Magen Cubed's Blog, page 35

This is about names

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you don’t know much about me. Unless you frequent my corner of Cow-Town, you don’t know my name or my face. You may have read a story or two, if I pawned a book on you at a convention. Beyond that, I’m a blank slate, a name on a screen. Nobody. And that’s okay.

This is about starting over. This is about names.

I was born with a boring name. That’s okay, too. It’s the only name I’ve got. The only reason I ever published under it because I couldn’t think of anything clever enough to change it to. That was my mistake. Over the years, as I’ve moved forward, I’ve never felt comfortable going by my name. It’s plain. It’s silly. It gives total strangers the ability to look me up and find out where I live, if they were so inclined, and that bugs me. It makes me feel a little vulnerable, for a whole host of reasons not worth going into now, and that bugs me, too. So I’m going to change all that.

If you remember my old name, don’t worry. I’m not hiding from it. My old stories are still my stories, and I’m not ashamed of them. Moving forward, I’m going to do something different. I want to work on establishing myself as a novelist of weird books about scary things. I want to publish comics that will make you want to crawl out of your skin. I want to write the kinds of stories I want to read, about werewolves and gypsies and drug-addled minds, and feel comfortable enough to talk about all the other stuff I enjoy, too.

My name is Magen Cubed. That’s Magen to the third power, because, hey — I’ll do anything you want if you say my name three times.

What’s your name?

Courting female readers by marketing to men

At this year’s Comic Con, it seemed like Marvel Comics did well for itself. They launched a new re-imagining of the MU through Marvel NOW, announced many new titles, and shared big news about the upcoming MCU movies coming out in the next two years. (Oh, and then they announced Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy movies, too, the idea of which people seem to either truly love or truly hate. I’m not going to go into it. Only time will tell.) In the midst of all this pomp and circumstance, Jeff Parker’s Red She-Hulk made a hopeful bid for its existence on Parker’s blog, in an entry titled HULK SMASH STATUS QUO. And, to Parker’s credit, it sounds really promising.

WOMEN CHARACTERS DO NOT SELL BOOKS. Especially in big Action-Adventure. This is what I’m hearing, like it’s foolish to even think of trying it. This is the prevailing wisdom in comics.

Until it’s not.

Bad practices in the past decades have paved over diversity we once took for granted. Instead of considering the comics industry this closed loop that can never change, how about we find those shoots trying to break through concrete and clear their path?

So we’re all on the same page: Comic publishers feel women don’t read comics, and female characters don’t need to be supported in comics because, hey, who’s reading anyway, right? Cool. We’re learning from our mistakes, and the fact that female fans literally just shelled out millions and millions of dollars in Marvel’s The Avengers merchandise over the summer, as well spent the entire year prior screaming at DC and Marvel to pay attention to the people paying their bills. As for the comic itself,

Red She has been recently featured in THE DEFENDERS from which I’m borrowing here because it’s terrific. My editor, Mark Paniccia, asked for permission to try something different and bring her in as our book’s lead. It would make for a serious shake-up. When I heard Marvel agreed, I couldn’t believe it- this would allow me to do a very different kind of story. I wanted to go even more off course. Marvel of course has had a She-Hulk book before, most recently excellently done by Dan Slott and company. So we’ve seen a female Hulk and how heroic she can be.

Again, this all sounds great. Until you realize that the female fans he’s trying to court? Yeah, they’re not even mentioned, because this whole pitch is aimed at convincing men that Betty is worth reading about despite being a woman. Because, hey, women don’t read comics, right?

Though you may only know my superhero stories, I am far from someone who thinks that genre IS comics, and I know that others may fit female readers more naturally. But I don’t think we should abandon trying, because despite conventional wisdom, many do want stories about powerful women in big action- did Buffy the Vampire Slayer teach us nothing? This gender does have daydreams about throwing cars around and flattening fools with a backhand swat. The superhero model appeals to something fundamental in us- that we feel, despite appearances, we have untapped power that could break out in the right circumstances.

