Babbling Point

MY EVER DEVOLVING HEADLINES

While most of the working world have already gone home or have begun their trek to the province, I am still here at the office because we have to release print ads and merchandising materials that have to up by Easter Sunday. (They have to be released today because there will be no work from tomorrow til next week.)

After checking several dozen X-MEN banners and streamers, we get a call from client, who got a call from some Marvel guy or 20th Century Fox guy abroad who said, that we can't use the phrase: JOIN THE BATTLE! Due to America's current preoccupation with Iraq, they don't want their characters to be associated with anything related to war, hence we can't say "battle." Hmmm... but isn't X2 all about the impending start of a "genetic war" between humans and mutants?

We have another ad coming out on Sunday which will feature other Marvel superheroes. The original headline read: Hero hype! Mutant mayhem! Now all assembled in myGlobe! Client called, who got a call from someone again, who asked us to remove the phrase "mutant mayhem" because our main visual didn't show any mutants. True enough, it only shows the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and Daredevil. But you can still download X-Men stuff, so, technically, you can still get "mutant mayhem" in your Globe. But client said, that the other guy said, that we can't say it, so we removed it.

Great, huh?

You get all excite because you get to work on favorite comic book characters, but you just end up getting entangled in all these corporate guidelines. Not as fun as you'd think.

Neil Gaiman mentioned that the powers-to-be in DC Comics didn't allow him to portray Superman a certain way because it was inappropriate for the character... or something like that. Well, if they can forbid Gaiman from doing such things, I guess their can forbid lowly copywriters from doing what we do.

For the moment, this is the closest I'll get to "writing" the X-Men and the Justice League.

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