Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 103

Powerhouse Hard Pressed Released

Powerhouse: Hard Pressed has been released.

Below is the book cover and the details:

Dave Johnson’s dreams have come true. He’s taken Seattle by storm as Powerhouse, a metal-clad crime fighter. His awesome array of powers has the underworld on the run, his charitable efforts are a success, and he has a popular comic book. When his publisher is bought out, he’s given every fan’s dream: he’s tasked with creating his own line of comic books. His biggest problem is his tendency to attract campy, wannabe “supervillains” who aren’t worthy opponents.

Mitch “the Pharaoh” Farrow wants to turn Dave’s dream into a nightmare. Mitch’s job is to spread cynicism ahead of an interdimensional alien invasion. The aliens’ king has promised to cure Mitch’s dying daughter when he takes over and Mitch will do anything to save her. He uses every tool at his disposal, from a massive media smear machine to a force field bubble that crushes its victim into atoms.

With the help of new allies and old friends, Powerhouse strives to protect his family and the citizens of Seattle from the forces of cynicism.

The book is available as a paperback as well as for the Kindle.

Book Review: Spider-girl 7 and 8

Spider-Girl - Volume 7: Betrayed by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Spider-girl #34-38 and for some reason #51.

Like other Spider-girl books, this one features the adventures of Marvel's longest running female superhero in the MC2 universe.

The books asks many questions and even answers a few. Some of the questions this book raises include: 1) Has Normie Osborne (i.e. the third generation Green Goblin) really reformed? 2) Why is Mary Jane Parker having a series of spells? 3) Who will prevail in the battle between the forces of Wilson Fiske and a new crime lord in town? Why exactly is Issue 51 (drawn in a completely different style) in the same book as Issue 34-38? Who is the new man who has adopted the old Spider-man's identity?

As usual, the Spider-girl book includes a healthy mix of action, suspense, and drama. Most of it works okay, but I think in a couple places, Betrayed illustrates the pitfall of leaving a character in High School forever. It's worth noting that in the Amazing Spider-man, Spidey with High School in Issue 28. You do run out of typical teenage problems to portray. In this book we have May''s new boots getting ruined and then we have Spider-girl worrying about why she doesn't have acclaimed adventures like the Fantastic Five. What's ironic about this is that in real life, her adventures ran for 135 issues, while FF had five forgettable issues. However, DeFalco does come up with a good complication in May's teenage existence at the end.




Spider-Girl - Volume 8: Duty Calls by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Spider-girl Issues 39-44 and stays true to form.

Many of the same problems that Spider-girl (May "Mayday" Parker) faced in Spider-Girl - Volume 7: Betrayed continue in this series of stories and head towards something of a resolution. The Gang War between Kingpin and Canis continues as does the adventures of the new fake Spider-man and once again Peter Parker puts on the webs again and comes out of retirement. In the MC2 World, Spider-man has more comebacks than Evander Holyfield.

The book is marked by excitement, action, and fun characters, as well as a good lesson or two along the way. This book took Spider-girl to new places and new struggles for her as she deals with a death and a new threat that comes as a result of it, leading her to form her own superhero team.

One of the artistic highlights of the book had to be Issue 41 which featured only pictures and no words in telling the aftermath of the death. It was a beautiful piece of art. Issue 44 features a bit of retelling of the Spider-man legend as Peter makes a momentous decision.

The downside of the book is that a lot of time in the book is spent on the confusing yet also uninteresting love triangles going on at May's high school. And if you want to be picky on the art, May's inexplicable glasses in Issue 42 really did not look good.

Minor points to consider in light of this great series.





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Book Review: Showcase Presents Superman

Showcase Presents: Superman, Vol. 1 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This monster sized 560-page collection contains 17 months of Superman stories from June 1958-November 1959.

To enjoy this book, you have to understand Superman of this era. The Superman Stories of the early Silver Age are not primarily considered about Superman's rogue's gallery or finding some challenge that's physically equal to the Man of Steel. Very few stories in this book are about that. What made Superman stories interesting to folks in the late 1950s was that the books were about Superman. Superman has a ton of superpowers and is the type of scientific genius/troubleshooter who could give modern-day Batman a run for his money.

