Category: Columns

John Ostrander: We Have Met The Enemy

ostrander-art-130623-7497194Finally got around to seeing Iron Man 3 this week (which I enjoyed). Yeah, I know. We’re way behind on our movie viewing at this url. At the rate we’re going, we won’t see Man Of Steel until Labor Day.

In any case, I was struck by the underlying premise of the movie and certain events of the past week. (SPOILER ALERT: To discuss this, I’m going to have to tell things about Iron Man 3. If you are even more behind in your movie going than I am but still intend to see it and want to be unspoiled, you may want to avert your eyes.)

Central to the whole plot of Iron Man 3 is the idea of creating a terrorist threat to provoke a reaction in the American public and justify certain acts. In the news in our so-called real world this week, it’s been revealed that the NSA has not only been reading our emails but is creating a massive building to store and analyze everything they read. All in the name of “National Security,” of keeping us safe from terrorism. The idea is that we trade in our freedoms and we are safe from the hands of terrorists.

Except we’re not. To quote Rocket J. Squirrel to Bullwinkle J. Moose who was trying to pull a rabbit out of his hat, “But that trick never works.” Not completely. Of course, the justification becomes that the measures the government is taking makes terrorism more difficult, that some plots are stopped even if you can’t stop all of them, that some American lives are saved. Doesn’t that make it worth it? If it saved your life or the lives of those you cared about, wouldn’t the sacrifice of those freedoms be justified?

I think of the British people during the Battle of Britain in 1940. To break the ability of the UK to defend themselves in the air after the fall of France, the German Luftwaffe launched massive air attacks that escalated, finally, to terrorist bombing missions against the civilian populations in key British cities, notably London. Everyone has seen the photographs and newsreels, especially of the aftermath – the burning buildings, the shattered homes, the struggling people.

The purpose of the terrorism was to drive the British government to an armistice or even to surrender. That’s one of the key things to remember about terrorism – the acts of violence are not the purpose in and of themselves. As terrible as they are, the purpose is to achieve some other goal.

The Germans failed in 1940. The British people stood defiant. They did not break.

The purpose of the acts of violence on 9/11 was not the death and destruction alone that they caused. The purpose of the architects of those acts of terror was to change us, to make us destroy ourselves, our values, our way of life. We’re doing that.

For an illusion of safety, we seem to be willing to trade in at least some of our freedoms.

When we allow the government to tap our phones willy-nilly, to spy on us, to even kill some citizens deemed hostile combatants without any pretense of due process of law, the terrorists win.

The alternative is to live with the threat of destruction, of death for ourselves or those we love, of more horrific, terrifying images such as we saw on 9/11. To stand firm as the British did in the face of Nazi terrorism and not surrender.

In hard boiled fiction, the “tough guy” is defined not so much as the one who can hand out punishment but take it and not give in. Today, we seem more interested in someone who is “bad ass” – who can hand out the blows. Personally, I’ll take a “tough guy” over a “bad ass” any day of the week. They show more character.

So, gentle readers, what do you think? Do we trade in some outdated “freedoms” and maybe sleep better at night or do we take some chances in the interests of being who we are or are supposed to be?

You tell me.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Dennis O’Neil: Superman and Me

oneil-art-130613-7824670Look, up in the sky…It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…

…a whole lot of really, really numerous photons striking a large, white rectangle.

Or: it’s remembered images and sounds careening around the inside of my skull because, pay attention now, Superman and I go back a long way.

He’s one of the first fictional people I can recall meeting, though whether our first encounter was in one of the comic books Dad bought me after Sunday Mass or as voices emanating from Mom’s kitchen radio…the details of Supes’ and my initial acquaintance I do not remember, and who cares?

I next saw Supes on a movie screen, perhaps smaller and shabbier than the one mentioned in the second paragraph above, but serving pretty much the same purpose and.. Was I outraged? Disillusioned? Shattered? Or mad?

