Author: Mindy Newell

Mindy Newell: I Didn’t Do It!

Weird comics synchronicity. My cousin Penny met and married a guy named Ken Landgraff – and no, I had absolutely nothing to do with it. Some of you may Ken through his work for Marvel and DC back in the day when he drew Nightwing and Flamebird, Hawkman, and Wolverine. He also worked in the studios of Gil Kane, Rich Buckler, and Howard Nostrand, and he drew for Screw magazine. Kenny’s a very cool guy, and we’ve had mucho conversations about comics and pop culture over the years.

So there I was last week, out on Lawn Gisland (that’s Long Island for you non-New Yorkers) celebrating Rosh Hashanah with the family, imbibing lots of fine drink and dining on a cornucopia of fantastic food, laughing and just plain getting silly, when Ken asked me “Did you really put a used Tampax on the door of an editor at DC?”

And I was feeling no pain, as they say, and I just stared at him and went, like, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Ken said that he had been told by – and I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone who had told him this, so I’m leaving that person’s name out of this column – that I had taken a nicely bloodied Tampax and attached it to the door of some editor at whom I was pissed. He didn’t say if I had left a note or not.

Quick aside here. I just called Mike Gold and asked him if he had every heard this story about me. “No,” he said. “But under certain circumstances I would find that admirable.”

“That’s disgusting!” I said to Ken. (Also just now to Mike.) “Urggh!”

After making a face and blinking a few times, I said to Ken, “You’re serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Kenny, you don’t really think I would do something that disgusting, do you?”

“Well…”

Okay, I think to myself, we’ve all had a few too many here. Don’t get mad.

I said, “Kenny. My dear cousin. Have you ever known me to be bothered with signs and symbols when I’m pissed off? Have I not always been the first one on the soapbox with a bullhorn yelling fuck off! for the whole world to hear?”

“Yeah.”

Case in point. Check out my interview with Gail Simone in which I relate the story of how my comics career almost came to a very abrupt end if not for Marv Wolman. (Attention K-Mart Shoppers and All Aspiring Comics Pros: Do Not Try This At Home!)

Screaming fuck you and other assorted colorful catchphrases is not something to be proud of. Well, maybe a little. Depends on the circumstances. Sometimes telling someone to fuck off is exactly the right thing to do. Like when I was fired from a hospital for being Jewish.

Yep, you read that right, boys and girls. Li’l ol’ me and my yiddishkeit blood offended my anti-Semite bigot of a head nurse, who trumped up charges against me. How do I know this? Because my so-called friends at work told me that she would call me “kike” and “Hebe” behind my back. I call them my so-called friends because when I asked them to go to the administration with me to report this, everyone backed out, not wanting to “get involved.” This was before this modern age of what’s called “zero tolerance rules” at work.

Anyway, the bigot took me downstairs to a meeting with the administration, who offered me a chance to resign. Guess what happened when I brought up the bigot’s use of language about me? They gave me a blank piece of paper, said, “we’ll give you a few minutes to think about it. We’re sure you’ll do the right thing,” and left the room. I took that paper and wrote on it in big letters f-u-c-k y-o-u!!!! and walked out.

That’s an example of a circumstance in which the use of colorful language is appropriate and needed.

I don’t think using colorful language to a DC editor, especially when you’re just starting out, is the wisest thing to do. You may disagree with me, but frankly, I was lucky I didn’t get my ass kicked down the elevator shaft; besides, stories of your use of colorful language, or about how you hung a used Tampax on an editor’s door, will follow you around.

All the way to a Rosh Hashanah dinner with the family decades later.

And then you’ll stop wondering why offers of work dried up.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Mindy Newell: Ruminations, Ramblings and Rumblings

So what’s in Mindy’s head today?

I haven’t been to a convention in a long, long time, but reading about some of the ComicMix crew’s sojourn to Baltimore (here and here) lit up my temporal lobe – that’s the part of the brain responsible for memory, for you non-biology majors out there. James Doohan (Chief Engineer Montgomery “Captain, the engines canna take it” Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701) in the “green room” at ICON spilling his coffee all over my new outfit and his gentlemanly response as he went to wipe my chest and then blushed, stopping himself just in time. London in 1986 – walking through London with Archie Goodwin, Mark Gruenwald, Louise and Walter Simonson. Meeting Neil Gaiman and John Wagner. Forgetting that I met John Higgins and then marrying him 17 years later. The British Museum. The Tower of London. Breakfast with Mike Grell and Tom DeFalco. Toronto: sitting on a panel with Chris Claremont. Chicago: Meeting Kim Yale and John Ostrander and Joyce Brabner and Harvey Pekar. Michael Davis in the audience lending support and trying to fluster me (“Number Nine. Number Nine.”) during the Women In Comics panel. Hanging out at the pool with a bunch of comics pros and getting such a great tan that my coworkers back home thought I had gone to the Caribbean for the weekend. Sitting next to Julie Schwartz at the DC booth. Being followed into the bathroom by a fan wanting an autograph.

