Author: grailrunner

Jack Kirby’s Genius Of Composition & What We Can Learn From Him

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captain-america

So it’s a bit of a thing to people who particularly dig the history of comic books to credit either Jack Kirby or Stan Lee for some of the huge, transformative things that happened to Marvel in the sixties after the first Fantastic Four issue came out…but not both. A silly debate, because it was both of them with incredible chemistry and the beautiful, messy mix of amazing timing and talent that only happens a precious few times in any art form.

But I was watching this documentary about Jack Kirby that got me thinking about him in a different way than I ever had. If you don’t know who the guy is, you should google that right now or go to a place like here to see his style – you’ve seen it, maybe you just don’t know it. The guy’s American history and has influenced a majority of the guys illustrating comics today – it’s worth your time to know more about him.

The documentary I’m talking about is here:Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

What got me thinking was this: several of the artists they spoke to about Kirby said something I’d thought a lot when I was a kid – why does this Kirby guy keep getting work when he doesn’t know how to draw? Yet they kept going back to him because there was something there they found magnetic. The anatomy is wrong. The rules of perspective are twisted. Things don’t contort that way. It’s just all wrong. Yet the more they went back to him, the more influential he got to them. It soaked into their heads, like it did mine, because it was so different, because it broke the rules so irreverently, because it laid a new vocabulary of action and power and movement for an art form that was still trying to figure itself out. People needed to know how to say things graphically; and they needed to break out of some of the tried and tested methods because they were boring and tedious and based on a weird and forced application of old school comic strip doodling methods to prose stories. Instead, Jack Kirby was blasting fists out of the page and drawing gargantuan freaking alien ships or drawing guys who were just supposed to be sitting, but looked like they were about to rip the paper they were printed on apart. He put energy on the page and ignored what was going on everywhere else.

He worked from noon till early morning mostly, in a cramped basement with little space and crappy air conditioning, surrounded by science fiction pulps. When he was helping shatter and shape an entire industry for decades, that’s the kind of place where he was doing it. He’d reach behind him and grab a pulp, steal an idea and rejigger it till it was his, then charge it like a spring and draw it. Guys that watched him draw said he’d start at one corner and incredibly just make his way across to make it all work somehow, like it was all in his head to begin with.

  1. Kirby’s work ethic was inspiring. If I get bad news of some kind or if it’s a sunny day, or if I’m still stressed from work, I let a novel go for days without touching it. Like a little baby, whining. This guy jetted for half a day or more, never once missing a deadline, no matter how ridiculous it was.
  2. He paid attention to what other people were doing, sure, but set fire to it and crafted his own way of doing things that was entirely original, instantly recognizable as his and his alone, and didn’t let the things he knew technically get in the way of that. This advice is screaming at me.
  3. Just as an add-on, I always love to hear stories of guys who made the big time and weren’t too in love with themselves to bring folks into their world. Kirby and his wife, Roz made lunch for fans who made the trek to their little house – he’d show them around and even give them artwork. Actors now get a lot of credit for this kind of thing, when publicists really set them up.

Go look up some Kirby and remember what he managed to accomplish. If you think it’s wrong at first, pay closer attention and see if your opinion changes. He gets in your head, man. He gets in your head.

Why You Should Be Reading R. A. Lafferty: The Madman Of Oklahoma

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lafferty-past-master

You’ve probably heard R.A. Lafferty quoted if you haven’t read him. I came across him first when Neil Gaiman said a particularly good line he’d used in his, ‘Sandman’ series was a Lafferty line. Maybe you recall it – the creepy witches called ‘The Kindly Ones’ said something like, ‘They can kill you; but we can kill you worse’. That’s actually a chapter title in Lafferty’s, ‘Fourth Mansions’. A rocking book, if you haven’t read it, about four secret societies vying to take control of the future of humanity. The reason you read it is not the plot, because you know…whatever…I can’t really say what’s going on; and I’ve read it twice. You read it because he drops these word-nuggets that sparkle. The title of the first chapter is, ‘I Think I Will Dismember The World With My Hands’. The ninth chapter is, ‘But I Eat Them Up, Federico, I Eat Them Up’. If you don’t love that kind of thing, then take a pass on the guy I guess; but you’re missing out. At least try, ‘Past Master’ because its plot is good too, there’s a great story, and there are more sparkling quotes for you.

