I’ve never wanted anything more than I wanted to get into the High School Of Art and Design. I was obsessed from the time I found out there existed in the world an art high school and I found that out in the seventh grade.
Yes, I’ve wanted other things in my life but A&D (which I’m sure you are sick of me writing about) was so important to me for so long when it happened it was literally a dream come true. I know, I know, I keep reminiscing about my high school so much so I feel like mentioning A&D again would be like mentioning Lord Voldemort at Harry Potter’s wedding.
OK. I get it, it won’t happen again.
Around 20 years ago (when I was five) I began to want something else pretty badly. That “other thing” was my childhood dream but as an adult I began another obsession that became a dream and now that dream has come true.
I’ve been invited to attend the San Diego Comic Con as a special guest.
For over 25 years I’ve been known as the Susan Lucci of SDCC. If you don’t know who Susan Lucci is or why that is funny, your pop culture knowledge sucks.
On that note, SDCC is the biggest and most important pop culture event in the world. Being invited to be a guest is a huge honor. That invitation means that you have accomplished something of note in your field and are being recognized for such. I’ve imagined being invited as a special guest at SDCC a zillion times and what I would do when/if it happened.
First thing I’d do is tell everyone!
You may think after reading my rants here on ComicMix telling everyone is what I would do whenever I have something to crow about.
Nope.
Regardless of my seemingly brash and ostentatious writings, media interviews and pick up lines I rarely tell anyone when I’ve been fortunate enough to have a honor bestowed on me. Not sure if I mentioned it here or in my weekly rants on my website, but among quite a few honors, awards, proclamations and arrest warrants I’ve received is an auditorium in a East Orange New Jersey grade school named after me. There was a huge naming ceremony with a marching band (I’m not kidding), the Mayor, other East Orange movers and shakers and media.
I only invited to my naming ceremony my wife. She was my only guest and that was fine with me. My mother to this day won’t let me forget that she was not invited. She’s still pissed and not because she missed being present as a wonderful honor was conferred on her child; nope, she’s pissed because she missed the opportunity to invite her friends to see a wonderful honor being conferred on her child thus scoring major points in the “my child is so much better than your child so suck it” game mother’s play.
I’ve wanted to be a guest at SDCC since the first time I attended 26 years ago (when I was one year old, Jean) subsequently it has been on my mind, my hopes and dreams.
Only once have I wanted something this bad and that was that thing that must not be named.
As faith would have it, the honor I’ve sort in life more (almost) than any other I must turn down. Yes, you read that right. With regards to my San Diego Comic Con International invitation I must turn it down.
I did turn it down.
I refused.
I cannot in good conscious accept their invitation knowing that to do so would doom my lover and first-born child to a horrible death from falling off a cliff. Yes, some sick bastard knowing of my decades long desire to attend SDCC as a guest has given me a choice, save my lover and first-born child or be a guest at SDCC.
Oh wait! I’ve just learned the name of the woman hanging with her child from the cliff. Her name is Billie Jean. Billie Jean is not my lover, she’s just a girl who claims that I am the one but the kid is not my son.
Now I’m faced with an entirely new dilemma!
I’m in Los Angeles. Should I fly to San Diego or take the train?
Looks like it is just Interview Central around here these days, folks. Because following up on last week’s column, in which I briefly recapped my Awesome Con DC experience and posted my interview with the fantastic Phil LaMarr (go read/listen if you missed it last week! Good stuff!), I now get to share with you my Awesome Con DC interview with the excellent Billy West! Hooray!
Even if you somehow haven’t heard the name Billy West, before, I almost guarantee you’ve heard his voice. Voicing everything from classic cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Woody Woodpecker, and Popeye to four of the main characters on Futurama (Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan), Billy has voiced characters on a myriad of other shows as well, including title characters for Nickelodeon’s Doug and TheRen & Stimpy Show; and is also the current voice of product mascots Red the M&M and Buzz the Honey Nut Cheerios bee. Billy was also one of the voices of The Howard Stern Show from 1989 to 1995, where he did astonishing impressions of everyone from Johnny Carson and Al Michaels to an ailing Lucille Ball. (His Jay Leno is uncanny.) As a voice actor, Billy has an amazing range – going seamlessly from one character and reaction to another; and you can see some fun examples of that here. For a good time, I also recommend the Star Wars Trilogy: The Radio Play video, shot at ECCC last year and featuring Billy and a number of other talented voice actors doing the script of Star Wars in some of their iconic voices (including, for Billy, Stimpy, Fry, Farnsworth, and Zoidberg). My absolute favorite bit is when he does Porky Pig at about 45 minutes in. Seriously. You must watch it.
But quickly! Before I get lost in YouTube again: let’s get to the interview! If you want to listen to the interview (listen to it! He does Richard Nixon’s head in a jar!) you can do so here. Or, you can read the (slightly edited) transcript below!
Hello, this is Emily Whitten for ComicMix, here with Billy West at Awesome Con in DC. Billy, thank you for being here with us – and Billy is busy, so we’re doing this while he eats.
I ain’t that busy; I can talk with a mouth full of vegan sandwich.
That’s fair! So you are such an amazingly storied voice actor, etcetera…
Aww, thank you.
There’s a lot to talk about, but I’m going to try to distill it down a little bit. Let’s start with the earlier things; so – how did you decide to get into voice acting? Because I know you also are and were a musician; so what was the career path there?
Well, I remember I was like a little freak, you know? I was always running around making noises, and doing voices. Every time I wanted to play the piano – we didn’t have one, but if we were at somebody’s house – to me that was a golden opportunity. I just wanted to hear it, touch it, and make it do something; because the sonic world that I had going on in my head would dictate that I would go over there; but the thing was: I couldn’t play. And down comes the lid: “Can you not do that?” I heard that more than any other kid, probably, in the world, “Can you not do that?” And I was always trying stuff; it was peripheral and surreal; abstract stuff, but, you know.
