Month: June 2002

Now the courts are noticing that the separation of church and state in this country is a joke? NOW? It took THIS LONG?

I’m sorry, it just seems silly to go after the Pledge of Allegiance. I mean, who are we fooling? “In God We Trust” appears on everything from the money to the walls of courtrooms. People pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them God. Government offices are closed on Christmas (although not, I believe, the Jewish high holidays. I *think* you can take them off if you’re Jewish, but the offices remain open, thereby indicating that some Gods are More Equal than others.)

I’ve been saying for years that lip service is paid to separation of Church and state, but it’s a little late in the game to start trying to expunge mentions of God from everyday life. It’s simply too ingrained. I feel sorry for Atheists, I suppose, but if Jews can deal with the entire country celebrating the birth of a savior we don’t believe in every year, Atheists can cope with “under God.”

PAD

Well, *that* was like running a marathon.

Just got off the phone with Bill Jemas, Joe Quesada and a dozen or so comics journalists. That Marvel holds the press conferences on Wednesday is unfortunate since that’s new comics day, so any journalist who’s also a retailer has problems attending, but hey, what can ya do?

I have no idea how it went, personally. I said everything that occurred to me, which probably meant I talked waaaay too much, but I figured the more I said, the more the journalists had to choose from in terms of picking quotes. Unless I put them to sleep.

Bill and Joe endeavored to push me into “putting up” something, some sort of public display, if CM doesn’t outsell the others. Nah. The McFarlane debate cured me of that kind of stunt. Nowadays, the more someone tries to push me into something, the more I dig in my heels and say “Unh unh.” It also broke me up that at one point Bill was dissing Marvel business practices of the 1980s while boasting of Marvel’s graphic novel success in bookstores…kind of ignoring the fact that book store penetration and Marvel’s entire graphic novel program were *from* the 1980s. Go figure.

Here’s the thing I’ll always wonder about, and which no one asked: Why is it that if a reader has problems understanding a story, it’s the writer’s fault? But if a retailer doesn’t understand Marvel’s reorder policies, then the retailer’s IQ is called into question?

PAD

Another two hundred of the Captain Marvel script samples went out this morning. By Thursday the last of them will be off. So if you haven’t gotten yours by next week (unless you’re out of the country; I’m doing those last) then either yours went astray in the mail, was eaten by the post office (several were and I only got the pitiful, tattered remains) or you forgot to include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

For those who are interested in what’s available of mine in the stores right now, last week saw the arrival of the latest “Haunted” one-shot, “Gray Matters,” and the latest “Supergirl” and “Captain Marvel.” This week you should be able to find (presuming they ship when they’re supposed to) a brand new Spyboy one-shot focusing on Bombshell, and also the Hulk graphic novel “The Last Titan,” a.k.a. simply “The End,” adapting a HULK short story of mine with gorgeous artwork by Dale Keown. Furthermore, both KNIGHT LIFE and the paperback edition of SIR APROPOS OF NOTHING are in finer bookstores everywhere.

PAD

All right, the initial mailings are on their way. I’ve signed, folded and stuffed into envelopes about 200 of the Captain Marvel scripts, and they’re in the postal system. More will be done each day and go out until we got every one of the suckers shipped away.

I’ve been impressed by so many things in going through the mailings. There’s the letters with heartfelt appreciation for the book. There’s the letters from people who take pains to point out every single thing I’ve ever written that they hated, and they’ll probably hate this too, but it’s free. There’s the folks for whom the phrase “Self addressed stamped envelope” was too much to process, and they just sent a letter requesting a script with no means of mailing it back to them. Then there’s the letters mangled beyond recognition by the post office, enclosed in little plastic seals with the words, “Sorry for the inconvenience” stmaped on the outside.

Plus there’s the exciting discovery that the return letters are JUST on the right side of being overweight. Thank God I got the script down to four pages. Even so, if another post office’s scales disagrees with the Bayport scales, people are gonna be getting these things postage due. But there’s nothing I can do about it now.

And just to make things in my life even more exciting, I’ve been asked to be a part of the Marvel Press conference this Wednesday. I’m supposed to be in on a phone conference with the fan press and explain why people should buy “Captain Marvel.” I dunno; I kind of suck trying to sell my own work. I can find all the sales reasons to buy *other* people’s titles, but never mine.

Anyone who’s got any good ideas as to what to say when asked, “Why should people buy this book?” aside from “Because it’s really good,” I’m more than happy to hear them.

PAD

We’re doing some minor surgery around here over the next few days, tweaking a few things to try and improve the readability of the site, etc. One of the most obvious is the comments section, which now reads oldest to newest instead of vice versa. We know about the error messages/HTML that shows up when you post comments; we’re working on fixing it.

And hopefully, we’ll begin posting the BID archives before the Fourth of July.