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Emily S. Whitten: What I’m Watching – Arrow

Columns
October 23, 2012

I love TV shows, but sometimes I’m terrible at keeping up with them. As with comics, I tend to skip a few weeks and then mainline three or four episodes in a row, mostly because I hate getting just a tiny bit of story and character interaction and then waiting a whole week for more. Impatience is one of my little flaws, and the mandatory waiting is made more bearable if I get a miniseries collection of stories first.

However, given that it’s often harder (or more inconvenient) to find and watch back episodes of current shows, this fall I did take note of two shows I was excited about and wanted to actually try to keep up with, one of which is Arrow, the new CW show about Green Arrow. So far, I’m succeeding. Go me!

I always try to give a new show at least two episodes to decide what I think of it. Sure, a pilot is supposed to grab you and draw you in, but sometimes it takes even a potentially good show a couple of tries to establish a balance (and sometimes it takes half of a season and by the time they’ve worked out the kinks the show’s canceled. I’m looking at you, Dresden Files). For instance, during the first episode of Dexter I was unsure of whether my long-time friend had been insulting my character or serious when he’d said “Oh, you’d love Dexter. It’s about a serial killer!” but by episode two I’d realized that he was absolutely right and I wanted to see more. We’ve had two episodes of Arrow so far, so I feel like I’ve given it a fair shot and it’s time for a frank assessment. So here we go!

(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

The storyline is centered around Oliver Queen immediately after his return from a yacht wreck and five years marooned on The Island that Makes a Man Out of Him – or a Future Vigilante, whatever. He returns to Star(ling) City to discover that his mom has married the CEO of his dad’s company, his sister Thea’s a recreational drug user, and his best friend Tommy Merlyn’s a slightly smarmy partier – which apparently means he’s the one person who hasn’t changed at all in five years. Ollie’s ex-girlfriend, now-lawyer (Dinah) Laurel Lance, is mad he’s not dead because her sister Sarah died on the yacht because Ollie was cheating on Laurel with her. Classy!

Pretty much from the first moment Ollie arrives back in the city, he begins his purposeful transformation to (Green) Arrow with his stated (literally stated, in an Intense Voiceover) mission being to take down a list of corrupt people his dad told him about who have ruined the city.

Even in the comics, Green Arrow bears a lot of superficial similarities to Batman; but in this show, it’s obvious that they’re actually trying to channel Christopher Nolan’s Batman in particular. Ollie hides behind a more shallow “playboy” persona that he switches on in public so people won’t suspect his vigilante skills and activities; he’s most genuinely affectionate towards the household staff (which plays weirdly here, since it doesn’t seem like either his mother or sister are heinous people at this point); and he magically sets up a fully stocked and wired Arrow-cave with what are apparently two Bags of Holding containing computers, lights, weaponry, and an entire exercise setup.

The problem with all this, though, is that it’s done so quickly. In the Batman movies there’s a clear progression and motivation behind everything Bruce Wayne does to make himself into Batman, and we get to savor the transformation of an ordinary man into a superhero. In this show, it’s like they’re rushing to get the setup out of the way and don’t bother to appreciate what’s so cool about a superhero’s origin, or to go through the reasoning for his behavior. Which is puzzling, because if you’re going to have ridiculously dramatic voiceovers in your show, what better way to use them than to say things like, “I had to pretend to be something I’m not – a shallow, callous party boy – so people wouldn’t suspect the truth.” I can just hear Stephen Amell intoning that now. (Although hopefully he’d stop short of saying, “I also had to don a green hood of vigilante-ism. Because I cannot complete my mission as Oliver Queen. But as a symbol…as a symbol I can be incorruptible; everlasting…”)

Okay, I’m making a big deal about the Nolan parallels; and it could be argued that those movies redefined certain types of superhero cinema, and naturally a serious superhero show might resemble them. But there are actual shots in Arrow that are so cinematically similar to those movies that I can’t think it’s remotely a coincidence, and they’re a little too on-the-mark to be enjoyed as homages.

For instance, in the pilot we get a scene with the head bad guy sitting in a car looking scared as Arrow takes out his men just outside – a la Carmine Falcone at the docks in Batman Begins. And in episode two we get the previous part of that same Batman scene, when a different head bad guy looks around in fright as an unseen person starts taking out his men around him with projectiles in a warehouse-like area (a la the Batarang striking the light bulb and the ensuing mayhem in the movie). And that’s just a couple of examples. Let’s not even get started on things like Tommy driving Ollie into the bad part of the city (does that make Tommy Rachel Dawes?) and the dedication of an applied sciences building in episode two.

I’m not saying that stealing a few pages from Nolan’s playbook is a bad idea; in fact, I think it could be really enjoyable to watch. But as I said, here…everything is so rushed. It’s like they were in this huge hurry to slot every family member, friend, and piece of Arrow’s persona into place so they could get down to the nitty-gritty plot of the show. Which would be okay, except that so far, the plot isn’t a plot, it’s a…routine? I’m not sure what else to call it. Other than all of the establishing information (including the shipwreck and island flashbacks), if I had to sum up what has happened in real time so far, it would be: Queen goes after someone on his Bad Guy list and makes them pay somehow that involves trick arrows; Laurel is involved because she’s a lawyer who fights against the Bad Guys in court; and Detective Harry-Dresden Lance gets involved either because of his daughter or Arrow or both, which makes me happy because so far, he’s my favorite part of the show. (Seriously, I love Paul Blackthorne as Detective Lance so far, and I really loved him as Harry Dresden. Can you tell?)

And… that’s it. Sure, there’s ongoing character drama – sister Thea is alternately begging Ollie to let her in and angry at him for judging her, and the interactions between the two, while not always logical, are pretty well done. Mommy Queen is now married to his dad’s old friend, and is apparently in the midst of Evil Doings but still loves her son… maybe. Ollie and Laurel are back-and-forth about where their relationship is (and their interactions are probably the best part of the show so far, because actress Katie Cassidy, whom I last saw as Ruby in Supernatural, is killing it as Laurel). Meanwhile, there’s some undefined nonsense going on with Laurel and Merlyn; and Laurel and her dad have fights about The Right Way to Do Right. It’s all potentially interesting, but somehow the interesting moments are so disconnected that they turn into background noise for Ollie’s quest; and so far, Ollie’s quest is boring.

To compare: while Smallville, the last CW show to feature Green Arrow, was often goofy and sometimes entered downright “WTF?” territory, the same zaniness that allowed for total mis-steps like “Lana becomes a vampire for an episode” also allowed for stuff like Red-K Clark partying and knocking over banks in Metropolis, and Ollie leading a young Justice League into Lex Luthor’s evil labs and blowing them up; and seriously? That was kind of awesome. There were some really fun plots that only happened because the fictional world was wide open to stuff like Lois & Clark somehow getting sucked into the Phantom Zone via both simultaneously touching Clark’s Fortress crystal which had just been anonymously mailed to him. All in a day at the Kent farm, as it were.

In that universe, which features a different take on Green Arrow’s core personality (and one that I grew to appreciate despite his clunky introductory scenes), somehow Green Arrow targeting Bad Dudes and giving their money to charity managed to be both not boring and not the only thing we were supposed to be invested in. Ollie in Smallville had heart, a certain playfulness despite his tragic past, and, frankly, more firmness of purpose than Clark a lot of the time. Despite the Smallville-ian costume Arrow dons here, however, this character is pretty dour (too much firmness of purpose?), and while I get that he’s supposed to be suppressing his emotions for his mission, I miss the heart that the Smallville character had. Even when he was in pain and being a jackass about it, you felt for him and could understand why his friends would rally together to help him, as they did more than once. I don’t find that here.

I guess I’m having a bit of trouble collating how I feel about Arrow overall, because I’m torn between how much I really wanted to like it (especially given all of the good advance reviews) and my thoughts when watching it. Despite my criticisms above, there are some good pieces to this puzzle; but it seems like all of the pieces I might enjoy are jumbled in with each other in a way that makes it hard to enjoy any of them or put together a coherent picture. The good pieces include the aforementioned interactions between certain characters; Tommy Merlyn as the comic relief; the fun little nerd references to Andy Diggle, Mike Grell, and Deathstroke; Amell, who is gaining traction in a more nuanced portrayal of Oliver by episode two, and is plenty pretty for a CW show (it’s a requirement, dontchya know) and impressively fit (the salmon ladder exercise in the pilot is memorable); the flashbacks to the wreck (and Sarah’s whooshing out to sea, which was very well done); the trick arrows (I like how they’re modernized into technology arrows); and the Lance family (really I’d watch a whole show about the Lance family, as played by Blackthorne and Cassidy, and am thinking right now that maybe the network should have gone with that).

But there are also jarringly bad notes, like the over-the-top (and sometimes unnecessary) voiceovers; some not-stellar dialogue (“What…happened to you on that island?” “A lot.”); and the fact that Oliver Queen, Our Hero, cold killed a dude by straight-up breaking his neck (after presumably killing another dude by putting him in the way of about fifteen bullets to the chest). This happens in the pilot, when Ollie and Tommy are abducted so that some mysterious person (Ollie’s mom, as it turns out) can learn if his dad told him about all the Bad Guys in Star(ling) City. And I get that Ollie is in danger here, since the thugs Ollie’s mom hired are spraying bullets everywhere in a way that would have killed anyone who wasn’t trained to escape them (and since Ollie’s mom doesn’t know about his bad-assedness, that really makes me wonder about her); but still – he kills the guy in cold blood, just because the dude saw him do some sweet parkour and martial arts. I feel like this isn’t very heroic, you know? Also it’s uneven writing, because after that, he purposely doesn’t kill any more bad dudes (even the really bad ones specifically named in his book), instead “bringing them to justice.” Hm.

Taken all together, I would have liked to see a lot more of Ollie progressing from “traumatized guy with a purpose” to “full on superhero,” rather than the rushed bits we get here. Hell, I’d probably watch at least a half-season of just that. Instead of trying to pull every thread of his life together at once, I think if the show had focused in on Ollie, slowly drawing in and examining his interactions with others, I might already have become more invested. I also think that if they threw some challenges in Ollie’s quest path, instead of making it seem like each week he’ll just knock another name off of his list, no problem, I’d be more eager to watch.

As it is, the flashbacks have been interesting, the nerd references are fun, and there have been some snippets of good character interaction. What will keep me watching (for a few more episodes at least) is mainly my appreciation for seeing any adaptation of a superhero to a major network show; my love of the nerdy bits they throw in here and there; my appreciation of The Pretty (hey, Amell’s abs and chiseled looks are impressive); my interest in the Lance family; and my hope that the show is going to jump to a more surprising trajectory than it’s on now, and hopefully get better.

…So I guess I’ll keep watching and see how Arrow does next week, and until then, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis? Really?

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Gets Mad, For A Change

Emily S. Whitten: NYCC – The Good, The Bad, and The Slightly Sad

Columns
October 16, 2012

The New York Comic Con has come and gone like a whirlwind, leaving me, as always, gasping for breath (and craving a week of sleep) as I recover from the huge crushes of people, hectic dashes to see friends or get places on time, and general excitement. No con is perfect but I am pretty fond of NYCC, in part because the sheer size of it means every moment can be filled with something fun (if you have the energy and aren’t afraid of crowds) and in part because I love visiting New York City. Even if you’re in town for the con, it’s not a bad idea to leave the Javits Center at least once or twice to experience a bit of the rest of New York.

In keeping with the spirit of what my brain feels like after three to four days of non-stop excitement and unable to remember in what order anything happened and/or to form coherent sentences, I feel like it’s proper to talk about the highs and lows of my NYCC/NYC experience in a randomly ordered bullet-point list. Ready? Let’s go!

Highs

• Terry Pratchett is in town! Terry was here to promote his newest novel, a non-Discworld book called [[[Dodger]]], and it was, as always, delightful to see him. While he was at NYCC, for me the high was not his NYCC appearance (we’ll get to that in a second!) but his appearance at the Barnes & Noble in nearby Union Square. Despite a pretty full house, the store was so quiet you could hear a pin drop (or Terry and his business manager Rob bantering with each other on stage) as everyone listened to an excerpt from the book and a fun Q&A.

We learned that Dodger (which came out in the US on September 25^th, so you can go get it now!), is a young adult book in which, among other things, Charles Dickens meets the boy who will inspire him to write about The Artful Dodger. Terry and Rob talked about researching the history of Victorian London, including the fact that the streets of London at that time were so terrifyingly bad that “they made Gangs of New York look like kindergarten.” They also talked about locating the oldest gentlemen’s outfitters in London, and discovering that the shop had not only provided Sir Robert Peel with his personal clothing, but also designed the original police uniforms – a fact which made its way into the story. From the excerpt and talk, the book (which I have but have not yet read!) sounds great.

Other information shared with the crowd is that Terry fully intends that there be a sequel to Dodger; that he has been working on the second Long Earth book with co-author Stephen Baxter; and that (as some may have heard already) he has formed a production company with business manager Rob Wilkins, Managing Director and producer Rod Brown, and daughter and fellow writer Rhianna Pratchett. Upcoming projects include The Watch series (a 13 episode series described in a nutshell as “CSI: Ankh-Morpork”) and the Good Omens miniseries, along with more upcoming Discworld adaptations. Yay!

• Happening upon awesomeness while randomly wandering the show floor. This included running into and geeking out about the con with the super-nice Dan Slott, Amazing Spider-man writer; walking through the DC booth at just the right time to snap a picture of Stephen Amell and the rest of the Arrow cast and crew (though sadly I did not have a signing ticket); discovering the terrifyingly lifelike (and life-sized) Chris Hemsworth Thor at the Midtown Comics booth (a Madame Tussaud’s figure); and spotting and snagging the last signed copy of The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon at the Abrams ComicArts booth (which I’d been meaning to pick up after reading a great review and seeing some of the beautiful art).

• Joe Kelly cheerfully signing his way through half of my Joe Kelly Deadpool issues. For some reason, at the last con where I saw Joe, I’d only brought along half of the run for him to sign (well, okay, I know the reason – those books get heavy; or, as Joe said, “you’re basically carrying around a block of wood”). So this time I brought the other half, and had a great time chatting with Joe as he signed and signed. Not only is Joe tied with Fabian Nicieza as my all-time favorite Deadpool writer, but he’s also done a lot of awesome things since then, so it was great to catch up with him at the Man of Action booth (and he mentioned that Deadpool appears in his Ultimate Spider-Man animated series, which I did not know. Ooh!).

• Attending the fantastic book launch for Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s newest anthology, After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia. Like I said, it’s nice to get out in NYC a little bit even at con-time, so when I heard that Ellen was having a book launch on Thursday, I had to pull myself away from the show floor and go. The event, at Books of Wonder, was great, with about nine of the authors reading from or discussing their stories, and a signing afterwards. After includes stories from a host of previously published authors, including Gregory Maguire, who also wrote Wicked, so I picked that up for him to sign as well. The stories sound great and have been getting excellent reviews, so I’m looking forward to reading my copy (which now features a sad-looking “dystopian flower” as drawn by author N.K. Jemisin at my request, and further graffiti’d by Genevieve Valentine).

• Snagging some con merch and freebies, including two adorable new t-shirts (one of which is a sad-looking hedgehog holding a “free hugs” sign, and how can you possibly not love that?), and the Cable/Deadpool Heroclix figure, which I hadn’t been able to find for anything under $25 and got for $3 at the con. Score! I also got several ARCs and a free Phantom Tollbooth poster – and I love that book. Yay!

• The joys of Artist Alley. Artist Alley is really my favorite part of any con, and I rarely manage to spend as much time there as I would like. I had a lot of fun while I was there this year, though, catching up with friends, chatting with the ever-amusing Bill Willingham; finally meeting Ed McGuinness (a favorite Deadpool artist who had not been at any of the cons I’ve previously attended, but was happy to be at this one and mentioned he’d love to get back on the Deadpool book. I approve of this idea!); and talking with V for Vendetta co-creator David Lloyd about his newest project, Aces Weekly (check out the ComicMix review here). Aces Weekly is “an exclusively digital comic art magazine which features some of the world’s finest sequential art creators” from all over the world, and sounds really interesting. It just launched at the beginning of October, so it’s easy to check it out now and catch up on the first couple of issues. David also kindly drew me a V sketch, which made me ever so happy. I also had fun hanging out with Reilly Brown, particularly since I was actually costuming as his and Kurt Christenson’s character the Ice Queen from their fantastic digital comic Power Play (available on ComiXology – check it out!) on Friday. Another character from the comic, Gowanus Pete, mysteriously showed up to be in a picture with me (who was that man behind the mask?), which was pretty fun as well.

• Attending cool panels like the Marvel prose novels panel, in which Axel Alonso, Stuart Moore, Peter David, Alisa Kwitney, and Marie Javins talked with moderator James Viscardi and the audience about the popular storylines they are adapting as almost a hybrid of the comics and movie worlds. I really liked the Civil War adaptation by Stuart Moore, and am super-excited about the upcoming ones, which include “New Avengers: Breakout” (Alisa Kwitney), “Astonishing X-Men: Gifted” (Peter David), and “Iron Man: Extremis” (Marie Javins). Alisa talked about her research into things like how the Helicarrier actually works and how to make an impossible feat of archery seem plausible, also noting that one change she’s made from the comics is that in the prose timeline, Hawkeye is still alive and appearing in the story. Peter talked about his use of Kitty Pryde as a means of sharing new information with the reader, and how through this she really became the heart of the story and his favorite character to write. Marie noted that, like the movie storyline, in her novel Iron Man’s identity will be public, and that she’s having fun trying to channel “Warren Ellis mixed with Robert Downey Jr.” for her work, which she finds “very funny and very disturbing.”

Lows

• The placement of Terry Pratchett’s NYCC panel. Don’t get me wrong – Terry and Rob were as entertaining as always, and I was delighted to see them. But for the first time in my experience, NYCC committed a major error in planning when they stuck the best-selling adult fiction author in the UK in a giant echo-y hallway next to a music stage (which started playing loud music half-way through) for his event. I can’t even imagine what they were thinking, and can only assume it was done in complete ignorance by someone who has mysteriously never heard of Terry and couldn’t be bothered to look up whether his panel was likely to be popular or anything else about him. Even if they didn’t realize that Terry’s Alzheimer’s necessitates that he have a lavaliere microphone rather than a hand-held, or that he often speaks rather softly and so a loud hall is not the best venue for him, such placement is unforgiveable, and I hope NYCC never makes such an asinine mistake again. Honestly, I doubt they’ll get a chance, since I’m sure nobody presenting on this stage would have been happy to be put there or want to come back. Also, I will note that the seating of that stage looked to be similar to the prose novel panel seating, which was in a nice quiet room and about 2/3 full. Terry’s panel, on the other hand, was overflowing with people sitting and standing in the back, straining to hear, some of whom, I am sure, had not had an opportunity to see him before and were forced to miss out on part of what is a wonderful experience when it can be heard. For shame, NYCC!

• The broken escalators and bottlenecks. I know there’s only so much one can do when working with a set layout, but due to broken escalators, the wait to get from one floor to the next, particularly on Sunday, was claustrophobic and glacially slow. Also, the placement of the TMNT tunnel display, I am told, created a huge bottleneck and traffic jam. Very frustrating.

• The lack of cell service. It’s become a known fact and common complaint around the Javits Center that the cell service from location to location is spotty and unpredictable. It makes it almost impossible to meet up with friends and coordinate with people, even if you try to do so before going inside. Lousy cell service caused me to miss at least two or three friends I’d have liked to see, and almost made me entirely miss seeing a good friend who miraculously found me after I’d unsuccessfully looked for him for two days in a row (and had my calls not go through to his phone). The Javits is a big and popular convention center; they should look into improving this service ASAP.

• Con funk OMG. Seriously, people. Deodorant. Showers. Perfume or cologne or a constant spray bath, whatever it takes. Please, stop stinking up the con and causing me to accidentally inhale all of your nasty B.O. when I take a breath. I’d really, really appreciate it.