The problem was the flying. The grade-school me was anticipating watching the Man of Steel leave the ground and zip around he sky because… well, that would be an exciting thing to see. Then – the big disappointment. First the Easter Bunny, then Santa Claus, and now…What kind of bushwa was this? Superman goes behind a rock or something and then he flies up, up. and away. Only it wasn’t him flying. No, even to a kid it was obviously some kind of drawing, like the animated cartoons that often appeared before the cowboy pictures Iliked. Movie magic? Or a dirty stinky cheat?

But I wasn’t done with Superman, nor he with me. I won a story-writing contest that was fostered by the Superman-Tim club. Club membership, which cost Mom a dime, consisted of a card, a Superman pin and a monthly magazine that featured contests and jokes and puzzles and stuff. I don’t know how many contestants won prizes – maybe everyone who entered. And the prize wasn’t great: some kind of cheesy board game with cardboard cutouts that got moved. But hey – I’d gotten rewarded for writing a story! Wonder where that might lead!

Next came the Superman television show shown in St. Louis on Sunday morning well after Dad and I returned from church. Not bad. Okay way to kill a little time before the Sunday pot roast.

Then a long hiatus. Bye for now, Superman. Was it to be bye forever?

No. Years later, by then a freelance comic book scripter living in Manhattan, an editor named Julius Schwartz asked me if I’d like to have a go at Superman. I had some misgivings. Superman was… too establishment for me. Too goody-two-shoes. And too powerful. Melodrama turns on conflict. So how do you create conflict for a dude who could tuck all the gods of Olympus into an armpit, his suit apparently lacking pockets, and still have room there for the gods of Egypt and a few sticks of deodorant? Could I do that every month? I had some doubts. But I was a professional with mouths to feed and so I took the gig. Julie agreed to let me dial down the superpowers thing and let me make another change or two and off I went. For a year. I walked away from Superman and I’m not sure why. Just because I wasn’t enjoying it much? A lot of freelancers might consider that a pretty lame reason for dumping a paying gig and I’m not sure I’d disagree with them. But dump it I did and once again, sayonara Superman.

But never say never. I’m going to the movies, probably this weekend.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mindy Newell: Duck And Cover

newell-art-130610-6254247The bullshit never stops.

What is it about some men? Did Mommy keep obsessive charts about their every urination and bowel movement during toilet training, marking down the time and size and color and form? Or did Mommy skip the toilet training altogether and they went to kindergarten still wearing diapers? Did Daddy take little Tommy into the shower and soap the penis just a little too much? Was Uncle Ernie just a little too friendly? Did Great-aunt Myrtle catch little Hank masturbating in the bathroom while drooling over the Playmate of the Month?

What is it about some men who feel the need to piss and shit on any woman who dares to display talent, smarts, ability, and imagination?

Why do they do this?

Last week, here at ComixMix, Sara Raasch wrote about the latest attack on a woman who works in comics. This woman dares to display talent, smarts, ability, and imagination. Her name is Kelly Sue DeConnick and she is the writer of Captain Marvel, Avengers Assemble, Ghost, Sif, Captain America and the Secret Avengers, just to mention a few. She was attacked on Tom Brevooort’s Tumblr site, New Brevoort Formspring in a statement by “Anonymous.” His thesis is that Kelly only got to write for Marvel and Dark Horse because she is married to the guy who writes Fantastic Four and Hawkeye. (Kelly’s response is on her own Tumblr site, Digital Baubles. Neil Gaiman also posted it on his Tumblr site, and several others did so, as well.)

The women in this industry respond to this crap in several ways – laughter, anger, ignoring the attack, blogging about it, writing columns about it, and sometimes taking the pusillanimous putz head-on (even notifying the police, in one case), depending on their mood and general disposition.

I got hit with this stuff, too, back in the day when I was writing in the industry. Someone accused me of getting assignments by “strutting the hallways in fish-net stockings and fuck-me pumps.” I was once told by someone at Marvel that, when I started working there as an assistant editor, it was assumed by most that I had been, uh, “especially nice” to Tom DeFalco, who was then Marvel’s editor-in chief.

I started working at DC in 1983 – thirty years ago!!!!

I was hired by Marvel in 1990 – 23 years ago!!!!!

You’d think by now, 50 years since Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published, that the guano would have stopped falling from the sky onto our heads.

