Safety or Adventure?

Tarzan of the Apes

Most children tell themselves stories in which they figure as powerful figures, enjoying the pleasures not only of the adult world as they conceive it but of a world of wonders unlike dull reality. Although this sort of Mittyesque daydreaming is supposed to cease in maturity, I suggest that more adults than we suspect are bemusedly wandering about with a full Technicolor extravaganza going on in their heads. Clad in tights, rapier in hand, the daydreamers drive their Jaguars at fantastic speeds through a glittering world of adoring love objects, mingling anachronistic histories worlds with science fiction.

[...]When I was growing up, I read all twenty-three Tarzan books, as well as the ten Mars books. My own inner storytelling mechanism was vivid. At any one time, I had at least three serials going as well as a number of old faithful reruns. I used Burroughs as a source of raw material. When he went to the center of the earth a la Jules Verne (much too fancy a writer for one’s taste), I immediately worked up a thirteen-part series, with myself as lead, and various friends as guest stars. Sometimes I used the master’s material, but more often I adapted it freely to suit myself. One’s daydreams intended to be Tarzanish post-puberty (physical strength and freedom) and Martian post-puberty (exotic worlds and subtle combinaziones to be worked out). After adolescence, if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes. My last serial ran into sponsor trouble when I was in the Second World War and was never renewed.

--Gore Vidal, discussing the attraction of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I can relate to Vidal's memories of telling stories to himself as a kid. My inspirations were more Star Wars and Universal monster movies, but I did that a lot and probably more than anything else, it's what made me want to become a writer.

I can also relate to his statement that "if one’s life is sufficiently interesting, the desire to tell oneself stories diminishes." I don't pretend much anymore that my car is the Millennium Falcon and that the Interstate is a Death Star trench (much to the benefit of my fellow drivers, I'm sure), because I'm usually thinking about my day: a story I'm working on, a blog post, errands to run, all that stuff. My story-telling time doesn't take the form of unstructured daydreaming now. I have a time and a place for it.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

When I look at that a certain way, it seems kind of sad. How can you structure storytelling and imagination? But that's not really what's going on. Like I said, a lot of my daydreaming is about storytelling. Instead of being purely for my own pleasure though, I'm thinking about stories that I want to write down. It's just taken a different form.

But while I like to think that I've outgrown childish daydreaming and figured out a mature way to put it to work, Vidal doesn't let me off the hook so easily. He writes, "Until recently I assumed that most people were like myself: daydreaming ceases when the real world becomes interesting and reasonably manageable. Now I am not so certain. Pondering the life and success of Burroughs leads one to believe that a good many people find their lives so unsatisfactory that they go right on year after year telling themselves stories in which they are able to dominate their environment in a way that is not possible in this overorganized society."

But that's not talking about me, right? My daydreaming is work. It's part of the writing process. Except Vidal quotes Burroughs as saying, "Most of the stories I wrote were the stories I told myself just before I went to sleep." In other words, Burroughs' writing was a product of his daydreaming. For him, they were the same thing. And if I'm honest, they're the same for me too. Whether or not I eventually intend them for publication, I make up stories first for myself because I'm bored. Or dissatisfied. Uninterested in the mundane details of my life. Whatever you want to call it.

This isn't a profound revelation. I suspect that most people feel the same way. I don't even think that for most cases it's a problem in need of fixing. We make up stories (or read them, or watch them, or play them in video games) because we're dissatisfied. It's a tested coping mechanism and it works. But - I'm starting to realize only just recently - it's not the only coping mechanism. Another option is to change the part of life that's most dissatisfying to you.

Craig Ferguson: Adventurer

That's something I've been thinking about lately. As much as I love adventure stories, I've never been a risk taker. Presented with the easy way or a potentially more rewarding, but harder way, I've always taken the easier way. I can think of one time when I took a huge risk in my life and that was because there was no easy option for me to choose. It ended up being one of the most wonderful, life-changing things I ever did. And the other two - marrying Diane and having David - only happened because of it.

I'm sort of at another crossroads right now. I need to find a new day job and I can either stick with what I've been doing the last twenty years or branch out and try something new. Naturally, I've been trying to stick with the familiar. But the universe (or God or circumstances or however you like to think of it) hasn't made that easy so far. In fact, it feels very much like that other time when life made me take a gamble and it paid off so well.

This is far from decided (there are other people to consider besides myself), but I keep thinking about what Craig Ferguson wrote in American on Purpose. As he was trying to decide whether to stay in the US and make a go at a TV career or move back to Scotland where he was comfortable, he describes visiting the Nevada desert one night:

I got out and walked away from the car and looked up at the immense blackness of the night sky, and the tininess of myself against the enormity of the universe had never been more obvious, even on acid.

An inexplicable bolt of terror shot through my system. Then I remembered what Rock and Roll Susie had said, that fear might be God's way of saying, "Pay attention, this could be fun," and I said aloud to whoever was out there, even if it was only me:

"Between safety and adventure, I choose adventure."

New Adventures of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and the Undersea Kingdom: Part II

I'm about halfway through the three serials I'm watching. Time for another check in.

The New Adventures of Tarzan has a pretty good story engine for a serial. Basically, it's just Tarzan and his group trying to catch up with the bad guy in order to recapture the explosive idol everyone wants. The bad guy's always one step ahead of Tarzan, so the story keeps moving. When it starts to slow down, simply throw in an animal attack, have Tarzan get close enough to fight the bad guy (only to have the bad guy narrowly escape), or bring back the angry natives from whom the idol was stolen in the first place.

