It’s hard to believe that it was over six years ago that I and some ex-TV-Squaders started CliqueClack. We had some pretty high hopes at the time, that we could go out on our own and show AOL what it really meant to be writer-fans of television. It was an incredibly ambitious goal that we never came close to, but we quickly learned that that didn’t matter to us. What did matter was that we had an outlet to write what we wanted, when we wanted, for people who continued to engage in discussion with us.

It’s pained me all these years to never have earned enough with ads and Amazon referrals to pay our writers regularly. We’ve certainly lost some great folks because of it, and I don’t blame them at all. Some have gone on to continue writing for paying gigs, full-time, and that’s been awesome. With the declining frequency of posts comes declining traffic, which results in declining ad revenue … you get the picture. Maybe that’s a bit TMI, but I thought being up-front about where we were at was something I owed you.

This will likely be the final post here at CliqueClack, but there is a silver lining.

For quite some time now, Chuck Duncan and Ivey West had been heading up editing duties for the site. Chuck, I know, very much wants to continue writing. I didn’t want to simply hand over CliqueClack to someone else, though, partly because I’m just not ready to give it away and, primarily, I thought it made more sense to let Chuck have something that was truly his own. That’s just what he’s done.

Friday, April 3, Chuck launches his own site, Hotchka.com, to continue where CliqueClack left off. You’ll see some new and familiar faces there, writing about movies, TV, pop culture, and anything else Chuck might want to throw into the mix. He and his partner, Carl, have already done a fantastic job putting the site together, and I think you’re really going to dig it.

• Check out the site at www.hotchka.com.
• Follow them on Twitter @hotchka
• Facebook
• Google+
• Tumblr
• YouTube

As for CliqueClack, my plan is to keep all of our 11,000+ posts around for as long as I’m possibly able, even if they are thrown in straight HTML and image files in a searchable archive somewhere. I think it’s criminal when sites decide to completely wipe away all traces of past content when they shutter, and dammit I’m going to do my best to make sure that never happens here.

Thank you so much to the writers and, of course, to all of you readers who’ve stuck with us all these years.

Happy New Year!

We hope you had a nice holiday. We’re ready to dive into the new year with more free movie screenings, but we want to make you aware of some changes to how we’re going to do things this year. In order to keep the main website focused on reviews and opinion pieces from our writers, almost all of our movie screening offers will be handled through our social media sites. If you’re not one of our followers on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Tumblr yet, now is the time to join us.

We have some exciting new movies to offer in various cities across the country, including American Sniper, Blackhat, The Boy Next Door and many more. So be sure to “Like” or “Follow” CliqueClack on social media today!

I made the leap recently from a full-sized iPad to one of the new Retina display iPad Minis. For what I use the iPad for, the smaller size is definitely a better choice, and the added display improvement was just what I was waiting for. So far it’s been worth it, but that’s for a different story.

With the larger iPad, I didn’t want to bulk it down further with a case that wrapped around the entire thing, so I stuck with the Apple Smart Cover, which only protects the screen when closed and serves as a means for propping the device up on flat surfaces for reading. With the iPad Mini, though, I was willing to give a full-wrap cover a shot, and The Snugg looked like a decent option.

The Snugg has a couple of neat things going for it. It has a handy spot to stick a pen (whether it’s a real one or a stylus), a spot in back to anchor the front flap for propping the device up, and a large elastic band for either storing papers or wrapping your hand through to ensure you don’t drop it while flailing your arms about as you yell at a board meeting. The front cover does function just as a Smart Cover does, in that the screen turns off when you close it (it has a magnetic switch that interacts with the device.) And, of course, there’s the lifetime warranty, which is said to cover manufacturing defects.

The first thing that I will say worried me about The Snugg was that it was put together with stitching. Past experience has shown me that this stitching doesn’t last very long, often getting pulled out over the course of normal use. However, this is the very thing I consider to be relatable to a manufacturing defect, unless of course you very obviously cause the stitching to pull out.

While the iPad fit very “snugly” in the Snugg — and it’s very well secured in it via strong velcro that discretely curves around the side of the device — it’s not quite perfect in how everything gets placed inside. Take for example this photo of the volume controls:

As you can see from the yellow arrow, the lower volume button is almost covered by the case, which makes it awkward to reach. I’ve tried numerous times to readjust the case to improve this positioning, but it’s just not happening. It’s not the end of the world, but it can be pretty distracting. The sound toggle switch is also somewhat difficult to get to, but unless you’re using it very often, it may not matter to you.

