Michael Coorlim's Blog, page 34

Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken Cover Kickstarter

The next Galvanic Century novel, Iron Horses Can’t be Broken, is in revisions now. Time to start thinking about the cover.

In the past I’ve funded production of my covers myself, commissioning freelance art when I could afford it, paying for stock art and composition when I couldn’t. I’ve generally been pleased with the results.

This time around I’d like to raise the money through kickstarter, using pre-sales to fund the book’s production costs.

Well… we hit our target goal between posting the kickstarter and writing this blog post. I was only asking for $60 – enough for a stock art comp cover. Our next goal is $250, where I’ll be able to afford to commission original art.

If you’re interested, there are some great rewards being offered:

$3 gets you a copy of the ebook (it’ll be $4 after release)
$10 gets you a paperback ($12-14 after release)
$15 gets you all the ebooks in the series
$25 gets a signed paperback
$65 gets you all six paperbacks
$100 gets you six signed paperbacks.

Plus if we hit $250, everyone at the $25 tier and up will get a copy of the audio drama we’re producing.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

The post Iron Horses Can’t Be Broken Cover Kickstarter appeared first on Michael Coorlim.

Everything I know about social media

Last week I covered basically everything I know about publishing. This week I’ll tell you everything I know about social media marketing. It won’t take long.

Let the marketing flow

Here, ideally, is what I try to accomplish with my marketing. I want fans. Not sales. Not readers. Fans. People who will sign up for my mailing list and be amicable enough to consider supporting me – on their terms. In short, friends.

So how do we get from complete random strangers to friends? Well, let’s discuss it in stages.

Stage one: Cold Contact

The first step is to get onto people’s radars, and I do this by maintaining a visible presence through various social outlets. Facebook, twitter, various forums, blogs, wherever. I’ll discuss specifics in a minute.

But how you make that first impression is important. You can’t just blather on about your books and beg people to buy them. You have to be a useful contributing member of whatever community you’re trying to tap into. Add to the conversation.

Be interesting. You know all that stuff people do to make friends as adults? Do that. Focusing on whatever brand you have for your author voice is a good idea, and by this I mean “be yourself” but the best professional version of yourself.

Give.

Stage Two: Be Accessible

Keep posting useful and interesting stuff, and people will identify with you. They’ll like you. Want to know you. They’ll check out your profile, and they’ll find links to your professional stuff. If they take it upon themselves to check out what you’ve written, if it’s their idea, they’ll bond to you all the more strongly, and they’ll approach your writing with a positive attitude.

That’s good.

Feature your free stuff prominently, to lower the barrier for entry further. Let them become readers. Make “sampling your work” as easily as possible.

If you’re a good writer, you will provide them with a positive reading experience, and this is where fans come from. So make it easy for them to engage with you, and to find your next book, and to sign up for your mailing list.

Stage Three: Mailing List

Once you’ve got them hooked on your prose, make your mailing list available with links in the back of your book and on your website. Get them on it.

What do you do with your list? Simple. It’s social media that you control, populated entirely by people who are already interested in your books. Here’s how to use that effectively:

Post regular content. Every 10-14 days. Don’t let them forget they signed up… be consistent.
You can let them know when you’ve got new releases or are having a promotion. Don’t be shy about it, but don’t spam about it constantly.
Between releases post to it like you’re talking to your friends, because you are. In whatever your author voice is. Post about your work in progress, tell them about what’s going on in your life, about books you’ve read, movies you’ve seen. You know. Friendly conversation.
Ask for feedback as needed. Got two covers you want to choose between? Some side project you’re considering? Just want to hear what people think? Ask.
Continue to give. That’s key here. And don’t neglect your social media.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Everything I know about self-publishing

The funny way would be to leave this post blank.Honestly, though, the self-publishing biz shifts so rapidly that anything you know is suspect almost as soon as you’ve realized it. So if it’s not June 2015 when you read this, take it all with a big ole grain of salt.

It’s all about the fans

Sounds like a platitude, but this is actually the key to the self-publishing business strategy. Here’s how it all works:

A reader discovers one of your books.
The book is written well enough to leave them a positive impression.
Now a fan, the reader buys everything else you publish, because they trust you will deliver a positive reading experience.

Let’s break it down further.

Discovery

There are two ways a reader will discover you.

