What's Next?
We’re so busy anticipating the next big thing that we’ve forgotten to enjoy this one—by Stephen Schleicher
Can you smell it? Fall is almost here. Kids are going back to school. The summer convention season is winding down. It’s the change in the season that makes us wonder, “What’s next?”
The answer just might be: not much. At least not immediately.
Spider-Man is still swinging through the box office and holding his own, but after it exits theaters, then what? DC’s Clayface arrives in October, but Avengers: Doomsday doesn’t land until December. There isn’t much superhero fare headed to the big screen between now and then.
Sure, Resident Evil, Verity, and Digger may put butts in seats, but will audiences treat them as movies worth seeing, or merely speed bumps on the road to Doomsday? And if theaters struggle through another quiet stretch, how long before theater owners start blaming the studios…again?
On the streaming side, Lanterns launches on HBO Max on August 16th. Of course, those of us boycotting Warner Bros. Discovery under its current leadership will have to wait—and probably wait a long time—to see whether it appears anywhere else.
Disney+ has VisionQuest and the second season of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. All of these should keep us satisfied through the end of the year, provided viewers remember to tune in each week for the new episodes.
And on the comic book front? The titles announced at the San Diego Comic-Con will land on stands, and I think there are definitely some things to look forward to there.
But what about now?
Have we confused “more things are coming” with “here’s something worth caring about?”
Part of the problem, I think, is that we are still mired in tribalism. Too many people now treat another franchise’s failure as proof that their own side won—as if a canceled series or empty theater awards points to anyone.
Then there is the bigger problem.
For years, the entertainment industry has trained us to live in a permanent state of anticipation. Spider-Man: Brand New Day should still be the talk of the town. Instead, we’re already asking what could possibly top it. Fandom is already wound up about the three Midnight Universe titles arriving in October. Meanwhile, much of the conversation around Amazing Spider-Man #1000 has become a conveyor belt of variant-cover announcements. Last week’s Chachu #1 is headed for a second printing, but everyone is clicking the sneak peeks for new comics.
The industry has us chasing the hype, the clicks, the dopamine.
The more we can get in on the ground floor of “what’s next,” the happier we are, even if we forget to tune in to the new show, pick up the anticipated comic, or try out the new game.
The hype machine never stops moving. The moment we arrive somewhere, it needs to sell us a ticket to the next destination.
Perhaps this fall we should stop asking what comes next and stand still long enough to decide what is worth carrying forward.
Cheers,
Stephen Schleicher
I strongly agree. For me, I see the constant content push more in anime and webcomics. I know manga has this as well, but I think that because it still takes a fair bit more effort to move manga outside of Japan that it is slower.
Video games as well, but it feels on a slower pace... though that might just be a result of which ones I follow that at least try to let things move at a slower pace to put quality over quantity (largely Nintendo and a bunch of non-AAA studios that release on Steam).
Music and podcasts likely have the push as well, especially music(?), but I have to take those at my own pace because I just can't rush listening through those (especially true for podcasts, since I hate missing details and I mainly listen while working and don't want to mess THAT up for sure since lives and health are on the line.)
Novels... I think it depends on the author/publisher relationship? But I have no doubt that the push is there too for many.
Looking to the side of an obvious influence (Mr. Moneybags), I wonder if part of it is the sheer volume of content. While it has always been the case that anybody could create, availability was always a massive limiter on everything. But each of these media are able to be completely distributed via digital means, putting effectively the entire world (and a bit beyond) within range of every creator. And services have exploded that are focused on consolation and distribution of just about any and every thing. That makes it simultaneously easier than ever to find near-countless things but also adds a different level of difficulty: sheer concentration.
The density of content is, I think, far beyond human comprehension. It's just impossible to give even a modest fraction of stories the light of day, there are just too many. Even if all titles were granted a limit of only 24 hours on the front page for their life on a service that would not succeed (though I like to think it would actually be a step forward in both content moderation and general enjoyment, forcibly preventing/breaking the power of whatever is the current "top 10" series to just dominate everyone else.)
And all technology is about "ease" and we have the next stage of that available, with computer systems that can help people create (raw speed) and proofread (ultimate quality) text, images, video, music, code, etc. These systems have gotten flak that I can only wonder if has been how it felt with other tools developed through history that shatter norms by making the once-exclusive, the "masters only", the "realm of the trained and none else" available to anyone with a few coins. Whether the photograph ruined portrait artists, the automobile ruined horse ranchers, photoshop ruined artists and photographers, the crossbow and then firearm ruined bow-combat, the steel-working crucible ruined other smithing, etc. New generative systems break the old norm in the same way that society cannot return to because accessibility always wins. The specialist always loses because they, finally or suddenly and horribly (depends on your perspective), stop being special.
