Month: September 2002

The signing went well at Jim Hanley’s Universe yesterday, I thought, although I was slightly saddened that Jim himself wasn’t actually there (Max Allan Collins, he turns out for. Me, no.) But it gave me the opportunity to meet and greet ChrisCross, Soto, Tom and Mark. I did get there late, though. Get this: Took me a little over an hour to drive in from Long Island, and then HALF AN HOUR to drive from the Queens Midtown Tunnel (35th and 2nd) to Hanley’s at 33rd between 5th and 6th…including a solid ten minutes to go 3/4 of a block on 33rd Street. I was going out of my mind.

It’s impossible to judge fairly how sales of CAPTAIN MARVEL were going since, naturally, the entire creative team was there. I will say, however, that according to store staff, sales of MARVILLE were going veeeeeery slowly. Funny thing is, the other two titles really have it pretty easy. Since I was the one going out there in the first place saying I thought the storyline in CM was so fabulous that everyone had to read it, I always figured I was the one with the most to lose if the writing wasn’t up to snuff. Expectations were high because of what I’d said, and because of my track record. Judging by comments on various boards, expectations were far less for the other two titles. It’s kind of like the Gore/Bush debates. Everyone expected so much of the intellectual, debate-savvy Gore, that all Bush had to do was show up sober, not bump into the furniture, and not attack a woman in the front row, and people would be impressed. Same thing here. My perception is that CM really has to be good to live up to what people expect. All MARVILLE and ULTIMATE has to do is not suck.

PAD

No, it’s not grooming tips (yeah, like I’d be the one to come up with those.) I forgot to mention that I’ll be appearing today at Jim Hanley’s Universe in Manhattan, 4 W. 33rd Street, from 4 to 7 PM for a “Captain Marvel” releated signing. Then let’s all clock with a stopwatch how long it takes signed copies of CM to show up on ebay.

Also, for those within range of Stony Brook University, I’ll be appearing on the radio show “Destinies” this Friday at 11:30 PM. “Destinies” airs on WUSB, 90.1 FM, Stony Brook, NY, and can be heard via RealAudio through links at the WUSB website. After September 24 or 25, the program will be rebroadcast online in rotation at Cosmic Landscapes.

PAD

UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. I love that name. I keep expecting he has two associates named “Sptzl” and “Glah.”

You know, that’s a thought. Send Sugar and Spike into Iraq as weapons inspectors. By the time they’re through, Saddam will be begging us to bomb him.

PAD

I’m always fascinated by the people who continue to rant and rave that my take on THE HULK was somehow dead wrong or “not the Hulk.” The one constant of any long-running comic book character is change, from variations in tone and style (Batman, Superman) to variations in costume and even identity. Why my run on the Hulk is singled out by some as being “not the Hulk” mystifies me, considering the number of personality and strength variations he went through in his first six issues alone.

These critics generally tend to single out what I called “the merged Hulk”….the period dubbed “the professor” by Paul Jenkins, a title I don’t hold with considering that it focuses merely on the scholarly aspects of the character at the time without taking into account that he was, in essence, a big bully. People who claim that the Hulk is supposed to be about the conflict between Banner and his savage aspect miss the point that the merged Hulk *was* about that very thing: It was simply internalized instead of externalized. But it was still very much there. My model for the Hulk at that point became Val Kilmer’s character from “Real Genius” except gone bad: A brilliant MIT student who was positive that he was better than everyone else in the world and could do whatever he wanted. Which is just a high-falutin’ way of saying, “Hulk is strongest one there is.” People who thought I did the storyline just so I could have him be clever and witty and big and green, frankly, just didn’t get it.

There are those who claim that the Hulk should be about nothing except Hulk smashing this and that and some other dámņëd thing. Fans who believe that this would be a good thing are blind to the reality of the marketplace, which is that readers get bored. Fast. At $2.25 and up per book, fans are looking for reasons to drop titles more than they are to pick them up. Anyone fan who states that, if he were writing the title, it would be 22 pages of “Hulk smash” every month has doomed the book to declining sales and themselves to unemployment. The key to keeping a title going long-term is dancing as fast as one can. I applaud Bruce Jones’ success on the book; let’s see how he’s doing on it in ten years.

