Death and a Franchise

I'm always annoyed at the way death is belittled in superhero comics.

Death is such a powerful tool in fiction. One only needs to look at Disney classic Bambi for proof of that. Of course, you don't need to look much further beyond Bambi to see the inherent differences in a full feature movie and a decades old serial publication.

There are readers who's mantra is, "it doesn't matter what happens as long as it's a good story." That's a perfectly non partisan attitude to maintain as a reader, but when this careless attitude begins to infect the creators and the publishers, the franchise begins to deteriorate.

Recently, there was some hullabaloo over some comments made by David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Sales at Marvel Comics. Namely, due to the success of the death of The Human Torch, Marvel would kill a character every quarter.

After the news broke, he made some follow up clarifications, stating that the storylines are not about killing characters, but instead about the landscape of the comics afterward. The new directions and developments that the living characters go through are what's really important. He then pointed to the new book Future Foundation, spinning out of Fantastic Four as a positive example.

This attitude completely ignores and deflects the complaints people have about death being used recklessly as a sales tactic. In fact, it does more to validate them.

With Marvel and DC, it's a constant back and forth with the creative possibilities versus the marketing sensibilities, and this stems from the simple fact that both Marvel and DC are trying to maintain profitable franchises. Marvel faces this problem more than DC because one of the underlying selling points of Marvel, established by Stan Lee, was that their characters aged, grew, and progressed as characters. This was great for the first couple of decades, and really helped them gain an edge over their competition. But as time passed, it grew to become more and more of a problem and the process was more or less neutered in the 80's and 90's. Now all their characters are stuck in this faux aged purgatory, where they have aged roughly a decade since their first appearance but are clearly not going to be getting older any time soon. In fact, some of them are getting younger.

[If one were so inclined, one could find a certain amount of ironic similarity in the state of arrested development between Marvel's franchised characters and their core fan base, but I'm not here to talk about obvious ironic metatextual occurrences.]

This schizoid approach to writing characters has been the biggest hurdle to Marvel's creative teams for a score of years. It's really hard to have your cake and eat it too.

Repeatedly killing characters is the only solution that pleases both the Creative and Marketing departments. Trading on a character's popularity for a few extra sales by killing him will always keep the money crunchers happy. As for the creators, well, it gives them something to write about.

But I still maintain that killing the characters is ultimately damaging to the franchise. We need look no further than the Fantastic Four, which is both the origin of a lot of the current controversy and a well regarded book as well. Here are the cynical facts as I see them. The Fantastic Four debuted in November of 1961. The Human Torch died in Fantastic Four #587. The series ends with #588 and relaunches with a new #1 as FF, which stands for Future Foundation. So, we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the Fantastic Four. I will be extremely shocked if we don't see FF run for a dozen issues before turning back into Fantastic Four #600, celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary with the return of the Human Torch.

So everything is taken care of nice and neatly. The fans get taken on a little ride that shatters the book, causing things to "never be the same again" and then ends by bringing everything back together to it's familiar settings. I've got to give credit where credit is due in that it is all very neat and tidy. Furthermore, it's all being written by one creative team as opposed to a committee. It's the type of story that fans have come to accept. It looks to be fairly short lived and unobtrusive.

So, why do I have a problem with it? I dislike it because it sets two very bad precedents throughout all other books. Firstly, that death is necessary to get anybody interested in the franchise. The Fantastic Four scenario may be neat and tidy, but it is being presented in a comics landscape that is glorifying death. Just in the last few years we've been dealing with the death and return of Batman, Captain America, Flash, and countless X-Men. Not only that, but while Marvel is publicizing their current death of Human Torch story, they are advertising for the future, "Death of Ultimate Spider-man" story. You can't swing a dead cat in the comics industry without hitting a dead superhero.

The second precedent being set is that death always results in a Resurrection. I find this to be especially damaging because it destroys the narrative power of death. Death is no longer taken seriously.

Comic fans will hear that and say, "So what? That's comics! Nobody stays dead!"

I find that to be especially ironic because Superhero Death has only been a carefree accepted way of doing things in comics for maybe the last twenty years, during which the fan base itself has been dying.

[okay, maybe one last ironic metatextual observation.]

Music Review: POND FROND

By far, my absolute favorite album of 2010 was FROND by Australian psychedelic band POND.