I had a weird childhood. My house was a horror-house, and my dad was just, like, certifiable, and a drunk and a crazy; so I was growing up kind of terrified. And I was very hyper-vigilant. I could tune in to things – like I could tell you what kind of a night I was going to have by the way the car pulled up in the driveway, or the way the key went in the door. I was so in tune with people’s behaviors – you know, out of survival mode. But it also trained me, like a cop. I was becoming an observer; an extreme observer.
So from your experiences, you were able to be observant about people and how they acted and how they behaved, and so that would help you later on?
And I loved radio. Oh, I loved radio so much, because of the voices. And there were still some radio plays going on when I was a kid. There was a radio guy named Stan Frebergthat had a radio show; and he had one of my favorite voice guys on it, whose name was Daws Butler, and he did a lot of the Hanna-Barbera stuff. He was a little ball of fire, this Daws Butler; and I just came to know these people. But there was no way you could know anything about show business in those days; because there was no emphasis on it. That was for “other people.” You know, “Well who?” It was like: nobody in my town. I was such a geek, I had to hunt down the only other kid who had comic books, and he lived on the other side of town. I just set my inner GPS and found him. I just walked and walked until I found him somewhere.
So what kind of comics did you read, when you and this kid were growing up?
Silly stuff; we read the Marvel stuff – I didn’t mean that that was silly – [Marvel and] DC comics were not silly, they were exciting. But, like, Gold Key Comics were silly; there was The Fly, which was Archie Comics, and he was their superhero – and he fell by the wayside because the other machines were a little more happening and powerful. But I had the original issues of some really important comic books. I had secret origins of like, Batman and all of those. They came out around 1960; 1959, maybe 1961.
Do you still have them?
No. No, it went up my nose, heh.
Back in the day?
Yeah.
Well, do you still follow comics these days?
I try to. I like the revamps of stuff they’re doing. Because there’s so much time that has gone by, that these characters have been around, and eventually they’ve got to morph. You know, they’re not going to get older on us, even though they can dance in and out of timeframes, to show old Superman, like where he wound up.
Yeah; they did that, of course.
Yeah! And there are so many comic books that it’s tough to keep track of them.
Do you watch the movies?
I try to go to movies, yeah, when I can. I’m writing a lot, and I stay up late, late into the evening.
Oh, okay, what are you writing right now?
There are a couple of projects that I’ve got going with my partner that I worked with on Ren & Stimpy. His name is Jim Gomez; and we’ve put together five fully developed shows, most of them animated. We’re pitching them around town, and we’ll see what happens. I love doing what I’m doing – you know, I can be an objective fulfillment machine for the rest of my life – but at some point I do want to create or own something, and give myself the objective.
I think all creators feel that way – it just makes sense.
Yeah – I mean, but I will still always go and work for somebody else, probably doing voice-over.
Now you said that you love radio, and you’ve been on the radio – and I know when I was growing up, I heard you on K-Rock; so tell me, what was that experience like? I mean, I used to listen to that in the morning, when I was getting ready for school…
Didn’t you feel like there was subterfuge involved with that? Like you couldn’t just let everybody hear that.
Yeeeaaah; don’t tell my parents, okay? They didn’t like that show; they didn’t like Howard Stern. I had to be subtle about it.
Of course not. Of course not; but the people who listened to it got it. They understood that everything was silly. It was all about being totally silly in the face of the most horrific subjects.
And pushing boundaries.
Yes, pushing boundaries. It was very organic. We didn’t play records. And Howard was a great ringmaster; he knew, okay, when something’s enough. We’d beat it so far, that’s fine, let’s go to commercial and we’ll start something else. He’d always keep things moving.
And how did you end up working there? I know you’d worked in radio before that.
I was in radio in Boston, and I wasn’t a disc jockey. I was very creative, and showcasing the works of others for a living didn’t turn me on; because I would always feel like a curator in a museum. But these disc jockeys were really pompous about playing records, and it’s like, “Dude, you didn’t create the statues; you just dust them.” And I used to get reamed for having that type of attitude. It’s like, “You’re not allowed to unmask these icons,” and it’s like, “Screw you. You don’t do anything.” I was always surly because there was so much phoniness that used to drive me crazy. My heroes were the artists, not people who were famous for some cottage industry reason – like disc jockeys or TV show hosts. They’re not creating anything. So my heroes were never celebrities. It was always artists. And if they happened to be a celebrity that was a byproduct of their great artistic talent.
Right. So being on a show like The Howard Stern Show, where you got to interact and do your own thing, that was what you were looking for.
That was very appealing to me. And you had to be ready for anything.
So did that help you prepare in large part for the voice acting? And were you also doing voice acting some when you were on the show, or did that come later?
Well I’d already been doing voice acting in Boston, on the radio, and then when I went to New York there was just more of an opportunity to open up and to push myself to see what I was capable of. Plus, I had one of the funniest people in the universe lobbing in little lines here and there for me. But people said, “Ah, Jackie wrote everything for you.” Hey, yeah, sure: let me just talk straight, in a character, for seven minutes. A guy can’t write every bit of dialogue that you say for seven minutes. He can put in ideas, and you integrate them into your conversation. I mean, he did it for Howard all the time. But Howard was very generous; I mean, that’s like loaning somebody a nuclear weapon, that he would let Jackie Martling facilitate me.
