Jason Arnett's Blog, page 10

Some Thoughts on Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice

This is going to be a LONG post so here's the bit you might have come over to find out: I liked it.

It's far from perfect but overall it's a large bucket of popcorn and a giant soda full of fun.

Spoilers ahead. That said, the movie's been in the theater for two weeks at this point so you've either gone and don't care about spoilers or you're not going and you don't care about spoilers. That said, last spoiler warning. I'm not holding back.

Okay, still here? Let's forge ahead.

Months ago there was an uproar on the Internet about how bad Zack Snyder's Man of Steel was and the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was going to be just as bad, if not worse.

Well, I liked Man of Steel. I've defended it and I'll continue to defend it. I get where Snyder is going. Let the Internet go hang for not getting the 'perfect' Superman because Warner Bros. decided to let Snyder go for his vision. It's a lot like when a creative team switches on a comic book: the new look of the artist and the new voice of the writer have fans and detractors.

As you know if you follow these films, Zack Snyder is NOT popular amongst the hardcore nerds. He's a capable director whose eye for sharp visuals is getting better with every film but his vision of the DCU is the polar opposite of some very vocal denizens of the 'net who feel they must offer fixes to DC.

But storytelling is not his strongest skill. Maybe he doesn't quite get Clark Kent/Superman or maybe he's angling for a more fully realized character later but there's not a lot of growth for him in this film. He frowns a lot. He still loses his temper when he shouldn't, eighteen months after the events of Man of Steel. He's introspective. This is unusual for Superman as we're all used to him being confident and sure. There have been times in his comic book history, and even cinematically, where he's unsure. In MoS and BvS it's writ unavoidably large.

Batman, on the other hand, is angry. Not just angry, but pissed off. He's been operating for twenty years and still can't see how he's ever going to rest. He's sneaky and confident that he'll eventually win any fight he's involved in. His motivation is the fact that the destruction of Metropolis by Superman's fight with Zod affected him in a personal way. He's so pissed off that he kills people without thinking. In this film he personally kills dozens of bad men, which in his mind I guess makes him better than Superman in MoS. It all comes to a head when the man Bruce saves is influenced by Alexander Luthor to do something terrible.

As for Luthor, this is the son not the father who put the Lex in LexCorp. He's obviously insane from the start, obsessed with Superman. I have an idea that he might not actually be a Luthor but could be one of the New Gods from Apokolips but I'll save that for later. He certainly acts like a couple of them.

Anyway, Luthor's plans to gain access to Zod's body and access to the Kryptonian ship that crashed in the city telegraphs the appearance of Doomsday in the climax. His acquisition of Kryptonite cements the obvious plot but ti doesn't really matter. We all knew what was going to happen. Just as we knew that the story is built on events from The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman and that it was going to setup a Justice League film too. So there's a lot to accomplish but in the end the film didn't feel overlong.

I want to point out the soundtrack. Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL have written and performed perhaps the strangest-sounding superhero soundtrack ever. Well, so far. We'll see if Doctor Strange is as weird as I would want it to be. I digress.

The music is a mash of the themes from Christopher Nolan's Batman and Man of Steel. But there's a new weirdness to it, especially with the addition of Wonder Woman's theme. Powerful drums tell us the beat of her warrior's heart, the violin and guitar over the top of that emphasize her shrewdness and cunning. It's the most interesting theme of the Trinity. And its placement in the film, during her first appearance in costume (after she's beguiled Bruce Wayne when he's stealing information from Luthor) is perfect. It amped up the action way past ten.

Which brings me Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. She's as fantastic as everyone is saying. Not just in costume but also as Diana Prince though she's never named until the point where she's going to join the fight. Probably by design, but if her function in man's world is ever really pointed out I didn't catch it. There's also a death early on in the film that doesn't have any emotional impact because we don't know it's Jimmy Olsen. I could swear we were told that for Man of Steel Jimmy was gender-swapped to Jenny but checking IMDB I don't see a last name on the character. I'm too lazy to go back and look for the reference so we'll have to let that one go for now.

My friend Steve pointed out that this film, and Man of Steel along with it, may be best viewed as a meditation on the feelings of powerlessness in America after 9/11.

This makes sense, especially from Batman's point of view in BvS. Bruce is fearful and pissed off and that has shaped him in ways that the murders of his parents couldn't have. He's still a good man but he's reactionary and his reactions are WAY over the top. To the point where he'd likely be unrecognizable to a lot of the movie-going population.

But it's plausible given the way Pa Kent was doubtful and afraid in MoS. In BvS we get a timeframe for these films as Bruce is about seven years old when his parents are murdered in 1981. (The Excalibur reference is heavy-handed one, too.) With Batman being visibly older than Superman here, with eighteen years more experience, that places Clark about 30 or so in 2013. Bruce has got to be well into his forties, I'd think.

That picture of a license plate above is the last year these were used in Kansas and started about 1989. We saw one on the back of the school bus in MoS. It's important for the placement in time, and the politics of that time, which shaped Bruce and made Pa Kent fearful. Pa had witnessed the Iranian hostage crisis though Bruce probably didn't know anything about it. That event likely shaped Pa's thoughts in MoS which continued to influence Clark well into BvS. Another point to consider is that Diana tells Bruce that the country can only honor him  [Superman] as a soldier.

