Author: Dennis O'Neil

Dennis O’Neil: ComicCon National Holiday?

Comicon Holiday

I wonder if there will come a time when banks and post offices close to commemorate The San Diego Comic Con.

Because for at least some of you, the con is already a holiday. Not one of the important holidays, the kind that observe the primitive realities of our existence and offer hope for their continuance; you know – Christmas and New Year’s (the return of the light), Thanksgiving (the harvest), Easter (the renewal of growing things)…Your particular tribe may have different labels for these remembrances. (I’m still toting around bits of my Irish Catholic boyhood, and so I cite Christmas instead of, say, Hanukkah. Like the fella says, write what you know.) But certainly your tribe, somehow, celebrates them, subject to local variations, unless yours is a very exceptional tribe (and if it is, I cheer.)

Then there are the other holidays that have little to do with survival and everything to do with… I don’t know. Something happened in the past that some folk want remembered and this event is remembered on a given day every year and that day has been declared a holiday: Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day, the Fourth of July, your birthday… I’m not knocking them, but I think we can agree that they lack the depth of meaning the celebrations mentioned in the previous paragraph have. Whatever their genesis, these events have begun to be about money – gifts, decorations, gluttony, journeys that require either fares or lots of gasoline… That’s true of the days mentioned in this paragraph and even more true of the ones previously mentioned. (What did St. Patrick do, exactly? Who cares, ‘cause it’s paaarrrt-tay time!)

Which, believe it or not, brings us back to The San Diego Comic Con. Shall we propose a new holiday? Let it be observed in the middle of summer and so serve as a kind of temporal punctuation mark, a semi colon; what’s gone before is pertinent to what follows, but it’s different, too. Or something. For many of us, the annual trek to the west coast is a family outing, or a revisiting of old friends who are mostly out of our lives, or an opportunity to acquire souvenirs – oodles and oodles of thingies that will strain the seams of your suitcases and maybe get you a cocked eyebrow from a security guy.

Oh, yeah, there is plenty for sale at SDCC, just as there are at Christmas. Thousands of items? Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Citizens, I call upon you too let your credit cards be your amulets and a sneer on he who doesn’t need to buy additional luggage.

Let’s call it “Comicon Day” and let’s tell the world that it celebrates the geeks and misfits who, in school, suffered the persecution of the jocking class and past school wrote stories and poems and made pictures and films and played music and invented computers and devised software and sent ships into space…That’s what we’ll tell the word that Comicon Day is about, the misfits and geeks who are today’s true heroes. But we’ll know the truth, won’t we?

All those things, all those hundreds of thousands of things for sale…

Dennis O’Neil: “Dell Comics Are Good Comics”

Beany and CecilO bitterness! O shame! I devoted a lot of bandwidth last recently to blathering about Howdy Doody, a marionette who had his own, pioneering, television show, a kiddie show back when I was, in fact, a kiddie. Nothing wrong with that. No bitterness, no shame.

howdy-doody-150x210-5146086But… This bandwidth-waster is part of an enterprise devoted to comic books and I neglected to mention that our little bestringed buddy had his own comic book. It was published by Dell, which seemed to like puppets since it also had Beany and Cecil Comics, Rootie Kazootie Comics, and Charlie McCarthy Comics. (Okay, Charlie was a ventriloquist dummy, but isn’t that a kind of puppet?)

charlie-mccarthy-150x209-7868373Before I knew much about the business that put food on my table for about a half-century, I was even less aware of Dell than I am now. Actually, I’m not sure I knew what a publisher was, but there were these comics that didn’t feature Superman or Batman or any of the other costumed heroes that gave pleasure to warm afternoons when I didn’t have to endure the leaden misery of school. During those vacation days I read comic books and it is likely that I read some Dells, probably the ones about funny animals, the same funny animals that I sometimes saw at the picture show before the cowboy movie of the week began entertaining me. I doubt that I read any that featured Howdy, Beany, et.al. because I was getting interested in puppets and ventriloquism and wouldn’t I have remembered comics that combined my enthusiasms? Well, maybe not.

rootie-kazootie-150x211-4915152But about these Dells… they were different. And I wasn’t sure why then and I’m not sure why now, though if I actually examined one I might detect what give them their specialness. (I mean, I must have learned something all those years that I sat behind editorial desks.)

