Peter David's Blog, page 55

Why are people ragging on “Amazing Spider-Man 2?”

Seriously. I’m wondering what the hell people want from films anymore.

Remember Nicholas Hammond? That was my first live action Spider-Man, and the TV was ghastly from the top down. Bad stories, bad acting, bad effects, just bad.

And now we have the current sequel to “The Amazing Spider-Man” that is, to my mind, 110% better than the previous entry. I found it to be a compelling combination of genuine drama, beautifully played by Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone (not to mention Oscar Winner Sally Fields) and thrilling action sequences that seemed, in the way they were portrayed and Spidey quipped his way through them, to be lifted directly from the pages of the comic.

Jamie Foxx was a marvelous Max Dillon. So he was a classic geek: so what? It provided a nice contrast to what he eventually became. And Dane Dehaan was marvelously creepy as Harry Osborn. And sure, the Rhino was only in for a few minutes, but so what? Gives the third film somewhere to start from.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and I just don’t understand why I’m seeing reviewers bitching about it.

PAD

Spider-Man in Comics and Film

Originally published September 8, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1399

Spider-Man Fans Up In Arms Over What’s Up with Spider-Man’s arms! Film at 2001!

I have learned to take, with a massive helping of salt, fan angst over news related to upcoming superhero films. My baptism of fire, so to speak, in that arena came at a convention when I was on a general Q&A panel with several other pros. We were asked, as a group, what we thought of the (then) news that director Tim Burton had cast Michael Keaton as Batman.

Others on the panel made it clear that, as far as they were concerned, any thoughts that Burton would produce a “serious” treatment of Batman had now fallen by the wayside. Not only was it bad enough that the film was in the hands of the director of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, but it was going to star Mr. Mom. We were going to see another camp treatment. It was inevitable, a sure thing, take it to the bank. Throughout the room, fan heads bobbed in agreement.

And I said, “Uhm… I have no intrinsic problem with either Burton or Keaton. Just because Burton’s known primarily for comedy doesn’t mean he can’t do a serious take on Batman. And Keaton’s an actor. A comic actor can play something straight. The film might actually be pretty good because they’re both talented guys…”

It was the nearest I’ve ever come to being booed off a panel. I’ve never been barraged with that much hostility. Even some of the pros were looking at me as if I’d advocated using a dead baby seal to bludgeon the Pope.

Several years later I heard fans discussing the announced Batman Returns. And one of them said with utter conviction, “Well, it better be Burton directing and Keaton starring, or it’s gonna suck.” Once more fan heads bobbed in agreement. I just grinned.

So now word is out that director Sam Raimi, helming the Spider-Man movie, is incorporating a tweak on the webslinger that was conceived by James Cameron in his treatment. As we all know (but I’ll say it anyway) Peter Parker constructed the web fluid and shooters when he first developed “Spider-Man” as a wrestling persona. Basically, Peter took about three panels to adapt to the notion that he was now a freak and—once having adjusted—decided to have fun, fun, fun ’til the burglar took his uncle away. Cameron (and subsequently Raimi) opted more for the horrific approach, with Peter discovering (a la “The Fly”) the downside of a progressively weird mutation that transforms a human into a wallcrawler. To that end, he no longer constructs web fluid and shooters. Instead, he actually develops spinnerets on his forearms which produce a weblike secretion.

It’s the sort of dazzlingly original notion for which they pay directors big bucks (or for which they pay guys like me little bucks when I came up with the exact same concept eight years ago for Spider-Man 2099.) In the Cameron version, Parker subsequently develops the shooters for the purpose of regulating the webflow and being able to spray it wherever it’s needed.

And fans are flipping out.

There are—no exaggeration—entire websites devoted to the notion that biologically based webs are a terrible idea that will, no doubt about it, ruin the film. The response this announcement is generating is nothing less than the kind of reaction that makes many people roll their eyes when the words “fan mentality” are mentioned. How dare (we are told) the filmmakers screw around with a classic story that works so perfectly. How dare Sam Raimi paint a cinematic mustache on the equivalent of the Mona Lisa? How dare anyone tamper with perfection?

I dunno. Why do comic book companies feel the need to do so? But do it, they do. Superman came from an unnamed planet… no, he came from a place called Krypton, and his father was Jor-L… no, he was Jor-El, and it was a race of Supermen… no, it was a race of normal men under a red sun who got powers under a yellow sun, and he was the sole survivor… except for Supergirl… and Kandor… and the Phantom Zone villains… and when he was a kid, he was Superbaby, and then Superboy… no, wait, he wasn’t anymore because his body didn’t have enough solar energy built up…

Comic book companies routinely mess with the origins of the characters, updating and change “facts” and shifting tone as new audiences and new tastes emerge. Sometimes it’s done well, sometimes it’s done badly, but it’s done. And if Hollywood is capable of giving The Scarlet Letter a happy ending, what makes Spider-Man’s origin impervious to tweaking? Especially when that tweaking…

…hold on to your masks, true believers…

…makes more sense than the original.

Put down the pitchforks, tar and feathers and torches, and track with me on this.

With all the “fixing” of Spidey’s origin that we’ve seen in recent years, all the things that were addressed were really non-issues, while the real gaping hole in Spidey’s concept was left untouched. Let us put aside for this discussion the initial idiocy that Peter created a webshooter with no means of monitoring the web fluid level, so that he could run out at inconvenient times with no warning… kind of like building an automobile without a gas gauge. And that it happened to him time and again without him twigging to the fact that maybe, just maybe, he should stick in an indicator or maybe even a little buzzer… something, anything, before he found himself in mid-swing with no fluid and a thirty story drop. Let’s just ignore that for the present.

At the end of Amazing Fantasy #15, Peter Parker learns that with great power comes great responsibility. Except… he doesn’t really learn that, because he possesses a power even more formidable than the spider powers he’s picked up in an unlikely accident. He has the power of his brain, his scientific wizardry. A power that could not only save hundreds of lives a year at a minimum, but also solve his endless financial worries.

Here’s a kid who—with absolutely no sweat—put together webshooters and a web formula. This invention alone should be enough to have him set for life. Yet all he used them for was fighting crime as Spider-Man.

A half-hearted attempt was made to address this in one early issue in which he endeavored to sell the web formula to a 3M-like company, only to be scoffed at when the executive learned that the adhesive was purely temporary and therefore of no use. Putting aside that this exec–with that kind of thinking–is unlikely to have been the guy to come up with Post-It Notes, it should reasonably take Parker about two seconds to determine exactly who the invention can and should be marketed to:

The police.

A non-lethal way of immobilizing perps? A way of stopping fleeing felons who, according to regs, can’t be shot at if they’re not shooting at the cops? A means of avoiding shoot outs wherein flying bullets can hit and kill passersby or people huddling inside their homes?

Granted, it was stated that only Spidey’s powers enable him to aim with pinpoint accuracy. But the average flatfoot doesn’t need to nail a flagpole so he can swing between skyscrapers. All he needs is something that’ll provide a wide spray so the bad guys are rendered powerless. If the shooters themselves are problematic, he can easily slap together a web gun that could slip right into the standard holster and have it do the same thing, right? Does anyone out there think that would be beyond him?

