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Dreamwave has informed me that the second issue of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” has sold out.

Also, FYI, issue #5 will be the first issue that is wholly original and not a “re-view” of one of the animated episodes. It’s a lot of fun; Raphael rescues a cat from a tree, which sets off a chain of events that ends up with him fighting for his life.

Really.

PAD

I’ve been informed by editor Andy Schmidt that CAPTAIN MARVEL got the go-ahead for another six issues beyond where we’re scripted, taking us to issue #24. Think of it as being informed by the network that your show’s doing well enough to be picked up for the rest of the season. So that’s pretty positive.

Since Ivan was snapped up to draw “Superman,” I don’t know yet who’s going to be penciling it. Hell, any volunteers?

PAD

Okay, actually, it’s rated PG-13.

“Pirates of the Carribean” was a fun film. Now I have to admit I’m a sucker for pirate films going in, so I’m hardly impartial. Furthermore, the movie was about a half hour too long (they go from point A to point B, and then there’s a lot of running around and sword fights and ships firing at each other just so they can get back to point B again.) But the cast does wonders with the material. You’ve got Geoffrey Rush in the “traditional” pirate vein of Captain Barbossa, contrasted with Johnny Depp’s delightful Captain Jack Sparrow, played as a total fop which hides his gloriously devious mind (most particularly when he executes a deft bait-and-switch to obtain a new vessel right under the noses of the British military.)

It’s surprising how many images from the ride they managed to sneak in without it being disruptive to the story flow. Snappy use of CGI and skeletal pirates combined with nudge nudge wink wink self reference makes the film far more entertaining than I expected. It’s easy to determine how many people in the theater really know the ride: At one point, several imprisoned pirates are trying to coax a mangy dog, holding the keys in its mouth, to come toward them. “You can stand there forever and the dog’s never going to move,” says Sparrow, apparently foreseeing the eventual Disneyland tableau featuring exactly that. Anyone who laughs at that has been on the ride. Anyone who doesn’t, hasn’t.

PAD

Haven’t been near a computer the past couple of days. I’ve been busy proofreading the copyedited manuscript for “Stone and Anvil,” the next New Frontier hardcover. It’ll be shipping in October/November of this year, and will be a direct follow-up to the long-awaited “Gods Above.” “Gods Above” wraps up the cliffhanger that “New Frontier” fans have been hung up on for some time now.

I turned the CE MS in to John Ordover today, so hopefully we’re on target for the pub date.

PAD

Although the contracts haven’t been signed yet, I have a deal with Del Rey paperbacks to write the novelization of Spider-Man II. The movie will be out in May, I believe, which puts the paperback release at sometime in April.

The novelization for the first Spider-Man film is probably one of the best selling books I’ve ever written, with somewhere around a quarter of a millioin copies sold.

PAD

Well, breathe a sigh of relief: She’s well on her way to recovery.

The swelling has gone down on the area of her flank where she was bitten. The wound crusted, then the crust fell off to reveal a small hole no longer inflamed. Bleeding and oozing has completely ceased. Even more important, she’s acting more like her old self, even repeatedly going to the door and asking to be let out (which I’m not going to do until she’s done with the antibiotic and the shaved area has grown back in).

PAD

Among some of the sillier comments the politics threads have spawned (What could I possibly know because I’m “only” a comic book writer. And George W. Bush is only a failed businessman and Ronald Reagan was only an actor and Harry Truman was only some haberdasher, because one aspect of someone’s life completely dictates all other aspects, right?) there was a fairly reasonable question as to my news sources.

It’s eclectic. I read Newsday, the NY Daily News, Time, Newsweek, watch CNN, the Daily Show. But the one I’ve come to find the most informative is a magazine called “The Week.” Quite simply, it’s a weekly news magazine that beautifully sums up everything of major importance that’s gone on in the previous week, presenting viewpoints from all sides in brisk, even-handed fashion. I strongly recommend subscribing to it if your local newsstand doesn’t carry it.

PAD

If you have a newsstand that carries “The Wall Street Journal,” hie over there to read the page one article (yes, page one) about Harlan’s endeavors against AOL and his Kick Internet Piracy Crusade. After which I suggest you bop over to www.harlanellison.com and click on the icon that will tell you how to contribute to his endeavors. If you felt any anger over the kind of mindset that had no problem stealing the latest “Harry Potter” novel and posting it on the net, then you’ll want to support this cause.

PAD

For those who still don’t understand why the Iraqis are shooting at us, and base all their support of Bush’s policies on the Ends-Justifies-the-Means philosophy (Saddam was bad, therefore what we did was good), and don’t comprehend why the world doesn’t love us, I offer the following recollection:

I spent several weeks of my life in Romania in connection with some movies I wrote that were filmed there. And whenever I went anywhere with whatever Romanian guide was assigned to me, the guide would always bring up Ceausescu. Ceausescu was the Romanian dictator from the mid-60s through to the late 80s, finally overthrown by his people in fierce battle in 1989 and subsequently executed. Wherever we would go, guides would say, “And this was a palace Ceausescu was building before we overthrew him.” “And this was where Ceausescu’s favorites were housed before we overthrew him.” The fact that they had taken charge of their lives and tossed out a parasite–a parasite the U.S. had supported until the mid 1980s, by the way–was a source of great national pride.

