Marvel's New Policy on Open Submissions]]>Due to an unprecedented number of unsolicited art and writing
submissions, Marvel has altered its open submissions policy effective
immediately. Marvel has remained the only major publisher to continue
accepting open submissions, however that practice has been halted as we
review our strategies for accepting future submissions.Marvel has a proven track record of attracting new and emerging talent
and does not plan on ending those efforts in any way."If you look at our track record over the last 18 months, I think you'll
find the names of more new writers and artists in Marvel books than ever
before. Maybe more than at any other major comic book publisher, as a
matter of fact," says Marvel Talent Liaison C.B. Cebulski. "We pride
ourselves on finding new voices and artistic styles to help us shape the
Marvel Universe in original and exciting ways. And while the hunt for
new artistic resources to help us ever expand the Marvel mythos will
continue, we'll just be going about it in different ways. We've examined
all our past practices concerning talent recruitment and it quickly
became clear that more 'reactive' methods such as open submissions were
the least effective ways to open the Marvel door for up-and-comers. So
instead we'll be continuing with the more 'proactive' methods of artist
and writer discovery that we've found so successful of late, including
some soon-to-be-announce d new outlets."While the open submissions policy has ceased, Marvel will continue its
active recruitment of artists through its Talent Management department.
Artists are also encouraged to bring portfolios for review to the major
conventions at which Marvel will have a presence this year.Talent Coordinator for Marvel, Chris Allo adds, "In regards to finding
new artists, we in the Talent Management department will still continue
to look at online websites such as Deviant Art, Comic Art Community, as
well as comic art blogs, and other related sites. Online comics are
rapidly becoming a source for scouting as well. And, of course, we will
still go to the comic book stores on Wednesdays and see what new artists
are out there working for other companies and on independent books."With the successful discovery and publishing of writers in the fields of
comics as well as TV, film and literature, Marvel will continue to
search out new voices in all published fields, as we have for the past
number of years.As new media and means of publishing comics on the web as well as small
and independent press, we encourage all new creators to continue honing
their craft by using all of the tools available during this time.
Marvel will be announcing a new submissions policy in the near future.
Plans are that I will have Monitor Duty back up and running in a day...WITH a new podcast AND it will be back at our domain, Monitor Duty.com! Right now I'm doing a massive link-fix. Many of our old posts needed repair, so that is what I'm doing right now. This means our blog will be better than ever.
I've just been contacted about some more video game reviews for the Wii. So that's also in the works.
And Wordpress has some amazing plugins! Plans are for this site to take off. Movable Type has been an anchor and I'm glad to chuck it off...even though all the MT designers think I'm crazy!
]]>And frankly...I don't have a single good answer to that!
All of my blogs are currently in template hell. I'm losing money because the templates with my banner ads are not working. I would never recommend Movable Type to anybody at this point.
Wordpress, from my limited experience, is much more user-friendly. And it appears to me that it is winning the blog wars, while MT is by far a loser. I mean, they laid off one of the guys who designs their best plugins; how much of a future can this software have?
Please bear with me, everybody.
]]>I like Movable Type. I like that it's hosted on my site, so I don't have to have a whole 'nother URL such as monitorduty.wordpress.com. However, it is user-UNfriendly to the extreme.
Look what happened today. I just want to update from version 4.1x to version 4.23 and then install the latest plugins so that I'm all ready for podcasting. That's all. Should be simple, right? And what does it do? Makes my custom color scheme go away, changes the way the widgets work (widgets are the little boxes on the side of the blog that offer links to the tag cloud, archives, search, subscribe, blogroll, etc.) and doesn't provide any instructions on how to do the new widgets.
EVERY update is like this. No wonder I only update every couple years.
]]>I've been wondering why NOBODY uses my Amazon links on this blog. Turns out that my plugin was set up to give the traffic to the owner of the plugin, Byrne Reese. Oh, I'm no dummy. I set it up right for my site...but then each particular blog has its own setting as well. I didn't discover that until I was double-checking today.
Hope you enjoyed my money for the last two years, Reese. Consider it payment for a well-crafted plugin. But from here on out...that money is MINE!