Over at The League Of Women Bloggers on Facebook, I found out about a troll who has been sexually harassing and threatening women pros and their families on the net. As I said there, “I would like to know why it took Ron Marz and Mark Millar (and kudos to them for doing so) to take the asshole on. Having never been subjected to the troll’s attacks, I was ignorant until I read about it here. However, I will say that if I had been attacked like this, I would not have stayed quiet. (Anyone who knows me should not be surprised.) I would have taken him on, language for language, and if it had continued, I would have contacted the authorities. So, girlfriends, I do have to say…why didn’t anyone who was being attacked by this asshole not take him on? My graduate paper for school was ‘Horizontal, Lateral and Vertical Violence in Nursing.’ It’s a worldwide phenomenon in the field. What this trolling ogre has been doing is the same thing (and it occurs on the net in nursing, too.) And every peer review paper I read, every person I interviewed, said the same thing – those who are attacked in this manner must come forward. It’s the only way to stop it.”        

Reading comics as a kid taught me the meaning of “invulnerable” and that the sun is 93,000, 000 miles from Earth. (Thanks for the editor’s notes, Julie!) It opened my mind to the infinite possibilities of “life out there” and the wonders of the universe. It taught me that guns are bad and life is precious. It taught me to love reading. I mentioned this to daughter Alix’s husband, Jeff, who is a professor in the City University of New York system and teaches remedial English, suggesting that he use comics as part of his syllabus. He’s looking into it.  If he can get into his office. The key the administration doesn’t open the door. Ah, CUNY.

Conspiracy moment: It might be my writer’s brain, but can’t help having a suspicion that the release of The Innocence Of Muslims (the video that launched horrific demonstrations against the U.S., Israel, and the Western world all over the Middle East, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and resulted in the deaths of our Libyan ambassador and three others) was an act of Al Quada, especially as it occurred on September 11, and especially as Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took over as head of the terrorist organization, released a message on the net calling for an uprising. Laugh if you must, scoff if you will, but I won’t be surprised if the New York Times reports that a link was found by our intelligence agencies.

The Giants lost their opening game. They deserved to lose. They looked horrible. Their offensive line is non-existent. For this I missed Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic Convention?

Martha Thomases’ fashion police column last week made me want to see a spread featuring the very fashion-forward women of comics. Hey! New York Times! How ‘bout it?

La Shonah Tova, everybody! That’s a big Happy New Year to all of you!

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

 

Mindy Newell: The Sexual Preferences Of Wonder Woman, or The Hero’s Journey Part II

Before continuing, I must say mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

I made a major error last week. My terrific correspondent in last week’s column is not Bill Hannigan. He is Bill Mulligan. As in – sing along, folks – m-u-double l-i-g-a-n spells Mulligan. I cannot explain it, but can only blame it on my menopausal mind. A hundred thousand apologies to Bill.

•     •     •     •     •

So last week I went to Vector Books, my local comics emporium, and picked up Justice League #12 (by Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, and David Finch, with kudos to those gentlemen and everyone involved for terrific writing and gorgeous artwork).

In case you need reminding, it’s the issue with The Big Kiss.

But it is not a kiss of love.

It is a kiss of longing.

It is a kiss of confusion.

It is a kiss of desire.

The desire to know.

Who am I?

Where do I belong?

Am I capable of love?

Can you love me?

Can I love you?

Do you know?

If you do, tell me.

I need to know.

Longing and confusion.

Straight or gay or bi, these questions are at the heart of our relationships, our selves.

When we are in the womb, we are cocooned in an aquatic nest. Our every need is met. The only sound we hear is a muffled whoosh-whoosh, and it comforts us. We are at peace. We know we are not alone.

Then suddenly we are separated from the waters of life, the warmth and the comfort and the muffled sounds of love, and we are thrust into a harsh world of brightness and cold and noise. We are helpless as we are poked and prodded and laid against cold medal. We want to go back. But somehow we know that we can never go back, and we cry for that world where we were safe, where we were loved. And we are afraid that is gone forever.

But it is not gone forever, for we discover that in this harsh world there will be others who will love us, who will protect us and care for us, who will understand our fears and our confusion and our longing, because we will discover that these others are feel these things, too. And we will look to each other for that comfort and that warmth and love which will banish the fear and the loneliness and the confusion always hovering at the edges of our consciousness.

Loneliness.

Confusion.

Desire.

