STUFF & THINGS 4

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Rules question: Progenitus. How do I kill it?”

MAGIC TOURNAMENTS

Man, I’ve been running Magic tourneys since before there were Magic tourneys. I’ve been thinking about that this week with the Minneapolis 5K weekend on the horizon. I’m an old man who turns 40 later this year and, honestly, Magic isn’t a young game anymore either. It’s weird.

I remember the first time I ever played a game of Magic. An old customer of ours, Sam Wendt, was trying to get me to play for weeks. We’d been carrying the game for a while – since we got a box of Unlimited in. We had some Arabians, some Antiquities, and lots of the Dark (oh, boy). I had quite role playing maybe five years earlier and had no interest in a fantasy game. You gotta remember, too, that card games were a brand new concept, at least in the fantasy role playing world. Well, I broke down and Sam gave me a deck. I remember the game like it was yesterday. We played at our old front counter and Sam crushed me. I mean crushed me. You know how sometimes you let a noob hang around in a game either to be nice or because you’re an egomaniac? That’s what this game was. Sam cast like 3 Shivan Dragons and a Rock Hydra but wouldn’t attack even though my life total was under 10 and I had nothing in play but land. I finally got mad and threw in my cards. But here’s the thing, I was immediately hooked. I mean, we’re talking crackhead hooked. I wanted to beat him so bad and I couldn’t believe how awesome the cards were.

Within days, I started inviting people to the store on Saturday nights to play cards. We had this old chrome kitchen table donated by a player who lived in the building. You could seat about 4 people around it. I saw my first Serra Angel on that table. My first Mahamoti Djinn. It was awesome. Remember when those cards were relevant? I sure do. There were so few cards in the game at that point that it made creatures like that scary and powerful where as today they are nearly if not completely useless. Most of you who haven’t played long probably don’t think about this, but you’ve got to realize that tat that point there weren’t even 1000 cards in print. Heck, the time I’m thinking about there were probably about 500. I know that in Standard you have a limited number of cards, but after 16 years, players can remember the cards from previous formats and know that there are 40,000+ MTG cards in print. This was a new game and these were the only cards.

Our first major event at Paradox was called “Mox Madness”. We gave away a complete set of Moxes, valued at the time around $500. That’s right, a whole set of 5 for about $100 each. I would buy at that price today, by the way. Anyway, we ran the event over 2 days. Saturday we took the top 8 players and Sunday we took the top 8 players, smashed them together for top 16 Sunday night. If you lost on Saturday, you could buy back in the next day. (At least, this is how I remember it now. I’m old.). We had a total of about 95 players and while I can’t remember the name of the winner, I know who took second and I remember the match-up. It was Tyler Nelson playing suicide black (who had to buy in again on day 2 to make it) vs. the other guy playing red board control. I think Tyler won game one with some really fast Erg Raider, Thrull Retainer action that his opponent couldn’t match, but then the red removal stuff took over the match. It was the typical agro problem. Tyler expended his hand early and if the opponent could deal with it, he wins. I know that guy who won was the older brother of a couple of guys from Minnesota and I swear his name started with a K, but that’s all I got. Tyler, though, and his older brother Blair, have been friends of the store for nearly 16 years.

The other thing I was thinking about was the period in like 1996 and ’97 when I had nearly lost the business to a partnership break up and massive debt. At one point, I had one employee, the aforementioned in blog 1 Jamie “Woody” Woodward. Well, Woody was an avid player. He traveled to events al over the place. At the time, he had a buddy named Craig something-or-other who he often traveled with. Craig was a Grand Forks player who played both here and in GF at events run by Dave Denarsky and Collin Cominghay (those guys are a whole story in and of themselves, by the way). What I was thinking about was how angry I used to get at Craig over PTQ trips that he and Woody would take. I was so stressed out about the store and so broke that it was hard for me to tolerate much at that point. So when Craig confronted me about not letting Woody go on some trip, I really got upset with him. I don’t know that I ever actually stopped Woody from going to anything. I’m pretty giving as a boss. But there must have been some trip that I was holding up and Craig let me have it. He told me I was a terrible boss and had no business stopping things. To be honest, he was probably right, at least to some degree. After all, we had no vacation time, crappy pay, and crappy hours. So when your one guy wants to do something, you should probably let him. But what Craig didn’t seem to sympathize with was the consequences for me. Which were, simply, I would have to work the store by myself all weekend - which I did a lot in those days - Saturday 10 to 10, back again on Sunday. There was no FNM yet, which is weird to think about, so Friday nights weren’t like they are now. Saturday was your chance to play. Funny, though, most Saturday we had about seven or eight players and I frequently had to throw some deck together to get 8 guys. It was a crazy time in Magic and Paradox. On the one hand, the game was taking its first faltering steps onto the national scene. Pro Tour New York was the first PT and was in 1996, I think. Don’t quote me. States was on the horizon and sanctioning was just happening. There was no DCI Reporter and you ran events by hand and submitted them as such. Judge certification was beginning. I was kind of out in the cold on most of this at the time.

