Anyway, I’m still working on my top secret project I’m not allowed to talk about.  So why bring it up?  Because what’s the point of working on a top secret project if you can’t mention it?  This is probably why I’d be a lousy spy.  The details will remain undisclosed, but I’m optimistic at this stage that this could be awesome.  I could be wrong.  It’s happened once or twice before.

But while I have a free moment, I figured I’d drop by, confirm that I am still alive, and maybe share some random thoughts.  People do seem to like that sort of thing.  Maybe because as a sort of famous person, they’re under the illusion I have something interesting to say.  Or maybe we all have something interesting to say, and I just happen to be lucky enough to have an audience.

So I’ve been playing Skylanders on my Wii.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a video game with a gimmick.  You get a wireless “portal” device that connects to your system and when you put the Skylander figures onto the portal, they appear in your game as characters for you to control.  Think of it as Pokemon, but without having to capture the damn things and instead just going out and buying them.  It is a gimmick, and psychologically, it should be annoying that you’re basically paying to unlock things that are already in the game.  But it’s a tremendously charming game with a lot going for it.

For one thing, the game is a bit old school and aimed at a younger audience.  It’s not tremendously difficult and most of the levels are straightforward, even if there is a bit of puzzles here and there.  For some reason, Skylanders reminds me a lot of that old classic Gauntlet.  Only instead of running around in a dungeon with four characters to choose from, there are 32 different Skylanders (if you should happen to buy them all).

What elevates this beyond a gimmick for me is that the game is genuinely fun to play.  And each character has their own unique style.  They aren’t just interchangeable with different special effects.  Trigger Happy carries a pair of pistols that shoot gold coins and can spray the screen with a deadly barrage.  Meanwhile, Terrafin is a landshark who can swim through rock and punch the enemy with tremendous force.  The more you play the game, the more you unlock on the characters.  It’s all a very elaborate system of enticement, but so cleverly done that it seems rewarding rather than manipulative.

It’s the difference between a game with a gimmick and a gimmicky game.  Skylanders is certainly designed to sell collectible figures, but they went above and beyond to create a fun experience that continues to reward me.  If I were less secure, I might feel weird admitting how much I’m enjoying a game aimed at kids, but I’m a professional novelologist.  And I fear the day I can’t see the beauty of playing a game where I can be anything from a rock dinosaur to a cyber dragon to a very angry tree who spits out giant spiked acorns that he rolls over the forces of evil.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been enjoying Castle Empire Online, a free online game that’s about managing a small kingdom.  It’s a different animal than Skylanders, but fun.  Worth checking out, if you’re so inclined.  I play under the name EmperorMollusk.  Send me a friend request.  Maybe I’ll trade you some fish for coal.  (I’m always short on coal.)

But what about the real world?  What’s going on there?

How quaint of you to ask.

Got that secret project thing.  Hush hush.  But it’s coming along.

Working on Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, my next manuscript (prob out in 2013).

Oh, and that Mack Megaton story…it’s still coming.  I promise.

Finally, I’d like to offer my thoughts on the topic of skepticism.  The problem with your average person’s view of skepticism is that it seems to mean “Non-Believer”.  When I say I’m skeptical of ghosts, for instance, it’s often assumed I don’t believe ghosts exist.  In point of fact, I am a genuine skeptic when it comes to the paranormal.  I remain unconvinced but open to it.

And, yes, I understand there there is “evidence” for the paranormal.  It’s just not very good evidence.  And it certainly isn’t very convincing evidence for any particular claim.  This isn’t to say that those claims are wrong.  It’s just that they remain so ill-defined as to honestly admit they are specious at best.  The difficulty I have with “the paranormal” is that no one who believes it genuinely seems to be investigating it in an open way.  Instead, they have their pet theory that they are trying to prove.  That’s just bad research.

For example, perhaps electronic voice phenomenon is a real thing, and we are managing to record the voices of invisible beings around us.  This could mean a hundred things though.  Perhaps there are alien entities from another dimension trying to make contact with us.  Perhaps mischievous imps are playing tricks on us.  Or perhaps they are psychic imprints created by the will of the living investigators.  When it comes to the paranormal, none of these explanations seems unreasonable to me.  Or they could all be wrong.

This is why I am skeptical.  Even if you capture a genuine EVP, it could be something we haven’t even thought of yet.  There are so many possibilities, the only genuinely honest thing to do is to record the result and keep investigating.

