Peter David's Blog, page 44

The Strange Case of Akiva Goldsman

Originally published May 10, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1486

Let us now consider the strange case of Akiva Goldsman.

I have never met Akiva Goldsman. I doubt he knows me from a hole in the ground. Well, actually, okay, that’s not entirely true. I mean, if you had me standing next to a hole in the ground and asked Akiva Goldsman, “Okay, which one is Peter David and which one is a hole in the ground,” I’d say the odds are pretty good that he could probably differentiate between the two, if for no other reason than holes in the ground very rarely have names. My point—and there is one buried in the foregoing somewhere—is that I doubt I’m anywhere on his radar.

However, Akiva Goldsman made my life very miserable for a time. For as any fan will tell you, Goldsman was the (and I use the term loosely) writer of Batman Forever. It was a supremely ghastly script. Although it was not as ghastly as Batman and Robin, a film that as near as I was able to determine was produced for the sole purpose of making Batman Forever look like Citizen Kane.

I shall never forget attending the special sneak preview for Batman and Robin, arranged for DC Comics personnel. The cringing, the gasps, the moans, the guys calling out “Feed me, Seymour” when Poison Ivy’s plant showed up. But the single moment that made the biggest impression upon me was when Batman whipped out his personalized charge card, and Denny O’Neil (sitting two rows back) let out a howl of agony that would have rivaled anything one might have heard while cruising any of the circles of Hell.

So that was Batman and Robin. But Batman Forever was my personal little nightmare because I did the novelization of it.

I learned to hate the screenwriting of Akiva Goldsman during that time with a fiery passion that burned hotter than a thousand suns. The wretchedness of the dialogue, the preposterous sequences. Me, I knew I was writing a novel that comic book fans might pick up on the strength of my name, and I had to find ways to make the abominable script palatable to those very discerning critics.

So I did everything I could, used every trick at my disposal, to make the lousy script readable as a novel. No matter how absurd, no matter how “un-Batman” a line of dialogue might have been, I did everything I could to try and justify why Batman (or Robin) might say it.

As for the plot holes, well… I admit that every screenplay I’ve ever novelized had some holes in it. Movies are told in a sort of visual shorthand, but when you’re converting one to a novel, it’s more problematic. Audiences are more likely to accept a development on screen because, well, they’re seeing it, and seeing is believing. Or they’re willing to let themselves be carried along by the pace set by the director. The classic example is when Indiana Jones says he’s going to find a way to follow the Nazi truck carrying the Lost Ark. When asked how, he replies, “I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go.” Next thing you know, bang, he’s on horseback and off we go. Can’t really do that in a book. Well, you can, but it makes for a weak read.

But geez, Batman Forever had plot holes you could drive a Nazi truck through. So as I encountered them, I found ways to fix them. I’d come up with all sorts of scenes to fill the gaps. Unfortunately, as I was doing that, they were busy filming the movie and apparently encountering the same plot holes. Next thing I knew, I was getting faxed new script pages with the plot holes “fixed,” except invariably they were slapdash one or two sentence patches. But I had to use them, because they were “official.” So I’d have to dump the work I’d done and substitute material I felt was inferior. This happened constantly while I was writing it, and it made me so crazed that I swore off novelizations for a good long time (although the worst novelizing experience I ever heard of was Warren Beatty’s apparently going out of his way to drive poor Max Allan Collins nuts when Al was novelizing Dick Tracy.)

And let’s not even get into Lost in Space, except to say that Bill Mumy could blow out his nose a better script than Goldsman produced (and a better performance as an adult Will Robinson than the guy they hired could turn out on his best day.)

So you understand that, however much antipathy you guys might feel for Goldsman’s work, I have far more personal reasons to think that Akiva Goldsman, if faced with a paper bag, would be hard put to write his way out of it.

With all that…when he won the Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, I had one reaction and one reaction only: “Wow. Turns out the guy really can write.” It was a similar reaction I had to when Jennifer Connelly—she who was a block of wood in Labyrinth and single-handedly sucked the life out of every scene she was in during The Rocketeer—somehow developed acting chops enough to win Best Supporting.

I suppose part of it stems from my personal fantasy that someday I might win some big, major mainstream award. And all those people who think they have me pegged, who think they know exactly what I’m capable of writing and no more than that, will suddenly say, “Wow, we underestimated him. He’s the real deal.” So naturally I reacted the way that I envisioned others would react.

Well, apparently not. Apparently my fantasy is more than that; it’s a pipe dream. Witness reactions from around the net:

“Akiva Goldsman wrote Batman and Robin and can never be forgiven for that.”

“I expect the Apocalypse to be upon us any day now.”

“Lost in Space is the centerpiece of my Abiding Hate for Akiva Goldsman.”

“(Saying) ‘Academy Award-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman’… makes me want to vomit…”

“Total hack, who just happened to be on the right film at the right time. Sad, sad, sad.”

“I can’t believe one of the highest prizes for writing in ANY medium went to this guy.”

