Red Raider Show Episode 7

aka When are you gonna start talking about comic books?

Hey, Raiders, hope you're doing well. It is the day after Thanksgiving, so we're, I don't know, in the home stretch for the holiday season. And as you know, this has been a kind of like weird year. I want to say that it's funny you think about the COVID years, right the beginning of the lockdown, when 2020, every creator you know, everybody you know, in fact, you yourself probably said like, 2020, it's good ground number. This is the year we are going to change things up, or the very least that we are going to make things happen. I'm going to be aggressive about this year. This year is going to be the biggest gosh. And then it happened and we didn't get to do anything except we did, right? Because a couple of us used that opportunity and said, all right, I'm trapped inside. In my case, I work inside. So it didn't change anything for me. It just made people that I could work with, that I've ever wanted to work with more available virtually. And so we expanded a little bit. We had a whole host of creator interviews, tried a few new things, but for the most part, we weren't able to really do the things that I wanted to do the most that were like in the back of my mind, which included stuff like getting the team in the studio to record more things. But then even by 2020, the recording more things option was limited. But we were able to kind of round out the Comic Pop Returns channel and also have a whole bunch of really fun interviews as well. So in that wake we have now entered, it's going to be 2023. And looking back at that time, just about two to three years ago, I think that there was a lot of expectation, no expectation. I think that for a lot of us, we were like, wow, this has been a real opportunity for me to reevaluate and look inward and try new things. And I firmly believe that two years removed. We are now in a place where any company, every company that ever had the opportunity to increase their profits at the expense of the consumer has taken that opportunity, has just straight up. And, like, I need to recoup my losses and not just recoup them, but I need to make in one year what I lost in two. And so they are trying to double their amount every single year from now until they can get away with it, basically. And you'll see it everywhere from your grocery prices to the Raid Shadow Legend sponsorships on your videos, you're going to see it. And it is frustrating across the board for everybody, for the consumer and for the content creators. And in our case, we're looking at making videos about Marvel and DC. Well, Marvel and DC are aggressively producing content no one's asking for in the form of multimedia like movies and TV and, I guess theme parks. And in the comic world, if they are making comics people want, which I believe firmly that they are, they're also not putting money where it needs to be to alert consumers that things they might be interested in in the wheelhouses they pursue, like reading comic books, are available to them. I just genuinely don't think that the comic book industry, by and large, Marvel and DC are. I want to hold their feet to the flames the most, but across the board, I'm not seeing a lot of enthusiasm. We talked about the enthusiasm, the hype, but I'm seeing something worse than we're not seeing hype. Right? Because that's like the recycling argument where it's like, you know, there's a lot of garbage in the ocean and it's because you don't sort your plastics and your compostables, and it's like, yeah, how exactly does that garbage get into the ocean, though? You know? Because I'm not personally taking every bag of trash and dumping it in the ocean, you know. But these companies have cleverly figured out, oh, well, if I just lay the blame at their feet, that is to say, the consumer's feet, then I can obfuscate blame and avoid culpability and regulation for as long as people notice and as long as the media is willing to give me a pass. So to suggest that we are responsible, that you're responsible for there not being enough hype in comics right now, I think is felonious. I don't think it's fair. I think that right now, especially maybe during the pandemic and maybe a year after the lockdowns, we were not as hyped for a variety of reasons, but chief among them was that they weren't making anything hypeworthy. And in today's world, they're not alerting anyone to anything. They're resting on their laurels for no reason at all because they're also perfectly willing to entertain the narrative that comics are in trouble or need help. But if comics are dying, which they're not, by the way, but if comics were in trouble and needed the audience to step in and buy more or talk about it more, then that is the responsibility of the people producing those comics. To alert the audiences through traditional and nontraditional means that there is products out there that they want and should be consuming. And we're not seeing that. We're seeing this kind of very lazy approach to the industry where DC goes. So here's a crisis. We know crises sell. We know that Death of Justice League is going to sell, or the very least, maybe they didn't know that, but it did. The Death of Justice League justice League 75 sold really well, and Dark Crisis has sold pretty well. I would say very well, in fact, certainly very well over the last three years in comparison. But the lessons that these guys are learning is, well, we can just put something out