PeterDavid.net

So what am I working on? Well, I just turned in the final draft of the “THE HULK” novelization. Best fan-related comment about the movie was whoever said, “Don’t make me Ang Lee. You wouldn’t like me when I’m Ang Lee.” I cannot *believe* I didn’t think of that. I should turn in my rogue punster card.

I recently turned in the script for SUPERGIRL #79, in which (presuming the sequence is approved) Linda gets married. And I’m working on the script for CAPTAIN MARVEL #7, operating on the cheerful assumption that there will actually *be* a CAPTAIN MARVEL #7. Walt Simonson did the cover. When I found out it was Walt’s first Marvel work in a decade, I said, “Put Thor on the cover. Thor fighting Captain Marvel. How many opportunities for a Simonson Thor on a cover of my comic will I have?” Now all that remains is to write a story to stick on the end of the cover. Very early DC in my thinking, I know, but c’mon…you’d do the same.

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“Angel” continues with a strong follow-up to its season opener, and the two Cordy closes are almost as fascinating as this season’s first two Buffy Kill-A-Slayer openings (and hey, did anyone else know that was Sarah Michelle herself playing her short-lived soul sisters? No wonder their movements were evocative of Slayers. They were both her.)

However, an open question regarding “Angel” is bopping around here at Casa David. Lightning Lass literally jumpstarted Angel’s heart last night, sending them into a passionate embrace (thereby establishing once and for all that the heart is the source of love, rather than the brain or…elsewhere.) But we’re unclear as to whether it was temporary or not. Is Angel’s heart still beating?

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Kathleen and I went to see “The Producers” last night. Never had the opportunity to see it with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick; on the other hand, I’ve seen both of them on stage, so I have some idea of what it would have been like.

Quite simply, a lot of fun. The most “old fashioned” Broadway musical that wasn’t a revival to come along in many a day. I found some of the changes a bit surprising (the character of L.S.D. is MIA) but ultimately beneficial to the piece as a whole. Brad Oscar was swell as Bialystock, and Cady Hoffman as Ulla is like a pair of gorgeous legs with a woman attached. Steven Weber as Bloom is more problematic. He seems very comfortable during any song and dance sequence, but his Bloom is little more than a collection of odd twitches and tics that come across like a combination of Martin Short’s “Ed Grimly” and Jerry Lewis. There’s a fine line between bizarre characters and caricatures, and Weber crosses that line. It’s odd, because he’s a good actor; he just doesn’t quite seem to know what to do to breathe life into Bloom.

Very tuneful songs; you’ll come out humming “I want to be a Producer.” And there’s a little end song that could be stuck on the end of just about any future musicals Brooks cares to produce.

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Well, I went to the store signing. Eight people.

Eight *enthusiastic* people, mind you, including some net denizens (among them Matt who had to assure me he’s not a stalker since he keeps showing up at functions I’m attending.) And John Ordover, my editor on the Trek novels and “Apropos” came all the way in from Brooklyn. Everyone was attentive and interested and enjoyed the reading and, unlike the last time I did a book signing, no one came by to proclaim loudly that everything I write sucks, so that was a plus.

But the store clerks said in disappointment, “Gee, y’know, so many people expressed interest, we really hoped for a much larger crowd.” It wasn’t said to be hurtful; it was, however, typical. I hear it all the time and I’m just tired of letting store owners down. Bottom line, I don’t draw in the hundreds of fans at bookstores that other authors do. Fans of mine go to conventions. There I get huge lines. And on very rare occasions, in comic book stores (although preferably if I have an artist next to me.) Other than that, no. And it’s a lot of effort for very minimal practical return. So that’s that for store signings. My conscience is clear on that score.

And in answer to the one person who asked: Well, I didn’t bowl so hot, but I’m trying some new stuff with my delivery, so I was expecting my average to take a hit. However, I rolled well enough to beat my opponent two out of three games and win my overall match point, so that helped.

