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What
is the Frivolous 5?
The Frivolous 5 is a set of 5 questions that we ask of people working in
or associated with the comic book industry. It is always the same 5
questions. These 5 questions were chosen because we felt that people get
tired of being asked the same questions over and over such as, who were
your influences? What was your first comic?, What projects have you got
coming up?. These are great questions and we might ask these too if we
do more lengthy interviews down the road. We settled on these 5
questions because they have little to nothing to do with the comic book
industry and will reveal a little bit more about a person’s background
and personality.
Where did the Frivolous 5 come from?
The Frivolous 5 started as the Final 5 and are questions that were
intended to be asked at the end, hence final, of a lengthier interview.
The first time that we asked these questions were in an interview
conducted via email with writer and artist Dan Jurgens. This interview
appeared in the final paper edition of the Edge newsletter/ fanzine. We
will hopefully reprint the Mr. Jurgen’s responses here at a later
date. The next time that we asked the questions were at the end of the
virtual store appearance by Power Company penciler Tom Grummett. This
interview was conducted via telephone on 09/24/2002 and will also
hopefully be presented here in one format or another at a later date.
The 5 questions lay dormant until February 2003. For the second year I
was lucky enough to be sent by my place of employment to Orlando, FL for
training on some new equipment. And for the second year in a row the
training schedule would allow me to attend the annual MegaCon comic book
convention while in Florida. I decided to revive the 5 questions and ask
them of many of the guests in attendance. I had so much fun conducting
these short interviews that I continued the next weekend at the Chicago
Comicfest. These interviews will be presented on this website over the
next few months and plans are being made to conduct interviews at the
big Wizard World Convention this August and possibly some of the smaller
conventions going on this year.
Since we were not exclusively using the 5 questions to end the more
extensive interviews any more we decided that a name change was needed.
After some short debates the Frivolous 5 was selected.
How were the Frivolous 5 chosen?
The 5 questions were chosen by myself and fellow columnist and
Collector’s Edge West store manager, John Steib with help from our
friends who hang out at the West store.
What are the questions already!?
Here are the 5 questions with a little background on each.
| 1. |
“What is the greatest
movie of all time?” |
| This seems to be
an easy one and we considered it to be a “softball” question
but it has been really surprising how many people have trouble
with it. Some have trouble narrowing it down to just one. Others
have one that is their favorite but acknowledge another for
being a classic or technically superior. |
| 2. |
“Are you a little bit Country or a little bit Rock N Roll?
Please explain.” |
| We are interested in finding
out what musical preferences people have, but didn’t want to come right
out and ask for favorite song, album or singer. John came up with a nice
twist on the question with a nod to a 1970’s pop culture reference.
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| 3. |
“What is your favorite soup?”
|
| We took this question from a
1972 issue of Tiger Beat magazine that someone had left at the West
store. The question was one of many that were asked of the teen
heartthrobs of the day and this question was the inspiration for us
creating the Frivolous 5 in the first place. I was surprised how many
people that I interviewed asked me to repeat the question because they
really were not expecting it to be asked it. |
| 4. |
“Who is your favorite Muppet and why?” |
| Why Muppet? Why not? They are
a big part of pop culture that everyone knows. And don’t forget that
there isn’t just the Muppet Show but also Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and
various other TV shows & movies.
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| 5. |
“Is it better to give or receive?”
|
| There are so many ways to
interpret this question that we just had to include it.
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Are
you done yet?
Yes. That is the origin of the
Frivolous 5 and a bit more. I hope you have as much fun reading (and
possibly listening to) the interviews as we do conducting the interviews
and as we did coming up with the questions. Keep checking the
Collector’s Edge Comics website for new interviews in the future.
- Jack Larsen
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