Moonstone Pulp Coming in November.

Cover: Franchesco!

DOMINO LADY’s THREESOME

Cover: Mark Sparacio

Brought to you by New York Times best selling author Nancy Holder and novelist Howard Hopkins!
When young women vanish at a sleazy burlesque club, three beautiful heroines slip undercover and out of their clothes to investigate–and wind up comforting a kidnapper who just might be out of this world. Featuring the delicious Domino Lady, the first appearance of the deadly Golden Amazon in 70 years and introducing the voluptuous new pulp crime-fighter, The Veil!
**Franchesco variant cover can be purchased separately at retail of $5.50
 
Story: Gary Phillips
Art: Manuel Martin, Ben Hansen
Tones: Jason Jensen
Cover: Mark Maddox
72pgs, grayscale, $6.99

Cover: Mark Maddox

HONEY WEST, CAPTAIN ACTION, & FLINT

Vertigo’s crime writer Gary Phillips (Angel Town, Cowboys) presents this oversize comic one time event!
For the first time ever Zen freelance spy Derek Flint, the cool curvaceous private eye Honey West, and the mysterious secret agent super-hero Captain Action team up in a story in swingin’ sixties L.A. to battle hippie robots, mobbed-up, ray gun totting gangsters, a wigged out mad scientist, brainwashed GIs and an alien menace we could only called DANGER A-GO-GO. Dig it!

Cover: Paul Gulacy

COMPLETE CAPTAIN ACTION

This is the BIG ONE!
EVERY Captain Action Moonstone appearance ever printed…as well as Lady Action, Action Boy, Captain Action Classified, and Khem!
One BIG TOME-O-READING!
A one-time printing only!

Learn more about Moonstone Books at http://www.moonstonebooks.com/.
Story: Fabian Nicieza, Steven Grant
Art: Mark Sparacio, etc.
Cover: Paul Gulacy
432pgs, b/w, 7″ x 10″ squarebound, $28.95
ISBN: 978-1-936814-18-3
***RETAILERS INCENTIVE: buy 3 copies and receive one variant incentive Franchesco cover, FREE!
Story: Nancy Holder & Howard Hopkins
Art: Silvestre Szilagyi
Colors: James Brown
Cover: Mark Sparacio
40pgs, color, 7″x10″, $4.50
A Return of the Originals oversize Event!

There’s a great interview with Grant Morrison on the website of Rolling Stone magazine.  The reason I bring it up is that I’ve been thinking about last week’s column.  The more I thought about Action Comics #1, written by Morrison, the more I really liked it.

But I’m an adult.

I’ve been a fan of Grant’s since his debut on this side of the pond as the writer of Animal Man back in the 80s. It was a book that I adored. But Animal Man was under the Vertigo imprint, whose aim was to bring a sophisticated, i.e. adult, audience and slant into the comics industry – at which it incredibly succeeded, of course. In fact, if I remember right, the “hook” for the entire line of Vertigo books was sophisticated horror.

But I’m an adult.

And the Vertigo books aren’t for kids.

I grew up during the Silver Age of comics. When Lois was constantly getting into jams thanks to her penchant of trying to discover Superman’s secret identity. When Jimmy was constantly being exposed to some weird amulet that turned him into Elasti-Lad or a giant turtle or a bearded man. When Perry smoked cigars and yelled “Great Caesar’s Ghost” all the time. When Supergirl was alive and acted as her cousin’s secret weapon. When Superboy was a teenage Clark Kent living in Smallville and had a secret passageway and robots to cover his “tuchas” when he was away on a mission and his parents were alive and Lana Lang was his sweetheart. When Kandor was in a bottle.  When the Legion of Super-Heroes travelled through time in a bubble. When the “editor’s note” would inform me that the sun was 93,000,000 miles away from Earth.

Okay, it was a more innocent age. Well, not really. There was the Cold War and the U-2 incident and the Korean War and the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society and “advisory troops” in a country named Vietnam. The Suez Canal crisis.

It was the Mad Men age.

And then we all grew up to be Mad Men.

The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The assassination of Martin Luthor King. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Women’s rights. The Black Panthers. Newark, New Jersey in flames. The Weatherman. The Vietnam War. Tricky Dick. The Chicago Democratic Convention. Dan Rather being manhandled and dragged off the floor of the convention center. Cops in riot gear beating up college students. The Pentagon Papers. Pot. Hash. Timothy Leary. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Tune in. Turn on. Drop out.

