The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Molly Jackson: Where’s MY Science?

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Many, many months ago at Toy Fair they announced that a major trend for 2015 was dinosaurs. This was due in part to the upcoming Jurassic movie. Now, fast forward to last week. I bit the proverbial bullet and went to see Jurassic World.

I admit I didn’t have high hopes for the movie. Let’s be honest: you don’t really go for the plot. Almost everything people are complaining about is true. Poor character development mixed with the misogynistic undertones of the 1970s and the anti-war/government sentiments make for a poor plot. Not to mention, Chris Pratt is wearing eyeliner the whole movie which looks so weird.

Even through all of that, when the dinos came on screen, I loved it. I loved every poorly plotted minute of it.

After the fact, in chatting with some friends, I began to realize part of the reason I loved it was because I saw the original film at the right age. The original Jurassic Park made the happy feelings I had from watching the new one, only because they reminded me of what I felt as a kid. Jurassic Park is the movie my generation just loved. A film that had a leading female scientist as well as a young teenage female computer whiz. That film encouraged young girls like me in the sciences.

The new Jurassic World has no female scientist and the only featured scientist is portrayed as an evil, greedy loon. After my extensive years of enjoying science fiction, I know that good science fiction can encourage kids into exploring science. This film did not follow in the steps of its predecessor. It seemed to discourage scientific discovery and promote destruction.

I don’t mind destruction in my movies. I love it, in fact. Still, science fiction used to have the rare talent of showing the wonders of learning without kids realizing it. Educating them in a fun and unassuming way. Now, we just threw it out the window for a bigger killer with more teeth.

Now, going back to that tidbit about Toy Fair. There were some science toys but mostly destructive action figures. Let’s keep hoping those kids pick up the science toy first.

Mike Gold: The Kids Are Alright

Hey Kids Comics

There was a time, not all that long ago, when kids were not welcome in a great many comic book stores. You might find this anti-intuitive, but the philosophy was fostered by some comics distributors and welcomed by most comics publishers.

 (Aside for those of you who came in late: back in the olden days when comics were escaping from the primordial goo, we had a half-dozen or more companies distributing comics to the direct sales shops. How this devolved into a monopoly might be the subject of a future column, particularly if I’m looking for something amusing to write for my final column.)

There were many arguments these folks used to implore their retailers not to serve the younger crowd. The foremost was “these kids don’t spend enough money to make it worthwhile.” That’s true – if those kids were coming in on their own. The fact is, comics fandom had aged to the point where readers mated, sometimes with other comics readers, and the issue from those encounters brought fourth kids who would be schlepped to the comics shop as their parents sought out their weekly fix. I have never met a kid who wasn’t curious about those brightly colored bits of paper, or a parent who, if they had a couple extra bucks, wouldn’t buy their kids a comic book or two.

A few of us voiced contrary opinions. The foremost was “ten years from now, where are your new customers going to come from?” If the average age of your customer base increases year after year, store owners are going to get hinky about their mortgages.

Which is pretty much what happened. Back in the early/mid-1990s when the King Kongs of collectability fell off the skyscraper, they took a lot of comics shops down with them… and a few publishers as well. There was no real fount of new customers to replace any part of that revenue stream. And the distributor who had been leading the anti-kid chant went ka-blooie.

Rule of thumb: anybody who says or even thinks “hey, this is going to last forever” will be visited by the Great God Hubris, and it will not be pretty.

For the better part of the past 20 years we’ve seen new publishers and reenergized (read: surviving) companies abandon this ridiculous philosophy. Today, virtually all of the larger publishers such as Boom! and IDW have solid lines of comics oriented towards children. I’m not talking about junior versions of “adult” superhero comics – there’s a reason why that’s an oxymoron. I’m not even talking about licensed properties based upon teevee shows that were around when today’s adult comics readers were kids, although there are plenty of those around.

