Tyler Weaver's Blog, page 70

What’s He Building?

The last time I posted anything that could resemble that cringe-worthy word “blog,” it was during one of the most difficult times of my life. I had just lost my second grandmother in seven weeks, and I was desperate to use words to push myself through the experience. I ended up using the words I wrote as the basis for a eulogy I delivered at her memorial service in April (on what would have been my grandparents’ 63rd wedding anniversary).

But after that, I’ve gone largely silent in regards to the goings-on in my life (in this space), both creative and personal. So, here’s a coagulation of life-goings-on:

• April was a difficult month, but it did push me into thinking of a follow-up to ComicStoryworld.

• Also in April, I published a short story, June, that I wasn’t sure about publishing. It turned out just fine, and I’m quite proud of the work. It’s based on a story that my grandfather told me, one that always makes him tear up.

• On May 18th–after a trip to the zoo and seeing mechanical dinosaurs–I asked Katie to marry me. She said yes and she’s wearing my grandmother’s 50th anniversary ring.

• Shortly after that, I sent a ten-page table of contents for the proposed ComicStoryworld follow-up. Lots of proposals going on.

• And now? I’ve spent the last month working on what may be a novel. And what may be another novel. And a piece of narrative non-fiction that is pushing me so far outside my comfort zone that the only way out is through. And I’ve got that feeling in my gut that the final result will be something special.

That’s all I’ve got for you. I’m just doing what I love to do, and that’s all I’m going to do.

If you’d like to keep up with what I’m working on, follow me on my Tumblr, Penny a Word, or consider signing up for The Spinner Rack newsletter… and no, we haven’t set a date. Between now and then.

 

ComicStoryworld Interview – League of Ordinary Gentlemen

In April of 2011, I went to my first Boston Comic Con. It was at Hynes Convention Center, right around the corner from my old apartment, so it was a bit of a homecoming; a breakfast of eggs benedict and Guinness at Charlie’s, a lunch at Chili Duck.  My first evening at the Con, I went to McGreevy’s (another former haunt, the perfect beer stop midpoint between Berklee and my apartment) to attend the League of Ordinary Gentlemen podcast Comic Con Party. I ended up meeting Matt Dursin, one of the eponymous Gentlemen, and we decided that I should go on their podcast at some point.

That some point ended up being Memorial Day of 2013, and the conversation was well worth the wait. I had a blast catching up with Matt, meeting (or re-meeting) Clay and Josh and discussing my work, both in the non-fiction and fictional realms (as I say in the interview, my non-fiction work supports my fiction habit). In the space of an hour, we covered everything from Comics for Film, Games and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld to Whiz!Bam!Pow! to the massive debacle that is DC’s New 52 to my attempts to sell my DVD of Frank Miller’s The Spirit at a garage sale. We also chatted about our love of old school comics and the dire straits (in spite of spawning billion-dollar franchises) in which the comics industry currently finds itself.

So if you’ve got a free hour, hop on over to the League’s website, and have a listen. And be sure to check out their other podcasts – the Gentlemen do some fantastic work.

League of Ordinary Gentlemen Podcast Episode 153 – An Interview with Tyler Weaver

Stories I Love – A Collection

The vast majority of my (public) output these past few months has been in the form of a series entitled “Stories I Love.”

To qualify for that monicker, a story must speak to me in ways that inspire my own work and make me look at things a little differently. In short, they inspire me to do better. Here’s the collection as it stands, with the newest edition penned on May 26, on Horror of Dracula.

Stories I Love: HORROR OF DRACULA 

Stories I Love: DEUS EX 

Stories I Love: THE RITE (RIOT) OF SPRING

Stories I Love: THE THIRD MAN

Stay tuned as I’ll be adding more to this collection. And for a deeper peek at things I love or things that fascinate, be sure to follow my Tumblr blog, Penny a Word.

