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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.

Things are kind of hectic as Gwen graduates high school today, my sister and her family are coming over, and the house looks like a bomb hit it, so we’re in the midst of getting the joint cleaned up.

However I thought I’d mention that the Captain Marvel scripts are all printed up, signed, and I’m in the process of folding them and stuffing the envelopes. My GOD is it slow going. But thanks to the US post office, the deadline of the end of the month has made getting them out an absolute financial imperative. I start bringing them to the Post Office as of Monday, and all of them will be out within the week.

PAD

Actually, in trying to anticipate horrible things Israel might do in retaliation as the bombings continue unabated (despite pleas from some Palestinian organizations to knock it the hell off), I’ve come up with something even worse than the notion of rounding up ten random Palestinians for every dead Israeli. One that doesn’t have the widespread carnage of the Chicago Way, but is even more lethal in its own manner. I call it “The Unforgiven Way.”

At one point in the film, Clint Eastwood warns citizens in a town who might take a shot at him, “Any of you sons of bitches takes a shot at me, I’ll kill you…and your wife, and all your children and family, and burn your damned house down.” It’s overkill (no pun intended) but he’s making his point quite well: Screw with him and your loved ones will suffer the consequences.

At the moment, families of suicide bombers are supposedly four-square behind their loved ones blowing themselves to bits. But suppose, just suppose, Ariel Sharon made the following declaration:

“Any bomber who blows himself up with the intention of killing Israelis…once we’ve identified his remains, we will kill his or her spouse…and children…and parents, and grandparents, and cousins and whatever extended family we can find. So be aware that in killing yourself, you’re killing everyone whom you’ve ever loved and who ever loved you.”

Just imagine the consequences. Just imagine the families, with their own lives suddenly on the line, turning in their more radical offspring in order to save their own necks.

Do I want to see innocent Palestinians die? No, of course not. Nor do I want to see innocent Israelis die, considering I have a number of relatives who are innocent Israelis. But sooner or later, someone in Israel is going to start thinking outside the box. The results will not be pretty.

PAD

Here’s a little challenge.

The sequel to “Knight Life” is tentatively titled “Dead of Knight.” It takes place some years after “Knight Life,” focusing on the presidency of King Arthur, how the threat of terrorists impacts upon it, and–just to keep it real–a search for the Holy Grail and a head-to-head conflict with an individual even more ancient than Arthur.

Now…my noble editor, Ginjer Buchanan, isn’t blown away by the title. She says it sounds like a vampire novel. So…any suggestions? Ideally with the word “Knight” in it?

PAD

You know…when I wrote that open letter to Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas in CBG, it was a desperation ploy that I figured had a 50/50 chance of getting me fired off “Captain Marvel.” I never in my wildest imaginings thought it would evolve/mutate into the current status. There’s an update in Newsarama over on Comicon.com.

I set out to accomplish two things: Keep the price down and get attention for the book. Both of those have been accomplished. I took some hits doing so, but hey, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. What amuses me most are the fans who seem to think that the success of CM in this three-way competition is somehow a given. I don’t assume that at all. Think of the average retailer placing his orders. Over here, you’ve got the solo writing debut of Bill Jemas, whose name is attached to some of Marvel’s hottest-selling titles in a decade. Then you’ve got the launch of a new “Ultimate” book, and those titles have been a thumping success. And lastly, you’ve got Peter David, whose titles sell in the bottom of the top 100 (if there) relaunching a series that got wildly positive reviews and *still* didn’t sell particularly well.

With those givens, where are *you* going to put your ordering dollars?

There’s a fine line between being pessimistic and being realistic. I endeavor to aim for the latter; it just comes out as the former.

Good news is, within the next week I’ll be shipping out the Captain Marvel sample script pages. With over 500 requests, it’s just taken some time to get them copied and signed and stuffed back into envelopes. God bless the post office for giving me a deadline: Postage goes up end of the month, so they’ve *got* to be shipped out by then.

PAD

Well, this is a hoot. According to the following link, William Shatner is going to undertake the sort of role that has heretofore been left to everyone from Vampira to Elvira: He’s going to introduce a series of horror flicks, in this case for the Sci-Fi Channel. Apparently they’re all from the low-budget vaults of Charlie Band’s Full Moon Productions. The reason it’s pertinent to this particular board is that at least one of them is going to be by yours truly: “Oblivion,” the science fiction western spoof that represents one of the few films Band actually spent some serious money on. I hear tell “Trancers” will also be represented, and if the fourth and fifth entries in the series are there, then those will be mine as well. Although the only “horror” in the Trancers films I wrote was the budget slashing that caused them not to film the majority of the action scenes, and wildly scale down those that were filmed.

Supposedly Shatner will be interviewing people in conjunction with the films. I can’t wait to see who he talks to for “Oblivion.” It’d be a hoot if it were George Takei, wouldn’t it?

PAD

First off, Happy Father’s Day to all concerned.

