PeterDavid.net

I’m just kind of curious. Rich Johnston (who has graduated from simply running assorted rumor…I’m sorry, rumour…bits strung together to actual whole investigative columns about things that matter) has done a very interesting commentary and overview of the upcoming sure-to-be-controversial “Lost Girls” which apparently the author, Alan Moore, himself describes as pornographic. It’s high-priced, but hey, it’s Moore. So I was curious as to whether anyone here was planning to order it.

PAD

I have to say, coming back from the NSF has given me new appreciation for the military. So as we spend this quiet Memorial Day weekend (disinclined to brave the typical traffic), I keep thinking about all the officers I met and spent time with, and what will happen to them and what sort of challenges they’ll be facing. Until now, I’d only met Veterans whose war fighting days were past them. But now I think of the hazardous and uncertain future my new friends and acquaintances will be facing, and I will be keeping my fingers crossed for them in their upcoming duties and responsibilities.

PAD

Siryn finally deals (or doesn’t) with the death of her father (which I found out about the same time as you guys did, so it took five months for us to be able to get to it) and Spike & Drac form an uneasy alliance for the first time in their association. Whad’ja think?

PAD

So over on the Byrne board there’s a lengthy thread about the Hulk which consists, for the most part, of bashing my work on the title because, well, it’s the Byrne board, so it’s SOP. But what really fractured me was the following comment from John:

“Once upon a time, when a writer wanted to “do something different” s/he left the character/title being worked on, handing it over to someone who wanted to continue with the established motifs. Some time around 25 years ago this started to change. Writers like Claremont and David, as well as others, began changing the books/characters to suit their interests of the moment….It’s the same old song — the characters being made to serve the needs of the talent, instead of the talent serving the needs of the characters.”

You just have to love that from the guy who, before my run on the title, was handed a character who was unmarried and transformed into a monster when he got angry, and over the course of the run he split the character in two, separating them into two individual beings, thus eliminating a dynamic that had been in place for a quarter of a century, married off the hero, and basically wrote a series of stories that were indistinguishable from “Godzilla”–dedicated scientist and his group of equally dedicated followers pursues a furious green monster he’s accidentally unleashed upon the world. Stories that, in short, had nothing to do with the Hulk.

And that’s not even counting what the master of lip service to authorial intent did to the Vision, turning him white and unemotional when the original Vision was neither.

That John Byrne. What a crack up.

PAD

Kathleen and I got married. Many long-time friends were there, the bride was lovely (Kath has a photo up on her website), the weather was perfect, and Harlan Ellison’s best-man speech was…memorable. The following morning the whole family was awake by 4:30 AM and a few hours later we were all on the Disney Cruise for a Brady Bunch-esque Let’s-bring-the-kids honeymoon.

Thanks for being insane enough to marry me, love.

PAD

Kath and I saw it last night at an advance Marvel screening.

Guys, honest injun–I thought it kicked ass.

I’m discussing it below, and others are free to join in once you’ve seen it, but I’d like to keep this one as spoiler-free as possible, mainly because of the caliber of certain jaw-dropping moments.

(more…)

Over at the movie theater in Manhattan at 42nd and 8th, I was fascinated to see pickets with people marching around, protesting “The DaVinci Code,” declaring it to be an insult to the Catholic church.

I wonder what would have happened if I’d walked up to them and asked them if they were out protesting with great ire over the way that Jews were portrayed in “Passion of the Christ.” After all, people who demand sensitivity to their religion would certainly want to be supportive of others who feel their religion is being ill used in cinema, right? So were they marching to protest what many felt to be a profound anti-Semitic message in “Passion?” Or were they too busy filling theaters with their church groups?

I wonder if such an observation from myself would have resulted in my being with Christian charity?

PAD

I’m back from the NSF, the National Security Forum. For the last 53 years, the airforce has been having a get together for about a hundred or so civilians from various walks of life who get together with the graduating class of the Air War College (these are generally career officers, Lt. Col’s or better, who spend a year in what is essentially an advance studies college), become part of a seminar class in which we interact with the officers and get to know the humans behind the military, and hear various lectures from professors, scholars, and such administration advisors as the Air Force chief of staff and the Secretary of the air force.

