I’ve been following Kevin Roderick’s excellent coverage of the destruction of the Santa Barbara News-Press by publisher Wendy McCaw. This is sure to become one of the more bizarre and colorful tales in the annals of Southern California journalism. Rather than recap all the surprising twists and turns for you… catch the latest over on Kevin’s wonderful blog, LAObserved.
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Superman Returns
SUPERMAN RETURNS reminded me of THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE — I couldn’t get past Brandon Routh’s irritating and pointless Christopher Reeve impersonation. It struck me as a particularly stupid idea… it would be like doing a James Bond movie and hiring someone to do a Sean Connery impersonation. The imitation works for satire…but for a drama? I don’t understand the thinking behind it. Why couldn’t they just let Routh create his own, unique portrayal? At least Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth weren’t forced into imitating Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder (though the performances by Spacey and Bosworth are surprisingly bland).
By attempting to xerox the original SUPERMAN movie, all director Bryan Singer managed to do was force comparisons at every turn… and SUPERMAN RETURNS simply didn’t measure up on any level. I was constantly reminded how much better the first two movies were…and how genuine and charming Christopher Reeve’s portrayal was.
Typepad Crash
Typepad, the service I use to host this blog, had a major database crash yesterday. As a result, some of the comments you left here in the last 24 hours have been lost (along with a couple of my posts). Sorry for the inconvenience.
New Destruction
Warren Murphy’s THE DESTROYER series is going to have a new home. After a long, tumultuous relationship with Gold Eagle, Murphy is taking the hugely popular series to Tor Books, which will bring out THE DESTROYER in hardcover and mass market paperback, along with reissuing some classic titles in trade editions. Murphy will write the new books with James Mullaney, who has written 20 books in the series already. The news was announced in the Destroyer Newsletter, of which I am a proud subscriber.
"it’s something new for us and for the Destroyer series. But it’s
a far different publishing world out there than the one we started out
with and you either grow or go away. We’ve decided to grow. That’ll
no doubt entail startup pains and getting used to a whole new set of
systems and procedures but Jim Mullaney are I are looking forward to
the challenge."The
Destroyer series was begun by Richard Sapir and Murphy back in 1971.
Its first publisher was Pinnacle Books, followed by N.A.L. Signet and
then, for the last ten years, by Harlequin Gold Eagle of Canada. […]Gold Eagle sought a
book contract renewal from Murphy but he declined because, he said, "I
didn’t like the direction the books were taking."The
final Gold Eagle Destroyer, #145, is due out in October. The first Tor
book is scheduled for release in April 2007.
Jumping into the Frying Pan
Bryce Zabel gives readers an inside look at the development and production of M.A.N.T.I.S., the first TV series about a black superhero.
Anyway, the deal was, "M.A.N.T.I.S."
had started as a two-hour pilot, written by Sam Hamm (“Batman”) and
directed by Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”). The two Sams had a disagreement
with Fox about how the series should go, and walked away from their own
project. Fox still wanted to do the series, but somebody needed to make
the changes and run the show. Both Hamm and Raimi were extremely
gracious and understanding in the transition, nothing was made
personal, and the series lived.
For me, that’s a pure TV moment. Bryce mentions it casually…but it’s outrageous and insane. And yet, this kind of thing happens so often in TV, we take it as normal. But think about it: Two guys create, produce and direct a pilot, praying that it will sell…and when it does, they end up walking away from the show. And Fox, who ordered the pilot and bought the show based on their vision, lets them go. Now the studio and network have to scramble to find someone else… who wasn’t involved with the show before… to take it over and supply a new, creative vision. Fast. It’s a thankless, no-win situation for the new showrunner but Bryce took it on and made the show his own. Because he’s a pro. I’ve been in a similar position two or three times myself (SHE-WOLF OF LONDON, MARTIAL LAW, etc.) and you just dive in, do your best with as much enthusiasm as possible, and try not to think about all the landmines in your path.