The HULK myth goes further- and somewhat scarier- because it acknowledges our rage. The feeling that deep inside, whether from personal history or even wilder remnants still left from our ancestors, we harbor something devastating. Feelings we have to work at constantly because in the real world, letting that out doesn’t end well. But to be Hulk is to let that wave roll right out and wash away everything in your way. If you don’t think the ladies can relate to that, you haven’t talked to any lately.

Look, he has his heart in the right place. I get it. I probably won’t be picking this up, as I’m a bit lukewarm to all things Hulk, but I appreciate the effort to try to do something different. The reality is that even attempts like this — reactionary though they may be to the public outcry of female fans in the last year — still miss the point. Writers and publishers are still spending time and money attempting to persuade male readers that female characters have a right to exist. That they are heroic and interesting and worth reading. And do you know what that smacks of? Uncertainty in your product and a general misconception of your readership. They still seem to forget that basically half the people who made The Avengers the box office success that it was were women, and have been active in voicing hopes for a Black Widow film, as well as films for other female characters and characters of color. (And yet Marvel wants to make an Ant-Man movie? Yeah, okay, sure.) They want my money, but they also want to pretend that I’m some strange and endangered species that must be carefully cultivated, and then blatantly ignored. Because, you know, that’s good business practice.

Instead of trying to appeal to these supposedly invisible women who keep buying Marvel stuff, Marvel is going down the same old road of overcompensating to justify the existence of female heroes. If I read a press release about a title, making a plaintive bid for the protagonist’s heroism and bravery despite the handicap of some unrelated issue, I would be hesitant to pick that title up. Why? Because you’re basically telling me that this character sucks and you’re hoping I don’t notice it, and give you money anyway. Or, even worse, you’re putting this character out there in an attempt to appease people who happen to suffer from this same (imagined)  handicap, and that you’re kind of not proud of what you’ve done, but you still want my money. I really do think Jeff Parker is trying to do the right thing. The only problem is, the right thing isn’t immediately clear to him. Like most everybody else in mainstream comics (or television, or movies, or video games — or, you know, everywhere else), he still thinks he has to beg for readers to care about female characters, or, at least, look past their gender and read about them anyway.

Do you want to know the deep dark secret of writing successful female characters? (Or any character, for that matter?) Treat them like a person, don’t make their gender (or religion, or race, or sexual orientation) the mournful stumbling block that they must overcome in order to live productive lives, and let them stand on their own two feet. If a story flops, it flops, but at least you tried to do right by your own creation and your readership. Otherwise? Dude, it’s just more of the same.

The one thing I will agree with, Jeff Parker, is this:

What it needs next is you- using your influence and persuasion to convince readers to to try it, and stores to double down. There’s some book you follow out of habit that hasn’t entertained you in a while. Let it sit out a couple of rounds and give the smashing red lady two months to convince you, that’s all I ask. Not only can it work, we’ll all be surprised what will happen next with this hitting the radar in a big way. Conventional wisdom will flip over. Suddenly more books become possible at Marvel and DC.

Money talks. Keep supporting the titles and characters you care about. Keep supporting the films you want to see more of. Keep buying junk and writing nasty blogs and maybe, just maybe, these guys will actually admit that we exist.

The summer of the super hero

With San Diego Comic Con in full swing this weekend, it’s time to talk a little bit about my summer.

From the moment I put on my stars-and-stripes outfit (complete with Captain America shield) to venture out for the midnight premiere of Marvel’s The Avengers in May, I knew I was in trouble. Actually, I knew I was in trouble last year when I saw Captain America: The First Avenger (at home, not in the theaters, much to my eternal lament) and had to fight back tears at the end. When Steve Rogers was standing in Times Square with Nick Fury, with that heartbroken look on his face? Yeah, I was sobbing ugly bitter tears for Peggy Carter and their first dance.  I just happened to have a lot of feelings, okay? The emotional journey of Steve Rogers is a big deal in my household.

This was why I had goosebumps in the theater watching Avengers the first time, and the three more times that I went back to see it, clutching my shield and fidgeting in my seat like a five-year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew. I was right back where I was in junior high, racing home from the comic book shop in Miami to read about my favorite heroes in my bedroom with posters on the wall. Then I found myself sitting in the midnight premiere of The Amazing Spiderman, and in a little while my ass will be back in the theater to see The Dark Knight Rises.