We’re not talking Bruce Wayne here, who chooses to fight crime hands-on even though he’s got the financial resources to handle hoodlums in other, more far reaching means. At least you could argue that young Bruce was unhinged in some manner, and therefore is psychologically driven to dress as a bat and punch people. Young Parker, however, is a teen with a guilt complex and bills to pay. Why shouldn’t he, sooner rather than later, turns his talents toward making big bucks while making the world safer for non-powered cops and innocent bystanders everywhere?

Because it’ll tip his identity? Puh-leeeze.

“Mr. Parker, this device seems fairly similar to Spider-Man’s webshooter…”

“Yes, I know, and that’s not coincidence. I approached him with the design early in his wrestling career and he agreed to field test it for me, to work out all the kinks.”

“Good thinking, Mr. Parker. Here’s a check for a million dollars as a down payment. The NYPD and PBA thank you, and hey, tell your aunt good luck with that operation…”

Wow, that was tough.

If Peter Parker has the kind of scientific wizardry that enables him to pull these devices out of his butt (as opposed to shooting webbing out of it), then there’s simply no way that he’s eking out a living snapping photos of himself while wondering how he’s going to have enough money to rub two nickels together. It’s just not going to happen. It makes no sense. Peter’s genetic spider-mutation causing biological webspinners to develop… that makes sense. Well… sense in a twisted pseudo-horror movie way.

My view of the entire matter is probably shaped by the fact that, when I was growing up, dramatizations of costumed comic characters were frequently camped up, treated for laughs. Batman comes to mind, and—even worse—those hideous Justice League specials. Oh, sure, there was The Incredible Hulk, but the show could just as easily have been called The Monster Within, have nothing to do with the Marvel character, and played exactly the same.

Yet now we have moviemakers who are making changes for the purpose of presenting a costumed hero in a more serious vein… and fans are complaining. Fans have become so spoiled by Batman, Superman, X-Men, that they’ve forgotten the wretchedness of so many earlier attempts (even Superman slipped into camp excess the moment that Luthor and Otis hit the screen.)

I’m on record: I’ve no problem with the biological spinnerets. And as for all those Spider-Man fans that decree that the movie will now stink (and would likely have been the same ones booing me at the convention regarding Keaton and Burton) I offer the following anecdote:

A writer was once asked whether he was upset over how a Hollywood adaptation of one of his novels had “ruined the book.”

To which the writer replied, “What do you mean, ruined it? It’s right there, safe and sound on the shelf, completely unharmed.”

Same deal. No movie can ruin the comic book character of Spider-Man because, whatever’s done in the Raimi film, the origin as published remains untouched. Hollywood cannot really screw with Spidey’s beginnings. Marvel can… and has… and no doubt will again… but not Hollywood.

Just don’t let there be Skrulls in the origin of the Hulk movie…

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. Here’s a scary thought: If the film Howard the Duck had first been made today, with the exact same script, but modern-day CGI replacing the midget in the duck suit, it’d probably be a hit. Because special effects have come just that far, and scripts have become just that bad.)

 

Guest column: Harlan Ellison on Twist vs. McFarlane

Originally published September 1, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1398

The following is a guest column by Mr. Harlan Ellison. In my recent coverage of the Tony Twist decision (where Todd McFarlane got hammered by a St. Louis jury for transforming hockey player “Tony Twist” into corpulent thug “Tony Twist), Harlan was struck by Todd’s (and Todd’s supporters) clear lack of comprehending what (if anything, in his eyes) he’d done to deserve this. Harlan has elected to draw from personal experience and spell it out for him. Here is Mr. Ellison:

So Todd McFarlane and Erik Larsen walk into a building.

You’d think one of them would have seen it.

Erik Larsen looses the gardyloo: “Poor millionaire Toddy! If this verdict stands, o lord lord lordy lord, think of the hideous ‘chilling effect’ on First Amendment rights! Oh me! Oh my!”

Oh, horsepuckey.

What we’re talking about here is an amateur writer’s fannish gag of naming characters after real people. They are called “Tuckerisms,” named after Wilson “Bob” Tucker, a science fiction and mystery writer who was very very big in the SF field. He was a toastmaster, a humorist, and a friend.

When Bob Tucker did his novels, he occasionally used the names of real people, such as F. Towner Laney, or Charles Burbee. They were very prominent fans. He did mystery novels: The Red Herring, The Chinese Doll, others. They’re excellent novels, they’re just wonderful, though now long out of print. In his SF stuff he did the same thing, he used the names of fans. So “Tuckerism” became the accepted nickname for such loving homages, and for a while a fairly widespread kind of thing. Almost every writer at one time or another has done it. It’s usually done as a nod to friends, an in-joke, and no one takes it seriously.

What happened to McFarlane is a very different thing. He used a name in a malicious way, as he has done in the past with Peter David and John Byrne. A smartass version of “Tuckerism,” as weapon. It is a mean-spirited, amateurish, adolescent trick used by a person with a nasty heart. A professional does not do it, ever, because pros are aware of the fact that in this litigious society, anyone can sue anybody at any time, with our without genuine grievance. And it causes ancillary damage to innocent parties: Look at the money in settlements it has forced on Wizard and HBO, just so Todd McFarlane could demonstrate his childish bravado.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re wrong or right or if they have a case or don’t have a case, as when Michael Fleischer sued me. And I was praising him, PRAISING him in the interview that I did, but he didn’t like the way I praised him. So he sued me and tried to make some money off it. Well, I always fight these things to the wall. At the moment I’m battling Remarq and AOL and we’re fighting a case very much like the one that the federal judge dealt with in the Napster decision today. Copyright infringement. Mooches and punks who think they can post other people’s stories for free are learning that copyright applies on line as well as off line. But, I digress.

Back to the dangers of Tuckerisms.

In the early days of my career, 1956, I was assigned by the editor of Infinity Science Fiction as one of three writers who would do a trio of short short stories, each with the title “Blank.” The three writers who were picked by editor Larry Shaw were Randall Garrett, Isaac Asimov, and me. Isaac did a story called “Blank!” Randy did one called “Blank.” Mine was “Blank…” In my story, because Isaac and I were friends, and everyone called him Ike, my villain’s name was “Rike Akisimov.” An example of using a Tuckerism. Dopey… but I was young in the job.

But apart from that, I can’t recall doing that kind of thing very much. When I was in the army and I hated my first sergeant and the captain in my company, I used their names in a story. But I didn’t use their first names, just their last names. I was aware that you couldn’t do that kind of thing and make someone a negative character because I was running the risk of being jumped on. I didn’t do it often, and when I did, it was just for a lark.

So I came to Hollywood in 1962 and started working in TV. After a little while, I was writing The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the series produced by the famous Norman Felton. I had an office at MGM and I was their fair-haired boy because I had written some very clever shows for them, according to the critics. And I went to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. after having made a big splash on Burke’s Law and I was making top dollar in Hollywood and had been, by no merest chance, dating Norman Felton’s daughter. Norman was very high on me and wanted me to create my own series since The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. wasn’t doing that well. So I was building my own series at the time.

