Scott Rosenberg involved in legal problems and accused of theft? What are the odds?
Cowboys & Aliens studios Universal Pictures and Platinum Studios have been sued by cartoonist Stephen Busti, who claims that the graphic novel and Jon Favreau movie infringes on his strip ‘Cowboys and Aliens’, which appeared in Bizarre Fantasy #1 in 1994.
TMZ reports that Busti’s story was spotlighted in a 1995 issue of Comic Shop News on the same page that ran a story about Platinum’s Scott Rosenberg. The studio executive later presented the Cowboys & Aliens concept to the studio.
Platinum produced a Cowboys & Aliens poster in 1997 and sold the rights to the property to Universal and Dreamworks. It did not appear in graphic novel form until 2006.
One of the doctors I’ve worked with once asked me “What’s it like to be a writer?”
I guarantee that every single one of the columnists here at ComicMix has been asked that question, or a form of it, quadrillions of times.
The mother of one of my daughter’s friends: “Where do you get your ideas?”
A co-worker at my day job: “So what do you do? They give you the comic and you put the words in those balloons?”
An old boyfriend: “You get paid for that?”
My mother on the phone, back when I was a full-time freelancer: “What do you do all day? How can you sit in your pajamas until 3:00 in the afternoon?
Mom on the phone again: “I’m sorry to bother you. Are you typing?”
The answers:
“What’s it like to be a doctor?” (Cracking wise.)
“I don’t know.” (Case in point: last week’s Bizzaro column. Where the fuck did that come from?)
“Yeah.” (I used to go into a full-scale elucidation of the full-script method, which is similar to writing a movie script, except that in a movie script very little art direction is given as the writer pretty much leaves that up to the cinematographer, whereas in a comic script the story is broken down panel-by-panel with instructions to the artist of what is happening, which can range from “Superman hits Doomsday,” to detailed descriptions of what the man standing behind the woman in the crowd watching Superman hit Doomsday is wearing – and you should read one of Alan Moore’s scripts for anything he’s ever written if you really want see and understand what I’m talking about – and dialogue or captions or thought balloons vs. the “Marvel-style” of writing comics, in which the writer breaks down the action into page-by-page descriptions of what’s happening in the story, after which the editor sends it to the artist to – oh, never mind. I know you’re getting that bored look, just like the questioner, who would blank out on me within ten seconds of my explanation, just like I know you’re doing now.)
“Yes.”
“It’s 3:00?”
“Yes, Mom, I’m typing.”
I think all writers go through this type of third-degree in one form or another. Yes, even Pulitzer Prize winning novelists like Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &Clay), Oscar Hijuelos (The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love), Toni Morrison (Beloved), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), and Bernard Malamud (The Fixer).
And the funny thing is, those questions from co-workers, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, and parents: What’s it like to be a writer? Where do you get your ideas? You put the words in the funny balloons? You make any money at that? What do you do all day? How can you sit around in your pajamas ‘til 3:00 in the afternoon? Are you typing? – are the same questions I think all writers ask themselves.
Fer shur I’ve asked myself those questions. Many a time, and over and over.
And I have a confession to make.
I still have trouble saying “I’m a writer.”
Is it an ego thing? I don’t generally go around saying, “Look out, world, here I come! Get out of my way!” But I do have it on good authority – Alixandra and Jeff – that I’m a “firecracker.” Which is very gratifying to my ego, but then why am I in therapy? (Funny story. I was talking with my therapist before Alix and Jeff’s wedding, telling him how I was having all this angst and shpilkes (Yiddish for “nerves”) and bad dreams, and he said “That’s because you’re neurotic,” and I yelled at him, “I’m not neurotic!” Um…well, I guess you had to be there, or in therapy, to get it.)
A writer can plot. I still can’t plot worth a damn. Fellow columnists like Denny O’Neil and John Ostrander have tried to teach me, and though I do get it intellectually, I fail more often than I succeed. Julie Schwartz told me that there’s only one essential plot. Boy meet girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. Every story is a variation of that. (I think he was repeating, or paraphrasing, something that someone famous once said, but I can’t remember.) I get it. I really do. And sometimes it works for me. More often than not I hit a wall, and then I’m dead in the water. I didn’t even know what I was going to write about when I sat down to write this column.
A writer doesn’t put off writing. I’m a natural-born procrastinator. Yep, I’m essentially a lazy couch potato. Or computer solitaire player. Without a deadline (and I’m writing this on Saturday night, right now it’s 10:59 p.m., and though it’s still Saturday, I should have finished this column way, way earlier, like last Monday), I’m hopeless. I’ll never finish that novel in my drawer because there’s no agent/editor/publisher breathing down my neck to finish it.
A writer carries around a little notebook to jot down ideas. Or writes them down on any piece of paper he or she can find. Woody Allen does that. Last week I watched the PBS documentary about Mr. Allen, and I watched him pull out a drawer, it was in his bedroom, and in that drawer were pieces of paper, napkins, post-it notes, paper plates, handkerchiefs, anything he could write one, all with ideas, a sentence here, a word there, an observation, a thought – and he laid them out on the bed and it was a heap o’ words, a collection of yeeaarrsssss. Well, I did have a little pad to carry around with me at work – oh, hell, I’ve bought dozens of ‘em – but I always get so busy and I don’t know where the hell they go. Or I’ll write something down on a scrap of paper and lose it.
A real writer writes because he or she has to. Whether it sucks or whether it’s a bestseller that’s optioned and becomes the next Oscar and Golden Globe winner. I don’t have to write. I don’t have that burning need.
Matt Forbeck, author of Amortals, Vegas Knights, and The Mutant Chronicles novelization, the Magic: The Gathering comic for IDW, and creator of the Brave New World RPG (with concepts that predated Marvel’s Civil War by years), is setting an ambitious goal for himself, and is asking for you to help torture him:
I’d like to write a dozen novels in 2012, and I want you to dare me to do it.
This is the first part of my 12 for ’12 project, a year-long challenge in which I plan to write a novel every month in 2012.
It may not be as insane as it sounds. By novel, I mean a work of fiction that’s at least 50,000 words, a bit shorter than most my novels, which tend toward 80,000 words. The Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards each define a novel as anything over 40,000 words, but I want to be a bit more ambitious. 50,000 words is also, not coincidentally, the number of words writers shoot for during National Novel Writing Month.
I plan on breaking 12 for ’12 up into four trilogies, and this Kickstarter project represents the first of them: the Brave New World Trilogy. If this one goes well, I’ll run other Kickstarters later in the year for the rest of the books.
So, along with everything else, I’m trying to write an original graphic novel. It’s taking forever because I have no deadline and I have a ton of other stuff to do. However, it’s on my mind all the time.
Which is fine, because I like my characters, and I like having them in my head. I like them even better since I spent the day with Mary Wilshire, the artist I hope to persuade to draw the thing. Her insights into why people act the way they do and what they look like doing it make everyone more interesting.
The problem with liking my characters is that I want to keep them out of harm’s way, which might be simple human kindness but makes for a dull story. The bad guys have to behave badly, the good guys have to behave well, and the main character must overcome obstacles to find her true self and her purpose in the world.
A writer is supposed to write about what she knows, and what I know about is avoiding conflict to the best of my ability. That’s always my first reaction, even if it’s not always the best reaction. I have to get out of my comfort zone to do the right thing, in my life and, especially, in this story.
The story is about families, about finding out who you are and what you want to be even though you might have been raised to be someone else. It’s about balancing what you need with what you want. It’s about accepting those you love because that’s what love is about, not because they behave the way they should.
So, yeah, it’s kind of a chick book.
Also, a few of the characters have superpowers. I like superhero comics, and I think, in this case, superpowers are excellent metaphors for what we bring to our roles within our families. A character with superpowers is more visually dynamic, more suitable to the graphic story format, for the purposes of this particular story.
So, yeah, maybe it’s not so much a chick book.
The conventional wisdom is that women don’t like superhero comics, that they are turned off by adolescent power fantasies. Since I enjoy superhero comics, I don’t agree with this theory. However, I do think that many women are turned off by puerile male adolescent power fantasies. They might enjoy adolescent power fantasies created by other women.
We don’t know this yet, because no one is publishing original material aimed at this market. In prose, the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books are bestsellers. Dark Horse does really well with the Buffy-verse books, based on the phenomenally successful television series. Would characters that didn’t have success in other media do as well?
I hope so. Because that’s the kind of thing that might kick me out of my writer’s block.
Before I get to the box that came today, I have to thank Glenn Hauman, who was responsible for several big boxes of stuff that showed up semi-mysteriously yesterday, while I was at work. He was trying to get me started on rebuilding the collection that the flood destroyed, and it was one of the nicest things that anyone has ever done for me. (I haven’t really had a chance to see what’s there yet — I’ll probably have to wait until I have shelves again, and unload directly onto them to go through it all.) I’m not sure where all of it came from, so thanks to Glenn, and thanks to anyone else who was responsible.
But today a box came in from Midtown Comics, which used to be my local when I worked in the city, and which has been e-mailing me about their deals incessantly in recent weeks. Just before Thanksgiving, they had a sale that finally got me:
40% off most graphic novels
free shipping
and no tax, since I’m in New Jersey, where they don’t have a physical presence.
How could I resist? And so here’s what I got: (more…)
New Pulp Writer Martin Powell has shared some new promo art for the upcoming graphic novel of THE ETERNAL SAVAGE he’s writing, illustrated by Steven E Gordon. The Eternal Savage is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic book and authorized by ERB, Inc. to be published by Sequential Pulp/Dark Horse Comics. You can learn more about Sequential Pulp Comics at http://www.sequentialpulpcomics.com/
John Carter of Mars is inexplicably transported to the mysterious and exotic planet Mars, and becomes embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions and discovers that the survival of the planet and its people rests in his hands.
John Carter is a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars). John Carter is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of Tarzan, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.
For more information on Disney’s John Carter of Mars movie, visit http://disney.go.com/johncarter or follow on Twitter at @JohnCarter.
THE GREEN LAMA UNBOUND Written by Adam Lance Garcia Published by Airship 27 Productions ISBN 978-10934935-75-0 243 pages, $24.95
For much of the past year, I’ve had one person after another tell me that I should read this book. I resisted because nothing turns me off more than unceasing hype. Hell, I still haven’t seen Titanic for just that reason. That and the fact that the history books ruined the ending for me. The ship sinks, right?
Anyway, I finally broke down and purchased this book not long ago. It is a high-priced item, costing a little more than I usually like to plunk down for a paperback book, but the production values are typical Airship 27: which means the paper is high quality, the cover is engaging and the formatting is professional. So you could definitely argue that you got your money’s worth.
Now… about the story itself.
Let me start by saying that I don’t think this book is particularly revolutionary but it is a damned good read, especially for someone’s first novel.
Basically, Adam takes a mostly B-Level character and molds him into something more. Hell, the Green Lama is pitted against the hordes of the C’thulhu Mythos in this one! And Adam displays a deft hand at balancing action with characterization.
I particularly liked the supporting characters in this one: Caraway, Jean and Ken all stole quite a few scenes from the emerald-wearing hero. In fact, I’d say that the way they orbited the hero was quite well done and pretty classic, in my opinion. Even in the old Doc Savage series, Doc was pretty staid compared to the bickering of Monk and Ham.
There are several Easter eggs in the story that made me smile, especially the reference to the rampaging ape in the early chapters. It shows that Adam has a clear grasp on the audience who will be reading this.
If I had a complaint — and it’s a minor one — I think that Adam overdoes it a little on the Lama-speak and the C’thulhu words. Throw in all the German and Greek phrases, too, and I felt like I was skimming an awful lot. I’d tone that down somewhat in future volumes. I mean, we get it — that guy’s German. This guy likes to say “Ma-ni pad me” a lot. Too much of that stuff breaks up the narrative flow, in my opinion.
This book is a terrific, fast-paced read that features believable characters that you grow to care about. It’s a wonderful introduction to The Green Lama and definitely positions Adam Garcia as a leading voice in the New Pulp movement.
Paul Mannering’s new novel, TANKBREAD is now available now in Kindle format at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006F820M2 Paperback edition coming soon.
About Tankbread, a novel by Paul Mannering.
Ten years ago humanity lost the war for survival against a spreading plague that brought the dead back to life as flesh eating monsters.
Now intelligent zombies rule the world. Feeding the undead a steady diet of cloned people called Tankbread, the survivors live in a dangerous world on the brink of final extinction.
One outlaw courier must go on a journey through the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Australia. Fighting his way into the very heart of the apocalypse in the desperate search for a way to save the last humans and destroy the undead threat.
His only companion is a girl with an extraordinary secret. Her name is Else and she’s Tankbread.
Praise for Tankbread: Paul Mannering’s TANKBREAD is a guts and glory joyride into very dark territory. Very nasty and lots of fun!” ~ Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of DEAD OF NIGHT and DUST & DECAY
Mannering’s take on the post-zombie apocalypse is scarifyingly real. Baked dog while you take orders from your zombie master anyone? Sink your teeth into an Australia where the zombies are in charge – you won’t be disappointed. ~ Rocky Wood, author of STEPHEN KING: A LITERARY COMPANION and HORRORS! GREAT STORIES OF FEAR AND THEIR CREATORS
“Tankbread reads like a tick-list of genre staples: tens of thousands of zombies, a brave, wise-cracking warrior hero, a beautiful woman who might just hold the key to everything, mad scientists, and even a knight in shining armour and a helicopter-piloting mother superior thrown into the mix! And yet the whole is far greater than the sum of its disparate parts. Tankbread is a blast from start to finish. A breathless, country-crossing zombie epic – kind of like Mad Max colliding head on with Dawn of the Dead. Mixing great action scenes, laugh-out loud moments, copious amounts of horror and lead characters you really grow to give a damn about, Tankbread is a unique and very entertaining entry in the over-saturated zombie genre. Read it and enjoy it – I did.” ~ David Moody, author of the AUTUMN and HATER series.
Scott Rosenberg involved in legal problems and accused of theft? What are the odds?