The other thing to note in that photo is the red arrow, which is pointing to … loose stitching. Yes, it already has stitching pulling out, and this was only after a few days of light use. I feel as though it’s only a matter of time before more of these appear.

One other negative I’d have to give The Snugg is how the front cover folds under the device and into the slot that allows you to prop it up. As you can see in the two photos below, the first shows how the device should be propped up, while the second shows you how the small fold in the cover can make it awkward or confusing to a user as to whether the entire thing is folded down all the way or not. I know it seems like you’d have to be a dum-dum to not figure that out, but when you forget about it the first time, you’ll find it annoying.

The Snuggs are available for all types of iPads and even iPhones, and they’re pretty reasonably priced and available in many different styles and colors. My biggest question now is how well the company fulfills warranty issues and whether, over time, any stitching that comes loose will be covered as a fault of theirs and not considered “normal wear and tear.” If they’re willing to replace it, how many times will it take before it’s just not worth the hassle anymore?

[NOTE: The reviewed device was provided for free by The Snugg.com to CliqueClack for the purposes for review.]

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I have been a movie buff for pretty much my entire life and growing up in the 70s, especially after the success of Star Wars, I started collecting such film magazines as Cinefantastique, Cinefex, Starlog and many more (I still have boxes of mags in my attic from that period). Sometime in the 90s, I ran across a compact-in-size magazine called Video Watchdog. I was intrigued by the cover art and the lengthy film articles and reviews contained within. I liked the longer pieces about a specific film, director or actor and the plethora of reviews covering a wide range of films, from the familiar to the totally alien (to me) titles. I’ve been reading the magazine ever since. With the advent of the mobile tablet, many magazines have launched digital editions that you can enjoy anywhere without having to carry around the actual magazine. I had contacted Video Watchdog publisher Tim Lucas a few months ago about a possible digital edition, and not long after that email, low and behold there it was ready to be downloaded to my iPad.

That was a first step for the digital edition of Video Watchdog. Now, Tim and his wife Donna have launched a Kickstarter campaign to expand the app that is currently available to include not only new issues of the magazine, but a digital archive of every single issue across multiple platforms! Needless to say, this is a massive undertaking so Tim and Donna are asking fans of the magazine to help them make this dream a reality. I contacted Tim and Donna to ask them a few questions about the magazine for the newcomers out there, and what they hope to accomplish with the Kickstarter campaign.

Chuck: Tim, give our readers a little background about yourselves.

Tim: Before Video Watchdog, Donna worked as a computer software instructor in the early years of our marriage, while I was freelancing as a writer. We were married in 1974 on December 23 — the day when our Kickstarter campaign is scheduled to wrap. Hard as it is for me to believe, I’m now in my 5th decade as a professional writer; I first saw my work in print in 1972 — 41 years ago! In that time, my film reviews have appeared in dozens of magazines all over the world, including Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Cahiers du Cinema, Fangoria, Gorezone, American Cinematographer and also Cinefantastique, where I spent my first 11 years as a writer. I’m also a published novelist (Throat Sprockets, The Book of Renfield) and my fiction has appeared in other languages around the world.

CD: Where did the idea for Video Watchdog come from?

TL: In the mid-1980s, I was working for a Chicago-based magazine called Video Movies when I discovered that some of the films I was being sent on VHS for review were different to the versions of the same films I’d seen on television. I mentioned this to my editor, Matthew White, and suggested I do a column that would track these differences. Matt said, “I see … kind of a video watchdog,” and I said “No — THE Video Watchdog,” and the column was born. Video Movies became Video Times and my “Video Watchdog” column ran there for a year, at which time they folded. The column subsequently appeared as a feature in Overview (a video magazine launched by Michael Nesmith of The Monkees) and then after that in Gorezone, Fangoria‘s sister publication. They were a quarterly, and I was accumulating more information than they could use, so Donna proposed that we launch Video Watchdog as an independent newsletter. It developed quickly into a magazine and the rest is history.

CD: When did you publish the first issue?

TL: June of 1990, 60 pages in black-and-white. We later expanded to 80 pages and we’ve been full color since our 100th issue.

CD: For those unfamiliar with the magazine, describe exactly what the readers can expect.

