My son was attracted by the cover of a Spider-Girl comic, so we bought it. It’s the last one, apparently; the series is being canceled. She will now appear in the pages of Spider-Man Family, whatever that is.
I’d never heard of Spider-Girl. But if I were going to create a comic called “Spider-Girl,” I’d probably aim it at kids, especially girls. Maybe make the art a little manga-y. Try for some romance, some humor. I wouldn’t even necessarily try to connect it to Spider-Man all that closely; certainly I wouldn’t go hog wild on the continuity. After all, if you’re a, say, 8-year old girl, you probably haven’t read every issue of Spider-Man that’s come out in the last 20 years.
Or, you know, you could go the other route, and for your final issue have a plotline that involves the return of the Green Goblin and references forty years of continuity, with highlight flashbacks to — the first battle between Spidey and the Green Goblin! and to — the death of Gwen Stacy! You could throw in ten different iterations of the Green Goblin himself, and have most of the action take place inexplicably in the brain of Peter Parker, who you can tell is old because he’s grown some absolutely hideous facial hair, apparently, the only way Marvel artists have figured out to show that a character is aging. You could have a clone of Spider Girl waltz on stage because hey, we drooling Spidey fans all know that Peter was cloned once, and besides, why the hell not? And, hey, why not have the last panel of your last comic be a gratuitous crotch shot of your barely pubescent protagonist, because that just screams class. And after completing this triumphantly incomprehensible tribute to fanboy wankery, you can slink offstage, wondering why it is your ass got canned.
Extra bonus points for including two pages of letters at the end, all of them — every single one — penned by guys.
I think she just inherited the crotch shots from her Dad. Spidey’s always had plenty of those, or at least for as long as I can remember.
At least she doesn’t have a webbed crotch, like dad’s armpits.
A few years back Marvel tried a manga Silver Surfer and it bombed. Not that that’s an argument against your views, but it surprised me that people treated the idea as being obviously ridiculous.
There is a Spider-Man manga iteration; called Spider Man J over here. I like the art (it’s very cartoony) but the stories are pretty lousy.
Come to think of it, there’s Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, which is manga-style, continuity free and mainly for girls. I liked the first dozen issues or so.
My son likes “Spider Man Loves Mary Jane”. I don’t think it’s a “girl” book so much as it’s a “teen” book. It’s about kids just a little older than him, and that’s exactly where the cool is: just a little older. It’s a great book, well-written, with a fun art style. Grab the first trade collection.
I remember when Spider-Girl came with the tagline “The Series That Wouldn’t Die”.
I thought it was a little too in-jokey and “fuck you” to the consumer.
A better title for your piece would probably have been “Good-Bye, Spider-Girl, I Don’t Know Sqata About You, Or: The Power of Preconceived Notions”. But it is nice how you come in at the end of a remarkable 130-issue run ((Spider-Girl #1-100, Amazing Spider-Girl #1-30, plus several spin-off mini-series), and declare it a big fat failure. For context: Spider-Girl is the only solo title featuring one of Marvel’s superheroines with a #100, let alone with an unbroken run spanning a decade (also not bad for a Marvel property created in the 1990s).
BTW, I love your reasoning that because the comic is about a character called Spider-Girl its primary audience should be pre-teen girls. Does that also go for Batgirl, Danger Girls, Power Girl and Supergirl?
While it is all very well to pontificate that a title should not be weighed down with continuity, you got it the wrong backwards: Spider-Girl is actually a product of Spider-Man continuity, her first appearance was in a “What If…?” story where the baby girl that was still-born during the Clone Saga in the 1990s survived and grew up to become Spider-Girl. That story was successful enough to warrant the launch a few series set in its alternate timeline, and of these “Spider-Girl” was so successful that it continued until now. And of course over 130+ stories Spider-Girl accrued quite a complex continuity of her own. So I would think it is a bit understandable that in the final issue a lot of loose threads get tied up and quite a bit of Spider-Girl’s supporting cast make an appearance. To expect the final issue of a long-running series with a complex continuity to be accessible to new readers who have not read a single previous issue would simply be ridiculous.