Interestingly, in the January/February 2002 issue of Creative Screenwriting, Goldsman was asked, “How do the vehemently negative Internet reactions to Batman and Robin affect you?” His reply, in part:

“You know, it’s disheartening. I stopped going on the Internet. It’s too discouraging… I encourage tremendously people’s opportunity to say and write what they want; I find the anonymity of it disheartening at times. People should have a voice and responsibility for that voice. I wish them well. But I never think that somebody sitting there, condemning something with that kind of vitriol, is particularly sophisticated. No one has loved Neal Adams’s Batman or Frank Miller’s Batman more than I. I was a comic collector, long before some of these people knew who Batman was. I’m proud of what worked about Batman Forever and proud of the work on Batman and Robin. No, I don’t think the movie works entirely, but I hope for people to be wiser about it.”

And he went on to say…

“It was very startling the first time I logged online to find people I don’t know wanting me dead… It’s a very unpleasant experience. I’m not interested in emotionally violent strangers. There’s enough difficulty in the world.”

I wonder what his reaction would have been to discover that his achievement not only failed to get him cred with his detractors, but only seemed to inflame them more. Well, perhaps when you win the Academy Award, you officially don’t have to care anymore.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

I Remember Where I was When the Challenger Blew Up

I was sitting at my desk at Marvel comics. In those days I was Marvel’s direct sales manager. My phone rang and I answered it.

It was Myra, my then-wife. She was audibly sobbing. Naturally I thought something had happened to Shana. “What’s wrong?”

“The Challenger blew up,” she said, her voice choking. She’d been watching it on TV and had actually seen it blown out of the sky.

I was stunned. So much had been made about the Challenger, including Christa McAuliffe as the first civilian to take part in the space program. And now they were gone? Just like that? I could barely believe it.

Some years later Bill Mumy and I made our own small tribute to her by naming our spaceship “The Christa” in our TV series SPACE CASES. I’ve no idea whether her family was ever aware of it, but I’d like to think they would have appreciated the shout out.

PAD

David 3:16

Originally published May 3, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1485

Well, my “open letter” from a few weeks back certainly started off a firestorm of publicity, wounded rage and back-and-forth. I’m sure you know the one to which I’m referring.

I have sworn to myself that I will not be using this column to perpetuate the particulars… to respond to Joe Quesada or Bill Jemas, express my feelings about this whole Survivor-style challenge, etc. Why? A whole lot of reasons, but the most fundamental one being that I figure if I do, it’s going to get very old for you guys very quickly. But I Digress has always been predictable in its unpredictability, and I don’t want you guys thinking this column is where you turn to see the latest entry in the Marvel back-and-forth.

However, one extremely bizarre wrinkle has arisen from all this which I am going to mention, for three reasons: 1) It’s a side issue, 2) it’s something that was generated by fans as opposed to either myself or Marvel personnel, and 3) because it’s going to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (an organization which, I must emphasize, has no opinion whatsoever on the current brouhaha. The CBLDF is an organization designed to support the First Amendment rights of people in the comic industry, not get involved in public disagreements between freelancers and management.)

It’s fascinated me how a stand I took in order to help save a comic book and the fans some money has evolved (or, more properly, mutated) into a multiple-bandwith analysis of my writing ability. Opinions seem to be held by more people than actually read my work. Some of the comments are valid. Some are sheer idiocy. I’m not going to get into a point-by-point response simply because that’s a tar-baby from which this column (and quite possibly the inevitable rebuttal letters in “Oh So”) would never escape.

But one of the places where this entire thing has been a hot topic of conversation has been Newsarama. And in the multi-page responses that all of this has generated, it was observed that the situation is rapidly becoming evocative of the WWF.

Now I had the exact same response that I’m sure you have: What in the world does comic books have to do with the one of the world’s largest and most effective independent organizations dedicated to the conservation of nature, with over five million members?

Well, it turns out there’s another WWF, and it pertains to wrestling, which it seems is quite popular among some quarters. I wouldn’t know anything about it, you see, because apparently the world of WWF wrestling involves confusing continuity, an assortment of characters you have to be familiar with, and is really quite inaccessible to people who haven’t been keeping up with it. Kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Files, Farscape, and Alias, all failed TV series which never managed to amass a following.

So anyway, the fan commentators claimed that Bill Jemas was similar to Vince McMahon, and I was akin to Steve Austin. Now I had no idea who the former gentlemen was, but Steve Austin, I knew. And I thought, How in the world am I at all comparable to the Six Million Dollar Man, portrayed by Lee Majors in the 1970s TV series of the same name, which in turn was based on the Martin Caidin novel The Cyborg? I mean, okay, yeah, I have this tendency to run in slow motion, but other than that…?

Well, it turns out there’s a new guy with the same name, except his name is preceded by the compound adjective, “Stone Cold.” Which makes sense, I guess, since “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is certainly more dramatic than “Not the Six Million Dollar Man” Steve Austin or “The Unbionic” Steve Austin or even simply “The Other” Steve Austin. (As opposed to poor Richard Hatch from Battlestar Galactica who has been Richard Hatch for years and years, but now has been demoted to “The Other” Richard Hatch thanks to that yutz from Survivor. But I digress…)

At any rate, Kathleen explained it to me because Kathleen knows everything. It appears that Vince McMahon owns the WWF (the one that’s not the conservation organization with the panda mascot) and he has been trying to get rid of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin for quite some time. I figured maybe it was because other people were also confusing him with the Six Million Dollar Man, and it was hurting business because they’d show up to see Lee Majors wrestle and it’d be this chap instead. I asked Kathleen why, if McMahon is the boss, he doesn’t just fire the guy. She said that wouldn’t be dramatic. I said “Oh, I get it,” which is what I always say when I don’t understand something.

