PeterDavid.net

Am I the only person who looks at pictures of those big honkin’ ossuaries that purportedly have the bones of the whole Jesus clan and wonders if female ghosts are going to emerge and melt the heads of anyone opening them?

Anyone? Anyone else at all?

In case you’re not up on this, a documentary entitled “The Lost Tomb of Jesus,” produced by James Cameron–who is king of the world but not, so I’m told, king of the Jews–details the discovery of some bone boxes bearing the names of Joseph, Mary, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and…best of all…the latter two’s son. This has resulted in the expected reactions ranging from dispassionate curiosity to outrage over another perceived attack on Christianity, and everything in between. Naturally my own leanings are toward the dispassionate curiosity side: I find it interesting, but I simply don’t see how it’s possible to prove it definitively. Still, I have to admit I was in stitches over the comments of one Rev. David Knapp of Port Jefferson Station in Long Island who asserted:

“This is all hocus-pocus. Jesus died and rose from the dead and left the tomb and went up to heaven–and there were 500 witnesses to that, so there are no bones to be found. This is not going to shake our faith.”

It’s not the sentiment that breaks me up so much as the phrasing. The announcement of a scientific discovery, an archaeological find, is considered “hocus-pocus,” while the notion of rising from the dead, departing your burial place and being transported to heaven…a concept rooted in, at the very least, the supernatural, the uncanny, the magical…THAT he’s got no problem accepting.

I’m just really saddened that Jesus is no longer a character on “South Park.” They’d have a field day with this.

PAD

Okay…were they TRYING to kill viewership?

The first half hour of an endeavor such as this is crucial, and it was as if the producers were doing everything they could to make sure that, when 9 o’clock struck, people would be off trying to find just about anything else.

The opening documentary-style launch wasn’t a bad idea, but poorly executed. I had no idea who the majority of people were, it went on for way too long, and most of them didn’t have anything all that interesting to say. (Eddie Murphy, Peter O’Toole, Clint Eastwood were among the few bright spots.) Ellen I thought did great, but there’s plenty of people who simply don’t like her style (above and beyond the jerks who tuned out because “it’s that lesbo comic.”) And then the first, what, ninety minutes of awards were for, my God, sound editing and such? Yes, yes, I know that’s crucial, and yes, I know it’s important to the people nominated, but they used to be smart enough to have the “Best supporting actor” categories early on to grab the viewers’ interest. What the hell–?

The fact that Eddie Murphy’s brilliant turn was shunned over Alan Arkin’s sentimental but less compelling portrayal for best was second to me in annoying only to “Pan’s Labyrinth” not winning for best Foreign film, although admittedly I hadn’t seen the one that won so I can’t say which was better. But Murphy should have had it.

Plenty of good moments, yes, but that’s all they were: Moments. The people behind the white scrim were an interesting diversion every now and then, and Al Gore was bloody brilliant, and Jack Nicholson’s head warred with Will Ferrell’s for the most WTF follicle moment of the evening. But with ratings continuing to drop, Johnny Carson long gone, and nomination tastes continuing toward less and less populist fare (I think it telling that the last really big ratings night was when “Titanic” was up, no pun intended), I think it’s time to admit that the Oscars should be two hours max, focus on the main awards, perform the nominated songs, and call it an evening.

At least “Happy Feet” won for Best Animated.

PAD

Here at the New York Comic Convention, I have a tale of two Stephens.

Stephen Number One:

Got to meet Stephen Colbert. Actually, believe it or not, he wanted to meet me because of his cameo in “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.” I was at my table in Artist’s Alley when a convention rep showed up and said, “Stephen would like to see you.” In point of fact, Colbert (so I’m told) was perfectly willing to come over to my table at the Alley, but the con folks were concerned about crowd control (and I can’t blame them.) So the mountain happily came to Mohammed and we had a nice chat about kids, science fiction, and comic books.

Stephen Number Two:

One of the major panels at the convention was the Dark Tower panel, attended by the entire DT team and the man himself, Stephen King. The vast majority of questions were for King, which is of course as it should be. How many opportunities, after all, do both comic fans and DT fans have to tell The Man himself what his work means to them or pose questions about his work. For me the best moment was when one fan said that King and I are his two favorite writers and that he’s thrilled that we’re actually working on a project together, and King reached over and we high fived.