And here, for no reason, are some Amazon items, just to make sure it works. Everyone click on one, please. (You don't have to buy it. Just let me see that the clicks are tracking. Thanks!)
Here's hoping I've backed up everything correctly.
Yeesh. It shouldn't be this hard...or this scary. There should just be an "update to latest version" button that you press.
Dang Movable Type.
]]>What disturbs me is that, if successful, he will be the third actor from Batman and Robin [NOT Batman Forever - Ye Ed] (a film, even the most unrefined of comic geeks believe to be the WORST Batman film ever) to land a governorship.
Makes you think.
]]>Short and sweet: It's Batman taken to a more realistic extreme, i.e. anyone doing what Batman does would wear out his body pretty quickly. I will say no more, but check it out via their banner ad above.
]]>Migrating in such numbers that they once devoured a herd of cattle!!!!! I mean, if I heard of ONE cow being devoured by a horde of tarantulas, and I lived within 1000 miles of it, that would freak me out so much that I'd move to Iceland. An entire HERD of cattle?
What chance would a human being have?
Yeesh. I would not only fight for legalized DDT, I'd make carrying it mandatory.
Where is the press in this? Why haven't we heard of it? Probably because no pretty California newsbabe wants to head out in the desert to film carnivorous spiders by the tens of thousands! And I don't blame her a damn bit.
Makes you want to move to Liberia, where the worst that can happen is that caterpillars poop in your drinking water.
I have no clue what it will do to our templates and such. You may not notice any problems, or everything may disappear. We shall see. (Don't worry, the database is backed up.)
Then we'll be in fine running condition to post the podcast.
]]>Obviously, they're playing this for laughs. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
See, when I was a kid, this was an AWESOME show. Yeah, even then I knew it was stop-motion animation, rubber costumes, and a blue screen raft with a falling boulder that is clearly a model, but I bought into it. Boy, did I buy into it. There were these small pyramids with doors that would disappear, and inside are platforms with little crystals, and I, like, one time, I remember this episode, you know, where one of the main guys, he like, does something wrong and is then followed around by a strobing antimatter outline of himself and stuff.
The show could be downright creepy at times. And I'll admit it: The Sleestacks scared the hell out of me. YES, the big goofy fakey masked Sleestacks. They were terrifying. This one time, one of the kids was like swimming into this underground cave that could only be entered and exited by an underground stream, and as he's getting ready to leave this BIG HISSING SLEESTACK FACE RISES OUT OF THE WATER. Oh man. I just wet my chair. Oh no, wait, that's just some soda I dribbled. Phew!
Yes, Land of the Lost was a drama about a lost family trying to stay alive in a bizarre land of dinosaurs, prehistoric humans, futuristic devices and lizard people. Why couldn't that be played serious?
Here's a shocker: Doctor Who is no more "real" with CGI than it was back when the lasers were red beams that didn't quite line up with K-9's nose. We always acknowledge to ourselves that it is fake and then we get beyond that. Star Trek was about stories and acting, even if the Styrofoam rocks didn't look as heavy as they should.
In the same way, why should Land of the Lost now be a comedy just because we look back on the 1970s show and find its SFX laughable? Why do the Sleestacks have to look...cute?
Cute sleestacks? BLECH!
]]>Actually, it's not that bad, and ol' Tuck Pendleton is always reliable. I've enjoyed The Mummy series of films (as well as Deep Rising) on a technical level and most of the weak points were in the writing. I do wish it wasn't suffering from the X-Men's whole "identical black costumes aren't really costumes" motif.
]]>ARGH!
I got rid of Norton Utilities a while ago because I was sick of paying for it over and over again, especially when every function of it that I used could be easily done by a free program. With one exception: Norton Protected Recycle Bin. I love that feature, and I can't find a free program that does the same thing. In fact, when I Googled to find a replacement for it, the top results are people complaining about it and considering it useless. Well, if I'd had a protected recycle bin, I could recover those files.
Fortunately, I had run off an MP3 for Erik to hear, so I can use the high-resolution version of that to work from. I hope you'll bear with us if the sound of our podcast isn't the best. The next one will be better.
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