Anyway, back to the Newsarama board. A poster calling himself “Wishlish,” which is not me making a typo for “Wishlist,” said that someone should produce T-shirts that said, “David 3:16.”

This confused me further. Why should a little past a quarter after three have significance to me? Back I went to Kathleen, who explained that first there was “John 3:16” which means, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” and in response there is apparently “Austin 3:16” which according to the Stonecold website means, “I just whooped your ass.” Considering “whooped” means “To make a loud or boisterous noise,” I was completely lost. Although, frankly, if some wrestler is standing in the middle of a ring and making whooping noises on some other wrestler’s buttocks, I can certainly comprehend why the boss wants him gone.

However, this was all seemingly comprehensible to Nat Gertler, a fan-turned pro-turned “Ben Stein” contestant whom I have known for many years. Barely had the cyber-ink dried on Wishlish’s comment before Nat had utilized something else I’d never heard of—Café Press—to create a website called www.cafepress.com/david316. It’s got t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, caps… even boxer shorts, all of which features the David 3:16 logo on the front, and on the back Nat put the following: “For Peter so loved the book, that he gave his only begotten Page Rate, that whosever buyeth of it should not pay an extra quarter, but have an everlasting bargain.” Which, frankly, I far prefer to the whole “whooping” on some man’s backside notion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if that’s what you’re into. But it’s not for me.

The reason all this is pertinent and getting a plug in the column is because Nat is donating his entire share of this lunacy to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. So if you want to get involved in this craziness in a way that supports the CBLDF and doesn’t benefit Marvel one iota, this is the way to do it. I know I’m getting a bunch of the shirts and will be sporting them at all the conventions I go to this summer.

Just imagine Jemas’ face at conventions if people are wearing those things. Maybe he’ll make whooping noises.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

2002 Oscars & Wolverine: Blood Hungry

Originally published April 26, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1484

A couple of things…

Some assorted thoughts on the Oscars…

Was I the only one who thought that Nathan Lane was auditioning to be host of the Oscars next year with his two minute, slam dunk appearance? Better still, team him up with Woody Allen, who showed that after all this time he’s still got stand-up comic chops (“I’m sixty-six years old; a third of my life has gone by.”)

Second, as deserving as Denzel Washington and Halle Berry doubtless were, I keep finding myself wondering: How much of the voting was skewed or placed as a result of media emphasis on history being made if Washington and Berry won? I mean, here you had Sidney Poitier being honored that night as well. What would be more perfect, more appropriate, more timely? Oscar night is really nothing but massive self-congratulations, and Hollywood loves nothing more than “Hollywood” results.

We read enough interviews in which people (usually unnamed) commented that Russell Crowe’s personal behavior cost him votes. This is a hell of an admission to make considering that ostensibly people are voting on an actor’s performance in a movie, not his performance in real life. But apparently it’s just a reality of Academy voting that outside influences have a sway upon how the results go. And if that’s the case… I wonder how many voters wanted to feel that they were a part of history. Or wanted to help make up for the frequent marginalizing of black actors and actresses in opportunities in general and the Oscars in specific. Or would have felt that if they had voted for someone else, it wouldn’t have been a vote for a particular performer so much as it would have been a vote against Washington or Berry.

We’ll never know, of course. It’s impossible to look into the hearts and minds of the Academy voters and determine what they thought.

Me, I kept waiting for Halle Berry to unzip the front of her face and turn out to be Barry Bostwick. But that was probably just me.

As annoyed as I was that animation is now ghettoized (what, Shrek wasn’t the best film of last year?) I have to say I adored the segments that showed the animated stars of Shrek, Monsters, Inc., and Jimmy Neutron waiting to hear the announcement. Sully’s restrained, polite applause (coupled with Mike’s very obvious grief) and a clearly annoyed Jimmy Neutron holding up a pair of automatically clapping hands was priceless. Obviously the animation teams must have done response pieces for both outcomes, and I wish some DVD release somewhere could have both of them included.

Did Robert Redford have some work done on his face? Normally I don’t give a damn about such things, but I’d always admired how he apparently defied Hollywood tradition by getting all wrinkly, and Oscar night he sure looked a lot smoother than I recall.

Ten year old Ariel fell asleep watching the show, and in the morning wanted to know what happened. I told her that Storm won, Magneto lost, and Wolverine, Spider-Man and Mary Jane all showed up to make presentations.

In the wildly unlikely event that I ever win an Oscar, and I have forty-five seconds to make my speech, it’s my intention to do it in thirty seconds flat and then say, “Okay, it seems I’ve some time left… I’ll open it up to questions. Gwyneth, I think you had your hand up…?”

* * *

The newly released (or re-released, I think) edition of “Blood Hungry,” was one of two collaborations I did with the incredibly talented Sam Kieth. The other was an issue of Incredible Hulk featuring the Hulk slugging it out atop a train with Mr. Hyde. Notable in that it was the first time I can recall seeing the Hulk with beard stubble, which gave him a remarkably resemblance to Fred Flintstone as I recall.