Here are some quotes, see what you think:

  • ‘It looks like a good year for monsters’ – Fourth Mansions
  • ‘I’d like to be gentle to you with with a meat cleaver, Justin’ -The Emperor’s Shoestrings
  • ‘It is an awful and sickening thing to see a good man grow rich and respected.’ – The Underneath Man
  • ‘The first implement made by man was not a scraper or celt or stone knife, it was a crutch.’
  • ‘My magic can whip your magic; and my dog can whip your dog’ -All The Skies Are Full Of Fish
  • ‘Most of the trouble that comes to people in this world comes from reading the wrong books.’ -Try To Remember
  • ‘I have certain riddles to ask the woods and the mountain, and they do not speak when others are present’
  • ‘Which was first, you, or the belief in you?’ -Past Master

So back to what I view as his masterpiece, though everybody you talk to who digs this guy has a different view on that. For me, it’s, ‘Past Master’. A description from the interwebs:

‘Past Master is set in the year 2535 on the world of Astrobe, a utopian Earth colony that is hailed as Golden Astrobe, “mankind’s third chance”, after the decline of both the Old World and New World on Earth. Despite idealistic intentions, it is suffering moral and social decline that may be terminal for both Astrobe and the human race.

In an attempt to save their dying civilization, its leaders use time travel to fetch Sir Thomas More (chosen for his fine legal and moral sense) from shortly before his death in the year 1535 to be the president of Astrobe. More struggles with whether to approve of the Astrobian society, noting its possible connections to his own novel Utopia. His judgements soon lead him into conflict both with destructive cosmic forces on Astrobe and with its leaders who thought him a mere figurehead who could be manipulated.’

End quote. If you’ve ever read Harlan Ellison’s short story, ‘Repent, Harlequin Said The TickTock Man’, and loved it because the trickster guy in the story is thumbing his nose at the people who think they’re in charge, then this book may just work for you like it does me. Thomas More sticks it to the man, if you know what I mean. By the way, if you haven’t read Ellison’s story, what the crap, man!? Get that done, then come back. Sheesh, you’re lucky we found that out!

Lafferty, man. Go read this guy. He saved himself from alcohol through his writing; and he made the world a better place because of it. You owe him at least a look. Let me know what you think!

What Is The Deal With Filming Dune?

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dune

I think of Frank Herbert’s, ‘Dune’ as the best science fiction novel ever written, and one of the finest pieces of fiction ever published. It’s that good; and so are the sequel, ‘Dune Messiah’ and to a lesser extent, the third book, ‘Children Of Dune’. Everything tapers off after that, so I’m not really talking about those now. I have many reasons for why I dig these so much:

  1. There’s a big, overarching religious context with the Bene Gesserit witches and the manufacturing of a messiah. I love the big, humming metaphysical overtones.
  2. Intrigue all over the place – everyone’s spying or betraying everyone else.
  3. Power plays and an uprising. Maybe it veers dangerously close to the white savior-style storyline where an outsider guy does native stuff better than natives; but there are great explanations for why. Loads better than the steaming turd that was, ‘Avatar’
  4. Freaking giant sandworms tearing up the desert and eating people.
  5. I’ll count the worms twice because they summon, hook and ride them!
  6. Spice-driven superpowers like telling the future, folding space, and whatnot
  7. Unlike almost anything this high-concept, I mean almost anything that tries to be this ambitious, there is nothing outright stupid and poorly thought-out. Even the idea of the giant worms living where there’s nothing big for them to eat was incredibly well structured with an ecology. Nothing stupid. All well-cooked. Guy was a genius.

With the glowing blue eyes on the Fremen, the worms, the battles, the technology, the intrigue, palaces, beautiful women, honor combat, exotic desert scenes, and massive space ships, the visuals and action are perfect for a grand, high budget, Hollywood treatment. So what keeps happening?