Well! Despite the few low points (of which the placement of the Pratchett panel was the most egregious), I had a great time at the con, and am already looking forward to next year’s. I do have a little request, though – my camera memory card is giving me error messages, and so, tragically, I may have lost 2/3 of my photos from the con (which would make me soooo sad). If you did happen to see me and take a picture, and are reading this, please feel free to send any photos to emily@comicmix.com. Thanks!!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis’s Escape From France!

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold’s Escape From New York!

Emily S. Whitten: Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, and Awards Aplenty

Columns
October 9, 2012

Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon have numerous things in common. They’re both fantastic writers; they’ve both written for (and about) comics; they’ve both won Hugos, Nebulas, and a slew of other impressive awards; they’ve both penned Sherlockian-style tales; they’ve both had novels adapted for the big screen; and they both have great hair.* Another thing they have in common is that last weekend they were both at George Mason University in Virginia, receiving awards at the annual Fall for the Book festival. I was fortunate enough to attend both ceremonies.

Both evenings started out with a nice VIP reception in which ticket-holders could mix and mingle and chat with the authors while having a drink and some hors d’oeuvres. Both authors signed books and made it a point to try to have a personal word or chat with as many attending fans as possible, and everyone had a great time.

On Friday, Neil Gaiman was on hand to accept The Mason Award, presented to authors who have made extraordinary contributions to bringing literature to a wide reading public. Joining the impressive ranks of past winners Dave Eggers, Jonathan Letham, Chinua Achebe, Sherman Alexie, Greg Mortenson, and Stephen King, Neil took the stage in front of 1,800 enthusiastic fans prior to the award presentation to read from a couple of his newest works and to answer questions.

His first reading was a selection from his just-now-this-very-second finished new adult novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which will be published “sometime next year” (possibly July-ish). The intriguing snippet of story we heard centered around a seven-year-old boy and began with an ominously sinister morning, in which said boy and his father have their ordinary breakfast routine interrupted by the discovery that the family car is mysteriously not in the driveway where it ought to be, but instead down at the end of a nearby lane. A death and the introduction of an odd family with three generations of women who clearly know things quickly follows…”and then it gets weird,” says Neil. From what I heard, I don’t doubt it, nor do I doubt his word when he says he didn’t start out to write a scary book, but now thinks this is the scariest thing he’s ever written. Despite my propensity for needing to hide under the covers while reading scary stories, I can’t wait to read more.

Neil followed the reading by answering a number of audience questions with his customary slightly mischievous sense of humor, including the question of “Why?” to which he answered, “Why not?” Why not, indeed. More substantive information we gleaned included that the books he enjoys writing the most are those with the “huge highs and terrible lows” in which he gets to “stomp around and phone my agent to go, ‘Why do you let me do this?? I could have been a gardener!’“ (To which she replies, “No you couldn’t. Just write the book.” It’s good to have a sensible agent.) In further discussing writing, Neil’s extremely complicated advice to those who want to be writers was to “Sit down. Start. Write. Keep writing.” However, he then admitted that if you truly want to become a real writer, you will receive a postcard in the mail, which you must then burn with a black match at midnight, and then there will be a knock on the door, and he and all of the other Mason Award winners will arrive wearing robes, and surround you, and then they will say: “Now you learn.” And then you will be a real writer.

I am expecting my postcard any day now.

In little known facts, Neil shared something he wasn’t sure he’d ever mentioned before, which is that in American Gods, the farm with an ash tree which is an hour south of Blackburg is based on an old decaying family farm belonging to Tori Amos, which he visited with her years ago and decided to adapt for the book. He also shared that his writing gazebo, which he’s mentioned several times on his journal, was built for him by some Renaissance Faire friends (and that writers should never be let near tools because they wouldn’t know what to do with them). Neil declared that the gazebo was perfect except for the mice – who nibbled on the drafts of The Doctor’s Wife script which he’d planned to send to the Library of Congress! I’m usually a big fan of small furry creatures, but in this case: for shame, tiny cute rodents!

Neil finished his talk by reading an unpublished spooky short story called “Click Clack, The Rattle Bag,” prefacing it by sharing his love of the spooky month we’ve entered. “We are getting into what Ray Bradbury called ‘The October Country,’” he said, “that one time of year when I can look around at all the shop windows and see the kinds of things I like, and go, ‘Oh gosh! Giant spiders and dead things! How cool is this??’” His love of scary things well noted, he then proceeded to scare the wits out of all of us with the new story. Thanks, Neil.

As always, it was a delight to listen to Neil, and I’m looking forward to his upcoming works, which include children’s’ books Chu’s Day and Fortunately, The Milk (which will feature art by comics artist Skottie Young ); the adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane; and his new Sandman story.

Moving on to Sunday, Michael Chabon was awarded The Fairfax Prize, which honors outstanding writers for their literary achievements and has previously been awarded to Tobias Wolff, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Mitch Albom, Michael Cunningham, E.L. Doctorow, Ann Patchett, and Amy Tan. Prior to accepting the award, Michael, an amazing wordsmith and storyteller in person as in his prose, took the stage to answer questions from a very tough interviewer: himself.

In discussing his writing, Michael asked Michael, “What’s up with all the similes?” …and then answered his own question using three similes; before admitting that really, it’s just “something in the wiring” that causes him to see likeness in two unlike things and include it in his works. He also gave several answers to the question of where he gets his ideas: 1) “I have no idea!” 2) “The book just appears in my brain, whole and inexplicable.” and 3) (the most truthful one) “Ideas are the easiest; swarming, ubiquitous, chronic. The hard part is sticking with the ideas when they start to lose their luster.”

In discussing his opinion of the value of MFA programs, Michael said that the MFA program he was a part of “made a man out of me,” by giving him a seriousness of purpose, inspired in part by observing all of the hard-working women in the program and their resolute determination to take advantage of the opportunity that feminism had brought with it. The MFA program taught Michael the discipline of actually sitting in his chair for long periods of time, typing and re-typing and editing and re-editing his work. It also taught him much about the craft of writing, including having to ask himself a hard question after a critique of his first, very character-intensive story by his advisor, i.e. “How could I have forgotten to tell a goddamned story??”

In telling a story, Michael recommended that even if pulling from personal experience, one can’t just record each thing that has happened, as real life tends to have pockets of tedium throughout. Instead, “you need to edit your life, and shape it; but most of all, you need to lie – to compress people, leave out events, and thus make things more interesting.” He also shared that his favorite characters to write are “the assholes – the ones who’d have ready comebacks and fun dialogue,” such as Inspector Dick of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.

Despite his enjoyment in writing the dickish characters in his novels, Michael is a very nice guy who looks at readers as friends to share with. And he does want to share with as many people as possible, stating his desire to “produce popular art, which is unreservedly and unmistakably both.” Being this year’s recipient of The Fairfax Prize speaks to his success in achieving this goal.

It was a real pleasure to hear Michael speak, and I am looking forward to reading his newest novel, Telegraph Avenue, which was published in July of this year and is now sitting on my bookshelf in hopeful anticipation of my having a free moment or two sometime soon.

That’s all the news from me this week, but I’m off to New York Comic Con tomorrow, so there’s sure to be more coming up!

Feel free to say hi if you see me in New York, and until next time, Servo Lectio!

* Oh yes, and there is also this.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Doesn’t See London, But He Does See France

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Gold… Mike Gold. And Doctor Know.

Emily S. Whitten, In Conversation with Dean Haspiel

Columns
October 2, 2012

Dean Haspiel strikes me as a creator who’s constantly growing. He’s an artist, he’s a writer, he’s won an Emmy for TV design work, and in the last year he’s started up a new project, Trip City, a “Brooklyn-filtered literary arts salon” with an eclectic mix of comics, stories, realism, sci-fi, and more. Now, don’t get me wrong – I obviously love superhero comics, and the people who create them, but I also love creators who can and do cross genres and try new things. Dean is clearly one of these.

While Dean is perhaps best known for his work with Harvey Pekar (e. g. American Splendor and The Quitter) and for his “last romantic anti-hero” Billy Dogma, his current project that’s caught my attention is Trip City, via the sample booklet Dean shared with me at Baltimore Comic Con. While there’s no denying I am hooked on the Internet and social media, I am admittedly also one of those people who still generally prefers reading a paper book when it comes to fiction and creative works; which means that having a paper selection of Trip City’s offerings to lure me to the content on the web is a smooth (and effective) move.

The booklet is a combination of short stories and comics from a variety of creators, and runs the gamut from tales of relationship heartbreak or zombie science to a whimsical “missed connection” ad. It’s definitely a “something for everyone” kind of collection, and while not every selection may strike every reader’s fancy, they’re all quality work (and I, personally, enjoyed them). The best part, of course, is that if you want to read more, you can easily hop over to the site, which hosts a large and varied collection of content, as well as a regular podcast [http://welcometotripcity.com/category/podcast/]. I’m definitely going to spend some time over there, I can tell.

Another cool thing about Dean is that he’s a natural storyteller and born conversationalist. This made for a fun interview when I chatted with him at Baltimore Comic Con. Read on to hear what he had to say!

Emily: Walt Simonson’s work on Thor was just honored at the Harvey Awards. I know you’ve worked with Walt. Tell me about working with him; and did you have some work in the award-winning collection?

Dean: In 1985, I was a senior in high school, at what was Music and Art, which got married to Art and Design and became LaGuardia High School in Manhattan; so I was in the first graduating class of LaGuardia High School. I had befriended Larry O’Neil, Denny O’Neil’s son, who was in school with me, and he would get wind from his father of when some of the local artists might need assistance. Larry went on to become a filmmaker; but at one point during our initial friendship he wanted to be a cartoonist, and he got a gig working for Howard Chaykin on American Flagg! Howard Chaykin shared a studio called Upstart Studios with Walter Simonson. At one point Frank Miller was in that studio, and Jim Starlin…it was this amazing studio. The studio at the time was Howard, Walter and Jim Sherman.

