About a thousand years ago, I was on Steve King’s WGN radio show (now sorely missed) and somebody called in and asked about the name “Comic Book.” I was taken aback momentarily, trying to decide if I should go into my “we’ve kicked the kids out of the donut shop” auto-rant. Out of respect for Steve and his 33 state / five province reach, I did a short history instead.
I talked about how the original comics were simply reprints of newspaper strips, some funny (hence the term “funny books”), some were adventurous, and the best were surreal. Within a few years all the licenses were tied up – not just the good ones – and new publishers like Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson had to hire young (read: inexpensive) writers and artists to create new stuff.
Funny comic books continued to dominate newsstand and subscription sales for the better part of two decades. Indeed, Dell Comics’ Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories sold over three million copies each month, the majority as subscriptions. Other movie cartoon stars did quite well, and before long we had a plethora of original funny animal and funny human comics, including Bob Montana’s Archie, Walt Kelly’s Pogo (yeah, the li’l possum and his alligator buddy got their start as a comic book feature), and Shelly Mayer’s Sugar and Spike.
In those hallowed days, comic books were only available on newsstands (stand-alones, in drug stores, transportation stations, etc.) and by subscription. There were no comic book stores. The concept was ridiculous: how could you make money only selling ten-cent product?
This is a question that haunted publishers in the late 1950s when the traditional outlets started to die off. Shopping malls replaced drug and candy stores and five-and-dimes (Woolworths, Kresges) were rendered redundant by convenience stores. Public transportation was severely reduced as people moved out of the inner-cities and into suburbs and outlying neighborhoods, necessitating the purchase of a car. You can’t read a comic book – or text, for that matter – while operating an automobile.
The medium survived, if you call this survival, by the creation of the direct sales marketing system wherein cockroach capitalist comic book stores could order new comics on a non-returnable basis. They received them about three weeks early, so those few remaining newsstands faced severe competition if they were located near a comics shop. Then again, those few remaining newsstands couldn’t care less: the amount of profit in a comic book wasn’t worth the effort of maintaining the racks.
Several comics retailers and at least one severely shortsighted comics distributor discouraged marketing towards children because “they didn’t have enough money and weren’t worth the bother.” Oh, yeah? Well, then, where are your new customers going to come from ten or twenty years down the road?
Well, twenty years down the road, comic book sales were a small fraction of what they had been and, as DC’s co-publisher recently quipped, “our average reader is about 50 years old.” (I paraphrase.) So, in effect, by cutting off the kids we’ve voluntarily placed ourselves in the position the mom’n’pops were in a generation ago. Worse, actually. Most kids know from comics characters not because of the comics, but because of the movies and television shows. They find comics confusing, boring and expensive – if they can find them at all.
As my fellow ComicMixer Marc Alan Fishman said last week, a few publishers are trying to correct this by establishing lines of kid-friendly titles. If they succeed, we’ll have a next generation of comic book readers.
If they fail, the American comic book will become part of our cultural history.
So here’s what you can do. Halloween is coming up. Many publishers have produced special digest-sized comics to give to trick-or-treaters, and that’s great. But if you can’t find them, there’s plenty of new kid’s comics out there. Buy a couple dozen and give them out instead of all that sugary candy stuff.
If you already bought all that sugary candy stuff, ship it to me. I’ve got plenty of comic books.
I ran this on my Michael Davis World website. I was writing another version for ComicMix because the response was so strong. Then like an idiot (which I’ve been more often than not) I realized I should just run what I wrote as is.
So…
The following email was sent to my Linked-In mailbox:
Hey Davis, I’m a comic creator trying to break into the industry was hoping you could help a brotha out with that my big fan of your work and bring back The Crush!
I am one hundred percent sure the writer wrote and sent this email with positive intentions and respect. But as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
This certainly did.
Here’s a hard and cold fact, many young African Americans are under the impression that being black gives them a pass on professionalism. The case can be made that my less than professional attitude in my public persona gave this young man leave to address me in such a way.
Err, nope.
My public persona is my real life persona. In real life I have a certain swagger and attitude that I portray to the world. That’s just who I am. In anyone’s life there is a time and a place for everything in my professional dealings there is never and I repeat never a time not to be professional.
There is no other way to say this; anyone who thinks they “know” you because you project a certain image to the world is most likely in for a rude awakening. Even worst-they may never get that rude awakening because emails and any other inquiries will simply be ignored.
I don’t do that.
Any chance I get to enlighten someone as to the error of their ways I do so, up to a point. I’m not wasting any time on someone I give advice to and they keep defending that ghetto bullshit way of thinking.
The following is my reply to the young man. As of yet I’ve heard nothing back from him in the two week since I’ve sent this:
I say this with love, my brother. “Hey Davis” is not a level I operate on. That is not just unprofessional, it’s disrespectful. The rest of your email was poorly worded as well.
Now considering you sent this to a Linked-In, a professional networking site, you are very lucky my executive assistant didn’t see this first. If he had your access to me through this site or anywhere else would have been terminated.
