Meetup recap: What happened in San Francisco? - Pop Candy - USATODAY.com
Scroll down. Keep going. Okay, stop at #18. Yeah, that's Storm from holding a copy of STRANGEWAYS: MURDER MOON. In full view of the camera and everything. Pics taken at the Pop Candy/Tim Sale meetup thingy last weekend. I tried real hard not to show up in any of them. Wallflower, remember?
Click me to see something...wonderful (NSFW neither)
Draw-offs featuring your favorite characters, and some you'd completely forgotten. The above link is Marshall Law by Cameron Stewart, but if you go to the main blog, linked in the first line of this very paragraph, you get extra goodness.
Though I'd still like to see Chip Zdarsky take on Marshall Law.
I mean, Chip would totally win...
The Comics Journal: Journalista!
Journalista! Returns!
Blame Ken Lowery if you like. Better blame Rick Geerling while you're at it. Because I have a new, bi-weekly column up at Dark, But Shining entitled Conversation, Fear. I'm mostly going to be talking shop about writing (not that I write stuff that's all that scary) and my work in particular. There'll be some odd reviews and essays on other subjects as well. Give it a look.
That SNAKES ON A PLANE is bombing? Come on, admit it. You really thought it was going to pull through and rise above the rampant idiocy of its own high concept/title, didn't you? Well, I never did. It was a bad idea when it was called PACIFIC FLIGHT WHATEVER NUMBER and, granted, it's only real shot at success was Embracing It's Own Badness and going whole hog and being an awful movie. Not that said plan was much of a shot.
It's like manufacturing a cult movie. You can't. But more importantly, why would you WANT to? Cult movies almost inevitably die in their initial run and are only "appreciated" after the fact. And by "appreciated" I mean to say find an audience at all. Said audience is rarely if ever enough to make these things profitable unless they're starting on the bottom of the budgetary ladder (and oftentimes, distribution eats up those profits so that the original creators often don't get to cash in on the success of the film anyways.) Besides, most cult movies simply languish in obscurity or never find a following at all beyond the hardcore cult geek.
You simply can't base conventional/mainstream success on this kind of campaign. If you have money to spend on the campaign in the first place, then you're not the kind of scrappy and idiosyncratic filmmaker that's likely to have a devoted following. The giant snake head on the floor of the Convention Center at San Diego this year? Eye catching, perhaps, but it also automagically excluded SNAKES ON A PLANE from being embraced as the Little Film That Could (though the airline safety cards were smirkfully funny). See, the thing is, every time people said "Snakes on a PLANE!", they were *laughing* at it. I don't know about you, but I'll rent a movie to laugh at it, but I sure as hell ain't spending ten bucks plus popcorn plus soda plus the twenty bucks at the bar beforehand to get a laugh like that. Maybe it'll make it's production costs back in video and overseas, or maybe it already has, but it seems pretty clear that it's not going to even make back its viral marketing costs in its initial release.
And now maybe movies get to learn what comics learned a couple years back. Just because people are talking about it on the blogosphere, doesn't mean that they're going to plunk down any money to actually buy it. Talk is cheap, etc.
EDIT to add - Ah, so SNAKES is on top of the box office lists with $30 million this week. Being on top was the most that the studio should have expected out of this, so an attaboy for New Line and the SNAKES crew. But I'll point out that SUPERMAN RETURNS ruled the box office for a week and still came out smelling like a dead fish (at least perceptionswise). SNAKES is still not going to be any kind of runaway success.
Or at least I am. Click the above for a recent review of mine posted at the ever lovin' Dark, But Shining.
Courtesy Chip Zdarsky hijacking The Engine and making it his own, we get preview art from Cameron Stewart for his current project: THE OTHER SIDE.
Man, that's one tortured sentence. I'd rewrite, but there's no time. Will likely be away for a few days. Don't go drinking all the good stuff while I'm gone.
Titanic Tom Spurgeon interviews Jovial Jeff Parker (sorry guys, but it just felt right). I love how it's called a "short" interview, yet it's both longer and more informative that most interviews you read online these days, at least at the bigger comics sites. Though perhaps it is short in comparison to the extensive sorts of interviews that Tom conducted for TCJ back in the day.
I haven't had an opportunity to read AGENTS OF ATLAS, but it's in the pile, right near the top. I expect not to be disappointed, and Parker usually doesn't (though STAR BRAND didn't really grab me, but I suspect that has more to do with the subject matter than anything else.)
