Well, everybody else has the Avengers gag reel, so why not us? See Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Gwynneth Paltrow, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, and somebody named Joss and how they spent their summer vacation playing Avengers vs. Chitauri. Watch it now, and you’ll feel better for the entire day.
Weird Tales, a Magazine known for featuring the odd and strange and being the home of such classic Pulp Authors as Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, has found itself in a position to retract an endorsement by Weird Tales Editor Marvin Kaye of a novel by author Victoria Hoyt.
In a post entitled, ‘A Message from the Publisher’, said Publisher John Harlacher details that editor Kaye had endorsed a novel written by Hoyt. Upon further investigation and learning more about the content of the book, The Publisher consulted with Kaye and the decision was made to rescind the endorsement. For the full contents of the letter from Weird Tales’ Publisher, go here- http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/2012/08/20/a-message-from-the-publisher/
Although it is not stated in the above cited message, it is believed by All Pulp staff that the title of this novel is “Save the Pearls”. This novel and Hoyt herself have been criticized on the internet for what is being cited as obvious racist themes in the book as well as in promotional material. All Pulp has not contacted any of the parties involved, but is willing to discuss this with both sides and report on it accordingly.
It’s just another average day of internet browsing. You’re doing your thing, checking the news, maybe taking a detour to your favorite webcomic. Then, WHAM (or rather, the internet version of said sound effect).
ERROR 451.
What happened? Did the servers overload? Did the connection crash? Is the address wrong?
No; this page has been burned.
Error 451 is a new HTTP Error status code proposed by Google developer advocate Tim Bray. The code would pop up the same way an Error 404 code does — except instead of being told a page could not be found, a viewer would be informed that the site is being censored.
The number is an homage to Ray Bradbury‘s Fahrenheit 451, which takes place in a dystopian future in which firemen burn books because the government has declared reading illegal.
According to Wired’s WebMonkey blog, the biggest advantage of the 451 code is that it would explain why content is unavailable — such as which legal authority is imposing the restriction. This would let visitors know that the government, not the Internet Service Provider, is the reason for the page’s malfunction. Currently, 403 errors are most often used when blocking access to censored pages.
Error code 451 would pop up in situations such as the Indian government’s censorship of the site Cartoonists Against Corruption, which was blocked because its critique of the government was deemed “defamatory and derogatory.”
The biggest problem with the code, Bray admits, is that many governments are not fond of the idea of transparent censorship. So, if we’re lucky — or not? — this code may be popping up in our browsers in the future.
Please help support CBLDF’s important First Amendment work and reporting on issues such as this by making a donation or becoming a member of the CBLDF!Becca Hoekstra is studying journalism in San Francisco, California.
Everyone has their niche, their two inches of ivory that they work over so closely with a fine-haired brush. Some niches are larger than others — project manager, superhero artist, war apologist, social novelist — but they all bind, more or less, around the edges. Some artists fight against that niche, and some embrace it.
Guy Delisle is a cartoonist — originally Canadian, though resident in France for some time — whose niche is creating books about the strange foreign cities he finds himself living and working in. First was Shenzhen
Delisle’s work typically has a crisp, clean line — as one would expect from an animator working in France — with a good eye for detail and enough description and narration to allow the drawing to be simple; he doesn’t try to cram everything into either words or art.
Recently, Delisle’s wife was posted by MSF to Israel for a year, and so, eventually, that experience turned itself into his most recent book, Jerusalem
Jerusalem doesn’t grapple directly with the legitimacy of the Israeli state, or of its treatment of Palestinians (or, conversely, with the actions of Palestinians and others against Israel), making it feel a bit politically naive at times. (Reading it in tandem with Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days Or Less — see my review — would be interesting; Glidden was in Israel for a short time, on a tour, specifically as a tourist on a heritage tour designed to make her intensely pro-Israel, and intensively questioned the Palestinian situation, while Delisle lived in Israel for a year, mostly among vaguely pro-Palestinian expatriates, and lives the physical discomfort of the occupation without engaging with it on a theoretical level.)
Delisle’s job — besides writing books like Jerusalem — is a house-husband; he had two small children during that year, and just taking care of small children (even if they are in day-care part of the time) is massively time-consuming in ways that it’s hard to describe. When you wake up with a toddler, you get through the day somehow, and then wonder, at the end, what you actually did during the last sixteen hours. So Delisle isn’t as free to move around this year as he was in Shenzhen and Pyongyang — but, then again, those were shorter trips, so he had more time to immerse himself in Jerusalem (and, before that, in Burma), more time to live in those places rather than just passing through them.
