Waiting for...um...Wednesday? (Issue 44)

As mentioned last week in this here (brilliant and inimitable) feature, ain't much to talk about today.

This week is a "comic book skip week," and there will only be a small handful of titles available at your shop. These books were shipped to retailers last week, and they were instructed to hold off on selling them until today.

Of course, there's a catch. Some stores won't have anything out today, because there was a choice for them to make. Not all retailers wanted the books, and so they didn't sign up and swear (with a blood oath, one can only assume) not to sell them early.

So, if you plan on heading down to ye olde comics shoppe today, I'd suggest calling ahead and making sure your retailer will actually have the titles. I know mine won't and that's fine, since I wouldn't have made the trip for three books, anyway.

But, as a super special side note, we here at Exfanding HQ will be making a comics shop run later this afternoon, as part of our yearly holiday season tradition. (In which we spend money we shouldn't spend/don't have on things we don't need/don't have any room for.) Still, it's a wonderful tradition, and one that I am greatly looking forward to partaking in.

We're a little late this time around, but hey, it still counts. We'll be hitting up some (far, far away) stores that we don't get the chance to visit too often, and that'll be lots of fun.

But before that, we'll be watching the final installment in our Introduction to the Films of Akira Kurosawa as we settle in (or, more appropriately, hunker down) to watch Seven Samurai.

A review will follow shortly. And it will be hilarious and insightful, usually at the same time. And there's plenty of other good stuff coming, including our Year in Review, in which we extol the greatness that is us. So be sure to check back often.

Now, if you haven't figured it out just yet, I am most definitely stalling and trying to fill this post with as many words as possible before getting to the actual comics that ship today. Why? Well, because there's only one that I want to talk about, and I need to pump up my word count.

You know, for my ego.

I could talk about the utter weirdness of a week without comics, but I don't really have a strong opinion on the matter. I tend to think that a comics shop without new comics is kinda like a mobster with no one to whack, so the whole point of the "skip week" is a little baffling to me.

I guess the argument is that this week is typically slow, what with the holiday and all. But, especially this year (when many employers are instituting a mandatory furlough for this week to save some dough), I'd think that there are plenty of people with days off, just looking for something to do.

I'd have to imagine that a lot of folks couldn't take vacations, and if they did, they are most liekly at the house of a family member. And if that's the case, comics fans would most certainly be looking for a local shop to haunt.

One can never underestimate the importance of getting away from family for a while. But, Diamond, Marvel, and DC don't see it my way. So you and I don't get new books this week. Oh, well.

Now that that's out of the way, I guess I might as well provide some info on the book that will be shipping today, and that I have some interest in. Today, DC releases issue six of the Geoff Johns epic, Blackest Night.
Not much to say other than, if you're reading this issue-to-issue, then I'm sure you'll be buying it today. If you're waiting for the trade...um...you won't.

Be buying it today, that is.

It's a great series--easy to follow, fun to read, and with some great surprises along the way. Everything you want out of comics, really. Here's the too-witty-for-its-own-good blurb on the book.

The secrets of Nekron are revealed as darkness consumes the DC Universe. Everything else: TOP SECRET.

Very good. Also, here's the disclaimer up on DC's Web site about the "skip week":

On sale December 30, 2009 only at comic shops participating in DC's "Green Christmas" program. Non-participating comic shops will offer the issue for sale beginning January 6, 2010. Check with your local comic shop for applicable on sale date.

So, y'know, if your shop won't get the book, I'd steer clear of the Internet for a while.

You know what I envision happening? If a fan's favorite shop doesn't get this in, he or she is going to go to another shop in the area to buy it. Then, when the favorite shop finally gets the book next year (okay, that's taking it a bit far, but you can't tell me it's not true!), that shop will be stuck with a ton of these things.

You'd have to imagine that orders are high on this series, so even a non-participating store is going to have a bunch of these. A week late.

Sometimes I don't get the comics industry.

Anyway, that's a rant for another day. I'd ask what you all are Waiting for, but I think I already know the answer to that. Still, since it's the last issue of this feature for the year, I just want to say thanks for reading, and stay tuned for WfW, Volume Two, coming next week!

Anime and Fansubs

This entry has been written by Scott Rothrock for Exfanding Your Horizons. He has been many different kinds of geek throughout his life: book geek, cook geek, CCG geek, comic geek, Japan geek, computer geek, prop geek... and will doubtless explore more geekdoms in the future. Right now, he has started a writing blog called The Prism Glass, which aims to produce four stories weekly as well as blog posts on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Free anime!

What anime lover doesn't want free anime? If there's anything going against anime, it's the fact that it's an expensive hobby. One DVD could contain anywhere from two to four episodes of a 26-episode series, meaning that a single series is a not-inconsiderable investment.

Well, there's a catch. It's illegal, you know.