The Iraqis have no national pride. They’re the United States’ bitch. To seize control of your destiny engenders pride. To have someone do it for you and then not leave causes frustration, self-loathing, and anger directed at your intended liberators. And outside of the country, it’s seen as presumptuous and arrogant.

Get it now?

PAD

Although she’s emerging more regularly, Pandora still seems to like spending time in the cat carrier (now renamed Pandora’s Box.) Her haunches are protected that way. Our regular vet thinks it was another cat who attacked her and only managed to get one fang into her. The problem is that fluid is building underneath the wound and it’s not draining properly. If fluid continues to leak, I’ll have to bring her in on Thursday and he’ll sedate her and essentially put another hole lower down in the wound so that the fluid will be able to get out of there.

PAD

Overall, I liked the debut of the new “Titans” series. Basically it’s aimed at 7 to 10 year olds, so older viewers tuning in expecting to see JLA are going to be disappointed…or, at the very least, will have to reorient their thinking.

The basic thrust of the series is surprisingly consistent to the mandates I was given when I did preliminary development work on the series many moons ago before it was handed off to others. The notion was that the kids bicker, have difficulties operating individually, but as a team they pull it all together and are unstoppable. That’s the pilot in a nutshell. Nor did they want to launch with an exposition-heavy origin episode.

Very, VERY heavy anime influence, right down to switching to super-deformed versions of the characters when they’re particularly petulant.

Overall a strong launch for the target audience.

PAD

Ain’t it Cool News ran a review of “Fallen Angel,” and it was an unqualified rave. So that was nice.

I have to say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t entirely sure readers would “let” me write something different from what I’m known for. That there would be resistence to it. But that doesn’t seem to be the case thus far.

PAD

My cat, Pandora, slunk in this evening and I found that something had bit her on the haunches. She’d already torn away a chunk of her fur trying to scratch at it. I immediately got the number of a 24 hour animal hospital and brought her over there. Ahead of us was a cat who had used up at least three of his nine lives when he decided that chewing on a power cord would be a spiffy idea and essentially killed himself (the only thing bringing him back being his owner’s massaging his chest).

Pandora got her backside shaved and there’s a nasty single puncture wound. I’m left wondering what would have left a sole puncture, since most animals you’ll run into–with the exception of Bucky from “Get Fuzzy”–have more than one fighting tooth. The doctor pumped her up with antibiotics and a pain killer, and put a collar around her that she initially had off in about ten seconds. We put it back on her and since then the pain killer kicked in and now she’s just lying there. She hasn’t even emerged from the cat carrier even though the door’s been sitting open for half an hour.

I’ll bring her to her regular vet Monday.

PAD

Word is already circulating that Marvel’s presence at the San Diego con is non-existent. I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. Understand, this is purely speculation on my part; I’ve no inside information. But if you’ve ever been to SD, you know the DC booth is a thing of beauty. About three times bigger than my first apartment, with monitors and a logo you can see from Pasadena. If Marvel shows up with about what they can afford–a 3 x 6 table–immediately the reaction is gonna be, “Keee-rist, did you see the pathetic display Marvel has compared to DC’s?” Especially considering the repeated contempt with which Marvel has referred to its crosstown rival. It may well be the reasoning was that if they couldn’t afford to do it right, better not to do it at all. My understanding is that Marvel has some small presence as part of the Wizard display.

If I’m right, Marvel may well have the right idea. Better to do nothing than do something half-assed. Still…it’s kind of sad.

PAD

When I referred to the current Iraq situation as “the new Vietnam,” that seemed to spur a discussion as to how it couldn’t possibly be, because the casualty numbers don’t match up. This is, of course, ridiculous. Vietnam didn’t have 50,000 dead in the first few months. These things take time. But the point is, comparing it to Vietnam has nothing to do with the total number dead. It has to do with the fact that the military is sent into a situation for an indefinite period of time with only the vaguest of ideas of what they’re supposed to be doing there or how they’re supposed to go about it.

From the get-go, the Administration has been hazy on what was to happen after Saddam was deposed. The idea of the natives shooting at us for an extended period of time was never addressed. When one military advisor stated that several hundred thousands troops would be required indefinitely to maintain order, the upper echelon shouted the notion down. Except that’s exactly where we are.

And when I said Saddam is fine, thanks, I thought the meaning was clear: He’s alive. And he’s planning. And he’s waiting. And bin Laden still isn’t caught (remember “dead or alive?” Remember that promise?) And soldiers are being picked off. And there’s no end in sight.

