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DENNIS O’NEIL: Who knows what evil lurks…? Part 3

DENNIS O’NEIL: Who knows what evil lurks…? Part 3

I had it easier than many comics writers. I began in the business as an assistant to Stan Lee in 1965, when Marvel was just completing its metamorphosis from obscure Timely Comics to publishing phenomenon, and Stan’s vision of what a comic book company could be was pretty much complete. Implicit in the writing part of the job was the requirement that I imitate Stan’s style – after all, Stan’s style was Marvel. That made the job simple: imitate Mr. Lee successfully and I was doing it right.

Of course, I bridled a bit at having to imitate anyone. After all, I was in my 20s and had been doing comics for about two days, and therefore, according to my lights, I was deeply wise and fully knowledgeable about…oh, name it, and don’t forget to include comics. As Bob Dylan sang, “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” Now, in my sexagenarian salad days, I’m grateful for my Marvel initiation because everyone begins by imitating someone, and I didn’t have to seek a model or wait for the churning of the universe to provide one – I learned the trade by having to imitate the comic book scripter who was at that time, arguably, the best.

Here are a few words from a man who is well on his way to becoming my favorite mainstream writer: “Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master… Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.” Those observations are from a Harper’s Magazine piece by Jonathan Lethem titled “The Ecstasy of Influence,” which you can read on Harper’s website. They bring us, at last and via the long way around, to the subject of this installment of the arc (or miniseries, or series-within-a-series or whatever the hell it is) that began with what we called “Who Knows What Evil… Part 1.” Those of you who were kind enough to read the earlier installments may remember that I suggested that the creators of Batman may have been…well, call it “intensely aware” of The Shadow and other popular culture creations.

Let’s assume that they were. Did that make them wicked, weaselly thieves? No, no, and again, no. Remember: everyone begins by imitating someone. As Anthony Tollin said in a phone conversation, those early comics guys (who were barely out of adolescence and in the process of inventing a medium) had no one to emulate except authors from other forms and the newspaper strip fraternity. Since they were generally not from society’s loftier precincts, with ready access to elitist amusements, their entertainment was comic strips, movies, the pulps, and maybe radio, and it was natural – inevitable? – that they’d seek inspiration in those media. Where else?

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A Wonder-ful overview

A Wonder-ful overview

Over at Monitor Duty, Alan Kistler has completed his exhaustive — and we do mean exhaustive — overview of the comics history of Wonder WomanPart 3 covers the period from 1993, when Bill Loebs and Mike Deodato took over from George Perez’ run, on up to the present day.

If you want to take things chronologically, here’s Part 1 and Part 2 of Alan’s profile.

Both fans and pros new to the character could do far worse than to review Alan’s work here.  At times quite opinionated, it nonetheless distills decades of comics history into three extremely informative posts.  Well done, Alan!

International Pixel-Stained Techno-Peasant Day

International Pixel-Stained Techno-Peasant Day

It all started when Dr. Howard V. Hendrix, current VP of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, delivered a rant about people giving away their works for free on the Internets,

I’m… opposed to the increasing presence in our organization of webscabs, who post their creations on the net for free.  A scab is someone who works for less than union wages or on non-union terms; more broadly, a scab is someone who feathers his own nest and advances his own career by undercutting the efforts of his fellow workers to gain better pay and working conditions for all. Webscabs claim they’re just posting their books for free in an attempt to market and publicize them, but to my mind they’re undercutting those of us who aren’t giving it away for free and are trying to get publishers to pay a better wage for our hard work.

Since more and more of SFWA is built around such electronically mediated networking and connection based venues, and more and more of our membership at least tacitly blesses the webscabs (despite the fact that they are rotting our organization from within) — given my happily retrograde opinions, I felt I was not the president who would provide SFWAns the "net time" they seemed to want at this point in the organization’s development, or who would bless the contraction of our industry toward monopoly, or who would give imprimatur to the downward spiral that is converting the noble calling of Writer into the life of Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch. 

As you would expect, this met with a certain amount of derision, head-shaking, and laughter.

First there was John Scalzi, who’s already stirring things up in SFWA with a write-in candidacy that could very well win, pointing out how well giving stuff away has worked for him. And Cory Doctorow. And Charlie Stross. And so on and so on. And adding that "It’s appalling that a standing Vice President of SFWA is calling a rather large chunk of his constituency backstabbing scum."

Then Jo Walton got into the act, declaring today to be International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, "the day when pixel-stained technopeasants everywhere are stretching and smiling and putting down their technotools to celebrate their existence by releasing their works into the wild, or at least the web." Numerous authors have contributed, and Jo has been keeping a pretty complete list, along with a quick LiveJournal community that sprang up to document the phenomenon.

Of course, the webcomics folks have been doing this sort of thing for a long time now.

I’d like to do my part as well, but  most of my work has been work-for-hire so the selection’s a bit limited. Nevertheless, here’s a story previously published in Urban Nightmares by Baen Books… a story that, irony of ironies, helped get me into SFWA in the first place.

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Stuck Barcelona Baby

Stuck Barcelona Baby

We’ve been vicariously living in Spain for the last few days via Heidi MacDonald, who’s taking in Ficomic (officially the Saló del Còmic de Barcelona), but something she hadn’t had the chance to mention yet was that the Spanish edition of fellow NY-er Howard Cruse’s work Stuck Rubber Baby has won their Best Foregn Comic award!  Howard, himself, was also kind enough to tell us about the event.

At right is a picture of the cool- and heavy-looking award atop a copy of SRB.  Congratulations, Howard!

A little bit more of Harry

A little bit more of Harry

Here you go, something to brighten your morning:

That would be your basic second (international) trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

MIKE GOLD: Death to Floppy!

MIKE GOLD: Death to Floppy!

I was combing through the Diamond catalog, placing my family’s orders for whatever month I’m ordering for. Oh, yeah: it’s April, so I’m looking at the March catalog do order stuff coming out in May, if at all. People who grew up at comic book cover dates have a hard time working a calendar.

As every month, I am struck by the impossible number of “alternate covers” being produced by the publishers. Of course, only a fraction of them are actually solicited: some publishers slap on new covers for subsequent reprintings. This sorta makes you wonder how they knew they’d sell out early enough to commission those new covers.

I don’t have a problem with alternate covers. Whereas I rarely indulge, there are enough collectors out there to make the gimmick work, and that’s fine by me. I collect all sorts of weird stuff myself – I’ve been trying to get Denis Kitchen’s Betty Boop blow-up doll for 30 years. Certainly there’s nothing wrong doing an alternate cover stunt to celebrate a truly significant issue. But it’s being done on damn near everything these days, on routine issues of routine books, just to turn the sucker into a collectible.

Therefore, while I see nothing wrong with alternate covers, I do feel they portend the end of the world as we know it.

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Infinite Crisis goes audio

Infinite Crisis goes audio

Doctor Who fans have been getting all-new full-cast audio adventures for years. Recently, Dark Shadows has been invited into the club. And now, GraphicAudio has signed DC Comics up for the ride.

Purveyors of full cast audio adaptations of such well-known action paperback series as Stony Man, The Destroyer and The Executioner, the Graphic Audio corporation will be releasing DC’s Infinite Crisis miniseries in two box sets, each containing six hours of programming. The first will be released in May, the second in June. They describe the plot thusly:

"Superman, the Man of Steel. Wonder Woman, Amazon Princess. Batman, the Dark Knight. Together, they are the greatest super heroes of all. But they have turned away from each other in Earth”s hour of greatest need. As space is ripped apart, super-villains unite, and four mysterious strangers threaten reality itself. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman must put aside their differences to save the world, but even the combined might of all Earth”s heroes might not be enough to stop the coming crisis…"

Actually, the CD sets are an adaptation of Greg Cox’s novelization of Infinite Crisis, buy why quibble. I’m a fan of such original audio shows, and I’m looking forward to reviewing the series. GraphicAudio CDs are widely available at truck stops and Interstate rest areas, and through the manufacturer.

Who’s a Christmas present?

Who’s a Christmas present?

Australian pop star Kylie Minogue will be making her return to acting in this December’s Doctor Who Christmas special… as a Cyberwoman.

According to the British newspaper News Of The World, singer with acting credits as diverse as Moulin Rouge, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Street Fighter: The Movie will be co-starring as a Cyberwoman with rather peculiar designs on The Doctor, David Tennant. Executive producer Russell T. Davies will be writing the episode.

This Doctor is no stranger to working with big-name pop stars, as his first companion was Billie Piper.

Super Librarian is coming!

Lots of comic shops are gearing up for May 5’s Free Comic Book Day, but NJ is doing them one better — the New Jersey State Library system is sponsoring Super Librarian Free Comic Book Day statewide on May 5.

NJSL and INFOLINK (the Eastern New Jersey Regional Library Cooperative) are working with youth service librarians to conduct a statewide public awareness campaign, which includes the release of the Super Librarian comic book on FCBD. (This teaser video celebrates super librarians in NJ and elsewhere.)  Local libraries will also have teens plan events highlighting how their libraries are meeting the needs of young adults in their communities and distribute free copies of the comic in Spanish and English versions.  FCBD will also kick off a YouTube comic contest, where teens can create a video or draw a comic about why they love their library, with one lucky entrant winning an mp3 player.

The librarians’ organization says, "We will be working with Diamond Comics to promote the entire event statewide and will be creating press pieces designed to give greater visibility to how our NJ libraries are meeting the needs of teens," and it looks as though this venture is already paying off.  For instance, the Courier News reports on how the Comic Cafe store in Warren will be supplying free comic books for the Bernardsville Public Library to give away on FCBD.  Let us know if you see any other local articles.  As for us, we’ll probably be in Rockland County for FCBD, but no reason we can’t drive over the border and check out some comic stores — and libraries — there!