But the guy's got problems. He wants to maintain his identity as Clark Kent and keep his job at the planet. He's got countless villains after him and Kryptonite seemed to be plentifully available. Superman's problems are different, though, so more people will empathize with Peter Parker being bullied then Superman having his head turned into a lion.

Simply put, Superman is pretty interesting guy and complaining about quality of villains is like whining about the quality of opponents the Harlem Globetrotters play. No one is there to see the Washington Generals. Same thing with Superman. Who cares if he's taking on Sinister Thug #20. The writers make it seem interesting.

So what does this book have? It features issues of Both Superman and Action Comics. The Action Comics story would usually be 12-13 pages long. The Superman books were longer but usually came with three stories eight-to-nine pages in length.

Superman firsts and old favorites: DC's decision to begin in 1958 wasn't arbitrary. Some pretty amazing things happen right off the bat. Action Comics #241 introduces the arctic Fortress of Solitude. In the course of the book, we see the first appearances of Brainiac, Metallo, Supergirl, the bottled city of Kandor, and the adult Bizarro. In addition, Luther comes in for several appearances. All very amazing stuff to see all these firsts.

Comedy: People always talk about unintentional humor in these books, but I think there's plenty of intentional humor, such as in "Superman Joins the Army." when a headstrong Captain is determined to have Superman drafted and treated exactly like any other soldier. Hilarity ensues. There's the story where Superman forgets his identity of Clark Kent, so he adopts another identity as a British man-name of Clarence Kelvin. Superman in this book has its serious moments but is far more light-hearted.

Emotion: There are some pretty moving moments in the book. There's the story in which the Kents (deceased during the Silver age) travel forwards in time to meet their boy. Superman gets all emotional and takes them to the Fortress of Solitude. They're disappointed when they found the room dedicated to Superman's parents is for Jor-el and Lara. However, Superman had a special one for his Earth Parents. Superman says to them, "I have two sets of parents and love them both dearly...I can never thank you enough for having adopted me." Very sweet. Another favorite scene is when Superman finds himself with a head of a lion. Lois Lane's interest in Superman often seems shallow and a little creepy but when she kisses him while he's got the head of lion, it's absolutely beautiful.

Untold Tales of Superman and Imaginary Stories: Some of the Superman magazines included Untold Tales of Superman. These range from so-so to fascinating. None is better than, "The Girl in Superman's Past" that has a college-aged Clark Kent considering ending his career as Superman to be with a beautiful girl in a wheelchair in a beautiful story. There's also a full-length Adventures of Superman that was dedicated to imagining Clark Kent's life had Krypton not blown up. It's an early pre-cursor to the Elseworlds stories that DC has released in recent years.

Not every story is "Super" but most of them are great and these 17 months of comics are highly entertaining. See Superman battling Lex Luthor as the Kryptonite Man and Jimmy Olson has a crazy battle with Superman with a nice surprise twist.

The book's not without its flaws. My personal pet peeve is "*choke*" being used repeatedly to show emotion. The ready is light and unbelievably fun. Silver Age Superman is a courageous, funny, smart, and sweet Superhero, and definitely makes for some worthwhile reading.



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The Case for Paying Book Reviewers

Preface: I'm not making a case for why authors should pay book reviewers in the current culture. They shouldn't. It's a violation of the Terms of Service of Several sites.

Rather, I'm making the case that quality book reviewers should be paid.

Recently, I tried the service Book Review Broker which gives writers access to top reviewers on Amazon. They collected data to put writers in contact with some of the top reviewers on Amazon. They don't guarantee responses or reviews.

My results weren't particularly encouraging. I got a grand total of 4 review requests and no reviews yet.

If there was one thing that stuck out in the negative responses, it was the great number of top reviewers who said they were simply overwhelmed with projects that they were expected to review. I've heard complaints elsewhere: On KBboards from one writer and even among Facebook friends. They've written a number of reviews and suddenly every author is beating a path to their door.

