Noted comic book junkie (and occasional comic creator) Patton Oswalt delivered the third annual keynote speech at the Just For Laughs Comedy Conference in Montreal last week. He presented his address in the form of two open letters, one to creators and one to gatekeepers, and everything he said to those audiences can and should also be said to every comic book professional, be they creator, publisher, or retailer. Here’s a large snippet:

When I say everything I know about succeeding a comedian is worthless, I know what I’m talking about because everything I know became worthless twice in my lifetime. […] All the comedians I remember starting out with in D.C., all the older ones, told me over and over again ‘you gotta work clean, you gotta get your five minutes, and you gotta get on Carson.’ And it all comes down to that.

And in one night, all of them were wrong. And not just wrong, they were unmoored. They were drifting. A lot of these bulletproof comics I’d opened for, whose careers seemed pre-destined, a lot of them never recovered from that night. You’ll never hear their names. They had been sharks in a man-made pond and had been drained. They decided their time had passed.

Keep that in mind for later. They had decided their time had passed.

The second time everything I knew about comedy became worthless has been pretty much every day for the last three years.

I know that’s not an exact date. Some other younger, not yet famous name in this room – you are going to pinpoint that date 20 years from now. But for now, every day for about the last few years will have to suffice.

I just want to give you a brief timeline of my career up to this point, when I knew it was all changing again. Listen to my words very carefully. Two words will come up again and again and they’re going to come back later along with that phrase “they decided” and people are going to carry me around the room.

[Huge ego-stroking credit dump omitted.]

I know that sounds like a huge ego-stroking credit dump. But if you listened very carefully, you would have heard two words over and over again: “lucky” and “given.” Those are two very very dangerous words for a comedian. Those two words can put you to sleep, especially once you get a taste of both being “lucky” and being “given.” The days about luck and being given are about to end. They’re about to go away. […] What I mean is: Not being lucky and not being given are no longer going to define your career as a comedian and as an artist.

Remember what I said earlier about those bulletproof headliners who focused on their 5 minutes on the Tonight Show and when it ended they decided their opportunity was gone? They decided. Nobody decided that for them. They decided.

Now, look at my career up to this point. Luck, being given. Other people deciding for me. […] I need to decide more career stuff for myself and make it happen for myself, and I need to stop waiting to luck out and be given. I need to unlearn those muscles.

And that’s just from what he says to creative folks. As they say, read the whole thing. Twice.

I had one hell of a weekend, and I don’t mean that in the swinging wild party, gorgeous male strippers in thongs stuffed with dollar bills, wake up and don’t remember what the hell happened. I mean hell in all its Dante’s Inferno Nine-Circles-Of, sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jags and sheer, utterly emotional exhaustion.

We moved my parents to what is called in healthcare parlance a “continuous care retirement community.” They’re still living independently. It’s not quite assisted living. Yet.

Not that it’s a bad place. Actually, it’s quite lovely. Their new apartment is more spacious than the place they left; we didn’t have to get rid of any of their furniture, and by the time I left early yesterday afternoon, it looked like “home,” especially after brother Glenn, daughter Alix and her husband Jeff hung all the pictures and what-nots and set up the phone and the cable TV.

Actually, my brother was there with the cable guy when we arrived, so we didn’t miss any of the Olympics opening ceremony. Of course Queen Elizabeth II, with a little help from Daniel Craig, absolutely <a href=”

the evening. Her outfit was stunning – luved the feathered “fascinator” she wore instead of one her standard hats, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find out her new granddaughter Kate picked out – and watching Her Majesty was lots better than watching Team USA wearing Ralph Lauren by way of a Chinese sweatshop.

Previously, my parents had Cablevision but now they have Comcast, so they’re having trouble figuring out how to use the remote, which is waaaaay more complicated and harder to read than the remote you get from Cablevision and Comcast’s channel guide is waaaay more “busy” (visually) than Cablevision’s, which really, really, sucks when you have macular degeneration like my dad does.

And the apartment overlooks a small lake with swans and a walking path and a gazebo. The staff is superb, caring and friendly, everything you could possibly want for your parents. And several of the residents were sort of a “welcome wagon” for Mr. and Mrs. Newell, accompanying them to their first meals in the main dining room.

But the first thing my mom said to me on Saturday morning, when she woke up in her new home was “I want to go home.”

I gave her a big hug, we talked, she went into the shower. I went outside and sat on one of the lovely rocking chairs on the lovely front porch and had three cigarettes in a row…between tears.

But I basically held it together – hung up their clothes in their new closets, folded the shirts and sweaters in the bedroom furniture, even did the laundry for them while they were went to dinner – until this morning, when I lost it completely. The above-mentioned sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jag.

Absolutely the wrong thing to do in front of my parents, who are stressed enough. Pissed off Glenn and Alix, disturbed Jeff.

So I went out for a ride. Went to the nearest WaWa, got a whole bunch of bagels – plain, garlic, onion, and pumpernickel. Checked out some nearby dry cleaners, which is the one service the retirement community doesn’t offer. Stopped at Rite-Aid and picked up some personal sundries for Mom.

And smoked some more cigarettes. (I admit it, I smoked a lot of cigarettes this weekend.)

And popped a Xanax.

