September 1, 2009

When Donald meets Howard

It's been a long time coming, and no, I'm referring to La Salle's impending elimination in the UAAP, but it is the meeting of the two formidable ducks in Avian land: Howard the Duck and Donald Duck.

One had numerous blockbusters, spawned Jeff Van Gundy as a sports anchor, spawned Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana, and made Zac Efron male (ah wait, it was Mickey who did that).

The other bombed his movie, ruined Lea Thompson's movie career, won a Raspberry Award, and placed Ellen Page at the map with her charming performance as Kitty Pride (ah wait, it was Jean Grey and Cyclops who did that).

The two universes were created in the storyboards of artists who drew, painted, and gave life to entirely different types of characters: one were wholesome, colorful and playful. The other were violent, lively, and dark. Both were endeared by fans. They had separate fanbases. And the art gave life to movies, TV shows, music, theme parks, eh wait, I'm talking about Disney already.

What does this give us? Are we seeing the consolidation of the industry? Would one company give way? Would Miley dye her hair red to be Mary Jane? Would Nick Jonas wear tights to be Spidey? (Ooooh. Niley. Don't ask me how I learned about that.) Would Erin Andrews be the more athletic Invisible Girl? Mickey Mouse becoming bad ass to be inducted as an honarary X-Men member

A more frightening prospect would be Mark Jackson being spewed with green paint to become The Hulk.

We are at a paradigm shift. The future generations might learn about this character in another medium; but as comic books come and go, and eventually become obsolete, the characters live forever.

(This is dedicated to "Howard the Duck" creator Steve Gerber who died on February 10, 2008.)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are absolutely not moderated. Comments are displayed immediately once posted. Comments can be only be removed by the author (if signed in to a Goggle or OpenID account) or if requested by someone else with good reason.