America Offline

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published January 31, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1211

Assorted thoughts…

* * *

My experience on America Online has been less than sterling thus far.

The first time I tried AOL was several years ago. I came on for a live conference. I was on line for about thirty seconds when I was immediately hailed by someone using a fake name. “Are you Peter David the writer?” he asked (one of the hazards of signing on with my own name rather than a nom-de-byte).

I wrote back, “Yes.”

Which garnered the quick response of, “Your writing suuuuuuuucks.”

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The Marvelcrumb Tinies

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published January 24, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1210

I’ve decided that, rather than react to recent Marvel news with another straightforward commentary, it might be better to try to encapsulate the last year or so of Marvel’s crumbling existence in a friendly, easy-to-understand fashion.

So it is, with profuse apologies to Edward Gorey (and thanks to Richard Howell for the accompanying art), that But I Digress presents:

THE MARVELCRUMB TINIES

by Peter David

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I Have Formulated a Bowling Paradox

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

The moment when I release a bowling ball, with a full rack of pins at the other end, there are many variations as to what could happen. However, particularly in a close game–where simply getting a spare isn’t going to get it done–it really comes down to only two possibilities:

Either the ball will strike. Or the ball will not strike.

But it occurs to me that, at the moment of release, the ball has both struck and not struck. Both possibilities exist simultaneously.

I call it Schrodinger’s Balls.

PAD

BID Mailbag: Star Trek: First Contact and ID4

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published January 17, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1209

Cracking open the But I Digress mail bag, let’s do strictly science fiction this time out with commentary on two of the biggest invasion movies of the year: Independence Day and Star Trek: First Contact.

First up are musings from Tom C. of Columbus, Ohio, who writes:

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I-Con and Young Justice

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

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

Movie review: Mars Attacks

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published January 10, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1208

When I was a kid, there were cards that my parents wouldn’t let me get because my father, in particular, had a real thing about not wanting ghastly or hideous images in the house. And cards where demented big-brained, skull-faced creatures are incinerating everything in sight certainly qualified. Essentially I wound up collecting Batman cards, instead, but I would always look on in envy at kids in the schoolyard, surreptitiously flipping through that subversive celebration of the grotesque called Mars Attacks.

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I Guess I Owe an Apology to Zombies

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

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