. Therefore, it is only logical that the superheroic community would embrace reality television as a means to do good with good pay... and getting a whole fifteen minutes of fame must be nice too.
Of course, not every hero is ideal for every reality television parody... I mean, could you imagine Batman wanting to be a Hilton? (Personally, I could see Batman as The Rebel Billionaire, offering management of Wayne Enterprises to the winner, since the Dark Knight cares little for corporate life, save redirecting company funds to supply himself with Bat-Shark Repellant.) Much like the faux reality of reality television, reality comics can be subdivided by category based on several factors, including prizes, purpose, and the relative level of heroic humiliation.
The Voyuerists. Yes, those shows dependant entirely on watching, taking the viewer behind the scenes of a world which we could not access before... whether that is the world of cops, airlines, stuck-up twenty-somethings, the offspring of a deposed Mafia kingpin, or, in this case, superheroism. The first insider look into the realm of crimefighting came with the 1995 miniseries Blood Pack, which was basically The Real World if Puck were a mutant (generating 'snot-rockets' is still not a valid superpower). The Pack were the product of Bloodlines, the summer crossover of two years prior, wherein alien monsters spinal tapped a random cross-section of North America, and those who survived developed superpowers (for more information on this, or any other ridiculous concept, please revisit 'classic' installments of Comics For Dummies, and save me the effort of retyping).
Anyway, seven of these 'New Bloods' were cast as Blood Pack, allowing viewers to experience typical reality show stereotypes projected onto superheroes. Mongrel was the angry minority, Sparx was the naive farmgirl, Loria was the bitch, Geist was the quiet one, Nightblade practiced self-mutilation, Ballistic was the perpetually annoyed peacemaker, Razorsharp hated the attention (though she did agree to have her life broadcast nationally, so someone clearly did not read their contract)... just a shame that Blood Pack was not a Vertigo series, since a drunk, bisexual, nymphomaniac might have helped ratings. Multiple cameras filmed their bickering, their adventures, and their bickering during adventures. That is the beauty of voyeurism-based shows-- every pointless, inane conversation is forever captured and shared.
With some digital retouching and a few reshoots, the heroes almost looked heroic... of course, unbeknownst to the team, their fights were actually staged (which would make losing all the more embarrassing), and their producers were a consortium of corporate moguls plotting world domination using 'borrowed' alien technology, but that's Hollywood for you. Loria (who might have been a spy, or the vanguard of some greater evil, or just a bitch) had an unfortunate encounter with an energy cannon, but those wacky producers reconstituted her as a psionic siren, attracting more New Bloods... the logic of recruiting more angst-filled freaks when they could not control the seven they already had is lost on me. In the end, good triumphed over crazy capitalists, and the Pack were partially responsible for canceling themselves... even if your producers are soulless, they are still the only thing standing between you and unemployment, so try not to foil them.
The Contests. Whether you are being judged by a snarky Brit, a snarky chef, or a snarky Lorenzo Lamas, contest-based shows spice up mere voyeurism, with a pinch of competition, and just a hint of greed. Imagine what you would do for a Klondike Bar, then factor in one million dollars (fifty thousand if you are on basic cable). Of course, competition is nothing new to the comic book world... granted, there is the epic struggle between good and evil, but that is rarely ever decided by phone vote (utilized only when a sidekick really needs squishing). Nearly every team, from the Avengers to the Titans, have had their rosters realigned by reader reaction, but WildGuard was the first to let the heroes know that crimefighting is basically a popularity contest... 'cult following' is just another way of saying 'occasional cameo'.
WildGuard: Casting Call was American Idol for the superhero set, with hundreds of hopeful auditioners, though for every Bo Bice, there were ten William Hungs. The Shingle, Adhesor, Road Rash, Locklord, Kid Citrus, and Headlight should be hailed for their sheer determination, if not their naming skills. Unfortunately, fate intervened (as it often does, in the form of an extraterrestrial slavery ring), and the wannabes (including the aptly named 'Wannabe') were forced to prove their mettle in battle, while fighting for camera time, and being filmed before a live audience of aliens. The contestants had finally been winnowed down to the top twelve, when the Wandering Eye, a rejected applicant (with good reason... a floating eyeball is not terribly photogenic), tried to bring the show to an explosive finale. When they finally finished picking eyeball pieces off their spandex, the final five were announced, including the viewers (well, readers) choice, and we had a WildGuard.
In the subsequent special and recently run miniseries, WildGuard has moved into the voyeurist family, documenting the trials and tribulations of a superhero team... some of which actually involve fighting crime. They have faced sociopathic soap stars, greedy goths, and New York Fashion Week, all without interrupting their reality show style asides... but, honestly, how impressive can they be without the Shingle?
Home Improvement. The past decade has moved us away from Tim Taylor (codenamed 'The Tool Man'), and towards designers who are a little less power-crazed, and a little more queer. Makeover shows continue expanding outward, from your clothes, to your home, to your entire town, if a certain barefoot designer deems it worthy for an overhaul. Keeping up with the Carsons, the New Warriors have opened their third (soon to be, failed) incarnation with a new twist on an old premise... If your town has a problem… if no one else can help… and if you can find them (one would imagine they have an 800 number)… maybe you can hire... the New Warriors... though Microbe, the germ empath, is no Mister T. Like Scooby Doo, but with a mobile editing studio for a Mystery Machine, the newest New Warriors travel across America, foiling evildoers, mugging for the camera, and bringing smiles to every reader... well, every reader with a sense of humor, you other people worry me.
So far, the photogenic five have freed Fairbury from a pair of D-list supervillains, and successfully saved Salina from an invasion of the animal kind... both without going over budget. For you conspiracy theorists, there is something suspicious about the relationship between the network and the team (and something icky about the relationship between Microbe and microbes), but hopefully we are not in store for another psionic siren-based world domination plot... Namorita is the only female member, and I would hate to see her sliced.
Whether you love it, or desperately wish that networks were willing to shell out an few extra hundred thousand dollars just to ensure that the drivel passing itself off as dialogue was (at the very least) pre-planned drivel, reality shows are not budging from the airwaves. In the sequential fiction form, however, faux reality is just beginning to gain its footing, but do you remember when the highest rated 'reality shows' were Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (before Trebek shaved the mustache)?
In the not too distant future, the shelves could be littered with reality knock-offs, with Janet Van Dyne as the waspy Bachelorette and Tony Stark looking for an iron-willed Apprentice. How about a fictionalized Jerry Springer Show, where Rachel Summers and Cable confront Cyclops about his poor parenting skills, and Jean Grey miraculously returns from the dead for the second time, only to be the surprise guest, forcing her formerly widowed husband to choose between her and the homewrecker? Would you pay to read superpowered versions of what can abundantly be found on television for free?
Well, I know I would. On television, reality shows are the easy answer to a cost equation, but with comic books, the reality format is a healthy addition to the mainstream superhero cycle. These series are quirky, and funny, and still rife with action, but the fight scenes never overshadow the self-referential silliness. The market is not yet ready for I Want To Be A Richards or Survivor: Savage Land, but any reminder that comics can be comical is a welcome one. Plus, the radically disproportionate physiques of most superheroes almost guarantee that there will never be an Amazing Average Joe.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
Raul Grau does not actually watch as much reality television as this column might lead you to believe. He chooses to get his reality direct from the source... reading mainstream comic books.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its other staff in general.