I’m talking about comics based upon kid’s shows that didn’t even exist at the time of the Great Market Correction of the mid-90s. The Regular Show. Angry Birds. Bravest Warriors. Bee and Puppycat. To name but a few.

The more inspired comics shops – those that have the room – have kid-acceptable sections in their stores and hold in-store visits from cartoonists who will entertain the youngest crowd with sketches and even chalk-talks.

Ten years from now, those seven-year old readers will be seventeen years old. Once again, the comic art medium has a future.

 

Box Office Democracy: Jurassic World

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If I had been given a vote I would not have supported making another Jurassic Park movie. It’s a franchise that I’m not sure even qualified as a franchise until this weekend. The original film is a masterpiece, one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in a theater, a movie that defined cinema for an entire generation. The sequels, by contrast, feel like hastily assembled Frankenstein monsters cobbled together from good parts of the first film and whatever script fragments were in the Amblin Entertainment dumpster. All sort of movies in the 90s got two sequels that would never demand this kind of attention but Jurassic Park is special and Jurassic World is a movie that deserves to be a part of something special.

The thing that makes Jurassic World special, aside from the innate sense of wonder that comes from seeing exceptionally rendered dinosaur special effects, is the performance of Chris Pratt. Even though I strongly think that getting so much of handsome action star Chris Pratt is robbing us of the fine work we could be getting from gifted comic actor Chris Pratt it’s hard to deny how effective he is. The movie misses him dearly when he’s not on screen while it bounces between being a little boring and interesting but because someone is in imminent danger of being eaten. The character they gave Pratt, a velociraptor trainer who operates like a circus lion tamer, could easily have been a disaster on par with Indiana Jones in that refrigerator but he somehow makes it believable. Pratt is so good he draws attention away from the rest of the cast being sort of bland and forgettable. No one will ever be quite as good as Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm but it’s fantastic to see someone trying for it.

The original Jurassic Park films were very much defined by the dinosaurs that hunted the protagonists, from the velociraptors and the tyrannosaurus in the first film to the sequels shamelessly reusing all of the same things while adding useless bits of garbage dinosaurs. For Jurassic World the antagonist dinosaur, the Indominus Rex, is the kind of monster a clever eight year-old would come up with trying to one up a playmate while playing pretend. The movie even calls this out when the park’s operation’s manager (Bryce Dallas Howard) says patrons need dinosaurs that are bigger and have more teeth. She’s talking about us, the moviegoers who probably would not have been satisfied with just another chase scene with a tyrannosaurus, we need something with more teeth, with natural camouflage, that hunts for sport. It’s an interesting commentary on modern audiences for sure but it also leads to some rather mystifying moments when very late in to the movie the Indominus is still coming up with new powers tailor made to escape the predicament it’s in.

The film probably leans a little too heavily on nostalgia. The theme from the original John Williams score is used three times in the first twenty minutes and then often throughout including a piano version used to convey sadness. It’s all a little much. They also lean heavily on recycled imagery using similar shots of stampeding dinos or the unnecessary trip through the original visitors center, which has apparently not been touched in all this time. I understand the impulse to lean on this, to wink at the audience, but it isn’t necessary the new stuff in this movie is good enough to stand on its own and it isn’t helping to constantly raise the specter of such a powerful film.

Nothing will ever be like watching Jurassic Park in the movie theater when I was nine years old. That is an unfair standard to hold Jurassic World to even though I would very much like to. Jurassic World gave me everything I wanted, it was suspenseful, it was funny, it looked amazing, the action was thrilling, it was a completely enjoyable utterly riveting piece of filmmaking. I’m looking forward to seeing the next movie in the series, the sequel very obviously set up all throughout this one, and that is an optimism I haven’t felt about a Jurassic Park sequel in 18 years.

Ah, to feel young again.

The Point Radio: The Good And Bad Of Milo Ventimiglia

From HEROES to GOTHAM, Milo Ventimiglia has played both the good and bad sides of the coin. So where does he land in his latest project, ABC’s thriller series WHISPERS?  Milo talks about that and just how he picks the right roles. Plus we talk to the creator and stars of SyFy’s DARK MATTER who tackle the big question of just how close is the TV show to the comic.

 We’re back in a couple of days with sexy, liberal radio queen Stephanie Miller, plus a visit to the set of TYRANT and a look at SyFy’s new series, KILLJOYS. Follow us on Twitter now here.

Emily S. Whitten Interviews Jim Cummings

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Is there aaaaanyone here who hasn’t seen at least a video clip of <a href=”

Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger Too at some point? I know I’ve seen plenty – Winnie-the-Pooh was a part of my childhood, and is now a part of the childhood of this Auntie Em’s little nephew and nieces. And would it blow your mind to learn that since the 1990s, Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger too have been…dun dun duuuuun…the same person? Because they have! Well, at least when it comes to the guy who does their voices.

This is one of the things I adore about voice actors – how versatile they are, and how they can do so many voices that just sound nothing like each other; even when the characters are in conversation together. It’s really amazing.

If you know anything about voice actors, you’ll know that when I talk about the voice of Pooh and Tigger, I’m talking about the epically talented voice actor and voice of all of our childhoods, Jim Cummings. Along with Pooh and Tigger, Jim’s voices include The Terror That Flaps in the Night (<a href=”

Duck]! I watched that show religiously); Disney’s Pete (<a href=”

Troop, yay!); Mr. Bumpy of Bump in the Night (My tiny hamster Squishington approves); Looney Tunes’ Tazmanian Devil; Ray from The Princess and the Frog; Fat Cat and Monterey Jack from Rescue Rangers; and sooooo many others.

I had a chance to chat with Jim about his work while at Awesome Con 2015 in Washington DC (and if you missed my previous coverage, check out my con round-up and my interview with voice actor Jess Harnell at the links), and it was a real pleasure. We discussed all sorts of things, including his approach to voicing legacy characters versus original characters, the recording process, singing as a character, and advice for aspiring voice actors. And, of course, he bounced (as Tigger would say) into character and did a few voices for me, as well!

You can check out the video of my interview with the amazing Jim Cummings <a href=”

. And if you prefer the audio instead, you can head over to SoundCloud here and give it a listen.

So enjoy! And until next time, go have yourself a snack (maybe a smackerel of honey?) and Servo Lectio!

Mindy Newell: These Are The Voyages…

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“Don’t screw this up.”

Admiral Maxwell Forrest, Starfleet Command, to Captain Jonathan Archer • “Broken Bow” • Episode 1, Season 1, Enterprise

As I mentioned in last week’s column (Oh Boy), Scott Bakula also starred as Captain Jonathan Archer on Enterprise, which ran on the UPN network from September 2001 to May 2005, a total of four years. That’s one more year than TOS’s run, but three years shorter than its successful progenitors, Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.

UPN claimed that poor ratings caused Enterprise’s downfall; according to Wikipedia, it never rose above the Top 100 rank in the Neilson ratings system, debuting at #115, and continuing to sink until its final season, where it landed at #148. It’s generally perceived as a failure, and has been blamed for the lack of any Star Trek on either television or movie screens until J.J. Abrams’s 2009 film reboot of the franchise.

Set in the year 2015, about 100 years before the time of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 and ending ten years later with the birth of the United Federation of Planets, I think the show had a lot of promise and so I’ve never understood exactly why Enterprise never took off. I’ve been rewatching it courtesy of Amazon Prime, and, yes, Bakula did exhibit some stiffness as Captain Archer in the first year, but certainly no less than Patrick Stewart did in the first season of Next Generation or Avery Brooks in Deep Space Nine.

