There are many reasons I'm not saying anything about this year's Black History Month stunt from Marvel. I give them credit for at least making an effort to come up with something interesting every February. Others don't even bother to acknowledge it. But the thing I'm truly interested in about this latest event of theirs will not be made manifest until maybe a year after the entire thing is over. According to what's been revealed by the Mighty Marvel Marketing Machine - god, they're REALLY good at generating publicity, aren't they? And look at me, giving them some more... - the marriage crosses over several different books. It is what may or may not happen with the readership of those books after the (possible) joining that is of interest to me. As I'll never have access to the raw data I need to analyze in order to support or knock down my hypothesis, which I have developed using nothing but common sense and extrapolation, I'm just going to shut up about the whole thing because probably only Me and the sales people at Marvel care about that end of it. Besides, it's kind of cool to see how excited people are, even the ones who are "excited" as in they are "upset".
And I can't help but to give a Nod Of Respect to Marvel for knowing the exact person to tap for the core book. Like, TOTAL props, yo. Dude, I mean it. Word, and all that.
Here are some related links to the tempest, if you are trying to figure out what the hell I am talking about:
- The Marvel Whore of Babylon, from those low down dirty dogs at Prep Time Posse. Every time I read this post I end up laughing Hawaiian Punch out of my nose and all over the keyboard. What's even better about it? THAT'S JUST PART ONE.
- For the record, I should state I don't think the PTP entry is directly tied to all of the hype. The timing of that post and the announcement from Marvel is off. But when the pr outlets started churning out the news, the PTP post was the FIRST thing I thought about.
- Rich Watson's up-to-date roundup of stories about the marriage, and his keen analysis over at Glyphs.
- When you see the post titled "My Response to Paul O'Brian's Column,' where he tells you to go read the NinthArt thing and then come back to read his thoughts, do it.
- One of many threads about the impending nuptuals. Pretty much all of them popping up get into the same core issues. Something about this one I found challenging (in a good way).
- I don't have a link to this, but did anybody else pick up on the "begin their journey to the altar" thing?
- And did that set off any jangles when you look at how many books/storylines this event plugs into?
- Any caution flags raised when you saw the hints in the pr about what's supposed to happen in those books?
- I'm just sayin'.
With hope, between Kwasi, Rich and Prep Time, I can keep up with everything as it unfolds. Yaay for the Internet(s)!
Yes, I'm not putting a Die Whitey tag on this one. Isn't that eeeeeenteresting? I wonder if you're wondering why that is.
Image liberated from Newsarama.