Category: Columns

Martha Thomases: Keeping Merida Merida

THomases Art 130517This has been a week of false starts for me. I read about something, get indignant, start to work up a righteous rage, and then find out that other people, just as angry, have made things better. It’s frustrating, but in a good way.

To use the example most dear to my heart, the folks who do the licensing at Disney wanted to add Merida, the main character in the Oscar-winning Brave to the line of incredibly profitable princesses in their stable. She would join Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, and the like, starring in stories, direct-to-video movies, and on theme park merchandise.

Which is all well and good in its way. Little girls sometimes like to pretend to be princesses, and Merida is a better role model than most. She stayed her own person, dealt with her own relationships, and took her own chances, without any particular obsession with her looks, her femininity, or whether or not men liked her.

It was a story that resonated with millions of people of all ages and genders. It won the Academy Award. There was no reason to mess with something that worked so well.

Except, you know, she wasn’t attractive enough. Not to the people in charge. They made her waist smaller, smoothed out her hair, and changed her outfit to show more skin. They made her sexier, at least as they defined the term.

The outrage was swift and sure. A petition went up on www.Change.org almost immediately. I signed the petition on Sunday, and by Monday, there was word that Disney was going to cave to the pressure.

I like Snow White and Belle and Ariel et. al, and I don’t want them to be interchangeable. I like my characters to be unique, as human as the creative people can make them. I loved Merida’s story because she grappled with the tensions girls have with their mothers in a way that was funny and insightful.

She didn’t need to be conventionally sexy. She needed to be herself.

In a related story, Mike Jeffries, the genius in charge of Abercrombie and Fitch, really stepped in it. According to the story in the link, Jeffries invited larger people to shop elsewhere. He said, “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.’”

Jeffries got to be his age and status without realizing that the kids who are really cool don’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks about them or what they wear. More to the point, cool kids (and parents of kids not yet in the running to be cool or uncool) want to be considered on their whole selves, not just their size. The response was swift and sure. I doubt anyone with a brain (and the disposable income that goes with having a brain) is going to be shopping at A & F anytime soon.

It’s interesting that the outrage is over discrimination, sure, but also bullying. Statements like Jeffries divide the world and stack the deck against the lower castes. And it does so in a way that commercializes sexuality, making it another commodity for sale. Just like Disney did with Merida. We send far too many messages to our children that their only value is in their sexual attractiveness. It might sell product, but it’s not healthy, especially for kids under ten.

The people, united, will never be defeated. We’re on a roll here, folks. Let’s see what we can do about this particular travesty.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

 

Dennis O’Neil: Iron Man Grows Up

oneil-art-130516-2774612I think I know what I liked about Tony Stark when I first encountered him back in Cape Girardeau. I was a cheap-seats journalist who was just rediscovering comic books after forgetting about them for more than a decade, spinning the rack at the drug store, scanning the displays in the bus terminal, killing time in a strange town by reading these relics of my childhood. And liking them.

I particularly enjoyed some of the mags that bore the Marvel Comics logo, and among these, staple-to-staple with Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Avengers – the beginnings of Marvel pantheon – was Tales of Suspense, a title that delivered two stories, two heroes. These were Captain America, a super-patriot I dimly remember enjoying when I was six or seven, and a new guy, Iron Man. His other name was Tony Stark.

There was a lot not to like about ol’ shellhead, as he was sometimes called. Let me count the ways… He was an arms dealer and, to a peacenik like I was, arms dealers belonged somewhere deep in hell. He was a capitalist. (Okay, nowhere near as bad as being an arms dealer, but I did not count the Rockefellers among my role models.) He was a technologist and, like a lot of hippie-types, I did not trust technology. (There is evidence that technology has been exacting revenge ever since. Note to technology: I was wrong, okay?) And finally: it was suggested, though maybe not much shown, that our Tony was both a conspicuous consumer and a womanizer. Two more nixes.

A lot not to like.

