Quote of the Week

From the Contentious Curmudgeon over at Comics Should Be Good:

"If Alan David Doane thinks The Highwaymen, which is just a generic action comic but is competently done and occasionally entertaining, is one of the worst comics of 2007, then he obviously doesn’t read a lot of comics."

Amen, brother.

They (Still) Like Us

A review of the trade paperback from ComicMix.com:

"There are many things the new Highwaymen comic (Wildstorm, $17.99) is not: It's not complex. It's not very serious. It doesn't have all that much character development. What it does have, though, are all the elements of a perfect action movie, simmered to near perfection.

Writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman follow the action rubric to a T, installing the plot (a young woman has a weapon of mass destruction inside her and everyone's after her), the heroes (the aged Mr. McQueen and Mr. Monroe are killer and driver, respectively), and the villain (a shady leader of a U.S. government anti-terrorist organization).

I'm sure there will be those who dismiss this book as popcorn, but the thing about popcorn is, it's hella good every once in a while, especially when it's popped just right.

The Highwaymen is pretty well nonstop action along a taut storyline, executed quite well by artist Lee Garbett (his work is similar to that of John Cassaday, except Garbett actually draws backgrounds). In short, the book just tries to be a really good action story, instead of overreaching for some grand purpose. It's just violent and frivolous and fun, and there's not a darn thing wrong with that."

I Am Returned

Not dead, but not for lack of trying.

Had a most restorative break...provided you, like I, get restored by topping out at 75 mph on a snowmobile. My wife is a huge skier, has been for decades. I, personally, can't stand it. I don't like careening down a mountain with neither steering nor brakes. And I don't like the people—not the people themselves, just the amount of them. Hundreds of them, all doing the same thing at the same time. Kind of like snow lemmings. I understand why they do it; the speed, the rush. I just don't like the method or the environment.

But for most of the four days, I didn't see anyone but the nine others in my traveling party. We were alone in some of the most beautiful wilderness in the country. And that's the only reason I'll freeze my balls off: solitude.

We rode more than 350 miles in those four days. Some of the trails were tight, twisting little paths through pine forests, while others were long, flat, straightaways, like my favorite, called "Piston Alley." And considering that I hadn't been on a sled in eight years, I did rather well. Kept up with my fellow drivers and, for the most part, kept up with our ninja-savant guides...until the last day, about five miles from our final destination. I was "on the leader," carving the turns and blazing the straight-shots, until I followed him over a rise, and was surprised by a 90-degree turn. Which I didn't make.

I plowed my sled over the lip, into a ditch, and up against a tree, at about 40 mph. Through the visor of my helmet, I saw branches and then snow. I never blacked out, but I gave it a moment before I tried to move. Arms first, then legs. Nothing in pain, I rolled over and clawed my way back up onto the trail, and looked down at what could've been the site of an icy disaster. But wasn't.

So I hopped back on my still-functioning snowmobile (it just had some miraculously minor cosmetic damage) and drove it back to our base lodge, comfortable in the knowledge that after 36 years of never breaking a bone, never enduring a sprain, never spending a night in a hospital...I am still invulnerable.

Signal Silence

I'm off, boys and girls, for an arctic vacation filled with speed, snow, and—most likely—a well-calloused ass. Heading to Maine for a snowmobile vacay. If you don't hear from me in a week, I'm either dead or somewhere in the northern wilderness seeing how much nutritional content there is in a fake snowmobile seat. And fending off the rare Winter Chupacabra.

While I'm gone, though, the trade paperback of The Highwaymen will be landing on stands. On March 5, to be exact. I got my copies a couple of days ago, and there's an incredibly, satisfyingly final feeling to hold it in your hands. It is the very, very last stop for us on our journey with these characters. The trade is the terminus—holding the collection in our hands is the first, best destiny we could've hoped for. Sure, it'd have been nice if it sold through the roof, and we were busy plotting their further adventures. Alas, that was not to be. But as so many books go uncollected, hence unpreserved, this was a gratifying bookend. Literally.

An idea that began with nothing more than the words "Two men...one shoots... one drives" is now a completed book, with our names on the glorious spine.

Wherever I am on Wednesday, whatever part of the frozen tundra, I'm gonna take a moment and bellow at the Fates, thanking them for granting me that one request. And then I'm gonna gun it until I see God—or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

See y'all in seven.