No Excuses for Cliches
I received this comment to another post here two years ago and should have pulled it out for a stand-alone post then. Better late than never:
She Really, Really Cared
Tari Akpodiete pointed me to this posting on BoingBoing:
SF writer Lynda Williams sez, "My daughter (18) cared SO much about the ending of the Animorph series ‘selling out’ the readers that loved it with a nasty ending, that she has taken a whole year off school (sigh! be careful what you model!) to write an alternative ending as good as the books ever were! And she did it despite knowing it had to be considered fan fic and couldn’t be a way to start a writing career — just because she really, really
cared."
She took a year off school to write fanfic? Good God, how stupid.
I’m sure some of you will say that I’m being a jerk, that the girl took a year off to hone her writing skills and complete a novel.
And to you, I say, it’s fanfic. I can see how you might write a short piece of fanfic for yourself (ie not posted on the Internet or distributed to others) as a writing exercise. That could be useful and instructive. But spending a year toiling on a fanfic novel? That’s just pathetic. It’s one step removed from becoming a Jareo.
It’s shame her mother, a professional writer, couldn’t have given her daughter better guidance instead of encouraging her in this masturbatory and pointless pursuit (and, worse, being proud of it).
Williams could have taught her daughter something about intellectual property, copyright and the importance of respecting the creative rights of other authors. It doesn’t say whether the work was posted on the Internet…but I hope it wasn’t. But if it was, I hope that Williams didn’t congratulate her daughter on that, too.
Williams could have encouraged her daughter to channel her passion for "Animorphs," and the way she felt the story should be told, by creating an entirely original work of her own that perhaps embodied the same ideals and explored the same themes. That would have been a worthwhile, enriching, constructive use of her time, effort and passion.
Wouldn’t it have been great if Williams’ daughter took a year off and ended up with a finished novel of her own? Now that would be something to be proud of.
But an 18-year-old spending a year on fanfic?
I wouldn’t be proud of that. I’d be embarrassed.
The Name of Noir is Marlowe
Duane Swierczynski pointed me to an excellent Mystery File article about author Dan J. Marlowe. Duane writes:
Marlowe’s life story has enough twists and turns for at least three or
four Gold Medal novels. Marlowe was widowed at a young age, became
close buddies with one of the most notorious bank robbers of the 1960s,
and later in his career, suffered a stroke that wiped away his
memory–but not his writing ability. Somehow, through all of this, he
wrote some extremely fine hardboiled novels, the best being his first
two Earl Drake books: THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH and ONE ENDLESS HOUR.
Duane is a right — those are two great books. But if you read NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH, and you must, be sure to get the first version, not the subsequent rewrite where some of Earl Drake’s very, very rough edges were smoothed out so he could become (following ONE ENDLESS HOUR) the improbable hero of a series of secret agent novels.
Man Titty
The hilarious Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels are at it again, reviewing some terrible book covers:
Sarah: It is a moderately-known fact that I had a breast
reduction 11 years ago. 7+ lbs. of tissue were removed. I think he
received in transplant what I had taken out.Now, do you need inflated man-titty to be a demon hunter? Perhaps if I’d kept my old boobs, I’d be a demon hunter now.
Candy: If I were him, I’d be so worried about scratching my
chest with those talons on my hands. I mean, what if I puncture
something? It’s hard to be appropriately terrifying when there’s a jet
of saline squirting out of one’s (rapidly deflating) chestal region.
Psyched up
The premiere of the new USA Network series PSYCH is the highest-rated opening episode of any new basic cable series this year. Bill Rabkin & I wrote an episode for PSYCH that will be airing later this summer.
In all, 6.1 million total viewers tuned in,
scoring USA’s best numbers since the two-hour "The 4400" debut
harvested 7.4 million viewers in July 2004.
The news wasn’t so good for MONK, which kicked off with strong ratings but they were the lowest season debut numbers since it’s first season. One reason for the dip could be MONK’s new timeslot — the series was shifted an hour earlier to accomodate PSYCH. Bill and I have also written an episode of MONK, which airs July 28th.
No, it would simply show that the writer is using cliches. Just
because real people speak in cliches, that’s not an excuse to use them
in your writing. Nobody is going to read a cliche and think "ah, the
writer is capturing the way people really talk." They’ll think "geez,
what a lousy writer. He doesn’t have the talent to write interesting
dialogue."
The commentor also said:
When it comes to cliches, nobody is going to criticise you for NOT using them.