Given how politics has shaped America in the last fifteen years, that sense of powerlessness really resonates here in BvS. Batman represents the American people who want to do something extreme, who misunderstand what's really happened. Batman misunderstands Superman's humanity until the revelation that their mothers share the same first name. (Which is just silly.)

The message, then, is that misunderstandings can be overcome. Yes the world is a grim place and there are events that terrify, but there's hope. DC is playing a long game here, going from dark to light, placing Batman squarely in the darkness, as a product of the darkness, and by the end of BvS there's hope again. And as we all know by now Superman won't be dead for very long.

I told you this was going to be a long post.

G. Gordon Godfrey from Legends.
Art by John Byrne.A while back, up above, I promised you some thoughts on Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg's performance may have been influenced by Heath Ledger's Joker but not executed nearly as well. Some of the asides, the digressions, the non sequiturs Luthor uses are bound to be clues to things to come. This Luthor is quite mad and that led me to some further questions:

Is it possible that Alexander Luthor, the son of the original Lex,  is not necessarily human? What if he's one of the New Gods? What if he's one of the New Gods from Apokolips?He could possibly be DeSaad, couldn't he? Sent to torture the heroes? He has impersonated people before and his hair, while not greasy, certainly recalled some images of DeSaad. Perhaps Darkseid put him on Earth without any memory of his godhood. It's not like Darkseid hasn't done things like that before.Or could he perhaps be Glorious Godfrey? Luthor is making an attempt to influence public opinion in more than a few ways: by framing Superman for murders in the Middle East, by using Keefe  as a weapon in the most literal fashion, by sending Superman to kill Batman.Or maybe he's another New God that I haven't considered. These were the two obvious ones given the comic book stories that have played parts in the development of the DC films. What do you think?Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is a big movie full of ideas and promise. It's not perfect but it's entertaining and that's all I wanted out of it. There's going to be more to unpack, I'm sure, because of everything it's trying to achieve. 
In the end, I'm happy with it and I like where I think it's going for the Justice League film. First, though, I'm seriously excited to see Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot stole every scene she was in and that's against Ben Affleck as a really great Batman. The biggest knock against this movie is that the filmmakers seem to not know what to do with Superman. He seems tentative, too tentative, to be the big blue boy scout from the comics. But that may be the larger story. I hope it is. I hope we get the Superman we all recognize from the comics in a couple of years. 
As much as it's fun to kick on Zack Snyder for some people, he's doing right by the characters and the stories. There's a rich, deep history to pull from and he's doing pretty well with it. Even though I don't care for Doomsday having heat vision it sort of makes sense for the world that's being built here.
Sort of.
But it doesn't diminish my enjoyment of the films. I found things to like about them. I more people did. The best superhero comics are also full of social commentary. These films are packed with it. At the start I said this was a large bucket of popcorn and a giant soda full of fun. That's true. But it's got layers to it that make it a better film than is obvious on the surface. Maybe it'll grow on viewers as it ages. I hope so.

A Moment of Truth

It's snowing on Easter here on the eastern edge of the west. This isn't unusual though the forecast is for 3" - 5" which IS unusual. I mention the weather every update here because it affects us more than maybe we ever want to acknowledge. And maybe we affect the weather more than we realize. That's something that I believe needs to be on all our minds.

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Last Sunday I got some unexpected and devastating news. The next day I got some great advice on how to deal with it. Yesterday I made the decision about how to proceed.

It's important to creative types to hear honest feedback. I have always asked for it. It matters to me because I want to be better at telling stories. I've tried songwriting, playing in bands, making comics by writing and drawing them and also by submitting to the big companies. I have been working at the writing of stories in comics and prose for over seventeen years. I thought that I was getting pretty good at this.

My feelings didn't matter though. An honest editor gave me some seriously disappointing notes that I will be forever grateful for. It was a hard reality check that felt an awful lot like a knife to the heart. Her intention wasn't that at all, she encouraged me to keep at it because the story wasn't bad at all just the execution. And not all of it but some big, big parts of it.

I've been working on The Cold Distance since November 2011, I'm deeply invested in the story. Deeply. I had plans for at least five novels to tell the story of Jugee & the Duchess, I've been talking here for the last few months about it and off and on over the last four and a half years.

So hearing that it wasn't anywhere near where it should be could have broken me. It did for a couple of days. I was so far down that first couple of days that I sent an email to two of my biggest cheerleaders and I got a response that resonated. There were options, one of which I'm still considering because I've put so much work into it. But the big thing was that it would be okay to move on, try something new.

That was the knife being pulled out of my chest. It took a couple more days to stitch myself up and bandage the wound but there are so many stories in my head (and notes on my hard drives) that it made sense to consider them. One story, one that has been percolating for fifteen years, popped up and did a Horshack until I paid attention to it.

