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THIS
JOURNAL IS NOW LOCATED ON ATOMIC
PULP. Please boomark that page. Thank you.
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07/27/04
Pulp...as
you like it!
Yep,
I've opened the doors a bit early at the new and (hopefully) improved
ATOMIC PULP...
reconceived as my personal homepage.
There's
still some construction going on, so watch your step, and hard
hats are required at all times. But everything's on schedule (for
a change) and we should have the whole thing running properly
by the end of the month.
Yes
– PERILS ON PLANET X is back, and still unfinished.
But I've gotten so many e-mails from those who apparently like
to keep looking at Jon's pretty pictures, that it's back. Look
for it in the WEB COMICS section.
So,
run on over, take a look around, mind your head, and ignore the
man behind the curtain.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/26/04
You
say you want a revolution...
I
don't really consider myself part of the comics industry anymore.
For one thing, I haven't been paid to make my little picture stories
in years, and for another, I wasn't in San Diego last week. If
I was truly an industry player, that's where I'd be, dog.
I do, however, hit several industry news sites on a daily basis.
Right now, those sites are hip-deep in breathless announcements
from the sunny South California mecca of San Diego's Comic-Con
International (which is actually all about movies these days,
or so I'm reliably informed). All weekend, I read these announcements
carefully, paying attention to every single word and punctuation
mark, and you know what...?
I don't get it.
Nothing's happening. It's all the same. The comics industry's
been in the shitter since 1990 (if not earlier), and what are
they doing about it?
Nothing.
Marvel and DC are signing creators (although since it's all work-for-hire
corporate trademark servicing, they're not so much creators
as they are salaried word and picture producers) that I'm unfamiliar
with to exclusive contracts and moving them from one title to
another where they can continue to make characters with 50 years
of history and continuity into unrecognizable wannabe TV and movie
clichés. The independents are cranking out more vampires
and zombies (which are really just vampires without the breeding),
while Dark Horse continues to generously help George Lucas stay
solvent. Brian Pulido (a nice guy, who actually offered me a job
once) is over at Avatar, still mining his one good idea for all
it's worth and keeping that whole "bad girl" thing going.
Hordes of artists apparently still can't get past their childhood
fixations on crappy animated TV shows, and Hollywood continues
to purchase options on every comics property they can find (except
mine, dammit!) so they can completely miss the point of the material
and disgorge another steaming pile of CGI crap-by-committee.
Is it any wonder that virtually the only comics I can bear to
read anymore were published twenty years ago? Thank God Grimjack's
coming back and Dark Horse is keeping those Conan reprints coming.
(And is it also any wonder that nobody will hire me to write for
them, with an attitude like mine?)
Sigh...
But, you know, maybe it's not all a loss.
Far from the sunny climes of San Diego and its California dreamings,
some people are still trying.
For example, my good pal James
Chambers has a new comic project out, the first full-fledged
comic book he's done since our collaborative Shadow House series
five or six years ago. It's called The
Midnight Hour and can be purchased online here.
Drawn by Jason Whitley, it's a genuine horror comic, one with
its roots in the literary fear genre rather than bad B-movies.
(Not that there's anything wrong with bad B-movies, mind you...)
Jim's been making a name for himself in the horror fiction field
over the last few years, writing some genuinely terrifying short
stories of distinction, and he's bringing that same unique voice
and vision to this comic.
Coincidentally, the first issue of The Midnight Hour was
printed by a new company called comiXpress.
comiXpress is a one-stop resource for small and self-publishers.
Co-founded by Logan DeAngelis, a comics creator with years of
experience in pre-press and printing, comiXpress‚
services are specifically tailored to the needs of comics creators,
offering high-quality print-on-demand, sales and distribution,
all at astoundingly reasonable prices.
If you're looking to publish a comic, you have to check them out.
If you're looking to read something new and different, you should
check out their store. comiXpress is going to revolutionize
indie comics publishing, and, as far as I'm concerned, this kind
of innovation is long overdue.
Full disclosure: Like Jim, Logan's a bud. I've dug his Ku-2
webcomic since I first discovered it, and we both started posting
our respective strips online almost simultaneously. I think PV
Comics is by far the coolest and least pretentious of the
online comics subscription sites. But that has little to do with
my praise of comiXpress. This really is a revolutionary
idea, and it really will change the way indie comics creators
print and distribute their work, eliminating huge market barriers
– financial and otherwise – that have been in place
too long. So, yeah, despite my bitching, maybe it's not all the
same-old after all.
Maybe there's still some hope... who knows? Maybe some visionary
publisher will still hire me, crappy attitude and all. After all,
this is comics. Anything's possible.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/22/04
A
Moment of Silence.
Jerry Goldsmith passed away Wednesday night at age 75 after a
long battle with cancer.
If you've seen any movies (or watched television) in the last
thirty years, chances are you've heard some of Goldsmith's amazing
music scores. He was an incredibly prolific composer of amazing
talent. Even a partial list of his credits clearly demonstrates
the range and variety of his scores. He composed incidental music
and the main themes of television shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,
The Waltons, Barnaby Jones and Star Trek: The Next Generation
(and Voyager), but he's mostly known for his hundreds of
movie scores, including Our Man Flint, the original Planet
Of the Apes, Patton, The Wind And The Lion, Tora! Tora! Tora!,
Papillon, Chinatown, The Omen, Alien, several Star Trek
features, including The Motion Picture and First Contact,
Poltergeist, First Blood, Rambo, Alien Nation, Total Recall, L.A.
Confidential, Mulan, Basic Instinct, The Shadow, Gremlins
and so many more. (The Internet Movie Database has over 300 credits
listed for Goldsmith as composer, going back to 1948!)
I listen to a lot of film scores on CD, especially while I'm working.