Rising Stars

Adam and I have been nominated for the "Rising Star Award" by the panel of the 2008 Glyph Comics Awards—which honors the best in black comics and creators—for our work on Monster Attack Network (and, though it's not made explicit, I'd have to think The Highwaymen played a little in that). Adam must be especially pleased, as all those years working on Yo! MTV Raps and Wildin' Out have finally borne fruit.

One of the things I'm proudest of in that book is that not only did we tell a big, rollicking, monster story, but that one of the main characters, Ezekiel Holder, is a gay black man...who is no way defined by either "gay" or "black." He's just a hero...who digs furry chests and doesn't need a tan.

Oh, and that "Holder" is my grandmother's maiden name. Snuck that one right in there to please no one but me.

It Was a Good Death...

Jumper...How Did it Go So Wrong?

So I went with the missus to see Jumper over the weekend, as I was flat-out unwilling to see Fool's Gold. (And everyone she told about my unwillingness chimed in with a "It got half-a-star in the Post," even the waitress at lunch. Which irked her.) I knew that the reviews weren't great for Jumper either, but I can sit through a mediocre sci-fi movie way more easily than I can a mediocre romantic comedy.

The biggest problem with Jumper wasn't that it was bad. (Which it was. It's as if Doug Liman thought that the last 30 minutes of Mr. and Mrs. Smith—where he gives up any pretense of caring about story and proceeds to simply blow shit up—was the best part, and decided to make a whole movie like that.) No, the problem was that I could see all the pieces, all the building blocks for a good movie, just sitting there...wasted.

To break it down (and FROM HERE ON OUT, THERE BE SPOILERS): There are people who can teleport, called jumpers. There are people who, for reasons unknown, want to stop them, called Paladins. Our main character, David (Hayden Christensen), robs banks by jumping in, snatching a bunch of cash, and jumping out. No higher purpose than the amassing of money, so he can buy shit—he's the enabled slacker. He's also a bit of a douchebag. Meets girl he had a crush on in high school, but keeps his big secret. Which blows up in his face as Big Bad Paladin (Samuel L. Jackson) follows them on their trip to Rome and gets electro-sticky with it. Meets fellow jumper (Billy Elliot), who hunts Paladins for fun and profit. Big fights, lots of jumping, roll credits. Oh, and David remains a douchebag; he never pays for his crimes and gets the girl anyway. Lesson unlearned. Oh, and he finds his absentee mother, who is also a Paladin, and left the family to protect him...because she loves him.

As we're leaving the theater, I just couldn't help but think how it could all have been so much better. Here's my infinitely better Jumper (or, if not "infinitely better," has the virtue of both having an internal logic and not sucking):

The Paladins—who've been hunting jumpers for (according to the film) centuries—finally have a secret weapon: one of their own has just given birth to a jumper. Once they discover his ability, he's pulled from his suburban life, and the beginnings of a relationship with a high school girl, and they train him. He is to infiltrate the loose society of jumpers around the world and, eventually, lead the Paladins to their quarry.

So, David goes undercover. He's set up in a series of ever-more-lavish flats all over the world so that he looks the part. Jumps all over the place, leaving enough jump-scars (momentarily visible rifts in the space-time continuum) so that any fellow jumper could follow him. David believes he's bringing these people in for the greater good. He was raised to believe as much. He was also told that the captured jumpers are given a cure for their condition—an amped-up pacemaker that would disrupt their ability—and released back into the public. What he doesn't know is that the jumpers are all killed; the cure is a bullet to the head.

Confused, David returns to his childhood home to find his father, who he hasn't seen in a decade. He learns that pops was killed—in a manner that reveals Paladin involvement. He reconnects with the girl he left behind, they share a little something, and she grounds him enough to realize that the life he's led has been wrong, and he's gotta do something about it. He's the only one who can.

He assembles a small group of jumpers, reveals who he is, and convinces them to band together for an assault on the Paladin headquarters, and bring them down. Big explodo ending, the bad guys are shut down, the good guy gets his girl, and the jumpers are told to change their larcenous ways. Because, despite the destruction of the Paladin HQ, there is one Paladin left and he's the most dangerous of all: David. And, for him, anywhere is possible.

