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Mindy Newell: Ain’t No Cure For The Summertime Apocalypse

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p style=”text-align: center”>transperceneige-6711812In this last of meeting places
/ We grope together
/ And avoid speech
/Gathered on this beach of the tumid river• The Hollow Men • T.S. Eliot

Yesterday, Mike and Martha went to the movies in New York City to see Captain America’s Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and a host of international stars in Snowpiercer, a post-apocalyptic movie based on the 1983 French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacque Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette. It’s been generating a lot of buzz here in the States while having already earned, according to Entertainment Weekly, $80 million in the overseas market. (EW profiles the film this week in an apocalyptic-themed issue – along with the cover story of the upcoming Mad Max: Fury Road, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, due in 2015). I didn’t go because I had already penciled in some Grandma time with baby Meyer on my calendar, and although a story of the remnants of humanity careening around the Earth in a train sounds right up my summer movie alley – environmental disaster brought, politics and class warfare, and some excellent visual effects – visiting with my grandson, who is already nine months old – almost a year? Already? – is a no-brainer when it comes to Mindy’s afternoon delights on a fine early summer day.

So hopefully next time, okay, gang?

Anyway, reading the “doomsday in the movies” issue of EW while sipping on my breakfast tea and inspired me to tell you about some of my favorite “end of everything” about all the great movies and television shows that have centered on the destruction of us and/or the Earth and which ones of them are my favorites.

Top of the list in making me feel true dread: On The Beach.

Originally a novel by British author Nevil Shute, written after he had emigrated to Australia and published in 1957, it is the story of people living in and around Melbourne and how they deal with the coming, inescapable annihilation of the human race as the radioactive fallout from a total nuclear war in the northern hemisphere a year earlier inexorably expands to cover the globe, slowly drifting across the equator and into the southern reaches of the Earth. (I always wondered where the title On The Beach came from; thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that it refers to a Royal Navy phrase that means “retired from the Service,” which is very apropos as the main character is a U.S. Captain in the submarine service who is co-opted into the remains of the Royal Navy fleet. It also refers to T.S. Eliot’s poem and the lines quoted above.) The book was adapted into a 1957 film written by John Paxton, directed by Stanley Kramer, and which starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins, along with British and Australian actors, and Shute’s story of hope mating with despair to give birth to fatalism is brilliantly enacted.

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, the movie from which the phrase “pod-people” was born, is based on Jack Finney’s 1954 The Body Snatchers. It was adapted twice, first in 1958 and then twenty years later in 1978. I like both films, but I prefer the original, which starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, and was directed by Don Segal, which, while differing from Finney’s novel, is much more faithful. In the fictional town of Santa Mira, California, an alien invasion is taking place – people are being replaced with doppelgangers devoid of any human emotion or individuality. An allegory of paranoia in the post-WWII years about – pick one: (1) conformity; (2) Stalin, Soviet Russia, Mao-Tse Tung, China and communism in general; (3) dehumanization and isolation; and (4) McCarthyism (a bit of irony here in that Kevin McCarthy, who plays the heroic local doctor in the film, has the same last name as the onerous Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin and the instigator of the notorious hunt for communists and other “disloyal” Americans in the government and the U.S. Army.

The Andromeda Strain: Released in 1971 and based on Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel of the same name, it is one of the first stories to deal with the danger of out-of-control viruses and/or bacteria, although in both the book and the movie the deadly microscopic organism is alien in origin. In it a team of government doctors and scientists race to discover a means to stop the spread of a virus brought Earth by a crashed satellite. So far the only survivors are an elderly man and an infant. The thing that is scarily prophetic about this film is that we, the human race, us, are currently creating our own super-bugs by the insistent and pandemic use of antibiotics in everything from the food we eat to the dishwashing liquid we use to clean the plates we eat from. Combine that with the lack of new R & D by Big Pharma (not one of them is developing any new antibiotics or anti-virals to fight the increasingly resistant strains of bacteria and viruses prevalent around the globe) because they’d all rather make quick gains on the stock market exchanges producing new erectile drugs, and we’re not going to need an extraterrestrial bug to kill us all.