One: Word of mouth. Someone they trust talks you up. Write the best books you can, and this might happen.

Two: Position your books intelligently. Readers are attracted by your title, blurb, and cover. These three elements create expectations in the minds of your reader. They are bait, and should clearly indicate the genre of your book, its tone, and the kind of experience you’re offering.

When it comes to covers, make it look like all the other top-selling covers in your genre.

Only better.

Impression

The key to converting a reader to a fan is a positive reading experience. You do that by meeting or exceeding the expectations your title, blurb, and cover set. That is, to readers, a good book.

To some readers this includes “well written”, but a poorly written book will definitely harm you more than it helps. So always write to your maximum capacity. Do the best job you can with each book, and you will maximize that book’s chance of success.

Other Tips

Any book might be the one that, through no fault of your own, takes off big and launches your career. So write as many books as you can, of the highest quality that you can.
Write in series. Series are easier to write, easier to market. Make the first book free to hook potential fans. Fans of a series will buy the whole series, but what you really want are fans of you.
Have a mailing list. I’ll talk about marketing stuff another time. But start the mailing list soon.

How do you write a good book? Read a lot. Write a lot. It’s something you train yourself for. If you need a guide to get you started, read the one I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year. It’s all solid information.

There you go. You now know as much as I do about self-publishing.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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How Patreon encourages artistic creativity

In my early twenties, an instructor at the Art Institute in Chicago told me that all art is commercial. I didn’t want to believe it, because I was a young idealist with no idea of what “art” or “commercial” really meant. I was all about meaning and unbridled creativity and other forms of self-importance.

I’m not saying that art isn’t creative and doesn’t have meaning, but creating art for the sake of art doesn’t remove from it its economic connotations. Even if you don’t sell your art, you’re still trading in ideology or awareness; the artistic career is one of constant exchange, even if it’s just time for attention, unless you’re doing some weird solipsistic thing where you never show your work to anyone.

The Life Artistic

One of the first things you learn as an independent creative professional is that you have absolute freedom to produce what you will. The second thing you learn is that if you don’t consider the economic potential of a project, you’re investing a lot of time into something that might not earn you any money.

Time is the resource we need to be most precious with, because whatever you do, you only get so much of it.

I like to say that there’s no failure in pursuing an artistic career, only “made it,” “on your way,” and “quit.” Most of us are On Our Way to Made It, and until we get there, our artistic choices are guided by economic reality. What will editors accept? What will audience buy, read, and listen to? What is the most efficient use of my time, the most effective way to spread my personal brand?

For writers such as myself, we need to understand that many of our choices – covers and titles in particular – are driven by audience purchasing habits. When you write in a genre, your book has to look like it “fits” alongside the others in the marketplace, while also standing out enough to be noticed.

And when you’re building a readership, you grow to understand that every work you release shapes reader expectation. The key to turning readers into fans – and keeping them there – is meeting those expectations.

When you’ve made it, when you’re famous, you can write whatever however and be sure that you’ll recoup your time investment in sales. But few of us are there yet.

Untethering art from the free market

You may notice that the above doesn’t leave room for large-scale innovation. And not just in literature, not just in art. The same theories apply to scientific advancement and product design. Sure, tweaks can be made here or there, but big scary steps are discouraged by risk-adverse editors, supervisors, and readers really do want “the same thing, only different.”

So how do we escape the tyranny of market-driven incremental innovation? How do we free ourselves to take entrepreneurial risks?

By cutting the cord tethering creativity to survival.

Modern Patronage

In a capitalistic society we mandate that survival must be justified. To be worthy, you must work. You must contribute in a practical manner. There is a basic bar that must be surpassed in order to earn basic rights to food, shelter, clothing.

And for artists and other creative types, that means that every innovation is a calculated risk. “Can I afford to fail? Will I be able to pay my rent if nobody buys this story?” The stakes for failure can be high, and yet humanity needs people who create culture.

Patronage is a way around those economic uncertainties. In the past, it was only the wealthiest who could afford to sponsor art, and so what was created was heavily influenced by those interests. Renaissance artists like Michaelangelo and Da Vinci didn’t create religious themed art because they were so devout; the Church simply had the deepest pockets. Again, art was driven by commercial concerns. “Who can patronize me?”