And now when you were doing all of this, I know you also played guitar and had a band, and you’ve played guitar with Roy Orbison, Brian Wilson…
Oh, I opened up for a lot of famous guys that I knew growing up, like Roy Orbison, Chuck Berry, The Four Seasons, and Jan and Dean… And later on in life I actually got to play with Brian Wilson.
When was that happening, in comparison to the radio and the voice acting?
Radio just started happening as I was phasing out of playing music.
Okay, so that came a little bit before?
Yes, and then after a moratorium, when I did pick up again, in the future, as the years went by, I wound up playing with one of my idols, which was Brian Wilson.
So what was it like playing with Brian Wilson?
It was so strange; because the first time I played with him, we were at a little hall in Santa Monica, by the beach; and it was me and The Cars guitar player – Elliot Easton – and we were playing with Brian, and then a friend of mine was playing bass. We put together a little band; but I mean, I knew every note of the whole catalogue, I knew every harmony, I knew every chord change, because I was so into The Beach Boys. The Beatles and Jeff Beck; the English stuff was good. But The Beach Boys were our band. And it was like a dream, you know, just playing with Brian Wilson.
And then next thing, we’re at Lincoln Center. And then we played David Letterman. And it was crazy, I mean I’m playing these songs with Brian Wilson; and I still can’t get over it. You know, he did all those hot rod songs – girls, and cars, and fun – and we did 409 onstage, and he was singing 409, which is the old hot rod song, and in the chorus, “Nothing can catch her, nothing can touch my 409, 409,” I started going (hot rod revving noises), and he looked over with this happy, astonished smile, like a little child. He’s like: “What’s going on? But I love this, whatever you’re doing over there.”
Oh, that’s fantastic. So now obviously your voice acting is a large part of your career, and Futurama is a huge part of that – and you developed Philip Fry, well Philip J. Fry, if I’m doing the whole name —
— Well that’s because most cartoon characters’ middle initial is J. Rocket J. Squirrel; Homer J. Simpson; Stimpson J. Cat.
Yes. So when you were developing that character; you’ve said that Fry is similar to you at twenty-five; so when they had you in auditioning for Futurama, did they ask you to develop that character; did you come in saying “this is something I have,” or what?
They showed me the pictures when I went in, and there was some dialogue they wanted me to read; and…you know what it’s like – something, you look at it and it just gives you an impression, and depending on your experience, or your talent, or your intuition, you’re hoping that you’ll come up with what they’re looking for. And all of them were pretty much very close to what I gave them. They described Fry, and I said, “You know what? I don’t do this very often, but I’m going to just use my own voice, like when I was twenty-five.” I remember, I was very whinyyy, and complainyyy, and I just know I had a plain vanilla voice. I had no idea I had this wild animal in my throat somewhere; this big clumsy beast that could do anything. You know, I really didn’t know back in those days. Because I was singing and playing. But I would go in and do voices on stage like when we blew up an amp, or a string snapped, or whatever. Out of embarrassment, I would just keep going and entertaining. Might not have been the music or anything, but people loved it. Launching into characters that I would make up, and imitate, or whatever.
Right. And now, on Futurama, you do a lot of the voices. How did that come about?
They would just keep showing me pictures, and I auditioned for everybody, including Bender. I played him as a construction worker, and John DiMaggio came in and mopped the floor with that audition. He played him as kind of a punch-drunk fighter.
Yes, Bender is a great voice.
Oh, it’s beautiful. And it developed into what it is. In the beginning, none of us sounded like who we were. I mean, that’s who we thought we were, at the time, but voices morph. You listen to an episode #10 from The Simpsons, and you listen to the 200th episode, and it’s like, “Huh?” Well, Homer Simpson was like (voice impression), and then later on he developed all of these other facets that make the character so interesting and believable.
Yes. Now in Futurama, or your other roles, what are your favorite characters to play or have played? And what were the most difficult?
I love doing all the characters, and I love them equally; so I can’t pick out a favorite. Because I just try to bring so much imagination to it. I was always trying to do something nobody had done, and that served me well. I didn’t want to mimic people. I could do it – I’ve held up franchises. I did four years of Woody Woodpecker; and Popeye…the works, you know? But you only make your mark for real if you start creating and it catches on. And you have faith that you’re just as good as those impressions that you relied on; that were your little power base.
Right, well because they were starting out once, and they made up those voices, and so why not you? And so what was the most difficult voice to do?
I don’t know; I know that I had become fearless; totally fearless. I’m not afraid of anything, and I’m willing to try anything. I’m willing to fail. I was like that in comedy clubs. Because it didn’t make sense to me – why should I memorize twelve minutes worth of material and then go out and pretend every night that I’d just thought of it? I needed stakes. I needed real things at stake like dying or bombing [on stage]. I really did, and I wasn’t afraid to.
Did you do a lot of stand-up?
Not a lot. A little bit, and then I got into radio, and that was it. Stand-up is very, very hard. There are guys that are just so, so amazing at it and everything. But my forte was not stage performance, doing stand-up. My forte was radio; and that was a bigger playground. You could dodge in and out of characters, and you didn’t even have to have written material; you could ad-lib while you’ve got these crazy voices going back and forth.
In your voice work, how much do they want you to or let you ad-lib?
They want to get what they want to get; ideally, what they had in mind. And then after you do that and they’re happy with it, they ask you if you thought of anything, or you want to add or bring something; and a lot of times I would, and a lot of times it made it in. A lot of it just winds up – they want more rather than less. Because that way they have options; they can play with stuff they didn’t think would work and all of a sudden, oh my God, it works beautifully.
Right. Because sometimes improvisation is the best part of life.
Yeah; but it’s also this constant wonderment of discovery – whether something’s going to work or not. That’s exploration. It’s like, you try to control every aspect of everything as much as you can, but when serendipitous things happen, like, “What was that thing you just did?” “Oh, you mean this?” and they’d say, “Yeah, what if he just goes right into that?”