There's a line in the credits that calls the serial "an Ashton Dearholt Expedition Picture." Ashton Dearholt was one of the producers, but you might remember from my previous post that he also plays the bad guy. The serial was shot on location in Guatemala, and all of this totally reminds me of Carl Denham in King Kong going into the jungle with his actors and camera crew to shoot his movie. Very cool.

Speaking of acting, I don't know if the actors warmed up to their parts as filming went on or if I'm just getting used to them, but they don't sound nearly as wooden to me now as they did when I started. Herman Brix is turning into an excellent Tarzan. Now that his acting sounds more natural, I can see that he's perfect for the part physically. He's probably the most handsome of the movie Tarzans of his era.

I'm falling in love with the character of Ula Vale. She continues working alongside Tarzan and his group, stepping in on multiple occasions to save someone's life, even Tarzan's. It's not hard to imagine her as the star of the series. I love that she came to Guatemala looking for her missing fiancé, and when she learned he was dead, she took some time to grieve and then committed to pitch in against the bad guy. Not out of revenge -- the villain didn't kill her fiancé -- but because it was the right thing to do. And she's been nothing but competent ever since. The last episode I watched ended with her in trouble and because I've become so invested in her, it was actually pretty chilling to watch. I don't doubt that she'll get out of it okay -- and maybe all on her own -- but I'm still a little nervous.

D'Arnot's left the plot. I think they left him to recuperate in a town somewhere along the way. It's disappointing that he was only in it long enough to get the story moving, but c'est la vie.

Flash Gordon is still my favorite of these three. The characters have spent more time with the hawkmen than I'd like (especially the annoyingly boisterous King Vultan), but it looks like that part of the story may be winding down. Overall, it's been a fun tour of Mongo as Flash gathers allies and makes enemies while running from Ming the Merciless.

I love how the story starts out with Flash and Dale's meeting by accident and then stumbling into Doctor Zarkov's mad scheme to try to stop a planet from colliding with Earth. I'd always assumed that Flash and Dale were lovers from the beginning, but we actually get to see them starting to fall for each other here, even though they don't spend that much time together. Flash is always off fighting monsters and Dale is constantly fending off marriage proposals from tyrants, but you can tell that Flash feels responsible for Dale and that she appreciates it and fears for his safety. Flash spends a lot more time with Ming's voluptuous, but selfish daughter Aura, and that only makes him appreciate Dale's selfless concern that much more. It also helps that, while Aura is certainly, um... healthy... Dale is heart-breakingly beautiful. I feel like I'm watching the development one of fiction's classic romances.

I just bought a reprint of the early Flash Gordon newspaper comic strips. I'm going to wait until I'm done with the serial before reading the strips, but from a quick flip-through it looks like the serial is following the strip pretty closely. I'm looking forward not only to reading the strips, but also checking out some of the later Flash Gordon adaptations (including the upcoming one on the Sci Fi Channel).

I go back and forth about Undersea Kingdom. Just when I relax and start having some fun with it, they throw in another cliché character or plot device. Billy the Sidekick's standing on the sidelines, mimicking Crash Corrigan's fighting moves as he tussles with the bad guys, was especially groan-inducing. Also, Billy's so in love with Crash and adventure in general that he doesn't care at all that his dad's mind has been taken over by the evil Unga Khan. That's pretty common for Undersea Kingdom. We're not supposed to think too hard about it or get anything more out of it than some thrills. It's a kids' show.

But, on the other hand, Crash is a lovable guy in a Ben Grimm sort of way, and the series does feature Lon Chaney Jr. in one of his first roles as Lon Chaney Jr. (as opposed to Creighton Chaney). So I waffle.

Quick update

Got a new computer at work today, which is pretty cool, but it kept me offline for a bit. It's just as well though, because it's sort of a slow day except for the news that Gail Simone is indeed taking over Wonder Woman, which is excellent for Simone and Wonder Woman fans alike. She's going to do an excellent job.

I'll do a full Links du Jour post on Monday. The only other thing I have to tell you today is that I've been invited to pitch for an upcoming project that should be pretty high profile. That's all I can say about it, but I'll spill more later when I'm able.

Links du Jour: RIP Kurt Vonnegut, Mummy 3, and a Life on Mars sequel

Adventure

• Geek Monthly has a nice interview with Jerry Bruckheimer on Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Not a ton of new info, but there's a bit of explanation there about why the four pirate factions are coming together.
• Today is Tom Clancy's 60th birthday.
• Brendan Fraser has signed on for Mummy 3, but Rachel Weisz hasn't. Miles Millar and Alfred Gough (Smallville) are re-writing the script to explain Weisz's absence.
• Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are getting close to signing up for a movie version of Angels & Demons, the prequel to The DaVinci Code.

Mystery

• While we wait for the American version of the BBC's Life on Mars, a British sequel is already in the works. I didn't want to read the article too closely for fear of spoilers (the series finale of Life on Mars just aired this week), but the new show will be called Ashes to Ashes and will feature Philip Glenister's returning as DCI Gene Hunt to be paired with another 21st century detective -- a woman this time -- in 1981. The character of Gene Hunt is arguably the best thing about Life on Mars, so I'm way more excited about this than about the American remake of the first series. (Thanks to SF Signal for the link.)

Horror

• Principle photography has wrapped on the 30 Days of Night movie.