The internet and crowd-sourcing have given birth to Patreon, a site where multiple patrons can combine their donations to provide greater sums to support the artists they enjoy. While artists and other creators still have a vested interest in keeping their patrons engaged and involved, they now have a greater freedom to experiment.

If your patrons have pledged $500 to you per sketch, you know that every sketch you make will earn you that $500. If you want to keep your patrons and grow your network, you have an incentive to produce quality work, but you’re more free to expand your brand.

A Self-Serving Case Study

I’m a novelist, and I have a Patron that currently earns me in the range of $20-$25 per “thing” I create. These “things” aren’t my books… they’re little fun side projects that I’ve been dying to do. Audioplays. Short stories. Games. Whatever.

If I want to work on these things, I have to spend time not working on my next novel… and the novels are what earn me my living. I might be able to sell the shorts, but it’s hard to commodify the other weird side-projects, so chances are they wouldn’t be earning me any money. From an economic perspective, they fail the cost-benefit analysis.

Does this sound mercenary? It is. But that’s the realities of being any kind of entrepreneur, not just a creative one – our margins of error are slim, and the penalty for failure is economic ruin. All it takes is a run of bad months with abysmal sales, and I’m on the streets with no savings.

Now, with a Patreon, I find it far easier to justify these side excursions. The people who are supporting me are taking from me the risks of failure, on faith that I will create good art. It’s still commercial – I still have to create interesting and entertaining stories or I’ll lose my patrons – but I have a lot more breathing room.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Last Words

Last Words

©2013-2015 Michael Coorlim

This is a story I wrote over a year ago, set in the same storyline as the apocalyptic short story collection Grief.

Pudgy fingers walked Captain Crimson up the earthen mound, past the splayed bodies of his fallen companions. He tilted from side to side, each foot glancing the dirt only briefly, accompanied by a mechanical tch-tch-tch sound. His unarticulated knees were incapable of bending, keeping him from approximating anything resembling a real walk, but Brandon didn’t mind.

Before the action figure had been given to him, Captain Crimson had been some character from one of his dad’s old comics. Brandon liked comics, he liked the idea of comics, but he couldn’t afford to buy any himself and his dad’s were all expensive and important and kept in bags kept in boxes kept in the attic. Brandon’s dad had bought them when he was a kid, and someday they’d be worth a lot of money.

He did give Brandon an old crate of his action figures, though, because they weren’t in the boxes anymore and so weren’t worth anything. He recognized a few of them, like Spiderman and Batman and Superman, but others — like the one he called Captain Crimson — were mysteries. He thought he remembered that his dad said that The Captain’s name was Adam, but he liked coming up with his own characters and his own stories. Batman could stay Batman, but Adam in his red and blue jumpsuit became Captain Crimson. The green guy — not the Hulk, the one who looked like a pile of moldy leaves — became Garbage Man. The guy who looked like his head was on fire was The Flaming Scotsman, because Brandon liked doing the accent.

“Ach,” Brandon said in falsetto. “Ye must avenge us, Captain Crimson. Punish Giant Spiderman for his evil deeds!”

Some of the action figures were much larger than the others. In the comics he’d drawn in the notebooks in his locker, Brandon had explained that this was because they were evil mutant clones. He’d made several such comics and passed them around to his friends, who generally agreed that he should send them in to Marvel or DC and get a job making real comics. Brandon kept forgetting to find out how much he’d need for the shipping. Money at home was tight, but Brandon was pretty sure that he could convince his dad that getting a comic book job would bring in enough money to cover it with the first paycheck. Assuming it was legal for 5th-graders to get that kind of job, of course.

He was getting a little old for action figures, honestly, but playing out in the back yard was a good way to plan out his next notebook comic. It was peaceful back there, by the shed, and the pile of bricks made a great evil fortress. More importantly, it was quiet enough that he couldn’t hear what was going on in the house, and his playing didn’t disturb his dad.

“I can’t do it alone,” Brandon said in Captain Crimson’s deep resonant voice. “I’ll need help from the Star Treks.”

“Brandon?”

He didn’t look up as his dad stepped out into the back yard. Didn’t see that his eyes were red from the crying that Brandon had come into the back yard to avoid. He pursed his lips shut and stopped playing, staring down at the toys in his hands, moving them back and forth idly.

“Brandon?”

“Yeah?”

