Articles by dennis-oneil
Tue Apr 1, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
The Writes Of Spring, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #59
As I sit down to write this, I’m less than five hours from midnight on March 23rd and so it might be appropriate to wish you a Happy Easter, or Happy Pasha if you’re an Oriental Christian, or Happy Purim. Or maybe I should give a shout-out to Aphrodite, Ashtoreth, Astarté, Demeter, Hathor, Ishtar, Kali, Ostara – all deities who were celebrated around the spring equinox and, as far as my extremely limited and unreliable knowledge goes, all of whom were connected to fertility, which figures: Spring equinox = end of winter = new life = let’s have a party.
Or…let’s let one stand for all and just celebrate the goddess whose name gives the holiday it’s name: No less an authority than The Venerable Bede, an early Christian scholar, wrote that Easter was named after the Saxon goddess Eostre, and if you can’t trust the Venerable Bede, well…
I like Easter, and tomorrow I may do something celebratory, even if it’s only to walk in the park down the road. (Yeah, us old guys really know how to tear it loose.) It’s a real holiday, as evidenced by all the ways it’s been celebrated over the millennia – see the goddess list above – and I think that means that it acknowledges and celebrates something deep in our collective culture, our life on this planet, probably our genomes. The catalogue of such holidays is short: there’s the various festivals of light that occur around the winter solstice – Merry Christmas, all – and around the fall equinox that generally involve harvests and eating, and Easter, et. al. All happen at seasonal changes and all involve the Basics: birth, death, light, dark, and survival.
You don’t have to believe in the literal truth of a mythology to accept the realities that underlie it.
Tue Mar 18, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Our Comics Community, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #58
Things are fanning out all over.
But before we go any further, let me explain and, while I’m about it, issue an OFA, or Old Fart Alert.
Back in the day – now you begin to understand the reason for the OFA – part of the fun of attending science fiction and comics conventions was seeing stuff like outtakes and blooper reels and old movies and especially old serials, entertainments virtually unavailable anywhere else. Another pleasure was listening to other fans who were In The Know reveal secrets, or at least semi-secrets, about the actors and artists and, yes, even writers whose work we enjoyed and was the raison d’etre for the whole she-bang.
Now…bloopers are shown on network television, as are outtakes, and one major international star has, for the last decade or so, incorporated them into the films themselves. And although nobody, to my knowledge, is showing serials regularly, a cable channel used to and somebody almost certainly will again and even if that doesn’t happen, these crusty old flicks are easily buyable, or rentable, or, maybe, available at your local public library. As for other kinds of old movies…Well, let’s just say that I’ve filled in some of the gaps in my appreciation of Rocky Lane, Lash LaRue, Wild Bill Elliott, the Durango Kid, and the indomitable Sunset Carson by watching the Westerns Channel from the comfort of my living room.
Insider info? It’s practically a national industry, only they call it gossip and push it at us on television and in the magazines I read in doctor’s offices. Push a lot of it, I might add. And most DVDs have material in addition to whatever movie’s on them and these, too, frequently feature gossipy tidbits, though never scandalous ones.
Tue Mar 11, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Generic Respect, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #57
Don’t bother putting on airs, Messrs. Man (Super and Bat); you’re nothing special, not any more. These days, you’re just two more members of a rather large club that includes cowboys, cops, private eyes, combat soldiers and guys who fly space ships to other planets and solar systems and galaxies. Serial killers who slice and dice sexy teenagers are in the club, too. And critters that are normally harmless but mutate into gigantic sociopaths.
Tue Mar 4, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Primary Sources, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #56
In days of yore – my yore anyway – I briefly wondered if my particular literary backwater, the writing of comic books, would be properly remembered. It seemed to me that young snots such as myself were getting attention – interviews and the like – and the guys who were around at the beginning, the guys who virtually created the form, were pretty much ignored, although many of them were still alive and frisky.
I needn’t have worried and I didn’t, which is good because, even more than most worry, this variety would have been a waste of time.
I do wish there had been more interviews with…oh, to cite the first name that pops into the shopworn old psyche, Bill Everett. And I don’t remember ever reading a Q and A with Carl Burgos: if none exists, too bad. Even Bill Finger doesn’t seem to have left many historical footprints, and some of what we know about him comes from people like me, whose memories are emphatically not to be trusted.