You’d think, right?

Wednesday, May 29, 2013. The Fox Business channel. Lou Dobbs Tonight.

Erick Erickson of www.Redstate.com appears along with FOX newsman Juan Williams to discuss a just-released Pew Study that found that mothers are now the primary breadwinners in 40% of American households. Lou Dobbs finds this “troubling.” Juan Williams thinks “something is going terribly wrong in American society.” And Erickson says:

“I’m so used to liberals telling conservatives that they’re anti-science. But liberals who defend this and say it is not a bad thing are very anti-science. When you look at biology – when you look at the natural world – the roles of a male and a female in society and in other animals, the male typically is the dominant role. The female, it’s not antithesis, or it’s not competing, it’s a complementary role. We as people in a smart society have lost the ability to have complementary relationships in nuclear families, and it is tearing us apart. Having mom as primary bread winner is bad for kids and bad for marriage.”

And the shit just keeps on coming.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Martha Thomases: Comics Girls Like?

thomases-art-130607-8146418It’s a modern meme that geeks are guys, and tech nerds are guys, and that first adapters are guys. Girls are more interested in gossip and romance and shoes.

All guys are Sheldon Cooper. All girls are Kim Kardashian.

Needless to say, none of this is true. Not only is it a ridiculous exaggeration (which it is), but the initial assumptions aren’t true.

It isn’t even a societal expectation any longer. According to a new study, girls “are getting earlier and deeper access to (digital) devices than boys.”

Girls have always read more books than boys, and, as a result, women have always read more books than men. This is true throughout all genres of fiction, including science fiction and mysteries.

The area in which it is not true is comic books.

We can all recite (in unison) the reasons girls don’t read comic books as frequently as boys. The environment doesn’t welcome girls. Too many comic book stores (still!) promote their wares with posters featuring super heroines with impossible anatomies and sculptures of super heroines with impossible anatomies and action figures of super heroines with impossible anatomies.

Thank goodness there is more to comics than comic books like that. Unfortunately, it can be difficult for a new customer to discover other kinds of books when stores don’t promote them.

However …

Girls with parents who give them tablets to play with in numbers greater than boys, and girls whose parents let them read books on tablets in greater numbers than boys will soon be girls who read comics on tablets in greater numbers than boys. They will provide a lucrative market for the kinds of comics girls like, and they won’t have to go into a comic book store to do so.

If these girls are like other readers of e-books, they will enjoy reading books online, and then want to own physical books as well. Will comic book stores be able to deal with this?

Successful bookstores don’t separate their wares into girls’ books and boys’ books. They rack them by subject matter and genre. They promote new titles and famous authors, true, but they also tend to “hand sell,” which means that employees will recommend books they’ve enjoyed to customers who ask. Publishers might use sex to sell (see Fifty Shades of Whatever), but they tend to use cover art that won’t embarrass the reader in public.

The comic book business would be smart to do the same. It might mean fewer women in refrigerators, and there are a lot of executives invested in that attitude. One would think that women with wallets would be a bigger draw.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Dennis O’Neil: Zen Denver

oneil-art-130606-4961389Yesterday, just outside Denver, I went through an area I must have gone through long ago. My friend and I were a couple of footloose ramblers with no money in an interstice of time between being in thrall to one authoritarian institution, a Catholic university, and another, the United States Navy. (You wanna salute? Go ahead – salute!) We were hitchhiking back from San Francisco because…well, hey, it was good enough for Jack Kerouac and besides, if you’re not going to do stupid and dangerous things when you’re young, when you gonna do them?

(Parenthetical digression: Hitchhiking was stupid and dangerous back in 1961 and it’s way, way more stupid and dangerous now, and if our luck had veered a bit we could have suffered dreadfully. So don’t do it.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, in Colorado getting busted by a state cop.

But, as it happened, the cop was from Missouri as were we, and so, instead of depositing us in the slammer, he flagged down a Greyhound bus and asked the driver to haul us east. The rest of the adventure went well.