As an author, I really sympathize with the authors because I need reviews right now. But I also sympathize with the reviewers. My wife reviewed books regularly for several years for her blog. And I got the idea that after a while, all the reviews became another job-a job she wasn't paid for.

In addition to this, people who review a lot of books, more often than not, read because they enjoy reading. Because not everyone who pays for a review has a truly worthy book. So instead of reading books they enjoy they find themselves reading books they really don't care for.

It's taboo for writers to pay reviewers, not to mention a Terms of Use violation on many websites.

But perhaps, it's time to revisit that. Not everyone's opinion is worth something. But the opinion of a top 1000 reviewer on Amazon certainly is. Generally, this has come from writing a lot of reviews that have been seen as helpful.

Maybe Amazon would be smart to start a paid reviewer program where indie authors could pay Amazon somewhere between $10 and $20 for a review with Amazon taking 30% and giving the rest to the reviewers. The higher ranked the reviewer, the more the pay.

The winners, as I see it:

1) The reviewers---They will be paid for their reviews and since they'll be paid by Amazon they'll not have any specific obligation or conflict of interest with the writer. They could also have a setting so that they could only take reviews when they were able to.

2) The writers--They'll be able to efficiently market their books to get quality reviews. Maybe, they could also be able to browse reviews and find a reviewer who'd be more likely to enjoy their work.

3) The public-They'd get more quality reviews from reviewers who aren't overcommitted.

As long as money doesn't influence reviews, it can really make things better all around.

Sample Saturday: Meet the Villain

In Fly Another Day, I introduce Mitch Farrow who'll become the main supervillain in The Adventures of Powerhouse  This is his first scene in which we see him and get a hint at his motivations:

----

Mitch Farrow slouched in a green metal office chair held together by duct tape as he viewed his eBay auction on his bulky, third-hand computer monitor. A fast food bag and an empty paper cola cup littered the buckled plywood desk that also served as a kitchenette table. The green linoleum floor had missing patches. On his right, four days’ worth of dirty dishes were piled in the sink and it smelled of putrid water. The electric stove and refrigerator were cracked with paint peeling, as was the cabinets’ frou-frou blue paint.

He refreshed the Ebay auction. Thirty-five seconds left to go. Come on, a few bucks more.

The auction ended at $315. He made a note in his ledger.

Not bad. This sale would put him at ninety bucks for the month once he paid his bills. He smirked and hummed “If I Were a Rich Man.”

He turned off the monitor, grabbed his newspaper from the kitchen counter, and strode to the eight foot square patch of carpet that passed for a living room. The taupe carpet was blackened from foot traffic and riddled with rats’ teeth marks. He rearranged two red afghans over his gray recliner, covering where the stuffing was coming out while protecting his sensitive skin from the irritants ground hopelessly into it.

He settled into his chair and took a sniff of the newspaper. “Good old newsprint.” The only clean smelling thing in this dump. He smiled. Why sit there and read a bunch of lies and fabrications on the internet when he could read lies and fabrications in a good old American newspaper? He reached into the cigarette pack in his pocket, withdrew one of his blissful cancer sticks, and slipped it in his mouth.

No, Rosie needed him. Even with his life insurance, she and her mom wouldn’t make it without his alimony checks. He put the cigarette back in his pack. On the bright side, he was still worth more alive at the moment, he was down to two packs a week, and he’d be dead before he could get lung cancer from smoking anyway.

“Razzle Dazzle” played on the lace-covered cardboard box serving as an end table. He picked up his cell phone. “Farrow speaking.”

“Hi, this is Anne Falkenberg. The FDA just voted.”

Mitch held the phone tight. It was his attorney.

“They decided the drug needed more testing.”

Mitch dropped the phone. A stream of curse words left his mouth. He grabbed the phone. “It’s been used in Europe for five years.”

“I know this is disheartening. Understand, though, they’re just wanting to make sure that the drugs are safe and people are healthy.”

Mitch huffed a shallow breath. “None of them have AIDS. None of them have an ex-wife and daughter who have AIDS. This is what 235 years of democracy has produced in this country, a bureaucracy that fiddles while people waste away and die.”

“I know it’s frustrating.”