“Blood Hungry,” which set Wolverine against the villainous Cyber (a character subsequently ruined in later X-titles) was probably one of the most experimental things I ever wrote, and a large part of that derived from Sam’s interests. At the time that I was prepping the story, I had the bare bones of it in mind but there was still a lot of room in how I would actually develop it. And I asked Sam if there was anything he was particularly interested in drawing as part of the story.

“I’ve always wanted to draw one of those big Oscar Mayer Wiener hot dog trucks,” said Sam. “You know, the ones that look like giant hot dogs.”

I was utterly flummoxed. Remember, at the time Wolverine was having his adventures in Madripoor, the Terry-and-the-Pirates-esque city created by Chris Claremont. “A hot dog shaped truck? In Madripoor?” I asked.

“Yeah. Oh, and also I want to do one of those 1950s style restaurants with waitresses on roller skates.”

“In Madripoor?!?” I said again, thinking that perhaps my increased volume and incredulity would prompt Sam to realize that this was simply unworkable.

“Yeah,” he said cheerfully.

Terrific.

Now keep in mind that Twin Peaks was very much in vogue at the time that I was writing the series, which originally saw print in installments in Marvel Comics Presents. So I figured, Okay, let’s go totally surreal on this. Let’s do Wolverine if the story was being written and directed by David Lynch.

Also at the time, I was very much burning the candle on both ends, working in the Marvel sales department and writing in the evening. Several times I had actually fallen asleep while writing, and woken up in the morning to discover totally freeform thoughts sitting on the paper in my typewriter (yes, typewriter.) Most of the time they were incoherent, but what fascinated me was that I would remember how much it made sense to me at the time that I was writing it. So I decided that with “Blood Hungry” I would do a variation on sleep-deprived writing.

Whenever it came time to write a new installment, I would go to bed around 11 PM and set the alarm clock for three in the morning. I would then stagger out of bed, go straight to the typewriter with my mind still working to process the reality of wakefulness, and with only the vaguest of clues as to where I was going with it, I’d write the next installment. I’d then go back to bed and then, when I woke up again some hours later, I’d go back and edit the piece so that it would retain the dreamlike quality of sleep deprivation but also be at least somewhat coherent. Since I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs, it was the most effective way for me to obtain that surreal quality I wanted the story to have.

I haven’t read it in years. I’ve no idea if it holds up at all. It’s certainly unlike anything else I’ve produced before or since just because of the nutso way in which I wrote it. And at least Sam got to draw his 50s style restaurant and wiener truck. Gee. I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener. When I was a kid, I had a wiener whistle. You couldn’t do that anymore. You say to a parent, “I want to give your kid a wiener whistle,” next thing you know the police take you away. Ah, times change.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Vote for Me for the Hugos

It is my understanding that authors are supposed to remain silent when it comes to allowing fans to decide which books should be nominated for the Hugos. I have abided by that for the entirety of my life, and it is a life that remains untarnished by science fiction’s highest award. “Sir Apropos of Nothing,” “Tigerheart,” “Imzadi,” my Crazy 8 books, all have not blemished a nomination ballot. I have been a full time writer for nearly thirty years and silence has gotten me nowhere.

Fine.

A book of mine called “ARTFUL” was published last year. Featuring the Artful Dodger going head to head with vampires in a pre-Victorian England, it has received a metric ton of four and five star reviews on Amazon (and a majority of one-star reviews were from people who didn’t actually read it.) I’m very proud of it. And I’m reasonably sure it is eligible for the Hugo, the World Fantasy award, and the Stoker.

I would very much like anyone who read it and loved it to consider nominating it for any or all of those awards.

Thank you.

PAD

State of the Union

I’m putting off watching SUPERNATURAL for this, so it’d better rock.

9:06: He makes his entrance. Let’s see how long it takes to get to the front.

9:08: God, his hair has gotten so gray.

9:09: Three minutes.

9:10: Good Christ, what the hell has happened to Boehner’s skin? I mean, I know it was darker, but standing next to Biden, he looks like he’s turning into Pinocchio.

9:11: Which is driving the GOP nuts, of course.

9:13: Now if only they’d prosecuted the people who wrongfully sent those brave men and women overseas. You know: his predecessors.

9:15: Will we approach the world fearful and reactive? Depends if we watch Fox News.

9:15: If we get sorted into fractions, I want to be in Gryffindor.

9:18: Eleven million new jobs. Too bad Kath is still unemployed.

9:19: Finish college and go into huge debt because of student loans.

9:20: “Which you guys have tried to take away from them 53 times and still counting.”

9:21: Well, it’s terrible news to the GOP…

9:25: They’re applauding everyone playing by the same set of rules? Isn’t that kind of self-evident?

9:26: I notice Biden stopped standing. Maybe he felt stupid because he was standing and Boehner was sitting. Jesus, Boehner’s not even clapping. What a douche.

9:28: I take it back. Biden was standing. But not Boehner. Still not even clapping.

9:29: Was it always like this? Did the opposing party always sit on their hands no matter what the president said?