June (A Short Story)

  

I tremble.
My bones creak and I pull myself up from the porch, splintered wood releasing itself from my paws but I won’t whimper. The Biteys follow me to my guard duty. The Round-Leg Metal Dog clicks and clacks and turns off. It floats over the road when it walks. Its Master holds the leash inside it. Its Master doesn’t even have to chain it to a post. SitStayGoodDog until it’s time to go for a walk.
I snarl.
I used to go for walks inside them, inside other Round-Leg Metal Dogs, but not for a long time. Not since MyFriend left. Not since JuneShake. Not since the old smells grew taller and brought new smells with them and my eyes clouded over and I couldn’t see but I could smell everything like I used to when I would protect them. They don’t need my protection but I still smell everything: the air from Round-Leg Metal Dog, the brown spit on the ground, last night’s rancid scraps, the bees nesting and buzzing in my chewed-out ball, the crust around my bowl, the rust hole that makes my water spill onto the porch, the smell of my own blood from the Biteys maybe I’ll name them like MyMaster named me: sometimes GoodJune. Sometimes DammitJune. Sit Stay. Fuckoff. No shake. Not anymore. I like to shake. I miss to shake. GoodJune.
The new face, the Round-Leg’s Master. That old thing still kicking? he says. He laughs and spits. He puts out his fleshpaw. I growl. I’m still kicking. He keeps reaching. I snap. He slaps. Stupid old dog. I grab his fleshpaw with my teeth, the droplet of chew spit that missed and dirt, the shale and ham and flesh and bone and blood. MyMaster yells, JesusFuckingChristJune. He hits me again. I let go. DammitJune. I whimper. I lay back down. I see MyMaster walking with him and they disappear into the cloud.
I used to see as far as the world is wide before the cloud, all the way to the end of the road and back.
• • •
They say I’m cross.
The blue turns black and the night smells come out. The bad ones howl and whine and circle the house and the sheep. I sit. I stay. The Biteys swarm and bite and the splinters splinter each time I roll over into my own little slice of comfort. I keep myself warm against the cold metal of my chain of my tether. When I roll it clinks and clacks and I hear it bend. Snap. Someday snap.
MyMaster opens the screen door and stumbles out. He holds himself up with the wood and metal stick. DammitJuneDammitJune. You make me do this. You make me I just. He points the metal stick at my face and puts the wood up to his eyes. He hides behind it. I look up, up at the dark metal stick, up at his trembling fleshpaws and at the water from his eyes. Ohforfuckssake he says. He puts the metal stick down. Onemorechance he says. He pats me on the head with his wet fleshpaw.
GoodJune. Onemorechance. GoodnightJune.
• • •
LoudChicken hoots and hollers to tell all of us that it’s time to get up but I know that already. MyMaster shuffles by, throwing the straps of his overalls over his shoulders and grumbling and he pats me on the head and I pull and he says DammitJune not another one don’t break another one spent more money on chains for you than on the chickens that hoot and holler. They were good chickens.
A Round-Leg Metal Dog pulls into the driveway. I pull and pull and tug and the splinters dig into each pad but I will pull and be useful I will be protecting and GoodJune. Onemorechance. I pull and pull and tug and tug and even the Biteys get out of my way and today snap.
I run and run and I run past MyMaster DammitJune and past his fleshpaw with the overall strap holding on by a thread and to the gate. I jump and hit my belly against the cold metal and my claws scrape and make a bad noise and flake rust to the ground and into my hair against the Biteys that fly with me like a raincloud that makes me bleed. Scrape scrape scramble scamper. But I won’t whimper not June DammitJune.
The Round-Leg Metal Dog breathes and its Master crawls out. I will protect MyMaster. I will show how useful I am. I will protect him. Onemorechance. I bare my teeth, even the hole where the one is missing and the other was glued back on. I still taste the glue. It was a treat. It gummed up my throat and I licked and licked and they laughed and laughed stupid old dog but now I will protect and show MyMaster I am useful I snarl Onemorechance and MyFriend says JuneShake and I stop.
JuneShake.
I shake.

June – A Short Story

A cross dog’s last chance.

ComicStoryworld – Contrary Evidence: An Interview with Carol Tilley

In 1954, Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist and advocate for underprivileged children, published Seduction of the Innocent, a book which would go on to decimate the comics industry of the 1950s, leading the legendary (and sadly, recently passed) artist Carmine Infantino to remark, “The work dried up, and you had nowhere to go. You couldn’t say you were a comics artist, and you had nothing to put in your portfolio. If you said you drew comic books, it was like saying you were a child molester.”

In the sixty years since Seduction‘s publication, Wertham’s findings have been considered dubious and deceptive (at best). In 2010, his personal papers were finally released and Carol Tilley, Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana, discovered hard evidence of Wertham’s deceptions. Tilley’s resultant article, Seducing the Innocent: Frederic Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics, was published in the November 4, 2012 issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History.