As for the rest of the cast – Jolene Blalock as the Vulcan observer and science officer Sub-Commander T’Pol, Connor Trineer as Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker III, Lieutenant Commander Hoshi Sato at Communications, Dominic Keating as tactical and security officer Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, Anthony Montgomery as helmsman Ensign Travis Mayweather, and John Billingsley as the Denobulan Doctor Phlox – im-not-so-ho, from the first they all seemed to have a more complete handle on their characters than, again, any of the regular cast members Next Gen. And certainly better than most of Voyager’s crew (with the exception of Kate Mulgrew, Robert Duncan McNeill and Tim Russ) or Deep Space Nine’s regulars (with the exception of Colm Meany, who had the advantage of reprising the Miles O’Brien character, who originated on Next Gen.)

So what happened?

Well, first off, and again im-not-so-ho, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga made some big mistakes. The first in not using Alexander Courage’s opening riff and the introductory words:

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

C’mon, are you fucking kidding me? This is a show about the beginning of humanity’s journey into deep space, about the beginning and founding of the United Federation of Planets, and you don’t use these words? Words hallowed in every fan’s heart and soul, and, I bet, quite a number of people who wouldn’t actually claim to be Trekkers but who have been inspired by that phrase. I understand not using them in Voyager and Deep Space Nine, those shows’s premises were not, ostensibly, about discovering “what’s out there.” But Enterprise? Its premise is in the very name of the show!

Rather than incorporating Courage’s music into the new show’s theme, Berman and Braga chose some to ignore it completely, instead choosing to use Diane Warren’s “Faith of the Heart” which was the original theme to the movie “Patch Adams.” Now perhaps if the orchestration had been different, without the Rod Stewart-ish (and I like Rod Stewart – and, btw, Stewart did sing the song on the soundtrack to “Patch Adams”) vocalization from Russell Watson, and if it hadn’t sounded like something played on a soft-rock radio station, and if they had incorporated Courage’s opening riff into it, it might have worked… but I doubt it. The show needed something not only inspiring, something that tempted you to look up at the stars, to dream of the day we would push beyond our solar system into that final frontier. But with that song? Change the channel… please! (I’ll give you a foot massage if you do it.)

And what was with not naming the show Star Trek: Enterprise? Yeah, yeah, I know, they did add “Star Trek” to the title in the third season, but will someone please tell me why they avoided it in the first place? What did you say, Mr. Berman?

 “Well, you know, if you think about it, since The Next Generation, we’ve had so many Star Trek entities that were called “Star Trek”-colon-something […] Our feeling was, in trying to make this show dramatically different, which we are trying to do, that it might be fun not to have a divided main title like that. And I think that if there’s any one word that says Star Trek without actually saying Star Trek, it’s the word ‘Enterprise’.”
Yeah, well, if you ask me, no matter what he or Mr. Braga might say, I think it’s all bullshit. I think they both just wanted to separate themselves from the ghost – or the floating ashes in orbit around Earth – of Gene Roddenberry. Y’ know… an ego thing.

Btw, I’m neither criticizing nor defending Mr. Roddenberry. His is the mind from which ultimately Star Trek was born. It was his baby, and he did what he needed to do to get the show on the air. But from what I’ve read and from what I’ve been told by some in the know, he was not exactly the “Great Bird of the Galaxy” – except maybe in his own mind. According to Marc Cushman (author of the massive trilogy “These Are The Voyages: TOS – Season One, Two and Three), the real hero of Star Trek was Gene L. Coon, the “forgotten Gene,” who invented the Prime Directive, the Klingons, the development of the personal dynamics between the Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (especially Spock and McCoy), and so much more of the ST mythos we know and love.

So, anyway, why did Enterprise fail?

I think a lot of people, including fans, I’m sorry to say, never really gave it a chance.

Not very Star Trek of them, was it?

 

REVIEW: The Newsroom The Complete Third Season

the-newsroom-season-3Aaron Sorkin is an exceptionally talent writer who brings a playwright’s sensibilities to television which means his characters talk. A lot. But unlike so many prime time series, his characters actually have something to say. It’s a shame more people don’t want to hear whatever it is being discussed because Sorkin series tend not to last very long.