And finally (at least for this column):

“You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!””

Yes. Planet Of The Apes.

In 1968 I went with my boyfriend to the DeWitt Theatre in Bayonne to see a movie with a very weird title, but my parents had encouraged us because Charlton Heston was in it and because both had read the book by Pierre Boulle, who had also written The Bridge on the River Kwai, which had been made into a (now-classic) Oscar-winning film.Not really knowing what to expect, Michael and I walked out of the theatre two hours later with mouths agape.

Everybody knows the story, and of course since the debut of the original film the whole idea of a “planet of the apes” has been derailed into a cheesy franchise, a couple of really lousy remakes, and (I presume) a steady paycheck of royalties for Roddy McDowall until his death in 1998.

Because of this, the impact of the original has largely become forgotten in the mists of celluloid history, but, let me tell you, folks, that final scene, with Charlton Heston collapsed on the shore of a dead sea in front of a beached, half-buried Statue of Liberty still bravely holding her torch high above her starred tiara, banging his fists into the ground in total shock and hopelessness and anguish…

It’s a killer.

 

Why You Should Listen to “Welcome to Night Vale” (And stay out of the Dog Park…)

A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello, listeners.

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If you have been listening to Night Vale Radio, you understand the lights above Arby’s, you can tell people why they should never go into the Dog Park, you understand that wheat and wheat-by-products are not to be trusted, and you definitely understand that angels do not exist.

However if you are not: You can (and should, for your own sanity) tune in and listen to Cecil every month on the 1st and 15th. Follow the Welcome to Night Vale podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer, listen to the episodes here, here, or here.

It’s alright if you’re confused at first, we all were. It becomes clear enough though as you listen on, while Cecil tells you all about sandstorms, Desert Bluffs, Carlos and his perfect hair…We don’t ever really talk about Steve Carlsberg, though.

You should be aware that alligators can kill your children.

Welcome to Night Vale is easily one of my favourite pod casts to pop up in quite a few years, and a quick glance around the internet will go to show that I am definitely not alone. Between the glowing cloud that rains animals, the faceless old woman who lives in your home, and Hiram McDaniels who is literally a five headed dragon, who cares…Night Vale Radio has a charm that is undeniable and wonderful.

I personally have always been an avid fan of radio programs, and still enjoy listening to things like The Shadow, The Twilight Zone, etc. There’s a fantastic bit of imagination that comes with radio (and reading books) that is different than watching TV or movies. You get to imagine everything, and whatever it is you picture…You aren’t wrong. One of the best parts about WTNV is that there is so much left to your own personal perceptions, and it is encouraged.

There is so much about Night Vale that will simultaneously lift up your spirits, terrify you, and make you question your own existence. Kind of like how StrexCorp is so…

Station Management has informed me that this next paragraph has been deleted for the betterment of the station. Thank you for your cooperation.

…What was I saying? That StrexCorp Synernists Inc. are amazing and everyone should believe in a Smiling God? Yes, that must be it. How silly of me! To sum this all up in a slightly less confusing statement…

Go listen to Welcome to Night Vale. You won’t be disappointed.

You might scared, intrigued, and confused. You may not come out of it the same, but in the end…Isn’t that all life is? Void and turquoise…

Goodnight, dear readers.

Goodnight.

(As a side note: Welcome to Night Vale is currently touring Canada and the US! Tickets are sold out for a lot of venues, but if you want to see Cecil and the crew live, do so! A few friends of mine went to see it live and since they’ve gotten back they just keep repeating the word Strex over and over. Strex…Strex…Strex…)

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John Ostrander: Profit, Loss, Publishing and DC Comics

contract-7752734Years back, I was negotiating a contract with DC. I read the contract and there was something I didn’t understand so I asked around the office as to what it meant. Most of the people there didn’t know either but the consensus was, “Just sign it. It’ll be okay.” One person actually said, “We’re all family here.”