He heard his dad approach, but his father didn’t say anything more at first. He could feel the gaze on him, could tell that his dad wanted him to look up, but he just… couldn’t. The figures in his hands walked in place idly as the awkwardness grew. Maybe if he didn’t say anything his dad would just walk off again and he could get back to playing.

“Brandon?”

He didn’t look up. “Yeah?”

His father knelt next to him. “Brandon, I… we need to talk about something.”

“Am I in trouble?” He couldn’t think of anything bad he’d done recently, but Mrs. Fontana had it out for him, and was always trying to get him in trouble.

“No.” His father placed a hand on his shoulder, and he looked at the man, eyes focused on the familiar nose, mouth, and jaw. “Oh, no, Brandon, no.”

“Okay.”

“Brandon?”

He looked up again, figures in his hands falling still.

“This is very important. Okay?”

A fluttery feeling started to rise up from deep within Brandon’s gut, a strange clawing urge that screamed at him to run, to throw the toys at his father, to grab a brick and smash something. This, his dad’s behavior, the way he was trying to bring something up, something terrible, was all too familiar. “What is it?”

“You remember that asteroid they said they found yesterday?”

That was unexpected. “Um. Yeah. They mentioned it in science class.”

“Well. It’s… they say it’s not going to be as far away as they thought.”

“What?” Brandon shifted his feet under his seat. “Is it going to hit us?”

“They can’t tell yet. Maybe. But even if it misses us, it’ll be close enough to be really bad.”

“Oh. How bad?”

His dad seemed uncomfortable. “Bad. Earthquakes. Bad storms. Even if it misses…”

“Are we going to go stay with Grandpa?”

“We can. Yeah. We should. But, Brandon…” he sat down, picking up one of the action figures. “I have to tell you. You need to know. It’s… probably not going to be okay.”

“Dad?”

“Grandpa said I shouldn’t tell you, you know?”

Brandon nodded. He’d heard his father having a whisper-argument on the phone that morning.

“But you’re going to hear about it. It’s all over the TV, and everyone’s talking about it. People are going to get funny, and you’re a smart kid, Brandon. I told him that I can’t protect you from this. Like with Mom. Remember? We tried to keep that from you. Remember?”

Brandon remembered. His expression didn’t change. He could see the tears glimmering in his dad’s eyes, and he knew that he was doing that thing where he tried to be more of a grown-up than he was. It wasn’t that his dad was a big kid, but when something bad happened he tried to be like Grandpa. Quiet. Dignified. Brave. And that was fine for Grandpa — he had been in War, and he’d shot people. But it wasn’t who Dad was, and when Dad tried to be like Grandpa it always made Brandon feel bad. Like there was something wrong with being Dad, and there totally wasn’t.

Sometimes, he’d learned, he himself needed to be like Grandpa. For Dad’s sake. So for now he didn’t think too hard about what was happening.

He didn’t want to say anything that would make Dad cry, but that was hard, because sometimes being strong like Grandpa was something that made Dad cry. He wondered if Dad felt the same way when he tried to make Grandpa proud of him.

Like with Mom.

Dad continued. “So I wanted to give you the chance to, you know, ask questions, or anything, in a safe place before you hear about it somewhere else.”

“Are we going to die?”

The corners of Dad’s mouth twitched, and he looked away. “Maybe. They don’t know. There’s a chance.”

He knew his dad was lying, but he knew his dad had to lie, so he didn’t call him on it. “Okay.”

“But whatever happens, you’ll be with me, and with Grandpa. People are going to get a little crazy. Sad and angry. But we’ll be together.”

“Why angry?” Sad, he could understand.

“People get funny when they’re scared,” Dad said. “They look for excuses to feel other things. Things to be mad at.”

Like Grandpa. “Okay. When are we going?”

“Do you want to say goodbye to anyone? Stevie or Paul?”

Brandon thumped Captain Crimson against the dirt a few times. “I… no. I don’t want to. Is that bad?”

His father hugged him. “No. No, it’s okay. You can feel about this however you want, okay champ?”

“Okay.” Part of him really wanted to say his goodbyes. He’d never see Stevie or Paul again, probably. Maybe in heaven. Well, Paul, maybe. But it would be… awkward. Better to just go and not make a big deal about it. He could get all emotional around Dad, but not in front of the guys. That’d be like crying in front of Grandpa.