The desire to know ourselves.

The desire to know another.

The desire to not be alone.

The desire to share.

The desire to love.

Human emotions we don’t normally equate with super-heroes, especially mythic heroes such as Wonder Woman and Superman. But we build our heroes on the frail foundations of our humanity, so we should not be surprised when they reflect these frailties back upon us.

The hero’s journey is our journey.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten Continues With The Big Con

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Stands Tall

 

Mindy Newell: The Sexual Preferences Of Wonder Woman, or… Whatever Floats Your Boat

Last week’s column engendered a conversation with Bill Hannigan. Now Bill and I don’t exactly see eye-to-eye politically, and my belief that “Wonder Woman, considering her upbringing, would most likely look to her own sex for an adult relationship before venturing into anything heterosexual” seemed to create a Rubicon that neither of us would or could cross. Bill responded to my statement as follows:

“…while it’s not unreasonable that WW would explore a same sex relationship, I’d hope any writer would save that for another character – it plays straight (ha!) into the hands of those who would like to have us believe that being raised by gay parents (or even gay-tolerant parents) will make kids gay. If, as I think, it is far more nature than nurture, it should not matter if she were raised on Paradise Island, Fire Island, Monster Island or Long island.”

My first reaction: annoyance that Bill had missed the most important part of the paragraph, which ended “meaning she needs to discover just where her sexuality lies.”

… and I wanted to zoom off an angry missive in return.

But having spent mucho bucks for therapy over the years (which, for the most part, has helped me to successfully understand myself a little better – though some people I know may disagree with that, and you know who you are), I held off the angry missive and gave both of us a break on the tête-à-tête back-and-forth. In other words, cooler heads prevailed:

“Regarding Wonder Woman – I’m not saying that she must be gay. I’m saying that I believe her first inclination, given her upbringing, would be to seek love with her own sex. And, in fact, I think it would be interesting for Diana to discover that she is drawn to men – and then feel like there’s something wrong with her. This would parallel what so many young people who know they are gay go through in this society. although I do think its getting better out there.”

Bill’s answer was right on the mark, IMnot-so-HO:

“And I think you would be attacked without mercy if you tried to do a story like what you describe – the homophobes would, of course, lose their shit over you making WW gay in the first place and you would catch holy hot hell when you had her become attracted to a man. There is no doubt in my mind. You can hear the complaints now. “Newell chickened out!” “Oh right, that’s what every lesbian secretly wants, the right man to show here the true path!” “I finally found a character that I could identify with and now you’ve wee-ooh, wee-ooh!” It would be brutal.

“The worst part about creating groundbreaking characters, it seems to me, is that you lose control of them. Joss Whedon makes Willow gay and from that point on every time something bad happens to her (and [since] it’s a Joss Whedon show, bad stuff happens to you!) people start bitching and bitching; “Oh right, another gay relationship that ends badly.” As though anyone on Buffy was likely to have a happy ending, relationship-wise.”

Oh, yeah, Bill, I remember the uproar that the problems between Willow and Tara created in the homosexual community. And when Warren killed Tara, I was among the thousands screaming at the television set, “oh, no, you didn’t, Joss Whedon!” It didn’t matter that I’m straight. Their relationship was the most honest representation of a healthy, interactive, grown-up relationship between lovers, homosexual or heterosexual, I’d ever seen – and still not matched – on a television series, or for that matter, in a movie. Brokeback Mountain, despite all the hoo-hah about Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger getting it on, was not about a good relationship. Willow and Tara did not say, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” Willow and Tara were just two people who loved each other. Period. No “a very special episode announcement” bullshit, no “look how daring we’re being!” crap, no big deal – well, except for Oz.

Although I seem to remember Whedon saying he was “surprised” at the amount of angry letters and hate mail he received, I also believe he didn’t give a shit. Because, as I replied to Bill:

“[as for] the bullshit Whedon got for killing Tara…was a necessary dramatic action for where Whedon was going [i.e., the “Dark Willow” storyline.]

“[and] like Whedon, I don’t give a shit.  If it serves the character(s) and his/her/their story, I write it.”

So, yeah, I think that Diana of Themiscrya would be very confused about her sexuality. And I would write her that way. But, like I told Bill:

“Not that DC would ever let me do something like that.”

Continued Next Week!

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten and Where Must Be Dragons?

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Hurls Hand-Grenades!

 

 

Mindy Newell: Sometimes A Great Notion Gets Beat

Gosh darn that Entertainment Weekly!

Curse you, Martha Thomases!

Damn those Republicans!

Off with your head, John Ostrander!

