Author: John Ostrander

JOHN OSTRANDER: Devil’s Advocate – Iraq

JOHN OSTRANDER: Devil’s Advocate – Iraq

  • News
  • September 27, 2007

I’ve got something nibbling at my mind and perhaps the only way for me to sort it out is to put it into words. It has to do with our adventure in nation-building, a.k.a. the Iraq debacle.

I’ll start by saying that I was for the invasion of Afghanistan. Then and now, it seemed to me the necessary response to 9/11. Al Quaeda appeared responsible; they had their camps in Afghanistan with the full knowledge and support of the Afghan government, the Taliban. You get hit, you hit back at the ones who hit you. Hard. As Al Capone said, “That’s the Chicago way.”

On the other hand, I was not for the invasion of Iraq from the beginning and I said so. I didn’t buy the “imminent danger” from the “weapons of mass destruction,” especially since there were UN weapons inspection teams on the ground inside the country. The fact that the Bush Administration was so stridently insistent made me ask “What else is going on here?” At first I thought it was about the oil (and now Alan Greenspan says it was); I came to believe that it was a NeoCon vision of transforming the MidEast by creating a functioning democracy in the middle of it. Now I think it’s about the oil, about the NeoCon vision, and certain select Bush-friendly companies making a bucket of money there.

I believe that the NeoCons thought that the Iraqis in exile would just step in, set up a new government, we would be hailed as liberators, and it would all be done in six months. I believe it was on the agenda to do before 9/11 happened; that tragedy just enabled the Bushies to push the plan through without thinking it through. The only plan the current administration seems to have for dealing with the mess is to leave it for the next administration to clean up. Instead of nation building, we seem to have created a geographical area of chaos. It’s a constant drain on both our military and our national finances; Iraq seems like an open wound.

My disgust with all of this is long standing. We had no business going into Iraq in the first place. The WMDs were a lie and the Administration knew it or, at very least, should have known it. The Dems were elected to Congress on the promise to end the war and the low low low approval rating of Congress at the moment stems on their failure to even staunch the flow. Since I didn’t believe we should be there in the first place, it stands to reason that I think we should get out at first opportunity.

BUT. . .

Colin Powell is purported to have said to Bush about Iraq before the invasion that “If you break it, you’ve bought it.” And there’s my problem. I think there’s truth to that. Before we invaded, Iraq was a functioning country: it had electricity, people had jobs. Yes, it also had a murderous dictator in charge; lots of places around the globe do and we don’t seem to have bothered ourselves about them.

So now what have we got? Sect fights sect and sects fight internally and they all hate us. It’s chaos and we brought it. We, the People. This country. You, an individual, may have, like me, been against the whole misbegotten enterprise from the start but I’m talking about the collective We. The We that elected not only the President but the members of Congress that sustained him, as well as the Democratic Party that has no spine.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: The Way I Were

JOHN OSTRANDER: The Way I Were

  • News
  • September 20, 2007

For me, it seemed like this week was all about returning home. The news about GrimJack appearing here on ComicMix was broken… well, here on ComicMix. And DC published the first issue of my new Suicide Squad miniseries (Elayne also has a stake in this since her husband, Robin Riggs, is providing wonderful inks over Javi Pina’s pencils for the series). This is my first new issue of Squad in – well, in a long long time.

It’s interesting coming back to a series after a lengthy absence. When I began scripting GrimJack: Killer Instinct a while back, my concern was – would I get Gaunt’s voice right after so long? Not to worry – it was right there – as was Amanda Waller’s over on Squad.

I’ll be writing more about GrimJack as we get closer to the publication date. (October 2, if you’ve forgotten and, by the way, you’ll be able to see it here on ComicMix for free. Always bears repeating.) Today I’m going to talk instead about one other book with which I was closely connected and which, after a lot of thought, I don’t think I’d want to return to on a regular basis.

The Spectre.

Tom Mandrake and I had a longish run on that series which some people at the time said couldn’t be done. For those of you who don’t know the character, he was created in the late 1930s by Jerry Siegel  – co-creator of Superman – and Bernard Baily. Jim Steranko once said the Spectre had the toughest origin in comics – he had to die to get his powers. The Spectre was also the strongest character in the DCU – perhaps in all comics. Only God was stronger and He?She had better be eating His/Her Wheaties.

The concept: the Spectre was Plainclothes Police Detective Jim Corrigan who ran afoul of some gangsters and was dumped into an oil can of cement and dumped in the river. At the gates of Heaven, Corrigan just can’t let it go. The Voice (aka God) lets Corrigan return as a crime fighting ghost who can take an almost human form. His powers were magical – almost divine – and he meted out big time justice. Never more so in a series of stories by Mike Fleischer and Jim Aparo. The vengeance meted out was often horrific.

The Spectre then went through a bunch of different permutations depending on who was writing him when Tom Mandrake and I got him. We had just come off a stint on Firestorm together and were looking for another project and both of us loved the potential of the Spectre. We had very clear ideas of what we should and should not do with him.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Salt In the Wound

  • News
  • September 13, 2007

It’s the odd little news story that tends to grab my eye and we got an interesting one this week. Not only the story itself, but how it is being told.

I found the story initially through the Associated Press version on msnbc.com. The story comes to us from Atlanta, Georgia, and tells how a police officer – one Wendell Adams – arrested a cook at McDonalds, one Kendra Bull, who sold him an overly salty hamburger. Bull admitted that she accidentally knocked the saltshaker onto the burgers she was making; on the advice of a co-worker and the manager, she tried “thumbing” the extra salt off but made the burgers anyway. Officer Fife – excuse me, Officer Adams – ate about half of it before it made him sick. Adams came back, took Bull outside and questioned her, and then arrested her. She was in jail overnight and released on a $1000.00 bond.

I’m going to use two quotes from the story itself because I cannot improve on them: 1) “Police sent samples of the burger to the state crime lab for tests” and 2) “City public information officer George Louth said Bull was charged because she served the burger ‘without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.’”

She served a burger – a McDonalds’ burger – without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it. Ummmmm – isn’t that one of the things about fast food in general? That we all know it’s not really any good for us but that we eat it anyway? If that’s the standard, why would any fast food joint be open in Atlanta?

And they sent a sample of the burger to the state crime lab for tests? Oh, that’s the case I want to see on CSI!

I was wondering if this case might work as a “torn from the headlines” case for Law and Order but I’m beginning to think it’s better suited for the sense of absurd comedy you find on Boston Legal.

Digging further, I discovered that the hamburger in question was free. A perk for being a cop. Georgia’s not the only place that this happens. Free soda/coffee for cops on beat happens in a lot of places and I guess a Happy Meal comes under that heading.

I also discovered at Kevin Underhill’s Lowering the Bar site  – a fine and interesting place – that a healthy adult would need more than a bit of over-salting to cause the sort of vomiting that Officer Krumpke – excuse me, Officer Adams – says he endured. Which might explain sending the hamburger to the Crime Lab for further analysis.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Bourne To Run

JOHN OSTRANDER: Bourne To Run

  • News
  • September 6, 2007

Spoiler Alert: This week I’m discussing the three Jason Bourne movies and I may wind up revealing plot points, especially of the most recent film out, The Bourne Ultimatum. If you’re planning to see the movie, go see it first. More fun that way.

Just recently I got around to seeing The Bourne Ultimatum, the third in the Jason Bourne series of films starring Matt Damon. All are supposedly based on novels by the late Robert Ludlum – at least, to the degree that the James Bond films were based on the Ian Fleming novels, which meant they basically used the title and one or two elements, if that.

Which is one of its problems for the Ludlum fans. From what I understand, they also don’t like Matt Damon, saying that he’s too young or not right. While I haven’t read the Bourne novels, I have read one or two other Ludlum books and enjoyed them well enough. And I do have sympathy for their position. I complained about the SciFi Network’s version of The Dresden Files because they had so little to do with the actual series of books, which are wonderful. The TV series wasn’t. I sometimes wonder why H’weird buys up properties and then makes wholesale changes in them to the point that they have very little to do with the original concept. The current Flash Gordon series which both I and ComicMix EIC Mike Gold loathe (Mike, you lasted an episode more than I did) is a case in point.

All that said – I’m a big fan of the Bourne movies and more so after the third. I stumbled on the three by accident. (For the record, the three films are The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.) I happened to come across the Supremacy while I was channel surfing one evening, coming in after it started and found myself hooked. When the movie was on again, the lovely and talented Mary joined me and was also drawn in. We kept on missing the opening and it took about three viewings before we finally saw the film all the way through. We then got a hold of the first film and now have the first two on DVD. Supremacy, in particular, has become one of our favorite films.