Professor Tilley was kind enough to chat with me at ComicStoryworld. Here’s an excerpt of our interview:

While best known as the man who nearly killed comics, Wertham was also an advocate for underprivileged children, with Seduction of the Innocent being a rallying cry of overprotectiveness. With the fabrications you uncovered in your research, and your access to his personal papers, did you come across anything that spoke to a view on the part of Wertham that “the ends justify the means?”  Did Wertham truly believe that he was acting in the best interest of those whose stories he over-simplified (at best) or manipulated (at worst) to fit his thesis?  

Wertham was genuinely motivated to help people who he believed were vulnerable, whether those folks were young comics readers or children attending segregated schools or patients in psychiatric wards. Yet in his work on children and comics, he seemed early on to have gotten blinded by his dislike of and anger toward comics publishers and others who profited from the industry. As I wrote in my paper, Wertham “gave readers a clear indication that rhetoric must trump evidence: commenting about a colleague, Wertham wrote [Seduction, p. 351], “Neutrality—especially when hidden under the cloak of scientific objectivity—that is the devil’s ally” [Tilley, “Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications that Helped Condemn Comics,Information & Culture: A Journal of History 47 (4, November 2012)].

You can read the entire interview, Contrary Evidence – An Interview with Carol Tilley at ComicStoryworld. 

Mystery Illusion Theatre #1 – The Chimes of Baoding

Delia and Odette have a great thing going: Delia does the magic, Odette grabs the wallets. But when they grift the wrong person, Delia must face her fear of touch to save Odette from a madman’s sadistic game.

The Chimes of Baoding is the first installment in Mystery Illusion Theatre, my new series of stories featuring heroes, villains, ne’er-do-wells and ruffians forced into trees and dodging the rocks I sling at them with unrepentant malice.

With each installment written in two weeks, Mystery Illusion Theatre harkens back to the penny-a-word heyday of “The Pulps,” where thrills were the lifeblood of newsstands and writing was a full-contact bloodsport.

The Chimes of Baoding is available on Kindle for $1.99… or, you could sign up for The Spinner Rack and get it for free.

Kick-ass cover art supplied by Blair J. Campbell.

Dig deeper into the experiment with my new post on the writing of the project, Behind the Chimes of Baoding, on my Penny a Word blog.

Mystery Illusion Theatre #1 – The Countdown

I announced it in the first issue of The Spinner Rack last week, but the countdown starts now:

 

And just what is Mystery Illusion Theatre? It’s my new pulp playground and the first installment launches March 24.

Mystery isn’t a storyworld, nor is it a transmedia story experience. It’s my workshop, the after-hours place I go to unwind and play, to tinker and explore, my prose answer to Tom Waits’ question, “what’s he building in there?”  It’s an experimental hole-in-the-wall storytelling speakeasy where I push myself to tell the most thrilling stories I can devise in two weeks.

That’s right. Two weeks. And I’m sticking to it. Whatever story comes out in…

… comes  out. 

What story you may ask? I don’t know yet. That’s what I have two weeks to figure out, from concept to completion to release. But I can tell you it will be badass, a thrill-a-minute distillation of genre fiction into something new and different.

“The Pulps” weren’t a genre. They were a medium and a means of distribution, a pairing of the technological abilities of the time with the craziest stories written under staggering pressure for low rates (sometimes less than a penny a word, the namesake of my blog), and designed to be newsstand impulse buys that competed for attention via the most insane covers imaginable.  They were written fast and read fast and thrown out. Writing them was a full-contact survival sport between finger and keyboard.

Something about that appeals to me.

I want to write stories that can be written and read with the same speed, using the characters and genres that populated the Pulps – heroes, crime stories, private detectives, femmes fatale, horror, sci-fi and any number of others – to craft something different. Mystery Illusion Theatre is an experimental workshop where I get to play and unleash the results of my experiments on you, the now-suspecting unsuspecting populace.

One thing to keep in mind: there won’t be a regular schedule for these stories. They’ll be released when I feel like it, but always within that two week period from concept to completion to release.