Which brings me to my next steps. It's time to move on, work with new characters in new settings. So I'm putting The Cold Distance aside in favor of working hard on something new. Distance is not my masterpiece, that book is still marinating in my head. I had built it up in my head into something it's clearly not. I want to put out the best book I can, follow all the steps that need to be followed and live up to my own advice. The Cold Distance is not that book and it may never be.

So it might be worthwhile to share what there is here as an object lesson for others and as a reminder to me that all that work has taught me something that needs to be applied elsewhere.

We'll see.

All my gratitude to Rhonda and to Kevin for their honesty and integrity and their expressions of support. Moving forward on a new project is exciting. I hope you'll follow the journey.

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I'll have a short story coming out later this spring and hopefully the final Evolver book will drop sooner than later. I'm working on the second Agent of DANGER installment too. Stay tuned for details as I get them.

Also I will be at Planet Comicon in May where I'll have the aforementioned Evolver and Agent of DANGER books. You'll also be able to commission a Velocity Story from me, which is a quick micro fiction on a con-exclusive card. I hope to see you all there. Ask me how the new book is going too.

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We're watching the first season of BOSCH on Amazon this week. My wife and I are fans of Titus Welliver from his days on Deadwood and every so often we chuckle and have to say "Fuckin' ADAMS" which seems to add to our enjoyment.

The first season has one hell of a good villain, though, and the characters are great. There's a lot of good dialogue that moves things forward. Subplots abound and it's all engrossing. I've never read the books so I can't speak to how accurate it is, but we're really digging this show. Good thing season 2 is  already available.

I wandered into Elite Comics this week looking for interesting science fiction comics. William, the owner, turned me on to a great title by Jeff LeMire and Dustin Ngyuen called Descender. It's a tale of robots and humanity and invasions. The art reminds me strongly of the best of Jon J. Muth and Enki Bilal and I heartily recommend you check it out if you like science fiction. I'll be buying the next volume and the collected editions as they come out.

Keeping it short this week. I hope you all have a wonderful coming week and that whatever your passion you find people who will help you enjoy it the most.

Process Bits

Welcome to the eastern edge of the west. It's been unseasonably warm here, to the point that we have really had no winter whatsoever. It bodes much ill for a hot summer and large, swarmy bugs. You're worried about the Zika virus? Maybe you should worry more that you can wear shorts and flip-flops for weeks in Kansas in February.

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Sometimes you're not ready. You think you are, your friends tell you are, but the reality is something else that's not been built up in your fevered imagination.

It happens to everyone.

There are gatekeepers in every venue, creative or not. These gatekeepers are meant to keep a certain standard. Sometimes one agrees with the standard and when the gatekeeper tells you you're not ready it can hurt. A deep wound that cuts to the bone, maybe even into the bone, but it's a wound that can heal if one allows it to. Those gatekeepers are not always the true arbiters of 'taste' such as it is but some can certainly put on airs.

When I've run into gatekeepers I always treat them with respect. They may not be willing to let me in right then but some day there may be a time when I could. And it's always nicer when you're remembered for good things than something not so nice. So I shake the gatekeeper's hand, acknowledge their authority and try to learn from the experience. While I may not agree with the gatekeeper's assessment it's best to not fight it. There are other ways, after all, to circumvent them and gain entry into a less exclusive club.

To be clear, editors fall into that gatekeeper role and authors are on the outside. Again to be clear, an editor is not trying to keep you out but rather making an effort to maintain the standard. If that standard is honesty and integrity, then I'm all for it. If it's something else, then that's another story.

Don't be hard on the gatekeepers unless you're absolutely sure they're the only way in. If there's a way around and your aesthetic doesn't match theirs but it matches those already inside, then find another way.

Clear as mud, I'll bet. But all life is interpretation.

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Marvel's THE CHAMPIONS was one of my favorite comics when I was a kid. It's the unlikeliest, even for Marvel, super-team ever: Hercules, Black Widow, Angel, Iceman and Ghost Rider? In L.A.? Ultimately that's why it didn't work, because it wasn't set in the rest of the Marvel Universe in 1975. Even we here on the plains thought it was weird.

But I liked it a lot. I liked the dynamic of the team and these heroes didn't have a regular mag. It was a LOT of fun and lived too short a life. The modern title that reminded me so much of The Champions was Warren Ellis' and Stuart Immonen's NEXTWAVE Agents of H.A.T.E. I was reminded of that this week so you get to go scuttling off in search of both. You'll be rewarded with excellent reads and terrific art.

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The perfect martini is dirty and made with vodka. Here's a recipe:

One part olive juice. (We like Merzetta's martini olives in vermouth. If I'm having a martini out I'll get blue cheese stuffed olives.)
Two parts dry vermouth (we use Noilly Prat)
Four parts Ketel One vodka

Combine the above in a shaker with two standard ice cubes. Put the lid on and shake until the sound of the ice cubes is greatly lessened or gone.

Put three olives on a skewer in your martini glass(es)

Pour your martini over the olives and enjoy.

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I'm reading Philip Jose Farmer's A FEAST UNKNOWN because I never could find a copy of it when I was a kid. Also I reread John Byrne's run on Fantastic Four, and Matt Wagner's MAGE The Hero Discovered. Are these three titles related? Maybe. Alan Moore certainly seems to have take Farmer's ideas to heart and maybe Byrne and Wagner have both integrated certain elements at different times. I don't know, I'm no scholar.

But I've enjoyed the hell out of all of them.

(And yes, I'm more than aware that Warren Ellis borrowed liberally from Farmer for a lot of Planetary, which is one of my top five all time favorite comics.)

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Finally I watched/binged on Marvel's Daredevil season 2 this weekend. Without spoiling it for anyone who wants to take their time with it, it's very good. Here's what I said on Twiter:

#DaredevilSeason2 isn't perfect. It's great in so many ways that it seems nitpicky to examine it closely, but it should be evaluated fairly.— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 20, 2016

It balances taut action with overlong speeches. Characters grow quickly compared to last season and aren't cyphers. #DaredevilSeason2— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 20, 2016

And there isn't really a wasted episode. All of them matter in the end and there are great surprises along the way. #DaredevilSeason2— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 20, 2016

There will be talk of fight scenes and the end was sort of a letdown but overall it was excellent live action comics. #DaredevilSeason2— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 20, 2016

So there you have it: if you liked S1, then you'll likely take to liking #DaredevilSeason2. I'm looking forward to #LukeCage next.— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) March 20, 2016

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Keeping it a bit short this week. I hope you've had a good weekend and the coming week has interesting things in store for you. For me, I'm ready for the new beginning that's Monday. Lots on the horizon folks.

Lots more to come.

Rejuvenated

It's the end of February here on the eastern edge of the West and it was 70F yesterday and nearly as warm today. The tulips are pushing up and there's certainly a vibe of Spring in the air. But damn, it's WRONG. It's supposed to be winter here. What the hell is summer going to be? Get ready, there's a lot of swearing here. Fair warning.

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Not the cover.In November 2011 I started writing a book for NaNoWriMo. It was a space opera/heist tale with quantum computers and aliens and a young orphan who chooses a life of adventure and crime. For those who don't know, NaNo is a directive to write 50,000 words in 30 days. There are local support groups and a national forum to help the writer out. I attended local write ins, ran word sprints with my friends. At the end of November I won NaNo by having written a bit over 60,000 words. By the middle of December I'd written over 90,000 and the story was complete.

Fast forward through 2012 and 2013 into 2014. I'd been revising and editing and revising and editing and I sent the book to a couple of publishers and agents. Of course the agents didn't want to read it because I'd poisoned the well by sending it to science fiction publishers. One house requested the full manuscript and took six months to write back that they liked it but they didn't know what to do with it.

A nice rejection, to be sure, and motivating. I decided to self-publish. That meant another round of beta readers.

By this time I've lost count of how many revisions I've gone through at this point but readers will tell me what has to happen to make the book better. And I need to know if I'm really going to do this.

Last spring, one of my volunteers is an independent editor and she gave me potentially devastating feedback. I didn't have a novel, after all. A little over three years of working the story to make it better and make it better and getting a requested full manuscript from a major SF publisher what I had was an outline for THREE novels. 108,000 words of outline!

Also not the cover.This, my dear friends, was a revelation. It could have destroyed me, sent me spinning into a black hole of 'what the fuck have I been doing all this time?' It could have broken my will to get this book into your hands.

Instead I read through her notes and saw exactly what she saw. I knew exactly where to start the book, I knew now where the serious flaws in my (lack of) worldbuilding. I knew what had to be done.

So I started revising again. It was both easier and more difficult than I imagined. I knew where to start so I had to figure out the ending. Since I knew the one book was going to be a series (there are solid outlines/treatments for at least four more books) I could spend some time foreshadowing. And worldbuilding. And character expansion. I had a couple more folks read it in December when I engaged the time of another independent editor.

Today I sent my final revision of The Cold Distance to my editor. I've never worked with her but a friend who has says I will definitely benefit from the experience. Which is exactly what I'm hoping for/paying for. We're working in two stages: first will be developmental edits and then line edits after I revise the developmental stuff.

Still not the cover.This is the process that authors working for publishers go through. I'm excited and trepidatious at the same time. Will it be good enough? Will it come back marked with so much red I'll wonder if all the blood, sweat and tears I put into are leaking off the page?

It doesn't matter. The book will be better after I read the edit notes. Right now I'm really happy with it. If there's a lot of red there I'll learn from it. I'll do more and do better on the next one. But I want to give you readers (and potential readers) the best damn book I can make. That's one reason why it's taking so long. Another is The Fear.

You know what I mean.

But I'm ready. The book is ready. I can't wait to get it in your hands this summer.

So once I've accomplished the fixes of the developmental stage, I send it back for line edits. Then I get those back, make the fixes, read through it again and then I enlist the help of several friends who've graciously volunteered to help with a Proof Party. This is going to be the most professional product I can put in your hands.