Your sputtering outrage over the “gratuitous crotch-shot” is also unintentionally funny. May simply inherited her father’s moves and Spider-Girl’s crotch is no more obscene than Spider-Man’s. Actually May Parker is one of the least sexualized superheroines around, she’s flat-chested not just by superhero comic standards and she wears a costume that does not accentuate her curves, show bare skin or lets her hair flow freely, and her civilian gear also makes no concessions to the prurient interests that you like to assume in “drooling fanboys”. Spider-Girl managed to do a lot better than Marvel expected of her to and though I personally would have wished more girls and women had read her book, I think that it managed to maintain such a dedicated readership among thousands of male readers for so long without “sexing things up”. (Oh yes, and there was quite a bit of romance and humour in the series as well, just less of it in this issue).
@Brian
Actually, the tag “The Series That Would Not Die” was an in-joke, but a “thank you” to the consumers. “Spider-Girl” probably was saved from cancellation more often than any other series in Marvel history by fans organizing letter campaigns and recruiting new readers and subscribers whenever Marvel was about to cancel the series. Spider-Girl always had a small, but extremely dedicated following.
Thank you Menshevik for saying what I was thinking while reading this post.
And Noah, shame on you, when you knew better. You said in your post that it was the last issue. You know it’s hard to judge a series based on that. I’m sorry your son didn’t notice the book earlier, but there are digests available and they showcase what made this a very enjoyable series. Do try one of those.
Spider-Girl walked that incredibly difficult line of appealing to fans of comic books while being accessible to new readers. DeFalco played with old elements of Spidey history but gave them a twist with Spider-Girl. He basically did every month without fanfare what the big guns at DC are doing with their Rebirths and Crisises and being applauded for. But DeFalco’s stories made sense.
Menshevik and Anon, together you’ve pretty much confirmed everything I thought about the series and its fanbase.
Oh, and, yes, I think that it would make sense for comics devoted to female heroines like Bat-girl or Super-girl or whatever to have some appeal to young female readers. Crazy idea, I know.
Oh, and this?
“her first appearance was in a “What If…?” story where the baby girl that was still-born during the Clone Saga in the 1990s survived and grew up to become Spider-Girl. That story was successful enough to warrant the launch a few series set in its alternate timeline, and of these “Spider-Girl” was so successful that it continued until now.”
There really is no difference between comic-books and fan fiction at this point, is there?
Except for the fan fiction being better, I mean.
Why do liberals sneer at anything that has a mainly male audience?
Wait. Every complaint you had can be applied to every comic that Marvel and DC produce? Why pick out the last issue of a series to gripe about.
And when they do comics about female characters they bomb! They can’t even sell Wonder Woman for cripes sake. The only reason Wonder Woman stays in publication is to protect the age old copyright. At 130 issues between the two series, Spider-girl is the longest running female character that Marvel ever had.
And if you did a comic to appeal to young girls someone would actually have to take the young girls to a comic book store and buy them one! Which doesn’t happen.
Yes, I sneer at everything with a mainly male audience…which is why I wrote a rapturous 14,000 word essay on women in prison films.
If you can’t see why a super-hero comic called “Spider-Girl” should have a young, female audience, I can’t help you. But as a hint…there are a lot more 10-year old girls who like adventure and fun romance than there are thirty-something fanboys slavering for the newest, shiniest retcon.
Comics for men are fine. Stupid comics for men, though, remain stupid.
Anon 2: I picked the last issue of the series because I happened to read it.
Young girls buy comics in droves. Just not crappy DC or Marvel comics that aren’t aimed at or marketed to them.
The fact that DC and Marvel can’t sell comics to anyone but the same fifteen fucking fanboys who have been buying their product for 25-40 years is the problem. It’s not an excuse.
Just as a side-note. Occasionally people do take their 8 year old girls into comic shops…and it can be kind of annoying to not be able to find appropriate “All Ages” titles…not because they don’t exist, but because there isn’t always a clearly marked section devoted to them.
I would say, though, it may be foolish to think that such girls would necessarily be attracted to a title like “Spider-Girl.” My daughter hates female superheroes that are directly derivative of male superheroes. She likes Wonder Woman ok when the story is decent (a dicey prospect), but prefers The Flash (Silver Age reprints) as her favorite. Perhaps it does make sense to market (and write) a title like “Spidergirl” to young girls…but will they be buying? I’m not so sure. Maybe some 8 year old girls want romance, but I think what they actually want is action, adventure, and humor…just like 8 year old boys. For these things, superhero comics are perfectly fine. The real issue is the lack of access to said books (only in comic shops—unless one wants to buy a big trade) and the prohibitive expense.
