#Comic book world Snapchat effect

[jypsyvloggin]

How to get the Comic World filter on Snapchat?

Snapchat filter Comic World Check out below to find out the Comic World filter on Snapchat. There are two ways you can unlock this lens for your Snapchat account. Open Snapchat on your phone, use the Snapchat camera to view the snapcode image above and hold your finger on the camera screen to unlock the Snapchat lens on your device. If you are visiting this page on your mobile device, you can…

[random-imagines-blog]

Animal {Avengers Cast x Male Reader}

Requested by: @gameloversblog Wordcount: 1715 Summary: You play a Marvel antihero who has a pretty bad pottymouth. You finally get your own standalone film and invite your castmates over to watch. Warnings: Foul language.

To say that you brought a new life to the controversial character that you were playing was an understatement. Ever since you were young, you wanted to play a comic book superhero, or perhaps more aptly, an anti-hero because you were always a bit naughtier than the characters you grew up with. You swore an almost unprofessional amount, but your charm and skill was enough for you to keep the roles that you had, you requested to do a lot of your own stunts for the thrill of it, and, well, you were a bit of a flirt with everyone that you came across. So when there was a role opening up in the MCU as an anti-hero with a bit of a potty-mouth, you called your manager and told her that she would receive a big bonus if she managed to get you that audition. Needless to say, she got that bonus, and when you got the role, you bought her a brand new car, complete with a big bow on top, and a cut out of yourself for the backseat so she wouldn’t get lonely.

Unfortunately, these were meant to be family movies, and you didn’t get to swear as much as you had initially hoped. You did continue with your language when you messed up, which would never be in the bloopers unless they wanted to get an R rating on their own, and it became a bit of a joke with your castmates. In one scene that you filmed with Chris Evans and Scarlett Johanson, you actually shocked Evans so hard with your language that you missed a fighting cue and genuinely got struck in the head. He didn’t let up about that for a good month, but it was all light-hearted.

The movie was incredibly successful, as you had hoped that it would be. The critics loved it, and there was even praise on the way that you accurately portrayed your character - but there was one complaint. It wasn’t completely true to the character as you hadn’t been able to swear as much as they did. You brought in a couple of ‘hell’, ‘goddamn’ and ‘what the f-’ before you were cut off, but that was the extent that Marvel would let you do. It was literally signed into your contract that you could not improvise.

But now you were all smiles to the press, though your publicist was always on hand to give you a stern look, or clear your throat if your language started to go downhill. “It was fucking amazing!” was something that you couldn’t help but say when journalists asked about your experience. During one particularly memorable interview, you spewed out, “It was so fucking cool, like have you seen this shit? There’s like explosions all the goddamn time, and those are real, they don’t just put that shit in during editing, it’s right there, like holyyy mother of God, there was a time when I was scared I was going to be actually on fire, because of how close it was. Fucking burning up hot like Rhianna’s newest cd, you know?”

That interview showed on TV and had more bleeps than an episode of COPS. And you know that to be true because Robert Downey Jr called and told you that he had compared them as something fun to do. That interview also ended up on some videos of ‘Most cringy interviews’ which you didn’t completely understand. You had a blast, you were being yourself - it was the show hosts who looked baffled.

Out to celebrate the success of the movie making millions in the box office, you and co-star Jeremy Renner decided to hang out at his house with a couple of beers. Now that most of the press was over, and you didn’t have to go to any more premieres, it was so nice to be able to just hang out with friends. You were lounging in his living room, bottle in hand, telling a story about a scene that you did when you were in an action-comedy movie with some other famous actors. “So Mark Wahlberg has that expression on his face, you knew the one, where he looks all confused, like he needs to take a shit and doesn’t know how to get it out?” You laughed, and Jeremy nodded, knowing what you were talking about. “So I took the chance man, I had to take it, I just blew into my elbow and it made the biggest fucking fart sound, I’m talking about camera breaking loud man.”

Between laughs you heard your phone ringing. When you saw your manager’s name, you were expecting her to come down on you hard for swearing in the interviews. You had no idea that your life and your career were about to make a huge turn for the better. “Yo and hello,” You said, smiling at your cheesy line.

“I’m not calling to bitch at you, believe it or not,” Your manager sounded excited about something, which peaked your interest.

“I would never use the word bitch - I’d more say it’s complaining mixed with nagging,” You started. “All of which I know that I deserve. So what’s up, buttercup?”

“You managed to get a starring role, and I mean, big time starring role.”

“Oh, is someone trying to get a big Christmas bonus? What a coincidence that this is happening around the oh so busy clusterfuck of a holiday. You know - I don’t even remember auditioning for anything lately. What is it, what is it?”

Your manager said the name of the character that you had just played, who was originally just supposed to be a one-off character. “You were recieved really well, so they want to give you your own film. With at least a Mature rating so you can use those words you love so much.”

“I can finally say shit, dick, asshole, fuckfest?” You said, growing happy. You legitimately got up from Jeremy’s couch and started to do a happy dance.

“To a degree,” Your manager warned. “We’re still in talks about who is going to do the script, so you might be able to have some say in it...”

“Thank fuck for that. Do you know how hard it was to say darn with a straight face? Who says darn anymore? I wasn’t playing Cap!” Jeremy snickered behind you and you shot him a wide grin. “I’ll even write the script myself if they can’t find the perfect person. I practically am my character, you know.”

“Yes, I know. Everybody knows.” Your manager sighed. “I’ll put in a good word for you, you know that. Just hang tight. They’ll be sending you an announcement soon enough.”

-

Just over a year later, you were sitting in the living room of your spacious home with your best friends and castmates all around you. You managed to get a copy of the film before the premiere, and managed to talk everyone into coming over and watching it. And you, being a devious little thing, created a drinking game.

“Alright, so here’s the rules,” You said, standing in front of the TV before the film started. Your friends stopped talking amongst themselves and looked at you. You grinned like a maniac. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood were hanging out in your house right now. Suck on that critics who thought you’d never make it this far. You were one of them now. “I don’t have enough alcohol in the house to make you all take a shot at every swear-”

You were interrupted by a couple of laughs, so you gave a wink to Paul Rudd who had been the source of a couple of them. “-So how about you guys just have to take a swig of your beer? And a double if you’re referenced in the film.”

“I guess that sounds fair,” Jeremy said, settling into your second-favorite armchair.

“Why do you want us to get so drunk?” Scarlett Johansson asked, raising one of her perfect eyebrows in your direction. You shrugged before taking your seat, the best seat in the house, your favorite overstuffed chair.

“Instagam, snapchat, facebook, tumblr,” You listed off the various social media sites that you could put their drunken pictures up on.

“I think my publicist would actually kill you,” Elizabeth Olsen chimed in, cracking open her own beer.

“Great! Think of the publicity that would generate for the film!” You joked with that same grin. “Marvel Superstar murdered by publicist of Elizabeth Olsen! The tragic story of a drinking game gone wrong! More details inside if you want to play along...”

“Alright, alright, we’ll play along but no cameras, okay?” Chris Evans said, opening a beer of his own. You couldn’t stop smiling. You absolutely loved when you got your way.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for the best Marvel film in the world? Now presenting - me!” You pressed play and the movie started.

Almost immediately, your friends had to start taking drinks because of how often there were curse words. Nothing too bad, but just the usuals. Fuck, shit, damn. Not the overly offensive ones.

Your favorite part was slowly coming up. You kept shooting glances over at Chris Evans, which the others noticed, but said  nothing about. Chris was oblivious, paying more attention to the film rather than to the people around him.

“Darn,” A character in the movie said, albeit a young one.

“Language!” The camera whipped to your character, who was standing there in a heroic pose. Weapon in one hand, charming smile, looking good for the victim whom you just saved. “In this movie, we say fuck.”

The scene had the right effect. Everyone started to laugh, and Anthony Mackie was nudging Chris, encouraging him to take double the drinks.

“You know, I wasn’t in charge of writing that line, but I keep getting the flack from it.” He grudgingly picked up his beer and finished it off while the rest of the group cheered.

[roycekimmons]

Archdevil Grimthistle Lectures on the Internet

Author’s Note: I wrote this a few years ago as a thought experiment. Intrigued by the style and mythos of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, I wondered what it would be like if Lewis’s anti-hero Screwtape (or a demon like him) were to give an update to his colleagues on the state of the world with the rise of the internet and social media. What advice would Screwtape give to other devils today whose sole purpose in existence is to make human life more miserable? To give myself more freedom, I created my own character—an Archdevil named Grimthistle—operating within Lewis’s mythos. Though similar to Screwtape in some ways, Grimthistle is first and foremost an academic who finds himself lecturing an auditorium full of other devilish academics on the possibilities afforded by emergent technologies to nurture human misery.

My lovely young devils, demons, succubi, and wraiths, it is with special delight that I speak to you today. As you are all well-aware, human history has taken some interesting turns in recent decades as our forces and those of the Enemy have guided humans in developing ever new mechanisms of warfare, both of the crude physical variety, such as naval and air vessels, machine weaponry, drones, and the most holy atomics, but also of the more refined intellectual and social variety, such as mass media, radio and television broadcasting, movies, and now, the internet and social media.

It is of the latter that I will speak today. I do so without intending any disrespect to the awesome mechanisms of destruction that many of you have had a claw or tentacle involved in developing. For who could ever argue against the amazing destructive power of the gatling gun, napalm, or chlorine gas? Indeed, I have never addressed a group of you, my fellow sufferers, in which the mere mention of phosgene did not elicit riotous applause. Yet, I fear that our wild successes in the 19th and 20th centuries on this front have somewhat distracted us from our eternal quest.

It is true. Seeing humans writhe in agony on a battlefield, dismembered, mutilated, frightened, and despondent has led me to shudder in ecstasy more times than I can remember. With delight I have pictured in my mind the ocean of tears that we have undoubtedly wrung from our Eternal Enemy’s eyes as He has been forced to watch his self-destructive children brutally hack each other to bits in ever bloodier and bloodier conflicts. Yet, in the eternal scheme, the joys of mortal bloodshed are merely a passing amusement that can lull our demonic efforts into a sense of security.

As I have always argued, war itself garners us no net benefit to souls corrupted. Lest we forget, the soldier can just as surely be saved by the Enemy as can the pacifist, and I can tell by your grumbling stomachs that many of you have developed quite a taste for the souls of these pacifists that now seem to find their ways to our kingdom in droves. Indeed, all humans will die, and though it may give us pleasure to help them toward that end sooner rather than later, we must always remember that our true goal is not to speed them toward death but to ensure that they belong to us thereafter.

Though a bare bodkin is all it takes to kill a saint, you need words to kill the memory of that saint and to prevent others from becoming saints themselves.

Toward this end, I have always contended that the aforementioned mechanisms of intellectual warfare have ever been of more use to us than their more blunt and explosive counterparts, because though a bomb may efficiently destroy the body, only words, ideas, and beliefs can corrupt the soul.

You might remember some of my earlier work with the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, English, French, and Russians on this front. Through the mere writing and reading of words, we have empowered a single devil to serve as any given author’s muse, and through that author, that devil’s words can be propagated to untold thousands, even millions of humans. Indeed, how many of the countless children of light squirming in your insatiable bellies now were first corrupted by actions and ideas that originated from a written word?

For that reason, we should embrace human technological advancements that allow us to share our demonic messages at an ever greater scale and rate. But, if we do not act quickly, I fear that the Enemy will use these mechanisms toward achieving His ends, as He attempted to do, and I fear met some success with, when He began using the printing press to propagate His words and a knowledge of the universe to the masses. That is, we must always be at the forefront of every new advancement in communication the humans make both to thwart the Enemy’s purposes and to expand our own.

For the most part, I feel that we have done this and have beaten the Enemy handily across every emergent medium, ranging from early written texts to Hollywood movies. But I cannot stress enough to you how the internet, and social media in particular, is different from anything we have seen before, and for that reason, we should divert all of our attention away from any other interests we might have and focus squarely here. I will not belabor this point further, but suffice it to say that these new media have more potential for evil (or good) than any previous communication medium in history, and if we do not act quickly and in a devilishly smart way, then we may quickly find ourselves losing hard-fought headway in this great and eternal war.

So, the reason that I am here is not to tell you that we need to win the internet. In fact, I think it’s pretty clear that we are winning, and one need look no further than Ratcruncher’s pioneering work with pornography or Spinemold’s ever-impressive sex trafficking networks to know that the Enemy has no idea how to counter the efforts of our vilest and most devious. Rather, I want to extend an invitation to you all to participate in this great and important work and to show you how easy it can be to use these tools to destroy families, destabilize communities, and ultimately corrupt souls. In short, I just want to show you how easy it is so that every sufferer within the sound of my voice can corrupt enough souls to evermore stave off the insatiable hunger that the Enemy in his cruelty has inflicted upon us.