Science Fiction

• Kurt Vonnegut is dead. Lots of people are talking about it today, but the nicest eulogy I've seen so far has been by Warren Ellis on his email newsletter: "14 novels in 84 years. 30 when he published his first novel. Two years older than I am now when he did Cat's Cradle. 46 or thereabouts when he wrote Slaughterhouse-5. Still in his early 20s, working as a POW in an underground factory, when we firebombed Dresden, an act he later described as 'a work of art.' 1984, and Vonnegut attempts suicide with booze and pills, ruefully noting later that 'I botched it.' May 1944, and his mother Edith gets it right. Six months later Vonnegut is captured by the German army after days wandering alone in the countryside. 'Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."'"

Links du Jour: Gorey movie, sharks and wolfmen, and ninjas aren't Chinese

Adventure

• I've been avoiding talking about the rumors around David Goyer's Green Arrow/supervillains-in-prison pitch, because I don't like speculating on rumors. But Variety has picked up the story now and is apparently reporting it as a done deal between Goyer and Warner Brothers. Not that Variety's never been wrong before. Anyway, I don't get the title Super Max. After Green Arrow's successful appearances on Smallville, why not just call it Green Arrow? Or would Hollywood automatically want to force in an origin story if it was named after the hero?
• At first glance, Moonstone's new superhero book CLASH sounded a bit familiar for my tastes. I don't want to read yet another book where the superheroes think they know what's best for the world and begin imposing their will on it. But, looking closer, CLASH has got a cool twist on the idea: humanity rebels. I'd like to see what they do with that.

Horror

• Coming to the Ultrascreen on Thursday, April 19th: Ghostbusters.
• Walden Media and the Jim Henson Company are planning a live-action movie adaptation of Edward Gorey's The Doubtful Guest. As a Gorey fan, I'm very curious to see how this turns out. (Though I agree with whoever it was who said that the story's not long enough for a feature movie and we're likely to see a lot of Grinch/Cat in the Hat-ish padding.)
• Oh, man! Check out Guy Davis' Night of the Living Dead drawings for TCM Underground! *swoon*

Science Fiction

• I like Marvel's Killraven character thanks to fond childhood memories of this comic. If you don't know him, he lives in a post-War of the Worlds Earth where the Martians took over the planet and enslaved humanity. Killraven decided to fight back. Not groundbreaking stuff by any stretch, but fun enough for a nine-year-old. Anyway, I'm reminded of it because apparently Rob Kirkman and Rob Liefeld are reviving the character for a project next year. As much as I like Liefeld as a person (and I really do), I'm not a fan of his artwork and this will be no exception. So I guess it's a good thing that he's working on a character I just kinda have nice memories of and not one I'm still attached to like Alpha Flight or Shang Chi.
• As long as I'm linking to Rich Johnston and talking about Shang Chi, read further down in Rich's column for an entry called "Blast from the Past File" about how Jim Shooter almost had Doug Moench turn Shang Chi into a ninja until Moench explained, "Mr. Shooter, perhaps you're not aware. Ninjas are Japanese; kung-fu is Chinese."
• According to The Hollywood Reporter, progress has been made on the Sci Fi Channel's Flash Gordon series. Eric Johnson (who played Lana's boyfriend Whitney in the first season of Smallville) will play Flash. They're still looking for people to play Dale, Dr. Zarkov, and the rest.

Other Comics

• Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, Making Comics) will be at Dream Haven Books here in Minneapolis tonight at 7:30. It's part of his 50-state tour of the US.
• Top Shelf has announced their 2008 releases including the third volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the long-awaited (by me) trade paperback collection of Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu. Wormwood sounds pretty interesting too, and so do the new graphic novels by Brian Wood (DMZ, Local) and Alex Robinson (Box Office Poison).

Writing is Hard

• Evil Editor has a great quote about the difference between literary and genre fiction: "Literary doesn't mean it's literature; it just means it's boring. My advice: add some sharks and a wolfman, and call it commercial fiction."

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• According to the Disney blog, Epcot is tweaking its Mexico pavilion by having it feature Donald Duck, Panchito, and Jose Carioca (aka the Three Caballeros). The Mexico pavilion's always been one of my favorite of the Epcot countries to visit (I really need to eat in that amazingly atmospheric restaurant one of these trips), but that doesn't mean I think it's perfect just the way it is. A little Caballero action added to it might be cool.

New Adventures of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and the Undersea Kingdom: Part I

I'm currently in the middle of three movie serials: The New Adventures of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and The Undersea Kingdom. Consider this my first check-in on each of them. I'll do another one when I'm nearly done with them and a third once they're all finished.

The New Adventures of Tarzan is different because it takes Tarzan out of Africa and into South America. His old pal D'Arnot from the novels has gone to Guatemala looking for a statue of a goddess that apparently has some kind of formula for a super-explosive encoded on it. When D'Arnot disappears, Tarzan hooks up with a second group of explorers who go looking for it. And of course, to keep things interesting, there's a bad guy trying to get his hands on the formula too.

I can't make myself believe that an ancient statue contains the formula for a super-explosive, but I have to give love to whoever decided to combine the hunt for an ancient artifact with trying to keep a deadly scientific discovery out of the wrong hands. It may not be two great tastes that go great together, but it's not inedible.

Putting Tarzan in South America, on the other hand, is an awesome idea. He still has plenty of jungle animals to fight, but it's unfamiliar territory for him. I also like that his animal companion is named Nkima, like in the books. Unfortunately, Nkima is still a chimp like Cheetah instead of a monkey like the literary Nkima, but it's a step in the right direction. And as I'm watching these old movies, I'm warming to the deviation from the novels. Chimps are undeniably funny.