My response then was that we were not. I had family and DC wasn’t that. I had friends who worked at DC but DC itself was not my friend. It was a corporation and the relationship I had with it was based on that contract and the business practices of the company. Despite what Mitt Romney claims, corporations are not people, too, except in the legal sense. I’m not saying that was or is bad or good; it’s simply recognizing differences.

Recently, DC announced a change in how it will run its participation program or what used to be called “royalties.” They pay you for the work you do but if the corporation gets a second bite of that same apple, the theory is that those who created the work should get a taste as well. It wasn’t always thus in comics; it was fostered and pushed by the independent comics (such as First Comics) and has occurred during my professional life time.

Many of the changes sound good. Colorists will now get cover credit and a share in the participation pool. I’ve long spoken and noted that colorists are major contributors to graphic work; I’ve compared them to soundtrack composers in movies and TV, heightening and guiding emotional reactions to the story. This change recognizes their importance to the work.

There are other small but useful changes. The opportunity to have one’s participation check directly deposited into a bank account is a good and useful change.

One change gets my Spidey-sense tingling. (I know, wrong company. There isn’t a corresponding DC metaphor. Bat-tinglies maybe?) The memo says: “There are a few significant differences between this new plan and what DCE has offered in the past.  Perhaps the biggest difference is that all participations will now be calculated based upon DCE’s net revenue from a book’s sale rather than on the cover price.”

“Net revenue” is the question mark here. One of the Hollywood jokes is there is no such thing as net profit. Without much effort, you can find a list of Hollywood blockbusters that, according to the accountants, somehow never showed a profit. The Lord of the Rings trilogy? Nope. Didn’t make a profit. The Batman film with Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton? Ledger shows a deficit, according to the numbers folks. If one division of a company uses another division of a company for something, they pay them. It’s all the same company or conglomerate but it gets billed. The money keeps flowing around internally.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say I think I have benefited from the system. Warner Bros movies and DC Entertainment both belong to the same parent company. If Warner Bros makes a movie and uses Amanda Waller in it, they have to pay DCE a fee for that use. And some of that comes to me.

That said, if we’re dealing with a process involving net profit, the only chance the artist might have to get some of it may be to have a clearly defined definition of net although some might argue with even that. Some percentage of gross is more likely to give the creators some money than net. Working off the cover price was and is more likely to give the creators some money.

There are also new thresholds “which triggers participation payments.” Translated: the amount of sales and/or money taken in. Participation kicks in after the threshold reaches a certain point. Will that threshold be for each individual issue or an aggregate for an arc (usually five to six issues)? Do foreign sales figure into that threshold?

By Hollywood standards, the revenue that comics bring in is chump change. What gets paid to creators is really nickel and dime. So why deny it them? As I said, the principle should be if the company gets a second bite off the same apple, the creators should get a taste. That seems fair.

I haven’t yet seen any definition of net or what the thresholds will be. I have written to DC and asked; I’ve been promised a phone call wherein they will try to answer my questions. A clear definition of net versus gross would cool down my Bat-tinglies.

To be clear, this isn’t an attack against anyone at DCE. I know and like and respect many people there. They work at DC, but they aren’t DC. DCE is a corporation. It’s not my family; it’s not my friend. It’s not my enemy. I expect those inside DCE to do what they regard to be in their own best self-interests and that means in the corporate self-interest.

To paraphrase Mel Brooks, they have to protect their phony baloney jobs. That’s why I’m not certain that the new way of figuring participation is in my best interest. I would be delighted to be wrong.

We’ll see.