First, use the newness of these media to divorce humans from the wisdom of their forebears. This is an old tactic that we have used in every bloody revolution in history, because it works! Young humans see Instagram, Snapchat, or whatever the newest app or tool is and think to themselves “this is my generation’s medium” and “older people just don’t get it.” And they’re right! Comically, they never stop to ask themselves why the older generations “don’t get it” or can’t be bothered to learn it, and this generational exceptionalism can be used to feed their hubris to a level that they will even divorce themselves completely from the aged, mock them, and disenfranchise them.

Once the young stop looking to the experiences of the old for wisdom, you know we have them! In the past, for instance, if you introduced relationship troubles to one of these youngsters, your greatest fear would be that they would go to a seasoned, responsible elder to learn from their experiences. The beauty of this generational isolation via the internet is that the young only talk to and trust the opinions of other inexperienced young exactly like them. Once they have started doing this, you should then encourage them to think that this is the meaning of community — surrounding themselves with others exactly like them — and you will quickly find them fumbling over one another incessantly, thinking themselves wise while they make the same mistakes made by their ancestors millennia ago. By playing upon this youthful exceptionalism, you can essentially create entire communities where no one has any experience, and by playing to their youthful hubris, you can prevent them from ever catching onto the simple fact that the best way to safeguard themselves against difficulties in life would be to learn from their elders as well as the other simple fact that homogeneity of experience is the antithesis of community.

If you do this correctly, they will quickly come to disregard the wisdom of millennia as quaint or old-fashioned, but you can take this one step further by simply introducing a few doubts in their minds about their forebears’ intelligence or morality — a few drops of poison in the deep well of history. Teach them some general labels or categories — without clear definitions, mind you — to apply to entire swathes of history, and you will never have to worry about them reading a book or entertaining a serious thought again. Don’t want them to read the Magna Carta? Remind them that England was an imperialist nation. Don’t want them to read Jane Austen? Convince them that she wasn’t a true feminist … or Victorian … or whatever. Don’t want them to read Milton? Convince them that he was not a true Christian … or for others that he was too much of a Christian.  Ad aeternum. It’s that simple.

Though we all loved the spectacle when Needlegrinder and his devious minions guided the Nazis in burning mountains of books, we don’t need the young to physically burn anything to have the same effect. Merely teach them that if a reductionistic label can loosely be hung on any person or document, then it should be relegated to the rubbish heaps in their minds, and you will never have to worry about them seriously contemplating the wisdom of previous generations.

Besides, not having them physically burn books serves another purpose. Even the most brainwashed sychophant casting a book atop a pyre might experience an idle curiosity to crack open a tome to see what the fuss is all about, but the young enlightened mind doesn’t suffer from curiosity, because it has already neatly collated and categorized the ideas of previous generations without honestly having considered them. The beauty is that they think they know what they reject before even considering it and then pat themselves on the back for their brave prejudice.

It’s also quite comical to do this, because then you can watch them claim intellectual and moral superiority over absolutely anyone in history without realizing that they themselves are the most ignorant, prejudiced, and backward of all. I, after all, was there with Socrates and can tell you that the youngest ancient Greek completing his first lessons in logic could wipe the floor with any modern thinker’s supposed intellectual prowess.

Second, on the topic of logic, you should ever strive to convince them that logic is merely selective cynicism or comedic skepticism. Allow me to explain. We have done a fine job of convincing everyone that they know what “logic” is, and we have had similar successes with “science,” “reason,” “rationality,” and various other terms such that the vast majority of humans who now use them have little to no understanding of their actual meaning. This allows them to weaponize the terms in favor of their own “noble” prejudices and beliefs — using them to aggressively criticize those of others — as they sit comfortably in their own irrational belief systems.

Indeed, we have succeeded in convincing the most “rational” minds of the day to now believe that their thoughts are rational merely because they have them, and that anyone else’s are irrational simply because they do not. And rather than question the rationality of their own “noble” prejudices, they think that “logic” involves nothing more than the use of sophistry to interrogate and humiliate others.

A beautiful, succinct example of this can be seen in how thought leaders quickly focus on spelling and grammar errors on social media to try to delegitimize the arguments of any who disagree with them. Had they actually studied logic or knew how it worked, they would understand that there is absolutely no connection between the truth of a notion and how it is presented. Yet, when they only have 280 characters to convey a meaningful thought — as if that were even possible — they will regularly devote half of that space to questioning their opponent’s thumb typing, believing themselves to be rational only because their autocorrect was working properly that day. You can participate in this beautiful dance by convincing them to respond while driving or otherwise distracted, because then they will feel flustered and committed to the argument only to have the veracity of their thoughts reduced to whether their car hit a bump.

If that doesn’t work, then the boilerplate tu quoque has never gone out of style. When the hated Lamb shouted “thou hypocrite” to those we had seduced, He obviously did so to convince them to repent — signaling to them that their beliefs were correct, but their actions were not, thereby jeopardizing their souls. From time immemorial, we have devilishly twisted this powerful technique away from a tool for salvation toward destruction. Rather than concern for the welfare of their opponents’ souls, convince your humans to shout “hypocrite” in an attempt to attack their opponents’ underlying ideas. It will never occur to them that distance between belief and action actually represents cause to repent  — the changing of one’s actions to better align with one’s beliefs  — and they will rather use it to argue the inverse: that a person’s thoughts, ideals, and beliefs should retroactively be manipulated to reflect their actions. Or, in other words, that if there is a disconnect between belief and action, then belief must be the culprit.

This wicked tactic is devilishly sinister, because it implicitly confuses the relationship between belief and action to the point that they will no longer look to beliefs as ideals to aspire to (therefore inspiring them to change their actions) but will rather treat them as little more than excuses or justifications for their actions. Indeed, though the Lamb wanted his targeted “hypocrites” to act on their beliefs so that they might be saved, we can easily convince modern thinkers that their beliefs should be malleable constructs that serve no purpose beyond justifying their damnable actions. Hence, though the Enemy appealed to hypocrisy to convince humans to change their actions, we can devilishly appeal to hypocrisy to convince them to change their beliefs.

Taken together, these muddled approaches to logic are invaluable tactics for ensuring that our followers will always “strain at gnats” while “swallowing camels,” as the Enemy Himself suggested of our adherents. By absorbing themselves in the critique of others’ “gnats,” they can console themselves in their own “camels,” yielding beautiful generations of cynical, aggressive humans who have no rational basis for their own beliefs but who nonetheless demand pure, stone cold reason from any who disagree with them.

And third, because the simplest antidote to any of our efforts is civility — or hell forbid, love — you should work tirelessly to paint any instances of moderation, kindness, respect, or deference as weakness or, preferably, treason to one’s cause. What has at times been considered simple human decency and concern for the other should be treated as wishy-washy indecision or barriers to the crushing wheels of progress. Having a civil conversation should be treated as fraternization with the enemy. Speech itself should be treated as a form of oppression, rather than just the communication of ideas, so that the very act of speaking may be regulated and controlled and the speaker can be dehumanized as nothing more than a soulless perpetrator of evil to be stopped at all cost.

Here, again, labeling can be enormously useful. Just as history can be ignored if it is merely labeled, so too can the living human other. In the U.S., for instance, we have polarized politics enough that merely appending a D or an R to the end of a leader’s name is enough to convince almost half the population to distrust anything that they will say. And this works for lay people as well. Every time your adherents notice their neighbor saying something online, you should whisper softly to them “Mrs. So-and-So is a democrublican, so I should distrust her.” That way they don’t have to busy themselves with understanding the actual content of Mrs. So-and-So’s words, the reasons why she might say them, or the experiences that might have led her to do so. If they have a useful label for her, then Mrs. So-and-So becomes nothing more than a label, something to be collated and ignored at whim — certainly not a human to be valued.

Playing upon historical pendula of oppression and evil-doing helps in this regard, because if humans can feel that their voices have been silenced in the past because of a label that has been placed upon them, they then can use this feeling of injustice as moral grounding to place labels on others for the purpose of silencing them in return. Some angry souls will embrace this as justifiable vengeance, but most must be convinced that it is merely a practical consideration to correct historical imbalances of power. At any rate, the effect is the same. Some are allowed to speak, while others are silenced not because of anything they themselves have done but because a label has been placed upon them that likely originated hundreds or even thousands of years in the past. The deliciousness of this irony is that oppressors and victims can engage in an eternal hateful dance, wherein they merely alternate who is leading at the moment. Feeling justified, oppressors can ridicule and demonize victims for as long as they are in  power only to have the situation reversed in never ending cycles of hateful vindication.

The deliciousness of this dance is that they will never realize that the simple solution peddled by the Lamb is forgiveness, mercy, and love. By viewing human history as a never-ending cycle of oppressor vs. oppressed, they can easily be blinded to the only solution to the cycle, believing that someone must inevitably always be the oppressor and that the other must always inevitably be oppressed. Thus, they will direct all of their vengeance and moral outrage not toward destroying oppression but in becoming the oppressors themselves. This allows them to self-justify their hatred, wrong-doing, and all manner of injustices while at the same time patting themselves on the backs, claiming that their hatred is justified or is even an act of love.

As with other tactics I have previously mentioned, this tactic relies upon the use of labels and that they have a superficial awareness of one another. Be cautious in this regard, however, because though you want to provide enough identifying information to allow your adherents to effectively marginalize the other, you must walk a fine line between that devious enterprise and unknowingly guiding them to develop noble emotions like empathy. For that reason, keep labels limited to divisive issues of the day, and never encourage humans to label themselves in any way that acknowledges their common humanity or their common relationship to one another as children of the Enemy.

Some of you will contend that this is nothing new; after all, labeling the other has always been a useful tactic. But, I contend that the internet has made such labeling immensely more powerful for sowing discord and corrupting souls for two obvious reasons. First, the sheer amount of information that humans must now deal with via the internet and their social media feeds means that they must organize information — and by extension the people producing it — in ever more efficient ways, and labels are nothing if not devilishly efficient. And second, the actual design of these tools allows them to do this with ease! Many platforms actually solicit labels from their participants and allow them to block, ignore, or even silence other humans for no reason other than being different from themselves. Thus, with only a little prodding on your part, you can effectively guide your subjects in creating the most vitriolic, isolated, and homogenous echo chambers imaginable, where they incessantly rage against the idiocies of the unrepresented other while having their moral egos continuously stroked by those most like them.

It is amazing to think that rather than learning to love the quintessential other in the form of one’s neighbor, as the Enemy implored them to do millennia ago, human technologies have instead veered toward empowering ever more selectivity in determining who one’s neighbors are, thereby not requiring humans to make any kind of soul-stretching growth! Rather than following the Lamb’s uncomfortable commandment to “love thy enemies,” humans have rather decided to separate themselves more fully from their perceived enemies. After all, all religious and humanist arguments for loving others is predicated on the belief that the other is human, but if we can convince them to think of the other as something less than human (via a smorgasbord of available labels), then all such mandates become null and void, and those labels only develop teeth if they have a safe place where they can demonize labeled others without intellectual interference or empathetic overtures.

I am mindful of my time and that the hour draws late. As you might guess, I have much more to say on these topics and encourage you to visit my work published in Tormentors’ Quarterly and the Journal of Soul Corruption Techniques for more detailed guidance on how to use the internet to full effect. But allow me to just close by providing a few words of encouragement.

This is an exciting time for us as the demonic host, because humans have found themselves with more unbridled power and less soul-searching discipline than at any other time in history. The Enemy seeks to use these tools for promoting love, goodness, and salvation, but there is no doubt that we are winning. Humans today live on the privileges afforded to them from the sacrifices of previous generations and squander their time and resources on selfishness, self-delusion, and self-destruction. This old devil, for one, has never seen anything like it. What a time to be dead!

[hadarlaskey]

The Witches

We are all protective of the stories we loved as children. Like many people my age, Roald Dahl’s ‘The Witches’ is of double importance to me, both as a treasured book and a beloved, albeit somewhat traumatising, film. Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation from 1990 was where my love of horror began; its sinister special effects could only be viewed with the lights on. The challenge of adapting such a cherished property for a new generation is therefore an unenviable one – and Robert Zemeckis does not entirely rise to the occasion.

This version of The Witches relocates the story from England to America’s Deep South while keeping the main plot points. A young orphaned boy (Jahzir Bruno) goes to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer), but when a local witch takes an interest in him they escape to a luxury hotel unaware that the witches’ annual conference is being held there.

Despite retaining many of the tragic details from the book, Zemeckis’ film has been polished smooth and painted bright. Gone are the sisyphean nightmares for unlucky children, replaced with a single instance of a girl being transformation into a chicken. Gone is Anjelica Huston’s metamorphosis to a demonic monstrosity – an image which seared itself into a generation’s brains. Gone is much of the darkness, something that Dahl always felt children had an underestimated propensity for.