Having said all that: comics are undoubtedly the most documented medium/art form in history. They came to their early maturity just in time to benefit from the explosion of media and distribution, and the belated realization that every art form was pop culture once, and none are prima facie inferior. And guys like Gerry Jones know how to use the information sources available and have the patience and literary skill to put the pieces together.
Tue Feb 26, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
The Super-Hero Car, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #55
When we last looked in on our intrepid, tv-watching old guy – that’d be me – he was waiting to treat himself to the premiere of Knight Rider, a remake of an old series.
Tue Feb 19, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Nighty Knight Rider, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #54
Once again, the other day, I found myself wishing I’d spent less of my youth with, as folks might have said back then, my nose buried in some silly book and more time in the company of hammers, saws, wrenches. You know. Manly stuff. Tools. The reason was, something in the bathtub wasn’t working and we had to call the plumber, who is one of the nicest guys I know and might be the best plumber in Rockland County New York, and we had a chat while the water was running to accomplish something arcane and, well, plumberish. If I hadn’t wasted my youth, maybe I could tell you what.
Fri Feb 15, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Lost In 'Lost', by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #53
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Denny’s column normally runs on Tuesdays, which is great because Denny e-mails it to me on Sundays. For some reason – and for the second or third time – his various e-mail accounts don’t seem to like my various e-mail accounts. We think we’ve straightened it out. Go figure. If computers were cars, we’d all be riding horses.
And now, Mr. O’Neil… -MG]
Tue Feb 5, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
William James and the Superbowl, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #52
Big game day. As I sit down to write this, the coin toss that will start this year’s Superbowl is about 90 minutes away. Let a hush fall over the universe. The Pats and the Giants are preparing to vie for godlike supremacy. Who’s your favorite QB – Eli or Tom? Me – I’m going for the Giants, not because I know anything about them, but rather because Marifran likes the Patriots and we have this annual bet. Winner gets to choose the next movie. Call us sports.
Wonder what William James would have thought of the Superbowl?
William James, brother of Henry, as the English majors and philosophy fans among you probably know, launched the concept of the “moral equivalent of war.” Although he was a self-proclaimed pacifist, he recognized that war has its uses – he even declared that history would be “insipid” without it. And it does. It hastens technological development, helps young men understand others who are not of their tribe, offers an opportunity for individuals to test themselves (and maybe learn what they really feel), provides an opportunity to develop managerial skills…You can probably add to the list.
War also kills and maims the innocent and destroys economies and nations and minds and brutalizes the survivors and gives money and power to those least deserving of them, such as men who have never fired a shot except, maybe, at forest animals and who knows? – even then the shooter might miss his target and hit a companion instead. Feel free to add to this list, too.
The trick, then, according to James and like minds, is to find a way to do the good things war does, and omit the bad. It’s a trick nobody has learned how to do. But we have some activities that approximate war that don’t do significant harm and may do some good, and sports is one of them. It allows young folk to obey their evolutionary imperative to engage in strenuous physicality with the goal of beating someone or something and maybe copping some glory and admiring glances and, please, let us not knock that imperative; it helped our distant, burrow-dwelling ancestors to claim a home on the Earth’s surface after a big chunk of rock did in the dinosaurs.
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Tue Jan 29, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Hate, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #51
Calling movie actors “stars” was appropriate when I was a midwestern lad, long ago, because they seemed as distant and unattainable as those celestial twinklers that speckled the summer sky. None of my friends or relatives were movie stars -- they were butchers or clerks or drivers or printers -- and what the stars did, acting, wasn’t a real job and so those who did it weren’t real people. They were…stars. But if you knew someone who knew, or at least had spoken to, one of these distant beings who lived in places you never expected to visit, the stars became somehow real -- or maybe realer, anyway. They were, if not people, then some sort of demi-people.
Clark Gable was a star. But Rock Hudson was both more and less than a star because I knew a girl who had worked as an extra on one of his films. Julia Adams…heck, she was a person, because she did a personal appearance at the grocery co-op my father belonged to when she was co-starring with Tyrone Power in Mississippi Gambler and people I knew actually saw her in the flesh. And didn’t that make Power a demi-person, too, by association?
Which brings us to Heath Ledger. I was never in a room with him, never saw him on the street, spoke to him on the phone, none of that. But when a heard about his death a few days ago, I felt just a tiny bit worse than I usually feel when someone whose work I admire passes. Why? Mr. Ledger and I lived in two of the same neighborhoods, one in Brooklyn and one in Manhattan, though not at the same time, and my big 2007 project was writing a novel based on the script of a movie Mr. Ledger performs in. Somehow, all this makes me feel a dim and distant connection to him.