 

The legacy of Jay Lake, the novelist who blogged his own death

This sort of honesty, indifferent to propriety or the generally accepted personal boundaries, has been inherent in Lake’s blogging since 2008, when he stumbled into the emergency room panicked by a sudden, alarming loss of blood. Earlier that day he had participated in a book reading to commemorate the publication of his novel, Mainspring; it was cut short when he went to the bathroom and looked down to see that the toilet water was a scarlet red.

When the doctors finally examined him, they discovered two things: He had lost enough blood to warrant a transfusion, and the situation had been triggered by an ulcerated tumor. At the time, Lake was thankful. His doctors told him they had located it early enough in its growth to conclude that remission was not only possible but likely (the tumor was Stage 1 with no lymph node involvement or metastasis).

But, as anyone who regularly reads the writer’s blog soon discovered, the cancer’s persistence proved invincible to both surgical and chemotherapeutic procedures, and it wasn’t long before Lake’s CT scans yielded dark spots that proliferated through his liver, lungs, and other vital organs. Early last year, his doctors, after observing the inexorable encroachment of his tumors, informed Lake that the cancer was now classified as terminal.

The then-48-year-old writer began to prepare himself—and his readers—for death.

via The legacy of Jay Lake, the novelist who blogged his own death.

The Phantom LIVES!

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This September the good folks at Hermes Press will be publishing a new Phantom comic that will return the Ghost Who Walks to his original greatness. Written by Peter David and drawn by Sal Velutto, this book will be awesome heroic fun!

They’ve asked me to do a variant cover for the first issue and here it is. Jesus Aburto has done an awesome job on the colors. EXACTLY how I imagined it!

via The Phantom LIVES! | Graham’s Thought Balloon.

Marc Alan Fishman: Dr. Photoshoot…

or

How I learned to stop caring what someone more talented than I can do, and love my models instead.

When last we spoke, I’d revealed the initial steps to Unshaven Comics building a book from the ground up. We covered our notes process, outlining, and then the breakdown. That leads us to the first steps that require artistic direction. Shall we venture forth then, true believer?

The Gestalt of Gestures

With our breakdowns in hand, Matt Wright (penciler, inker, craft beer drinker) and I then build each page in loose gestures; I create the final digital page and the panels, and Matt and I frame each figure within the panel. When complete, we’re better able to see if the story we’re telling is compelling. We can test the ebb and flow of action, as well as pace out the most dramatic beats. In short, our gestural comps help us literally sketch out a complete comic.

dreadnuts-8289278This is by no means a step to wash over quickly, albeit it’s not one that takes incredibly long to complete. Case in point, we finished an issue this past Saturday night. Most of the time we would read aloud the beat from the breakdown and then discuss how we envisioned it being laid out on a page. Matt had a trusty sketch book next to him, alongside my open page in Adobe Illustrator, where I lay out the panels, as well as digitally ink my pages. Over those final six hours we tend to bicker and banter about the best ways to capture action, and drama. We pour over graphic novels of our favorite artists (John Romita Jr., Alex Ross, and Brent Anderson come to mind and to finger, often). We sketch, erase, debate, sketch, agree, and then retranslate to loose (“terrible looking”) sketches within the pre-made pages. These comps now serve as visual shorthand for our next steps.

While we’ll obviously refine compositions and continue to craft the page as we go… this step is the most heavy lifting we do during pre-production. Shortly thereafter? It’s time to gather our resources. In simpler terms, it’s Photoshoot time!

Just Shoot Me. Well not me… Them.

The picture that came emblazoned at the beginning of this post was taken a week ago at our fifth Samurnaut photoshoot. A bit of backstory:

When Unshaven Comics sported mere stubble on our chinny-chin-chins, Matt was our only artist. While I did do all the coloring, letter, half of the writing, and all of the graphic design… I feared venturing out of my comfort zone. Because Matt is very much my brother from another mother, he had no fear looking me in the eye and calling me out – get drawing, or die trying. I did get a BFA with a concentration in drawing and printmaking. I did know how to draw. But my fear that a comic creator worth his salt had to be able to work without reference kept me clinging to those tasks I was more than qualified for. Long story short, I swallowed my pride and accepted the fact that I could make sequential panel art that I was satisfied with (as in: I’m happy with it, but I’d never be one to say it’s anything more than passable)… so long as I had reference for literally everything I’d need to draw.