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…because apparently the recording heads on my VCR needed cleaning and I didn’t realize it. So when I came home from my bowling league and kicked back with the tape my loving wife made for me, I got regular snow on the screen every five seconds. It was like trying to watch it through a blizzard. Tracking adjustments didn’t help and switching decks didn’t help; it was in the tape. I tried to push past it, but after three minutes I couldn’t take it anymore because it was just so damned distracting.

So I’m interested in what you all thought of it, but me…I got nothin’.

PAD

For folks in the New York/Long Island area, I will be doing a store appearance tomorrow, Thursday, at Borders Books in Syosset, 425 Jericho Turnpike. It’s scheduled to start at 7:30 PM. I’m supposed to be doing a reading, a brief talk, answer questions, and sign stuff.

I don’t generally do a lot of book store appearances. Usually it consists of me sitting at a table while wary customers either keep their distance or come up to me and ask me where the self-help books are. I find that funny for some reason. Needing help to find the self-help books. It’s like needing to look in a dictionary to figure out how to spell a word, but you can’t find it because you don’t know how to spell it. The last time I did a book store appearance (it might even have been at this Borders), it was pouring rain and four people showed up.

At any rate, I’m planning to cut way back on store appearances in the future…like, to none, except where contractually obligated. So if you’re interested in getting books signed, now’s the time.

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Folks are dropping me congratulating e-mails about the fact that CAPTAIN MARVEL continues to lead the other two titles in the “U-Decide” contest. I appreciate the thoughts…but I think the forest is not being seen for the trees that died to print the books.

CM #1 was the best reviewed, best received title of the three in September. Fan response was, “Well, of course, what did you expect, Peter David is the best writer, yadda yadda.” But that issue (granted three covers, but still) sold around 54,000. Issue #2? Around 33,000. Twenty thousand copy drop off right there. As opposed to “Ultimate Adventures” which sold a “paltry” 35,000 in September but around 29,000 in October. Not remotely as drastic a drop.

And just for fun, let’s compare CM #2 to books outside of “U-Decide.” Remember “The Hulk,” the series fans shouted they would never read again because I’d been shoved out the door? Mid 50′s. Issue #2 of CM guest stars the Punisher, and that month’s issue of “The Punisher” is in the mid 40′s. So in relation to the Hulk it’s not selling, and in relation to the Punisher it’s not selling.

Gotta say, folks…not liking this trend. Because I want to introduce a notion here: Bill Jemas said that whichever book sells the most of the three will continue beyond issue #6. He didn’t say how long, though, did he.

I inadvertently set this thing into motion because I felt the book wasn’t getting enough PR, and I wanted to keep the price down. Well, the price was knocked down to $2.25, and it got PR out the whazoo. And the reception to the book has been wildly positive. Now it’s entirely possible that sales will promptly rebound in response to that reception and we settle in around the mid-40s. But let’s say for a moment that they don’t. Let’s say that in the end we wind up with exactly the same number of copies being sold that we had when we started. If that’s the case, Bill Jemas can turn around and say, “It’s obvious that fans simply aren’t interested in supporting an ongoing CAPTAIN MARVEL title, even at $2.25 and with lots of publicity. Apparently Peter David can’t write stories that excite people the way other writers do.” Or he could even be “generous” and say, “Obviously people aren’t interested in reading about CAPTAIN MARVEL no matter how well it’s written.” And he cancels the title as of issue #7, having done everything he said he would and still proven his point.

So, y’know…food for thought amidst the congratulatory feasts.

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So there was board overseer Glenn Hauman, chortling to a group of cyberfriends (including myself) about the big in-joke on “Angel” regarding “Corner of the sky.” At one point, a Wolfram and Hart partner states that this (W&H) is his little corner of the sky. Glenn found this hilarious. The rest of us stared through cyberspace at each other and didn’t get it, and Glenn didn’t elaborate.

Took me almost a whole day. Dang. I felt like Toby on “West Wing” bouncing the ball off the wall.

“Corner of the Sky” is a song from the musical “Pippin.” John Rubinstein played the character on “Angel” who made the comment. John Rubinstein originated the title role of “Pippin” on Broadway and sang that song.

Double dang. I’m losing my edge.

