Category: 1

Two things happening involving me this weekend.

1) My second episode of the first season of “Young Justice,” titled, “Insecurity,” airs this Saturday morning on Cartoon Network. So be sure to give that a look at 10:30 AM Eastern.

2) I’ll be attending I-Con this weekend at Stony Brook University. I won’t be around Friday, but I’ll be wandering around Saturday and Sunday (I don’t have any table I’m signing at, so it’ll be a case of catch as catch can.) I will NOT be on the Saturday panel about the DC 52 because I saw that as a no-win scenario. As far as writing comics goes, I work for Marvel: if I say it’s successful, I come across as promoting DC work; if I criticize it, I’m a Marvel guy slagging the other company. Didn’t see much point to that. I will, however, be on the panel on Sunday about writing for shared universes.

PAD

I’ve been asked by fans if I would ever have any interest in writing fiction about zombies. And I’ve always said absolutely not. I found zombies boring and one-note and couldn’t imagine what I’d do with them.

Then Marvel needed me to step in and write the last three issues of “Marvel Zombies Destroy.” And the concept was simple: World War II Nazi zombies. I thought, “How could I possibly pass that up?” Still, I was worried that I didn’t have the proper mindset for such endeavors.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. Except now the fact that I needn’t have worried, in and of itself, worries me, considering some of the truly sick stuff I came up with. And even worse, I had fun doing it. It’s oddly liberating, from a storytelling point of view, to have a character get disemboweled and then use his own intestines as a weapon against his attacker. Although I did avoid the obvious dialogue line of, “That took guts!” Even with zombies, some things are just too much.

PAD

Glenn Beck, Geraoldo Rivera and, I would think, other conservatives are trying to assert that Trayvon Martin was responsible for his own death. That either he had it coming because supposedly he was a criminal, or he was wearing a hoodie (which is one step removed from claiming that women brought sexual assault on themselves because of sexy attire.)

Naturally that’s the angle they’d have to take. Because if they blame the gunman, then in the de rigueur discussion of gun control laws which is sure to follow this incident, and which rarely leads anywhere since no one wants to pìšš øff the gun lobby since they’re, y’know, armed, then Beck, Rivera et al risk being portrayed as coming down on the wrong side of this favorite conservative issue. Because you’ll take their guns when you pry them from their cold, dead fingers.

You know…the kind of fingers Trayvon Martin has.

Meanwhile, Kath and I will apparently have to wear our hoodies at our own risk.

PAD

A week or so ago I was contacted by Marvel editorial: The writer for their new Zombie limited series, “Marvel Zombies Destroy!” had run into some health issues and they needed someone to step in and write the last three issues. Having not read the solicits, I said, “What’s the premise?”

“World War II Marvel Nazi zombies.”

I gave it not a moment’s hesitation. “Sold.”

Because really: How can you possibly turn down World War II Marvel Nazi zombies?

I wrote my first issue (#3 of the series) and candidly really got a kick out of it. And I’ve got incredibly twisted things in mind for #4 and #5. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I am writing it.

PAD

It’s easy to point out that, since I have several dogs in this hunt–namely I work for Disney and also wrote the *ahem* New York Times Bestseller graphic novel prequel, “World of Mars,” that I cannot approach the newly released “John Carter” in any sort of unbiased way. And that’s true. But not for the obvious reasons.

I’m going to be biased because when I was ten years old, throwing myself eagerly into the Edgar Rice Burroughs tales of Barsoom, there were nights–especially at the end of some VERY lousy days–where I would stand in the backyard and try to find the glittering red spot that was Mars against the blackened sky. And I would look up longingly, just as Carter had, and throw my arms wide, and wish desperately that I could leave my mortal body behind and find myself on Mars. There I would pal around with a four armed green guy, and a calot would be my pet, and I’d have a naked Martian girlfriend (yes, I thought that way at age ten. What can I say? I was precocious. Don’t tell ME gender preference isn’t ingrained.)

Continue Reading “To the Moon Over “John Carter”” →

Caroline is doing a project for her third grade science fair this year. She’s decide to myth bust the following belief: that if you drop a piece of buttered bread, it will always land butter side down. Her belief was that, in fact, even buttered bread would attend to the law of averages and probability and simply fall butter side down half the time.

She was also aware that cats always land on their feet. So she further decided to see what would happen if you strapped a piece of buttered bread to the back of a cat and let it fall. Would it fall butter side down? Cat feet down? Or would the dropped cat simply spin perpetually in the air on a horizontal plane, like a chicken on a spit roast, unable to land since it was caught between two absolutes?

The family pitched in and here are the results:

Continue Reading “Caroline’s Science Experiment. Of Particular Interest if you Hate Cats.” →

You’ve just gone live with a lurid story over how Stephen Hawking visits sex clubs.

How in God’s name is this anybody’s business? I mean, part of me cringes even bringing it up because it just gives more exposure to this garbage, but I do so because I think it brings up a wider issue worth addressing.

Continue Reading “Open Letter to the Huffington Post” →