We should never have gone in without, at the very least, a clear idea of a long term plan. We didn’t. And now we’re stuck.

And all the responses that are essentially name calling aren’t doing diddly to change that.

PAD

The first sign should have been Ari Fleisher’s resignation. If things were coming that were so bad that he couldn’t find positive ways to spin them, that was a tip-off right there.

American soldiers are continuing to die and, at this rate, within a month or two more will have died since Bush declared fighting was over than before that point. The Iraqis who were supposed to have loved us are shooting at us while we pour billions into the new Vietnam. Saddam is just fine, thanks (as is bin Laden.) Deficits and unemployment are spiralling out of control. And it appears that the administration lied to the American people about matters of greater consequence than oral sex with an intern.

Am I happy about this? No. The wheels are coming off the wagon, the worldwide sympathy we had as a result of 9/11 is long-squandered, but hey…let’s get right to work on trying to pass a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages. Thank heavens our priorities are in order.

PAD

Just for chuckles, I looked in on the current John Byrne Fan Site since, a few months ago, they couldn’t wait to dismiss “Fallen Angel” as a Buffy rip-off. Now that they could actually read it and comment upon it, I was wondering if anyone would do so.

One guy started a thread and was immediately jumped on for launching an “off topic” thread (despite the plethora of “off topic threads” already extant) with such an “obvious agenda” (because apparently bringing up my work constitutes an agenda). I could just feel the warmth radiating from my monitor.

The best, though, was the genius who (not having read the book, of course) declared he thought that “Bludhaven” was “a lousy name for a town,” but he never thought he “would see another even worse. Who would call a town “Bete Noir”?? Or “Bludhaven” for that matter??”

Well, gee. I could have gone for something even more obvious, like Hell, but that’s a real city in Michigan. Or perhaps Panic or Fearnot, but those are both in Pennsylvania. Some believe that Bete Noire is where the dead reside, so I could have called it River Styx, but that’s in Ohio. Peculiar would’ve been good, but the folks in Peculiar, Missouri, might have objected. Maybe the sound makes when one is scared: Eek. But no, that’s in Alaska, the state that also gave us a town called Chicken. The population of Bete Noire is eclectic, but we’d probably hear from the mayor of Eclectic, Alabama, who might have been tipped off to it by the mayor of another Alabama locale, Muck City.

I could have gone for something ironic and called it Plain City, but that’s in Utah, or Boring, but that’s in Maryland. Or just plain No Name, but that’s in Colorado. My search for a city name built to a Climax…Climax, North Carolina, not to be confused with Climax, Pennsylvania, which is also not to be confused with Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

And shall we discuss Monkeys Elbow, Kentucky or the name of another city in Louisiana…Uncle Sam, LA? Nah.

Man, whenever my name comes up anywhere on a Byrne related board, it’s always good for some laughs. The current fan board says “All New, All Different.” Seems pretty same old/same old to me.

PAD

As always, had a great time at Shore Leave. Kathleen, Ariel and Caroline were in tow, and Caroline smiled at everyone and charmed them while Ariel enjoyed total freedom to go and do whateve she wanted in the family friendly security of the hotel. Still for my money *the* best Trek/Media con for families to attend.

Andrea Thompson was an incredibly good sport as she joined us for the opening sketch of Mystery Trekkie Theater 3000, and the world premiere (and, by coincidence, closing night performance) of “Bye Bye Buffy” went off, not without a hitch, but with only one or two minor hitches. And these were more than made up for by the talent and enthusiasm of the cast and director, who came up with some wonderful twists and augmentations on what I’d written (a gag involving a Klingon Weather Report used actual live Chroma Key to present the Klingon standing in front of a weather chart explaining why today was a good day to die, as was tomorrow, but over the next few days weather conditions would make dying less good.) Plenty of people in the audience and very enthusiastic.

Also spent time with the ever-delightful Carolyn Seymour, briefly spoke with Marina Sirtis, told Alan Ruck how much I liked his work, and discovered that Phil Morris is a big fan of Spyboy.

PAD

…it appears that somebody who’s already dead in the Marvel Universe will remain dead.

Peter’s going to be on the road for a while, between Boston, Shore Leave going on now and lord knows where next week, plus somewhere along the line he has to write those books you love… so I’m going to putting various things up in the meantime.

First off, we point you to Mark Evanier’s blog, which points us to Herb Trimpe’s website, and a few other Trimpe tidbits that are elsewhere on the web This link goes to a recent interview, in connection with the Hulk movie. This link goes to the article Herb wrote for The New York Times about how his career in comics ended due to apparent ageism…

And this link tells how Herb pitched in after the 9/11 tragedies and worked at Ground Zero for the Red Cross.

More to come, including a whole passel of BIDs recently unearthed.