Insomnia returns

It's 5:00 in the morning and I've been up for a half an hour.

Can't guess as to how many times I woke up from a dream that was telling me it was time to get up. I finally took the hint. Had half a mind to play with the Wii Fit which let me know that after over twenty years of martial arts training that I am "unbalanced" and politely asked me if I had problems walking. I'm wondering whether or not the "unbalanced" comment was referring to my mental status.

I'm over due starting my next "Tales of Night Life". Got an artist all lined up. She did chapter two of "New Kid in Town". She got all excited when I told her that the next story would be involving a werewolf. The story is in my reptilian brain and unfortunately has built a comfy little next in there and refuses to get out despite poking it with a sharp stick.

Deffiant McDouchebag continues his vendetta against me hoping to drive me from any internet forums that he finds me in. He actually started a blog here on Blogger just to comment in this blog, back when he was he was throwing around wild accusations and taking a break from trying to sign comic artists to ten year contracts with his company. I was thinking he was a wannabe shakedown artist or identity thief. Now I think I'm the focus of interest for a Paranoid Schizophrenic. To quote the Joker from BATMAN BEYOND: RETURN OF THE JOKER "It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Ah, what the heck. I'll laugh anyways."

THE SPIRIT isn't doing well at the box office. Critics are panned it. I'd take the time to defend it if Frank Miller owed me a goddamn thing.

Year's almost done. Got some stuff to show for it by way of content. Content is always important. Hopefully next year I'll have something to show by way of books to put in people's hands. The next issue of MERE MORTAL is coming and will complete the story arc. Since I'm not looking forward to much being shown me by the big time comic book companies, I'm going to have to just get excited by my own work.

Gail Simone's stuff is keeping me excited. I just want to hang out in the little corner of the DC Universe she's writing and cling to my little Gail involved fantasy of her vision of things spilling over into everything I read and making it more enjoyable. Never seen her picture, but I like to imagine her the way she writes: witty, charming and inviting. Then the Al Green music starts to play....

Cripes.

See what happens when I can't sleep?

Now the story can be told...

October.

Mom: "What would you guys like for Christmas?"

Me: "Meagan would like a Wii Fit."

Mom: "What about you?"

Me: "Well, let's just say it's for both of us."

November.

Mom: "Have you thought about what you'd like for Christmas?"

Me: "Yes, we'd like a Wii Fit."

Mom: "A Wii... Fit?"

Me: "Yeah, it's an accessory for the Wii."

Mom: "That's for both of you?"

Me: "Yep."

First week of December.

Mom: "I need to know what to get you for Christmas."

Me: "We'd like a Wii Fit."

Mom: "Is there anything else you'd like, in case I can't find one."

Me. "..." "Highlander: Season One."

Second week of December.

Mom: "I can't find a Wii Fit anywhere and they want almost double the price for them online and I don't know how to use Ebay!"

Me: "This is why I told you about it in October."

Mom: "YOU DID NOT!"

Me: (Insert eye rolling here)

Mom: "OK, maybe you did, but I can't find one! Maybe I could just give you the money... WAIT! YOU! You have connections!"

Me: "There's no such thing as the mafia."

Mom: "STOP THAT!" (Insert smack here.) "You find all sorts of weird stuff. You managed to get a Wii after looking for all of five minutes. You can find one and I'll pay you back!"

Me: "So you want me to get my hands on one of the most sought after items anywhere during the Holiday season, and then get it to you so you can give it back to me for Christmas, without Meagan knowing?"

Mom: "Yes." (At this point I found the fact that I used to RP Jaeger Ayers to be highly ironic.) "Oh and I have no idea where to find that Highlander thing you asked for."

Me: "Mom, your office is across the street from a Best Buy."

Mom: "They have DVDs?"

Two days after that.

Me: "It's done."

Mom: "WHAT?! How did you find one? How much did you pay?"

Me: "It was $89.99."

Mom: "I couldn't find one anywhere."

Me: "Well, you can find one in my car right now."

Mom: "HOW?! How did you do it?"

Me: "I'm Batman."

Merry Christmas

Last night at a friend's church I got to hear a little girl who was no more than five years old recite from the Bible. It was the same passage that Linus recites in 'Merry Christmas Charlie Brown'. She spoke clearly and needed no prompting. She looked out at the congregation the entire time time. Once finished she recited a little poem about Christmas. I was very impressed, and thought I'd share.

Merry Christmas everyone and thanks to all of you that have supported us. It's the best present a person could ever ask for.

Love you too, Frank.

I flipped through an issue of Maxim on the news stand as I was killing some time. Maxim is a rag, but nothing else looked interesting. Anyhow, they did a little piece on THE SPIRIT which is being written and directed by Frank Miller. No, it's looking like the movie is going to be a bit of a departure from the comics created by Will Eisner, and many fans ain't too pleased with that. I'm not a huge fan, so it doesn't much matter to me.

So, Miller talks about how Eisner was his mentor and he didn't want to do a movie that was a "dusty monument" to the old comics. He said he's doing what he felt Eisner would have wanted him to do with movie. "I owe him." That's cool. No problem there, but then he turned right around and commented about the fans who are concerned and unhappy about his take on the character.

"I don't owe the fans a goddamn thing."

O rly?

Well, that's enough to keep me from buying a ticket. He can play the artiste all he wants, but it's the fans that got him where he is right now. I'm sure his supporters are saying at this point, "Well, he's not talking about his fans, he's talking about the fans of The Spirit that are unhappy." That's no better. Fans are fans. None are worth more than another. You can't make a movie about something that isn't in some small part for the fans of that thing.

Now, if he had said something along the lines of: "Hey, I know what I'm doing is a bit different, but I'm doing what I think my friend and mentor would have wanted me to do and I hope people will give it a chance." That's fine, I'd have probably gone to see it. Nope, had to cop an attitude. And I'm sure it was just bravado meant for the Maxim readers, but he missed the mark of 'cool' and landed on 'asshole' instead.

For the record, I'm a fan of Frank Miller. I liked DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and BATMAN:YEAR ONE. I liked his old DAREDEVIL stuff. I liked SIN CITY and 300 and enjoyed the movies they made of those. I don't like everything he does. ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN is complete crap. It's hit and miss really.

So, where will THE SPIRIT fall with me? Well, no one's going to find out any time soon, because Frank doesn't owe me a goddamn thing.

Leaving well enough alone

We live in an age of multimedia cross-marketing saturation bombing. It's almost to the point where we don't have consumers, we have targets. Think about that the next time you hear the term "target audience". As if some record producer or artist agent or webcomic writer who spews forth his half crazed opinions on his blog is perched upon the water tower overlooking the vast mass consciousness of the developing mono-culture picking and choosing the recipients of their .50 caliber meme which will be fired through the media of their choice.

And it's not like we're sitting up in our water towers, sucking down anything caffeinated or mind altering that we can get our hands on, and only having to use one weapon of thought attack at our disposal. Oh no children, we've got the whole toy store at our disposal. Movies, books, television, radio, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Blue-Ray, broadband, satellites skimming over the Ionosphere for the sole purpose of getting our ideas into your heads, or make your fillings sing "hey nani nani". Whichever comes first.

And some people just can't get enough. The movie isn't enough. They need the soundtrack downloaded onto their Ipod, the same one that has the movie's trailer which they downloaded when it somehow, as if by magic, got leaked onto the web. Wait, there's a book adaption? Got to get that to! It doesn't matter that the movie in question is an adaption of a novel to begin with. Now you have to wait for months for the DVD, but not that piece of shit that's coming out a couple of months later, NO YOU FOOLISH BASTARD, it's got to be the special edition 5 disc hi-def box set with the little book and commemorative paperweight!

There's an animated WONDER WOMAN movie coming soon, to which I say "Yay". I'll be buying it. However, in a little online discussion doom was reigned upon us with the statement, "That doesn't solve the problem of there not being a live action Wonder Woman movie."

Fuck the economy and tell the entire Middle East to sod off! Get Obama on the phone! We need a damn Wonder Woman live action movie, because damn it all we're entitled to have our every whim catered to.

This is a problem? THIS? No, CATWOMAN was a problem. This is just a matter of no one can pull off the role. And don't bother leaving comments about Lucy Lawless. That ship sailed about ten years ago. Let her do the animated voice like she did in NEW FRONTIER.

WATCHMEN is getting set to be butchered on the screen. I caught some people clamoring about doing a KINGDOM COME movie. Here's where we hit the problem.