I don’t know, Eric…I think there are some gender difference preferences for kids even when they’re quite young. I know your daughter is way, way, way more into princesses than is my boy (and princesses generally have a romance element. Wonder Woman is a princess, for that matter.)
It’s hard to find a baseline for female superheroes based on male ones, because there just aren’t that many titles out there that even make a passing gesture at not sucking.
Yo, it’s Nev (or Bookwormwithanattitude) from When Fangirls Attack.
You know, I am a girl, and I do follow Spider Girl, and I do like it. For precisely the reasons Menshevik said, so he (I assume?) has a point. Of course, the writer is kind of bad at dialogue, so that turns me off a bit. And I didn’t find the crotch shot gratuitous at all.
I should point out I know next to nothing about Spidey continuity, except for the big things like Gwen Stacy and all that, and found the series easy to follow nevertheless. You just roll with it.
I do agree with you that Spidergirl would be better if it wasn’t tied to the clone saga or whatever so much, and was actually more aimed towards girls.
Just my two cents. But I also disagree with you about Wonder Woman being a bad heroine for girls past Marston’s original run and actually adore the Perez, Rucka and Simone runs to infinity and love and look up to Wonder Woman herself and know many, MANY female comic fans who agree with me, so hey.
Hey Nev. Fair enough! Obviously, some women and girls do like super-hero comics (whether Spider-Girl or Wonder Woman.) As a whole, though, that often seems to be despite the best efforts of the creators rather than because of them (as you more or less suggest is the case for Spider-Girl; I’m not sure we really disagree on all that much there.)
FWIW, in my WW posts, I wasn’t necessarily so much focused on WW’s appeal to girls as on its aesthetic coherence/success. There are lots of things successfully marketed to girls or women that I think are lousy for other reasons (the whole Disney princess thing, for example.)
And I don’t hate the Perez run. And I thought the TV show was all right. Haven’t read the Simone (though the art looks pretty bad….)
And thanks for stepping into the breach at WFA, and for linking here so regularly. Take care!
Officially, my daughter is off princesses…and I know a fair amount of little boys who enjoy getting dressed up in the princess dresses (usually to their parents’ dismay, unfortunately). It’s been all abotu magic, dragons and the occasional superhero for more than a year. Obviously, things like princesses do have a mass appeal to young girls, but I see this more as marketing than anything else. Do 4-8 year old girls really want to kiss and marry princes (or boys of any kind)? Not really. The subsequent shift away to “boys are gross–and I refuse to wear a dress” is also, it seems to me, more about “what other girls are doing” than about any real identification with this stance. As with most things, we are social creatures, and social programming influences interest in “princesses” etc. Where does the social programming begin? Who knows…but not the notion that young girls really want female superheroes is, I think, true…but I think they want them to be funny and hit the bad guys. This is what superheroing is about.
I’m not making any argument about innate vs. social.
The most successful super-hero for girls of the last decade or whatever has probably been Sailor Moon. Or Buffy.
The point is, yes, they both involve hitting bad guys and having adventures and so forth, but they’re both also significantly different than male super-heroes in certain ways that I think are pretty key (less emphasis on double identities, stronger emphasis on collaborative supporting cast, more cross-genre focus on romance, that sort of thing.)
I’m not sure where we’re disagreeing, precisely. I’d be happy to have Spider-girl hit bad guys and have adventures…I just find it tiresome that so much of the comic seems focused on Peter Parker’s ancient adventures and set in Peter Parker’s psyche.
The only Spider-Girl I read was a little digest trade collecting the first issues (I think). It had a new cover specifically for the digest, which was a manga-ish, chunky art style that caught my eye and got me to pick it up.
The interior art, while fine, looked nothing like that, and it was a struggle to read (Not to kick the creative team; what they were doing was fine, it just wasn’t for me).
I felt kinda betrayed at the bait and switch.
Anyway, at some point, someone, probably in marketing, thought to pitch it to a manga audience with a new cover and digest trade format, but the thought wasn’t one shared by the creators.
Hey Caleb. I wish I found that surprising….
“Why do liberals sneer at anything that has a mainly male audience?”
…. wait. You are honestly going to turn a blog post about COMIC BOOKS into a political bitchfest?