But he got his powers from a device he invented to deal with a heart damaged by shrapnel. For some reason, that appealed to me. I’m pretty sure that I’d never read the story of the centaur Chiron – Catholic schools in the 50s were not big on “pagan” mythology – and so I didn’t know the tale of the half-man/half-beast who was wounded by a venom-tipped arrow and could never be healed. Chiron was a great teacher but what qualifies him as a possible predecessor of Iron Man is that he later gave up his life to redeem Prometheus and that gives him hero cred. (The other side of the story is that Chiron, being immortal, was doomed to countless eons of agony because of that damned wound and he could have seen the Prometheus situation as a quickhop off the struggle bus. But he never really existed, so mind.) Anyway: even with twisting and tugging of the myth, it’s hard to make a case for a direct connection between Tony and Chiron, and yet Chiron was the closest analogy to Iron Man I could find. Why bother? Because maybe by rummaging around in antiquity, I’ll be able to figure out why I responded favorably to an tin-plated lounge lizard.

Later, Tony redeemed himself and became a good guy I could like without those nagging reservations. But those first meetings…Well, I liked womanizing assassin James Bond, too. Still do.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Mindy Newell: Live Fast… Die Never!

Newell Art 130513Plenty of individual panels have been freeze-framed in my head all afternoon, but none of them have led to any kind of sequential storytelling. This is the worst part of being a writer with a weekly column – watching the hands on the clock inexorably winding down to zero hour, the time by which I need to get the thing e-mailed to Mike and Glenn.

You never know where ideas come from. My column Baby’s First Fooprints came about from a little joke I made at Alix’s sonogram; today I was listening to the soundtrack of Angel and I realized that, while I’ve talked a lot about the intrepid Slayer, I’ve hardly ever mentioned it’s a spin-off; in fact, few people ever talk about it, which in its own way was just as riveting as its parent show. Angel continued the story of Buffy Summer’s vampire lover, played by David Boreanaze, who left Sunnydale at the end of season 3 of Buffy because he realized that he and the Slayer had no future. Her path was one of growth and exploration, and his was of acknowledging the past and seeking redemption for its sins.

It was a dark, gritty, film-noir type of show, with its main character struggling for atonement from his evil past. The first episode opened in a bar, and the first time we see Angel he is apparently drunk, which, not too subtly, set the tone of the series – just as the recovering alcoholic is always just one drink away from losing his or her life to the bottle, Angel will forever be just “one drink away” from losing his soul and become Angelus again. Even the supporting characters are struggling for atonement from their past sins – Doyle is a half-demon carrying a secret burden; Wesley is the failed Watcher (and, we learn later, the son of an emotionally abusing father) who must prove to himself that he has something to offer to the world; and Cordelia must expiate the sins of her selfish and cruel high school persona and become a mature and caring woman.

With the introduction of the law firm Wolfram & Hart and the attorneys Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan, the induction of the innocent Winifred “Fred” Burkel and the street-smart Charles Gunn as part of the “We Help The Helpless” team, Angel’s themes became more and more about trust and deceit, hate and love, innocence and guilt, and the duplicity of good and evil. Finally, the show, I think, became the story of the necessity of sacrifice for the greater good, with the ultimate sacrifice being Angel’s renunciation of his promised return to humanity (the Shanshu Prophecy) in the penultimate episode.

A lot of people I know who were major fans of Buffy didn’t like Angel, and rarely watched it, if ever. They said it was too dark for them, too morbid. But I think the shows were bookends – if Buffy was about the empowerment of the dumb blonde in the dark alley attacked by a monster, then Angel was about the monster who wanted to stop living in that dark alley and let the girl escape. If Buffy was about telling women to step out of the shadows and embrace themselves, then Angel was about telling us, all of us, men and women, to use the shadows in our lives to makes us stronger.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Michael Davis: Be Our Guest…

susan_lucci_2009_02_14I’ve never wanted anything more than I wanted to get into the High School Of Art and Design. I was obsessed from the time I found out there existed in the world an art high school and I found that out in the seventh grade.

Yes, I’ve wanted other things in my life but A&D (which I’m sure you are sick of me writing about) was so important to me for so long when it happened it was literally a dream come true. I know, I know, I keep reminiscing about my high school so much so I feel like mentioning A&D again would be like mentioning Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter’s wedding.

OK. I get it, it won’t happen again.

Around 20 years ago (when I was five) I began to want something else pretty badly. That “other thing” was my childhood dream but as an adult I began another obsession that became a dream and now that dream has come true.

I’ve been invited to attend the San Diego Comic Con as a special guest.

For over 25 years I’ve been known as the Susan Lucci of SDCC. If you don’t know who Susan Lucci is or why that is funny, your pop culture knowledge sucks.

On that note, SDCC is the biggest and most important pop culture event in the world. Being invited to be a guest is a huge honor. That invitation means that you have accomplished something of note in your field and are being recognized for such. I’ve imagined being invited as a special guest at SDCC a zillion times and what I would do when/if it happened.

First thing I’d do is tell everyone!

You may think after reading my rants here on ComicMix telling everyone is what I would do whenever I have something to crow about.

Nope.

Regardless of my seemingly brash and ostentatious writings, media interviews and pick up lines I rarely tell anyone when I’ve been fortunate enough to have a honor bestowed on me. Not sure if I mentioned it here or in my weekly rants on my website, but among quite a few honors, awards, proclamations and arrest warrants I’ve received is an auditorium in a East Orange New Jersey grade school named after me. There was a huge naming ceremony with a marching band (I’m not kidding), the Mayor, other East Orange movers and shakers and media.

I only invited to my naming ceremony my wife. She was my only guest and that was fine with me. My mother to this day won’t let me forget that she was not invited. She’s still pissed and not because she missed being present as a wonderful honor was conferred on her child; nope, she’s pissed because she missed the opportunity to invite her friends to see a wonderful honor being conferred on her child thus scoring major points in the “my child is so much better than your child so suck it” game mother’s play.

I’ve wanted to be a guest at SDCC since the first time I attended 26 years ago (when I was one year old, Jean) subsequently it has been on my mind, my hopes and dreams.

Only once have I wanted something this bad and that was that thing that must not be named.

As faith would have it, the honor I’ve sort in life more (almost) than any other I must turn down. Yes, you read that right. With regards to my San Diego Comic Con International invitation I must turn it down.

I did turn it down.

I refused.

I cannot in good conscious accept their invitation knowing that to do so would doom my lover and first-born child to a horrible death from falling off a cliff.  Yes, some sick bastard knowing of my decades long desire to attend SDCC as a guest has given me a choice, save my lover and first-born child or be a guest at SDCC.

Oh wait! I’ve just learned the name of the woman hanging with her child from the cliff.  Her name is Billie Jean. Billie Jean is not my lover, she’s just a girl who claims that I am the one but the kid is not my son.

Now I’m faced with an entirely new dilemma!

I’m in Los Angeles. Should I fly to San Diego or take the train?

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

 

Mindy Newells’s Wish List

22570-6753211How many books and DVDs do you have on your Amazon wish list? How often do you remember to look at it? I always forget to check it, but I took a look at it today, and there are 100 items.

No, I am not soliciting here. My birthday isn’t for another six months, Chanukah and Christmas are too far off to think about, and I’m not your mother, so forget about Mother’s Day, which is this Sunday, btw – although there is Alix, whom I always alert to her mom’s new column. Big Hint, Alix!

I do have to delete some of the books and DVDs; I’ve ordered them without looking at my wish list because, well, I forget to check the damn thing, but there’s still a lot there. The oldest item was added on June 11, 2006; it’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Complete Third Season (DVD, not Blu-Ray. I don’t have a Blu-Ray player.) I have no idea why I’ve never ordered this, why it’s languished at the bottom – maybe because I watch BBC America’s repeats of TNG on Saturday late afternoons (which lead in to Doctor Who) – since that season of TNG, as Bob Greenberger so excellently reviewed on ComicMix, was the season where the show really found its legs, airing such classics as Sarak (a Vulcan disease comparable to Alzheimer’s is destroying Sarak’s mind), Yesterday’s Enterprise (in an alternate timeline, the Federation is losing a war with the Klingons and Tasha Yar is still alive), Sins of the Father (Worf accepts disgrace and discommendation to prevent a Klingon civil war – the start of an outstanding seasons-long exploration of Klingon culture that carried over to Deep Space Nine – and save the Empire), and of course the season finale, Best of Both Worlds: Part I (“Mr. Worf….fire!”) Also of note, at least to me, are Who Watches the Watchers, (a pre-warp, pre-industrial civilization discovers they are being watched by Federation anthropologists), The Enemy (Geordi and a Romulan are marooned on a harsh planet and must work together to survive), The Offspring (Data creates an android daughter), and Deja Q (Q becomes mortal and is still a pain in the ass).