Second, on the off-chance that people actually read this website to find out about my writing endeavors, I thought I’d mention that not only is KNIGHT LIFE out in the stores even as we speak, but it got a starred review in PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. This is the second original fantasy novel of mine to be singled out for that higher level of recognition from PW (the first being SIR APROPOS OF NOTHING), so I’m on kind of a roll.

Here’s what PW had to say, in part: “Arthurian legend gets another kick in the pants with this rollicking rewrite of bestseller David’s first novel, originally published in 1987. Extensively updated and lovingly revised, this hilarious romp in today’s New York features a cast of zany characters, zippy dialogue and enough action and plot twists to satisfy most satirical fantasy fans.” The rest of the review goes on to summarize the book, but hey…go check it out for yourselves.

PAD

Well, as of this moment in time it’s pouring rain, which is not gonna make my drive to Molloy College in Rockville Center any fun this evening (the Southern State Parkway tends to flood.) But I’ve gotta be there, because tonight is the final dress rehearsal for the show “Checking Out,” in which I play a neurotic Jewish (typecasting, I know) psychiatrist who–along with his two siblings–endeavors to talk his theatrically inclined father not to “check out” of life prematurely. The play was written back in the mid-70s by playwright/actor Allen Swift as a vehicle for himself as the father. And everyone who’s my age, get this: among Swift’s acting credits is voice work on such forgotten cheesy gems of our collective childhood as “Diver Dan” (he was the voice of Dan, Baron Barracuda, Triggerfish, et al), “King Leonardo,” etc. Yes, all those shows that we loved as kids and would be mortified to let our own kids see now since we would NEVER hear the end of it. (“Oh my God, Dad, this makes ‘Power Rangers’ look like ‘Masterpiece Theater.’”)

For those local to the area and want to see dates and times, or just interested in seeing a pub shot from the play (I’m on the left), go here.

PAD

Some weeks ago, I posted an item with thoughts about Israel. Since then I got some supportive comments, and also a bunch of anti-Semitic foulness (saying Jews are a rat-like race who deserve to be exterminated, that kind of thing) warning me against discussing such things on my comics website. Because, y’know, where do I get off deciding what to talk about on my website? Since I don’t want to give any of those fine anti-Semitic folks the slightest impression that I might be taking their warning seriously, I thought I’d post my latest concern over what might happen next. And considering that two weeks ago I was commenting that I was worried Marvel might go up on the market now that things are going well, and now the Comicon “Splash” is reporting that very thing as a possibility, my worries tend to materialize.

A couple weeks ago, 17 Israelis were blown up. In retaliation, the Israelis dropped a bomb on Yassar Arafat’s bed, knowing that he wasn’t in it. Kill 17 Israelis, lose a mattress. Even the most jaded Middle East watchers were wondering what was up with that. How is even briefly pressing back in on Arafat but doing nothing beyond that commensurate with the loss of 17 lives?

And I keep thinking about Sean Connery in “The Untouchables,” telling Kevin Costner’s Elliot Ness how to take on Al Capone. He said, “You want to know how to get Capone? Here’s how you do it. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago Way, and that’s how you get Capone.”

Here’s what concerns me. With anti-Semitism on the rise, with the Palestinians showing far less interest in a homeland than they are in simply killing Jews and killing Jews and killing Jews, the Israeli government may decide they’ve nothing left to lose. Imagine the following edict from Ariel Sharon (a guy with two girls’ names, so he’s already testy):

“The Palestinian people do not distinguish between innocent people and military targets, and believe they can kill Israelis with impunity and will continue to do so. Very well. We shall do likewise. If next week, a suicide bomber kills ten Israelis, we will round up a hundred Palestinians at random. Men, women, children, makes no difference. Men and women are killing us, and children are being raised to kill us, so they’re all the same. We’ll round them up, line them up and kill them. Boom, dead. If in retaliation a bomber kills a hundred Israelis, we will round up and execute a thousand random Palestinians. For every one Israeli who dies, ten Palestinians will die. And if this is upsetting to the Palestinian people, there’s an easy way to stop it: Stop blowing up Israelis. Your collective fate is in your hands.”

How would the world react to that? Well, they’d probably scream at Israel. But they’re doing that anyway. They’d probably lose sympathy for Israel. But they’re doing that anyway.

*Should* this happen? Am I hoping it will happen? God, no. It’s a barbaric notion.

But I’m afraid that, sooner or later, it might. Because that’s the Chicago Way.

PAD

Well, Frank “Boom Boom” Balkin was up to the task, and got the straight info on the rumored “Supergirl” film reported on Filmjerk.com.

It turns out that (unbeknownst to the DC editors I queried) Akiva Goldsman really does have a Supergirl film in development. However, the assertion that the film consists of nothing more than a crunched down abridgment of the first fifty issues of my run on the comic is apparently without foundation. According to Goldsman’s people, the treatment would not be a version of any one particular Supergirl, but instead an agglomeration of several different comic book incarnations…the aim being to produce a dark and less-than-sunny version, which doesn’t sound like either version of Supergirl as I’ve written her. Based on that info, my guess is that the alleged treatment included on the Filmjerk website was a summary of the first fifty issues prepared by someone working for Goldsman as an informational piece (which would explain the specific references to the comics) rather than something by Goldsman himself intended to serve as a film treatment.