This is an altogether more wholesome caper, and many new elements work well. Octavia Spencer is wonderful as Grandma, transformed from a hard-living, chain-smoking Norwegian octogenarian to a God-fearing fiftysomething full of warmth and folksy wisdom. The styling for her character is worth the rental price alone; her bright floral prints, stiff hair and plethora of accessories seem to be coordinated to match the furniture and wallpaper of every room she enters.

Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch is almost as successful. She gives it her absolute all, chewing the scenery with a vague trans-European accent that often changes mid-sentence. Even when tasked with dire villainous monologues like, “You think you are so clever breaking into my room with a stolen key when everyone knows they keep a spare key at the front desk,” she rolls her Rs and furrows her brow with such aplomb it’s hard not be impressed.

Try as she might, however, hers is not a Grand High Witch for the ages. Her appearance is comically crap; a wide mouth that looks like a Snapchat filter and feet with a long, single middle toe that seems to be perpetually flipping the bird. Elsewhere, Stanley Tucci’s role is so thankless as to suggest he’s doing someone a favour, while Chris Rock’s shouty narration distracts more than it enhances. Worst of all is the CGI mice which have a plasticky, weightless quality that would normally be reserved for a far lower budget film than this, though the voice performances are adorable

It’s not hard to imagine that Dahl would have hated this saccharine retelling. But The Witches 2020 casts a spell that is hard to entirely resist, primarily because everyone on screen seems to be having such a good time. It may not have stolen the original’s place in my heart but for my young daughter this was a thrilling introduction to Dahl’s world and a fun Halloween treat.

ANTICIPATION. Another The Witches adaptation but still no The Twits? 2

ENJOYMENT. It’s not all good but it is good fun. 3

IN RETROSPECT. Kinda hard to concentrate when Anne Hathaway’s feet keep flipping me off. 2

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Starring Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci, Octavia Spencer

The post The Witches appeared first on Little White Lies.

source https://lwlies.com/reviews/the-witches/

[tipiktj]

Human Nosedive Between reality and fantasy

In the third season of the famous series on Netflix "Black Mirror", The main theme of "Black Mirror" plays on looking ahead for a bright future for human in light of the high technological developments and its struggle with the human nature that leads to its destruction. The first episode of the third season came to bear the idea that we currently live in reality, which can be summarized under the title "The Deceptive Face of Virtual Life" or as described by the writer of ​​the episode, Charlie Broker, "It silences the idea of ​​acceptance and the image that we like to draw on ourselves to show it to others." What is different in this episode is that it is very close to our current reality - unlike most of the episodes of the series that depend on forward looking after decades - but the "Nosedive" episode is not completely far from what we currently live in, and our "killer" feelings towards our virtual life.

At the beginning of the episode, we get to know the sweet girl "Lycee" in the way that people get to know each other in this imaginative world through evaluation numbers (Lycee points 4.2). All the characters in this world have evaluation numbers that they get through their dealings with each other, even if there is no relationship that brings them together. These evaluations increase each person’s numbers and thus his evaluation, and the most ideal is certainly who is his evaluation 5. This case is not very different from what we encounter now in the reality of the virtual world, who contains his account on ten friends, in any social networking site, certainly differs from who owns One hundred, and the higher the number, the higher the evaluation.

I watched a lecture on the TEDx Videos on YouTube , Bailey Jarnell - Top 100 Most Powerful Women. She is an award-winning digital marketer, public speaker and businesswoman with a talent for helping people tell better stories and specializes in digital marketing - says that one of the causes of stress due to social media is what she called "social currency", which according to her definition is like the dollar, she says: "it is a currency that you literally use to value a good or service On social media, these likes, comments and posts have become a picture of the social currency and on this basis we give things their value, which is called marketing economy of interest. This limited interest becomes a valuable recorded process, which is great when we sell albums or clothes, but the problem with networking is that we are the product. " This really applies to our virtual lives and to what was presented by the episode "Nosedive", as we seek to attract attention, to turn ourselves into human goods that inspire the admiration of everyone, even if the image is fake, and because the image language has a central weight in our lives, the final shot is summarized in Episode All That Bailey Jarnell Wants To Say. For more on this watch the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey Parnell.

While watching "Black Mirror" episodes, we are accustomed to the gray colors that reflect the symbolism of the depressing future, but this episode, on the contrary, differs in its colors. Those around them also have the same degrees. These colors are not real, they are like fake pictures that decorate virtual reality, these colors we know from Instagram filters, Snapchat , tiktok filters or photo editing programs that improve our real photos, to turn this world into pink pictures that resemble advertising posters, or the image of dreams that we see in sleep, Or alertness, but it's certainly not the reality, it's the nightmare in which the heroine wants to live.

The music also added a dreamy atmosphere in keeping with the rosy picture of the life of the heroine in this virtual world, something that we are not used to in “Black Mirror” episodes, and music was used in the first half of the episode in which Lacey’s dreams flourished. "Before everything turned against her. A golden opportunity came to "Lacey" to rise from 4.2 to a higher evaluation than that, which is a wedding celebration of her childhood friend Naomi, who has a rating of 4.8. Because her obsession with ratings began to dominate her, she even accused her brother of failing in his life because his ratings 3.

 The cruel aspect of the world of this episode is that a few evaluations of a person mean a lot, as their negative effects are reflected in all aspects of his life. For example, the owner of the evaluation of 1 or 2 may not open the doors of the shops, and he may not be allowed to walk freely in the streets, because People will treat him like an outcast, and he will get less ratings from them even if they don't know him, he will not be able to book flights, and he will lose opportunities to go out on romantic dates, and of course he will lose his friends like "Chester" Lacy's fellow in the work who lost his ratings after he split up From his Lover, so that all coworkers decided to give him low ratings, and to turn his life into hell, and everyone begged with him to restore his good ratings again.

 After Lacey failed to reach her friend's wedding, she could not conceal her feelings, she announced her anger, and she lost her temper, which caused her annoyance around her, which led to giving her low ratings that reduced her overall evaluation, turning from 4.3 to 2.8, which made her psychologically pressured , it increased her insistence to go to the wedding again to regain some high evaluations, this phobia is a phobia that affects a person when he feels a loss of his position in society, as if he misses a social event, or his contact with others decreases, which is reflected in his psychological effects, so he feels fear, stress and gets hurt Depressed.

On her wedding trip Lacey in the last half of the episode, the Bastille grades began to fade into darkness and gradually return to grayscale. On the way, Lacey meets a woman named Suzan, who offers to deliver her to her nearest station. Lacey refuses to help her - although everyone refused her because her evaluation is low - only because this lady evaluates her differently, but Lacey accepts her lack of trick. The woman spoke to her about her life before her evaluations decreased and that her excessive frankness and anger after the death of her husband, who suffers from cancer, caused her evaluations to decrease and people hate her, but in the end she did not regret her losing these hypocrites. Lacey refused to be like Suzan, she refused to take off the dress of this world because she became addicted to her and did not imagine her life without him, but after arriving at the wedding and she had lost everything she was unable to conceal her angry feelings, she revealed the true face of her friend Naomi and the truth Her relationship with her was not as good as she claimed.

All this imagination raises fears within us of the future, but what really increases this fear is that this life system will actually become reality. For example, since 2018 the Chinese government has planned to implement a social credit system whose purpose is to assess the eligibility of trust in the Chinese people, which amounts to about 1.4 billion people. , And it will start at the end of 2021, but it has already started tentatively / experimental in Soju. The nature of the system gives each citizen 100 points in his account related to his identity card or his account on social media, so if the individual does a good thing like volunteering in a charity or contributing to recycling garbage, donating blood, or sending positive messages about his country through the communication sites, then His reviews will increase and in return he will get a free subscription to the gym and discounts on public transportation tickets and fewer waiting times in hospitals, either if he does bad things like crossing the traffic lights while they are open, or cancel reservations or books of comments or incorrect assessments on any service or even dealings With someone with fewer reviews, his ratings will be reduced, he will be punished with canceling flight reservations easily, he will get lower internet speeds and will be prevented from booking in restaurants that will be limited to those with high ratings only.

Although this episode is on the surface of the third season of the Black Mirror series as a nice episode compared to the upcoming episodes that show the unknown future, it is still a strong and emotional slap in the face of the viewers. While most of Charlie Brooker’s work is based in essence on the future question “What if,” this episode is a demonstration - with brightly colored aspects - of the life we ​​are heading towards, with little insight. Yesterday, we depended on the fact that our electronic life is adjustable, including our speech, our outward appearance, and our mental health, but it is impossible to keep up with this comic drama in our real life unless our goal in life is to lose self-esteem. The thin line between maintaining an outward appearance and true self-esteem is gradually becoming disorganized in this era; This episode aims to warn the viewer of the consequences of this fade.

 Today, more than 4 billion people are using the Internet, and most of the youth of this generation spend most of their time on social media, sharing our personal and professional feelings and accomplishments through the Internet, and preserving our documents no matter how important they are through it as well, this is a type of addiction that does not seem to be able to Stop it, prevention therapy doesn't make sense here, harm reduction is our greatest hope at the current stage, and what Charlie Brock writes seems to be a detailed guide to what to prepare for.

Finally, can we close our eyes and claim that what is happening in this Science Fiction series is just a fantasy, can we guarantee that this will not happen personally to each of us?

Written by Talal Mohd��@TipikTJ

Specialist in Marketing and Entrepreneur

[bigyack-com]

From page to screen: ‘Motion comics’ pop up on apps like TikTok, Snapchat - art and culture

An animated Goddess Kali glares at you from your smartphone screen. Her enraged eyes blink; she sticks her tongue out and her sword lights up with angry sparks. She is ready for battle. Over the next 30 seconds, she takes on the demon Raktabeej, finally decapitating him with a spinning chakra. That’s a snapshot from Kali, an ultra-short, animated “motion comic” launched on TikTok by the comic book and film company, Graphic India. Motion comics differ from their printed and digital counterparts in that the characters are mildly animated, and there are voiceovers, sound effects and music. The comic book look and feel, though, are kept intact. Because of the nature of the platforms — TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Spotify — each episode is between 5 and 50 seconds long. Kali was a test run, but it did well, getting millions of views. So, in November, Graphic India launched two original motion comic series on its TikTok handle — 18 Days: The Mahabharata and Devi. “The future of comic books is about jumping from the printed page to the smartphone screen and reinventing the format,” says Sharad Devarajan, co-founder and chief executive officer at Graphic India. “Motion comics allow for a new type of storytelling to emerge using the same underlying content. The goal is to bring these stories to potentially millions of new people who are not regularly exposed to comic books and can discover the medium in a way that is more relatable to them.” @godsandlegends #18days #episode #113 #hindi #trending#india#bollywood#likeforlikes#meme#music#video#followforfollowback##explorepage#instagood ♬ original sound - Gods and Legends A few months before Graphic India, in July, Blizzard Entertainment launched its Overwatch motion comic series on Snapchat. They have two digital comics out so far: Train Hopper, on the adventures of a cowboy vigilante; and Dragon Slayer, both from the Overwatch universe. The stories are told through 5- to 6-second Snapchat stories featuring animation, music and sound effects. “The stories have speech bubbles, just like a comic would. The overall effect is immersive, but leaves a bit more to the imagination than a fully animated cartoon would,” says Eugene Walden, co-founder and chief operating officer at Madefire, the media technology platform responsible for animating the series on Snapchat.Spotify, too, has been making attempts, the most notable of them being its 2018 series, Spotlight: Archie - The New Riverdale, which featured six episodes based on the new Archie comics. To make these app-based versions, printed artwork from each comic book panel is animated. Sound effects and transitions are added. “Our comics are sketched using bold pencils strokes, inks and coloring to make each panel pop off the page. These visuals become even more impactful when seen on a mobile screen,” Devarajan says. “The motion comic version also allows us to quickly adapt each comic book storyline into numerous local languages by just changing the dubbed voice-over tracks.”Typically, comic book companies pick from their fantasy and superhero genres, which have been found to work well in motion comic form on the new platforms.“We understood that there was a huge community of Overwatch fans who were also heavily engaged Snapchat users,” says Walden. “Graphic fiction is undergoing radical change in terms of format and distribution to cater to this new audience. Even the new creators creating comics make and experience art digitally. So you’re starting to see storytelling modes themselves start to change.”For users, these motion comics do combine the best of two worlds. Bengaluru-based Patrick Ignatius, 37, chief manager for revenue at MX Player, has viewed all of Graphic India’s comics on TikTok and says they’re easier to consume than comic books — especially since that format doesn’t translate easily to the smartphone, e-reader or tablet PC.“Since they’re just 30 or 40 seconds long, you can binge watch them and yet they won’t take up too much of your time. Unlike a book, these comics are convenient to watch even while travelling or when you’re taking a chai break at work,” says Ignatius. “The new format also brings the comic book format to life, without making you feel like you’re watching an animated movie.”Bengaluru-based yoga instructor, Neha Prem, 36, a fan of mythological fiction, says having the comics narrated was helpful too. “We’ve lost the habit of reading because we’re hooked to our phones so much. So it’s nice to have a voiceover narrate the comic for you.” Read the full article

[nipuni]

A lot of those tag things!