The funniest notion is those folks who believe the Hulk was my mouthpiece for my political views. It doesn’t get dumber than that. The Hulk headed up the Pantheon, an organization dedicated to the notion that they should be able to go wherever they want, whenever they want, and right whatever wrongs they saw fit regardless of national boundaries, treaties, or the desires of respective governments. In short…he was George W. Bush. Does *anyone* think I’m George W. Bush?

PAD

Just came back from a weekend spent down in Pennsylvania, celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. For the first time in a while, all of us were in one place (with the exception of Shana and Gwen, up living in Boston and weren’t able to make it down…and by the way, Gwen is looking for a job. She’s particularly skilled at baking, if anyone knows of anything.)

My folks got a small room at a local place called the William Penn Inn, a restaurant so fancy that there was a harpist outside the room. I’m sure we drove him nuts because my father and I kept singing along anytime he played show tunes.

My pregnant sister and my pregnant wife have an established greeting wherein, instead of shaking hands, they bump bellies.

Ah well. Off to atone. Hope God doesn’t strike me down for entering my BLOG on Yom Kippur. That would kind of suck.

PAD

First of all, webmaster Glenn Hauman should be adjusting the BLOG response entries so that you can read the responses in order from the top down rather than bottom up. That seems to be the preferred method.

Second, I’m amused by the fans who are trying to figure out the identity of the Snake Girl who shows up in the final pages of YJ #49. There’s been all sorts of guesses as to who she is and some fans can swear they’ve seen her before.

Why is she so unfamiliar? Simple.

Her first appearance is in YJ #49. She’s never been seen before.

I was told to put in a snake-girl character because apparently a young lady won some sort of create-a-character contest that DC was holding, and YJ is the book she’s supposed to show up in. It was news to me, but hey, I just work here. So I made her Serpenteen’s girlfriend since that seemed a natural way to go with it. We learn a bit more about her next issue when she swallows Wonder Girl. Really. I’m not kidding.

PAD

It’s a crying shame about “Farscape” being flushed, but not entirely surprising from what I understand:

1) SFC’s parent company is in deep financial trouble, and I think it’s pretty obvious just to look at it that “Farscape” is not a cheap series to produce. I doubt the actors are making big bucks; the money’s up on the screen. The other aspect is that in TV production, you reach a point of no return vis a vis syndication. You need a certain number of episodes to be able to form a syndication package to allow for stripping (running a show five times a week) which is where the real money is. If you don’t make that number, then the show will likely lose money overall, particularly if it’s an expensive show. I don’t know for certain it’s the case, but “Farscape” might have been reaching that number where they either had to cut their losses or commit to the full number for a syndie package, and they chose the former.

2) I always marveled how “Farscape” was clearly a series where the network was letting the creative folks have their head. Believe me, you can tell: You’ll see shows and something will happen or be said and you’ll say, “Yup, that was a network note.” For the most part, notes from the network exist to dumb shows down, make them lowest common denominator. “Farscape” challenged you to keep up with it. Networks hate that. So I thought it was smart that SFC was being “hands off” with the show. Turns out I was wrong. The series producers simply ignored network notes. This did not endear them to the brass at SFC. From what I hear ’round the campfire, SFC brass hated the series. A series has no friends at a network at its own peril; unless it’s a megahit, it’s vulnerable, as execs will look for any excuse to bag the show. “Farscape” was many things, but a megahit it wasn’t.

3) I also understand the sets have been destroyed. Not stored. Destroyed. If that’s true, if the sets are gone, then any “save the show” campaign is a waste of time. They won’t rebuild the sets. The bulk of initial outlay goes into the sets. The only way “Farscape” comes back (in a two hour film, as has been hoped) is if all shots of Moya, etc., are stock shots and the entire thing is shot on Earth. Which is not impossible, I suppose. But a return of the series ongoing if the sets are gone is slimmer than slim.

PAD