2002 Oscars & Wolverine: Blood Hungry

Originally published April 26, 2002, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1484

A couple of things…

Some assorted thoughts on the Oscars…

Was I the only one who thought that Nathan Lane was auditioning to be host of the Oscars next year with his two minute, slam dunk appearance? Better still, team him up with Woody Allen, who showed that after all this time he’s still got stand-up comic chops (“I’m sixty-six years old; a third of my life has gone by.”)

Second, as deserving as Denzel Washington and Halle Berry doubtless were, I keep finding myself wondering: How much of the voting was skewed or placed as a result of media emphasis on history being made if Washington and Berry won? I mean, here you had Sidney Poitier being honored that night as well. What would be more perfect, more appropriate, more timely? Oscar night is really nothing but massive self-congratulations, and Hollywood loves nothing more than “Hollywood” results.

We read enough interviews in which people (usually unnamed) commented that Russell Crowe’s personal behavior cost him votes. This is a hëll of an admission to make considering that ostensibly people are voting on an actor’s performance in a movie, not his performance in real life. But apparently it’s just a reality of Academy voting that outside influences have a sway upon how the results go. And if that’s the case… I wonder how many voters wanted to feel that they were a part of history. Or wanted to help make up for the frequent marginalizing of black actors and actresses in opportunities in general and the Oscars in specific. Or would have felt that if they had voted for someone else, it wouldn’t have been a vote for a particular performer so much as it would have been a vote against Washington or Berry.

We’ll never know, of course. It’s impossible to look into the hearts and minds of the Academy voters and determine what they thought.

Me, I kept waiting for Halle Berry to unzip the front of her face and turn out to be Barry Bostwick. But that was probably just me.

As annoyed as I was that animation is now ghettoized (what, Shrek wasn’t the best film of last year?) I have to say I adored the segments that showed the animated stars of Shrek, Monsters, Inc., and Jimmy Neutron waiting to hear the announcement. Sully’s restrained, polite applause (coupled with Mike’s very obvious grief) and a clearly annoyed Jimmy Neutron holding up a pair of automatically clapping hands was priceless. Obviously the animation teams must have done response pieces for both outcomes, and I wish some DVD release somewhere could have both of them included.

Did Robert Redford have some work done on his face? Normally I don’t give a dámņ about such things, but I’d always admired how he apparently defied Hollywood tradition by getting all wrinkly, and Oscar night he sure looked a lot smoother than I recall.

Ten year old Ariel fell asleep watching the show, and in the morning wanted to know what happened. I told her that Storm won, Magneto lost, and Wolverine, Spider-Man and Mary Jane all showed up to make presentations.

In the wildly unlikely event that I ever win an Oscar, and I have forty-five seconds to make my speech, it’s my intention to do it in thirty seconds flat and then say, “Okay, it seems I’ve some time left… I’ll open it up to questions. Gwyneth, I think you had your hand up…?”

* * *

The newly released (or re-released, I think) edition of “Blood Hungry,” was one of two collaborations I did with the incredibly talented Sam Kieth. The other was an issue of Incredible Hulk featuring the Hulk slugging it out atop a train with Mr. Hyde. Notable in that it was the first time I can recall seeing the Hulk with beard stubble, which gave him a remarkably resemblance to Fred Flintstone as I recall.

“Blood Hungry,” which set Wolverine against the villainous Cyber (a character subsequently ruined in later X-titles) was probably one of the most experimental things I ever wrote, and a large part of that derived from Sam’s interests. At the time that I was prepping the story, I had the bare bones of it in mind but there was still a lot of room in how I would actually develop it. And I asked Sam if there was anything he was particularly interested in drawing as part of the story.

“I’ve always wanted to draw one of those big Oscar Mayer Wiener hot dog trucks,” said Sam. “You know, the ones that look like giant hot dogs.”

I was utterly flummoxed. Remember, at the time Wolverine was having his adventures in Madripoor, the Terry-and-the-Pirates-esque city created by Chris Claremont. “A hot dog shaped truck? In Madripoor?” I asked.

“Yeah. Oh, and also I want to do one of those 1950s style restaurants with waitresses on roller skates.”

“In Madripoor?!?” I said again, thinking that perhaps my increased volume and incredulity would prompt Sam to realize that this was simply unworkable.

“Yeah,” he said cheerfully.

Terrific.

Now keep in mind that Twin Peaks was very much in vogue at the time that I was writing the series, which originally saw print in installments in Marvel Comics Presents. So I figured, Okay, let’s go totally surreal on this. Let’s do Wolverine if the story was being written and directed by David Lynch.

Also at the time, I was very much burning the candle on both ends, working in the Marvel sales department and writing in the evening. Several times I had actually fallen asleep while writing, and woken up in the morning to discover totally freeform thoughts sitting on the paper in my typewriter (yes, typewriter.) Most of the time they were incoherent, but what fascinated me was that I would remember how much it made sense to me at the time that I was writing it. So I decided that with “Blood Hungry” I would do a variation on sleep-deprived writing.

Whenever it came time to write a new installment, I would go to bed around 11 PM and set the alarm clock for three in the morning. I would then stagger out of bed, go straight to the typewriter with my mind still working to process the reality of wakefulness, and with only the vaguest of clues as to where I was going with it, I’d write the next installment. I’d then go back to bed and then, when I woke up again some hours later, I’d go back and edit the piece so that it would retain the dreamlike quality of sleep deprivation but also be at least somewhat coherent. Since I don’t drink and I don’t do drugs, it was the most effective way for me to obtain that surreal quality I wanted the story to have.

I haven’t read it in years. I’ve no idea if it holds up at all. It’s certainly unlike anything else I’ve produced before or since just because of the nutso way in which I wrote it. And at least Sam got to draw his 50s style restaurant and wiener truck. Gee. I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener. When I was a kid, I had a wiener whistle. You couldn’t do that anymore. You say to a parent, “I want to give your kid a wiener whistle,” next thing you know the police take you away. Ah, times change.

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