So yesterday I checked my activity feed for the first time in months and found I was tagged in a bunch of things I missed and I’m awful i’m so sorry, so I collected them and here they are for anyone interested in reading a lot of random irrelevant information about me haha thank you so much for tagging me!! I may have missed some tags because my browser was lagging really badly when I tried to load three month old stuff but I tried 😖

tagged by kiirdonel, evora-eriu-mclaggen, ethadahlen, halla-hunts-the-wolf, wintrylamppost, biotic-ii and other people I failed to check, thank you so much for the tags!!

Name: Natalia                                                                                     Starsign: Pisces Height: 152cm / 5′ Last thing you googled: the weather forecast Last book you read: the broken kingdoms if college things don't count Favorite music artists: oh man I don't know, I collect songs I like not artists, I also listen to a lot of chill playlists and game/animation soundtracks Last TV show watched: Brooklyn 99 What are you wearing right now: a long sleeved shirt and underwear, I am freezing but my apartment is a no pants area When did you create this blog:��February 2012  What kind of stuff do you post: Mostly my drawings and dragon age things Do you have instagram: I think I made an account long ago but never used it, I probably will at some point Do you have snapchat: same as above! tho I don't think I'll ever use this one Do you have any other blogs: my inspiration blog Hogwarts House: Slytherin Pokemon team: Mystic Do u get asks regularly: yes and I'm terrible at keeping up with them How did you choose your url: I've been using it everywhere for years now Gender: Female Favorite color: burgundy, dark blue, dark cyan, moss green, gold, so many Average hours of sleep: 7-8 Favorite characters: Solas!! -bangs hands on desk repeatedly- How many blankets do you sleep with: a blanket and a comforter in winter, one blanket in summer Dream job: maybe Illustration? concept art for games? visual developement? I'm not sure, I don't like working Following: as in how many people I'm following? 1450 my dash is wild Random: I guess this is for a random fact about myself? my dream is to travel the world

Birthday: March 15th Relationship Status: taken Pets: A siberian cat named Anya Wake-up Time: 6am to 9am during the week, unholy hours during the weekends   Love or Lust: Love Favorite Food: I love sea food in general, spicy food, sushi, mexican food, i'm hungry Met a Celebrity?: just passed by some local ones Last Song I Listened to: the jeweler’s hand First Kiss: some stranger in a club Tall or Short: me? I'm super short

What colour and style is your hair? light auburn wavy and somehwere between my jaw and shoulders in lenght, my hair is naturally brown however What colour are your eyes? green Do you wear glasses? no, tho I do have reading glasses I use at times when my eyes are tired Do you wear braces? no, I probably should What is your fashion sense? to wear myself? because it varies when it comes to others hah, muted colors, usually baggy on top and tight/short bottom, a lot of sweaters over shirts and turtlenecks, high heels and boots for winter, round flats in summer, whatever I draw Nalia in haha Do you have any siblings? no What kinda student were/are you? a nightmare, I went through school and college not studying until maybe the day before the exam, no homework done, probably asleep in morning classes, I'm still lazy as hell What is/was your favourite subject? chemistry at school, all the humanities at college, right now it is painting class Favourite TV shows? I don't watch many shows honestly, just a bunch of documentaries while I'm having dinner Favourite books? all that sweet sweet fantasy/sci-fi romance Favourite pastime? art and games Any regrets? of course but i'm happy with my life right now Do you want to get married? sure, the only reason I'm not is economical hah Do you want kids? How many? yes, I would like one but not yet How many countries have you visited? three, lived in two, I'm planning to change that this year, I'm saving up! What’s the scariest dream you’ve ever had? that is awfully personal so i'll pass on this one, but I love my good dreams, they are surreal unpredictable adventures and have cool aesthetics!

Coke or Pepsi: coke? I dont like either really, I'm not into carbonated drinks at all Disney or Dreamworks: I like Disney reinassance movies and a few others, but my favourite movie is Prince of Egypt so asdkhawjh Coffee or tea: I drink a lot of both but I will say tea because I can have it whenever Books or movies: I don't watch a lot of movies so i'll go with books, but I like both Windows or Mac: windows DC or Marvel: I don't care much for either Xbox or PlayStation: playstation Dragon Age or Mass Effect: Dragon age!! I haven't played much ME so I'm super biased but yeah Night owl or early riser: Night owl, when I have nothing to do in the morning for 2 days in a row my schedule goes to hell immediately Cards or chess: chess, I don't know any card games but learned chess as a kid Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash or Adaar: Lavellan! Fluff or Angst: both together!! they need each other Inqusitor, Hawke or Warden? Inquisitor! Soup or pasta? pasta Manga or comics: manga Single player or MMO/Co-op?: OH crap, I like both for different reasons. I'll say single player, playing games with Ras and friends is great but I really hate a lot of the gaming communities so single player wins Cats or dogs: cats, tho I love both Sweet or salty?: both? I'm doing this meme wrong I know Paragon or Renegade: Paragon First person or third?: Third Time Travel or Invisibility? Time Travel Animation or Live action?: Animation Melee or Ranged Fighting Style?: Ranged Pineapple on Pizza or Fries dipped in ice cream?: oh man what, pineapple on pizza i guess, the second one sounds awful Tattoos or Piercings?: they are both nice Keyboard and mouse or gamepad?: Keyboard and mouse Pop or rock music?: both have good songs, it depends on the mood Beach or forest: both are good! this is hard, i’ll go with Beach  Clear Skies or Rain: Clear skies, i like rain but not when it is on me or my stuff, it also makes days feel slow and sad sometimes Cooking or eating out: eating out, Ras is a great cook tho! Spicy food or mild food: very spicy Would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot: a little too cold

phew that was a lot!! thanks for the tags again!! I’m so sorry for the long post if the read more doesn’t work 

[felfka]

Meme time

I am so sorry for such a long post but I don´t like doing only one meme at time :D So here are few .... :P

The Meme Thing

thanks to @ferelden-doglord- for tagging me < Name :Marcela                                                                                           

Starsign:Aquarius

Height: 168 cm

Time Right Now: 20:16 / 08:14 PM

Last thing you googled: how to say my star sign in english :D

Last book you read: Orochi no Kishi

Favorite music artists: Alter Bridge, Adema, Breaking Benjamin, System of a down etc ... :D

Last TV show watched: Daredevil

What are you wearing right now: blue shirt with sea lion and black pants

When did you create this blog: ugh 2016

What kind of stuff do you post: right now mostly dragon age

Do you have instagram: yeah

Do you have snapchat: nope

Do u get asks regularly: nope

How did you choose your url:It´s nickname from my school and I use it aa lot ( my friends gave this nickname to me cause I just love elves)                         

Gender:female 

Favorite color: black and purple

Average hours of sleep: 4,5hours

Favorite characters: Fenris, Iorveth, Dorian, Regis, Ciri, Zevran, Leliana, Solas, Avallac’h, Olgierd, Vess, Tamara, Lambert, Geralt, Adam Jensen

How many blankets do you sleep with: one main blanket and durring winter under 2 blankets (I am always cold)

Dream job: drawing for money :D

Random: Soon trip to London yaay

More of me            1. How tall are you? 168 cm 2. What colour and style is your hair? right now brown with blond highlights on my right side of the head but color change every two months (hair cut not really I have short hair for 3 years now I think) 3. What colour are your eyes? green mixed with brown (weird :D) 4. Do you wear glasses? yes and my eye sight is getting worse and worse :( 5. Do you wear braces? nope 6. What is your fashion sense? I wear pretty ordinary things i dont have much girlish clothes (you wont find me ever wearing a skirt or dress lol) everything is more like boyish or gender neutral and I really hate pink (oh and my shirts are mostly with game print on it (Witcher, diablo 3 etc :D) 7. Do you have any siblings? sadly younger brother 8. What kinda student were/are you? I think that I was normal student but not really silent :D also I used to play world of warcraft during some classes and never got caught, oh the times lol 9. What is your favourite subject? I love photography, I can spend my whole day in a zoo and just taking pictures ( I like the most tigers and monkeys) 10. Favourite TV shows? Daredevil, TBBT, Arrow, Flash, OUAT, Agents of shield, Dexter, Chuck, Californication etc etc....:) 11. Favourite books? Dragon age,Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo Deus ex books, books from Jim Butcher ( I am reading about Harry Dresden and they are really good!) Kevin Hearne books about druid, Harry Potter books 12. Favourite pastime? gaming, reading books, drawing , watching movies/shows 13. Any regrets? my biggest regret is giving up on drawing for almost 6 years 14. What is your dream job? I would love to be concept artist or making comics but that is not going to happen 15. Do you want to get married? I am already married :D 16. Do you want kids? How many? only one 17. How many countries have you visited? 3 18. What’s the scariest dream you’ve ever had? I don´t really remember my dreams sadly

Thank you for the tag @fleschybits​ :D

DIRECTIONS: You can tell a lot about a person by the music they listen to! Put your MP3 player, itunes, spotify, etc. on shuffle & list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people everybody, no skipping ( aka the drag yourself with your own music, savvy? )

Heart - Two steps from hell

Freaking out - Adema

Show me a leader - Alter Bridge

Dear Agony - Breraking Benjamin

Prayer - Disturbed

Hearts of stone - Witcher soundtrack

Empty hollow - rage

Perfect life - red

 Shadow life  - slash

So what - three days grace

This or that meme

Thank you to for @simbelmine for tagging me

Rules: Answer all questions, add one question of your own and tag as many people as there are questions.

Coke or Pepsi: if I have to choose pepsi

Disney or Dreamworks: Dreamworks

Coffee or tea: none

Books or movies: movies

Windows or Mac: windows

DC or Marvel: Marvel

Xbox or PlayStation: none - Computer :D

Dragon Age or Mass Effect: both

Night owl or early riser: I am some kind of hybrid

Cards or chess: Cards

Chocolate or vanilla: none -strawberry

My question… ugh.... I don´t know - Manga or comics

 I am tagging @fleschybits , @right-in-the-vhenan , @ellstersmash  , @kellinahasaship 

You don´t have to do all just maybe choose one ?:D  or don´t do it at all :)

[upcomingwave-blog]

Advanced Ways to Use Emoji’s in Social Media Marketing

As you’re interacting with your consumer every day on the different topic among it many of them were actually funny one in that case you can easily use emoji for a better portrayal of emotion.

Previously if you didn’t use emoji then others communication using emojis you may find it difficult like an alien language. Not only that where the people of your industry utilizing to connect with their audience and practice some creative brand building but you’re lagging behind in that case.

In fact, 90% people use emoji and more than 30% people use emojis several times a day according to a research.

Emoji experts and researchers are claims that ‘Emoji’ is the fastest growing form of language in history and right now which is still in evolving process.

Now you may want to know why you should use emojis for social media outreach, here are some useful tips follow it for brand building.

Use Emojis organically

Using emojis you can express emotion in more detail and in exact form, usually, there has no existence of barriers to communication.

Actually, the clarity of messages is so transparent to understand.

If you try to get creative something like the 2015 Chevy goes emoji campaign, then at first set your advertisement strategy give the entire campaign structure following that.

At the beginning of the campaign, people weren’t able to understand the message but a year later again they use the emoji form in a televised ad able to catch the attention of viewers better than other campaigns.

Understand What Emojis Mean

The cute, little emojis have different meanings sometimes may find it difficult to understand, might not mean what you think they mean.

When you do understand the meaning of it then get the creativity on board to give that little one’s an all-new structure and wholesome message.

Constant interaction with Consumer

2016 proved that a movie used comic character and made its success all around the world.

Deadpool’s emoji were simple but able to catch the essence of the comic book character. If you going to get creative with emojis then keep in mind to stays consistent with brand messaging or else fair enough chance to lose some potential consumer of your brand.

Use Emojis for Real-Time Engagement

On social media platform basically in Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or in live streaming video format use emojis to show the human side of your brand.

always be creative with these but the excessive use of it may cause some negative effect also. Sometimes emojis can be used for engagement by turning them into exciting games like

“Emojiball”

Incorporate Emojis into Your Sales Funnel

Domino’s easy order campaign is one of the few examples of emoji marketing, as they stand against all traditional marketing techniques to succeed with trending one.

All pizza lovers just need to set up Dominos account and link with a twitter account, tweet a pizza emoji, all it takes to get a confirmation message from Dominos and your favorite pizza at a doorstep.

Key Takeaway

Emoji gives the online user a much better exposure than text, as they are a new form of communication use them carefully.

And whether you like them or not, they’re here to stay.

If you want to connect with new generation online user through the social platform in their language then get set ready to be creative with emojis and give new shape and structure in your social marketing campaign.  

[mortensen45thygesen-blog]

Sexting Transforms Explicit, Altering Youthful Lives.

