Pretty, Fizzy Paradise

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Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Random Ridiculous Realization...Make up your own number

So anyway, I was lounging about, relaxing, after getting a needle full of crap jammed in my retina (don't ask), trying not to rub my eye when I saw an ad for SoapNet, the channel that replays endless soap opera reruns.

It reminds me of how when I was a pre-teen, I was addicted to these trashy shows. I loved them.

I loved how the plots made no sense when thought about deeply.

I loved how the characters would sleep together in really weird combinations just for the sake of drama.

I loved the way the timelines never worked out, children aged too quickly or stayed young through countless recasts forever, to the point where sometimes you had two characters that played together as infants, ten years later, one would be five years old and the other would be going off to college.

I loved the sense of history, many of the soap operas ran daily since the 1960s, and sometimes some of the earlier characters/actors returned or made an appearance, aweing everyone with their presences.

I loved the way long-lost relatives, evil twins, children given up for adoption, absentee parents, and hidden blood relationships between pre-established characters all served to make my head explode.

I loved how the characters had the most random shit happen to them, explosions, mob hits, alien abductions, kidnappings by Columbian Drug Lords, and everything else under the sun.

I loved how villainous plots included everything from abduction, murder, impersonation, corporate espionage, and/or freezing the world.

I loved how after some really intense storyline, there'd be a follow up with different characters doing something batshit like disguising as nuns in an abbey in order to hitch a ride to Las Vegas.

I loved how death was never really permanent and you knew if you didn't see a body, or even sometimes if you did, it meant they'd be back. And probably evil.

I loved how one of my favorite characters ever started out as the sweetest, nicest, most altruistic character on the show then ended up with brain damage and became a thug.

...

Um. Which hobby was I talking about again?

You know, this makes me think that comics are ignoring a very lucrative market here. Women aged 20-60 or so...the ones that still watch these shows and have been since the 1960s...

All it'd take is the right kind of marketing.

...sure guys and gals kicking badguy's butts in spandex is a little silly. But Port Charles had vampires. General Hospital had an alien, crime lords, and an evil Greco-Russian family that tried to Freeze the World and hid a deep dark secret in a fabrige egg. Days of Our Lives had satatic possession. And I'm not gonna start on Passions.

Silliness might not be much of an obstacle after all.

Besides, there's a character on All My Children right now that's supposed to have been Erica Kane's aborted fetus.

If *anyone* can make sense of Cassandra Nova, it'd be these women.

I'm just sayin'...

12 Comments:

  • At June 07, 2006 12:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "General Hospital had an alien"

    Wow, just wow

    This confirms my theory that more people don't read comics because of the stigma around them; not because of their content

     
  • At June 07, 2006 1:16 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Wait until you visit soap forums, I used to spend time on the soap usenet boards and soap fandom isn't very different from superhero fandom. I remember a controversey when a letter was delivered 10 years late and people complained about the letter writer using the wrong name, since she wasn't married at the time.

    I still say I'm surprised no one tried to revamp romance comics with an eye to how soaps were changing with the times... or that there wasn't an effort to just revamp romance comics with soap opera-style continuity, instead of the short stories that couldn't help but devolve into cliches due to the format.

     
  • At June 07, 2006 8:45 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    anon: Yep. :-) Which is funny considering the stigma of soap operas themselves.

    lyle: I don't get it either. Considering the similarities between soap opera continuity and that of DC or Marvel, you'd think someone would figure out the appeal for romance comics the same way.

    The short story format doesn't allow for the triangles, backstabbing, alliances, betrayals and chemistry that really make soap operas fun. But heck, if some eras of X-Men, Titans and Infinity Inc prove nothing else, it can be done. Hmph, makes me want to write my own soap-opera type comic. :-)

     
  • At June 07, 2006 8:49 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    ...wow. @@ Yeah, that works.

    Alternatively, you could give the soap characters lasers and spandex and get a new audience there. ``

     
  • At June 07, 2006 10:23 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Honestly, sometimes, it seems like they'd be real close to doing that already. :-)

     
  • At June 07, 2006 11:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "If *anyone* can make sense of Cassandra Nova, it'd be these women."

    I haven't really read any x-men outside morrisons run, but didn't she basically boil down to simply being xaviers evil twin?

     
  • At June 07, 2006 11:35 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    In a roundabout way :-).

     
  • At June 08, 2006 12:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Alternatively, you could give the soap characters lasers and spandex and get a new audience there."

    It's been done, is called Noble Causes
    is like X-men but with more married people

     
  • At June 08, 2006 10:10 AM, Blogger Hate Filled Poster said…

    "Alternatively, you could give the soap characters lasers and spandex and get a new audience there. "

    Buck Rodgers?

     
  • At June 08, 2006 3:55 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    Heh. I don't think I've seen Noble Causes. I have however seen Buck Rogers, hee.

     
  • At June 10, 2006 5:20 PM, Blogger Marionette said…

    American daytime soaps never really made it into UK TV except for brief runs at peculiar hours. I did once catch a single episode of (I think) Days of Our Lives that had more melodrama and plot than entire seasons of Buffy.

     
  • At June 10, 2006 5:24 PM, Blogger kalinara said…

    *nod* They're crazy! I still can't see why there's no crossover audience!

    ...if I had time in my day I'd still be watching them.

     

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