Like when I did Nixon – I’m old enough to remember when Nixon was running for President, and John F. Kennedy, and they did the debate on TV. And I was astonished at how perfect Kennedy looked – like a game show host, with his perfect teeth, and his buttered-toast hair. He was made for TV. Nixon was made for wanted posters. He looked like a stolen car. And he was (in character) “shifty-eyed, and he was nervous and…ar-rar-rar.” And he was sweating. While the interview was continuing, he was getting worse, and his beard was coming in; you could practically see the bottom half of his face get darker and darker. And I said to my mom, “Mom, he’s going to turn into a werewolf!” Because I loved horror movies, like with Lon Chaneyslowly turning into the werewolf. Nixon was kind of almost there – lycanthropic. So he was just doing his thing, and I said, “That’s awful; he’s almost unwatchable.”
And then years later, I get the chance to do Nixon, as a head in a jar, and I would say something like, (in character) “You filthy hippies, get off the grass outside this White House,” and then all of a sudden I would go: (werewolf noises). Like I was changing. You know, just replacing words with noises and stuff.
Hah, wow. I know it’s hard work, but it just sounds like so much fun.
Well, you gotta keep coming up with new bags of tricks, and keep expanding them and everything. That’s how you keep working.
Now you were saying earlier that you have essentially had conversations with yourself. Some examples of that are Farnsworth introducing Fry to Zoidberg [in Futurama], and then Doug and his arch-nemesis. How do you deal with that; how does that work in your head? Because that seems to be even a double challenge over consistently trying to sound a certain way.
It’s like I had my boot camp training in Boston doing consecutive voices. Because I got a job as a producer; and there’s no producer school you can go to. I had to learn how to splice tape, and I had to learn how to write and create my own characters and bits; and then put it together so it could be air-able; with sound effects, and music, and everything. I didn’t quite know what I was doing, but I just did it.
And it works for you!
Yeah, I mean, I’m very strange in that way; like I still, to this day, can’t tie my shoes properly, I just can’t. And a necktie, I have problems with. I can’t do anything practical; but if you ask me to do something only like, four or five other people in the world can do, I have no problem.
So now as a voice actor, what’s the experience of celebrity? How do you experience that as someone who’s mostly known by different voices, so someone might not actually know, talking to you, that yours was the voice they’ve heard on shows?
Well, celebrities were never my heroes. Never. To this day, I don’t give a dismal damn, really, whether Kim’s having problems with her pregnancy, or whatever. It’s like, “Fuck you.” You know what? Anybody who can fart the national anthem can become a celebrity. Any stupid-looking bald guy can throw on an earring and a goatee and a leather jacket, and now he’s Pawn Stars. And they pose these guys like rappers, like album covers; they’re all big, bad, and bald – and they’re basically lucky imbeciles, because show business ain’t what it was anymore, now it’s supposed to be “reality.” These guys just have to be who and what they are. And then they learn how to act; because they go, “I like this ride very much;” and they know it’s going to be over, and they want to stay in that business. They don’t want to go back to oblivion.
Yes. So how do you interact with fans? And do some people just know your whole oeuvre? What is that experience like?
There’s people that know more about me than I do. Because I can’t remember every little fiddle-faddle, you know? But I’m just grateful; I’m so grateful – I mean, what are the odds that there would be people in this world that would put aside time in their life to know what you do, and to follow it? It’s mind-blowing to me; it’s surreal – and it still is, to this day.
Well that’s a great and very humble attitude.
Well, I mean, I know. I know the drill, I know the deal. You have to somehow connect in one way or another with people who admire you; and hopefully you’ll keep up the same standard of work that turned them on in the first place. So I always try to – whatever new thing comes along, I just try to come in like gangbusters; you know, get some attention. Like, I like to turn tables over, bash chairs. You know, when I first went to New York I was like a Terminator. I got all skinny because I knew I was going to be walking everywhere, and auditioning; and I used to listen to bagpipe music.
Bagpipe music?
Yeah, because I’m half Irish; and when I hear bagpipe music, it makes this Celtic side of me boil, and prepares you to go into battle. I’d be galvanized, like I was marching into a glen with my compatriots, and we’re all going to get stabbed and shot; but it’s okay, because we’re doing it for the right reason. And I used to listen to all these bagpipes, going up 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue, to work, and I would get to the audition, and I’d feel like a Terminator.
Like you were ready. That’s fantastic. Speaking of getting ready for new things; what are you working on currently that we should be looking forward to?
I’m doing some kids’ stuff. I never used to get hired by Disney; because I wasn’t their kind of guy, you know what I mean? The stuff I did was very Gothic and dark-ish, like screaming and yelling and very dramatic. But I got this show called The 7D; and I’m playing Bashful, because the 7D are the seven dwarves. (Singing) “We’re The Seven D,” and they get a beautiful, cute song and everything. And I love it; I love it to pieces.
And is that out now, or coming out?
It’s coming out. And I was doing some voice work for Avengers Assemble. There’s a character called Rocket Raccoon. So I’m doing him. (In character) “Yeah, he’s got kind of like a Joe Pesci. And like, Steve Buscemi.” “Blood has been spilled, Jerry. I’m through fuckin’ around wit’ you, Jerry.” But somehow he has that voice. I thought it would be perfect to just tweak it; and it’s not a dead-on impression – I could care less about that. What it is, is: “Is it funny? Is it interesting? Does it fit?” I did a bunch of hours of recording the other day. And then I have my projects going. That keeps me busy because I’m always writing. I stay up all hours and stuff, but it’s a labor of love, so you feel energized somehow.