Yes, the hair was larger, but that wasn't the only point that established the model of the '80s apart. The descent followed a long term of prominence for Meet the Press" under Tim Russert, when the show averaged concerning 4.5 million visitors and often topped its next rival by greater than 40 percent. An all-natural fit for followers of Gone Girl-style undependable storytellers as well as twisty, fast-moving stories, The Girl on the Train will certainly have you competing with the pages. 2 youngsters, a book-loving blind lady from Paris and a gifted orphan kid from Germany, relocate alternative chapters through the 1930s right into The second world war. After her papa's apprehension, Marie-Laure and her great-uncle join the Resistance in Saint-Malo. The lady I was satisfying that morning was of specific interest to me. Spencer Hawkins-- a name I would kill for-- was an alumna of my high school, The Bradley College, recently graduated from Trinity College (they all are), and she so appreciated" my strength in the face of difficulty." Like I was fucking Rosa Parks or something. Unlike the Ride or Die friend, this is your woman that just appears to be about when the going is super-sunny and also awesome. When she's not composing, Rainbow reads comic books, intending Disney World trips as well as saying concerning things that don't truly matter in the big system of points. Given that board games for children generally only cost around $20, it was somewhat unusual to me to locate that video games like Shopping center Insanity, Desire Phone, and HeroQuest all go with numerous times that. She reminded me that the globe is capable of beauty, and that there were as soon as things-- art, delight, love-- that filled my globe, rather than concern and also nettle soup and time limits. The previous politician came under investigation after the revealed he apparently traded lewd sms message with a 15-year-old woman. Liz speaks to a medication man in Bali and also who informs her that she will eventually go back to Bali and also research study with her. Doubter Agreement: The Danish Woman functions as another showcase for Eddie Redmayne's skill - as well as poignantly discovers provocative themes with a wonderfully filmed biopic drama. The woman you offer an event that you were waiting to and also she grumbles that the beverages are warm, the food is gross, the crowd is lame, as well as pretty much every little thing else, properly killing the buzz for everybody around her. Since I have two little children as well as my other half to look out for, I never let individuals meet at my residence. Prophet Muhmmad married Aysha at the age of 6 BUT he really did not have any type of relations with her till she got to puberty at the age of 9 and also during that time in arabia, women would certainly get to the age of puberty really early due to the environnement and it was typical at that time also in western countries for ladies to obtain wed at that age. When White Woman isn't dressing up as a principles play, it dramatically challenges the political and also social anxiousness of one of the most radical generation in generations. Here, The Girl on the Train radiates, with its mystery settled by a left-field plot spin that works, followed, surprisingly, by just what you could call a satisfied end. If you are expectant or plan to end up being pregnant while utilizing this medication, tell your doctor. M.R.I.' http://discretthemes.info are not the only scans that are overused in medication however, in sporting activities medication, where lots of injuries include soft tissues like ligaments and muscular tissues, they climb to the fore. Or more specifically, I just really did not intend to. But reviewing it now I know exactly what an unflinching, raw, straightforward as well as emotional story this is of a woman who is too young to pass away. Concerned parents consider making use of a vitamin-mineral supplement when appetites reduce down and children do not seem to be consuming nutritiously. http://discretthemes.info/one-two-slim-avis-prix-ou-acheter/ seeks to stretch the border past its environmental undertone to consist of that which is past physical medication. Cops claim London, a physical education instructor at Apopka Memorial Intermediate school, began messaging the sufferer in 2014, when she was 14 years of ages, utilizing the instant messaging applications SnapChat as well as Kik, and also the partnership in between the two expanded when the woman transferred to senior high school. The Excellent Lady is a nearly totally character-driven story; the main players are effectively established. With similar themes of family members and relationship, The Secret Place is excellent for followers of The Lady On the Train. Out of this heighted alert, Siri uncovers that he likes forensic medication and the investigator work that selects it. We are off on a delightful experience that mixes lots of facets of regional culture with a wry funny bone concerning the range of human connections. I would not approve in a million years that a person of the ladies does just what she does to her best friend in the entire wide world. Indicators of a trouble could consist of difficulty breathing, swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat along with hives.

[gustavowilh]

Meet the PMs Who Created 2018’s Hottest Mobile Apps

What are some of the hottest, up-and-coming mobile apps not named Instagram, Snapchat, or Uber?

Venmo comes to mind first, followed by Duolingo and its stunning first-use experience. And who can ignore DoorDash, the popular food delivery service with over 721.7M in funding?

The PeopleMaven team talked to the amazing PMs at Venmo, Duolingo, and DoorDash. We also interviewed four additional PMs from Picsart Photo Studio, LastPass, 1Weather, and Blendle.

Read on to see all seven interviews, including their:

Favorite PM tips and tricks

Most important lessons learned as PMs

Emerging trends every PM should know

Little-known features they shipped that made a big difference

Ny Vo of Venmo

App Name: Venmo Description: Venmo is the popular mobile payment app. In 2016, it handled 17.6B in financial transactions. Installs: 5M – 10M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.7/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

As a mobile product manager, one challenge I face is prioritization. There are so many great ideas and problems to solve, so figuring out which one will deliver the most impact can be challenging. At Venmo, there are so many things that we want to do and things that we have to do. It’s up to us to find the balance.

Q: What is a new feature that you are the most proud of?

In late 2017, my team launched instant transfer on Venmo. The feature gives people the ability to transfer money to their bank account via their debit card in a matter of minutes. With increased competition in the p2p space, we felt that this was the right time to launch the feature, especially because we knew our users would find it valuable.

Q: What is a new trend that you foresee in mobile?

I think machine learning is trending and will continue to do so. If we take a look at the commerce space, personalization is becoming more and more important to buyers. Sellers have to think of new ways to target customers with meaningful content. Machine learning will allow mobile apps to deliver personalized experiences that users are looking for. The best part about machine learning is that it gets better every time you use it.

Natalia Castillejo of Duolingo

App Name: Duolingo Description: Duolingo is a language-learning app and website with over 200 million registered users around the world. Installs: 100K – 500K Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

PMs need to understand the differences in behavior between mobile and desktop users. For example, mobile users are more likely than desktop users to look at their devices for brief periods of time, devoting only a few minutes to each app. In our case, they may be using Duolingo on their phone during the small breaks they have throughout the day — like waiting in line, commuting on the subway, or taking the elevator. We constantly use A/B testing to discover the exact lesson lengths that will keep people coming back again and again.

Q: What are you the most proud of regarding your work at Duolingo?

One of the projects that I’ve worked on that I’m most proud of is the Duolingo Spanish Podcast. It features compelling stories told in easy-to-understand Spanish with English narration. We launched it this past December, and it quickly reached the #1 spot in the Apple Podcasts charts.

The secret for its success was that instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary lessons, the podcast uses great storytelling to provide language learners with a fun, easy way to improve their listening comprehension.

Charlton Soesanto of DoorDash

App Name: DoorDash Description: DoorDash is a food delivery mobile app serving 600+ cities. Raised $721.7M to date. Installs: 1M – 5M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

Building mobile products is about solving a user problem. The mobile platform forces you to deeply understand your user needs and figure out which specific information and actions to display on each screen.

At DoorDash, the consumer app needs to help you create your meal: find a restaurant, add items, and checkout. Behind the consumer mobile app experience, there is a Dasher and a Merchant mobile app doing a lot of hard work to provide a seamless delivery experience including:

Adjusting menus

Making food

Routing Dashers effectively

Q: What do you wish you had known when you first started out as a mobile PM?

Two things come to mind. First, don’t fall into the trap of designing a mobile experience that does everything for everyone. Second, the first impression and first page experience is the most important; it helps users grasp what your app is all about.

Some tactics to evaluate your app’s homepage:

Evaluate designs on the phone itself. Design tools like Invision, Flinto, Figma, and Sketch allow your designers and product folks to mirror onto a phone.

Ask users. Have them look at the home screen and tell you what they think your app is about.

Re-evaluate button usage. Words typically outperform buttons for calls-to-action.

Q: What is a new trend that you foresee in mobile?

The move to screenless interfaces.

Whether it’s asking your home assistant to play music, exploring a new environment via a VR headset, or unlocking your front-door with your smart-lock, we can’t assume that a screen is the best input method for every user.

Peter Butler of Picsart Photo Studio

App Name: PicsArt Photo Studio Description: PicsArt is the #1 photo editor and picture collage maker mobile app. Installs: 100M – 500M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

Mobile has grown so quickly around the world that keeping up with your base presents more challenges on mobile than on other platforms. For example, we have 100M active users around the world. Understanding the different use cases and needs is complex. A user in California is very different from a user in Mumbai. For instance, differences in:

Culture

Language

Privacy norms

Device storage

Mobile brands and devices

For mobile PMs, this means you need to laser in on where users overlap and where they don’t. The average smartphone user has 80 mobile apps on their phone, but only about 40 get used each month. I’m focused on making PicsArt one of those 40.

Q: What do you wish you had known when you first started out as a mobile PM?

When I first started out, I was tempted to try and get everything right including:

A/B tests

Use cases

Messaging

Distribution channels

Monetization strategy

Target customers and personas

While being accurate is important, I’ve found that its more valuable, in most situations, to be fast and semi-accurate instead.

I think any PM with a few cycles under their belt would agree that it’s better to learn quickly vs. wait and optimize for success in every scenario.

Q: What is a new feature that you are the most proud of?

Last year, we embarked on a major project to build our own proprietary influencer program and network, PicsArt VIPs. We scaled it quickly and have been leveraging it for a variety of brand and partner activations since. We’ve seen great success with the program, including community growth, retention, and partnerships.

Akos Putz of LastPass

App Name: LastPass Description: LastPass is the popular personal password manager and generator. Installs: 1M – 5M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.6/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

The pain of remembering myriads of usernames and passwords is present everywhere. Our LastPass users rely on LastPass for a seamless, secure experience storing and accessing their valuable information.

As a LastPass PM, my work positively affects the lives of millions of users every single day. This is what I like most about my role. Simply wearing a LastPass T-shirt triggers many conversations about people’s password pains and how they’re using LastPass.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

I’m a big fan of automation, even at my home. I’m a frequent user of the Nest, Alexa, Harmony, Kevo, Hue, and IFTTT, because I’m always trying to figure out how I can automate even the simplest recurring tasks. And of course, the Kindle app, so I can make out the most of my daily commute.

Eric Haar of 1Weather

App Name: 1Weather Description: 1Weather is the most beautiful and powerful weather app you’ve ever seen. Installs: 10M – 50M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.6/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

I enjoy being involved in the entire product lifecycle. I get to work with our designers, programmers, server engineers, and ultimately, our customers to plan the future of 1Weather. It’s a good feeling when a product finally gets into customers’ hands and gets a warm reception.

Q: With the 1Weather app, what are you most proud of?

I’m proud that we’ve built an app that regular folks, “weather watchers,” and critics all enjoy. We’ve made dozens of “best of” lists from various web sites, we’ve received the Google Play “Editor’s Choice” award for weather, and we’re one of the most highly rated weather apps.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

My current favorite is CLZ Comics. My hobby is comic book collecting, and CLZ is great for cataloging and managing my collection. The best apps ultimately make our lives easier, and CLZ handles a lot of input in a light package.

Ayden Galeh of Blendle

App Name: Blendle Description: Blendle’s mobile app provides the best journalism, handpicked by human curators and friends. Users only pay for stories they love. Installs: 100K – 500K Average Mobile App Rating: 4/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

Being a product manager feels like being the CEO of a small company. You deal with a lot of stakeholders, both external and internal. I get to work with a new generation of developers and designers who are more and more business oriented, which forces me to improve all the time.

Managing a product, whether it’s a native app or a website, is not the most complex part of the job. Many tough challenges stem from outside the product manager’s environment including:

How does the product fit into the industry ecosystem?

How does marketing work?

What are the financial aspects to consider?

All those dynamics are crucial for the success of the product.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

Two come to mind: Uber and Whatsapp.

From a user perspective, Uber’s app usability is close to perfect. It’s amazing to see the Uber app’s progress over the years.

Whatsapp is also among the best: no fancy features, just a useful, simple communication platform. You get the value of the product from the moment you download the app. This is how product managers should approach design: keep it simple.

The post Meet the PMs Who Created 2018’s Hottest Mobile Apps appeared first on Apptentive.

from Blogger http://gustavowilh.blogspot.com/2018/04/meet-pms-who-created-2018s-hottest.html via IFTTT

[michaelmikkelson]

Meet the PMs Who Created 2018’s Hottest Mobile Apps

What are some of the hottest, up-and-coming mobile apps not named Instagram, Snapchat, or Uber?

Venmo comes to mind first, followed by Duolingo and its stunning first-use experience. And who can ignore DoorDash, the popular food delivery service with over 721.7M in funding?

The PeopleMaven team talked to the amazing PMs at Venmo, Duolingo, and DoorDash. We also interviewed four additional PMs from Picsart Photo Studio, LastPass, 1Weather, and Blendle.