That said, I sense your enthusiasm and as such I’m going to give you a pass.
If you would like to send me another email which states clearly what it is you do (artist, writer) what it is you would like to talk to me about (portfolio, writing samples) and what sort of advice you are seeking (craft critique, career opportunities) I will see rather or not I can help you in any way-IF you have the talent and motivation that warrants my help. If your work is in presented in the same manner as your email then we have nothing to talk about.
I hope this response is received by you as what it is, a reality check. This is in no way a put down.
‘Who wrote this letter? Stevie Wonder?” That’s a put down.
I took time out of my day to write this. This is not a form letter; this is I writing to you with respect for your enthusiasm and a desire to see you succeed. If you think that’s something anyone in a position to help you will do then you have a seriously unrealistic view of the entertainment industry and you are not ready for a professional career within it.
Calling me “Davis” is just ghetto. If you were my boy and we were back in my hood South Jamaica or Rockaway Queens you could call me “Davis” all day long. You’re not my boy. I don’t know you…yet
You know what they call me when I walk into a meeting? Michael, Mr. Davis or Dr. Davis depending on whom I’m meeting and why I’m meeting with them.
“Davis.” Come on man!
There’s a saying, “you get one chance to make a first impression. “Well, I just gave you another. What you do with it is up to you my friend.
Again, I say this with love.
I hope I hear back from the young man and I hope if I can, to help him. That’s my plan but its up to him and like I said earlier, the best laid plans…
Dan Didio has written the latest iteration of the character for Villains Month, part of the new Forever Evil crossover event. It ties up a plot arc that’s been weaving through the New 52 books since their inception – the villain’s black diamond has appeared in the short-lived Team 7 title, as well as CatwomanDemon Knights and even Sword and Sorcery. So clearly his return is intended to be a big one.
But this isn’t the first time DC has tried to make Eclipso into a top-echelon threat. Not by a long length.
People go on about how many times Aquaman has been revamped, but I gotta tell you, I think Eclipso has him beat. Originally a sort of Jekyll-Hyde pastiche, he was released from within scientist Bruce Gordon whenever he was caught in the shadow of an eclipse. Fortunately, eclipses are rather rare, so the character almost never appeared…oh, wait…ah, I’m being told that he could also appear under the shadow of an artificial eclipse, like a tea tray being used to block the light of a sunlamp. Well, that certainly changes things.
He had a run in House of Secrets that got reprinted quite a bit in the wonderful years of the 100-page Super-Spectaculars, where people my age got most of their knowledge of the golden age and early silver age of comics. He re-appeared on occasion when they needed a relatively generic and replaceable villain – he showed up in the Metal Men book as a Big bad, for pete’s sake.
It was with Eclipso: The Darkness Within that they first tried to make him into a major player. Eclipso was now a major force of evil, hidden on the dark side where he secretly tried to control and destroy the shards of a massive black diamond, the Heart of Darkness. But a visit by Lar Gand (Not the Legion’s Mon-El, but the post-crisis version…look, just read my history of the character if you feel the need to catch up) gave Eclipso the idea to use the diamonds to possess the heroes of Earth, just as he’d used the first/original shard to possess Gordon.
The series did well and spawned a Eclipso title, one of the few times a villain carried a book. Bruce Gordon was now being played as the Van Helsing to Eclipso’s Dracula, the Nayland Smith to Fu Manchu. The book didn’t last all that long, and Eclipso sank back into the mid-card.
ComicMixer John Ostrander got ahold of him during his exemplary run on The Spectre, and the history changed again. Not merely a demon of evil, Eclipso was in fact God’s first tool of Wrath, before The Spectre. Eclipso, it’s explained, cause the biblical Flood at God’s behest.
This version of Eclipso returned a number of times, possessing Superman, taking Alex Montez as a host in a great arc in JSA, and most controversially, taking over Jean Loring, who was in quite a state after the events of Identity Crisis.
But in there, we got another version of his origin. Now it’s explained that the black diamonds came from Apokalips, and Eclipso was created by Darkseid. That was one of those changes that turned vast gouts of the past of the character into the rubbish heap, and it was not taken well by fans.
The New 52 has seen fit to bring the character back to his “god of vengeance” position, though his connection to God has not been re-confirmed. With a number of appearances in several books, it’s a thread that has been in place for about all of the New 52. Dan Didio, who did a very good job with the first few issues of Phantom Stranger, does a good job here summing up the latest new history of the character, and making clear how big a threat he can be. Another small change – Bruce Gordon has now become “Gordon Jacobs,” likely to make the name more different from its original in-joke sources, Bruce Wayne and Commissioner James Gordon. He’s now being portrayed as a disgraced scientist, after an experiment with a solar-powered city goes terribly wrong. This sets Gordon up to be tempted by Eclipso, as opposed to merely possesed against his will. Like the spin made the the Phantom Stranger, it allows the character to be a bit more complex.
