Tagged: Emily S. Whitten

John Ostrander: Details, details, details…

OStrander Art 130407There’s a saying that goes “The devil is in the detailsl, but so is character, whether writing, drawing, or acting. I had the opportunity of teaching at the Joe Kubert School a few times (and the inestimable pleasure of getting to know not only the legendary Joe Kubert but so many others working at the school) and I had the maybe unenviable task of teaching writing to a bunch of art students. Some didn’t take to that right away; after all, they were there to learn how to draw. From talking to some of the graduates over the years, however, I think most found it worthwhile and I enjoyed it.

For me, everything in comics is about character and storytelling. Design to me means nothing unless it is tied to those two points. I’m not interested in a mask or costume whose design is simply “cool” or its what the artist wants to draw.  The character has chosen to make or wear a given mask, costume, or uniform. What does that tell us about him or her? Famously, Batman wants to invoke a bat because criminals are (supposedly) a cowardly and superstitious lot. He wants to invoke fear in them.

One exercise I gave the students was to create their own mask – not for a character but something that would express and freeze some aspect of themself. It would both reveal them and, because it was a mask, it would also conceal them. They were safe behind the mask. It was and was not them.

When the masks were completed, I asked them to wear them. Masks in many societies have power; often, they represent a god and the wearer (supposedly) channels the power of the god. I asked the students to let the mask act upon them; how did they act, how did they feel, how did they move? What – if anything – changed in them?

The purpose was to get them to understand the affects that the masks the characters they wore had upon the characters they were writing and/or drawing. Spider-Man, for example, certainly reacts differently than Peter Parker. Batman, on the other hand, becomes more of who he is when he wears the cowl; his true mask may be Bruce Wayne, as perceived by others.

We do the same thing with what we choose to wear. We say something about ourselves, about who we perceive ourselves to be, of how we want to be perceived by others. Even a careless choice – “whatever is clean” or “whatever I grab” says something. Even if the message being sent out, “I can’t be judged by my clothes; I’m deeper than that.” that is still making a statement. Maybe the message is – I don’t want to be noticed. That is also still a statement. That’s a choice being made and that tells us something about a person – or a character.

What kind of clothes does your character wear? Bruce Wayne may wear Armani; I asked my students if they knew what an Armani suit looked like. Peter Parker is going to shop off the rack. Which rack?

In movies and TV, they have a whole team of people deciding what the rooms look like. Bedrooms, offices, desks, kitchens – depending on the person and what room is most important to them, what are the telling details about them that personalize the space, that say something about the character?

As an actor, I needed to know what my character wore, how he walked, how he used his hands when talking (or did he?). What sort of shoes did he wear? I compared knowing this to an iceberg; the vast majority of the iceberg is under water and only the tip shows. However, for that tip to show, the bulk of the iceberg had to be there. (One of these days I’m probably going to have to explain what an iceberg was.) I have to know far, far more about a character than I’m actually going to use just to be able to pick the facts that I feel are salient to a given moment or story. When Tim Truman and I created GrimJack, we had a whole vast backstory figured out, some of which was revealed only much later; some of it may not have been revealed yet.

Generic backgrounds create generic characters. To be memorable, there have to be details. The more specific they are, the more memorable the character will be. That’s what we want to create; that’s what we want to read.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

John Ostrander: Backwards or Forwards?

Ostrander Art 130324Bought and watched The Hobbit DVD when it came out. My Mary and I had watched the full IMAX version in the theater; it’s one of her favorite books. I’m pretty fond of it as well.

Enjoyed the movie again and look forward to the next installment. However, I had problems with it. Both the way that the story is being divided into three films and from some of the action sequences, it’s playing out as a prequel to the Lord Of The Rings films. The book The Hobbit is not a prequel; it’s a stand alone story that has some story elements in common with LOTR. In the film, however, it’s coming off very definitely as a prequel to the point, IMO, that the story is changed or even twisted a bit to make it fit that mold. Visuals such as the race through the Underground Kingdom of the Goblins was very reminiscent, visually, of the race through the Mines of Moria in LOTR. What was stunning and even surprising in the LOTR movies looks rehashed here.

Generally speaking, when I’m reading or watching a story, I want to know what happens next – if I want to know anything more at all. Some stories, like Casablanca, doesn’t need prequels or sequels (although a sequel was discussed early on for Casablanca and, fortunately, never worked out). With Star Wars, after the original trilogy was done, I was ready to see what happened next but George Lucas decided he wanted to tell what happened previously. I watched but it’s not what I wanted and a lot of the public was less than enthralled as well. It’s only now when Disney has assumed ownership of the whole shebang that Episode 7 – “and then what happened?” — is being prepared.

The prequel trilogy of Star Wars changes the thrust of the story. The original trilogy is about Luke Skywalker and his coming of age, learning who he is, and becoming the hero his father might have been. The prequel trilogy changes the arc of all six films; it becomes about Anakin Solo, his fall and his redemption. I liked it better when it was Luke’s story.