TL: We offer intelligent coverage of movies that aren’t usually covered at any length in other film magazines, and we reflect our obsession with them. Our feature articles average 18-pages, illustrated but mostly text, whereas other magazines might give you four heavily illustrated pages. I’ve even written feature articles that were so detailed, they ran over a series of issues — for example, my overview of Andy Milligan’s career, or my early coverage of a Yugoslavian movie that Roger Corman and his crew turned into a total of five other movies, including Track of the Vampire! Each issue usually contains 10 short reviews and maybe 15 in-depth ones, attentive not only to how the film was made but how the film has been presented on video. We also feature critical coverage of book and soundtrack releases pertinent to genre cinema. We’re also not just serious; we have a sense of humor too.

CD: You’ve recently launched a digital version, so how is this new project different or what else does it offer that the current digital version doesn’t?

Donna: The Video Watchdog Digital Archive will contain digitized versions of 176 back issues — 174 regular issues as well as our two double-sized Special Editions. It will also include enhancements, such as video clips, trailers, music, slide shows, and perhaps some advertisements as they become available. Currently, the editions going forward just play on computers that support Flash, and iOS (iPad/iPhone). If we are able to fund the Digital Archive, all the editions will be playable across all platforms: computers, tablets and smartphones, on iOS, Android, Flash and Windows platforms.

CD: Give us some information about the Kickstarter campaign, when you launched, what is the end date, and your goal.

DL: The campaign runs from November 25 – December 23 at 11:00pm EST. Our goal is to raise the necessary funding to create the 176-issue Digital Archive, and make it available on all platforms and devices.

CD: You have some pretty famous faces in your video supporting your efforts. How did you get all of those people on board?

DL: We asked them!

TL: That’s right. I’d actually not had direct contact with John Landis before, but I heard he was a fan of the magazine, so I asked him to assist our campaign and he said, “Of course!” We’ve been pretty fortunate, in that we’ve had a large number of movie business luminaries as subscribers since the very beginning. We don’t have the largest circulation in the world — it’s not always easy to find us on newsstands — but people like Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, Quentin Tarantino and Ernest Dickerson — who just directed that kick-ass “mid-season finale” of The Walking Dead — they know about us and never miss an issue. Joe Dante had a letter in our very first issue!

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It’s Throwback Thursday once again here at CliqueClack, and for the month of October we’ll be looking back at horror films, TV and even cereals of the past. So sit back, dim the lights, grab a bowl of Franken Berry and join us as we stroll down memory lane … while always looking over our shoulders. You never know who … or what … may be lurking in the shadows.

While most of the world is busy celebrating, justly, the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, with its spiffy new IMAX restoration and 3D conversion (and we’ll have a look at that in another column), a small circle of movie fans, particularly in the horror genre, are celebrating the 60th anniversary of another milestone in entertainment, Warner Brothers’ House of Wax starring Vincent Price, Phyllis Kirk, Paul Picerni, Carolyn Jones, Frank Lovejoy, Dabbs Greer and a relative unknown by the name of Charles Buchinsky who would later be known as Charles Bronson.

In 1952, filmmaker Arch Obler and his brother, an ophthalmologist, developed a process of shooting film in 3D using two cameras shooting into mirrors which approximated the distance between a person’s eyes. Their independent movie, Bwana Devil, wasn’t very good but the process made an impression on Jack Warner, who wanted to purchase the distribution rights to the film. He lost out to United Artists, so he rushed his own 3D film into production with the demand that it be shot, edited, scored and ready to hit theaters in five weeks. Warner was told the only way that could happen was if the film was shot in chronological order so each day’s footage could be edited then scored, but that it would be more expensive to shoot that way. Warner wanted to be the first major studio to produce a 3D film, so no expense was spared and House of Wax was born.

What helped speed the process along was the fact that House of Wax was actually a loose remake of an older Warner Brothers film, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was one of the earliest two-strip Technicolor films, itself a bit of an anomaly for a horror film that would normally have been shot in black and white. House of Wax follows the story of an artist who is severely disfigured in a fire which destroys his life’s work as well, and the revenge he exacts on those he feels responsible for his plight.

Jack Warner hired Andre De Toth to direct the film … but De Toth only had one eye! He couldn’t even see in three dimensions but he managed to turn out what is regarded as one of the finest 3D films ever made. His artistry was aided by his cast, headlined by Warner contract player Vincent Price, who had been making movies since 1938 but had never been considered a leading man. Price nearly turned down the film to appear in a Broadway show, but he thought the movie would be a better career move and he was right.