and the hype machine will take care of it or the audience will take care of it. And that is just not the case anymore. It is not self sustaining. And not that I'm getting tired of it, but I don't care for the approach since I'm lumped into this category a little bit, that they're like, well, what we're gonna do is like, let's say next year we're going to put out a book that's really exciting. Well, you know, let's do the Marvel Dark Web example because Dark Web just launched with, like, a prelude in the Amazing Spider Man comic that just released last Wednesday. So dark web's out. And the premise is there and is steeped in Xmen lore and 90 Spiderman lore with the antagonists being key players in not even key players. Ben Riley is more or less the Star McGuffin unwilling protagonist of the clone Saga. So he is a relic of that time that represents that period. But Jeannie Genie is only a character in The Lost Years, a miniseries that is essentially just a tie in to the overall story arc because Ben doesn't get her after he becomes Spiderman. She is a rep, conned character that participated in Ben's life during The Lost Years and then Nick Spencer dusted her off and brought her into the book. Wasn't Nick Spencer. It wasn't even Nick Spencer, was it? It was whoever the hell was after Nick Spencer. Some transition, right? And then we had Jeannie be a major figure in Ben's life. And I think that hardcore Ben Riley fans were like, yes, Genie is important. It's about damn time. And by the way, I like to call that the demotias effect because James Dim mateus gives a shit about character and will invent like a mother or a lover or a father or a crush or a brother. And that character will be like the emotional crux of the story that we are watching about our main character. And that character will resonate so well and effectively with the audience as it is viewed through the main character that the audience members who read that story will remember it and remember those characters. But I can tell you, having lived The Clone Saga, having lived comics at that time, maintenance readers a didn't know about her and B, didn't care. And neither did the creators, for that matter, by the way, because after The Clone Saga ended, so to speak, and Ben Riley was killed in quotations, they would occasionally do returns to Ben Riley. They'd like, remind you that character existed. And there were two pretty prominent appearances by Ben Riley during a time when I'm sure the marching orders were don't reference The Clone Saga. There is no reference for it. It is dead. One was in a Spidergirl story, which was like a flashback about Ben Riley didn't feature his jailbird girlfriend. And then there was another one that was a RET con that introduced a new old character named Raptor. In both instances, it was like she didn't exist. So people who like that character or refer to her don't be fooled. By and large, most of us didn't remember her or we didn't regard her. She was a character that took place in the past. It's like asking. It's like demanding Uncle Ben's stories. You know, she existed as a love interest for Ben during the five year time gap. Not for now. But my point is, if we can get back to that, marvel isn't interested in reminding you, telling you, promoting it. They're just putting it out. They're like, here's Dark Web and it features these characters. Hope you know who they are. Because the fact is, honestly, I mean, really, when you think about it, why would I pay a marketing department to tell anybody about this event? Why would I pay an intern to produce art or infographic that explains what these characters are or maybe remind people that they feature in stories that might be on sale? Oh, wait, except the Lost Years aren't really collected anywhere. So it's really not a synergistic opportunity for me to sell more books. But I can certainly sell Inferno, not the latest one, but the older one. But why would I spend money on that when I have two comic, three comic book channels in the millions of subscribers on YouTube? You got comic story and comic books playing invariant. And they got 2 million subs a piece, you know, and they're just going to sell the book for me. They'll tell their audience about it. And by the way, not through coordination. It's not like Marvel will call Benny Robert Harris and say, hey, there's this big thing coming out next month called Dark Web. You know, it would be really cool if you guys could do like a character profile. Like, maybe if you covered the lost years really reintroduce genie or just beyond hell. The Lost Years aren't really collected in its own kind of thing. Or if it was, it's an older printing. So we're never going to reprint that. You know what, we have beyond on the shelf. Sell beyond if you didn't already cover it. Or maybe you could put together a redux of the beyond coverage where we'll call up the writers and the artists from beyond and they'll talk about what's going on. I think it was like I think it was Stephen Kelly Thompson. But anyway, we'll call them and we'll have them come on your show and they'll give insights into where they were going or what their favorite moments are or what might have happened and then give you robust coverage. By the way, all of that would cost them nothing to do. All it would be is an email sent to anyone with further contact information. Like Marvel could just say, OK, so Kelly and Zeb, we're doing basically what is essentially a marketing push, a promotional, like, tour of