Down the hall, Bill Sienkiewicz set up a studio with Denys Cowan, and Michael Davis (fellow ComicMix columnist!), who was part of creating Milestone Media. Bill Sienkiewicz was looking for an assistant, and I got that gig. So I would work with Bill, and sometimes he wouldn’t be there but I’d come in anyway; so then I’d work in Upstart with those guys, until eventually I became a second assistant for Howard Chaykin. Larry and I both worked on his monthly book. While there, we got friendly with Walter, who would sometimes use me as an assistant as well, and if you know his run on Thor, at one point, Thor becomes a frog; which was so absurd that Walt was a little worried that it wouldn’t fly – but it totally flew. I remember that distinctly because I remember working on some of those stories. My artwork of that time would be more prevalent in Chaykin’s American Flagg!, because I actually drew the backgrounds with Larry on that book; but I did work with Walter.

The way Walter worked (and this was before Photoshop) was that he would do these amazing thumbnail layouts that he always wanted to try to keep the energy of, because when you initially draw something, that’s almost like the best version of that art; because after that you start to finesse it, and sometimes you can cripple it by overdrawing or over-rendering it, or tightening it up too much. And Walter’s style has a loosey-goosey kind of line and he does a beautiful thing with a crow quill pen and brush; so part of my job as his assistant was to take his thumbnail layouts, and use this machine called an Artograph to blow them up onto boards that he would then fully pencil or ink.

Knowing what he was trying to capture was actually harder to work on because you’re trying to be in his arm and his mind, and take his scribbles, and enlarge them onto the projector-sized paper; and I didn’t have the faculty for that. Not only was I not as good an artist as I hope I am today, but also you’re trying to draw like someone else, which is hard. And then of course he would mostly erase it and go on and do his own version. But it was very good training; and also I would fill in the blacks and erase pages and things like that.

But: yes, I did work on some of those famous Thors, and Walt is like a mentor to me. Because another thing that happens, when you work with guys like this for a year, is that it’s the best kind of school. It’s not like, “here’s how you draw a panel, or a page, or rule it” – you do it by example. You do it because you’re around people and you’re getting that energy, and you learn – that’s the only way really to learn these things. He and Howard Chaykin have been mentors to me since 1985. And he’s pulled pranks on me and stuff like that.

Emily: Oh, give us an example!

Dean: Here’s a famous prank. I kind of made a joke at the Harveys about the fact that some of the stuff I learned in their studio was about Warren Zevon and Van Morrison and the writing of Jim Thompson; and they’re the ones who introduced me to Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo. Because at the time I was like, “It’s 1985, I’m into hip hop; I’m into Prince, I’m listening to what kids listen to.” And in the studio they had this record player, and they were always playing Van Morrison and Warren Zevon and this kind of rockabilly music, and I was like, “I don’t want to listen to this stuff, whatever.” At the time, okay? Now I’m older, I can appreciate it. So they allowed me and Larry to play one record each, and I was way into Prince, so I brought in a 45 of “Little Red Corvette.” So once in awhile they’d allow us to play our song, to be democratic.

One day while working with Howard and Larry on American Flagg!, Howard encourages me, “Hey Dean, why don’t you play that song you like? Play your Prince song.” So I put it on, and it starts playing, and I go back to my seat and I’m drawing. Suddenly I hear Walter’s chair slam against the floor, and he gets up, and he’s huffing and puffing. He’s really upset; and he’s like, “I fucking hate this song, this is bullshit.” And I’m thinking, “Oh my God, what’s happening?? This was sanctioned, why am I not allowed to play it?” And then he goes over to the record player, and I look up at him, and I see this raging – he looked like a monster; and if you know Walt Simonson, he’s the nicest guy in comics ever. I didn’t know who this was, and I got so scared, I turned away. I hear him yelling again about how he hates the song, and he takes the record needle, and he scratches it across the entire song, and I’m just hearing this ripping sound, and I actually start to get sick, and he takes it in his hands, and crumples the vinyl, and I’m thinking, “I’m dead,” or it’s not happening; like I go into shock.

And Walt says, “Dean, I have something for you.” And I’m thinking, “I don’t want anything!” I don’t know what’s going to happen next. And he brings over his portfolio, and he pulls out a 12-inch version of “Little Red Corvette”! And at one point I’d looked at Larry O’Neil and Howard Chaykin, and their faces were pressed against their art tables, because they were trying to stifle laughter, but I didn’t know that at the time. I thought they were afraid and cowering as well. And then everyone starts laughing; and I’m having heart palpitations – I want to vomit; but the thing that was cool was that it made me feel like I was part of the gang. You pull a prank on someone like that, and it means they’re okay, they’ve been green lit in a way…But the collector in me is a little pissed off that that 45 got destroyed!

Emily: Hah! I bet. Now, you’ve also worked with Harvey Pekar; tell me about that.

Dean: It took me awhile to finally do something with him. I would send him samples, and I think he thought I was probably too mainstream, because he wouldn’t react. I actually wrote and drew a two-page comic about it, called The American Dilemma, which I published. It was basically about me sending him my artwork, and feeling like by the fact that he didn’t respond, I was going through a scenario of paranoia about how he was rejecting me; so I published that, to show I could create an auto-biographical story about me and my feelings. It was with other comics that are auto-bio, which I did with Josh Neufeld. It was called Keyhole, and again: nothing. So now I’m publishing things about him and he’s not responding to that either; and I was kind of getting a little pissed off, to be frank.

Then a couple of years later I get a phone call from a guy who I thought was pretending to be Harvey Pekar and pulling a prank on me (because now I’ve had pranks in my life thanks to Walt Simonson!). So he says, “Hey, do you want to do a one-page comic?” And I’m like, “Is this really Harvey Pekar?” I’m starting to question him and who he is. And he says, “Come on man, don’t you want to make some bread?” And I’m like, “Now he’s lying; this guy is a bad Pekar; talking in his lingo and stuff.” And finally he tells me to fuck off and hangs up the phone. And I’m thinking, “How is that a funny prank, if it ends like that? Where’s the prank part?” So I start realizing, “Holy crap, that was probably Harvey Pekar.” And this was before caller ID. So I called up Josh Neufeld, and first of all I thought he’d been the caller, but he says, “No man, what are you talking about?” and then I tell him what happened, and he’s like, “That was Harvey!” So I said, “…can I please get his phone number, and I’ll call him back?”

I call him back, get him on the phone and apologize, and he says to me, “What can I do to prove to you that I’m really me?” And I say, “Can you give me that job that you’re offering?” And he did, and it started this relationship. At one point, I had only done one- or five-page stories with him, and then I’d been an assistant to a film producer named Ted Hope, and I knew Ted was a comics fan, because I’d see a lot of his comics and I would file his comics at times. Ted had a couple of scripts, and one of them was a defunct American Splendor script. So it occurred to me; I’ve worked with Harvey; it would be great to make an American Splendor movie; and I suggested it to Ted, who said, “I would love to try to do that.” So I said “I’ll talk to Harvey and hook you guys up to have a phone conversation.” They did, and a year-and-a-half later, it won the Best Picture at the Sundance Film Festival.

Because of that, Harvey wanted to thank me by doing something more substantial together, and that’s where The Quitter arrived. I’d pitched it to Vertigo; they wanted to start branching out and doing more indie stuff and autobiographical. So we did The Quitter together; and then I brought American Splendor over, because it had been at Dark Horse for awhile, but it wasn’t doing well, or they couldn’t produce or market it right. It was always a hard comic to sell anyway; it’s a particular kind of franchise. It’s not superheroes, it’s about a grumpy guy writing about the mundane things in life; like how much of a fan base can you have? You can hear about it, but does that mean you went and bought it? It’s a Catch-22. So I got two miniseries’ at Vertigo of American Splendor, that became collections, and we did a couple of other little things, and then unfortunately he passed away. He was a great guy to work with. As much as he had his curmudgeonly persona, he was a sweetheart; a mensch. He always looked out for his artists, and he was just a great guy.

Emily: You’ve done a lot of really cool things. What are you working on now?

Dean: Recently I drew Godzilla Legends #5 for IDW. I just drew a Mars Attacks Christmas story for the Mars Attacks holiday special, coming out in October; I wrote and drew a 12-page story for that, which takes place in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I’m doing a couple of little things right now, and I’m also working on the second season of The Five-Dimensional Adventures of Dirk Davies, a webcomic with Ben McCool over at Shifty Look. Namco Bandai is working with different houses to produce these comics at Shifty Look. We worked with Cryptozoic; they also produced The Lookouts which Ben just did, which is a new comic.

I’ve been doing Trip City, where I’ve been curating and creating content; it’s a Brooklyn-filtered literary arts salon online. We also have these paper curated anthologies just to give people a taste of what is online. It’s prose, some comics, multimedia and a bunch of other stuff. I have other things I want to flex, other things I want to do; not just draw comics. I was recently at Yaddo, which is a writers’/artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs, NY, where I completed a feature-length screenplay, the first part of a novel, and a new comic book idea in 24 days.

I’ve been itching to do this stuff, and I had it in the back of my mind, so I went into the woods in a cabin, and did this and walked the dog. It’s the best thing – you should try it! I recommend it to anyone who can afford to do a retreat like that. I just did a print version of The Last Romantic Antihero, which is also up at Trip City; but believe it or not, even if you give it away online, some people will only read it if you put it in their hand or create a different kind of delivery system. So I’m testing the waters with that.

Emily: What do you think today are the most effective ways to reach people with new material?

Dean: I think using the DIY tools that have been given to us, like Twitter and Facebook, is good. We’re all still figuring out how to navigate that, and when is it too much, or not enough – how and when to use it. Figure out a destination point where you put your stuff up, where you can link to something that’s all yours. Also, be communal. You can’t just be me-me-me-me; because after awhile, people get bored of that and who cares? So share what you like, show up to the party. Be informed, be aware. Luckily, I like a lot of other things much more than what I do. I love other people’s stuff, and promote that; and I don’t waste my time hating stuff. I hate stuff; but I’m not going to publish and promote that I hate something. That’s a waste of time. I sometimes feel like the Internet is made for hate, and I’m like, no, no, no; use it for good. So that’s what I promote.

