Harlan Ellison, once called “the 20th century Lewis Carroll” by the Los Angeles Times, invites you to explore his 56-year career in four new books.
These four volumes, designed to bring Ellison’s writing to a new generation of readers while collecting rare works for his long-time fans, gather classic stories, entertaining essays, unpublished teleplays, and the author’s never-before-reprinted second novel from 1960.
We here at ComicMix would like to wish the happiest of birthdays to two of our favorite people:
Harlan Ellison, who despite various attempts directed at him of annihilation, assassination,
bloodshed, butchery,
carnage,
destruction,
foul play,
homicide, knifing, liquidation,
lynching,
manslaughter,
massacring, murder,
shooting, stabbing, slaying, taking out, terrorism, general mayhem, and the rest of the works up to and including editing, has somehow survived to the distinguished age of 75. Happy birthday, unkie Harlan.
Mark Wheatley, who as far as we know has never been the object of anyone’s ire, and is the creator of Mars, Breathtaker, EZ Street, Lone Justice, and Frankenstein Mobster, turns 55 today. Celebrate by reading some of his great works today!
Seven years ago today in Atlanta, Peter David and Kathleen O’Shea got married in the chapel at Emory University. Harlan Ellison delivered a best man speech that was only slightly shorter than his fourth marriage, topping off a beautiful ceremony.
Happy Copper Anniversary, you two crazy kids. Enjoy the night.
This was my week to consider the lives of little old Jewish men. On Tuesday, I went to a screening of Dreams with Sharp Teeth, a film about Harlan Ellison, where I was lucky enough to talk to the man himself.
On Wednesday, there was a memorial service for Norman Mailer at Carnegie Hall. If Mailer was there, it was, alas, in spirit only, and in the lives of those who read his work.
What struck me about these two events is that both men were bullied. Harlan talked about a group of boys who would beat him up every day after school. Mailer, a Jew at Harvard in the late 1930s and early 1940s, certainly was shunned more than his share. It was the era of John Wayne and Gary Cooper, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. A man like Dustin Hoffman could no more be a leading man – a hero – than Larry Fine.
As one would expect, boys who experience cruelty grow up to be fighters. Both men have reputations for being opinionated, biting, passionate in their defense of their positions. Both have been known to throw a punch, physically as well as verbally.
And yet – they also both grew up to be charming men. Maybe my perceptions are flawed because I met them in the 1970s, when they were no longer young, but I don’t think so. I think they learned to be charming for the same reasons they learned to fight. Charm, with the sense of humor that so often tags along, is a great way to ingratiate oneself to people. Including bullies.
Girls can also be bullies, but of a different kind. I’m sure there are girls who beat up smaller kids, but it’s more likely that girls will bond together to exclude those they would ridicule. The bully is as likely to be the most beautiful, or the most popular, not the most physically strong. And, again, their victims learn to be charming.
Charm is the weapon of the outsider. There are many studies that demonstrate, for example, that women’s intuition is, in fact, a learned trait, that women learn to observe more men more closely than men observe women, because women have been more dependent on men’s approval, and need to keep tabs. African-Americans similarly know more about how white people will react than vice versa.
Bullies think they are hurting their victims. A punch in the face (or the kidney, or the knee) certainly hurts. At the same time, the bully’s victim learns to develop his own weapons. Perhaps she learns to hide meekly, and find a roundabout way home from school. Or he learns to find an adult or a bigger bully who can act as protector. Luckily for us, many develop a sense of humor or a winning smile or another talent that keeps away the pain.
For the artist, bullying can result in an empathy for underdogs of every kind, and the ability to understand different kinds of characters and situations. The best writers feel like outsiders and underdogs. Their work takes us to new worlds and lets us live new lives. Their success is the best revenge.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess of ComicMix, is a real fan of the movie, My Bodyguard.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is taken from Harlan Ellison’s online community, reproduced in its unedited entirety. If there’s one person whose words you don’t change without checking with him, it’s Harlan. — GH]
HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT
YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:
Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin’ LOVE the Guild.
And I voted NO on accepting this deal.
My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation…
As we were driving back east from two weeks in Detroit, Columbus, Chicago and Toledo – next time, I’m getting a campaign bus – we heard the news of Evel Knievel’s death. No, this blather isn’t about him, although I do think that saying you’re going to take your motorcycle and jump over 50 school buses loaded with nuns and orphans and then strapping rockets to the bike is cheating. Nope, this blather is about Irwin Allen, noted dead movie and television producer/director/writer and former cover story in Modern Asshole magazine.