Jerusalem is a discursive, rambling book, equally about daily life as an expatriate in East Jerusalem and the physical problems of just moving around so militarized and controlled a country [1] as it is about Delisle’s continuing attempts to sketch and draw and work on his cartoons when he has time away from his young children. It’s a long, looping story, circling back to those same few concerns — time to sketch, physical access, which day things will be open — and is more obsessed with time (the right day, the right time of day, enough time to do something while the kids are in day-care) than one would expect. Throughout, Delisle is an interesting and thoughtful guide to Israel, showing us the things he did and saw and thought, and what it was like to live in that place for that time. I expect some people will be unhappy at Delisle’s take on the Israel-Palestine situation — people on either end of that argument, because as much as he engages with it, he’s somewhere in the middle — but that’s an occupational hazard when you create books about your time in odd, contested, unlikely places. Delisle is always honest, and shows us what he sees and feels: you can’t ask for more than that.
[1] His partner was posted in Gaza for most of this trip, and the one crossing into Gaza is more tightly controlled than any other gate in Israel.
Before I get started – or let’s pretend that I have just stopped time – just want to say regarding Martha Thomases’ column of last week:
Shit, Martha, why the fuck didn’t I think of writing that?
• • • • •
See, about two months ago I hurt my middle finger at work. It got caught between a stretcher and a door. The noted and very adorable Dr. Christopher Doumas used the C-arm to check it out. Nothing was broken – be thankful for small miracles, right? – but there was plenty of soft tissue damage, meaning I bruised the fascia, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Plus broken capillaries and such. Which caused my ahem middle finger to swell up and turn several shades of purple.
But you know how they say that soft tissue damage hurts worse than a broken bone? – well, maybe you don’t, but trust me, they do say that – so believe me when I tell you:
Goddamn, it hurt!
Anyway, I had to write an incident report, which meant I had to go to the boss’s office. The boss is from the Midwest, and, imho, the outfit that owns my ambulatory surgery center reflects that what’s the matter with Kansas? mentality. So I’m sitting there trying to write, which was extremely difficult because said middle finger was on my right hand, and I’m a “righty” – the only thing about me that is.
Just trying to use the keyboard was a pain in the ass – or finger – and I muttered “Fuck, that hurts.”
My what’s the matter with Kansas? boss looked very disturbed. Did she say, “I’m so sorry, Mindy.” Did she say, “Do you want an Advil?” Did she cluck and coo and offer other bromides?
Nope.
She said, “Don’t use that language. It’s not professional.”
I looked at her. I thought are you kidding me?
And I said:
“I’m from New York.”
• • • • •
I will now allow time to resume its normal linear course.
I have always, always loved time-travel stories.
Last night I was watching The Timey-Wimey Of Doctor Who on BBC America when, all of a sudden during a commercial break, I remembered a Silver Age Superboy story in which the Boy of Steel discovers the origin of Cinderella’s glass slipper – all of which inspired me to write about time travel today. Anyway, I was sure the Cinderella story was featured on the cover. But guess what I discovered when doing my due diligence?
The Cinderella thingy was only a “side-trip” in a very famous and critical-to-DC-mythology story written by Robert Bernstein and penciled and inked by George Pepp. The story was “Superboy’s Big Brother” (Superboy #89, June 1961), featuring the introduction of Mon-El – whom I’ve also always loved, but that’s a topic for another day and another column. Leaving Mon-El to hang out at the Kent home with his parents, Clark goes to school ‘cause he has a test he can’t skip. I guess it was an English class, or maybe history, or maybe even creative writing because one of the questions on the test is about the origin of fairy tales and uses the Cinderella story as an example. Clark remembers meeting the real Cinderella in the past. I guess to jog his memory – although since Superboy has super-memory I don’t know why it needs jogging – he decides to revisit the past to make sure he’s got the details right.
Clark asks permission to get a drink of water. (The teacher says okay, which means allowing him to leave the room during a test. Try doing that these days, kids!) Changing into Superboy, he flies through the time barrier to Egypt, circa 4,000 B.C. He takes a drink of water from the Nile – ‘cause, you know Superboy never tells a lie, and this way he can honestly tell the teacher that he got his drink of water. While getting his allotment of H2O, he sees an eagle steal a sandal from a girl putting a bassinet made from reeds into the Nile. There’s a baby inside. It floats down the Nile to where the Pharaoh’s daughter is bathing. The Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby in the bassinette, and names him Moses….
Strike that.
Superboy is about to go after the eagle when that super-memory of his is jogged once again, so he does nothing. Instead he watches as the bird drops the sandal in the Pharaoh’s palace. The Pharaoh searches for the woman whose foot fits the sandal. He finds her and makes her his queen. Aha! thinks Superboy. This is the Cinderella story he came back in time to see. Now it’s time to go back to school and finish that test.
