My Little Pony gets new life as TV series!

From the Hollywood Reporter:

"My Little Pony" may become the first Hasbro property to spawn a TV series for the upcoming kids cable channel, a joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery.

The newly formed Hasbro Studios, which is designed to be a main supplier of the new channel, has put "Pony" on a fast development track.

Hasbro Studios had been looking into several Hasbro brands as potential series vehicles. "Pony" emerged as a frontrunner following the strong showing of one-hour special "My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure" on the Disney Channel Nov. 6.

"The runaway success of 'My Little Pony' on the Disney Channel affirms our belief in the long-term value of this project," said Hasbro Studios president Stephen Davis.

"Pony" will undergo a multi-platform development for TV as well as video game and other digital extensions.

Happy Halloween

Emily the Strange: follow up

As Emily the Strange continues her legal battle, I ran across this article in the Wall Street Journal, and well, it sheds some insight (not terribly surprising), that Emily the Strange is trying to go transmedia. The article itself is about a novel being written that will represent the first foray into Emily as a character, being published by HarperCollins.

Written in a diary format with Jessica Gruner, “Emily the Strange: The Lost Days,” opens with Emily attempting to recover her memory and regain her sense of style. Mr. Reger says the book maps new territory inside the mind of his popular character. “In the past, it’s been us describing her,” he says. “This is the first time anybody gets to hear how she talks to herself and her cats.”

Emily has struck a cord with many young girls. “She’s a very strong, distinct character and she’s about not trying to fit,” says Anne Hoppe, executive editor of HarperCollins children’s imprint. “There’s not a lot out there commercially for kids that really says to be yourself.”

Um... ok Anne. Soundbite accomplished, and certainly, "be yourself" is an important part of the property, while perhaps "be yourself as far away from me as possible" would be more true to Emily's vernacular. I do wonder that regaining Emily's sense of style is considered as important as recovering her memories, and hope that it is treated as the truly healing endeavor that developing the external self can be as one attempts to develop the internal self, a very poignant message for teenagers of all stripes.

It's a brand though, and the goal of this novel is in many ways to sell Emily merchandise as it is to help an audience, to make it a worthwhile proposition that will help launch the wider transmedia endeavors (a movie through Dark Horse Comics is mentioned in the WSJ article) it will have to interest its audience in Emily as a character in her own right, rather than a witty design they can express themselves by donning. They must transcend being as aesthetic symbol that anyone can project meaning onto or into, and find what is going to unite all of those who feel ownership of the character and make sure that she can embody it. It's not as easy as it sounds.
Here's an excerpt from the novel: it's written in diary format, SPOILER: they've captured the teenage girl's use and love and obsession with numbered lists.

Emily the Strange tries to prove she's unoriginal

This is from a fascinating feature in the San Fransisco News:

Earlier this month, Cosmic Debris, the Berkeley-based company that owns Emily's trademark, filed what could be called a pre-emptive lawsuit against the creators of an Emily-like character featured in the Nate the Great children's book series from the '70s. The suit asks the court to bar the author and illustrator of the books, Marjorie Weinman Sharmat and Marc Simont, from taking action against Cosmic Debris or collecting monetary damages.

The trouble began late last year, when the blogosphere started buzzing that Emily bore an uncanny resemblance to Rosamond, a character from Nate the Great. Bloggers pointed specifically to one early, now-discontinued image of Emily from the early '90s in which she appears in her standard black dress with an entourage of black cats and the following text: "Emily didn't look tired or happy. She looked like she always looks. Strange." They compared it to an image of Rosamond with a similar dress and cats with the text: "Rosamond did not look hungry or sleepy. She looked like she always looks. Strange."

As the article points out, there is a fascinatingly meta point to make here about how Emily the Strange is as similar to other concepts of "goth" aesthetics as any other Hot Topic hawked brand that teenagers adopt to rebel against conformity, just like their peers. But, really Emily the Strange? this does sound more than a little fishy. In response to the blogosphere discovering the similarities between these two characters:

Emily's longtime illustrator, Rob Reger, posted an explanation on the Web saying that he learned about Rosamond years after taking over the creative reins of Emily. "We phased out the original skateboard design upon learning of the Rosamond character and worked with the creative team to further distinguish Emily and her universe," he wrote. "Regarding copyright law, there is legally nothing wrong with sharing or implementing a unique variation on a concept."

Sure, and there are fifty variations of Peter Pan, none of which feel the need to sue one another. But here comes the sticky wicket, while the preemptive lawsuit outlines how the goth girl character is done again and again and again...

The lawsuit reads like a primer on 20th-century goth girls, and submits as evidence pictures of Elvira, Vampira, Wednesday from The Addams Family, Lydia from Beetlejuice, and manga characters. "For many decades," the lawsuit states, "a common cultural motif that has appeared in many creative works involves a woman or girl with long dark hair, possibly bangs, and dark clothing who is associated with the macabre, occult, mysterious, or strange, and is sometimes accompanied by creatures such as bats or black cats."