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I know that executives can run their businesses any way they want as long as they stay within confines of the law. I have no problem with that.

So it’s very simple, really: A law must be passed that forbids Fox from handling science fiction series. Lobby your congressmen. Write your senators. This whole Iraq business must take second chair to the far more pressing problem of Fox’s inability to broadcast, handle or support SF.

This is nothing new. It goes all the way back to their first SF series, “Alien Nation.” Innovative, brilliantly handled, transcending the patchy film on which it was based…and prematurely cut down by–if memory serves–the same TV exec who fingered the original “Star Trek” for cancellation when he was at NBC. Then there’s “Futurama,” a show pre-empted so routinely that there’s enough unshown episodes stockpiled for an entire season…most of which will likely be pre-empted if history is any judge. They could start releasing it on DVD and likely have all the episodes into the marketplace before they’ve ever aired.

Now there’s “Firefly.” Two whole episodes aired (the second of which I thought was quite good), and suddenly double-preempted: First out of its Friday slot by the baseball playoffs, and then stared twenty minutes late on Sunday (frustrating anyone who set their VCR for 4 to 5) because of football. Yes, I understand that football is more popular with Fox viewers than SF. But the consistent targeting of SF as sacrificial gridiron or diamond lamb is bordering on the pathological. Or they simply give it no time to build its audience whatsoever. Even tangentally related shows, such as “The Tick,” get short shrift. “Hey, let’s take this quirky, different kind of series and put it up against Must See TV. That’ll work!”

I now comprehend why Chris Carter steadfastly maintained that “X-Files” wasn’t SF when it so obviously was. He knew the moment it was labeled as such, Fox would say, “Oh my God…kill it. Slot it for Sunday at 1 AM. Pre-empt it until January. Do *something* to it.”

Am I the only one sick of execs who claim that a show never found its audience when the audience was never able to find the show?

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Spent the weekend up in Boston visiting with my two elder daughters, Shana and Gwen, who are both living there now. Saturday evening we saw “Spirited Away,” the brilliant Japanese import brought here through the courtesy of Disney (who, perhaps, has gotten fed up with people pointing out similarities between their feature films and various manga and anime, and has decided to go straight to the unvarnished source.)

The film centers around the endeavors of a young girl to free her parents, transformed into pigs, from the clutches of an evil witch who runs a bath house for wayward spirits. Its episodic nature causes the narrative to bog down for a while in the middle, but the strength of the sheer visualization means the film will be with you long after the latest Hollywood drek has been flushed away into the furthest recesses of your memory. We saw the dubbed version; the subtitled version was running a bit too late at night considering we had young Ariel with us, and besides, who wants to tear their eyes away from the staggering array of visuals in order to read the subtitles?

While in the area, we also stopped by New England Comics where Gwen, currently looking for work, filled out a job application. Under “special skills” she wrote, “Can talk Peter David into doing store signing.” Which is true enough, and considering I’m cutting waaaaay back on store signings, that’s no mean feat. So if I wind up signing comics at NEC, you’ll know why.

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Peter gets interviewed here. Man, he really doesn’t like tooting his own horn, does he?

The problem with the story of the hideous shooting spree in Maryland hitting around the same time as “Red Dragon” is that I read the news story and start looking at it with Hannibal Lecter analysis. Five shootings within a fourteen hour period. “Doesn’t that seem desperately random, Clarice?” echoes in my head.

And I find myself looking at the time involved. James D. Martin, shot in the parking lot of a grocery store at 6:04 PM, followed twelve hours later by four shootings between 7:41 am and 9:58 am in various random locations.

Why twelve hours? Why such a long wait?

There’s various explanations. An assortment of possibilities.