So Clark writes up the story, but the teacher says he has no proof, so only gives him an 89. (Guess it wasn’t a creative writing class after all.) And Clark isn’t unhappy, because if he had aced it, the teacher might suspect he’s Superboy because Clark is so smart. (Huh?)
Meanwhile, suspecting that Mon-El is lying about being his brother – um, excuse me, but aren’t you the one who assumed that he was, Clark? – Superboy exposes Mon-El to a meteorite that looks like Kryptonite but is really made of lead.
Oops. Your bad, Superboy.
Mon-El is really Lar Gand, a native of the planet Daxam. And Daxamites can’t handle lead. In fact, it kills them. Like the Roach Motel: once they check in, they don’t check out. Swearing that one day he will find a cure to the fatal lead poisoning, Superboy has no choice but to send Mon-El to the Phantom Zone in order to save his life.
Leading in a timey-winey, butterfly effect way to the other time travel story that added-to-the-DC-mythology big time, the introduction of the Legion of Super-Heroes (Adventure Comics #247, April 1958, by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino). And if I have to recount that story, you shouldn’t call yourself a comics fan! J The Legion traveled through the time barrier by means of a “time bubble,” which maybe was inspired by the bubble in which Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, travels to Oz. Only they don’t ask Superboy if he is a witch. They also don’t think Krypto is a witch.
It was Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Super-Heroes who, in “The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire” revealed that he had discovered a permanent cure for Mon-El. This happened in Adventure Comics #330, March 1962, by Jerry Siegel and John Forte. This is only a year for us poor Earth-Prime Homo sapiens who are cursed to experience time in a this-way-forward linear manner, but it was about twenty centuries as a phantom for poor Lar Gand.
No wonder he went nuts.
TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten, Esq
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis, PhD
There have been a lot of parodies/mash-ups of that particular Liam Neeson soliloquy, but this one is quite clever and fun.
(Well, I think so, at least.)
Kickstarter is a topic that tends to get people worked up, both on the pro and con sides. Call it what you want, Top Cow just pulled in six figures to relaunch Cyber Forcein what’s the biggest crowdfunding effort to date from a U.S. comics publisher (and #6 largest comics project to close on Kickstarter).
I occasionally compare crowdfunding to the days when artists had patrons who paid the bills and let the artists create. That metaphor seems particularly apt here. 1,419 people pooled their resources to raise $117,135 which will fund 5 issues of Cyber Force with free distribution online and in print. That averages out to roughly $82.50/person. A very high average.
Kickstarter tells you the most popular pledge is in the $20-$25 range. The most popular Cyber Force pledge level was the $50 level, which was also the hard cover graphic novel level. 622 people pledged there/ordered the hard cover and when you add in the higher premiums, it looks like somewhere in 800-850 range for various HC copies. So while this wasn’t solely funded on the strength of the collected edition, around half of it probably was.
The gamble here is that by making the material freely available, Cyber Force will garner a big audience for issue #6, which would theoretically be a paid purchase. Or perhaps they can do another Kickstarter for the next arc. Either way, Top Cow rolled the dice on this one and came out of it getting what they wanted and a little bit more.
There’s a lot left to play out with this new variation on Kickstarting a comics project. The material has to be produced. Reactions gauged. The plans for issue 6 and beyond formalized and executed. The journey has just begun, but this is going to be fascinating to watch. New rules apply and we’re not sure what those rules are yet.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
James Palmer and Mechanoid Press Proudly Present a Different Kind of Pulp Detective
Atlanta, GA— James Palmer and Mechanoid Press have just released another Kindle exclusive melding elements of Dashiell Hammet and H.P. Lovecraft, in the first in a series blending 30’s noir with urban fantasy and supernatural fiction.
Slow Djinn begins the adventures of Sam Eldritch: Occult Investigator for Hire. Eldritch is a private eye in 1930s New York, trying to cope with his newfound ability to see the world of magic that lies all around us, yet just beyond our reach.
Synopsis
Sam Eldritch is down on his luck. His partner was murdered by a Chinese demon, but it gave Sam a gift. Now he sees ghosts, demons, and even worse things. Things that no one else wants to know about. Kicked off the force as a laughing stock, Sam hires himself out to those who need his special “gift.”
But when a mysterious Saudi businessman hires him to retrieve a stolen ring, Sam realizes he may have bitten off more than he can chew. Haunted by the ghost of his murdered partner, his only friends a Chinese sorcerer and the ingénue of a jealous crime boss, can Sam find a force so powerful it destroys everyone it touches before it falls into the hands of the local mob? Can he learn the secret of the demon who destroyed his life?
