Tagged: Emily S. Whitten

John Ostrander: That Shiny Nude Dude With The Sword!

Ostrander Art 130224Sometime tonight, in about the second hour of what will seem like a three day Oscar broadcast, my butt will go numb and I will ask myself, “Why am I watching this?” It happens every year and then the following year, I do it again. Am I a masochist? Do I just forget? Why do I care who wins what? I haven’t seen most of the films or performances nominated.

I’m not alone in this. Umpty-bum millions of people will tune in to the broadcast worldwide. It’s not the only movie awards show on anymore, either. You have the Director’s Guild, the Screen Actor’s Guild, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Golden Globes and more all handing out awards. That’s not even mentioning the Tony Awards or all of the different music awards or the People’s Choice Awards, The Emmy Awards or what have you. I’m surprised they don’t yet have the Awards Channel on cable; all awards, all the time. And the Red Carpet shows that precede them.

I understand why it’s a big deal to those nominated for the Awards (whichever Award it is) or to the Industry (whichever Industry it is) but why should it matter to anyone else? Why does it matter to me? Why do I watch? Why do any of us?

Let’s face it, fellow nerds – we aren’t represented. The films we mostly watched aren’t up for awards. Where’s the Oscar for the best actor in a superhero movie? Nominees would have to include Christian Bale in The Dark Knight Rises, probably Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man, and then there’s The Avengers which could be a category all by itself. Who do you not include? Certainly Robert Downey Jr.’s turn as Tony Stark/Iron Man is amazing but how could you not include Mark Ruffalo who made a Bruce Banner/Hulk really work on celluloid for the first time ever.

And the support actors! Again, in The Avengers – Samuel L. Jackson (who should get an Oscar just for being Samuel L. Jackson) or Tom Hiddleston as Loki who almost steals the movie. Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson who provides the heart and the reason to call the group The Avengers – where’s his nomination?

You can make the same argument for The Dark Knight Rises with Michael Caine’s Alfred who is heart wrenching, or Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon who is really the moral center of all three Batman movies. Daniel Day Lewis was amazing in Lincoln but he only had a beard to cope with. Let’s see him put on Bane’s mask and do any where near as good as Tom Hardy did. C’mon – let’s handicap these races for degree of difficulty!

Anne Hathaway got a nomination (and will probably get the Oscar) for her role in Les Miserables but did you see that, my fellow nerds, or did you see her as Catwoman? Sally Field was great as Mrs. Lincoln but why isn’t she recognized as Aunt May?

And best director? Okay, okay – Ang Lee did a knockout job (or so I’m told; I haven’ seen it) of getting a boy and a tiger on a lifeboat in Life of Pi. Stephen Spielberg did an outstanding job in Lincoln, not only creating the characters of the Civil War but the setting, making you feel like You Were There. And there’s all kinds of talk about how The Academy snubbed Ben (Daredevil) Affleck on Argo.

I got two words for you. Joss Whedon. The third act of The Avengers with the attack on Manhattan by the alien hordes, balancing and making all the superheroes – the lead characters in their own movies – work well together. ‘Nuff said.

Why don’t these movies get Academy Award consideration? They made money. Gobs and gobs of it. So far as Hollywood is concerned, that’s their award except maybe for the grudging technical awards. Maybe it is. The folks doing those may have longer careers than those who get an Oscar tonight – because if there’s one thing Hollywood respects more than Awards, it’s cash.

So, yeah, I’ll watch the Academy Awards tonight. Force of habit, maybe. Maybe we’ll have to have an alternative award for folks like us – the Nerdies.

As a great man once said – Excelsior!

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

John Ostrander: Telling Secrets

Ostrander Art 130217Everyone has secrets. The thing is, secrets want to be told. The level of intimacy we have with another person is reflected by the number of secrets we share with them.

There are many different levels of secrets. Some would seem mundane – your name, for example. Unless you’re wearing a name tag, a stranger won’t know it. You have to choose to share it and there are occasions when you wouldn’t or would only give your first name or maybe even a name that isn’t your own. In the latest Star Trek film, Uhura doesn’t give James T. Kirk her full name. In the same movie, a young and defiant James Tiberius Kirk gives a police officer (policebot?) his full name. Both are choices that say something of the character.

There are other levels of secrets, some mundane, some deeper. Boy meets girl. Boy wants girl’s phone number (or vice versa). At the moment the question is asked, the answer is a secret. A decision is made to share it or not. I have known many ladies not always eager to share that phone number with me and some with whom I did not want to share mine. Sometimes you can tell crazy pretty quick.

There are deeper levels of secrets. Your address, are you in a relationship, your social security number, your password on different sites. There are secrets you share with your friends but maybe not your family and vice versa. There are secrets you share only with your best friends or with that one special person. There are secrets you share with no one, keeping them to yourself. There are secrets, truths about you, that you keep even from yourself.

In writing, secrets can be powerful tools for creating and understanding a character. There are all kinds of secrets, great and small, that will help you define the character for yourself and your readers.