Later, after the witch hunting 50s, Dell’s titles seemed somehow above the fray, and in a way they were. Instead of sobbing mea culpa and joining the comics Code Authority like most of the other publishers that survived the persecutions – there weren’t many – Dell chose to ignore the censors. “Dell comics are good comics” the company’s slogan reminded its readers. This genteel rebellion had no effect, apparently, on sales. Dell continued to publish for years.

There is probably a lesson to be learned in all this, somewhere, but I’ll let you ferret it out. Whatever it might be, it probably has nothing to do with puppets, the ostensible subject of the current effort, and maybe nothing to do with bitterness and shame, but that might bear further investigation.

Why do people want to engage in censorship, anyway?

Dennis O’Neil: Guns?

Six Gun HeroesSometimes I ask myself whacky questions. Like, do rhino teeth get filled? Are we just computer constructs inn some alien game and if so are there rules and how can I get a copy of them? Who cleaned up after Hannibal’s elephants? How did Noah keep all those animals in the ark from eating each other?

There’s been a lot of bangedy bang in the news lately and so what else is new and the answer is nothing, but this prompts another whacky question: why can’t somebody do something about the gun problem? Nothing draconian: despite the irresponsible claims of some political types, Mr. Obama doesn’t want to take your firearms away. If that was on the agenda, you’d think that the presidential minions would have at least begun the effort by now. Dude’s been in office more than seven years and so far he hasn’t confiscated so much as a cap pistol.

Making an effort to forbid guns to known criminals or mental patients would be a possible opener. So would a national registry of folks who want to buy guns. In other words, let’s clamp down on the gunnies as fiercely and mercilessly as we clamp down on those young snots who want drivers’ licenses!

But wait! Enough of this: we’re not in polemic mode today. What we are in is question asking mode – whacky questions – and so here’s another: if there were no firearms, if that ninth century Chinese alchemist had misplaced the recipe and hadn’t bothered to look for it, what kind of action stories would we be writing? I’m pretty sure that at least some of our stories would be of the action variety because that kind of stuff is packaged with our genes. I’m sorry, but a liking for action – oh, all right, a liking for violence – is part of our survival kit. Our mythologies are, from the very earliest recorded history until now, full of warfare and combat and those tales are the offspring of the impulses that gave our ancestors the gumption to lift weapons and protect the family and the tribe.

Gilgamesh, meet James Bond.

Occasionally, I’ve allowed myself to wonder if I could create a hero, a rip-snortin’ justice bringer (possibly wearing a costume) whose adventures did not include dealing with guns. As a science fiction or fantasy piece, sure, easy, no problem. But a story set in our time and world, or a close facsimile of our world – not so easy. Guns are all over the place, wielded by bad guys and good guys alike. What would our world be without them? Has the centrality of guns in our national narratives taught us that gunfire is what solves problems? No need to look any further than the nearest Glock, to deal with it, whatever it is, this time.

Oh yeah, did I mention that another shooting made the news today?

Dennis O’Neil: Howdy, Chief Thunderthud! Howdy, Princess Summerfall Winterspring!

Doodyville

Chief ThunderthudYou don’t really believe that Chief Thunderthud was a racist, do you?

Our man Thunderthud was called a “chief,” but he wore only a single feather on his head instead of the fully-feathered bonnet we were used to seeing perched atop guys who answered to “chief” in the cowboy pictures I saw before you were born. The (if I may) chief is most notable, not for something he wore, but for something he said. This was “Kowabunga,” sometimes spelled “Cowabunga” and used mostly, if memory serves, as an expletive you could say freely in front of your church-going grandma. Some of you – most of you? – thought that Kowa/Cowabunga originated with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of movie and comic book fame. Sorry, but no.

Beginning in 1947, Chief Thunderthud dwelt in Doodyville which, in turn, was located in midtown Manhattan in a studio owned and operated by The National Broadcasting Company.