“I had a lot of fun writing this one,” says Palmer. “And I have a few more stories in the beginning stages. If readers like Sam, there will definitely be more adventures.”
The photo cover is by the talented J.R. Blackwell (jrblackwell.com), and represents the classic pulpy noir feel of the story.
“A lot of paranormal and urban fantasy is set in the present day,” says Palmer. “And that’s great, but I wanted to take it back to its pulp roots a bit. I think fans of classic occult detective characters will really dig Sam Eldritch.”
This universe has several influences, from the gritty dime novel detectives to Carl Kolchak and The X-Files and books like Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim.
“All of the characters are really colorful and interesting,” says Palmer. “And there’s a twist at the end I don’t think anyone will see coming.”
Slow Djinn is available for Kindle and in PDF format from http://www.jamespalmerbooks.com/ and http://www.mechanoidpress.com/
About James Palmer
James has written articles, interviews, columns, reviews and fiction for Strange Horizons, Tangent Online, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, and New Pulp Publishers Airship 27, Pro Se Productions, and White Rocket Books. For more, visit http://www.jamespalmerbooks.com/ or follow James on Twitter @palmerwriter.
About Mechanoid Press
Mechanoid Press is a new publisher specializing in science fiction, New Pulp, and steampunk ebooks and anthologies. Their first anthology should be out by the end of the year. For more, visit http://www.mechanoidpress.com/ or follow the robot revolution on Twitter @mechanoidpress.
Rachel Hulin is a photographer whose son Henry loves to fly, or at least loves to pretend he is. So she chose to do a couple of series of photos of him doing so.
Naturally, some well-meaning busybodies worried the child was in some danger during these exploits. “I never throw him, and I never move him into a place in the frame that he wasn’t in to begin with,” Hulin shares with My Modern Met.
They’re very well done, both the composition of the initial shot and the…post-production work.
She’s doing a book next spring featuring her flying child. It’s already up on Amazon.
One of the primary rules for writing is “Write what you know.” As I’ve discussed before, the corollary question becomes “what do you know?” I can write characters that, on the surface, are totally unlike me because underlying there are elements that true for both of us. Granted, I need to get the details of those lives correct but the essentials – the feelings, the doubts, everything that makes us human – are the same. I just have to find out where that is in me and what it looks like.
So, for me, the more important rule is “Write what is true.” That will vary from person to person, from character to character. The corollary question then becomes “What is true?” I’m not asking “What is The Truth?” because I don’t think that The Great Objective Truth exists or, if it does, it can be perceived as such by each of us through the lenses of our own existence. What I’m asking is “What is true?” for each person, be they a living and breathing reality or a fictional creation.
Socrates famously said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I would add: “The unquestioned belief is not worth having.” As kids, we’re all given a set of beliefs, be they about God, country, family, love, values and so on. That’s fine; we all have to start off somewhere. Parents have their beliefs about what is right and wrong, good and bad and it is both their job and their duty to instill those in their children. As the children grow and come to adulthood, it is their job to examine those beliefs and see if they are true for them. Do you believe something because your own experience, your own questioning, has brought you to that place or are you there because someone told you that is true and it’s what you must believe?
That’s my problem with dogma. It tells me that this is the truth and this is what I must believe whether my own experiences agree with it. It may be that my own experiences and my own questioning will bring me to the same place, the same conclusion or belief and that’s fine. I will have then earned that belief; it’s not a hand-me-down. It’s mine.
Dogma, whether religious, political, social or what have you, is easier. Questioning takes time, takes effort and may take you to places that you’re not comfortable to visit. It can shift your foundations. My questions about the existence of God made me feel like I was on a trapeze in the dark. I had just let go of one bar but I couldn’t see if there was another trapeze swinging towards me or if there was a net below. It’s still that way. I’m on a boat in the ocean but I don’t know which port is the destination or how long it will take to get there. The voyage, however, is necessary.
Where I wind up may not be your truth, and that’s fine. I accept that what is true for you is your truth and valid. It just may not be mine. Our truths could be opposite and we both may feel compelled to act on our truths and that may bring us into conflict. That’s also fine. I can oppose you and respect your truth without accepting it for my truth.
As for us, so with the characters we write. The best stories challenge the characters on a deep level, on what they regard as true. The situation challenges or shatters the character’s beliefs. They must find out what is true. If you as the writer have never done that yourself, how can you write it? First you must live it and understand the process and then it becomes useful to you as writer. Aside from talent, aside from skill, all you have to offer as a writer is who you are as a person and your own strengths and weaknesses as that person will become your strengths and weaknesses as a writer.
MONDAY: Mindy Newell
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
