Year: 2006

John Byrne has several popular lies he likes to tell about me. One of his favorites jus resurfaced over on his board in a thread about whether the internet has ruined comics, in which he responds to the following set-up line–

“Wasn’t the ending to Alpha Flight #12 spoiled at a comic convention by another comic professional?”

–with the following lie:

“Peter David handed out xeroxes of Guardian’s death at a con about a month before the book shipped.”

Nnnnnno. A popular lie of John’s, but no. Number one, it wasn’t at a convention; it was at a get-together for retailers. Number two, it wasn’t Guardian’s death. It was an unlettered two page dream sequence in which Heather was seeing a dessicated Guardian tearing out the ground. Number three, it was part of a package of about two dozen photocopied highlights from assorted Marvel titles. Number four, the material in question was handed to me by Denny O’Neil, the book’s editor when I–in my capacity as sales manager at the time–was going around collecting material to put into the package. And when I said to him, “Are you sure you want me to include this in the material?” Denny replied, “Sure, what’s the harm?” Number five, retailers at the get together had no idea that the sequence actually indicated that Guardian really died. I know this because when John showed up at the get-together, he looked at the material, screamed at me at the top of his lungs, “How could you be showing this to retailers?!? It gives away the fact that Guardian dies!” and stormed out of the room, slowing only long enough to kick over a standing ashtray on his way out. At which point stunned retailers said, “Guardian DIES?,” started looking at the xeroxes again, and were muttering, “I thought it was just a dream sequence…”

Set your watches. I’m sure John will be hauling out the equally fun “Peter David was so stupid he had a character fall to his death underwater” lie sometime within the next six months. That’s one of his favorites.

PAD

Y’know, there’s any number of things one can criticize the Emmys for. The strangeness of nominating Tony Shalhoub for Best Actor in a Comedy, but not “Monk” for best comic series, even though he is the show; the utter bizzareness of nominating “House” for best dramatic series but not Hugh Laurie who, again, is the show. Ellen Burstyn being nominated for best supporting even though she only had fourteen seconds of screen time; nominating Alan Alda for best supporting and Martin Sheen for best actor even though Alda had far more screentime, and completely ignoring Bradley Whitford who was the pulse of “West Wing’s” last season. Strange strange strange.

But jumping on the opening sketch which depicted Conan’s plane taking a nosedive (was I the only one expecting snakes?) and his crash landing on the island from “Lost” because of the tragedy with the airplane in Kentucky…that’s really pushing it. People are howling about poor taste and insensitivity, and no one’s allowing for the possibility that maybe it just didn’t occur to the producers to make the connection. It sure didn’t occur to me. In fact, Kathleen was so ahead of the curve that the moment she saw him in the plane she said, “They’re going to spoof ‘Lost.'” (I was busy anticipating snakes, see above.) Hurley’s comment about how they weren’t invited was scathingly brilliant. I’m not trying to downplay the real life tragedy, but come on…should we also accuse the Emmys of not taking terrorism seriously because they spoofed “24,” or that they were dissing sick people because Gregory House was examining Conan? Maybe…*maybe*…the timing was regrettable, but it’s absurd that people are demanding apologies from NBC and the Emmy producers.

Please.

For me, what made the evening was the running gag with Bob Newhart…although, of course, that could be interpreted to be making fun of people on life support or people who have been trapped in disasters and suffocated.

PAD

Not exactly a new title, but the IDW trade collection of the relaunched series’ first five issues is now out. Personally I think it looks extremely nifty. Plus there’s some art corrections, such as the matter of Juris’s amazing regenerating ax,. Also contains a cover gallery plus intro by me and a piece by JK walking you through how a page of FA is created.

I am also told by DC that they are “considering” collecting the rest of the series’ first run in trade paperback and will “decide by the end of the year.” IDW would be thrilled to collect it themselves, but so far DC holds those reprint rights and haven’t released them.

PAD

After making a point of saying that he was “right” and that Pluto would remain a planet, Colbert’s not going to be a happy camper over the ninth planet losing its status. But that’s his problem. Ours is coming up with a new mnemonic to remember the names of the planets since “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nice Pickles” has become moot.