Right around this time, the most popular novel in America was Peyton Place. So I created a plot for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. about a woman, Jacqueline Midcult (played by Sharon Farrell), living in a small Iowa town, who finds a diary in the attic of her family home and the diary is filled with a long story detailing the adventures of a spy. She uses the notebooks as the basis for writing a roman a clef, a spy novel entitled “The Pieces of Fate.” What she doesn’t know is that this was her grandfather’s or her father’s memoirs, when he was part of the enemy network THRUSH. So now she’s got these books, THRUSH goes after her, and UNCLE sends Kuryakin and Solo to protect her and find out where she got the info. And the script was called “The Pieces of Fate Affair.” I wrote it in 1966. And it aired as the 82nd episode on February 24, 1967. It aired once, was not rerun, and was not included in the syndication package. And I will tell you why. And you will understand why this relates to Todd McFarlane and why it chills.

In the script–and it was a silly thing to do, however innocently it was intended–I used the names of some of my friends in the SF world. I thought they’d get a kick being in-group trivia in an enormously popular primetime TV series. There was a bookstore in town called Jack Vance’s Bookstore. There was a THRUSH assassin named Simeon Spinrad (because Norman Spinrad was my closest friend, and he laughed and I laughed, and it was like that). Don’t forget The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was very much parody, it was never a serious kind of program. The Complete Directory of Primetime Network and Cable Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earl Marsh describes it as a “spy spoof.” And Bill Koenig’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Episode Guide described that episode as one of the season three highlights, saying, “Ellison’s script parodies small-town life, the literary world and television. He’s also witty enough to make the light-hearted approach work.” (Note: Peter unearthed the encomium: I am far too humble to toot my own fife.)

Also in the episode was a book critic who was an undercover THRUSH agent, and I called her Judith Merle. The part was played with incredible elegance by Grayson Hall, who was that year an Academy award nominee for best supporting actress, “Night of the Iguana.” So we’re talking about a very fine and very well cast part. She played most of her scenes in silk pajamas in a circular bed that turned as she gave instructions to get and kill Solo and do the things a spy does. The show aired and everybody loved it.

Now, at that time there was a book reviewer named Judith Merril. She was also a well-known editor: The Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year. She had a great deal of power, but she was a very opinionated and confrontational woman. She had at one point been married to Ted Sturgeon. She was known for having had affairs with any number of writers whose works would then be included in Best of the Year. If, on the other hand, you invoked her wrath for any reason, such as turning down her advances (as I once did in H. L. Gold’s apartment in NY) you found that your work somehow didn’t make it into the best of the year collection. (Well, actually, I did achieve that singular feat without compromising myself, once; but it was years later.)

Judith Merril led a strangely bifurcated life. It was incredibly dichotomous, because on the one hand she would go to these SF cons and people would treat her as if she was the Dowager Empress of China. She was feted and lauded and catered to and curried. But in truth she was working as a waitress in a diner in a small town near Milford, PA. So most of the year, she was schlepping ham and eggs, and then, Cinderella-like, she would go and become this great literary lion. She was in England at the time that “The Pieces of Fate Affair” aired. I didn’t think anything of it, her name wasn’t used in a bad context; it didn’t do anyone any harm. I never gave it a thought, in truth. My stupid!

Judy didn’t have much money, she had been Bohemian strapped most of her life. So she flies back from England, gets off the plane; and the first thing that happens is her daughter says, “You were maligned on this episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. on this show that Harlan Ellison wrote.” She got her all het up about it.

Without even seeing the show, they hired a man named Milton Amgott. Amgott was a science fiction fan who also happened to be an ambulance-chasing attorney, who’d worked for all of the destitute, amateurish SF writers of the 1940s and ’50s. If they had a problem, if they got thrown in jail, if there was a drunk charge on them, or they needed a will drawn up, Milt Amgott did it. But he was basically a barrister friend to the SF indigent.

Amgott took this case and proceeded to let MGM and NBC know that he was going to sue for libel on behalf of Judith Merril who had been “horrendously maligned by Harlan Ellison.” They were going to sue me for a million, MGM for a million, and NBC for a million. Even though no one could specify exactly how Judy had been damaged. Nonetheless, Amgott seemingly initiated the lawsuit. He advised MGM and NBC that he was gonna sue. Well, instantly I got in touch with Judy. This was very easy to do, because Judith Merril’s literary agent in NY was the same as mine: Robert P. Mills. And Bob Mills set up a meeting for Judy and me for me to talk. I flew to NY, I sat down with Judy and Bob in the office, and I said, “Look, Judy, you’ve known me for 15 years, and we’ve been friends, and I meant no harm.” We both chuckled as longtime friends would, when I mentioned “Tuckerizing” which Judy acknowledged she had done a few times over the years herself. I asked her if she’d seen the show. She said no. I said, “Kiddo, this isn’t like some frivolous fanzine feud. This is the Big Time. This is MGM and NBC. These people have no sense of humor and they don’t play around. This can do me great and permanent harm, Judy. So before you jump on this thing, look at the show, we’ll get you a tape, and you’ll see that I meant no harm… and I did you no harm.”

And she said “Harlan, I would never sue you, honey. But we have to include you as a defendant because you wrote the show. But we’re never gonna pursue it with you.”

I said, “Judy, it doesn’t matter if you pursue it with me. Hollywood is a town where they live in fear of this kind of thing. And if there is so much as a whisper that I have done this kind of thing, it will kill my TV career.”

“Oh, no no no, honey,” she said lightly, “that will never happen.”

I said, “Judy, I’m telling you, it will happen. Don’t do this to me, for pity’s sake, don’t.”

And Bob Mills said, “Judy this is foolish. It can’t possibly do you any harm. For anyone who knows enough to know that there’s a Judith Merril who is a book critic, they’re going to laugh. It’s just friends doing a funny little thing with friends. Don’t do this.”

I said, “Look, Judy, I’ve saved five thousand dollars, in the bank. I’ll give it to you. Take the five grand. Please stop this.”

She got up from the chair and she came over and hugged me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She said, “Honey, that’s the end of it. I’m not going to pursue it.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Well, needless to say, she did not drop the case. And my TV series was canceled before it ever got into the production stage, and I did not work on NBC for five years and they never re-ran that episode of “The Pieces of Fate” affair, and I lost thousands of dollars in royalties and residuals (although it did eventually turn up twenty years later on CBN, now called the Family Channel). But to this day, I’ve not earned one more cent from that episode.

And you wanna hear the upshot? You’re gonna love this. Milton Amgott, in fact, never even filed the lawsuit. Judy couldn’t pay him, and so all that ever surfaced was the original threat in 1967. No lawsuit, no follow up, no damage—except to me—and no one to remember the bogus attempt at reaching into MGM’s and NBC’s “deep pockets.” And ten, fifteen, eighteen years later, they settled out of court for something like $2000. But in the process she blighted my TV writing career. That’s what killed me. At the height of my popularity, I was cut off from one of the three major markets, and the studio, MGM, where I’d been working for two years. Never spoke to her again, never saw her again; she died a few years ago. When they settled for the two thousand dollars, the Studio or NBC (I can’t remember which after all this time) came back to me on the indemnification clause and demand, “We want you to recoup the two thousand for us.” I said, “Screw you, I’d rather starve, never work in TV again, rather than reimburse you because it was convenient for you to settle out of court.”

But I learned the lesson: “Tuckerisms,” using the names of people you know, or real people in fictional works, can get you clobbered. It is bad, bad, bad, bad business. And any writer who is a professional knows it. Let me say again: BAD! DUMB!