Yeah! Well I hope that we see some of that from you soon.
I hope you do, too.
And thank you so much for this interview.
My pleasure.
• • • • •
Nope, it was totally my pleasure, Billy. You’re delightful.
Big thanks to Billy West for the interview, and big thanks to the ever-helpful Kevin O’Shea, producer for Made of Fail Productions, for cleaning up the audio file for me. (And as ever, check out the Made of Fail podcasts for fun geek-tastic discussions, in which I have actually appeared a couple of times.)
That’s all for now, and until next week, when I’ll be sharing my interview with the talented cartoonist Nick Galifianakis, Servo Lectio!
If you are a comics creator, you are eligible to nominate works and vote for the Harvey Awards. And this year, you can nominate online! The deadline for nominations is midnight tonight. If you think there is a piece of work, including yours, that deserves the votes of others, please spread the word– e-mail, blog, tweet, and otherwise promote works that deserve recognition.
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Use Twitter to show your support for a given work!
Use hashtag #harveys2013 on your tweet.
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Please spread word to your peers that they can vote!
Nominate now, and we’ll see you here when the final ballot is announced– and we’ll see you in Baltimore in September for the awards ceremony!
How many books and DVDs do you have on your Amazon wish list? How often do you remember to look at it? I always forget to check it, but I took a look at it today, and there are 100 items.
No, I am not soliciting here. My birthday isn’t for another six months, Chanukah and Christmas are too far off to think about, and I’m not your mother, so forget about Mother’s Day, which is this Sunday, btw – although there is Alix, whom I always alert to her mom’s new column. Big Hint, Alix!
I do have to delete some of the books and DVDs; I’ve ordered them without looking at my wish list because, well, I forget to check the damn thing, but there’s still a lot there. The oldest item was added on June 11, 2006; it’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Complete Third Season (DVD, not Blu-Ray. I don’t have a Blu-Ray player.) I have no idea why I’ve never ordered this, why it’s languished at the bottom – maybe because I watch BBC America’s repeats of TNG on Saturday late afternoons (which lead in to Doctor Who) – since that season of TNG, as Bob Greenberger so excellently reviewedon ComicMix, was the season where the show really found its legs, airing such classics as Sarak(a Vulcan disease comparable to Alzheimer’s is destroying Sarak’s mind), Yesterday’s Enterprise (in an alternate timeline, the Federation is losing a war with the Klingons and Tasha Yar is still alive), Sins of the Father (Worf accepts disgrace and discommendation to prevent a Klingon civil war – the start of an outstanding seasons-long exploration of Klingon culture that carried over to Deep Space Nine – and save the Empire), and of course the season finale, Best of Both Worlds: Part I (“Mr. Worf….fire!”) Also of note, at least to me, are Who Watches the Watchers, (a pre-warp, pre-industrial civilization discovers they are being watched by Federation anthropologists), The Enemy (Geordi and a Romulan are marooned on a harsh planet and must work together to survive), The Offspring (Data creates an android daughter), and Deja Q (Q becomes mortal and is still a pain in the ass).
Apparently I was busy browsing on June 11, 2006. I also added Fagin the Jew by Will Eisner. I know I picked this one because of my dual love for Eisner and for Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. According to Amazon’s description, Eisner first envisioned the book as an introduction to a graphic adaption of Twist, but “as he learned more about the history of Dickens-era Jewish life in London, Eisner uncovered intriguing material that led him to create this new work. In the course of his research, Eisner came to believe that Dickens had not intended to defame Jews in his famous depiction. By referring to Fagin as “the Jew” throughout the book, however, he had perpetuated the common prejudice; his fictional creation imbedded itself in the public’s imagination as the classic profile of a Jew. In his award-winning style, Eisner recasts the notorious villain as a complex and troubled antihero and gives him the opportunity to tell his tale in his own words.”
On that same day I also added Drums Along the Mohawk, starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert (and directed by one of my all-time favorite directors, John Ford), When Worlds Collide, based on the book by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, which I read years ago in my Introduction To Science Fiction class at Quinnipiac back when it was just a college and not a university – and talking about it now makes me want to reread it, so I’m going to add the book to my wish list, and Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen, a 2005 Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, because of my passion for all things Tudor ( and yes, I already have The Tudors boxed set).
Moving forward, I kept up with my Tudor passion in 2011, adding a shitload of novels and non-fiction about that dynasty, including The King’s Pleasure, a novel about Katherine of Aragon (Henry’s first wife, she whom he dumped for Anne Boleyn) by the late and great British author Norah Lofts, and two histories by another Brit, famed historian and author Allison Weir: The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn and Henry VII: The King and His Court. I also listed Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Armgrin, Prairie Tales: A Memoir by Melissa Gilbert, and The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House by Melissa Sue Anderson just because I always loved Little House on the Prairie. C’mon, who didn’t?
In November 2011 I added William Shatner’s Up Till Now: The Autobiography. Bill, I love ya!
2012 additions include Among Others, by Jo Walton. The Hugo and Nebula Award winner for that year is a brilliant coming-of-age story that mixes young adult literature, magic, and science fiction into a read for all ages. I also found Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi (which was reviewed by ComicMix’s John Ostrander), a spin on the classic Star Trek’s law that new ensigns, i.e., red shirts, always get killed on away missions.
Being a fan of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God, I also added Doc, Russell’s take on Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the events that occurred at the O.K. Corral. And I really must move up to the top of the list Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, the story of four women who are among the 900 Jews holding out against the superior Roman army at the siege of Masada, the mountaintop fortress in the Judean desert.
Just a few months ago I added Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which the New York Times Sunday Book Review just, well, reviewed, and which has garnered much press and praise. It’s the timey-whiney story of Ursula Todd, who is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again…each time taking making choices that affect not only Ursula, but her family, friends, and even the world. It’s a story that especially relevant to me these days.
It’s been a tough time for me since last Christmas, when my father first became ill, and watching my mother slowly slipping into elderly dementia. My life has become a cacophony personal and professional turmoil, a symphony of wishes and “if onlies”; I lie in bed at night unable to sleep, with all the different “roads less travelled” in my life teasing me with alternate possibilities, alternate lives. I am adrift at sea, questioning my choices and wondering, no, all too often, fearing the future.
Gated communities are usually met with some suspicion and mistrust – in this case it’s rightly founded. Something is wrong in Sweetville, and The Doctor is red in the face about it. A bunch of friends reappear to help combat…
People are turning up dead in the canal in Victorian Yorkshire, their bodies in varied states of petrifaction and their skin a lobster red. Madame Vastra and Jenny are asked to investigate, and when they realize that The Doctor is somehow involved, they hurry to investigate. A woman is establishing her own ark on dry land, planning to survive the next torrent, not of rain, but of poison.
Mark Gatiss balances comedy and horror with a deft hand, being given the reins on the investigating Silurian and her companions. This may be the closest we ever get to a completely solo Vastra and Jenny adventure, and it’s a delight. The Northern accents alone are worth the price of admission.
GUEST STAR REPORT
Dame Diana Rigg (Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower) really should need no introduction, but there are young people who think The Avengers is only a comic book. As well as playing Mrs Emma Peel (rightly described by comedian Rick Overton as “One generation of boys’ first serious erection”) on The Avengers, not to mention the Countess Teresa di Vicenzo (AKA the briefly Mrs. James Bond) in On her Majesty’s Secret Service) she started out at a high point, and kept on going higher, In addition to a house favorite The Assassination Bureau (also starring Roger Delgado, the original Master) and a wonderful version of King Lear with Olivier, John Hurt and Leo McKern, she’s gone from Strength to Strength. She also burning up basic cable in a popular turn on Game of Thrones.
Rachael Stirling (Ada Gillyflower) is Diana Rigg’s daughter, and this is the first time they’ve worked together. She’s had an impressive career in acting, including a couple episodes of shows featured on Mystery!, which her mother was hosting at the time. Recently she was in Snow White and the Huntsman and the series The Bletchley Circle.
Two guests this episode have the distinction of playing several members of the same alien race, several times, over the course of the new series. Neve McIntosh and her delicious accent played sister Silurians Alaya and Restac in the two-parter The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood last year, and plays Madame Vastra here. Dan Starkey (Commander Strax) also played two Sontarans in one story, The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky. He almost shot Mickey Smith and Martha Smith-Jones as Jask at The End Of Time, and first played the funniest wet-nurse you’ll ever see in A Good Man Goes to War. Since the Sontarans are a clone-race, having one actor play various members makes perfect sense. Christopher Ryan (Mike “the cool person” from The Young Ones) has also played two different Sontarans in different episodes. Dan also appears in Russell T Davies new series Wizards vs. Aliens as Randal Moon, hobgoblin extraordinaire.
THE MONSTER FILES – Mr. Sweet, a parasite species surviving from the Jurassic period, and possibly longer, is far from the first being getting the help of a human, though in this case it might be said that Mrs Gillyflower was the brains of the outfit.
BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details
SET PIECES – Yorkshire was played by Cardiff in this episode, with a picturesque side-street getting a lovely touch-up, including a full set of gates and columns
…IS ONLY A MOTION AWAY – Dame Diana and Rachael Stirling are not the first parent and child pairing to appear on Doctor Who. Mark Sheppard and his father William Morgan Sheppard both played the same role, that of Canton Everett Delaware III, in The Impossible Astronaut. David Troughton, Patrick’s son, has appeared a couple of times, once as the Prince in The Curse of Peladon, once many years as Profiessor Hobbes in Midnight, and first, many years before, in his father’s last adventure The War Games.
WHOLOCK – With Gatiss and Moffat also being in charge of the oh-so-very popular Sherlock starring Bilbo and Smaug Benedict Cubmerbatch and Martin Freeman, there are ever going to be in-jokes that trickle through. An unrecorded adventure of Sherlock Holmes was “the repulsive story of the red leech” as reported in The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.
“Do you know what an optigram is?” – The Doctor used a process to read the last images off the eye of a Wirrn in a Tom Baker adventure The Ark in Space. Rather than just one image, he was able to read several minutes of footage.
“Will you be preserved…when judgment rains down upon us all?” – One of the finest bits of foreshadowing i quite a while, Mrs. Gillyflower tells everyone her plans right then and there, and nobody catches it till much later.
“I once spent hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport” – That would be Tegan Jovanka, long-time companion of the Doctor mainly during the Davison years. Sarah Jane Smith investigated some of The Doctor’s friends, and said that at last report, Tegan was home in Australia, campaigning for Aborigine rights. The reference is sent home with the following line “Brave heart, Clara”, paraphrasing Five’s motivational to Tegan.
“Doctor and Mrs. Smith…you’ll do very nicely” – Doctor John Smith was The Doctor’s go-to pseudonym when working on Earth during the Pertwee years. He used it, or tried to, in Midnight.
“And you will have reached your destination” – I want to know how long Gatiss sat in his study giggling to himself over that wildly anachronistic reference to the TomTom GPS (Satnav) system.
“This one’s on me” – Can I just marvel in the delicious irony of a British woman kicking ass in a catsuit in an adventure featuring Diana Rigg?
“It’s you.. my monster” – Not the first time we’ve heard the word “monster” this season. The line “Every lonely monster…needs a companion” in Hide was also clearly not just about the scary alien.
“Very enterprising” – There’s another parallel to The Snowmen here – in both cases, the antagonist finds something brand new, so different as to be alien (literally in the first case, figuratively here in Mrs. Gillyflower’s case), and in both cases, as The Doctor puts it in The Snowmen, both follow the Victorian ideal and try to find a way to profit from it. Not even financially, but a way to achieve their ends.
BIG BAD REPORT /CLEVER THEORY DEPARTMENT –
“It’s complicated” – The Doctor was aiming for London 1893, the year after the events of The Snowmen, where The Doctor first met Victorian Clara. This is the first time Vastra, Jenny and Strax have met Modern Clara, and found her most confusing. Her look at “herself” in London of 1892 will almost certainly cause some questions to be asked a week hence.
NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – Neil Gaiman. I could stop there. But I don’t have to, because there’s also Cybermen, Warwick Davis and Neil Gaiman. Did I say that twice? Nightmare in Silver, a week away.
The Grind Pulp Podcast is a new review podcast that has released their first episode. In addition to discussing New Pulp, the podcast also reviews New Pulp stories and movies, including Samaritan by Pulp Ark Award Winning Author, Bobby Nash.
About Grind Pulp Podcast:
Grind Pulp Podcast was created for the discussion of film and speculative fiction selections related to Grind Pulp. What is Grind Pulp? We’re so glad you asked. Imagine you’ve woken up beneath and overpass surrounded by bottles of rotgut with a mirror shard in your hand. Your clothes are soaked in neon green blood, and your pants are down around your ankles. You pull them up and begin to wonder what wild ride brought you here. That wild ride is Grind Pulp.
The Grind Pulp Podcast is hosted by Andrew Crevier, Jeronimo Brown, and James Malone. Listen to episode 1 here.
Moonstone Books has released a new anthology called The Avenger: Roaring Heart of The Crucible at their website. The book does not yet show available at on-line retailers as yet, but should be available there shortly.
ABOUT THE AVENGER: ROARING HEART OF THE CRUCIBLE:
The Avenger: Roaring Heart of the Crucible is now available. Moonstone Books’ third anthology collection chronicling new tales of pulp hero, THE AVENGER: ROARING HEART OF THE CRUCIBLE is now available in both softcover trade paperback and limited edition hardcover.
The Avenger: Roaring Heart of the Crucible features stories by New Pulp Authors Matthew Baugh, James Chambers, Greg Cox, Win Scott Eckert, Joe Gentile, CJ Henderson, Nancy Holder, Michael May, Matthew Mayo, Will Murray, Bobby Nash, Barry Reese, Chris Sequeira, John Small, and David White. Edited by Nancy Holder and Joe Gentile. Cover art courtesy of E. M. Gist (soft cover) and Jay Piscopo (hardcover).
The greatest crime-fighter of the 40′s returns in a third thrilling collection of original, action-packed tales of adventure, intrigue, and revenge. Life was bliss for millionaire adventurer Richard Henry Benson until that fateful day crime and greed took away his wife and young daughter… and turned him into something more than human. Driven by loss, compelled by grief, he becomes a chilled impersonal force of justice, more machine than man, dedicated to the destruction of evildoers everywhere. A figure of ice and steel, more pitiless than both,
Benson has been forged into an avatar of vengeance, possessed of superhuman genius supernormal power. His frozen face and pale eyes, like a polar dawn, only hint at the terrible force the underworld heedlessly invoked upon itself the day they created… The Avenger!
Exclusive HC BONUS material: An Avenger timeline by Rick Lai plus solo tales of the Avenger’s aides by Howard Hopkins!
Superman is a science fiction story. What else can you say about the sole survivor of a doomed planet coming to live on Earth? As a result, some of the best stories about the Man of Steel have been science fiction in nature so it’s a wonder that it has taken this long before one of his confrontations with fellow alien Brainiac was brought to the screen. The feature films keep reusing Lex Luthor and General Zod, ignoring the computer construct from the distant world of Colu, who has captured specimen cities from countless worlds, including one from Krypton.
Thankfully, the folk at Warner Animation have recognized his incredible potential, first by reimagining him as a closer part of the mythos in their Superman: the Animated Series and now in Superman Unbound. The core story is lifted from Action Comics #866-870 by Geoff Johns and Garry Frank and collected under the title Superman: Brainiac. To place this in perspective, the story comes after the Infinite Crisis reboot of the DC Universe continuity, meaning Supergirl is still adjusting to being on Earth and neither has encountered Brainiac before.
Bob Goodman, who did an admirable job turning The Dark Knight Returns into the previous two films, once more, tackles the iconic characters. Here, he has a far more emotional story to deal with and made only a handful of major modifications, notably downplaying Pa Kent’s role and keeping Lois and Clark single folk. He and director James Tucker make for a good team and the story moves fairly seamlessly but the action pieces are where things fall apart. We’re told repeatedly how utterly Brainiac is and yet he continues to send endless constructs after Superman despite it being obvious that they are ineffective. How shall I put this….it doesn’t make any freakin’ sense except to give the animators something fun to do.
There’s tension between Superman and Supergirl over her readiness to be Earth’s protector; there’s tension between Clark and Lois about their relationship being stalled by his overprotectiveness and then there’s the larger problem of Brainiac having stolen Kandor and now attempting to bottle up Metropolis. There are nice resonances established between these three threads and Goodman does a good job making Supergirl and Lois well-defined characters.