The cover will be revealed in May. I'll put up a preview here (the first three or four chapters) about the same time. I'll be at Planet Comicon at the end of May with those to show off and a new Evolver book. The final one, at least for now. But this summer is about The Cold Distance. The launch party will be at Kansas City Comic Con where actual, physical copies of the book will be for you to purchase. I'm looking forward to it.

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If you've ever told someone to 'die' on social media, you're a bully. And a bastard. Stop it. No matter how much you dislike someone or disagree with them, you're a dick for wishing them dead. Death should be reserved for one's most dangerous enemies. There are few people in the world who might actually wish you harm so it won't cost you anything to be nicer. If you can't do that, maybe foregoing comments in the first place is better.

Spend your energy on what you believe in rather than tearing someone you've never met down.

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Stay tuned for an announcement about a story of mine in an upcoming anthology. There'll be a Kickstarter where you can get your own copy of the book.

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The poor treatment of convention guests is something that has to be addressed in all circles. No matter the convention, no matter what is being celebrated, there has to be a policy against harassment. It has to be enforced. If you're running a convention, you're running a business. An anti-harassment policy is good human resources planning and you have to follow through with it.

Too many shows are coming under scrutiny for bad behavior that doesn't get addressed. There are many, many more issues that the public never hears about. (Trust me on this one. I'm barely a blip on any con's radar and I've heard things that will break your soul.) I can only imagine the stuff I don't hear about.

For you, the average attendee at any convention here are some rules to help you:


Don't be a dick.Report bad behavior.Help others do the same.Have fun at your shows, behave accordingly and recognize when someone calls you out on your bullshit. that you're probably having fun at someone else's expense. See the above item about being a bully.
For the owners of the cons, do your best. Hire enough staff to deal with everything that could come up. The bigger the show, the more staff you need. Actual, paid staff who are trained and can manage volunteers. There's going to be less and less tolerance of shows that don't do their homework and take care of business. 
This is not an indictment of any one show, by the way. Merely an observation.
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Let's end on a positive note, shall we? Last weekend I attended the inaugural Empower Comic Con in Topeka, Kansas. I had a great time, enjoyed the panel I was on and the other I saw. I will definitely be returning next year, maybe as a vendor, hopefully as a guest. 
I got to see several friends and talk with John Holloway of the Worst Comic Podcast Ever and then listened this week to his panel from Empower with Lindsay Wagner who some of you might recognize as having been in The Bionic Woman. He's obviously a fan of hers (as most straight men of a certain age likely are) and the questions are great. 
John's a terrific, professional interviewer. You should spend the hour and listen to the whole thing here. And check out the WCPE. 
That's all for this week. Be good to one another.  Because baseball's spring training is on and hey, the Royals are set to make another run toward the postseason. As long as they're competitive and leave it all on the field like they have the last two years, this fan will be more than satisfied. 

The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to the eastern edge of the west. If you believe in climate change or global warming, that shimmer in your rearview isn't just the sun on the blacktop. It's the curtain that separates our plane of existence from the ones on either side of us.

So this week came the announcement that gravitational waves had been detected. Albert Einstein was RIGHT. Can any of us really say we're surprised? The man had some kind of insight into the way the Universe works that no one else has ever been able to come close to. There are a couple of names from science and physics that the general public are familiar with: Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson. But none of those men have done the same Great Work that Einstein did. It's possible they may yet but it would defy precedent if they did.

Still, GRAVITATIONAL WAVES. That's the thing that's produced by two black holes colliding. The stuff of science fiction, isn't it? It means the world, the Universe is as weird and wild as any novelist or TV or Film writer imagined. It's all possible now. It means that there is a unifying theory of Everything out there and those standing on the shoulders of giants in respectful awe are going to find the things that will excite and probably terrify us.

It means that we are even smaller than we think we are. And for Americans that's really, really frightening. We won't be the the center of everything sooner or later. That's why some are predicting the end times and some are pushing for missions to Mars. What more should we be doing?

Caring for our fellows, of all faiths and persuasions is the big one. If there's a larger Universe out there and there are possibilities for us to expand into it, we'd damn well better get our collective shit together. We are only as good as the least of us. We should not be found wanting if we were to be judged as we have judged so many.

Rod Serling got it right. So many times he got it right.

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I'm continuing to revise The Cold Distance before it goes to my editor. It's a blast as I'm adding things like sense descriptions and scenery. I tweeted over the weekend that I'm finally seeing the book on the page that I've seen in my head over the last four years.

I've been told not to do too much to it before I send it off but I can't help it. I'm making it better and better. I know I am. I'm so proud of this book.

And yet, it's a little like cleaning the house before the maid comes to clean.

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I can't wait to tell you the special bits concerning the release of the book but I have to. There are pieces that aren't quite done yet and it's up to me to ensure that everything's in place. If there's a downside to self-publishing it's that I have to manage everything.

For some authors that means really, really pushing hard on social media. Four, sometimes five times a day (or more!) they're ending out messages that are essentially 'read my book!'with links to their Amazon home page and clips of the oftentimes really bad cover.  I'm hoping I don't have to resort to that. I'll be appearing several places in and around my home area to launch the book with the big party being at Kansas City Comic Con in August. If you want to find me before then, good luck. There are only a few appearances on the books.