Dad stood, brushing the dirt from his hands. “It’ll take a few hours to pack up. Then we’ll head up to the cabin.”

“Can I come in in a few minutes?”

His father tousled his hair. “Take all the time you need. I can handle the packing.”

“I just need a few minutes. Hey dad?”

“Yes?”

“Can we bring your comics from the attic? And maybe read them together?”

His dad turned away quickly. “Sure champ. Anything you want.”

***

He watched as his Dad headed back into the house, then returned to his toys. He picked up Captain Crimson and took him around the corner of the shed, making the whooshing sound that indicated flight. The Captain landed in front of a brick set on its end in the corner of the yard. He knelt next to it, using the action figure’s arms to dig up the dirt in front of it. With the care and patience of an archaeologist, he unearthed a Wonder Woman figure, clearing specks of mud from its face, clearing its blue eyes.

“I’m coming, Mom,” he whispered in his own voice, stroking its plastic head with his thumb. “Me and Dad and Grandpa. We’re coming.”

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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So. Patreon.

I jumped onto the Patreon bandwagon fairly early, but I’ve been at a loss as to how to actually make use of it. When I started I figured it might be a means to offer some sort of subscription service to my fans, but in effect that does little more than cannibalize my books rankings in the various storefronts.

It’s the same reason I don’t sell directly from my website. Discoverability, in indie fiction, is based largely around how well you’re selling on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Kobo. Every sale I make through other means is a sale that doesn’t increase my rankings.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t value the readers who acquire my books elsewhere. Organic and word-of-mouth advertisement are even more powerful than e-store algorithms.

Anyway. Patreon.

Patreon, I think, is best used for art you cannot otherwise easily directly commodify. YouTube videos, podcasts, short fiction.

Some of which I do.

So I think going forward instead of basing my donation model on novel releases, I’ll use it for my weird side projects and short stories. Donate and you’ll fund whatever strange ideas I’m trying next, and get access to my dev feed.

Maybe I’ll make text adventure games. Or RPG supplements. Or I don’t know, poorly photoshopped dystopic visions of cyber-Chicago.

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Ghosts of Shaolin available as a Paperback

The first and fifth Galvanic Century books, Bartleby and James and Ghosts of Shaolin, are now available in paperback. If you’re a reader who prefers those formats, now’s the time to pick them up.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Review: Island on the Edge of Forever by Andrew M Crusoe

The Island on the Edge of Forever is Andrew M. Crusoe’s second book in the Aravinda series.

It carries with it the same deep spiritual core that his first conveyed, without becoming preachy or evangelical. He simply portrays his universe as it is, one with life beyond the material, one with layers of meaning and complexity for those who care to look.

It’s not easy to go into concrete detail of the book without giving away any spoilers, so I’ll focus instead on the experience of reading it.

One of Crusoe’s strongest talents is his worldbuilding, not only in the setting itself, but in the way he portions it out in dribs and drabs to the reader. Never does he outright just tell you any facts about his Aravinda Galaxy, but instead he provides the reader with the clues and details needed to create your own internal virtual copy assembled from the parts he provides you with.

I’ll be honest: I don’t have a lot of time to invest reading these days, but The Island on the Edge of Forever’s pages pass effortlessly. The author’s prose is smooth and rhythmic. I was drawn into the fictive dream well enough that I didn’t have all the tasks I need to complete nagging at me in the back of my mind, and I could simply immerse myself in story.

If you’re looking for deep science fiction that deviates from standard tropes and stereotypes, give The Island on the Edge of Forever a read. Supporting unique stories such as this allows more to be published, and more variety is always a good thing.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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A grand time at the Field Museum

Today some friends and I spent a few hours at the Field Museum of Natural History here in Chicago.

Chicago is a city with a lot of cultural attractions. In addition to the Field Museum, there’s also the Museum of Science and Industry, the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, and dozens and dozens of other great institutions. I’ve lived here for years, and I think that I’ve gone twice.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy this sort of thing. I do. It’s not that I can’t afford it on a poor author’s salary. They have free days. I just never seem to get around to it, which is a damn shame.

That Voodoo that You Do

I was able to make the trip this time, because a friend of mine was going to see the Vodou exhibit, and since he’s a member he gets extra admissions. Sometimes a little extra push is all you need to get moving.