Comic books have their hooks in me all over again. After eight-year self-imposed comic book fast, of being mad at writers and publishing houses for their hijinks. Somehow I’m back, and this has been the tone of my entire summer. If you’ve been following my Tumblr at all this year, you know it’s been pretty bad. I’ve been doing nothing but reblogging scans and feelings, meta and fangirling about super heroes. (As well as the occasional bit of Captain America/Iron Man fanart. I regret nothing, by the way.) It’s kind of a mess, and yet, this is probably the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.

Since stumbling out of the Avengers premiere in the middle of the night, jacked up on childhood flashbacks and spandex, I’ve been busy. Living at Lone Star Comics and Half-Priced Books, digging through the trade paperbacks I’ve missed over the years, glossing over the basics, keeping up on the major events on comic news blogs and internet fandom, but never following too closely. Extemis? Civil War? The Secret Invasion? Dark Siege? Yeah, I’m on it. When I’m not pouring through collections of Invincible Iron Man and Captain America, New Avengers and Deadpool, I’ve been mooching singles of Oni Press’s The Secret History of D.B. Cooper and Image Comic’s Secret. There’s still a fat stack of Atomic Robo and IDW’s Strange Science Fantasy sitting on my desk that I haven’t finished going through yet.

Don’t even look at my Amazon shopping cart. Satan help me, there’s no end in sight.

This year I’m deeply invested in San Diego Comic Con coverage, looking forward to news on the titles I will be picking up later this year. Because, hey, Marvel NOW is something I’m interested in, and that’s saying something. Combination team rosters? Jean Gray coming back as Marvel Girl under Bendis, and hopefully not making me want to punch things? And if Jonathan Hickman is going to be anywhere near Avengers, I need it in my face today. Also, I’m going to devour Captain Marvel, don’t even start with me. Are these titles going to be brilliant? Probably not. Am I going to enjoy it? Yes I will. Because this is the first time in a long time that I’ve had fun with comics and comics fandom.

And let’s face it: there are worse things to waste a summer on than super heroes.

Xenomorphs art show

On July 5th Floating World Comics out of Portland, Oregon hosted a science fiction themed art exhibit, inspired by the film Prometheus and the Alien franchise. Event organizer Sloane Leong was good enough to ask me to submit some work to the show, and has released some photos from last week’s opening. Here’s some of what you missed if you weren’t in Portland.

My college experience

College has been the one thing that’s haunted me most of my adult life. (Which, incidentally, has been relatively short compared to the adult lives of many people reading this, but bear with me here.) I came from a fairly average lower-middle class family, with parents that tried to prepare for their children’s educations but fell short somewhere along the way. Bills happened. 9/11 happened. My dad’s illness happened. Next thing I knew, I was 19, with no job, no college fund, and a head full of stupid ideas about making comics for a living.

Somehow, my parents came up with the money to pay for my first two semesters. After that I was on my own, waiting tables and saving every penny I had to pay for school myself. I stumbled along one term at a time, taking what classes I could afford, doing commissions for graphic design work whenever it got really tight. I gave up on wanting to write comics and aimed for a degree in design and visual communication instead, thinking I could make a living out of that, if I just kept working at it. Overall I enjoyed school. I was an A/B student with a good GPA, and some people seemed to think I was actually headed places. Granted I was too wracked by self-loathing to really take any of this faith to heart, but looking back, it was a good experience.

Except for the time I was being stalked by that kid from Chem. 1 that worked at The Knife Shoppe and looked like Malachai from Children of the Corn. That was pretty awkward, actually. But that’s neither here nor there. Fast-forward a few years too many. I’ve somehow managed to pay for the first two years of my education by starving myself to death and working for horrible, abusive people.I should’ve been proud of myself, right?

Then the money dried up, and I was informed the education I had paid for basically meant nothing without a four-year degree. In the meantime I was screwed out of low-paying job after low-paying job, falling behind and living on $400 a month from Unemployment. I had to drop out of school and give up on my BFA, on getting a real job, on getting out of dodge. Back to more low-paying jobs and starving, but with no end-game or big pay-off to make it all worth it. Fueled by my class rage, I lost thirty pounds, wrote a novel, and swore I would find a way to get into comics. Then I thought it would be hilarious to turn that novel into a trilogy, because I hate sleeping and free-time. I should’ve still been proud of myself for that, too. It wasn’t in the cards though.