Read on to see all seven interviews, including their:

Favorite PM tips and tricks

Most important lessons learned as PMs

Emerging trends every PM should know

Little-known features they shipped that made a big difference

Ny Vo of Venmo

App Name: Venmo Description: Venmo is the popular mobile payment app. In 2016, it handled 17.6B in financial transactions. Installs: 5M – 10M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.7/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

As a mobile product manager, one challenge I face is prioritization. There are so many great ideas and problems to solve, so figuring out which one will deliver the most impact can be challenging. At Venmo, there are so many things that we want to do and things that we have to do. It’s up to us to find the balance.

Q: What is a new feature that you are the most proud of?

In late 2017, my team launched instant transfer on Venmo. The feature gives people the ability to transfer money to their bank account via their debit card in a matter of minutes. With increased competition in the p2p space, we felt that this was the right time to launch the feature, especially because we knew our users would find it valuable.

Q: What is a new trend that you foresee in mobile?

I think machine learning is trending and will continue to do so. If we take a look at the commerce space, personalization is becoming more and more important to buyers. Sellers have to think of new ways to target customers with meaningful content. Machine learning will allow mobile apps to deliver personalized experiences that users are looking for. The best part about machine learning is that it gets better every time you use it.

Natalia Castillejo of Duolingo

App Name: Duolingo Description: Duolingo is a language-learning app and website with over 200 million registered users around the world. Installs: 100K – 500K Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

PMs need to understand the differences in behavior between mobile and desktop users. For example, mobile users are more likely than desktop users to look at their devices for brief periods of time, devoting only a few minutes to each app. In our case, they may be using Duolingo on their phone during the small breaks they have throughout the day — like waiting in line, commuting on the subway, or taking the elevator. We constantly use A/B testing to discover the exact lesson lengths that will keep people coming back again and again.

Q: What are you the most proud of regarding your work at Duolingo?

One of the projects that I’ve worked on that I’m most proud of is the Duolingo Spanish Podcast. It features compelling stories told in easy-to-understand Spanish with English narration. We launched it this past December, and it quickly reached the #1 spot in the Apple Podcasts charts.

The secret for its success was that instead of focusing on grammar and vocabulary lessons, the podcast uses great storytelling to provide language learners with a fun, easy way to improve their listening comprehension.

Charlton Soesanto of DoorDash

App Name: DoorDash Description: DoorDash is a food delivery mobile app serving 600+ cities. Raised $721.7M to date. Installs: 1M – 5M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

Building mobile products is about solving a user problem. The mobile platform forces you to deeply understand your user needs and figure out which specific information and actions to display on each screen.

At DoorDash, the consumer app needs to help you create your meal: find a restaurant, add items, and checkout. Behind the consumer mobile app experience, there is a Dasher and a Merchant mobile app doing a lot of hard work to provide a seamless delivery experience including:

Adjusting menus

Making food

Routing Dashers effectively

Q: What do you wish you had known when you first started out as a mobile PM?

Two things come to mind. First, don’t fall into the trap of designing a mobile experience that does everything for everyone. Second, the first impression and first page experience is the most important; it helps users grasp what your app is all about.

Some tactics to evaluate your app’s homepage:

Evaluate designs on the phone itself. Design tools like Invision, Flinto, Figma, and Sketch allow your designers and product folks to mirror onto a phone.

Ask users. Have them look at the home screen and tell you what they think your app is about.

Re-evaluate button usage. Words typically outperform buttons for calls-to-action.

Q: What is a new trend that you foresee in mobile?

The move to screenless interfaces.

Whether it’s asking your home assistant to play music, exploring a new environment via a VR headset, or unlocking your front-door with your smart-lock, we can’t assume that a screen is the best input method for every user.

Peter Butler of Picsart Photo Studio

App Name: PicsArt Photo Studio Description: PicsArt is the #1 photo editor and picture collage maker mobile app. Installs: 100M – 500M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.5/5

Q: What is a key challenge that mobile PMs face, and how do you address it?

Mobile has grown so quickly around the world that keeping up with your base presents more challenges on mobile than on other platforms. For example, we have 100M active users around the world. Understanding the different use cases and needs is complex. A user in California is very different from a user in Mumbai. For instance, differences in:

Culture

Language

Privacy norms

Device storage

Mobile brands and devices

For mobile PMs, this means you need to laser in on where users overlap and where they don’t. The average smartphone user has 80 mobile apps on their phone, but only about 40 get used each month. I’m focused on making PicsArt one of those 40.

Q: What do you wish you had known when you first started out as a mobile PM?

When I first started out, I was tempted to try and get everything right including:

A/B tests

Use cases

Messaging

Distribution channels

Monetization strategy

Target customers and personas

While being accurate is important, I’ve found that its more valuable, in most situations, to be fast and semi-accurate instead.

I think any PM with a few cycles under their belt would agree that it’s better to learn quickly vs. wait and optimize for success in every scenario.

Q: What is a new feature that you are the most proud of?

Last year, we embarked on a major project to build our own proprietary influencer program and network, PicsArt VIPs. We scaled it quickly and have been leveraging it for a variety of brand and partner activations since. We’ve seen great success with the program, including community growth, retention, and partnerships.

Akos Putz of LastPass

App Name: LastPass Description: LastPass is the popular personal password manager and generator. Installs: 1M – 5M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.6/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

The pain of remembering myriads of usernames and passwords is present everywhere. Our LastPass users rely on LastPass for a seamless, secure experience storing and accessing their valuable information.

As a LastPass PM, my work positively affects the lives of millions of users every single day. This is what I like most about my role. Simply wearing a LastPass T-shirt triggers many conversations about people’s password pains and how they’re using LastPass.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

I’m a big fan of automation, even at my home. I’m a frequent user of the Nest, Alexa, Harmony, Kevo, Hue, and IFTTT, because I’m always trying to figure out how I can automate even the simplest recurring tasks. And of course, the Kindle app, so I can make out the most of my daily commute.

Eric Haar of 1Weather

App Name: 1Weather Description: 1Weather is the most beautiful and powerful weather app you’ve ever seen. Installs: 10M – 50M Average Mobile App Rating: 4.6/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

I enjoy being involved in the entire product lifecycle. I get to work with our designers, programmers, server engineers, and ultimately, our customers to plan the future of 1Weather. It’s a good feeling when a product finally gets into customers’ hands and gets a warm reception.

Q: With the 1Weather app, what are you most proud of?

I’m proud that we’ve built an app that regular folks, “weather watchers,” and critics all enjoy. We’ve made dozens of “best of” lists from various web sites, we’ve received the Google Play “Editor’s Choice” award for weather, and we’re one of the most highly rated weather apps.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

My current favorite is CLZ Comics. My hobby is comic book collecting, and CLZ is great for cataloging and managing my collection. The best apps ultimately make our lives easier, and CLZ handles a lot of input in a light package.

Ayden Galeh of Blendle

App Name: Blendle Description: Blendle’s mobile app provides the best journalism, handpicked by human curators and friends. Users only pay for stories they love. Installs: 100K – 500K Average Mobile App Rating: 4/5

Q: What do you like most about your role as PM?

Being a product manager feels like being the CEO of a small company. You deal with a lot of stakeholders, both external and internal. I get to work with a new generation of developers and designers who are more and more business oriented, which forces me to improve all the time.

Managing a product, whether it’s a native app or a website, is not the most complex part of the job. Many tough challenges stem from outside the product manager’s environment including:

How does the product fit into the industry ecosystem?

How does marketing work?

What are the financial aspects to consider?

All those dynamics are crucial for the success of the product.

Q: What’s your personal favorite mobile app?

Two come to mind: Uber and Whatsapp.

From a user perspective, Uber’s app usability is close to perfect. It’s amazing to see the Uber app’s progress over the years.

Whatsapp is also among the best: no fancy features, just a useful, simple communication platform. You get the value of the product from the moment you download the app. This is how product managers should approach design: keep it simple.

The post Meet the PMs Who Created 2018’s Hottest Mobile Apps appeared first on Apptentive.

[conartistnyc]

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Illustration Residency Interviews

The Illustration Residency is a 3-month residency starring artists Alice Skinner, Luz Dager, Anna Marcelo and Rosa Chang. These artists were picked by a jury of:

Ian Bertram, an American comic book artist and SVA graduate who has been published by D.C. Comics, Marvel and Dark Horse. Ian is a long-time Con Artist Collective collaborator and has had solo shows at our sister gallery Lazy Susan Gallery, and the Barefoot Gallery in Colombo, Sri Lanka as part of a Hot Butter Collective artist residency.

Victor Ocoa, an artist from Brooklyn, and studied Fine Art at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City. After graduating he established a career as a graphic designer for companies such as Scholastic, HarperCollins, and Marvel Entertainment. He is the founder of the independent comic publisher DRAWMORE INC., where he worked with artists from around the world creating original sequential art. He is currently an Art Director for Crunchyroll in San Francisco, California. 

Richard Miller  has over 20 years experience as an illustrator and fine artist. He graduated from the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon Graphics in 1994 and was recruited by DC Comics, where he worked on producing comic books including Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. His expertise includes illustration, toy design, and animation.

Interviews

Alice Skinner

Alice Skinner is a 25 year old artist originating from London. She comes from London and is currently based London and New York City. She earned her BA with honors in Illustration and Visual Media at the London College of Communication. Her work often touches on topics like gender, sexism, and sexuality.

A bunch of your works are inspired by Pablo Picasso, when did you start doing this and why?

So I wrote my thesis for the last year of my degree on the gender gap in art and out of like the top ten most expensive works of art in the world, like 6 of them are Picasso. And for me, it was all about depictions of women are worth so much money but then work created by them is not. So I just wanted to start taking recognizable images and giving these women narratives, and modernize them for our generation. And also, the meme captions are there because the young people need relatability so they can see themselves in popular culture and in art. Where as I feel like for many many years art is very elitist. I’m just trying to change that.

As a high school student, I’ve noticed that the arts are in my opinion, unappreciated. Do you fear that such revered artists will eventually be forgotten by the youth?

Yeah, and I think it’s important that even if we disagree with the person - as a person I hate Picasso, he was a sexist, racist, horrible man - but he still paved the way in art. I don’t really like classical art and that’s why it was interesting doing this project because it gave me a new appreciation of how we’re here. But sort of changing it and veering it in it’s own direction.

You said the depiction of women is very popular and sells well but the art that women create isn’t. How do you think that can change and do you think it’s already changing?

I do think it’s changing. Instagram is like one of the biggest tool for female artists right now. I’m also in an exhibition in London this week that is all about women who have furthered their careers with just Instagram. I think because we’re taking it outside of the gallery, and not just women but all minorities are having more of a chance at being able to be artists because the way we are consuming our art is changing. I think it’s the best time so far for women and minorities to come through.

In one of the pieces you’re showcasing, the caption is “How I sleep at night knowing that strange men on the internet hate me for existing.” What kind of hate have you been receiving? And how frequent is this hate?

It comes in bursts. It was very overwhelming after the women’s march. A piece of mine, which I completely stand by, said white silence equals white consent and a lot of white people, especially men, did not like this. I had like 4 days of being trolled by the alt-right and nazis. [They were saying] I shouldn’t be able to live, I shouldn’t be able to procreate, n-word lover, all of these crazy things. That was the big incident but it does happen quite regularly, I’ll just get some man in my inbox telling me how awful I am and sexist doesn’t exist and all of that crap.

Does it ever scare you?

Yeah, when the women’s march happened it was real bloody intense. I got like 700 new followers in a day and then like 700 haters and my phone [was going crazy]. They found my twitter as well and it was everything to “you shouldn’t be able to procreate” to just “eat shit.” I can find the humor in these things because these people are just close-minded ignorant fools.

You said it scares you, but does it also excite you?

I was with my mom when it happened - we don’t live together so it was quite rare that we were together - she was getting excited because she said “isn’t this what artists try to do their whole lives? To start a conversation, and you’ve started a conversation, cause like - some of it’s good and some of its bad, but people are talking.”

Luz Rodriguez Dager

Luz Dager is a 27 year old artist originating from Ecuador. She is based in Ecuador but comes to New York often. She earned her Bachelors in Graphic Design and Visual Communication at the Universidad Casa Grande in Ecuador. Her work often touches on female empowerment, and body positivity.

I’ve noticed that many of your works have been on the topic of body positivity, has body positivity been an issue for you growing up?

Yeah, I wasn’t the skinny girl in my college. So it was hard because I always wanted to be more skinny, more pretty, I always wanted to have straight hair because I have curly hair and all those kind of things [made it a] really hard time. So yes that is part of what I’m doing right now. It’s not the whole thing but it’s a really big part of it. Also I realize little girls like my cousins and the daughters of some of my friends who are 5 and 6 years old  are already worrying about what they look [like] and what people think about them, and I don’t think it’s a stupid thing but it’s like “why are they doing that? They are just kids.” So this is part of how I can speak aloud what I feel, and demonstrate the physical is not everything.