The exhibit was intense, and if you’re in the city, I strongly recommend checking it out yourself. I took some photos, which I’ll share with you here, but there were a lot of things I wasn’t comfortable taking pictures of.

Click to view slideshow.
A long walk through history

After spending an hour or two at the Voudo exhibit, we went to the Ancient Americas hall, partially as inspiration for my current book, which draws heavily from Zuni culture and history.

Click to view slideshow.

We weren’t yet halfway through the exhibit hall when we started to get tired, and sort of rushed through the rest of it. I feel bad about that, but the Field Museum’s collections are so expansive that you could spend an entire day slowly absorbing each one.

So that’s what I want to do.

The Best Laid Plan

What I’d like to do is get a museum membership and visit the Field once or twice a month, spending the day really getting a feel for one exhibit hall at a time, without rushing, without trying to do or see it all. I’d take pictures and live-tweet the experience, make a blog series out of it. Maybe do a live TWIK episode or two.

Museum memberships aren’t expensive, but they’re not cheap, either – it’s not out of the question, but it’s not trivial. It’d take 40 extra book sales in a given month. Half that if they were buying the Omnibus, which most new readers do.

So if you want to do me a solid, spread the word about my books. Tell your friends. Recommend them. Direct people to the free Bartleby and James – people go on from that to buy the others. Write an Amazon review.

It’d help me out.

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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Marvel’s Daredevil Blew My Mind

I spent the weekend binging Marvel’s Daredevil on Netflix, and oh man. Was that a nice piece of television.

Daredevil was one of my favorite comics back in the day. I loved the style, the stories, the street-level grittiness of the character. Marvel has always been at its best when its characters’ concerns are human, and that was one of the main reasons why I preferred their stories to DC’s. They were relatable.

They resonated with me.

Not that I’m a blind lawyer ninja with hypersensitive senses, but the emotional truths that the Marvel heroes dwell upon are perfect demonstrations of ‘write what you know.’ I don’t know what it’s like to put on a mask and parkour across new york, but I know what it’s like to want a better world. I know what it’s like to doubt myself. I know what it’s like to live as a flawed human being, doing the best you can with what you have.

Marvel’s Daredevil

There was a lot to like in the Netflix Daredevil. The writing was excellent, and they managed to subvert a lot of the expected genre tropes in ways that really worked out well – using the resonance a lifetime of television drama has built against you.

The casting was superb. Vincent D’Onofrio as the Kingpin was a pleasant surprise that worked even better than I would have thought it would.

One of the hazards of having worked in film production is that you don’t really experience TV or film in the way the mass audiences do; you’re consciously aware of story beats, of structure, of cinematography, or directorial choices and their heritage. You’re evaluating, you’re trying to figure out why the filmmakers made the choices they made.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing. And sometimes poor choices can pull you out of the fictive dream in ways they wouldn’t for the casual viewer.

Daredevil’s cinematography was pleasantly distracting. It worked really well in a way I couldn’t help but appreciate on a crafts-level. There’s a particular fight scene at the end of the second or third episode, either a one-shot scene or close enough to it, where the steadicam operator drifts slowly through the battle like a disinterested third party, giving you glimpses that tell you the story of the action in a very effective way, and I found myself preoccupied with the way he kept not-tripping over the props and set-dressing. It was very smooth.

Which brings us to the amazing fight choreography. Daredevil’s combat is very grim, very brutal, very distinct. There’s nothing clean about it. It’s ferocious, it’s dirty. It’s street, and even the victors come away ragged.

The scene I talk about above is a perfect example, where you can watch Daredevil go from furious energy at the start to barely standing near the end, almost falling with every punch, reeling and catching his breath in tempo with the combat around him. It’s reminiscent of the hallway fight scene in Old Boy, and for me, one of the highlights of the show.

Now we play the waiting game

I watched all 13 episodes over the weekend, and now I’m done. Now I wait for the next season, if there is one – and with how well it’s being received I can’t see that not happening. I wait for the Defenders. I wait for the next movie.

And I think about how much Marvel can do with an R-rated series, how natural the dialog sounds when characters are able to swear, and how limiting network standards are.

I wonder, not for the first time, if these Netflix series are the future of television. I hope they are.

 

Questions? You are invited to either leave a comment below, or ask directly through the comment form.

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