There was a piece of junk made with Sting and Kyle MacLachlan in 1984, which though many people still dig it, honestly doesn’t deserve their praise. Probably it’s nostalgia. I mean, I still like watching, ‘Jason Of Star Command’ and ‘Logan’s Run’; but that doesn’t mean they were good.

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This was after Alejandro Jodorowsky’s disastrous attempt at making a 12-hr LSD hallucination with Salvador Dali based on, ‘Dune’. He even started treating his son like a messiah in the making because he was so into it. No, seriously, you need to watch the documentary on this or at least the trailer. Alejandro is a genius, yes; but he’s a genius to be consulted by people not high on peyote and who can stick to a budget, not a genius you should hand anything over to.

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So now I’m rewatching the almost-mess the SciFi channel (not SyFy back then) put together back in 2000 as a mini-series. I love the book so much, this is entirely watchable for me. I can ignore the ridiculous Peter Pan costume they put Stilgar in and the silly sailboat sails they have hanging off people’s backs, even the little diapers they make Paul wear in his knife fight. I can ignore the ludicrous mwa-ha-ha maniac laugh the Baron makes when he’s floating around in his gay bondage outfit. But my point is this – why should I have to?

I know, I know. Disney tried making an old-time classic (John Carter of Mars) into a high budget non-Star Wars movie and it sank like a rock and was a Hollywood punchline and career-killer for years. That probably means we’re out of luck for a long time on this.

Yet…

If modern audiences just want a little humor, plenty of action and spectacle, and to have fun with an interesting story, as Marvel’s successes would indicate, here’s my proposal; and if you’re a purist who loves, ‘Dune’ like I do, then don’t freak out:

  1. Make Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck into humorous Indiana Jones-style tough guys
  2. Put an interesting twist on the Baron to make him more likeable, the way Loki was handled in the Avengers
  3. Ground everything by de-emphasizing off-planet and spaceship stuff, focusing on Paul and Jessica’s trying to win over the Fremen
  4. Cool battle scenes, yes; but not with CGI and keep them fun by retaining occasional humor, the way the dwarf and elf banter in, ‘Fellowship Of The Ring’, for example.

Somebody write this and send it off to Hollywood. I’d totally watch it.

 

 

More Than Movies To Some Of Us

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I was a geeky kid and alone often when I was growing up. I dug comics and science fiction, probably because Star Wars came out when I was six and my cousin had a million comics. Or maybe it was something else. Not sure how I got started; but I got started. One thing I was very consistent about was that DC comics – the ones with Superman, Batman, the Legion Of Superheroes and all those guys for the uninitiated, were boring to me; and I couldn’t relate to anyone in them. Marvel blew my mind. I would look for the Stan Lee box in the letters page and though I had no idea what, ‘Excelsior’ meant, it was awesome because he kept saying it. He could have said, ‘Baba ginouj’; and I’d have thought that was awesome too. Whatever. Guy was and is a genius of both marketing and mythmaking. I’ve at least made sure my kids have seen him a couple of times and heard him speak, so they crack up when he does all these cameos in the Marvel movies.

My point though, is this. The big stories we’re seeing in movies now that draw a billion bucks each time out, the ones drawing all the crowds, I read those stories the first time around. They were amazing on the page; and I felt just as excited back then sprawled under a pool table or up in a tree reading those on a summer day as a kid. I felt like Peter Parker was a buddy of mine, just a little older; and I absolutely rooted for him whether he was in the red and blue tights and swinging around buildings or getting crap from somebody at school because he was smart and quiet. He made sense to me. I remember being shocked that they’d actually let Bullseye kill Elektra, that Jean Grey was going crazy as Dark Phoenix, that all those X-Men were actually dying in, ‘Days Of Future Past’, and how awful and sad it was that Captain Marvel (the one that was a guy) had cancer like my grandmother did. One big thing I understood well was just how badly Peter Parker just really missed his uncle, and that, even though these were picture stories, Uncle Ben wasn’t coming back. Wow, you know? Those guys like Chris Claremont and Stan and Frank Miller made things that are timeless and powerful.