Emily: There are always people looking to break in, or for tips on what to do in the industry to get noticed. Things have changed a lot from year-to-year. What would you tell people today?

Dean: Use the Internet. If you’re not Alan Moore… Listen, no one’s standing in line knocking on my door; I’ve got to let people know what I’m doing. What’s great about putting even ten images up with your name and a contact is that it works as a 24-7, 365 resume. It’s working for you while you sleep. You may get someone knocking on your door from that. And as important as it is to have something up that shows off your wares, also show up to the party and be part of the community. Find your people. You’re not going to love everybody, you’re not going to like everybody, and not everybody’s going to like you; but find your people, truck with your gang, and luckily you can do it virtually. You can do it from your basement or home.

Emily: I’ve heard some artists say DeviantArt is a good place to showcase work; if you don’t have your own website, do you think that’s an effective place? What do you think is helpful?

Dean: This will show my age a little bit. I don’t have a DeviantArt and I don’t have a Tumblr; and I hear about Tumblr and DeviantArt all the time. If I’m hearing about it – and I hear some of my favorite artists do get a lot of work through their DeviantArt pages – then it sounds like it’s probably a good idea to have that. You don’t have to have your own website. You’re part of a community when you’re on DeviantArt and Tumblr, as with Facebook and Twitter. You can curate who you know, and keep a public presence so people can stumble upon you. The key, though, is to respond to other people’s work; comment; spark a dialogue. Yes, I understand that it’s another job sometimes; but if you’re trying to engender work and get people to know you, you’ve got to get to know other people. That’s the only way it works.

Emily: A sentiment I totally agree with. Thanks, Dean, for sharing some amazing stories and your outlook with us!

Everyone, go check out Dean’s work and the new content over at Trip City. And until next time, readers: Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Does Ralph Ellison

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Plays With Icons

Emily S. Whitten Talks With Reilly Brown

Columns
September 25, 2012

I’ve been a fan of Reilly Brown’s artwork since I first came across it in Marvel’s Cable & Deadpool, and have been following it off and on ever since. There are a lot of artists I like out there, but Reilly is consistently a favorite of mine – his characters’ expressions and the way his drawings capture the energy and emotion of whatever’s happening on the page really appeal to me. I also consider him among the pioneers of the digital comics medium. One of his current projects, Power Play, is a digital comic that was the first effective use of the medium that I had ever seen. To pull from my thoughts when I reviewed the Power Play preview in 2011:

“This is the kind of thing I geek out about, because it excites me to see the potential of the medium being explored to enhance the reading experience. In places it reminds me a bit of the Watchmen stop-animation type video comics they did around the time of the movie, only I never had the patience to watch all of those, since I’d read the book a million times already and they moved too slowly from one frame to the next. But having the ability to read at one’s own pace, and still get the animation-like effects now and again, is fantastic. Being able to see one or two panels at a time, zoomed in or close up, is great. I love the panning from one part of a panel to another, and the fading from full color to monochrome for effect. Having the direction of the screen shifts follow the action is cool; or having the shifts follow the narrative and captions. Also I like how Reilly has the characters in similar poses in a couple of frames, but shifting from one frame to the next gives you the action of a head turn or tilt like in animation.

This is truly the future of how digital comics should be read. I definitely wish I had an iPad so I could experience it in a bigger window, but with only a smartphone, this is hands-down the best way to see digital comics on a hand-held device. For comparison, I downloaded DC Comics New 52 #1 preview and tried reading it on my Droid 2. Now, I know on a computer the usual format is fine; but on a smartphone? It’s fairly unreadable. All the zooming in and panning around necessary just to see one page is a total pain, and not something I have the patience (or eyesight) for. The Power Play layout is infinitely better.”

Given Reilly’s dynamic art and his excellent use of the still-fairly-new digital comics medium, I always consider him one to watch. I’ve also been telling him since something like 2009 that I was going to sit down and interview him one of these days. Finally, at this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con, we made it happen. So here we go!

Emily: So, Reilly, what’s your favorite project that you’ve ever done?

Reilly: My favorite project that I’ve ever worked on is Power Play. I just love doing any creator-owned stuff, especially when I get to sit down and make my own character designs. And not having to feel like the shadows of all of the other decades of awesome artists that have worked on a project before me are looming over me is really freeing. It’s also fun to play around with the digital media and things like that.

Emily: Tell me, what was the genesis of Power Play?

Reilly: It started with me and Kurt Christenson, the writer; since we were both in the same studio at the time, and we’ve been friends for years, one day I said, “You know what, why don’t we do a project together?” and he was like, “Yeah, man, I’d be into it.”

When it started out, we just wanted to do something small, just a quick little simple thing; but as we were spitballing ideas, it turned into this idea that we realized could be really cool if we tried to turn it into something big. The basic idea is that I really wanted to do a story that is based in New York and really uses New York, the real city, as a backdrop. Because so many comics take place in the city but “New York” is just generic buildings in the background or whatever. When I’m walking around the streets, I just see so many cool things – like architectural things, or construction things, or just random things on the street, that are totally normal, but I don’t always think about them when I’m just sitting at my drawing table. And so many of the comics writers don’t even live in New York, so – you know, how do you really make use of a place if you’re not there? I wanted to incorporate New York into a comic.

Emily: How long have you been in New York?

Reilly: I grew up in New Jersey, so I’m right across the river, and I went to school in Virginia but then I moved back after I graduated. So around January 2005 I moved back to New Jersey, with a studio in New York; and I just really wanted to do a story where the writer and I walk around town and plot things out as we go, and just, say, point to a thing, and say, “Okay, the character could jump from that building to that lamppost; and then take a photo reference while we’re there – I actually have photos of most of the backgrounds.

Emily: I didn’t know you actually walk around to plot the stories. That’s pretty cool. So tell me, what’s your favorite hangout or place to go in NYC?

Reilly: There are so many good places to hang out, and it changes all the time. Crocodile Lounge is always a stand-by for me, to go play some skee-ball; and you get a free pizza with every beer. Actually, that’s the bar they go to in the first issue of Power Play; where Mac turns into beer. And…I don’t know, there are too many awesome places to choose from — and half the time, the place is not going to be there in six months.

Emily: That’s true. So who’s you’re favorite character from Power Play, and how does he or she relate to the city?

Reilly: That’s a hard one. I love Gowanus Pete, and the Ice Queen, and Mac…all of the characters are so much fun to draw, and I just feel so close to them.

Emily: Who was the first one you came up with?

Reilly: It was probably either Mac or Gowanus Pete… or the Ice Queen. The studio’s right on the Gowanus Canal, and I remember Kurt and I were having a conversation trying to come up with different characters and their powers as we were leaving the studio and walking to get some lunch. I wanted all of the characters to have kind of goofy origins based on things or places in the city, and just take it to a ridiculous degree; so we were around the Gowanus Canal, which is the nastiest body of water in the country, I mean, it’s horrible. It’s like, multicolored; it’s really just a run-off ditch for a bunch of different waste dumps and things, seriously – look it up. Every now and then you’ll see them testing it to see the different acidity levels and different bacterias and diseases and things people find in there, like they’ll find a dead shark in there, or something like that, or a tiger skull; weird things. So the joke I’ve always had was that if anyone fell in there, they would be horribly mutated – so Kurt and I were walking around talking about different characters and different ideas and powers or personalities, and as we were crossing the Gowanus, there was a really big poster or mural or painting or whatever of the silhouette of an octopus, and Kurt looked at it and said, “Well that’s a character,” and I was like, “Yeah, that’s Gowanus Pete right there.”

Emily: That’s great. You’ve done a really cool digital thing with Power Play – tell me about your digital process and how that all happened; and what your thoughts are on digital comics.

Reilly: The thing that really drove me to do a digital comic was pretty much that no one else was doing it. I saw an area that seemed ripe for comics and for comic artists to play around with, and nobody else seemed to be jumping on it. There are a couple of little webcomics here and there that do stuff; but none that really stood out or that did it for a long-term thing.

Emily: I think we should be making a distinction here; because Marvel and DC and all are doing digital comics, in the sense of putting their stationary paper comics online to be viewed with digital readers; but what I’m thinking of is the way that you’ve manipulated the panels and images with Power Play. So that’s what we’re talking about here.

Reilly: Right; well ComiXology came out, and they were translating all of these Marvel and DC comics, so the typical, mainstream, superhero comics were finding this new digital home through their application. And I was looking at this, thinking, “This is a really cool thing; somebody is going to see this and start making comics designed specifically for ComiXology, or this type of digital format, and they’re going to do it in a way that uses the new digital storytelling techniques.

The thing is, ComiXology did a great job of translating the comic to the iPad, and there are other companies that have tried doing that, but they’ve seemed to trip over the fact that the comics page and the iPad screen, or even the computer screen, aren’t the same shape. Everybody else was stumbling over this, and you had to scroll, or everything was shrunk too small, or you had to zoom in yourself, or there’d be all sorts of problems with it; and ComiXology had found a pretty simple way around that, and it worked great, and it looked great. Yeah, there were a few hoops they had to jump through, but the way they solved those problems; like their guided view thing, you know, where they would actually zoom in on a part of an image that needed to be zoomed in on; and then they would zoom out for the rest of it; or it would pan from one thing to another, and fade from one thing to another, was great. And I thought, “Man, look at all of this stuff they’re pretty much doing by accident at this point; somebody’s going to come around and do this on purpose and it’s going to make an awesome comic.” But nobody was doing it, so then I thought, “Well maybe I could do it. Maybe I’ll be the guy to do that!”

So that’s why we started working on Power Play. I was talking about how we came up with the idea for Power Play; and one of the things we wanted to do was to take advantage of the new mediums. You know, one of the big problems in the entire economy right now is that young people don’t leave their houses or spend money. They’re just on Facebook, downloading things for free, and sharing with their friends, and it’s at the point where if something is not on Facebook, nobody’s going to see it, or at least not as many people as should see it. So we said, “Whatever we do, we want to get it in front of as many people as possible, so let’s come up with a way of doing a really great thing that we can link through Facebook, and everyone can share it; and that takes advantage of that. “ And ComiXology was developed so perfectly for that. So we jumped on that.