Sweet Jesus, was that so hard?

Depressing...No, Disheartening Is the Word

If you look at that little sidebar to the right, the one that lists all of the projects that I'm working on, and their various states of completion, you'll see a book there called Adora and the Distance. It's something I've been working on for a couple of years now, trying to find my way into it, stumbling my way through. Because it's unlike anything I've ever tried to write before.

It's about my daughter. It's about autism.

Well, sorta. It's about a girl who goes on a quest to save her mythical homeland from an invading force that threatens to destroy everything she holds dear. But beneath that gossamer, kid-lit fantasy disguise, it's about a girl trying to escape the imaginary-prison of her own mind and get back to the real world, and what she gains and loses in the process.

It is, needless to say, very close to my heart. It is the closest I—the dude who loves explosions and gratuitous nudity—will come to creating a story About Something. And it is, currently, falling on deaf editorial ears.

Every person I've told this story to has responded to it. Every editor I've pitched it to thought it was a really touching take on what's become a universal affliction. One of them said that it's a financial no-brainer: Sadly, this is a book with an audience, one that's getting larger every day. But when I went looking for a lit agent, not a one of the few who have any experience with graphic novels wanted anything to do with it. (One said "I'm not sure there's a readership for a book like this"; despite 1 in 150 children born today making their parents a part of that readership.) When I've been able to get the proposal to some publishers, I either got the "It's a children's book, and we don't publish those" or, "We only do children's adventures, and this doesn't quite fit" or "Intriguing...how about if we change these 58 things about it?"

I know, this is the sort of thing that confronts untold numbers of writers every day of their lives ("I've got this awesome idea and they...just...don't...understand!"). And, yes, there are publishers I haven't approached yet. I'm sure that if the book I was writing was "One father's autobiographical experience raising an autistic child" and it was black-and-white and maybe I also happened to discover I was gay in the process — then, I'd lock up a deal toot sweet. But I don't want to write that book. I don't want to read that book. I'm not that guy. I want pirates and swordfights and oracles and children realizing that the world isn't too big for them to handle. I want high adventure.

What I can't figure out is why no one else seems to.

Sorry...

I've been a horrible landlord, I know. The internet is an insatiable beast. Honestly, it's like I'm on a locomotive going balls out, and I'm in charge of laying the tracks just before we run over them.

But I'll be back soon. Promise.

Five Places I Wish I Could Work

This should, in no way, lead anyone to believe that I don't love where I work now. You'll notice that none of the places I list here are other magazines; that's because I'm exactly where I want to be, as a journalist. It's just that these other places are/will be doing very special things, and I'd love to better myself for being part of their process.

1. Pixar
As close to a perfect brand as there is. Think about it: They've never made a bad movie. Never. They're batting 1.000. No one does animation with the same attention to storytelling detail and craft like Pixar. They follow where the story leads, and they're not afraid to fix it when it's broken. Egads, what a fella could learn from them.

2. Rockstar Games
I'm a gamer and these guys have pumped out more groundbreaking videogames than anyone. While Bungie created the defining shooter in Halo, Rockstar has done more—the Grand Theft Auto series, Table Tennis, Bully, Manhunt—and done more right.

3. Bad Robot
J.J. Abrams seems to have taken the baton from Joss Whedon and become the geek factory. He knows what people want to see before they do and, maybe more importantly, he knows how to tease them into wanting it even more. As a company, flush with Cloverfield success, they can do whatever they want to.

4. Production I.G.
I almost put down Hayao Miyazaki's Ghibli anime studio but, while all accounts point to that being a terrific place to work, it seems like Ghibli is in the Miyazaki business. Which is great but feels a little like Lucasfilm in that regard: a company set up to execute the vision of one man. Production I.G. has been churning out terrific anime for years now—it'd be great to learn to learn to tell stories in that format from the folks who did the Ghost in the Shell cycle, the toon segment in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and Blood: The Last Vampire.

5. Cartoon Network
Why? Because they gave The Venture Brothers a third season. Obviously, they know what time it is. And it's the last place on TV for original animation for grown-ups.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

I love my job. I'm an entertainment junkie, so this is the perfect place for me to be: the eye of a perfect pop-cultural storm. I am, as they used to say in the '60s, "in the know." I know, before most people, the latest developments with this show or that movie, or which star dropped out of which role...you name it, and if I don't know it, I've got the access to find out.