He wasn’t necessarily lonely, there is Studio 3B. Doodyville had other inhabitants, some of them marionettes, such the town mayor, Mr. Bluster, a strange beastie known as Flubadub who seemed to be a mashup of eight different animals and, of course, Howdy himself. Human beings also called Doodyville home. There was the chief, and another member of Thunderthud’s tribe, Princess Summerfall Winterspring who was sometimes called Judy Tyler and who later made a movie with Elvis Presley. (Presley wasn’t a puppet, either.)

Princess Summerfall WinterspringAnd there was Clarabell the Clown, who spoke only three words in the show’s entire run and who communicated by blowing a horn and whose favorite prank was squirting seltzer into somebody’s face. That Clarabell! What a hoot! Though maybe I should mention that he was a male hoot, despite the name.)

We’ve saved the best for last. I refer to none other than Buffalo Bob Smith, who did a lot of things including but not limited to emceeing the proceedings, interacting with the studio audience, and – here comes a surprise – supplying Howdy’s voice. Bob wasn’t a ventriloquist the way, say, Jeff Dunham is a ventriloquist, but who cared if his lips moved when Howdy talked? As long as a camera wasn’t aimed at him during Howdy’s chat, nobody except the kids and other performers and technical people knew exactly where the words were coming from. And did they care?

Why all this Howdy stuff now? Well, Howdy’s coming back! He’ll star in a Fourth of July video marathon that will incorporate old shows and new material, and maybe serve as a pilot for similar excursions into Doodyville. Which prompts us to ask: If Chief Thunderthud and the lovely princess were debuting today, would they run afoul of the defenders of political correctness? Will the antics of the Chief and princess, which could be seen as racist lampoons, be shown on July Fourth? Should they be seen as racist? I don’t know.

Final question: why? Has the world been yearning for a return to Doodyville?

Dennis O’Neil: The Cosmic Orphans

Planet X Fantastic FourHere we are, like orphans with our noses flattened against the candy store window, gazing at the tasty wonders just inches from our faces, but destined never, never to taste them.

Poor us!

Astronomers have identified 3,422 exoplanets – planets that orbit stars other than our own. Of these, they estimate that about a thousand might support something that we’d identify as life. That’s what they think. But barring some unforeseeable, game-changing Something, they’ll never know for sure. Because they haven’t really seen these worlds apart, these star-gazers, even through their most impressive telescopes. The doggone things are just too far away!

Planet X GrootSo they see stuff like spots crossing the far-away star and do spectroscopic analyses of light and apply esoteric disciplines that I’ve probably never heard of and then… I don’t know – make a best guess or two?

Frustrating, isn’t it? We have a wired-in appetite for Other and a good thing, too, because that appetite enables us to propagate the species, especially on warm spring nights scented with blossoms and that person over there, basking in the soft moonlight, is breathtakingly lovely… Whoa! We’re not in the smut-peddling game here and anyway, you get the idea. We Want Other.

Planet X DeadpoolAnd generally, we can’t have it. But we have another wired-in trait that can serve as a substitute. Beginning in infancy, we create cause and effect narratives. I cry, I get picked up kinds of things. That narrative-building trait evolves, along with the rest of us, and eventually we’re using it to create poems and jokes and plays and religions and comic books and who-knows-what-all, including extraterrestrials. Imaginary extraterrestrials, to be sure, but we take what we can get.

It’s an old, old trick. As early as 5000 years ago the Sumerians were making figurine of creatures from Planet X, and there may have been earlier mythic aliens that didn’t manage to get written down. The early gods were first cousins to these aliens and they go way back.

Now?

Well. We have Superman and Supergirl and Hawkman and Hawkwoman and ET and J’onn J’onzz, The Martian Manhunter (that J’onn J’onzz) and Yoda and pulpy Bug Eyed Monsters and whole lot of fictional Others and…

Maybe we’re not satisfied. Maybe we look into the night sky and wonder if we’re alone in the universe and if we are, what that might mean.

I’d sure like a taste of that candy. But maybe it should remain behind the glass. Might not be good for me.