Apparently I was busy browsing on June 11, 2006. I also added Fagin the Jew by Will Eisner. I know I picked this one because of my dual love for Eisner and for Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. According to Amazon’s description, Eisner first envisioned the book as an introduction to a graphic adaption of Twist, but “as he learned more about the history of Dickens-era Jewish life in London, Eisner uncovered intriguing material that led him to create this new work. In the course of his research, Eisner came to believe that Dickens had not intended to defame Jews in his famous depiction. By referring to Fagin as “the Jew” throughout the book, however, he had perpetuated the common prejudice; his fictional creation imbedded itself in the public’s imagination as the classic profile of a Jew. In his award-winning style, Eisner recasts the notorious villain as a complex and troubled antihero and gives him the opportunity to tell his tale in his own words.”

On that same day I also added Drums Along the Mohawk, starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert (and directed by one of my all-time favorite directors, John Ford), When Worlds Collide, based on the book by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, which I read years ago in my Introduction To Science Fiction class at Quinnipiac back when it was just a college and not a university – and talking about it now makes me want to reread it, so I’m going to add the book to my wish list, and Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen, a 2005 Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, because of my passion for all things Tudor ( and yes, I already have The Tudors boxed set).

Moving forward, I kept up with my Tudor passion in 2011, adding a shitload of novels and non-fiction about that dynasty, including The King’s Pleasure, a novel about Katherine of Aragon (Henry’s first wife, she whom he dumped for Anne Boleyn) by the late and great British author Norah Lofts, and two histories by another Brit, famed historian and author Allison Weir: The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn and Henry VII: The King and His Court. I also listed Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Armgrin, Prairie Tales: A Memoir by Melissa Gilbert, and The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House by Melissa Sue Anderson just because I always loved Little House on the Prairie. C’mon, who didn’t?

In November 2011 I added William Shatner’s Up Till Now: The Autobiography. Bill, I love ya!

2012 additions include Among Others, by Jo Walton. The Hugo and Nebula Award winner for that year is a brilliant coming-of-age story that mixes young adult literature, magic, and science fiction into a read for all ages. I also found Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi (which was reviewed by ComicMix’s John Ostrander), a spin on the classic Star Trek’s law that new ensigns, i.e., red shirts, always get killed on away missions.

Being a fan of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God, I also added Doc, Russell’s take on Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the events that occurred at the O.K. Corral. And I really must move up to the top of the list Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, the story of four women who are among the 900 Jews holding out against the superior Roman army at the siege of Masada, the mountaintop fortress in the Judean desert.

Just a few months ago I added Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which the New York Times Sunday Book Review just, well, reviewed, and which has garnered much press and praise. It’s the timey-whiney story of Ursula Todd, who is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again…each time taking making choices that affect not only Ursula, but her family, friends, and even the world. It’s a story that especially relevant to me these days.

It’s been a tough time for me since last Christmas, when my father first became ill, and watching my mother slowly slipping into elderly dementia. My life has become a cacophony personal and professional turmoil, a symphony of wishes and “if onlies”; I lie in bed at night unable to sleep, with all the different “roads less travelled” in my life teasing me with alternate possibilities, alternate lives. I am adrift at sea, questioning my choices and wondering, no, all too often, fearing the future.

If wishes were horses, the beggars would ride.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Dennis O’Neil: Old Bats Never Die

oneil-art-130502-9539867ZAP! BAM! POW!

I’ve written a lot about comics these – holy septuagenarian! – past 47 or so years, but I’ve never before used the faux sound effects lead that appears above. So. okay, why now?