the now past beyond series. But because Zeb is using characters from that period, you know, we're going to be able to kind of retread that. Plus, Zeb worked on Helians and reintroduced the new status quo for Madeleine Pryor. So everyone involved will be part of this tour between literally only three channels. And they could do it across the board. They could work something out with news around CBR, comics, beat, etc. But let's just think about just the visually minded, just the YouTube aspect. Well, I'm going to call those three and I'll tell them on Tuesday at 02:00. You're going to talk to so and so. You're going to talk to the other person. You're going to talk to these basically three people. You're going to get your interviews. And because all three of them have production teams, because you know that if you watch them or if you were a company that did anything in marketing, you would know that because you've already worked with them in the past. So you say, okay, here's your interviews. Then redo or give a redux of your beyondcoveragepromotions for dark web, which is now coming out and reintroduce the audience to those characters who are going to feature prominently because obviously, Hallows Eve is a really important character because we're trying to sell her new character. But is she goblin queen or queen goblin or where the hell the kafka goblin? Is she's in this story, too? She was just reentry. She was just introduced. Whose? Ashikafka? What's her story? What's she all about? Do a character profile in Ashikafka, tie it in, be like she's a breakout new character. But little did you know, you can read all about her adventures over the last 25 years. So they could do that, and it would cost them nothing, literally nothing, and just put the burden of production and responsibility on these independently operated channels. Because what they don't know or what they don't care about is any of those three creators, they wouldn't, but they could say, yeah, OK, I'll do that. Take that information, talk to those people, you know, set up, gotcha interviews, and then talk about how much beyond sucked and how dark web is gonna be garbage because Marvel has no real control over them and what they say. But if you're going to rely on them to promote you, then you should have some measure of control. And that's done through working together, not just putting up your feet and going, they'll take care of it. A couple of them will just talk about it, probably, unless YouTube's screwing around with their algorithms. And it's suddenly unreliable because it's like, what's their motivation to do anything regarding dark web if normal, everyday Batman and Spiderman videos aren't performing as well? The motivation would be, if that's the case, to work with Marvel directly. But Marvel's not even offering that, so there's no incentive to do that. But Marvel could still be like, here you go, and having that coordination that working, that collaboration that would motivate those creators to give a positive spin on those events and this upcoming story arc. And that would, again, cost them nothing. But instead of doing that, which would be the equivalent of, I wouldn't say, like, ten emails across all three channels, because it's like, hey, so and so, here's the breakdown, here's the creators. Hey, creators, here's the breakdown, here are the channels. And then, well, good luck. And then just passing off the creators to those channels. If they really want to be hands on, and I've seen this happen at DC, they could have a representative who's working on the clock anyway, who sits in on the interviews to make sure that everyone's, like, on this on the level, make sure they're like, oh, don't give away that. Don't give away this. Or you can say this, you can tease that, you know, because creators are like, well, I don't I don't really know, like, what I'm allowed to say, what I'm not allowed to say. I just know I'm writing the book. So they could do that, and it would cost them $0. But they're not doing that either. Instead, they're doing nothing. So there's no selling going on anyway. So I'm just watching how the conflict industry is, like, simultaneously doing the bare minimum, but also expecting things to happen anyway. And it's just, like, really frustrating because the worst of it is those three channels I mentioned, they are the largest in the grouping in that category. They don't do that. Like, their job is not promotion. Their job is not to stay current and up to date with the latest news and topics. They don't cover comic book reviews. So the burden is actually on the smaller channels that do end up doing that, which is where we come in. But again, they're not doing that either. Instead, if it ever happens, if you ever see us talk to a creator that's promoting a book, it's because the creator called us, or we called the creator because we like what they do and we want to talk to them. And we know that the incentive is to promote the book they're working on right now. So that's a little bit of behind the scenes baseball, I suppose. It's not unexpected. A lot of this stuff is logical, a lot of the stuff you could probably guess. But I wanted to share that with you because that's how it feels. I imagine it feels the same way to you. And that's where we are. And I'm kind of like, hey, so we're now in the post COVID, post greed period. You know, I feel like the world is like, you're seeing all these analysts and experts talk about how inflation works and why eggs