And so the Spawn case is no more an assault on First Amendment rights or Freedom of Speech (even though Mr. McFarlane would like to pretend it is) than I am the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi ballet. What it was was Mr. McFarlane… who thinks he is above all common rules of social congress… who views himself as some sort of wonderful rebel who performed an amateur act of adolescent spitefulness… and who—like a little baby who came down and took a leak in the middle of his parents’ party in order to gain attention—had his Johnson taken off with a cheese grater by Tony Twist, who was absolutely in the right. Mr. McFarlane did something stupid and has no one to blame for what happened to him but his own big stupid self. And no one should have any concern that a jury judgment like this will have even a scintilla of that much touted “chilling effect” on writers. Being who Mr. McFarlane is, and judging him only by his past inability to cop to his own missteps, not even he will “get it,” and he’ll keep doing this kind of adolescent jackanapery until the next time he gets knobbled. There is nothing more meaningful in this little imbroglio than there was in mine, but you see how serious such silliness can become. And if ya wanna know the bottom line for anyone with a brain in his head but a McFarlane stalking horse like the intellectually paralogical Erik Larsen, this ain’t nothin’ more tragic than a prankster adolescent getting his knuckles rapped with a judicial ruler. May some gods or other provide Mr. McFarlane with the commonsense to get past his hubris and immaturity to come to grips with that simple truth.

(This installment only copyright © 2000 by the Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.)

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

San Diego Comic Con 2000, Part 2

Originally published August 25, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1397

Finishing up stuff that went on at San Diego…

I arrived on Saturday morning to discover a truly bizarre sight: Will Eisner, the Grand Old Man of the San Diego Con, being forbidden entrance to the dealer’s room by a security guard.

Understand, the guard was just doing his job. It wasn’t quite 10 AM yet, and the guard was under instructions that anyone not sporting a badge that said “Exhibitor” was to be sent up the escalator and around, or something like that. Eisner looked politely bemused while a rapidly increasing circle of fans (including myself) converged on the guard and said, “No, you don’t get it. This guy goes into the dealer’s room if he wants. This guy gets to go anywhere he wants at this convention.” A convention organizer showed up and got Eisner past the guard.

I comprehend the need for different types of badges. But the convention might want to consider creating some sort of “Omnibadge”… an All-Access pass, handed out as a courtesy to the kind of guests you just don’t want to see being hassled by guards who don’t know Julie Schwartz from Downtown Julie Brown. I’m thinking you give an Omnibadge pass to living legends such as Eisner (or Schwartz, for that matter), and/or convention Guests of Honor. And perhaps—as a matter of courtesy—any Golden or Silver age creator whom we’re still lucky enough to have with us who is willing to grace the convention with his or her presence. People who have earned the right to go everywhere because, without them, the industry itself wouldn’t be anywhere.

Just a thought.

* * *

So there I was, sitting at the Krause Table, chatting with some fans, and somehow or other the conversation turned to South Park. Even more specifically, the topic of “Timmy” came up. For those who haven’t been watching the series (which has undergone a major renaissance since the brilliant film) Timmy is a wheelchair-bound kid who is—as the kids indelicately put it—retarded. Indeed, Timmy set off one of the season’s most hilarious episodes when the teachers at South Park Elementary—refusing to acknowledge Timmy’s obvious problem—have him tested by an educational expert. The testing consists of the “expert” reading the entirety of The Great Gatsby to Timmy and then asking him trivia questions about it. Timmy proves incapable of answering, which is understandable considering that his vocabulary is, for the most part, limited to one word: His own name, spoken in varying degrees of volume. Timmy is promptly diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder (A.D.D.) When Timmy is subsequently excused from homework, all the others kids announce they have A.D.D. as well. As a result, every kid in South Park gets medicated to such a degree that they’re hardly recognizable as themselves.

In any event, it was memorable. I keep waiting for them to do an episode where Timmy is trapped in a well and the gay dog has to get help. It’d be like Lassie on acid.

So, in any event… someone near the Krause table—maybe me, I don’t remember—suddenly shouted “Timmy!” in Timmy’s breathless, exuberant style. This prompted everybody in the area to start taking up the chant, in varying degrees of loudness. We found this rather amusing.

Twenty seconds later, a guy came down the aisle and shouted, “Timmy!” Instantly we chorused in response, over and over, “TIMMY!” thinking that he’d overheard us and wanted in on the gag. The man looked at us as if we were insane or—appropriately—retarded. Not taking his eyes off us, maybe to make sure we weren’t going to attack, he called, “Timmy!” once more. And before we could take up the chant again, a ten year old boy came trudging up the aisle and grumbled, “What is it, dad?” “You’re not supposed to go running ahead,” said Timmy’s dad, probably worrying that his son might run into strange people. The kind of people who might… oh, I dunno… mock a father who was trying to rein in his son.

I wanted to crawl under the table.

* * *

Adventures in line-standing: Anthony Head of Buffy was there, and a huge line was anticipated. Plus I was going to be otherwise engaged. However his appearance was being sponsored by Clay Moore (who’s sculpting the nifty-looking Buffy figures, including an upcoming “Giles” one), and I knew Clay from back in the day when he sculpted the J.J. Sachs figure for Randy Bowen. The thing is, my girlfriend Kathleen adores Head (and get your mind straight out of the gutter.) So I went to Clay and begged him for a favor. He came through and scored me a picture of Head made out to Kathleen.

Rumiko Takahashi proved more problematic. Shana wanted the Manga artist’s autograph for a friend, and I didn’t have an “in” with her handlers. There was nothing for it but to enter the raffle in hopes of getting a ticket for her autographing session. I lucked out and got one, but between my own signings and panel commitments, I had a half hour window of opportunity… which was quickly consumed standing in line. Fortunately enough a fan volunteered to get my stuff signed along with his (I forget his name; my sincere apologies if he’s reading this) and then he brought it to me at my panel.

There are some pros who seem to find it stylish to diss fans wholesale, as if they were to the man unkempt, nasty and self-centered. Well, this was just yet another instance of fans being helpful and cooperative, eager to do whatever they could to help pros meet their commitments. That type of fan far outweighs the ones who seem to get the most (negative) attention.

* * *

I attended the costume contest as I always do. The costume that seemed to make the biggest impression was a guy who came out dressed as Mighty Mouse and imitated, perfectly, the famed Andy Kaufman routine of lip synching to the Mighty Mouse theme.  He stood there, immobile, looking lost and even a bit intimidated, only to burst into a grin, throw wide one arm and mouth on cue, “Here I come to save the daaaay!” before lapsing back into his withdrawn state. He had such an impact that, when things got slow (or if there was a substandard costume) the crowd would shout, “Mouse! Mouse! Mouse!” imploring him to come back on stage to take a bow. He never did, which was smart. Always leave ’em wanting more.

* * *

I took great joy in running around and showing folks a photocopy of an illo I actually acquired at Dragon*Con. Present at Dragon*Con had been Powerpuff Girls artist Stephanie Gladden.  I asked her if it was possible for her to do a sketch of me incarnated as my new role model, Mojo Jojo. She did so, and brilliantly. What’s a little frightening to me is how little she had to do to my face to make me look like an animated character.

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

 

Are you an Avengers collector?