But me…if I’m the police…I’m treating it like one homicide. I’m focusing all my attention on the murder of Martin. Follow: Someone wants to kill him. I don’t know who, but it’s someone who knew Martin and tailed him from his government job when he left for the day. The shooter waited outside the grocery store when Martin went it to pick up some groceries. When Martin emerged, he shot him. He left the scene. He figures he got away with it. But then he starts to worry, to get nervous. He spends the whole night sleepless, convinced a trail will lead directly to him. So he gets an idea. First thing next morning, he drives around and shoots four innocent, unconnected people. Now it’s not a single murder. Now it’s a pattern. A deranged serial killer. Maybe even terrorism. Now his tracks are covered because the police aren’t looking for one murderer who had it out for James Martin. They’re looking for a random serial killer.

Desperately random.

Food for thought.

PAD

Well, now *this* is interesting. Mere hours after I express concern that Todd would glide past another one, a Wisconsin all-female jury stuck their collective foot out and tripped him up. Details can be found on icv2.com, but the bottom line is that the jury found in Neil Gaiman’s favor on all nine counts. Among other things, they affirmed Neil’s copyright interest in the characters he created (and you’d think that creator-loving Todd wouldn’t need a group of women in Wisconsin to tell him that, wouldn’t you), that Todd broke assorted contracts, and that Image had no right to use Gaiman’s name and bio without his permission in the Angela trade reprint (Hey! Instant collector’s item!)

The most amusing bit was McFarlane’s attorney stating that the verdict was a “nightmare” since it simultaneously held at Neil had copyright interest in Cagliostro and Spawn, but that there was also a contract in 1997 in which Neil had agreed to transfer the rights in exchange for Todd’s interest in Miracleman. Amazingly, the attorney didn’t seem to realize that both were true because his client had violated the 1997 agreement. It’s like saying, “How can you claim my client saw a stop sign AND broke a traffic law?” Obviously, because the client then ignored the stop sign.

Now…if Todd’s people have *any* brains at all, they settle. Fast. Before the penalty phase. Advantage to Neil? It puts an end to the inevitable appeals that McFarlane will try to run the case through. Advantage to Todd? It means he has some control over how much money he has to pay out. Juries can be weird. Remember how much money they demanded he pay Tony Twist, and that was in a case far more ludicrous than this one.

On the other hand, the creator of Spawn may count on being Todd McTeflon and figure he’ll win on appeal. At the very least, he can try to drag it out. And drag it out. And drag it out. Not every judge is the speed demon that Judge Shabaz is. But it seems to me (and I could be wrong) that if Image is found guilty of wrong doing, then the whole company is on the hook. Todd’s partners may be putting a metaphorical gun to Todd’s head at the moment and saying, “Make this go away, NOW, before you bankrupt the whole company.”

Am I happy about this?

God, no. I’m really, really not.

Law suits are grueling, ugly, time consuming, soul-killing affairs. I hate that Neil had to go through it. And I hate that Todd has such weakness of spirit that he gets himself into these things. What a waste of material. What a friggin’ waste.

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Ah, but to find out you’ll have to go here.

The Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane trial is currently under way in Wisconsin. Detailed coverage is being provided in such venues as comicon.com, http://www.newsarama.com, and http://www.icv2.com.

In short, McFarlane painted himself as the champion of creative rights, and was since revealed to be–predictably–the champion of his creative rights, but that’s pretty much it. Todd has made no secret of the pride he takes in burning bridges, and that apparently includes bridges constructed with the aid of (in this case) Neil Gaiman. Neil’s contributions to SPAWN not only gave Todd such characters as “Angela,” but it also gave him something even more important: Creative cred. The feeling in the comic industry was that if Neil was, metaphorically speaking, getting in bed with McFarlane, then McFarlane really had something to offer. Turns out he did: What he had to offer was further proof that power tends to corrupt.

Frankly, the current situation worries me. The jury consists of six people who know nothing about comics, McFarlane, Gaiman, or copyright law. I know that’s how our judicial system works, but really–would you want your next coronary bypass to be performed by half a dozen check out clerks at the local Shop ‘N Bag? Six strangers can’t understand that McFarlane lies. That he’s proud of lying. That he boasts about lying (saying he creates “ghost Todds” for interviews.) That he lied on the stand about Tony Twist…and got away with it. Not since John Gotti has anyone been so cloaked in teflon; it’s impressive and amazing to watch in a way. It’s like watching a factory fire…except the factory is magically holding up fine and the rest of the neighborhood is going up.