I’m the New York Giants’s Lawrence Tynes. I’m the place kicker here. I’m the one who gets the game going. Yeah, that’s right. Monday is the start of the week here at ComicMix. The calendar week may start with Sunday, but Monday is the real start of the week, isn’t it? As in first day of the work week and first day of the school week.

(BTW, what y’all thinking about the Giants first-round draft choice, running back Dave Wilson? I’m liking him. Yeah, that’s right. Football season is just about here. Deal with it. Go Giants!)

And here it is Monday, and I’m sitting here on Sunday afternoon without a thing to write about.

I was going to write about Superman and Wonder Woman sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g in a tree. Except that my pal Martha beat me to it. And superbly, I might add.

Then I was going to write about how life imitates fiction, even when events are too strange, too scary, too twisted, too cartoony to be believed. Except that my buddy John got there first. With an A+, of course.

This happens sometimes when you’re a writer.

Great minds thinking alike.

Okay, you can stop snorting in derision now.

But Ken Kesey’s Sometimes A Great Notion (great book, btw, highly recommended) gets beaten to the punch. So then what do you do?

Panic is the best – and first – reaction.

Going to the gym to clear out your mind (and burn off the fight-or-flight adrenaline) is the second thing you do.

Read all the comics that have been piling up in the kitchen in one sitting, praying that one of them will spark an idea.

Look at the clock and realize the deadline is looming and curse yourself for not writing the column earlier in the week when all the hub-pub hit the media, thus beating out Martha and John.

Panic again.

Cut open a vein and watch yourself bleed.

Or sit down in front of the computer and start writing from fear of Mike whooping your ass.

I love you, Mike.

Oh, and by the way:

Regarding Diana and Kal-El. I still maintain that Diana, considering her upbringing, would most likely look to her own sex for an adult relationship before venturing into anything heterosexual – meaning she needs to discover just where her sexuality lies. Hey, is that where Geoff Johns is going with this? Not that I believe for a second that DC and its corporate papa, Time Warner, would ever let Wonder Woman be gay.

Regarding Rep. Todd Akin (R-Missouri), Judge Tom Head of Texas, and State Senator Stacey Campfield (R). They only prove that the Repugnanticans have become truly asinine, ignorant, bigoted enemies of truth, justice, and the American way.

If only they were characters in a comic book.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis and More Milestones

 

Mindy Newell: Butterflies Are Timey-Wimey

Before I get started – or let’s pretend that I have just stopped time – just want to say regarding Martha Thomases’ column of last week:

Shit, Martha, why the fuck didn’t I think of writing that?

•     •     •     •     •

See, about two months ago I hurt my middle finger at work. It got caught between a stretcher and a door. The noted and very adorable Dr. Christopher Doumas used the C-arm to check it out. Nothing was broken – be thankful for small miracles, right? – but there was plenty of soft tissue damage, meaning I bruised the fascia, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Plus broken capillaries and such. Which caused my ahem middle finger to swell up and turn several shades of purple.

But you know how they say that soft tissue damage hurts worse than a broken bone? – well, maybe you don’t, but trust me, they do say that – so believe me when I tell you:

Goddamn, it hurt!

Anyway, I had to write an incident report, which meant I had to go to the boss’s office. The boss is from the Midwest, and, imho, the outfit that owns my ambulatory surgery center reflects that what’s the matter with Kansas? mentality. So I’m sitting there trying to write, which was extremely difficult because said middle finger was on my right hand, and I’m a “righty” – the only thing about me that is.

Just trying to use the keyboard was a pain in the ass – or finger – and I muttered “Fuck, that hurts.”

My what’s the matter with Kansas? boss looked very disturbed. Did she say, “I’m so sorry, Mindy.” Did she say, “Do you want an Advil?” Did she cluck and coo and offer other bromides?

Nope.

She said, “Don’t use that language. It’s not professional.”

I looked at her. I thought are you kidding me?

And I said:

“I’m from New York.”

 

•     •     •     •     •

I will now allow time to resume its normal linear course.

I have always, always loved time-travel stories.

Last night I was watching The Timey-Wimey Of Doctor Who on BBC America when, all of a sudden during a commercial break, I remembered a Silver Age Superboy story in which the Boy of Steel discovers the origin of Cinderella’s glass slipper – all of which inspired me to write about time travel today. Anyway, I was sure the Cinderella story was featured on the cover. But guess what I discovered when doing my due diligence?