Now the obvious fix is to come up with a new food for “N.” “Just Served Us Noodles.” Or “Nuggets.” Or “My Very Ethnic Mother Just Served us Nachos.” But you know what? I think it’s time we come up with something completely different. Like “Motor Vehicles Everywhere Must Jump Sharks Until November.” Or something equally idiotic.

Go to it.

PAD

As part of my endeavor to get back into shape, I’ve joined a local gym. Planning to work mostly on improving upper body strength. Also what’s really cool is that the walking machines have television screens on them with all sorts of cable channels. It’s amazing how quickly the time passes when you can focus on something other than the exercise. Plus they’re the only gym in the area with a pool, and swimming is great exercise. Best of all, they have child care, so I can bring Caroline with me and Kath can have the mornings to work on puppetry and such.

So basically I’m figuring Monday/Wednesday/Friday will be gym days, and I practice bowling Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturday. Seems like a decent enough exercise program. Until now I’ve just been bowling for exercise, which works well enough, but the development of my body is lopsided. My right arm is pretty normal looking, but my left arm–my bowling arm–is muscled and defined. So this should help even things out. And they teach you how to use the various machines so I won’t screw myself up.

PAD

So we tuned into the William Shatner roast on Comedy Central last night, except–although I didn’t keep a running tally–it sure felt like there were more jokes about George Takei than there were about Shatner. Comedians–and I use the term extremely loosely–simply couldn’t get enough of making jokes about George’s having come out. Even George’s entire speech was about the subject. I give it four HSGs, which is the number of times I said, “Holy šhìŧ, George!” throughout the course of it. At least George carried it off with gentlemanly archness that provided amusing contrast to what he was saying. But…geez. An hour of jokes about George’s genitalia?

I was just–I dunno. It’s just that I’m old enough to remember the Friars Club roasts. And maybe they were watered down for TV and there were all kinds of dirty bits that got edited out, but the lacerations in those days were filled with wit and style and didn’t require endless expletives that had to get bleeped out. I don’t give a dámņ about profanity if it’s funny. It’s when it’s used as a substitute for humor–when people laugh in shock or discomfort at word choice rather than because it’s funny. Umpteen comments about George Takei shoving his bleep up someone’s bleep…that’s the state of American humor? Ironically it was Shatner who mostly got just the right mix in his closing comments, wryly commenting to George, “The people here certainly tore you a new áššhølë,” waiting a beat, then dropping his voice to a gravely mumble and adding, “But I’m sure you’ll find a use for it” before losing the high ground by making loud bleeped comments about oral gratification.

It just says something to me that most comedians anyone would have heard of–people who might have raised the level of the humor–didn’t come within ten miles of the event. And so the humor level was instead dragged down. There were a lot of genuinely funny comments, but Shatner’s semi-bewildered “Who the hëll ARE you people?” in his closing really underscored the problem and the C-Level of comedians who were in attendance. Ironically, Andy Ðìçk–whom I usually can’t stand–was actually funny in his incarnation as a devoted fan nerd, and there was one guy who talked about George’s revelation without being foulmouthed: The one who asked George if, when he came out of the closet, the door made that “shwip shwip” air noise of Enterprise doors (it was funnier in the telling than the retelling). Mostly, though, it was unimaginative easy shots.

We had a Stan Lee roast at a Chicago Comicon years ago. I was the toastmaster. Not a single profanity was uttered and the audience laughed itself silly.

Whatever happened to style?

PAD

1) I’d like to see a James Bond movie where it’s revealed that his parents survived the ski accident in which they allegedly died and are running an evil spy organization, and his parents are played by Sean Connery and Diana Rigg.

2) I’d like to see a rumor started that Adrian Brody will be starring as “The Shadow,” just so we see if we can actually make it come about.

3) I’d like to see James Cameron’s “Aquaman.”

4) I’d like to see Weird Al Yankovic write a song called “Snakes on a Plane” set to the tune of “Band on the Run.” (Admit it: You’re already singing it to yourself to see how it sounds. Perfect, isn’t it.)

5) I’d like to see in the next “Pirates” movie that Jack Sparrow got his hat from his dad (Keith Richards.)

6) I’d like to see George W. Bush as a guest on “The Daily Show.”

7) I’d like to see Jack Black playing Blackjack.

8) I’d like to see Geoffrey Rush starring as Doctor Syn in a remake of Disney’s “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.”

PAD