I can’t go into detail about the specifics of what was said, although I will tell you that during one Q&A, I stood up and asked the Secretary of the Air force if the President ever sends him flowers on Secretaries Day. But here’s the amazing thing: I was reading through the bios of all the attendees when I first arrived, and it was filled with people who had Masters Degrees, Doctorates, and listed hobbies such as creating orthopedic limbs. I have a Bachelors degree and my hobby is bowling, so I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing there. So I attend the get acquainted dinner, and I’m sitting there with three Lt. Cols, a full bird Colonel, the president of a moving and packing company and the mayor of Wichita Falls, TX, and what did we all wind up discussing?

The Hulk.

I couldn’t believe it.

PAD

Comments are working again sooooo……What did ya think?

This is the issue that they posted part of on Newsarama that caused all kinds of discussion because of the Angel’s view on G-d

Glenn is working on the problem and with any luck we will have it solved soon.

Update 2 bloody 47 AM, 5/22: We may or may not have them working again, I honestly can’t tell because my cache isn’t refreshing here. I think I’ve got it, though. –GH

I am surprised that no one has asked were he was in the previous thread. I applauded and appreciate your discretion.

I had to wait to get permission to post this photograph of Peter and General T. Michael Moseley at the National Security Conference in Alabama which is held yearly on the Maxwell Air-force Base. General Moseley is Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. Peter is there for the conference this year which has been held for over 50 years to allow civilians and the military to discuss matters of national security.

He is off at a conference for the week

But I know he does really want to know what you thought of Illyria one-shot.
One of my ideas made it in there and I am quite proud of it.

Also I will be taking questions for the Wife in this entry. Please no “unladen swallow” or “theory of evolution of a sock puppet” questions.

(UPDATE: I have answered some of the questions in the comment section)

The last five weeks of “The West Wing” have played like the world’s longest back door pilot. Kind of like the last weeks of “The Practice” that were basically a back door pilot for “Boston Legal,” as one show wound down but another was being set up. Sadly, the new series that was being promoted was dead before it got a chance, and that’s a damned shame.

(more…)

Glenn has solved the problem and we are back for comment.

Corrected because nobody could follow my subject/verb agreement which was Glenn (singular) as apposed to we (plural and inaccurate since all I did was point out to Glenn that the comments weren’t working)

Ah yes, you can tell that the comments are functioning again by the return of spam messages all over the place. Grumble…

It’s nothing you are doing wrong: We know the posting function has gone bye-bye. We’re working on it.
And by we of course we mean Glenn.

(Of course you do. I’ve been bashing on it in every spare moment I have, as of right now it appears to be a problem with our ISP’s security system. We’re on it. –GH, 5/13/06, 1:15 A fricking M)

A one-shot focusing on everyone’s favorite goddess inside a woman. Whad’ja think?

PAD

I decided to head out to the Nebulas to see Harlan get the Grandmaster award. I’ll be writing about it in detail in “But I Digress,” but suffice to say that it was great to see him, Susan, and all the Usual Suspects who tend to materialize whenever Harlan makes his presence known at a convention. The get together was smoothly run, so props to chairman Lee Whiteside for keeping it all together.

I’m truly pleased that SFWA decided to accord Harlan the honor in spite of past differences they’ve had with Harlan, and equally pleased that Harlan accepted it despite those same differences.

And the capper to my trip out there: A mere block and a half away from the hotel was the Women’s Beach Volleyball tour. So I spent the afternoon in the bleachers watching Olymic Gold Medalists Misty May and Kerri Walsh gracefully pound the crap out of their opponents while sporting handkerchief-sized bathing suits. God, I love this country.

PAD

FNSM, you probably knew about. But I also wrote the lead story in Marvel Romance Redux, the loopy new series in which current writers reballoon old romance tales. It features an actual 18 page Patsy and Hedy story, that was transformed into “Patsy Loves Satan.” Whad’ja think?

PAD