So here I am, sitting at the computer, writing this column. Meant to write about moving, what it would be like to be Superman moving all that shit, Terran and intergalactic, to the Fortress of Solitude from his apartment in Metropolis. Wondering what was in Diana’s suitcases when she left Themiscrya. And how many times the moving vans have pulled into and out of the driveway of Avengers’ Mansion, with the constantly changing membership of that organization.

And where the parents of super-heroes – and super-villains, for that matter – go when they’re unable to live on their own.

But I’m just too exhausted and emotionally spent tonight to think about make-believe.

Life got in the way for me this week.

TUESDAY: Emily S. Whitten and 15 Minutes

Noted Comic Writer  Mike Bullock contributed as one of the authors to TALES OF THE ROOK, the first ever anthology set in veteran New Pulp Author Barry Reese’s universe and featuring his best known character, The Rook!

The Anthology debuted in May under the Reese Unlimited imprint from Pro Se Productions and features works by Reese, Ron Fortier, Bobby Nash, Percival Constantine, Tommy Hancock, and Bullock.  Best known for his work on Moonstone’s THE PHANTOM and his own LIONS, TIGERS, AND BEARS, Bullock has jumped feet first into New Pulp as an active member of the New Pulp Movement.  His Runemaster Studios is quickly becoming a fantastic source of New Pulp stories and characters, including his latest creation which saw life first in his TALES OF THE ROOK contribution.  Bullock joins All Pulp for an interview about the mysterious XANDER!

ALL PULP:   Who and/or what is Xander?

MIKE BULLOCK: He is the Guardian of Worlds, a man, a spirit and a legend. Over two thousand years ago, the first Xander stumbled on an ancient tomb in Capernaum. Inside he found a scroll, staff and armband lying in a sarcophagus. When he read the scroll, a transformation took place anointing him as the first Guardian of Worlds, charged with locating and closing the nether-portals opened from worlds below into our own.

Mentored by the spirit of his dead Grandfather, Xander employs a variety of martial and mystical arts to complete his tasks and prevent those who dwell in darkness from wreaking havoc on Earth.

AP:  What characters/ideas/creators influenced you in the creation of Xander?

MB: I had just finished reading a few of the Rook novels and had sat down with my beautiful wife to watch Fringe when a feeling of incredible creative inspiration came over me. As the show went on, I recall suddenly picturing Xander in my mind, and his totems of power (the armband and staff). I continued to watch the show but something triggered a memory and I recalled a story I’d seen as a child, where a boy’s shadow had a mind of its own, but was attached to the boy’s feet so they were forever linked. While the shadow wanted to do one thing, the boy wanted something else, which created an interesting tension with the character. I took that and molded it into the ‘legacy hero’ model from Phantom, painted all that on my original bit of inspiration and within 45 minutes had what would finally be named Xander: Guardian of Worlds.

AP:  What about this opportunity to be a part of the Tales of the Rook appealed to you enough to introduce Xander into it?

MB: It made perfect sense, since Xander was born out of a moment of inspiration catalyzed by Barry Reese’s work. It’s an honor to have Barry give me the keys to his character and I hope he’s as happy with the outcome as I am.

AP: For you, what is it about New Pulp that draws you in as a creator and inspires you to add characters and tales to it?

MB: I fell madly in love with pulp fiction the first time I laid eyes on A Princess of Mars back in the 70s. Since I have this compulsion/need to write and be creative, it seems only natural that I would do so in the New Pulp field. I love what others are doing in the field and just thank God I get to be part of that.

AP:  Any future plans/teasers about what we’ll see from Xander down the road?

MB: Right now I’ve laid the groundwork for his first novel, a series of short stories coming soon from Pro Se. In that, Xander will travel to Texas, New York and abroad hunting down demons, devils and the like in an effort to banish them once more to the hells they crawled from. We’ll learn more about who currently wears the totem, what it means to bear the strain of being the Guardian and maybe get a glimpse of his love life. Oh, and there will be lots and lots of action and adventure.

TALES OF THE ROOK is available at www.amazon.com and www.prosepulp.com in both print and ebook!

I can’t decide if this is inspired or blasphemous.

I know I’m not on the bleeding edge of timeliness with this, as I just saw it for the first time today even though folks in my Facebook news feed were linking to it. Basically, the gang at Film School Rejects have taken the original trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and given it the modern-day marketing makeover. Now a jump-cut/quick-fade/epileptic seizure-inducing montage of sound and fury, this new version presents Kubrick’s seminal SF masterpiece (that’s right; I said it) as a summer blockbuster which makes any of the Transformers movies seem like Eat, Pray, Love.

(Okay, it’s not that wild, but it’s definitely “different.”)

Check it out:

Interestingly, and as others have pointed out, the trailer actually makes a pretty good case for the film. Given how much of the story is driven visually and with minimal dialogue, the trailer is free to showcase several key pieces of the movie’s striking imagery to remarkable effect. If anything, this exercise succeeds (for the most part) in demonstrating just how much of the film has held up in the 40-plus years since its release.

(Of course, if they actually used a trailer like this to pimp a theatrical re-release of the film? Fanboy reactions might well go a long way toward redefining the term “epic.”)

Anyway, take the ultimate trip, yo.