Assorted Things

Originally published March 17, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1374

Assorted things…

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Catherine Zeta-Jones announced that, when she marries Michael Douglas, she would be changing her name to Catherine Zeta-Douglas. What a crying shame that she didn’t hook up with a guy whose last name is Beam. Then she could be Catherine Zeta-Beam, giving endless amusement to Adam Strange fans everywhere.

For those who actually keep track of my adventures on stage, I am currently in a “day rep” production of 1776, performing the character of Richard Henry Lee. It’s a great gig: I show up in scene two, sing the best song in the show, and by the end of scene three (halfway through the show) I go off to become the governor of Virginia and am not seen again for the rest of the show. So basically after an hour I can take off and get back to work if I’m particularly busy.

Day rep means that it’s specifically designed for school groups. That can prove to be an extremely treacherous endeavor, particularly when one gets to dicey subject matter. As we did last year, for instance, we’ve had to trim out all profanity. Understand, there’s nothing stronger than “hell” or “damn” in the script, but all those had to go. During one performance an entire group was actually escorted out by the teachers during the reading of one dispatch from “General Washington” which described “whoring, drinking and naked bathing in the Raritan River” as common pastimes for the disorganized and rambunctious Continental Army.

And yet it’s nice to know that, when it comes down to the important stuff, the kids pay attention. At the end of every performance there’s a question and answer session with the schools (ages ranging from fifth grade up to about tenth.) Sometimes I hang out for it, depending on my mood and workload that day.

And at the end of one of our very earliest performances, a kid raised his hand and queried, “Why did America fight the Revolution?” Understand: The whole show is about that. Such problems as Britain stifling trade, burning the towns, spilling blood, applying crippling taxes, abolishing rights… all these and more are mentioned specifically. Went right past him. The temptation was to tell the kid that we were going to make him stay so that we could perform the entire show again, just for him, and this time he’d have to pay attention.

One wonders how teachers ever manage to get kids to learn anything at all. I mean, my God, how many times does something have to be said, how carefully does it have to be spelled out, just to get them to retain anything?

My seventh grade English teacher used to complain about that all the time. She had something really unique and pithy to say about it. Not that I remember, of course.

I’m kidding. Actually, my seventh grade English teacher only said one memorable thing to me in the entirety of that class. I did a story as a creative writing assignment about a guy being haunted, and at one point I wrote, “The grim specter floated across the room toward him.”

And she circled the word and took a point off for it. I asked why. She said, “You shouldn’t be using words you don’t know.” Peter the comic book fan said, “It’s just another word for ‘ghost.’ ” She blinked and, even as I realized she didn’t actually know what the word meant, she said briskly, “A seventh grader shouldn’t be using such complicated words.”

God, I loved public school.

I actually had better luck when I was in high school. In eleventh grade, in English class (different teacher, luckily) the teacher made a passing reference to the work of John Milton, specifically Paradise Lost. She commented, “There’s the famous words of Lucifer as he was banished from Paradise… ‘Better to reign in Hell…’” Then she hesitated, suddenly unsure, and she said, “Wait… is that right…?”

From the back of the room, I piped up, “Yes, that’s right.” This drew a laugh from my classmates, who figured I was just being a smart aleck. The laughter immediately ceased as I calmly supplied the entire quote: “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.” Dead silence. The teacher beamed and said, “Thank you, Peter!” The kids, all of whom now thought that I read Milton in my leisure time, were most impressed. I wasn’t about to cop to the fact that I’d gotten it from the Star Trek episode “Space Seed.”

Boy, did I wind up off track.

In any event, my next theatrical endeavor—for those who live in the area of Commack, Long Island—will be in a community theater production of Man of La Mancha at the Commack YMHA in May. I’ve been cast as Sancho, the squire of Don Quixote, described in the script as “short, rotund, suspicious and pragmatic.” Yes, that’s right: I’m playing myself. I was thinking of holding out for the role of Aldonza, the kitchen slut, but I figured I was kind of a long shot for that. Maybe next time.

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Folks are asking what my summer convention schedule is like. At this point I’m only confirmed at two spring/summer conventions: The Pittsburgh Comic Con at the end of April, where Dark Horse is flying me out to promote Spyboy, and Dragon*Con in July. I keep threatening my girlfriend, Kathleen the warrior princess, that I’m going to arrange for us to get married at Dragon*Con as part of the programming.

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Interesting attention that comics have been getting on TV lately. On Malcolm in the Middle, you know that one kid is exceedingly bright because he collects Image Comics (including Youngblood #1, spoken of in hushed and reverent tones.) Meantime in a very special Elseworlds edition of Friends, Chandler is pursing and achieving a goal of writing for Archie Comics. On the other hand, there was one recent series that had comic book fans being synonymous with lovers of porn. So it’s two steps forward, one back.

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Tamper with the affections of my loved ones and your own peril.

My sister was going with a guy who dumped her. So I had a horrible fate befall him in one of my Star Trek novels, a death so gruesome that Paramount had to order it be toned down.

Well, my middle daughter, Gwen, just got her heart broken. So she came to me and said, “Daddy… could you have something really horrible happen in a comic book to a guy with the same name as my ex-boyfriend?” I smiled and said, “Sure, honey.” And something truly horrible will indeed happen to someone with the same name as her ex-boyfriend… because Gwen wants it that way. If you can’t be vindictive for your kids, who can you be vindictive for?

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I haven’t issued a reader challenge in a while, so here goes: I am inspired by the recent TV series, So You Want to Marry a Millionaire? I am turning over to you, the gentle reads of BID, the question: “So You Want to Marry a Super-being?” I’m even gonna let you be specific. Tell us which superhero, superheroine, supervillain or supervillainess, you’d like to marry and why. Unlike the TV series, I can’t promise an actual marriage… unless someone wants to marry Captain Marvel, Supergirl or one of the members of Soulsearchers and Company, in which case I’ll see what I can do.

Oh, and ladies (and, for that matter, guys to whom it would apply) let’s not bother to say that you want to marry Mr. Fantastic OR Elongated Man OR Plastic Man for the obvious reason, okay?

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