... those are clearly distinguishable from one another based on a number of factors, not the least of which are the narrative universes they inhabit. While you can see through-lines, are they any less familiar than the hundreds of adventure heroes in vague Medieval worlds fighting dragons and rescuing princesses? Is there not an argument to be made that by trying to legally say that these female characters are indistinguishable from one another, all princesses are the same? I'm sure Fiona, Ariel, Princess Peach and Princess Superstar would take that assumption to the court of law and the court of public opinion.

Let's look at the argument posited by Emily the Strange for a moment here "Regarding copyright law, there is legally nothing wrong with sharing or implementing a unique variation on a concept." Ok, true, people do this all the time in every creative field you can name, fashion designs ape historical looks and deconstruct vintage store finds every season. If I hear about another remake of a film I think my eyes may get stuck rolled into the back of my head, and the X-men have been killed and resurrected so many times that I've lost count.

The Emily the Strange group has noted the similarity between the two concepts before:

"...Even Emily's Wikipedia entry notes the similarity, citing the blog entries as the source. Emily the Strange publicist Jill Beaverson said the company has never been contacted by the book's publisher or author about the issue. "We've done nothing wrong....Honestly, we were rather hurt by [the allegations]."

If the book's publisher doesn't care, why take it to court at all?

It's unclear if the likeness is actually a copyright infringement, says San Francisco attorney Lizbeth Hasse, who represents RDR Books, a Michigan-based publishing company currently being sued by J.K. Rowling in New York Federal District Court to block the release of the company's "Harry Potter Lexicon." The copyright holder would have to prove that Rosamond has a "substantial similarity" to the Emily of the last three years due to the statute of limitations. The fact that the girl with the cats and nearly identical text may meet the "substantial similarity" bar is a moot point since that Emily graphic was apparently discontinued years ago, she says.

"I'm not sure a waif with black hair is original enough to necessarily say it's an infringement of that earlier character," Hasse says. "That's not as similar as it may seem at first blush."

The picture at top is an early illustration that was never used for public consumption, and it's easy to look at that and say Shenanigans, but if the publisher isn't trying to sue, does it really matter? It can be argued that it is no more stolen than he concept of a small plastic pony, examples here, here and here, but unlike the Bratz Little Pony, it is far less aesthetically repulsive.

It will be interesting to see where the courts decide, Emily seems to have a narrative that is somewhat different from Rosamund, but are the images damning enough to alienate their "non-conformist" fanbase? From the viewpoint of fan validation is the Internet buzz enough injury to justify the lawsuit, and is the lawsuit not an even more damning slap to the fanbase's gothy ideals? It's sound business to make sure a lawsuit will never come if the possibility is there, but at what price?

Twilight... with cheeseburgers

This sums up my initial impressions of Twilight, having not seen or read the movie or books. Sometime in the near future I will do so, and then I will comment AT LENGTH. But until then, there is this video and my many unanswered questions about: sparkly vampires, vampire baseball, and yeah, mostly just those two.

Brenda Laurel on Girls and Video Games

It can't just be a giant sexist conspiracy... these people aren't that smart!

Here is an interesting video about video games and girls, if you have 13 minutes knock yourself out. The idea is basically that girls weren't playing games, and then they analyzed what it would take to get girls to game and then implemented it and it was successful. But, the greater question, I think, is asked in the comments. Why are these games worth while for either gender? School games are a normal part of education these days, when I was growing up I had a kindergarten class from K-8 and even as I was an older child essentially T.A.ing in younger kids classes, the girls were no less interested in the games than boys.

There are 2 narratives going on here, the dynamic of the game industry as it relates to educational games, and the dynamic between empirical studies and social case studies. The most valuable part of this video is around 8 minutes where the lecturer actually shows interviews with girls who they interviewed.

If you're a tomboy playing a girl game, you might think they're a little sissy.

Rocket's Tricky Decision, seems interesting and Rocket as a character has a lot of potential for expansion. This is an interesting study because it talks about fan validation "this gives girls a chance to know that they're being seen." That validation is really important to any audience and to young girls, is certainly vital to development of confidence and will influence their choice as to whether to look at the game a second time or not.

The final note of the video however, a tongue in cheek jab at video game developers in general, speaks to an assumption made that I think takes away from the lecturer's point. I feel like she'd made her point, that this game has been successful because it listened. But traditional FPS games, listen to their fans as well, and there IS a large fan base for explosions, grotesque (meaning exaggerated) distortions of forms and the fantasy of immediate and dire action. Just because you as a creator do not want to look at that fan base doesn't mean that its not a reasonable segment of the market, and it doesn't help create your market to be antagonistic to others. While I'm sure she's encountered that antagonism from the Video Game establishment, she proves that there is a place for her, and other creatives making different narratives in the gaming arena.

The giant conspiracy is one of disinterest, no one has been interested enough to make the game before. It's not a question of an entrenched market preventing something, it's a question of no one stepping up and volunteering. The audience is there, there just aren't any products to fill it.