Back in the old days when anime was "that neat cartoon with big eyes", a lot of people were so enthusiastic about it that they wanted to show it to other people. Well, there was a problem then -- since it was new to America, there wasn't much of a market, which meant there weren't many companies bringing in anime. What anime was being brought in was old and expensive.

Fansubbing was a way around this. Even though it was illegal, a lot of people saw it as being a grey area and justified themselves in various ways. They said that the anime wasn't copyrighted in America, that they were exposing new people to anime and creating a customer base, that they were giving companies free advertising, and that they were spreading a foreign culture, just to name a few. While some of those may have been a little true, the fact of the matter is that fansubbing is essentially illegal. In the old days, it wasn't a terribly big deal because it was awkward and took a long time; you bought VHS tapes through snail mail.

After the advent of broadband, the fansubbing world exploded. Not only was it possible to find and download fansubs quickly, but it was also possible to make them even faster. Anime became more and more popular; it was increasingly hard to justify fansubbing by saying that it was free advertising. The truth is that with anime's rising popularity, many American companies would license anime as soon as it was announced in Japan.

Some fansubbers got around this uncomfortable fact by saying that they would stop subbing an anime once it was licensed; the vast majority simply ignored licenses until they received legal threats. Even then, groups would often splinter off into more clandestine groups to continue releasing the series "for the fans."

I may sound bitter, but don't get me wrong -- fansubbers were an incredibly valuable resource for me when I was into the anime scene. I even joined several fansubbing groups at the peak of my craze, which gave me an inside look at the culture.

Fansubbers are not evil pirates; they're simply fans who have the ability to subtitle anime. And yes, it does take a certain amount of skill. A typical fansubbing group will have about seven different types of jobs, each usually done by a different person, though some talented people can perform multiple jobs.

Raw Provider -- Unsubtitled anime is called a "raw". The raw provider finds raws, usually via Japanese peer-to-peer software. Sometimes they actually live in Japan and record broadcasts themselves, but this is rare.

Translator -- The translator's job is obvious; they create a script of the show in the target language. The vast majority of translators are not Japanese, although Japanese translators can be found. The quality of translation can vary depending on accuracy, understanding of nuance, and the ability to give characters "voices."

Timer -- In order to move the script to the screen, someone has to use a program like Substation Alpha to create a subtitle script. The subtitle script contains times for each line, telling the video player when to display the line and when to hide the line. This can be an incredibly time-consuming job when done well, though experienced timers can often time a normal episode of anime in about half an hour. This is also a critical job, since subtitles can make or a break a fansub -- are the subtitles too early? Too late? Is there too much to read in the short time they're displayed? This all falls onto the timer's shoulders.

Editor -- Once the script is timed, an editor watches the entire episode anywhere from one to half a dozen times. An editor's job is not only to correct grammar and spelling mistakes, but also to ensure that speaking patterns, spelling, and word choice remain the same throughout the series. It wouldn't do to say that those giant robots are "combining", then "transforming" in the next episode, then "gattai-ing" in another, and then "fusing" in still another, would it? The editor should catch those kinds of mistakes and ensure verbal continuity. Additionally, if certain lines are too long, the editor can suggest line breaks or timing changes for the timer. The editor is also sometimes responsible for checking the translation -- you know those "mass naked child events"? That was an editor sleeping on the job.

Typesetter -- The typesetter job can be and is often performed by the timer. The typesetter is responsible for choosing the font used in the subtitles, the color of the text, the color of the outline, when the text colors/fonts change, and sometimes details like finding ways to subtitle signs and letters. In addition to all of that, the typesetter can also be tasked with creating an interesting-looking karaoke for the opening/ending of a show. Creating and timing karaoke can be so complex that some people focus ONLY on that particular task. Being a typesetter is truly a thankless job -- nobody notices the job you've done unless you've done it terribly. And there have been some terrible jobs.

Encoder -- The encoder takes the various subtitle files and the raw file, then puts them together into one video file. In addition to that, he tweaks the raw file to improve the clarity, contrast, and color while also shrinking it to a manageable file size. Many modern fansubbers aim to fit an entire series on one DVD; in the past, the aim was to fit four episodes on a CD. Ensuring that the video is watchable, artifact-free, and the correct size is all the encoder's duty.

Quality Checker -- Many people consider this the easiest job, and for good reason. Groups often employ several quality checkers at a time per series. The basic idea of the job is that a checker will sit and watch the episode, noting when they see a typo, some kind of mistake, or a video artifact, at which point the fansub goes back through the process until it's fixed. However, too many checkers will simply check their brains out and enjoy watching the release early, which will result in missed mistakes. This is usually what happens when a group releases a v2, or heaven forbid, a v3.