I don't care so much for D'Arnot in this serial. Tarzan does find and rescue him, but D'Arnot spends most of the time (so far) stumbling around looking like he's just been beat up. Which he has, but the literary D'Arnot went through worse and with a lot more dignity. New Adventures' D'Arnot is rather pathetic.

Something I'm finding refreshing though is another character who's looking for the statue, a woman named Ula Vale (played by Ula Holt, which I can't believe is a coincidence). When she was introduced, I fully expected Ula to quickly get in trouble and need rescuing by Tarzan, 'cause that's what usually happens to women in Tarzan movies. To my surprise, Ula's proven very capable on her own and have even rescued Tarzan's group on a couple of occasions.

So, I'm enjoying the story so far, even if the acting isn't all that great. Everyone, including Herman Brix (Tarzan), sadly, talks like they're reading off cue cards. It's pretty awful. The only one I part-way like is Ashton Dearholt who plays the bad guy. He's not as wooden as some of the other actors and it's especially nice that he doesn't over-act his part. He ends up coming across as a normal guy who just so happens to be selfish and evil rather than a stereotypical, mad villain.

Flash Gordon so far has Flash avoiding giant iguanas, befriending lion-men, trying to survive a giant lobster-creature and an octopus, and fighting beast-men and shark-men. And that's all while trying to keep Dale safe from Ming's hot, but evil daughter, who wants Flash to herself. It's a cornucopia of fantastic scifi-pulp ideas. No wonder it was such a hit.

The special effects blow by today's standards, but that's really part of it's charm because it's so much fun otherwise. This is easily my favorite of the three.

Undersea Kingdom is another fun one, but it's nowhere near being in the same class as Flash Gordon. Flash is actually good, even though it's got dated effects. Undersea Kingdom is absolutely terrible, but hilariously so. If memory serves, Mystery Science Theater 3000 may have done their magic on an edited version of it.

It's all about Ray "Crash" Corrigan -- whom I've always heard of, but didn't know anything about -- and his friends, all of whom are cheesy stereotypes. Crash is a flawless hero and his pals are a brilliant scientist who's developed a world-threatening technology that has to be kept safe from the wrong hands, a scrappy boy-sidekick, a plucky girl-reporter, and a couple of cowardly, comic-relief sailors. All of them hop in the scientist's sub to check out strange goings on in the Atlantic and wind up discovering Atlantis.

The plot and setting aren't that bad actually. Atlantis is a mixture of societies and technologies. The good guys ride horses and are led by a high priest who looks like King Vitamin. Their culture is kinda Roman-esque with their chariots, trials by arena-fight, and whatnot. The bad guys -- led by a Asian-looking tyrant named Unga Khan -- also ride horses, but are supported by robots in hovercars. Fun stuff.

What makes it laughable are the designs. I'll show pictures in one of the future posts, but between the clunky robots and everyone's goofy headwear, it's hard to take any of it seriously. I keep imagining what it might look like with updated effects, cooler designs, and better actors, though and I like it a lot more.

Links du Jour: Die Hard trailer, Gentleman-Thief, and Forever stamps

Adventure

• Seen the new Die Hard trailer yet?

Mystery

• I've always loved the "gentleman bandit" concept, whether it's Robin Hood, or V from V for Vendetta, or any number of dashing highwaymen in film and literature. The juxtaposition of a guy who can charm you while taking all your stuff is strangely appealing. Which is why I'm thankful for Bookgasm's reminder that Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief (along with other French pulp novels) has been re-released and is ready for my enjoyment.

Other Comics News

• Top Shelf is holding a massive sale on its graphic novels. You have spend at least $30 to get the deal, but you can get tons of great books for $1 or $3 each. Even the titles that don't get those discounts are cut back significantly, like 20% off of books like Lost Girls and From Hell.

Writing is Hard

• With the new postage increases coming up, writers may be confused about how much postage to put on their submission SASEs. The post office has the solution: Forever stamps.

Links du Jour: Stoker winners, Mary Sue, and a Kill All Monsters! shout out

Adventure

• I haven't heard this reported anywhere else yet, but comiXtreme claims that Gail Simone is leaving Birds of Prey and being replaced by Sean McKeever. I'd heard that she was being considered for the new writer on Wonder Woman (though I don't remember where and Google isn't helping me find it), which would be an answer to my complaint from yesterday, but I'm considering all of this rumor for now. (Update: It's not rumor and I just remember where I read it: Dad Didio's "DC Nation" column this week.)

Horror

• This year's Stoker Award winners have been announced. (Found via SFScope.)

Other Comics

• Jason Rodriguez is promoting his new anthology Postcards all this week on the Newsarama blog. It's a great concept and from the talent involved, it's going to be a great book. Yesterday, Rodriguez interviewed a couple of contributors including Kill All Monsters!' Jason Copland, and he was kind enough to mention KAM! too.

Writing is Hard

• I like to think I'm Mary Sue-proof, but here's a funny litmus test to determine if your main character needs some more thought. Fortunately, my characters all pass, but it's pretty hilarious that Bono from U2 doesn't.

Links du Jour: The trouble with Wonder Woman, KITT for sale, and no love for Star Wars

Sorry. Busy day yesterday. Catching up today.