In the course of the convention I’ve also had the chance to meet and/or chat with Stan the Man, Nick Brendon, Hayden Panettiere (Heroes Cheerleader), Juliet Landau, George R.R. Martin, James Leary, and a host of comics pros. And there’s been none of the overcrowding fiasco of the previous year. Saturday passed, to the best of my knowledge, without incident, unless one counts the barrage of flashes going off in King’s eyes when he showed up for the panel. I’m amazed he wasn’t blinded by them.

PAD

I have been informed through a rather terse note from my photo site that the name Fluzzie is trademarked by two individuals in California. Understand that when I first used the name that Peter came up with out of the air, I did a search of the trademark database and only found a dead trademark (2000) for a set of stuffed dinosaurs. So I am officially changing the name to Phluzzie and have started the process to trademark that name as mine all mine. I wish Stephanie and her partner all the best with the word and look forward to seeing what they have come up with to attach the name to since it is a cool name.

So now they are Phluzzies and are still for sale.

http://homepage.mac.com/kathodavid/PhotoAlbum42.html

Please make a note of it.

Kathleen

For those who haven’t checked out JK’s website recently, he’s put up more pages from “Fallen Angel” including some gorgeous shots of our heroine. Check ‘em out.

http://www.jkwoodward.com/fa7_9_16.htm

PAD

The short story collection, “Heroes-in-Training,” which will feature the first new “Sir Apropos of Nothing” tale in several years–a novella-length story entitled “Sir Apropos of Nothing and the Adventure of the Receding Heir”–is available for pre-order on Amazon. So now you know.

http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Training-Martin-H-Greenberg/dp/075640438X/

As a lesbian trapped in a man’s body, I gotta say I loved this…

And I suddenly realized that maybe we should be grateful for the fact that the only thing wrong with it was the plot.

That may sound odd, but consider: It wasn’t all that long ago that the TV version of Daredevil had no horns because of concerns over devil imagery and his costume was black instead of red. And Thor wasn’t allowed to be a god for fear of offending the religious right.

Just consider the studio notes that they COULD have gotten for “Ghost Rider”–

“Okay, we’ve gone over the script and we have some concerns. First of all, he can’t be ‘Satan’s bounty hunter.’ This is our hero, and he simply can’t be connected to Satan. We’ll get killed by various conservative Christian organizations. So find a way to make him work without the whole ‘Mephistopheles’ thing. Also, does it have to be a blazing skull? We don’t understand the need for his head turning into a skull. We’ve got Nic Cage for this, who’s a name star: Why are we making his face disappear? It means we can’t have him in action as Ghost Rider on the poster. Kills maketing. Let’s have his face visible even when he’s in action as Ghost Rider. And he can’t have his head on fire in any event. If any kids set their heads on fire in order to imitate him, we’ll get a butt load of bad publicity. So just have Nic Cage’s head glowing a little, maybe, suffused in light. Oh, does it have to be ‘Ghost Rider?’ Technically it’s not even correct since the protagonist isn’t a ghost. Plus ghosts get us more flack from the religious right because they don’t like the whole concept of dead people walking. Plus we tested the name ‘Ghost Rider’ and it’s confusing: People think that it’s about someone who rides ghosts. We’ve taken the liberty of testing various alternate names and have found that “Death Rides a Cycle” is the best.

Please implement these changes and we’ll talk later.”

All things considered, we may have gotten off lucky.

PAD

Just came back from the advance screening of “Ghost Rider.” Discussion with some minor spoilers below.

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My musical tastes are slowly being shaped by “Scrubs.” In one episode entitled “My Lunch,” three patients die one after the other, and Dr. Cox’s futile efforts to save the last one with the defibrullator–followed by his explosion of anger–were heartwrenching. During that scene the soundtrack was playing this haunting song that I wasn’t familiar with, which I eventually learned was called “How to Save A Life” by The Fray. The thing was, when I saw it on “Scrubs” I was aware of the refrain and the melody, but wasn’t listening closely to the words. At my request, Kath went out and got me the album and once I heard the whole thing, I realized what it was really about: A poor devil whose friend has committed suicide, and he’s blaming himself because he didn’t take the time to stay by his friend’s side and hear him out. What a tragically sad song. At any rate, I’ve listened to all the songs and am playing it while I’m writing. Great stuff.

PAD

Following up on my earlier posting, below you’ll find a list of stores who are deemed “Friends of the Angel”–those stores that make certain to stock “Fallen Angel” and/or have no problem ordering copies (as opposed to stores that not only don’t stock it but won’t even fill pull requests…typically while claiming that Diamond has screwed up somehow.) If you’re a retailer, you’re an FOTA, and you’re not on there, feel free to drop me a line at padguy@aol.com and be included.