Tue Jan 22, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Morality and such, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #50
It seems to me that I used to hear the word “morality” a lot more than I do nowadays. That might have a simple explanation: I used to hear
Look, sorry, I gotta break in here for a minute. You don’t know me unless, maybe, you once read an online thing called The O’Neil Observer and ain’t that a laugh. Like anybody would want to observe that loser! Well, one of those guys who studies bugs...an ente-something – maybe a guy like that would be interested in observing chrome-dome O’Neil. Anyway, I was introducing myself. Name’s Randy Hyper and I’m a character the loser made up because he’s too wussy to tell people about what’s he’s doing and he needs to hide behind a scrap of fiction to do it and if that ain’t pathetic, I don’t know what is. What he’d like you to know about is a course in comics writing he’s supposed to teach at New York University beginning February 13th and you could sign up for by contacting NYU. Or you could hit your toe with a hammer. That’s all I got to say. Now back to Mr. I’m-Too-Modest-To-Talk-About-Myself.
people use the word “immoral” when they mean something like, “I really, really don’t like this.” It’s been suggested – I don’t remember by whom – that the great bete noire of the comics world, Dr. Fredrick Wertham, whose background was European high culture and whose wife did fine art, found comic books unbearably vulgar and that perception of vulgarity somehow morphed into a perception of immorality and, worse, psychological corruption.
Tue Jan 15, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Cut Them Off At The Past, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #48
And the Screen Writers Guild lurches into a tenth week and if there’s any end in sight, I haven’t heard about it.
Last time, I mentioned the Academy of Comic Book Arts and its failure to do any significant negotiating on behalf of its members. ACBA wasn’t the first attempt, though, to organize those glorious mavericks, the comic book community. In the 60s…
Wait! Better issue a warning before I go further. Do not regard anything that follows as gospel. (In fact, you might consider not regarding the Gospel as gospel, but let us not digress.) I have no reason not to believe what I’m about to tell you except one: About a year before he died, Arnold Drake, who was a busy comic book writer at the time we’ll be discussing, told me that the story I had wasn’t the whole story, or even necessarily accurate. I don’t know why I didn’t press him for further information, but I didn’t.
Okay, the story:
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Tue Jan 8, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Cartoonists Of The World Unite, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #48
The television and movie Writers Guild strike lurches into its ninth week. If it goes on much longer, we may be doomed to even more staged “reality” and contest shows. Might be a good time to rekindle a book reading habit.Continue reading Cartoonists Of The World Unite, by Dennis O'Neil ›
Tue Jan 1, 2008 — by Dennis O'Neil
Leveling down, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #47
New Year’s morning. Cold, wet, bleak.
Tue Dec 25, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Little Ditty About Danny and Fred, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #46
Danny and Fred were the last two kids in their grade to still believe in Santa Claus.
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Tue Dec 18, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Driving The Big Boat, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #45
Maybe we ought to retire the word “hero” and designate the characters whose needs and actions drive the story, more technically and accurately, as “the protagonist.”
(You’ve guessed that we’re continuing our incredibly prolonged discussion of the evolution of superheroes? Good.)
As mentioned in an earlier installment of this blather, the word “hero” is derived from the Greek and means, roughly, “to protect and serve.” (Lest anyone think I’m a scholarly dude who actually knows Greek…I wish!) The problem nowadays is defining exactly how the protection and service is to be accomplished. In other words, what kind of person do you admire, and why do they do what they do? Who do you favor mor e– Mother Theresa or the late Colonel David Hackworth, our most decorated combat veteran?
I never met the good nun, but I did spend an hour or so with Colonel Hackworth once and liked him very much. I don’t think I would have enjoyed Theresa’s company a whole lot. But maybe she was the more heroic of the two, if we count heroism as doing deeds that take courage and accomplish long-term good. Going out every day to deal with disease and poverty…it must have taken guts and it can’t have been easy. Easier than facing enemy guns? I have no idea what measurement we can use to quantify such things. Maybe there is none.
Col. Hackworth did what he did repeatedly and must have often known what he was getting into and, presumably, chose to do it anyway. But I’m wary of heaping too many accolades on folk who, in a military situation, do one brave thing because…