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Here are some stories I can easily endorse:

Scott Snyder's and Jock's WYTCHES from Image Comics. God, it's so fraught with horror in the first volume.

Nnedi Okorafor's BOOK OF PHOENIX. Talk about a vision of the future that is from a very different point of view than what I'm used to. It's also, ALSO, terribly plausible. Read it. Open your mind.

Cullen Bunn's DEADPOOL books. 'Nuff said.

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Finally, I don't really care about the Grammys in general. I used to, back when I was playing music. Now, though, it's gotten so obviously incestuous that I can't be bothered with them.
Besides, they ignored Failure's The Heart Is A Monster totally. Didn't even make it into the alternative category. Sigh. Once again a band I like and who is at the height of their powers is ignored by the Recording Academy and its voters. 
Bah.
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So I mentioned I would be appearing a few places here and there and yon later this year. I've started a list in case you're curious. This coming weekend I'll be at Empower Comic Con in Topeka on Saturday only. That is if things are confirmed as I expect them to be.
And that's all for this week. I hope you get to enjoy some intemperate weather this coming week. It should scare the hell out of you, though, that we'll be hitting 70 degrees in February in Kansas.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Welcome and hello to the eastern edge of the west. If you squint you can glimpse the plains of the fantastic in the shimmer on the horizon. Thanks for stopping by to read a ramble.

2015 was a damn good year for science fiction. We got a new Mad Max film, we got a new Star Wars film, Failure made a new record. Warren Ellis gave us Trees and Injection. Syfy (rebranded once again!) dropped Childhood's End and The Expanse on our TVs. And THAT my friends, is just scratching the surface.

Seemingly, genre is cool again.

Who's to blame for that?

Maybe it's the nerds who support the endless run of superhero movies at the metroplexes. Maybe it's the crop of executives coming up in the studios who remember when science fiction was cool among a smaller set, who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy and films like Outland and Heavy Metal and TV shows like the Hulk on CBS. Maybe they remember reading about Marvel's plans from the 70s for a Silver Surfer movie, a Spider-Man movie. Maybe it's writers who decided that Superman The Movie and Tim Burton's Batman could've benefitted from slightly better scripts.

Or maybe it's that technology advanced enough that George Lucas decided to make his creatively underachieving prequels. More likely it's the influence of Marvel once again over-saturating the market with big FX-driven, testosterone-laden fight fantasies. It's the other aspects that allow for more story, more development of new characters.

And those characters are played by women. I disdain the 'strong female character' label in favor of 'strong character' but either one works.  In 2015 we got three great characters in science fiction films: Imperator Furiosa, Rey the scavenger and Captain Melissa Lewis.

If you haven't seen Ridley Scott's The Martian, there are spoilers from here on. You've been warned.

Lots and lots has been written about both Furiosa and Rey and maybe there's something written about Captain Lewis that I haven't stumbled across. Maybe it's because she's a supporting character in The Martian that she's been overlooked, but she shouldn't be. Without Captain Lewis, Mark Watney does not make it off Mars alive. Let me emphasize that: Captain Lewis is directly responsible for Watney getting off Mars.

She does not feel guilty for leaving Watney behind when the storm hits, her decision is the right one for everyone else. It's not her fault Watney got hit, either. When she learns he's still alive on Mars she's determined to go back and get him but she wants input from her crew. She's loyal, not guilty. Big difference there. Watney survives on his wits, his education and his disdain of her choice in music.

But because The Martian isn't her story, we don't learn much about her other than she's an excellent leader and her taste in music runs to 1970s disco. In my mind that doesn't make her any less a strong character than Furiosa or Rey, just not as fleshed out. Her will to rescue him is strong and maybe it influences the crew but I doubt it took that much for them to want to go back and rescue their companion. They were all willing to pay the cost.

And Lewis sets everything up exactly the way a leader is supposed to: with each crew member contributing. When the plan goes cockeyed, she takes over; she is the one who goes out to grab Watney. She puts herself at risk not because she feels guilty, but because she's responsible. She's loyal. She's a commander and she's the one who takes the risk. She's the one who grabs him so they can be reeled back in.

She's brilliant in the short time she's allowed to shine.

Everyone could grow up to be like her. Girls could use this supporting character in a very entertaining film to decide that a career as an astronaut might be cool. Guess what? NASA's next class of astronauts is 50% female. And they may be heading to Mars sooner than later.

That's fucking cool. (As an aside, they'd better get equal pay to the men. Make sure that happens, NASA.)

At comic conventions last year I saw an awful lot of Furiosa cosplay. There'll be more this year and Rey will figure MUCH more heavily in the mix, too, because there are more women and girls coming to comicons to cosplay. Will I see more Agent Carters? Probably. Will there be any Captain Lewises? I doubt it. Maybe, but probably not. I hope so, though. She deserves to be cosplayed as much as the other two (well, three including Peggy Carter) because she's as badass as the others. She just didn't get the publicity.