The Cinderella thingy was only a “side-trip” in a very famous and critical-to-DC-mythology story written by Robert Bernstein and penciled and inked by George Pepp. The story was “Superboy’s Big Brother” (Superboy #89, June 1961), featuring the introduction of Mon-El – whom I’ve also always loved, but that’s a topic for another day and another column. Leaving Mon-El to hang out at the Kent home with his parents, Clark goes to school ‘cause he has a test he can’t skip. I guess it was an English class, or maybe history, or maybe even creative writing because one of the questions on the test is about the origin of fairy tales and uses the Cinderella story as an example.  Clark remembers meeting the real Cinderella in the past. I guess to jog his memory – although since Superboy has super-memory I don’t know why it needs jogging – he decides to revisit the past to make sure he’s got the details right.

Clark asks permission to get a drink of water. (The teacher says okay, which means allowing him to leave the room during a test. Try doing that these days, kids!) Changing into Superboy, he flies through the time barrier to Egypt, circa 4,000 B.C. He takes a drink of water from the Nile – ‘cause, you know Superboy never tells a lie, and this way he can honestly tell the teacher that he got his drink of water. While getting his allotment of H2O, he sees an eagle steal a sandal from a girl putting a bassinet made from reeds into the Nile. There’s a baby inside. It floats down the Nile to where the Pharaoh’s daughter is bathing. The Pharaoh’s daughter finds the baby in the bassinette, and names him Moses….

Strike that.

Superboy is about to go after the eagle when that super-memory of his is jogged once again, so he does nothing. Instead he watches as the bird drops the sandal in the Pharaoh’s palace. The Pharaoh searches for the woman whose foot fits the sandal. He finds her and makes her his queen. Aha! thinks Superboy. This is the Cinderella story he came back in time to see. Now it’s time to go back to school and finish that test.

So Clark writes up the story, but the teacher says he has no proof, so only gives him an 89. (Guess it wasn’t a creative writing class after all.) And Clark isn’t unhappy, because if he had aced it, the teacher might suspect he’s Superboy because Clark is so smart. (Huh?)

Meanwhile, suspecting that Mon-El is lying about being his brother – um, excuse me, but aren’t you the one who assumed that he was, Clark? – Superboy exposes Mon-El to a meteorite that looks like Kryptonite but is really made of lead.

Oops. Your bad, Superboy.

Mon-El is really Lar Gand, a native of the planet Daxam. And Daxamites can’t handle lead. In fact, it kills them. Like the Roach Motel: once they check in, they don’t check out. Swearing that one day he will find a cure to the fatal lead poisoning, Superboy has no choice but to send Mon-El to the Phantom Zone in order to save his life.

Leading in a timey-winey, butterfly effect way to the other time travel story that added-to-the-DC-mythology big time, the introduction of the Legion of Super-Heroes (Adventure Comics #247, April 1958, by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Plastino). And if I have to recount that story, you shouldn’t call yourself a comics fan! J The Legion traveled through the time barrier by means of a “time bubble,” which maybe was inspired by the bubble in which Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, travels to Oz. Only they don’t ask Superboy if he is a witch. They also don’t think Krypto is a witch.

It was Brainiac 5 of the Legion of Super-Heroes who, in “The Secret of the Mystery Legionnaire” revealed that he had discovered a permanent cure for Mon-El. This happened in Adventure Comics #330, March 1962, by Jerry Siegel and John Forte. This is only a year for us poor Earth-Prime Homo sapiens who are cursed to experience time in a this-way-forward linear manner, but it was about twenty centuries as a phantom for poor Lar Gand.

No wonder he went nuts.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten, Esq

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis, PhD

 

Mindy Newell: A World Of Pure Imagination

Charlie Bucket lived with his mom and his grandparents in a dirty, downtrodden industrial city that used to be a thriving center of commerce, with factories making cars and furniture and steel and zippers and paper clips. The citizens of the city were happy to work in the factories, because they were well-paid and had wonderful benefits thanks to their unions, and all their kids were able to go to college because of the money they were able to save and the national student loan program. But then all the factories moved to China and Vietnam and India and Malaysia because the CEOs of the companies who owned the factories needed more money for more corporate jets and limousines and private islands and new mansions with elevators for their cars, and the people in China and Vietnam and India and Malaysia didn’t have unions that forced the CEOs to give wonderful wages and pesky pensions and hardy health insurance to their slaves…uh, I mean, employees.

So all the factories in Charlie’s city closed – except for one, Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. Charlie’s father died because he didn’t have health insurance, and Charlie and his mom got kicked out of their 3 BR, 2 BATH, RMS W/VU apartment overlooking the harbor because the Social Security money which they depended on had been privatized, and when the market crashed, there went the monthly checks for Mrs. Bucket and Charlie. They had to move to a little, tiny house that was really too small for the two of them, and then Mr. and Mrs. Bucket’s parents came to live with them because their homes were foreclosed after the mortgage securities crisis, so things were really crowded in the little house.