Picture yourself as me. Picture yourself sitting around in coffee shops and New York City apartments, talking to friends who managed to get away. Everybody else seemed to have gotten what they wanted out of life, give or take a few crappy relationships and minor falls along the way. Everybody else seemed to have a plan and a degree to back it up. However, you’re me, and you feel like a complete failure. You know you shouldn’t. People keep telling you that you’re a victim of circumstance, a string of bad luck, a raw deal. They keep telling you statistics you already know about unemployment and college drop-out rates and keep reminding you that you’re not at fault and you have nothing to be embarrassed about. And somewhere deep down, you know this is true, but you can’t hear that over the crushing roar of self-loathing. You can’t help but feel like the biggest idiot in the room, with the bullshit education that got her nowhere while everybody else on Planet Earth seems to be headed in the right direction.

Congratulations. You’re 26, and you’ve failed at life.

Like I said before, bear with me on this.

Sometime in June, after a lot of introspection and the occasional crying jag, I sent my FAFSA application off to the government and started looking at schools. Apparently I will be attempting to go back for my BFA in the spring, if somebody will have me, and, quite frankly, this is kind of the most terrifying thing I’ve ever tried to do. I have a list of schools to apply to, but I have no idea if I’ll get into any of these programs. I have no idea if getting my BFA will make my existence suck any less than it already does, or if I’ll end up right where I started out: With a bullshit education that got me nowhere, just with the added bonus of crushing student loan debt to look forward to every day until I die. Basically I have no idea, and that’s really scary. But if I don’t try, then I’ve already failed.

Maybe, if I’m really lucky, this will all work out in the end. Or I’ll just have crushing student loan debt every day until I die.

Whichever comes first, I guess.

The art of failure

I have a crooked spine. Bad teeth. No pretty college degree sitting in the bottom drawer. I am self-loathing, a downward spiral, a raging inferiority complex. I feel cheated. Put-upon. Stuck fast to the ground when all I ever want to do is jump. This doesn’t make me special or unique or deserving of attention. It just makes me Me. These are all the reasons that I feel like a failure every day.

Younger people — and I make myself sound ancient at the ripe old age of twenty-six — always hide from me. They don’t pay me compliments. If they do, it’s to tell me You’re so talented and You’re so good at this and I can’t write compared to you. They tell me they want to stop trying, because of me. I’ve heard this for years, for different reasons, and from different people. I used to try to be comforting, to tell them nice things. Make them feel better about themselves.

Now?

Well.

I’m a failure. When I read something amazing — something truly amazing — sometimes I want to quit, yeah. Because I’m a failure. Because everybody else is a failure. If you’ve tried to do something, you’ve failed at some point. If you didn’t, you’re a liar, or somebody handed success to you. You didn’t earn it, but that’s another matter entirely. The point is, I’m a failure for every bad decision I’ve made and story I didn’t get right and stupid belief that I could possibly make half a living on this nonsense. And so are most people I know, for the same reasons. I’m not somebody you should be jealous of, because there’s twenty people I can count on all fingers and toes and with my eyes shut tight that are better than me at everything I try to do.

But I keep doing it.

And so should you.

Live nude writers

Or something like that.

If you’re in Portland on July 5th, you can stop by Floating World Comics for their XENOMORPHS show. Why? Because I’m in it, of course.

Local artist Sloane Leong contacted me a few weeks ago after a midnight screening of ALIEN at a local drinking theater. She suggested that we do a cosmic sci-fi inspired art show. Drawing inspiration from everything scifi including (but not limited to) the films Alien/Aliens and their masterful conceptual artists Moebius, Syd Mead, Ron Cobb, Chris Foss and Giger, artists were invited  to push the boundaries on their visions of the future. SF is a broad genre and kind of hard to nail down but here are a few subjects that artists will explore: space, dystopias, telepathy, androids, robots, aliens, foreign planets, space colonies, synthetic humans or beings, futuretech, cyberpunk, biopunk, interdimensional travel, teleportation.

