Musings From New York

Disney + Marvel = Dismal?

The interwebitubes have been all a-twitter (hah!) about the Disney-Marvel deal today (BTW, hats off to TechCrunch - they posted the first story I saw). A lot of folks have tried to wonder what the mash-up may lead to ... here are a couple of my favorites:

- From @muskrat_john: Bambi's mother was killed...BY WOLVERINE!

- From @pvponline: The Incredibles can meet the Fantastic Four now.

And other combos I could think of included:

- The Cars fight Magneto!

- The Beast meets Beast!

- Hannah Montana meets Jubilee!

Apparently Stan Lee thinks this is a good deal. In short, I disagree ... somewhat.

Let's face it, Disney's current roster of IP & Franchises appeals to young kids, and girls. I'm sure there's boy-centric material in there, but I'll be darned if I know what it is. The typical Disney fare is "wholesome family" entertainment, focussed on driving home a message or moral. Marvel's roster does include "lighter" versions of their popular heroes but a significant chunk appeals to an older, more mature, primarily male population. No disrespect meant to the girls, but I think Emma Frost or Mystique are drawn to satisfy raging hormones. And that pretty much goes for most comic book characters anyway. DC is no different.

On the face of it, you could argue that the two companies supplement, not complement, each other. The combined entity will have content that appeals to younger kids, girls, and boys. To me, that's the danger - the two companies' products appeal to different demographics, and need different marketing techniques. There's a very real danger that unless Marvel retains editorial control, that they'd need to tone down their edginess, possibly leading them to shelve or sell off some of their more "mature" IP like The Punisher.

Where the deal does make sense is if you look at Disney as a collection of content delivery channels. Disney of course has its own venerable film & animation studios (which have woefully languished since the 90's and ceded the crown to Pixar). Disney owns a suite of TV channels, including ABC Family & XD. The latter already carries the superhero fare, and ABC Family carried a host of direct-to-TV content developed by Marvel in the late 90's (leading to a lawsuit, even). Disney also does publish in the dead-tree space, but I'm not sure how large that arm of the business is, or how large it is in comparison to Marvel.

Thus in my mind, what makes the most sense is Marvel acting as an independent studio, using the Disney brand & marketing platform to deliver that content. But that's only if Marvel can keep Disney from interfering with the content.

On a personal note, I hope to blog more often. I realize the blog's fallen by the way side since I got married ... ah heck, who am I kidding, since I found Twitter! But I want to write more, and hopefully I can stay motivated! As always, comments and encouragement help!

Want Some Dirt On Google?

TechCrunch just posted an article where they copied in a thread from a Google Groups where ex-employees discuss why they left the Mountainview company.

I'm not sure how to view the article. I mean, it's pretty vicious of Michael Arrington to have posted it in the first place; plus, every company has it's share of disgruntled ex-employees - I'm sure Google (should it choose to respond), could publish testimonials from happy ex- & current employees.

On the other hand, it is strangely gratifying that a company as lauded & adored as Google can be shown to have common, almost pedestrian, flaws.

I wonder if any business school might take this information and turn it into a case study or discussion on managing people in organizations. Anyone out there listening (and, um, following this blog!)

I'm Struggling To Make A Comeback Here ...

For some reason ... I can't quite call it writer's block, because as this paragraph goes to show, I am still more than capable to typists' diarrhea. I think it's more like ... motivational issues. It's certainly not the lack of material.

For example, read this and laugh. Or, if you would like the Reader's Digest version:

Chrysler Blog: We got the loan! Our CEO is not publicly shamed, and forced into a weird modern-corporate-ritualistic-hara-kiri thing!

Commenters: F**k you for taking my tax dollars!

Three Guesses Why I'm So Happy Today?

Everybody sing along!

As I Come Late To The Game ...

I have no choice but to remind you, nay beseech you, if you haven't already done so, to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the musical. Co-written by Joss Wheedon, and starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillon, this is a hilarious and touching little project on the Interwebs. The Lady is already obsessed with the first song from Act I.

