« Battlestar Galacticons | Main | Not a Dream! Not an Imaginary Tale! »
The first installment of the Marvel/Guiding Light crossover appeared this week in Marvel's Civil-War related Choosing Sides.
Since no one on scans_daily has decided it's scan-worthy yet, here is a brief preview and interview on Newsarama.
First stop on the tour, the Newsarama blog, a quote from Brandweek (a marketing industry magazine):
Marvel Comics, like the stereotypical buyer of its products, is trying to figure out how to meet women. Tired of waiting for members of the opposite sex to wander in to the comic book store, the company is going where the women are by teaming up with CBS’ long-running soap opera Guiding Light. The comic book publisher this week began placing a special insert into some of its titles that has superhero group the New Avengers visiting Springfield, which is home to the Guiding Light’s characters. Next Monday Guiding Light returns the favor with an episode titled "She’s a Marvel," in which one of the show’s characters gains superpowers."We were really attracted to this as a way to get access to a new audience," said David Gabriel, Marvel Publishing’s vp-sales and marketing. "The soaps’ audience is all women and ours is all men."
Next up, what some Newsarama posters think of the idea:
...I think its degrading to the medium. Adult comic readers and the comic industry in general have a hard enough time being taken seriously as it is. Slapping the Marvel brand onto something that "normal" people view as even more ridiculous then comic books isnt really the way to go in my opinion. Im all for exposure and bringing more people to the industry, I just question the choice of the exposure here.
For the other side, the soap fans on the Soap Central board are not particularly happy, either. Among the comments from fans after viewing the episode promo (which is on the Marvel site):
"Guiding Light management just doesn't get it. Soaps are about the emotional connections between people and how they react to things that happen in their lives. We root for our favorite, cry with them, laugh with them and everything in between. Just when GL remembered what they were supposed to be with the brilliant storylines and acting with Reva/Billy/Josh and Jonathan/Lizzie/Tammy it seemed like there were going to start winning back fans and ratings. Now they are going to make Harley an electrically charged superhero that fights crime Spider-man style, glowing eyes and all? Are they freakin' kidding??? Who knows how many weeks we are going to be expected to put up with this idiocracy. This is NOT how you save a soap from being cancelled. It's how you speed it up.""idiocracy"? Are we sure this poster isn't from Newsarama?
The Guiding Light tie-in episode airs Wednesday, November 1. We'll bring you updates and hopefully some YouTube action then.
Posted by Lint Trap Contributor at October 27, 2006 05:14 PM