Are you the same person that made the “only liberals hate Transformers” post on Seibertron a year back?
I think you’re being a little harsh here.
Marvel KNOWS it can’t appeal to young female readers. It’s totally ceded anything but it’s core demographic, and I can’t really fault ’em. If they’re completely, fundamentally clueless about marketing to anything but 30 year olds with beards, why should they try?
You saw DCs Crash-n-Burn with the Minx line?
Spider-girl, then, is Marvel’s attempt to appeal to readers who like comics more-or-less exactly like the comics published when they were kids in the eighties. It’s trying to hook some of it’s audience that would have drifted off.
The book is horrible, of course – It’s reaching for an audience that’s completely motivated by nostalgia, so making this a quality book would be sorta pointless.
But I totally see the reason for it’s existence.
And I mean, Reeaaaally now. Appeal to Young Females? Marvel? They’d be more successful and competent producing textbooks for dental school.
Hey Mark. That made me laugh, but…you do realize you’re being harsher than I am, right?
Spider Girl was a fairly lovely idea, and it allowed an excuse to, at least in that one title, allow Marvel continuity to unfreeze from the early 80s or whenever everybody stopped aging. Which is what most continuities desperately need to remain relevant; the notion of old superheroes was one of Watchmen’s greatest revelations.
It never reached it’s full potential, though. I didn’t read it on a regular basis; it was never very well written or drawn, and missed far more often then it hit. It’s too bad–you could imagine this grand epic of the Marvel Universe’s 20th century, with “Marvels” at one end and “Spider Girl” at the other.
Oh, and one other thing I loved about it was that, at least in early issues, May Parker was a high school basketball star. Which, given Superhero comics tradition of tall, muscular women in brightly colored outfits, was a stroke of brilliance, and I’m really sorry they never apparently followed up on it. I kept hoping she’d go to Columbia or something and end up on a college team with Thundera, Diamond Lil, Sif and She-Hulk’s daughters.
I’d probably aim it at kids, especially girls. Maybe make the art a little manga-y. Try for some romance, some humor. I wouldn’t even necessarily try to connect it to Spider-Man all that closely; certainly I wouldn’t go hog wild on the continuity. After all, if you’re a, say, 8-year old girl, you probably haven’t read every issue of Spider-Man that’s come out in the last 20 years.There is a series like that! It’s called Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, though. Spider-Girl has a different target audience. I’m not sure if you knew that.
Hey JJ. I think they all stopped aging…right away, basically. I mean, if they’d kept aging, Peter should have been in his thirties by 1980.
Scotty, I did know about that title; I keep meaning to look at it. Tom mentioned that he liked it, and I’ve heard other good things about it.
The Marvel Adventures Spider Man, which has Peter still in high school and is aimed at kids, is generally pretty good…both art and story wobble a bit, but it’s tons better than most super-hero comics I see.
“Why do liberals sneer at anything that has a mainly male audience?”
For what it’s worth, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, and I’m sneering at you too.
That is the great thing about contemporary super-hero comics; men and women, liberals and conservatives…we can all come together and sneer at them.
Only in the age of Obama.
I am a woman. I loved Spider-Girl, although I did not like the last arc.
Us women readers are out there and I’ve got to say, we are driven off by the suckage that is modern marvel. At least Spider-Girl had things going on other than big fights that dragged on and on and no canon raping that goes on in 616.
God forbid you actually read more than one issue of a series and do some research before proclaiming it to be a terrible series.
By the way, I hate manga art. Congratulations, you clearly know what attracts women to comics.
I don’t think I ever claimed to speak for all women. It’s a fact, though, that more women read manga than read super-hero comics. A lot more. Nor is that especially surprising since, as you note, the big two go out of their way to drive women away, while many manga titles are aimed expressly at women.
And not to be overly persnickety but…I find it hard to believe you hate all manga art. There’s a lot of it out there, and it’s quite varied. I presume you don’t like shojo in particular? You might try some shonen series, maybe. They can be quite different in theme and look from girls’ comics.
And…”canon raping that goes on in 616″…what? Points to you for showing that fangirls can do the ridiculously insular fanspeak too, I guess…though said demonstration still doesn’t really make me want to read Spider-Girl.
I’ve never cared to try.
Frankly I don’t care if you like Spider-Girl, but people talking out of their ass always annoys me.