The three acts stream free until July 20th, after which it'll be available through iTMS, until the DVD comes out, of course.

What are you still doing here? Go! GO!

All a-twitter!

I've added a Twitter panel to the right, showing my last 10 tweets.

Testing, testing

Testing the iPhone Typepad application. Looks interesting - plain text only(?) but it doesn't pull down my categories. Weird.

Isn't It Time For A Revolution?

A musical revolution, that is ...

Allow me to explain ...

The 50's and 60's gave rise to blues, blues-rock, rock 'n' roll, and psychedelic ... which inspired (somewhat) the hard rock movement (via Cream & Led Zep), and Heavy Metal (via Black Sabbath). They, in turn, inspired arena rock and the whole "classic rock" period in the 70's.

On another front, the motown & R&B fads made more use of synthesized music in the 70's to ultimately create disco. The backlash to disco and arena rock was of course, the punk movement, which led to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. That in turn, led to thrash & speed metal, as well as glam, and hair metal in the 80's.

The world ultimately threw up against the excesses of glam & hair metal in the 90's by coming up with grunge, and alternative (for a brief period, there was Guns 'N' Roses, but they were but an aberrant blip on this timeline). Rappers found mainstream success with gangsta rap. By weird coincidence, the "diva" movement can be traced to the early-to-mid 90's. Pop culture, feeling a bit left out, came up with bubblegum-slut-pop, in the form of Britney & Christina. That whole morass of styles created and R&B explosion in the 00's, while grunge & alternative inspired a new legion of college, indie, and post-punk rock. Oh, and nu-metal too, I guess.

So basically what I'm trying to say is that in the last 7 or 8 years, there hasn't been (to my mind), a paradigm shift in musical innovation, as seen in previous decades. To quote a frog & a dog, "I hope that something better comes along" ... cos I'm bored!

And no, I have no interest in jazz. I equate it to somewhat better than elevator muzak.

OMFG!

I cannot believe I didn't know about this website until today!

These are the cartoons I grew up with. These are the cartoons I hope my nephew watches and marvels at. This is the reason I love Superman (and comic books in general) so much. I mean, just look at the scenery & backdrops and the art in general - Max Fleischer is a GOD!

This episode, in particular, was the first I ever saw. I think I must've been 5 or 6 years old, in Nigeria, with just a few cartoons and other video cassettes (now you know why I can recite the dialog to Star Wars episode IV verbatim) to pass the evenings. To a little boy, the whole "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, the man of steel ... Superman!" bit was a surefire way to hold my attention! This was also the first time I heard the phrase "This looks like a job for ... Superman!". Ooh, I got a shiver down my spine just typing that out!

In Which I Explain Why People Think I'm Always On Facebook

It's called Twitter, and Facebook's Twitter application. Explaining Twitter is a bit difficult. It's ... a microblog ... a messaging application ... a refuge for the technocrati and technosnobs. In other words, it's my refuge. I typically "tweet" (as it is known) once or twice a day, and the tweets are automatically pushed to my Facebook status. Oh, and the interesting challenge in tweet-ing is that there's a 140 character limit, so one has to choose one's words very carefully! Twitter is starting to get a little traction from businesses, especially hi-tech ones, who use it as a medium to get their word out to the tech-savvy.

You can find me at: http://twitter.com/bloreboy ... The Lady is at /NamrataM (she wants me to plug her work account /EMCMAGELLAN) ... And here are some of the folks I follow on Twitter:

/Malz ... Taz Snow
/patricknorton ... panel-member of TWIT, and tech reviewer
/THErealDVORAK ... John C. "I Get No Spam" Dvorak
/ltshaw711 ... A funny chap in Boston
/sidsays ... The Lady's Brother
/leolaporte ... The Chief TWIT
/wilw ... Ensign Wesley Crusher's alter-ego
/darthvader ... someone with a great sense of Star Wars humor, and way too much time on their hands

Any other readers have Twitter accounts? Let me know!

For those curious, I use Hahlo on my iPhone to write out Tweets.