Allen was best known for his disaster movies, “disaster” in the sense that the plots involved some sort of serious event (The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure). His connection to Knievel? When I was at DC Comics back in 1976, he called me in a fit of pique about his upcoming movie, Viva Knievel! It seems he heard we were doing a big ol’ comic book teaming Superman up with Muhammad Ali, and he thought a Batman vs. Evel Knievel companion volume was a lovely idea.
I didn’t, and as it turned out somebody quoted my arguments to him. Irwin was more than mildly annoyed. He called to try to talk me out of it, not that the decision to make or not make such a comic book was anywhere near my capabilities at the time. His technique was rather unique: instead of sweet-talking me or convincing me of the error of my ways, he used invective and attack. He wanted to know where some 26 year-old pissant got off sabotaging (honest) a big Hollywood macher like him. He started screaming an unending list of curse words that would have impressed George Carlin. He threatened my unborn children, promised to destroy my career (coming short of “you’ll never have lunch in this town again,” as I was in New York City) and I think there was something in there about my mother and an orangutan.
The world is a bit nicer today, as the acrimonious lawsuit between Harlan Ellison and Fantagraphics has not only been settled,but the terms of the settlement have been released. Both parties agreed that "ad hominem, personal attacks" will cease as long as each is alive (or, in the case of Fantagraphics, in business).
In addition, Fantagraphics agreed to remove Harlan’s name from the cover of future editions of Comics Journal Library 6: The Writers, as well as his interview, and to remove passages from the book Comics as Art: We Told You So, as well as removing those paragraphs from its website. At the same time, Ellison’s website will remove allegations that Groth embezzled funds, anad which "likened him to a child molester." A rebuttal statement will be on his site for at least 30 days.
Fantagraphics may not solicit any further donations of art for its Defense Fund, but may market those pieces which have already been donated.
Ellison will receive two copies of all Fantagraphics publications or any of its imprints which contain material he wrote.
Each party is responsible for its own legal fees.
AP via CNN: Tom Wayne has amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero’s Books.
His collection ranges from best sellers, such as Tom Clancy’s "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe’s "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles, like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But when he wanted to thin out the collection, he found he couldn’t even give away books to libraries or thrift shops; they said they were full.
So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books in protest of what he sees as society’s diminishing support for the printed word.
"This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books…. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply — estimated at 20,000 books — is exhausted.
And it hasn’t been all that healthy for things adapted from books either, as we see that ABC has shelved six completed episodes of a series called Masters Of Science Fiction, adapting stories from Robert Heinlein, John Kessel, Harlan Ellison, with Stephen Hawking as host and narrator. All this so we can get things like America’s Bingo Night and Dancing With The Stars.
At New York’s Book Expo America today, Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth took time out from a busy schedule with booksellers, rights agents and talent to talk to ComicMix‘s Martha Thomases and Mike Gold briefly about the upcoming arbitration session to settle Harlan Ellison’s lawsuit. We asked why he wasn’t able to go to Los Angeles for the May 29 session, as originally scheduled. "I’m a single father. My son turns 13 tomorrow," he said. "I just couldn’t go to Los Angeles then to New York in three days." Fantagraphics is headquartered in Seattle.
Does he hope the arbitration process will work?
"Yes, I obviously have some hope or I wouldn’t spend the money or take the time to fly down."
Is the process binding?
"It’s binding if we agree on an arrangement we can both sign off on. I don’t know what that would look like. It won’t involve any money damages, because there is no money. That was a condition of our agreement to participate.
At the booth, Fantagraphics was distributing postcards urging interested parties to view the court documents at http://www.fantagraphics.com/support-html.
Groth was in New York promoting a wide variety of Fantagraphics projects, including the Pogo series we mentioned previously and their boxed-set tribute to Bill Mauldin’s classic World War II feature, Willie and Joe. The latter is scheduled for February.
Seventy -three years ago today, as was foretold in prophecy, a child was born, a child destined to answer the question of what happens to an enfant terrible when he’s no longer an enfant.
Happy birthday, Cousin Harlan. (Yes, we’re cousins, at least, as is Neil Gaiman. Ariel David calls him Unky Harlan and calls me Unky Glenn, therefore we’re cousins-in-law at least.) Now if we could only figure out what to get you for your birthday… you wouldn’t want these extra tickets to the Star Wars convention, do you?
(Check out the ComicMix interview with Cousin Harlan – part one and part two.)
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