In all of your pieces that you’re showing it's black and white, but then there’s a bundle of color somewhere. Do the colors represent anything?

Yeah, they actually represent who you are inside. The series of illustrations are about self love and how you can improve or achieve self love. And I think these 16 years I’ve been in New York I have tried to do that, even though I didn’t realize it until now. They are black and white illustrations and the colors that pop out aren’t the “physical” illustration. Every single piece is of a girl doing something, in the first piece it’s a girl discovering what’s wrong with her, but she realizes nothing wrong. In the second one is helping herself to improve, to realize things can be better if you love yourself first and not to let everything get her down. Not for anyone, because they are many things you can’t control, but you can control yourself, if you can do that you have resolve.

In your piece, “Forgive,” who are you telling to forgive and who should she be forgiving?

She has to forgive herself. She’s like punishing herself because something happened or something different happened. She tries really hard and she does things wrong and things come out wrong, and she does things right and things still come out wrong, so it’s all these situations she can never forgive because she always feels [she is wrong]. But the flowers start coming up and she starts forgiving herself for the things that happen and don’t happen that aren’t her fault.

Anna Marcelo

Anna Marcelo is an artist who originates from the Philippines and is currently based there and in New York city. She is studying Graphic Design at Pratt Institute. Her work often touches on technology and mental health.

Some of your work involved modern technology and how it affects modern technology and how it affects relationships. Do you think the effect is positive or negative.

What I wanted to talk about was how we always think about how digital things are fake, but technology has evolved in a sense that it’s become an extension of ourselves and we have to question, “is it reality at this point?” because our social media, like snapchat, and instagram, in a world of everything to our nudes to our breakdowns they become documentations of our most vulnerable selves. So that’s what I wanted to talk about when it comes to digital intimacy. This can be both bad and good. I’ve done art experiments where people have sexually harassed me, but also there are such good things like intimate stories. Intimacy is just a positive thing, but there is vulnerability.

Do you think younger people are more likely to be affected?

Yeah, of course because we grew up with it [technology]. Like I grew up having internet friends and that whole thing. It becomes an extension of ourselves and that’s not necessarily a bad thing but there are effects to it.

It seems like you are trying to showcase the power of women in your pieces tonight, is that right?

Not exactly, it was actually about body politics and erotica. I wouldn’t call it positive but it is a commentary on it. You can freely interpret it - that’s like the whole art thing but when I created it, it was supposed to be a play on two types of binding that society creates on us. Most of them are filipino porn stars and most of them actually change their names into soda names, so there’s a girl called Pepsi Paloma to create this fantasy. And she was in the business since she was like 14.

Is that legal in the Philippines?

It’s not now, but it was the 80’s and it was legal back then. It was purely fucked up, they were forced to be stereotyped. It went to an extreme that this girl 3 years later kills herself at 17, and in her diary she talks about the violence in the porn industry. There’s nothing wrong with porn, but like the creation of it. That’s why I wanted to use binding because it symbolizes what society forces us to be physically.

Rosa Chang

Rosa Chang is an artist who originates in Seoul, South Korea. She regularly works in New York City and earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She is currently enrolled in the Visual Narrative graduate program at the School of Visual Arts (SVA).

In your Weeping Tree Story, you say the use of abandoned objects, old garments, and denim serves as a metaphor for the feelings of those who feel socially abandoned and rejected, have you ever felt that way?

Yeah, of course, especially in my first couple of years surviving in a different country as an immigrant. Also I’m [a] minority [and] also [a] woman and English isn’t my first language. But I think these kind of things unconsciously inspired my art. But I kind of wanted to create something positive. I really like the idea of reusability, we recycle used stuff that can’t be used anymore but can turn it into something very cool.

When did you start caring about recycling? In America I’ve noticed it’s not really a big deal to a lot of people.

So I was working in a natural indigo dyeing studio two years ago where I was an apprentice. I learned how to dye fabric and realized that there is nothing to be wasted and the whole process taught me that everything comes back to the earth. And it helps regrow the earth, so it’s a cycle. I thought it would be nice to apply that whole process to my own artwork. It’s too long to explain the whole process of dyeing but the plants, water, and other resources are super precious.

Why did you choose cactus for this past exhibition?

Aside from this exhibition I’ve also been painting this series called, “I am not your comfort zone,” where I choose things like a cat or pillow, it can be something useful or something small and cute, and I thought maybe they want their own voice. For example, a cat that’s very cute but it doesn’t really want you to pet it all the time, so the pet wants the power to express this emotion. The items are usually fragile and have no voice to give them a power to express themselves. So as an alternative I decided to add needles on their surface so it turns into a cactus.

[nitinbang]

13 Things About Visual content Marketing You'll Kick Yourself for Not Knowing

Importance of visual content marketing Visual content is the part of marketing and advertising presentation as well as official documentation like charts, video, slides etc, here we are going to show you some options which is so trendy in content marketing as well as help you to create it on your own. Let’s dive first what kind of content you required in your workplace, for visual content marketing, as well as promotional and advertisements.It's all essential to develop visual content for marketing, branding and promotional activities. Here are some tools which is so easy to use and easy to publish on all platforms even social media, print media. Numerous tools for Visual Content Marketing Images A picture tells a thousand words itself. One proper image tells about everything what you want to say, if it is present in better way. You can create poster, brand recognition, inspirational quotes in the form of images to make your sales multiple.

Users give attention to images than a large paragraph of text. Breaking it into sections and adding some visuals helps to make your content more interesting and improve readability. Relevant visuals also make your point stronger. You can create many of the images which are generate as per your interest, pick the photo and just edit them via photoshop Videos Another way is videos to promote your brand as well as business. This is the most hectic job when we need to develop a video for promotional, hundreds of ideas are moving in mind, but how to sync it to develop a video is not so cleared We mostly provide this job to video maker and give huge money to them, it is not necessary that they know very well about latest video trend and finally we compromised by things. I am going to notice you this tool which is really impressive and hundreds of video option are there, you can choose just like a ready

made video and update it accordingly. GIF images GIF's are a mini-vehicle for storytelling, capturing emotions, and communicating them in a concise way that words and pictures alone cannot. This is a group of images which moves frequently and make animated look. PowerPoint presentation slides Sliders are the most important document when present your company information. It controls viewers thought and bind them in a particular thought process and give a direction to make a good decision, this information is in the form of graphic text and sheet format even audio too. You can present complex part of the information in the easiest way with storytelling presentation. Microsoft powerPoint is the best software for the same. Infographics Infographics is the way you present your data in a very interactive way. The large amount of data present in a single image, it is useful when your information is so long and you summarize in infographic ways.

Emoji A small digital image or icon used to express your feelings, an idea or emotion in electronic communication. Emoji is the latest trend in chat, but it is also very effective in content writing too. Specially what you feel when you write content or what you want to express to your viewers. This is migrated to popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Whatsapp and Instagram.

Webinar A schooling webinar is similar to an academic webinar the usage of the net, but get entry to can be constrained to a smaller number and greater functions could be to be had for 2-way interaction and document sharing between the trainer and the audience.website hosting a webinar permits your business to exhibit its understanding, industry understanding, competencies, abilities, services and products. That is a low-cost manner to construct relationships between consumer, traders and industry leaders. E-book PDF Anybody is aware of about the PDF documents if the person is techno savvy. This format of file moslty used across platforms like home windows, Macintosh or UNIX. PDF files Meet legal document necessities because of text can not be altered in the same report. most important thing is the software to view PDF files is freeware. Special features of PDF file are password protected so it can't be easily accessible if document is confidential. Meme A great way to end this list of visual media content that can easily go viral is by talking about memes and comics. Everyone loves a laugh, and in the internet world, there are few things that have more cause for laughs than the memes we love.

Painting portray a picture is a liberal art from thousand years ago. This is the part of visible content material which has the most on the spot impact in human thoughts. Painting communicates a lousy lot of information very quickly and really powerful. An excellent painting provides an explanation for thousand words and a whole story. Graph/chart Charts, graphs, and maps deliver information to life in an engaging manner. Plus, people are more likely to preserve your message. Articles that include charts and infographics show appreciably better reader engagement.   With so many exceptional sorts of charts and graphs to be had care should always be taken to ensure that the ideal chart type is chosen to successfully present and communicate the facts to the person. Appropriate chart type, proper scaling, suitable titles and legend kinds must be cautiously taken into consideration to make sure powerful conversation of the statistics so that it could be interpreted to aid decision making. Screenshots screenshots can be hugely beneficial as a trust-constructing tool. Screenshot creates social proof and set up faith among viewers. if you are public face of your agency, you could bear in mind the use of them to seize client opinions or testimonials from industry boards or social media. there are numerous ways to create a screenshot. printscreen button on your keyboard makes instant screenshot for you. Skitch is a amazing tool for growing pics and text on pictures. It’s simple to apply and free. Call to action There are many kinds of call to action which has the lead role in content marketing, Call to action (CTA) is the key to solve content purpose. What information provider wants from their reader is called to action. It can be formed of Call Now, Mail Now, Subscribe Now, Buy Now etc. CTA encouraged to take action to move ahead.

Conclusion Visual content material advertising is the maximum effective in social media as well as print media. An amazing presentation makes your content viral. And if you need to extra presence in net market or commercial media, you ought to connect to visual content material advertising and marketing. For the pleasant end result you need to use visible content material, equipments which enhance your abilities and minimize your efforts. Visual content advertising is the best manner of marketing. It’s viable you can be leveraging this surprisingly effective tool for your content material advertising extra. Read the full article

[convergentmediablogcmp]

Analysis of Theories - Lev Manovich vs Henry Jenkins

In this blog post I will give an analysis and provide examples of the main theories from both Lev Manovich and Henry Jenkins in relation to convergence culture, in order to give a clear understanding of what the different perspectives are on this topic and to successfully relate it back to my group work.

Henry Jenkins defines convergence culture as a world where every story, sound, brand, image and relationship plays itself out across the maximum number of media channels. The public taking control of the media as it comes into our lives is the essence of what convergence culture is, as we are in a moment of transition from an old media system where stories belong to major media companies to a new media system where the average citizen is able to take over the media technology and tell their own stories in a powerful new way.

An example of this is Draw My Life, which is a powerful way for everyday citizens in the pubic to tell the story of their lives, they do so by drawing onto a whiteboard or piece of paper and use a camera to film and then use a voice over recording to narrate their story. A perfect example of this is from Filmmaker and YouTube vlogger Casey Neistat and his consistent use of media technology and personal storytelling over various media platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. Neistat is consistently innovating, experimenting and reontextualising different stories of his life and relevant stories in the world or media in new ways, and then spreads them across a variety of media platforms which has resulted in millions of followers and fans. 

Jenkins also talks about how in a transmedia project the story or experience is spread across a variety of media platforms in a way that is complimentary so that each platform can contribute what it does best to the project. He uses the example of the Matrix trilogy as it is spread across three different films, various comic books, video games and much more. 

Jenkins mentions how participatory culture is taking over spectatorial culture. Participatory culture is where individuals do not act as consumers only but as both ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’ where they can engage in co-creation of media but with varying degrees of power as opposed to spectatorial culture where we are just simply observing.

In a world governed by the principles of participatory culture we have the potential to be much more diverse than a world that is controlled by a small number of media producers. We are able to see different perspectives emerge and individuals challenge the dominate images in the media. This is giving way for stories of the oppressed to get into circulation, a current example of this is the Black Lives Matter movement which began with the use of a hashtag on Twitter in 2013, that has gained a lot of media and political attention in the past year or so. With the publics ability to record and expose the reality of the violence and racism towards black people through media technology, we are slowly taking back the control of media.

Lev Manovich refers to convergence culture as “hybrid media” where different types of media such as graphics, photography and animation were once separated started to combine in various ways. Moving image became an exception and hybrid media became the norm. Manovich continues to give examples of music videos that utilise this hybrid media and incorporate different elements into the work, some where you can clearly notice the juxtaposition of different media used and others where it is barely noticeable. 

Manovich sites the media software, After Effects, as a key component to making hybrid visual language possible. After Effects allows for the simultaneous appearance of multiple media within the same frame. An example is the piece Pink Dot, from artist Takeshi Murata as it clearly demonstrates the language of hybridity and the use of After Effects. 

Manovich believes that “80 percent of such sequences and films follow the aesthetics of hybridity”. With this new software designers and artists are in complete control of the transparency each layer has and are able to create a visual narrative with different visual effects and changes. Murata’s Pink Dot transforms live action footage into a constant flow of patterns and colours, a metamorphosis that is never ending or completely still. 

Murata creates a visual narrative through continuous transformation of different image layers which shows us the key technical and conceptual change that defines the new era of media hybridity. 