Are you someone who’s been collecting Avengers-related material all your life? Or any of the main founding Avengers, such as Iron Man, Thor, Cap, and the Hulk? Either Marvel-manufactured licensed objects or, even better, early sketches, production documents, story copy, and so on.

Then I can use your help. I am putting together an “Avengers Vault” with the folks who did the Spider-Man Vault book a few years ago, and we’re looking for stuff that we can photograph and put into the book. No money involved, but you’d get credited. If you’re interested in participating, please write to me at padguy@aol.com.

Thanks!

PAD

San Diego Comic Con 2000, Part 1

Originally published August 18, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1396

Assorted fun and games at the San Diego Comic Convention (or, if you prefer, Comic Con International, which is probably more accurate except I only hear it referred to as the San Diego Con. But, y’know, go argue with those pesky comic folks):

It was my first time at the convention in three years. The fine folks at both Dark Horse Comics and Krause Publishing teamed up to fly me out and put me up at the luxurious Westgate Hotel (once the premiere hotel of the convention, and still lovely, but now a bit of a schlep since the move to the convention center. But hey, they’re willing to foot the bill, so who am I to argue?)

Since two different companies were combining to bring me out, that naturally meant that I was going to be doing a ton of signing at tables. Which was fine; fans seem far more interested in getting me to deface their books with Sharpies than listening to me pontificate about assorted stuff on panels. If they have any questions, they can always ask me during the signings.

Thursday was a murderously long day. I worked until about 3 AM Eastern Standard Time, trying to catch up on work because I headed out. I slept for only three hours before I headed over to JFK to get my flight. I was in San Diego by noon, and signing at the Diamond Booth (by arrangement with Dark Horse) by one PM. After a second signing at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund table, I spent the rest of the day cruising the dealer’s room, aware that it was probably going to be the only time I had to do so for the entirety of the convention.

After all this time away, I had forgotten how daunting the dealer’s room is. Even more daunting was the construction going on outside the convention center, designed (by the looks of it) to increase the space by a third again. My understanding is that the convention is going to wind up using all of it next year. I have a feeling our reactions upon viewing that room in all its immensity are going to be similar to Madeline Kahn’s during that notorious Young Frankenstein scene wherein the monster prepares to have his way with her: A gasp of shocked horror-and-awe upon beholding its gargantuan nature, unsure even of where to start. If people wander around the dealer’s room in 2001 singing, “Sweet Mystery of Life,” you’ll know why.

I encountered Wendy and Richard Pini whom I hadn’t seen in ages. I think we stand on the eve of an Elfquest renaissance, considering the prototypes for the action figures they had on display (the Tyldak is to die for) and the animated feature. A truism of Hollywood, as told to me by my agent, Frank Balkin, is “Most things that will probably happen, don’t.” Nevertheless, I’m hoping that the feature beats the odds. There were also “life size” soft sculptures of Leetah and Cutter that were too cool for words.

Upon chatting, I learn that Richard hasn’t yet seen X-Men. We work up tentative plans to catch it on Friday night, when pretty much everyone else is going to be at the Eisners. Since I’m not up for any, somehow I’ll muster the will power to skip it.

The CBLDF had its board meeting that evening. Jet lagged, sleep deprived, I was still determined to go (what with being on the board and everything). The meeting started at 8 PM, and although discussion was animated and interesting, it was also lengthy. By 11 PM I was desperately fighting off exhaustion, and we were only halfway through our agenda. My head slumped forward for about half a second, but I brought myself out of it without anyone noticing, I thought. As the agenda progressed, I contributed more forcefully to the proceedings, and people were looking at me with—well—amusement. I wasn’t quite sure why. When the meeting finally adjourned (well after midnight) they said to me, “Nice to see that you were able to rejoin us.”

“What do you mean?” I asked… and then I winced. “Oh my God… don’t tell me I fell asleep.” Eager bobbing of heads. “You were snoring,” they told me. “You should have woken me up!” I told them. “We didn’t have the heart,” they said.

Wonderful. With my luck, they elected me treasurer while I was dozing and they just haven’t told me yet.

* * *

Frank Balkin and his wife, Arlene, met up with us at the theater the next night and we all took in X-Men together. Richard’s, Franks, and Arlene’s first time, Wendy’s second, and my fourth.

In answer to everyone who asked me: Yes, I liked it, as the repeat viewing should indicate. When I saw Hugh Jackman stalking the steel cage, looking feral and as if he’d just stepped off a Frank Miller cover, I thought, This guy was the SECOND choice? I wanna see Dougray Scott’s screen test. For all the changes that they made–The Toad with green hair, yellow face and attitude? That wasn’t the Toad. That was the Creeper with a ten foot tongue) and the occasional dialogue misfires (“Do you know what happens to a Toad when he’s struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everyone else” could have been replaced by a succinct, “Never annoy a goddess” or even “Good-bye, little man”–this movie still had so much recommending it that any critiques are mere nitpicks. Patrick Stewart had the opportunity to stretch his acting muscles by playing a bald guy who sits around and gives orders; Ian McKellan provided serious menace as the world’s most deadly Polish Jew; Hugh Jackman walked off with the movie while proving that Logan could actually wear that hairstyle without looking like a pooftah; Rebecca John-Stamos’s wife had exactly one line and didn’t need to say more; Jubilee and Kitty Pryde’s stories were squished into Rogue’s and no one minded; story elements and characters were lifted from Chris Claremont, Roy Thomas, and Len Wein, and visuals from Neal Adams and Dave Cockrum, all without acknowledgment; snarky lines (“What would you prefer? Yellow spandex?”) were put in for fan amusement, as were cameos by Kitty, Bobby Drake, Jubilee (and Pyro?) for those in the know, and ultimately a good time was had by all. I would have liked to see more of the Scott/Jean relationship, particularly since they were using the Scott/Jean/Logan triangle from the early days of Claremont’s run, so that audiences could see for themselves just what Jean saw in Cyclops. But Wolverine flipping someone off with his claw is a sight gag artists must have wanted to do for years (and never could) and the brisk way they dispensed with the old “How-Do-We-Tell-the-Evil-Duplicate” bit was worth the price of admission alone.

However, the really fun part of the whole experience was watching Wendy Pini kick butt and take names. Do not, I repeat, do not even think about talking during a movie that Wendy’s attending. People unaware of the fact that they were not sitting in their living rooms began to yammer both in front and behind us. I usually put up with it because, well… I’m too chicken to risk offending someone who might be armed. Not Wendy. Without hesitation she snapped at the offending gabbers, telling them to shut up. And they did. For all the other reasons that Richard can consider himself a lucky guy, he can add to it that he gets to see movies in relative peace.

Finishing up the convention next issue.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. They had an auction for X-Men props on line. Magneto’s socks went for $75. Uncanny indeed.)

 

Hugos: Let me see if I understand this

So I’ve been a full time writer for nearly three decades and never so much as been nominated for a Hugo. Yet a racist, homophobic asshole is up for a Hugo this year because apparently he understands how to game the social network system. Because the Hugos will accept people who despise gays but draw the line at “Star Trek” novels.

Fine. Screw it.

