Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week Bennett writes about the early kick-off of the holiday season, "Force Friday," Dragon Con, and Brides.

Back in 2013 (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Have You Seen This Comic?") I wrote that while the Christmas Season now officially started in early November the good news was it could advance no further without cutting into Halloween’s turf.  Well, not surprisingly, once again I’m wrong (see "Walmart Kicks Off Christmas Promotions").  According to the piece "Walmart launched its Christmas layaway promotion on August 28, two weeks earlier than its previous record and a full 119 days before the holiday."  I found out about this the hard way.  There I was, working, TV absently on when I saw a spot for Walmart out of the corner of my eye. When I heard the unmistakable strains of a Christmas song my blood ran cold.

Supposedly this was done not just out of economic desperation (as was suggested in The Motley Fool story linked to in the ICv2 piece) but to take full advantage of September 4, "Star Wars Force Friday," the release date for the first wave of Star Wars: The Force Awakens merchandise.  I honestly didn’t know that this was going to be a "thing," that there was still anyone all that interested, let alone actively excited, by the prospect of buying merchandise for a movie that won’t come out for months.

You can blame it on my legendary obliviousness, but it might have more to do with the fact that I’ve never been what you’d call a major Star Wars guy.  I mean, I liked it well enough, enough to see it numerous times in the theater (though admittedly by the final time it was just trying to see how many female characters I could find).  I even remember quite liking the Marvel comic book at the time, but it didn’t change my life.  Here’s a real confession for you; my honest reaction to Star Wars: A New Hope at the time was that it was a fun movie, one I’d be perfectly happy to see thirty years later on Sunday afternoon TV.  And at least about that I was right.

Oh, I knew that there was still interest in the franchise, even I had been enjoying Marvel’s Star Wars: Princess Leia comic.  And I knew that there were was still a hardcore fan base, but after they’d endured The Phantom Menace and rest of the underwhelming prequels I had just kind of assumed that they would take a wait-and-see approach to The Force Awakens.  But apparently their enthusiasm cannot be trampled.  Particularly popular among the toys apparently is Sphero’s BB-8, with its spherical body and a head which stays on top no matter how it turns.  It’s entirely too early to declare that this is 2015’s "it" Christmas toy, but having seen it in action I wouldn’t be one bit surprised.

If you need another example of my obliviousness, and you probably don’t, I had completely forgotten that Dragon Con (a.k.a. "Nerdy Gras," apparently) took place last weekend.  70,000 people attended what its website calls "the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction & fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe."  But as far as I can tell there wasn’t a lot pertaining specifically to comics as the focus seemed to be more on movies, TV and cosplay.  None of which would be enough to get me to go, though I have to admit I would have liked to have attended The Venture Bros Panel where they announced that Season 6 will debut on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim on February 7, 2016.

A couple of years ago I wrote, repeatedly, about how screenwriter and television producer Bryan Fuller had gotten NBC to buy a pilot for a reboot of The Munsters (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--A Whole New World").  Although very well done it was, in my estimation, an expensive failure because in it The Munsters were actual monsters, as in they ate people.  And that’s just something that a sufficiently large enough portion of the American viewing public is not willing to accept on broadcast network TV.  Not yet, anyway.

If you remember that, well apparently NBC doesn’t because they’ve given a pilot order for Brides, a hot "gothic soap opera" about a contemporary trio of "Brides of Dracula."  It’s from Archie Comics’ Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and writer/director/producer Greg Berlanti, the team behind the Archie TV series that’s in development at The CW.  And while I’m aware people are willing to accept dramas about bloodsuckers on The CW (The Vampire Diaries.  The Originals), The CW isn’t NBC.  While the network does experiment with edgier material (last year it was The Black List, this year it seems to be Blindspot) and even has a horror drama (Grimm), because of its older demographic its bread and butter continues to be fairly conventional dramas and comedies.  And with the cancellation of its cannibal-driven drama Hannibal it’s hard to imagine them finding a place for something like Brides on their schedule.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.