When the Moll called me to tell me about Goldsmith's passing,
I was listening to his score for The 13th Warrior. I can
always find something by Goldsmith to fit the mood of whatever
I'm writing. When I work on FEMME NOIR, I usually have
his Chinatown and L.A. Confidential soundtracks
in the rotation. Lately, I've been working on a sword and sorcery
adventure. Looking for some appropriate mood music, I picked up
the aforementioned 13th Warrior CD, even though I never
saw the movie. I've been listening to it pretty much non-stop
for three days. It's amazing.
While Goldsmith's son Joel is carrying on the family tradition
nicely (and I understand that he assisted his father frequently
over the last couple of years), an era has come to an end. Movies
– especially genre films – will no longer be the same...
and neither will Goldsmith's legion of fans.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/13/04
Back
at the hideout....
Been
busy.
I've
taken a temporary job as an editor for a company that publishes
real estate investing information. Not my thing, but we need the
money.
Have
been slowly catching up on my writing, and have – in a burst
of uncharacteristic optimism – added another project to my
already intimidating workload: a Seventies-styled barbarian adventure/sword
& sorcery strip for one of the leading online comics sites.
I've got an extraordinary artist attached, one with a long list
of pro credits, and I'm having great fun writing in a genre that
I've loved since I was a teenager and found a beat-up copy of
the first Flashing Swords anthology, edited by Lin Carter.
This
is the one great advantage to doing comics online, and one that
– for me, at least – almost makes up for the lack of
financial compensation: the freedom to work in genres other than
what the mainstream publishers believe will sell. Whether it be
pulpy crime like FEMME NOIR, or Burroughs-esque
space opera like PERILS ON PLANET X, or sword slinging
high adventure... as long as you're willing to put in the work,
nobody's going to tell you "No."
It'll
be months before the new strip makes its debut (we're going to
try and build a solid backlog of material before it premieres),
and probably a few months before I'll be able to tell you much
more about it, but between this project and the FEMME NOIR
miniseries, I'm feeling more creatively energized than I have
in the past year or so.
Been
working my way through the DVDs I got for my birthday, especially
the film noirs and Charlie Chans. Most of the Chan films
at Monogram were pretty bad, but I really liked Meeting At
Midnight, The Scarlet Clue and The Shanghai Cobra.
All of those three films had some redeeming qualities, and I'm
becoming a big fan of Mantan Moreland. He was truly a gifted comic,
and while it's a shame that he got got placed into many demeaning
roles, it's my opinion that, in these films anyway, he rose above
the racial stereotyping and was just damned funny.
Of
the noirs, I've watched Criss Cross (which I'd seen
once before) and Gun Crazy (which I hadn't). Absolutely
gut-punching stuff, with fantastic performances by the respective
leads, and equally fantastic direction by Robert Siodmak and Joseph
H. Lewis. Each of these discs retail for about ten bucks at Best
Buy, and are easily worth double that.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/09/04
Happy
birthday to me.
Got
a few more minutes left to my birthday. Turned 39 today.
Christ,
I'm old. Well, I feel old, anyway.
Pretty
good haul, though. A bunch of classic film noirs on DVD (Out
of the Past, Murder My Sweet, Gun Crazy, The Asphalt Jungle, Criss
Cross, This Gun For Hire, etc.) and a box set of Monogram
Charlie Chan flicks, too! Plenty of material to rip-off...er...
homage... in the strip.
And
speaking of strips, it looks like I'll be doing another comics
project for the web next year. This one's a heroic fantasy epic
with a really astounding artist.
I'll
give more details when I can.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/03/04
FEMME
NOIR: The Dark City Diaries.
Well,
I've just completed the script for the first of four issues comprising
the upcoming FEMME NOIR miniseries, The Dark City Diaries.
It's been sent off to Joe, who will start pencilling it as soon
as he catches up with the online weekly strip. The first issue
is entitled "Blond Justice." The other three stories
(all stand-alone) are: "Killer In Steel," "Dead
Man's Hand," and "Concrete Jungle."
Here's
a preview of thepencils for the cover for the second issue, "Killer
in Steel," introducing the metallic menace of Vic Tobor,
ROBOT MOBSTER!
This
past week, I've been enjoying two DVD TV series sets that have
allowed me to flashback to my 70's childhood: the complete first
seasons of The Land of the Lost and Wonder Woman.
In both cases, I've really been enjoying re-experiencing the naive
charm and sense of fun that these shows had and that modern genre
series seem to have lost in favor of cynicism and gloom. LotL
has a bunch of surprisingly thought-provoking scripts by such
sci-fi greats as David Gerrold (Story Editor), Larrry Niven, Ben
Bova, Norman Spinrad and Walter Koenig, while WW joyfully
captures the charm and innocence of the original Golden Age comics.
And never did a living actor better embody a comic book character
than Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman.
Both
sets are recommended, but only to those who can appreciate a simpler
time and respect what these creators attempted to do within the
constraints of their technology and the realities of network TV
in the 70s. These shows don't have the slick polish and so-called
sophisticated writing of today's genre efforts, but I'll take
either one over formulaic tripe like Stargate SG-1 any
day.
Now,
if only someone would release Space Academy and Logan's
Run...
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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07/01/04
Hugh
B. Cave, R.I.P.
Just
found out that Hugh B. Cave, one of the most prolific – and
long-lived – writers of the pulp era, passed away on June
28th.
Cave
wrote hundreds of pulp stories, and after the demise of the pulps,
continued to write novels of horror and adventure, publishing
books and short stories well into his 93rd year. I have been a
big fan of his horror and hardboiled detective tales, ever since
my pal James Chambers first brought my attention to Cave's work.
Here's
his obituary.
–
Chris
Comments? E-mail
me.
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