So my family makes fun of me when I see Captain America or some of these other guys up on the screen now and they’ve nailed the character so well. I watched, ‘Superman Returns’ and ‘Man Of Steel’ and thought they were awful. I’ve seen every X-Men movie; and they’re okay. I avoided, ‘Batman V. Superman’ because I’m just done with crappy adaptations that dodge the heart behind these stories and make slap-happy noise that looks like a video game. Somehow though, for whatever reason, the people at Marvel under Disney have managed (mostly) to make changes where it doesn’t matter at all and to keep the things that were so great. No joke, when I watched ‘Civil War’ with my wife and kids and Tony Stark was recruiting Peter Parker in Pete’s bedroom, pulling down the uniform, I was almost wiping away tears. That’s the Peter from when I was a kid! He was nervous and hiding his secret and smart and awed by being around the Avengers. They nailed it. Again. I don’t know who to credit for that; but they’re bringing back some old stories and some old friends that I hadn’t thought of in years and making me feel like I’m up in a tree on a July day with a comic book rolled up in my hand, munching on a fruit roll-up. Keep it up, guys!

Publishing Myths I Still Can’t Let Go

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Yeah, I still have the dream of walking into a Barnes & Noble and seeing my name up on the shelf, with some of my sci-fi tribe standing around chatting it up. Awesome. Would be equally amazing to get an invite to Dragon-Con in Atlanta with a room full of cosplayers living out characters I dreamed up. My tribe again. Those guys are crazy. Anyway, that’s the sort of thing that prompts a guy like me to sit in his study or out on the lake and pound away on a keyboard, dreaming up outlandish tech-scapes and apocalyptic drama – or maybe more often chuckling at something I thought up for somebody in the story to say. The thing about reality though is it’s unforgiving and thrills at squashing the pictures you had in your head going into something like publishing. So here’s a few things I can’t turn loose, but probably need to:

3. Book reviews and big name author blurbs are reliable gauges of quality, and those guys are just out there waiting on you to publish so they can blanket bomb you with their verbiage. Book reviews and big name author blurbs are in fact, by majority, paid for or culled through big publishing house connections. They’re about as meaningful as the things people you didn’t like wrote in your high school yearbook. Trying to get real live people to log in to Amazon and enter a review is as fun and satisfying as passing a kidney stone. Yet you need them, so let the heavy work begin. Go to places like the following to send thoughtful, customized review requests of blogs in your genre. You should know though, if you’re one of those keyword and search engine geeks, the Amazon algorithms put a ton more weight on verified purchase reviews than they do other reviews.

http://www.allbooksreviewint.com/                                             http://melanierockett.com/directory-of-book-reviewers/ http://www.theindieview.com/indie-reviewers/

2. In order to get on the bookshelf at a big chain bookstore, you just have to have a great book and put the time in – pay your dues. It’s a process, open to everyone. Maybe that’s the case; but I’m not seeing it as worthwhile if you’re an indie publisher or self-publishing. Way too much effort and very low probably of success. Get yourself on Ingram if you like since so many of them order through that database. Get yourself a Kirkus or Midwest review, though you’ll pay through the nose for Kirkus (and may have to pay at Midwest). Look up the Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and Hudson buyers online and submit if you like. The American Bookseller’s Association has an Indie Advance Access program where you can try and approach their small-store membership. Honestly, though, your time is better spent dropping this one for now, especially if it’s your first book or so, and churn up a decent on-line presence to drive people to your sales page on Amazon.

1. No reason I can’t just make the cover myself. I’m a smart guy. Give me a trial membership of Photoshop and get out of my way! Stop. Go back. Here be dragons. I spent days on this, learned the software, got my stock photography, even learned how to do lens flares J. J. Abrams would be proud of. I put that bad boy together and was overjoyed at how it looked. Family folks agreed at how amazing it was. A good time was had by all. Then I found out how hideous it looked as a thumbnail on ebook sites, how little impact it made when on the page with a bunch of other books, and just how many freaking rules of marketing and book cover best practices I broke with it. A savvy marketing guy named, Derek Murphy made a comment that stuck with me here – he said your book cover shouldn’t reflect a scene from the book because that’s worthless. It should just look like it belongs on the shelf next to books similar to it. That’s important.

