Okay, is it just us or is this too ridiculous for words? The mayor of "Batman", a city in southeast Turkey, is suing Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight over the misappropriation of the city's name. Never mind that Batman, the comic book series created by Bob Kane (artist) and Bill Finger (writer), has been in print since 1939 and that the intellectual property has had lives in other media including radio plays, television series, animation series, and of course, the Tim Burton directed movie from 1989 and its sequels.
In his lawsuit, Hueyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, is accusing Nolan and the studio of using the city's name without permission ...
Among the charges are a claim that the use of the Batman name is to blame for several unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate, based on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city inhabitants ...
Oh, and in case you were wondering, titles do not fall under copyright protection! We don't think town names do either.
I love it! We love it. According to an ICv2 article the recently released Barack Obama bio comic book has outsold the John McCain comic book by a margin of 59% to 41% according to publisher IDW Publishing. I wonder if these books were distributed as a serious part of the campaign strategy? And I also wonder if the pollsters took the sales figures seriously enough as to be indicators of the end game?
We've just asked some more questions of Chris Reynolds, the Business Development Manager behind the eBookPro software product we promoted recently on our blog. I have subsequently added additional FAQ to the post: Protecting Your Digital Comic or eBook. I am also going to ask some questions about watermarking and about using the software in relationship with a comics press blog or website that is not administered by individual creator. More to come so keep watching that particular post for further updates.
A few weeks ago Jozef and I attended a speaking conference, where we picked up a lot of useful advice and information about marketing products/services or yourself. One of the speakers, Joel Bauer, talked about the five most powerful clothes colour combinations you can wear to make a statement. We don't wish to make light of the historic US political events unfolding around us, but it was interesting when I went back with new eyes and new knowledge to some campaign footage from August 2008 to watch Barack Obama's Democratic party acceptance speech (see first YouTube clip below). I thought he looked absolutely incredible – fresh, energetic, polished and professional. In fact, his entire family looked radiant in their red, pink and black colour-coordinated outfits. Now this is interesting and certainly no accident ... why? Well, Barack Obama wore two of the key colours in his tie that Joel Bauer had talked about – red (the colour of passion and emotion) and pink (the colour of trust), which was set against a crisp white shirt which acts as a canvas under the black frame of his suit. Bauer said that marketing is basically "guessing and testing" and that hundreds of thousands (if not millions of dollars) had been spent determining the five most potent colours in marketing and sales. The intention therefore is to subconsciously influence our perception by packaging the person in a wardrobe that reflects our innate assumptions, so we in turn become more receptive to buying the product (in this case Obama) and the message being sold. Great stuff! It's very obvious now to us that Obama and his team were in fact benefiting from this market research. I do not think of it as manipulation but of great strategy to enhance his already well-established credibility and possibly to stamp and seal the deal. I wish I had known all this while the candidates had been on the campaign trail – it would have made of an interesting analysis of tactics. Oh, and what is noteworthy about this is that Obama is wearing the same suit and colours in his victory speech (see second YouTube clip below).
So if you want to learn more about the five most powerful colour combos, then here they are from the least to the most effective:
5. Blue on the inset of black (best used to indicate reliability and credibility especially in media interviews)
4. Red on the inset of black (best used to indicate emotion and passion)
3. Orange on the inset of black (best used to indicate vibrancy and excitement)
2. Yellow on the inset of black (best used to indicate warmth)
1. Pink on the insert of black (best used to indicate trust and security).
Use this knowledge wisely in the comics world, oh great blog readers!
We apologise profusely for not blogging for an entire week but we have been extraordinarily busy focusing on activities that took longer to complete than we had anticipated. Here is a quick rundown:
● I have been doing lots of legal research pertaining to an initiative we will be implementing in the next couple of months (we think you'll like it!).
● I have also just set up a new blog (which will soon have an accompanying information website) in the next couple of weeks, which has to do with my personal commitment to animal welfare – in this case to the rehabilitation of feral cats. If you are interested, you can check it out at www.tameferalcats.blogspot.com.
● On top of that, I have been buying up a whole bunch of domain names on behalf of Black Mermaid™, as well as Jozef and myself which pertain to future publications and activities.
● Jozef has also been madly working on a double page spread of Elf~Fin.
● I have also managed to get a night of R & R after a long dry social period due to constant work commitments. I went to see a Popcorn Taxi sponsored 35mm screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark (my favourite film of all time) which also featured an audience with the incomparable Karen Allen who looks great and amused everyone with anecdotes about filming in Tunisia in 120 degree heat where everyone bar Stephen Spielberg (who had tins of food shipped in to the set) got food poisoning or "Montezuma's Revenge" as she put it. She also said the monkey in the film was exceedingly bad tempered but that was because he was working in the heat when all he wanted to do was curl up in the cool and sleep. She talked about the famous scimitar scene, the snakes, as well as the audition and casting process.
I am very tired. Will sleep now. And will get on normal blogging track tomorrow.
Okay, is it just us or is this too ridiculous for words? The mayor of "Batman", a city in southeast Turkey, is suing Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight over the misappropriation of the city's name. Never mind that Batman, the comic book series created by Bob Kane (artist) and Bill Finger (writer), has been in print since 1939 and that the intellectual property has had lives in other media including radio plays, television series, animation series, and of course, the Tim Burton directed movie from 1989 and its sequels. 