This was Price’s first real horror film, but he still would not be a true horror icon until five years later when he appeared in The Fly (in a supporting role!). Here, he plays the artist Henry Jarrod, a man devoted to his wax figures, treating them as almost human. When an associate burns down his wax museum, effectively murdering Jarrod’s friends and scarring Jarrod physically and emotionally, there will be hell to pay as Jarrod exacts his revenge and tries to rebuild his wax museum using a new process that renders his figures startlingly lifelike. So lifelike that they raise suspicions in Sue Allen (Kirk), who is convinced the Joan of Arc figure is actually her murdered friend Cathy Gray (Jones). Price plays Jarrod perfectly, making him a sympathetic and tragic figure even when we know the monster he has become.

The film’s period production design, set during a kind of “Gay 90s” era, is stunning and all of the sets are constructed with careful consideration for the 3D process. De Toth gives each scene a great sense of depth but uses the process for crowd-pleasing moments such as a skeletal arm reaching into the audience or a paddle ball bouncing off our noses (a bit that had nothing to do with the movie, but was pushed on De Toth by Warner to make the crowds happy … and it did). The film’s vibrant color also helps make the wax figures look even more lifelike while making Price’s burn makeup even more hideous. The film was even presented with a stereophonic soundtrack, dubbed WarnerPhonic, in theaters equipped to handle it. The film was a smash, and even to this day, it remains one of the top ten grossing horror films of all time when adjusted for inflation.

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I’d say my reaction to the embedded Samsung 840 EVO video — if it hasn’t been taken down by now — is more of disbelief than anything else. I don’t really get “offended” by something like a video, commercial, TV show, or other medium. I guess for ME to be offended, I’d have to take something pretty damned personally. So a video of someone stating the top ten reasons CliqueClack and Keith McDuffee suck … that I might label offensive.

I was shown the commercial through Carla on Twitter, where some were saying it felt more like a Funny or Die sketch than an authentic commercial. The video should Die, because it’s not Funny. It’s cringe-tastic, that’s for sure. Everything from the awful stereotypes, the 1950s-like techno-wow dialogue, and the acting is … just wow.

Apparently this is not meant to be a parody video. In fact, reports are that Samsung has begun removing the video from as many places as they can, as it has been removed from official channels on YouTube and from Samsung’s official sites. Nothing says “ohshitohshitohshit!” more than rapid removal of content from the Interwebs.

A man who claims to be the “businessman” in the video has come out on reddit (user Damienf1) with the following:

“Hi. So I’m an actor/model living in Seoul, and im playing the ‘businessman’ in this promo. now, admittedly its not my best work lol, but most people arent aware of just how many factors go into making it this bad. Allow me to elaborate. They force us to speak slowly since this will be dubbed over in Korean, and even when it isnt, most people viewing it will be Korean. They ask us to exaggerate since many Korean people feel thats how we ‘naturally’ act (most people here are not very expressive). Ive worked many jobs where I tried to act naturally only to be told by the director to act more ‘bright’ (ie exaggerate). its how the director and client (in this case, Samsung), WANT us to act. the script is brutal. written by non-native english speakers, and sometimes the PD or director wont even take our suggestions to change some parts so they sound like something a normal native english speaker would say. its a promotional video, not a tv commercial, meaning it will be shown at conventions and expos and in-house. most of the people watching it are korean and thats why they make us do all of the above. edit: almost forgot, shooting took place from 730am – 3am the next day, and by the time they shot the scenes with the girl, she was literally falling asleep in her chair, hence the stoned expression and tone :)”

If that’s legit, then it sure looks like a lot is lost in Korean translation as to what flies in the U.S.. As Bob Degon said, “It does have a certain ‘the script was not originally written in English’ vibe to it.” Time to “evolve” out of those stereotypes, Samsung.

Plus, are SSD’s really that big a deal now? Haven’t we been using them for, like, the past few years now?

I spent many hours of my life yelling at the FiOS people. Many, sad, frustrating, why-is-this-what-I’m-doing-with-my-life hours. Mysterious charges of several hundred dollars would appear, and no one I talked to would have any explanation. Some promised it was a mistake that would get taken off, some told me it was legitimate and I had to pay it — yet nobody knew what the charge was. It took months and finally bitching on Twitter before I was able to get some answers. But by that time I was done. Why was I paying $150 a month for the privilege of spending hours of my life talking to clueless and/or rude customer service agents who cared not one whit about customer service, AKA two-thirds of their job title?

