Last summer when the Avengers movie came out a few folks used that as a springboard to send some money to the Hero Initiative, comics' foremost charity when it comes to alleviating some of the suffering and difficulties of comics creators as they become older. The movie made ten figures; the charitable effort... well, it definitely cleared four. When you make over a billion dollars there's always a sequel. When you make a few thousand, people tend to forget it ever happened.
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I hope that some of you out there will consider making a donation to the Hero Initiative on the occasion of the third and apparently very successful Iron Man movie. Some people gave a ticket's worth of money during the Avengers thing; some gave a random amount as a kind of tip to maybe get money to a few folks responsible for what they just enjoyed that weren't going to see anything otherwise.
I don't hold out any hope -- and I never did -- that such an effort will ever steamroll into tens of thousands of dollars raised and that all the donating folks could eventually cross their arms and nod like superheroes themselves over a job well done. There's no sticking it to a billion-dollar movie. Most people don't have any inkling that there are comics creators behind a lot of these creations, or that maybe the industry these things came from was constructed in a way where creators maybe don't receive money when something they made becomes a worldwide phenomenon, or adults participating in something with their eyes open is in any way a concern for anyone other than those adults, or how this could all possibly be something where some sort of counter-action is required just to give folks a proper burial or some dignity in how they conduct their lives when they get older and perhaps sick. We are more than ever a people convinced by the bottom line, and the ink on paper that gets us there. It may be that we imagine ourselves rewarded in the same way, if not now than eventually.
So there's no great victory to be won by tossing ten bucks to a charity. There's just ten bucks to that charity. But that's a good thing as well. Four people doing that is enough to buy someone their insulin. And 200 people doing it can make a huge difference in someone's life. Those are important stories, too. Thank you for even considering it.
I hope that some of you out there will consider making a donation to the Hero Initiative on the occasion of the third and apparently very successful Iron Man movie. Some people gave a ticket's worth of money during the Avengers thing; some gave a random amount as a kind of tip to maybe get money to a few folks responsible for what they just enjoyed that weren't going to see anything otherwise.I don't hold out any hope -- and I never did -- that such an effort will ever steamroll into tens of thousands of dollars raised and that all the donating folks could eventually cross their arms and nod like superheroes themselves over a job well done. There's no sticking it to a billion-dollar movie. Most people don't have any inkling that there are comics creators behind a lot of these creations, or that maybe the industry these things came from was constructed in a way where creators maybe don't receive money when something they made becomes a worldwide phenomenon, or adults participating in something with their eyes open is in any way a concern for anyone other than those adults, or how this could all possibly be something where some sort of counter-action is required just to give folks a proper burial or some dignity in how they conduct their lives when they get older and perhaps sick. We are more than ever a people convinced by the bottom line, and the ink on paper that gets us there. It may be that we imagine ourselves rewarded in the same way, if not now than eventually.
So there's no great victory to be won by tossing ten bucks to a charity. There's just ten bucks to that charity. But that's a good thing as well. Four people doing that is enough to buy someone their insulin. And 200 people doing it can make a huge difference in someone's life. Those are important stories, too. Thank you for even considering it.