As I looked outside the car window yesterday, nothing seemed familiar except those magnificent mountains in the distance. But why would it? A half century-plus had passed and Colorado, along with everything else, had changed and my memory probably wasn’t reliable when I was 22 and is absolutely not reliable now. (Reality may or may not not be malleable, but the truth? That’s generally open to interpretation.)

We were coming from the Denver Comic Con and a pleasant weekend. We were expecting the show to pull in…I don’t know… a couple-three thousand fans? But there was the energy of over 50,000 attendees percolating through the Colorado Convention Center. Plus a lot of comics guys and a whole lot of dealers. And a full complement of celebrities. This was only the second year the con was held. In its infancy and already a monster.

There was a lot to like, but what most pleased us, both at the con and the Hyatt across the street, where we stayed, was the pervasive atmosphere of courtesy. Everyone was extremely polite and extremely nice. Many of the fans who came for autographs thanked me warmly for, let’s face it, not doing much more than signing my name, a trick most third graders have mastered. They also thanked us for coming to Denver – not necessary, because Denver itself had already taken care of that.

In the airport, I was astonished and delighted to see, in large, bas relief lettering, this quotation from Zen master Thich Naht Hanh: I have arrived. I am home. My destination is in each step. Appropriate, but not what you’d expect in a thriving center of commercial journeying.

Then we went over, and past, the geography I’d traveled long ago and when we arrived at our house everything was in good order. Life can be okay. Just remember that the step you’re taking is your destination.

RECOMMENDED READING: Google something like Thich Naht Hanh quotes. Read a few, or a few dozen. Then you might want to try one of his many books.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Emily S. Whitten: It’s All About Me! …And You!

whitten-art-130528-1111783You guys! You guys! Hey you guuuuuyyyyysssss!!! …Otherwise known as “wonderful ComicMix readers.” Guess what? Go on now, guess! Naaaaah, you’ll never get it. So here it is:

I am one year old!!

Well. If by “I” I mean “this column,” and if by “one” I actually mean “one year and a few weeks.” But still: can you believe it? I’ve been writing this here li’l column for over a year now. That’s fifty-seven columns to date! Holy cannoli! (Aaaaand now I want a cannoli. Great.)

Anywho, I meant to post this column on my Actual ComicMix One Year Anniversary, but you know how it is: you’ve got interviews with awesome people like Phil LaMarr and Billy West and Nick Galifianakis to post, and film festivals and documentary screenings to write about…and those are way more exciting.

However! On this, my one-ish year anniversary, I want to send a big thank you out to anyone who reads my columns, shares them with friends, comments on them, or discusses them with me. I get a lot of joy out of writing these columns, whether they are the ones where I’m ruminating on the vagaries of pop cultularity; or the ones where I get to talk to extraordinarily talented people or review excellent art; or the ones where my mind runs whimsically through a field populated by ridiculous stuff like superheroes celebrating the holidays together and antisocial vigilantes answering dating advice questions. And although part of that joy comes from my passion for the subject and for writing in and of itself, a big part of it also comes from the experience of sharing my thoughts and knowing my writing is engaging others in thought or discussion, or providing a bit of enjoyment (I hope!).

I’m always interested in whether what I’m writing resonates with readers, and in writing on topics that others want to read about. Therefore, even though technically this column is about me and my one year of writing around here, what’s it’s really about is you, my readers! So that I can write more things you want to read, I’d really like to know more about you: like how you first found my column; what you’ve read; what you’ve most enjoyed reading; what you didn’t care for, and what you want to see more of. To help me with this, you can answer the quick survey below!

But before we do that, here is a brief reminder of some of the sorts of things I’ve written (And all fifty-seven columns can be found here):

So now that you’ve had a little reminder of what I write, on to the survey!

If you have any further feedback, please feel free to leave it in the comments!

Thank you for taking the time to help me write more things that you want to read; and until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

 

John Ostrander: Old Friends

ostrander-art-130526-6357745There are so many books yet to read – classics, mysteries, SF, fantasy, history, biography, comics and so on. All unread, so many of them of such high quality and I really want to read them. There are, however, only so many hours to the day and so many things that need doing in those hours, including writing this column.

