Guys With Flame-Throwers Hate Cephalopods

[Pulp Covers]

Old Sinner: Mark McDermott (1910)

I love silent films for a few reasons, but one of them is that there’s such economy to the way the stories have to be told. For that reason, adaptations also tend to be really faithful to their source material. They don’t add a lot of extra stuff.

The first-ever adaptation of Christmas Carol opens with the intertitle: “The day before Christmas. Scrooge, a hard fisted miser, receives an appeal from the Charity Relief Committee.” The CRC doesn’t figure into this post, so we’ll leave it alone until later. In this version, all you really need to know about Scrooge is that he’s “a hard fisted miser.” After the intertitle, we see Scrooge enter his office and yell at his as-yet-unnamed clerk, adding to the unpleasant image.

Mark McDermott is a tall man and his Scrooge is an imposing character. That’s really all we can tell about him at this point. His height and posture doesn't mesh well with the image I form from Dickens' description of the "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner," but I realize that Dickens is talking about character traits, not physical ones. The picture in my head is influenced as much by Gollum as anything Dickens wrote, but it's still difficult to look at McDermott and come up with "wrenching" and "grasping" as adjectives. I notice that the intertitle changes Dickens' "tight-fisted" to "hard fisted;" a more appropriate description for McDermott's presence.

Anyone familiar with the story can speculate that he’s fussing about coal-use, but it’s not clear yet in this film. All the movie lets us know is that he’s a “miser” and that he’s cranky. There's nothing in the visuals yet to suggest Christmas; just the intertitle letting us know what day it is. We also get nothing about Scrooge's business or Marley. Because of the film's short length, it's going to have to be economical about how it shares that information, wrapping it into other character interactions.

Wonder Woman: Power through submission; peace through war

I'm not done thinking about this by a long shot, but I have some thoughts that I need to get down before I lose them. When I first realized that understanding bondage could be the key to unlocking the Warrior of Peace paradox in Wonder Woman, I knew that I was limited in my ability to figure it out on my own. I was thinking about domination and submission from a limited, traditional viewpoint in which the dominating person always holds power over the submissive person. It wasn't until Sarah from Geek Beaks pointed it out to me that I even considered the power of the submitter over the dominator.

Short of my actually interviewing someone who practices BDSM (something I've considered, but haven't done any work towards yet), she recommended that I read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, which I'm going to do. In the meantime though, I've done some pre-work in thinking about ways that a submissive person holds power. That's what I want to capture before I move on to Carey's novels, Charles Moulton's Wonder Woman comics, or even more of Noah Berlatsky's posts.

The saying goes that forgiveness takes power from the person who's wronged you. Revenge takes resources, so when I set out to avenge a wrong against myself, I may feel like I'm taking control, but I'm actually letting someone else manipulate me. That's the closest I can get to understanding the power-through-submission paradox. Forgiveness feels like submission, but it's actually seizing power from the person who's wronged me. The most peace I've ever been able to achieve in my life is when I've been able to fully submit to the idea that I'm not the most important person in the room. And that peace is powerful, because no one can touch it. If it comes from a place of submission in the first place, no amount of domination is going to be able to take it away.

I don't know if this is what's going on in BDSM submissiveness or not, so I'm curious to learn more, but it gives me a place to start as I begin reading Moulton's comics. I'll be interested in seeing Wonder Woman's reactions to being tied up and dominated. If she resists, then I've got to rethink this. But the miscellaneous scans I remember seeing of these situations all show Wonder Woman as calmly accepting of her forced submissiveness. If that's her normal reaction, then I may be onto something. By allowing herself to be tied up, Wonder Woman gains power. How she gets free should also be interesting to see and think about.

Another question though is whether or not the power-through-submission paradox has any bearing on the peace-through-violence one. I need to do some research here too, but I think maybe it does. My wife helped me think a lot of this through, so credit where it's due, but there seems to be something to the idea that the people who are best at war are those least excited to go there. If that's true, does loving peace make you a better warrior?

Lots to think about.