The thing is, I think all those people marching and rioting and fighting and reacting to what was wrong in the world, what they did, what we did, was because we were raised on the ideals of what America was supposed to be about, what we really did believe, growing up, America was about.

I look around now, and I wonder, why aren’t people out on the street marching in the hundreds of thousands protesting? Angry people march. Angry people riot. Angry people force change.

Six out of 10 children are living in poverty in this country. In fucking America, man! Why aren’t their parents out there marching? We were lied into Iraq more blatantly than we were ever lied to about Vietnam. Why the fuck aren’t we out there marching? We’re building infrastructures and schools in Afghanistan while our own bridges and roads are collapsing and our school buildings are rotting. Why the fuck are we not out there marching? Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, the Koch brothers and about 10 other Wall Street operators are speculating in oil prices. Why the fuck aren’t we out there marching? The President lets the Republicans walk all over him and the Republicans can’t stand that the black guy in the White House isn’t the valet. Why the fuck are we not out there marching?

What has changed?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t.

But I’m sad, and I’m scared. Really scared.

Superman used to be written for kids. As was Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, and Supergirl, and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Grant is a great writer. Grant is a brilliant writer.

Grant is not a writer for kids.

And Action Comics #1 isn’t for kids.

TUESDAY: Michael Davis

Let’s talk about writing fight scenes. Nothing to it, right? In this corner we got character A, in that corner we got character B, the bell rings, and they proceed to beat the poo out of each other until someone falls down. Simple, right? You just point the artists in the general direction, tell them how many pages they got, and collect your check. What could be more simple?

I’ll admit, I’ve pretty much done that some times. If I know the artist real well, I’ll give plot points that are to be covered and let them work their magic. However, I only do that if I know that the artist and I are on the same page about how fight scenes should go.

The fact of the matter is, fight scenes need not only to be choreographed, they need to be plotted and written. They need to build. Above all, they should serve the story and not simply be there for some random violence. The purpose of the story is to reveal character and so also is a fight scene.

The real question in any story is what does the protagonist want and how badly does he want it? It reveals who he really are as opposed to who he thinks he is. My late wife Kim used to play scenarios for me and ask me how I would feel or what I would do in such and such situation. I always told her, “I don’t know. Ask me when we get there.” All I could have told her what was I thought I would feel or do or how I hoped I would react. The truth is, those are all bound up in your idea of who you are. You don’t know until you’ve been there. Past experience may be an indication but it’s not a guarantee. Circumstances are always a little different and there’s any number of contributing factors that can alter the outcome.

In any scene (and that includes a fight scene), what a character does is determined by what they want. What is their goal? Usually there is more than one objective and sometimes these objectives are contradictory – we’ll talk about all that some other time – but let’s say there’s one essential goal that drives the protagonist. It’s not something they would like or they sorta kinda maybe want, it’s something they want. It is something that defines them. It is something they must get, must achieve, must save, must protect.

The opponent – the antagonist – is what’s in the way. It could be a person, it could be an army, it could be a wall, it could be a hurricane, it could be anything. In a regular scene, the objective could be relatively small but, in a fight scene, it usually comes down to something pretty primal.

The goal also can’t be easy for the protagonist to get. If the goal is to get through the wall, you look for a door. If the door is locked, you look for a key. If you don’t have a key, you try and kick it down. If the door’s re-enforced, you try to blow it up – or you give up. If giving up is not an option, then the protagonist has to find a way.

Notice there was a progression in the wall sequence. We try what is easiest first – rule of human nature and what’s true in real life should be true in our stories. You want the scene – any scene but especially a fight scene – to build. It gets harder for the protagonist as it goes. You blow it all in the first punch then you have nowhere to go and neither does your story. The protagonist has to struggle; it’s the only way we get to see who they really are. No struggle, no revelation. No point to the story.

Take boxing as an example. You have the champ and in this fight he goes up against a palooka. The palooka goes down and out in the first round. The fight is over and who cares? Palooka keeps getting up and coming at the champ and, win or lose, you’ve got Rocky.

Violence isn’t necessarily about two characters beating the poo out of each other, either. There’s emotional violence as well. Read or watch Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolff for some first class emotional violence. It can be small scale, it can be Grand Guingol, but violence – emotional or physical – creates conflict, tension, and reveals character.

Fight scenes, if you have them, are part of the story and they have to tell the story or they’re a waste of time and space and the reader’s attention. A good fight scene is about something. That’s what we’re looking for – and that’s what we have a right to expect.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell