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Joe Corallo: Rachel Pollack – The ComicMix Interview

rachelpollackheadshotOver the past year I have been working on raising awareness of Rachel Pollack’s run on Doom Patrol. She’s not only one of two trans women to ever write at DC Comics, she’s also the only woman to write Doom Patrol.

When I was given a slot here at ComicMix to be a weekly columnist, I used my second column to talk about Coagula. Once DC Comics announced its plans to launch the Young Animal imprint helmed by Gerard Way and how Doom Patrol would be the flagship title, I wrote about my excitement and made sure to discuss Rachel Pollack’s contributions again. Months later I took to Geeks OUT to praise the importance of Rachel’s run to queer comics history. Most recently, I wrote up a piece last week on how Rachel Pollack has been forgotten by the comics industry at [insertgeekhere].

After a year of writing pieces on the subject, I finally got the chance to interview Rachel Pollack this past Saturday on her career in comics. Here is the transcript of that interview.

doom-patrolJoe: What got you into reading comics and what stood out about Doom Patrol?

Rachel: Well first I’ve read comics since I was a kid. So I’ve been reading comics all life, which is a very long time now! I’ve always loved comics. There have been these periods where I would grow out of it so to speak and then the comics would get better and I’d come back to it you know? And then with Doom Patrol I never read the original, and I forget how I came to read Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. I really don’t remember exactly how I came to read that except that it wasn’t Vertigo yet but it was associated with Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman which started before Vertigo so I was aware of it as part of that group. When I read it I was completely knocked out by it. I loved it. This is so incredible. A work of genius. And that’s how I came to read Doom Patrol.

Joe: You had gotten started on Doom Patrol after Grant was off the book. How did that come to be?

Rachel – What happened was I went to a party with people from DC with my friend Neil Gaiman and he introduced me to Stuart Moore. I mentioned my appreciation for Doom Patrol to Stuart and he said Tom Peyer is here at the party I should talk to him. So I told Tom I love Doom Patrol. It was the only ongoing superhero comic I was interested in writing at the time, if it was ever available. Tom told me Grant is actually leaving so why don’t I do a sample script and send it to him. And so I did that. He liked it enough to hire me.

doom-patrol-87Then I did that prank where I sent a letter to the letters column of Doom Patrol. I had to wait ages for Tom to get around to reading it. I wrote in this voice as a young fan. It read something like, “Dear Mr. Peyer, Doom Patrol is great! Grant Morrison is the most fabulous writer in the world. He’s a super genius! If he ever dies or gets sick can I write it?” And Tom finally reads it and calls me and tells me he loves it and to write more of these. Then in Grant’s last issue we’ll announce that you’ve gotten the job. So I wrote more letters and in the second to last one I wrote, ”I really wanna write Doom Patrol! I’m getting kinda angry here! I have friends. Don’t think I’m just a kid. You wouldn’t wanna have your head shoved in the toilet would you? Or sugar in your gas tank.” And then in the last issue of Grant’s run I wrote, “Gee Mr. Peyer I’m really really sorry about that! I got kinda carried away. The thing is I already told my mom I would be writing it and she told all her friends already. And so then Tom responded with, “Well what can I do? She told her mom. I have no choice! Rachel Pollack is the new writer of Doom Patrol!”

In that same issue I wrote this essay praising Grant Morrison in my serious writer voice. It just seemed to me it was so obvious that it was a joke and yet all of these people thought it was real! Some were really angry thinking I got this job just by writing letters. Others thought if they wrote letters they could write a comic. I was shocked that people could be so silly, you know?

Then I went to some other party at DC and I met this group of people. One was from the New Yorker Magazine and one was from the Village Voice and they asked you didn’t get the job from writing letters? I was like oh my God you people are nuts! So if you never heard that story that’s how the letters came to be.

coagula-9Joe: When you started writing on Doom Patrol Tom was still editor, Richard Case was still doing layout work, and Stan Woch was still on the book as well. So basically you were one of the only new elements to the book. How was stepping into the role of writer with so much of the prior team on board at first and how did you start making this run of Doom Patrol your own?

Rachel: I was actually really thrilled that Richard Case was staying on for my first story arc. I love his art. I guess they were hoping that the transition would be smooth. I kind of did my first story as a homage to Grant’s beginnings. His first story was Crawling Through The Wreckage and I called mine Sliding Through The Wreckage. Tom had said to me Grant wouldn’t give any information. I think Grant wanted the series to end after he left. I’ve never had this confirmed but it was always my impression. Like how Russell T. Davies believed the BBC should let him kill off Doctor Who. But they didn’t.

So Grant wouldn’t give much information. The only information Tom had for me was that Robotman would be left and Dorothy, there had to be somebody in bandages (that’s what Tom wanted), and the Chief would be a head without a body. This turned out to be a Grant Morrison joke. Because Grant did this one off issue of a dream where the Chief lost his body and was a literal talking head, but I just went with it. I gather, like I said I never got the information from Grant, that he thought it was absurd. I thought it was hilarious. Since Tom said we need someone in bandages I introduced George and Marion, a couple in bandages. Then I introduced Kate Godwin but that was seven issues in. My first issue was 64 and issue 70 was when Kate Godwin appeared.

Joe: How did you go about creating Kate Godwin, a.k.a. Coagula?

Rachel: I was told that the current artist needed a break and I should do a one off story that could be done with a different artist. And I wasn’t pleased with the idea because I always tended to think in large story arcs. So I had to think of something and I came up with this ridiculous villain called Codpiece. And then somehow I just decided without even really thinking about it to introduce this transsexual lesbian superhero.

doom-patrol-87At the time I was involved in transgender activism and someone asked me if Kate Godwin was based on me and I said to answer the question, she’s based on a couple of friends of mine. But it wasn’t this big decision like I was trying to have this crusade. I just thought it was a cool thing to do.

The theme that had been emerging in my run was people having issues with their bodies and accepting their bodies. I always thought that was implied in Grant’s run. Dorothy was ugly, Cliff had a brain in a robot body, the Chief was in a wheelchair, Rebis was in bandages and so on and so on. I just made it more explicit. George and Marion were the first characters I had the idea of having accept themselves. And there’s a scene in that issue, the Codpiece issue, where George and Marion are heading to town and they ask Cliff and Dorothy if they want to come and they both make excuses. Dorothy says how can you stand it having people stare at you all the time? George and Marion say they have two choices: either they can go enjoy themselves and have people stare at them or they could stay home all the time and hide. George and Marion would rather go enjoy themselves and have people stare.

Codpiece himself was freaked out about people not liking him because he thought they would think he had a small penis which was all in his head. The first scene of that issue shows Codpiece’s origin. He’s in high school and he asks this girl why won’t you go out with me? She doesn’t want to say because you’re an asshole so she says because you’re too small. He’s wounded from this exchange and takes it as her implying he has a small penis. It becomes a fixation of his. And we see this over the years even though there is no evidence of this.

74Then we get to present day where a prostitute says to him if you’re worried about being too small why don’t you wear something? He responds by developing this ridiculous codpiece costume. My idea was that it’s a parody of the ridiculous weapons in comics in the 50s and 60s. Like how Green Arrow would have a quiver on his back that would somehow contain boxing glove arrows and rocket arrows and so forth. So Codpiece had a boxing glove weapon and so on. Apparently some people thought I was attacking the fans. That I was somehow judging the fans as inadequate in the sense of their masculinity. Weird!

I guess it was in contrast to him and to some extent Dorothy and Cliff that I had this character come in, a transsexual lesbian. It was also because of a friend of mine, to go back to my earlier point. Her last name was Chelsea Godwin. She had asked me if she could be in the comic because she always wanted to be a superhero so I was sort of thinking of doing something for her. And Kate came from Kate Bornstein who was this brilliant transgender activist and performer. So I was paying homage to my friends.

Kate became a regular character. And a thoughtful character. A lot of people connected with her. Some people didn’t obviously. I didn’t get a lot of criticism that I was being too much of a trans activist, but rather that I was being too much of a feminist. That I was forcing feminism down their throats is what some people said. Some also said I was being too obscure. That was in the early issues. I was following Grant’s tendency to be obscure, but I perhaps took it a bit too far. As time went on there was more structure to the stories, but by that time we had already alienated some readers.

Joe: Do you have a favorite moment from working on Doom Patrol?

doom-patrol-70Rachel: Well I just really loved doing it. I loved telling these stories that were so outrageous. I loved the characters. We came up with some interesting ideas. I liked the character False Memory which was another single issue story.

There was one thing that happened shortly after we introduced Kate. We got a letter from a young transsexual reader from England who stated that she was wanting to kill herself, but never dared and because of the character of Kate Godwin she was able to come out to her friends. She was finally able to tell people because what we were doing made her finally feel that it was possible to have a life being herself. It was very powerful. We may have saved someone’s life. It was amazing. I wonder how that she’s doing now. It was a long time ago. Hopefully she continued to move in a positive direction.

Joe: You also worked on other books at DC including New Gods. Can you tell us about that?

Rachel: Yes! I was really thrilled to write it! Tom Peyer had gotten the job to write that, but he wasn’t that wild about it, so he asked if I’d be interested in writing with him and I jumped at it. Jack Kirby’s New Gods I think about in the same way as Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol. It’s a work of genius, you know? Even more, New Gods to me was so powerfully from Jack Kirby’s subconscious. You know, Kirby is known for his art primarily and New Gods was known to be kind of primitive in the writing, but actually it was so powerful on this raw level that it didn’t matter that the dialogue would be clumsy at times. An example was there was one issue with this character who was a revelationist, Glorious Godfrey, and at one point Darkseid appears and Godfrey says to Darkseid that they have to manipulate these people and Darkseid says he likes him because he’s brash but that he’s the revelationist, but “I am the revelation, the force at the core of all things.” You could tell Kirby meant it. It wasn’t just some throwaway comic book line.

So I was thrilled to work on that comic. Then Tom dropped out and I was writing it by myself. I was never thrilled by the artist though. With Vertigo I would always have some say in the artist but with the mainstream DC they insist on having these artists and he just did tits and ass all the time. It infuriated me. I used to joke with people that I would have quit if they didn’t fire me!

rachelWhat happened with the comic was I got a letter from the editor saying the current artist was fired. I was happy. I really didn’t like him because of how sexist he was in his style of art. Then the next letter I got was you and I are fired too!

Apparently John Byrne had decided to take over New Gods and got rid of everybody. The same way he took over Doom Patrol after me, after a gap. With Doom Patrol too he wanted to sweep away everything previous and go back to what he perceived to be the true Doom Patrol before Grant Morrison.

Joe: How did you end up leaving comics?

Rachel: Well to be honest my stuff wasn’t selling that well, so things got cancelled. Doom Patrol got cancelled because sales went down below a certain point and the irony is not that long after that sales point would have been great because the sale of comics at the time were declining so rapidly. But compared to the previous sales from Grant’s books and Sandman, they cancelled it.

And actually my editor on Doom Patrol at the time, Lou Stathis, had died which was very sad. He was a wonderful man, and he had been my champion at DC. In fact, he said to me one time they wanted to cancel me and he told them, “Look, if Vertigo isn’t going to publish Rachel Pollack then what’s the point?” He thought I was doing daring things that no one else was doing and that’s what Vertigo needed.

When he had died Axel Alonso had been the assistant editor on Doom Patrol and of course now he’s the editor-in-chief of Marvel. He wasn’t interested in the kind of things I was doing. He was interested in war comics and other genres and didn’t want to continue Doom Patrol at that time as sales were below a certain point.

time-breakersI had done some other things at DC too. I did a one off issue of The Geek with Mike Allred that I enjoyed a lot. I also did a one off issue of Tomahawk. It was funny, they enjoyed taking these older characters from the 50s or so and doing revisionist stories with them. I was asked what would I like to do and out of my subconscious came Tomahawk. It was never my favorite as a kid. I had read it though, and obviously in my subconscious I wanted to do a story about the whole European attitude to the forest and the Native Americans as the original idea was be frightened by the forest and be frightened by the savages.

Then Stuart Moore started the science fiction imprint Helix and I got to do Time Breakers which I had a real great time doing. I had wanted to do a time paradox story for a long long time and this was my chance to do one. It was so much fun!

Joe: Once Time Breakers was over was that it with you and comics?

Rachel: I forget if it was Time Breakers or New Gods. The stuff I was doing didn’t sell well enough and they were no longer interested in ideas from me. It was unfortunate. I loved doing comics. Hopefully there will be more. Some possibilities for doing something in comics again. There are one or two things I’m currently interested in doing.

Joe – Your whole run of Doom Patrol is on Comixology and has been for a couple of years. How does that work for you?

Rachel: It doesn’t. I know nothing about it. No one told me about it. I really don’t know. I have no idea how that happens. I assume that if DC was making some money on it that they would be paying royalties no matter how tiny to myself and the artists.

Joe: So you haven’t received any money from Comixology?

Rachel: I never even received official acknowledgement that my comics are there. So I know nothing about it. I would have thought that somebody would say something.

Joe: Does DC own the rights to all of your comics work?

Rachel – No. Time Breakers is owned by me and Chris Weston. I guess that’s the only one. Every other one I worked on was with existing characters and properties. It’s the only creator owned comic I had published.

Joe: Any plans on possibly reprinting it?

Rachel – Well there are some possibilities. Nothing definite yet. Chris and I are hoping to get it reprinted. Chris took it on himself to get the rights reverted from DC which didn’t cost him anything, it was just time consuming. They had to give over some files and other things to us. They were very nice about it, was just a matter of getting them to do it.

Joe: Looking back on your Doom Patrol run would you say it was ahead of its time?

Rachel: I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Certainly afterwards Vertigo became less involved in superhero stuff. I do think it was too radical for some people. A lot of people found it hard to get. A lot of comics fans have this idea that the writer should disregard everything beforehand and write something new, which particularly male writers tend to do. Without really thinking about it I wanted to follow up on some of the things that Grant did.

Some people thought I wasn’t enough like Grant, and other people thought I was too much like Grant and then they’d say I wasn’t a good enough Grant. They thought I was imitating him, but I wasn’t good enough. In fact what I was doing was my own take on things, but inspired by what he did. A lot of people didn’t want that. They didn’t like the feminist positions I was taking. They felt it was weird for weird’s sake. Certainly Grant did the same thing. Invisibles was very weird. More so than Doom Patrol, but people still liked it. What can you do, you know?

Joe: Currently DC is relaunching Doom Patrol starting Wednesday September 14th with Gerard Way writing.

Rachel: Which is exciting! Just a few days!

Joe: You’re already a fan of Gerard Way?

Rachel: Yes. Without knowing it or remembering it was him at the time, I read Umbrella Academy. I really liked it a lot. Then you told me he would be writing Doom Patrol and planned on bringing back the weird, I reread the Umbrella Academy stories after that. I love them. I’m really excited he’s writing Doom Patrol. Then he got in touch with me which I was delighted about. E-mail exchanges. I really like his approach. Wanting to bring back the weird. Not just Grant in Doom Patrol, but all the British Invasion stuff, like Peter Milligan’s Shade The Changing Man. I’m excited that Young Animal will be like the old Vertigo. I read the eight-page preview of Doom Patrol too and it’s great fun!

Joe: You mentioned a couple of comics projects you’re interested in before. Are you looking to get back into comics?

Rachel: Yes, yes. There’s an anthology project that I hope to do one or two stories in that I’m very excited about. I was also approached by someone I know who is launching a line of comics for women readers and I was asked about contributing to it. I’m planning on doing a story for it that I had in mind for a long long time so I’m hoping that it’ll work out.

Joe: Do you feel your contributions to comics like Kate Godwin are important to this generation of queer comics fans?

Rachel: I can tell you for a fact that they are. I went to a literary festival in Winnipeg recently kind of expecting that no one would know who I was since I haven’t written stuff on that subject since the 90s in my more activist years. It turned out that when I got there that to my surprise I was kind of a hero and one of the main reasons was Doom Patrol. A lot of young people doing webcomics were there and they were all Doom Patrol fans. They were all thrilled that someone had done this back in the 90s.

I recently did an interview for a website highlighting trans women and they included an article they had about trans characters in superhero comics. They had some previous attempts at trans characters on the list, but stated if you’re looking for a good example of a trans superhero look no further than Rachel Pollack. I was very honored. A new generation has been finding my work and viewing me as a role model. It’s been very exciting for me.

Joe: Before we wrap things up, anything else you’d like to add?

Rachel – I hope people read the new Doom Patrol coming out. Gerard has some great plans for the book and if you’re a fan of my run there will definitely be surprises in store for you. You’re gonna love it!

Oh, and one thing that I’d like to end with is that I’m glad I got to do some stories based in mythology for Doom Patrol. They were some of my favorites. There was the Teiresias story which I loved doing. And the last story I got to do involved Kabbalah which was something I had been interested in for some time and it turned out to be the perfect ending to my run. It’s interesting that things happened that way. I loved that I got to have a 15th century Kabbalist be one of the characters! I’m sure many Rabbis would be horrified.

Joe: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me about your comics work, and I hope we get to see new comics work from you see!

Rachel – Thank you for reaching out! It was very enjoyable. I had a good time.

Box Office Democracy: “Sully”

Maybe every significant historical event doesn’t need to be a feature film.

It’s clear from the glut of remakes and sequels that Hollywood is running out of ideas, and while we’ve mined World War II as thoroughly as I think is possible, some things still don’t qualify as feature films. Sully has an amazing story to tell but it doesn’t have 90 minutes of story to tell. You could get all of the essential bits of narrative into an hour of TV with commercials and it might still feel padded. There’s an extreme amount of flat out useless content in here; some of it is trying to create conflict, some of it is trying to link the landing on the Hudson to 9/11 in some appallingly exploitative filmmaking, and some of it is just there to pad the anemic running time.

Clint Eastwood is a fantastic director and the in-air scenes are masterfully done. Everyone who sees this movie contemporarily is going to know exactly what happens, that the plane is going to land safely in the Hudson River and that everyone on board is going to live, but those scenes in the air are amazingly intense. The way Eastwood tells the story from, the inside of the cockpit, to the passenger cabin, to the air traffic controller, to the first responders, and even the incidental New Yorkers is masterful. The sequence, the way they run it the first time through, is worth the price of admission by itself.

I say “the first time they run through it” because at the end of the film they run the whole sequence back again, this time with the contrivance of everyone listening to the flight data recorder. This time we get just Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart doing the least interesting parts of their performances going through a sequence we’ve already seen in a more interesting way earlier in this 90-minute film. There simply isn’t enough stuff in this movie once we move away from the thing we all came here to see, so they have to keep filling.

There’s a frame story about a National Transit Safety Board investigation trying to put fault at the feet of Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeff Skiles that felt inauthentic in the theater, remembering the universal adulation these men got— and upon research, was inaccurate enough that the real-life Sullenberger asked for the names of the investigators to be changed. There’s a family plot that feels like it’s missing a key detail or some additional context to explain why the scenes are all so stilted, it’s like they filed for divorce the day before and no one decided to mention it. There are also two flashbacks: one showing Sully at flight school for the briefest moment and one showing a tricky landing from his Air Force days, and while they’re effective in what they do and mercifully brief it’s very strange to have this gesture towards being a biopic before backing away.

I didn’t appreciate all of the gestures to 9/11 imagery they used in Sully. I don’t know if they put them in and then decided it was perfect to release on the weekend of the 15th anniversary, or if they saw they had that opportunity and added them in, but I hated them. The movie opens with Sully having a nightmare about turning back towards LaGuardia and crashing in to a building in Manhattan, and then later in the movie he’s standing by a window looking over Times Square and sees a plane crash into a building. These scenes did not feel to me like they were the ideal way to show the trauma of living through the experience (although for all I know it’s what really happened) but seemed, to me, to be an attempt to get some 9/11-style imagery in the movie to get some jingoism in. As a honest-to-goodness 9/11 victim, I hated it. It’s shot very realistically, brought me back to some times I would prefer to keep in my past, and I didn’t care for it at all.

I don’t know who has the authority to tell Clint Eastwood he can’t make a movie these days, but they should have sat him down with this one. Not every significant American moment needs to be a movie, even if at the end we can have a feel good moment about first responders. Sully is a movie with one fantastic sequence and a bunch of filler because no one would pay $15 to see a 45-minute movie in a theater. Sully is a bunch of talented people doing good work, in the service of a movie that feels empty at best and exploitative at worst. I want better from all involved.

Return of the Caped Crusaders Hits Movie Theaters Oct. 10

  • News
  • September 12, 2016

brcc016772DENVER – September 12, 2016 – Travel back to the 1960s as Batman and Robin spring into action when Gotham City is threatened by a quartet of Batman’s most fiendish foes. Audiences will have the opportunity to join all the animated excitement as it unfolds on the big screen for one special day. Fathom Events is once again partnering with Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment to bring Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders to movie theaters for three exclusive showings on Monday, October 10 at 2:00 p.m., 7:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. local time, before it comes to Digital HD on October 11 and Blu-ray™ Combo Pack & DVD on November 1.

Bringing these iconic characters to animated life are Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin) and Julie Newmar (Catwoman). In the new film, Penguin, The Joker, Riddler and Catwoman have combined their wicked talents to hatch a plot so nefarious that the Dynamic Duo will need to go to outer space (and back) to foil their arch enemies and restore order in Gotham City.

In addition to the film, audiences will view an exclusive pre-screening introduction, and a post-screening preview of “Those Dastardly Desperados,” a featurette that explores how the villains became more than just antagonists in a Batman story – they became icons of American pop culture.

brcc015540Tickets for Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders can be purchased beginning Friday, September 9, online by visiting www.FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. Fans throughout the U.S. will be able to enjoy the event in more than 700 select movie theaters. For a complete list of theater locations visit the Fathom Events website (theaters and participants are subject to change).

“Working with Warner Bros. on Batman: The Killing Joke was a great experience and we knew it was something we wanted to duplicate,” Fathom Events Vice President of Studio Relations Tom Lucas said. “With Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders we get to give our audiences another extremely exciting event experience driven by the return of three nostalgic pop culture names to their most memorable roles.”

“Fans have voiced a strong desire to see DC-centric animated films on the big screen for years, and Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders offers another opportunity to entertain our audience with a highly-anticipated cinema event,” said Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation Marketing. “Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is proud to launch our newly branded ‘DC Classics Collection’ films with a Fathom Events presentation.”

Mindy Newell: Ah-Choo!

  • News
  • September 12, 2016

hillary-clinton-coughing

big-sneezeHere’s a scenario straight out of a political thriller by Brad Meltzer, a satirical graphic novel by Gail Simone, a seasonal arc of 24, or the warped mind of your columnist:

Reuters is reporting that Vladimir Putin, the Russian dictator president orders denies interference with the 2016 American Presidential election following the hospitalization of Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton for suspected polonium 210 chronic radiation poisoning. It was Polonium 210 acute radiation exposure that killed former KGB officer Alexander Litvenko in just three weeks. The former KGB officer had been granted political asylum in the United Kingdom.

In response to this news, Donald Trump has tweeted “Told you she was sick!”

Hoo boy, if I posted that on my Facebook page I’d be the darling of every conspiracy nut in the world. And might even warrant a visit from the Secret Service…or Jack Bauer. (Chloe, you rock, woman!)

I didn’t see Hillary “stumble/collapse” yesterday morning at the 9/11 memorial service, but Mike Gold told me about it later in the day as we talked on the phone (get well, chief!) and I did a quick search on the web and watched the “retread” on YouTube.

I gotta admit, the woman did not look well, and, no, it wasn’t that hot out on Sunday morning – low 80s. (If it had occurred on Saturday, when the mercury was kissing 100°, her personal assistant’s comment that Hil’ was “overheated” might have had some traction.)

However – and I stress the however – in my professional opinion I don’t believe Hillary is “ill” in that morbidly funereal hushed voice that people use when terminal diseases are diagnosed. Nor – and I stress the nor – do I give Trump’s horribly insulting and misogynistic statements about Clinton’s stamina any credence whatsoever. The extreme opposite is true, im-not-so-ho – Trump could never in a million years endure the 13-hour kangaroo court grilling of that so-called [zillionth-and-one] Benghazi Senate Investigation. He would have broken down in cry-baby tears after the first five minutes and then tweeted nasty things about his “Inquisitors” for the next 24 hours.

Nah, my guess is – based on that cough she displayed a week or so ago – that Mrs. Clinton probably has a touch of walking pneumonia. Around my “office” – quotes because an operating room is not an office – for the last month, and just about everybody has had at the least a sniffle or a sneeze or feeling like shit. But while any of us can take a day or two off to recover, Hil’ can’t – or won’t. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if at least one person on her staff has been trying to get her to take it easy for a day or two.

But it’s not the state of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health that has me worried.

It’s the – and you’ll excuse the expression – the State of the Union if Donald Trump becomes President of the United States of America.

It’s the State of the World.

Marcus Feldenkirchen, Velt Medick, and Holger Stark, reporters for the German news organization Der Spiegel, one of the most respected on the globe, wrote in their February 16 2016 article “Donald Trump Is The Most Dangerous Man In The World:”

 “…what Trump wants: to be feared. His bid for the White House, long ridiculed, is a fight for a ruthless, brutal America. Behind his campaign slogan “Make America great again!” is the vision of a country that no longer cares about international treaties, ethnic minorities or established standards of decency.”

And his, from the country whose citizens know what happens when intolerance and a belief in racial superiority takes over:

“…Trump’s belief that he is genetically superior to most people in the world. In all of their conversations, he notes, Trump kept returning to the notion that by virtue of his birth, he is simply better than other people in many areas — from playing golf to being a businessman. ‘I’m a big believer in natural ability,’ Trump said. His son, Donald Trump Jr., shares his father’s conviction. He said he was a firm believer in the concept of breeding, in ‘race-horse theory.’”

At work the other day my room was staffed with a few surgeons, three nurses, two anesthesiologists, an X-ray technician, and a profusionist, all of whom constituted a Star Trek-like collection of ethnicities and religions. Catholic, Filipino, Muslim, Indian, Pakistani, Jewish, Spanish. No WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Looking around the room, I quipped, “Trump’s worst nightmare.” Everybody laughed. Then someone, I don’t remember who, said, “We’ll all be shipped out if Trump wins,” Nobody laughed.

So, anyway, back to that political scenario I opened the column with today…

Simply fiction…

Like John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar (1969), in which, in the year 2010, the President is named Obomi, terrorist attacks are nothing to write home about, school violence is a snore, and Detroit is a broken, empty city…

Or like Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor (1994), in which terrorists fly a jet into the U.S. Capitol. Talk about timing, and R.I.P., brave men and women of United 93.

Yeah.

It’s just fiction.

 

Ed Catto: The Mission of Star Trek – Mission New York

star-trek-mission-pix-3-cosplayers-atb

idw-john-bryne-stmnyFans, creators, actors, historians, licensees, NASA and even the United States Post Office celebrated Star Trek’s 50th Anniversary last week at Manhattan’s Javits Center during Star Trek: Mission New York. This convention was a triumph of Geek Culture and how one man’s vision inspired so many others to create one of the most successful and enduring entertainment franchises.

Star Trek fandom has always been passionate and vocal. They’ve banded together to keep the Enterprise flying and have been holding conventions since the 70s. This convention, created by Reed Elsevier’s ReedPop division, was held in the same location as their New York Comic Con. That’s become such a behemoth that, by comparison, Star Trek: Mission New York seemed to embrace a more intimate vibe.

There are benefits to a smaller convention. This was so much easier to navigate than New York Comic Con. There were shorter lines and no crushing crowds. Fans were in a better mood. But try as I might, my observations of this show are undoubtedly influenced by other trade shows and fan-focused shows. And there were a lot of shows this past weekend. Convention expert Rob Salkowitz analyzed the “so many nerds, so little time” phenomenon for Forbes.

star-trek-con-4lPanels: Where the Fans Are

The heart and soul of the convention seemed to be in the panel rooms, even more so than at a conventional trade show or comic con. These panels allowed fans the opportunity to explore the many niches of Star Trek in intense and personal ways, despite sitting in a room with 400 other people.

When I left for college, my dad suggested that it would be wise to join a group or team as a way to break down the overwhelming scope of the university. He was right – and the advice would have been appropriate for Star Trek fans that weekend.

A few of the most fascinating panels included:

  • The Women of Star Trek Reflect on 50 Years – Star Trek actresses candidly discussing the difficult choices they were, and are, often forced to make
  • The Lost Years: Treks that Never Were A panel that explored the strange but unproduced worlds of scripts, movie concepts and series that never made it onto the screen
  • Writing for Star Trek, where David Gerrold, you may know him as the writer of the classic episode, The Trouble with Tribbles (now back in print through ComicMix), passionately encouraged would-be Star Trek writers to create their own books, with their own characters and their own universes
  • Leonard Nimoy: A Tribute provided great history, including photos of Nimoy with Adam West and in costume as the Grand Marshall of a local parade
  • Star Trek: The Roddenberry Vault panel, teasing unseen footage. More on this in a bit
  • A stage reading of Star Trek IV, which I enjoyed more than the actual movie… and I like the movie

gerrold-chekov-stmnyCosplay

Creative and clever cosplay clearly was a theme at this show. Pattern manufacturer Simplicity’s booth spotlighted their licensed Star Trek patterns, but the real creativity was with the fans. Some highlights:

  • A medical student designed and sewed an elegant starship dress
  • One clever fan appeared as an animated Nurse Christine Chapel, who’s arm was miscolored for just a few frames in the Star Trek Animated Series episode The Lorelei Signal
  • A fan dressed as Lt. Uhuru in the toga-esque outfit worn for TV’s first interracial kiss

The cosplay contest on Saturday night also included brilliant pop culture mashups like Khan-ye West, Kim Cardassian, and Ensign Trump, complete with his “Make the Federation Great Again” political sign.

vulcanThe Show Floor

The exhibition floor offered an eclectic group of booths and activities. On one end, NASA’s huge booth helped fans understand upcoming space exploration, (like the Tess satellite) while on the other end, the U.S. Post Office sold the new Star Trek stamps.

In between there was a mix:

  • Comic publisher IDW was there with creatives who were signing comics. The legendary John Byrne made a rare convention appearance to sign copies of his recent photoplay Star Trek
  • Eaglemoss was selling individual Starships and Starship Dedication Plaques from their Star Trek Starships collection. Many sold out quickly. The steady crowd of fans at the booth kept me from speaking to my friends at Eaglemoss crew too much.
  • Likewise, rabid fans kept the Titan booth busy, as they also sold out of many of their products. Their new coffee table book Star Trek: 50 Artists 50 Years, was gorgeous. I had loved the exhibit that the book is based upon when I saw it in downtown San Diego during July’s Comic-Con.
  • The Smithsonian touted their Star Trek documentary, but somehow that seemed like an assignment a teacher would give you, rather than something fun you’d find on your own. But I’m clearly not giving it a chance and I haven’t seen the documentary yet (it debuted September 4th).
  • Microsoft’s Star Trek: Bridge Crew offers an amazing virtual reality experience for fans. The reality of the long line, however, discouraged me from taking part of it.
  • Star Trek Timelines is an immersive game that spans the many Trek franchises and, for the vast majority of users, is free. A very patient but energized (I mean that in the non-Trek sense of the word) staff helped fans play the game on the mounted iPhones and tablets – and gave away a lot of prizes.

reliant-eaglemossThe Son of….

Rod Roddenberry is the son of Star Trek Creator Rod Roddenberry. Rod carries on the business side of the work that was established years ago as his father, with prescient insight, kept many of the licensing rights.

Rod’s an affable guy. He’s warm, humble and friendly. And he announced an astounding project. It turns out that his father maintained a warehouse full of dailies and outtakes from the original series. Gene Roddenberry had gathered up everything that was on the metaphorical cutting room floor and preserved it. Working with Roger Lay, Jr., Rod and the new team have assembled these treasures in the Star Trek: The Roddenberry Vault, on sale later this year.

star-trek-con-3rA Few Stumbles

For every Wrath of Khan or ST:TNG, there’s a Nemesis or a Star Trek: Enterprise. There were some shortcomings with this convention too.

After 50 years of merchandise, collectibles, comics and books, I was disappointed that there weren’t any dealers selling those treasures in any meaningful way. I had gone into the show on the lookout for vintage Trek comics and books but left empty handed. I wanted to see things like Topps cards, Ben Cooper Halloween outfits and 70s Star Trek guns that fired little plastic disks. I hadn’t planned on buying any of those things… but you never know.

My frustration was compounded when I asked the woman in the information booth if there were any dealers or back issue sellers. She informed me that she “had no idea” but that I “was welcome to wander around the exhibition floor” to try and find what I needed. I was, quite frankly, stung by the impoliteness and uselessness of that suggestion. That’s not the Reed Expo Customer Service that I remember.

The whole exhibition floor was a bit underwhelming, but on the other hand, it seems that companies with product designed for fans sold a lot this weekend. There wasn’t a crushing competition for consumer dollars.

Years ago, I had enjoyed a Star Trek novel now and again, so I was really surprised how unwelcoming the Simon and Schuster booth was to new or in my case, lapsed, readers. I went to that booth planning to purchase a book, but after a sour experience, I decided against it. My to-read pile is tall enough, anyways.

And there’s so much more going on in the “world” of Star Trek fandom that I wish was front and center at this convention. I wanted to learn more about the many Trek podcasts, the high quality fan-films and the boom in impressive fan artwork.

star-trek-con-2Box Office? What Box Office?

Last week, The New York Times had a front-page article on changing movie going habits and this summer’s box office sequels that didn’t become hits. I was surprised to see Star Trek: Beyond on that list. I had thought it made its money back and I had enjoyed the picture. But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised – the faithful superfans at Star Trek: Mission New York had all but ignored that movie.

The Next Frontier: 50 More Years

What’s the real magic of Star Trek? Is it the hope for an optimistic future? Is it the smart science fiction? Is it the ripping yarns? Is it really just the story of a guy and his buddies? Who knows? I’ll leave it to deeper thinkers to sort that all out. All I know is that Star Trek fan culture is thriving. It’s a robust intersection of fandom, commerce & entrepreneurialism. And that a good time was had by most at Star Trek: Mission New York.

 

John Ostrander Gets Trumped!

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I’m almost ready to give up. Throw in the towel.

I’m a writer of fantastic fiction. That’s been my bread and butter for over 30 years. Folks that fly. Folks that travel through time. Folks that live in multi-dimensional cities. Bad folks doing bad things for ostensibly good causes. And so on and so on.

For all that the stories and characters have been fantastic, I have to keep them in some ways real. I don’t want to have the readers say, “Oh, that could never happen.” I don’t want to have an editor say, “Oh, that could never happen.” Or “That’s ridiculous.” Or “Who do you think you’re kidding?” The stories need to be at least plausible in some way.

Or so I thought until this political season.

Yes, I’m going to use the T word. Trump.

If Trump did not exist, if I had simply made up him and his candidacy, I could never have sold his campaign for president. I don’t think I know an editor who would have bought it except as some wild political satire. It would probably have been dismissed as a product of my fevered liberal brain.

Reality has… trumped me.

That happens now and then. When I first proposed my idea back in the 80s for a Suicide Squad revival, of saying that the government would get supervillains to do covert missions is (supposedly) in the National Interest, there was some concern that the premise was a little too out there. In between the time when the Squad proposal was accepted and the first issue was published, Irangate hit. (For those who are too young or too old to remember, Irangate or The Iran-Contra Scandal occurred during the second Reagan administration where the White House sold some weapons to Iran (which was under an arms embargo) and used the money to fund the revel Contras in Nicaragua which had been prohibited by the U.S. Congress.)

In short, reality trumped me back then as well.

When Donald Trump declared himself a candidate for President, I thought it was a joke. I thought he was a joke. After all, he ran before and went nowhere.

Now? Now he’s the Republican nominee for the highest office in the land and the most powerful person on the planet.

I think that’s a notion that American Horror Story could do a whole season on.

He has done and said things that would have sunk any other presidential candidate in memory. Just this week he praised Vlad Putin, the dictator of Russia, and even went on Russian TV to praise him and disparage President Obama. That was too much even for Bill O’Reilly. I’ve watched countless Republicans in high positions who had to answer questions about it and looked like they were going to vomit in their mouths. They usually mumbled something along the lines of “I support the Party’s candidate.”

Look, I make no bones and no apologies for what I am – liberal and decidedly anti-Trump. I’m not nuts about Hillary Clinton and, frankly, I think if it had been almost any other person who was the Democratic candidate, they would be crushing Trump. I think, and hope, that she will in the end. All that said, I cannot conceive that Trump will win this. I keep telling myself it’s not possible but, on the other hand, I never thought he would get this far either. I do not understand the appeal. I understand there’s a lot of anger out there and a lot of people are fed up with Washington but – c’mon! You seriously want the nuclear launch codes in Trump’s hands?

If this wasn’t what we laughingly call reality, there’s no way I could have sold this concept, this story, to an editor.

If The Donald wins the election, we’ll have an additional definition for the word, “trump.”

Fucked.

As in, we’ve all been well and truly… trumped.

Marc Alan Fishman’s Ten Easy Steps To Make Justice League Great

 

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Welcome to LinkBait 2016, kiddos! After last week, I was left wandering the streets thinking “How can Warner Brothers make Justice League not just good but completely balls-out awesomesauce?” Well, here I am stuck in New York City (day job, baybae!) with nothing better to do than listicle my way towards freedom. Let’s break it down:

  1. Be Funny.
    If the teaser trailer thing they tossed at us via SDCC was any indication, this one may be in the bag. Between Batfleck’s quips to the angry Aquaman and the Flash’s quips to Bats… I laughed more in two minutes of footage than I did after watching all of the DC films combined.
  2. Stop Brooding.
    Can we just state the obvious? Batman v. Superman and Man of Steel were chores to survive through. With rain and darkness and death and crying and smoke and ashes and pain and lasers, we’ve now sat through about five hours of tragedy shaded by angst. Simply put, we don’t need any more of it.
  3. Open up After Effects and turn off all filters.
    Forgive my insincerity to any of the directors of photography, art directors, and cinematographers who worked on the previous films. They were ugly brown-blue nightmare-scapes. For the love of Rao, please just up that saturation. Want a guide? Open up a comic book. I realize the brands need some consistency. But when your competition can level a city in broad daylight, and still have bright blue skies, it proves you don’t need to muck up the screen just because there’s a fight going on.
  4. Remember: Nothing is truly ever solved by punching.
    Listen, I don’t want to keep beating the “Marvel’s doing it better” tree too often, but I need to call a spade a spade. The Avengers? The day was saved by sacrifice. Civil War? A stalemate and respect for common sense. Heck! Guardians of the Galaxy? Friggen friendship, love, and having Kurt Russel alien-DNA. Consider it your blueprint: the Justice League needs to beat whatever villainy that arises with their wit, their courage, and their unwavering compassion for humanity. Simply put, only martial arts movies get away with winning by using better punching.
  5. In Media Res… Love It.
    We don’t need anyone’s secret origin. Not anymore. The movie-going public has been well-versed now by a decade’s worth of them. Start us ready to assemble… err… gather the League and save the day.
  6. Aquaman will be cool if you play it cool.
    We all know Aquaman is a pop-culture icon for morty hero-dom. But what makes him awesome isn’t the tattoos, Samoan looks, angry grit, or massive pecs. It’s his confidence. It’s his heroism. It’s his humanity. It’s clear that Momoa’s Arthur Curry is an intense individual. That’s fine. But he need not be a snarling snarky shark-man to garner favor with the lowest common denominator.
  7. No one believes Superman is dead.
    Well, you sorta’ let that cat outta the bag quickly, didn’t you? So be clear, and to the point. Bring him back. Spare us the mullet and/or black costume and give us the big blue boy scout America has been begging for.
  8. Wonder Woman must be the force to be reckoned with.
    Up until now, Black Widow has been the super hero little girls are looking up to. But she’s a complicated character who’s been buried behind the bigger toys in the toybox over at Club Mickey. DC has the opportunity to steal the title of best female hero and bury Marvel in that respect. Wonder Woman stole every scene she was in back in Sadman v. Badman. While we know she’ll soon get her own solo flick to flood the cinemas with aspiration. But in the team setting, she’s set to break out and be the biggest, baddest bitch of the bunch.
  9. The villain needs to matter.
    To date, Marvel’s malevolent mad men have been shallow at best, save only – perhaps – for the lukewarm Loki. DC’s rogues frankly spank Marvel’s ne’er-do-wells on paper. It’s about time they proved it. It looks like Darkseid may be the big baddie. And all it takes is boning up on how he was portrayed in Justice League: Unlimited and Superman: The Animated Series. Simply put? Darkseid is the better Thanos. DC has the opportunity to spare us seventeen ten-second teasers to get to a true villain. Roll out the parademons and a few Apokolyptian lieutenants for larger fight scenes, and you’re golden as a Kirby panel.
  10. Go ahead and tell us this is a multi-verse.
    There’s no better way to make all the fanboys lose their minds then to say Arrow, Flash, Supergirl and (to a much lesser degree) Gotham could exist and travel into the movies, and vice versa. With all the goodwill being built on the CW thus far… those whoops, hollers, and rounds of applause will come if people got the notion Grant Gustin and Ezra Miller would ever run across one another.

So, ComicMixers… what would you tell DC and WB to do to make Justice League a movie you’ll crave seeing?

Finding Dory Stream Oct. 25, Swims for Home Nov. 15

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BURBANK, Calif., Sept. 8, 2016 — The summer blockbuster hit, Disney•Pixar’s Finding Dory, swims home just in time for the holidays on Digital HD and Disney Movies Anywhere (DMA) on Oct. 25 and on Blu-ray 3D™, Blu-ray, DVD and On-Demand on Nov. 15. Viewers can watch Dory’s hilarious and heartwarming quest to find her family and continue the underwater adventure with hours of immersive bonus features.

The film’s playful and plentiful bonus offerings include “Piper,” the theatrical short film starring an irresistible sandpiper hatchling; an all-new mini short featuring interviews with Dory’s pals from the Marine Life Institute; a behind-the-scenes look at the most challenging character Pixar has ever created; never-before-seen deleted scenes, including a digital exclusive featuring the Tank Gang from Finding Nemo who make it their mission to get Marlin and Nemo to the Marine Life Institute; and much, much more.

Finding Dory features an all-star voice cast, reuniting Ellen DeGeneres (The Ellen DeGeneres Show) and Albert Brooks (This is 40) as Dory and Marlin, the ever-optimistic blue tang and the uptight but loyal clownfish. Ed O’Neill (Modern Family) lends his voice to “septopus” Hank, Kaitlin Olson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) voices whale shark Destiny, and Ty Burrell (Modern Family) gives voice to beluga whale Bailey. Dory’s doting parents Charlie and Jenny are portrayed by Eugene Levy (Schitt’s Creek) and Diane Keaton (Love the Coopers), and 12-year-old Hayden Rolence (Beta Persei) steps in as Nemo, the young clownfish with a lucky fin.

Thirteen years after the original, audiences get a new chapter in the story of their favorite forgetful blue tang. As returning director Andrew Stanton describes, “I realized that I was worried about Dory. The idea of her short-term memory loss and how it affected her was unresolved. What if she got lost again?” His response is a touching tale of friendship and family that’s truly unforgettable … perhaps even for Dory.

Bonus features include*:

Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray & Digital HD:

  • Theatrical Short: “Piper” – A hungry sandpiper hatchling ventures from her nest for the first time to dig for food by the shoreline. The only problem is that the food is buried beneath the sand where scary waves roll up onto the shore.
  • Marine Life Interviews (All-New Mini Short) – Meet the inhabitants of the Marine Life Institute as they remember our favorite blue tang.
  • The Octopus That Nearly Broke Pixar – Pixar’s “Team Hank” unravels the challenges, frustrations, and rewards of bringing to life the studio’s crankiest and most technically complicated character ever.
  • What Were We Talking About? – This piece showcases the complex routes Dory’s story took as the filmmakers worked to construct a comprehensive narrative involving a main character with short-term memory loss.
  • Casual Carpool – What’s it like to commute with the voices of Marlin, Charlie, Bailey and Hank? Join “Finding Dory” writer/director Andrew Stanton as he drives Albert Brooks, Eugene Levy, Ty Burrell and Ed O’Neill to work.
  • Animation & Acting – How do you create a connection between a human audience and a fish? This behind-the-scenes look behind the curtain examines the process of constructing believable performances through a unique collaboration between the director, voice actors and animators.
  • Creature Features – The cast of “Finding Dory” share cool facts about the creatures they voice in the film.
  • Deep in the Kelp – Disney Channel’s Jenna Ortega guides us on a research trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium to show how far the “Finding Dory” crew went to make Dory’s world feel real.
  • Skating & Sketching with Jason Deamer – “Finding Dory” character art director Jason Deamer talks about how he got to Pixar, how he draws the characters in the film, and how falling off a skateboard teaches you lessons you can use in art and life.
  • Dory’s Theme – A spirited discussion among the composer, music editor and director of “Finding Dory” about the musical elements that shape Dory’s quirky and joyful theme.
  • Rough Day on the Reef – Sometimes computers make mistakes. Here you’ll see some of the funny, creepy and just plain bizarre footage the crew encountered while making “Finding Dory.”
  • Commentary – Director Andrew Stanton, co-director Angus MacLane and producer Lindsey Collins deliver their personal perspective on “Finding Dory.”
  • Deleted Scenes (introduced by director Andrew Stanton)
    • Losing Nemo – While watching the stingray migration, Dory starts to follow two fish that remind her of her parents, leaving Nemo all alone.
    • Little Tension in Clown Town – In this alternate version of the film, Dory tries to “follow her fins” to her parents, but ends up in a strange place with even stranger fish fashion.
    • Dory Dumped – In this early version of the story, Dory’s parents had short-term memory loss as well.
    • Sleep Swimming – Dory begins to talk and swim in her sleep, revealing what seem to be clues to her past.
    • Meeting Hank – Wandering the Marine Life Institute’s elaborate pipe system, Dory happens upon the abode of Hank the cranky octopus.
    • The Pig – Frantically navigating the pipes of the Marine Life Institute in search of her parents, Dory crosses paths with a terrifying cleaning device.
    • Starting Over – Director Andrew Stanton presents four different versions of the movie’s opening scene to illustrate the filmmakers’ search for the best way to introduce Dory’s backstory and to connect this new film to “Finding Nemo.”
    • Tank Gang (Digital exclusive) – After a close encounter with a squid leaves them separated from Dory, Marlin and Nemo unexpectedly meet up with the Tank Gang from “Finding Nemo,” who make it their mission to get to the Marine Life Institute … by any means necessary.
    • Hidden Seacrets of Finding Dory (Digital exclusive) – Take a deep dive to catch secret Easter Eggs throughout the movie.  And just like Hank, they’re hidden in plain sight.

DVD:

  • Theatrical Short: Piper & Commentary

From the Academy Award®–winning creators of Disney•Pixar’s “Finding Nemo” (Best Animated Feature, 2003) comes an epic undersea adventure filled with imagination, humor and heart. When Dory, the forgetful blue tang (Ellen DeGeneres), suddenly remembers she has a family who may be looking for her, she, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) take off on a life-changing quest to find them … with help from Hank, a cantankerous octopus; Bailey, a beluga whale who’s convinced his biological sonar skills are on the fritz; and Destiny, a nearsighted whale shark. Bring home the movie overflowing with unforgettable characters, dazzling animation and gallons of bonus extras.

Directed by Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, WALL•E) and co-directed by Angus MacLane (Toy Story OF TERROR!), the film is produced by Lindsey Collins (co-producer WALL•E) and executive produced by John Lasseter. Victoria Strouse (“October Road”) wrote the script with Stanton. Veteran composer and longtime Stanton collaborator Thomas Newman (Bridge of Spies, WALL•E, Finding Nemo) created the film’s music score and singer-songwriter Sia performs the film’s end-credit song, “Unforgettable”.

DISC SPECIFICATIONS:

Product SKUs: Digital 3D HD, Digital HD, Digital SD,
Blu-ray 3D Superset (Blu-ray 3D, Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy),
Blu-ray Superset (Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Copy), Disney Movies Anywhere,
DVD and On-Demand
Feature Run Time: Approximately 97 minutes
Rating: PG in U.S. and G in Canada
Aspect Ratio: Blu-ray 3D Feature Film = 1080p High Definition / Widescreen 1.78:1
Blu-ray Feature Film = 1080p High Definition / Widescreen 1.78:1
DVD Feature Film = Widescreen 1.78:1
Audio:
Blu-ray 3D & Blu-ray = English 7.1 DTS-HDMA & 2.0 Descriptive Audio,
Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks
DVD = English and Spanish (U.S. only) and French (Canada only)
5.1 Dolby Digital Language Tracks, English 2.0 Descriptive Audio
Languages/Subtitles:     Blu-ray 3D & Blu-ray = English SDH, Spanish and French
DVD = English SDH and Spanish (U.S. only) and French (Canada only)

Michael Davis’ Smoking Gun – A Series of Unfortunate Events

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This was written for Bleeding Cool and a version of it will appear there. I decided a while ago not to run the same article on both Bleeding Cool and ComicMix. Two different audiences is not the reason I write individual articles for each website. My voice remains the same regardless.

I write a different column for each because it’s an honor to write for each and both deserve an original effort from me. That is unless I happen upon a subject that I think is important enough to share on both.

Like… this one.

When I’m absent for lengthy periods of time, I feel it’s my responsibly to give you an explanation. I try to write what my readers will have a response to and not just what gets my goat. That doesn’t always work, but I do attempt to step back and breath a bit before committing words to iMac. So to that end; I have not written any articles in well over a month. Almost two. At times I wish I could, but I just can’t phone it in.

Writing a quick and dirty article using a trending subject the journalistic equivalent of the easy out isn’t my cup of coffee, tea or me. Although I held the standing high jump record in high school (in 1973 I set the high school standing high jump record at Beach Channel High School until another kid broke it about a minute and a half after I did), I don’t jump through hoops or on bandwagons.

Abhay Khosla’s response’ to my Why are we still complaining about Dan Didio article and some trollish posts took a second to bother me but finally it did, and I stepped back.

Some thought I’d gone too far when I wrote my response.

Did I go too far? Was my use of language over the line? Fuck no sir, I didn’t and it wasn’t. No one has a right to rewrite my words then pass it off as something serving their double-dealing purpose… a.k.a. Mrs. Donald Trump.

Also, just how upset I should be is not up for discussion.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back, another brick from the why me wall fell on my head when asked to comment on a Milestone story – specifically on a business item.

What appears to be a smoking gun regarding Milestone’s treatment of me has landed on Rich Johnston’s lap over at Bleeding Cool. How smoking? Jack Ruby’s smoldering .38 comes to mind, and when I saw it, I was beyond pissed. In comparison, what I told Mr. Khosla was how to get to Sesame Street. I set out to compose a tour of Elm Street with enough nightmares to keep my former friends and partners awake for decades.

Over & Done: Part 1, published on June 28th, then Over & Done: Part 2 Dr. Phil Brings Me Breakfast ran on July 6th here at ComicMix. The last segment (this one) complete with a massive Cilo Green fuck you and fuck him too would run in Bleeding Cool July 16. I’d also make it a topic for the Black Panel (TBP) at the San Diego Comic-Con that morning. Friday, July 16. was when I would settle all family business.

Another call and then some thoughts changed things. And just like that, it wasn’t a big deal at all. I’ll tell you why in a bit.

The document Rich has is the 2013 Milestone 2.0 overview/presentation package. I told Rich I’d seen that material. Nope, turns out I didn’t see the one Rich saw. I’m not included as part of Milestone 2.0, in this version of the package, but the three people with whom I started Milestone are. In other words, it appears my former partners decided back in 2013 I would not be involved.

By itself, that’s bad enough. But for years I continued to work toward a goal only to learn via the Washington Post I was not required to do any work because I was out. Did they set out to do something so despicable by design? That would be vile done to anyone but a friend? An unforgivable act of cruelty if ever there was one.

I’ve been called a fool for refusing to declare they used me almost four years on purpose. They still refuse to talk to me, which I think is both good and bad for them. It’s good because I cannot say with absolute certainty they planned this with malice and forethought. It’s bad because it’s a real dick move.

I hold out hope this may have been a series of unfortunate events. Perhaps a perfect storm of circumstances preventing each partner from telling me I was not going to make the team I’ve been working towards, most times alone for 15 years.

In a 2000 meeting with Bob Johnson at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. During that meeting, I was asked if I could “Create another Milestone.” Mr. Johnson was at the time head of Black Entertainment Television (BET). Although I had no obligation to bring anyone in that deal I ended up refusing to pull the trigger on a Milestone publishing imprint at BET because all the partners were not involved. I said to the partners at the time; “If not all of us, none of us.”

static_shockWhen I left Milestone in 1994, there was bad blood caused by an outright bullshit of a lie memo sent to Clarence Avant Chairman of Motown Records. Sent during my negotiations with Motown the memo (which I still have) and Mr. Avant still remembers stated I was forbidden to talk to Motown because I was exclusive to DC and Milestone.

Err, no.

Undoubtedly the memo could have derailed my negotiations, and that’s precisely what it was supposed to do. It didn’t only because I was smart enough to keep detailed records or everything sent me by DC and Milestone. Among those records were my creative release from both companies which by the way they wanted.

Man, was I pissed. But I got over it.

In my first official act as CEO of Motown Animation & Filmworks, I gave Milestone a Nintendo video game deal. Like I said: I got over it.

I spent thousands of hours and dollars on the rebirth of Milestone 2.0. I never thought about the money I could have spent elsewhere nor about the time I will never get back; the betrayal is what fucked me up. After what I’ve done for Milestone and the way they have been proven wrong during the 1994 fiasco as well as other events no doubt they hope I don’t recall, you would think they would embrace me.

Err, no.

Betraying a friend for any reason is an alien concept to me. Being able to sleep without guilt worth far more than dollars. A lifelong friend pointed out Judas couldn’t buy peace with his 30 pieces of silver. I added his chances of getting into heaven pretty slim as well, but he had a chance if he braced himself. “If you brace yourself…” Don’t get it? Ask a black person. Then brace yourself…

This made us both crack up with laughter. A laugh I needed more than I’ve ever needed any laugh.

Until that exchange, I’d spent months in agony, but thinking of Judas brought me some comfort. While I was dwelling on that, feeling a bit better, I realized with a start the signage I granted M2.0 on a major gallery exhibit would become part of their legacy, not mine. So much for Judas.

Bad Boys: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture, and Beyond was to be a retrospective show of my Bad Boy Studios and mentor program held at the world famous Geppi Entertainment Museum. I shifted the public narrative away from my studio to Milestone so we could announce our return at the opening. When interviewed while promoting the show I underscored Milestone was featured prominently but other creators and their influences were still the emphases. Hence Milestones is plural, not singular.

Nonetheless, so many of my students have done remarkable groundbreaking work with Milestone it was both a tribute to Milestone and Bad Boy Studios with one big exception I decided Bad Boys would not be part of the title.

I did this because Milestone failed to announce its return at our 20th-anniversary panel at SDCC. Although that decision made me angry, all was forgotten when surprised with an Inkpot Award at the panel.

The Milestone party I threw that evening celebrating our two decade birthday was pregnant with the promise of our high-minded possibilities. I decided right then my day in the sun could wait. Milestones was born from that pregnancy. It was a painless birth, a beautiful child. The pain would come four years later when the little bastard grew up and stabbed me in the back.

I did a massive amount of work for the venture, and everyone knew it/ Yet still, no one said I should stop. Many will find it surprising that I find it reasonable to assume this simply got away from my former boyz.

Doubtful but reasonable.

But why no word since? Because of this word… Lawsuit.

Why are they worried about that? Suing at this level is by no means cheap. It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I have no doubt the partners at M2.0 have the bank. No way I could contend with the combined resources of those guys. That’s also been the rumor as to why I haven’t sued.

Nope, as we say in the hood, that ain’t it.

I’m no lawyer, but I have a cousin who is at one of the most influential and powerful law firms in the world. Not a distant cousin; she couldn’t be closer to me if she were my daughter. She’s been a character in novels I’ve written, a television show I created, a radio show I produced and every single comic book universe I’ve imagined. Even the Static Universe.

I call my cousin Captain Picard because if I wanted to sue she would make it so.

That’s funny, but it’s no joke.

Her fee? I’ve already paid it. When she was twelve, I sat through the film Betsy’s Wedding with her at the W. 4th St, theater in Greenwich Village. She owes me.

So why not battle this in court? Why won’t I sue? The same reason I didn’t sue the Hilton when thrown out of their hotel for uttering the words “lower Alabama.” There was no reason in the world good enough for the actions of a front desk manager and what they did to me is on tape.

I didn’t sue the Hilton because I’d much rather affect real change than just benefit myself. I was promised real change, and I take them at their word. I can’t talk to young kids of color and say money isn’t everything if I don’t have the strength of my convictions.

Yes, I’ll settle for the change. Let others take the cash.

I’m not suing the men who in a very real sense may hold the key to finally creating a dominant and sustainable black superhero impression for black kids from black creators. Besides it’s not in my nature to discount all good from those who do me bad. I still hold love for a former best friend and artist, past friend and director and once friend and partner.

Suing a former best friend saddens me beyond belief. The last thing any disheartened person needs is any additional misery. Unfortunately, I’m way beyond disheartened. I’ve been diagnosed with severe depression.

I was there the moment of creation. I, Michael Davis, co-signed one of the greatest moments in black pop culture and the biggest event in black comics history.

Michael Davis sues his former partners at Milestone will not be my legacy. I will not be another black man at odds with other black men. What was done to me fuels the “Nigger Business” argument, I don’t run on that gas so I won’t go there.

My mother said to me quite often “Just because your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?” I would proudly say no I would not. So, no lawsuit. Someone has to set an example.

Somebody tell those boys not talking to me will stop a lawsuit like wishing on a star will make your dick bigger. On the other hand, some say because of what they did to me there are no bigger dicks in comics.

So why write any of this? I’m not suing, so why?

I need some closure.

You would think since I’ve danced around this in articles and forums for nearly two years Milestone would have talked to me and I’d have my closure. No. The last contact I had with Milestone, I was told a press release would be forthcoming to explain to the world I had decided to pursue other projects.

I asked them to do such because I did not want to deal with what I knew would follow: speculation, gossip and rumors which if left unchecked would become fact. I’ve fought that for years on Milestone’s behalf. I was the only one fighting that fight. No other partner ever addressed any rumor, bullshit or straight-up lie.

Because of me, fewer people think Milestone is owned by DC comics. Dwayne McDuffie created Milestone and hired Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle, Christopher Priest and myself. The argument I made (make) consistently is that you can’t let stuff like this stand. If let alone it will become fact in the minds of many and affect your ability to get something done. The more important that something is the more damage done.

You don’t think so? Still wondering how a Muslim born in Kenya who hates America and wants to kill your grandma is still President?

I rest my case.

I try and inject humor when I can, but depression is no fucking joke. I need peace from this, I need closure. These kinds of emotional blows (especially from those I thought cared for me) can be very dangerous to my health.

Before some asshole tweets something dumb let me be clear: no one at Milestone is responsible for my depression and would not be even remotely at fault in the event I make the news one day for taking a walk off a bridge.

The fault would be the election of Donald Trump.

Joke.

The fault would be mine and mine alone.

Since they won’t deal with me, I’ll deal with this by myself

To disregard totally any thought of what something like this could do to somebody would be an act of severe cruelty, and frankly, I don’t think these are cruel men. Putting aside the four years as a series of unfortunate bullshit, why did they do this?

Maybe it’s just business bullshit.

If twenty plus years of friendship and an undeniable record of professional support I’m then terminated without a word as to why I’d rather not be involved in that kind of company. Faced with standing by a friend or taking a check, I’ll take the friend every time not doing so was never an option.

Although I’ve written critically of M2.0 over almost two years since they discarded me on purpose or not the overwhelming things I’ve penned, have been positive because I still believe in Milestone 2.0.

Apparently, despite my accomplishments, they don’t believe in me. That’s their loss.

Some will say I should have known better. I did. I foresaw this coming.

From February 2011 to January 2015 different dates were chosen for the Milestone 2.0 announcement. Each date was canceled at the last minute. Each time I objected. It made no sense to set times then cancel always at the last moment unless there was another play at hand.

As my suspicions grew from time to time, I’d put something in writing and publish it. See for yourself the following were all posted well before Milestone’s announcement in January 2015:

http://www.comicmix.com//2014/11/03/michael-davis-the-milestone-contract/

http://www.comicmix.com//2014/10/06/static-shock-comes-to-the-big-screen/

The Milestone Contract was a tongue in cheek look at admittedly what I thought was a far-fetched plan to exclude me. Written as silly satire it details what happened to me months before it happened. Static Comes to The Big Screen also written as satire foretold the WB live action Static Shock announcement which was to follow weeks later.

No one at M2.0 or Warner Bros. said a word to me about Static becoming a show. I found out when the rest of the world found out. Again I saw this coming. Not buying that?

Perhaps you’ll buy the following, On July 23 of this year Jim Lee gave this reason the Milestone books were late.

I said the same thing four months before.

Still not convinced?

I unofficially voiced my suspicions to Jim Chadwick at DC Comics, Marge Dean at Mattel, Mike Gold, editor at ComicMix, Steve Geppi, CEO Diamond, Jeffery Wright CEO Urban Ministries and some other media heavyweights. Except for Mike Gold, most thought it far fetched and frankly so did I. Mike told me what I tell those who seek my advice: trust but verify.

Why did I tell these power brokers anything and why unofficially? If I were right, anyone who casts doubts on my narrative would not dare challenge those folk listed above. If I were wrong I could just nod and wave it away.

I saw this coming. Whether or not I believed it fully didn’t matter I was prepared. Playing me is almost impossible, as I told a partner in a heated phone call and a follow-up email. I insisted Milestone let me know if there were any issues with my partnership because any other role at Milestone wasn’t something I was interested in.

Not a word was said, but somehow I was excluded from meetings and updates which I found out about anyhow so ousting me was a reasonable expectation and I voiced as much. I was ready with a strategy to get them to commit or not because this stupid game of “Don’t tell when asked” was a waste of my time. Unfortunately, horrible events in my life created yet another perfect storm that put me way off my game.

My diagnoses left me broken, my mother’s death destroyed me, people who loved me left me I don’t blame them anymore. Depression takes a lot out of you and those around you. Add about a dozen other incidents in a run of bad luck that Job would lose his faith over.

When Milestone dropped their bomb, the timing couldn’t have been worse for me or better for them. I know what you’re thinking. Yes, a case could be made the timing was precise to take advantage of my damaged mental state. They knew just how bad a shape I was in.

One early Sunday morning I was visited by a partner who along with another read something I wrote and wanted to make sure I didn’t try and kill myself. So, yes, that case could be made moreover If made by a persuasive lawyer from a gigantically influential law firm…

Never. Never in a zillion hundred billion years would that be true. The timing had nothing to do with me or my depression. I just wasn’t able to cope. Evident by my total breakdown at my annual SDCC Dinner. In front of 52 of the most powerful people in the entertainment arena, I just lost it.

I said I was off my game but in truth, I’d already quit the game, almost for good. Say for the help of a once loved confidant I’d be as dead as some WB executives if Wonder Woman tanks.

Anger, resentment, and despair will kill me as sure as a bullet, so I have to get back to the brilliant Dick I once was. Nothing but anguish is gained obsessing about M2.0, and I can’t go there anymore.

So, this brings me here. Milestone is a remarkable achievement. Those books deserve your support and yes they have mine. There needs to be an Icon movie, a Static television show a Hardware novel and a Blood Syndicate musical or any combination of such. Yes, a Blood Syndicate musical.

I mentioned earlier a call then some thoughts stopped me from venting my anger. The call was with a friend and after talking to him I couldn’t publish a “fuck you pay me” article or announce a major deal at SDCC. That energy would devour me. Bad energy leads to more bad energy enough of that would kill me.

My friend’s in a fight, and I’ll need all my strength and power to assist him with his conflict. Ya, hear that MFDJ? We’re going to do great things together; we’re going to make history, help a lot of people and have a lot of fun. I then started to think about a buddy who’s mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s. He drives her back and forth from Queens to Connecticut three, sometimes four times a week. When in his home in Connecticut he will look for signs she has become disoriented. When this occurs, he will drive her back to Queens to be in a familiar setting. He could put her in a home. Yeah, he could he’s got more than enough money.

Sometimes money isn’t everything.

This wonderful man finds time in his day to call me and say, “What’s up, Michael, you OK?” That’s the kind of black man I aspire to be.

Funny. Milestone took my name off the presentation package then ultimately removed my name and me from the company. They haven’t said a word as to why. There’s also an effort to reduce my role as creator of the Static Universe to “one of five guys in the room.” As if “Static was Michael’s baby” was not a quote from a Milestone partner frequently until it wasn’t. I keep everything, and that’s on videotape.

I removed my name from the Gallery show. Ultimately, this removed acknowledgment for what was my doing. This as well to benefit Milestone. I told people why I did so; it was out of love. Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture, and Beyond is the most successful show in the history of the Geppi Entertainment Museum.

Static is the most successful property Milestone has and the most successful African American character ever created by African-Americans.

I am the undeniable driving force behind each.

Like I said. Funny.

REVIEW: The Iron Giant

10005871763DIron_Giant_BD3DIt used to be, movies surprised us when we took our seats. We didn’t have so many sources for news and trailers a decade or so back. On Tuesdays, Warner Bros screened new films after hours and one night, the DC Comics crew filed in to see an animated feature called The Iron Giant. We didn’t know much about it or Brad Bird, the man behind it.

We were utterly charmed. None of us knew Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man book it was based on but found the 1950s setting perfect, and the old style animation well-done. Best, it had heart and soul and humor and a robot who wants to be Superman. What’s not to love?

Warner moved the release date so late in the process that tie-ins missed the opening and the marketing wasn’t what it should have been. As a result, this modern day classic withered and vanished. Bird, of course, went on to make The Incredibles for Pixar and then direct a Mission: Impossible film so he did pretty well.

The Iron Giant, though, faded from memory. That is until 2014 when Bird and Warner agreed to spruce it up and rerelease it. With fresh cash, they went on to complete scenes that couldn’t be done for budgetary reasons and the revised film came out in 2015. Finally, the original version and Signature Edition of the film have made their Blu-ray debut in a nice edition from Warner Home Entertainment.

Bird and screenwriter Tim McCanlies made this a thoroughly American film, shifting the time to the post-Sputnik period of the Cold War and dealing with America’s paranoia. When something crashes in Rockwell, Maine (get it?) and people think they’ve seen a monster, a jaded government agent, Kent Manley (Christopher McDonald), comes to investigate. The something turns out to be an alien construction, a war machine that is human in shape and has suffered system failures. While he self-repairs, he (Vin Diesel) is learning from Hogarth (Eli Marienthal), the young boy who discovered him. He’s lonely since his single mother Annie (Jennifer Aniston) works too many hours at the local diner and he’s filled with the era’s pop culture – alien invaders and super-heroes.

The lessons Hogarth iron-giant-superman-1024x500imparts are subtly contrasted with the single-minded fear of the unknown represented by Manley, who grows increasingly unhinged as events unfold. The only ally Hogarth has is the town beatnik Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.), who runs the scrap yard and makes art with the junk.

There is gentle humor and some thrills and yes, parts can be predictable but overall, it has a gentle way about it that too few modern animated films possess. It has an old fashioned feel, with pacing that lets events unfurl without rushing or smash cuts to jar the senses.

The high def transfers are sharp and clear, the colors popping as they should. The two films co-exist on a single disc. There are two new scenes added to the original: Dean and Annie have a conversation in the diner and the Iron Giant has flashbacks to his life as a soldier in a mechanized army. Additionally, an ad for Maypo was replaced with what Bird originally wanted, one for Tomorrowland (working for the Mouse helps get you clearances). The lossless DTS-HD MA audio is a fine match and makes for fine viewing.

The majority of the special features from the 2004 DVD have been included here (well worth a look) along with The Giant’s Dream (55:47), which covers Bird’s career and how he wound up making The Iron Giant. It’s important to watch to better understand the filmmaking process along with the dues one must pay before being given a chance at something so personal. The Warner marketing errors are also included in conversation, which is rare honesty.  There’s also a Commentary with Bird, Head of Animation Tony Fucile, Story Department Head Jeff Lynch and Animation Supervisor Steven Markowski, which was previously used on the 2004 “Special Edition” DVD.  New, though, are fresh comments from Bird on the Signature Edition during the new sequences.

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