I have a new novel coming out in July called “Artful.” It’s the previously untold story of the Artful Dodger, hunter of vampyres and other creatures. I want it to be up for a Hugo. Hell, even a Nebula. And apparently sitting quiet for thirty years allowing fans to find my work on their own isn’t getting it done. So I’m starting a year early. “Artful” for the Hugo.

PAD

Twist vs. McFarlane, Part 2

Originally published August 11, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1395

When last we left our hero, Todd McFarlane, he was fretting outside a St. Louis courtroom after a St. Louis jury had awarded $24.5 million to former hockey player Tony Twist after McFarlane appropriated Twist’s name for a thuggish mobster in the pages of Spawn. “I thought that ‘law’ was sort of short for ‘logic,’” said Todd. “That just got blown out of the water.”

Understandably so. “Law,” according to my dictionary, derives from an Old Norse word, “log,” that means, “Something set down.” You know, like, “Captain’s Log.” “Logic,” derived from the word “logos” is something else entirely. So when the jury (described by McFarlane devotee Erik Larsen as a “pack of stupid hicks”) dropped a log on Todd, he was completely unprepared for it. Indeed, according to St. Louis columnist Bill McClellan, Todd was already contemplating his next “victim.” Wrote McClellan, “If the jury decides he can just use somebody’s name without authorization, I think I know the identity of one of his future characters. Every now and then, the cartoonist casts a wistful glance at Twist’s attorney. His name is Bob Blitz.”

Damn, that is a good name for a lawyer, isn’t it. Much less entertaining is the name of the Image lawyer, Michael Kahn, who according to reports, “noted that an appeal was certain. ‘To use a hockey metaphor, this is Game One,’ Kahn said.”

I have no doubt. Just as I have no doubt that the $24.5 million award will not stand. The figure was arrived at due to the testimony of a St. Louis University marketing expert, Brian Till, who opined that Twist should receive 20 percent of the total Spawn revenue of $120 million. However, the award comes across to me as punitive, and the judge specifically told the jury that they could not factor in punitive damages.

Nevertheless, Todd and his supporters are crying that Todd’s First Amendment rights are being violated, and that this will have a chilling effect on the creative community. I hope that the irony of Todd rolling out the First Amendment is not lost on anyone. Arguably the industry’s wealthiest talent, Todd McFarlane has never directly contributed so much as a single dime to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, the main means by which artists and entrepreneurs with considerably less money than McFarlane withstand assaults by assorted pressure groups who want to put them out of business… either for creating that which they find meaningful, or else selling same to perfectly willing buyers.

Granted McFarlane Toys has contributed assorted limited edition toys and such to the CBLDF in order to garner money at auctions, and that’s nice as far as it goes. But let’s face it, we’re talking about a guy who could wipe out the CBLDF’s current debt load with a stroke of a pen, and as an individual Todd has been rather silent on the issue of not being hassled while pursuing one’s muse… until now, of course.

Technically, the case was not a libel issue. It was about unauthorized appropriation of the name of Tony Twist, whose hockey-playing career was ended last August when a motorist allegedly drove into the path of Twist’s Harley-Davidson. But let’s not kid a kidder: Libel was the subtext that drove this boat. Part of McFarlane’s defense was that he names other characters in Spawn after real people. Yeah, sure. Except that the people he likes are heroes (long-time friend Al Simmons, for instance) while the people he dislikes are thugs and KKK members, so, y’know, pull the other one, Todd. Another part of his defense was to claim on the stand that, according to reports, “he may have named ‘Twist’ after a long-ago mob figure nicknamed ‘Kid Twist.’” Now hicks the St. Louis jury may or may not have been, but even hicks can read. And Todd stated flatly everywhere, from letters pages to Wizard magazine, that Twist was named after the hockey player. Lying during testimony in a civil case is generally frowned upon unless you’re the Commander-in-Chief and there’s sex involved. And giving the comic book Twist a bookkeeper named Joe Sakic, the name of a Quebec Nordique player and former teammate of the hockey player Twist, certainly didn’t help Todd’s newly revised story over Twist’s origins. Or was the jury to believe that there was an infamous accountant named Sakic lurking in the pages of crime history?

As I said earlier, although it wasn’t a libel case… it was. Because if Todd had named a heroic figure after Twist (say, a detective character who was called Tony Twist because he was capable of unraveling twisted mysteries) I doubt the real Twist would have had a case. He probably wouldn’t even have sued. But no, Todd had to name an obese villain (obesity and villainy go hand-in-hand in the Toddverse) Tony Twist, thereby providing the jury an opportunity to watch six straight episodes of the Spawn animated series with the evil Twist doing his dirty work. Just being forced to watch Todd’s intros to those, in which he comes across like the love child of Rod Serling and Taxi’s Reverend Jim, would be enough to drive any jury to find against him on aesthetic principles alone. But added to that was a videotaped deposition of Sean Phillips, vice president for a nutrition and dietary supplement outfit in Golden, Colorado. Phillips stated that the Spawn Twist prompted his company, Experimental and Applied Sciences, Inc., to withdraw a potentially lucrative endorsement offer to Twist. Granted, Twist had the hometown advantage, and some of the jurors got autographs for him after the trial, calling their bias (or lack thereof) into question. But star-struck jurors are an occupational hazard in such celebrity cases, and besides, Todd left an evidentiary trail the size of the Mekong Delta.

Sure, sure, technically it’s not a libel case. But this case involved reckless disregard for the truth… associating someone’s good name with criminal activities… smearing him or her to family and friends (Twist testified how he learned of the character’s existence from his distraught mother. Oy!) …and the work in question costing the plaintiff money. If it walks, talks and quacks like a duck, chances are if it’s not a duck, it’s damned close. A letter writer to this column last week suggested it might go to the Supreme Court. I hope not, because if this thing gets reviewed by the Supreme Court while Mike Diana still struggles under the most onerous anti-First Amendment ruling in recent memory, then Todd is definitely right about one thing: There is no justice.

And the really sad thing is, Todd and his pals still don’t get it.

Erik Larsen—who just had to fire off some parting broadsides at Harlan Ellison and myself in his final issue of Aquaman—is helping to take McFarlane’s case to the public. Erik is sounding alarms that, if this decision stands, “all hell will break loose” as he envisions scenarios in which O.J. Simpson can sue Mad magazine or the old friend after whom John Byrne is said to have named “Kitty Pryde” can go after Marvel. So quick, gang, let’s rally around Todd, Erik et al because otherwise we’re all doing down the chute. To which I can only respond with Tonto’s immortal words, “Whattaya mean ‘we,’ paleface?”

Send-ups of O.J. are easily defensible under parody and fair-use. The “real” Kitty Pryde gets to see her namesake portrayed heroically, and even gets bragging rights during one scene in the X-Men movie. Usurping someone’s name, turning them into a repulsive supporting character and thinking you can do so in perpetuity is something else again.

No matter what Todd, Erik and whoever else may think, this is not a First Amendment issue. This is a “You Shouldn’t Be a Peckerhead” issue. This is what happens when you’re a bully. Bullies challenge the nerdy guy to a fight (or a debate), or offer the smart British guy money to do their homework for them (or create characters) and then renege on the deal. Or they pick on people and pick on them and pick on them until the teacher or principal or the student council slaps them down, at which point they stand there, hands spread, shocked “Who me?” expressions on their faces as they say, “Wha–? Wha–? What did I do?”