A quick general summary is in order. Jason Bourne is an amnesiac Black Ops agent working for a super-secret program within the CIA called The Treadstone Project. He’s created to be a human weapon, a master assassin, with mad skills and an ability to improvise. When The Bourne Identity begins, the man known as Jason Bourne is hauled out of the sea by some Mediterranean fishermen. He’s been shot and he has amnesia. Numbers tattooed on his hip turn out to be a Swiss banking account. In a safety deposit box he finds passports and lots of money.

 

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Fighting Words

JOHN OSTRANDER: Fighting Words

  • News
  • August 30, 2007

Well, crap.

Just when I think there’s nothing more coming from the Mess in Iraq that can appall me, they find a new spoonful of shit to shove down my throat. Here. Go read this link from MSNBC.

Blood boiling yet? Quick summary for those of you who didn’t click the link: those people, the whistleblowers, who have spoken up about the corruption and the fraud, the outright diversion and theft of funds going into Iraq – our tax dollars! – are being vilified, harassed, fired, detained, tortured and, in general, getting their lives ruined. And our government – surprise! – is a big part of it.

There’s a purpose to all this: discourage anyone else who might think about speaking out. What makes the folks perpetrating this travesty think they can get away with it? The fact that they are getting away with it! Small companies to large and by large, I do mean Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR which got the lion’s share of money going to Iraq to “rebuild” it.

You remember Halliburton – the corporation Dick Cheney headed before going into public service as President – whoops, Vice-President. It’s no longer an American company; it’s now a United Arab Emirates company. I thought you weren’t supposed to be working for the government if you’re also going to be a company’s lobbyist but either I’m misinformed or Cheney is uninformed on this point. The amount of no competition contracts Halliburton or its KBR subsidiary received for the rebuilding on Iraq is staggering as was the price gouging and corruption. Here follows the testimony of one whistleblower:

“Julie McBride testified last year that as a ‘morale, welfare and recreation coordinator’ at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities.

“She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves.” — Iraq corruption whistleblowers face penalties,” Associated Press Aug 25, 2007

That last bit was just crooked, petty, and arrogant. Done because they could. Why could they? Because one political party controlled both the White House and both houses of Congress. I don’t care if it’s Republican or Democrat – to me, that’s just looking for trouble. And this Administration has worked hand in glove with certain Big Business to the point we’ve become a government Of the Corporation, By the Corporation, and For the Corporation.

What has happened to Ms. McBride? Let her tell it. “After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion,” she told the committee. “My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country [Iraq].”

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Widgets

JOHN OSTRANDER: Widgets

  • News
  • August 23, 2007

Theories are great. I love theories. Usually they’re a wonderful conflation of thought and imagination. We all have our own pet theories on things and we teach them to do tricks or rub their tummies and have fun with them. For example, my sweetie, Mary, on a regular basis comes up with new theories of how the universe was created. They’re different each time and always fun. Sometimes they stumble near quantum theory and that gets a little spooky but, all in all, I enjoy them almost as much as she does.

My problem with theories is when they become ossified into dogma. This happens not just in religion but in all walks of life, including economics and business. Communism is a good example of an economic theory gone to dogma. One of its charming hypotheses was that, once communism had spread around the globe – as Karl Marx felt it inevitably would – all government would evaporate because we would have achieved the workers’ paradise. That theory, unfortunately, is not based on any human trait I’ve ever seen. Capitalism, on the other hand, being based on human greed, is and that’s one of the reasons it has survived and communism has not.

Capitalism and business, especially in recent years, have had their own bits of theories that are endlessly repeated like mantras until they too have become dogma. They’re applied whether they fit the situation or not, sometimes out of stupidity and other times from cupidity.

One of my least favorite bits of economic dogma is “They’re all widgets.” The word “widget” was coined, I believed, by playwright George S. Kaufman for his 1924 play Beggar On Horseback in which the protagonist must choose between his work as a composer and a steady but soul draining job in a “widget” factory. Since it was never defined, a “widget” – in the economic sense – is a synonym for “product” or, when dealing with a creative artist, the term “talent” is used. What it comes down to is that it doesn’t matter what the widget is, certain business and selling rules will apply. Soap, beef, talent, cars, drugs, beer, games, comic books, movies, TV shows – they’re all widgets. One theory fits all.

Except it doesn’t always do that. In 1989, Marvel was bought by Ron Perelman’s MacAndrews and Forbes; at the time, Marvel had maybe 70% of the sales of a very healthy direct sale market. Before Perelman’s little junket was done, Marvel was in bankruptcy and the market was in tatters. Why? Because they decided they were selling widgets. They didn’t need to know anything about comics or the market; they were going to apply sound business principles and make comics respond accordingly. (I had plenty of friends on the inside keeping me abreast of the latest theory.) Nobody could tell these guys nothing. Their business model was not simply Disney but McDonald’s which not only sells hamburgers but own the bakeries that makes the buns, the cattle ranches that supply the beef and so on.