Nevertheless, I was dead wrong in thinking that the entire report was without foundation, and Filmjerk scooped everybody, including me. Although I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering damned near every DC character with any name recognition is in development these days. But because of that, it means very little that Goldsman is attached to it at this point. I mean, heck, who’d've thought that a Kevin Smith-generated Superman script based on Superman vs. Doomsday–the most high-profile, media-reported comic book confrontation in a decade–would have burned alive in development hell? So those of you worrying that a Supergirl film would be a camp repeat of “Batman Forever,” keep in mind the odds of any film ever being made are very slim.

PAD

I offer the two items without comment and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (Oklahoma City)–June 12, 2002–Four in five Americans would give up some freedoms to gain security and four in 10 worry terrorists will harm them or their family, a new Gallup poll shows. About one-third of those polled favor making it easier for authorities to access private e-mail and telephone conversations. More than 70 percent are in favor of requiring US citizens to carry identification cards with fingerprints, and 77 percent believe all Americans should have smallpox vaccinations. “It was amazing the percentage of people who are willing to give up freedom to get back some sense of personal security,” said Elaine Christiansen, senior research director for The Gallup Organization. “These aren’t people who were necessarily near the Twin Towers, near the Pentagon, near the Murrah building. These are average people.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN–”Those who are willing to give up some essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

PAD

Well if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

A website called “Filmjerk.com” is claiming (in a piece that openly admits it’s BS unless proven otherwise) that Akiva Goldsman is developing a “Supergirl” film treatment for Warners…a treatment which is a beat-for-beat description of the first fifty issues of my run on the book.

I personally tend to believe it’s utter nonsense. However, I have put my crackerjack West Coast Rep, Frank “Boom Boom” Balkin on it, and he’s checking it out. As soon as I hear back from him, I’ll relay the info to you folks. But I suspect that the entire thing is nonsense…which doesn’t stop the rumors from flying. I haven’t gotten quite as many questions about this as I have about the false “Shazam” story, but it’s starting to get up there.

PAD

Busy day Saturday. In the morning, rehearsed for the production of “CHECKING OUT” that opens in one week at the Broadhollow Centre Stage at Molloy College on Long Island. In the afternoon, Kathleen and I (with Ariel on board) fought Belmont-generated traffic to drive way the hell over to the depths of North Jersey for a party held by Kathleen’s boss at Del Rey Paperbacks. Shelly (for such is her name, and I hope I spelled it correctly) and her husband have a lovely house right on the lake, and Ariel spent practically the entire day canoeing.

The only extended time spent indoors was gathering around the telly to watch the running of the big race at Belmont. Personally, I didn’t give a damn about the Triple Crown. Didn’t care whether War Emblem finished Win, Place, Show, or at all. No, once they announced the horses, I was immediately rooting for Artax Too. Why? Because I liked “The Neverending Story,” and that was the name of the young hero’s horse who sank into a quicksand pit in a heartwrenching sequence guaranteed to send any viewer under the age of nine into hysterics. But I was realistic. Artax Too was a 70-to-1 shot, and I figured, What’s the likelihood of a 70-to-1 shot winning?

My luck. I was rooting for the wrong 70-to-1 shot. I could have looked like some kind of genius if I’d been pulling for Sarava, who as near as I can tell was named for an obnoxiously marketed Broadway musical of some years back based upon the film “Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands.” Chances are that if I’d been at the track, sheer perversity would have prompted me to lay down money on Sarava along with the other long-shot, and I’d have made a bundle of money. As it was, all I got out of the deal was traffic jams.

Does anyone know if Artax Too has actually crossed the finish line yet?

PAD

Not being announced immediately.

When I hit upon the notion of having a reader write-in for a new YJ leader (a la the Legion of old), I realized my one window of opportunity to do it was issue #46. Why? Because #46 marked the return of Robin, and with some potential flux in both membership and leadership, that was the place to do it. Would that I had figured it out a year ago. So we put the reader-voting part of it into action as quickly as we humanly could, but deadlines caught up with us and there was simply no way we’d have a decision from the readership before the script for #46 was actually do.

So issue #46 of YJ ends in admittedly cruel fashion by leaving the question of leadership hanging. Still, we should have had it ready to announce with #47.

Well…no.

In a real life extravaganza evocative of Florida, several bags of mail–including a bag filled with ballots from readers–went astray from the DC mail room. By the time it was finally recovered (and it was), I had to have turned in the script for #47 and #48 as well. It’s not hanging chads, but it’s as close as you can get.

So readers ain’t finding out in #47 or 48 either. Yet the upcoming events required leadership decisions to be made. How to deal with it without knowing the identity of the leader? Easy. The leader speaks from off panel. It’s one of those moments when you’re really grateful for the silent medium of comics.

So issue #47 launches a four parter that has major impact on our cast and culminates in a double-sized guest-star packed extravaganza in #50…but the one thing it doesn’t have is the ID of the leader. That’s in #49.

PAD