are two times as expensive or why gas prices fluctuate wildly. What they're doing is they're just testing the fences. They're just seeing what they can get away with. I use this example a lot and I don't mean to, but it's, like, the most perfect example because of how old the example is. You're driving on the Garden State Parkway, and I remember seeing it at the toll plaza, or really I remember being told about it, but, like, at the toll plaza temporary measure, tolls will be doubled at this location, and it's assured to the general public that the tolls are doubled temporarily. People gripe and they complain, but you know what they don't do? They don't call the city officials or the municipalities because they see on the sign temporary. And what they're really doing is they're saying, can we get away with twice as much? Because why wouldn't they do that? And then you pay twice as much for a year. You're like shit. I mean, I got to go this way. This is the main road. I don't have any other commuter opportunities here. This is my job. This is the road I take. So I guess I got to pay twice as much, but at least it's temporary. I won't complain. Before you know it, it's second nature to pay twice as much, and then before you know it, eventually, maybe two, three, five years later, they take the sign down. You know the sign that says temporary? Before you know it, the toll has always been twice as much. And now when inflation hits and things are more expensive across the board, you can increase the prices again and just go, well, you know, inflation. And then a couple of eagle eyed proactive people might say, excuse me, but during a time of unprecedented growth, you doubled the cost of the tolls because you called it a temporary measure. But when was this? What month was this? Are you sure about that? And that's if they even bothered to react, which, of course, we've proven in at least the conflict industry, you're not under any obligation to do that, to actually respond to your critics or to any hardball questions, you know, was Danny Neil fired? Well, according to DC Comics and Warner Brothers Entertainment, there's no comment whatsoever, and why should I ever have to tell you? Because what I found out is that if I just keep my mouth shut and just do it, most of you will just fall in line. That sucks. And so I feel like we're now in that period, you know, where a year after the after the lockdowns, you know, we're all like, oh, man, that was rough. But we got the boosters, and we got the social distancing kind of ingrained in a lot of people, and, you know, we're coming out of this okay. And by the way, gas can be a little more expensive than a year later. Oh, and by the way and now we're like, oh, just things are just oh, everything's expensive. Everything's more expensive. Everything's more expensive. Just everything across the board, and there's no wrong reason. Oh, yeah. You know how like replacing a catalytic converter was going to be, I don't know, called $1,000. Well, 2000. Whoa. 2000 between the two years? Yes. How come, you know, shortages. Shortages? Shortages of what? This got really ranty. And I do apologize, but like, I don't know. I have no other place to talk about this. So, you know, you're here for this kind of crap anyway. But my point is, if you're annoyed, this is like this fucking stupid. That sucks. Good. Be annoyed. Be one of the people who remembers they took down the temporary sign and go, hey, we're right now in that period where they took the temporary sign down and there was hoping nobody noticed. And over here in comic book land, you know, they're like, oh, well, we're just going to pretend like it's business as usual, but we're going to do less. And as I said, so succinctly before, that sucks. So that's where we are.

Oh, also, we had a COVID scare, so we couldn't shoot back issues last week, which is why there are two Elsworth exchanges that have been an Ethan on them. I was like, well, we have this day reserve. Let's shoot two back else worlds and then have them come out concurrently. So we have the Ethan episode last week, and then we have the Ben episode this week. So that was cool. And people seem to respond to them. So we're going to do more of those, hopefully. And we had a little bit of a buffer. We had two episodes kind of like already filmed. That was the hulk Wolverine one. And thanks to you guys, we decided to do Hulk Wolverine first. But we had Venom carnage unleashed, ready to go. And so that's coming out this week because we weren't able to shoot anything last week, and we won't be able to shoot anything this week. So I don't know what the fuck we're going to do, but rest assured, we're not going to miss a week. This week, venom Carnegie leash will come out. You have access to it already if you are a morty sliceman. But I will be able to shoot the new episode that will come out the following week, this upcoming Wednesday. I would love to shoot it sooner, and maybe we will. Hopefully I'll be able to chat with the gang about getting that done. It might be a Tiffany, Ethan and Me episode, but who knows? Because yeah, that's where we are. We've been testing nonstop and we've been doing our part. But hopefully your Thanksgiving was a lot less stressful than mine. And yeah, so that's why we have the Elseworlds episodes you saw and that's why you saw the new episodes of back issues the way they are. We need to start planning for the holiday episode. I need to start prepping for the holiday episode. I