I didn’t have the resources to travel or network. I didn’t know anyone. Dave and Collin were actually the first certified coordinators and judges in ND and ran the states first Champs and PTQ up in Grand Forks, which at the time had a pretty impressive Magic crowd. Eventually, our great friend Kevin Johnson grabbed the reigns and got himself certified at a GenCon. Thank goodness. I’ll tell you all about the adventures of Dave and Colin some day, I promise. But I couldn’t, or didn’t, get to these big events. And that’s where the WotC network was forming, of course. With no internet to speak of, at least no organized web site like in modern times, it was face to face. It probably still is. It took me years to build a relationship with anyone at WotC. Now I have great contacts there and have even become a Premier Tournament Organizer. A long ways from where we started.

Really, it’s funny how things happen and how things change. Dave and Collin, had they not screwed things up, would probably have been the areas main guys. Being young college students, not tied to a broke game and comic shop, they went out and hit events and got in. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone but myself for not getting involved. If this tuff was going on now, I’d never sit around and cry about it. I’d jump in. Back then, though, I was much younger and a whole lot poorer and desperate. Good times.

Plus, I used to hate PTQs. They took my players away for the weekend. That meant no money. Boy, my eyesight is bad, but that was about as shortsighted as you could be. Odds, are, there would be no MTG today if it wasn’t for the move to Pro Tours and Worlds and so on. It would just be another game on your shelf next to your Monopoly, Life, AD&D, Scrabble, and so on. You’d look at it every now and then and say to yourself, “Boy, that game is fun. We should really play some time.” But then you’d plunk down at you Xbox 360 instead. Maybe once a year when your old high school friend you bought your first pack with showed up, you’d bust out some crappy deck you made once when you owned about 200 cards and most of those were Forests. Yep, I was a dope. I didn’t even realize how PTQs made people buy singles, buy sleeves, play test, and just generally learn to love the game. I didn’t think about the inspiration it gave players, the hope that there was more to playing than just drinking beer and buying commons.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

We’re done, I swear. I had fun with this one so I hope you do. When you read this, if you enjoy, do me two favors Point the blog out to someone else and feel free to comment so I know I’m not posting this for my own health.

What’s next? Are you kidding? I came up with this one this afternoon….

STUFF & THINGS 3

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

“Comics Values Monthly – how often does that come out?”

This is actually a slight paraphrase rather than a verbatim quote, but it’s funnier this way.

EVOLUTION, INNOVATION, INFLATION, AND THE ART OF COMIC BOOK MAKING

DC Comics recently released a collection of older Flash comics, issues #136-141 plus a story from some Flash Secret Files. The stories in the book are written by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar – although I’m suspicious that Morrison’s contribution may have concept only, leaving Millar to most of the execution. Reading this volume brought several thoughts to my mind.

The trade collects two stories. The first is about the Flash being forced to compete in a cosmic race to save the Earth. The second is a race against the Black Flash to the end of time. Both concepts share the same grandiose, high concept storytelling found in more recent comics by these two writers. Morrison has recently put the DCU through a Final Crisis where Darksied’s fall creates a singularity that threatens the whole multiverse. Oh, and he killed Batman. Mark Millar’s Ultimates took the Avengers on a blockbuster war against alien invaders in one volume and saw the US taken over by the rest of the world in the next. Obviously, these guys have no fear of taking comics to a new level.