Inevitably, someone will tell me I am being too closed minded.  But it’s actually the opposite.  I’m so open minded about what it COULD be that I have a hard time just declaring what it is as if I actually knew.  The believer is often the one who seems closed minded to me, willing to stretch any and all evidence toward their pet theory, ignoring any possibility outside of that.

As an experiment, I suggest watching different ghost hunting shows.  What’s most surprising about the shows isn’t that they find “evidence”, but the type of “evidence” they find.  Each show tends to find the kind of ghosts they’re looking for, regardless of their location.  The less dangerous spirits of Ghost Hunters never seem to cross paths with the more terrifying specters of Ghost Adventures.  And the outright malevolent forces of Paranormal State never seem to show up in any episodes of Fact or Faked.

Skeptically, it could be argued that perhaps that’s the way the supernatural works.  Perhaps different facets of the paranormal respond to different people.  Perhaps my very skepticism is what prevents me from seeing any evidence for myself.  Or perhaps it’s all just our primitive imagination responding to spooky sounds and unfamiliar locations.  Or perhaps we’re all just brains floating in a giant shared simulation and some people have their experience settings dialed to monster.

That’s skepticism.  Far too extreme to be practical, of course.  But just want to put it out there.

My general rule is that if the evidence could just as easily apply to leprechauns, then I remain unconvinced.  Lights in the skies could be alien spaceships.  Or the fey folk playing tricks on us.  Until we actually have a flying saucer or a faerie in our possession, we can’t know for sure.

Although I do still believe that Bigfoot is just Chupacapbra in a suit.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

So enough about my pain.  I’m not here to bum you out.  I’m here, as always, to enlighten and entertain.

Recently, I bought the second volume of Marvel Visionaries: Walt Simonson’s Thor.  Thor was the first official superhero comic I ever bought on a regular basis.  He remains one of my favorite characters, even if modern comics haven’t really held my attention.  And it’s safe to say that Simonson is one of the biggest influences on my writing, which is strange when you consider that I am not considered by many to be a heroic fantasy writer.

But Simonson’s run on Thor is a masterwork of epic storytelling, a fantastic battle of incredible forces, of high fantasy, of melodrama, heart, and solid characterization.  It’s also great fun.  Admittedly, I’m probably biased, but I love these stories because they are just so sincere in their design, so unapologetic in their bold adventure.

Yet Simonson’s run never really gets the mainstream praise it deserves.  Probably because it’s not “literary” like Sandman or “mature” like Preacher.  Simonson’s Thor is just a damn good comic book that juggles multiple plot threads, dozens of characters, and an epic quality that is too easy to take for granted.  Yet his craftsmanship is second-to-none, and everything counts here.  Simonson never seems out to impress you with how complicated he can make things or how far to the edge he can go.  He’s there to tell a great story and bring you along for the ride.

Simonson’s Thor is from a different era, I suppose.  Perhaps it’s even a bit old-fashioned in that way.  But it’s entertaining and fun, and full of grand moments.  The villains and heroes are larger than life.  Thor doesn’t wrestle with existential dilemmas, with his own motivations.  He’s a good guy out to beat up bad guys.  And the bad guys tend to be obviously bad.  Not in the uninteresting “I’m going to rape and mutilate because I’m evil” way, but in the “let’s blow up the universe” manner that is so rare to find in comics these days.

It’s cartoonish, but that isn’t always a bad thing.  And underneath it all, there are still relationships going on, character arcs, personal triumphs and tragedies.  Just because the first story arc climaxes with all of Asgardians fighting an endless tide of demons in New York City while Thor, Loki, and Odin face off against Surtur at the gates of Asgard, that doesn’t necessarily make it childish or silly.

I know I’m from a different era, and that any criticism of modern comic books I might have will be from that perspective.  But I really miss it when superheroes were about fighting bad guys and not about serial killers with ray guns.  I like that nobody says “bitch” in Simonson’s Thor or that, even when a character dies, his death is usually melodramatic and free of gore.  Simonson’s Thor is a comic that is eminently readable to anyone, and that’s just not something you see much anymore.

I’m not suggesting that all comics need to revert to this style.  Or even any of them should.  Different eras.  But it’s just a shame that, when comic book superhero fans look back on the masters, they tend to overlook Thor which is as worthy of praise as just about any other comic book out there, including Sandman, Fables, or what have you.

