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folks who toil daily to bring you your comic books really could not care less about what you think. And by "you" I don’t mean the "audience," because entertainers need an audience to entertain. Almost by definition. If you’re producing something for public consumption, chances are you wouldn’t mind hearing some applause now and then.

No, by "you," I mean "Internet users."

Let’s say you spend some time on any of the numerous message boards or discussion groups or email lists devoted to comics. I mean, if you’ve found your way through the wilds of the web to be reading this little missive into the ether, the chances are pretty high that you check those things out, yes? One of the things I like best about these things is that, sitting in your office, drinking some coffee, you can join a cocktail party where you can hear everyone at exactly the same volume. The Internet. Man, it’s cool. Whole businesses have arisen around this method of interpersonal commu nication. Whole companies have completely changed their way of doing business, based on the immediate feedback of their core customers.

But the comic book industry? The publishers with the greatest market share?

They think that if you have the time and inclination to devote so much energy into that radical deconstruction of The Hulk’s id, then, QED, you’re a froot loop who obviously should be ignored, because, really, don’t you have better things to do? I mean, of course Thor is stronger than Superman, right? He’s a god.

Anyway.

If you’ve been reading these a while, you may remember me mentioning that late in 1991, I found myself on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation as writer of a special MTV was filming on the release of Star Trek VI. The guy shooting on the set for the special was Rob Legato, who, at the time, I think, was the main special effects coordinator and second unit guy. Anyway, my pal Rick and I were on the set during the shoot, and were trying really very hard to be professional, because, you know, WE WERE ON THE BRIDGE OF THE ENTERPRISE. But in between set-ups, I chatted with Guy Vardaman, who was Brent Spiner’s stand in and lighting double. The cool thing was that Guy was just a big ol’ Star Trek geek, too, and very much enjoyed that his day job involved walking around with point ed sideburns, and he loved talking to guys like us who paid so close atten tion to their work.

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