Marvel started to bring its licenses inside the company with the idea that they would supply the product. Since trading cards were so popular, they would buy the trading card companies. They bought the companies after the interest in trading cards had already crested. Perelman’s suits were consistently behind the curve.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: My Way Or the Highway

JOHN OSTRANDER: My Way Or the Highway

  • News
  • August 16, 2007

I’m not going to tell you that I’m an expert on marriages and relationships because that would be a gol-durned lie, but one item of contention seems to pop up regularly between men and women who are cohabiting.

Leaving the toilet seat up or down.

It may be an issue in same-sex relationships; I don’t know. I have heard quite a bit of it between male-female cohabitants to the point of it being a cliché’. It was, however, a real debate that I and my late wife, Kim Yale, had. Her argument was that if she went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and the toilet set wasn’t down, she would fall in, get wet, and then I was certain to be woken up to hear about it. My response is that if I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and didn’t look down, I’d pee all over the seat. If I had to do check, why not her? Her response was that the seat could get gross and it was the guy’s responsibility. My response – well, my full response would get me a severe talking to by the women on ComicMix. Let’s just say I’d didn’t think she was any more fragile than I was and we both had the responsibility to make sure the seat was where we needed it to be. We never reached agreement on the topic.

These days I keep the seat and the lid down for two separate but very good reasons. One is that I read that, when you flush, a fine spray of toilet water – and any particulate matter in it – rises from the bowl and settles over the area, including toothbrushes. Plus, our cat Windy has a tendency to play full immersion Baptist in the toilet bowls in the lid is up.

The first reason alone would’ve reason enough for me. If Kim had hit me with that one, I would have had to concede the point. At the time, I didn’t feel like conceding the point because her argument didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t fall-in with my way of thinking.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: America, George Bush and … Marvel Comics?

JOHN OSTRANDER: America, George Bush and … Marvel Comics?

  • News
  • August 9, 2007

I received an urgent, earnest e-mail asking me to sign a petition expressing my indignation at how the Democrats went belly-up once more to the White House bullying tactics and passed the Security Bill which limits our freedoms just so they won’t appear weak on security in the next election.

Sorry, gang, but the indignation ain’t in me this round.

It’s not that I don’t feel that the legislation isn’t an assault on our liberties or that is unnecessary and useless; I do. I just don’t think the Dems can be shamed into changing their vote at this point. Despite their pre-election rhetoric before the elections in ’06, they haven’t voted to end the war in Iraq or cut off the funding for it because they are more concerned about maintaining and widening their control in Congress and gaining the White House as well. That, more than anything else, is their real objective.

Power.

Same as anyone else in politics.

It’s turned into the political Catch-22. To do anything, you must gain power. To continue to have the ability to do anything, you must maintain power. Actually do anything and you risk losing power. So instead we get smoke, mirrors, theatrics, and power plays. That’s on both sides of the aisle.

The Bush Administration has, at least, understood the concept of using the power accrued; they’ve just made a terrible hash of it. Can we all agree that the WMDS were always an excuse, that 9/11 had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, and that the Bushies knew it, know it, and didn’t and don’t care? The real basic premise of the Bush Neo-Cons was to get rid of a murderous dictator that even the other Arabs didn’t much care for and, in his place, create a functioning democracy that, by its success and example, would begin to change the face of the Mideast. 9/11 simply offered a justification. All in all, it was a seemingly laudable goal but it was attempted by a crew that didn’t know the language, didn’t know the culture or the people, and couldn’t be bothered to learn. There was no contingency planning. It was a perfect storm of arrogance and ignorance.

I’ve seen that kind of mixture before, on a much lesser scale, when Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989. With him came business types who were going to apply sound business theory to Marvel. Comic books were just another set of widgets and they would apply their Universal Business theories to make Marvel a combination of Disney and McDonald’s. (I’m not exaggerating or making this up; that’s what I was told by a Marvel insider at the time.) They took a company that had maybe 70% or more of a strong market and then bankrupted the company while nearly destroying the market. Again, a combination of arrogance and ignorance. Perelman and his people knew everything; they didn’t ask for the advice of people in the industry. They already knew better. Except they didn’t. They made choices that made everyone in the industry who did know something about how it was run start scratching their heads.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Pros and Cons

JOHN OSTRANDER: Pros and Cons

  • News
  • August 2, 2007

Well, seeing as last weekend was Spam Diego, I suppose it’s time to do my Convention wrap-up.