On March 24, the result of the next two weeks will go out to Spinner Rack subscribers and this page will be replaced with a five-page preview of the first story. You can sign up for The Spinner Rack and get the story for free, or you can wait a week until March 31,when the first Mystery Illusion Theatre story goes live on my Amazon author page for $1.99 (a cost close to, adjusted for inflation, the original 10 cent cover price of the 20s and 30s).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a story to write.

New ComicStoryworld Interview @ Confessions of an Aca-Fan

Henry Jenkins is the Provost’s Professor of Communication of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California and the former Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. He is also the author of the seminal Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, and the co-author of the recently-released Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. 

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to interview Henry about fans, fandom, and his love of comics for my book. Last week, he was gracious enough to interview me about continuity, the decline of comics readership, accessibility, why superheroes are perfect matches for transmedia experiences, and my thoughts on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This interview appeared in two parts, on February 25 and February 27. Here is an excerpt from Part One:

On the Importance of Serialization to the Evolution of Comics

Seriality plus Elasticity (or, Evolutionary Ability of a Character) plus Craft equals Longevity.

Spider-Man just celebrated his 50th birthday. Batman? Going strong at 74. Superman? 75.  Superman alone has been published regularly for nearly 900 months, usually more than once a month in a variety of books (in the 1990s, he was up to five solo books including the quarterly Man of Tomorrow). When something is published for that long on a regular basis, the confines of reality and human lifespan make it inevitable that the original creator won’t be with the character all those years. Again, there are exceptions, such as Will Eisner and The Spirit, though I would argue that The Spirit is more known for the craft and innovations Eisner brought to the medium through that character than the character himself.

But, in most cases – such as Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man – this is where the elasticity of a character – the evolutionary ability of that character – comes into play. Each creative team can build upon, pay homage to, deviate, stretch, and bring their own vision to the character because of the serialized nature of American comics and the reality of reality.

Continue reading What Transmedia Producers Should Know About Comics: An Interview with Tyler Weaver (Part One) at Confessions of an Aca-Fan.

In part two, we discussed the concept of absorptive audiences, fan-policed continuity, and the Marvel Method:

On Fan-Policed Continuity

As for what transmedia storytellers can learn about fan-policed continuity? Embrace it. Make it part of the experience. The Marvel Universe of the 1960s is the single best effort at a shared universe put to paper. The Marvel Universe was the superheroes yes, but it was more than that. It was a family that contained the fans and foragers of the second generation of comics fans. And Lee, Kirby, and the Marvel Bullpen, while they took the work seriously, never took themselves seriously – at least outwardly. Look at the brilliant No-Prize (in its early incarnation) for example. An empty envelope for spotting a continuity error. Simple, cheeky, but effective. Most importantly? Fun and engaging.

Continue reading What Transmedia Producers Should Know About Comics: An Interview with Tyler Weaver (Part Two) at Confessions of an Aca-Fan.

I have also posted the extended version of my interview with Henry from the pages of Comics for Film, Games and Animation at the book’s companion website, ComicStoryworld. Here’s an excerpt:

Henry Jenkins on what keeps him coming back to comics:

Comics is the most compelling of contemporary media because it’s trying so much new stuff just to survive. It’s always on the cusp of collapsing on itself. It’s also the quickest “response medium” in terms of any development in the culture. We could see in comics’  response to 9/11 prototypes for the way the rest of the media were going to respond. But the comics were on the scene — literally in the case of 9/11; they weren’t very far from the World Trade Center, DC and Marvel in particular. They also had quicker turnarounds and there was an interesting moment where the lines between “independent” or “alternative” comics and mainstream comics just completely collapsed. We’ve seen such interesting work coming out there since then. But it’s just part of a larger process of just being the “testing grounds” for ideas about genre, world-building, backstory, seriality that are very much driving the entertainment industry right now. So I see it as my “early warning system” for everything else that I look at.

Continue reading Henry Jenkins – Extended ComicStoryworld Interview at ComicStoryworld. 

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Whiz!Bam!Pow! Book Two – Frank

Whiz!Bam!Pow! is back!

Book Two continues and deepens the tale begun in A Linen Forcefield and Book One – Ollie by going backwards. Set on the night that The Sentinel died, Book Two follows Frank, a caricature artist determined to reunite with his family. But his bitterness overtakes him, sparking off events that will change the lives of four people forever.

Whiz!Bam!Pow! Book Two – Frank is also available on Kindle devices for .99.