They’ve used Phantom Stranger to set up a couple other powerful Mystic characters – the first appearance of Raven was made there, though not mentioned by name, and that of her demonic father, classic Teen Titans foe Trigon, who also received a Villains Month issue.
Whether Eclipso will be a major player in Forever Evil, or if he’s being set up for an even later use is unsure. But with the amount of time they’ve spent into setting him up, there are clearly big plans for the character.
Let there be little doubt that we here are ComicMix loved the Leverage television series. Heck, we still miss it. Our friends at 2oth Century Home Entertainment want to spread the love by letting us give away two sets of the fifth and final season of the TNT series.
Leverage focuses on a team led by former insurance investigator turned thief, Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton). Together, they try to level the playing field for people whose lives have been destroyed by the rich and powerful. In the final season, the team will be forced to face changing personal dynamics as the relationship between Parker (Beth Riesgraf) and Hardison
(Aldis Hodge) heats up, and Nate continues to struggle with inner demons. Among their upcoming jobs, they will target a conniving shipping executive (guest star Cary Elwes); wealthy scientist; an ex-hockey-player-turned-team-owner (guest star Treat Williams); a corrupt restaurateur; and a corrupt businessman (guest star Matthew Lillard). In addition, the team will once again face their nemesis, insurance-investigator-turned Interpol-agent Jim Sterling (guest star Mark Sheppard).
To score your own copy of the DVD, answer this question:
What did Nate Ford do for a living prior to resorting to thievery?
Banker
Insurance Investigator
Surfing Instructor
Engineer
All submissions are due no later than 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, September 18. The decision of the ComicMix judges is final and the contest is open to United States and Canadian fans only.
Be sure to follow Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on Twitter @FoxHomeEnt for the latest Blu-ray & DVD releases.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of The Dresden Files, so it was awesome to get to sit down and chat with author Jim Butcher about the series while at Dragon Con last weekend!
The Dresden Files, as you may know, is a series about the wizard Harry Dresden, and follows his adventures and investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago, which he recounts through a first person narrative. It’s also, oh-by-the-way, a ton of fun, and weaves a lot of lore, myth, and legend from all cultures into modern adventure stories with a wizard who’s more gunfighter than Gandalf (even if he fights with a staff much of the time). As the series has progressed, it’s also gotten more complex and nuanced, with some great plot twists and character developments along the way. I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn’t yet read it.
The series is pretty far along and we’re currently waiting on book fifteen, so if you have no idea what I’m talking about, I recommend you check out the series or at least the Wikipedia page before reading this interview; unless you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind possibly being confused or definitely encountering spoilers. Because, fair warning, there are spoilers ahead!
Have we all been sufficiently warned? Yes? Then onward to the interview!
I’m a big fan of The Dresden Files, and I’ve read all of the books, so let’s just begin by talking about the series. There are fourteen novels to date. Book fourteen is Cold Days, which sets up the upcoming book. In Cold Days, Harry is the Winter Knight, and Sarissa ends up as the new Summer Lady, and Molly, in an unexpected turn of events, is the new Winter Lady. And Harry’s lost all of his stuff – even his mini model of Chicago!
Yeah, it all burned up in his apartment.
So he’s got no place to go, he’s living on Demonreach, he’s upset about what’s happened with Molly, who he’s tried to protect; he and Murphy have this interesting dynamic changing from what they’ve had, and something deeper is going on…so that’s where we leave it. Tell me when we will be seeing book fifteen, and what we should expect from it?
Book fifteen is called Skin Game. It will be out either late this year or early next year, depending on how quickly the publisher wants to rush it through production. The basic premise of the book is that Harry Dresden is still stuck working for Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness, and there are people she owes debts to…
In Skin Game, Harry’s been out on Spooky Island, on Demonreach, and has been staying there for about a year, because he’s got this thing in his head that’s going tick-tick-tick, and it’s going to kill him eventually. And Demonreach is able to keep it from completely crippling him. So he’s been staying there, and he thinks that his friends have kind of abandoned him, and he finds out that Mab has been intercepting all his communications and making sure they think he’s fine and needs to be left alone.
And then Mab shows up and says, “Okay, well – here’s the thing, is, I’ve got this job for you to do. I’ve got a debt to pay off, and you’re going to have to go do it. And if you don’t do it, well, you know, I can’t make you do anything, because that was kind of part of the deal, that I can’t compel you to do this; but if you don’t, then the thing in your head is going to kill you in the next three days. So I’ll let you make up your own mind.”
Hah, wow! Faeries always do that, in The Dresden Files; they follow the rules but trick you anyway.
Exactly. She’s playing by the rules, technically, which is the only way to do it, if you’re a faerie. So she’s informed him, “Well, you can either do this or not.” And Harry’s like, “Fine, I’ll do the job, whatever it is.” And he finds out that the job is, Mab is going to loan him out to Nicodemus Archleone, the head of the Denarians.
Ahh, and he’s shown up several times, and he’s really awful, to make an understatement.