Not that I was at SD. Not this year. But I’ve been to quite a few over the years. In fact, I’ve been at any number of comic conventions, both as a fan and as a professional. Actually, always as a fan and, for the past 25 years, as a professional as well. But something can happen and I can turn back into a drooly mouthed fan boy at a moment’s notice. Some cases in point:

During my early years in the biz, my sometimes partner in crime and often evil twin Timothy Truman and I were at a Con together. Will Eisner was in attendance and neither Tim nor I could summon up the nerve to go say hello to him. We finally got on the courtesy bus taking us from the hotel out to the airport as said convention ended and the only other passenger was – Will Eisner. So he strikes up a conversation with us and we had a really great trip out to the airport. Will got off the shuttle first and Tim and I looked at each other and decided we were such idiots because we could have spent the entire weekend with him.

I think I’ve told the story elsewhere how at a Chicago Con I had to get Julie Schwartz (who I already knew and was a legend himself) to get me to introduce me to Jack Kirby because I was completely and utterly incapable of doing it myself because this was the goddam KING of comics, goddamit!

Likewise, at a San Diego Con, I had to get Murphy Anderson (another legend who I already knew) to introduce me to John Broome, the legendary writer. Mr. Broome, on being introduced, gives me the eye, looks me up and down and said, with mock severity, “Ah, the competition, eh?” No, Mr. Broome, I’d have to be in your league first.

Yes, there are others who can make me like that and, no, I’m NOT telling you who they are.

I’ve also met any number of friends at conventions. I think Michael Davis has talked about our first meeting; I know he wound up in the suite with Mike Grell and myself (and a few others) as Iron Mike watched the first episode of the Jon Sable, Freelance TV series that wound up being on for about two minutes one season. The TV show hasn’t lasted but I’m glad to say that my relationship with Michael has.

Another friend met at a Con was Aussie writer, Dave DeVries, who we designated “that mad Australian” as a result of that weekend. We keep in touch still and he’s a good mate. Dave’s also been a pal and a bane to Brother Grell and has one of the best bar stories about him I’ve ever heard. Dave, if you see this, get on the comment line and tell it. Or maybe we can get Grell to do it.

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JOHN OSTRANDER: Apres Harry

JOHN OSTRANDER: Apres Harry

  • News
  • July 26, 2007

Well, wasn’t that an exciting conclusion to the Harry Potter saga?! And who could have seen that twist coming? You know, the one . . . the one where he . . . I mean, she . . . I mean they . . .

Okay, at the time I’m writing this I haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It hasn’t been released yet. I won’t go near the sites that purport to have the text and published it online. Through the miracle of weekly deadlines that have been shuffled about because of the impending San Diego Comic Con (or Spam Diego, as I like to call it because that’s usually how I feel after the end of it if I go to one – a can of Spam), I get to pretend that the last Harry Potter has been read and probably consumed and can ask the burning question on everyone’s lips:

Now what?

The Harry Potter books took us to an alien world – England, to begin with, which is alien enough for most of us on this side of the Pond. (I once demanded of my good friend and excellent artist Steve Pugh why did the English persisted in driving on the wrong side of the road in their country. Steve smiled kindly and gently told me it was to confuse the French and we poor Americans simply got caught in the middle. “Well,” I said, “ so long as there’s a good reason . . .” Where was I? Oh yes – alien worlds.)

It took us into the world of magic and English academia; it’s hard to say which is stranger to Americans. It gave us a new experience vicariously, through the joy of reading. I once heard film critic Roger Ebert remark that one of the things he looked for in films – and one of the things he really liked about the original Star Wars – was when it took him to a new world, gave him a new experience. Or, I would add, make what we know seem new or give us a different perspective so it feels like a new experience. The Potter books, in my opinion, succeeded on both levels.

So, the Potter story is now complete. It’s a closed world. The remaining movies will translate that experience to the medium of film but it won’t be altogether new. Assuming, gentle reader, you want something more in that line, where can you go? I, like many others, have a few suggestions drawn from my own reading experience. Assuming that we take it as a given that they are not Harry Potter nor are they trying to be Harry Potter, they may be books that you’d enjoy.

They are also not intended as children’s literature, so don’t think of it as a sharing experience with the kids.

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