Yet I often find myself returning to books that I’ve read before. For several years, right around Memorial Day, we’d go to a mass out by where my father was buried and that would be a key for me to start re-reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. There was the return to Middle-Earth and all the locations, all the characters – good and bad – that inhabited it. I’ve often returned as well to A. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and Victorian/Edwardian England.

I watch a lot of movies over and over again, but I think books are different. There’s a greater investiture of time in re-reading a book, usually, and it demands a greater investiture of me. Don’t get me wrong; I love movies but it is a more passive activity. You have to use your imagination more with reading; you have to be actively engaged. You’re translating two-dimensional words on a page (or screen these days) into images in your mind, into a sensory experience. You control the pace of the storytelling to a degree; you read fast or you linger. You go back or maybe skip forward, sometimes to the end if you’re cheating and want to know that first. They’re very different experiences.

When I read something for a second time, it’s a different experience than the first. The first time, I want the story. I want to know What Happens Next, how is it all going to turn out. It’s fresh, it’s new, and (if the story is good) exciting.

On subsequent reads, unless I’ve forgotten the plot (which happens more and more as I grow older), I know all of that. I may discover a bit I had not gotten before or the story yields a new pleasure that I had missed in my rush to find out What Happens Next.

So why keep going back when I can keep reading something new, get that first time feeling over and over again? I think its because the story stays with me and it was well told. I’ve never gone back and read a book I disliked or even one to which I was simply indifferent. I had to love that story. I go back, not expecting the same pleasure I had the first time, but simply because it’s a friend. I had a good experience with that friend and I enjoy being in its company. For me, the fact that it’s a repeated pleasure simply deepens that pleasure for me.

I try to balance out the two; reading something new along with reading something familiar. It keeps me sane – or what passes for sane these days. I think I’ll go find an old friend this summer and renew my acquaintanceship. It’s a good time to do it.

On a different note: since this is Memorial Day Weekend, we should remember the reason why the holiday exists. It’s not simply the start of summer, it’s about remembering those who served their country, especially those who died. Our respect and our thanks.

And if you’re traveling, safe journey.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Press Start – Or Just Turn It Off!

So Microsoft debuted the XBOX One this week and the video game fanboys dropped trou and prayed to Lord Gates. With it, the next generation of consoles are all spec’ed out, and being built by poor children of other countries. Err, I mean by robots. Yes. Souless, never-hungry robots. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, or just the fact that I’m getting older and crankier by the day (something I may attribute to being in proximity of several fine folks on this very site), but I’m finding it harder and harder to care.

My generation was gleefully known as the ‘Nintendo Generation. When the original NES debuted, I was at the perfect age. With careful prodding, pleading, and sad-face-making, my parents dropped the $100 (a veritable fortune at the time for a lowly birthday / Chanukah gift) for the system. Elation, kiddos. Elation. Flash forward sometime later, and I was able to finagle the Super Nintendo when it debuted. I remember with near photographic memory the reflection of my beardless cherubic face in the glossy UV coating on the box… declaring all the amazing new games debuting with the console –none of which were included, save for Super Mario World.

This cycle continued all throughout high school: the SNES begat the Sega Saturn (don’t judge me). The Saturn begat the Dreamcast (continue to hold that tongue). The Dreamcast gave way to the original XBOX. And I remember it so well; plunking down my shiny new credit card for the $650 charge (the system, a game, and the extra controller, don’t-cha-know), and then holing up at a friend’s apartment for what would end up being one of very few all-night gaming sessions. See, even in my early twenties I was a budding old man. But I digress.

The newest line of video game consoles continue the trend to move away from entertainment add-on devices to full on hubs of all things do-and-watchable. Literal, visceral computers minus a keyboard and mouse. They’re WiFi-enabled, app-store-shoppable, and motion-sensitive. The XBOX One will apparently be ‘on’ all the time, and be able to take voice commands at will. XBOX, turn on. Bring up Netflix. Order me a pizza. Raise me my child. They’ve even showed a possible add-on that will project environmental graphics onto the walls and surfaces of your media room. I’ve seen the future folks… and I can’t wait to tell my son about how in my day our graphics were crappy and damn-it we liked it that way.