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibJaqXVaOaI&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Y-ahQFQDA

https://www.wired.com/2015/10/how-black-lives-matter-uses-social-media-to-fight-the-power/

http://manovich.net/content/04-projects/055-understanding-hybrid-media/52_article_2007.pdf

[douglaspasz]

New Post has been published on Arsenic Lullabies Blog

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a teachable moment for the Comic-Con Industry

I was on the interwebs this weekend trying to figure out the name of a stand-up comedy showcase type show that was on in the 90’s.  I used to watch it as a young buck and was trying to think of the name of it when talking to my friend Mike about his upcoming appearance on a similar show.

If you’re gen X or older you’ll know that a simple search for –stand-up comedy show 90’s- isn’t going to help because you’ll remember that in the early 90’s stand up comedy was king.  It was KING of the entertainment industry.  The best TV shows and movies and Cable specials all had culled their talent form the Stand-up Comedy World, and every burg in the US either had a (or many) stand up comedy club (clubs) or at the very least had several bars that had a stand up comedy night.  In a short window of time stand-up had gone from a fringe form of entertainment to THE form of entertainment.  Then, as on a website listing shows explained “the bubble burst”.  Stand-up comedy dropped back into the fringes almost overnight, and has only recently clawed it’s way back.

Here’s the thing about “bubbles bursting”.  they don’t just “Burst” as though some arbitrary force comes along and lays waste.  What happened to Stand -up Comedy in the mid 90’s is what happens in the stock market,  the housing market or anything else.  It grew because it was really good. In the late 80’s early 90’s stand up comedy was so flush with talent that nothing could stop it from growing. It is the era that Richard Lewis, Sam Kinison, Gilbert Godfrey, Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld,  Emo Phillips and scores of other brilliant innovators had taken up the cause.  When people see someone else having success, they want to give it a try, eventually the people coming in to give it a try have no business whatsoever doing so.  And that “good” turns into awful…and everyone gets out.

What are we looking at right now? The top movies and films are comic book movies and every burg in the US has a Comic-Con.  The level of Talent in this industry is actually still pretty flush, because it is an industry that takes some effort to get involved in.  Stand up comedy only requires the will to stand up in front of a microphone, and someone willing to let you. The financial markets only require you to have money to invest and a place to invest it.  Easier for people to be attracted to things they have no business getting involved in if…it’s easy to get involved in.  Making comic books takes a huge amount of time/effort, so it has a barrier against bubbles/bursting a bit more that others (a bit), so it is still pretty damn solid right now on the talent end. 

Those comic-cons though…

Putting together a good comic book convention is hard work.  It takes money, knowledge, connections, and a lot of due diligence.  Putting a “good” convention together takes that…putting a bad convention together only takes money and a FB page. 

Over the last two years I have witnessed and heard tell of Conventions being flat out a waste of time…more so than I have seen or heard of in previous years ( important I add that last  part because vendors, con operators, and pros ALWAYS complain they didn’t make enough money and the crowd could have been bigger).  The reason is the reason it always is when things start to go bad…too many people involved that don’t know what they are doing.

I was the guest of a show last fall that was the WORST show I have attended in over 10 years.  WORSE than a show in Kansas city many years ago where the only person who came to my table was a has been wrestler who wouldn’t leave and was dead set on telling me every single story he had at the ready for the fans who never showed up.

I’m not go to name this show because doing so serves no purpose.  I have no spite…I could tell there was a problem and foolishly went anyway, so that’s on me. There is no warning to give because I doubt it will be around again.  Which is, on one hand a shame because the operator seemed like a good guy, but on the other hand it’s good because the quicker people who shouldn’t be involved in the industry fail, the less of a negative effect they can  have on the industry.

Let me break down what was done wrong here though, as a teachable moment for all other comic-con operators. PAY ATTENTION…LEST YOUR COMIC-CON, despite having big name comic book pros and stars from very popular t.v. shows, LOOK LIKE  THIS, ON A SATURDAY.

  Does that send chills down your spine? It should. that was as crowded as that show got over two full days…and it never got that crowded again.

“What went wrong? How can I avoid this?!”  You may ask.

Well…it wasn’t the line up. As I said, they had some big name Comic book Pros.  They had some washed up tv stars and the car from Dukes of Hazard and all that but they also had a few of the kids from Stranger Things.  You’ve heard of that show to no end if you know anyone under the age of 40.  Having someone from THAT show at your con should draw attendees like cockroaches to a peanut and butter sandwich.   That is…if anyone knows they are going to be there…

You think maybe this post would have been better served by mentioning the kids form Stranger Things…than Parker Stevenson?  I barely know who the f*ck he is and I’m OLD.  ***Pro-tip if you’re trying to attack millennials, nothing that happened before 1985 matters.*** You think anyone who isn’t on social security knows who Parker Stevenson is?  Parker Stevenson is the name that helps you win a trivia contest, not a name that gets people to come to you comic-con.  …With all due respect to Parker Stevenson, I’m sure it was fine show…but I’ve never seen it because there wasn’t a t.v. set inside my dad’s balls, which is what would have had to be the case as I was  SPERM when this guy was last famous.

I’m making a point here, I’m not ragging on Stevenson.  I’m sure if there was a t.v. set in my dad’s balls I would have been entertained by this show…and went to a sperm comic-con and asked for his autograph.  But there wasn’t so I don’t know who he is, and more importantly neither does 50% of the population and 60% of the population that does is in a nursing home and their grand kids ain’t going to take them to your show because their grand kids don’t G.A.F. about Parker Stevenson.

SO…you think maybe this post would have been more effective if they mentioned the starts for the TOP RATED NETFLIX SHOW was going to be there? Hmm?

But more so than this being a waste of a post, the bigger problem…is the lack of posting.  It don’t matter if you have the POPE at your con IF YOU DON’T F*CKING TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT.

Here’s the madness to it all.  These stars that come to conventions…they cost money.  You think the guy from The walking dead shows up just on the hopes that enough people come and pay for his autograph? No, he gets an appearance fee. Those fees range up to 20,000.00 or more.  That washed up wrestler I told you about…he made 600.00 a day to appear and that was ten years ago.  Those Stranger Things kids and the rest cost real money.  Maybe…have one less and use that cash to ADVERTISE.  YOU HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR SHOW….NON…STOP.  You should be spend as much or MORE time , money, and effort telling people about the guests you have as you do getting the guests. OTHERWISE THERE IS NO POINT IN GETTING THE GUESTS

ADVERTISE …NON…STOP.

It’s real simple math. More people know about your show and why they should go, the more people will show up.  There is NO excuse for a show with the kids from Stranger Things at it to have such a pathetic attendance. NONE.

Forget the absurd amount of money that was spent to have Parker Stevenson show up, that SHOULD have been spent on advertising the F*CKING SHOW.  There is this thing called “the internet” and on this “internet” there are these things called “social media sites”.  Look these up all you convention operators, google them…you know what “google” is right?

-facebook-

-instagram-

-twitter-

-snapchat-

and while you’re at it look up -hashtag-.  HASHTAGS …YOU MORONS.  Or better yet, just grab three of your volunteers who are under 25 and say this-

“okay, YOU get facebook, YOU get twitter, You get instagram. When people come in we’re going to ask them how they heard about the show and which ever of you got the most people to come…gets a 200.00 bonus. THAT in and of itself will get you far more attendees than some B actor who cost you several thousand dollars. 

You have someone YOUNG do this because THEY understand how it works. They were born in the internet, raised by it, molded by it…to paraphrase Baine.

Promoting yourself on the internet is tricky. Some days are better than others, some times of day are better than others, some methods are better than others at certain days and times.  Now…you can be an evil genius and research how all the alogrythms work (like me) or you can just find someone young who knows how it works because it’s all directed at his/her demographic anyway.  GET …HELP.

Because if you try to do it yourself…you could very likely end up with this…this was their final post before the show started (note the number of likes)

Five…five likes…. FIVE F*CKING LIKES ON THE LAST POST BEFORE THE CONVENTION OPENS….you might as well not even open the doors.

Here’ was my final post before leaving for this show.

My post about losing a bowl of cereal got 12 times more exposure than the F*CKING COMIC-CON THAT WAS GOING TO HAVE THE KIDS FROM STRANGER THINGS AT IT.  ….THAT IS A PROBLEM.  If me clowning around gets 12 times the exposure that your legitimate attempts at promotion than you had best get yourself some F*CKING HELP FROM SOMEONE YOUNG.

You need to be promoting  early, often , non stop, and you’d better make your posts interesting to the type of person who might go to a comic-book convention. And you had best not stop there. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times…go to the the local colleges and put up some signs, hand out some fliers, or have someone else do it.  Radio ads are cheap, especially in the middle of the night (WHEN YOUNG PEOPLE ARE UP) and they are even cheaper on college radio.  Every single comic book store in driving distance should get bribed with free tickets and merch to put flyers for your show in everyones bags.

This is simple stuff.  You are running a comic book convention…in your area are comic book stores…where people who like comic books go…if you don’t have every one of those stores helping promote you then you are doing it wrong.

If you do not have a TEAM of people dedicated to getting the word out than you are surrendering yourself to THIS being YOUR comic-con’s attendance on a SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I saved that pic for last because that is the row of celebrities…among them are the STARS OF STRANGER THINGS. what do we got there?  Ten people? Less?  ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON. How much do you think that show brought in, cash wise?  Probably not enough to cover the cost of Parker Stevenson.

Write this points down….

1-LOCATION can people get to it easily? Do they know where it is as soon as you say the name of the venue?

2-ADVERTISE- I’ve covered this enough?  No? NEVER STOP ADVERTISING

3-GUESTS- do you have guests that are worth going to see?  You can scratch Parker f*cking Stevenson off that list.

…for that matter you can scratch just about every “star” off that list. There are comic cons out there who don’t ever have one single t.v. or movie “star” that still get thousands of attendees.  Because…the word is out. It is 2017. People have come to realize that, except in the most special of cases, meeting these people and paying huge amounts of money for a signature…just aint worth it.  They are actors and actresses, they often don’t have much insight, and they don’t have a lot of time to talk to you if they did. Some of them are very interesting, but some of them have nothing to say if there aren’t lines pre written for them.  It’s a crap shoot. As opposed to meeting an actual comic book pro, who will have been deeply involved in the creative process that produced the stories people love and perhaps grew up with, and if they are an illustrator, they  can even be made to draw an actual picture…in most cases for less than the cost of an autograph from a celebrity. 

Again, this is 2017…this ain’t new anymore.  Do you think people would rather spend 100.00 for an autograph from someone who was in Captain America or spend 100.00 for a drawing of Captain America from the guy who draws the Captain America comic book?  People are looking at the value they get for their money.  PARKER STEVENSON AIN’T GOING TO GET BODIES THROUGH THE DOOR TO COME AND SEE HIM…and neither are most of the stars, with all due respect…they have a skill and care about their craft and help create some really great things and have spent just as many years of toil and struggle to get where they are as the guy who draw Captain America, but when people look to open their wallets…they want VALUE.  It is simply a matter of the wrong sport for the wrong type of player.  What looks cooler framed on your wall? A signed 8×10 of an actor or a fully colored illustration of Captain America?  What’s going to keep it’s monetary value longer?  I bet an autograph from Parker Stevenson was worth big money several decades ago.  What do you think you could get for it on ebay now?  Now take an illustration of Captain America by John Buscema from several decades ago…think that’s worth a few more dollars?  What is more fun to see, someone sign their name, or someone draw Captain America?  Maybe you never thought of it that way….but the people who spend money to go to comic-cons have.

And what about you’re value, as a convention operator?  The guy who was in a Captain America movie…how much time is he going to spend promoting his appearance at your show?  Go look at his twitter feed…has he EVER mentioned a show he was going to be at? Now look at the guy who draws captain America…he likely mentions every show he’s going to be at several times on social media outlets that he is active on and people come to regularly to see him post progress of what he’s working on.  Have you noticed how much more exposure a drawing gets than a photograph of a celebrity?

WHICH IS NOT TO SAY YOU SHOULD RELY ON YOUR GUESTS TO ADVERTISE FOR YOU. 

I AM…NOT…SAYING THAT.

You, right now could be planning your convention…and there is some 18 year old volunteer that you are about to give a free t-shirt to so that he/she handles the grab bag prizes….when in truth he/she could be ensuring the whole internet world knows about your show.

But hey, what do I know, I’ve only been doing this for like 15 years.  You can listen to George Carlin tell you how to set up a successful Comedy Club, or you can ignore him and watch 7 waitresses stand around with no one to serve drinks to while he preforms stand up to three drunks who come in every night anyway.

As for me…I’ll be posting my appearance schedule soon, and as always you can bet every show I attend this year, will be a show that I know is top notch. And If I haven’t been to it before and don’t know what to expect, I tell you that ahead of time.   A lot can be said about me…but I always call them like I see them.

  When Douglas is not complaining he and his work can be found at www.arseniclullaby.com

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