Author: Peter David

Not being announced immediately.

When I hit upon the notion of having a reader write-in for a new YJ leader (a la the Legion of old), I realized my one window of opportunity to do it was issue #46. Why? Because #46 marked the return of Robin, and with some potential flux in both membership and leadership, that was the place to do it. Would that I had figured it out a year ago. So we put the reader-voting part of it into action as quickly as we humanly could, but deadlines caught up with us and there was simply no way we’d have a decision from the readership before the script for #46 was actually do.

So issue #46 of YJ ends in admittedly cruel fashion by leaving the question of leadership hanging. Still, we should have had it ready to announce with #47.

Well…no.

In a real life extravaganza evocative of Florida, several bags of mail–including a bag filled with ballots from readers–went astray from the DC mail room. By the time it was finally recovered (and it was), I had to have turned in the script for #47 and #48 as well. It’s not hanging chads, but it’s as close as you can get.

So readers ain’t finding out in #47 or 48 either. Yet the upcoming events required leadership decisions to be made. How to deal with it without knowing the identity of the leader? Easy. The leader speaks from off panel. It’s one of those moments when you’re really grateful for the silent medium of comics.

So issue #47 launches a four parter that has major impact on our cast and culminates in a double-sized guest-star packed extravaganza in #50…but the one thing it doesn’t have is the ID of the leader. That’s in #49.

PAD

So this is how I get a message passed on to me in my house:

“Oh, dad. Somebody from Universal called four or five days ago about ‘The Hulk.’ I’ll go get the message; I wrote it down on a piece of paper and stuck it to the fridge. (Two minutes later.) I guess it got thrown out. They’ll probably call back.”

Ten minutes of screaming ensued as I envisioned Ang Lee saying, “Fine, if David couldn’t be bothered to call back, we’ll go to our next person on the list of people we have to do rewrites on the screenplay.” Well, it wasn’t about doing rewrites on the movie. Steve Saffel at Del Rey managed to put me together with the nice lady who had called here, namely Cindy Chang at Universal, who it turns out was calling me about the prospect of writing the novelization of the HULK movie. Apparently between the generally positive reception of the Spidey novelization and the fact that I do have *some* passing familiarity with the character, it was felt that I was the guy to turn the screenplay into a book.

And I said “Sure.” Because, y’know, why not? Which means, since I’m signing a non-disclosure agreement, that over the next months I will be *extremely* silent in terms of comments about the contents of the film. Although I do feel confident in saying that the Hulk will have absolutely no biological webspinners.

PAD

It’s one of the best movie adaptations of comic book material that I’ve seen in years. And no, surprisingly enough, I’m not talking about “Spider-Man.”

No, I’m speaking of “Asterix and Obelix on a Mission for Cleopatra.” The second in a series of live action adaptations of the classic comic strip, I happened to see it–of all places–on the flight back from France. In French with American subtitles, the only actor in it whose name would mean anything to Americans is Gerard Depardieu, playing the massive Obelix.

It is laugh-out-loud hysterical. It not only contains the entirety of the particular adventure upon which it’s based, but also incorporates all manner of updates that miraculously work. Such touches as an entire dance number to “I Feel Good!” after a group of Egyptian slaves drink down the miraculous strength-inducing elixir of the Druid Getafix, to loopy new characters such as Cellularis (whose voice tends to break up for no reason) dovetail perfectly with the existing work. And certain in-jokes are inspired. At one point, for instance, Obelix knocks off the nose of the Sphinx while scaling its face and then exclaims, “A nose? Nay…’tis a rock! A cape! A peninsula!”, requiring that you both know “Cyrano De Bergerac” and also know that Depardieu played him in a memorable film version.

I’ve never seen the first film, but just picked up a DVD of it off ebay. Meantime if you have ANY opportunity to catch this film, I highly recommend it.

PAD

Well, this is one of those situations where it’s pretty dámņëd convenient having my own website. It means that I can address a rumor in one central place.

Rich Johnston reported in “All the Rage” that he’s heard there’s going to be a new “SHAZAM” series and that I’m going to be writing it. Now I’ll grant you, I’ve been out of town for a week. Perhaps there’s something in the hopper at DC and they’re planning to contact me. And there’s certainly some amusement value in the notion of writing two books simultaneously for two companies both featuring a character named “Captain Marvel.” I’m not sure if that’s ever been done before.

But as of this particular moment in time, I haven’t heard boo about it. No one’s called me about it or made any sort of offer. It’s rumor to you and Rich, and news to me. The only thing I can think of is that my continued use of Mary Marvel in SUPERGIRL through to the end of the current story arc in #74 got mushed together with a possible new SHAZAM series, and consequently my name was attached to it.