So why all the hatespew, you ask? All allusions to getting older aside, it’s frankly a matter of taste. The commitment of time a child (or teen, or adult for that matter) can sink into a video game is mind-numbing. Pun intended. Games today simply try too hard to be immersive. One simply doesn’t turn on the game, play a level or two, and call it a night. Suffice to say, that is what Angry Birds was designed to do. With the next generation of systems on their way, this is the trend that will continue. The phone will be my Nintendo. The XBOX will demand I plotz for 90 minutes if I intend to game.

The late Roger Ebert was adamant that even the best games were hardly art, I’ve never subscribed to that point of view. While Halo won’t sit on my shelf next to Inglorious Basterds, it certainly provided more smiles and provoked more thoughts than Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. But therein lies the blessing and the curse of modern gaming. The more video games mimic real life / real cinema / long-format stories, the more time and energy will be required of the player. Who here would watch The Godfather trilogy in 20-minute chunks?

And while yes, this doesn’t include Madden, fighting games, or arcade games… even there Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are subtly demanding more and more of us as players – both in our time, and from our bank account). Madden may have that quick game, but the appeal (for those not online) is in the franchise mode-built for hours-long tweaking, prodding, and finessing. Fighting games demand the completest beat the game with every fighter to unlock a plethora of add-ons. And even the arcade games of my youth, repackaged and resold to me through countless app stores, stack themselves in such a manner that pleads I play it… remember how much I loved it… beat it… and buy the next one.

As it stands today I play only two games on my XBOX. Batman: Arkham City and WWE ‘13. Both provide me enough fun in what brief times I pull myself away from all my grown-up responsibilities. I assume in a year’s time, my stone facade will crack under the pressure of the pretty new graphics and promises of full-on entertainment media-center domination. But until that time, I’ll happily clutch my XBOX 360 like the old fart I’m becoming… and relish my memories of the simpler times. When up-up down-down left-right left-right B-A Start meant I could beat Contra, and head outside. When a round-robin tourney of Virtual On or Mario Kart meant bragging rights for the week to come. When the game manual delivered all the story I’d need in three paragraphs or less.

Those, my friends, were the days.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

Michael Davis: Dream It! Do It!

davis-art-130521-1978971White Winter Black Night is the title of one of the novels I’m writing. Simon & Schuster will publish the book in 2014.

Published by Simon & Schuster… how damn cool is that? Simon & Schuster is one of the most respected and largest publishers in the world. To get a book published by Simon & Schuster is a big deal for a writer, any writer.

I’m a writer.

Well, now I’m a writer.

Growing up there was nothing and I mean nothing I loved more than reading. I read everything and when I say everything I mean everything. It started with comics and once I realized how wonderful reading was it started me on an odyssey that still exists today. At present I’m listening to two audio books in two different cars. I’m reading two hard cover books and have no idea how many books I’m reading on my iPad.

Becoming a writer was a fantasy I had every so often. How cool would it be to become a writer? Making a living making shit up?

How cool? So cool ice would be considered hot next to that coolness.

OK, I have made a living making stuff up. Comics, television shows, reading programs blah, blah, blah and blah. But writing a book is the pinnacle of any writer’s career. Especially for someone that never thought he would be a writer.

I mentioned that the novel I’m writing for Simon & Schuster is one of the novel’s I’m writing. I actually have three more in the pipeline for two other publishers. I’m not writing about this to impress you (although it will) I’m writing about it as example of what you can do with a lot of desire a little luck and above all a good idea.

Not my good idea, the good idea of a young woman named Danielle Hobbs. Danielle is a multitalented artist. She’s a world-class choreographer, dancer, actress and singer. Like I said, artist. She reached out to me to pitch me a project. I was just not interested.

Her artist resume was impressive as shit, she had choreographed for Beyonce, Shakira, Disney and a slew of other major playa’s. Her singing and acting resume was just as impressive but I could have given a fish.