Mitch laughed. “Frustrating is when your DSL won’t work. Seeing your daughter suffer and knowing she and her mom are going to die like you are isn’t frustrating.”

Tears welled in his eyes. He clutched the receiver with a death grip.

“Mitch?”

“Anne, I’m hanging up. I know you did all you can, but I’ve got a lot of vinegar to spew.” He punched the red end call button, hurled his cell phone across the room, and let out a primal scream.

He stared at the ceiling. “Why, God? If you’re there, why didn’t you let me die in the accident rather than get that accursed transfusion?”

What was he doing? That was silly and pathetic.

Time for some meaningful, purposeful venting to the folks who read his website. No question he was going to blog about the FDA Nazis.

Still, he should check what else was going on. He flipped through the classifieds and spotted:

Help Wanted: Cynic
Change the World
Great pay and benefits.
Send application to Box C, Seattle Guardian

He chuckled. If you need a cynic, I’m the man for the job.

---

Fly Another Day is available in Paperback, Kindle, and Audiobook formats.

The Arrival of Legal Fanfiction

A huge development from Amazon:

Get ready for Kindle Worlds, a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games. With Kindle Worlds, you can write new stories based on featured Worlds, engage an audience of readers, and earn royalties. Amazon Publishing has secured licenses from Warner Bros. Television Group's Alloy Entertainment for Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries, with licenses for more Worlds on the way.

The Kindle Worlds Self-Service Submission Platform will launch soon and enable you to submit your original works for publication. Can't wait to start writing? Learn more on our Kindle Worlds for Authors page.

This is very big particularly as more franchises will be added. Can't say I care much about the early adopters myself. But this is a very good sign.

Of course, there are bigger names out there that are going to be difficult to arrange...Dr. Who, Star Wars, Star Trek, DC, Marvel. (Am I drooling?)

It's intelligent for the industry and for Amazon. If folks are writing and reading stories about your characters, shouldn't you want to get A piece of the action.. Plus, if someone actually can write about your characters in a way that people like, it'll be darn easy to hire them.

And for Amazon, it's another cash cow as if they needed another.

In some ways, this is also a compromise with the ridiculous lengths of copyright laws. Truth be told, under any reasonable standard, characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-man, and at least the original Star Trek series should be in the public domain. The reason they're not has less to do with protecting creators than providing an eternal source of revenue to corporate bigwigs. If we see these guys get their Kindle Worlds, we can at least see that mitigated.

The one thing that worries me is that it poses a risk to the necessary creativity needed for vibrant culture. When I was eight years old, I started writing a Superman-Batman story in a yellow spiral notebook. However, I couldn't write that story and publish it. I had to create my own characters, my own worlds.

Imagine a situation where young writers start out loving a franchise and end up writing fanfiction for that franchise rather than writing their own stuff? It could really snare some writers who go for low hanging fruit.

I may write in a Kindle World if they can offer me something interesting to write in. (After all, I still have that Batman-Superman story to finish.) But, I never intend to give up on writing in my own.

Book Review: Superman the Dailies, 1939-40

Superman: The Dailies, 1939-1940 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I finished Superman: The Dailies, 1939-1940 and it was a pretty fun look at the earliest Superman stories. The stories and artwork were fun in telling the original stories of the Man of Steel. His villains are mostly thugs, gangsters, corrupt government officials, warmongers, and a government assassin thrown in.

The early comic book is marked by some politically incorrect moments.

Superman uses enhanced interrogation procedures on thugs, tossing them up and down in air to get them to talk. And in one story, leaving them chained in a pool of water where they'd been holding Lois Lane, promising only to let them out if they confess.

In addition, a princess doesn't take kindly to Superman's refusal of her advances, so she tries to stab him. Superman responds by taking her over his knee and giving her a spanking which Superman concludes is long overdue. And when Lois complained about being demoted from reporter and stuck on the lovelorn columns, Clark Kent says, "Little girl getting bored?" (Though, it's hard to tell whether Kent's sincere in that mocking as he foregos a scoop and helps Lois get back to reporting.)