Starting with the opening track, Betty Davis(Will Come Down From Heaven to Save Us) you know what kind of a ride you are in for with this band. Wild howling, crashing drums, and freaked out guitars.

I got this album on a whim, based entirely on them being tagged as a "psychedelic" rock band, and I was not disappointed. But the true glory of this album is not the psychedelic rock it is rooted in, but also in the various other genres present underneath the surface. From the funky bass of Cloud City, the pop rock of Annie Orange Tree, to Berlin era Bowie style synth rock of Mussels Tonight? this band skirts across multiple layers of rock while still maintaining a free form psychedelic posture.



As I said, there's a refreshing freestyle feeling to most of the songs construction. This is a band of talented young men laying down the foundation of a song, and then just going crazy on top of it.

POND is definitely a "headphones" band, as I call them. There is so much going on in each song, so many subtle layers of noise, guitars, and synthesizers swirling around underneath the lead riffs and chorus of vocals that you need to immerse yourself in the music and just let it all wash over you.

Time Waster

I'm a time waster.

A big one.

I've got a million things to do and only so much time in which to do it. And in the limited free time I have, I probably spend most of it sleeping.

Procrastination is my most hated enemy, not only because of my frequent battles with it, but also for the way it afflicts others. Many people that I know, be they musicians, artists, or writers, really struggle with actual content production. Lack of focus is the most common culprit, it often seems.

It's easy to get lost in video games, movies, books, or what have you, and before to long you find yourself sitting around talking about all your good ideas, but very few, if any, ever get fully realized. It's also easy to blame outside forces beyond your control. The day job is my biggest target, it eats up 40 hours a week and can leave me stressed and worn out, completely drained of all energy or ambition. But stress is a natural and healthy part of all our lives, and if it wasn't my day job, it would probably be something else. Obviously there are varying levels of stress, and there certainly are going to be outside influences that legitimately hamper your production rate, but it can be difficult to gauge at times. The key, is learning to work with your stress and monopolize the time that you do have to work with.

Often times the smallest amount of production feels like the greatest victory when you utilize your time properly. Every little bit that you accomplish, every sentence your write, gets you that much closer to the finish line. The immensity of a project can be overwhelming. It is of utmost importance not to let yourself be defeated before you even begin.

There are various methods by which people use to overcome their personal obstacles. I don't believe there is any secret to help motivate, encourage, or manage an artist's production. Ultimately, it's up to the person to set realistic goals for themselves and have the determination to see them through.

I'm not very big on Mission Statements, I don't make New Year's Resolutions, and I don't like making a ceremony out of something that should be a common occurrence. I also don't like to use a reward system. Finishing your project is the true reward. Conducting prizes and self congratulations is a waste of time and energy that should be spent on the project itself.

So with that in mind, I plan on being a much more active blogger. For years, I've maintained this blog very sporadically and irregularly. It's purpose was to have a location online to post various writings I've done(like any blog, I suppose), but now it has a new purpose. In an effort to curb my time wasting tendencies, it's going to become a deadline, starting with regular updates. There's no mission statement or declarations of intent(beyond what I just said...)

I can only be me, so I'll probably just be writing about music and comic books and, if I'm being honest with myself, cats. And if I don't succeed, I'll just delete it from the internet and it'll be like it never happened!

This blog post cost me $14.95

A month ago I signed up for one of those free credit report websites. I had payed off some debt and wanted to know where I was sitting and where I would be going in the future. Freecreditreport.com was the lucky recipient of my business. I'm sure you've seen their ads around the internet. They advertise a free service, but in reality you must become a member of their website. The monthly membership fee is $14.95 which they will continue to take from your bank account/credit card until you decide to cancel your membership. As a new member you have a 9 day period when you can cancel before they begin charging you, thus accounting for the "free" service. There are various websites around that run the same scam, and it's a good one, because I'm sure there are plenty of people that sign away their information without thinking about it.

Now, I know how their scam works. Normally, I don't like to mess around with sleazy services like this, but I wanted information and this appeared to be the quickest method by which to attain it. I singed up for the service, got my information, and proceeded to cancel my membership an hour later. Naturally, you can't cancel your membership online, you have to call one of Customer Care people and do it over the phone. Lord knows you can sign away all your money with a few errant clicks of the mouse, but they are going to make it as difficult as possible for you to protect your assets. I have no interest in paying for a service I will not use, so I called them and got my account canceled. Truth be told, it was a pretty simple process. I was pleased with the outcome and assumed the whole situation to be done and resolved.