If I had a dollar for every major artist from other media be they singers, actors, hip hop artists or magicians (yes magicians) who thought just because they had a name and a following they could be a success in comics or animation I’d be so rich last weeks Powerball prize would be my pocket change. When I say major artists I mean major artists. You would recognize every single person I’d list.

I would list them but more than a few are hip-hop artists and I don’t want to be shot so you will have to do without the names.

Danielle after hounding me for a while finally got me into a meeting. A meeting I was going to be done with in 10 minutes. I figured that’s how long I’d wait into her pitch before I told her (nicely) that the idea had:

  1. Been Done
  2. Sucked.
  3. Been done and sucked when it was done.

I never got to say any of the above.

Her idea was great.

The audience she wants to reach with it is underserved and this could really be something. Danielle has a really good chance of seeing her idea realized. I have to be protective of my time so I only feel a bit like a dick because I did not give Danielle a chance to meet with me earlier.

There are a lot of artists dreaming about careers in the comics and related media that read ComicMix. Remember your dream is just as valid as anyone’s.

Or as Danielle’s creation Dani girl would say, “Dream it! Do it!”

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Mindy Newell (what?)

 

John Ostrander: Improving On The Legends

39583-5830384There’s a constant desire these days, it appears, to try to improve on existing works. That’s not a bad idea except when it is a bad idea. A good character, a good concept, that’s been around for a while needs to have the barnacles taken off every so often to make it fresh and work better. Movies adapted from comics have to take a good look at the source material and then tweak and change it to make it work for the big/small screen.

For me, the problem comes when the concept is changed willy-nilly until you can no longer recognize it. When J.J. Abrams re-booted the Star Trek franchise a few years back, I was dubious but I genuinely enjoyed the result (as of this writing, I haven’t seen the sequel). I can understand many hardcore Trek fans not sharing my enthusiasm. For them, Abrams wandered too far from the zeitgeist of Star Trek. I think it was nephew Bill who said to me, “I love Star Wars. But if I wanted to watch Star Wars, I’d watch Star Wars. This is Star Trek.” (He’ll get his opportunity to see an Abrams Star Wars film in the future, if he’s so inclined.)

We see it all the time in comics. Characters are re-imagined on a constant basis. The only constant is change, it would seem. Change for the sake of change, however, is not always a good plan.

I’ve been as guilty of it as the next writer. Years ago, Marvel approached me with coming up with a new pitch for The Punisher. The fans had gotten burned out with the multitude of Punisher titles and the concept was moribund.

I’ll be honest; I wasn’t much of a Punisher fan. I felt he was one-dimensional and Frank Castle had wiped out enough Mafiosi over the years to populate a small city. I told them I’d try to come up with something and what I came up with was – Castle joins a Mafia family. I thought they’d never go for it, but they did.

Different? You bet. Wrong? Yup. Did the readers buy it? Nope. It wasn’t The Punisher. I had wandered off the essential concept.

I wasn’t on the book all that long (18 issues) and, late in the run, the concept of Castle switching sides was dropped and we played a different game – Castle, as a result of an explosion, had lost his memory. He didn’t know he was the Punisher, he couldn’t remember his family being killed, but he still had the same skills, the same instincts. Frank Castle was still The Punisher although he didn’t know it. This worked better but the series was cancelled before we could get too far; in fact, we wound it up in Heroes For Hire that I was scripting at the time. Perhaps if we had gone with the amnesia angle from the start, it might have worked better.

A revamp or a remake works if you can define what makes a given character to be that character. You want to get down to the basics, not ignore them. For example, we’ve seen in recent years three different versions of Sherlock Holmes, two set in modern times. They all work more or less because they all keep key elements of the concept.

Sometimes a revamp can be quite radical. Late in my run on GrimJack, I booted the character down his own timeline and into a new body, a new persona and a whole new supporting cast. His soul was the same but it gave me, and the reader, a chance to look at the character with fresh eyes. To my mind, it stayed true to the concept of the character and the location.

My rule of thumb: if you look at a character after a revamp and you could simply give the character another name, then you’ve wandered off the concept. So long as you remain true to the basic ideas that makes a given character unique until him/herself, then it doesn’t matter how radical their evolution. First, they have to be true to themselves.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

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