Around this time, I bought an Apple TV. Now I had an easy way to watch Netflix on my television, instead of my laptop or iPad. Then Apple finally released the Hulu Plus app, and I came to a realization: 100% of everything I watch is on DVR anyway, so at the very earliest, I’m watching it a day after — sometimes a week after. Plus, Hulu Plus had the majority of the shows that I watched available the next day. And it was cheap! And I didn’t have to spend hours yelling at people! So after a few months of hemming and hawing, I cut the cord and ditched cable.

Immediately, I started saving about $100/month. My cable and internet bill was around $150. For just internet, I started paying around $35. Hulu Plus is $7.99/month. I already had my Netflix subscription, but I was paying about $15/month for that. Plus I had the one-time $90 cost of the Apple TV.

After that, I was watching Community, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy … just about every network show I watched I could easily get. Plus, I was able to discover more. I became a die-hard Scandal fan after catching up with Season 1 on Netflix right before Season 2 started airing on Hulu.

I’m certainly not alone in my frustration. I come across more and more people every day who have made the same switch, and contrary to popular belief, we’re not downloading shows illegally.

Of course, not all shows are available, and there are some I’m definitely missing out on. Walking Dead, for instance, has been sacrificed due to its lack of a presence on Hulu, and the fact that only the first two seasons are on Netflix. Same thing with How I Met Your Mother. I stopped at season 7, as that’s the last set of episodes Netflix has. However, I’ve also started watching shows that I didn’t watch when I had cable. In addition to the aforementioned Scandal, I just binge-watched the first two seasons of Revenge. I watched the first two seasons of Downton Abbey, and was able to watch the third via the PBS app that allowed me to stream the show from my iPad to my TV.

Last week, I injured my knee and went over to my sister’s house for a few days, as she has fewer stairs that I would have to navigate. She also has cable. I was briefly excited, thinking of everything I could catch up on that I missed during my self-imposed cable hiatus. I turned on the TV, flipped through the On Demand menu, and … nothing. There wasn’t a single show that I wanted to watch. Nothing that I missed that I desperately needed to catch up on, just nothing. In the end, I did end up watching Showtime and catching up on the first few episodes of Dexter. I’ll catch up on a few more next time I’m over there. And I still have absolutely no desire to re-subscribe to a cable service.

Have any of you made the switch away from cable? Is there anything you miss?

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I’ve been making movies for fun since the first time my parents got a “portable” VHS camcorder many years ago. My brother and our friends made some hilarious (at least for us, at the time) videos using various amateur techniques, including dubbing over the videos later with our own foley sound effects and voiceovers. Our sound effects were what we were able to do with our hands and what tools we had around. These days, amateur movie making is sinfully easy, and even adding simple special effects is literally child’s play. However, if you want to extend beyond what iMovie or some other app can give you in terms of sound effects, your choices are limited. Well, not anymore.

Movie making has come back into my life, now that my son has made it one of his passions. We’ve been going out with my iPhone, recording scenes for our epic fantasy adventure film, then importing them into iMovie for post-processing. The few sound effects iMovie and Garage Band have to offer are nice, but after 50-or-so films using those same effects and clips over and over again, they get old. So what are our other options? We could do the self-foley effects ourselves, of course. Then there are the sound effects CDs you can purchase … for hundreds of dollars or more. But do we really need to spend hundreds of dollars on something we’re just doing for fun, never to publish publicly?

I’m not quite sure how I found it, but Spotify has more than just music to listen to: it has sound effects libraries. I mean at least over 30 hours of them. And these aren’t just crappy, cartoony sound effects either. We’re talking professional-grade foley sounds of all kinds and for multiple applications. As you can see from the screenshot above, I have just one library bookmarked with 23 hours of effects, and I’ve got another with more. My son and I were giddy at the thought of what we could do with these effects in our films, and they are all free! They have light saber effects!

Now, you may be wondering how we are able to get these sounds into our films, when we’re using the free version of Spotify. It’s very simple: we either play the sounds off a computer and record with our iPhone — which gives a tinny, not-so-great quality to the sounds — or we use Soundflower for OS X, which allows you to record anything that plays off your Mac. We import what we want into iMovie, and we’re out-of-our-minds thrilled with the possibilities. An approaching army! A jungle! A busy store!