Adventure

• Wonder Woman is a character who've I've always wanted to be interested in, but whose comic I've never been able to stick with for very long. I've got a longer post in me about why that is, but apparently, I'm not alone. The Roar of Comics expresses some of the same feelings I have, and Fortress of Fortitude offers a sound suggestion for how to fix the problem.
• Speaking of Wonder Woman, TV's Wonder Woman Lynda Carter is going to be on Smallville on April 19th, playing Chloe's mom. Now if they'd only get Adam West for an episode or twenty.
• More Draw Mary Marvel goodness.
• I could've sworn I mentioned the Rex Libris movie before, but I'm not finding it in my archives. Anyway, it has a scriptwriter now. Rex Libris is one of my favorite comics. It's about how a librarian/secret agent who routinely has to track down overdue books from alien warlords and the like.
• KITT for sale.
• I've been scratching my head over why DC wants to publish another Green Arrow: Year One mini-series when they've already got a perfectly good one. I wasn't planning on getting the new one until I just learned that Andy Diggle is writing it. I'm curioius though. In the interview behind that last link, neither Diggle nor the interviewer so much as mentions Green Arrow: The Wonder Year and that seems like a huge elephant in the room that they're ignoring.
• Man, I love Jeff Parker. He's doing everything he possibly can to get a second Agents of Atlas series going. First he's got the team appearing in an upcoming story in Marvel Adventures: Avengers, and after that they'll show up in Spider-Man Family.

Science Fiction

• SFX magazine just ran a poll to determine its readers' favorite scifi movie. Surprisingly, Serenity came in at Number One, beating out Star Wars. In response, Geek Monthly lists 12 scifi films that are better than Serenity, but also leaves off Star Wars. Are fans getting tired of Star Wars? If so, why?

Other Comics

• If you've been wanting to try a new graphic novel, but didn't know where to start, Tom Spurgeon's Top 50 Comics from 2006 is the perfect place. It's an amazing list. Some of them (like The Ticking and Kampung Boy) I've read and completely agree that they need to be on the list. Others (Absolute DC: The New Frontier and The Complete Peanuts, for example) have been on my wish list for a while now and Tom only strengthens my resolve to buy and enjoy them. But best of all are books like Elmer and The Mourning Star that I'd never heard of and can't wait to read now.

Writing is Hard

• Paperback Writer is becoming an indespensable site for me. Now she's got a killer list of online dictionaries to bookmark, including the Gun Dictionary, the Knife Glossary, and the Japanese Sword Visual Glossary.
• Illustrator Jesse Hamm has a useful article about things that comics writers have to keep in mind when writing scripts. Though he has a lot to learn about the art of collaboration (he seems to see it as a battle), he makes some great points about thinking visually and sequentially.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• This is roundabout news, but I trust the source. According to Warren Ellis' email newsletter, word from Aaron Sorkin's office is that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is pretty much dead. It was "temporarily" replaced by Black Donnellys to see how that show would do in the time slot, but now that Donnellys has been cancelled, the slot's going to a reality show about wedding crashers. That sucks. I liked Studio 60 a lot, and I loved seeing Matthew Perry on TV again.

Links du Jour: Zorro anthology, a bratty pirate, and Holmes meets Lovecraft

Adventure

• Hot on the heels of Dynamite's announcement of a new Zorro comic comes Moonstone's announcement of a new Zorro prose anthology. It's planned for a Christmas 2007 release.
• Here's a story about a stupid, entitled kid who thought he could exploit freedom-of-religion in order to dress up like a pirate and disrupt his class at school. I'm all for dressing up like a pirate, but claiming to truly believe in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? The kid says, "If this is what I believe in, no matter how stupid it might sound, I should be able to express myself however I want to." To which I agree in concept, but how stupid does he think people are? I hate how much this makes me sound like an old fart, but the kid's arrogance really cheeses me off.

Mystery

• This is as much horror as it is mystery. I'm not a video gamer because I'd never get anything else done if I played them. But if I was, I'd really want to be playing Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened right now, which combines Holmes with Lovecraftian horror.

Horror

• Sam Raimi isn't only producing the current 30 Days of Night film; he's also working on a prequel.
• Dark Horse has released info about the next B.P.R.D. series, called "Killing Ground": "Abe’s encounter in Indonesia has brought a new member to the Bureau, and Johann finds himself in possession of a very valuable commodity. The B.P.R.D. will need all of its resources to handle the sinister forces that have wormed their way into the heart of the Bureau itself, blurring the lines between the hunters and their prey!"

Fantasy

• Today would've been Hans Christian Anderson's 202nd birthday.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• In honor of yesterday, the Top 100 April Fool's Hoaxes of All Time.
• Zach Braff has a trailer from his and Jason Bateman's new movie The Ex up on his blog. He says, "My easy sell for the movie is this: if you laugh at Arrested Development and Scrubs and prefer your comedy a little on the dark side and always loved it when shows would crossover each other like when Mrs. Garrett left Arnold to run a girls school or when the Globetrotters ended up on both Gilligan’s Island and Scooby Doo, then this is the movie for you." It's definitely the movie for me, then.

Links du Jour: More Draw Mary Marvel, fish souls, and a better Potter cover

Adventure

• I knew people were gonna jump onto this Draw Mary Marvel thing. I'm glad, too.

Mystery

• I'd forgotten that Mark Twain wrote a mystery novel with Tom Sawyer as the detective until Joe Hilliard recently reminded me of it. It's called, oddly enough, Tom Sawyer, Detective and you can read it online for free.
• Every time Ed Gorman writes a new column for Bookgasm, my reading list gets longer. This time it's because of his recommendation of Mystery Scene magazine, which Ed describes as "the pre-eminent news and feature magazine of the mystery field. Hard-boiled or cozy, old novels or new, movies, audio, TV … whatever aspect of mystery fiction interests you, you’ll find it in Mystery Scene. And presented in a package that’s professional, easy to read and worthy of design and layout awards." I'm getting a subscription.