And yeah, you really haven’t run into many fan girls have you? Good day, sir.
If you don’t like people talking out of their ass, why are you reading blogs? And/or, why are you making sweeping statements about manga when you don’t know what you’re talking about? (I mean, I don’t object particularly — you can say what you wish about manga and manga won’t mind. But if you’re actually advocating for informed opinion spouting…well, there’s some cognitive dissonance there.)
Fan girls come in various stripes. Some of them are among my nearest and dearest, believe it or not. In any case, good day to you as well. Take care.
“I find it hard to believe you hate all manga art. There’s a lot of it out there, and it’s quite varied.”
Oh, have I taught you nothing?
Good day, sir!
Um…good morning?
“God forbid you actually read more than one issue of a series and do some research before proclaiming it to be a terrible series.”
But at least he’s right: It is a terrible series. Pretty great idea – I’d love to write Spider-girl myself – But terrible execution.
And, yeah, maybe I am a little bitter. But I wasn’t before I read Spider-girl.
I guess you have a point that Spider-Girl *could* have been a series aimed at “young girls,” but couldn’t *any* title be aimed at young girls if that’s what they set out to do? The fact is, they didn’t. And they didn’t over 10 years ago, so you’re coming a little late to the dance.
It’d be one thing if it was patently obvious that a Spider-Girl title aimed at young girls would be a sure thing, but the fact is it likely would have done MUCH WORSE than the title did as is. And to be fair, this title fared much better than many other titles starring men have in the last ten years.
And this is ignoring the fact that the only reason you think it should appeal to young girls is because it’s about a young girl. That’s pretty superficial reasoning. Adult males are the majority superhero comic readership. They came out with a superhero comic aimed at adult males. That makes pretty good business sense, actually. It just happened to star a high school girl.
Isn’t this kind of like only watching the last episode of ER, and then complaining that you didn’t understand what was going on and that it would have been better as a comedy? Seriously…
I saw one episode of ER. It sucked bad enough that I’m reasonably confident in dismissing the whole series.
It wasn’t as bad as Spider-Girl, though.
Noah: Thanks for responding. I hope you don’t think I meant anything hostile by my comment, I was just letting you know my opinion. I enjoy your blog, and I do agree with you on some of your points, Spider Girl could definitely be a better series.
I actually like Aaron Lopresti’s art (he’s the current Wondy artist) quite a lot, he makes Diana look very tough and it’s all nice and expressive. So I guess that’s another area we disagree!
Also, every issue before ASG #20 was a done-in-one issue. That’s like, 120 issues. The only reason they started doing multi-parters was to try and boost sales.
I really don’t understand your criticism. They didn’t aim the last few issues of Spider-Girl at young girls? The last page was a splash page of her swinging, and you could see her crotch? The majority of readers were male?
Hey Bookworm. You didn’t sound hostile at all! Really, I have lots of hostile commenters to compare you to.
Scotty…it’s not that complicated. The comic was a poorly written, poorly drawn, fanboy clusterfuck. Otherwise it was great, though.
My sister and I loved the early Spider-Girl issues when we were in late elementary school and middle school, respectively. But when we came across the series again, (somewhere in the 90-100 rage of the original series, I think), we were put off by the series being exactly as you describe: convoluted, unromantic (in the classic, as well as the modern sense), humorless, and flat.
It deserved canceling.
Well, you really picked apart my argument piece by piece, there. Expertly done. I wish I had the rhetorical capability to end an argument by simply claiming something sucks. I have so much to learn from you…
As I said to somebody else, if you can’t figure out why a title called “Spider-Girl” should be aimed at a young, female audience, I can’t really help you.
And I wouldn’t presume to teach you anything.
Complaining about the crotch shot is pure nonsense, since that sort of thing is pretty much an artistic signature of all spider-people, both males and females.
I don’t know; last shot of the comic series, you stare into the crotch of the young female protagonist.
I guess I’m just not sufficiently jaded.
Ya’ll fools postin’ in a troll’s blog
Riddled with nonsense.
I got a good laugh at you believing the last shot of her was sexualized. You’re only seeing that because you want to, Spidey does the same exact thing every day.
Yet when a girl does it…there’s something wrong?
Sorry, but don’t speak for my gender.
You deliberately stare at her crotch berlats?
I’m not shocked, actually.
