You're a wonder, Wonder Woman: part two

In the first part of this look at Wonder Woman, I decided that what I want to see in a Wonder Woman comic is a heroine who is absolutely confident. I talked about the way that she's been portrayed visually over the last 20 years and promised to look at how she's been written during that same time period. So let's do that.

I've already covered George Perez's take on her because his visual depiction of her perfectly matched the way he wrote her: a wide-eyed, innocent, fish-out-of-water who wasn't at all ready to stand next to heroes like Batman and Superman. What I haven't yet talked much about was Perez's reason for having Wonder Woman leave Paradise Island Themyscira.

In the '40s, when Wonder Woman was first introduced, she left the Amazon's to help fight Nazis. It was a admirable reason and nobody questioned it. I don't think anyone today would question it either. But in the mid-'80s when Perez rebooted the concept, there wasn't an easy enemy like that who needed a Wonder Woman butt-whoopin'. So, Perez gave her the Mission.

If Wonder Woman's mission to Man's/Patriarch's World has ever been clearly defined, I haven't read it. I welcome correction if I'm wrong about this, but as far as I've ever been able to tell, it's description is limited to a vague "ambassador of Amazonian ideals." But what those ideals are has never been explained to me. It's been a while since I read the early Perez issues (out of dissatisfaction with whomever was writing Wonder Woman's current adventures at the time), but I remember there being something about living peacefully and somehow trying to line that up with the Amazons' status as a warrior race. I just never got it. And I don't think that any of the writers ever got it either.

Wonder Woman's next writer was William Messner-Loebs and it was about ten issues into his run that I read my first Wonder Woman comic. And it was this cover that made me pick it up. Unfortunately, the majesty depicted on that cover was very different from the struggling-to-find-herself character I read about inside. That character was much more in keeping with the following issue's cover that shows Wonder Woman having to get a job at a fast food joint in order to make ends meet. It was a cute story, but as a new reader to the book, I couldn't make it fit in with what I wanted to see Wonder Woman doing. You'd never see Lynda Carter flipping burgers unless Diana Prince was undercover somewhere. I didn't stick with it for very long.

I'm assuming that Ragnell read more of Messner-Loebs' run than I did. Her description of it is that it's about "a rebellious daughter who ran off to see the world and tried to become part of it." That fits with the whole Having to Get a Job thing, but it also describes why it wasn't the Wonder Woman I wanted to read about. My Wonder Woman would never have to run away from home or try to become a part of something. She'd do whatever she damn well liked and expect the world to conform to her. After all, isn't that the entire idea behind her having a Mission? To try to teach Amazonian ideals to humanity? And what is that if not trying to get the world to conform to her standards? Maybe she'd given up on that by that point, I don't know. What I do know is that she was a floundering character who elicited pity rather than awe. I want to be in awe of Wonder Woman.

I came back to Messner-Loebs' run later on, tempted by the event of having Diana replaced as Wonder Woman by Artemis. Replacing traditional heroes with newer versions was an old gimmick of DC's by that point, but they were making a really big deal about it and remember, I was looking for reasons to read Wonder Woman. And interestingly, I liked it a lot.

Even though her "official" status as Wonder Woman was taken from her, Diana was woman enough to give Themyscira and her mom a big ole "f*** you" and keep on doing her thing in a different costume. That's the Wonder Woman I wanted to see. It looks like maybe Messner-Loebs had a plan all along and was chronicling Wonder Woman's transformation from Perez's innocent to the confident heroine I wanted to see. Too bad DC fired Messner-Loebs right about then in order to make room for John Byrne's return to the company.

I won't go into a John Byrne rant here, but I need to say that even though he's single-handedly responsible for making me a hardcore comics addict, I really wasn't fond of his art in the '90s and couldn't make myself buy any of his Wonder Woman run. As Ragnell describes it though, "Byrne wrote a stiff, formal princess." I don't feel like I missed much.

After a couple of fill-in issues by Christopher Priest that I don't know anything about (though I really like Priest's work, so maybe they were good?), Eric Luke was the next writer. I'm pretty sure that I read the end of his run, but I didn't remember that until I started researching this article. Ragnell describes his version of Wonder Woman as "lost." Wikipedia says that she "was often questioning her mission in Man's World, and most primarily her reason for existing." Maybe that's why I don't remember his issues.