How foolish I was. Last week, as I was going over my bank statement, I noticed that I was charged a fee of $14.95 by freecreditreport.com. My heart sunk, because I immediately knew that there was no way I was getting my money back. Mind you, I've wasted more money on crappy comic books than I did on this website, but it's the principle of the matter. The fact that, despite my careful planning, I was still falling victim to their scam infuriated me. It was late at night and their Call Center was closed, so I sent them this simple e-mail:

Again, to reiterate, I wasn't exactly expecting a refund, or much of a response even, I just need to get that stupid membership canceled before they decided to take even more of my money. Surprisingly, I received a response fairly quickly.


As you can see from their response, they completely sidestep the problem and make no attempt to address the claim that I did indeed cancel my account. Instead they offer a half hearted explanation as to why they won't refund my money. The good news was that my account was canceled (again), which is really all I was hoping for. Although I was still angry about the whole ordeal, I considered it done and over with and, as a form of venting, sent them this e-mail:


I considered this the end of it, which was again foolish as I received this form response:




At this point I realized that they were going to keep giving me form responses and decided to see how far I could take it with this e-mail:


Predictably, I received this response (although it was a bit flowerier than the previous):


Admittedly, I was disappointed in this response, because their operators were obviously not interested in playing my games; which is not surprising since I'm sure they have to deal with a plethora of angry people on any given day. Still, it did not stop me from trying to get a communication going:

To which they responded:

Finally, it seems that they have had enough of me and cut me off. Of course I didn't call their number because $15 isn't worth the hassle and I already have a big enough headache. At the end of the day I am left feeling like Sam Lowry at the end of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, though thankfully I haven't been lobotomized and am instead only out 15 bucks.

King of the Road

I'm currently writing a kid's book called King of the Road. It's about the adventure of a house cat and a rabbit that was raised by stray cats. It is based off many of the animals in my neighborhood. This is the fourth chapter, where they meet another cat and a raccoon.

CHAPTER FOUR

RUMBLE

Quickfoot slowed his pace so that Chesterton could keep up with him. Together, they walked down The Road.

“How do you do that?” remarked Chesterton.

“How do I do what?” asked Quickfoot.

Chesterton noticed that Quickfoot had a peculiar way of walking. Whereas Chesterton had the lumbering stride of an overweight cat, Quickfoot didn’t seem to walk at all, he seemed to be pouncing on his hind legs for every step.

“How do you pounce on your legs like that? Why don’t you walk like me?

“I don’t know,” said Quickfoot, “This is just how I walk. I don’t know any other way.”

After some time, they decided to pause for a rest in front of a strange house. “I’ve never been here before. Do you remember the way back home?” worried Chesterton.

“Yeah, of course I do. It’s that way,” Quickfoot said, pointing down the other end of The Road.

“I smell something different,” Chesterton said, turning his attention toward the house.

“Me too, it’s over here,” said Quickfoot.

“Wait for me,” yelped Chesterton.

Chesterton caught up with Quickfoot and together they began stalking around the back of the house. The house was built on a hill and as they made their way around the house the ground began to decline. Before they knew it they were standing at the bottom of a hill and the house seemed very far away.

“What did you smell?” asked Quickfoot.

“I don’t know,” remarked Chesterton, “It was something I’ve never smelled before.”

They continued investigating the large hillside. Eventually, Chesterton came across the wooden support beams of the house’s back porch. The smell was growing stronger and he began sniffing around further.

“What are you looking for, fatty?”

Chesterton swirled around and stared at Quickfoot, who was sitting still in the grass.

“What?” asked Quickfoot.

“What did you say to me?” snapped Chesterton.

“I said it. Up here.”

Chesterton and Quickfoot both looked up and saw two figures sitting on the porch railing.

“Who are you?” asked Chesterton.

“The more appropriate question is, what are you?” responded the tall, statuesque figure on left.

“What are you talking about? I’m a cat, same as you!” The thin figure on the left had the smell of cat all over him, Chesterton was sure of it. It was the shorter, round figure that confused his sense of smell.