Charlie tried to help out by delivering newspapers, which is how the family found out that Mr. Willy Wonka, sole owner and proprietor of the one factory left in town, had hidden five Golden Tickets in the wrappings of his Wonka Bars. The five people who found the Golden Tickets would not only win a lifetime supply of Willy Wonka chocolate, but also be taken on a private tour of the factory.

Four of the tickets are bought and found by Klaus Rave, a man who looks just like the chief pig in Animal Farm; twin brothers named Donny and Cain Coke, who are very rich and give money to philanthropic organizations like Success For All Amerikans and The Birthright Society; Alice Coltrane, a girl with a sassy, big mouth known for making hilarious barbs; and a boy named Pablo Rico, who saved up all his Social Security money after his father died and used it to go to college. But he doesn’t like women too much.

There’s only one ticket left, and Charlie is sure he is going to find it. But then it is announced that an eccentric millionaire who claims to wear magic underwear bought the final ticket. His name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary.

So Charlie is among all the other onlookers as Klaus and Donny and Cain and Alice and Pablo are greeted by Willy Wonka and led inside the magical, wonderful, chocolate factory.

Inside Willy Wonka has them all sign a contract before the tour can begin. There is lots of small print on it, and everybody grumbles, but they all sign it, because Klaus and Donny and Cain and Alice and Pablo and the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary really want to get inside and look around.

The factor is full of mind-blowing, mouth-watering, stomach-rumbling marvels like a real chocolate river, tasty flowers and mushrooms, and even delicious wallpaper. Wonka’s workers – considered the luckiest people in town, not only because they have a good job with benefits and a guaranteed pension, but also because they work for Willy Wonka – are all hard at worker. Willie Wonka warns his guests not to touch anything unless he says it’s okay, but Klaus and Donny and Cain and Alice and Pablo and the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary ignore him, and one by one, they disappear.

Klaus gets sucked into the chocolate works, after falling into the chocolate river from which he was trying to drink. Donny turns into a giant blueberry after chewing on a piece of Three-Course Dinner Gum, which was still in the experimental stages. Cain falls down a garbage chute that is for the “bad eggs” in the Chocolate Golden Egg Sorting room. Alice opens her big mouth and makes some sassy barbs about Wonkavision television, and finds herself stuck in a TV land where there are no commercial breaks and she can’t go to the bathroom.

The eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary sneaks into the Bubble Room and tastes the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. He starts to float up, up, up, and is nearly whisked into an exhaust fan on the ceiling. But he starts burping to let out the fizz and floats back down to the floor.

The tour is over. Willy Wonka says goodbye to the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary, but before he can leave, the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary demands his lifetime supply of chocolate. But Willy Wonka tells him he has violated the terms of the contract by tasting the Fizzy Lifting Drinks, and snaps out the signed contract to emphasize this.

But suddenly the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary pulled his own contract out of his magic underwear and flaunts it in Willy Wonka’s face. He revealed that Klaus, Donny, Cain, and Alice are all actually employees of the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary, and they have actually worked together, through the lawyers of the Success For Amerikans Organization and The Birthright Society, to have become the primary shareholders of the Chocolate Factory, with the eccentric millionaire whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary as Chairman, President, and CEO.

“We are moving the Chocolate Factory to China, Vietnam, India, and Malaysia,” said the eccentric Chairman, President, and CEO of the Chocolate Factory whose name is Mingus Wilbur Rosary.

“You can’t do this!” said Willie Wonka.

“I can, and it’s already done. Look around, Mr. Wonka.

Willy Wonka looked around. All his workers were gone, and men in black suits and dark sunglasses were supervising other men in overalls as they took down and broke apart the Chocolate Factory.

“And you, Mr. Willy Wonka, are out of a job.”

Artwork courtesy of The Daily Share.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mindy Newell: Doctor ????

Who’s your favorite Doctor?

I discovered the Time Lord back in the late 1970s (I think), when WNET, the New York PBS station, started running the Tom Baker episodes. Baker’s Doctor, with his floppy-brimmed hat, outback duster, and loonnnng, multi-colored, scarf – did Granny Who knit it for him? – was the itinerant cosmic hobo. Only instead of hopping the rails, he “tripped the light fantastic” across the universe in the TARDIS. Companions Sara Jane Smith (the late Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) were – seen with the advantage of hindsight –sort of “Mulder/Scully” prototypes, with Sara Jane as the believing Mulder and Harry as the skeptic. I can’t say that the British military operations called UNIT – Unified Intelligence Taskforce – was the FBI, although Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart did sort of act like the Assistant Director Walter Skinner, walking the high-wire tightrope between helping the Doctor and answering to his superiors.

Like every other Whovian, I mourned – and was really pissed off – when the BBC stopped producing the series.