Honestly, if we had the ability to purchase these sound effects for a price that made sense for pure hobby-only applications, I’d gladly purchase them. But, in most cases, the size of these libraries are usually hundreds or even thousands of dollars of expense, since they’re meant to be royalty-free libraries for commercial applications. When you’re just up for having fun with your own videos, that’s just not an option. Thanks to Spotify, the possibilities are endless.

So a search for “sound effects” in Spotify and have a ball!

When SmithMicro asked NYCC-attending journalists about reviewing their animation software, I immediately volunteered. During my undergraduate days I worked in a CGI human simulation lab. Anime Studio Debut 9 reminded me of that, only cooler and less academic. Later on, when a friend asked for my recommendation regarding decent Manga and animation creation software, I couldn’t think of any. Luckily, I discovered SmithMicro.

Although I planned on giving the software a wholehearted thumbs up, I’m giving it a lukewarm recommendation instead.When the SmithMicro team gave their demonstration, everything looked incredibly easy and slick. Anime Studio Debut 9 provided a bank of figures to work with and an initial start up character. I was impressed by the capabilities they included off the bat. This is something you should buy as a gift only if the person in your life is patient and possesses a dedicated interest in animation, graphic design or CGI. If he/she contains an actual background in CGI or graphic design, it’ll help even more, but it isn’t necessary. The CGI human simulation software I used in the ’90s was a pain because the graphic figures easily distorted. If you improperly built your figure’s bone structure, it fell apart. If you placed the figure’s joints in the wrong position, it fell apart. If you wanted to customize the figure’s clothing, skin tone or posture, it took even longer. Remember Parks and Recreation when Ben spent two weeks creating two seconds of stop motion animation? My old software kind of worked like that. It took me a semester to perfect a walking scenario. While AnimeStudio isn’t as bad as that, it requires a lot of work. Most contemporary photo or video editing software allows you to get up and running with minimal training, but you do need to read the manual to effectively use Anime Studio Debut.

Although they’re providing capabilities similar to my undergraduate thousand dollar software for $50, I wouldn’t mind spending $30 extra for a smoother interface. In places, it feels like a program I would’ve used in the ’90s. The one thing I hated about my other human simulation software is if you weren’t careful about joint placement, the figure became skewed. This also happens in Anime Studio Debut. I secretly hoped that after 15 years, human simulation software for end-users would’ve improved on that end.

The Good

Regarding cool stuff, it’s pretty granular with character movement. The provided pre-constructed characters are incredibly nice. Also, you can use heads and eyeballs as props. You can move the thigh separate from the calf and the calf separate from the foot. Additionally, if your figure has a cape, it’s treated as a bone (which can move on its own). But, if you want to move an entire leg, don’t just click on the calf, as that’s all you’ll move (leaving the foot and thigh behind). They provide a minimal diversity of figures regarding gender and race. Also, the figures are your exact mirror image. Clicking on the character’s right leg, isn’t their right leg but their left leg. Although using the File->Import menu to add figures was non-intuitive, adding them from the library looked better with mini-previews. The Aya and Winsor characters are well developed concerning facial expressions and there’s a mini-easter egg concerning the Jai character. His dual-shaded hair ripples when you click on him.

The Bad

My two biggest complaints surround the software interface. It isn’t intuitive and feels slightly clunky. Desktop-interface standards have developed since the 1980s. So, I’m surprised they don’t adhere more to standard practices. You can’t right-click on as many items as I expected to view a menu of options. Considering the number of pieces that comprise a figure, it’d be great to single-click to select/de-select individual joints and double-click to select an entire figure. Additionally, the software needs cleaner organization. Creating a new content folder should occur under the File menu, not the Help menu. Sharing videos on social media or creating a new character shouldn’t be placed in the all-purpose File menu. Do you want to select just female or male figures? You can’t. You have to open up each sub-category folder. The character category names are organized by partners and versions, which isn’t helpful for end users. The folders contain non-descriptive titles such as “New Characters,” “Partners,” “Version 5″ and “Random.” As the default props\backgrounds are slightly cartoony, you’ll have to import photos or make your own.