“Like me? I don’t think so.” The figure jumped off the railing onto the ground in front of Chesterton. He sat upright in the most dignified fashion. He was lean and muscular. His short hair was entirely black, and the moonlight reflected off his shiny coat, outlining his feline features. His eyes beamed in the dark like tiny yellow diamonds.

The swarthy cat sat there and stared at him. Not knowing what to do, Chesterton decided to introduce himself. “My name is Chesterton T. Cat. What’s yours?”

“Midnight,” the cat said curtly, “and my estimable colleague up there is Ratchet.”

Ratchet jumped off the railing and landed with a crash. His body was rounder and his coat was a coarse gray except for the black patches over his eyes.

“Evenin’ fellers,” he grunted, “What brings you to this neck of the neighborhood?”

“My friend and I were just out investigating,” confessed Chesterton, “I’ve never been this far from my house.”

Midnight and Ratchet chuckled. “Obviously,” sneered Midnight. “Where is your friend, anyway?”

Chesterton looked around. “I don’t know,” he said, “Quickfoot, where did you go? It’s okay, we’re all cats here.”

Quickfoot timidly hopped out of a nearby bush.

“I am not a cat, boy,” laughed Ratchet, “and neither is that.”

Midnight laughed, “Little one, if you were any smaller I’d be making dinner out of you.”

“Hey,” hissed Chesterton, “that’s not very nice!”

Quickfoot turned to leave but in one sleek motion, Midnight leapt over him and blocked his path. “Why in such a hurry? You just got here.” Midnight raised himself up to his proud, full height and flashed a menacing grin. He was missing one of his fangs, which made the remaining fang stand out like a solitary shining knife.

Chesterton yelped, “Where’s your other fang?”

“In the back of a dog’s neck,” Midnight sneered.

“There are dogs out here?” gulped Chesterton.

“Dogs AND Coyotes,” Ratchet chirped.

“And they would make a hearty meal out of you, chubby,” quipped Midnight.

A flash of lightning cut the night sky in half. Quickfoot was frozen in place. Chesterton shrunk down and his hair stood on end. He turned away from Midnight but Ratchet, standing on his hind legs, towered over him. Ratchet brandished his clawed fingers and snapped his teeth.

“Look, we just want to leave,” Chesterton said meekly.

Midnight began licking his paw and flashed his claws. “Come now, that’s not very sporting.”

“Don’t you boys want to have some fun?” Ratchet cackled.

Chesterton’s ears twitched and filled with the low rumble of thunder. Quickfoot remained still, ready to run at any moment. Chesterton could feel the moisture in the air. It was unfamiliar to him and he began to panic.

Just then, a woman’s voice sang out over the thunder. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty,” the voice sang. “Midder baby. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Midnight huffed, “I must go. It’s going to rain anyway.” In one glorious jump, Midnight leapt onto the porch railing. He turned and stared down at Chesterton and Quickfoot. “If I see you two around here again, I’ll make stew out of you.” And with that he jumped out of sight. Chesterton heard the woman remark, “Midnight, get your little butt in here.” “Where’s my pillow, woman?” Midnight meowed.

Ratchet scampered off. “You boys got lucky. See you around,” he grunted.

Chesterton tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but he was still very tense. He felt the first drop of water land on his back and his entire body twitched. His back arched and his whiskers stood on end. “What was that?” he hissed.

Quickfoot jumped. “Chesterton,” he yelped, “it’s going to rain! We need to find shelter. NOW!”

Chesterton felt more water hit his back and finally a drop landed square on his nose. He lost all sense of control and took off running. Quickfoot tried to followed him as best he could.

Aftermath

What a grueling experience it has been trying to write Real Life/Real Death.

Not to suggest that I'm not proud of my work, though it needs a lot more work to be good, I'm very glad to be done with it. This little story was originally just going to be an exercise in writing. The plan was to write a new chapter a week until it was done. There was no outline and no planing beyond the initial idea of doing a crime noir with real life superheroes. And I gotta say, I took a valuable lesson away from this little exorcise: I hate writing like that.

The problem I had with Real Life/Real Death was, as I was writing it, it became a chore to write an open ended story that wasn't working toward anything. Bless Stephen King for being able to write stories with no ending in mind, but I cannot do that. I need to have a clear goal in mind when I'm writing, and I didn't have one with Real Life/Real Death.