Emily: I still point to your comic to show people how this can work. I know there may be a few now, but it’s still not as big as I would expect.

Reilly: You’re right; I’m surprised more people haven’t jumped on it. There are a few others that were first adopters like me, like Alex de Campi and Christine Larsen (Valentine). They actually beat me to the punch; we were already working on Power Play when I saw that come out, and I was like, “Aw, crap, we’re not the first anymore! We’ve really gotta get this thing going!” There’s also David Gallaher and Steve Ellis’s Box 13, which ComiXology actually hired them to make; so it’s really made for their app. And reading that, you really see how their [Steve & Dave’s] thought process is developing on how to use it. How they are learning. At first, it was just as simple as, let’s just make the panels the size or shape of a screen. But then they started seeing more potential. I was in the same building – Steve Ellis’s art studio was just down the hall from mine – so I was working on Power Play while they were working on that, so we’d bounce ideas off of each other. So it was cool to see how some of that stuff ended up playing in their comic.

Most recently, Marvel had their Infinite Comics, which I was happy to be a part of. They have the big AvX [Avengers vs. X-Men] story, and I’d been talking about what I’ve been doing with Power Play to Marvel for awhile, like, “Let me do one of these for you!” I talked to all the editors… Nick Lowe was the one who was really spearheading it over there; or at least when I was talking to them Nick Lowe and Jordan White were the editors that I worked with on that. They’re awesome for seeing that potential and taking a risk, because, you know, Marvel doesn’t often do stuff like that, where they don’t know how it will turn out; and it’s pretty impressive to see a big company like that try to take a risk on something that’s so new. But at the same time I was doing this, Mark Waid was starting his Thrillbent thing, so he was talking all about it. So he wrote the three AvX Infinite installments, and I drew the third one; which was cool. And that was all ComiXology stuff, and it’s all just like how Power Play was done.

Emily: That’s fantastic. I’ll have to look that up, because I haven’t seen it yet. So now, what does the future hold for you?

Reilly: Well I’m not exclusive with Marvel, but I’m currently working on some Scarlet Spider stuff, and we’ll see what happens from there. I’ve still got Power Play going on, and I’ve got some other side projects… I have so many things going on right now!

Emily: It sounds like it! Well Reilly, thanks so much for talking with us , and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next!

…And until then, ComicMix readers, remember to tune in next Tuesday for my interview with Dean Haspiel, and Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Why Does Michael Davis Read Comics?

WEDNESDAY: Mike Gold Attacks Mars Attacks!

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part III – Battlestar Galactica, or On Your Feet, Nuggets!

Columns
September 18, 2012

One great thing about Dragon*Con is that sometimes it inspires me to check out new shows or genre fiction, and sometimes it inspires me to re-visit a past favorite. After this year’s Battlestar Galactica panel I had a super-cravi ng to go back and watch the show again; thanks to Netflix I’ve been re-living the intensity that is BSG.

What I love about the show, as someone pointed out in the panel (BSG – Bright Shiny Futures Are Overrated) is that it uses the harsh situation that the few remaining members of the human race find themselves in to explore numerous complex themes that resonate with real world conflicts and historical events. Along with plenty of action and drama, it’s an intellectual show that challenges viewers to think about the choices being made, and highlights the complexity and imperfections of the main characters as they constantly make difficult decisions that will affect the whole of humanity. It’s also sometimes exceedingly grim – so much so that the first time I was watching it, I found that I had to take a break for awhile about half-way through the series and go watch something a little less bleak. But that is a testament to the way the show tries to confront the cruel realities that must be faced in times of war; and is balanced by the way it also celebrates the kindness and heroism that can be drawn out by the same intense situations.

Another thing that’s great about the series is that since it appears at first to be set in a far, far distant (though not technologically unrecognizable) future, it’s aged well. Also, in tune with the recurring theme that “all of this has happened before; and all of this will happen again,” the stories and interactions follow cycles of our own human interactions that we can identify with, so they do not seem not dated, and the themes are still relevant. If you haven’t seen it, I definitely recommend giving it a try. Even if you have, you may not have known (as I didn’t, the first time I watched) about the tie-in material like Razor and the webseries, so you could always check those out as well. In the meantime, here are a few words from some of the stars of the show, who I got to talk to while at Dragon*Con (although I sadly missed getting to chat with Katee Sackhoff).

While discussing film projects, James Callis (a.k.a. Dr. Gaius Baltar, who looks and sounds uncannily similar to his character in person, but is thankfully much nicer) shared with me the interesting tidbit that his favorite TV or film character – not one he wants to play, per se, but one he loves – is Frank-n-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (as played by Tim Curry). I can’t deny that he’s a fascinating character! And Callis’ favorite part of the con? “Meeting all of you guys.”

Jamie Bamber (a.k.a. Captain Lee “Apollo” Adama), who was wearing a fantastic “My Other Ride is a Viper” shirt, told me he’s currently involved in a new series based on Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s novel Monday Mornings (also starring Ving Rhames and Alfred Molina). The show will be produced by Gupta and David E. Kelley and is centered around the Monday morning morbidity meetings at a Portland hospital, where the doctors reflect on what went wrong the previous week. Bamber says, “I’ve seen the pilot, and it’s really the best start to something that I’ve ever done.” High praise, considering how awesome Battlestar Galactica was! And Bamber’s favorite part of the con is “catching up with old friends, like the Battlestar Galactica group and everyone.”

Michael Trucco (a.k.a. Sam Anders), who is super tall in person, let me know that next on his agenda is at least six episodes of season eight of How I Met Your Mother… “and I can say that my character takes a turn that’s… ‘ironically comical.’“ As for what he loves about Dragon*Con, that’s pretty much everything, i.e. “the panels and the Walk of Fame, as well as the interactions with the fans.”

Richard Hatch, (a.k.a. Tom Zarek, and also Captain Apollo on the original 1978/80 series) and I chatted about a number of upcoming events in his life, including (alert, alert!) a Battlestar Galactica con from May 23-26, 2013 in Houston, Texas, with actors from both the original series and the new series. And we just re-launched battlestargalactica.com, which is sort of like a Facebook for fans.” Also he recommends fans check out whothefrak.com. “We’re developing it into a reality show with me and some industry friends. I’m also hosting a cruise to the Mediterranean next year, and will be teaching my seminars and everything during the cruise.”

There’s also an album out called “From Apollo to Tom Zarek: The Battlestar Galactica Memoirs,” regarding his career in both of the series’.”And I’m also working on a big epic sci-fi series that’s in development called The Great War of Magellan, for which we are developing a game and a novel.” Whew! Busy times in the life of Richard Hatch! But he still has time for the fans, and at Dragon*Con, says “I love the Battlestar party and the steampunk ball and the panels.”

Thanks to the stars of BSG for their time and awesomeness! And that’s it it for this year’s Dragon*Con experience, but stay tuned, because Baltimore Comic Con, which is next up, was just as fun!

Until next week, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis Goes Back To High School

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold and Archie’s Sex Change

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part II, or I Know What I Did This Summer!

Columns
September 11, 2012

Last week, I wrote about the awesome folks of Warehouse 13, whom I was lucky enough to meet after attending their panel at Dragon*Con. But they weren’t the only fantastic people at the con, oh no. In fact, Dragon*Con is always so packed with amazing guests that I never get to see or meet all of them, and am left lamenting the fact that I missed Dean Cain’s panel or never got to say hi to Jewel Staite or Sean Maher in the Walk of Fame, despite running around from hotel to hotel like a hyperactive kid in a candy store. But I did get to see and meet a lot of cool folks, and that’s what I’m here to share, so here we go!

The first event I got to was a fantastic Lord of the Rings panel, featuring Billy Boyd (Pippin), Craig Parker (Haldir), and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli). It was a blast. The first thing I have to say about it is very shallow but true: these guys have the most delightful accents! I think I could listen to Scottish, Kiwi, and Welsh actors answer questions all day. And oh, yeah, the questions themselves were pretty good too. I think my favorite bit was when Craig invited a fairly young boy named Orion who was slightly hyperventilating up onto the stage to ask his question (it’s cute when a kid’s that nervous. Adults…well, not so much). I heard through the grapevine later that this happenstance made the kid a minor celebrity at other panels, where people started looking for Orion. To which I say – only at Dragon*Con. I love that about Dragon*Con. My second favorite bit was hearing about how Billy used to read books while working at a bookbinder’s – by tearing out the pages he was finished with and tossing them away. Being an extreme book lover, I’d call that sacrilege, but…well, it does sound kind of fun. And then of course, John predicted that The Hobbit will be a game-changer and that we’re all in for a treat, so: yay!

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of asking Craig and John a couple of quick questions (missed Billy, sadly. Maybe next year?). Craig is delightfully easygoing, and John is effortlessly charming and has that amazing presence that I associate with really good stage actors. And even though he had a plane to catch, he still took the time to sit down for a few and give me his full attention, which speaks to the sort of person he is. Here’s what they had to say:

Craig Parker:

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Actually, I’m a total bum at the moment, because I’m in the process of moving to the States, so everything’s just… everywhere, and I’m not working on anything at the moment.” (Hopefully it won’t be that way for long. I’m sure we’d all love to see him in something again soon).

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

“I don’t know whether it’s the visuals…the overstimulation of seeing something incredible everywhere you look; or talking with all of the passionate people. It’s an incredibly engaging weekend.”

John Rhys-Davies:

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Projects are falling by the wayside all the time – you know, there were two pictures I really wanted to do recently, but they didn’t work out. But now I’m doing Golden Boots, which is a movie about a little boy who wants to play soccer, and that takes place in Detroit, Michigan. I’m also working on Behind the Mask, which takes place in the pre-continental U.S.; and I’ll be the villain. It has a bit of swash; a bit of buckle; a bit of murder…and unfortunately the bad guys don’t win. I’m going to be in the new Pinocchio, which is a mixture of animation and drama – and I’ll be playing the bad guy. And I’m hoping that Flying Tigers will be shot in China early next year.”