Neil is in the right and Todd is in the wrong. I’m worried, though, that a jury will be taken in by Todd McFarlane. Why wouldn’t they be? Neil Gaiman was.

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“Buffy” continues to go from strength to strength this season. I’ve already enjoyed the first two episodes about twice as much as the first ten episodes of the previous season (not counting the musical.) That final image of Spike on the cross will be seared (no pun intended) into the minds of all Buffy fans.

However…I find that I’m starting to have some confusion about Anya and the whole soul thing.

The rationale that the series has used for Buffy’s methodical extinction of demons is that they don’t have souls. Least that’s how I’ve always understood it. They’re not “real” life. Which means, by that criteria, that Buffy should be able to snap Anya’s neck and give it no thought whatsoever because she’s now a souless creature like the rest of them. Anya even said specifically that she was once a magic user who was transformed into a demon, giving us to believe she has mortal roots.

So here’s the thing: When Anya first lost her demonic abilities/status in season 3, does that mean she reacquired *her* soul? If so, why wasn’t she as tortured as Angel and Spike are. She certainly inflicted enough torment. Instead she never seem perturbed by it at all; indeed, she looked back upon her demon days with nostalgia. So does that mean that she actually *never* had a soul even when she was human? In that case, what the hell *was* she? And certainly Xander’s actions become even more understandable. We know demons can love; Dru even said it. “We can love quite well.” But without a soul, there’s no spiritual core to the relationship. Xander would have sensed on some level that the marriage was doomed, because Anya wasn’t truly human. She was just this…this thing in the shape of a human. But if she *does* have a soul, then that calls into question the entire notion of souless demons.

Joss? A little help?

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… I have to. Here’s a small shot of what the Teen Titans in the new series look like, and you can read all about it here.

You know one of the reasons it took me so long to get a website together? Because, believe it or not, I really, really don’t like blowing my own horn. I don’t like saying “I did this” or “I did that” because it seems boastful and bragging on some level.

I came to realize, however, that keeping one’s mouth shut in this day and age simply means that you get ignored. So I thought I’d supplement the recent announcement of the new Teen Titans animated series by mentioning that I helped get it sold in the first place.

Six months ago I was contacted by Paul Levitz at DC who asked if I’d be interested in working with development folks at Kids WB and Warners Animation on a Teen Titans animated series. Why me? Because although the concept was to go back to the Wolfman/Perez era of characters, they decided they wanted it to have the sensibilities of YOUNG JUSTICE (because, really, the characters from the Wolfman/Perez days were far more “Titans” than “Teens.”)

So I re-read as much of the Wolfman/Perez and Wolfman/whoever-else “Titans” that I could find, had meetings with various folks, and wrote a bible. I then did a couple of revises on the bible, got the okay to write the pilot, did so, and did a revise on that. I also wrote a stripped down summary of the series’ premise for a market research session they were going to be holding with some young viewers.

I hewed to DC continuity where I could, but also made a variety of changes for assorted reasons. I won’t go into detail as to what because I don’t *recall* signing a confidentiality agreement, but if I did and just forgot about it, I wouldn’t want to violate it. Anyway, my initial work on the project was strong enough to help get the series green lit.

Was I annoyed that no mention of my participation was made in the press release? Nah. I mean, it’s not as if I was singled out to be omitted; they didn’t mention other development folks either. I’m not listing them here simply because I’m not sure if they’d want their names bandied about, although I should note that one of whom gave me some absolutely kickin’ Samurai Jack action figures. Furthermore, I haven’t seen much of the project for a few months; I’ve no idea how much of what I contributed remains. For instance, I didn’t have them set in some future period as implied by the press release. That wasn’t part of the mandate I was given.

Bottom line, I got paid a nice buncha money for the work, and it also led to my involvement in developing another animated series for another DC hero…and no, I’m not going to say which one until we hear whether that’s a go or not. Although it’d be cool if it did go forward, since then I’d be two for two.

PAD