I have to echo the comments above: enough with giving the girls damned distaff versions of male heroes. Create original super-heroines that actually fit female reading tastes. Actually, knock it off with the distaff heroines in general, they’re just poor attempts to extend already-thin brands with the injection of sex appeal.
I’d prefer not to stare at her crotch, but the artist appears to have wanted to stick it in my face. But sure, blame the victim.
Some Person…can an anonymous internet construct even have a gender?
Also…where on earth are all you irate, anonymous cranks coming from? The post is a couple weeks old at this point….
Lynxara, I’m willing to vote for that.
We are anonymous. We are legion.
But seriously, we mostly come from 4chan's comics & cartoons board (/co/ as we know it).
BTW, you didn't directly address the fact that webswingin' crotch-shots are a staple on any spidey-related book. Why haven't you noticed and complained about such a thing in, let's say, Ultimate Spiderman? Or is staring at a male spandex-wearing teenager crotch more okay than a female?
I haven’t noticed the crotch shot in Spidey comics all that much, I have to admit. That may be due to my lack of recent spidey-reading. If I saw this same position and it was Peter, I’d think it was ridiculous/stupid/unnecessary in that case as well.
And thanks for the info. Take care.
One of the most iconic pieces of artwork related to Spider-Man is that #1 (ALL NEW COLLECTOR’S ISSUE!!!) cover Todd McFarlane drew that had Spidey crouching, covered in glorious gold-foil webs, showing us the wonders and portents of his magnificent crotch. And that was, what? Twenty years ago? So no, it is not a recent occurence.
I know what I am talking about here, my good sir. I fancy myself as a spider-crotch connosieur, you see.
You decided to rant about the last issue of a over 100+ series. Hell even Seinfield one of the best shows on television had a crappy finale.
Complaining about that is much like watching the last scene of Citizen Kane and saying it’s all about a sled.
Fine be angry about this issue, don’t learn anything else about this much beloved series and just make judgments on the least newcomer friendly issue in their entire run.
Also the crotch shot, dude it’s a blacked out section, real sexy. The artist was just keeping it in step with the other 100+ issues of a series based around a character that has amazing acrobatic skills.
I hated Seinfeld.
Big deal you hated Seinfield, it’s like the final episode of any show then, Sopranos, MASH, Cheers, Er, hell even Brady Bunch. It’s for the fan. It didn’t need to be first time friendly because it’s over.
I’m sorry that this didn’t cater to your needs but for people who stuck with the title all the way through I though they were given something they wanted and deserved of the title (Aside from more issues).
If you had knocked the title because you read the first TPB then yeah it would be valid, but you didn’t. To knock the end of a story that you have no idea about is lazy. It’s just bitching for bitchings sake.
Spider-Girl is continuing in Spider-Man Family. Attracting first time readers would have been a good idea, insofar as, had they done so, I might have picked up more stories for my kid. Or the trade paperbacks, for that matter.
I’m bitching because I bought it for my kid and had to read it to him and it was insultingly bad. It didn’t “cater to my needs” in that it was drearily written, drearily drawn, and filled with ridiculous fan scruff and pointless psychobabble.
“but for people who stuck with the title all the way through I though they were given something they wanted and deserved of the title (Aside from more issues).”
Sure, people who liked it, liked it. I can’t disagree with that.
No it’s not a good idea to attract new readers here. It’s barely continuing in Spider-man Family, and will never be anywhere near it was in it’s own title. This issue was for the fan’s, and a reason people are flaming your board is because for years they were trying to get readers for this title. All the chances to read it when it was good and reader friendly are now gone and you choose this moment to bitch about it.
I’m sorry you had to read this for your kid, chalk it up to one of those stupid things you have to suffer through for your child (my parents had to do the same for power rangers.) but guess what, because people didn’t read it you had to suffer through all the problems you mentioned. If it had more readers then they would have gotten a better artist, if it had more readers then it wouldn’t have been canceled and had to tie up years of story in a single arc.
Nah, the reason people are flaming my board is because somebody told them to, and because it’s the sort of thing people like to do on the Internets.
Though the truth is, for flaming nobody’s been all that outrageous. It’s been pretty polite, all things considered.
In any case, I’m sorry you lost a title you liked…and I’m certainly sorry the folks who worked on it lost their gig. I have sympathy for anybody who that happens to in this economy. There but for the grace of god.