Of course, while Superman doesn't quite measure up to today's standards of political correctness, he was also addressing real problems confronting people in the 1930s and 40s with vigor. In one case, he dedicated himself to helping a down and out boxer get back into the ring, getting the homeless boxer into an apartment and training him while fighting disguised as the boxer, right until the championship fight.

Superman dedicating his time to helping one guy and defeating a gang of gamblers? Wouldn't happen today, but that's what the early Superman did. He was concerned about orphans being cheated by unscrupulous managers, the devastation of war, and the oppression of crooks and crooked politicians on the innocent.

You combine the goodness and the political incorrectness and this Superman reminds me a lot of many people I've met who are older who say things out of bad habits. They aren't up on the latest politically correct words, but they've got the courage and know the difference between right and wrong. It takes very little character to just avoid offending people, but a lot more to actually put it on the line to help others.

Beyond this note, The strips seem to chart three key journeys:

1) Superman from the rough around the edges character we meet in the comic strips and Action Comics #1 to the "Boy Scout" we know from productions such as George Reeves Adventures of Superman.

2) Lois Lane's journey from struggling journalist being kept down by the man to the daredevil of the Fleischer Cartoons.

3) The comic's journey from fantasy/reality to pure fantasy. Superman's early days are filled with a lot of real life characters that threaten and hurt real people to the fantastic costumed characters that inhabit most comic books from the Silver Age to the present.

This particular collection or the bigger collection of all Superman strips from 1939-42 is a must-read for fans.



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Reviews: Spider-girl 5 and 6

It's been a while since we've posted reviews and I'm going to start posting more of my reviews for your approval

Spider-Girl Vol. 5: Endgame (Spider-Man) by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This volume collects Issues 22-27 of Spider-girl. A lot happens in the course of these six issues.

There are changes to Spider-girl herself as she gets a new hairdo that's more feminine than in previous issues. The writers explore a lot of her growing up as well as the lives of her classmates without getting too soap operatic about it.

The book starts off with some standard superhero fare with a battle against Funny Face in Issue 23. In Issue 23, there's a girl whose cleaning up the court for a rival school to May's. For whatever reason, the girl sets off May's Spider-senses.

In issue 24, we see a true throwback with Iron Fist making a guest appearance as a criminal has been committing a lot of martial arts related crimes. This may have been a weaker story because I'm really not sure on the villain's motivation.

Finally, the most risky story in the book occurs with Issue #25 when two of May's friends are kidnapped by six criminals who team up to challenge her one by one. That sounded familiar to me because I'd just read Amazing Spider-man Annual #1 in Marvel Masterworks: The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 2. Taking on a classic story like that with the new Savage 6 was risky and for half the story it didn't wear well. However, they managed to work in a few twists that made up for it mostly.

However, Spider-girl loses her powers (another familiar theme) and she struggles with it, even while it helps in some areas. Without her spider powers, she no longer feels like she has to hold back on the Basketball court. But she still longs for that superhero life.

That sets up the final story in which the Green Goblin (Normie Osborne) kidnaps her to kill her, determined to end the "Spider-goblin" war. It's gripping human drama.

Overall, this book rises above typical expectations of comic book stories and shallow teenage fluff to a strong level of human drama making this a great and worthy read.





Spider-Girl - Volume 6: Too Many Spiders! by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This books collects Spidergirl Issues 28-33 and throughout most of it, May is missing her powers after the events of the last book. However, May tries to soldier on without her powers, using a Goblin glider. However, her parents are opposed and she loses the support of her Uncle Phil who has been a big-time backer as they believe that the 16-year old business has no business in the hero gig without powers with the aid of a goblin glider.

Honestly at times, you really begin to question her motivation as she takes dangerous risks as she'd never trained to be a superhero and with the spider powers, everything had come to her naturally. Why is she doing this? Is it thrill seeking?

As the book develops the answer becomes obvious. A hero is more than her powers. It's a sense of responsibility and desire to do the right thing. It's brought home in Issue 33's climatic battle against a man claiming to be the new Spider-man.