Dennis O’Neil: Superman, Muhammad Ali, and Me

Superman Muhammad Ali

 

AliI have no yen to throw shade at anyone, including myself, and I don’t completely trust my memory for long-past events and there are probably at least two versions of why I bailed early on a quirky project titled Superman vs Muhammad Ali. So let’s let it go with this: I was involved in such a project and it led to my meeting, most briefly, with a truly great man.

I knew of Ali well before the Superman thing, and I guess I admired him, first for his skill as a boxer and later for his work as a peace activist. He was a living refutation of the knuckleheads who believed that so-called peaceniks were squeaky-voiced sissies who hid in the tulip bed when real men engaged in manly activities like face-bashing.

(A slightly pertinent digression: It seems to me that most of the hawks who advocate war as a solution to any old disagreement at all, especially the international ones, have themselves never worn a uniform. Digression ended.)

Ali was nobody’s sissy. No, sir! He was, arguably, the toughest guy in the country. And, again arguably, the most charismatic. When I met him at a mountain resort where he was training for a fight with Ken Norton, I understood what the word charisma meant. When he walked into a room, when he was nearby, you felt it.

Neal Adams Pencil AliBut he was quiet, and when he shook my hand, his grip was gentle. I don’t know if we spoke. Probably not. He must have been meeting scores of people and I was just another face in the crowd.

When I next saw him, a year later at a press conference convened to announce the publication of Superman vs Muhammad Ali, he said nothing to me nor to anyone else in the room. He remained mute throughout much of the event. I had a hunch that his silence was his way of protesting being someplace he didn’t want to be. He was about to defend his title and was focusing on that, but his time as a super celebrity was passing.

But not his activism. He continued crusading for peace and reconciliation until finally succumbing, last week, to Parkinson’s Disease.

I don’t agree with everything Ali said, but I do not doubt his honesty, nor his sincerity. He used the fame he won by practicing a violent trade to promote peace. No one else has ever done that and I doubt that anyone ever will.

But I hope I’m wrong.

Dennis O’Neil’s Great White Flash Of Doom

KoKo Earth Control

Geriatric Boy Editor here. Denny O’Neil, not so much. Here’s what happened.

Denny was working on this week’s column. He was about half-way through when his screen blanked out. Generally speaking, this is not a good sign. Subsequent events gave Denny the impression that he might be the victim of an online scam. People who watch a lot of porn online are familiar with this – or so I’m told – but Mr. O’Neil is as pure as the driven snow… depending, of course, upon where you’re driving said snow.

So our Thursday morning columnist has taken his tubes and wires to an electronic exorcist for diagnosis (“Second opinion? OK. You’re ugly, too!”). He’ll be back here next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Dennis O’Neil: A Superhero Story

Trump Demon

It’s emerging from the darkness…the ghastly, horrible, revolting…Copyright Monster!

Okay, that’s enough of that. Now: Springboard for a 22 page Superhero Story!

Birdman is in torment. For over 75 years he’s been fighting crime, swinging from rooftops, crashing through windows, escaping from death traps. He has vanquished foe after foe: the list is long and formidable – Prankster, Macaroni, Captain Conundrum … Demonface! And countless others. Time after time he has delivered them to the authorities, and time after time he has seen them escape to resume their careers of evil. It is enough to frustrate a saint.

Demonface is worst of all. He considers his mission to be saving the Earth by eliminating its human population, which, he feels, is destroying the environment. Five years ago, Birdman sent Demonface to prison only to see the villain released for lack of evidence. Lack of evidence? Come on! Demonface, who could be a charmer when it suited him, continued his scientific wickedness by night while beginning to dabble in politics by day. He was – let’s be fair and give credit where due – a terrific politician and, lo and behold, he won a candidacy for President of the United States.

Today is election day, and Demonface is considered a shoo-in. To celebrate his victory, as soon as his victory is official, Demonface will push a button and activate the culmination of his genius, a device that will open a portal to another dimension through which humans can travel to a lush, green planet, very sparsely populated by cuddly little humanoids that resemble Hobbits and love company. This migration will be voluntary, but there should be no shortage of volunteers because, let’s face it, Earth has become pretty crummy.