I also really struggled with the schedule, which is plainly obvious as I started this at the end of 2008 and here we are marching through 2010. I'm not too bothered by the schedule thing though. When I write, I am usually working on multiple projects at a time, so I always keep myself busy. But the fact of the matter is, as time progressed, I became less and less interested in finishing Real Life/Real Death because I felt it had no purpose other than a writing exorcise I was become more and more frustrated with.

The good news is, in last few months it's taken me to finish it, I've settled on a goal to work toward, which has reinvigorated my interest in the story. The bad news is, the new goal means I've got twenty more chapters to write to really complete the story. So, although I'm done with the exorcise, I'm far from completing this story. But the rest of the story is going to operate at my own comfortable pace, so I'm not planning on updating any more chapters on the blog. I'm certain nobody actually read any of it, which is fine. As I've always say, I write for myself. The second half of the book is also going to involve a lot of editing anyway, and that's messy. I've no intention of taking down the old posts. I'm an advocate of letting history speak for itself, so if nothing else, these series of posts will serve as a digital record of something I did from Fall '08 to Spring '10 for anybody who may be interested.

The End

REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Twenty

THE STORY

I died.

On my way to the afterlife I dreamed. My dreams were neither surreal nor enlightening.

First, I dreamed of Sandy. She was dancing, but I was the only one in the room. Only it wasn’t a room, it was like some kind of cloud high above the sky.

Then I dreamed of Anne. I dreamed she had finished her schooling, gotten a high paying job, and married a handsome young man, eventually beginning a family of her own. Even in my dream I wasn’t a part of her life, but I felt consolation knowing that she had grown up to be a strong, independent woman without my intervention. It was enough to know she was happy.

I also dreamed of Peter Poppins, the only guy in the world to put up with my shit complaining. I guess that’s what he was paid to do. Still, he did it with a smile. In my dream he was surrounded by dozens of beautiful women, somehow maintaining a different conversation with all of them. Confidence and charm poured out of him. As I watched him, I became him, and slowly the women disappeared until there was only me.

I dreamed of all my old friends. Friends from the police force, from college, even childhood friends, they were all there. I suspect they were all saying their goodbyes. I don’t remember much about them other than their passing faces morphing into each other.

Interspersed between these dreams were flashes of light and images of Jennifer. She wasn’t in her costume though, not in my ratty old clothes either. She was wearing normal clothes, a blouse and jeans. She looked much younger than she actually was.

I suspected that I was trapped in purgatory and feared that I would know no eternal rest.


But you don’t really care about any of that, do you?

When I awoke, Jennifer was at my side. Her left arm was in a sling. I had been in a coma for the last week. She told the hospital that she was my daughter, so they let her stay. It was sweet of her.

I did die, though. For six and a half minutes I was flat lined. I had actually been shot in four separate places, only one bullet hitting a vital artery (it missed my heart by centimeters). One other bullet stuck inside my stomach, one in my leg, and the last one, the ricochet, took my right ear with it. I’m still deaf in that ear.

I don’t remember being shot that many times, but the wounds don’t lie. Sandy was unscratched, thank god. The police showed up minutes after I emptied my gun. They shot the guy who broke Jennifer’s arm. I missed every single shot I took. At least I didn’t hit Jennifer.

There was a big media circus surrounding the whole event. Jennifer and her friends were all taken into custody. I don’t think they were charged with anything, I didn’t really keep up with what happened to those fucks. Once I came out of my coma, they corroborated their stories with mine. Internal Affairs had been investigating Kosloski and his friends for some time. The information that Jennifer’s friends had, along with the evidence I had linking Kosloski to Gurly, finally put him in the shit. And there was no getting out of it.

Long story short, he’s in prison, I lost my detective license as well as my gun license, and Jennifer is back in New York City. I still get letters from her. We keep in touch. She’s doing well.

So that’s the story, at least as well as I remember it. I’m sure you just going to focus on the gangsters and the costumed idiots, what little there was of them. I’m sorry I wasn’t more a part of that.

Yes, I still see Sandy. No, I haven’t talked to my daughter, but that’s not really any of your business so fuck you for asking. I offered to sell you the story of what happened those few days, not my entire life. As if your readers cared about a retired old fuck like me.

You’re just going to make up whatever fucking ending you want anyway.