Personally, I wonder if the various industries are in a shared train or individual cars and, regardless, all rushing towards a cliff... and what the consequences might be when we finally run out of track.
I simultaneously dread and look forward to that time. It is going to rock the world, I think, and in various ways that I'm sure I can't predict. And that is going to be marvelous to see and horrifying to deal with.
It will absolutely destroy the livelihoods of so many of "the little guy" that had no idea just how much they really DID rely on Mr. Moneybags and his influence on the market that made them visible more than their own efforts ever could.
And it will, hopefully, create new openings for change. Like, what happens if the fight of piracy/copyright finally comes to a shattering devastation when the protections finally, fully, go too far and bring it all down and time runs past being out for when an overhaul is required? I have no idea.
-I love copyright for what it is intended to do, helping to protect ALL creators' creations AND to foster ingenuity for forcing people to actually BE CREATIVE. (ie: to NOT just "make another Pokemon fan game" but to instead make a game that takes inspiration from WITHOUT being a lazy bum and just stealing the things that make Pokemon, Pokemon.)
-I hate piracy for violating those rights of creators that I love, both small and large and indie and corporate, that really do suffer consequences. This is not as easy to see on the large scales, but we DO see it happen to smaller creators and even larger ones. Sometimes by other creators, both large and small, and sometimes by genuinely being deprived of actual purchases by those that choose piracy over purchase. Both are a problem in the current system that does cause the real prevention of income for those creators.
-I hate copyright for being abused, used as a weapon to go beyond the intended protection and used to stifle creation in the hopes of consolidating power to both the large and small (it doesn't take a big business to bash others around, it happens far more than people realize because they only notice when it is attributed to a big name rather than the many smaller ones)
-I... can't love but do appreciate(?)... the effect of piracy for the access it has given to so many creations that have fallen into distribution death (out of print, etc.) or that lack sufficient advertisement, distribution, etc. and only gained enough visibility to grow thanks to alternative distribution. I know for myself there are many things I know of only because of this and have been so happy to purchase their books, music, etc.
I hope we get to see a better system arise, but I also can't imagine that comes without devastation of the livelihood of most creators as collateral.
Ugh, that got depressing.
On the other hand, I do love the true visibility of so many things. One still has to put in the effort to not just look at front pages, instead seeking out forums, smaller distributors, and even some comment sections (though I try to avoid those largely, way too many are way too toxic). And doing so you can discover so many wonderful additional series.
There are very few series that I can say I am a long-time dedicated fan of and will almost always turn attention to whatever they release. Instead, I love finding new things and am a follower of hundreds of anime, manga, video games, musicians, and a bunch of story-based podcasts. I love being a GM for TTRPGS, especially D&D5e (as a system, not so much any of the settings and definitely not Forgotten Realms, I hate their pseudo-medieval-ness.) and Call of Cthulhu and have also an interest in a more recent one BREAK!!, though I haven't yet gotten to run a game of it.
For D&D, rather than most first party content (which is a good starting point), I love the expanded 3rd party for D&D, especially those published by Loot Tavern (especially Ryoko's Guide, Heliana's Guide, and their coming sequels), Legends of Avantris (Crooked Moon and Neon Odyssey), Sandy Peterson's Cthulhu Mythos for 5e (only good source for the classic eldritch), 1985 games (Obojima), and Quill's Tiny Quests (Tome of Hags and upcoming City of Sirens). I primarily run settings I created myself or alter a campaign published by someone else to make it my own and love to allow great mixes of content (rather than the painfully-limited Faerun; even when I touch Faerun I force it to advance to be at least equivalent to real-world 1800-1900's because TIME SHOULD MARCH ON and inventors in super-magic-land shouldn't be incompetent idiots that just drop random magic junk in dungeons for kicks but actually run a business that ultimately changes society).
Ack, got ranting. That's how you know I love it.
Anyways, I think I've gotten far enough off topic.
Oh, also, I think you gave me too many critical hits, I'm the GM of my games! Between the last two sessions I've run in D&D I listened to about 200 episodes of Critical Hit. That's a lot of wishes for critical hits! And I was running a battle of a powerful dragon in its lair! The party still squeaked by, but boy was it close... (they are lv. 11 and it was a slightly-modded Adult White Dragon). I don't think I've crit that many times in a single session before. (Then again, my friend also got double-20s on an Chaos Orb spell with disadvantage that night... but not overly surprising, his luck is terrifying at times. He has so many legit Shiny Pokemon, even a fair bunch from the days of 1/8000 odds. I'm just grateful he doesn't have Torq's frequent luck for the dice as well...)