Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics

Geek Girl on the Street Reports: The Curious Case of The Man From Space

Kate Kotler writes for Bleeding Cool;

I believe I have unwittingly stumbled onto the very first person in the entire world who is trying to use the Rob Granito Method of Self-Promotion* to garner… attention? A comic book deal? Something, though what I'm not quite sure what…

I must state before proceeding with this column that I am 99.9% sure that I've been on the receiving end of heavy bullshit at the hands of the individual I'm about to discuss. If I'm wrong, I'll tear up and eat a copy of this person's comic book for lunch – in front of a crowd – at the very next con I cover (which I think is Wizard World Chicago, as I'm not headed to SDCC this year as it conflicts with a family event I cannot miss.)

What makes me so sad is that this person -from all appearances- looks normal. On Facebook he displays a friendly, normal picture of a hipster dad with his kid. There are other pictures of him out and about with his friends doing fun, geeky things. He lists that he's married, his wife is lovely looking and they're a very cute couple. He's a partner at a London graphic design firm. By all accounts, the firm is doing fairly well, boasting a modest list of corporate design clients. In addition, he's actually created his own content (unlike Rob Granito) and published three "books" of a webcomic titled The Man From Space. While it is not the BEST webcomic I've ever read, it's bright and vibrant and in places charming (albeit a little too "God-y" for me.)

SO WHYYYYY has this seemingly normal, nice, charming British guy chosen to lie egregiously on the Twitters** about his upcoming partnership with Steven Spielberg that will turn his (at best) C+ webcomic into a feature film starring George Clooney?

Why, Marc Jackson, why?

Don't you know that the kind of attention you're going to get from shenanigans like this will result in scorn, ousting from the comics community and (possibly) a lawsuit from Mr. Spielberg?

Here's what happened:

On Friday, 8 July after Bleeding Cool ran my column about webcomics, I was inundated with requests from creators asking me to take a look at their webcomics. I valiantly tried to check out as many of these as I could, as I felt a strange sort of duty to my fellow web-based creators to lend some legitimacy to their work. The ones I liked, I responded to, the ones I didn't, I didn't. Ones I was "ehh" about (as such was the case with The Man From Space) I set aside for a second read so that I could either figure out something nice to say about the comic, or decide on saying nothing at all.

Marc Jackson then Tweetered at me and the rest should be easy to follow:

Man from Space: Hey thanks for the re-tweet! Did you like the comic?

Kate: It was fun. :)

(See? Something vaguely nice.)

Man from Space: Many thanks, apparently Spielberg wants to turn it into a movie, we'll see…

Kate: Really? o.0

Man from Space: Yep, he's thinking of Clooney for the lead, personally I'd prefer Henry Winkler…

(It was at this point that I ran to Google News and combined Marc Jackson + Steven Spielberg + Man From Space and came up with nada… well except some hits about some basketball player named "Mark Jackson" and old Apollo 13 Speilberg stuff.)

Kate: Ok, I don't want to sound rude, but until today I'd never heard of your project & it looks like you've only got 30 FB fans…

(And 36 Twitter followers.)

Kate: This makes it kind of -erm- hard for me to believe that Spielberg is going to make a movie out of this strip. No offense. (Not to mention, as someone whose job it is to report on that kind of comic-to-movie deal, I'd have heard SOMETHING abt it before now.) Again, it's a fun comic and I liked it, but you don't even come up in Google when your name/title is entered… no offense. :(

Man from Space: Steve did tell me not to talk about it, any word and the deal might be off… even you doing a Google search could have affected the deal…

Kate: Then WHY would you brag about it on Twitter?

Man from Space: Panic over, Steve just Skyped me and we're still on. He also said to say hi, he's a fan of your work.

Kate: Okiedokie. o.0

Man from Space: He wants to know your opinion, Clooney or Winkler, what do you think?

Kate: David Tennant.

As much as I'd LOVE to believe that Steven Speilberg is a fan of my work or wants my opinion on casting upcoming comic book movies, I feel like I need to Skype Marc Jackson, myself, and sing the "Liar, liar pants on fire, sitting on a telephone wire" song to him.

Again: If I'm wrong and this is legit, I'll eat a printed copy of The Man From Space.

I'm just completely baffled: I am fairly sure I can deduce Marc Jacksons' intent in this strange scheme – lie to pop-journo who writes a column for the site Granito was busted on, then she'll write a column about your webcomic, henceforth giving it all kinds of attention it didn't previously get. And, okay, Marc Jackson, your clever ruse worked to that end… But, don't you realize the attention you're going to get on Bleeding Cool for this kind of stunt equals 15 minutes of fame in which people will be really nasty, rip you and your work to shreds and avow to smear your name in the comics world from hence forth? It's not attention you WANT – the attention you want is for doing something awesome and having us say "Hey that's an awesome webcomic, go check it out" – as opposed to "Whiskey foxtrot tango is up with this guy, tryin' to be all Rob Granito like?"

Someone needs to teach you about positive attention vs. negative attention.

The Man From Space – a "ehh" C+ webcomic with moments of charm written and drawn by a guy who isn't afraid to step up to the ledge and risk career suicide to promote his work. I'd say "give it a chance" but that would only be encouraging him.

*The Rob Granito Method of Self-Promotion ™ = someone lying outrageously and egregiously about their professional credits and associations for financial and creative gain.

**I've got the screencaps in case these Tweets mysteriously disappear.

Kate Kotler is the founding editor of Geek Girl on the Street.com and a freelance writer/editor/marketing hack and full time geek girl who lives in Chicago. She loves Doctor Who, Frank Miller, Wonder Woman, knitting, puppetry and she used to be a professional fire eater. See her full resume on katekotler.com. You can Tweet at her @adorkablegrrl on the Twitters.

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