I’ve always assumed and will continue to assume until the universe corrects me, that the aforementioned lead, perpetrated by a legion of journalists ever since comics have come to the attention of the multitudes, was inspired by the Batman television show that was aired on ABC from 1966 to 1968. Clever, y’know. Catchy. The video folk, in turn, got the faux onomatopoeia from old comic books; the stunt was, they superimposed these sound effects, lettered in garish display fonts, over fight scenes. The overarching agenda was to spoof Batman comics, particularly the Batman comics of the previous decade, by juggling contexts and emphasizing the goofy.

Batman as self-satirizing comedian? Okay by me.

But this form of comedy was much of a particular time and place, a brief, shimmering few years when the nation was in an experimental and iconoclastic mood. The mood changed – don’t they always, darn ‘em! – and after three seasons, Batman-the-television-star left the airwaves, and Batman-the-comedian joined the ranks of the unresurrected.

I’ll testify that comedian Batman deserves a place in the Batman pantheon and I’m sure that the show has its partisans, maybe fierce partisans. But is the world clamoring for a return of this odd form of humor? As I suggested a paragraph ago, it was unique to time/place Or so I’ve been believing.

People at DC Comics apparently believe I’m wrong. Our friends at the Comic Book Resources website inform us that “DC Comics will expand its digital-first comics line this summer with the debut of Batman 66, a series based on the classic television series.”

A number of ways this could go. Try to recreate the spoofy sensibility of the original. Do the comic as a period piece. Play Batman as a comedian using contemporary humor. Structure the stories as the old tv episodes were structured, with a cliff hanger half way through the story. Or do self-contained stories, the kind that were a staple of the old comics. Or do open-ended serials. Preserve the cast of the original. Recast with Batman’s current supporting characters. Mix and match all the preceding or – astonish and delight me with something I haven’t thought of.

I can’t help wondering how this project originated. From whence came the idea – editorial department or marketing department? Or some department in California? Not that it makes a lot of difference; there’s no mandated origin site for good stuff. But if there’s a reason to be skeptical, it might be that folk who can get projects going remember the joy that got from some entertainment when they were children and believe that the entertainment was supplying the job and not their own curiosity and innocence and, further, that they can recreate what they liked and, further still, that today’s audience will respond to the same kind of entertainment.

Let’s open our minds and see what happens.

Note: Thanks to Darren Vincenzo for alerting me to this column’s subject.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Oh My God, I Like Drawing Again!

drawinghands-2990102A funny thing about Unshaven Comics: at the conventions I have always felt out of place. Kyle over the years has become a one man sales force. Matt? A commission-churning machine. Me? I used to laugh as say “I’m in marketing.” Mainly because like everyone in marketing… it meant “doing everything that isn’t actually selling.” I networked with other professionals. I people-watched. I tallied our money, made change, and added polite conversation when the paying customers wanted to chat (and Kyle, in complete shock to them, only wanted their money…The cur!). And then, as is his way… Matt threw down a gauntlet.

“Dude. Just draw something.”

On paper? Without my computer? And Wacom? And the internet to guide me? And no digital references? What kind of hell was he inviting me to!? And, as a joke, I drew Domo-Kun. Domo, a Japanese TV mascot and popular-with-the-hipsters-and-kawaii-crowd character. Everyone at the table giggled and laughed. They egged me on to do more. I however looked at the scribbling and felt ashamed. I would not do another Domo for at least a year.

For those unfamiliar with my life story (because I ain’t good enough fer’ a Wikipedia entry like everyone else on this site…yet.), I do actually know how to draw undigitally. I majored in print making. I took years of life drawing. But the allure of the bells and whistles of Adobe’s Creative Suite was a siren’s song I could not fight. Shortly after receiving my BFA, I’d all but forgotten by pencils and pens. And by the time Unshaven Comics had formed… my tool box was built not of plastic, but of pixels. And with years of rust forming over my natural line—smoothed over by implausibly perfect vector lines and filters—my return to ‘original art’ was much like my foray into sequential art: done with my kicking and screaming all the way.

Until a few weeks ago.