“Even if you wish Todd ill—you don’t want this,” quoth Erik Larsen. You know what? I don’t wish Todd ill. A good-selling comic benefits everyone, as does a quality comic book film. And he does produce damned good looking toys. I still believe the $24.5 million decision isn’t going to stand up, but if nothing else, it should serve as a deafening wake-up call to Todd that it’s time to leave the bully boy attitude behind, because what’s going to happen is exactly what did happen: You run into someone who’s an even bigger bully than you are, and you get your face tap danced on.

And sadly enough, I suspect he won’t get it. Not he, nor Larsen. It’ll be, “Oh, well, Peter David hates Image and us. Everyone knows that.” Except it’s not true. But ya know what, guys? If I ever do decide to hate you instead of just feel sorry for you…

I’ll know better than to name a couple of KKK members after you. Or a criminal. I mean… how dumb does one have to be to do that? Even a pack of stupid hicks would see right through that one.

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

 

Twist vs. McFarlane, Part 1

Originally published August 4, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1394

“Must… control… fist of death…”

–“Dilbert”

Several years back I got an angry phone call from John Byrne, and for a refreshing change of pace, he wasn’t angry at me.

“Did you read Spawn #30?” he asked.

In Spawn #30, there were two members of the Ku Klux Klan, and their names were Peter and Johnny. Byrne was convinced that Todd McFarlane, Spawn creator, writer and erstwhile penciler, had dubbed the characters thusly for the purpose of taking a direct swipe at us. After all, Byrne and I had not marched in the preferred lockstep of approval for all things Image that the founders seemed to desire of the comic pro community. Byrne felt that it was nothing less than character assassination, was contemplating taking direct legal action, and wanted to know if I would be interested in joining him in such an endeavor.

I demurred, citing the following reasons. First, since it was only our first names, it couldn’t be proven absolutely that it was intended to be us. Second, although associating us with the KKK was distasteful, there was nothing illegal about belonging to that notorious organization, and if you wanted to be rock solid for getting damages in a libel action, the person you were accusing had to have accused you of criminal activity. Third, there was no way we were going to prove damages, because there was no way we were going to get a witness on a stand who was going to state that Todd’s juvenile jab had cost Byrne or I employment. And fourth… it’s Todd McFarlane, fer cryin’ out loud. Who cares what he thinks?

It’s entirely possible that an attorney would have (or did, for that matter) tell John Byrne the same thing I did. In any event, the proposed lawsuit never went forward to my knowledge.

However, McFarlane was gracious enough, in a subsequent Spawn “tribute” issue published by Wizard, to attend to one of the weaknesses in going after him legally. There was a “cast list” for Spawn as part of the book, and one of them read: “Johnny and Peter. Real-life Persona: John Byrne and Peter David. Relation: Close friends and synchronized swimming partners (um, actually McFarlane has been feuding with these guys for quite some time.) These two, McFarlane says with a bit of sarcasm, are named for his two ‘good pals’ John Byrne and Peter David. McFarlane takes shots at them at any time he can, and this is one of those times where he can.”

In the same publication, there was another listing as well… one that Todd would, in later years, suddenly feel less than boastful or sarcastic about:

“Tony Twist. Real-life Persona: Tony Twist. Relation: NHL St. Louis Blues right winger. The Mafia don that has made life exceedingly rough for Al Simmons and his loved ones, in addition to putting out an ill-advised contract on the Violator, is named for former Quebec Nordiques hockey player Tony Twist, now a renowned enforcer (i.e., ‘goon’) for the St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League.”

Apparently Todd felt that, as with Byrne and I, this was one of those times where he could do whatever he wanted.

It’s not entirely surprising, and certainly reflective of the mentality of a number of Image creators when the company first started up. There was much posturing and strutting, chest thumping and declaring—like so many James Camerons—that they were king of the world, like a bunch of eight hundred pound gorillas (no slight to the new imprint intended) who could do what they wanted, where they wanted, whenever they wanted (the “whenever” part apparently applying to shipping of books, a problem that—despite the nigh-heroic efforts of director and creative piston Jim Valentino, dogs them to this day and ties up retailer capital every single month as high-priced reprint volumes or early issues of series never hit the stands or are incessantly resolicited.)

Well… McFarlane learned otherwise.

At first I wasn’t even going to address the entire Tony Twist lawsuit that recently wrapped up, leaving Todd—manufacturer of a pretty sharp line of toys, and owner of home run baseballs—with a $24 million judgment over his head and his (base)balls in a sling. But damn, y’know, I started hearing from everybody. Phone calls, email. Just to make sure that I had all the info on hand, Mr. Mark R. Leonard, a CPA in Troy, Illinois, sent me the newspaper coverage of the trial with a cover letter. Leonard (a man with two first names, and let us remember the words of Steve Allen who said, you can never trust a man with two first names) said, that he would love to see me devote “a column (or two) to the thoughts which arise following the McFarlane/Twist lawsuit,” and went on to write:

I’ve followed this story with great interest, as it crossed over many of my interests. I am a comic fan, a hockey fan (St. Louis Blues in particular), and a May 2000 graduate of St. Louis University School of Law.

This case is interesting from many standpoints, not just what it does to writers and the care they must now take in their choosing of names, but also to the balancing of the First Amendment rights versus the rights an individual as in their name and reputation.

The size of the award is certainly interesting. No evidence was presented of any commercial damage to Twist (the hockey player) of any amount near this magnitude, so the award must be more for ‘public humiliation’ and personal suffering. Given the size of the award, it will also be interesting to see its effect upon McFarlane’s business operations and any chilling effect upon future publishing…

I also wonder how the reputation of Twist (the hockey player) in this community affected the jury’s deliberations. Twist is much loved in this town, not just for his spirited play on the ice, but maybe even more for his tireless efforts with underprivileged children and other similar charitable interests. While the jury probably was not aware of McFarlane’s possible ‘bad-boy’ image (no pun intended!), they were certainly aware of Twist’s outstanding reputation. I am sure the latter, when juxtaposed with the reputation of Twist the Spawn character created quite a contrast for the jury and weighed heavily in their decision.

Please do not misunderstand my motive in sending this. I know you have too much class to find satisfaction in McFarlane’s situation. I find this case to be interesting for the chilling effect it could have on that aspect of all literary endeavors, as I am sure you have probably similarly concluded. I concur with McFarlane’s prediction that this could wind up with the Supreme Court. I could even see them agreeing to hear the case, given its far-reaching implications.

Interesting implications indeed. Which we shall ponder, in our best uninformed layman’s style next week. Although I think we can take a brief moment to debate whether I, in fact, have too much class to find satisfaction with McFarlane’s situation. Hmm. Let me consider it a moment. I must consider the distasteful and unworthy notion of kicking a man when he’s down. I must… must consider Todd’s feelings. Must consider… the incredible irony… of a guy who boasted about comparing me to a KKK member… getting financially pantsed by a St. Louis jury… must… maintain personal integrity… must… think about… big picture… remember devotion to First Amendment absolutism… must… suppress… fit of giggles… must… must control… fist of death… must… must….