Watch The Martian. Pay attention to the last half, close attention and tell me that Lewis is not a badass. I dare you. Lewis is the reason Watney gets to go home.

This year we're going to see Wonder Woman on the big screen for the first time. Next year, she gets her own movie. That's cool. It's about time. There will be a Captain Marvel film with Carol Danvers as the main character. I would love to see Jessica Chastain in the role. There should be a Black Widow movie. There should be toys of all these characters, especially Rey. The controversy over the deliberate exclusion of Rey action figures and toys is reprehensible. Don't let it happen again.

So with Lewis in mind, and NASA making an effort, will we see an uptick in girls and women working in the field that could define the human race for centuries to come? Your guess is as good as mine. I'm too old and too stupid to be an astronaut. Someone needs to get out there and do cool things. Gentlemen, open your minds and set aside your prejudices. There are women who will kick ass when you give them the chance.

The world doesn't have to rest on your shoulders to do great things. But when it does, I'm hoping you've got strong, capable people around you. If their names are Imperator Furiosa, Rey or Melissa Lewis, you're in good hands.

Laughter Around the Room

It's too warm here on the eastern edge of the west. Too warm for January. Too warm for our own good. It sounds weird to say "where's Winter?" when it's 40*-50*F but - where the hell is Winter?

You know how there are scenes in movies and TV shows where someone says something serious, really serious, and the rest of the characters all start laughing? Or when the villain chuckles and all his henchmen laugh along with him? Sure, you've seen those bits. You know what I'm talking about.

No one's laughed yet after I announced my publishing plan last week. Now I'm more than a little nervous. If no one's laughing, am I on the right path? Are my friends too polite to laugh? Or are they laughing into their hands behind my back?  I guess it's possible that they just didn't notice. What I've heard from the few who've said something is good luck. I hope that means it's a decent plan.

Of course the writer wants to know if all is well, wants the reassurance that the work is good. It's the paranoid part of us. Of me, anyway. Damn it, it's all circular. All I can do is my best. I'm going through the book again and yeah, it's the best I can make it until I get notes back from my editor. I suppose I'll be fretting about this until the book goes out to you all.

I promise, PROMISE not to tinker with it once it's out in the wild. I will not be like George Lucas.

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I'm currently reading Nnedi Okorafor's Book of Phoenix. From the first page it's engrossing and takes me out of my world into the rich story of Phoenix, a speciMen. She was grown two years ago and appears to be about forty. Fantastic start and rolls along at high speed. Worth your time.

I'm also researching food halls. And how millennials and Generation X get along for my day job. Because it's unlikely I will ever be a full-time writer. I mean, I hope and dream of that but one must maintain a home, transportation and be able to buy food to put on the table as well as keep insurance. I love all those things so my goal is to write one novel a year for the foreseeable future. And maybe a couple of short stories. It's possible it might go more the writer way than the day job but until then...

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Once upon a time I was an artist. I wanted to draw comics more than anything because of Neal Adams and Jim Aparo and John Byrne and Sal Buscema and John Buscema and so many, many more greats. I got to tell Neal Adams that once and I shook John Buscema's hand and thanked him for his comics. Back in the late 90s and early 00s I made comics for a spell. Drew quite a few pages and made progress but I quickly learned I was a better writer than I was an artist.

Anyway, I write that to mention that I've been doodling a lot lately. It helps me focus and may result in some decent ideas for things in the future. I may share a few of them over on my Instagram. Trying to take more pictures but it's not in my nature. Look for 'em over there rather than here if you're so inclined.

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Finally, I'll be appearing at Empower ComicCon on a couple of panels about writing and publishing, I think. I may wander the floor a bit to get a feel for the show.

We are a minority based Comic Con centrally located in Topeka Kansas  The Empower ComicCon, is what it exactly sounds like. We want to Empower you, to be you. It is strange to how something so simple, could be so difficult to implement. Here in Capital City with all our negative press we need to stand up and support each other, and Yes it is that simple! 
Ours in a place to love not judge....

So I'm excited to be involved. I'm going in with my eyes and mind open to a wonderful experience. As things get firmed up I'll post here. In the meantime when someone starts laughing at something someone else said, will you laugh along?

Thanks for reading. Glad you're here.

Details and a Promise

The novel is finally ready to go. It's the first of a series. There's certainly enough material for five or six books but it all depends on how it plays out. I know the middle, I know the end, it's a matter of getting there. But what's The Cold Distance about?

It's the story of Dee, the rebellious ward of a powerful politician who decides to escape the fate she sees coming for her. She apprentices herself to an inscrutable alien and his partner, a quantum-based artificial intelligence. Out in the galaxy, Dee enjoys a life of danger and adventure traveling between worlds but must come to terms with all she's done.

The Cold Distance, will be available across all electronic platforms including Kindle, iBooks, Kobo and Nook as well as paperback in July 2016. It's a space opera, science fiction.