And like every other Whovian with Cablevision, I watched the relaunch of Doctor Who on Sci-Fi, with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and Billy Piper – the call girl of The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl on Showtime – as his companion, Rose Tyler. I really got into Eccleston as the Doctor, and was incredibly disappointed when he chose to leave the role after only one season…until David Tennant took over the controls of the TARDIS and the wielding of the sonic screwdriver. Like Rose, I fell in love with Tennant’s Doctor.

And I was deeply upset when, after five years, Tennant left. The love story between the Doctor and Rose added new and deep emotional resonance to the series and I didn’t want their tale to end.  So I was stubbornly anti-Matt Smith as the as romanticism and emotional I was not prepared to like Matt Smith as the Doctor’s eleventh reincarnation. I thought his introduction was stupid and boring, not funny, going though young Amy Pond’s refrigerator and kitchen pantry, tasting everything, spitting out everything.

But then….

Bow ties are cool. So are fezzes.

The absolute brilliance – imho – of Smith’s first season as the Time Lord, and the introduction of Amy Pond as, first, a young girl, and then as a grown woman (Karen Gillan), with the addition of Amy’s fiancée-now-husband Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) won me over by the second episode.

Last night I watched The Science Of Doctor Who, which, like its predecessors The Science Of Star Wars and The Science Of Star Trek, explored how the show has influenced the scientists of today in making the science fiction of the Doctor science reality. Today I trolled BBC America’s Doctor Who web pages, watching sneak previews and reading about catching up on all things Whovian. Including the news that Gillan and Darvill will be exiting the show, and that it may have something to do with the Weeping Angels – to my mind the scariest and creepiest aliens to ever appear on Doctor Who. Yes, much more than the Daleks or the Cybermen.

But I do have one question.

Can someone please, please tell me when Season 7 starts?

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold and Cold Ennui

 

 

Mindy Newell: Moving Day

I had one hell of a weekend, and I don’t mean that in the swinging wild party, gorgeous male strippers in thongs stuffed with dollar bills, wake up and don’t remember what the hell happened. I mean hell in all its Dante’s Inferno Nine-Circles-Of, sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jags and sheer, utterly emotional exhaustion.

We moved my parents to what is called in healthcare parlance a “continuous care retirement community.” They’re still living independently. It’s not quite assisted living. Yet.

Not that it’s a bad place. Actually, it’s quite lovely. Their new apartment is more spacious than the place they left; we didn’t have to get rid of any of their furniture, and by the time I left early yesterday afternoon, it looked like “home,” especially after brother Glenn, daughter Alix and her husband Jeff hung all the pictures and what-nots and set up the phone and the cable TV.

Actually, my brother was there with the cable guy when we arrived, so we didn’t miss any of the Olympics opening ceremony. Of course Queen Elizabeth II, with a little help from Daniel Craig, absolutely rocked the evening. Her outfit was stunning – luved the feathered “fascinator” she wore instead of one her standard hats, which I wouldn’t be surprised to find out her new granddaughter Kate picked out – and watching Her Majesty was lots better than watching Team USA wearing Ralph Lauren by way of a Chinese sweatshop.

Previously, my parents had Cablevision but now they have Comcast, so they’re having trouble figuring out how to use the remote, which is waaaaay more complicated and harder to read than the remote you get from Cablevision and Comcast’s channel guide is waaaay more “busy” (visually) than Cablevision’s, which really, really, sucks when you have macular degeneration like my dad does.

And the apartment overlooks a small lake with swans and a walking path and a gazebo. The staff is superb, caring and friendly, everything you could possibly want for your parents. And several of the residents were sort of a “welcome wagon” for Mr. and Mrs. Newell, accompanying them to their first meals in the main dining room.

But the first thing my mom said to me on Saturday morning, when she woke up in her new home was “I want to go home.”

I gave her a big hug, we talked, she went into the shower. I went outside and sat on one of the lovely rocking chairs on the lovely front porch and had three cigarettes in a row…between tears.

But I basically held it together – hung up their clothes in their new closets, folded the shirts and sweaters in the bedroom furniture, even did the laundry for them while they were went to dinner – until this morning, when I lost it completely. The above-mentioned sturm und drang blitzkrieg, complete with crying jag.

Absolutely the wrong thing to do in front of my parents, who are stressed enough. Pissed off Glenn and Alix, disturbed Jeff.

So I went out for a ride. Went to the nearest WaWa, got a whole bunch of bagels – plain, garlic, onion, and pumpernickel. Checked out some nearby dry cleaners, which is the one service the retirement community doesn’t offer. Stopped at Rite-Aid and picked up some personal sundries for Mom.

And smoked some more cigarettes. (I admit it, I smoked a lot of cigarettes this weekend.)