Still, they always say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but in this case Rich helped keep my name out there in a manner that, for the first time in ages, has nothing to do with Marvel. Well, actually it does, but not that Marvel. The other Marvel. The Marvel that was Marvel before Marvel was Mar–

Forget it.

PAD

We’re dealing with a heavy badwidth choke as a neighboring web site has seen a major spike in traffic. Posting of comments is haphazard, and even PAD has been having trouble posting. Bear with us.

I’m receiving a number of queries as to my reaction to DC’s announcing of certain titles going up in price, including my two. And implicit in the question, sometimes spoken and sometimes not, is whether I’m going to offer to write those titles for close-to-free as I did with Marvel.

The answer is, no, of course not. The two situations are not analagous.

Look, I’m not stupid. Price increases are a part of the comics business. I used to sell the things for a living, remember. But there are significant differences between the two situations. First, the DC increase covers a larger group of titles, so I’m not feeling quite so singled out. Second, DC didn’t make the announcement by saying in effect, that they were raising the prices of three titles specifically to help them limp along for another year. Instead I perceive this as simply the first stage of what will likely be across-the-board price increases for the entirety of the line. I don’t have inside info on that; it’s just a guess. Third, I’ve made no bones about the fact that making the offer to Marvel was a means of getting “Captain Marvel” noticed. And it worked. And fourth, DC higher-ups simply don’t employ the same kind of over-the-top publicity tactics that Marvel does. By openly challenging Marvel, I was using the same PR-milking tools that current Marvel management uses. Sauce for the goose, as it were. There’s no point in going publicly nuclear on Paul Levitz because it’s an inconsistent reaction to his public demeanor; it’d be tantamount to kicking Johnny Carson in the nuts. As opposed to going mano a mano with Marvel management which is kind of like engaging in a steel cage match with Dennis Miller and Bill Maher.

“Proportionate response” is the watchphrase, young PADawans. In the cases of both YJ and Supergirl, I have major storylines coming up that ideally will overcome any hesitancy generated by the price increase.

However, I think we’re going to have to face facts: The 22 page pamphlet-style of comics is a terminal format. Who the hëll would want to pay $3 for a 22 page comic? It’s insane. Sooner or later, I think companies are going to have to bite the bullet and collapse several titles together into $3.50 perfect bound titles on slicker paper with stiff covers, 32 or 48 pages, and *that* will be the regular format. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

PAD

Bet you were wondering where I was. Or maybe you weren’t, which would probably be better.

I’ve been on the road for the last week: First to a Star Trek convention in Bellari, Italy (about 90 minutes out of Bologna), followed by several store appearances in Paris. Nowadays traveling with a computer is just too much hassle (from an airport check-in point of view) to warrant bringing one, and I never stumbled over an internet cafe to get on line. Curiously, the internet seemed to survive without me for a while.

This was the one year anniversary of our wedding, and considering that Kath and I brought the kids along on the original honeymoon, it seemed that after a year we were entitled to one just for ourselves. So when an all-expense paid trip to Europe presented itself, we couldn’t turn it down.

Julie Caitlin Brown of NaToth fame put the gig together. Greatest convention appearance agent ever. If anyone reading this is connected to an SF series and wants to start hitting conventions, and wants to have Julie handle it, e-mail me and I’ll put you folks together.

I’ll be doing a detailed write-up in “But I Digress,” but for me the absolute high-point of the trip to Italy was getting to meet Leonard Nimoy. I still have just enough of the fanboy in me to be completely thrilled by the notion itself…but get this. *He* wanted to meet *me.* Apparently John deLancie had mentioned me back when they were working on “Alien Voices.” I dunno, maybe he just wanted to check and see if I was as horrific as all that. At any rate, I actually got to hang for a couple of minutes with Mr. Spock.

I’ve just read the previous graf over three times and keep thinking I should delete it since it makes me sound like nothing but the grown-up fanboy I am. But…nah.

My parents took me to Paris when I was ten years old. Back then the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arch of Triumph…all those places looked huge. Of course, now I’m an adult, so they appeared much smaller. Okay, not really.

I had the opportunity to haul out my high school French, and actually was able to make myself understood, and comprehend what people said back to me. What was truly shattering for my entire belief system was that we didn’t run into a single rude Parisian. Everyone was helpeful, polite, and seemed genuinely pleased that I was at least making the effort to speak French. The only people who were rude and pushy were tourists from Germany and America. Go figure.

PAD