She has curated an amazing lineup of artists that will be displaying original art and also digital prints for sale. She went even further and contacted a bunch of writers, Sean Witzke, Magen Toole, Melissa Dominic, Valerie Valdez, Stanley Lieber to do some sci-fi fiction that will be published as a zine for the show.

Who: Original art and prints by Brandon Graham, Kris Mukai, Jen Lee, Andrew White, Roxie Vizcarra, Joanna Krotka, Giannis Milonogiannis, Kelly K, Sam Beck, Adrien Dacquel, Jeremy Sorese, James Stokoe, Lauren Albert, Arlin Ortiz, Felix Kramer, Maritsa Patrinos

What: XENOMORPHS Sci-Fi inspired art exhibit

Where: Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St

When: Thursday, July 5, 6-10PM

Art on display until July 31

I’ve put together a limited run of zines from my short story, Molly’s Entropy. It’s about black holes and lesbians and mystery, and lots of other fun stuff.

I knew my memories could no longer be trusted when the old brownstone on Morning Avenue disappeared. It was a morning in October when it vanished, a townhouse with green shutters and wide flower-boxes. I passed a row of them each day on my way to the office, cups of designer coffee in hand and my scarf tucked under my coat. The brownstone had left a void in its place, a soft white outline where it had once stood before being snatched up from the foundation, every shingle and tile evaporating with it. Something shined from inside the silhouette, a gentle light, maybe radiation, pouring into the street and between the shrubs and fences of the neighboring houses.

Police put a barricade of yellow tape and plastic cones around the brownstone, uniformed officers posted outside in shifts. Each morning people walked past them without looking, and each morning I stared into the cavity and waited for something to happen. For someone to step out or something to fall inside of it, doors to open or dimensions to crumble. Nothing seemed to change. I stopped one day on my way to work to ask the officer there what was going on. The man looked too young for his black uniform, with big brown eyes and a dopey half-smile. He said it was to keep out the trespassers and school children that wandered too close, taking cell phone pictures or throwing rocks into the white space. He never explained where the brownstone had gone, like it had never been there at all. I couldn’t say that it had either, with nothing to point to but an outline, so I thanked him for his time instead.

At my desk I waited for the predictable cubicle chatter to turn to missing buildings or lying policemen. No one said anything. In the break room Nancy and Dan from accounting talked over microwave diet food and bottled vitamin water. We took lunch together sometimes, when I didn’t feel like eating alone. They always talked about celebrity gossip and reality television, and I sometimes regretted their company. I found myself particularly disappointed as I refilled my coffee cup, watching Nancy and Dan consume their freeze-dried, carb-friendly space food and talk about nothing. I didn’t feel like eating anymore.

There was nothing on the evening news about Morning Avenue, no headlines on the newsstands or on magazine covers at the grocery store. No one spoke of it, and I began to think I had imagined the brownstone. After work, I stripped down to my underwear and bra, sat on the foot of my bed and flipped through the channels on the television above my dresser. I held my breath without realizing and watched for signs of recognition in the fifteen minute news cycle. Men in suits made stiff speeches at podiums or banged Bibles on tables. Women cried in front of mobs of reporters, microphones thrust in their faces, mascara running down their cheeks as they sobbed about murderers or aborted babies. For days nothing changed. I sat in my apartment and watched television alone, and said nothing of the brownstone to anyone.

If you’re in town, pick one up for yourself. I might even do another run to sell online or give away, if there’s enough interest….

The threat of stagnation

I find myself feeling very reckless as of late.

Fear does that, I think. A fear of stagnation, settling in my guy like a hot little knife, on the tail end of depressive bouts or bad weeks. And the last few weeks have been pretty bad. Deaths in the family, the new brands of stupidity afoot at my day-job. Nothing new or earth-shattering, just enough to keep me up at night staring at the ceiling and not writing, not making things happen, not doing my job. When that malaise tapers off, after a few good night’s sleep, maybe a nice afternoon out, some sunshine or a decent paycheck, I’m always on the move.