And popped a Xanax.

So here I am, sitting at the computer, writing this column. Meant to write about moving, what it would be like to be Superman moving all that shit, Terran and intergalactic, to the Fortress of Solitude from his apartment in Metropolis. Wondering what was in Diana’s suitcases when she left Themiscrya. And how many times the moving vans have pulled into and out of the driveway of Avengers’ Mansion, with the constantly changing membership of that organization.

And where the parents of super-heroes – and super-villains, for that matter – go when they’re unable to live on their own.

But I’m just too exhausted and emotionally spent tonight to think about make-believe.

Life got in the way for me this week.

TUESDAY: Emily S. Whitten and 15 Minutes

 

Mindy Newell: It’s All About The Image

The first thing that popped into my mind when I turned on MSNBC’s Way Too Early With Willie Geist – yes, I get up for work “way too early”– and saw, instead of Mr. Geist talking about the Presidential campaign or Jon Stewart’s latest and brilliant riff on the newest foolishness in this nation’s ongoing political foibles, a deployment of cop cars and ambulances flashing red, white, and blue – an ironic picture, actually, now that I think about it – in the parking lot of a movie theatre complex in Aurora, Colorado was, “Oh, shit, now what?”

Then, as I discovered that a mass shooting had taken place at the first showing of The Dark Knight Rises, my second thought was, “Wonder how soon it’ll be before they (the media) connect it to comics?”

Not long.

By the time I got to work, changed into scrubs, and was in the staff lounge sipping my tea and watching the television along with everyone else – which was 6:55 A.M. EDT – FOX News was already claiming that the alleged shooter, James Holmes, had stated that he had done it because “I am the Joker.”

*Note: Never saw or heard this supposed statement repeated on any other TV or radio news show. FOX News stopped running this bit of faux information, but also never retracted or apologized for it.  

“But Heath Ledger’s dead,” said a staff member.

“Oh, shit,“ I said to myself again.  Out loud I said, “The Joker’s not even in this one. Bane’s the villain.”

“Who’s Bane?” another staff member asked me.

“Stupid fucking comic book people,” said another. Then she looked at me and remembered that I had worked in comics and that I write this column. “Sorry,” she muttered.

I bring this up because of Mike’s column.

Yeah, San Diego got a lot of “mainstream” press, but how much of it was about comics? Not much. Most of it, even in Entertainment Weekly, covered movies and television. The stuff that was about comics was of the usual KA-POW! BAM! variety about the fans showing up in costumes. Except for the announcement of a new Sandman story by my friend Neil (Gaiman), which made the pages of the “old grey lady,” i.e., the New York Times.

It doesn’t surprise me that the Times got the story of the origin of comics publishers and creators’ rights wrong.  The paper also got it wrong when it did a story about Gail Simone being the first woman to write Wonder Woman.  Gail called me to apologize, saying that someone (I forget who) had told her “you’re not the first, Mindy Newell was.” She also told me that she tried to tell the reporter this, but that the reporter didn’t want to hear it.

“Of course,” I said. “Because if DC admits you weren’t the first woman to write Diana’s stories, then where’s the publicity for DC, and where’s story for the New York Times to print?”

The point is that the story about Image was a publicity thing, Mike. Their P.R. department did their work, and the New York Times picked up the story. And if – that’s a big if – the Times reporter did his due diligence, as a good reporter should, and discovered that ‘the creators’ rights movement on a publishing level started with Denis Kitchen and his fellow ‘underground comix’ providers’ and that ‘the actual creators’ rights movement pretty much started…when folks like Will Eisner, Bob Kane, William Moulton Marston and Joe Simon and Jack Kirby negotiated their own deals with the existing publishers and retained certain rights and/or received cover billing and/or creator credit and/or royalties’ and that ‘First, Eclipse, Comico, Now, Malibu, and the rest – took all that several steps further. Creators received certain ownership rights, cover billing, creator credit and royalties,’” and if that reporter took this information to his editor, and if his editor had given the go-ahead to write all this…

Well, then, where’s the story about Image?

Well, yeah, the story could have still been about Image, and about how it’s following in the steps of its predecessors, but that not what the P.R. department of Image started.

And also, imho, the Times would not have cared about Image’s twentieth anniversary except for two things: The Walking Dead being such a huge hit on AMC, and the award-winning (rightly so) Neil Gaiman’s much publicized lawsuit with Todd MacFarlane.

‘Cause it’s all about the image.

And just for the record (and this has absolutely nothing to do with Gail herself)…

That article about Gail being the first woman to write Wonder Woman?

It really pissed me off.

TUESDAY MORNING: Michael Davis

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Emily S. Whitten

 

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