So if you happen to like what I write and want to read stuff that inspired me, you might just want to check out Marvel Visionaries Walt Simonson Thor because you might just see where I come from.  And while it probably won’t make you laugh as much, it will define awesome in a whole new way.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

There was a lot of great stuff at Fencon this year, and I’ll get to it in some later entry.  Right now, I’m pretty damn tired, and I’m about to keel over.  But there was something at the very end that I thought is worth talking about.

The last panel of the con was called 70 Years of Marvel Comics.  I was on it.  As were several other cool people.  And Paul Cornell, a writer at Marvel.  I mention Paul Cornell specifically because I’m hoping that, by some chance, he might stumble upon this entry and possibly read it.

First of all, I wanted to apologize.  Near the beginning of the panel I got pretty heated, and while I’d like to think I didn’t cross any lines, I also want to be sure and say that Paul Cornell handled himself with grace and wit.  He was patient with my angry fannish ways, called me on some bullshit when I deserved it, and listened to my valid points when they came up.  The guy was just a class act (probably doesn’t hurt that he has that cool British accent), and I’m sure he’s sick of taking crap from fans.  No doubt, he was more patient than I would be if I had to put up with the constant fanboyish ways of we comic book readers.

Some great points were brought up though, and some I think are definitely worth thinking about.  Now, Mr. Cornell isn’t here to express himself, so I’ll do my best to offer his point of view because he had some great points.  But I’d also like to explore my own afterthoughts on the panel.  And we’ll do that first because A) it’s my blog and B) if Mr. Cornell can’t be here to speak for himself, he should at least get the last word.

The most heated point of the discussion came when I mentioned Tigra’s brutal treatment at the hands of Marvel.  Personally, this bugged the crap out of me and it still does.  And it still cheeses me off that she’s little more than someone to be kicked around for dramatic effect.

Mr. Cornell said (with some justification) that Tigra is a C-List character, and the fact that she wasn’t killed for extra drama is more than I had any right to expect.  On that point, he’s absolutely right.

He followed this up by suggesting that Joe Quesada, Marvel’s current Editor-in-Chief is tired of feeling like the fans seem to care more about the characters on the paper than the real people behind the scenes.  And he’s absolutely right about this as well.

And here’s where I get a little contentious again.  Just a little bit.  Because if the writers at Marvel (or anywhere for that matter) have a hard time accepting that the lives of their imaginary creations mean more to the fans than the creators, then I just don’t understand what they think their job is.  I have no reason to doubt that Joe Quesada is a fine human being and a good person.  But that’s all I really do know about him, and most probably, all I ever will.

Tigra, on the other hand, is a real person to me.  I know her.  I care about her.  She’s more real to me than a stranger on the street.  Heck, there are people I see every day that I know less about.  And she’s just a C-lister.  She’s not important.  But, as a character, as a person, she’s more realized, more concrete, than anyone in the Marvel Comics offices (at least to me).

And like it or not, these fictional characters, their lives, their welfare, their hopes, their dreams, mean more to most fans than any real person involved in their creation.  Now, I’ll admit that if The Mighty Robot King appeared before me and said that I had to choose between no more Tigra stories or Joe Quesada getting struck by lightning, Tigra would lose that competetion.  But barring some sort of Twilight Zone-ish twist, I am far more invested in Tigra’s happiness than Joe’s.  (Sorry, Joe, but it’s the harsh truth.)

Which brings me to my point.  Comic books are shared universes.  Not just shared by the writers, but by the fans themselves.  And while I don’t think the stories should be held hostage by the whims of the fans, I also have to say that to abuse a character and then act surprised that some fans get upset is confusing to me.  Because just because a creator has no affection for a character, that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t.  And odds are, no matter how obscure the character, no matter how C-List they might be, someone really, really likes that character and will be annoyed, even possibly enraged, to see a character they enjoy sacrificed for (sometimes necessary) dramatic effect.

(I’ve actually gotten used to this myself since almost all my favorite characters are B and C-Listers.  I may be the only person in the world he hated that Quasar had to die so that Annihilus could earn his villain cred.)

I’m reminded of a funny story when the Jason Todd (then an unpopular Robin) was killed.  The editor at DC walked into a bar, and when he said what he did, someone turned to someone else and said, “Hey, this is the guy who killed Robin!”  It was then that he realized he wasn’t just an editor, but a keeper of something larger than himself.