I didn't until sometime this weekend. Now you do!
I'll probably be contributing some longer pieces to over the next couple of weeks. Or at least until they discover that I'm faking all of this and toss me to the wolves.
Lady, That's My Skull: Deli Zen
Go and read. Succinct genius.
Talking zombies: Ken Lowery takes on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD over at Dark, but Shining.
as Fanboy Rampage was in it's heyday.
Newsarama starts a blog (more like absorbs The Great Curve) and cherrypicks blogging talent like Graeme McMillian, Kevin Melrose and Michael May. Worth adding to your bookmarks list for quick headlines aside from "BATWOMAN IN LIPSTICK LESBIAN SHOCKER."
Name two characters that don't belong in the above-linked image of the X-Men, as drawn by Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod, of the illustrious RAID.
Not yours, really. Though if you dig "city of the future" sorts of pop culture ephemera, go hog wild.
EDIT to add that there's banner ads that aren't safe for work or sanity, should you scroll all the way down. But I guess they gotta pay for their bandwidth somehow...
you mix guys like Josh Fialkov, Kody Chamberlain, Tony Lee and Chuck BB together? You get something like Creator Direct, which has them all waxing philosophic and rhapsodic about all things great and small.
And maybe posting some art, too. Worth a look.
To all of you who are swinging by for the first time thanks to a link in this week's LitG. Traffic has, as they say, kicksploded! I sure wish I had something to keep everyone's interest. Maybe I'll talk about the 1986 Howard Chaykin SHADOW miniseries and why it's a) so damn good and b) this weird, singular kind of event that's never likely to happen again, but has had huge repercussions in the industry. I'd even go so far as to say that it's had more influence than books like DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and WATCHMEN.
Am I crazy? Probably. But I'll try and back up some of those wild assertions a ways down the road.
NEWSARAMA.COM: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI%u2019s WORDS, WORDS, WORDS (One)
I am about to tell you something that may be the most important thing anyone ever tells you about the writing biz. No guff. Ready? Here it is.There is no competition.
I say this for two reasons.
Yeah, I've been away, and I'll be away for a while still. However, before I disappeared into the aether, I did want to comment on the above link. I have to say, I don't care for JMS' writing. I didn't like BABYLON 5 and I don't like his take on SPIDER-MAN.
However, he has a point in the above. It's worth reading, particularly if you're harboring delusions of going to comic writing. Or writing at all.
The trick is, you have to write. Not talk about it, not blog about it, not network about it. And certainly not anguish about it.
Work on STRANGEWAYS continues apace. Began writing the second long story arc, entitled "Thirsty." A nickel to the reader who can guess the supernatural menace involve.
An imaginary nickel, that is.
Plans still call for a self-published collection of the STRANGEWAYS material created to date (what would have been issues 1-6 of the series as not put out by Speakeasy.) Probably this summer, realistically, maybe a tad later. Five of the six issues of artwork are done now, just need to be laid out and lettered, after I get more script pages to the artists.
Oh yes, there's likely to be a new artist. Luis Guaragna is tied up until July and I can't wait that long to start on things. There's two candidates, both are good.
As for the blog, seems a shame to have it go so quiet since I spent all that time redesigning the style sheet for it, but that's how things work out sometimes. And, sadly, there's not too much that's been going on in comics that's inspired me. Maybe something like WELCOME TO HEAVEN DR. FRANKLIN, or reading the COMICS JOURNAL interviews with writers that just came out and realizing that comics are still struggling with legitimacy issues that they've been having since the sixties or how the latest INFINITE CRISIS and 52 previews don't engender much confidence in me (though that Question page is neat), maybe any of those would be meat for a longish entry, but there's pages to be written and laid out. Blogging gets to take a backseat to that for awhile.
Don't worry. I love the sound of my own voice too much to hang it up for too long. Go read Jog's blog instead. He's a much smarter guy than I am.
Someone has way too much time on their hands. At the above link, you'll find a sanity-shattering Lovecraftian scene, crafted entirely out of Legos. Cosmic madness made out of tiny little plastic bricks. Chilling.
I tried to resist. Honestly, I did.
All due credit to Dorian for starting this. And I bet he didn't even mean to.
tags me with a particularly virulent meme. Could be trouble...
