John Ostrander: Siddown and Shut Up!

John Ostrander

John Ostrander started his career as a professional writer as a playwright. His best known effort, Bloody Bess, was directed by Stuart Gordon, and starred Dennis Franz, Joe Mantegna, William J. Norris, Meshach Taylor and Joe Mantegna. He has written some of the most important influential comic books of the past 25 years, including Batman, The Spectre, Manhunter, Firestorm, Hawkman, Suicide Squad, Wasteland, X-Men, and The Punisher, as well as Star Wars comics for Dark Horse. New episodes of his creator-owned series, GrimJack, which was first published by First Comics in the 1980s, appear every week on ComicMix.

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6 Responses

  1. George Haberberger says:

    “Some Trump supporters declared they were going to boycott Hamilton, a feeble threat in that a) it’s theater and they wouldn’t be caught dead in a live show,…”

    This a presumption on your part that has NO basis in fact. I’d bet that are Trump supporters who attend live theater. To presume otherwise is to say that Trump supporters are stupid which exactly the kind of superior, smug attitude that caused the victory of Trump to such a surprise in the first place. Keep on under-estimating them. I will admit that Trump was my last choice of all the Republicans and my second-last choice of the two main candidates running for president.

    I live in the red state of Missouri, about 30 miles from St. Louis, very rural actually. I have been a subscriber to the Repertory Theater of St. Louis and attended numerous live theater productions. Every year my wife and I go to New York for vacation and see Broadway and Off-Broadway plays while we are there. We have been doing this for about ten years.

    Since 2006 we have seen:
    The Drowsy Chaperone
    Chicago
    Spamalot
    The Addams Family, (with Brooke Shields)
    Freud’s Last Session, Off-Broadway and one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. We saw it again in St. Louis at the Rep.
    The Columnist (with John Lithgow)
    Channeling Kevin Spacey, Off-Broadway, a hilarious two-man show.
    Harvey (with Jim Parsons)
    Glengarry Glen Ross (with Al Pacino)
    Old Jews Telling Jokes, Off-Broadway and on of the funniest evenings I’ve ever had
    Breakfast at Tiffany’s (with Emilia Clarke)
    Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (with Scarlett Johansson)
    The World of Extreme Happiness, Off-Broadway. A very moving play about China’s two-child policy
    Churchill, Off Broadway. A one-man show.
    Bright Starr, a great new play from Edie Brickell and Steve Martin.
    School of Rock
    Something Rotten

    We are going again next week in fact and while we don’t have tickets for Hamilton, we do have tickets for the Off-Broadway spoof, Spamilton.

    I think Mike Pence’s response to the lecture he received was gracious and diplomatic. He enjoyed the play, he said the performers were talented and in response to the boos, said, “This is what freedom sounds like.”

    I agree that Trump should have just let it go.

    And since that lecture, the actor, Brandon Dixon, has had some of his own Tweets revealed that people have said he could be lectured about.

    • David B. says:

      You saw that the first word in that line was “Some” right?

      • George Haberberger says:

        “You saw that the first word in that line was ‘Some’ right?”

        Yes, I quoted it in my post.
        My impression was that the “some” John referred to were the people who would boycott Hamilton but they were a subset of the larger set of people who “wouldn’t be caught dead in a live show,” and that group was intended to mean all Trump voters.

    • John Ostrander says:

      It’s a fair cop, as they say. I could’ve also said there are some Hilary supporters who wouldn’t be caught in a live theater either but, yeah, even if i did qualify my statement with “some”, it was an overbroad generalization. I suspect, George, that you’ve been to more live theater lately than i have from that list.

      • George Haberberger says:

        John, thanks for the acknowledgment. It is appreciated. I had to dig out all the playbills which we save from the shows we’ve seen. The first time we went to NYC was ten years ago on our 20th anniversary. Next week will be another trip in celebration of our 30th.

  2. Mindy Newell says:

    “The next four years are going to be interesting.”

    I think, John, that they are going to “vociferously” SUCK.