So I’m done with this train of thought. Good luck to you if this is the road you’re headed down. Let me know if I can help!

‘The Messengers’ on Neflix

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The_Messengers_Intertitle.png

So let me ask you a question. Is it really unreasonable and overly nerdist to expect some basic physics be adhered to in my entertainment? Give me just a minute or two here; and I’ll make my case.

I ran nuclear reactors in the Navy, so I get the idea of what they look like, where you can go, and where you can’t. Not that that’s really necessary. When I watched the James Bond flick with Pierce Brosnan, ‘The World Is Not Enough’, I honestly tell you – I shielded my eyes during the reactor scene because it was so stupid. Not kidding – I had to look away. That sort of thing happens to me; and my wife has no patience for it. She says shut up and just enjoy the story.

Anyway, she and I periodically binge watch shows on Netflix together. We’re just about done with a single season deal called, ‘The Messengers’, which was rated 4.5 stars there. I gave a pass on the nonsense about illusory non-functional wings no one can see, this idea that God picks people each generation to run around in circles with intentionally ambiguous information trying to stop the rapture, and the random nature of these sins that mysteriously trigger transformations of regular everyday people into horsemen of the apocalypse. I’m cool, really. Somehow, even in this swamp of suspending disbelief, it was a scene about a mysterious new element that finally disconnected me. When somebody says they’ve got in their hand a material containing, ‘every element known to man, and a new one we’ve never seen before’, maybe that doesn’t bother you. Maybe a picture of the periodic table doesn’t pop up in your head with all those radioactive ones smiling there. I shielded my eyes, man.

So where do you stand on this? Go ahead and watch, ‘The Messengers’ because the people can act and there is a reasonable story, though you’re out of luck for a second season. I doubt you’re like me with the physics thing, so you’ll probably have a fine time.

‘Lady Of Mazes’ by Karl Schroeder

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mazes

Just finished Karl Schroeder’s, “Lady Of Mazes”; and it’s entirely possible I’m just not smart enough to have gotten all the good out of it. I love me some big ideas; and this guy kept them coming, no doubt. Ginormous ringworld populated by trillions of people, living in enclosed societies frozen out of certain types of technology (depending on which society you’re living in) by thingies called, ‘tech locks’ because that’s the level and set of values they wanted to have…like Amish in space, but way cooler. Augmented reality on steroids they call, ‘the inscape’, which provides consensual reality – decide what you want to see and filter out the rest. Folks call up simulations of what they should do to see how decisions will turn out. They call up simulations of themselves for others to deal with when they feel like checking out for a while. It goes on and on, man. Highly original and very interesting. Of course, because it’s science fiction, that all had to break up into bits; and I won’t go into all that. It felt a bit like something by Barrington Bayley, if you’ve ever tried something from him. (If you haven’t, go do that now – I’ll wait). But you don’t read Bayley for the snappy dialogue and believable character motivations, you know? Same deal here, at least that was my reality.

My issue is that it read at times, in fact most of the book, like random bits of dialogue and events that were honestly hard for me to follow. I blame my short attention span and impatience with wooden characters. Chapter divisions are there; but I couldn’t make sense of the logic behind them. People are doing all sorts of things; but most of that is just convenient for the conflict that needed to be set up and its resolution rather than a sensible flow of what people would do.

Anyway, the ideas stuck with me, if not the plot or the people. I’ll remember it, so maybe based on that alone, you should give it a shot yourself. Maybe just go in like a buddy of mine used to describe as his way of enjoying certain alt music like REM…think of it as an impressionist painting and don’t expect everything to float your boat and make perfect sense. I’m going to try another one by this same author, first in a series and called, ‘Sun Of Suns’. Will let you know how that one turns out.