ONE (1) earliest film-related memory:
Seeing the Disney version of ROBIN HOOD at a drive-in theatre in Orange, CA. Probably the last time I've been to a drive-in, too.
TWO (2) favourite lines from movies:
Lines are so easy. Putting together a whole movie is what impresses me now. I could say that just about everything out of Claude Rains' mouth in CASABLANCA is golden. "I'm shocked! Shocked and apalled!" Hilarious. Gets me every time. "You're the top man now, dog!" from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK is a perpetual favorite, despite it being worn to death now by the eponymous website.
THREE (3) jobs you’d do if you could not work in the “biz”:
Like Sean, I'll assume the biz is comics. This is easy. I'd go back into animation. In a minute. If it weren't for having to live in LA and everything that goes with that. I wouldn't mind teaching, though I suspect my inner fascist and California mellow natures would go to war with one another and destroy myself and everything within a five block radius. Failing that, perhaps a librarian. I like books and I like to be left alone. Seems like a match made in heaven.
FOUR (4) jobs you actually have held outside of the industry:
Teacher, both technical and academic fields (animation and running various social science seminars at the college level). Arcade attendant, with all the rights and responsibilities pertinent. Archivist at the National Archives in Laguna Niguel, CA (not as much fun as you'd think.) Pizza shop monkey. All the pepperoni I could stand.
THREE (3) book authors you like:
Raymond Chandler, William Gibson, HP Lovecraft.
TWO (2) movies you’d like to remake or properties you’d like to adapt:
Remaking movies is a mug's game. I'd love to see a film adaptation of NEUROMANCER, though it'd be tough to pull off without it seeming hopelessly dated. Oh and I dunno... Geez... A filmed version of Morrison's DOOM PATROL would be pretty keen. Again, quite likely impossible, but I like a challenge.
ONE (1) screenwriter you think is underrated:
I don't pay enough attention to that sort of thing anymore to give this a fair answer. That Alan Smithee guy might get it, but he's horribly inconsistent.
THREE (3) people I’m tagging to answer this meme next:
Jeff Parker, Ed Cunard and/or John Jakala, and Jog (though I think he has too much sense for something like this.)
Ken asks how we might magically change non-comics readers into comics readers in one fell swoop. Okay, he didn't really ask that, but he talked about some books that he's had some success with.
Some of the titles he comes up with:
Transmetropolitan
The Authority (first two vols)
The Filth
Y: The Last Man
Sin City
Sleeper
Fables
Human Target
100 Bullets
I'll add some potentials to that list, but let's take a look at why those might be good candiates to warm people up to the Grand Comics Experience.
You may or may not have noticed, but suddenly, blog posts on this here blog are now starting before the new site was officially launched. Thanks to the magic of chronal reversal through careful manipulations of the Tachyon Stream that makes up the flow of time itself, I can change past events and publish articles in the distant path! It's really amazing.
So, a handful of the better posts from the old blogspot blog are now available for your perusal, if you want to fire up the old wayback machine. Some are funny in retrospect. Others much less so.
The Great Curve: At Sixes & Sevens: 6 great comic-book robots
Kevin Melrose returns (sorta) to high-profile weblogging, over that The Great Curve. It's not his usual thing, though. A little more fun, a little lighter. Go give it a read.
Is a linkblog. What a letdown!
I link to this because Tom's a) sharp and b) discussing exactly the sort of thing I was trying to get to with my post of last night. He's addressing the fallacy of comics as a mainstream media, as well as a bunch of related fallacies/follies including:
Manga as instructive to western comics, whether in format or presentation. The two rise from such different native media that surface emulations are at best moot. Yes, there's a wealth of storytelling techniques in manga worthy of study, but you can't graft western comics onto the manga audience so easily.
Comics, as an industry, face huge and intrinsic structural deficiencies that prevent mainstreaming with things being the way they are now.
Well worth a read, but the above is not a permalink. I figure he'll make a semi-permanent link to it in his commentary section, but you can see it in the entries for the 1st of January.
Jog - The Blog: Another reader's guide, for you.
Jog, of the sorta-eponymous Jog - The Blog, does a great job of rounding up a good chunk the Speakeasy news-related blogging of late. If you're just coming to the party, then you might want to give the above entry a look. Not that it'll elucidate anything, but you'll get a chance at catching up with the various balls being juggled by various industry wonks.
Am I really writing this stuff? I need to get to bed. Yeesh.
That I haven't entirely disappeared, here's a little thing I did for Dark, But Shining a little while ago. Posted now for your reading pleasure.
No, it's not a usual Halloween pick. But that's okay.
And I owe a response, but I haven't had time to write one up. Besides, what I'd have to say wouldn't resolve much of anything, so I suspect we'll have to end up agreeing to disagree on some things.
Oh noes!
Apologies to Lennon and McCartney.
Fanboy Rampage packed it in yesterday. It had been coming for some time, really. And that's okay. Because if he stuck with it, Graeme would become the Johnny Lydon of snark: meteoric and incandescent before burning out and appearing on The Surreal Life. None of us really wants that, do we? I didn't think so.
FBR!!! at its best was a place that demanded not simple snark, not just a rapier wit and thirst for blood. It demanded outrage. Outrage born out of jesters cavorting and fiddlers fiddling while Rome burned. It was the only appropriate response to the Hype Age of Comics, bent on deflating egos and savaging naked emperors (of which there no shortage - nor are there today).
Sadly, the comments section dipped into self-parody more than once. Or twice. Or thrice. And yet, we still came back for more, knowing that sooner or later the trolls summoned in from various other messgaeboards would give up (or the peanut gallery's attention would be diverted elsewhere.) Somehow, FBR!!! remained essential reading, even in the midst of the pain and anguish of Paul O'Brien's dark night of the soul or the stab of the arctic shit-knife. Graeme, like Peter Finch's character in Network, was Mad As Hell And Not Going To Take It Anymore. At least not quietly. Only flimflam artists and sycophants had anything to fear.
Odd that people are talking about the death of the comics blogosphere right about this time. Funny, but I don't see that. Sure, a lot of the more prominent early booggers hung it up, or went on to gigs that paid them for their time and effort. Some of them are even trying to actually get work in comics and watch what they say (/me raises hand), but that hasn't stopped others from firing up their own blogs and getting the word out. Whatever word that is (and there's as many opinions as there are bloggers and commentors). Perhaps people are regretting a missed opportunity for comics bloggers to save comics and enforce a positive (from their perception) change. That, of course, is a cherished notion that is largely bunk. I dont' see too much change to the industry having come from the fan communities. Sure, some of those fans became creators and exerted influence (arguably detrimental as a whole, depending who you talk to).
But I don't think that's the point. Blogs aren't supposed to save the world. They might get people talking, but they, much like mailinglists and USEnet and messageboards, aren't likely to change anyone's mind. Or rescue the medium.
However, I'm off-track. I really should be saluting Graeme and his many thankless hours of work and ultimately his inspiration. Without him, I wouldn't have written a single column or started this here blog. Well, maybe I would have, but he made it look so damn easy that I figured I could do it too.
Bottoms-up, ye wee bastid! Here's to yeh!
THE BEAT: The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women
Heidi writes in her rebuttal to various rebuttals of Johanna Stokes' column (link is dead right now, but it's over at Comic Book Resources):
I know quite a few couples where the spouse (and it isn't always the wife!) is completely uninterested in comics, and these pairings rarely strike me as being totally compatible. That would go for any choice of avocation, though, really. A race car driver who married a woman who was allergic to the smell of gasoline would have a lot of adjusting to do. Yet such things do happen.
Just want to mention that I'm living proof of that. My wife, whom I adore and dote upon, has no interest in comics. Sure, she read Grendel back when Christine Spar was the lead, and the occasional other book that I'd zealously point in her direction, but it never really took. Of course, she loathes Tom Waits and just about any other music I get really excited about, too.
However, that hasn't prevented her from being supportive in my work (particularly now, when getting into comics seems both easier and more crazy stupid than ever). She might give me a weird look when I come home all worked up about the Seaguy art I bought and how much I paid for it and what a great deal it was, but it doesn't get in the way. Not really.
And The Sandman bored her to tears. Even the EC-stylee horror at the launch of the series.
Though I suspect that Graeme will have to find another outlet somehow, else the pent up urges will likely be the death of him.
From laughing after reading Dorian's take on Watchmen. The sad thing is, I can see people saying this with a straight face.
starts a blog. He calls it: Of Course, Yeah!. It's pretty good, and funnier than this here blog. Give it a read.
Whaddya mean "Who the hell is Spencer Carnage?"
I finally get in on the All Hallow's Month festivities over at Dark, But Shining with a longish piece about the unsteady relationship between horror and science fiction. Go ahead and give it a read if you need some distraction at work.
Particularly Dorian, who linked to this story as part of his celebration of All Things Chupacabra. KOBTV.com - Strange corpse has some saying: "chupacabra".
But that's most assuredly a skate or stingray that's been cut up and dessicated. I know because... Uh, well...let's just say that I know, okay?
MILE HIGH COMICS presents THE BEAT at COMICON.com | 2: Welcome to hell
Sometimes LA comes as a shock. Particularly during fire season. Might I recommend, as a guide to Apocalypseland: One of my personal favorites.
No, I won't make it a habit to quote Soundgarden titles. Don't worry.
However, worth your time is the annual All Hallow's Month over at Dark, But Shining. They've even got a nifty contest where you could win a bunch of horror manga, including Uzumaki and The Red Snake. Go take a look.
I even hear thery're planning on some surprise contributors again this year.
Well, at least a tiny little part of it does. This is an interview/questionnaire that Larry Young ran past a bunch of bloggers as part of his (sadly, now-terminated) Loose Cannon over at CBR. He wasn't able to finish the piece, so I took it upon myself to post my answers to him. Occasionally the blogosphere has moments of self-reflection and I figure I can just post this for the next time such issues come up. Larry's questions are in boldface.
---
Comics blogs seem to be a "what have you done for me lately" sort of thing in terms of attention, readership, and import. Cranking out content for eyeballs seems to weigh more one side than the other when it comes to telling both sides of a complex issue. How do you see Highway 62 in terms of its audience? Do you feel that having "ruin" in the name of your blog limits the audience you can potentially reach?
I won’t argue the point with you. It’s obviously critical for bloggers to keep the content coming. Does that mean it’s good to just dump a bunch of recycled headlines from Newsarama? Of course not. What I mean is a relatively consistent stream of solid content, with the occasional dash of snark for zest. Don’t throw out a regurgitated press release just to get something up for the day. Give folks a reason to come back to your blog. If you’re not adding something to those news bits, then why shouldn’t I just hit The Pulse instead?
The readership is sharp enough to know that some bloggers are always putting up fresh stuff constantly and some do an essay a week. How do you prefer your “news”: in headline-sized bites, or in a meatier and more in-depth format? Readers figure out who’s doing what and click to accordingly.
As for telling both sides of a complex issue, people who get PAID to do that have a hard enough time of it. I’m not going to make excuses for bloggers being one-sided. It’s a simple fact. Blogging as a whole may be a democratic process (more accurately anarchic), but every individual blog is a tiny little fiefdom where the blogger pretty much has absolute power. There’s creators who I really like and I’m likely to blog every single bit I can about them. Likewise, there’s creators who I’m going to blog about only after they put their foot in their mouth. And then there’s most everyone else who I figure gets enough coverage elsewhere and you’ll never ever read about on Highway 62.
It’s like nobody goes to the scandal sheets for fair and balanced analysis of a story. They go to see the freakshow. There’s plenty of folks who cover that side of things and make it damn entertaining, but I don’t think they’re working under any illusions of being unbiased or doing anything other than getting a chuckle (at someone else's expense or not). And man, does that ever happen a lot in comics.
I not sure how think of an audience for Highway 62. I mean, it’s only been around for a couple of weeks now. If I tried to second-guess my readers in terms of content, then I’d never get anything done. That’d be like publishing/creating books based strictly on rigid genre criteria and audience expectation, and that’s a dead end, right?
How do you see the coverage you offer? Do you try to go for a journalistic viewpoint of the latest pop culture news, or are you content to provide links to news others point out? Or is there a third path you feel Highway 62 travels? Basically, why do you do what you do?
In terms of the coverage I offer, I’d say it’s a balance of things that plenty of other people link to and random other stuff that’s likely only of interest to me and a few others. Granted, with the news coming out of Chicago last weekend, that’s been skewed, but it always evens out.
I’m not comfortable calling myself a journalist. Particularly in a field that’s as driven by personal taste as comics is. Really, there’s only a few journalists actually working in comics, much less comics blogging. Most of it is heavily opinion-driven and doesn’t make any pretense at being more than that. Besides, I’ve always been leery of journalists and the whole concept of journalistic impartiality. Journalists are people. Media outlets are run by people. People are biased, whether they choose to own up to it or not is up to them. The facts might be ironclad, but the context into which they’re spun is far from it.