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

”Obviously the people – it’s the chance an actor gets to meet the people who’ve been keeping him employed for the past forty years. You get to talk to them, and know who they are. I cannot tell you how valuable that is. When you work in theater the audience is right there, telling you “You’re good; you’re bad; you stink.” In film, you can lose sight of your audience; and then you can lose sight of yourself and your own true proportion.”

Words of wisdom indeed. Next up we attended the Buffy & Angel Q&A, featuring J. August Richards (Gunn), Juliet Landau (Drusilla), and James Marsters (Spike). James Marsters challenged everyone to embarrass him (they tried but failed); J. August Richards shared his opinion of Gunn’s story arc from street-savvy vampire hunter to lawyer and back (he was happy with the lawyer arc, and with Gunn going back to his roots when the story needed it); and Juliet Landau spoke about her voice work as the Little Sisters in Bioshock (and how she landed the role thanks to her acting as Drusilla).

The panel was a ton of fun, and I got to check in with J. August Richards afterwards. When asked what he’d like to say about current or future projects, Jay told me that he has something he’s really excited about, but he can’t talk about it just yet. Therefore – check back here on ComicMix in a week or two, when I’ll be interviewing J. August Richards about his newest, as-yet-unannounced project! Yay!

When asked his favorite part of Dragon*Con, Jay replied:

“The people! What I love about Dragon*Con is that it’s one of the rare instances where you get to be around fifty thousand people who are completely non-judgmental.”

Word. At the Buffy panel, Juliet Landau mentioned a documentary she’d made that was airing Saturday, Take Flight: Gary Oldman Directs Chutzpah, and my friend and I love Gary Oldman, so we checked that out as well. I hadn’t heard of it before, but it turned out to be one of the surprise best parts of the weekend. The film is a behind-the-scenes documentary of Gary Oldman’s artistic process as he creates a music video for a Jewish rap group (yes, that really is a thing!), and it is fantastic. I was either smiling or laughing for pretty much the whole thing, because the rappers are funny, and Gary Oldman in creative mode is a thing of joy and awesomeness, and Juliet & co. did an amazing job showing all of that. Juliet also did an excellent job in selecting the classical music that accompanies some parts of the film and really highlights the beauty of the more peaceful scenes.

When asked about what she’d learned in making the film, she replied, “Every set you’re on, you learn. One of the things about Gary on set – and all the best directors I’ve worked with, like Tim Burton and Joss Whedon, are like this – is that he is very focused on the work, but also on having fun. Everybody’s focused, but there really is a joy to be making stuff – that’s really palpable with Gary.” And it really is.

I got to chat with the extremely nice Juliet after the film, and she shared that the documentary is available for purchase on her website. I definitely recommend it, but fair warning: the song being filmed is pretty catchy, so if you watch it, I guarantee you’ll be singing, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send your best guy right over,” for at least half a day afterwards! Juliet also mentioned that her upcoming projects include The Bronx Bull (Raging Bull II), and Where the Road Runs Out. And her favorite part of Dragon*Con? “Meeting all the people!”

Also included in our mad convention dash was the Big Damn Heroes panel, with Adam Baldwin (Jayne), Jewel Staite (Kaylee), and Sean Maher (Simon) of Firefly and Serenity. Those three are like a comedy show once they get going. Highlights of the panel included Nathan Fillion making cameos on all of their cell phones (taking over the panel even when he’s not on the panel, as Adam said!) to check in repeatedly on, basically, how pretty Jewel was looking that day (it really was a hilarious gag, and she really is very pretty); an audience member contributing Firefly bourbon for them to drink; and Adam Baldwin being temporarily embarrassed to share with the crowd (he got over it).

Speaking of Adam, I also went to a Chuck panel where he talked about his role as John Casey; and even when he’s the only one on stage, he’s a riot. Adam answered questions such as whether Casey was really in the Navy or the Marines, and then ribbed fans for being that into the details of the show, noting that “It’s not real!” However, he clearly appreciates the fans who care enough about his characters (notably Jayne) to dress the part, and was particularly kind to a thirteen-year-old fan who was a bit nervous in asking her question. As I said, I sadly missed chatting with Sean and Jewel, but I did get to talk with the quick-witted Adam after the panels.

Adam reports that his newest project is the opening episode of Law & Order: SVU. “I’m joining the cast as a ‘replacement’ for the captain, Cragen, who…got himself in a little bit of hot water last season. So that has kept me a little busy.” As for his favorite part of Dragon*Con? “The people – lovely people who are very kind, and good old Southern hospitality. And the food’s great…you know, wine, women, good food! And the panels …and the utilikilts (pointing). There’s one right behind you.”

And so there was.

Meeting Adam was a lovely experience; and another highlight of the weekend was Jane Espenson’s panel. Jane is like the writer equivalent of actor Mark Sheppard, in that she has written for basically every awesome genre show I’ve ever seen. She’s also delightful to listen to. Her panel focused in a large part on her newest project, Husbands, a web series which can be seen online at lovehusbands.com. We watched an episode, and it’s very funny; and certainly a spin on the newlywed premise that we haven’t quite seen before, being about two gay men who have gotten married in haste and are now dealing with the consequences. She also encouraged people to check out Once Upon A Time over on ABC if they haven’t yet, and answered questions about the writing process, mentioning that she’d like to turn her blog musings into a book someday (yes please, Jane!). Writing tips she shared included her own approach to beginning to write for an established character by asking “what one incident is going to most poke at the character’s emotional core? Getting inside that is one of the best ways to train yourself to be a good writer.” As for her favorite part of Dragon*Con: “Meeting beautiful amazing people in costumes!”

Speaking of people who’ve worked on everything cool ever, I also got to talk with Rob Paulsen, voice actor for a million billion zillion of the toon characters we all know and love, including Yakko Warner, Pinky, and more from Animaniacs. He couldn’t possibly have known that’s one of my favorite cartoon shows ever, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Hellooooooo, nurses!” as I and my two gal pals walked up to say hi, and, “You all make me want to say, ‘Narf!’” which got the conversation off to a fun start. Rob shared that since he was Raphael on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he’s pretty excited to be Donatello now on the new one. “And Sean Astin is Raphael, Jason Biggs is Leonardo, and Greg Cipes is Michelangelo, so that’s great.” He also suggested we check out his podcast, Talking Toons, which can be found on iTunes or RobPaulsenLive.com; and now that I know about it, I certainly will! As for his favorite part of Dragon*Con:

Rob: “The pretty chicks!”

Me: “He says, looking at us…”Rob: “Absolutely! I’m not the blind Turtle!”

Bless.

Walking around the Walk of Fame, I got to chat with several other actors and actresses, including Lee Arenberg, of Pirates of the Caribbean fame (“’Ello, poppet!”) who was enjoying meeting all the fans, and can currently be seen as Grumpy in Once Upon a Time. He also mentioned that he’ll be in the new season of Californication. Last of all I sawMira Furlan, who told me that she’s going to be in a new film starring Penelope Cruz that’s called Twice Born. She then opined that DragonCon was “fantastic – mad and fantastic,” and I couldn’t agree more.

Well! That’s the news for this week, but there’s even more to come, as I also got to attend the Battlestar Galactica panel and chat with those actors while at Dragon*Con and have more to say about that; we’ve got an exclusive chat with J. August Richards in the offing; and I’ve just gotten back from the fantastic Baltimore Comic Con.

So check back for more excitement next week, and until then, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part I – Warehouse 13 Rocks!

Columns
September 4, 2012

If you follow my columns on ComicMix at all, you know that I’ve posted about attitudes towards women at cons a few times, and that I tend to get a bit, shall we say, heated about some of the gender and entitlement issues I’ve encountered in the context of cons and fandom. When I sent in my last such article, Mike (Gold, Editor Extraordinaire) said to me, “I love the column! And these are really important issues; but…you are going to talk about some of the joys of being at conventions at some point, right?” To which I said, “Of course!”

This is one of those columns.

I love conventions. Love them. For all of my complaining about some of the attitudes I have encountered in fandom and internet discussion, at the conventions themselves I fortunately don’t run into too much of that face to face (it’s easier to say those things in the echo chamber of the internet, I suppose). Instead, for me, cons are pure joy. The energy of the other fans and the creators, actors, or whomever might be on the guest list; the costumes (if it’s a costume-heavy con); the diverse people you meet; and best of all, getting to catch up with the wonderful friends I’ve made who I usually only get to see at cons – these things are why I spend my vacations from lawyerdom at places like Dragon*Con, which just ended last night.

One of the great parts of a con like Dragon*Con is getting to meet some of the talents that I don’t usually encounter in my literary and comics-heavy convention rotation, i.e. the actors and actresses and writers for genre TV and movies. Having co-founded a literary convention, I’m a little more accustomed to the literary atmosphere; so I love the diversity and excitement that surrounds a con that embraces the TV and film aspects of fandom as well.

At this con, I was fortunate to have the chance to talk to many of the wonderfully talented folks writing and acting in some of genre fiction’s best TV and movie projects, and now, I get to share those encounters with you. This week, I’m going to focus on one of my favorite shows, Warehouse 13.

Warehouse 13 is a fantastically fun show in which U.S. Secret Service agents are tasked with retrieving and storing troublesome or dangerous “artifacts” that once belonged to important historical figures and have been imbued with some of their characteristics. These artifacts can affect the way people behave, or even their physical being. Sometimes the consequences might be terrible; and sometimes, hilarity ensues. If you’ve never seen the show (which airs on Syfy) I highly recommend it. The smart writing, excellent cast interactions, and fun premise make it a great show; and I love that the show really does have the ability for endless possibilities (and endless wonder, as per their tagline) without going stale, thanks to the way it draws on history and plays with the pasts of historical figures.