There were two seasons of Sports Night, four Sorkin-produced episodes of The West Wing and a single uneven season of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. For his self-proclaimed final act in television, Sorkin gave us three ever-shortened seasons of The Newsroom. This last ran on HBO and other than using a handful of words, could have easily aired on the major networks. After all, Sorkin didn’t pander with nudity or excessive violence.

The series’ conceit was that we were watching the fall and rise of network anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), the face and voice of Atlantic Cable Network, all all-news cable channel. As we watch him and the production staff find their mojo, Sorkin chose to set the show in the recent past and see how these high-minded journalists would have covered current events. The first season was the run-up to the 2012 election while season two covered election night and how a story blew up in their faces.

da167b80-2d66-0132-4006-0ebc4eccb42fSeason three, a mere six episodes in length, comes out in a two-disc DVD set on Tuesday from HBO Home Entertainment. The focus this time falls on the Boston Marathon bombing along with the network’s sale and struggles to maintain its integrity while boosting ratings for revenue. With just six hours to play with, Sorkin never let up and moved things along at a fast clip, minimizing the number of sub-plots which meant the supporting cast had less to do. In the penultimate episode, though, there is a strong sub-plot about a college rape story that caused some criticism from the pundits but the series gets credit for even exploring the subject, when few other shows have touched on it.

Daniels, Emily Mortimer, and Sam Waterston get to carry the load this time around and do so with energy and pathos. Everyone else, from Olivia Munn to Alison Pill, have their moment or two and it’s nice to see them in action. If anyone is given less to do it’s Dev Patel, whose Neal has to disappear to avoid testifying where he got leaked information that points to the Eric Snowden case.

newsroom-final-seasonEven though it’s set in the past, it’s the very recent past so the issues of the day remain largely the same and there’s a wonderful thread about the impact social networking has had on news coverage, especially without proper vetting of sources and details. Sorkin, at his weakest, still tackles topics few other series go near and gets people on the show and then in the audience discussing the issue. He is clearly liberal in his biases but allows his characters to explore all sides of an issue. Too few prime time shows on any distribution channel truly take on the topics of the day and give their characters strong opinions in favor or escapism or “ripped from the headlines” gloss. As a result, as The Newsroom fades from memory so does the impetus for further intelligent debate thanks to characters we’re invested in.

Sorkin has come to end his series with an episode entitled “What Kind of Day has it Been” and here he brings things full circle as the death of beloved producer Charlie Skinner has everyone reflecting at the events that brought everyone together in the very first episode, when McAvoy was at his lowest ebb and needed help. While McAvoy and crew have come a long way, the series rarely let its viewers down and remained a sharp commentary on politics, media ethics, and human relationships.

The standard definition transfers are fine and makes for good watching. The sextet of episodes is accompanied by the Sorkin commentary that aired after each show. Additionally, there’s some interesting commentary from Sorkin and executive producer Alan Poul for the finale.

HBO gets kudos for airing the series at all and rewatching this reminds me how much Sorkin’s weekly presence will be missed.

Ed Catto: Life’s a Beach – Summer Reading

bravo-rucka-8100120We’ve all got too much on our plate. On top of that, pop culture enthusiasts like us are enjoying a surfeit of geekiness. Some would argue that there are too many excellent comics, movies and TV shows available today. We all have to pick and choose. My co-worker, Kris Longo, the entrepreneurial wizard who runs Geek Riot Media, has been heard to say “I’m not taking on any new series” now and again. He has a maturity (that I lack) to be able to limit his fictional intake at any given time. And who can blame him?

But despite all this, I think the summer is the perfect time to dive into in a new beach book. No matter how busy you are, how many problems you have or how overdue that oil change is, there’s something magical about getting lost in a summer beach book. And it’s especially magical when the sun is beating down on your SPF-soaked skin and your feet are wriggling in the sand.

Trigger Warning GaimanAs this column focuses on the influence and impact of geek culture upon the world at large, let’s explore how a few brilliant comic creators are providing what could be this season’s best beach book. These writers, who all make great contributions to comics, have new books out that would be ideal to pack in your beach bag, right next to the sunglasses.

First up: Greg Rucka. He’s been creating fantastic comics for numerous publishers including DC (Batman, Wonder Woman), Marvel (Black Widow, Daredevil), Oni (Stumptown, Queen and Country) and now Image (Lazarus). His latest novel, Bravo, is a military adventure that follows ex-Special Forces operative Jad Bell and a fascinating new character, Petra Nessuno. She’s just been brought “in from the cold” after a prolonged undercover assignment. This is the second book in this series, and even though I didn’t read the first one, Rucka quickly got me up to speed and I felt as if I didn’t miss a beat. It’s a hard driving adventure, but Rucka flexes his writer’s chops with effortless ease, tossing out lovely phrases when you least expect them. It moves briskly and is a tough one to set down. Bravo is available July 22nd from Mulholland Books.

Strip for Murder CollinsAt this point, Neil Gaiman is probably less a comics writer and more a prose author, but I wanted an excuse to read his latest. Trigger Warning is a collection of short stories, and although I usually read novels and business books, I try to slip in short story collections once in a while. For me, reading a few short stories provides a feeling of accomplishment. I often don’t even finish the entire collection. But with this one you might, as it’s packed with geek favorites, including a Sherlock Holmes adventure, a Doctor Who story and tale that revisits characters form Gaiman’s own American Gods. So many of these stories, like the Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury or the one about an uninventor, seduce you with a clever premise and leave you wanting more once you’ve finished. Although HarperCollins’ William Morrow imprint released this in February, it’s still a fantastic candidate for the shore.

Ms. Tree, Wild Dog. Road to Perdition and a few of the coolest Batman stories of the 80s were all gifts from the talented Max Allan Collins. If you haven’t read his books yet, it’s time to treat yourself. He’s had a long career creating his own characters, (Nate Heller, Quarry), building the legend of real heroes (Elliot Ness) and partnering with his own hero (Mickey Spillane) to bring fans new Mike Hammer mysteries. But his latest book, Strip For Murder, is a 1950s mystery that takes the reader through the world of comic strips. And to make things even cooler, Terry Beatty, his longtime collaborator on Ms. Tree, provides the moody illustrations. Now, a little bird told me that my wonderful kids might have purchased this as a Father’s Day gift, so I haven’t read it yet. But given my track record of enjoying Max Allan Collins stories, I know this is going be great and have no qualms about recommending it to you.

Silent City SeguraYou might know Alex Segura for his impressive work publicizing Archie Comics and DC comics, or as the guiding force of the current Dark Circle imprint at Archie, but he’s also an author and musician. His Silent City, a modern day noir thriller, is a well-written mystery. Segura uses this novel to set up his Miami-based detective character, but has also infused the narrative with a soundtrack based on his own favorite tunes. Codorus released Silent City in late 2013, so it’s now also available in paperback – just waiting for you to enjoy it this summer and get some sand between the pages.

See you at the shore!

 

John Ostrander: Face To Face

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Stranger Than Fiction, a 2006 film from director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Monster’s Ball, and World War Z, among others), is a favorite of Mary’s and mine. It that starred Will Farrell in a very atypical Will Farrell role, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Queen Latifah, and Emma Thompson.

The story concerns an IRS auditor named Harold Crick who starts to hear a narrator in his head. The voice turns out to be a world famous author who is writing a story about an IRS auditor named Harold Crick. The author, Karen Eiffel, always kills off her main character at the end of the book. The real Harold’s only hope to survive is to find the reclusive author and convince her not to kill him. Eventually, they meet.