Also check out the front page of www.newsarama.com for a detailed article about upcoming “Fallen Angel” plans and some nifty artwork.

PAD

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The signing photos are here and there’s a separate interview with Peter as well.

Ask Peter about that puppet on his hand, which helped him become hoarse by the end of the evening…

(Via ComicMix.)

The following is a link to the interview I did on the local Maine TV magazine “207″:

http://www.wcsh6.com/life/lifestyle/207/video/default.aspx

I’m busy serving the Tower, up in Maine for a store appearance today at Casablanca Comics from 3-6. Did an appearance yesterday on a local news magazine show called “207″ and had a reasonably good time doing that. Certainly better than the last TV stint I did where the interviewers invited viewers to call in and try and stump me with “Star Trek” trivia questions.

In any event, FNSM #17 brings back the Sandman while Dark Tower is, of course, the New Big Thing. Whad’ja think?

PAD

Just got back from the midnight opening at Midtown Comics for the first issue of the Dark Tower series. It was a little odd to be taking the Long Island Railroad into the city and be reading the “New York Daily News” and suddenly my name leaped out at me from the “Tuesday in New York” column. Yes, granted, I was described as being one of the artists on the book (along with Jae Lee) but, hey, at least they spelled my name right.

I got nervous as I approached the store because, looking up from street level at its second store location, I couldn’t see anyone in the windows. I thought, “Geez, nobody’s here.” But the angle was deceptive; the place was packed. At least over a hundred people there, plus an assortment of on-line video folks conducting interviews and such.

Signed a whole buncha books and everyone seemed stoked to read it. Couldn’t have been happier with the way everything went.

Before the gathering, I took in a show: “Avenue Q,” a long-time favorite of Kathleen’s. Totally demented musical. The lyrics for “The Internet is for Porn” are going to be in my head for awhile (“Grab your dick and double click, for porn, porn, porn”)

PAD

It’s been a craptacular few days.

First the loss of the GPS and shattered window. Then poor Caroline came down with a stomach bug and I’ve been up with her for the past couple of days. She’s been sleeping on the living room couch and I’ve been at her side with a cooking pot for her to upchuck into, so I’m fighting sleep deprivation. Now both Kathleen and Ariel have come down with the same bug, and I’m worried that it’s going to hit me during the next 48 hours…during which time I’ve got the Midnight store appearance, two bowling leagues, and a flight up to Maine for another store appearance.

Uh brother.

PAD

As I did last year, I intend to keep a running commentary on the only aspect of the Superbowl that I particularly care about: The commercials. Feel free to stop by.

in terms of the team, we will be pulling for the Colts for one simple reason: We allowed Caroline to decide based on the following conversation:

“Caroline: Which do you like better, teddy bears or ponies?”

“Ponies!”

So there it is.

PAD

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I had my beloved Garmin GPS system mounted in my windshield while I ran into a mall for a few minutes. And someone apparently saw it and thought it was so nifty that they just had to have one.

In fact, they liked it so much, they just had to have that particular one.

Which is why I came back to the car and found all the glass from the front passenger window inside the front seat and the GPS–Majel II, as we’d nicknamed it–gone.

Whenever I leave the car I always, ALWAYS, take the GPS down out of the windshield and put it in between the front seats, away from prying eyes…except today. Except for this one damned day where I was thinking about other things and left it where it was…this one damned time…

And someone smashed his way into the car and took off with it.

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Boston was thrown into a tizzy when an attempt by Cartoon Network to promote its upcoming “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” feature film backfired into a perceived terrorist plot.

Apparently little electronic blinky devices based upon the ATHF character “Mooninite” have been showing up in major cities all across the country. But only in Beantown did citizens suddenly start worrying that these promotional devices were, in fact, part of an insidious terrorist scheme. As a consequence, the bomb squad has been spending its time running around the city defusing harmless toys, and now police have arrested the poor hapless bastard who was hired to put the things up around the city.

The reason it’s of particular interest to this blog is that New England Comics (which, by the way, I’m told is having a 50% off sale that ends today) was one of the sites to receive one of the devices, and hilarity ensued. My daughter, Gwen, a store employee, was interviewed by local TV news. Click on the site link below and go to the section “Comic Book Store Employees Discuss Hoax.”

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/index.html

PAD

George W. Bush had no more caustic critics than the brilliant columnist Molly Ivins, who passed away after a long fight with breast cancer. Her various books on Bush are must reading for anyone who wants a bracing air of sanity after experiencing any neocon craziness. She will be missed.

PAD