Horror

• Bookgasm also has an interview up with horror/suspense writer Gary Williams who's apparently having a lot of success with a self-published trilogy about "two friends ... who uncover ancient artifacts – tools – in Florida, which are integrated into local history and ultimately linked to the Old Testament." Williams says that "the tools, however, have been contaminated and their ancient purposes mutated. As other forces seek to gain their control, the underlying purpose as to why the tools have been discovered in the present day leads to a startling revelation." He also says that reviewers are comparing him to Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, with some Stephen King thrown in.

Fantasy

• Wow. I much prefer the cover to the British adult version of the new Harry Potter book. There's also some extra text on the flaps that tell a bit more about the story: "Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety, and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him...
  "In this final, seventh instsallment of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited. The spellbinding, richly woven narrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again."

Science Fiction

• I don't know how I forgot to post about this yesterday, but here's all the info on the Star Wars stamps and other mailing paraphernalia that the post office has. I've found the Artoo mailbox in Saint Paul, too. As soon as I can get over there with a camera, I'll get a picture of it.

Link du Jour: The X-Files 2, Superman loves Black Canary, and the death of the Honeynut Cheerios Bee

Adventure

• There are only two things I miss about not watching 24 anymore. One is seeing Jack Bauer kick bootie every week. The other is Mary Lynn Rajskub as Chloe. When I was watching the show, she was one of my favorite characters on TV. Which is to say that I'm pretty excited that she's on the cover on the next current issue of Geek Monthly. It's weird seeing her all sexied up in the pictorial (previewed on GM's website) -- 'cause that's not what she's about for me -- but dang if she isn't pretty.
• One of my new, favorite blog's is Every Day is Like Wednesday. This post on how Superman totally has the hots for Black Canary is a perfect example of why.

Fantasy

• Scholastic has revealed the cover art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• The Internet is buzzing that it looks like Disney may back down on their refusal to release Song of the South on DVD. Mark Evanier has the best prediction of how this is probably going to play out.

Science Fiction

• Looks like the second X-Files movie is on it's way.

Comics

• I've always thought that someone should make a cartoon in which all the breakfast cereal characters crossed-over with each other. Breakfast of the Gods is the next best thing.

Kill All Monsters! cover idea

And lest we forget about the other comic I'm working on, here's an idea Jason Copland did for the cover of Kill All Monsters!. I'm getting goosebumps, this thing's so close to being done.

Update: Change "goosebumps" to "tears of joy." I just looked at Jason's completed pages and I'm actually getting emotional here. He nailed every scene; every facial expression; every everything. You guys, this is going to be so good.

Dust to Dust to be published by Moonstone

I've been teasing about Dust to Dust for a little while now, but I've just been given the okay by the publisher to start talking about it in detail.

I co-wrote it with Alex Ness, founder of Pop Thought and a genius with high concepts and plots. He came up with the idea for a one-shot ditty about a tough, old Jesse James fighting a young, green Machine Gun Kelly in the streets of an Oklahoma ghost town. Emphasis on "ghost."

I was fortunate enough that he asked me to take his idea and plot outline and make a comic out of it. Lead's gonna fly.

A local guy named Joel Vollmer is illustrating it and Moonstone is publishing it. It's too early to know exactly when it's coming out, but we're hoping to see it on shelves later this year. That's all I wanna say right now, though I'm sure I'll figure out more to talk about later. I need to come up with a personal marketing plan (as opposed to supporting whatever official plan Moonstone has) for this thing, which'll be an adventure all its own. It's a really fun book; I just need to figure out how best to let people know about it.

Links du Jour: Galactica spoilers, new Stargate series, and the Harry Potter cast

Adventure

• In the back of DC's weekly 52 series, they've been running these two-page origin stories of the various DC superheroes. At the end of each one, they give a short list of "Essential Storylines" of the character. Every Day is Like Wednesday has been reviewing not just the storylines, but the lists themselves, and adding other essential material to it. It's cool reading if you've ever wanted to know more about a particular DC character, like I have about Zatanna (it's the fishnets).
• I totally missed that Shang Chi: Master of Kung Fu appeared in last month's issue of Wisdom. Gonna have to go back and get that one.
• Today's Quentin Tarantino's 44th birthday.

Fantasy

• Though Emma Watson made fans sweat a little, they can rest easy now. Watson and the other two main Harry Potter actors have all signed on to complete the movie series.

Science Fiction

• Geek Monthly has a nice recap of a couple of interviews that Battlestar Galactica co-creator Ron Moore has given lately. As Geek says, "It is clear that he is thinking of an endgame for the franchise, but won’t say for sure if season 4 will be the final voyage." There are a couple of spoilers about Season 4 there, some clarification about the Season 3 finale, and story details about the direct-to-DVD movie coming out this fall. Good stuff for BSG fans.
• Looks like there's a new Stargate series in the works: Stargate Universe.
• I'm too old to have grown up with the Transformers, so I don't have an ingrained fondness for them, but I now have a reason to be excited about the new movie: Hugo Weaving is voicing Megatron.

Other Comics News

• Man, I wish I lived in New York so I could go to Autism Awareness Day at Shea Stadium and hang out with Kyle Baker and a mess of other comics professionals and journalists. Sounds like it's going to be a blast and for a fantastic cause. If you live in the area, check the link for updates about ticket prices, because they're cheaper if you get them in advance.

Links du Jour: Draw Mary Marvel, what makes a superhero, and plushy Fone Bone

Light day today.