Birdman has had plenty of opportunities to kill Demonface but has always settled for a stern admonition and, when appropriate, a lusty right cross to the mandible. Birdman has never killed anyone. It is his basic commandment: never kill anyone – no matter what. No killing. Now, today, election day, would be a good day for the dealing of justice in the form of a little long overdue homicide.

Demonface won’t be alone; no doubt there will be a few red-eyed volunteers armed with nothing more formidable than cardboard coffee cups at the villain’s combination campaign headquarters/laboratory, but none of the huge – huge! – minions bearing massive armament that used to be part of the gestalt. So eliminating Demonface should be a walk in the park. Of course, there is that little matter of Demonface being about to save humanity but, darn it, he broke the law! Again and again! He is a criminal and he must pay for his crimes. No love taps to the jaw Not now. Enough sissy liberal nonsense!

The election results are in. Demonface by a landslide. His finger hovers above the button that will save everyone, savoring the moment, Suddenly, the skylight above him shatters and a masked figure plummets toward him…

Dennis O’Neil: The Boys Who Film Batman

Boy Who Loved BatmanMessrs. Pisani and Uslan, step into the spotlight, center stage and take a bow!

But before we deliver the plaudits, we should perhaps tell you who they are. Of course most of you already know, but there are always a few… well, I don’t want to call them “retards” because that is not politically correct and a crummy thing to say besides, so let’s just identify them as folk who choose not to mingle either physically or intellectually (by acquiring new information) and thus may not be acquainted with the existence of the gentlemen named above.

Mike Uslan is the possessor of the world’s only doctorate in comics, He is a professor at his alma mater, Indiana University, the recipient of a Daytime Emmy, a writer who once worked at DC Comics and he has a producer credit on every Batman movie released since 1989. (For more information, see Mike’s autobiography, The Boy Who Loved Batman, available from Amazon and other book stores.) Trust me – I could go on.

I don’t know exactly how to identify Ken Pisani. I met him a decade or so ago when Marifran, a camera guy, and sound guy and I joined him on a cavernous sound stage in lower Manhattan. The occasion was Ken’s interviewing me for a History Channel documentary on comics. The interview was extraordinarily good and Ken and his lovely wife Amanda have been friends ever since. I’d like to see Ken’s resume because I’m pretty sure he’s done a lot I’m not aware of – he does keep busy being a TV producer, a comic book writer/creator, a screenwriter, a novelist, an art director, a cartoonist…once upon a time, he even worked for Phil Seuling, the man who virtually invented the comic book direct sales market. Amanda knows the full catalog of Ken’s accomplishments. I, alas, do not.

Anyway, that’s Mike and Ken, and I hope they’re taking that bow.

The reason I mention them now is that Ken recently sent me some DVDs from a TV series that ran on Turner’s movie channel. The subject under discussion was the relationship of comic book to early movie serials. The format was the master of ceremonies talking with the comics expert who was – aw, you guessed it – our own Mike Uslan. After a few minutes informative conversation the MC screened two chapters of the serial we’d just heard Mike commenting on. The shows were educational and entertaining – more feathers for the Uslan cap – and they may have taught us comics geeks stuff that we didn’t know. This kind of historical background may not help us do stories, us creator types – I really haven’t decided about that – but it’s kind of nifty to know it.

By the way, in case you’re really out of touch… movie serials were short films shown with main features telling a story over 12 to 15 chapters, each chapter ending with the hero or other good guy in some kind in some kind of horrible quandary. The idea was, you’d return the following week to see how the hero escapes the quandary. Theoretically, you could return to see the hero squashed like a bug, but I don’t think that ever happened. At least, Mike didn’t mention it.

(Editor’s Addendum: Mr. Uslan has been back at writing comics every once in a while, and once again has given us some of the best stuff on the racks. His six-part Lone Ranger / Green Hornet series will be released by Dynamite Comics in July.)

Categories

Archives

Everything you need to make great comics!

comicmix-pro-300x69-2

Nucleus X

Bookshop Zaks