9:31: Pay nothing for community college? Well, you get what you pay for, I guess.

9:32: Or you could follow the West Wing plan and make college tuition tax deductible.

9:34: Boehner finally stood.

9:39: Since I have diabetes, I’m certainly all for curing it. I miss chocolate.

9:40: We launched a space craft? Did I miss something? Well, at least Boehner stood for the astronaut.

9:41: I wish he’d stop talking about bipartisanship. There is no bipartisanship. They can’t even all agree to applaud for him, much less pass laws.

9:43: I don’t think Boehner could look more constipated if he tried.

9:44: Right. The first response is to send in drones. Military is the second response.

9:44: We stand united with France except when we don’t show up for their march.

9:47: So he just warned Putin to stay the hell out of the Ukraine.

9:48: That’s the quote so far: “When something you’ve been trying for 50 years doesn’t work, it’s time to try something new.”

9:51: By all means, respect our kids’ privacy, so they can blab everything about every aspect of their lives on the internet.

9:53: I wonder what percentage of the people in there still don’t believe in climate change.

9:56: Interesting. In his talk on values, the one thing no one applauded for was not condemning all Muslims.

9:57: Dude, you’ve been there for six years and you always talk about shutting down Gitmo. No one is being fooled by this point.

10:01: Nice that he’s behind gay marriage now considering Joe Biden had to push him into it.

10:03: It’s a wonderful vision. Too bad that tomorrow we’ll be right back to the usual BS.

10:07: “I know ’cause I won both of them.” Nice.

10:09: Yes we are.

Very good speech, I thought. Too bad the pundits will explain how much it sucked and how it was filled with self serving lies.

I’ll Be Live Blogging the State of the Union

As I’ve done every year. Be sure to swing by.

PAD

Spam emails of the Marvel and DC Universes

Originally published April 19, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1483

My e-mail box is constantly being cluttered with useless material designed either to try and sell you something or else separate gullible people from their money. And it occurs to me that in the universes of comic books, probably the same thing happens. And it might well look something like this:

FROM: Kristoff Von Doom

Kristoff Von Doom is my name, the only son of Victor Von Doom, Monarch of Latveria, who was recently declared dead after being reduced to individual freefloating atoms. My source of your contact gave me the courage and confidence to rely on you. I am writing you in absolute confidence primarily to seek your assistance to transfer our cash of Fifty two trillion Latverian Bonds, equivalent to Twenty Eight Million Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars (US$28M800K000) now in the custody of a Private Safe Deposit Bank here in Latveria to your private account pending our arrival to your country, since raging crowds with pitchforks are making my long-term residence here very unlikely.

My late father, Victor Von Doom, Lord of the Realm, Absolute Monarch and Master of All he surveyed, a native of Eastern Europe, was the ruler of Latveria for many years. During that time he acquired much riches via income accrued from overpayments, back-breaking taxes upon his people who were too terrified to protest, and riches accumulated through various evil endeavors. Before the peak of the relentless feud between my peace loving father and the warlike acts of Reed Richards and his associates, Latveria was peaceful. Now my father has been atomized, and the country teeters on civil war as various factions struggle for power. My father had already made arrangement for his family—myself, two Doombots, and one other clone—to be evacuated to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire with our personal effects and the box containing the money through the aid of Damage Control evacuation team. My father deposited the box in a Private Safe Bank for the safe custody until after the war when he will hopefully be able to find a way to reintegrate his molecular form, or else perhaps effect a time traveling maneuver that will allow him to circumvent the temporal flow that led him to such dire straits.

However, as a result of my father’s current death, our hope of survival has been dashed. Now the clone and I are alone in this strange country. Without any relation, we are now refugees and orphans. To this effect, I humbly solicit your assistance in the followings ways.

–To transfer this money in your name to your country.

–To make a good arrangement for a joint business investment on our behalf in your country and you, the caretaker.

–To secure a college for my little sister and my self in your country to further our education.

–And to make arrangement for our travel with you to your country after you have transferred this fund. Evidence of the deposit are with me and will be released on request and proof of clear motive to assist.

I simply require from you all available deposit and account numbers from your personal accounts. In exchange for your helping us in this matter, you will receive ten percent of the funds the moment they are available to us. Also, we would further like to obtain DNA samples from you, in the event that we need to clone you should an unfortunate accident befall you but your continued presence is required.

Lastly I urge you to keep this transaction strictly confidential.

–Kristoff Von Doom

 * * *

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 * * *

Take my quiz: What Supervillain are you?

1) When you walk into a crowded party, the first thing you do is:

 

Use the Omega Effect to clear a path for yourself
Laugh dementedly and challenge the host to pull your .45 caliber finger
Allow the Secret Service to secure the room
Step on the other guests.

 

2) You never need to worry about acne because:

 

You wear a mask 24/7
Your face is made out of rock
You sport deathly white make-up
None would dare to look upon your countenance lest they die

 

3) Your greatest enemy is:

 

Yourself
Spider-Man
Superman
You are above such concepts as “enemies”

 

4) Complete the following: “I am a Force—”

 

“—of Nature”
“—to be reckoned with”
“—of evil, centuries old, unknowable and unstoppable”
“—of habit.”