So while that same sort of sweeping, epic story sense was present in the Flash, there were a lot of things missing. One lacking element to the book was the dialogue. This is the thing that makes me think Millar did most of the writing. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an insult to Millar, who I think is quite good., but by the time the Flash issues hit the stands, Morrison had been writing comics for quite a while and Millar was much younger as a writer. There’s a very faltering, issue-by-issue reintroduction. The first page or so of all six comics features a thought box where the Flash says something like: “My name is Wally West and I’m the fastest man alive.” By about the third time I read this, I had a pretty good idea who the Flash was and what he did. Argh. Looking back further in comics history, this is a technique popularized by Chris Claremont in Uncanny X-Men in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Structurally, this sort of device, clearly designed for a monthly readership, is meant as a recap, a way to bring the reader who may not be familiar with the story up to date. It’s most important as a technique when you expect your buyers to pick up monthly books at grocery stores or convenience stores. It’s also a style that has virtually disappeared today – which is probably why Chris Claremont has lost a lot of popularity since he can’t let go….

Today, comics are written as part of a story arc. This is one of the things I was thinking about as I read this trade. Most of the time when you pick up a trade of a comic that’s currently being produced, you don’t even realize that you’re reading individual issues because the story simply flows from one issue to the next to the next. Clearly, what’s happened is that DC and Marvel and their fellows have changed their strategy. They publish the monthly title now almost as material for the trade. They know that they can sell trades for $15-$20 and that the cost equals about six issues of a monthly. So your books become six issues stories. I myself am still quite a fan of the monthly and don’t mind this tactic at all. It’s like watching a TV show every week vs. getting the complete season on DVD. Both have their place, but the shows I really like, I record and watch the week they air. That’s probably the same with the comics I like, too. I tend to read trades of older stuff or of titles that I have a more casual interest in, but when I want the immediacy of events, I read that monthly book.

The other big thing I thought about while reading this trade was the art. Whoof. The art was not great, to be kind. But that’s not really what caught my attention. The big thing about the art was that it was clinging to the traditional layout structure of older comics. Going way back, Golden Age comics would pack the page with small panels with lots of dialogue. It was clearly believed that the reader thought words = entertainment and the art was just there to support the text. Combined with the lack of modern coloring, these issues had a very odd feel.

You see, the problem is that writers like Morrison and Millar were starting to develop a very modern style, but the format wasn’t right. Their stories were evolving but the structure of the book was not. The race story simply doesn’t fit in that book, it’s too big. The reader’s imagination was not challenged by what he was looking at as much as it was by what he was reading. This makes the book feel very odd. Retold, I think these stories today would be marvelous. If Frank Quitely could have given his movie screen pencils to the race story, it would have been gorgeous. The race is across the space time continuum. Imagine a racetrack circling not just physical locations, but different eras. Imagine what a talented artist with modern coloring and the freedom to use large panels could do. The same is true of the Black Flash story. Put Bryan Hitch on this story. Have him do a 10 page pullout (a la Ultiamtes 2 #13) of Wally and the Black Flash racing from the 20^th century to the end of history. The corniness and awkwardness of these stories would be gone, replaced by cutting edge storytelling that merges art and text in ways older comics could only dream of.

I gotta wrap this up. I don’t want anyone to think I’m criticizing past comic eras. If anything, I love older comics more than modern. I’m simply making a point about what’s changed the last ten to twenty years. Image was at the forefront. Who had ever seen a comic like Spawn #1? That was surely the beginning of the modern age.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

If you missed it, we posted a review of the sixteenth anniversary weekend on the front page of the website and posted a ton of pictures on our Facebook page. Sign up to be a fan of the paradox Facebook page if you aren’t already and check it out.

Oh, and we did it, boys and girls! We hit three weeks in a row. I’m not gonna lie, when I sat down to do this I had no idea what to write about this week. I hope that isn’t always the case. It’s a little nerve wracking. I hate pressure. So here’s hoping something smacks me in the face before next Friday. I guess we’ll find out…

STUFF & THINGS 2

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Well, ah, what’s the point of that card then?”

NOTE: The quote of the week is not necessarily a quote that occurred this week. It is simply this week’s chosen quote. For context, ask me, or wait for the book (that may or may not ever come out).

LAND OF THE LOST

Yes, go ahead, mock me. I can take it. It was Tuesday afternoon, I was bored out of my mind and I’ve seen everything else. I don’t have to justify myself to you!

No review. Movie sucked, plenty of people have critiqued better than I ever will. Leave it at this, Will Farrell had his moments, that was about it. Oh, and this; the movie suffers by never knowing what it wants to be, a kid’s movie or a PG-13 flick. This is clearly one of those movie producer slotting problems where no one decided who the audience was, or they tried to cheat and appeal to different groups. I hate the ratings system so much.