Yes, he has, and yes – he’s one of the worst villains in the series. And he’s off to pull a heist. And he’s putting a crew together to pull a heist with, and he needs Harry to be on the crew. So Harry basically gets signed up with the Evil League of Evil, with all these different villains from around the world, some of whom have appeared before. So now he’s off to rob the treasure vault of Hades, Lord of the Underworld. So that’s the plotline. Harry’s got to be working with these people…and he immediately arranges to bring somebody along to watch his back while he’s there, because he doesn’t really feel like turning on these guys, and so he rounds up Murphy to come cover his back for him.
Oh, so Murphy’s going even deeper into the supernatural, right from the start of this story.
Yeah – but Harry’s point is, “I need somebody who can see things. I don’t need somebody who can fight supernatural things; I can do that. I need somebody who can notice things.” And Murphy’s the sharp one; so he grabs her.
Yeah, Harry is a little bit dim sometimes.
He can be.
You’ve written him that way.
But he turns to Mab at one point and he says, “You’ve got to understand, Nicodemus is going to betray me. He is gonna stab me in the back and try and kill me; that’s who he is.” And Mab says, “Of course he is.” She says, “I expect superior and more creative treachery from you. Oh, and by the way, make sure you do what I said you would do. You have to fulfill that first. But as soon as that’s fulfilled, do whatever you want.” And Harry’s like, “I can’t believe you’re going to have me do this.” And Mab’s like, “I would have loved a game like this when I was your age, come on!”
And Harry’s like, “I just want to take a nap, and a hot shower.”
Yeah, exactly. Really, that’s kind of where he’s at, yeah.
Okay, so now where does Molly fit into this book? Are we going to see her? Molly’s a favorite of mine, and obviously what happened to her in the last book was a big detour from what we thought was going on, and has a lot of impact.
Right; well Harry gets to find out that Molly hasn’t told her parents anything. She’s just carried on, and kept showing up to Sunday dinner and so on. So her parents don’t know about the whole Winter Lady thing, and they’ve got no idea anything’s wrong. So that’s a lot of fun.
So we get to see more of Michael and all of the family?
Yeah, we’ll get the Carpenters in it for some stage time there. But yeah, she’s been off doing Winter Lady stuff, and catching up on about 150 years of Maeve’s backlog; because not only was Maeve crazy, but she wasn’t doing the job; and that was really the problem as far as Mab was concerned. Crazy, psychotic, murdering people? Okay, that’s fine – but is she getting the work done? So Molly’s been doing that; and Molly’s the only one who can take care of the thing in Harry’s head – Demonreach told him that Molly could help (in Cold Days). Which is why Mab has made sure that Harry couldn’t communicate with Molly. So she’ll have to show up to help him with that.
So that’s where we’re going in the next book – tell me, what’s the plan for the rest of the series?
We’re going to have twenty-ish of the books like we’ve had so far; these casebooks that happen as one-by-one stories; and then I’m going to cap the whole thing off with a big ol’ apocalyptic trilogy at the end.
So there’ll be a great trilogy at the end.
Well, big. I don’t know if it will be great!
Well, I think the books have kept getting better as you’ve gone along; and I always admire someone who can write a big series and keep it all straight.
I have help with that!
That’s to be expected! So we’ve got Harry and Murphy off on this adventure; Mab is kind of pulling some strings; Molly is dealing with her family, and possibly going to come in. What about the Outsiders, and the Nemesis and all that?
We’ll get back to them in the future. At the moment they’re not as huge an issue. Harry needs to survive the next three days, and then he can start dealing with some of the other things. At the moment he’s got enough on his plate with Nicodemus being in his face.
It’s kind of like on The X-Files, where we got some monster of the week episodes, and then some about the overarching conspiracy. It’s kind of nice to break it up like that.
Yeah, you can’t do huge-huge-huge all the time, because that’s no fun.
Okay, so let’s talk about Harry’s love life for a minute…
Oh, gosh. Yeah. Harry’s love life was something that I never really planned when I was writing out the whole series.
Well, going back to the very beginning; there was a whole lot of…almost uncomfortable…male gaze in the first few books. As a female reader, I love the books, I love the adventure, I would keep reading for the adventure; but the scenes where we stopped and spent five minutes talking in extreme detail about the women Harry meets, and learning that every one of them is model-beautiful… I was a little put off by that at first; and I think one of the reasons I wasn’t entirely put off is because when Murphy is introduced she’s treated differently, which was refreshing, and also made me think maybe she was going to stick around for awhile. You’ve gone away from that some…
Well, to a degree.
So has your perspective on that changed?
Well, I think the main thing is, I’m not a 25-year-old guy anymore. Which was how old I was when I wrote Storm Front. I don’t want to sound weird or anything, but you haven’t had the experience of being a guy in his twenties, where basically you don’t really know what’s going on, from the time you’re fourteen or fifteen until about the time you hit twenty-five, and then you sort of emerge from the testosterone haze, and it’s like, “Maybe there’s something in life other than boobs.” And that’s the – car insurance rates go down when you’re twenty-five for a reason. You know, I don’t think these two things are unrelated. But yeah, I mean it’s just one of those things that has been a change of perspective on my part. I just have to write the story that I write, and I don’t worry too much about basically anything except writing the story.
Well that’s fair. In the beginning, when you had Susan and some of the other female characters, and Murphy – did you realize that you were approaching Murphy differently, and introducing her without as much of the sexual component? Was that a purposeful thing?
Nope; I was just doing what I was doing.
Okay; so let’s jump over to the current relationships; now that we’ve talked about Susan and the other earlier women…
Yes, and poor Susan; she died horribly. Although there were so many people who were like, “Oh, I just can’t stand Susan.”
Well, maybe because of the way she was introduced – but several people have died horribly in your books!
True, and perfectly wonderful people have died horribly, too, so, you know, that…kind of happens.
True! So now…we’ve got Harry, and we’ve got Murphy, and we’ve got Molly…and we’ve got some relationship issues. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Right – Harry and Murphy have at least kind of admitted that there might be something there; which is way better than Harry would ever consider doing with Molly. Because he still remembers Molly when she was little, so, even though their age difference is not entirely huge, it’s huge enough that he’s weirded, anyway. She is no longer weirded by the concept at all, but he is. So Harry and Murphy have finally admitted there might be something there; but both of them are just very avoidant, and so they’ve had trouble actually expressing that, except in moments of adrenaline.
Yes. Now with Molly being the Winter Lady, and Harry being the Winter Knight – I root for Harry and Murphy because it just seems so right; you’ve written it in such a way that it makes sense – but I did wonder towards the end of the last book, now that they’re both in the Winter Court, and there’s this magical connection beyond the connections they already have; how is that going to play out?
Yeah, awkwardly. It will continue to be awkward; because it’s Harry Dresden, how could his life not be awkward?
True! Now, there’s a character that I absolutely adore, and I don’t know if we’re going to see again – Ivy. Will we be seeing her?
She won’t be in this book; she’s not gone from the series permanently, but not in this one.
Great; and anything else you want to share with the fans?
Well…here comes the next one! And I’ve still got plenty more after that. The stories are already planned out.
Well I look forward to reading them, and thank you so much.
• • • • •
Thank you, Jim, for your time and a delightful interview; and Dragon Con, for setting that up for us! Hope you all enjoyed it, ComicMixers!
One of the most imaginative uses of time travel as a story platform was Don Bellasario’s Quantum Leap, which starred Scott Bakula as quantum physicist (among other things) Dr. Sam Beckett and Dean Stockwell as Rear Admiral Al Calavicci:
“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished…
“He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.”
Sam was changing history.
Or was he creating alternate histories?
Alternate histories that led to whole new universes.
Parallel universes.
Multiverses within the meta-universe.
The multiverse (a term coined by American philosopher and psychologist William James in 1895—I wonder what he was smoking?) is a hypothesis that states that there are infinite numbers of universes existing parallel to our own, but at different “levels” within the meta-universe. The meta-universe is the hypothetical set of infinite—or maybe finite—possible universes (including our own) that together comprises everything that exists, i.e., you, me, the iMac computer I’m typing this on, the New York City skyline outside my window, President Obama, Vladimir Putin, Syria, the sun, the moon, the planets, the stars, space, time, matter, and energy, and the physical laws and mathematical constants that define them. (In other words, 1 + 1 = 2 no matter where you are in the meta-universe.)
Confused? See if this helps. Think of the meta-universe as a sort of giant department store. The store is stocked with merchandise, but each floor is a separate department, and a little different; they are contained within the same number of square feet, but the first floor sells cosmetics and leather goods and men’s wear, the second is dedicated to children, the third to women, and so on. But each floor, while having its own standards and imperatives, must obey the rules set by the larger store within which it exists.
So, if Sam Beckett was creating alternate histories as he “quantum leaped” through time, did he eradicate himself from any or all histories? In the last episode, Sam rights what he believes is his greatest wrong—not telling Beth (Al’s first wife and true love, whom he met in a previous jump) that Al isn’t dead, that he is a POW in Vietnam:
Sam: I’m going to tell you a story. A story with a happy ending, but only if you believe me.
Beth: And if I don’t?
Sam: You will. I swear you will. Instead of ‘Once upon a time,’ let’s start with the happy ending. Al’s alive and coming home.
The screen goes black. A caption tells us that Al and Beth will be celebrating their 49th anniversary this year.
And another caption tells us, “Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”
But what does that mean?
The Grandfather Paradox: Some fans believe that by changing the course of Beth and Al’s life, Sam wiped himself out of existence because Al Calavicci and Sam never met, therefore Al never became a key element in the development of the Quantum Leap project and so it never got off the ground. But if Sam never existed, then how could he leap to Beth and tell her to wait, for Al was coming home?
The Novikov Self-Consistency Principle: Other fans say that, so what if Al is happily married to Beth? Sam still developed his quantum leap theory, and Al still became his liaison with the government and Sam is still out there, fighting “to put right what once went wrong.” History rights itself. History is consistent.
The Multiverse Theory: Quantum mechanics—Sam is a quantum physicist—describes existence as probabilities, not definite outcomes. And the mathematics of quantum theory suggests that all the possible outcomes of a situation do actually occur. Robert Frost described it this way in The Road Not Taken:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
By taking the “one less traveled by,” the narrator has led a life with a certain outcome. However, in quantum mechanics, the narrator also took the other road, the one “more” traveled by, and so a “bubble” or “daughter” universe was created, one in which the events and outcome of the narrators life were just as true, but just as different.
“And in each universe, there’s a copy of you witnessing one or the other outcome, thinking — incorrectly — that your reality is the only reality.”
So in this universe I have a daughter named Alix who is married to Jeff and they’re about to have a baby any minute, and I work as a nurse in the operating room and write for ComicMix.
In another universe I stayed married to Alix’s father, only in that universe Alixandra is Alexander and I never became a comics writer so I’m not writing this column for ComixMix because I never met Mike Gold who talked me into this thing in the first place.
In another universe, everything happened just like it has happened, only I never got better from my clinical depression and when I’m not in the hospital I’m on Welfare and Medicaid and my daughter doesn’t talk to me.
And in another universe, my father doesn’t have Complex Partial Seizure syndrome and he is going strong at 90 and my mother doesn’t need a walker and doesn’t have emotional, crazy outbursts and she’s as healthy as a horse and my Aunt Augie never had cancer and died and she and my mother talk every day on the phone….
In another universe I don’t have black hair (yeah, I dye it) but let myself go gray and I never married at all but Alixandra is still my daughter and Jeff is still her husband and they live on the East Coast and I’m a film editor who lives in Laurel Canyon with a couple of Oscars and SAG Awards under my belt.
It wasn’t really my intention to begin with a headlong plunge into The Do You Know Long It’ll Take Me To Get That Image Outta My Head? Zone. I only mention it because the only clothes I have right now are what I packed for San Diego, and I launder them daily. That’s because, almost two weeks later, I’m still waiting for everything I have in this world to arrive in a conveyance that is over 10 days late, courtesy of a lovely little company I’ve come to call “U-Hell.”
But I’m serene, I tell you, serene, because U-Hell now promises me that tomorrow they’ll finally deliver the plywood 8′ x 7′ x 5; contraption we will call “the U-Pod.”
A “U-move” is theoretically simple: U-pack your stuff in this container and They-Haul it to Ur-Destination, where U-Unload it Ur-self, then call to have Them-Pick-Up the empty pod.
But I’m serene, I tell you, serene only with the help of the margaritas I’ve blended every night since shipping the U-Pod from my former home in Pennsyltucky, the Wolf Trap State, so named because after sic months there you’re willing to chew off your own foot to escape. And I’m so drunkenly, sleep-deprivedly serene that I actually believe a promise from U-Hell.
This, despite the fact that everything They’ve-Told me so far about what They’d-Do for me has been either: (a) a “communications error;” (b) something that someone else told me the previous person had no authority to promise me in the first place; or (c) information contained in an automated “U-Mail” that didn’t accurately reflect my origin point or destination; was sent from an email address I couldn’t replay to; and notified of charges to my credit card for products and services I didn’t order.
Today, U-Hell helpfully informed me (“Do not reply to this U-mail; it will not be We-Read”) that in transit, my possessions have been heard to be … uhm, “shifting.” I tried to call to express undying I-Thanks for their U-Mail inquiring whether I was transporting ping-pong balls or unlidded crates of grapefruit, because I’d begun sleeping regularly and was falling behind on my panic attacks. But all I got was “Please stay on the line; a U-Call is important to us…”
So, luckily, I won’t be sleeping through my alarm and will be wide awake to begin the all-important process of determining how many irreplaceable pieces of priceless memorabilia from my award-winning career have been ricocheting around my U-Pod, thanks to the U-Truck’s “U-Patented ‘Air Glide!’ U-Suspension U-SystemTM.” Thank God I didn’t get a wink of sleep breathlessly anticipating how much expensive computer hardware I’ll be replacing by spending all that big money ComicMix pays me.
But I’m laughing, I tell you, laughing at life … to the point of margaritas spewing out of my nose and onto the keyboard borrowed from one of my new housemates, which is now shorted out and won’t be available to replace the one that’s colliding with all those boxes of priceless and irreplaceable memorabilia. But that’s okay, because I think it’ll be bent just enough to look really good glued to the top of my Emmy®, right where that globe made of all those slender, fragile strands of gold used to be. Besides, what’s an Emmy® when you have an Inkpot Award, the sharp edges of which have been useful in responding to my irresistible impulse for self-mutilation, by making sure that the Wolverine claw stab-wounds never completely heal?
So, by this time tomorrow, I’ll be serenely, I tell you, serenely ignoring the U-Mail I can reply to: the one asking me to “Rate Your U-Hell Experience!” This customer-satisfaction questionnaire helpfully compensates for my obvious inability to express myself, by supplying multiple-choice answers to its questions. These range all the way from “Thrilled Beyond Even My Unrealistic Expectations” to “Even Better Than The Promotions On The U-Site When The Server Wasn’t Crashing,” helpfully enabling me to resist the temptation to type in “U-Suck.”
By the time U-read this column, the U-Pod will have arrived. But please don’t ask me how my Amazing Colossal Comic Book Collection fared, because I didn’t have a collection to entrust to U-Hell in the first place. That was lost by Wall-Eyed Van Lines, which moved me last year from New Jersey to the My-Hell of Pennsyltucky.
Now where the fuck is the lid to that blender…?
FRIDAY: Martha Thomases Can’t See TeeVee
SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman – Scooby and the Geriatric Comics
Written and directed by legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather franchise, Apocalypse Now) as an homage to his lifelong love of the horror genre, the terrifying Gothic horror experience TWIXT arrives on Blu-ray and DVD July 23 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.A film festival favorite, the visually compelling film starring Val Kilmer, Elle Fanning and Bruce Dern has been screened to rave reviews at prestigious festivals including Toronto Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, San Diego Comic-Con, and the European Union Film Festival, among others.
TWIXT follows Hall Baltimore (Kilmer), a writer on a book tour who uncovers a disturbing murder that could be source material for his next novel. But as Hall investigates the killing, he finds himself confronted by chilling nightmares, including the ghost of a young girl (Fanning). As he uncovers more horrifying revelations, Hall discovers that the story has more to do with his own life than he could ever have imagined.
The TWIXT Blu-ray and DVD includes an exclusive forty minute documentary on the making of the film by Gia Coppola.
ComicMix has two copies to give away and all we need you to do is answer the question below by 11:59 p.m., Monday, July 22. The decision of our staff will be final. Open only to US and Canadian readers. In order to win your very own copy of Twixt on Blu-ray, simply answer the following question:
Way back on August 26, 2010, Futurama gave us a look at the San Diego Comic-Con that will be held one thousand years later. Of course, everything about San Diego grew during the ensuing millennium – except for the San Diego Convention center. Oh, and the number of comics-related guests was reduced… to one.
Fittingly, that one was Sergio Aragones. I have no doubt that somebody will still be uncovering unpublished Aragones art in 3010.
More than a quarter of a million people pay to attend the annual SDCC. Yes, they have a registered trademark on the word “Comic-Con,” but since that term had been in common usage long before they applied for the mark, and is still being used by other shows across America, in my opinion this is theft. As a former promoter of a “Comicon” – the Chicago Comicon, from 1976 through 1985 – I will gladly testify on behalf of anybody who chooses to challenge this mark.
The show is supposed to be about comic books. It is a non-profit show, and it is a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) organization. Its mission statement is: “Comic-Con International: San Diego is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular artforms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.”
This is a boldfaced lie. SDCC – I refuse to call it Comic-Con – has very, very little to do with comics. “Related popular artforms,” maybe, but that’s so nondescript it could cover flip books and porn. SDCC is about Hollywood. It’s about movies and movie producers. It’s about television and cable television networks. It’s about DVDs and Blu-Rays and phony mass-produced Hollywood collectibles and aging former celebrities desperately and sadly trying to be remembered. It is barely about “the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.”
All those people, along with the press, the guests, the celebrities, and the exhibitors, occupy a building built to safely house a fraction their number. How the fire department certifies them is beyond me. Sardines would feel crowded on that convention floor, and if you suffer a heart attack or a stroke while there you had better have filed a will.
It comes as no surprise that I do not go to SDCC any longer. It’s not just because the hotels and the restaurants massively jack up their prices during the show, it’s not because of the crowds, it’s not because of the lack of sufficient plumbing and it’s not even because the San Diego Comic Con has precious little to do with comic books.
It’s because the next time some clown slaps me in the face with his backpack, I am going to take said backpack and shove it up his ass while loudly singing the Super Chicken theme song.
Not that we won’t be well-represented at the convention. ComicMixers in attendance will include Michael Davis (who will hate me for writing this column), Glenn Hauman, Adriane Nash, Marty Pasko, Sara Raasch, and Emily S. Whitten. I’m not certain about Denny O’Neil and Bob Greenberger. The rest of us are staying put… although Martha Thomases will be travelling over 6,000 miles in order to stay put. That’s a neat trick.
So feel free to approach any of these folks – most of us don’t bite, unless you’re wearing a backpack – and tell ‘em what you like about ComicMix and what you don’t like and what you’d like to see. Ask about ComicMix Pro Services, but do your homework: click on that big ol’ button up there at the top of this page.
But there’s another reason I’m staying out east this week. Those of us staying behind in New York City?
Milestone was the idea of Denys Cowan. Denys, Dwayne McDuffie, Derek Dingle, Christopher Priest and I sat in a room (a few rooms actually, sometimes at someone’s home, sometimes at a dive restaurant a lot of times in a dive diner) and we sat and planed for weeks creating the original universe of Milestone main characters Icon, Rocket, Static, Hardware and Blood Syndicate.
Priest left right before we signed our publishing & distribution deal with DC. For a very long time Priest was the Pete Best of Milestone. Pete Best’s claim to fame is that he was the original Beatles drummer before Ringo. Pete left to get a real job. That’s pretty much it. His music career amounts to little but a trivia question.
Christopher Priest, on the other hand…
That mofo did just fine without Milestone. He’s writing movies, novels and just about anything he else he wants to write. However, for a very long time Priest was our trivia question. Few people knew he had anything to do with the Dakota Universe.
Now, few people think the original Milestone partners were just four, most fans and all the industry know that Priest was there at the start.
Most people are aware that Derek Dingle was there from the start of Milestone, few people know and even fewer believe Derek Dingle was a major co-creator on the original universe of Milestone main characters.
Translation, Derek came up with many ideas that made it into the Milestone Bible his contribution was just as valued as anyone sitting at the creative table.
I remember how much Derek Dingle had to do with creating Static’s powers and costume. I remember that very clearly because I wrote the Static Bible (meaning I created his family, backstory, supporting characters, etc.) I ran many an idea passed Mr. Dingle for as long as I could.
It’s easy to understand how Derek was casted in non-creator role by the fans. As Milestone went from idea to business plan to universe bible to joint venture with DC Comics, Derek’s visibility as a creator became less and less.
We were all equal partners but we all had separate roles in the company. Derek’s role was President of Milestone. You wouldn’t call the President of Milestone at 4 in the morning to run possible names of Static’s dog sidekick pass him.
Well you wouldn’t… but you know me…
Oh, you didn’t know that Static had a dog sidekick? Well he did for about 35 seconds until the genius that thought it was a good idea was laughed out of the room.
Who’s bad Idea was it?
I’ll never tell, unless at SDCC I’m asked during the Q&A session of the Milestone panel, Friday July 19th Room 5AB (Shameless Plug!) 11:30-12:30!
Ask me then and I’ll spill like a drunken gossip columnist on TMZ.
Look, all of the Milestone partners had horrible ideas at one time or the other. Sometime a bad idea becomes a terrible idea when the person who’s idea it was starts to defend the idea. Trust me, that’s never pretty.
There were plenty of heated exchanges at Milestone but I’d have to say the one person who always kept his cool was Derek. In fact, the only time I ever saw Derek lose his cool was not over anything creative or corporate.
It was over a Kitty.
Kitty was her name and she was (is) one beautiful woman or as we say in the hood, she’s Super Fine. How fine is she? Stevie Wonder could see how fine Kitty is.
One day I was having lunch with Kitty so I had her meet me at Milestone. That was the only time I saw Derek a bit rattled. When I introduced Kitty I swear it took him a full hour before he could say ‘hi’ Kitty is that fine.
OK, it wasn’t an hour his hesitation was maybe 2-4 seconds and wasn’t really noticed by anyone but me, but a 2-4 second delay from Mr. Cool-As-Ice Dingle is rare and you know me, give me an inch…
So, to recap, Derek Dingle was just as involved, I’ll say it again, Derek Dingle was just as involved as anyone in the creation of the core Milestone Universe. Since the day Milestone began there has been reams of wrong information, misinformation and outright bullshit about our company. Believe it or not that continues to this day.
It’s Milestone’s 20th Anniversary and our fans, which I sincerely believe are the greatest and most loyal fans in the history of comics; deserve to celebrate with the truth.
I hope to see many of you in San Diego. As a guest this year I’ll have a space in Artists Alley thanks to the kind people at SDCC!
If you come by and I’m not there someone should be there to tell you when I’d be back. As much as I’d like to hang out there all day, I’ll be a weeeee bit busy expanding my media empire… and scoping out Asian girl cos players.
Come on by! I’ll be more than happy talk to you about my ComicMix columns and upcoming novels. Yeah, I’ll be talking about writing in Artists Alley.
That Michael Davis, what a rebel!
If you miss me at the booth you can catch me here:
The Black Panel Room 5AB 10-11:30 am Friday July 19th
The Milestone 20th Anniversary Panel 11:30-12:30 am Friday July 19th
*The Milestone 20th Anniversary Party Friday 9pm July 19th
*You need an invite for the party I’ll have a few on me during the Milestone Panel and if you mention ComicMix and hit me up before they are gone I’ll hook you up.
Lastly, Derek I’m keeping you to your promise. This is your moment my friend, enjoy it! No work! Have fun!
About a thousand years ago, I was on Steve King’s WGN radio show (now sorely missed) and somebody called in and asked about the name “Comic Book.” I was taken aback momentarily, trying to decide if I should go into my “we’ve kicked the kids out of the donut shop” auto-rant. Out of respect for Steve and his 33 state / five province reach, I did a short history instead.