 

5) When scheming, your primary goal is to get–

 

power, on a worldwide or even cosmic level
wealth beyond imagining
revenge everlasting

 

6) Your primary costume color scheme is–

 

Green
Purple
Glistening armor
A dark blue Armani suit

 

7) You are master of—

 

–an entire country filled with trembling subjects
–an entire cosmos filled with planets that are your playthings.
–every form of combat known to man
–your domain.

 

8) Have you ever reformed?

 

Yes, but it was a trick to try and confuse Batman
Yes, but you were lured back into your criminal life
Only in the sense that you were discorporated and reconstructed yourself
You are above such concepts as “good” and “evil.”

 

9) What was the worst defeat you ever suffered?

 

Being reduced to infancy
Having the crap kicked out of you by the Thing
Having the crap kicked out of you by Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Being snubbed by the GOP

 

10) Your greatest weapon is your…

 

Cosmic Rod
Staggering intellect combined with brute strength
Manic unpredictability
Devastatingly witty repartee

 

/Press HERE to submit/

 

You are:

Galactus—Virtually everyone and everything is beneath you. You are not even technically a villain. You are, and have been, and always will be…not unlike Rock and Roll.

Darkseid—You fear nothing and no one. Your rule is absolute. You will triumph over that fool, Orion, and eventually the Anti-Life equation will be yours. And nobody stands with his hands draped behind his back quite like you.

The Green Goblin—Whether you’re Harry Osborn, Norman Osborn, or Willem DaFoe, you can be counted on to give the wallcrawler a miserable time…if you’re not being killed or losing your memory.

The Joker—Villainy is very personal for you. It would be pointless without the Batman to combat. You cackle dementedly for no reason, and only you could make that ensemble work.

Lex Luthor—You’ve pulled off the ultimate coup. You are the supreme villain and yet you’re legitimately running the United States of America. It just doesn’t get more smugness-enducing than that.

Doctor Doom—You have a streak of nobility and tragedy wider than the Mississippi. You are so above the fray that, half the time, no one knows if they’re fighting you or a robot.

A Lone Wanker—Yes, you’re one of the three nerds currently endeavoring to terrorize Sunnydale in about as pathetic a manner as anyone has ever seen, and epitomizing the lameness that is the current season of “Buffy.” Probably you’re Jonathan.

* * *

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(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

What Creators owe Fans/What Publishers Owe Creators

Originally published April 12, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1482

James B. of San Diego wrote in to “Oh So” to comment on my opinion that all creators owe their fans is their very best work, to which he said that I was “…absolutely right. Technically speaking, of course. Technically, all a creator does owe his fans is his very best work. Just as, technically speaking, all a publisher, say—oh, I dunno—Archie Comics, owes to any creator would be the agreed-upon amounts due under the contract or agreement said creator was working under, right?”

Now James raises an interesting point. However, he took my sentiment totally out of context to accomplish it.

The context, you’ll remember, was about pros being badgered by fans over where certain projects were, and fans opining that writers “owed it” to the fans to be completely forthcoming as to the projects’ whereabouts. It was about the demands made by fans above and beyond the publication of the work. If one is going to start drawing parallels between publishers and fans (with creators as the constant) then one would have to argue that Archie Comics would not be out of line to insist that writers and artists go on tour promoting the material without any form of compensation because it was owed to the publisher.

James went on to say, “When I first asked these questions in a letter to CBG, Maggie (I think) responded that publishers taking care of these creators beyond the scope of their contracts, when their work merited it, was a sign of respect. Forget what was “technically” right: Looking out for these exceptional creators and their families was just “fundamentally” right. It’s certainly obvious from his columns that David feels that way.

I find it curious that he doesn’t extend this logic to the fans.”

Okay. Except I never said that. And attaching how I “obviously feel” to something and then discussing that isn’t exactly the same thing as discussing how I actually feel. Particularly when I have, in fact, talked about this very subject in the past.

Discussing matters of what is fundamentally right and wrong when it comes to corporations can often be a waste of time, because corporations can be designed to shield those who run it from little mundane considerations such as morality, fair play, and ethics. What I believe I’ve said in the past—and what I say again, now—is that publishers “looking out for these exceptional creators” has very little to do with what’s fundamentally right and wrong because business is business is business. Instead I think it has more to do with what’s fundamentally smart. “Right” and “smart” are two different things, sometimes overlapping, sometimes in their own spheres. There’s any number of times, I’m sure, when you’ve done something you felt was right but wasn’t especially smart. When it comes to business, I don’t think “smart” and “right” need intersect all that much. Instead it comes down to what’s good or bad for business.

Smart business means not pissing off your top talent. Smart business means that when someone has created a character for you that’s bringing in scads of money above and beyond what was originally anticipated when the character was purely in print form, you go out of your way to make the creators of those characters happy. Very smart business would mean doing so pre-emptively. Reasonably smart business would mean when a creator comes to you and says, “So I’m reading in Variety about the multi-million dollar movie based on the character I created; am I seeing anything of that?”, you start making some calls and—at the very least—cut a respectable check.

Why is this smart business? Because it inspires your creators to do their best work for you. And it can prompt other creators to want to come aboard as well.