Once more Andrea Romano delivers with an excellent vocal cast, bringing verve to Goodman’s script. Castle’s Stana Katic makes for a powerful Lois (and I thought Dana Delany had it nailed) and she’s well paired with her TV costar Molly Quinn, who is a vulnerable teen Kryptonian. Matt Bomer drops his voice to a tone deeper than his usual White Collar character and is almost unrecognizable. On the other hand, Fringe’s John Noble is wonderfully creepy as Brainiac.
Tucker, though, botches the character design. Superman’s square jaw is now a tapered, pointy thing that robs him of power. Lois is way too thin for normal proportions and Pa Kent is a caricature of the influential father he should be. Tucker does better with Brainiac and his ship along with the Kandorians (and kudos for the Ultra the Multi-Alien cameo).
Overall, this is a satisfying adventure with a nice emotional undercurrent.
The 75 minute feature is supplemented on the Blu-ray with two nice thirty minute featurettes: Kandor: History of the Bottle City provides the historic context for how this was introduced and how it altered the mythos. Marv Wolfman, Mike Carlin, Bob Goodman, Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio all chime in on the bottle city and its charms. Heath Corson is also included, a writer with no connection to Superman or DC or context provided so he’s an annoying presence. The second piece, Brainiac: Technology and Terror is less successful since there is tremendous confusion between what is said and what is shown. Despite having Wolfman and Carlin to provide some history, everyone goes from discussing the original Silver Age creation to his reimagining in the latter years then skip ahead to his modern day incarnation. But visually, the goateed Milton Fine is seen from the John Byrne era reboot but never mentioned. Similarly, we’re shown images of Brainiac 5 from early Mike Grell Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes but he is never mentioned so Brainiac’s legacy in the history of the DCU is also absent.
The Blu-ray has, exclusively, the Kandor feature and four episodes of Superman: The Animated Series and a digital excerpt from the Superman: Brainiac collected edition. The combo pack comes with the Blu-ray, DVD (with the Brainiac featurette) and an Ultraviolet digital copy.
Well, this weekend Iron Man 3 opens here in the States after having conquered the world. (BTW, when did this become the norm? It used to be a film opened here in the US of A and then around the globe. Is the American market now the secondary market?) What started in one medium – comics – has become big in another.
There certainly are lots of reasons behind it, a principle one being less risk. Comics make great fodder for movies because they are relatively a cheap way of testing and ironing out concepts and stories compared to movies. The risk is lessened and if the product (as with John Carter) bombs, at least the executive who approved it can show it was not an unreasonable risk – in theory. Something new? From scratch? Not with our hundred million, buddy! So having a proven commodity in some form makes it a safer, surer, bet. In theory.
There’s lots of different sources – books, games, amusement park rides, television, even the theater. Joss Whedon’s follow up to The Avengers last year? Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Why? Because he’s Joss Goddam Whedon and The Avengers made bazillions of dollars which means that for his next movie he gets to do whatever the hell he wants… at least until the box office receipts on that comes in.
The problem is – not everything translates well. I recently finally saw the movie version of the musical Les Miserables which in itself is an adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo. I’m a fan of the musical, having seen it several times on stage, so I looked forward to the movie.
I was… whelmed. I enjoyed it and I have a DVD of it (yes, I need to move up to Blu-Ray or whatever else is coming) and I’m sure I’ll watch it again several times. Hugh Jackman was fine in the lead and, in a year that didn’t have Daniel Day Lewis owning the Oscar for his performance in Lincoln (adapted in part from Doris Kearns Goodwin biography, Team of Rivals) would have gotten him the Oscar as Best Actor. Anne Hathaway did score a Supporting Actress Oscar for her work as Fantine. However, there were several miscastings. Javert – the antagonist- should be intense, driven, formidable and ultimately tragic and Russell Crowe was none of those things. He was doughy. He was there.
Crowe was Oscar material compared to Sacha Baron Cohen who played Thénardier, the innkeeper. The character is a louse, a con man, a parasite but in every production I’ve seen, he (along with his wife, played in the film by Helena Bonham Carter, also badly cast) brings down the house in his songs. The character should be charming, a rogue, and funny and Cohen was none of that.
What really unsold the movie to me was the direction by Tom Hooper. Prosaic, uninspired, functional – it served its purpose, it got the basic job done, but I found no “wow” in it and the theater always gave me “wow.” The stage productions always swept me along; the movie version plodded.
That brings me to my central argument – maybe it couldn’t. Movies are often very literal. Les Mis on stage works because of its theatricality. Stage makes great use of suggestion, illusion, metaphor. It engages the imagination, makes you see what may not be there, makes you a partner in the production whereas movies have to show you and you become an observer. What was magical becomes pedestrian.
I’m not sure that something that begins as a stage musical ever translates well into film. Yes, Chicago was an exception but it found cinema versions to create a heightened reality that mimicked the stage production. It wasn’t a translation; it was a re-invention for the cinema – which Les Mis was not. Musicals that are created for movies fare far better, Wizard of Oz being a superb example.
Comics also work like musicals. The imagination must be engaged to fill in what happens in the gutters, in between the panels. The movies made from comics succeed when they re-invent them for the movies. I don’t need them to adapt a specific storyline; they are most successful when they are true to the concepts but re-imagine them for the films.
That’s why Iron Man 3 succeeds and Les Mis just lies there. Apples into oranges, my friends.
Bobby Nash and Sean Taylor with their 2013 Pulp Ark Awards.
For the first time since the Pulp Ark Award winners were announced, Ruby Files co-creators Bobby Nash and Sean Taylor got to hold their Pulp Ark Award for Best New Pulp Character: Rick Ruby at the Free Comic Book day event at galactic Quest Comics in Buford, GA.
I’ve never wanted anything more than I wanted to get into the High School Of Art and Design. I was obsessed from the time I found out there existed in the world an art high school and I found that out in the seventh grade.