The reason that I read the end of Luke's run (and the fill-in issues by Brian K. Vaughan and Ben Raab at the end of it) was that I was getting ready for Phil Jimenez. I'd met Jimenez at a local convention and been totally wowed by him as a person and by his Wonder Woman pitch (which he was enthusiastically sharing with anyone who was interested). I wish I remembered now what the pitch was because I'm sure it would shed some light on this subject, but all I retained was the feeling of being impressed with how much thought he'd given the character. And for a while, I was impressed with his run too.

Jimenez was on the right track. His Wonder Woman was a strong, confident woman and in hindsight I think a lot of my opinions about what Wonder Woman should be were formed by the way he portrayed her. He gave her a love interest in Trevor Barnes and had her do all the pursuing at first. Trevor initially turned her down, but came to his senses later and asked her out.

There was a lot of controversy about Trevor at the time. Liberals thought that Wonder Woman should be portrayed as a lesbian; conservatives thought that Trevor's being black was overly PC. Jimenez couldn't win that one. My personal feeling about it at the time was nervousness that Trevor was going to be portrayed as not being entirely masculine. If Wonder Woman took the agressive, "male" role, then there was a possibility that Trevor might end up taking a passive, "female" role. I shouldn't have worried though. Jimenez was too smart and too talented to let either character be "weak" or passive. He started crafting a relationship of equals between the two of them. Unfortunately, I never did learn what ultimately became of it.

My dropping Wonder Woman during Jimenez's run had nothing to do with how the character was being portrayed and it had nothing to do with Trevor Barnes. But though I think he had those elements exactly right, Jimenez -- either through his own fault or DC editorial's -- kept presenting plots that I just wasn't interested in. There was the return of some George Perez characters whom I didn't care about. There was a civil war on Paradise Island that resulted in Wonder Woman's losing her crown as princess of the Amazons. Then there was that whole Our World at War crossover in which her mom died. It seemed like we were always going from one big event to the next and I started getting tired. There were some quieter issues, like the one in which Lois Lane spends a day with Wonder Woman for an interview, but the run as a whole didn't feel grounded. I finally gave up on it, but I'd like to go back and finish his run now to see where he ended up taking it.

After Jimenez, Walt Simonson wrote a six-issue homage to the powerless, white costume, spy years. I totally missed that one, but I got interested again when Greg Rucka, who's approach to writing I love, took over.

This is getting long again, so I'm going to cut it short here. Next time I'll talk about Greg Rucka, Allan Heinberg, and Jodi Picoult. I'll also try to mention her portrayal in the Justice League cartoon, but I haven't seen many of those, so we'll see if I can find anything interesting to say about them. But I will put in my two cents about what Wonder Woman's mission ought to be.

I'll eventually get around to explaining what Black Canary and Rogue have to do with this, but that'll probably be a fourth article.

Read Part Three here.

June theatrical releases

Last month I tried to categorize these by genre and the universal response was that it would be more helpful to organize them by release date.

Like last month though, these aren't all the movies that are coming out this month; just the ones I find interesting. If I don't mention one that you think I should've or you think one of mine is unworthy of mention; that's what the comments section is for.

Today

Knocked Up: Katherine Heigl's beautiful and I love her on Grey's Anatomy, but really this just looks very, very funny.

Day Watch: (limited release) Night Watch was an amazing fantasy film and I've been patiently waiting for the sequel. Wait's over.

Rise: Blood Hunter: This looks positively horrible, but it's Lucy Liu. I endured Ecks vs. Sever for her; I can make it through this.

June 8th

Surf's Up: I didn't see the marching or the dancing penguins, so I may have a higher tolerance for penguins than most folks right now. This looks funny to me.

Ocean's Thirteen: I have man crushes on George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon. Didn't care so much about Ocean's Twelve, but I didn't hate it either and I loved the first one.

La Vie en Rose: (limited release) I love Edith Piaf, but I'm not sure if I want to know about her life. The trailer looks interesting enough. Almost definitely a rental.

June 15th

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: I really didn't care for the first one very much. I'm too much of a Doctor Doom fan to accept the high-pitched voice of the Nip/Tuck guy as a substitute for the James Earl Jones voice I've always heard in my head when reading the comics. But holy crap that trailer looks good. And I can't wait to see Galactus.

Fido: HA! You've gotta see the trailer on this one. A Boy and his Zombie. I thought they should probably leave the zombie-comedy niche well enough alone after Shaun of the Dead, but I was wrong. There's obviously far more that can be done with it.

DOA: Dead or Alive: And you thought only Rodriguez and Tarantino could do grindhouse. And it stars Jaime Pressly and deadly little Miho from Sin City? And the trailer actually looks frickin' awesome.

June 22nd

1408: John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson in a Stephen King adaptation that looks scary as hell.

Evan Almighty: I liked Bruce Almighty, but the real reason to see this is Steve Carrell. I'll see anything he's in. Funniest man on earth right now.

Black Sheep: (limited release) Weresheep? Are you kidding me? Man, I love horror movies right now!

June 29th

Ratatouille: The plot sounds like an extended Warner Brothers cartoon, but it's Brad Bird writing and directing and I trust that man completely.

Live Free or Die Hard: I'm John McClane's bitch. I feel dirty about how hot his daughter is though. I hear her name and immediately picture the little girl from the first movie answering the phone, "McClane residence; Lucy McClane speaking."

Death at a Funeral: The premise for this sounded hit-or-miss ("two brothers try to stop a blackmailer from exposing their deceased father's secret at his funeral"), but it's directed by Frank Oz, so I gave the trailer a look. It's hysterical! And it stars Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly, Steve the Pirate from Dodgeball).

Tarzan's New York Adventure

Tarzan's New York Adventure follows the formula of all the previous Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films and has a group of civilized folks come into the jungle to take something back with them. The last movie had switched up the plot a little to have them wanting to nab some gold instead of Jane or Boy, but here we're back to kidnapping.

This time it's some circus folks (led by Charles Bickford, who played Major Terill in my Favorite Western of All Time) who've flown in to trap lions. They take a liking to Boy's talent at communicating with and commanding wild animals. The twist is that they actually succeed in getting Boy to go back home with them. When Tarzan and Jane suffer an accident that appears to be fatal, the trappers take Boy to New York, leaving Tarzan and Jane to follow and try to get him back. So the movie starts off formulaic, but then goes somewhere interesting by showing Tarzan's introduction to civilization.

There are even some nice bits about Civilized Law vs. Jungle Law. The circus people have legally adopted Boy, but Jane trusts the legal system enough to expect a successful custody suit against them. Unfortunately, the hearing reveals that Tarzan and Jane aren't Boy's biological parents and when things look bad, Tarzan snaps and physically assaults the circus' lawyer.

I loved where the movie seemed to be going. Much discussion had been had by that time about Tarzan's trusting Jane to guide him through the civilized world and there's some great pathos as she realizes that the system (and she by association) have let Tarzan down. Maureen O'Sullivan really does a nice job with those emotions and Johnny Weissmuller's helpless grief over losing Boy is heart-breaking. I really rooted for him to blow off Civilized Law and just rescue Boy as he would have in the Jungle.

And for a bit, that's what happens. There are some great scenes of Tarzan -- still in a suit -- swinging from rooftop to rooftop and climbing bridges and whatnot. Unfortunately, the movie's not as willing to advocate anarchy as I was. Tarzan does rescue Boy, but there's a final courtroom scene in which the Law suspends sentence on Tarzan's contempt and assault charges and happily sends him back to Africa with Jane and Boy. See? You can trust the Law.

Not that I'm anti-establishment, necessarily. Okay, I am. But not dramatically so, and I would've been fine had the Law supported Tarzan the whole way through and the message been that Civilization isn't so bad after all. But once the movie went down the path of pitting Tarzan's Law against Civilization's, I wanted to see that played out to its conclusion without a quick, easy, fake resolution.

I didn't watch this movie with my son and the result was that I got a little tired of Cheetah's antics without David's giggling there to make them more fun. Or maybe it's the fact that Cheetah was acting up in civilized society here instead of in the jungle where her shenanigans weren't quite so destructive. I hate Chaos and found Cheetah's damage of property more disturbing than funny. I'm sure David would've disagreed.

Another possible explanation for my cooling on Cheetah is that it's obvious that the series is spending more and more time on her being a funny chimpanzee. Maybe the joke's just getting old. I'll have to have David watch the next one with me and see how that affects my attitude.

One last thing that disappointed me: Tumbo, the African boy whom Boy befriended in the previous movie and who appeared to have joined the family when his mother died, is not only absent, but never mentioned. It doesn't bother me from a continuity standpoint, because it's easily explainable, but I do think it's too bad. That would have been a cool development for the series. But maybe that's too much to expect for 1942.

The good news is that the next entries in the series may be getting away from the Civilization Bad; Jungle Good plots in order to focus on such wonderful topics as jungle princesses, Nazis, prehistoric monsters, amazons, leopard women, huntresses, and mermaids. Now we're talkin'!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

I've seen At World's End a couple of times now, and I think the best way to go about talking about it is just to do a simple list of likes and dislikes. It feels pretty review-proof; meaning that no matter what I say, you've probably already made up your mind whether or not you're seeing it. But a list might start some interesting discussion, so if you've seen it already, read on...

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

What I didn't care for so much (in no particular order)

• Some of the switching alliances and motivations were hard to keep track of, but I might have had less problems if I'd watched Dead Man's Chest recently.
• I'm not exactly sure why Will's heart had to be cut out to replace Davy Jones'. Didn't Davy Jones cut his out specifically because his love for Calypso and betrayal by her hurt too much? What does that have to do with captaining the Flying Dutchman?
• I get that Lord Beckett is a businessman and not necessarily a competent military commander, but the defeat of the Endeavor played out much too much like "We're running long; we'd better wrap this up quickly."
• As much screen time as Norrington got in Dead Man's Chest, I would've liked to have seen him get more in this movie. And I'm not sure that I'm convinced about his final change of heart, but I need to see Dead Man's Chest again before I claim that it was out of character.
• The sea turtles joke isn't funny anymore.
• I'd rather have seen Elizabeth continue her pirate career at the end of the movie, but maybe that's just me.

What I Liked (in no particular order)

• An appropriate alternate title might have been Pirates of the Caribbean: Keira's Legs.
• Geoffrey Rush as Barbosa. I was thrilled to see him at the end of Dead Man's Chest and he damn near stole this movie.
• Except, of course, that that's impossible to do when Johnny Depp is playing Captain Jack Sparrow in it.
• But still, Barbosa's accent alone is everything a pirate is supposed to be.
• This trilogy has totally killed any lingering interest in writing a pirate novel any time soon. Why would I when the perfect pirate story has now been told?
• Chow Yun Fat. He makes everything better just by being in it.
• Elizabeth's becoming the Pirate King made me even more attracted to her. Didn't think that was possible.
• And then her shouting orders and motivating men in the sea battle? Even hotter.
• Keith Richards' cameo was a gazillion times more awesome than I'd dreamed it would be. I think I had pretty low expectations though.
• I didn't think I'd like Will Turner as the new Davy Jones, but I really really do. The scene where the Flying Dutchman surfaces to save the day with Turner at the helm was freaking awesome. And how cool was that bandana? He's finally embraced his inner pirate. I've been growing to like him more and more as the trilogy progressed and that capped it off right there.
• Even since Dead Man's Chest I've had a hard time getting a grasp on who Tia Dalma is and now I understand why. I totally get her now. Davy Jones was a fool to cross her, but an even bigger fool for falling in love with her in the first place.
• And I like that about him, too.
• Davy's change of expression when he realized that his heart had been brought back on board. From sadness to rage in two seconds and wonderfully acted by Bill Nighy, mostly just with his eyes.
• My heart's being broken by Elizabeth's helpless grief at seeing her father amongst the dead and not being able to save him.
• Jack the Monkey. I swear he's been taking acting lessons.
• The Song's being sung at the beginning.
• Ragetti's releasing Calypso from her human form.
• The reason Ragetti's been chasing that wooden eye around for three movies.
• Elizabeth and Will's wedding.
• Jack and Barbosa's battles of the spyglasses.
• "It must be a little bitty thing somewhere behind the Pearl."
• "Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue!"
• "Wonder what would happen if we were to drop a cannon ball on them."
• "The Nine Pieces of Whatever We Happen to Have in Our Pockets at the Time."
• "Larry."
• "Do you think he plans it all out, or just makes it up as he goes along?"
• "Keep telling yourself that, darling."

Shrek the Third

Saw Shrek the Third last night and laughed a lot. Apparently the critics aren't liking it, but like I told someone at lunch today, I like talking about comedies because I don't have to give any thought to my reviews. I either laughed or I didn't. It was funny or it wasn't. And though there are a couple of groan-inducing jokes, it's a funny movie and I had a good time watching it. Plus: Puss 'n Boots. He's awesome.

Other than that (okay, including that), this is a lazy post day. I'm off to meet my sometimes co-writer Alex Ness for dinner and talk about some projects we're working on, then I'll stop by the comics shop and maybe the bookstore. Tomorrow Diane and I are going out to see Keira Knightley rescue Johnny Depp. At some point I will find those Phil Jimenez Wonder Woman issues so that I can finish Part Two of that post.

Tuesday is my birthday, but we'll be celebrating with a big cook-out at my folks' house on Monday since everyone has the day off. I'm not planning on doing any posting on either of those days, so I hope all my US friends have Happy Memorial Day weekends and every one else just has great weekends in general. See you Wednesday.

Day of the Dolphin, Lost Horizon, and Tarzan's Secret Treasure

The Day of the Dolphin

This was one of those movies that I've heard about for most of my life, but had never gotten around to seeing. The premise -- dolpins being used in an assassination scheme -- always sounded delightfully cheesy, but not compelling enough to put it high on my To See list. Had I known that it was a Mike Nichols film, it would've been higher. Regarding Henry and Wolf are two of my favorite films, and the rest of his credits aren't so bad either.

Anyway, Nichols takes the cheesy premise and gives it weight by casting George C. Scott in the lead role as the scientist who's been training the first dolphin ever born in captivity. Scott was just coming off of a couple of Oscar nominations (for Patton -- which he won, of course -- and The Hospital) and his talent is undeniable here. His character, Jake Terrell, is a nuanced, tortured man who connects more with his dolphins than he does with other people, even his own wife. We're not hit over the head with that though. There are no huge, impassioned speeches from the wife about it. We just see it in Scott's performance and the performance of Trish Van Devere (who would later marry Scott in real life) as his wife Maggie.

That's the beauty of this movie. As we were watching it, my wife observed that it would never get made the same way today. It moves too slowly. Modern producers would want to get to the assassination quicker so that we could have more cool boat chases and gunfights and explosions. They'd make do with Maggie's making a speech about her sorry marriage, and maybe another one by Jake about how much he cares about the dolphins and how much the dolphins rely on him. Nichols, on the other hand, took the time to show us Jake's relationship with his dolphins in long, thoughtful scenes. So by the time the dolphins are kidnapped and tricked into helping the assassins, we're not just detatchedly observing action sequences, we're sickened and worried right alongside Jake. It's a powerful film.

And because it's so powerful and emotional, the scene where the dolphins get their payback at the end (oh, you knew they would) is cathartically humorous. More drama than thriller (though is certainly is that too) it's just about a perfect movie.

Lost Horizon

Another film I've been meaning to get to forever. I've got the book on my shelf, but I've never gotten around to reading it either. Always heard of Shangri-La; never experienced the story that created it.

The plot's pretty simple. Ronald Colman plays a British diplomat named Bob Conway who's working to get British subjects out of a violent Chinese province. He and his brother George get everyone else out before hopping on the last plane themselves, but instead of traveling to Singapore where their ship is waiting, they and the rest of their party end up hijacked and taken into the Himalayas. There they find the hidden valley of Shangri-La, a utopian community that they initially distrust. When some of the group (including Bob, thanks to the attentions of a young woman played by Spock's mom) begins to get comfortable with the place, George gets even more suspicious and angry.

The conflict is all about whether Shangri-La is as good as it seems or whether it's actually hiding a dangerous secret. Is George right to be suspicious, or is he going to ruin a perfect society in order to escape? It's an effective conflict because we'd all like to believe that such a utopian society is possible. We want it to be real as much as Bob does and hope that it's not a sham, so we're invested.

The only thing that doesn't work in the movie is towards the end when the story sort of runs out of time to play itself out. Rather than following the climax ourselves, we get a character who comes in to explain to us a bunch of stuff that happened off camera. A bunch of really interesting stuff that we'd love to see. I'm more curious than ever now to read the book and see how it handles the end. The off camera events could've easily made a whole separate movie or even a series.

Tarzan's Secret Treasure

Now that I've completely adjusted to the new tone of the Weissmuller Tarzan movies, I'm enjoying them a lot. With this one, they've settled into a comfortable status quo with Tarzan, Jane, and Boy living in their Swiss Family Robinson treehouse with Cheetah and a baby elephant.

Tarzan's Secret Treasure breaks the formula of having someone from civilization show up to try and drag one of the family members back to the real world. Sort of. In this one, Boy discovers gold and accidentally lets some unscrupulous members of a scientific expedition know about it. So, it's gold and not a person that they want to take from the jungle, but the result is the same. Tarzan still has to fight them off and protect the sanctity and tranquility of his jungle home.

Like the last movie, I watched this one with my five-year-old son. Before we even started it he was excited to know if Boy and Cheetah were going to be in it. And like in Tarzan Finds a Son, he giggled a lot, especially when Cheetah was the focus. And so did I.

Not that it's entirely a kids' movie. David got bored at the end when the conflict ramped up between Tarzan's group and the villains, but I'm glad for that section. It was a nice bit of suspense sandwiched between some fun jungle antics.

My only complaint comes from watching it with a 21st century perspective. Early in the film, Boy saves the life of a young African boy named Tumbo and they become friends. When Tumbo's mother dies, he goes to stay with Boy and his family. I like that Tumbo isn't played for laughs as an incompetent sidekick for Boy. At one point, he actually saves the day for everyone. My problem though is with something Boy says later in the movie.

Boy speaks English and Tumbo speaks whatever African dialect his tribe uses. Since we're all English speakers watching the movie, it makes sense that Tumbo learns some broken English in order to communicate with Boy so that we can understand him. Boy doesn't learn a word of Tumbo's language (though Tarzan seems to speak it well enough). But when Boy introduces Tumbo to Jane, he jokes that Tumbo doesn't speak very well. And maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I get the feeling that we're supposed to laugh too. Haha, poor little kid doesn't even know how to speak English. Only I'm thinking, "But at least he's trying, you jerk. How much of his language do you know?" Boy's just a kid though, so I excuse his ignorance, except for the part where I really do think that we're supposed to be in on some kind of joke with him. But, honestly, maybe it's just me.

I don't want to end a review of an otherwise fun movie on a sour note, so let me finish up by saying how nice it was to see Barry Fitzgerald (Father Fitzgibbon from Going My Way) as one of the good scientists. Sometimes with these comic-relief roles there's a thin line between endearing and annoying, but Fitzgerald always stays well into the "endearing" side.

Reviews: A Distant Soil, Elephantmen, and Rocket Girl

Spent all my free time today catching up on news and writing some reviews for Comic World News. A Distant Soil and Elephantmen are both scifi comics, though A Distant Soil reads more like a fantasy and Elephantmen like a noir mystery. Rocket Girl is an indie superhero comic.

Tomorrow I hope to get around to talking about a couple movies I've seen recently: Lost Horizon and Day of the Dolphin.

Links: Joker pic, Flash Gordon news, and the Money Shot

Mystery

• I don't know Christa Faust, but we have some mutual friends, so I was immediately curious about her new novel Money Shot coming out next year from Hard Case Crime. The cover is amazing (as Hard Case covers are), but the sample chapter and the plot description are what got me: "It all began with the phone call asking former porn star Angel Dare to do one more movie. Before she knew it, she’d been shot and left for dead in the trunk of a car. But Angel is a survivor. And that means she’ll get to the bottom of what’s been done to her even if she has to leave a trail of bodies along the way..."
• Not really sure what category to put this under, but since it's a shirt that spoils the twist endings to a lot of movies and books, I'll put it here. Careful about clicking the link though. Even though most of the movies are older, there are a couple that I haven't seen yet, and you might not have either. And if you're watching the Harry Potter movies, but haven't read the books, well... you've been warned. Still, it's a great shirt and worth checking out, even if you'd have to be kind of jerk to wear it around.

Science Fiction

• Disney-MGM has some awesome ads for their Star Wars Weekends event this June. Fer instance:



• The Barbarella remake has a director and he's a good one. Now I just gotta get in touch with him about having Duran Duran do the theme song.
• Entertainment Weekly has some dirt on the Sci Fi Channel's Flash Gordon show. I'm undecided about some of the changes they're going to be making. Earth and Mongo's being connected by a wormhole instead of spaceships will take some getting used to, but it does make a lot more sense than having Mongo flying all over the galaxy under its own power. I'm glad to see that Ming will be fleshed out into a villain with deeper motivations than just Wants to Rule the Universe. I'm disappointed though that Flash and Dale are exes. One of my favorite parts of the old serial was watching them fall in love (especially with Princess Aura around to complicate the process) and I feel cheated that we're not going to get to see that in this version.

Superheroes

• I wasn't sure whether or not to link yesterday to the site with the image of Heath Ledger as the Joker from The Dark Knight. There was some question about the site's authenticity, so I just let it go. Shouldn't have though, because apparently it's for real. I've read some criticism about the makeup and how it's not accurate to the comics, but whatever. This is far scarier than anything the comics have ever been able to convey. Congratulations to Christopher Nolan, the make-up artists, and Heath Ledger. I'm still a little creeped out.
• I haven't done these comics meme things before, but I've wanted to. The Invincible Super-Blog is responsible for this one:

Writing is Hard

• One of the most useful (and entertaining) blogs for writers for the last two years has been Miss Snark's. I've only discovered it in the last few months, but I was still very disappointed when I visited yesterday and learned that she's closing it down. I'm going to miss her daily wisdom and humor, but I totally get her reasons for needing to call it done. At least she's keeping her archives open for those times when I really gotta know something.
• Maybe The Rejecter will be able to fill the Snark-sized hole in my Reader.

Link: Jericho to get closure, Eli Stone looks really funny, and I gotta read The Cage

Mystery

• Taking the sting out of Jericho's cancellation, Nina Tassler, President of CBS Entertainment, responded to huge fan outcry by saying, "Thank you for supporting Jericho with such passion. We truly appreciate the commitment you made to the series and we are humbled by your disappointment. In the coming weeks, we hope to develop a way to provide closure to the compelling drama that was the Jericho story." No word on if that means a mini-series, a TV movie, or something else, but it's cause for hope.

Fantasy

• I'm trying not to comment on any of the promised Fall TV shows yet, because I'm still not over some of my favorites getting cancelled this season and I'm certainly not ready to start welcoming in their replacements. But I've mentioned before that I'm curious to see Victor Garber's new show, Eli Stone. Even though the premise didn't immediately grab me, it's Victor Garber. His Jack Bristow from Alias is the one guy I'd put up against Jack Bauer and not immediately know which to bet on. But anyway, any hesitation I had about the premise is now completely gone thanks to this trailer. Oh, man, I can't wait to watch this show now.
• Jason Brannon's crytozoological thriller The Cage sounds really really good. Sort of like Day of the Animals meets The X-Files. "A Wendigo, Bigfoot, El Chupacabra, The Jersey Devil (think horned horse and awfully mean), The Dragon of Bone Island and a little somethin’ somethin’ called The Beast of Exmoor" attack a small, family zoo and everyone in it.
• I liked Pan's Labyrinth pretty well, but I don't think I'd consider buying it if the special edition didn't have "animated DVD comics (one-page stories with floating captions), beautifully illustrated by Guy Davis, Jason Shawn Alexander and Mike Kaluta, that provide interesting back stories to the mythical characters Ofelia encounters in the labyrinth: The Faun and Great Toad (Davis), Pan (Kaluta) and The Fairies (Alexander)."

Science Fiction

• This could also have gone under Superheroes, but I'll keep it here. I really liked DC's 52 series, but one of my regrets about it is that I wanted more Adam Strange, Starfire, Animal Man stories. DC read my mind and launches Countdown to Adventure this August.
• Lucasfilm has released a look at the art from its upcoming Clone Wars CGI series.
• My local theater had a showing of the first Terminator movie on the big screen last week. Seeing Linda Hamilton even as the whimpy version of Sarah Conner made me less excited about FOX's upcoming The Sarah Conner Chronicles, but maybe my prejudice will ease off between now and next January when Chronicles kicks off.

Superheroes

• If you read superhero comics at all, you're aware that Mary Jane Watson's first words to Peter Parker were, "Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot." But if you're like me, you don't know the context of where that line came from. I've been confused for years about why those would be the first words out of someone's mouth when she's meeting you for the first time. Fortunately, Comics Should Be Good helpfully recaps the story for us.
• Fox and the Franklin Mint have teamed up to release a limited edition Silver Surfer quarter to promote the new Fantastic Four movie.
• I gave up on Heroes about six episodes in and decided that if I was missing out, I could always catch up on DVD. Well, now the DVD is scheduled for release on August 28th and I'm still having a hard time mustering excitement for it. Some of my friends tell me that it got better as the season progressed, but I haven't yet read a thorough review that acknowledges the show's early flaws and explains how it corrected for them. I need convincing.

Other Comics

• The winners of this year's Glyph awards honoring black comics creators and characters have been announced. I'm definitely going to have to give Stagger Lee a read.

Writing is Hard

• Bestselling author Brad Meltzer shares some tips for getting published. Some of it's old news if you already read agents' blogs, but there's some good, new info too, like the caveat to Miss Snark's "Query widely" advice where Meltzer suggests you only query ten agents at a time in case you decide to rework your query letter after the first go-'round.
• Another good advice list. This one on developing effective writing habits.
• I suck at titles, so any source of ideas for them is welcome. I totally want to write a comic called Stab!

What I learned from Barnes & Noble and The Mark of Ran

Today has sucked. Way too busy, so no time for a big links post. All I got for ya is a pirate novel update.

I've had Paul Kearney's The Mark of Ran (the first book in his Sea Beggars series) on my To Read list for a while now, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. Yesterday, a friend sent me a link that linked to this announcement on Kearney's message board: "Things have been rather busy as regards the future of the Sea Beggars series. I'm sorry to say that sales of both books have not been brilliant, both in the UK and the US, and so both the UK and US publishers have decided to pull the plug on the series. In the conventional sense, there will be no more books..."

He goes on to talk about his plans for the series and his feelings about the publishing business and it's heart-breaking. It also adds to my thoughts from a couple of weeks ago about the viability of publishing a pirate novel.

My friend's reason for sending me the link was to get me to go buy The Mark of Ran and review it here in hopes that if enough people did that, maybe we could get some kind of buzz going for it and save the series. And because my friend asked, I was happy to scoot over to Barnes & Noble on my way home last night and pick up a copy. Only guess what? No copies. Which is really the problem, isn't it?

It's not that the book's sitting on the bookstore shelf and no one's buying it. It's that the bookstore didn't buy any copies. Or, if it did, they didn't sell so now they've been sent back to the publisher. It sucks.

And it again brings up the question: considering how popular the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are, why aren't pirate novels selling? The closest answer I can come up with is that there's no crossover appeal. Just like everyone who likes the Spider-Man movies doesn't go looking for their nearest comic book store, people who like Pirates of the Caribbean aren't necessarily going to go looking for novels that are similar to it. First of all, the novels wouldn't have Jack Sparrow in them, and Jack -- or Johnny Depp anyway -- is the big attraction with the Pirates movies. Sure, there's a small group of pirate fans (like me) who'll eat up whatever piratey goodness you put in front of them, but they're a niche market.

Barnes & Noble did have a whole display of pirate books right on the main aisle between the front entrance and the Starbucks in the center of the store. All of it was non-fiction. You'd think that Mark of Ran and Crystal Rain would've gone nicely on that display, but nope. And honestly, I'm not complaining. I'm just making an observation that I can hopefully learn from. I don't blame Barnes & Noble. Obviously, it's in their best interest to sell books and for whatever reason, they don't think that pirate fiction, even old pirate fiction that they publish themselves, will sell off of that display. I don't get it, but I accept it.

And part of accepting it means that I've got to lay off Le Corsaire for now. It's time to think about something else as a first novel. 'Cause like I said before: lots of other ideas.

Tarzan Finds a Son

As my buddy Joe told me when I reviewed it, I hit the wall with Tarzan Escapes as far as Weissmuller Tarzan films go. The first two were imaginative and fun, but by Tarzan Finds a Son, the fourth in the series, it looks like the producers have found a formula and are just replaying it over and over: Tarzan and family live happily in the jungle until "civilized" folks intrude to drag someone back home with them.

In this case, the "someone" is a baby whom Tarzan and Jane found when a plane crashed near their home. They raise him as their own, but the boy's relatives soon (okay, five years later) come looking for him because (like Jane in the last movie) he's heir to a fortune.

But even though it's formulaic and features the first appearance of Boy, a character I always thought was a stupid idea growing up (he's sort of like Tarzan's "Scrappy Doo," though I guess to be fair that Scrappy was really more like Scooby's "Boy"), I actually enjoyed Tarzan Finds a Son a lot. Part of it was knowing what to expect. Tarzan Escapes took me by surprise with how watered down it was from the first two installments, especially Tarzan and His Mate, but with my expectations lowered, I was able to get into Tarzan Finds a Son as the juvenile, Saturday matinee fare that it was designed to be.

To help me see it through a child's eyes, I watched it with my own five-year-old boy. As I've mentioned before, David's a big animal fan and he's recently been getting into Tarzan comics and had watched a few episodes of The New Adventures of Tarzan with me, so I knew he'd enjoy this one. It was especially helpful that he and Boy are the same age. David identified with the baby elephant in the movie more than any of the human characters, but he loved giving the play-by-play anytime Boy was getting chased by a lion or a croc or whatever other trouble Boy would get himself in. He was genuinely worried about Jane at one point -- almost to tears -- and I've never seen him giggle as hard as he did during the climax when a shrewdness (yeah, I know it's weird, but that's the term; look it up) of chimpanzees on elephantback attacked a village of cannibals. He absolutely loved that part. And so did I.

I also liked how Tarzan doesn't seem dumb in this one. Or at least how Jane doesn't treat him like a child. She disagrees with him about Boy's fate, and acts on her conviction that she's right, but unlike Tarzan Escapes, she doesn't seem to have the attitude that Tarzan would agree with her if only she could explain it to him in simple enough terms.

Also, Boy's not nearly as obnoxious as I remembered. Maybe he gets that way later in the series as he gets older, but he's actually cute and charming in this. I hope that the rest of the series gets away from the formula plot, but I'm actually looking forward to watching them now. Tarzan Escapes was certainly the wall of the series, but once you're over it, it's not bad on the other side. Just different.