Now yes, granted, it can backfire. You can compensate your creators and they can use that money to go off and form their own company. But if you hold tight the purse strings, all you do is wind up pissing people off and driving them away anyway, never to return. (I should point out that this problem could be avoided by alternate means of compensation. For some reason, the word “Porsche” comes to mind. But that’s probably just me.)

Bad business, on the other hand, involves stonewalling and getting the creator of the property angrier and angrier. It’s a no-win situation, and putting yourself into it just because you have lawyers on retainer is simply dumb. Archie Comics was in a no-win situation after Dan DeCarlo passed away. They ran a full-page ad right here in CBG mourning his loss… leaving themselves open to charges of hypocrisy since some felt that the legal battle Archie subjected him to took a lethal toll upon him. Of course, if they hadn’t acknowledged his passing at all, they would have been slammed as cold and uncaring. And Todd McFarlane apparently came away from working for Marvel and DC having learned one fundamental corporate lesson: I’ve got mine, so screw you. He got himself a quick fix of creative respectability from bringing in people like Neil Gaiman, and has jerked Gaiman around ever since. (And yes, Gaiman was playing in McFarlane’s “playground”… but that doesn’t mean McFarlane gets to snag the pail and shovel Gaiman brought along to the sandbox and say, “Oh, and this is all mine, too.”)

I’m not making the argument that creators “deserve” anything from publishers because from a corporate point of view, to quote William Munny from Unforgiven, “Deserves got nothin’ to do with it.” The alternative to considerate treatment for your creators is a publicity nightmare, and who needs that?

That’s why my position on, for instance, creators going the extra distance for fans has nothing to do with publishers doing the extra distance for creators. In the case of the latter, failure to do so means people and reputations can wind up getting bloodied. In the case of the former, if the creator doesn’t attend conventions (for instance), it’s neither a positive nor a negative. It’s a wash. And if creators do attend conventions, that entails a certain degree of publicity risk now, doesn’t it. After all, you don’t have to worry about inadvertently offending people or putting their noses out of joint, and thus getting your reputation trashed, if you simply stay put in your studio or office and stick to doing what you’re paid to do in the first place. Once you’re out there, though, pretty much anything can happen, and endeavors to “give back” to the fans can blow up in your face. So every individual creator has to decide for his or herself if they should (not to sound too “Rocky Horror”) take the risk.

I can only speak for myself (and for my invisible friend, Bruno, but I try not to talk about him too much.) In my case, absolutely yes, I continue to go out the conventions and meet and greet fans. I’ll go that “extra distance.” Do I feel I owe it to the fans?

No.

I feel I owe it to Jack Kirby.

Jack Kirby was the first pro I ever met, at the first convention I ever attended. It was one of the late, great Phil Seuling conventions, produced in New York every year by the even later (but, astoundingly, even greater) Phil Seuling. I was about fourteen years old, and I was watching the evening news with my dad. And there was a news item about the comic convention being held in New York City. We were living in New Jersey at the time, and I can only imagine my dad’s watching me staring enraptured at the TV. I was fairly isolated as a comics fan. I knew no other kids who read comic books, I belonged to no clubs, there was no comic book store aside from a newsstand in town. And naturally there was no internet. Yet right there on the TV screen were people going through box after box of comic books. And, oh my God… Jack Kirby was a guest there. You could actually meet Jack Kirby.

And out of the blue, my dad said, “Would you like to go?”

I was stunned. “You’re kidding.” He wasn’t kidding.

The next day we drove into Manhattan and there we were, in a room crammed with comics fans and retailers. Fourteen years old, and I’d never seen a back issue box, much less a room filled with them. I was able to fill in holes in my collection, something that was a first for me. And I met Jack Kirby. And folks, he was absolutely everything you could possibly have wanted from a professional. He was generous with his time, he was patient, he was convivial. He made everyone he spoke to feel special. He answered every question, no matter how stupid (the stupid ones were mine, in case you were wondering.)

I looked around at all the smiling faces, all the people being made happy by Kirby’s presence. And I thought, What an incredible thing… to be able to bring so much joy to people’s lives just by being there for them. So now, when I’m in a position to do the same thing, I am prompted to wonder WWKD: What Would Kirby Do? On that day years ago, I got the answer, and I’ve tried to emulate it. And from then until now, I think of Kirby’s example every time I go to a convention, and try to live up to that model of behavior and comportment.

Why?

Because it’s the smart and right thing to do.

(Peter David can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)

 

Pretty Maggie Money Eyes

Originally published April 5, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1481

Maggie Thompson. A thousand issues of Comics Buyer’s Guide. Whoa. What can be said, I wonder, about Maggie Thompson, that hasn’t already been scribbled on bathroom walls?

Where to begin? The beginning, of course.

She was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all her patrimony. Her very paternity was obscure, although the village of Gavrillac had long since dispelled the cloud of mystery that hung about it. Those simple Brittany folk were not so simple as to be deceived by a pretended relationship which did not even possess the virtue of originality. When a nobleman, for no apparent reason, announces himself the godfather of an infant fetched no man knew whence, and thereafter cares for the girl’s rearing and education, the most unsophisticated of country folk perfectly understand the situation. And so the good people of Gavrillac permitted themselves no illusions on the score of the real relationship between Maggie Curtis—as the girl had been named—and Quintin de Kercadiou, Lord of Gavrillac, who dwelt in the big gray house that dominated from its eminence the village clustering below.

