I wonder if shutting down ITV Play means they'll put real programmes on ITV1 after midnight? And since the quiz channels don't run commercials - a fact which speaks volumes for their profitability - will they have anything to put in the ad breaks?
They'll probably just run programme trails.
Speaking of which - when did ITV start putting trailers in the middle of commercial breaks?
Re: The X-Axis. I bought the Ashley Wood book, and despite the flufiness of some of the stories, I rather enjoyed it. It was a nice attempt at a book in the DEMO/SOLO tradition.
Bit shocked to see the girl having a crafty frap on the inside of the gatefold, though.
Which cover did you choose, Paul? I almost got the big robot cover, but ended up choosing the mini-dress variant. I was thinking about Tank Girl, I guess.
I bought more magazine comics last week than I have in ages, to wit: three. I'm thinking that DareDevil 94 will be one of the last issues I buy, because the Civil War has finally reached Hell's Kitchen.
I also bought Spider-Man Family, which featured a couple of weak inventory stories, some poor art, a couple of great reprints (that I already knew back to front), and a weird manga-by-numbers take on Spider-Man that I suspect to be a big pointless hoax.
//Oo/\
I didn't know there were multiple covers, to be honest. Mine is the one on the review page.
The gatefolds are, indeed, gratuitous in the extreme. But Ashley Wood is a Proper Artist and his pictures are blurry like, so he gets away with it.
Picture a ring surrounded by fifteen commentary desks, one of them for Irish Gaelic
And it will STILL be the Spanish table that always gets demolished.
Though now I have an entertaining spot in my head, where one guy uses the other guy to demolish half the tables. Then they switch roles to demolish the other half.
I'd love to see a European brand of WWE, just to see what kinds of broad stereotypes they use to get "national pride" going.
Come to think of it, the Hispanic brand should have an English Announce Team. And the wrestlers should still smash up the Spanish table out of habit.
Aiming Smackdown at the Hispanic audience? Don't they do that every couple of years, and then abandon it each time?
Yes, but this time the idea isn't just to target it as the Hispanic audience in America. The idea is to expand into Mexico and so forth. They've done very good business with Mexican tours, and after the high rating for his appearance a couple of weeks ago, apparently the penny has finally dropped that Rey Mysterio is a big draw.
When are they planning to start this new setup? I can't imagine they'd have anything in place before next year at the earliest.
I've always wondered why the WWE hasn't taken advantage of the world the way that it could.
For example, why doesn't it tape a few episodes of Smackdown during their trips abroad? Crowd response is a big part of wrestling. Smackdown used to run segments covering their trips abroad, generally footage of nearly rabid fans. Then Smackdown would go back to the regular show, with a generally dead crowd lifelessly watching a match while an audio track played fake crowd response. Why not tape abroad and get a real crowd response? Maybe it could even stir interest in the American crowd.
Mind, I can guess the answer... The foreign audiences will buy tickets regardless, but the American audience won't buy tickets for an unaired Smackdown.
They always tape shows in the UK when they're over here. With other countries, you've got a language barrier problem that makes it hard for them to do a normal show. They did it with Japan once, and it wasn't entirely successful.
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