So there's a fair bit of skill going into every fansub release out there -- even the bad ones. Why do people put all of this time into a product that will never make them money? Why do people download these instead of watching official releases with professional translations? Well, enjoyment is one easy answer. Cost is another. Speed is yet another -- fansubs come out days after the show is aired in Japan, whereas the official releases are much, much slower.

But there's one more thing -- fansubs can often have a higher perceived quality than the average official release. Due to limitations in DVD subtitle technology, official subtitles are a boring, blocky white font. This can look irritatingly cheap and boring to someone who has grown up with fansubs. And hey, the official releases don't even have song lyrics or karaoke? What's up with that? The lazy bums...!

Why bother paying all that money for a DVD with a few episodes with cheap-looking subtitles and an English track you don't want when you can download it for free? Convincing thought, isn't it? On top of that, the anime industry has been known to recruit good translators directly from the ranks of the fansubbers, which makes it even easier to justify fansubbing. After all, they have to be doing something right!

Despite the obvious benefits, fansubs are still illegal, just like downloading your favorite movie, comic series, or album from a torrent site. Just something to keep in mind.

Reflections on a Decade of Dorkiness

It's all over.

In mere days, this disappointing decade will come to a close. I say "disappointing" because I am still waiting for my flying car. Maybe the futuristic-sounding 2010s won't let me down.

I've been alive for around a quarter of a century (it's scary when I put it that way, right?) and the 2000s--or the "'00s" (pronounced "Ohs"), as I prefer to call them--would be the first full decade I can remember with any sort of clarity.

I wasn't around for all of the '80s, and my memories of the early '90s are patchy, and even during the mid-to-late '90s I wasn't paying much attention to affairs beyond my own. Politics? Climate change? War? Please. I have a princess who I need to rescue from another castle.

The '00s, though... Well, I can't say I'm completely in touch with what's going on in the world these days, but at least now I can tell you with moderate certainty that Bernie Madoff was not, in fact, the title character of Weekend at Bernie's.

It wasn't until I heard part of the Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 countdown this weekend, in which all the top songs of the decade were played in a row, that I started to think about what the '00s were like as a whole. I heard songs that I thought were released in the '90s; I can scarcely remember a time when Creed's "With Arms Wide Open" wasn't playing on the radio somewhere, but it was released in the '00s.

Maybe it's too soon to tell, but I feel like the music of this decade hasn't had quite the same distinctive sound that music of earlier decades has. Pick almost any song from the '50s or '60s; if for no other reason than the quality of the recording, you can probably guess the general time period when the song was made. The '70s are pretty identifiable to me, and the '80s even more so, especially where electronic keyboards are involved.

It's a little trickier for me to define a distinctive sound for the '90s because a wider variety of instruments and genres seemed to appear on the airwaves, but the '00s really started to spiral away from classification thanks to Coldplay, Jason Mraz, Kelly Clarkson, Maroon 5, Evanescence, 50 Cent, Nickelback, Britney Spears, Snow Patrol, Dido, Shakira, Michael Bublé, Colbie Caillat, The Killers, Tenacious D, 'N Sync, Guns N' Roses, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, and the Jonas Brothers. Or, maybe I just started listening to music other than oldies and classic rock.

Oh, and that doesn't even begin to cover all the indie and instrumental and not-in-English music that's out there. That's just a starter list for the sake of comparison. I admit that I could be totally off-the-mark about being unable to track down a distinctive sound for the decade, but judging solely by what has endured on the radio and in my own music collection, this decade has been rather varied in terms of music, perhaps more so than any previous decade.

The same goes for movies, video games, and television; the offerings have been quite diverse. Undoubtedly that's due to technological advancements--CGI lets lazy filmmakers do things more hideously than they could ever do with a little bit of puppeteering, for example--but the state of visual entertainment has changed monumentally over the past ten years, without a doubt.

A decade ago, people were playing Final Fantasy VIII on the original PlayStation, in all its pointy polygonal glory. Now people are playing Final Fantasy XIII on a PlayStation 3, and the graphics have just about caught up with the best of what Hollywood has to offer. Whereas controller vibration was a fancy new feature back then, dedicated Nintendo gamers such as myself now have soon-to-be-industry-standard motion-sensitive controls that they use almost exclusively to play old-school, non-motion-sensitive Mega Man games.

Back then, at the turn of the century, we had TV shows like Boy Meets World and The Drew Carey Show and That '70s Show--we had sitcoms. Alright, so we also had 7th Heaven and Touched by an Angel and the very first season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but unless it's funny or sci-fi or has Alex Trebek, I usually don't care to watch it.

This time around, we had shows like America's Next Top Model, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Jon & Kate Plus 8--we have reality shows. However, we also have/had Mad Men, Dexter, True Blood, 30 Rock, Scrubs, Lost, Castle, Heroes, and whatever the heck else other people apparently watch on TV, plus reruns of Firefly, Deadwood, Arrested Development, etc. Most genres have had at least a little representation on mainstream stations, and I assure you there's a slew of good examples that I'm missing because I don't watch TV.