At Dragon*Con I got to go to one of the Warehouse 13 panels, and it was a blast. Eddie McClintock is hilariously over-the-top (but in a great, energetic way) and clearly delights in the con experience; Saul Rubinek read my mind when he filmed the audience cheering for Allison Scagliotti to come to the next Dragon*Con and then sent it to her via smartphone right then and there; Aaron Ashmore tried valiantly not to give away possible future romantic hijinks for his character Jinks in the face of great audience interest; Anthony Michael Hall discussed villainy with a surprising aplomb for such a nice guy (and does a great evil laugh); and Deric Hughes discussed several exciting future possibilities for the show. Everyone on stage also encouraged the excellent idea of a Warehouse 13 convention; and if you want to see that, as I do, tweet @warehouse13 and @Syfy and tell them so using the hashtag #Warehouse13Con.

The panel was fantastic; and happily, I was also able to catch up with everyone personally at the con and ask them a couple of quick questions. Here’s what they said:

Aaron Ashmore (actor):

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Warehouse 13 is my main focus; I’m so wrapped up in it right now. We’re on a full-time schedule that finishes shooting in November. After that, well, I may be looking for a new gig!” (Everyone: hire him for things. He’s awesome.)

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

(Aaron noted that he hadn’t really gotten a chance to chill at the con yet because of all the panels and being at the table, at which point I extended him an invitation to our informal Sunday night party, Beer-Pirate-Palooza.)

Aaron: “Well then, I’m going to preemptively say Beer-Pirate-Palooza!”

(Bless.)

Saul Rubinek (actor):

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Warehouse 13 is the best – It’s just a great role and I love it!”

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

Saul’s deadpan humor was clearly present as he replied:

“Meeting fans…and helping to pay for my kids’ college education!”

Eddie McClintock (actor):

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Warehouse 13 is awesome!

I’m also getting ready to do a film with the godfather of horror, Mr. George Romero, called Road of the Dead. Let me just say that zombies no longer have to shuffle around for their food – they’ve learned to drive.”

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

“Seeing an Uhura (of Star Trek) dressed in bunless leather chaps.”

Anthony Michael Hall (actor):

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Warehouse 13 is great!

I’m working on a new film with Danny Trejo and Mickey Rourke called Dead in Tombstone, for which there is actually a trailer on YouTube already. I am co-producing and starring in Friend Request, which is about a detective who is kind of down on his luck and is raising his daughter on his own, while trying to catch a Facebook-style killer; and that is shooting next week. I’ve also started a new production company called Manhattan Films; and through that I am producing and directing The Lost Shield, which is a cop story and should be shooting by next summer. I’m really excited about these projects.”

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

“The fans; seeing people have a great time. I genuinely love doing these things, and I love that it’s run by fans.”

Deric Hughes (writer/producer):

What would you like to say about current or future projects?

“Warehouse 13 definitely occupies my time. We have a ten episode web series called Grand Designs that people should check out, and I co-wrote and produced a couple of the episodes. My writing partner for that is Benjamin Raab, and J.P. Nichol, Mark Frank Williams, Ian Maddox, Sueha Koorse, and Joseph Brock also worked on those. They are on the main show website, and all of the cast did voices on those.”

What’s your favorite part of Dragon*Con?

“Definitely the people!”

Thanks a bunch, Warehouse 13 folks, for your time and awesomeness; and we hope to see much more from you!

Check in with me next Tuesday for Part II of the Dragon*Con Experience, including more awesome panels and chats with guests; and until then:

Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis and… Friends

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold Takes On The Fish… Again!

Emily S. Whitten: In Pursuit of Lunch

Columns
August 28, 2012

O.K. This is the wiseass editor typing. Emily’s not here today.

Something about near-complete exhaustion from something called “work.”

Do not fret. Emily will be back next week, no doubt because we’ll hire Deadpool to either find her or ghost her column.

And Emily will be at the Baltimore Comic-Con September 8th and 9th, joining fellow ComicMixers Marc Alan Fishman, Glenn Hauman, Adriane Nash, and Mike Gold (who always enjoys writing about himself in the third person), and artistic ComicMixers Timothy Truman, Mark Wheatley, Andrew Pepoy, Robert Tinnell and Marc Hempel. We’ll mostly be terrorizing the masses at the Insight Studios booth and at the Unshaven Comics booth.

Yes, I just used poor Emily’s exhaustion to plug a comics convention. Any port in a storm.

‘Till then, caveat emptor!

Emily S. Whitten: Hello, My Name Is Entitled Fan. You Ruined My Fandom. Prepare to Die! (comicmix.com)

Emily S. Whitten: Hello, My Name Is Entitled Fan. You Ruined My Fandom. Prepare to Die!

Columns
August 21, 2012

I haven’t talked about Deadpool around here for, oh, say, two whole minutes, right? Time to rectify that!

You know why Deadpool’s my favorite character in the whole wide world of comics? Well, actually, there are several reasons, but one of them is that no matter how dark the character gets, there is also levity there. And call me grandiose, comparing the adventures of a wisecracking merc to the daily toil of Real Life, but really – that can be a true reflection of what we experience. In the depths of disaster sometimes we just have to laugh (possibly inappropriately), and in the midst of our merriment, suddenly one little sentence may bring the room down. That’s life – a perfectly imperfect mix of random ups and downs.

What’s important about the often unexpected comical moments is that they remind us that it’s not all doom and gloom out there, even when sometimes it’s been feeling like it is. And if we don’t get enough laughter in our lives, I fear some of us might turn into this guy. As I’m sure everyone knows, Joe Kubert passed away a few days ago. I didn’t know Joe personally, but I know and like some of his work; and I had a nice chat with one of his sons at a con; and I know several artist friends who have gone to his school (in my home state of New Jersey, no less, which makes it extra-cool). All in all, I’ve never had a bad thought about him, and admire him as much as I do any of the other Greats in comics (yes, he most certainly was one of the Greats, with a capital G). But even if for some reason I hadn’t been a fan, or even if I hated his art (which I don’t), I’d never, ever, have posted something like what that supposed fan of comics said; and then failed at properly apologizing for such insensitive and offensive comments.

The comparison that was made is just inexcusable, and Mike Romo has a good discussion of that at the iFanboy link, so I will not rehash it all here. But I will say that as a fan, I am continuously disappointed in other fans who turn their dislike of a piece of creative work into a giant, seething, pulsating ball of wrath and disgust, to be lobbed at creators and fandom and the internet so we can all experience the pus and bile of some fan’s misplaced sense of entitlement as it oozes down our screens.

Okay, that metaphor was disgusting. But then, I feel disgusted when I read shit like that. And it really does all boil down to entitlement – fans who think that their hateful view of whatever-it-is is more important than the fact that they are throwing vile words or accusations at a Real, Live Person who most likely doesn’t deserve them. A person whom they might even have admired at some point (or still do admire). Likening an upstanding and recently deceased comics creator who worked on a comic you don’t think should have been made (Before Watchmen) to a man who failed to report child sexual abuse is an extreme example, of course, but still; this isn’t anywhere near the first time I’ve seen this kind of disproportionate hatred towards someone whose only fault was making a creative work someone else didn’t enjoy.

Look, I’m not saying we can’t critique what we don’t like. I’m a true believer in the importance of free speech and discussion. But that also means that if you’re being an asshole on the internet or in fandom, I have a free speech right to call you out for being an asshole. And calling hardworking people who make their living making comics “known hacks” or “scab artists” because you don’t like their work or work choices is being an asshole. [See also: anyone who’s ever said so-and-so “raped their childhood.” Because using the word “rape” in that context is another form of entitlement; in which the user assumes it is more important to dramatically emphasize their disappointment in Prometheus than to not casually throw around a word that has terrible connotations for over 17.7 million women and 2.78 million men in America alone. Plus, I just hate that phrase.]

But I digress. Neil Gaiman once wrote a fantastic journal entry on entitlement issues which I think every fan ought to read and re-read. In fact, if someone ever wrote a computer program in which that entry popped up every time some entitled asshole was about to hit “post” on a needlessly vitriolic diatribe about creative works and people they hate, I’d be ecstatic. (Seriously, hackers – stop making useless pop-up viruses and get on that.)* But since that’s not the case as yet, I’d also be happier if we all just read that entry, and tried to remember before hitting post that creators are real people with real feelings and families and needs to put food on the table and all of that. And that it’s probably not necessary to wear a t-shirt saying a real person sucks just because you didn’t like a movie about aliens.

Maybe we could also just run a little test in our heads, similar to the one I wish misogynists would use before speaking (“How would you feel if someone said or did that to your mom/sister/favorite female person in the whole world? Or to you?”) in which we think about how we’d feel if someone likened, say, our dad or our best friend to a guy who ignored reports of child molestation. I’m pretty sure for most of us, that would make us remember that it’s not all about us, and hit the delete key before doing something asinine. So maybe we can all give that some thought before posting something so unwarrantedly hostile about what is, as Romo said, “just comics” (and other pop culture).

Or, as the LOLcats would say: we can fan moar better; and then maybe instead of encountering so much petty bitching, we will instead be rewarded with more things that remind us that life is not all doom and gloom – like this and this. (You’re welcome.)

So until next time, Servo Lectio!

* Disclaimer: I am not actually encouraging anyone to hack anything. Please do not go and do this and then say it’s all my fault, hackers. Thank you.

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis’ Milestones, part two

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold, Who Do That VooDoo?

365 Search results

Emily S. Whitten: What I’m Watching – Arrow

Emily S. Whitten: NYCC – The Good, The Bad, and The Slightly Sad

Emily S. Whitten: Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, and Awards Aplenty

Emily S. Whitten, In Conversation with Dean Haspiel

Emily S. Whitten Talks With Reilly Brown

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part III – Battlestar Galactica, or On Your Feet, Nuggets!

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part II, or I Know What I Did This Summer!

Emily S. Whitten: The Dragon*Con Experience Part I – Warehouse 13 Rocks!

Emily S. Whitten: In Pursuit of Lunch

Emily S. Whitten: Hello, My Name Is Entitled Fan. You Ruined My Fandom. Prepare to Die!

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Everything you need to make great comics!

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