Maggie had learnt her letters at the village school, lodged the while with old Rabouillet, the attorney, who in the capacity of fiscal intendant, looked after the affairs of M. de Kercadiou. Thereafter, at the age of 15, she had been packed off to Paris, to the Lycée of Louis Le Grand, to study the law which she was now returned to practice in conjunction with Rabouillet. All this at the charges of her godfather, M. de Kercadiou, who by placing her once more under the tutelage of Rabouillet would seem thereby quite clearly to be making provision for her future.

Maggie, on her side, had made the most of her opportunities. At the age of four-and-twenty she was stuffed with learning enough to produce an intellectual indigestion in an ordinary mind. Out of her zestful study of Man, from Thucydides to the Encyclopedists, from Seneca to Rousseau, she had confirmed into an unassailable conviction her earliest conscious impressions of the general insanity of her own species. Nor can I discover that anything in her eventful life ever afterwards caused her to waver in that opinion.

In body she was a slight wisp of a woman, scarcely above middle height, with a lean, astute countenance, prominent of nose and cheek-bones, and with lank, black hair that reached almost to her shoulders. Her mouth was long, thin-lipped, and humorous. She had a pair of ever-questing, luminous eyes, so dark as to be almost black. Of the whimsical quality of her mind and her rare gift of graceful expression, her writings—unfortunately but too scanty—and particularly her Confessions, afford us very ample evidence. Of her gift of oratory she was hardly conscious yet, although she had already achieved a certain fame for it in the Literary Chamber of Rennes—one of those clubs by now ubiquitous in the land, in which the intellectual youth of France foregathered to study and discuss the new philosophies that were permeating social life.

But the fame she had acquired there was hardly enviable. She was too impish, too caustic, too much disposed—so thought her colleagues—to ridicule their sublime theories for the regeneration of mankind. Herself she protested that she merely held them up to the mirror of truth, and that it was not her fault if when reflected there they looked ridiculous.

All that she achieved by this was to exasperate; and her expulsion from a society grown mistrustful of her must already have followed but for her friend, Don Thompson, a divinity student of Rennes, who, himself, was one of the most popular members of the Literary Chamber.

~~~

So one day, Don turned to her and said, “What sort of life is this that we are living? It’s like—like a Rafael Sabatini novel.”

“You mean like Captain Blood?”

“I was thinking more Scaramouche, actually.”

“You’re right,” said Maggie. “And I mean, look at us. We’re living in France, which is odd, considering neither of us even speaks French, and we can’t stand Jerry Lewis movies. You know what we should do?”

“I give up,” said Don.

“Okay, that was a French thing to say. I think we should go to America, to carve out a living in comic book fandom, edit fanzines, and perhaps help make an unknown writer with two first names famous.”

And that was exactly what they did. Having no money, they made their way across Europe, wound up in Varna, and hitched a ride on a Russian freighter called the Demeter. The details of their crossing remain cloaked in mystery, although we do know two things. First, she and Don were married en route by the ship’s captain. And, second, the arrival of their ship caused something of a local stir, particularly given the condition of the aforementioned captain. As one observer described it, “It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and had dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone.”

But Maggie doesn’t like to speak of those times.

~~~

My first contact with her was—if I’m recalling correctly—through a Doctor Who magazine she and Don were editing. They were early supporters of a little one-shot fanzine I’d self-published called The TARDIS at Pooh Corner, which was a loopy merging of two classic British heroes into one adventurer named “Doctor Pooh.” (“Doctor Pooh lived in a house under a name that no one could pronounce, which is why they called him ‘Doctor Pooh.’ ”) We stayed in touch over the years, running into each other at conventions, and then eventually—after she and Don took over CBG and transformed it into the award-winning rag it is today—they ran the letter that changed my life. Amongst an assortment of queries to CBG was one that suggested I should start writing a column for that august publication. The response from Don and Maggie? “Sounds like a good idea to us. Peter?” Not that she warned me, of course, so I’d know what to say when people started calling and asking if I was going to take them up on their offer.

Maggie has always been there for me at some of the lousiest and lowest time of my life, and also the happiest times of my life. Curiously, all those times were related to my state of matrimony, either dissolving or impending. We’ve had our share of arguments and disagreements, and she has a tendency to remove perfectly good words from my columns such as (censored) and replace them with euphemisms like “poop.” But, when one embarks on a writer-editor relationship that spans more than a decade, there are bound to be bumps and bruises along the way. And on those unfortunately all-too-infrequent occasions when we’ve hung together at conventions—be it brunch at San Diego or eagerly exploring used book stores in Madison or waking up totally hung over in the Chicago Ramada O’Hare to discover we were wearing each other’s clothes—they’ve always been some of my most cherished memories.

Which is why, after a thousand issues of Comics Buyer’s Guide, I am glad to take this opportunity to stand up and say that Maggie Thompson is someone whom I’m proud to call collect.

Thank you.

(Peter David can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. Lately, he’s just been getting magazines and hate mail. Change of pace might be nice.)