Adventure

• Fantasy casting doesn't usually interest me, but dang if The Braxcave hasn't done a nice job with a hypothetical Alpha Flight movie. I even like the idea of Chris Jericho playing Sasquatch.
• It seems like every time DC does something questionable with one of it's girl superheroes, artists start creating their own versions of the character in an attempt to hold on to the elements of the character that are being neglected in the comics. Not that I'm complaining, 'cause it's led to some fantastic art. Looks like Mary Marvel could be the latest.
• Quick Stop Entertainment has a great article (actually a review of Peter Coogan’s Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre) on defining the superhero genre and determining what makes a character a superhero. It's a long piece with lots of examples, but it's interesting reading. Boiled down: super heroes are people with costumes, code names, and defined missions who exist in modern day settings. The setting, according to the article, is vitally important. It's the reason that Batman is a superhero, but Zorro isn't. Or that Green Lantern is, but Flash Gordon isn't. The article also makes exceptions for people like Zatanna or Rogue who may lack some of the defining characteristics, but are considered superheroes because either their creators or the characters themselves obviously intended for them to be. It goes to show that the superhero genre is next to impossible to define, but they make a fascinating job of trying.

Fantasy

• Jeff Smith's showing the prototype for a new Fone Bone plush toy. Hopefully it's the first in a series.

Links du Jour: Mummy 3, film noir, and downloading comics

Adventure

• The Mummy 3 is in the works. Looks like Jet Li will be the bad guy and it's being written by Smallville's Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, which is all fine. Rob Cohen (The Fast and the Furious, xXx) is directing and that's okay too. I'm just concerned that Stephen Sommers' producing credit means that we'll still get cheap, video-game-quality special effects for it. But maybe that's Cohen's call and I just don't know enough about how movies are made. Actually, if it is Cohen's decision to make, I'm very happy about that because the effects in his other adventure movies have been pretty darn cool.

Mystery

• In his review of the new releases of Double Indemnity and the 3-volume Film Noir Classic Collection, Stanley Crouch of The Slate also gives a nice overview of the film noir genre and why it became so popular in the late '40s.

Horror

• Sometimes I wish I lived in LA. Then I could go to the Elk's Run release party to celebrate the collected edition of this excellent graphic novel.

Science Fiction

• Siskoid's Blog of Geekery should be called Blog of Awesomeness. He's been reviewing every episode of Star Trek, including the cartoon series, and is up into the movies now. I'm hoping he keeps it going through Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and the others. He also sprinkles in plenty of comics posts for variety. This is a blog I'm going to have to go back and read from its beginning.
• Grant Gould's got another Learn to Draw installment on StarWars.com. This one on drawing R2-D2.

Comics

• There's a conversation going on right now about the ethics of downloading comics for free. Tom Spurgeon summarizes my feelings on it exactly.

Writing is Hard

• Just discovered a cool site called First Writer with lots of advice and resources for beginning writers. They help find agents, publishers, contests, magazine markets, and lots of other stuff.

Stuff Nobody Cares About But Me

• Men in Trees has been renewed for another season. Yeah, it's a girly show, but it's got great dialogue and interesting characters. I like it as much as I liked the first couple of seasons of Gilmore Girls, and that's a lot. (In that same link, Lost and Grey's Anatomy have also been renewed, but those are news to nobody.)

Tarzan Escapes

I liked the first two Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies so much that I was sure I'd also enjoy the third, Tarzan Escapes. Not so much though.

The plot's pretty simple, but that's not the problem. The plots were simple in Tarzan, the Ape Man and Tarzan and His Mate too. In this one, a couple of Jane's cousins have come to the jungle to bring her back to England so she can claim an inheritance that they hope to share. They're not as mercenary as that makes them sound; they really do love Jane. Unfortunately, they hire an unscrupulous guide to help find her, but don't realize that his motivation for doing so is to capture Tarzan and show him off as an exhibition.

There are a couple of cool parts in the film. Tarzan immediately dislikes the guide and there's a nice tension between the two of them through the movie. You get the sense that Tarzan's starting to learn his lesson about civilized folk and their disregard for the jungle. But even better than that is the fancy treehouse that Tarzan and Jane have built. It's very Swiss Family Robinsion, but long before Disney made that film. Putting aside for a second that it means Jane is domesticating Tarzan, it's an undeniably cool place to live.

But I can't leave Tarzan's domestication aside for too long, because that's one of the big problems I have with Tarzan Escapes. The Weissmuller films obviously take a very different approach from the Burroughs novels and that's okay, but I'm starting to not like how they're portraying the Ape Man. It was fine for a while that he could only speak in grunts and monosyllables, but by the time Tarzan Escapes rolls around, he's been with Jane for a while and you'd think that an intelligent person would've picked up more English. He hasn't though, and I'm guessing that he doesn't for the rest of the series.

It makes Tarzan look stupid. Jane talks to him more like a pet or a child than her husband. You never doubt that she loves him or that the jungle is exactly where she wants to be, so it's not like she's being condescending. She genuinely struggles to communicate with him, like she's not sure that he understands. And frankly, neither are we. Tarzan should be a guy who's very presence communicates with you on a primal level and lets you know that you do not want to mess with him. Bad things may happen to him, and it's okay to empathize with him when they do, but he's not supposed to be an object of pity like a defenseless kid who gets picked on at the playground.

Another problem I have with Tarzan Escapes is that they re-use a bunch of footage from Tarzan and His Mate. Not just shots of Tarzan swinging through the jungle or stock footage of animals, but whole battle sequences and fight scenes. You definitely get the idea that MGM realized it had a hit property and figured it could just hack out whatever and still make money. They even frumped up Jane's costume into a one-piece mini-skirt.

At least they spent some dough on the treehouse.

Links du Jour

Adventure

• I'm really looking forward to Marvel's World War Hulk storyline. I've been reading The Incredible Hulk ever since some of Marvel's hoighty-toightier "heroes" tricked him and exiled him to outer space, and I cannot wait for him to get back and smash the crap out of them. Especially Iron Man, who somehow turned into my new favorite Marvel villain over the course of the Civil War event. Anyway, the reason I'm bringing this up is that one of my favorite up-and-coming artists, Chris Moreno, is going to be drawing back-up features about a bunch of goofy superheroes trying out for Rhode Island's official, new superteam in the World War Hulk: Frontline mini-series. Which makes me even more excited about it all.
• I missed Oni's Northwest Passage mini-series the first time around, but promised myself that I'd catch it in the trade paperback collection. Looks like it's going to be a far prettier collection than I thought.
• I'm a big Captain Marvel fan. DC's "Shazam" one, not Marvel's outer-space hero one. Looks like 2008 is going to be a big year for him and his supporting characters, including an animated series and a new toy line.
• Speaking of which, Mary Marvel fans are in an uproar about her possible role in DC's upcoming Countdown series. Mary's always been a character who's remained unexploited by DC and folks are concerned that that's going to change in Countdown's "Seduction of the Innocent" storyline. Their fears aren't groundless, but I'm not ready to get out my torch and pitchfork just yet. One of the reasons that Mary's never been exploited by DC before is that frankly she hasn't been in their books a whole lot outside of the various Shazam series and an occasional guest-appearance. I'm not saying that I want her to become a dark and dirty character; I'm just not convinced yet that that's the ultimate plan DC has for her.
• Seen the new Pirates of the Caribbean trailer yet?
• Speaking of swashbuckling, you can now read the entire first issue of the excellent Black Coat mini-series online for free. There are also five-page previews of the other issues in the series.
• And in still more swashbuckling news, Michael Chabon's (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay) new novel Gentlemen of the Road will be released in November from Del Rey. It features "a pair of wandering adventurers—swords for hire, horsethieves, flimflam artists, unlikely soul mates—who get caught up in the schemes and battles that follow a bloody coup in the great medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars."
• Kevin Smith's Green Hornet movie may not have gone anywhere, but that doesn't mean there won't be a Green Hornet movie.
• Dynamite Entertainment's giving a Zorro comic a shot. Zorro's a hero who sometimes works better for me in concept than in execution, but I'm looking forward to seeing their take on him.
• I think I heard about this a long time ago, but I'd forgotten that there's an Underdog movie in the works. Can't say I like the direction they went, but it looks like it's just about ready.

Fantasy

• Dark Horse Comics has released details about their plans to adapt Robert E. Howard's non-Conan material

Other Comics

• Civil War writer Mark Millar is known for making loud, self-hyping, and often controversial statements. Too bad they aren't always true. He recently claimed that his work on Civil War would spill over and benefit poor, little books like Captain America that "hasn’t sold over 45K in half a decade." Now, he speculates, "they’ll be regular 90K-plus books and even more for a little while." Only problem is, according to Captain America writer Ed Brubaker, "Cap 1, which came out two plus years ago, sold in the mid-70s, and the regular monthly book has been selling in the mid-50s since around issue 14, I believe." Not that Brubaker's claiming that Civil War won't help boost those numbers, but Captain America wasn't quite as beleaguered as Millar made it out to be.

Links du Jour

Adventure

• Adamant Entertainment is launching a new pulp magazine called Thrilling Tales. (Found via Joe Hilliard.)
• Cate Blanchett's going to be in the fourth Indiana Jones movie.
• Had a comment recently from the creator of a blog focused on Disney's Story of Robin Hood. Not the cartoon, but the live-action movie from the '50s that influenced the Adventures of Robin Hood TV show. The blog does much more than cover the movie though. There are also interesting articles on real Robin Hood legend as well as related things like archery and quarter-staffs. It's a great read for Robin Hood fans.
• I've already mentioned my deficiency in being familiar with Tintin. Another classic strip I've never read is Terry and the Pirates. That's about to change thanks to IDW.

Horror

• I guess the recent, fancy Godzilla DVD did pretty well, because the next two in the series, Godzilla Raids Again and Mothra Vs. Godzilla, are getting the same treatment.
• Steve Niles has a new 30 Days of Night series coming out. The kicker is that it's illustrated by Bill Freaking Sienkiewicz.

Fantasy

• Did you know that while you're touring the Lord of the Rings locations in New Zealand, you can also stay in a Hobbit motel?
• I've already got Disney's Peter Pan on DVD and don't care enough about special features to buy it again, but even if I wanted to upgrade, I wouldn't get this recent version. I'd wait for the next one. (By the way, even if you're not interested in Pan, that last link is worth reading for confirmation that studios really are actively trying to make you buy the same film over and over again.)

Science Fiction

• Did you know that while you're touring Star Wars locations in Tunisia, you can also stay at the Lars farm?
• Not really scifi related, but Nathan Fillion (Firefly) has a new movie coming out where he gets to hit on Keri Russell (Felicity). Looks pretty good too.

Writing is Hard

• Miss Snark says, "Don't ever talk about your novel to anyone socially until it's published. Ever." Then explains why. I wish I'd learned that lesson ten years ago. I still get the occasional, "How's the novel coming?" To which I have to reply, "Which one? I've discarded and restarted so many over the years that I forget which one you know about."
• More on how readers don't know what they want.