Secrets can also define the plot. Who does a character choose to tell what secret and when? Most important, was it as good idea? We have all chosen to share something with someone and it turned out to be a bad idea. If that’s true for you, it’s true for your character. Ever hear something that you labeled TMI – Too Much Information? The character being told the secret may have the same reaction. How do you feel when you’ve told a secret and turned out to be TMI for the person hearing it? Awkward? Embarrassed? Or were you oblivious to it?

The reverse can be true as well. Should a secret have been told at a given moment and wasn’t? What effect does that have on the characters and the plot? What opportunities may have been missed? We all know moments like that in our own lives; what is true for us should also be true for our characters.

Why was the secret told or not told? Why was that moment chosen to tell or not tell? What was the character trying to get or achieve by telling it? Why did they not choose to tell a secret at the right moment? Fear? Fear of what? These all define a character.

Was telling the secret to a given person/character a good idea? Again, think of your own life. Did you ever share something with someone and later wished you hadn’t? When reading a story or watching a movie or TV show or a play, did you even hear a character tell a secret to another character and wince, knowing it was a bad idea even if the character didn’t yet know it?

There’s also telling someone else’s secret. Sometimes it’s a betrayal; sometimes it’s necessity. Which is it and, again, why did the character choose to share that secret at that moment and with whom? Why would you?

In writing, in life, secrets tell us a lot about someone. Knowing them is powerful. We never, however, can or should know all the secrets of a person or a character. As writer, I often know more about the character than I share with a reader. There should always be a bit of mystery, a secret not yet shared hiding within us, within the character.

It comes down to trust. You have to trust in order to share. Sometimes that trust is misplaced and sometimes it’s not. All that drives story – our own or in the stories we create.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Mike Gold: The Nerddom Intelligentsia

Gold Art 130213There’s a new sun rising up angry in the sky

And there’s a new voice saying we’re not afraid to die

Let the old world make believe it’s blind and deaf and dumb

But nothing can change the shape of things to come

We all know how our mass media portrays nerds: people who are brainy, obsessive, with a penchant for wearing merchandising-related merchandise. We come in two sizes: gangly or Christie-clone. We couldn’t get laid at an orgy on the dark side of the moon. We have a life-long lust for our popular culture and cannot distinguish between low-brow and high-brow.

Actually, I’m rather proud of that last bit. Cultural elitism really pisses me off. But this is America, where the bottom line justifies everything. The day nerds became bankable was the day we became legitimate.

We helped. Picking up a lesson from my fellow hippie freaks of 1967, we have redefined the term “nerd” simply by accepting it as a reference to ourselves. My fellow ComicMix columnist Emily S. Whitten embraces this wonderfully, in nearly everything she writes for this site.

The Simpsons helped quite a bit. Comic Book Guy exposed a previously hidden reality: a goodly percentage of those who hang our at the comic book shop are members of Mensa, and more would be if we had even the most rudimentary social skills. Mind you, I’d only been to a handful of Mensa meetings and I found them pathetically tedious, but they were at the University of Chicago so I was probably asking to be bored.

The fact is, comic book reading among those older than nine used to be associated with stupidity, arrested development, and the complete lack of a social life. Now many understand that it’s the upper end of the brain rack that finds this stuff appealing.

Nerds might not be cool, but then again, why is it that nerds invent all the cool stuff? We might have very short attention spans and we’re easily attracted to that which is bright and shiny, but we’ve taken over the popular culture and we’ve taken over technological innovation and, quite literally, our toys have become the tools of revolution all across the world.

Remember Doctor Doom’s little flying teevee cameras that would allow him to view his mayhem all over the world? He borrowed them from Ming the Merciless… but that’s not my point. Today, for good or for bad or for both, we’ve got our flying cameras. They’re called drones. Some of them are capable of bombing people back to the Flintstones. We’ve got GPS in our pockets, transponders in our cars, cameras at most of the traffic lights and highways and stores and office buildings and not only do “we” know where you are, but we know where you have been.

Hey, I didn’t say nerddom was a force for good. It’s a human force. And it’s mainstream.

And we’ve got these massively overpopulated conventions all over the world. We can organize.

We can take over.

Maybe… we already have.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil

 

Mindy Newell: Four-Color Valentines

Newell Art 130211DC released Young Romance this week, using the title of one of the overlooked and (imho) underappreciated gems of comics history, the seminal romance comic that was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and was published from 1947 to 1975. I’m old enough to remember many of the stories contained within those pages; they were attuned to the morals of the times, and regularly told tales of unrequited love, of compromised love, and of love triumphant.

The characters were easily identifiable: there was the bad girl, the bad boy, the good girl, and the good boy.

The bad girl (think Betty Rizzo in Grease) smoke and/or drank, wore too much makeup and perfume, wore incredibly slinky dress that didn’t leave much to the imagination, preyed on other women’s men, and was quite free with her, uh, favors. Not that anything was ever shown except for kisses, but somehow Simon and Kirby – especially Kirby with his magnificent art – definitely got the message across of what followed that forbidden kiss off-panel, even to a young and innocent girl like me.

I always rooted for the bad girl.

The bad boy (think Johnny Strabler in The Wild One) smoke and/or drank, rode a Harley or drove a wicked muscle car with fins, wore a leather jacket with a one-size-too-small undershirts and jeans, had a ducktail and a comb, dropped out of high school and worked at the gas station, and was always hot for the good girl.

I always wanted the bad boy.

The good girl was a secretary or a librarian or a nurse or a high school senior or a college freshman. She wore modest clothes and flats, pink lipstick, no jewelry except for her grandmother’s pearls, and never smoked or drank.

She was so boring.

The good boy was a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or the BMOC (big man on campus) or the high school football team’s star quarterback. He wore a suit and tie or chinos and a windbreaker, never showed body hair, and always obeyed the speed limit in a Chevrolet or Oldsmobile – definitely your father’s car – and above all respected the good girl and would safely see her to the door after a date and say good night with a chaste kiss, saving “the act” for the marriage bed.

No thanks.

My preference for the “little bit of naughty” also made me veer towards those characters in the superhero world, caped and non-, that I imagined had some, uh, good times, when not saving the world.

I think Adam Strange’s relationship with Alanna moved quite quickly into intimacy, even before they were married. After all, Adam could not control when the Zeta-beam would either take him to the planet Rann or return him to Earth, so there was no time like the present, right? Though I do hope that that damn Zeta-beam didn’t snatch Adam away right at wrong time, if you know what I mean, for Alanna’s sake.

Certainly Sun Boy, a.k.a. Dirk Morgana, was an out-and-out roué: check out a little story called Triangle in Legion Of Super-Heroes #320, February 1985, a tale I dialogued over Paul Levitz’s plot, with artwork by penciler Dan Jurgens, inker Karl Kessel, letterer Adam Kubert, and colorist Shelly Eiber. But I always had a thing for Rokk Krin, a.k.a. Cosmic Boy. Maybe it was the black hair and the blue eyes, but there was just something about Rokk – I knew he was not above stopping by the 30th century’s version of the Bada Bing or hitting on the boss’s wife. And succeeding.

I know the newest couple in comicdom is Kal-El of Krypton and Diana of Themiscrya, but the pairing of these two, the classic “good boy” and “good girl” of DC, just doesn’t float my boat, y’know. Now Diana’s mother, Hippolyta… that’s a woman whom I suspect walked a bit on the wicked side in her youth. She just too worldly just knows life, with all its ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, too well. It’s in the way she holds herself, the way she talks, the way she rules.

Lana Lang may have started as a “good girl” in Smallville, but I think once she left home she had some fun. Getting over Superman throwing her over for Lois, she let the “bad girl” come out in college, cutting classes, never missing a beer bash, smoking the ganja, and saying yes to whoever asked. As an adult she may be the “sadder-but-wiser-girl,” but damn, the woman knew how to party.

And of course there’s Selena Kyle, who brings home the bacon and fries it up in a pan. Hey, the lady knows what she wants. I’d like to see her paired up with Wolverine, the “bad boy” of comics. Hard-drinkin’, hard smokin’ Logan hooking up with Catwoman.

Oh, yeah…

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

 

Mindy Newell: Pro Action

Newell Art 130204No, this is not a column about that. Get your minds out of the gutter, people!

I was working in the Special Projects department at Marvel Comics as an assistant editor when my boss, Executive Editor Bob Budiansky, called me into his office.

“I have something for you that will be absolutely perfect,” he said, “because you’re the only one in the department who will really appreciate it. I talked about it with Tom (DeFalco) and he agrees with me.”

“Okay,” I said, a bit apprehensive and yes, curious.

“The NFL approached us about doing a magazine aimed at kids who love football.”

“Okay,” I said, getting excited.

“It’s going to be like Sports Illustrated For Kids, only concentrating on football, of course.”

“Okay,” I said, trying stay dignified and professional.

“Each issue will also feature a full comic, plus news, articles and tidbits about Marvel.” “Okay,” I said, really trying to stay dignified.

“You’re going to be the editor.”

“O-KAY!!!!” I said, totally forgetting about dignity and professionalism and giving Bob a hug.

NFL Pro Action had its debut at Super Bowl XXVIII, January 30, 1993, where the Dallas Cowboys met the Buffalo Bills in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome for the right to claim the Vince Lombardi Trophy (Dallas won, 30 – 13). More than 71,000 fans found a copy of the magazine waiting for them in their gift seat cushions packs. Wolverine and Cyclops also distributed copies of NFL Pro Action at the inaugural NFL Experience, a celebration of football that has now become an annual four-day event, starting on the Thursday before the game and ending after the game on Super Bowl Sunday.

It was a true labor of love for me, for, as regular readers of this column know, I am a die-hard Big Blue fan and lover of football, having grown up in a family in which every Sunday during the season revolved around going to the game. My Dad got tickets to the Giants from a buddy of his who worked at the now-defunct Jersey City Herald-Tribune newspaper when he returned stateside from World War II.

The magazine had a broad mix of pop culture, trends, NFL and Marvel-related topics, including a comic. The kick-off issue of NFL Pro Action featured Troy Aikman about to get sacked by Wolverine, who was tearing through the cover. (Yeah, Wolvie hates the ‘Boys, like any good Giants fan.)  In addition to an Aikman profile and trading card inserts of NFL superstars and Marvel’s super heroes, the magazine also included a look at the “little people” (5’9” and under) of the NFL, including the great Cowboy running back Emmit Smith at 5’9” and Barry Saunders of the Detroit Lions at 5’8”, an article about the Punt, Pass & Kick program which had been recently revived and spotlighted NFL players who had participated in PP&K as kids, an opening day photo shoot of Niners rookie Ted Kelly and – especially poignant yesterday – strength tips from the late, great, 10-time All-Pro, 12-time Pro-Bowler and member of the NFL 1990s All-Decade Team Junior Seau – yes, I met him, too, and he was also a wonderful, wonderful man.

Each issue of NFL Pro Action also included a 16-page custom comic and the premier issue starred the X-Men and Howie Long – who held up a copy of NFL Pro Action on FOX NFL Sunday, got a ribbing from Terry Bradshaw, and said that his kids were more impressed with his appearing with the X-Men than anything else he had done. The story, by Ralph Macchio, Chris Maarinin, and Keith Williams, with lettering by Dave Sharpe and colors by Ed Lazzerlli, featured Wolverine getting his ass whooped by Long in the Danger Room – the X-Men’s holographic “gym” – and then, humbled yet inspired by this encounter with the NFL star, Wolverine used what he learned from Long against the evil mutants called Morlocks, who live beneath New York City in forgotten subway tunnels.

It also featured Rogue’s Tailgating Tips. Turns out Rogue “favors baby back ribs smothered in barbecue sauce fresh from San Antonio, dim sum, shrimp dumplings, and sticky sesame rolls from Hong Kong, foot-long hot dogs smothered in ‘craut, peppers, onions, ketchup and mustard from Coney Island, and Cajun crawfish, crab legs, and roast pork from the best restaurants in N’Orleans.” Of course, it helps if you can fly to all these places on the morning of the game.

It was a fun gig, and, yeah, there were perks besides going to Super Bowl XXVIII to make any football fan drool. Going to an absolutely scrumptious 12-course dinner with the guys from NFL Properties on the Friday night before the game at a five-star Atlanta restaurant where waiters in white gloves and tuxedos stood behind you and gave you fresh silverware – and I mean sterling silver – for each new plate, and poured a fresh bottle of wine especially picked to match the new cuisine on each new plate, which included a fine champagne to go with the sherbet offered between the lobster and the filet mignon to “wash my palate” – yeah, I got drunk, and it was fun – while sitting next to and yakking with Peter King from Sports Illustrated, meeting Troy Aikman and Steve Young and Emmit Smith (again) and Sam Huff and Junior Seau (as mentioned) and Alex Karras and Dan Reeves and John Elway…

And then there were the not-so-much-fun things that happened, like missing the bus back to the hotel after the Super Bowl and getting lost in Atlanta on a Sunday night after the game…yes, and getting back to the hotel was an adventure, let me tell you. I wandered into a hotel, where a snooty hotel clerk wouldn’t let me use the phone to call a cab, for one thing. I got back to the hotel about two hours after the game, finally having hailed a cab out in front of the hotel – and a big thank you to those folks from California who let me share that cab with them.

And the big wing-ding, ultra-faaaaabulous Saturday night Super Bowl party, at which I met a member of the Atlanta’s city council, and had an interesting conversation, which went like this:

“So, how y’all like HOTlanta?”

“It’s a beautiful city.”

“Y’know, y’all think we’re a bunch of rednecks, down hyah, but let me tell, sugah, we’all treat our niggers down hyah a hell of a lot bettah than y’all do up there in Hymietown.”

“Thank you, I’ll be sure to tell my rabbi that.”

And the guy who thought I was a hooker, and followed me back to my room expecting to get action.

PRO action.

Yeah.

That kind of action.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Mindy Newell: Today’s About Yesterday

Newell Art 130128Last week I told you about my family’s celebration of my dad’s 90th birthday. This week I’m going to talk about another birthday.

The Doctor’s.

Doctor who?

That’s right.

He turns 50 years this year, plus another 1000 – give or take. And tonight – uh, last night, actually – all us Whovians are – uh, were, actually – being treated to the first of a series of special events celebrating his golden anniversary, with The Doctors Revisited: The First Doctor, which is going to be – uh, was, actually – on at 9:00 PM, to be followed – uh, was followed – by a re-airing of the sixth episode, The Aztecs. I’m surprised – I mean was surprised – that the producers didn’t choose to air the first episode, An Unearthly Child.

In that episode, schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright become – became – curious and concerned about their 15-year-old student, Susan Foreman. Although the girl is – was – brilliant in science and history, but she doesn’t – didn’t – know how many shillings there are – were – in a pound. In fact, she says – said – that English currency is – was – on the decimal system. And she argues – argued – that she cannot – couldn’t – solve an equation about dimensions with only “a.” “b,” and “c” – there must be a “d” and an “e,” she insists – insisted. They follow – followed – her home one evening and discover – discovered – that Susan apparently lives – lived – in a police box sitting in the middle of the junkyard. Shortly afterwards, Barbara and Ian break – broke – into the police box and meet – met – Susan’s grandfather, a churlish old man who introduces – introduced – himself as the Doctor.

And that’s when they discover – discovered – that the police box is – well, actually, the police box is still the – a TARDIS, a strange machine which is bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside – well, actually, it still is – and which travels through space and time – well, actually, it still does, though it can’t return to fixed points in time, as we saw in this season’s The Angels Take Manhattan. The Doctor is – was – afraid that Barbara and Ian will – would – tell the authorities what they have seen, so he activates – activated – the TARDIS and takes – took – them all to the Stone Age.

I’ve never seen any of William Hartnell’s episodes – uh, well, actually, now I have – and I’m really looking forward to seeing The Aztecs – uh, I mean, I was looking forward to it.

It was really good.

Wasn’t it?

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Mindy Newell: Isabel’s Review

Newell Art 130121Last night the whole family went out to dinner to celebrate my father’s 90th birthday. And as regular readers of this column know, this is a birthday to truly celebrate. Less than a month after suffering a stroke with seizure complications, less than a month from bringing him home to die, my father is up and about. Not only has he recovered 99% of the use of his left arm and leg, he’s able to dress himself and perform most of the ADL’s (that’s Activities of Daily Living for you non-medical types) without assistance. Yes, he’s walking with the aid of a walker, but let me tell you, folks, I wouldn’t place odds against him in a race against The Flash. He’s zooming down the hallways of the rehab center like a bat out of hell.

And the best sign of all? He’s grumpy again, turning around to harummph at my mother to “keep up, Laura” as he did a loop around the floor and complaining that he wants to go home. How miraculous is this? Well, last night at the restaurant – for those of you who live in the Cherry Hill, NJ area and are looking for a great dining experience, it was Caffe Aldo Lamberti, a very fine Italian restaurant at the intersection of Route 73 and Haddonfield Road – we bumped into one of my father’s doctors from Cooper University Medical Center, who didn’t even recognize him. “The last time I saw him,” the doctor said, “he was literally at death’s door.”

And while we were out celebrating and toasting and laughing and stuffing our faces – so wildly boisterous, in fact, that our waiter came over to tell us that there was a complaint from one of the tables, to which I said “Screw them!” and my brother said, “My father is 90 years old, he was a death’s door, and if it wasn’t for him they’d be speaking German right now!” – yeah, we were all pretty drunk; even my father had a couple of sips of Glenn’s Kamikaze and my mother’s Pinot Noir – Isabel told me about two wonderful graphic novels she had just finished, Smile and Drama, both by award-winning graphic novelist Raina Telgemeir.

Smile is an autobiographical novel in which Ms. Telgemeir tells the story of the accident which led to the loss of her front teeth when she was 12 years old and its resulting agony of surgeries, implants, and false teeth. Parallel with all of this was Ms. Telgemeir’s experience with her corresponding puberty, with all the roller-coaster joys and terrors of that time in all our lives – crushes, maturing bodies, middle-school cruelties, and changing expectations in herself and from her family.

The New York Times Book Review said about Smile “It hits home partly because there is nothing else out there like it.” Kirkus Reviews said “An utterly charming graphic memoir of tooth trauma, first crushes and fickle friends, sweetly reminiscent of Judy Blume’s work. . . . Irresistible, funny and touching – a must read for all teenage girls.” And Publisher’s Weekly said “A charming addition to the body of young adult literature that focuses on the trials and tribulations of the slightly nerdy.

Drama is the story of a girl named Callie, who is a total theater geek. But she prefers the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd from backstage, so Callie is the set designer for her school’s production of Moon over Mississippi. And Callie is determined to bring Broadway-worthy sets to her middle school, even if the budget doesn’t exactly match that of Annie. And even if Callie doesn’t know a thing about carpentry. And even if tickets aren’t exactly selling like hot cakes.

And even if Callie’s crew isn’t what you could call a Band Of Brothers. Plus there’s all this “drama” going on between the actors, and those two realllly cute brothers who join the production.

Ada Calhoun of the New York Times said Drama has “an inspirational message for girls, and it’s communicated more subtly here than in Smile. What makes Callie happiest is not catching the eye of that week’s crush, but winning the coveted position of stage manager and finding her place in the world.”

Raina Telgemeir is also the author of four Babysitters Club graphic novels that made the American Library Association (ALA) Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth 2007 list, as well as being selected by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) as a Great Graphic Novel for Youth that same year. Ms. Telgemeir also co-authored X-Men: Misfits, a graphic novel that was on the New York Times Graphic Books Bestseller list. She has been published by Random House, DC, and Nickelodeon Magazine, and her comics have been nominated for the Ignatz, Cybil, and Eisner awards.

Accolades that are all very prestigious. Accolades that are all very deserving.

But Isabel said it best:

“There are sooooooooo good.”

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Emily S. Whitten: 1600 Penn Putting the Personal Before Politics

Whitten Art 130115There’s a lot to love about Washington, D.C., but let’s be honest: living in such a political town it can be easy to get tired of politics. Rather like the way I wasn’t big into watching legal shows while in law school, my first inclination, having lived in the D.C. area for going on ten years now, surrounded by politicians and government buildings and workers, wouldn’t necessarily be to watch a show about the President.

But when I saw the description for 1600 Penn in a media event alert in The National Press Club newsletter a couple of weeks ago, and then saw that Bill Pullman would be playing the President in this NBC show about the First Family in the White House, I knew I’d have to give it a try. I mean, come on – Pullman was a win last time he was President (not to mention his roles in two favorite movies of mine, Spaceballs and While You Were Sleeping), even before he made that speech on the airstrip. The scene where he’s looking after his young daughter in the White House in Independence Day has always been a favorite, as one of the moments that adds heart to an all-out alien invasion movie full of explosions.

As I’ve discovered after watching the pilot for 1600 Penn and after a Q&A with the cast and producers of the show, 1600 Penn may have a slightly different kind of President, but its goal is also to be full of heart. The show is premised around “an average American family living under one big roof as the nation’s First Family and dealing with everyday struggles inside the Oval Office,” and thus far, I think it delivers reasonably well.

I’m always wary of reviewing any show based on just the pilot (my preference being to give a show two or three episodes to make an impression), but after a half-hour of President Gilchrist and co., I can at least say that I would definitely watch again. From the first episode, the show has a warmth and humor to it that catches my interest, even if it occasionally struggles to find a balance between the seriousness of politics and wackiness of comedy. Though there are some moments of fun situational comedy, where it does best is when it finds humor in the deeper dilemmas (and frequent awkwardness) of raising a family in such an unusual situation as this.

It also finds humor in the skill of its cast members, notably co-creator Josh Gad, who plays blundering oldest son Skip. From the publicity photos and description, I had misgivings about Josh’s character at first. Such a character could easily go too far and either steal or ruin the show; but as written and played here, thus far there’s a balance of good-hearted sweetness and warmth to the ineptness (which is apparently one of Josh’s hallmarks) that actually plays well. It seems it will work to “build the show” around Josh, as the creators have intended, as long as his character doesn’t lose that balance.

Jenna Elfman, who plays the somehow believably competent but also zany stepmom and First Lady Emily Gilchrist, also acquits herself well in the pilot, managing to humorously juggle several pieces of a problem in a way that just barely keeps it together so it all works out in the end. Bill Pullman also delivers, but the onus of trying to play a believable President in a situational comedy doesn’t yet seem to give him many of the humorous moments we know he can do so well; although the heart is there, and he does have one quiet little comedic line with press secretary Marshall Malloy that is perfectly done.

Yet one thing I like about the show so far is that it is somewhat believable – and that may be due to the fact that co-creator and executive producer Jon Lovett served as an Obama speech-writer (and joke-writer) for three years prior to leaving the White House for full-time comedy writing. Joined by Gad, Jason Winer, and Mike Royce, he’s created a show that’s an amalgam of that reality and the wacky-but-well-meaning world that Josh Gad’s characters generally inhabit. According to Lovett, he always wanted to write a comedy, but when he left the White House, he wanted that comedy to be about “anything but the White House.” As if on cue, Gad and Winer approached him about…a comedy set in the White House. But after all, they do say to write what you know, and after Winer explained the concept to him, Lovett says “we got so excited about the ideas and stories and twists we could come up with for a show centered around the Oval Office, the world’s most famous home office. After all,” Lovett says, “President Obama says all the time that one of his favorite things about the White House is that he gets to ‘live above the store,’” and the setting offers a lot of potential for unique approaches.

While Lovett has some prior experience with what life at the White House is like, to make the show more authentic he spent time researching what family drama would look like “under the prism of a twenty-four hour news cycle,” studying how this has played out in previous administrations. Other show members also prepared in various ways. Jenna Elfman, to get ready for her role as First Lady, read about former First Ladies, looking for a common denominator or standard for embodying the role – and discovered that there really isn’t one, as each First Lady makes her own mark on the office. Elfman expressed admiration during the Q&A for current First Lady Michelle Obama, and her “energy and participation and warmth, and her contributions to health…and her role as a mother.” She also cited the feisty and determined Eleanor Roosevelt as a past First Lady she admires.

Bill Pullman, in getting into his role, apparently had some difficulties leaving it behind on the set, occasionally citing his (fictitious) military history at home and saying, “nobody get up yet!” while he was sitting down. (There’s a scene in the pilot in which the President is meeting with his military advisors and, properly, they only stand after he has stood up to leave.) Martha MacIsaac, who plays 22-year-old daughter Becca, and is discovered to be (unmarried but) pregnant in the pilot, had a sister who was also unmarried and pregnant at around the same age, so drew from that in her acting.

The creators of the show discussed other instances in which they drew from their own experiences, taking “a kernel of truth from our lives and seeing how that takes on new life in the dynamic of this family.” One example given is of an upcoming episode in which Emily, as a former political consultant who was instrumental in the President’s rise to the White House, gets carried away with “helping” her youngest stepson Xander as he runs in a middle school election. (And in answer to my question at the press event, upcoming episodes will feature a further look into what led to the President and family getting to the White House, which is definitely a storyline I’d find interesting.)

What’s sort of fascinating about listening to the cast and producers talk about this show is how much they are aiming to root this in what it would “really” be like for these characters to be the First Family; while the other goal of the show is, of course, to entertain and amuse. It would be so easy for a premise like this to lose its integrity for a quick laugh or just-slightly-too-unbelievable premise, or to be just a tad too serious for the audience to really get behind as a fun show to keep watching. However, as it stands from the pilot and plot examples from upcoming episodes (including one in which Josh’s character Skip engages in discussions with protestors outside of the White House, with predictably humorous and unexpected results), it looks like this show might just succeed in hitting its mark. I’m planning to tune in to find out if it does.

1600 Penn airs Thursdays from 9:30 – 10:00 on NBC. Give it a watch!

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

Mindy Newell: Star Trek Into Darkness

Newell Art 130114Is it Khan Noonian Singh or is it Gary Mitchell? Or could it be someone else from out of the Star Trek TOS mythos?

Ever since the first teaser debuted on theater screens around the world, Trekkers have been debating the identity of the villain.

Here’s my take: I don’t think it’s Khan.

There are two big reasons, I think, that many fans are convinced it’s Khan.

First, the voiceover talks of vengeance and watching loved ones die, and every good Trekker knows that Khan was driven by a need to avenge himself on Kirk for several reasons: (1) Kirk, a product of “ordinary” conception, defeated the “superior intellect” of the genetically manipulated Khan; (2) Kirk never bothered to check up on Khan and his followers, essentially marooning them on Ceti Alpha V, and (3) most probably, psychologically most importantly, that historian who betrayed Kirk and the Federation just because Ricardo Montabalm was one hot, sexy roll in the hay, the one who went into exile with Khan? (BTW, I never understood why Khan would love and respect a traitor. This was a man who goes on and on about loyalty.)  She died, killed by one of those scarab-eels that was the “planet’s only remaining indigenous life form.

Second, there’s that scene in the trailer that’s especially evocative of The Wrath Of Khan in which, separated by transparent aluminum(?) paneling of the dilithium chamber, Kirk and Spock’s hands form mirror images of each other in a “live long and prosper” symbolic good-bye.

But…

Khan Noonian Singh was never in Starfleet and the trailer and other promotional material points to someone within the organization. The trailer also gives the impression that the bad guy is someone with immense, inherent power, and Khan, for all his intellect, still had to depend on scarab-eels and the Genesis devise to do his dirty work.  And this is just a minor point, but Khan Noonian Singh’s heritage is Punjabi, not British Isles. Of course, J.J. Abrams doesn’t have to stick with that, but so far in his reboot, all the characters have remained true to their traditional genomes.

I think it’s Gary Mitchell.

Gary Mitchell, for those of you who have never seen the episode (Where No Man Has Gone Before) was Jim Kirk’s best friend. Mitchell had saved Jim’s life more than once, and had even maneuvered a blonde lab technician into Kirk’s orbit. Ostensibly this little blonde lab technician was Carol Marcus, whom Kirk nearly married. But at some point in their careers, Kirk reported Mitchell for failing in his duty, and Mitchell’s chance at promotion was downgraded. Still, Kirk believed in his friend’s potential, and brought him onto the Enterprise as helmsman.

On an exploratory mission to the edge of the galaxy, the Enterprise hits some kind of energy barrier that does enough damage to the ship that Kirk orders the ship out of there. The energy barrier also kills a bunch of crewman, and knocks out Mitchell. Upon wakening, his eyes glow silver, and he begins to display psionic powers, including telepathy and telekinesis.

Eventually Mitchell becomes so powerful that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Spock advises Kirk to kill Mitchell while “he still can,” but Kirk can’t bring himself to do that, deciding instead to maroon Mitchell on a planet. But Mitchell has now mutated into a being with god-like power, and Kirk is forced, in the end, to kill him.

Anyway, what I’m thinking is that in the reboot version, Kirk was able to maroon Mitchell on the planet; only now Mitchell has escaped, and has returned to wreak not only vengeance on Kirk and those he loves, but on Starfleet for daring not to appreciate Mitchell’s abilities.

And the official teaser from Paramount reads:

In the wake of a shocking act of terror from within their own organization, the crew of The Enterprise is called back home to Earth. In defiance of regulations and with a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads his crew on a manhunt to capture an unstoppable force of destruction and bring those responsible to justice. 
As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

Unstoppable force of destruction.

That would certainly describe Gary Mitchell, a.k.a. John Harrison.

And a chess game is mentioned. 


In the original episode, chess is played, and it’s a theme in the story. (Okay, I’m reaching.)

Then again, it could be Q.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

Mindy Newell: The Culture Cult

Newell Art 130107I was listening to NPR the other day – I think it was Leonard Lopate’s show – and the guest was television critic Alan Sepinwall, who used to write for New Jersey’s Star-Ledger and now has a regular column discussing television on Hitfix.com. Mr. Sepinwall is the author of the just published The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers And Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever, in which he hypothesizes that the same old same-old television drama in which the hero wears a white hat, the bad guy is in black, and truth, justice, and the American way prevails by the end of an episode, with all elements of the plot neatly wrapped up with a bow and placed under the Christmas tree (or Hanukah menorah) and with no messy, lingering thoughts to bother the viewer – is dead, gone the way of the dodo bird.

I found the conversation extremely interesting, especially as the shows Mr. Sepinwall believes are responsible for the new landscape of television drama are those usually associated with the word cult.

Cult, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, has several meanings, but in this case the one that applies is: a great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad; (b) the object of such devotion; (c) a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion.

As in “the cult cop show The Shield.”  Or “the cult science fiction show Battlestar Galactica.” Or “the cult teenage horror-fantasy show Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” Or “the cult late 1950s – early 1960s drama Mad Men.”

I think this usually means that the person describing these shows really thinks “I haven’t seen it, but my colleague/competitor is raving about it, so I’d better get on the bandwagon so I can sound just as cool and auteur as he/she does.” It can also mean “everybody is talking about it in the office, and I don’t want to sound like I don’t know what they’re talking about, so I’ll just go along with whatever they’re saying.” Or it can mean “I tried watching it, and I just don’t get it, but my wife/kids/best friend/boss loves it, so I better pretend like I do.”

It also usually means that the shows don’t have the greatest ratings, but the network executives love the prestige and the publicity and being thought of as brilliant by the television critics who rave about the shows. (Hey, who doesn’t love an ego boost?)

These are the shows that Mr. Sepinwall believes ushered in a new “golden age” of television drama:

Oz (HBO, 1997 – 2003)

The Sopranos (HBO, 1999 – 2007)

The Wire (HBO, 2002 – 2008)

Deadwood (HBO, 2004 – 2006)

The Shield (FX, 2002 – 2008)

Lost (ABC, 2004 – 2010)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (The WB, 1997 – 2003)

24 (Fox, 2001 – 2010)

Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel, 2004 – 2009)

Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006 – 2011)

Mad Men (AMC, 2007 – Present)

Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008 – Present)

Mr. Sepinwall also gives note to those shows he believes were the “building blocks” of this new millennial golden age of television:

Hill Street Blues (NBC, 1981 -1987)

St. Elsewhere (NBC, 1982 – 1988)

Cheers (NBC, 1982 – 1993)

Miami Vice (NBC, 1984 – 1989)

Wiseguy (CBS, 1987 – 1990)

Twin Peaks (ABC, 1990 – 1991)

Homicide: Life On The Street (NBC, 1993 – 1999)

NYPD Blue (ABC, 1993 – 2005)

The X-Files (Fox, 1993 – 2002)

ER (NBC, 1994 – 2009)

I never considered Cheers or ER or even The Sopranos cult hits. But reading the book, I understood why Mr. Sepinwall included them – all of the shows took chances, whether it was in the scripts or in the use of the production values such as camera work or even simple casting. I also found, as I read the book, that it was really not so surprising that so many of the people involved both behind and in front of the camera have intertwined histories, or that at one point or another in their careers they believed themselves to be “hamstrung” by the parameters of the shows with which they were involved, whether through executive interference or through mythology.

Ron Moore described the mythos of Star Trek as a “fly stuck in amber.” Bottom line, every single one of them, whether network executive or producer or writer or actor, had a desire, an eagerness, a need to break barriers. Sometimes it was because, as in the case of the WB and Buffy, a “what the hell, what have we got to lose?” attitude, as a network tried to establish itself as a viable competitor to the “Big Three” and cable. And sometimes it was because one executive believed in the vision of one writer, as in the case of Bonnie Hammer and Ron Moore.

If you’re a cultist like me (also known as a nerd or a geek), I recommend you read this book.

•     •     •     •     •

On a personal note… The Newells have been participants in an honest-to-God miracle.

My father suffered a stroke on Christmas Eve that progressed to continuous seizure activity. After four days in the hospital, with nothing left to do, we brought him home to die surrounded by the family he loved him.

On New Year’s Eve, he woke up.

He has no memory of that week. He has residual left side weakness, but he is getting stronger every day with the help of physical and occupational therapy. And he has the appetite of an elephant. Yesterday all he wanted was a pastrami sandwich on rye with mustard, which he ate vigorously.

He’s not out of the woods yet, but he’s got his throttle all the way open, and his nose up in the air and he’s pushing the envelope, chasing the demons that live in the sky.

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

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