Month: July 2004

When I finally put on the episode of “Monk” that I taped last week, I noted with pleasure the name “Jimmie F. Skaggs” in the opening credits as a guest star. I got to know Jimmie, a talented and eminently pleasant character actor, some years ago when he was appearing as “Buteo,” the solemn Indian-esque wiseman in my films “Oblivion” and “Backlash: Oblivion II.” We hung out in Romania while I was over there, and he was a really sweet guy.

So imagine my shock when, at the very close of the episode, it said, “In Memory of Jimmie F. Skaggs.”

Ðámņáŧìøņ. I didn’t know he died of complications from cancer a couple of weeks ago at the age of 59.

If you’ve never seen either of the “Oblivion” movies, scrounge around at your local DVD shop and see if you can score a copy. He’s done tons of work in movies and various episodics, and I openly admit my bias, but I thought he was great in the role and it’s a crying shame to lose someone that young.

PAD

So with the Democratic National Convention wrapped, what did you guys think? High points? Low points? Kerry’s speech?

Personally, I thought he did very well. With so much being attached to this speech in terms of do-or-die, he seemed a little shaky to start out, but slowly built up an impressive head of steam. By the end I thought he sounded pretty dámņëd good.

Although I still have to say I thought Comedy Central’s “John Kerry: He’s Not George W. Bush” was still the best commentary on the night.

PAD

I’m getting lots of queries about the fact that Rich Johnston has reported in his column that Marvel is considering offering me the Hulk again. This is based upon Joe’s soliciting fan reaction, getting huge cheers, during one of his panels on the notion of my coming back on the series, and then giving a cryptic, Cheshire cat response.

Now, honestly, I’ve been to such gatherings, and while it’s great that people cheered when Joe asked what they thought of me returning full-time to HULK, my guess is that if Joe had said, “We’re thinking of tearing up the carpeting at the Marvel offices and switching over to linoleum, whattaya think?!” he could have gotten thunderous applause. So, y’know…

That said, No, Marvel has not approached me about the prospect of returning to an ongoing HULK series. For one thing, with Bruce leaving to go off to DC, I don’t even know if there IS gonna be an ongoing HULK series, do you? I am still doing the six-issue HULK limited series next year, and yes, we do have an artist aboard: Lee Weeks, which will be fun since I haven’t worked with Lee since our “Justice” days.

Ever since Bruce’s exclusive with DC was announced, I’ve been speculating that maybe Marvel is now looking to the limited series as a litmus test, because certainly fans have sent mixed reactions on line. For every fan who says, “We’d love to see Peter David back on HULK,” there’s another who says, “Been there, done that.” So it could be they don’t know what to expect and are interested to see what the miniseries results in. But I don’t know for sure. It’s pure guess on my part and, for all I know, they could announce tomorrow that Bendis is taking over on HULK and that’s that.

So I guess we’ll all find out together.

PAD

I’m back from the San Diego Con, with a brief sojourn up into Los Angeles for business and such.

I figure I’ll do a blow-by-blow in my column in the next CBG (about which I heard from a number of people, most of them saying the same thing: “Did it HAVE to go monthly?” Hey, wasn’t my call to make.) Overall, the con continues to be the marathon of conventions. There were exhibitors who looked like the walking wounded, and it was only Thursday.

I would say that, over the four days, I got to see maybe 50% of the dealer’s room, which is by this point easily the size of three football fields if not more. I was on several panels, and what was interesting to me was that they were not comics panels but fantasy lit panels. There’s something to be said for sharing space with the likes of Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan.

I attended, by invite, the very first screening for an audience of “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.” One hëll of a film, I gotta say, with Jude Law perfect as the movie serial-esque hero and Gwyneth Paltrow looking like she just stepped out of a 1930s film. I’m utterly convinced that this retro pastiche look is the way to go with the new “Superman” film. Just go ahead, make it look like a Fleischer studios cartoon. It’ll be great. High point of the film remains the attack of the giant robots, so masterfully convincing that you practically wanted to duck as they tromped through.

Attended parties thrown by both Marvel and DC, shot pool with Robert Kirkman, and pulled off a lucky trick shot that convinced everyone watching that my protests of being inept were just a cover for being a pool hustler. Accompanied a friend to an informal cocktail gathering at the Marriott where it turned out Stan Lee was, and the moment he spotted me, Stan called out, “It’s Peter David! The greatest comic book writer in the business!” whereupon everyone there suddenly wanted to get to know me.

And, yeah, in a passing remark that kind of got out of hand, I wound up getting a tat of Elfquest’s Leetah on my left arm. And let me stop discussion right now by saying that, no, as several people including my eldest daughter asked, I will NOT get my nipple pierced for another $1000 donation, or $10,000, or whatever amount. Wendy Pini, however, has volunteered to do body drawings that can then be tattooed over on anyone who wants to make a $1000 donation to the fund. My arm still stings just a bit, but it’s more like a sunburn than anything else. And I’ve pretty much got the hang of flexing my muscle so that it looks like her stomach is undulating.

PAD

For those of you who have asked me, yes. I did know what Peter was up to. He kept me up to date all the way on his adventure. There are pictures up now at Newsrama that Richard took of the whole thing.
I think it looks pretty cool.

are true. Photos to come. And what have YOU done for the CBLDF lately?

At least I think it’s out this week. People are e-mailing me about it, so I’m guessing it is.

Had to try and accomplish a lot in a last issue that I had no idea was going to be the last until they said, “Okay, we’ve ending it with #25, so wrap it up,” and I’d already written #24.

Whad’ja think?

PAD