Here’s what I want to say, though. I am sick and tired of remakes. I was trying to come up with some clever line connecting the dinosaurs in this movie to the dinosaur that is the remake, but I got nothing. I just think it’s time to end this crap. Look at this summer’s movies. Star Trek, Terminator, Transformers, Wolverine, GI Joe, Land of the Lost and probably more I can’t remember. They’re either property rip offs, bad sequels, or re-envisioning. Not one of them is a new concept. Look at TV: Battlestar Galactica (which was actually good, but that’s not my point), Knight Rider, V, and so on. No one wants to try anything new, except for reality shows – gag. I understand it, I suppose. New is risk. Old is security. It’s easier to work off a brand name than create one, obviously. I read a list recently of about 20 sci-fi properties that are up for remakes, and that didn’t include the Alien relaunch just announced. So we have nothing to look forward to.

And yet the best sci-fi in recent memory is Firefly and its companion movie Serenity. They were fresh, interesting, and bold. Also, Lost, while not wholly original, has proven to be a unique and challenging TV show, one of my all time favorites, in fact. So it can be done.

Here’s who I blame: us. We have spent upwards of two decades rewarding the movie studios for their unoriginality. I’ve done it, you’ve done it, and so have millions of people all over the world. Why would anyone try to make a good movie when they know the crap they’re regurgitating now is good enough? I certainly wouldn’t. You certainly wouldn’t. And that’s where we are. Transformers is good enough. X-Men 3 is good enough. Wolverine is good enough.

I’m not advocating a ticket rebellion. I know I’m going to keep going to this crap. I’m just suggesting that movie goers at least acknowledge some level of objectivity. Don’t feel that you have to like the movie because you bought a ticket for it or took your girlfriend or kids or whatever. Just ask yourself if you were satisfied and if some little part of you feels funny, you know you probably weren’t. Start there. For me.

I’ve often said that the people who want more out of movies are not hurting those that don’t. It’s those who want the least they can have who hurt those who want more.

SIXTEEN YEARS – AGAIN

I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. I never do anymore. I’ve run events I thought would be great and watched them flop and I’ve watched events I thought were terrible blow up and get caught with my pants down. Whatever happens, I’ll tell you all abut it.

The one consistent thing I heard from customers this week was that they were going to miss out because they were going on vacation or to a wedding or a graduation or some such. This is why in the past I have skipped doing an anniversary event in June. Despite what I’ve heard, I’m of the belief that things have changed. I think the weird weather the last two years and the increased gas prices and the poor economic times have caused a change in behavior. I can see it in my sales history, that’s for sure. Sales have gone up in months that traditionally are down for us. I think this is a trend. When you see trends, don’t ignore them, jump on them. You’re going to be wrong sometimes, but you have to try to evolve with the world, especially in business. I know lots of guys who hold to a business model from the 1970s for comic shops. They still have hundreds of boxes of back issues. Or there’s the game shops that refuse to develop new games, like all the D&D 4^th Ed. haters. Well, those are the guys who are closing their doors or doing the crying.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

See? We made it! 2 in a row! I did two before Xmas so next week will set the Paradox blog record. Tune in next time for – whatever I feel like. Oh, and tell your friends! We need readership to break the 2 barrier also!

STUFF & THINGS

By Richard J. Early

UP

This past week, I had a discussion with a very nice customer of mine who told me that Pixar movies are nothing but ‘kid’ movies. I understand the thought process. The movies are animated which means they aren’t to be taken seriously. But anyone who’s seen Pixar films knows that this type of pigeon-holing is completely unfair to these films. Movies like “Toy Story” and “Wall-E” certainly appeal to children with their humor and charm, but they also offer deep themes about love, relationships, and other social concerns. “Up”, the newest offering, is no different. This is a brilliant film about growing up and growing old. An old man and a young boy must both confront personal loneliness and loss. Both characters are stunted emotionally as the movie opens but eventually discover a relationship neither expected. Dug the Dog steals the show. One of Pixar’s more memorable characters, Dug is equipped with a special collar that allows him to speak English. However, he still thinks like a dog. If you’ve ever had one of those super-friendly, kind of dumb, pets, you will identify with this spot-on interpretation. The attention given to Dug is more thoughtful and clever than most human characters in this summer’s movies. To date, “Up” is 2009’s best movie – sorry, “Star Trek” fans – and a must see for all, not just kids. I think I heard that it had the 3^rd highest box office opening of any animated film, trailing only the Shrek sequels, I assume.