I’ve had some truly disappointing publishing setbacks in the last two months, the kind that have had me sitting around, staring into my blank notebook and asking myself, “What’s the point if I can’t get anybody to read this?” Granted, I still don’t have an answer for that, but I’m coming up with one. I’m reassessing battle strategies, dusting off old stuff, trying to finish new stuff, sending small packets of comic books to shops on both coasts and gritting my teeth. Writing scripts, assembling series proposals, tiny secret “Fuck you’s” to people who said it couldn’t be done. It may seem childish, but that’s how I have to put things into perspective. I don’t know what I’m doing, or what will come of any of this. I’m still trying to learn.

This recklessness makes me jumpy. It makes me want to skip town and do stupid things and punch new holes in my face, if only to slightly disappoint my employers, who still don’t quite know how to deal with my constantly changing hair color and nose ring. I want to burn bridges and do things that make me happy, even for just a day or two, instead of wringing my hands all the time about bills and gas prices and keeping up appearances. It’s not that I’m too good for these daily quibbles. I’m just tired of being weighed down by them, especially when my head is bursting at the seams with itching fingers and spider eggs, and bags full of feathers and teeth and baby bones.

I’m just tired of standing still when the water’s rushing in at my ankles.

I think it’s just time to swim.

Adventures in Fort Worth

Earlier this week, me, The Reverend Civilian and our good friend Mercedez of Fort Worth-based Pain Free Society were having an impromptu get-together on the roof of Mercedez’s apartment. There was beer, nachos, and most of all, masks. All made or modified by my very own atomic vaudevillian The Reverend, we dressed as horrors and paraded around the rooftop taking ridiculous photos. A good time was had by all. (Did I not say before that you should always party with artists?)

 

Flesh Trap: The End

I once wrote a novel and called it Flesh Trap.

It’s a story about a tiny house that time forgot, where the devil lived and Casey Way died and the boy-king came back from the grave to play. Now the story is almost over. I think I’d like to talk about that. The serialized edition of the novel concludes on May 17th, when I publish the epilogue chapter on FleshTrap.net. (The day before my 26th birthday, as it turns out.) All sixty-three chapters will be available to the public to read. I still don’t know how I feel about that just yet. On one hand, I should probably feel proud that the story I spent just about two full years on is now officially, and finally, over. On the other, it’s still a little surreal. I fear I’m suffering from a strange case of separation anxiety, knowing that the book is out of my head and hands, and out in the world on its own. I haven’t quite figured out how I feel about it yet.  Oh, well.

This is the first novel I’ve ever finished, after a dozen or so false-starts and stumbling blocks and bad ideas. It’s the culmination of sleepless nights and stomach aches and ink smears, and too many hours spent staring at the seven notebooks it took to write the rough draft trying to make every word fit just right. It hurt write, as a good story ought to, and it still hurts just a bit to read. It’s a bit too personal, a bit too self-examining, a bit too much of Me than I usually put in a story, but it is what it is. The book isn’t for everybody. It isn’t even for my mom, who still hasn’t read it. It’s mostly just for me, in the end, but I’m glad to have gotten the chance to share it with people regardless.

If you’ve read it, I thank you. If you’ve stayed with Casey through the muck and the blood to the end, I truly appreciate it. I loved this story, not because I was sure it was great or that it would make me money, but because these characters meant so much and felt so right to me. To find people who loved it just  as much kind of makes it all worth it. Hell, to find people that hate it makes it worthwhile, too. It’s the little things, you know?

And now it’s over, and I’m setting up for my next move. I have plans to put out a physical volume once I settle with a publisher. (My friend Anna has already staked a claim as the cover artist, so at least that much is taken care of.) I have plans to write two more books about Casey Way and these holes in the world that swallow people up, and Joel and Mariska, and about characters you haven’t met yet. Like Gemma who has too many faces, and Karl the priest who doesn’t believe in the devil, and Liza who was born without a soul. There’s still places to explore and doors I haven’t unlocked, and I’m looking forward to it.

So Flesh Trap is almost over. I don’t know how exactly to feel about it, but it doesn’t matter. If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably read the story, and I thank you for it. And if you haven’t yet, I hope that you do. Onwards and upwards, in any case.