But there are times, every once in a while, when I wish I didn't know. When I wish that I could come to a piece of entertainment and be surprised by it. Not to say that I don't get taken unawares, but those times are far and few between. (My favorite time was when, on a lark, I went to a pre-release screening of The Iron Giant. It was a toon, and I'm EW's resident geek, so I figured it was my solemn duty. I came out of that screening room—I was alone in that room, like so many people were when it was released to deafening indifference to theaters—having to shammy off my face. The end of that movie wrecked me, all the more because I didn't see it coming.)

I watched the pilot for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles—which I quite liked, by the way—and wished I didn't know a goddamn thing about it beyond having seen T2. If I was truly ignorant of the show itself, I could've been genuinely surprised when it's revealed that the teensy brunette that John Connor meets in his new school is actually a Terminator, sent to protect him. But, since I knew that Summer Glau was cast in that role, all I could do was sit there and think, "That was pretty well done; I'll bet there's a rube somewhere with no internet access and who only turns on the tube for fishing and football who was completely blown away by that."

Sometimes, I miss that ignorance. S'why I can't wait until my kids are old enough to be able to digest movies—I've got thousands that I want to show them and vicariously revel in their eyes opening to the possibilities.

Is it Wrong...

...that, at least twice a week, I earnestly, seriously, intentionally try and use the Force? You know, in the way that you did when you were a kid: concentrate intensely on, say, the light switch across the room; furrow your brow; reach out a hand and try and turn it off.

It's a vestigial part of my childhood, one that hasn't atrophied and withered away in the years since. But I vividly remember sitting in my childhood room, giddy with Star Wars fervor, trying to become one with all things and make stuff move with my mind.

I don't know what I'm expecting, trying it today, because I know that it will never happen. But I try just the same. (Not that I make time for it or anything. Tuesday, 3:45 pm: Use Force.) Otherwise, how would I know that I didn't develop telekinesis overnight? Seriously, how would a superhero know he was superheroic unless he tried to perform superhuman feats on a regular basis? Unless you tried to lift a bus, how would you know you could? (Again, I'm not an idiot: That logic does not extend to jumping off shit to prove that I could fly or taking a hot round to the chest.)

I guess I'm just waiting for the world to surprise me. In a good way.

Digging It

So that post, about how awesome the Sci-Fi Channel should be, the one that's two posts below? It got Dugg in a serious way, and drove a ridiculously immense amount of traffic to EW.com. Which is great. Because they pay me to write stuff that drives an immense amount of traffic.

But I know that if I'd have posted it here, it would've vanished into the ether. Which just goes to show how important a platform is. Which is why my first webcomic, when it launches, ain't gonna launch here.

I'm just sayin'.

Catching Some Last Gasp 'Highwaymen' Love

Hannibal Tabu over at Comic Book Resources put us at the top of his Best of 2007 list, new limited series division. Click and scroll, my brothers. Click and scroll.

Monroe would approve.

An Open Letter to The Sci-Fi Channel

[Crossposted from EW.com]

Dearest Sci-Fi,

Why are you not way more awesome?

Don't get me wrong, when you're good—like with Battlestar Galactica or Eureka (and I'll even give you credit for Doctor Who, despite that being a BBC show you just imported)—you're a phenomenal destination network. But let's be honest here, there's not a lot of "good" on your schedule. The Stargate franchise is stale, Flash Gordon is a derisible, stillborn remake, and ECW Wrestling is…wrestling! (And I swore an oath never to speak of Who Wants to Be a Superhero again.)

The thing that infuriates me is that you have so much potential. We're living in the Age of the Geek, where pop culture has finally come around to our way of thinking. Where the most-watched shows on TV are geek-nip like Heroes, Lost, and Bionic Woman; where we buzz about movies like Pan's Labyrinth, Spider-Man, I Am Legend, and Iron Man. The audience could not be more primed for this material, so why are you offering them Ghost Hunters International and crappy "original movies" like Mansquito?

Again, why aren't you more awesome? Why aren't you adapting more classic sci-fi texts—like you did with Dune—into miniseries events? (Ones that, hopefully, will fare better than Tin Man.) Where's the Foundation saga, or Ender's Game, or Footfall, or The Man in the High Castle, or The Forever War?