While attending our first Gem City Comic Con in Columbus, I got an itch to produce Domos again. Perhaps it was because the show offered me little to do “marketing wise.” Perhaps it was a way to pass the time a bit. Perhaps it was kismet. I doubt it, but hey, it could be. This time, I really took my time. I slowed down, and paid attention to the details. I forced myself to remember those skills I’d long ditched for an Intuos. And then something really odd happened. Someone walked up and wanted to purchase one. And then another. And another. Call it a boost of confidence on the smallest scale, but it did wonders for me. With C2E2 going on as you read this… I figured I’d “come out of the closet” as a full blown commission-taking Domo-Maker. I’d offer to draw more… but the fans on our Facebook told me no.

To that point: I started posting up my Domos on our Facebook. Since doing it? We’ve gained 117 fans at the moment of me writing this. Far be it from me to doubt when the Internet tells me to do something. Of course by that account my next 4 articles will be about Star Trek, Pro Wrestling, and 2 slamming DC Comics. But I digress.

This week, I put down my digital pen, and vowed to fill up my “example book” of trading cards, as well as work on actual commissions asked of me prior to the show. In doing so, I’ve been prescient of a change within me. During time at the ole’ day-job, I’ve found myself scribbling in the margins. A fad I’d long dropped in Junior High School. As I drove about town on errands, I found myself yearning to get back to the board to draw, ink, and color. An e-mail declaring a “half price sale” at the local art supply shop was not immediately spammed and trashed. Yes indeed my friends. A latent love of mine has bubbled to the forefront of my life again.

My name is Marc Alan Fishman, and I can draw again.

SUNDAY: John Ostrander

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

Mike Gold: The Big Booth 1105 Crossover

imagesIt was fated to happen. ComicMix is participating in our very first crossover.

This coming weekend – as in Friday, Saturday and Sunday – ComicMix will once again be appearing at the C2E2 comics and pop culture convention at Chicago’s McCormick Place, on the scenic downtown shore Lake Michigan near the Adler Planetarium, the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Natural History Museum, and that formerly beautiful football (and, next March, hockey) stadium Soldier (sic) Field – before that hideous flying saucer landed on top of it.

More prestigious still, we ComicMixers will be teaming up with our good buddies at Unshaven Comics. This means the “good” Marc Alan Fishman will be appearing at the same booth as the “evil” Marc Alan Fishman. And if they inadvertently touch… well, let’s just say people will stop bitching about Mrs. O’Leary’s improperly defamed cow.

Representing ComicMix: Glenn Hauman, Adriane Nash, either the good or the evil Marc Alan Fishman (I can never tell which one is which) and yours fairly truly. We will be making two – count ‘em two ­– major announcements at the show, each of which will be promptly detailed in this slice of the etherverse. I won’t tip our collective hand, but I will say this: the second of these announcements will reveal what “CMPS” stands for. I mean this in the acronymical sense, and not in any ethical sense. Certainly not.

We’ll be at booth 1105 in case you didn’t read the headline, and you should because the editor-in-chief spends a lot of time obsessing over them. We eagerly await the opportunity to meet you. Unless you’re rude or insulting; then, we eagerly await the opportunity to let out our pent-up convention aggression. In my case, well, I’ve been going to comic book conventions for 45 years now. But I also used to be among the crowd that founded and ran the amazingly perfect Chicago Comicon, so I know this won’t be an issue.

Truth be told, I like Chicago conventions that are actually held within the city limits. There’s a bunch of reasons for this: the fans are amazingly friendly, the food is unbelievable, the city is everything great that New York City says it is but isn’t and can never be, and – most important – the Fire Marshal, for some odd reason, actually enforces the fire laws at massive conglomerations of humans and paper goods.

Holy Odin’s Eyehole, I’m gotta get it from insecure New Yorkers, aren’t I? Well, as you read this I’m already in Chicago (meetings, meetings, meetings; all at amazing restaurants) so I can only respond in person on the convention floor. Please re-read the sentence above about rude or insulting people and my 45 years of pent-up convention aggression.

We’re gonna have us a swell time. And to take tongue out of cheek for a rare moment, I hope you-all can share those swell times with us.

I hope to see you this weekend.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

 

Mindy Newell: To Tell The Truth

steven-colbert-with-elements-of-style-fourth-edition-william-strunk-jr-author-e-b-white-author-roger-angell-foreword-5809441Embellishment.