The book is heavy on character and light action, though there is a pretty big melee between Spider-girl and the Avengers over Buzz. The book also takes a fun twist as the former Green Goblin Normie Osborne helps to mentor Spider-girl, but Peter Parker is suspicious of anything good coming from an Osborne.

There's some great interactions in the book. Her conversation with American Dream is wonderful as she explains her origin of being inspired by Sharon Carter and Steve Rogers to take up Captain America's mantle. She jokes that she thinks of adding some death/revenge plot in to make it more exciting. And then one of my favorite juxtapositions occurs when a jock with a broken leg named Moose sees Spider-girl on her Goblin glider and learns she's lost her powers but isn't giving up. That inspires to come back from his injury to play football. Spider-girl in her secret identity is then encouraged by Moose lifting weights to build himself up and come back.

Overall, this is a good book, though it could have used a little more action.



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Indie Life: The Dreaded Back Cover Copy

Tales of the Dim Knight is over 90,000 words. The next novel Powerhouse Hard Pressed has over 75,000 words. So here's the Million Dollar question: How can it be so much harder to write a 100-200 word back cover copy?

It's perhaps writing's greatest frustration. For the Indie writer this is a particular challenge as there's literally no one else who will do it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized how important back cover copy is. E-publishing is an equalizer that moves indie published writers close to their traditional counterparts. There are three important things besides the quality of the book: 1) The cover, 2) the reviews, and 3) the back cover copy.

I began to search to find back cover copy resources.

One thing both recommended was looking at other back cover copy and so I did. Here's one example from Jill Wills By Darkness Hid:

Given the chance to train as a squire, kitchen servant Achan Cham hopes to pull himself out of his pitiful life and become a Kingsguard Knight. When Achan's owner learns of his training, he forces Achan to spar with the Crown Prince--more of a death sentence than an honor. Meanwhile, strange voices in Achan's head cause him to fear he's going mad. While escorting the prince to a council presentation, their convoy is attacked. Achan is wounded and arrested, but escapes from prison--only to discover a secret about himself he never believed possible.

What a short, sweet, and to the point description. Big idea seems to be that getting to the point is the key to this whole back cover copy issue. To be honest, my early attempts jumped around too much in order to play up the highlights kind of like a movie trailer. Doesn't quite work that way.

I found a couple great articls on this. The first is from Novel Publicity and Katherine Roid had an interesting piece as well. She made a great suggestion I never thought of when she referred people to the blog Query Shark for examples of how to write good back cover copy because the copy in query and the copy on the cover are remarkably similar.

In the next week or so, I'm going to go and fix the copy for my other works (at least on Amazon) because I don't want to lose readers with poor copy.

A Power Mom Speaks

We have a winner in our Power Mom contest.

Lauren, a homeschooling mom, writes what superpower she would like:

Every morning, I wake and feed my family. Then: educate children, feed family, keep house, feed family, sleep, and repeat. Mine is an ordinary life. Still, a girl can dream of things extraordinary. Of things super.

As I dare to imagine my life, well, enhanced, right away some superpowers don’t make the cut. X-ray vision and mind reading? Out. They’re a poor match to children entering puberty. And super strength or speed? I’ll pass on anything that encourages more housework.

My superpower of choice would not seem so super to some: the ability to freeze time. Not just any time, but those meaningful moments that rest just outside easy recall. The ones my parental “fails” seem to push aside. I need no help remembering all the times I lose my temper or react poorly when I’m in a rush. It seems I’m always in a rush; there are plenty of those. No, I’d freeze those moments my oldest son dreams with me. The snuggles he knows will delay bedtime, our coffee-shop talks about his hopes for college and beyond. I’d freeze time spent lounging under a tree watching clouds with my daughters, listening to their fairy and spy (and fairy-spy) stories, giggling over secret crushes. The time my toddler tells me he’s handsome, “just like you, Beautiful!” And then kung fu’s me right after.

I think I’d give anything for that superpower, to freeze the little moments. The moments that matter – but are too easy to forget.

Great entry, Lauren.

I'm sending you your $10 Amazon Gift card and an autographed copy of,
Fly Another Day.

Happy Mother's Day to Lauren and all mothers.