BATMAN AND ROBIN #1

Is there anything Grant Morrison can’t do? He can do sci-fi. He can do company crossover. He can do magic. This guy has written such diversity as Invisibles, X-Men, Sea Guy, JLA, and now is the featured writer on DC’s new Batman flagship, Batman and Robin. Fitting that he should have to deal with his own mess since he’s the one who aced Batman in Final Crisis and RIP. Re-teamed with superstar Frank Quitely, the team from New X-Men and All Star Superman, Morrison switches gears from the cerebral Final Crisis to a summer blockbuster style. This is a technique the team has employed before, specifically on New X-Men, and one Morrison used with Howard Porter on JLA. I’ve felt the best definition of Morrison’s Batman is to refer to him as a super-hero James Bond. It’s just got that perfect great Bond movie kind of feeling. It’s a different take on the character. He’s not Frank Miller brutal and he’s no Denny O’Neil investigator. He’s a brilliant strategist always one step ahead of his enemies. At least he was, until Darksied zapped him. That was Bruce Wayne. But what’s next? A brand new dynamic for this classic duo. Dick Grayson has stepped up to the plate and taken on the mantle of Batman, which he refers to as a shroud in this issue. His Robin? Damian, Bruce’s maniacal son fathered with Talia, the daughter of the Demon – Ra’s Al Ghul. Damian is convinced he is ready to be Batman and makes it very clear. Dick finds himself in an obvious role reversal, now being forced to mentor a parentless Robin. This situation seems perfect. There is room for terrific character conflict and I have a sneaky suspicion Damian won’t behave himself. Could there be a showdown between these two? Morrison provides some cool, crazy new villains in the Circus of the Strange. Interesting that Dick Grayson Batman faces a circus in his debut when Dick/Robin lost his parents at the circus – I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. Throw in a flying car, a new HQ, and one nasty villain, and this series hits the ground running. I know customers are a little fried on relaunches and characters dying only to obviously be brought back later, but this title isn’t worried about all that heavy handed background stuff. If you’re going to Terminator Salvation and Transformers 2 for the spectacle, add this book to your list.

WHAT’S UP AT PARADOX?

Well, #1, we’ve finally got a new blog. Yes I know it’s been since X-mas that I did this, but I’m making a personal commitment starting today. I’m going to post a new blog every Friday from here on out. I’m going to focus on anything I want. Oh, that doesn’t sound like a focus. Well, I’m going to feature comics, movies, TV, sports, games, or whatever is on my mind this week. Expect lots of Lost come next February. But I’m also going to keep you up to date of the goings on at Dox from my perspective. I don’t really want this to turn into an advertisement. Obviously, I can’t entirely avoid that, but I want to take a more nuts and bolts approach to the decision making side of things. I want to talk to you about retailing and decision making. I’m going to try to be honest and open, without giving away all my secrets. I’m working on a book project about running Paradox for the past sixteen years and this blog is going to be a part of that project. So it’ll take a little while to develop a style I’m happy with, and a readership. I’m not doing this to hear myself type, after all. I also want feedback. Please comment on these blogs. Spark some conversation. Let me know what you think about the things I blog about and let me know what you think of the blog. Hopefully it will turn into a great experience for all.

SIXTEEN YEARS

Holy crap, really? As many of you know, we’ve been advertising our sixteenth anniversary. It’s coming up on June 13^th and we’re hosting events and running sales and, my favorite, giving away free birthday cake. In the past, I’ve skipped anniversary events because the date is in June and I’ve made the mistake of thinking that nobody would be around because it’s summer. But last year I started to change. We held a gaming event in October to commemorate our 15^th year, but that left the comic guys out in the cold. So I wanted to fix two things: create an event for everyone and move it to the proper timeframe. I think we’ve hit it on the nose. Brian and I spent several hours pitching ideas back and forth until we came up with a great plan. That’s a big part of making things work. Come up with a goal and then work backwards. My dear friend Jamie Woodward taught me that. I’m also a believer that you’ve got to promote the event at least six weeks in advance. We failed at that one. But life goes on. Anyway, think of this as a little taste of what I’ve got planned for this blog. I’ve given you a little insight into my thought process.

NEXT WEEK

I’ll be back next Friday, I swear.