Is it a dirty word, especially when it comes to writing? Well, it depends. Simply put, there must be no embellishment when writing for a professional journal. The truth must be told.

There is a big difference between writing for a professional journal and writing fiction, or even this column. Writing for a professional journal must follow a proscribed style set by peer-reviewed organizations whose rules on grammatical usage, word choice, elimination of bias in language, the proper citation of quotes and references and the inclusion of charts and tables have become the authoritative source for all intellectual writing. This means that for me, as an RN, BSN, CNOR, I must adhere to the styles and standards set by the Publication Manual Of The American Psychologoical Assocociation (APA), which is “consulted not only by psychologists but also by students and researchers in education, social work, nursing, business, and many other behavioral and social sciences” (VanderBros, 2010) if I submit a paper or article to the Journal of the Association of Operating Room Nurses (AORN) for publication.

Does this mean that when I write fiction, or this column, I am allowed to freely embellish my stories? Does it mean that I am allowed to not to tell the truth?

Fiction writers do not really have one easily referenced professional publication in which the governance of grammar and punctuation are laid out in indisputable terms, in which the standards of style are set – though this does not mean I can sit down in front of my computer screen and write just one continuous sentence that goes on and on for pages and pages – well, perhaps I could if I was James Joyce. But all writers do need to start somewhere, and for anyone who has ever taken a creative writing course, or even tried to stay awake in their English high school class, the classic Elements Of Style, first written in 1918 by Professor William Strunk, Jr., is a good place to start. Strunk said something in that first edition that, 95 years later, has withstood the test of time and which, I believe, every writer, aspiring or published must integrate into his or her understanding of the art of writing:

“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.”

Elements was first revised in 1957 by New Yorker writer E. B. White (the author of the children’s classic Charlotte’s Web), and by 1979s third edition, listed 11 rules for grammar, 11 principles of writing, 11 standards for form, and 21 recommendations for style. (A search on Amazon revealed that Chris Hong updated The Elements Of Style for Kindle readers in 2011.) But there’s a lot more advice out there. A little while ago I entered “standards for fiction writing” on Google, and got 15,400,000 hits in 0.23 seconds.

On my bookshelf I have not only Elements of Style, but also Zen in the Art of Writing – Essays on Creativity by Ray Bradbury, Write for Yourself – The Book About The Seminar and Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, both by Lawrence Block, Write in Style – Using Your Word Processor and Other Techniques to Improve Your Writing by Bobbie Christmas, How I Write – Secrets of a Bestselling Author by Janet Evanovich with Ina Yalof, Inventing the Truth – the Art and Craft of Memoir edited by William Zinsser and which includes essays by such notables as Russell Baker, Annie Dillard, Toni Morrison, and Frank McCourt, Is Life Like This? – A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months by John Dufresne, The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel by Robert J. Ray, Writing Fiction from the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, and Writers on Comics Scriptwriting which includes interviews with such illustrious authors as Peter David, Kurt Busiek, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Jeph Loeb and Grant Morrison.

I also have Eisner/Miller – Interview Conducted by Charles Brownstein, which is wonderful not only for its historical perspective, but for a peep into two great creative minds, and “Casablanca – Script and Legend” by Howard Koch,” which is incredibly instructive in detailing how magic sometimes happens despite ornery studio heads, battling co-writers, and an inability to decide how the story ends. I also have Stephen King’s “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” on my to-buy list.

And to tell the truth, I sometimes think that all this advice is still not enough.

Reference: Vandehaus, Gary R. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (6th ed., pp. xiii – xiv). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

To Be Continued…

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Emily S. Whitten: The Little Things

whitten-art-130409-1611694I love tiny things. Love them. Tiny things, filled with tiny details. This is why, somewhere in my closet, I have a box of random tiny dollhouse items that I’ve bought in various places or made myself, despite not ever having owned a dollhouse or the dolls that would accompany it. (My dolls were either baby-sized or tiny. Polly Pocket, anyone?) I have tiny newspapers and books that open; tiny jars of fake Necco Wafers and peppermint sticks; tiny wrapped “Christmas presents;” tiny forks and knives and mugs…I can’t resist them, because they’re just so intricate and cute. And tiny!