Some works lose their magic in translation. NEW FRONTIER was great, but so much got cut out when the work got animated that it felt like they just when from Darwin Cooke's outline. There's even more stuff going on in WATCHMEN and KINGDOM COME that there's no way you can get a decent translation of the work compiled into a two to three hour movie. There's also not enough there to warrant a series of films. And think about one of the main strengths of KINGDOM COME: the art. Alex Ross ain't gonna be painting those animation cells.

Some works can translate well. SIN CITY and 300 proved that. The difference is that there's room to work with them. They had to add a lot to 300 to flesh it out for the movie. SIN CITY faithfully adapted multiple limited series into one movie. The thing is, while I love SIN CITY, we are not talking about a terribly dense work. It's fairly light, a popcorn read. That's not an insult, I love popcorn reading.

Also intellectual properties like BATMAN and SPIDER-MAN are easily adapted because there a lot of source material for the producers to cull from. They can make it work. Adapting a series like WATCHMEN, or the numerous other Alan Moore properties of which he won't even allow his name to be attached to the adaptations, and the producers are hand cuffed. The creators only produced a set amount of source material and it often isn't much. It's way too easy to go off the reservation and piss off the audience you were hoping to cater to.

Tricksy things, those target audiences. Blast them right and they'll worship you with devotion, praise and money. However if your aim is off, you've got a pissed off beast which you've disturbed and it's never easy to calm them down.

As humans it's in our nature to adapt. Ideas must adapt meet the rigors of the world. Art does not adapt. The world adapts to art. People adapt to art. Great glowing ideas that change the minds, hearts and souls of all who come in contact with them, which drive their creators to near madness in the best of conditions, in their quest to formulate and express them. And for every single one of these wonderful ideas, there's a hundred people looking to change it so that they can make a buck off it.

Holy Load of Crap, Batman!

It's been a big year for Batman. There was the anticipation of THE DARK KNIGHT, the metric ton of marketing, commercials everywhere, then the movie itself. I made my feelings on it abundantly clear, I didn't like the movie. Still everyone had bats on the brain, especially with the impending "Batman R.I.P." Fans were in a tizzy wondering how on earth could DC dare to kill off Bruce Wayne. How could they do it? Who would replace him? In fact, even now that the storyline has come to a close there's still so many questions in the air. "Battle for the Cowl" will determine who will be the next Batman.

Just one tiny iddy biddy problem with this: Bruce Wayne ain't dead. He's still Batman.

Unfortunately DC editorial didn't get the memo. I blame grant Morrison's accent for this. Obviously, Dan DiDio couldn't understand the words coming out of Morrison's mouth when he told the fat controller the Bruce Wayne doesn't die. Otherwise he wouldn't have turned the storyline into an 'event' and had every Bat-related comic tie into it.

How do you write a story dealing with the ramifications of the death of a character when the character is just fine and continues to appear in comics. Peter Tomasi nailed it perfectly last week in NIGHTWING #151. There was a brilliant scene at the end of the issue in which yes, Bruce Wayne was missing and instead of going nuts searching for him, Dick Grayson, Tim Drake and Alfred the Butler popped some popcorn, made smooties and watched a movie on Wayne Manor's home theater system. Tomasi green lit the R.I.P. storyline when he editor. Unfortunately Tomasi proved himself to be competent so he's not an editor anymore. Fortunately he's writing the most enjoyable NIGHTWING run since Chuck Dixon.

R.I.P. has been handled poorly in every respect outside of the execution of the story itself. It was marketed horribly, misleading readers. It was turned into as 'event' when really it the final chapter of Morrison's storyline. This story also referenced a ton of old Batman stories which DC didn't see fit to reprint before hand. They are making up for it by putting out THE BLACK CASEBOOK next year to go along with the trade of "Batman R.I.P." which will be collecting the stories in question. That's a whole other can of worms since it shares the same name and page count as THIS. The compiler of that torrent was never contacted by DC which they don't have to since it is DC's property being collected. Still, credit needs to go where it's supposed to. This guy did it first, and did it when it could help readers fully understand what's going on. He did DC's job for them and did it for free.

So now we've got Bat-books on hiatus or being canceled to be relaunched. That or other titles will pop up to replace them. Don't forget the next event which will answer the questions not caused by the last one, but thrown out there by rabid shortsighted fanboys and an editorial staff that needs to go back to editing storylines, not creating them. All because no one wanted to listen to the writer when he tried to tell people not to go nuts.

I'm going to go what the Tim Burton BATMAN flick now. Just to calm my nerves.