Karen Eiffel, understandably, is freaked to encounter an actual Harold Crick. He’s just as she pictured him. They both know that if she kills him off in prose, he will die in reality. She is confronted with the reality of what she does; Harold Crick isn’t just a creature of her imagination. He’s a flesh and blood person.

As a writer, I find that notion unnerving.

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to have a somewhat similar experience. At the Motor City Con I got a chance to meet the actor, Michael Rowe, who was playing Floyd Lawton – Deadshot – on the TV series Arrow. And, yes, a bit of Stranger Than Fiction ran through my head. Of course, Mike Rowe is not Deadshot; he was perfectly nice and friendly and complimentary. However, I had a few nanoseconds of feeling, well, anxious.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t think I would want to meet most of my characters face to face. Why? Because I’m the guy who makes their lives miserable. I can see most of them wanting to take a swing at me – or worse. For them, I am the Creator. I incarnate their lives and their adventures. I’m god. Not the god but a god (as spake Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day).

Have you ever had a day when you really just wanted to haul off and hit your Creator? I know I have and I’m an agnostic. When my late wife Kim was dying, I was sitting in the car at one point, hitting the steering wheel and cussing out God. I thought we had a deal; I would accept her death and she would die without pain. That day she was in excruciating pain.

I talked it over with my pastor, The Rev Phillip Wilson, and he thought my cussing out God was a good thing. He said that the Bible had lots of instances where the human argued or yelled at God. Towards the end of the story of Job, the title character learns that all his troubles stem from a bet between God and Satan and lets loose on Yahweh for destroying his life. Job was justified if you ask me.

God’s answer? Essentially, God skirts the issue and demands, “Hey, where were you when I created everything?” He tells Job that he’d better button it. Not a real answer but I can see why Job didn’t press the issue. This is Yahweh after all who drowned the earth in a fit of pique.

So why do I do it? Why do I make my characters’ lives so miserable?

It’s for the sake of the story.

When we were first married, Kim used to ask me how would I react in such and such a situation. How would I feel?  (I could get myself into trouble by suggesting that this is the sort of speculative question some women like to ask their men. I don’t want to get in trouble by saying that, although I admit to thinking it.) I would always answer “I dunno. Ask me when we get there.”

I felt and feel that’s a fair answer. We don’t know how we would react in a given situation or facing this or that pressure. We only know how we’d like to think we would act but until you’re in that moment, you don’t know. You can’t until you’re actually faced with the situation.

How we react in those situations reveal who we really are – not who we think we are or hope we would be. In a story, it reveals character. The tougher the situation, the clearer we see who the character really is. It’s one of the rules about character. It’s not what they say, it’s what they do that really matters – just like in life.

By putting my characters through the wringer, I reveal who they are and the reader, by vicarious experience, may learn something more of who they are. That makes the whole exercise worthwhile. That can make the story compelling and memorable.

So what I do to my characters is not out of sadism (well, not only out of sadism) but for the sake of the story.

However, I still wouldn’t want to meet GrimJack or most of my other characters in a darkened alley in the middle of the night.

Brrrr.

 

Marc Alan Fishman: Three Thoughts Laying Around

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Sorry, kiddos. I ain’t got no snark to hone into laser focus this week. With a day job literally sapping my inner strength as we prepare a massive brand overhaul alongside our massive summer conference, all I have the energy to do when I make my way home is the bare minimum. Which of course amounts to drawing pages for the upcoming new Samurnauts book, planning a major crowdfunding campaign around said book, organizing video shoots and marketing lists for said campaign, completing sundry freelance gigs for way less money than I ought to be collecting, and of course… writing for you, my adoring public. So, as is the custom when my well seems to be tapped of a singular topic, I present to you a smattering of my simmering speculations from my cerebellum.

Hey, I may be running close to empty, but I’ll be damned if I don’t have spectacular alliterative powers. Natch.