So when we created the Samurnauts, we needed models. Lucky for me, I am wealthy with friends. Even luckier: many of them are naturally gifted and funny folks willing to become super heroes and zombie-cyborg space pirates for the price of some pizza and access to my cache of Nerf weaponry. With each comic we create, Unshaven Comics open-casts our way through each part, and rents out a local venue that will leave us alone long enough to literally stage each panel, and capture it on digital film. Thank Rao we have no shame acting like 13 year-olds around each other.

And, after a few short hours of contorting, twisting, punching, kicking, nerfing, and general whackado, we break so that we Unshaven Lads can return to our lair for the next portion of comic creation.

Sage Advice I Was Once Given

“Learn to highlight your strengths and hide your weaknesses from the public eye. But behind the scenes, never stop learning or challenging yourself to overcome those things you fear. If you can’t draw hands, then you need to draw them everyday until you no longer fret over them. You’ll never have to love your work – you’ll just need to be able to live with it.”

And next week…

… I’ll pull the curtain back even further in a chapter I like to call “Your Mother’s A Tracer!”

 

The Point Radio: Julie Benz’ Summer Of Turmoil On DEFIANCE

The second season of DEFIANCE has exploded on The SyFy Network and after the events of last year, the characters find themselves in deep turmoil. Series star Julie Benz (“Amanda”) talks about where we find her this season and what we just might expect for the show as the summer goes on. Meanwhile, with so many fan-centric blockbuster films headed to theaters this season, which ones will actually be hits? Tiffany Smith (from Fandango’s WEEKEND TICKET and DC Comics’ ALL ACCESS) weighs in with a few scoops that just might change your opinions.

THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE on ANY mobile device (Apple or Android). Just  get the free app, iNet Radio in The  iTunes App store – and it’s FREE!  The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE  – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Marc Alan Fishman’s Snarky Synopsis: The New 52 – Futures End #7

futures-end-3921556Written by Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, and Keith Giffen. Art by Aaron Lopresti, Art Thibert, and Hi-Fi.

I beg you, dear reader, to not skim over the author credits in this review. Azzarello. Lemire. Jurgens. Giffen. A master of noir, the macabre, cape and cowl, and team action. I want you to let those names and their respective bibliographies soak into your brainpan.

And now, I want you to forget it. All of it. Forget amazing runs on Batman, Animal Man, Justice League, Superman, and 100 Bullets. Why? Because Futures End doesn’t read like it even strolled adjacent to the parks where any of those celebrated authors lived. Instead, we get another chapter that advances banal plots that all lead towards the next editorial status quo to deal with in the next publishing quarter (or year, or what-have-you). If you don’t care to stick around to read the maple-syrup-thick snark I’m about to lay out on this waste of thought and talent, then take these words and call it a day: Futures End is a passionless money suck, and is yet-another-symptom in the ever-ailing world of big-comic event-driven fiction.

To sum up the issue itself is to merely check off the minor plot points that continue the threads of the litany of plots. In the Phantom Zone, Agent Frankenstein fights Black Adam. He wins, but loses a limb. I guess we should care about that, but the guy is literally sewn together bits already. Losing one bit doesn’t really lend itself to intense dramatic action, does it? Elsewhere, Deathstroke and Hit Girl (or whatever her name is – which doesn’t matter because she’s clearly being presented like Hit Girl) discuss adding Grifter to their team. Grifter is told this, and basically seems fine with it. Oh the melancholy! Then there’s Firestorm, who visits a memorial celebrating the loss of life he had a hand in creating. Joy! And we cap off the book with a skirmish in the park – Terry McGinness (Batman Beyond, don’t cha know) and Mr. Terrific fight while the Key and some ne’er-do-wells discuss being bad.

