Year: 2015

Understand that I generally do not support boycotts.

I suppose that stems from the many knee jerk reactions that various fans have had when I said something they disliked and they announced that they were going to boycott my work, even though my work doesn’t reflect my views. Like the time that I worked on a video game that was associated with Orson Scott Card and gays were declaring I should be boycotted even though I was getting an award from GLAAD at the same time for my comic books.

Mostly I feel that boycotts needlessly punish the wrong people. You dislike Mel Gibson so you refuse to go to his movies, except the ones who are suffering are not Gibson but the movie theater owners.

But seriously: Indiana? WTF?

I can’t in good conscience attend any functions in a state that endorses discrimination in such an overt manner (although the governor apparently can’t actually admit it.) I’ve been to conventions in Indianapolis and such, but sorry, no more. I’m out until they repeal this idiotic law.

PAD

Kathleen has been making puppets of the Doctors for many years, as you know. Back in 1991 a friend of hers managed to get one to Peter Davison.

So this weekend I was at a Wizard convention that David Tennant was at. She gave me her puppet of Tennant’s Doctor and asked if I could try to get it to him.

It took me three days of maneuvering with the Wizard personnel, but finally on Sunday they okayed bringing me over to Tennant to present it to him. They escorted me to the front of the line of about 1000 people (that’s no exaggeration) and I apologized to the young lady they put me in front of, but she seemed fine with it.

I brought the puppet forward to David with the understanding that I’d be as fast as possible. He seemed enchanted by it and immediately put his hand into it and started playing with it.

I said, “It’s a gift for you, made by my wife, Kathleen David. My name is Peter David and I’m–”

I was about to say “a writer for Marvel comics,” but Tennant cut me off. He looked at me wide-eyed and said, “The writer?!”

Astounded, I nodded. I managed to say, “Yeah.”

“I LOVE your work on Hulk!” he said.

I turned to the crowd and shouted, “David Tennant knows who I am!”

PADPhoto copyright Wayne Marshall

If you’re not familiar with the Logan Act, which was been around since the end of the Eighteenth Century, it says this:

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

Every politician who signed the letter to Iran telling them (falsely) that any anti-nuclear agreements they made with Obama would be set aside once he left office has violated the Logan Act and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

PAD

We’re having another day in the 40s. And the two feet of snow that’s been sitting on my front lawn for over a month is beginning to melt. No snow is predicted for the next ten days, which is longer than we’ve had no snow predicted for at least six weeks.

God, let this nightmare be over.

PAD

The first time I met Leonard Nimoy was in Italy, at an Italian Star Trek convention.

I had wanted to see him the entire time that I was there, but my schedule never worked out so that I was free while he was with the fans. Desperately, I asked Julie Caitlin Brown (who was there overseeing his stay) if there was any way she could arrange an opportunity for me to have just a minute to say hi.

It turned out, much to my astonishment, that Leonard not only knew who I was, but was a fan of my work. I hope that doesn’t come across as self-aggrandizing because it’s not meant to. But he was, and I couldn’t have been happier.

I sat down with him for ten minutes in his dressing room and we chatted about his photography and angels and all sorts of things. Then he had to leave and I wound up being drafted to be part of the flying wedge of security that had to power him through a mob of about a hundred Italian Star Trek fans who were waiting for him at the exit door. So that was exciting.

The last time I saw him was at Dragon*Con, where I had the honor of presenting him with the Julie Award. He was sitting at the table nearest the stage, and with him were Bill Shatner and Kate Mulgrew. The part I remember most distinctly was when I said, “Thanks to Leonard Nimoy, Mister Spock is so beloved a character, that when he showed up in the ice cave in the recent movie, his appearance prompted the entire audience in the theater I was in to cheer and roar with approval…even though his being there made no story sense whatsoever.” Leonard almost fell over, he was laughing so hard, but the even better reaction was Shatner. I could read his lips as he was saying, “I told you! I told you that made no sense!”

I knew, as everyone else did, that he was having heart troubles. It’s ironic that that would be what took him considering that Nimoy had one of the biggest hearts of any individual I’ve ever encountered. I knew him a little; I would have loved to know him much better.

I’ve been hanging out on AICN for a few days since the first display of the Zack Snyder Aquaman picture. AICN has been hostility central as fans are complaining about how he looks nothing like Aquaman (apparently having forgotten when I wrote the character when he looks more or less exactly like that.)

And as fans continue to declare loudly that everything Hollywood produces is garbage, it made me wonder the following:

What the hëll are they doing here?

I mean, I think that–for instance–everything that Fox News says deserves advance contempt, based on their indisputable track record of lying. So you’ll never find me on the Fox News website spouting hatred, because since I deplore them, I simply don’t bother with them.

Yet here are all these people who have nothing but contempt for what Hollywood produces, hanging out on a website that is essentially nothing but one big promotional device for those very films that they despise. They come there to bìŧçh and piss and moan about everything. It’s like Red Sox fans frequenting the Yankees website. Any reasonable individual would look upon these actions and wonder why in hëll they are wasting their time at a site that is going to bring them nothing but anger and frustration.

This attitude would prompt said reasonable individual to think that the lot of they are actually full of crap. That no matter how much they say they despise everything that Hollywood turns out, the fact is that actually they support every film that they bìŧçh about. That they turn up there, not to express genuine contempt for Hollywood, but simply to posture (mostly from anonymity) and prance about with their oh-so-cool disdain for motion pictures and television while secretly supporting the films that they so despise.

The fact is, I believe, that they all think they’re too cool to be fans. That to express genuine excitement and support would remove the edge they aspire to as a self-designated truth sayer in a world gone mad.

Except they all know they’re not. Bìŧçh and piss and moan all they want; they’ll still be there opening day. As will I, most likely.

But at least I won’t be a hypocrite about it.

PAD

So now I’m reading comments from fans widely decrying the photo of Aquaman that Zack Snyder put up on Twitter. Apparently oblivious to the fact that it’s clearly my version of Arthur, fans are shouting that it looks nothing remotely like the DC Aquaman. Which I guess makes sense; mine was twenty years ago and that’s two generations of comics fans to have passed through and forgotten my iteration of the Sea King.

Continue Reading “Why do fans have to bìŧçh about EVERYthing?” →