Why aren't you engaging today's premiere purveyors of genre material and giving them ten episodes to do whatever the hell they want? I'd watch contained, BBC-style series from folks like Neil Gaiman, William Gibson, John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow, Warren Ellis, Charlie Huston, Neal Stephenson, or China Mieville. The names alone would attract viewers by the truckload. And even if what they produced were failures, they'd be interesting failures—marked by reaching too far, instead of not far enough.

Why don't you try a daily sci-fi soap opera? Airing late at night, so people could actually be home to watch it—or DVR it. Why can't the same kind of serial storytelling that's worked for 50 years on shows like General Hospital be marshaled to create compelling science fiction? (Actually, I've got to give Evan Narcisse a tip of the hat for this one. Because I'm just that kind of bloke.)

Mark Harris was right when he said that science fiction needed to ditch the nostalgia if it's going to reclaim its integrity. Lucky for those of us who love sci-fi that there's a whole network devoted to it. I just want them to fulfill their mandate.

Imagine that. (No, seriously. Get to work imagining.)

The Coolest Thing I've Seen in A Long While

Eric Tan's poster for the Stan Lee exhibit at LA's Gallery 1988 later this month. As others have noted, I'd give someone else's left nut for a poster of this.

Happy New Year

I guess. Right, that's what we do this time of year, mark the passing of one into the next? Reminds me of my grandfather. Every time I'd have a birthday, he'd ask me, "So, how do you feel?" And I'd always say, "Same as I did yesterday, but with a couple more presents."

So, hey, Happy New Year.

In other news, The Highwaymen was just nominated for Best Limited Series by Broken Frontier. (And Rob Leigh, our letterer, also got a nod...though I suspect it was more for his work on Justice League of America or Green Lantern. But, hey, good for Rob.)

Also: Scott Pilgrim is almost criminally good. I know, I'm like the last dude to discover it, but holy dog shit. I pulverized all four volumes in three days. Someday, my writing will follow its own muse like that. Bryan Lee O'Malley just fucking goes for it and pwns the shit out of it in the process.

Also also: Rock Band is more fun than should be sold in a box. My hands actually started to callous up from whaling on the drum kit.

The Year in Review

2007.

Professionally, a monster of a year. The first comics work I've ever done hit the shelves within a month of each other—both in time for SDCC, and both getting terrific reviews.

THE HIGHWAYMEN had been sitting on my hard drive for nigh on 8 years before making it out. And, despite criminally low sales for a DC book, it's getting collected into a trade next March. (Ahem, order code DEC070283.)

MONSTER ATTACK NETWORK survived release date shifts, artist crumbles, and hard drive meltdowns to sell out in San Diego and actually make a Best of 2007 list.

And we've got enough stuff in the pipeline—and the relationships to, hopefully, generate more—to keep us busy for 2008. Some Big Two work, some indie work, a webcomic and, lit-agent-discovery willing, a major publishing house OGN.

Personally, the second most challenging on record. I will say this: Autism will find new and interesting ways to kick you in the soul every chance it gets.

So, here's to 2008.

My Favorite Sentence of the Month

This one, which came at the end of a Variety piece about John Singleton's eventual A-Team movie:

"Story has been given a modern twist by involving oil tycoons and laser technology."

How modern is it? It's oil tycoon modern. You know, because there have never been any old movies featuring oil tycoons. Hell, the word tycoon invalidates any claim of modernity.

And when you refer to it as "laser technology," it sounds so, I don't know, Real Genius.

Best Of!

That's right, baby! Monster Attack Network made a Best of 2007 list. Check the specs:

"No book this year gave me a bigger nerdgasm than Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman’s MONSTER ATTACK NETWORK (AiT/PlanetLar). An island where giant monsters attack all the time? Bitchin’! A special police force dedicated to diverting the monsters and rebuilding in their wake? Fuggin’A! That’s totally what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’m not one to pant like a dog for sequels in any medium, but this book? It needs one. Right. Fucking. Now."

Marc Mason (who I now am totally in love with, and not just because he spells his name correctly) is not, for the record, in my employ. But he does, as the kids say, "get it."