Moreover, "Mainstream" became a lot harder to classify over the course of the decade, in part because of all the genre-crossing within shows and networks, and I think also because this confounded recession has caused us to be pickier about our entertainment; one person tries something different and creative or spectacular that proves to be very popular, and then suddenly we're flooded with the offerings of people trying to cash in on a proven success, thereby causing this thing that is different and creative to be mainstream because everyone is doing it.

Zombies, vampires, and comic book heroes immediately come to mind.

That's right: Comic book heroes--and comic books by association--have become mainstream, or at least a few of them. Joe Moviegoer bought his first graphic novel this year, a copy of Watchmen, or maybe the latest X-Men comic. Jane the Political Junkie found out through her favorite online news source that some fictional character, Captain America, had been killed off.

I don't even need to paste a *SPOILER ALERT* here because everybody knows about it. Cap's death is like Darth Vader's secret identity--at this point, everybody knows that *SPOILER ALERT* he's Luke's dad.

Hang on; I just had a spoileriffic thought: Cap's death got regular non-comics people buzzing about an actual comic book, and as a result, said people actually picked up the issue/story arc where Cap died. People were buzzing about The Dark Knight, in huge part because of Heath Ledger's death. If my sources are correct, Final Crisis started up around the same time that movie was released; perhaps DC recognized a trend and killed off Batman to get more people to buy Final Crisis? Please tell me I'm not the first person to think of this.

Anydarkseid, a multitude of once-nerdy niches became a little more mainstream and socially acceptable over the past decade, but that's not necessarily a good thing. Valerie D'Orazio wrote an interesting post over on her Occasional Superheroine blog about how Sci-Fi, a television station dedicated to exactly what you'd expect, rebranded itself as "SyFy" and vanquished much of what made it unique in favor of mainstream programming that was more digestible for the masses who weren't diehard sci-fi fans.

So now where do the diehard sci-fi fans go?

That was my same frustration with the motion-sensitive controls of the Wii (a topic about which I've ranted not once but twice, at least). Sure, easy-to-pick-up controls invite a much broader audience, but I felt like I, a longtime diehard fan, was being alienated because these new control styles were highly contrary to my playing style.

Continuing on that train of thought, there's the new Star Trek movie that rebooted a 40-year legacy, garnering a legion of new fans while alienating a great many longtime fans in the process. I've written about my fears, my immediate reaction, and the aftermath about/to/of the new film, but the bottom line is that Star Trek has gone mainstream.

Suddenly we're living in a world where the school bully and the snotty popular girl and the little pocket-protected boy stuffed in the locker can all agree that they like Spider-Man or Star Trek, at least to some extent. In a way, this decade brought about an understanding between geeks and non-geeks with hardly any effort on the part of the geeks.

On the one hand, I think it's fantastic that Grandpa Somebody is playing Nintendo with his grandchildren and that Little Suzie Someone can pick Doc Ock out of a police lineup. On the other hand, that widespread appeal comes at a price: some of the things that make certain fandoms appealing are inherently unappealing to a mainstream audience.

Star Wars--a fandom that is rather mainstream if it's enjoyed in moderation--made a huge comeback into the public consciousness this decade, for better or for worse. In this case, it can be argued that Star Wars' return to mainstream popularity is in part because of the emphasis on appealing to children--the toys and TV shows especially have begun to seep into the minds of a younger generation, which means that in another decade, Star Wars might be just as socially acceptable as Duck Tales and Looney Tunes.

There were other fandoms this decade that gained popularity, though these were already mainstream--the difference was that they had been dormant for quite some time. The '00s were host to more sequels, remakes, and franchise reboots than you can shake a Wiimote at; in fact, I'm not sure that the term "franchise reboot" even existed until this decade.

From Terminator to Die Hard to Indiana Jones; from Batman to Superman to James Bond; from Chrono Trigger to Metroid to Bionic Commando; everyone and their prototype robotic brother got a fresh coat of paint.

Out of the blue, there were sequels to things that had been put away on the shelf at least five years ago, whether they needed sequels or not. New life was breathed into franchises that may or may not have needed resuscitation. And I already talked about remakes in a relatively recent post, so there's no need to rehash that.

All this talk of variety and diversity, yet everything new was really just something old in disguise. Go figure.

I'll continue to look back on the decade as the minor details melt into the bigger details that will feature more prominently in the history books and people's minds. I'm even considering looking for a copy of Consumer Reports' 2010 Buying Guide so that, in another decade or two, I can look back on the present the way I did with the year 1988. I'm sure it'll take more time to process the trends and hallmarks of this decade; after all, we've still got a few days left--anything could happen.

For starters, there's still time for that flying car.