Sure, the 2008 presidential primaries are interesting. But why settle for regular humans when you can vote for SUPER-humans?! Barack Obama may be a fine orator, but can he stretch himself into ridiculous shapes? John McCain was a war hero � no question � but has he seen any action in interstellar combat? And Hilary Clinton may carry a famous name, but is it more famous than Bruce Wayne?
We at Fantom Comics want to offer people another option. That's why we're holding elections for President of the USA pitting the best of DC against Marvel's finest in an election for the ages!
THE PRIMARIES
The primaries start this coming Thursday, April 17th, when we announce on the website the 16 candidates (8 marvel, 8 DC) that will be running for their publisher's (hereafter referred to as their "party's") nomination. We will post a short blurb about each candidate and the debate can start.
THE NOMINATION
On FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, Saturday, May 3, we will hold party elections at both our stores. Each person may vote once in each party�s nomination. ONLY THOSE PHYSICALLY PRESENT CAN VOTE. Sorry, no online voting, no absentee voting, no proxy voting. You must be present in the store on May 3rd to cast your vote. But hey, it�s Free Comic Book Day, so you�ll want to be there anyway. Oh, and you of course DO NOT have to purchase anything to vote. The voting booths close at 4:30pm SHARP.
This primary election will be a bit old-fashioned, as the 2nd place candidates will become their party�s vice-presidential nominee. Yes, we know it didn�t work too well with Aaron Burr and all, but to keep things simple this is just how it�s gonna be.
The winners of the party primaries will be announced simultaneously at both our locations and on the website at 5:30PM.
THE ELECTION
Once the party tickets are announced, three months of campaigning will begin. Fantom Comics has assembled two teams of experts to serve as the campaign staff for the two party�s nominees. They will bring us biting commentary, sassy op-eds, blush-inducing mud-slinging, quasi-legal dirty tricks and even 3 LIVE DEBATES (1 VP debate and 2 candidate debates) to be held at our Tenleytown store! All of this will culminate on Election Day, SATURDAY, AUGUST 30th! (Note: More details on election day as the date approaches).
The presidential winner will get a special table set aside for them during the month of September, in which trade paperbacks (aka Graphic Novels) featuring him or her will be offered at 15%-off all month. Books featuring the candidate�s VP will come at a 10% discount.
VOTER PARTICIPATION
We highly encourage open debate. Here�s what you, the voter, can do:
Comment on postings. Fantom Comics gets thousands of unique users to its site each day. Comments you make could very well sway at least a few of them � perhaps enough to push your candidate into first.
If you email an op-ed to matt@fantomcomics.com, we�ll post it for you under your name. The piece must come in at under 700 words and management reserves the right to edit it for brevity and grammar. We also reserve the right to reject your piece outright.
Email us at matt@fantomcomics.com with �Questions for the Candidates.� We�ll have their campaign team answer them and post them on a regular basis. Or maybe it�s such a good question we�ll save it for a debate. We will also have an �ask the candidate� box at each of our stores for those of you that can separate yourself from your keyboards.
THE RULES
Fantom Management, through exhaustive research and debate, has selected a list of candidates to run on their party's ticket. The criteria we used:
1) All candidates must conform to constitutional requirements for president. That means they must be over 35 (sorry Spider-Man) and born in the US (aw, too bad Superman). NOTE: Most of the candidates� ages are debatable. Generally speaking, we offered some leeway to characters near the age limit.
2) The character must have been �outed� as a super-hero, so they can run under both their cape and alter ego identities.
3) Batman is excepted from Rule #2 because we feel he�s too cool to be left out. Bruce Wayne will be running under the assumption that he outed himself at the beginning of the campaign. We also made an exception for Matt Murdock/Daredevil, as he�s been outed on 2 separate occasions and we are sure he will be again in the future.
4) Actions taken by the candidates in non-continuity stories CAN be brought into the debate, but they will of course be considered less credible than events happening in mainstream continuity, as those are the personas that will be running for office.
5) If we saw it happen (be it in a comic book, movie, whatever), then it�s �public knowledge.� What matters is what we, the readers know, and not what other characters from the comics know of the person. For example: people in the Marvel Universe may not know that Professor X hates bagels, but because it was revealed in Uncanny X-Men #438, WE know and therefore it�s considered public knowledge. These candidates have no private life, and the only thing that can save them from their embarrassing past is a lazy opposition that doesn�t raise the issue.
Have fun, and see you at the ballot booth!