I don’t absolutely hate prequels; I’ve done them myself. The last two GrimJack arcs I’ve done have technically been prequels. I also did a four issue story on The Demon Wars in GJ and, in the back-up space, my late wife Kim Yale and I did a story of young John Gaunt which would also qualify as a prequel. In each case, however, it revealed aspects of Gaunt that helped in understanding who he was and which weren’t going to be told in any other way. Each was also a stand-alone story; you needn’t have read any other GJ story to understand these stories.

There can be problems with sequels as well. Does it add to the story or does it just water it down? Godfather II deepened and expanded on the first film; Godfather III – not so much. The original Rocky is a great film; none of the sequels improved on it and only tarnished the story. OTOH, Toy Story 2 was better than the first film and Toy Story 3 was better still.

I can understand the desire with the studios to go back to the same material; it has a proven track record. There’s more money to be made not only from the movie but from all the ancillary crap. Less risk (in theory) and more money (in theory).

Maybe what it comes down to is this for sequels and prequels – does this story need to be told? When you think about it, that’s the same criteria as every other story, isn’t it? Or should be. Is this story worth telling? Not – will this make more money? Sadly, the reason for too many sequels and prequels is the monetary one.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

MONDAY THE REST OF THE DAY: Wait And See

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mindy Newell: Ahead Warp Factor 6!

Newell Art 130325Patiently standing in the checkout line at Stop & Shop today (which was mobbed because tomorrow is the first night of Passover) I did what so many of us do – browsed the covers of the tabloids. Kim Kardashian has gained more than 40 pounds during her pregnancy. And here I didn’t even know she was enceinte! Kate Middleton, who is also pregnant, fell while attending a royal function because her heel got stuck in a grating! (Oh, no!) Jennifer Aniston reveals her wedding dress! (Somehow I doubt that.)

And then my eyes fell on a special Star magazine edition called Star Trek Collector’s Edition: Into Darkness Special.

Yeah, I couldn’t resist.

It features such things as “100 Greatest Star Trek Moments” (which were strangely not listed in order) and “The Women Who Rule Outer Space” with pictures of Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine and Jolene Blalock as T’Pol on the cover (but no Katherine Mulgrew as Captain Katherine Janeway inside?..

Which gave me the idea to list some of my favorite and most hated Star Trek what-nots. So, in no particular order:

Best cliffhanger – ST TNG, Best of Both Worlds, Part 1. “Mr. Worf – Fire!” Everybody hold your breath for a week.

Worst resolve – ST TNG, Best of Both Worlds, Part 2. “Sleep, Data.” So incredibly anticlimactic.

Best episode – ST TOS, The City on the Edge of Forever. Edith Keeler dies as she is supposed to. The universe wins. The Nazis lose. So does Jim Kirk.

Best line – ST TOS, The City on the Edge of Forever. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” No histrionics from Bill Shatner. Perfect delivery.

Best Captain – Oy. I’m not going there.

Best First Officer – Spock.

Worst. Episode. Ever. – ST TOS, Turnabout Intruder. Total histrionics from Bill Shatner. Also sets back women’s liberation 3,000,000 years.

Best Chief Medical Officer – ST TOS. Leonard H. McCoy, M.D. The good doctor also makes an appearance in the pilot episode of The Next Generation, in which he irascibly tells Data that he sounds like a Vulcan, even though “I don’t see any pointed ears on you, boy.”

Most Wasted Character – ST TNG. Deanna Troi, Ship’s Counselor. Tell your troubles to the bartender, says Guinan.

Sexiest Character Male. – ST TOS, first season. Bill Shatner, you were one hot Canadian Jew!

Sexiest Character Female. – ST TOS. Yeah, I know, if you’re of the opposite sex – from mine – you’re going to say Jeri Ryan, she of the silver catsuit. Me, I’m going with Nichelle Nichols.

Coolest Villain – ST DS9. Gul Dukat. A villain of dimensions.

Best Vulcan – ST TOS and ST TNG. Sarek

Best Human Wife to a Vulcan – ST TOS. Amanda

Best Lt. Saavik – Kirstie Alley. Did Sam Malone know that Rebecca was a

Vulcan?

Best Couple – ST DS9. Lieutenant Commander Worf and Chief Science Officer Lieutenant Jadzia Dax.

Best Bajoran – ST DS9. First Officer Major Kira Nerys.

Cutest Navigator – ST Voyager. Ensign Tom Paris.

Best Episode – ST TOS, The City on the Edge of Forever. With apologies to Harlan Ellison, I think the aired episode is better than his original teleplay.

Best Episode – ST TNG, The Inner Light. Picard lives a lifetime in twenty minutes. He also learns to play the flute.

Best Episode – ST DS9, In the Pale Moonlight. Sisko and Garak maneuver the Romulans into war. Like Bush and Cheney maneuvered us into Iraq. Sisko suffers a moral crisis over his decision. Garak doesn’t. Neither do Bush and Cheney.

Best Episode, – ST Voyager – One Small Step. “The Yankees, in six,” Seven of Nine whispers to the dead to astronaut.

Best Episode – ST Enterprise – Carbon Creek. T’Pol’s grandmother gives the secret of Velcro to a financially needy college student. Let’s face it, they all pretty much sucked.

Live long and prosper!

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

John Ostrander: Apparent Contradictions

Ostrander Art 130324None of us are the same person all the time. We change according to the people we are around; they draw different aspects of us out of ourselves. A sibling may draw us into the role of younger or older sibling automatically. A guy talking with other guys may talk and act one way and, on seeing a pretty girl, turn around and talk and act completely differently. Have you ever said or felt that a certain person brings out the best or worst in you? It’s probably true. You do it to others as well.

What’s true in life should be true in our writing. One of the major purposes of supporting characters, major or minor, good or bad, is to draw out aspects of the protagonist. There are differences between who we think we are and who we actually are and it’s other people and/or difficult situations that draw these out and reveal them to ourselves or to the readers of our stories.

Nothing reveals a character more than contradictions. The deeper the character, the more profound the contradictions. Let’s do an exercise. Take a sheet of paper and on one side in a vertical column write attributes or virtues that a character may have. For example, our character Jimmy Bill Bob is friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. That’s right – a real Boy Scout. Now, draw a line down the center of the page and in a column opposite the first attributes, write their opposite. Be creative. You can’t use un – as in unkind or ir- as in irreverent. Find words that you feel mean the opposite of the word on the left hand side of the line. I’ll wait.

Done? Fine. Here’s the thing – if everything you’ve written on the left hand side of the line is true about the character, so will everything on the right hand side be true in some way to some degree. Not at the same moment, but it can flip from one to the other in a nanosecond. It doesn’t have to be a total change which would be kind of psychotic but it can and does happen just that fast. You’ve seen it in others and I’m sure you can see it in yourself, in your actions.

It also comes down to how you define each term. In what way is a given character courteous; in what way are they rude? An act of bravery can be a small thing as well as a big thing. If this is true in real life – and I submit that it is – then it should be true in the characters that we write.

I also want to pass on something I gleaned from a terrific book on acting called Audition by Michael Shurtleff. He noted that actors loved to do “transitions” from one moment to the next, from one emotion to the next. Fates know that I was guilty of that in my acting days. He proclaimed that transitions were the death of good acting. We didn’t do it in real life; we just went from one emotion to the next often showing them hard against one another, in great contrast.

This is true in writing as well. Don’t explain the contradictions; state them and move on to the next moment. The reader will sort them out. Just make sure that the moments are true; that you’re not doing a contradiction as a short hand for a character. They are meant to reveal things about the character. A gimmick is a gimmick and makes for bad writing. Let contradictions reveal the character to you and then you can show them to your reader.  The reader will be stunned and then nod in agreement because you’ve explored something that, deep down, they know – that people, and life, are a nice messy ball of contradictions.

That makes it true.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mindy Newell: Lord Of The Sith

Newell Art 130318 “The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”

Bertrand Russell

Why Is It Always About You? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism:

1. Shamelessness: Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.

2. Magical thinking: Narcissists see themselves as perfect, using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to dump shame onto others.

3. Arrogance: A narcissist who is feeling deflated may reinflate by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.

4. Envy: A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person’s ability by using contempt to minimize the other person.

5. Entitlement: Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an “awkward” or “difficult” person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.

6. Exploitation: Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.

7. Bad Boundaries: Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide “narcissistic supply” to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist there is no boundary between self and other.

Sandy Hotchkiss & James F. Masterson (2003)

There are a lot of megalomaniacal, narcissistic bad guys in the comics world. Some of the classics are Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. The Kingpin, Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. The Red Skull, Victor Von Doom, a.k.a. Doctor Doom, and Lex Luthor, a.k.a.…well, Lex is so megalomaniacal and narcissistic he doesn’t bother with a codename. They’re the perfect foils for their arch-nemeses – and our heroes – Daredevil, Daredevil, Captain America, Reed Richards (and the rest of the Fantastic Four), and Superman.  And we like them, and sometimes we even root for them, because they reflect our unspoken and unconscious thoughts, desires, and dreams in a healthy, subliminal manner. Meaning that we’re all a bit megalomaniacal and narcissistic; otherwise we’d never get out of our beds to face the world. (Just as our heroes reflect our need to set right what we perceive to be wrong.)

But when pathological megalomania and narcissism invade the real world, we get Scott Peterson. We get Bernie Madoff (and what a perfect name for the guy who redefined the pyramid scheme). We get Jack Abramoff. We get Osama Bin Laden and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

We also get Dick Cheney, or as Jon Stewart calls him, “Darth Cheney.”

I watched The World According To Dick Cheney on Showtime this past Friday night. TWATDC is a quasi-documentary by R. J. Cutler (who is also responsible for The War Room, about Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign), by which I mean that it is basically one long interview with the former Vice-President.

I wasn’t expecting a mea culpa, and there isn’t one, ala Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. (See The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert McNamara, which won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1993)

I mean, I always said that Dick Cheney was a scary guy, and that he was the Shadow President running a shadow government during Dubbya’s term of office.

But, holy shit, man, it’s one thing to know it….

And it’s one thing to know it.

Know what I mean?

If you don’t, I suggest you watch The World According To Dick Cheney.

Go ahead.

I’ll wait.

Newell Art 2 130318

Now you know.

I’ll take my pathological megalomaniacal narcissists in four-colors, please.

Not in the real world.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY EVENING: Michael Davis

 

John Ostrander: Impetuous! Homeric!

Ostrander Art 130317Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, a day to celebrate all things Irish, a day when real Irishmen and women hide in their homes while Amateur Irishmen take to the streets and the pubs. It’s a day when the city of Chicago – no lie – dyes the mouth of the Chicago River green… or even greener than usual. Given that this year Saint Paddy’s day occurs on a Sunday, I suspect that the celebration has been going on since at least Friday and may well last into next Thursday what with the whiskey and the beer and the general all around vomiting. Ah, glorious!

Since we’re celebrating things that are Irish, I’ll be mentioning some of me own favorite Irish films. You may have different ones and I’ll drink to those as well (it’s a day for it) but these are my particular favorites.

[[[The Quiet Man]]]

Classic. John Ford directed, John Wayne and Maureen O’Sullivan star, Victor McLaughlin, Ward Bond and Barry Fitzgerald co-star with a spectacular cast in this 1952 film about a retired American boxer who returns to the wee Irish village where he was born, finds love with a tempestuous redhead and a feud with her ill-tempered bully of a brother.

If there is one Irish themed film that most Americans know, I bet it would be this one. I love it, too, but there are things that bother me about it. First – I can’t really determine when it happens. Given what the characters say in the movie, I’m assuming it’s set before the establishment of the Republic of Ireland but I’ve never been sure. Secondly – there’s a casual and accepted treatment of women (“Here, sir – a stick with which to beat the lovely lady.”) that is a little hard to take. Lastly, the characters are all colorful but they’re stereotypes.

For all that, I love the film. John Wayne gives a fine performance and there are really romantic moments where he’s very tender. Barry Fitzgerald was never more of an Irish leprechaun than here and says one of my favorite lines; on looking at the wreckage of Wayne and O’Sullivan’s wedding bed the day following the wedding night, he murmurs, “Impetuous! Homeric!” Makes me laugh every time.

[[[The Commitments]]]

Alan Parker’s 1991 film about the formation of a Dublin-based soul band features largely a cast of unknowns taken from the Irish music scene. Why soul? The band’s organizer, Jimmy Rabbitte (played memorably by Robert Arkins) puts it this way: “The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.” Hard to argue with logic like that.

You get the feel that this is far more the real Ireland than with The Quiet Man. It also has an incredible score; the soundtrack of new versions of classic soul and R&B is itself now classic. Andrew Strong who plays the band’s lead singer, Deco Cuffe, could give Joe Cocker a run for his money. Funny, revealing, and you can dance to it. What more do you want from a movie?

Rat

This is a weird damn movie from the year 2000 filled with the very best of black Irish humor. I don’t think I can improve on IMDB’s pithy description: “A woman becomes furious when her husband arrives home from the local pub and turns into a rat.” It stars Imelda Staunton and Pete Postlethwaite and focuses on the family, none of whom seem all that surprised that the man of the house has turned into a rat. One of the taglines for the movie is “He might eat maggots and live in a cage but he’s still our Dad.”

Staunton, who some may recognize as Dolores Umbridge from some of the Harry Potter films, is simply superb. The Irish accents are a bit thick and may take some getting used to but there are moments of jaw dropping comedy in this. For all its surreal premise, this also seems to capture something very real in the Ireland in which its set. Not for everyone, I think, but I loved it.

[[[Waking Ned Devine]]]

Not only my favorite Irish film but one of my favorite films of all time – period. The 1998 film, written and directed by Kirk Jones, stars Ian Bannen, David Kelly, and Fionnula Flanagan and is set in the small town of Tullymore. Someone there has won the Lotto; Jackie O’Shea (Bannen) and Michael O’Sullivan (Kelly) are determined to find the winner before anyone else knows and help them spend their winnings. The winner, they discover, is Ned Devine of the title and the shock of learning he’s won has killed him. Jackie, after a dream – a “premonition” – decides that Ned’s spirit wants Jackie to claim the prize by pretending to be Ned so it doesn’t go to waste.

It doesn’t go quite as planned.

To be honest, after first seeing the trailer I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the film. For reasons I won’t try to explain here, there were glimpses of a naked David Kelly on a motorbike rushing around. Aged male backsides are not an inducement to me. However, My Mary really wanted to see it so we went.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnIDRm7OLdo[/youtube]

There are some impeccably timed moments in the film and none greater than the climax. All I’ll tell you is that it is a very dark Irish joke and the first time I saw it in a movie theater, I literally nearly fell out of my seat, laughing hysterically. The row of seats we were in shook because I was laughing so hard. I tried to smother my laughter but people were turning to look at me. I couldn’t help myself. I have it on DVD and I laugh just as hard every time I see that climax. I know its coming, I know it by heart, and it shouldn’t affect me like that but it does.

Over repeated viewings I’ve become aware of story flaws and inconsistencies here and there but I just don’t care. I adore this film. It also has one the best movie soundtracks that I know and I play it often by itself.

So, this Saint Patrick’s day, you can go out and drink yourself into oblivion or until you see all the snakes St. Patrick drove out of Ireland but I’m going to stay in and watch one or all four of these films. Just be sure to get home safely so you can be around for St. Patrick’s Day next year and watch ‘em yourself.

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mindy Newell: Slayers, Swans, And Hunters

Newell 130311I was thinking about heroines the other day, which led to thinking about fictional role models for girls and young women growing up over the last twenty years or so. Role models which, I think, have reflected the way American society thought about women during that same time period.

Heroines and role models with the names Buffy Summers, Bella Swan, and Katniss Everdeen.

On March 10, 1997, a series called Buffy The Vampire Slayer debuted on the fledging WB Network.  I thought it was based on the schlock movie of the same name that had come and gone in the theatres and occasionally popped up on the TV screen at 3 A.M. So I ignored it, even though, as a credentialed geek, I loved anything to do with gothic horror and vampires. But word of mouth and e-buzz finally got me to tune in sometime in the summer of 1997, when I caught a rerun. I think it was the one in which Xander is seduced by a giant female praying mantis, and the effects were, let’s face it, kinda cheesy, but…

Boy, was I wrong.

The central concept behind Buffy, as Joss Whedon has stated (and I’m paraphrasing) was to turn the horror movie concept of the dumb blonde chick who only cares about clothes, boys, and her hair and ends up getting sliced and diced for her sins upside down. Yes, Buffy Ann Summers started out as a “valley girl,” but Buffy was also something else…

“Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.”

…and Buffy was that Slayer.

Buffy was a hero for the post-feminist age. She was the daughter of Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan. Though at times she grew tired, though at times all she wanted was to be was that Valley Girl with nothing on her mind but clothes, boys, and her hair (“God, Mom, even just upstairs doing my homework!” – Season 2, Becoming, Part Two), she realized that it was up to her; and she not only accepted her responsibility, she embraced it.

And then came Isabella “Bella” Swan.

Twilight, the first in the book in The Twilight Saga, hit the bookstands in 2005, three years after Buffy left the airwaves. Many of the women I knew at work were reading it and adored it. So one day at Borders I picked it up and browsed through it. My first impression: How the hell did this writer get published? She can’t write for shit! My second impression: What a piece of crap! My third impression: Bella is the anti-Buffy.

Bella was the perfect character for the reactionary cultural shock caused by the shock of 9/11; she was Phyllis Schafly as a teenager in the early 21st century. She didn’t argue, she was polite, and she was all about taking care of her father, an “abandoned” husband. But why did Bella’s mother and father break up? And isn’t Bella the least bit angry about the destruction of her family? Why does Bella come to live with her father? Does she feel deserted by her mother, who has remarried? Was her father a rotten husband?

Like America in those early days after the 9/11, we weren’t interested in answers. We wanted to create our own scenarios, and in Bella we found a character to fit our need to that, because Bella was a cipher. Bella was empty, because we were empty.

So Bella drifted. So Bella didn’t have any ambitions. Until she saw Edward Cullen, the sulky, withdrawn “James Dean” of Bella’s high school. And then she became all about him.

Swans mate for life.

I have a problem with the Twilight saga because Bella is always defined by men, not to mention the many subliminal messages within the story. To her father she will always be the good girl who takes care of him and the housekeeping, even though she lies to him constantly throughout the series, and most dramatically, in Breaking Dawn, when she does not tell him the truth about her new vampiric status and about Renessme, the daughter she and Edward conceived. Yes, in the first two seasons Buffy lied to her mother and kept things from her, but after the truth was revealed, the relationship between the two changed and evolved; there were repercussions, both good and bad. To Edward she is the girlfriend as the sacrosanct virgin; then she is the wife, whom Edward claims sexually; and finally, she is the mother of his child. To Jacob she is the girl who got away, until he “imprints” upon the infant Renessme, and isn’t that a creepy stance on pedophilia?

And then came Katniss Everdeen.

The Hunger Games was published in 2008, as America was regaining its footing and starting to ask hard questions again about our society, hard questions with no easy answers.  And Katniss, the story’s heroine, asked those hard questions for us; she was our rebuttal to Bella Swan.

The book is set in a future North America in which there is only one nation, Panem, which is divided into districts; no individual countries exist. Long ago there was a rebellion; the center of Panem, known only as the Capitol, successfully put it down, but the 13th district was obliterated, its people killed by the rebels before that happened. As a result, and as a continuing punishment to sap the will of the remaining population, the Capitol that one girl and one boy from the remaining 12 districts, each chosen by lottery, must participate in the annual Hunger Games, a brutal gladiatorial event in which the participants – called tributes – fight to the death until the last girl or boy is standing

16 year-old Katness Everdeen lived in District 12, the poorest of the districts with her mother and younger sister. Better at killing squirrels and birds than she is at expressing her emotions, Katniss does what she needs to do to keep her family alive and together. Intrepid, tough, and a skilled hunter, she supplements her family’s table with birds, squirrels, and anything else she can take down with her arrows or bargain for on the black market, despite the automatic death sentence for anyone caught foraging outside the district’s boundaries.  When her young sister’s name is pulled in the Hunger Games lottery, Katniss volunteers in her place.

In an article in The Nation, author Katha Pollit described Katniss as “a version of the goddess Artemis, protectoress of the young and huntress with a silver bow and arrows like the ones Katniss carries in the Games. Like the famously virginal goddess, Katniss is an independent spirit: she is not about her looks, her clothes, her weight, her popularity, gossip, drama or boys.”

Thematically, The Hunger Games is about fairness, morality, and the struggle to survive in a world in which the abuse of power is the norm. Katniss was the slate on which Suzanna Collins writes her thesis that the strong must always protect the weak and sick, the young and old; all those who cannot protect themselves. It was this moral coral that drove Katniss. She killed only in self-defense, to stay alive and to win the games for her mother and her sister, for the winners of the Hunger Games became celebrities, rewarded with a life of luxury and ease for themselves and their families.

Buffy and Katniss.

True heroines.

Bella?

Not so much.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

John Ostrander: Getting Old in the Comic Industry

Ostrander Art 130310On his blog last week, Jerry Ordway wrote bravely and feelingly about being a pro in comics when your age is over 50. Here’s a man who has been a comic book star of long standing and now finds it hard to get any work. His skill, ability, and desire haven’t diminished; he’s just older (and more experienced) than he was back then. He had an exclusive contract with DC and, in its final year, the company treated him deplorably, not giving him any work but not letting him get any work elsewhere.

I completely sympathize with him and can echo many of his statements. Is there ageism in comics? Demonstrably, at least for talent. On The Other Hand… some of the top editors at both Marvel and DC are around our ages. If the theory is that the talent needs to be younger in order to “get” or appeal to the younger reader, why are the editors immune? I sometimes feel like I’m in the “Bring Out Your Dead” segment from Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

Me to editor: “I’m feeling better!”

Editor to me: “You’re not fooling anyone, you know!”

I can’t claim that it’s universal. Dark Horse has been very good in giving me work and, in turn, I think I’ve given them good work in return. But I don’t seem to get any replies to e-mails that I send to the Big Two. OTOH, there are writers my age (or thereabouts) who do get work. Often they’re good friends with the given editor or Editor-In-Chief. I can’t complain about that, either; it’s worked in my favor in the past and can still work for me. Randy Stradley over at Dark Horse has been a friend as well as an editor and I get work from him.

Editors are also under far more pressure these days to produce higher sales. I and others used to nervously kid that, even with companies that were large conglomerates, comics were relatively free to do what they wanted because the money their sales brought in were chump change to Corporate Masters. That’s changed; superhero movies and games and TV shows are all big business and rake in tons of money and with that comes greater corporate oversight. With that comes the desire for more sales (How do you determine if you’re successful in corporate America? If you sell more of whatever you make than you did before and/or more than the competition). With that comes other problems.

The comic book market has a finite number of buyers with a finite amount of money to spend on the product. Digital sales might change that and expand the market base but I don’t know if the figures are in on that yet. So – how do you increase sales in a finite market?

One of the truisms of Hollywood is that “Nobody Knows Nuthin’.” Often, the folks in charge don’t really know what sells or why. Oh, they have theories but most often they look at what’s sold and try to do more of that or see who sells and try to hire them. You might think, if that held true in comics as well, that guys like Jerry Ordway would get more work.

Ah, but in comics, they believe the fans have short attention spans and what works in “new.” Not new characters or concepts but new variations on what you have, i.e. Superman minus red swimming trunks on his costume. That’s new, right?

I’m not dissing the notion. Fans, especially male fans, get bored after a few issues. They want something they haven’t seen before. That’s where folks like Jerry and myself run into problems; it’s assumed by editors and perhaps by fans that they’ve seen all we have to offer. Doing something well is not the point; giving the fans something new with which to get excited is the point.

OTOH, the fan base is the fan base. It’s getting older as well and, from what I’ve seen, it’s not growing. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that they would want to see an old favorite like Jerry Ordway? The object of the game is to get the reader to part with their hard earned money to buy a given book; Jerry’s done that. Combine him with a writer like Gail Simone or Geoff Johns and you think that wouldn’t sell? He knows how to do the work and how to please the fans.

Part of the problem also is, to get more sales, you need either a) for the fans to have more disposable income to spend on comics and/or b) bring in more new readers, preferably younger readers. On the latter, I’m not so sure that ship hasn’t sailed. The time to bring in new readers is about when they’re ten. Comics didn’t do that; they didn’t produce kid friendly comics (they still don’t) and would-be readers got lost to the video game market.

And don’t get me started on how they’ve ignored female readers. That’s a column right there and Mindy and Martha write about more knowledgably than I. That doesn’t mean I won’t add my two cents as well at some point.

In fact, this whole topic needs everyone’s two cents. I picked this topic up because I think it needs to be pursued. If you want folks like Jerry (or, yes, me) to get more work, say so in letters, in blogs, in other columns. If you think that comics are stories, not just product, and who does them are not just widgets, say something. If the conversation dies, if no one cares, then there’s no reason for the companies to care, either.

Keep the discussion going.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

John Ostrander: Revamp, Reinterpret, Regenerate, Reinvigorate

Ostrander Art 130303There’s been a lot of pushing the reset button in pop culture recently and I find the results interesting. J.J. Abrams rebooted the Star Trek franchise a few years back and, while some fans complained, I think it was successful. Certainly it was financially successful, which is what the Hollywood moguls really care about.

At the start of Daniel Craig’s run, the James Bond movies were also rebooted, culminating in the recent spectacular Skyfall, which – again this may be heresy to some – was the best Bond film ever. It’s visually stunning and takes Bond himself to greater depths and heights than I’ve seen up until now.

Sherlock Holmes has been reinterpreted into the modern age with two versions, the BBC’s magnificent Sherlock and Elementary on CBS. Both are true to the basics and it’s amazing how well the classic fictional detective gibes with modern times.

Of course, we’ve witnessed DC’s rebirth with the New 52. Again, you can argue as to whether it is artistically successful but I don’t think you can argue that it hasn’t been financially successful thus far. This summer will see a movie rebooting of Superman with Man of Steel. The Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy rebooted that cinematic history as The Amazing Spider-man did with that character’s movie version. X-Men: First Class reimagined Marvel’s mutants and so on. The next Star Wars chapter and the announced Star Wars solo films, while they will undoubtedly respect the previous movies, will probably play hob with what is known as the Extended Universe, the complex continuity that has sprung up around the films via novels, comics, games and more. Depending on how they turn out, that may not be a bad idea.

All my professional comic book writing career, I’ve played with and enjoyed continuity. I respect it but I don’t worship it and I don’t think it is cast in stone. Sometimes, continuity becomes like barnacles on the bottom of a boat and need to be scraped off in order to make the boat (or the franchise) sea/see worthy again.

One of the most successful franchises is the BBC’s Doctor Who and part of its longevity (it celebrates 50 years this year) is its ability to change the actor who is playing the Doctor. It’s built into the series; the Doctor is an alien being who regenerates from time to time into virtually a new character, played by a different actor. The new Doctor doesn’t look, act, dress or sound like any of the other incarnations. The re-invention is a part of the continuity and that’s very clever.

I think this is very healthy; characters and concepts can and should be re-examined and re-imagined for the times in which they appear. They have to speak to and reflect concerns that its current public has if they are going to remain vital and alive.

Can it be overdone or badly done? Absolutely. Some remakes get so far from what the character is about that they might as well be a different character altogether. You want to take a look at the essence of the character, what defines them, and then see how you get back to that, interpreting it for current audiences. Some folks revamp something for the sake of revamping or to put their stamp on the character. I don’t think that usually works very well. Change what needs changing, certainly, but be true to the essentials of the character or concept.

Have I always done that? I don’t think so; when I was given Suicide Squad, I didn’t go back to the few stories that were originally published and work from that. I created a new concept for the title. However, I did reference the old stories and kept them a part of continuity, albeit re-interpreting them. I think we played fair with the old stories.

On The Spectre, Tom Mandrake and I took elements from as many past versions of the character as we could while getting down to what we felt were the essentials. Really, our biggest change was not the Spectre himself but his alter-ego, Jim Corrigan. Originally, he was plainclothes detective in the 30s and our version reflected that. I think that was a key to our success.

Even with my own character GrimJack, after a certain point I drop kicked the character at least 100 years down his own timeline into (shades of the Doctor) a new incarnation. I gave him a new supporting cast and the setting changed as well. It made the book and the character fresh again and made me look at it with new eyes.

The old stories will continue to exist somewhere; they just won’t be part of the new continuity. At some point, that new continuity will be changed as well as the concepts and characters are re-interpreted for a newer audience. That way they’ll remain fresh and alive. Otherwise, they’ll just become fossilized and dead. Who wants that?

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mindy Newell: It’s Personal, Not Business.

Newell Art 130225From Wikipedia: Critics have generally received Ender’s Game well. The novel won the Nebular Award for best novel in 1985, and the Hugo for best novel in 1986, considered the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. Ender’s Game was also nominated for a Locus Award in 1986. In 1999, it placed #59 on the reader’s list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. It was also honored with a spot on the American Library Association’s “100 Best Books for Teens.” In 2008, the novel, along with (it’s sequel) Ender’s Shadow won the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author and specific works by that author for lifetime contribution to young adult literature. Ender’s Game was ranked at #2 in Damien Broderick’s book Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010.

Not too shabby.

The announcement by DC that Orson Scott Card (author of Ender’s Game and its sequel) will be writing a Superman story to be included in an upcoming anthology has burst into a firestorm of controversy on the net and in newspapers such as The Hollywood Reporter (“Ender’s Game’s Orson Scott Card’s Anti-Gay Views Pose Risk for Film,” February 20, 2013), not only because of Mr. Card’s publicly-stated negative opinions on homosexuality and same-sex marriage, but because Mr. Card sits on the Board of Directors for the non-profit National Organization for Marriage (NOM). Established in 2007 to work against the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, NOM contributed $1.8 million to the passage of “Prop 8” in California, which prohibited same-sex marriage in California. (The amendment was in force until United States District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned it in August 2010, ruling that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution. His decision has been appealed, and the ruling has been stayed.) NOM also opposes civil union legislation and gay adoption.

Last week Michael Davis’s Brokeback Bastard here on ComicMix asserted not only DC’s right to hire Mr. Card despite the widespread outrage, but Michael’s opinion that efforts to get DC to renege their offer to Mr. Card, i.e., fire the bigot!, will fail, because, DC sees this, a la The Godfather, as “business, not personal.” Why? Because, to quote Michael, “This is a win – win for DC. They get a pretty good writer and massive publicity so why fire the guy? When the book comes out they will get another round of colossal exposure so like I said, why fire the guy?”

He’s right about that. Any publicity, so the pundits say, is good publicity. (I get the sentiment, but it’s not really true. Just ask Elliot Spitzer about his hooker friend, or Paul Ryan about his marathon time.)

This is what I wrote in response to Michael’s column:

Well, I understand the business side of it. Orson Scott Card is a prolific and popular science fiction writer whose Ender’s Game won the Nebula and the Hugo, and whom DC is betting will bring in lots of $$$$$. And I understand the “high moral ground” that Michael and Dan and John (Dan and John are respondents who took issue with Michael’s viewpoint) are arguing above: judge the guy on his writing, not on his personal views. However, Card’s views are not personal in that he is a member of the Marriage Is Only Between A Man And Woman Board, (I was too lazy at the time to look up the name of the organization) or whatever the hell it’s called. He has publicly stated that gay men and women should be ostracized and worse.

Superman is an icon. Superman stands for justice for all. Superman stands for the American dream. Superman stands for the pursuit of happiness. Superman stands for Truth. Card does not stand for justice for all. Card does not stand for the American dream. Card does not stand for the pursuit of happiness. Card does not stand for Truth.

Hatred and bigotry is rampant again in this country. Just look at what’s happening in Congress. The total blockage of Obama’s proposals, the continuation of the birthers and their lies, the about-to-be sequestration of our economy is all about the hatred of our first black President. Operative Word Is Black.
 Hiring Card to write an American icon is disgusting because Card is against everything the American dream stands for. That’s my opinion, plain and simple.

Though, as I said, I understand the business behind DC’s decision, I’m also so fucking tired of the “anything for a buck” crap that’s so damn rampant these days. It’s not just in business. It manifests itself everywhere. For instance:

I worked for many years at my local hospital. Across-the-board layoffs were scheduled. Instead of protesting the lay-offs, my union said that any employee who had lost his or her job could “bump” a junior employee. In other words, take the junior employee’s job and leave him or her out in the cold. I found this despicable. The union’s job, im-not-so-ho, was to protect all employees, not just do a “run-around” to solve the problem.

I could never take another person’s job. “It’s not right,” I said. Most of my co-workers mouthed the words, but when push-came-to-shove, most of those who were on the lay-off list did “bump” the one below them. And what was worse, being a small, community hospital, the “bumpers” knew the “bumpees.”

Et tu, Brutus?

Yeah, I know. “Oh, grow up, Mindy.” “Who are you, Pollyanna?” “People gotta do what they gotta do.”

It really sucks that I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y doesn’t seem to mean anything anymore.

But like I said, I get it.

Leave the gun. Take the cannolis.

Go to the mattresses.

It’s business, not personal.

BUT GOD DAMN IT…

IT’S SUPERMAN!

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

 

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