  1. Jon Bernthal is Frank Castle.

As per my choked Facebook feed this afternoon, I learned that Shane from the Walking Dead is now the mafia murdering mook of the Marvel U. As with all of my brethren online, I was happy to see such inspired casting. Now I’m not a big Walking Dead fan by any means, but I’ve certainly caught enough of Bernthal’s work to know he’s got the chops. Combine this with his partially busted (but still Hollywood pretty) nose and you get a Punisher who will have no problem crossing the invisible line from page to screen. Sorry, Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson.

What I like the most from the announcement is that the part is hardly bit. From what most are saying, it seems like Marvel read everyone’s online yammering about how the Netflix ‘Devil series presented grit that was pitch perfect. And what better follow up to said grit then the House of Ideas most gritty character, save perhaps for Squirrel Girl, whose grit know no bounds. Suffice to say given the universe they built around Matt Murdoch, Frank Castle will fit right in. Even better: the obvious morality play that might present itself between the costumed compatriots. Whilst Daredevil has shown his willingness to kill, The Punisher is… The Punisher. The fact that it might lead to a showdown with earned angst versus the forthcoming Superman and Batman love-in? Yeah, eat two bullets, and call me in the morning, DC!

  1. Stone Cold Steve Austin Still Has ‘It’.

The other evening with nothing sitting in my DVR, I turned on the WWE Network (which I pay for mostly to allow my father to have something to do when he’s home in the mornings). They featured an hour-long sit-down podcast via Steve Austin and his guest Paul Heyman. While I could have easily spent my entire column lecturing you on how amazing Mr. Heyman is, I’ll leave it short, so the comics fans don’t click away too soon.

After 55 minutes of fluffy storytelling and jovial revelry between host and guest, Paul Heyman asked if he could ask a hard-hitting question – knowing that the last hour was essentially enjoyable nothingness. Mr. Austin obliged. “Why don’t you come back for just one night? Settle the unfinished business you have with my client?” Heyman asked. For the Internet Wrestling Community, this was more than a bon mot. This was poking a bear that has been long hibernating. I found myself on the edge of my chair as Steve Austin morphed into Stone Cold to respond to the potential challenge of Brock Lesnar.

His response was metered. His gaze became like steel. And the string of near-obscenities that dropped from his maw made me remember why he’s one of the three heads on the Mount Rushmore of Pro-Wrestling. In a two-minute response, which would best be described as a shoot promo, Steve Austin played me and a million or so others for the kayfabing fool I am. It was an amazing piece of work.

  1. Evil Batman is Evil.

The uncompromisingly talented Bruce Timm has a new animated direct-to-whatever-media-is-ubiquitous-these-days feature. It’s Justice League: Gods and Monsters and boy, did it get dark in here all of a sudden. Based on no previous work per se, this Elseworlds tale showcases a world where Batman is a vampire, Superman is an unhappy Latino Demi-God, and Wonder Woman is… combative, I guess? While most if not all of DC’s recent animated releases have done little to spur my attention, seeing Timm’s name on the project – along with his patented visual style – certainly caught my eye. With that being said, both the trailer and teaser clips released thus far have not engaged my engrossment to the point of desiring purchase.

Simply put, Timm is a master craftsman making something that looks good but hardly great. With beats (again, based solely on the released trailer and teasers) that come awfully close to similar ones tackled during his decade of animated supremacy prior, I’m left cold by the possibility that without the confines of network notes a darker and grittier Justice League is anything to be excited about. Justice Lords anyone? But, let’s not split hairs; Bruce Timm making a good feature is great for the industry. More ideas – especially original ones – will help spark continued creativity elsewhere. Let us just hope that Gods and Monsters delivers more than what meets the eye.

  1. Bonus recipe time!

Combine 1 thoroughly mashed banana with 2 large eggs and a dash of cinnamon. Fry up in pan. Enjoy your very own banana-fanna-faux-cake. You’re welcome.

Happy Saturday everyone!

 

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