Month: February 2003

While I was out in LA, Harlan and Susan Ellison decided to have a party and invite a whole bunch of folks, ostensibly so it would take care of everyone who wanted to visit for the next six months. Quite an assortment of folks there, ranging from comic book luminaries such as Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Colleen Doran and Jim Valentino, to Walter Koenig and a guy who looked a lot like Ed Asner probably because he actually was Ed Asner. It was a gloriously wild time, particularly when Ellison and Asner were trading barbs with delirious ferocity. I actually spent about fifteen minutes chatting with Asner. A short time later, I confessed to several other comic folks that I was fanboy enough to keep thinking, “I’m at a party with Ed Asner! How cool is that?” And immediately their heads bobbed in unison; they were thinking the same thing. So I felt slightly less geeky.

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Well, I seem to be all over the place in the current “Wizard” magazine (which makes sense, since I’m kind of all over the place in real life as well.) In addition to being back on the top 10 writer’s list, they have a brief focus on the history of “Captain Marvel,” a sidebar piece with me discussing “U-Decide”, an inclusion of “Supergirl #75” in their top ten hot comics (#76 should be even hotter, I think, considering retailers stunningly dropped their orders by about 1800 copies from #75 to #76 while interest and demand went up) and even–of all things–a mention in their “Comics by the numbers” section in which they cite “194” as my bowling average at last year’s Pro-Am. The average is correct enough for my three game set, but a correction: They also said it was televised on ESPN. No. The Pro-Am was part of a series of functions at the lanes in Syosset, LI, which culminated in the Sunday ESPN-broadcast of a pro tournament that I did attend. But only as an audience member. A Pro bowler I most definitely am not.

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While I was out in LA, Bill Mumy showed me a director’s cut of “It’s Still A Good Life,” scheduled to air February 19 on “The Twilight Zone.” Despite the fact that it was a preliminary edit, the music was a temp track, and the FX weren’t done, it was still incredible viewing. They have an opening shot of Bill from the original episode, poised on a fence, and then they dissolve to modern day and it’s his daughter, Liliana, in approximately the same position and, of course, with the same face. And it just gets better from there. It’s truly can’t-miss viewing.

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To see if the actual spoiler system works, highlight the following phrase: Darth Vader is really Luke’s mother. Luke’s father was really the sled. If this were an actual spoiler, many of you would be very confused right about now.

So we all can post spoilers with a little more impunity, please surrond your spoilers with <font color=”#bdc4df”> and </font>.

Put down your pencils and pass your papers forward, this was only a test.

UPDATE: The problem of the color in spoilers has been fixed– except for yours, Saddam. Bad enough we have an orange alert… do you know how many oranges we’ve had to squeeze today?

Okay…if I did this right, then you should be seeing the Mike Kaluta painting for the first issue of “The Fallen Angel.” It’s slightly darker than the actual printed version will be, but it gives you an idea.

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Well, I was fooled by recent episodes of both “Buffy” and “Angel.” Both did so with bad writing, but in one case, it was “bad” writing, and it was so “bad” it was good.

So Giles isn’t the First. Oookay. The problem is, I theorized he was the First because it was the best explanation for bad writing. Now it turns out he’s tangible. Which leaves us with no explanation as to why no one has touched him, or hugged him, or shaken his hand. No explanation as to why he didn’t try to haul Buffy out. What explanation do we have at present? Ha ha, got’cha, made you think he was the First. Problem is, it’s easy to fool people using bad writing. Is there some further twist? He’s not the First, but instead he’s…what? Giles, except he’s just been out of character for five weeks.

Once upon a time, BTVS would lead you to think one thing was going to happen, and then something else utterly unexpected does. In this case alert fans were led to believe Giles was the First, except actually he’s…not. If that’s where it’s left, then it was a pointless red herring for no reason other than to have a red herring. Which is pretty fishy.

Now “Angel,” on the other hand, continues to get it right. At the end of last week’s episode, I was furious to realize the previous 45 minutes had been mere hallucination. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized they’d played fair. Any number of times during the episode, I was amazed and annoyed how everything seemed to fall conveniently into place. I even thought at one point, “This is all too perfect” without once putting it together. Would I have accepted the notion that the Shaman could just have waved his hands and boom, Angel’s soul is gone? Sure. We all did in the 3rd season episode where Buffy and Angel hosed Faith. The fact that it was a hosing was beside the point. But the producers obviously want to stick to the Gypsy curse and maintain that *only* a moment of perfect happiness loses the soul. Okay, fair enough, especially since he’s never lost it any other way. And that being the case, the way they staged it was right on the money. What seemed to be bad writing as one convenient thing after another occurred, and each bit of character conflict was too tidily resolved, turned out to be a major “got’cha.” I admit it: I was had. Should’ve seen it coming; didn’t. Nicely done. Everything that “Buffy” does wrong, “Angel” does right.

If only the two series were produced by the same people…

By the way, this week’s episode–“Angelus of the Lambs”–absolutely rocked. When Cordy came downstairs, I was dying for Angelus to purr, “Hello, Clarice…”

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…to the byline. This is Peter, back on line. Unfortunately, I can’t get Kath’s name out of the heading. Should have that straightened out in a day or so.

I’m back from the woefully underattended Creation Con in Pasadena. Expecting between two to three thousand people, they pulled in perhaps 800 attendees on Saturday. On Friday and Sunday, you could have fired off a cannon in the dealer’s room and hit only frustrated dealers. This was a convention that included Stan Lee, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, both Romitas, Russ Heath, and scores of others. I’m not sure whether it had to do with promotion, ticket prices, or the spiralling market.

Surreal moment #1: Driving to a Saturday morning business breakfast in LA, putting on the radio to hear traffic reports, and the first words out of the radio were, “shuttle debris.” And I thought, Oh, this can’t be good.

Surreal moment #2: Doug Murray, who spearheaded my coming out to the convention, pointing out to me some of the notables attending the convention, drew my attention to a leggy, gorgeous blonde. “That’s Lana Clarkson,” he said. “She’s an actress. She was in “Amazon Women on the Moon.” Barely 24 hours later, I would hear she’d been found lying in a pool of blood on the floor of Phil Spector’s mansion after being picked up by him at the House of Blues in LA.

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