Suggestions for Improvement

Anime Studio is a good bargain. It gives wannabe animators $50 software that would’ve cost thousands of dollars in the ’90s. But, in the year 2012, other software has made leaps and bounds concerning their interfaces. This project still feels slow. When the project lead mentioned the small development team, I couldn’t believe a handful of people created such an awesome-looking software package. But, after testing it, I believe it. They could benefit from a larger team. When I put my computer to sleep with the Anime Studio Debut program still running, then brought it out of sleep mode, Anime Studio Debut crashed. This happened three times. While the more time I spent with it, the easier it became, I’d also like to see an improvement in the training materials. Including a quick 5-10 minutes startup video would’ve been great, rather than linking to one. Additionally, a shorter mini 10-20 page guide in addition to the 155-page guide would’ve helped anxious users get started sooner. They used to include training videos in their download, but I don’t think including one easy how-to video would break the bank.

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Early this morning, at our daily meeting at CliqueClack HQ, I shared that Vulture had compiled a list of the 25 Most Devoted Fan Bases. See, I’m a sucker for lists … I just can’t get enough of them. I enjoy the debate that always erupts as people discuss their disagreements. And considering Vulture had included several different genres and mediums for fandoms in their list, I just knew I was in for some fun.

And I wasn’t disappointed … well, almost. Our fearless leader Keith McDuffee doesn’t like lists. It’s like he’s allergic to them. But considering that otherwise he’s a pretty righteous dude – and, you know my boss – was willing to let it slide … this time at least.

But the disagreement came fast and furious. Bob and Brett were pretty adamant that Game of Thrones did not deserve the top spot. I know well of Brett’s … disappointment … with George R.R. Martin’s long delay in producing his novels, but was a bit surprised at Bob. Apparently, neither have visited the /r/asoiaf area of Reddit (current top entry on the list as of the writing of this post: favorite quotes by Dolorous Edd … and I rest my case) and seen just how crazy the tin-foil speculation and discussion gets.

Brett, as he is wont to do, questioned why iCarly — and its innate knack to get some 17m viewers whenever Nickelodeon airs it — didn’t make the list. Which started the cavalcade of “why isn’t X fandom on the list.” We came up with some pretty good contenders; several of which we were surprised weren’t included in Vulture’s list. Because we can’t stop ourselves, we figured we’d share them with you.

These are in no particular order – unless my personal bias counts as an order … if so, you’ll just have to figure it out:

Carly Simon
Deb threw this name in the hat … and I tried very desperately to make a “you’re so vain, you probably think this list is about you” joke (and was successful until now). But years ago, Deb attended a Simon concert and thought the fans were as crazy as Beatles fans (I’ll keep her husband’s and brother’s comments about the number of concerts Deb has attended live disqualifying her out of this … oh, wait … oops).

The New Kids on the Block
Another fandom that passed me by personally – because I was never a teenage girl. But their reunion tour(s) have proven that teenagers grow up, but apparently Mark, Donnie and those other guys are still swoonworthy.

Harley riders
I hear these guys are pretty fanatical. I’m a Jeep guy myself, and all I know is they stole the “Jeep wave” – or it might have been the other way around.

Madonna
I don’t care what you say, the Material Girl is still getting it done. While she certainly doesn’t have the popularity that she had in the ’80s and ’90s, her fandom is still very strong.

iCarly

If you hadn’t picked up on it, Brett thinks iCarly is the most popular show most of us have never heard of, and he has the numbers to back it up. He’s been so kind to let us know when the show has featured guest stars like Michelle Obama … and Josh Malina (What can I say … I’m personally sucked into Aaron-Sorkin-Fandom). I will say this: there are a lot more people watching iCarly than Game of Thrones.

Jimmy Buffett
There are some days that I think Parrotheads rule the world. Buffett and his fans have been looking for that lost shaker of salt for over 35 years now, and neither show any sign of slowing down any time soon. Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurants are all over the place, and you can still catch Buffett on tour most of the year.

Apple
It was Keith’s suggestion, and is the one thing I think Vulture is really missing from their lists. Sure, there are some iPhone/iPad/Mac users that just “use” their devices, but let’s be honest: the rest of us “Apple People” are a bit obsessive. It probably isn’t healthy the amount of Cupertino tech I have, and I know Keith is at least as bad as I am … if not worse. While I’ve never lined up outside an Apple Store days in advance for the right to buy the latest iOS thing first, it happens every time a new iPhone is released. There are few fandoms I know that come close to being as fervent as iFans.

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