I do think that it wouldn’t hurt for the writers at Marvel / DC / etc. to keep this in mind.  You aren’t just writing stories, gang.  You’re playing with our friends and family, and if you screw it up (or if we think you screw it up) you’re going to end up catching a lot of hell for it.

Of course, let’s also be fair.  You can’t handle every character with reverence and delicacy.  You’d never be able to tell any stories that way.  But you also can’t just say, “She’s C-List” as justification because that can end up being even more irritating.  Imagine someone comes up to you and says you’re favorite aunt / best friend / personal hero is irrelevant.   You’d be pretty irked, I imagine.  And Mr. Cornell was definitely irked when he assumed I was attacking his friends at Marvel.  (I wasn’t, and if that’s the way it came across, I apologize again because there’s no reason for personal attacks in this situation.  And these attacks do indeed happen, so he can hardly be surprised for expecting one.)

And now for Mr. Cornell’s excellent points:

He observed that the accusations of chauvanism, racism, & other assorted sensitive topics can easily become entangled in these conversations and thus derailing them.  He’s absolutely right on this.  While there are indeed complex issues often at the heart of these discussions, these are larger than any single comic book company and the icons they represent.  Too often, it’s easy to pull out the big guns of Prejudice & Sexism to make a point and then end up confusing every element of the talk.  (It’s like pulling out the Nazi card.  Just because it shuts people up, it doesn’t mean you’re right.)

Mr. Cornell also said that Marvel perhaps has a tendency to follow the market and sales too closely, but that this was difficult to avoid.  Because a great comic that sells three copies a month, no matter how great it might be, isn’t really doing the company any good.  He’s absolutely right on this too.  It’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, to say “If I was running Marvel Comics, here’s what I’d do!” and then sit back, smugly, thinking how easy it would be to save comic books if only we were given the chance.

And that’s bull.  Because Joe Quesada and his staff don’t want to destroy comics.  They want to make good comics AND make money.  And, like all of us, they judge their success on what draws an audience.  Or at least what justifies their jobs by what sells.  And this isn’t “selling out” or innately “bad writing”.  It’s necessity.

(As a writer myself, I struggle with the question of whether I want to be commercial or true-to-myself or if these two things are even in conflict.  And I have the advantage that I’ve finished my book by the time it’s come out so even if it bombs, I don’t have to second guess that particular work, whereas a writer of a serialized story might discover at any point that, hey, you’ve put your heart and soul into this story and nobody gives a damn.)

Once we got through the rough patch at the beginning, it appeared that Paul Cornell and I had a lot in common in actual comic book tastes.  (Both 70′s comic book fans, both thought it would be great if comics could keep their mature sensibilities and be appropriate for all ages at the same time, and both of us wished new characters could be allowed to develop and flourish.)

So anyway, I hope that I represented Mr. Cornell’s opinions properly.  He really did seem like a terrific, sensible sort, and I have no reason to suspect that he is nothing other than a dedicated, thoughtful, hard-working writer out to create the best stories he can.  (Seriously, check out the man’s resume.  He’s working his butt off.)

More importantly, I respected his thoughts, and while I rarely change my opinion (like everyone) he gave me some things to think about.  I certainly know that I won’t be so cavalier in my criticism (intentional or not) of the people behind the scenes at Marvel, who, despite any gripes I might have with their decisions, are just trying to make a living like the rest of us.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

“Martinez and Thomas made some interesting points about the redundancy of the genre and how every zombie story is basically the same, but none of that really matters because zombies rule!”

Now this, I can respect.  No nonsense suggesting that zombies are something special.  No long-winded semi-intellectual dissertation about the relevancy of the zombie genre.  It’s just, hey, zombies are awesome, and that’s all he needs to know.

Let’s admit this.  We are not a rational species.  Oh, sure, sometimes we’re pretty bright.  We can build airplanes and computers and discover the nature of the universe from swirling galaxies to ricocheting atoms, and that’s just super.  But most of what motivates us comes from the squishy, illogical emotional center of our brains.  And there’s not a damn thing wrong with understanding this.

Yet we continue to believe that we are rational, and that everything we do is rational.  Even silly little decisions like whether or not we like zombies.