Why I do what I do is directly tied into that skepticism regarding reporter’s neutrality. We’ve all got opinions, right? I just want to make sure that mine have a fighting chance of getting expressed. Are they any more or less valid than anyone else’s? Not particularly. If you don’t like ‘em, there’s always a comments section (or failing that, you can blog about ‘em yourself.)
Aside from this, there’s a social aspect to it that I won’t deny. It’s just another way of communicating, and I’ve been doing online communication of one form or another since I was in college. I dragged my feet about blogging but realized that I was spending so much time commenting on other folks’ blogs that I figured I’d have enough to say on a blog of my own. Easier said than done.
What sort of priority do you give to "news" in comics, however you define it?
I probably give comics “news” a bit too much weight, given that most of it is simply not news. If there’s a particularly big story, I’ll probably weigh in on it (sometime making fun of it, but there’s folks who do it so much better than I do.) Like anything else, it depends on the story and how I’m feeling that moment.
But really, most of what gets announced isn’t worth really even making fun of. “Hey, look! We sold out of a comic and you can’t get it anymore! Woohoo!” That’s not news: that’s bad forecasting and taking glee in hosing your market. Conversely, announcing that you needed four printings to match demand is only a little better, but at least you’re TRYING. But really, a lot of the rest of what’s printed on news sites is pre-solicitation materials, which is fine from a purely informational standpoint: I want to know about interesting projects as they come out. But stating that Writer X and Artist Y have teamed up to bring you the next story arc of Character Z that’s going to be the definitive take like you’ve never seen it before? Not news to me, but it motivates other folks, I’m sure.
Like newspaper reporters keep state government honest with their reporting... do you think bloggers and other observers of the comics scene keep comics publishers and creators honest? Or is it more like the dispute between orthopedic surgeons and podiatrists as to who has jurisdiction over the ankle? Where does the foot stop and the leg begin, right?
I might debate you on reporters keeping government honest, but I’ll play along. Frankly, you’d have to ask the publishers and creators that question. I can only make guesses. And, as with anything, its all dependent on the individuals in question. There are plenty of creators who seem to take great glee in winding up bloggers/online commentators. I mean, how could you even keep up with everything that goes on online? Trying to follow EVERYTHING? That’d be a short route to the rubber room and a lifetime supply of Xanax.
I don’t think that the bloggers are keeping creators or publishers from doing anything they wouldn’t already do. That doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. I mean, if they’re so unsure of their plans/creations, they wouldn’t worry too much about what a handful of loudmouths on the interweb had to say, would they? Frankly, I’m not sure that bloggers really wield all that much power (though some would argue that point.) It might not be a bad idea to spread some review copies around to bloggers who are receptive to what you’re doing, but to cater to their whims in an effort to curry favor is likely to be disastrous. That said, the comics market is inbred enough that I’d really prefer publishers ignore bloggers entirely and concentrate on outlets who’ve never read a comic (and don’t know what they’re missing.)
Ultimately, I don’t think that if a blogger (or two or three or five) calls “bushwah” on an event or whatever, that it’s going to change anyone’s mind. Look at IDENTITY CRISIS. Half the blogosphere thinks that it’s not only a bad idea but that the execution isn’t all that great, either. That’s not slowing DC down any, is it? Likewise, every blogger and critic banded together couldn’t save something like WILDCATS 3.0 from the chopping block.
Finally, everyone knows that the foot ends at the foot bone, where it connects to the ankle bone.
Do you find your blog to be customer- or reader-driven, or do you just write what you want and let the audience be damned? Or is there some complex recipe of the two involved?
A customer-driven blog? That’s a novel idea. Wonder how that’d actually work.
Truthfully, I consider the audience a bit, in terms of civility and clarity (which doesn’t always make it to text). Content-wise, though? I try not to let my perceptions of the audience drive what I actually write. I’ll admit I’m far more conscious of it in my blogging as opposed to writing fiction. Blogging is more like public speaking to me, so I think about self-presentation a lot more than if I’m simply posting on a messageboard or forum. People can only judge you by the text you write, when it comes to the internet. I’m a difficult enough person in real life; I don’t need to come across as a pretentious jerk online.
I know. Too late for that…