BWAAAHAAAAHAHAHAA…

Whew. That was close. Okay. I’m better now…

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

 

Book review: Man of Two Worlds by Julie Schwartz

Originally published July 28, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1393

I’ve written before about the fundamental lack of knowledge of, and interest in, the history of our little hobby. At the time that I was a young fan first discovering comics, and eagerly seeking out everything I could get my hands on, there were a number of tomes to be had. There were such works as The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer or Jim Steranko’s History of Comics and the essay collection All in Color for a Dime edited by Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson.

But there is more than just the written history that presently exists. There is the living history of the comic and science fiction greats. And as anyone who has been keeping up with CBG, or with the industry, knows, we’ve been losing them. One by one, they’re gone, and if they didn’t write down their experiences in the forging of the industry or genre that we all love, then that’s it. It’s vapor mist. All those experiences, all that information, lost to us.

One doesn’t expect everyone in the industry to live up to the standard of an Isaac Asimov, whose autobiographies cover just about everything one could possibly want to know about the good doctor. But our little tribe has grown beyond the ability to depend on oral history, and although certainly no one is under any obligation to commit their life’s experiences to paper, it’s certainly nice when someone interesting takes the opportunity to do so.

For years now, assorted folks—including myself—have pestered the indefatigable Julius Schwartz to get his life’s experiences between two covers. There are few veterans as revered and beloved as Schwartz, or as knowledgeable. Starting as a fan in the world of science fiction, he eventually made a career of agenting short stories for some of the most acclaimed writers of the time. After that he became an editor, landing with DC comics where he was integral to the launching of what we now call the Silver Age of comics that brought us Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, and other dead guys.

Julie has been omnipresent in the industry, a staple of enough conventions to wear out men half his age (like—I dunno—me). I’ve seen him boogying on the dance floor at the San Diego Comic Con, the subject of a song written especially for him by Seduction of the Innocent’s Bill Mumy and crooned by Mumy in his best Rudy Vallee imitation. (Including, it should be noted, a hilariously ribald lyric that I can’t really repeat. Suffice to say that it rhymes “Schwartz” with “Racing Horse.”)

During the past years, whenever Julie is in attendance at a convention, you never knew what you were gonna get until you saw him. Sometimes he looked like he was in pain. Other times he was bopping around the convention looking extremely fly for a white guy. And oftentimes he’d be talking about finally getting around to producing that autobiography. To getting those stories and anecdotes he’s been telling for years onto paper.

Well, it’s finally done. Aided and abetted by writer Brian M. Thomsen, with an afterward by Harlan Ellison (who, by the way, wrote the foreword for the But I Digress trade paperback, a fact Krause never frickin’ mentions in their ads, hint hint), we now have Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics, published by the fine folks at Harper Collins.

Basically, Julie has done exactly what folks have been asking him to do. He’s presented “a memoir of (his) eighty-five years in science fiction and comics.” The books occasionally flows in the not-unusual stream of semi-consciousness that characterizes most autobiographies, forsaking chronological order for the purpose of conveying some thought or anecdote. For instance, he digresses off a discussion of the roaring 20s in order to bring up a conversation with Mike Richardson decades later… so that he can segue back to the real reason that Yankee Stadium is referred to as the House that Ruth Built.

Indeed, those are the most interesting types of items in the book. The “real” reason things happened, the “real” stories behind things, ranging from who was truly responsible for Batman, to the reason why L. Ron Hubbaard’s likeness appeared on the cover of Weird Tales, to the true origin of Kryptonite. The book is full of asides and side bars, going off on intriguing tangents (not to mention nicely breaking up blocks of copy) and is written in a breezy, chatty, off the cuff style. There are some points where Schwartz gets positively scathing. Editor Mort Weisinger is chided by Schwartz a number of times for his inability to wrap himself around telling the truth (Julie claims Weisinger’s epitaph should have been, “Here Lies Mort Weisinger… Again!”). And his characterization of a young Jim Shooter trying to do an end run around Schwartz by complaining to DC higher-ups over alleged poor treatment—resulting in Shooter being fired by Schwartz—is hilariously scathing. Furthermore, an overview of Schwartz’s fan days and subsequent career reads like a Who’s Who of SF legends.

Would I recommend it? Sure. However… (and you knew it was coming)…

I’m greedy. I wanted more.

As I noted, it’s not fair to hold autobiographies up to Asimov for comparison. Nevertheless, it should be noted that Asimov’s memoirs were gargantuan… more than seven hundred pages each. Julie was a contemporary of Asimov’s, certainly lived as varied and fascinating a life, but Man of Two Worlds weighs in at just under two hundred pages. A Who’s Who, to be sure, but frequently there’s about as much depth as a Who’s Who as well. Names are mentioned, people fly past, but more often than not, they don’t come to life as people for us. It’s as if they’re so clear to Schwartz in his own head that he just figures we can see them as clearly as he. But we can’t. We don’t really get a feeling for what made these SF pioneers tick. What their singular point of view was that drove them, what their foibles were, what they were like beyond the realm of the written words they plyed for their trade. Several times throughout the book, Julie tells an anecdote about someone without mentioning their name, and then drops in the identity at the end to give it a zinger feeling. That’s fine as far as it goes. But as long as we’re zinging, it would be nice of our heartstrings were zinged, and that doesn’t happen near enough.

It’s as if Julie is simply too polite, too much of a gentleman. Even his discussions of proper credit and such are covered by an up-front disclaimer which says, “Great minds are allowed to disagree and their recollections may differ from mine… and that’s okay by me!” Basically, the past is treated with kid gloves. Furthermore, some of the omissions are startling. Okay, sure, it’s interesting to know the story behind the color of Hawkgirl’s hair, but I’d sure have liked to know how he felt about the Senate hearings in the 1950s and the rise of the Comics Code. Schwartz worked for Max Gaines at one time; how did it feel for him to watch Gaines’ son get crucified by witch-hunting senators looking to pin the blame for juvenile delinquency on comics? How did it feel to have characters his company owned labeled by Dr. Wertham as homosexuals (Batman and Robin) or symbols of totalitarianism (Superman). How, in short, did the real world impact on the fantasy one that Julie Schwartz helped shepherd along? Dunno.

Furthermore, we have little-to-no sense of Julie’s life outside of the realm of science fiction and comics, as his subtitle says. It may very well be that was his choice. To let us get just so close and no closer. That’s naturally his call to make; it’s his book. But in making that decision, it neutralizes some of the drama, the real world sense, that a memoir can have. Schwartz’s wife and family suddenly appear a third of the way into the book with no build up, although there’s a brief mention of their courtship some pages later. Maybe I’m just too tuned in to the subject of family life these days, but I certainly know that the birth of my first child had a life-changing impact on me. How’d Julie feel about becoming a husband? A dad? Dunno.

Understand: I adore Julie Schwartz, both as a creative force and as a man. And in reading the book, I enjoyed finding out about his contacts, and the people whose careers he shepherded along, and the forging of the Golden Age characters into the Silver Age, and the Secret of Successful Comic Book Covers, and all that stuff. I just would have liked to find out more about… him. Him and the people in his world. I guess that wasn’t the book he set out to write. Kind of wish it was.

But at least, as noted, the stories and anecdotes are all in one place, between two covers, as advertised. Which means that—as Mel Brooks would say—the Schwartz will be with us… always.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY. He’s mentioned on page 183 as a “talented scripter.” And you’re not. So there. Nyaaah.)