Time for a bit of a digression, kiddos. You see, not that long ago, there was this weekly book called 52. It was penned by a fantastic foursome of their day. To be fair, all four men are still incredible. Mark Waid, Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, and Greg Rucka. Each man basically took a single story set inside the ever-shifting DCU, and over the course of 52 issues laid it out in tandem with the other three.

Over the course of that year-in-comics, there were certainly issues akin to Futures End where really there was more moving of chess pieces than there was definitive action and progress. But by and large, each issue was worth the read. Each issue contributed a very dissimilar set of heroes and villains that ultimately came together to showcase the richly detailed universe that houses half of the most recognizable licensed characters in all of creation… and then placed them dutifully on the shelf, and played with the want-nots, has-beens, and forgotten ones instead. It was the best of times.

Futures End #7 is the worst of times. As I alluded to above, the book just reads as passionless plot. I take that opinion to heart, as I myself am amidst the writing process on something of similar direction. In the era of writing for the trade, the middle chapters fall prey to only existing as means to the eventual end. Because they serve so many masters, they end up feeling hollow. Things happen. Stuff moves forward. But when you cram an issue with no fewer than five plot lines, and literally nothing gets resolved, or any twists are revealed… the trade becomes an end not worth waiting for. At least, not when the scripting and pacing do not take into account that every issue could stand to be a jumping on point. FE #7 not only craps on that concept, it revels in it.

Allow me to admit it straight up: I haven’t read a single panel of any previous issue of Futures End. Outside the pithy knowledge I have that this is some kind of epic that has to do with robotic evil duplicates from an alternate timeline or dimension, and at some point Luthor will run the Justice League… I know nothing. Picking up the seventh issue is of course complete reader-suicide. I don’t know why Frankenstein is in the Phantom Zone. I don’t know why Ronnie Raymond is to blame for whatever tragedy befell his kin. I don’t have the slightest clue what Terrifitech is, or why Batman Beyond is trying to blend in as a bum (who apparently drops fifty dollar bills because… the Internet?). But I digress. Simply put: I shouldn’t have to know any of those six-issue long backstories to enjoy a good comic.

If it’s the absolute I believe in now – having been a weekly reviewer for nearly three and a half years (and a fan and reader for two decades) – it’s that Erik Larsen was right. Every comic stands to be someone’s jumping on point. And it’s issues like this one that lend me to believe why comic books continue to ebb and flow but never seem to be more than a niche medium clinging to life in between the blockbuster movie adaptations. Stories like 52 actually attempted to prove that comic books still had sway – and that Alan Moore isn’t just a crazy loon in a castle. By making a book that used the continuity and novel-length girth of plots, DC proved that a comic book need not be a cartoon or mega-plex people pleaser. Futures End instead returns to the roots (and not that Jack Kirby / Steve Ditko / Stan Lee kind) of the industry; kitchy low-brow action stories that only target those who want a punch, kick, and an occasional tit. Sorry, we’re better than this.

When the credit-roll on your book reads like a who’s-who of modern top talent.. when your art team delivers admirable visuals to the script… when you have literally an entire universe of characters – including the top-shelf ones – at your disposal… when you have the carte blanche to create with compatriots that each in their own right could handle the book by themselves, you are not allowed to phone in an issue. Hell, you’re not allowed to phone in one panel. For fuck’s sake, you’re not even allowed to trip up over a single Rao-damned word balloon.

Future’s End is indicted on all counts. This was a lazy chapter in a lazy crossover that feels more by-the-numbers than seat-of-your-pants. It aspires to do nothing other than advance plot at a snails pace – sans style, sans grace. For shame, DC. For shame Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, and Keith Giffen.

 

 

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