Got a real treat this time around for you, folks, in the form of a webcomic you may not have recently heard of.  One of the great themes of webcomics is geeks and their assorted paraphernalia, like movies, music, books and video games.  Let’s face it, anyone who calls himself (or herself) a geek has a fascination with at least one item on that list, and probably more than one.  Me, it’s all four in varying amounts.  You should see my house sometime.

But anyway!  This time around I’ve got JT from Between Failures talking to me in the Five Question Slot O’ Doom (I’m thinking about trademarking that.  You know, like that old show Banzai and its Lady One Question or Mister Shake Hands Man) and he’s got some geektastic things to tell us about comic book conversion movies, pop culture in general, and the all-time best ever movie quote.

And no, it’s not from Army of Darkness.

1. Since your comic, Between Failures, deals so deeply in pop culture like video games, music and movies, what is your assessment of where pop culture is going? Do you find it getting worse on average, or better? If worse, what kind of improvements do you find necessary to save the failures?

It seems to me like certain areas of pop culture are trending up.  With the apparent nerd takeover of Hollywood we’re getting to see decent movies about characters many of us have grown up wanting to
see on the big screen.  That’s pretty sweet.

Then, on the other hand, you have the wasteland that is television.  Shows like American Idol still roam the Earth, preying on the souls of mankind, with pockets of resistance, in the form of shows like The Venture Brothers, Ghost Hunters, and Doctor Who, valiantly fighting on.

If none of that suits you then there’s a wealth of content, usually presented without cost, available on the internet.  Great webcomics like David Willis’s Shortpacked, or Kris Straub’s Starslip Crisis keep the tradition of comics alive now that newspapers are struggling to adapt to the new age of information.  NPR has an array of pod casts, available at any time, or there are gems like Anything Ghost that are produced by the everyday geniuses that go mostly unnoticed.

Video games are more amazing today than ever before, and there’s no reason to think that’s going to change, or reverse its course.  For the most part, pop culture is heading in a direction I like.

2. Considering the general state of comic / video game conversions to movie form–read: they’re almost inevitable failures with a handful of exceptions–do you believe the concept is inherently flawed?

The concept is certainly not flawed.  It just depends on who gets tagged to do the conversion and what the source is.  Tim Burton is kind of an artsy guy, but he took the Batman concept and made two good films.  Now Christopher Nolan has taken the idea and made it work again.  (Although I don’t care for the direction he went with Batman, and haven‘t seen the new one because of it.)  If you give a good idea to a good director/writer they are going to make a good movie, most of the time.  Bryan Singer gave us two great X-Men movies.  He left the franchise and we got a crappy 3rd movie, but were rewarded with Superman Returns.  Cause and effect.

3. If you could use your own characters in Between Failures to stage any comic / video game conversion of your own, rights be damned, which would you use and why?

I’d probably do some kind of a Star Wars thing.  I think I could just about pull that off.  I was a big fan as a kid, and am one of the rare fans who was able to enjoy the prequels.  I kind of try to steer clear of that kind of thinking though.

4. What do you believe is the future of movies? Do you think things will go on as they are, or will one or two particular formats move to dominate the market?

Difficult to see.  Always in motion the future is.  The one sure thing is that it won’t go on like this forever.  Superhero movies are the flavor of the week, but that will change in time.  Maybe that new Star Trek thing will bring about a wave of Sci-Fi stuff.  I’ve been hoping that something like that would happen, and superheroes aren’t a big leap over to Sci-Fi. There was a time when I wanted Western to come back into favor, but I just can’t see it happening anytime soon.

5. Now for the hard one. Riffing off your own comic–best movie quote EVER. Go.

“I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid… and… I went ahead anyway.”   -Crow T. Robot, MST3K The Movie
And so, that’s the way it sits out at Between Failures.  Singer rules, TV drools (not to mention much of its audience), and a panoply of options including the internet as a delivery medium make pop culture a continually liquid phenomenon that, in the truest Yoda-esque fashion, cannot be accurately predicted.

Let alone punditted upon, a disturbing trend that’s sure to keep people like me–and our man JT–writing on the subject for years to come.

Tags: recreation, web, hobbies

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