There is no rational reason to prefer zombies to ninjas.  Or ninjas to pirates.  Or Godzilla to King Kong.  These are just random things that get stuck in our heads, little preferences that get set at some point and rarely change.

As I’ve pointed out before, I love the Taurens of World of Warcraft.  Hulking minotaurs, they are not “pretty” in a conventional sense.  Yet there’s something tremendously appealing to me about the way these guys look, about the entire concept of such animal-like humanoids.  Hardly surprising.  I like monsters.  Have for as long as I remember.  Could I tell you why?  Oh, I could give you some bullshit reason.  I could tell you that I find elves and humans to be “boring”, that I enjoy pretending to be something I could never be in real life, or that I just like big, strong beasties.  And I even sort of believe these things.

But not really.

No, I like monsters because the “I like monsters” switch in my brain was flipped some time, somehow.  And that’s really that.

The entire concept of fiction and make-believe is built on human irrationality.  Withour our absolute willingness to surrender to our emotions, we’d have none of it.  I don’t care what genre you pick, it’s all the same.  Without emotion, it doesn’t work.  Because fiction, by definition, is make-believe.  It’s not real.  And we know it’s not real.

We know that there’s no such thing as zombies, and that a movie or book depicting the zombie apocalypse is ludicrous.  More importantly, even if it were realistic (or even remotely possible) it doesn’t change the fact that no zombie story ever actually happened.  Nobody “killed” by a zombie in a story was actually killed.  For that matter, I’m pretty sure that Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorheese have never claimed a single, real-life victim.  Just a slew of actors and actresses who screamed and pretended to die in terror then walked off the set after the director called cut.

Godzilla may have killed millions of imaginary citizens, but he hasn’t so much as stepped on the toe of a real person.  And when he battles King Ghidora for the fate of the Earth, I know that it really doesn’t matter if he wins or loses.  The story could end with the planet blowing up, and it would have no real effect on my life.

Every story could end with the planet blowing up, and it would have absolutely no real life consequences.

And what about the imaginary characters we adore and admire?  We know they aren’t real, but still find ourselves invested in their well-being.  There’s no rational reason for that.  Fictional characters are completely at the whim of their creators.  The fictional character’s motivations, thoughts, and actions are the designs of artists to manipulate us like puppets on strings. 

I really like Superman.  I don’t mean that just in a “Hey, he’s a cool character” kind of way.  I mean it sincerely.  I believe that Superman is a terrific role-model, that he embodies what is best about humanity, and that if we all endeavored to be more like Superman in our daily lives, the world would be a better place.  It’s also explains why I can get a little pissed when some writers decide to “humanize” Superman by robbing  him of these qualities I so love about the character.

And, yet, Superman isn’t real.  He exists, behaves, and functions only as an outlet of writers and editors.  This is why I don’t buy Superman comics because I love the character, but find the stories to be badly written or disappointing.  (Superman: The Animated Series is where I go for my Supes fix usually.)  But I’m not blind to the absurdity of the above statements.  I’m saying I like Superman, and I don’t like Superman at the same time.  I’m defining Superman by my own terms, as if he were a real person who I could know.  But he’s just an imaginary character.

But if tomorrow DC killed Superman, I’d mourn.  (And I mean really killed him, not just some publicity stunt.)

I loved Wall-E.  I think it’s a mesmerizing and beautiful love story, and emotionally, it resonates on a very deep level with me.  But it’s a frickin’ cartoon.  There is no Wall-E, no Eve.  Their pains and joys are illusion.  And it doesn’t matter.

I watched Kung Fu Panda the other day again.  Even knowing the story inside and out, knowing everything that will happen, I find myself enthralled by it.  Not only is it an illusion, a bald-faced lie intended to manipulate my emotional core, it’s an illusion that can no longer surprise me.

And I still fall for it.  Every.  Single.  Time.

So let’s just deal with this.  Let’s just say it, and stop convincing ourselves that our likes / dislikes / 90 percent of our opinions are anything more than random bits of mystery, no better or worse than a thousand other choices we could’ve made.

It’s cool to love zombies or ninjas or giant robots or human drama or lime-flavored Jell-O.  Just don’t tell me it’s because there’s something special about them.  Because any ”reason” you give me is most likely reverse engineered from your love of them, and not the other way around.

My love of Dinobots, on the other hand, is perfectly rationale.  But every rule has its exception.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee