No, I hadn't forgotten this feature--I just hadn't come up with any new comics neologisms for awhile.
For those of you who didn't read these previously (I think the last one might have been back when I had two readers instead of five) The Witless Dictionary is an effort to provide a working lexicon for comics. In other words, like the eternal Sniglets, they're meant to be words we don't have, but should.
The Domino's Pizza Fallacy--Term of art used to describe the inevitable announcing of a "bold new direction" (or "new direction" or "New take"--pick any utterly tired phrase you like) that basically says, in so many words, "we're sorry for the years of crap stories we did before, we'll do better now as soon as we do this BIG EVENT so we can put a big exclamation point on the whole business."
The problem with this is twofold--either you're telling people who already read the book that they're idiots for reading shit stories for so long, or you're tacitly admitting that you've been half-assing it up to this point, but no further--honest!
So named because Domino's Pizza has been running an ad campaign over here recently wherein they are trying to get people to eat their pizza . . .by basically saying for the last 25 years they've been making really crap pizza. Needless to say this comes off more than a little pathetic and is not really the kind of ad strategy one would expect a large chain of restaurants with a lot of money on the line and an enduring brand identity to protect to adopt.
Fortunately, no one ever went broke wagering on executive stupidity, did they?
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Of course, the problem with the Domino's Pizza Fallacy is that it works with regards to the Big Two: apparently their readers have the memory capacity of a pre-Pentium PC. That, or they've become so numbed by literary horrors that any promise of better quality, however ill-phrased, sounds good...
I think it's the latter. After so many ill-advised changes in direction (Vampire bukkake. God help me) I think they're just like a battered woman rationalising they got slapped because they must have mouthed off when they shouldn't and they should be grateful for all the punch-free days they can get. This is a horrible way of thinking.
It's interesting to look at comics and video games as being on opposite ends of this particular spectrum: Marvel and DC go out of their way to antagonize their customers, with no real impact on sales, whereas video game companies are quick to respond to negative output - look at how BioWare's morality systems have evolved from "Saint vs. Puppy Rapist" to "Idealist vs. Pragmatist". More often than not, the result is an improved product, but video game companies do have to struggle with the ramifications of their failures. Mainstream comics companies don't seem to have that problem.
Well, on the plus side, now that consoles are connected to the internet, it's a lot easier to fix bugs and balancing issues (I'm looking at YOU Blazblue:Continuum Shift) but there's also the danger of releasing a game that's totally unfinished on the public and forcing them to pay full price for what's essentially a beta (see King of Fighters 12 and, if the tournament reports are any indication, 13) which is antagonizing the consumer with even higher stakes than a $4 comic.
Very true: I got a tremendous amount of enjoyment out of "Starcraft II", but it's still only a third of the actual game - and at the prices they're asking these days, there's really very little margin for error. And yet, despite the vast differences in terms of basic profit, video game companies seem more inclined to react to criticism than Marvel or DC, where they simply cannot afford to lose the 40-70 thousand readers they have left.
Beleive it or not, that was one of the reasons I've been digging the Scott Pilgrim game so much. For $10 you get a deep game with a lot of secrets to play around with and an enjoyable "pick up and play anytime" game (this despite . . .y'know, Scott Pilgrim) I could buy two comics for the same amount of price and there's little to no guarantee I'd enjoy them . . .
Marvel and DC have done everything to alienate, insult, and annoy their smallest core of readers and they haven't left yet. Whether that's because they like what they're reading or because they're so beaten down with OCD that they can't comprehend breaking up their run and letting the hobby go altogether.
And even if you did enjoy them, odds are they wouldn't constitute a complete story. Six-part arcs may not be mandatory anymore, but at the bare minimum it takes three months to get through one storyline. Let's say they're all $2.99, that means you spend almost ten dollars on a single story arc. Spend the same amount, or a bit more, on a video game and at least you get a complete story.
And because they're finite, I tend to find video game narratives take more chances. If "Final Fantasy VII" had been a comic, I'm rather sure Aeris would've come back from the dead sooner or later. It'd be a big crossover event and everything. :)
Difficult to say: it's certainly possible that readers with lower standards might not mind Jenkins or Loeb or, God help them, Daniel Way. But then you have Norman Osborn knocking up Gwen Stacy, which I'm rather sure would disgust anyone (to this day I wonder about Stan Lee's reaction to that particular bit of news).
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