had originally hoped that maybe we could shoot it like this Wednesday, but I don't think it's going to happen. So I'm going to have to shoot something equally fun because this is supposed to be our best seasons on YouTube. The winter into the holidays, like up until January, should be the best performing time in both advertising and in views and across the board. It isn't. It's fine, but March is fine. I don't need fine and bad to be the new norms, though if you were listening to the last 20 minutes of me talking, I think that's pretty much where we are at this point. But yeah, so I want to plan something fun and cool and big because I don't know what Venom Carnival lease will do well. So we should probably do something that will get people's attention and get asses and seats and yeah, that's the plan. Some folk are enjoying wake up. The release at 530 in the morning doesn't really do wonders for us, but it does inevitably catch up. So it is like a commuter show and the commuters are getting it, but it's not like there's a huge amount of commuters that listen to the show and then another second wave of people watch it. It's more like the very small group of commuters who do enjoy the show and can listen to it at like five in the morning, catch it, and then eventually the rest of the subscribers will wake up and they're like, oh, there's a new episode and then they'll watch it. But I'm on the fence about how we can proceed with that show. I like it a lot and I like making it and I really like providing something for the audience that appreciates it and a lot of people seem to respond to it. So I have no intention of stopping. It's just a question of like, should I put it out the night before? And if I do, I have to move it to another day because of course it will conflict with the other shows. But YouTube is screwing over live shows, as you've probably seen. So what had been Comic Pop Returns as bread and butter is now the bread or the butter, but not both, because as you've seen, some of these Wake Up episodes, some of these Lworld episodes are performing better than off the Rack. And off the Rack was one of our best performing shows on Comma Pop Returns. It is certainly one of the few shows that gets us on a lot of people's radars because it is current and UpToDate and it is opinionbased and it's about new comics through and through and new comic book movies. So we're in a weird place. Like everybody in the world, I hope it's comforting for everybody. You know, we're all kind of figuring this whole thing out, but no signs of stopping. And I just got a I had a meeting, a friend meeting, more or less, that took place just two days ago, that if all goes well, it's going to be a huge endeavor for me. And not like an endeavor of hard work, but more just a fantastic opportunity that I've been waiting for for years and working for four years. And that's really cool. And it will also result in a new show for you guys if we can manage to make it happen. It'll be a monthly show. I got to come up with a new name. It'll basically be like Elseworld, but different. And so it's so different. I want to make a new show, give it a new name and get it out there for you guys and we'll see how long that lasts. But again, you know, as you can see, despite our obstacles, expansion, continuation is our priority. So thank you all so much for allowing us to keep this up and give us the elbow room we need on this patreon so that we can continue to do these things, so I cannot have a complete meltdown if someone gets sick or can't make it. Well, we can still move forward and allow ourselves a forward momentum, however bumpy it might seem behind the scenes, which only you guys will know was bumpy in the first place. But I think I should also stress that it's bumpy in the way that everything is and not in a way where it's like, we could close tomorrow. You never know. No, we're in a place where we can transition or we can adapt to new situations. 

The only thing I'm really focusing on now that I'm like, this is one thing we need to have. We need a hub. We need a main hub. I was just talking to Jim Zub about this. He has a website, Jim Zub.com, and it's where everything goes. And he was like, I don't want to rely on Twitter or Instagram or YouTube for where everyone can go. So I'm thinking about that and I'm like, yeah, because if like, patreon closed, what are we going to do, you guys? We can create YouTube memberships, but I don't know how to communicate with you guys more directly outside of the community tab. But again, if YouTube closes, well, how do you guys know when we will move to the next thing, the next video streaming app? It can't be TikTok because two thirds of you aren't on there. So I think a website, maybe a newsletter, might be the way to kind of corral everyone into one prime location so that if any one section goes down, there is no gap and we don't have to scramble. But that's some thoughts for another time because I managed to rent for over half an hour and that's how long the other show is. So I'll see you guys later. I want to thank you all so much for your support. Again, that's what I was saying before. I was saying thank you because you guys allow us to make the space that we need and adapt our acrobatics, our entire thanks. To your efforts. So thank you all. Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. If you are not located in the US. Well, I hope you had a great Thursday, and I will see you on the next episode. So long, everybody.