It’s also why I own and dote on a tiny Chinese dwarf hamster. Well, okay, so I’ve had bigger pets, too, but anyone who reads Twitter knows Bitty Miss Izzy is like my spirit animal or something, and I am perpetually unable to get over how tiny and cute she and her little paws and little nose and little ears are, which is why I am always photographing and filming her.

It’s also why, in my “spare time,” (haha) I sometimes make tiny models of geektastic things, like a tiny Tenth Doctor (Who) and TARDIS, or a tiny little Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, or a tiny batch of lembas bread or tiny Rorschach accessories. And, of course, a tiny “Scary Trousers” Neil (Gaiman), based on the drawing of the same name, because who doesn’t need one of those? (Though that one now resides with the real Neil Gaiman, unless he’s given it away or something.)

Aside from the general cuteness of tiny things, I think a main reason I like them is because of the astounding amount of detail that they frequently manage to include, despite size; and as a geek, I’m more than a little inclined to obsess over detail, and particularly the (haha) tiniest details. I like intricacy. And let’s be honest here – I’m not alone. Most geeks are a bit detail-obsessed. Whether it’s every detail of a beloved character’s fictional life or a beloved fictional world, or every detail of a replica convention costume or collectible item, or every detail of minutia about the real-life production process of a favorite show, or trilogy, or what-have-you, we geeks are all about the details.

And being a geek, you know what I really find fascinating? When geekness combines with detailed tininess and produces amazing, awesome, and sometimes useful things. Here are some of my favorites this week:

Via the wonder of 3-D printing (how much do I want a 3-D printer and a 3-D printing pen? So much) I give you: tiny Winterfell.

] from the beautiful, amazing Game of Thrones opening credits. Look at it! Look!! It’s made of plastic and preciousness and precision. It’s under 10 square inches! I want one. (I also adore the entirety of the <a href=”

credit of that show, which feature a clockwork map of the story’s locations that is so tiny and intricate and beautiful and clever that it won an Emmy. You can read a cool piece about how the credits are done here.)

But lest you think that 10 square inches is anything special, there’s also this 3-D printed Wing Commander spaceship that is the diameter of a human hair. (Also, did you know there was a Wing Commander movie starring Freddie Prinze, Jr.? I didn’t! Apparently it was terrible.) A human hair! That’s almost too ridiculously tiny to be real, and yet, there it is, in incredible detail, just ready to be accidentally snorted up someone’s nose while they’re eyeing it up close. It’s adorbs, and I want one, even if I’d lose it immediately. I also see great promise for a nano-printer, in that it could conceivably be used to produce tiny bits for a myriad of helpful scientific or medical things, or even to produce an incredibly tiny Iron Man. You know which one I’d use it for first.

Speaking of robotics, how about this little Festo BionicOpter? Granted, it’s not quite as cute or small as a tiny Winterfell or Wing Commander plane, but it does have the benefit of being potentially a bit more useful. It’s an arm-sized quadcopter that “looks and moves like a dragonfly,” and “despite its complexity, the highly integrated system can be operated easily and intuitively via a smartphone.” Wow. I’m kind of in awe. Watch the video; it’s pretty cool. It also makes me wonder how long it’s going to take Festo (or other quadcopter folks) to make even smaller quadcopters. (Or, in a more sinister vein than the dreamy music of the BionicOpter video would have us thinking, how long until we’re going to be seeing things like the heat-sensing, eye-scanning electric shock spider robots of Minority Report? Eep!)

Despite the possible sinister applications of making technological things smaller (and that sort of thing has been around for years in the spy world, where we have things like the key ring spy camera and the DocuPen scanner, I think the current possibilities of the technology that allows things like the above to be made tiny and real is pretty amazing, and am curious to see what the miniaturization geniuses will come up with next.

Also, I think it’s amusing that we live in an age where miniaturization can also be used for practical jokes. I’m ordering my Micro Spy Remote as we speak. So don’t be too distressed if your TV mysteriously starts changing channels on its own next time I come to visit; and until next week, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

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