Old Sinner: Dickens

Illustration by Charles Dana Gibson

The first time I did this, I just summarized the opening paragraphs. This time, I'm borrowing Siskoid's strategy and presenting Dickens' original text in italics while I interrupt occasionally to make comments. Mostly I'll be figuring out what I want to look out for in the adaptations.

STAVE I: Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

According to my copy of The Annotated Christmas Carol, the "'Change" is the Royal Exchange, London's financial center. Scrooge's exact occupation is a source of some confusion between adaptations (is he in real estate? a loan shark? some sort of manufacturer or distributor?). Apparently, the April 1924 issue of The Dickensian declared Scrooge to be a "financier." In other words: a moneylender. That's the approach that most of the adaptations take, but we'll keep an eye on it as we go.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

One of the movies (Albert Finney's Scrooge, maybe?) actually substitutes the term "dead as a coffin-nail." I thought they were trying to be clever until I remembered that Dickens already made that joke.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

Dickens makes it really, really clear that Marley is dead. One of the things I love about him is that he's hilarious, thinking of about eighty different ways to drive home the point that Marley should not be up and walking around, all of them clever and funny.

We'll also want to pay attention to Scrooge's attitude about Marley's death and their relationship when Marley was alive. That's another point on which adaptations sometimes differ.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot - say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance - literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

I especially love this bit about Hamlet (hi, Siskoid!). Dickens apparently edited out a longer digression in which he goes off about Hamlet and what a weakling he was. He originally wrote:

Perhaps you think that Hamlet’s intellects were strong. I doubt it. If you could have such a son tomorrow, depend on it, you would find him a poser. He would be a most impracticable fellow to deal with; and however credible he might be to the family, after his decease, he would prove a special incumbrance in his lifetime, trust me.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

I imagine that the mention of the warehouse is why some folks think he must have been involved in producing some kind of goods. Unfortunately, The Annotated Christmas Carol is no help there.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

The first mention of Christmas. In the next section (Coming 2012!), Dickens explicitly states that his story takes place at Christmastime, but one of the things I want to watch out for in adaptations is how they announce that setting before we ever meet Scrooge. Dickens can spend paragraphs talking about Dead Marley and Miserable Scrooge before starting the story, but other media don't have that luxury.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

"Nuts" deserves some explanation, though it never comes up in the adaptations. Today, we say "nuts" as an exclamation of distaste. In Dickens' day, it meant something agreeable.

So, there are a few things we'll look out for in the adaptations' opening scenes.

• How do they drive home Marley's existential state?
• What does Scrooge do for a living?
• How does Scrooge feel about Marley's death?
• How is Christmas introduced as a character (because Dickens certainly treats it like one)?
• How do the adaptations communicate Scrooge's personality?

The Christmas Carol Project Index

Scene 1: Old Sinner

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 2: "A Merry Christmas, Uncle!"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968) doesn't include this scene.
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 3: "You Wish to Be Anonymous?"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935) doesn't include this scene, but I discussed why
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968) doesn't include this scene
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978) doesn't include this scene
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 4: "If Quite Convenient, Sir."

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 5: His Usual Melancholy Tavern

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910) doesn't include this scene
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 6: "More of Gravy Than of Grave"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008) 
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 7: "Your Reclamation, Then."

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 8: "I Was a Boy Here!"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 9: "Why, It's Old Fezziwig!"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 10: "Another Idol Has Displaced Me."

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 11: "Come In! And Know Me Better, Man!"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 12: The City Streets on Christmas Morning

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 13: Doubts About the Quantity of Flour

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 14: "I Think He Loses a Very Good Dinner"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 15: "Are There No Prisons?"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 16: "If a Lunch is Provided"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 17: "That's the Way I Ruin Myself"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 18: Unwatched, Unwept, Uncared For

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 19: "The Colour Hurts My Eyes"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 20: "I Am Not the Man I Was"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 21: "What's To-day, My Fine Fellow?"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 22: "Not a Farthing Less"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 23: "I Have Come to Dinner"

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 24: "I Am Behind My Time."

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Scene 25: Scrooge Was Better Than His Word

• Dickens' text
• Mark McDermott (1910)
• Seymour Hicks (1935)
• Reginald Owen (1938)
• Classics Illustrated #53 (1948)
• Alastair Sim (1951)
• Fredric March (1954)
• Teen Titans #13 (1968)
• Albert Finney (1970)
• Alastair Sim (1971)
• Walter Matthau (1978)
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (1978)
• Scrooge McDuck (1983)
• George C. Scott (1984)
• Michael Caine (1992)
• Patrick Stewart (1999)
• Classical Comics (2008)
• Jim Carrey (2009)
• Campfire (2010)
• Christmas Classics (2010)

Let's Try This Again: Covetous Old Sinner

A couple of years ago, I started a second blog to take an in-depth look at everyone's favorite Christmas/ghost story, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Similar to what Siskoid's doing with Hamlet, my goal was to pay attention to the way Scrooge's story has been interpreted and adapted to other media over the years.

I decided to make it its own blog because I thought that I might be stretching this one a bit by talking about it here. Two things have changed my mind. First, let's be honest: I stretch the boundaries of this blog all the time (if it even has any boundaries, which I doubt). Having a Christmas Carol theme month in December isn't all that different from taking the month of October to talk about Frankenstein.

More than that though, putting this project on its own blog just hasn't worked for my schedule. It's time consuming and whenever I had to make the choice between updating the Christmas Carol blog or updating this one, this one was always going to win. Still, it's a project that I want to see through, so bringing it here will help me do that.

The way this is going to work is that I’ll break the story down into scenes (or sometimes parts of scenes) and look at their translation to 18 different films, TV shows, and comics:

• A Christmas Carol (1910) starring Marc McDermott
• Scrooge (1935) starring Seymour Hicks
• A Christmas Carol (1938) starring Reginald Owen
• Scrooge (1951) starring Alastair Sim
• "A Christmas Carol" episode of Shower of Stars (1954) starring Fredric March
• Teen Titans #13 (DC; 1968)
• Scrooge (1970) starring Albert Finney
• A Christmas Carol cartoon (1971) starring Alastair Sim
• The Stingiest Man in Town (1978) starring Walter Matthau
• Marvel Classics Comics #36 (Marvel; 1978)
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983) starring Scrooge McDuck
• A Christmas Carol (1984) starring George C. Scott
• The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) starring Michael Caine
• A Christmas Carol (1999) starring Patrick Stewart
• A Christmas Carol: The Graphic Novel (Classical Comics; 2008)
• A Christmas Carol (2009) starring Jim Carrey
• A Christmas Carol (Campfire; 2010)
• "A Christmas Carol" in Graphic Classics, Vol. 19: Christmas Classics (Eureka; 2010)

Obviously this isn’t an exhaustive list. I started with my favorites, then added some that people have recommended to me and then threw in some others that just caught my curiosity. We can talk about the ones I left out, but I will say that Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol isn’t here because I hate it with a passion. It’s neither a good Christmas Carol nor a good Mister Magoo cartoon. There’s also no Scrooged or An American Christmas Carol or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. When I first started this, I tried to stick to more-or-less faithful adaptations, but even though I've since added Teen Titans to the list, I'd rather that be a fun exception and not have to figure out where I'm going to draw the line.

This is going to take years. Every December I'll talk about one scene; starting with Dickens' version, then looking at the adaptations of that scene in the days leading up to Christmas. I'm not saying that this is the only thing I'll be doing here all month - we'll have some People Hating Cephalopods and at least one Wonder Woman follow-up - but Scrooge will be the priority. Starting tomorrow, when we'll let Dickens introduce the miserable old sinner.

Stuff I Wrote: Hunt the Winterlands

I contributed a story to this fantasy anthology. It's a shared-world anthology with all the writers creating stories in a harsh, snow- and ice-covered land. Mine deals with a tribe of Snow Elves (a race that I probably didn't invent, but have never heard of before), focusing mostly on a young mother and her talking baby. Only, just like human babies, Snow Elf babies aren't supposed to talk either, so it kind of freaks her out and makes her wonder if something horrible has happened. Which it kind of has.

Anyway, it's available on Amazon both in print and for the Kindle and I hope you'll check it out. If you don't feel like checking it out now, it's also in my store and there's a permanent link to that on the sidebar. Much thanks.

Wonder Woman: Thoughtfully twisted?

As I've continued looking through Noah Berlatsky's Wonder Woman posts for revelations about her Warrior of Peace paradox, I discovered a troubling observation in his second article. In his first one, I was encouraged by a simple observation: "You can't show everyone how strong you are unless you are tied up and break free and dominate others." That's about Wonder Woman's strength-weakness paradox, not her warrior-peace one, but if we can resolve the strength-through-bondage problem, it shouldn't be much more difficult to resolve the peace-through-war one. Or at least get some good ideas about how to better talk about it. Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that. I knew it wasn't going to be, but Berlatsky confirms it in his second post.

"You can't show everyone how strong you are unless you're tied up and can break free to dominate others" presents the strength-weakness elements as opposed, which is an intuitive way of thinking about it. It suggests that to understand one, you have to also show the other. Like how we can't fully get what light does without first being in the dark, we see how strong Wonder Woman is by seeing her temporarily weakened. But that's not really how Charles Moulton wrote her. For Moulton, the two aren't contrasting opposites, but complementary halves of the same portrait. As Berlatsky says:

Moulton’s Wonder Woman is (ahem) bound up with his very particular set of fetishes and fantasies. Moulton made his stories about those fetishes and fantasies; that’s what he wanted to talk about, and in that context WW’s appearance (girly; uncovered), her tools (the magic lasso; the bracelets), and her contradictory image (powerful, but always being dominated) all make at least a kind of sense. His weird blend of feminism/misogyny (“I love strong women — tie them up so I may love them more!”) which means you can’t get the feminism without the misogyny, but also means you can’t get the misogyny without the feminism. In particular, the way and the extent to which Moulton presents and fetishizes female relationships seems equally tied up with his own sexual peccadillos (lesbianism is never very far below the surface here) and with ideas about girls supporting each other in a feminist or protofeminist way. Certainly, Moulton comics are far, far from the first thing I’d give to my daughter, but I can see why young girls might have found something to connect with in them. Women have power (they are so, so powerful!) and they love each other (oh, please, love each other more!)

I guess the point I’m making is that there’s misogyny, but it’s not gratuitous. Moulton has a vision. It’s not PC and it’s totally sexually twisted, but at least he’s thought about it. He cares about women. You can mock that, or argue with that, or even suggest that it might be better for everyone if he cared about women a little less, but at least there’s the sense that he’s paying attention.

What's troubling about that is that Berlatsky doesn't dig into it any deeper than that. (At least not in this post. I'm still reading.) He dismisses Moulton's portrayal of Wonder Woman as interesting, but "twisted." The feeling I get is that since it's crazy, we don't have to understand it. More than that, we probably shouldn't try to understand it. But while I get that, it's not satisfying. I suspect that if I can figure out how bondage and strength are related in Moulston's mind, it'll lead me to figuring out how peace and war could possibly connect in other Wonder Woman stories, which is what I'm really interested in.

So that's where I'm going in my next post. I don't know a lot about bondage, but I'll attempt to imagine how that fetish works and what it might suggest about Moulton's interest in strength and weakness.

Spider-Man Hates Cephalopods

Read the whole, horrifying history at Diversions of the Groovy Kind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

[From Sheldon Vella's Popgun, Volume 2 story, "Survival of the Festive."]

Minnesota cold...on Twilight

Though you couldn't tell it from the theater crowds last Thursday, clearly I ended up in the right state. The other two places I've lived are considerably more enthusiastic about sparkly vampires than I am.

How does your Twi-hardness compare with your neighbors'?

[Infographic plundered from GoodReads]