quote:Originally posted by Dave: To go further into the marketing role....I think Millar has done something which no one else has thought to do before. When Michael Jordan advertises Oakley sun glasses, no one seriously thinks that he prefers them to, say, Ray-Bans. People know he gets paid a lot of money to endorse them. But people nonetheless buy Oakleys because Jordan is associated with them. Millar has adopted the same approach in Ultimates, but he doesn't have to pay millions of dollars for Shannon Elizabeth to appear in the comic.
Well, the Shannon Elizabeth appearance wouldn't have come about had her comic geek boyfriend not convinced her to agree to be "immortalized" so to speak, so in that sense, it's not exactly an endorsement.
Still, it's certainly not something Millar originated.
"Immortalisation" is different from product endorsement. That fact that Elizabeth's boyfriend persuaded her to do it doesn't negate its effect. It just means Millar/Marvel got her for free.
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quote:I can see it going further, too: what's the bet that within the next 10 years there will be a superhero team with the likes of Bruce Willis or some other action movie actor as a permanent member?
I don't think that will ever happen in a literal sense, but how many comic book characters or superheroes are based on celebrities already? You even mention one example, with X-Statix(containing parodies of celebrities like Eminem, N'Sync, and, of course, Elian Gonzalez).
Weren't we talking a few days ago about how John Constantine was based on Sting?
A resemblance to a real person is not what I mean: I mean a real person entering a comic book asn an ongoing character. You're the editor and you want to improve the sales of Cage? Why not buy 50 Cents' image for a year, and the right to have him appear as a character? Or improve sales of Green Lantern by having Kyle Rayner have a romantic attachment to a Britney Murphy league starlet, or hang out with Ashton Kulcher?