So, details. Here are some details:

That's not the cover up there. That's just for the announcement. I expect to be able to reveal the cover at the end of May. I'll tell you more about the artist as that gets closer. Those who stop by my Artists Alley table at Planet Comicon will get to see it before it goes out on the web. I've hired an independent, professional editor for the book. It ain't cheap, but it's absolutely worth it. I'll get it back from her at the end of March, I think. Follow me on Twitter for how that's going on a day to day basis. Fewer updates will show up on Facebook.There are other hands involved in getting this book out to you: a professional designer and a dab hand at formatting will help out.The title comes from a song. You can probably guess which one.A gang of beta readers have given me feedback, one of whom is an editor herself. This story has changed and grown, been cut and built through multiple drafts into what it is now with their help. I owe them a debt I can never repay.The book started out as a NaNoWriMo work in 2011. It's taken a long, long time to take what was a good outline generated during NaNo and turn it into a real novel. You've heard the stories of people writing a 'novel', slapping a cover on it and 'throwing' it up for sale. That's definitely not the case here. This book is the best I can make it. It's 1000% better than the zero draft.Which leads me to my promise to you, my potential reader.
I am giving you the best possible, most professional novel I can at this time. I am working with people who know what they're doing. It's my book, but it's not just me putting it together for you. I won't give you a half-assed, rushed out piece of dreck. I promise you're getting a professional-level product, or as close as I can get. Anything I ask you to pay for will be at that level. 
All this comes from my history of playing in bands and self-publishing comics. All my experience in those arenas, and the moderate successes of them, is informing this. The Cold Distance is the best thing I've ever created. I want it out in the world in the best way. 
I want you to have it. 
Stay tuned.

A Post-Bowie World

This is where the attempted clever opening would go, where I would welcome you to the eastern edge of the west.

It seems superfluous to do that today. Despite the somber tone so far, this is more about happy things than not. Let's explore.

David Bowie died last week. As has been much ballyhooed all over the Internet and throughout the various media, he was a creative inspiration, a genius musician and wonderful artist. He challenged himself to be as good as he could be. He made it all right for the geeks and the weirdos to be geeks and weirdos. If he was only ever remembered for his theatricality and the characters he created he would be a giant. But he pushed boundaries and expectations. Constantly. He made music that reflected the times he composed it in. He was part of a band (Tin Machine) that deserved much wider recognition. He influenced fashion and commented on fame and celebrity in ways that connected with everyone. He was an actor who gave us memorable performances.

For me, I grew up with the hits on rock radio. He blew up with the advent of MTV and hit my generation with the Let's Dance album and its Serious Moonlight tour. The first album I bought of his was Never Let Me Down. I saw the tour, Glass Spider, with Peter Frampton on guitar (a 70s classic rock staple) and Toni Basil (an 80s one hit wonder) running the choreography. Not my first concert by a long stretch but the one that showed me the power of art in music. Go look it up and watch the videos. Then think about the time it landed. It was a Broadway production, a video in real life.

I thought about it all the way home. I kept the program from the show for decades and passed it on to someone I knew would appreciate it when I decluttered some a while back.

Several years later he toured Sound+Vision, claiming that it would be the last tour where he'd guarantee he'd play all his big hits. I went with my best friend and my girlfriend and heard all the songs he didn't play during Glass Spider. Adrian Belew opened with his band and then came back to play guitar for the main show. It was pure magic that ended with more energy than the rest of the show combined.

His death hasn't hit me as hard as some other celebrity deaths (John Lennon and Robin Williams) but it's no less a void in my entertainment and inspiration. The Sound+Vision show and his comments later that he wouldn't have the hits to rely on in building future shows made me think about how I approached my own art on subconscious levels. Over the course of the next decades he would float up and down in my inspiration stream. His collaboration with Trent Reznor is notable in that he reached yet another generation by challenging himself to be different and/or better.

Which is as much his legacy as his music.

Now we have to turn and face the strange without Mr. Bowie. Those of us who grew up with his music as it was released - whether from the beginning, the middle or the end - are fortunate to have been on the same planet as him. Most of us never met him but we know a part of him.

And that's something to be grateful for.

What's Next - Maybe

I'm refining my outlook on my writing this year after finishing a great as-yet unpublished book last night. It was fascinating and inspiring— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Something that I heard a Famous Writer say in October was that the future of Science Fiction lay in more response writing. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Taking that to mean that when a piece of SF blows me away, I should look for the nuggets that were so affecting. Mine them. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Then take those nuggets and put them into a new story, expand substantive differences, explore alternate possibilities #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Create a conversation, in essence, even if no one is listening at the moment. Famous Writer was emphatic on that point. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Which doesn't mean be unoriginal. Writing those responses are opportunities to work are kind of like musicians doing cover songs. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

Except that in writing, one can't be quite so derivative or even obvious. So write in the same key, maybe, with different beat. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

So that's a future and a tactic I can get behind. At least today after a cup and a half of coffee. Let's see what happens. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

So that's a future and a tactic I can get behind. At least today after a cup and a half of coffee. Let's see what happens. #amwriting— Jason Arnett (@ajasont) January 5, 2016

I'm still trying to figure out the literary equivalents of chord structure, key, time signature. This will be my year to explore those things here and there.