Lois? She's bossy. She's stuck up. She's rude. I can't stand her.
- Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, "Crusade"
"Lois & Clark"
Here's a tip: If I ever start blathering on and on about the Little Black Duck, that's a sure fire sign I'm having some confidence problems. Because whenever I have doubts about my ability to actually write, my mind always goes back to any and every literary accomplishment I've somehow managed to pull together, and that basically means my stick-figure comic books. They might be hackneyed and self-indulgent, but at least they're full and complete... I mean for the most part...
So anyhoozle, the Little Black Duck nostalgia continues!
Now, like I said, the Little Black Duck series existed within a patchwork mythology that allowed me to mix established characters with my "originals", and the true appeal of that was that it let me feed my ego and muck about with some great characters (hense the self-indulgent aspect of those proceedings). I've mentioned that I stole the opportunity to write Harry Potter and Batman. I also wrote what I consider a pretty kick ass Joker story, populating DC's Arkham Asylum -- which also doubled as a Betty Ford-like rehab facility -- with a fun mix of comic book supervillains and Hollywood stars. And who could forget the first issue of Steve Urkel: Spider-Man?
I did all of this with the kind of devil-may-care attitude every talentless hack brings to his completely unprofitably college ventures when he really oughta be doing some homework. I brought Cedric Diggory back to life. I made Gorilla Grodd the power-mad commandant of an arm of flying monkeys bent on dominating Oz. I made Batman chairman emeritus of the Avengers! I let my mind and undercarriage run wild, but I never quite mustered the courage to write Lois Lane.
I had no trouble stamping through the rest of Superman continuity. Krypto bailed the Little Black Duck out of every other sticky situation he landed in and I sent a teenaged Clark Kent to Wonderland University while a fully grown Superman was on monitor duty in the Watchtower -- a paradox I always intended to explain away as either time travel or with the response, "Oh, that Superman's a robot or something," but never quite got around to it. When it came to Lois, however, I just couldn't bring myself to give her "screen time."
The reasons for this were three fold:
1) I'd already used every possible color for the female characters. Introducing a new female would have required, I don't know, artistic talent or something, and I patently refused to draw a different hair style.
2) I had made what I felt to be the rather clever decision that Lois was Penny Lane's sister. This made her a native Neverlander, and this created some character difficulties I simply couldn't reconcile myself with. I mean, let's just ignore the whole fairy time aspect of Never-Neverland that made everybody live entire centuries in the space of a Wonderland week and just focus on the fact that Neverlanders could fly. If Lois Lane can fly, what's so great about Superman for her? That's not a question you ask if she's just casually mentioned, but I was quite convinced that if the reader actually saw her, they'd realize my gaff, throw the book on the floor, and pee on it, whether they had a hoo-hah for aiming or not.
3) I can't tell you this one. It's a secret. Secret fold.
"Hi and Lois"
I used to read the funnies everyday, and it always bothered me that the kid in Hi and Lois looked almost identical to Beetle Bailey. Then one week, Beetle went on leave to visit his sister and actually showed up in Hi and Lois.
To this day, I consider this the greatest cross-over in comic history. And if there ever comes a day when someone seriously asks me what piece of literature has most effected me and inspired my work, I'm gonna tell them that it was this.
"Kicking, Lois?"
Say what you want about Family Guy, but you can't tell me it didn't have the best fight scenes in American animation (take that Samurai Jack).
Don't believe me? Watch the first five minutes of their millenium special and then tell me you've seen anything as frenetic and crazy and beautiful. Then I'll call you a liar, punch you in the face, and either run away or dump your body in Hackensack River, depending on my mood.
"Lois Lane, Star Reporter"
You probably don't remember this, but several months ago, I wrote this whole entry detailing a proposed Prowler storyline in which Hobie Brown declares himself the King of Teaneck, New Jersey, in a hilarious send up of Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil. So imagine my surprise all these months later to come to Teaneck and find that there's actually a guy out here who's done this kind of thing.
You've heard me bitch and moan at length about the minority business association my grandmother's joined. Well the guy who's founded it's a total knobhole, and he thinks he's one of the most powerful and connected men in Bergen County. Having a conversation with this guy is so freaking painful, because he speaks in strings of cliches about how the power to do something's all in you, and how real business men make all of their important decisions before breakfast, so sleeping in's for suckers and on and on and on.
So of course, lucky me, he's decided to take me in under his wing. Now, for all the time I've been here, this has just meant me showing up to the odd meeting and pretending to be really grateful for the opportunity to listen to small business owners prattle on while choking down the worst breakfast a restaurant's ever crapped on a plate, but it looks like it's about to turn into a huge pain in my ass.
He wants me to start writing the newsletter for the association. During our long phone call this afternoon -- easily the most painful conversation I've had with him yet -- he went on and on about how writing this thing is going to break things wide open for me as a writer, because this isn't going to just be read by association members, but by members of the Urban League and the NAACP, and lord knows, these are organizations that have a vested interest and the rock solid connections to make sure that my dream of publishing a sci-fi novel about the trials and tribulations of Stanley Quirk, Interstellar Intern of the 27th Century gets published.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's not great that there's someone who's got an interest in my future. It's just that, well, it completely and totally blows that there's this guy who's got an interest in my future.
(Whoa. I guess I just contradicted myself there. Oh well, I'm sure I'll edit that out before I publish this entry...)
There's nothing worse than some wingnut with delusions of grandeur. This guy thinks that he's doing all this because he's got such a concern with helping black youth and yada yada yada, but the bare-bones truth is that he wants to feel all big and powerful, like he's a true mover and shaker of the community, and he just wants to rope me into writing his fucking newsletter for free. And if he would just admit that, not even to me, but just to himself, it'd make him half the asshole he so clearly is to me.
Case in point: At one point in our conversation, he said that he wasn't trying to push me into doing anything I didn't want to do. So I then said that I'd really have to give it some thought, and he quickly followed that up by really pushing me to do something I don't want to do. He's just so fucking fake! He started off telling me that he really wanted this newsletter to shine, and that its on the fast track to becoming a real newspaper or some such ridiculous shit, and it was going to require a real commitment from me -- and again, all this without any compensation other than the opportunity to spend more time with him. But as soon as I told him I wasn't really interested, it became this small thing that'd really only take fifteen or twenty minutes out of my week.
What a wretched fucking asshole!
Now, you know me. I'm not the type to just tell anybody off. But I'm telling you, this guy so repulses me, I could honestly tell him to just fuck himself... if not for the fact that it'd probably end up reflected poorly on my grandmother, and I just can't do that to her. I mean, the poor woman's got enough hassles, what with her feckless freeloading grandson in her guest room, and a fucking Rum Bandit raiding her liquor cabinet everytime she leaves the house for more than twenty minutes.
Seriously, what are my options here?
Either, I do this stupid goddamn newsletter, or I'm gonna have to beat this guy to the edge of death, throw him through the plate glass window of Stanley's Deli down on Teaneck Road -- you know, the place with the delicious pepperoni rolls that have that really stretch mozarella -- and then declare to everyone there that I'm the new King of Teaneck, New Jersey. And that means I'm gonna have to fight the fucking Yakuza, and do I look like the kind of guy who can take on 100 amped-up psychos? I don't think so...
For godsake, I'm 22-years-old! I think that's too old to have to cow down to some bully...
Now, here's the other problem: Everytime I meet someone I can't stand, eventually I start wondering what the real difference is between me and them. Am I as obnoxious as Jonathan Sessions? Am I as warped and clingy as Ben Hedrick? Am I as weaselly whiny as Will Honley? (I'm kidding Will, I think you're great.)
So I wonder, when I decided to impose myself upon four freshmen and claim them as my FIG, was I being as presumptuous and deluded as this fuckwit who wants to take me in under his wing? I mean, I was half-kidding in my 11pm prosem sessions in the first floor hallway. Sure, I asked them to write a final FIG paper, but when none of them but Will actually went through and did it, I certainly didn't get pissy about it, did I?
This guy's an asshole. Am I an asshole, too?
- Alfred Gough & Miles Millar, "Crusade"
"Lois & Clark"
Here's a tip: If I ever start blathering on and on about the Little Black Duck, that's a sure fire sign I'm having some confidence problems. Because whenever I have doubts about my ability to actually write, my mind always goes back to any and every literary accomplishment I've somehow managed to pull together, and that basically means my stick-figure comic books. They might be hackneyed and self-indulgent, but at least they're full and complete... I mean for the most part...
So anyhoozle, the Little Black Duck nostalgia continues!
Now, like I said, the Little Black Duck series existed within a patchwork mythology that allowed me to mix established characters with my "originals", and the true appeal of that was that it let me feed my ego and muck about with some great characters (hense the self-indulgent aspect of those proceedings). I've mentioned that I stole the opportunity to write Harry Potter and Batman. I also wrote what I consider a pretty kick ass Joker story, populating DC's Arkham Asylum -- which also doubled as a Betty Ford-like rehab facility -- with a fun mix of comic book supervillains and Hollywood stars. And who could forget the first issue of Steve Urkel: Spider-Man?
I did all of this with the kind of devil-may-care attitude every talentless hack brings to his completely unprofitably college ventures when he really oughta be doing some homework. I brought Cedric Diggory back to life. I made Gorilla Grodd the power-mad commandant of an arm of flying monkeys bent on dominating Oz. I made Batman chairman emeritus of the Avengers! I let my mind and undercarriage run wild, but I never quite mustered the courage to write Lois Lane.
I had no trouble stamping through the rest of Superman continuity. Krypto bailed the Little Black Duck out of every other sticky situation he landed in and I sent a teenaged Clark Kent to Wonderland University while a fully grown Superman was on monitor duty in the Watchtower -- a paradox I always intended to explain away as either time travel or with the response, "Oh, that Superman's a robot or something," but never quite got around to it. When it came to Lois, however, I just couldn't bring myself to give her "screen time."
The reasons for this were three fold:
1) I'd already used every possible color for the female characters. Introducing a new female would have required, I don't know, artistic talent or something, and I patently refused to draw a different hair style.
2) I had made what I felt to be the rather clever decision that Lois was Penny Lane's sister. This made her a native Neverlander, and this created some character difficulties I simply couldn't reconcile myself with. I mean, let's just ignore the whole fairy time aspect of Never-Neverland that made everybody live entire centuries in the space of a Wonderland week and just focus on the fact that Neverlanders could fly. If Lois Lane can fly, what's so great about Superman for her? That's not a question you ask if she's just casually mentioned, but I was quite convinced that if the reader actually saw her, they'd realize my gaff, throw the book on the floor, and pee on it, whether they had a hoo-hah for aiming or not.
3) I can't tell you this one. It's a secret. Secret fold.
"Hi and Lois"
I used to read the funnies everyday, and it always bothered me that the kid in Hi and Lois looked almost identical to Beetle Bailey. Then one week, Beetle went on leave to visit his sister and actually showed up in Hi and Lois.
To this day, I consider this the greatest cross-over in comic history. And if there ever comes a day when someone seriously asks me what piece of literature has most effected me and inspired my work, I'm gonna tell them that it was this.
"Kicking, Lois?"
Say what you want about Family Guy, but you can't tell me it didn't have the best fight scenes in American animation (take that Samurai Jack).
Don't believe me? Watch the first five minutes of their millenium special and then tell me you've seen anything as frenetic and crazy and beautiful. Then I'll call you a liar, punch you in the face, and either run away or dump your body in Hackensack River, depending on my mood.
"Lois Lane, Star Reporter"
You probably don't remember this, but several months ago, I wrote this whole entry detailing a proposed Prowler storyline in which Hobie Brown declares himself the King of Teaneck, New Jersey, in a hilarious send up of Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil. So imagine my surprise all these months later to come to Teaneck and find that there's actually a guy out here who's done this kind of thing.
You've heard me bitch and moan at length about the minority business association my grandmother's joined. Well the guy who's founded it's a total knobhole, and he thinks he's one of the most powerful and connected men in Bergen County. Having a conversation with this guy is so freaking painful, because he speaks in strings of cliches about how the power to do something's all in you, and how real business men make all of their important decisions before breakfast, so sleeping in's for suckers and on and on and on.
So of course, lucky me, he's decided to take me in under his wing. Now, for all the time I've been here, this has just meant me showing up to the odd meeting and pretending to be really grateful for the opportunity to listen to small business owners prattle on while choking down the worst breakfast a restaurant's ever crapped on a plate, but it looks like it's about to turn into a huge pain in my ass.
He wants me to start writing the newsletter for the association. During our long phone call this afternoon -- easily the most painful conversation I've had with him yet -- he went on and on about how writing this thing is going to break things wide open for me as a writer, because this isn't going to just be read by association members, but by members of the Urban League and the NAACP, and lord knows, these are organizations that have a vested interest and the rock solid connections to make sure that my dream of publishing a sci-fi novel about the trials and tribulations of Stanley Quirk, Interstellar Intern of the 27th Century gets published.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's not great that there's someone who's got an interest in my future. It's just that, well, it completely and totally blows that there's this guy who's got an interest in my future.
(Whoa. I guess I just contradicted myself there. Oh well, I'm sure I'll edit that out before I publish this entry...)
There's nothing worse than some wingnut with delusions of grandeur. This guy thinks that he's doing all this because he's got such a concern with helping black youth and yada yada yada, but the bare-bones truth is that he wants to feel all big and powerful, like he's a true mover and shaker of the community, and he just wants to rope me into writing his fucking newsletter for free. And if he would just admit that, not even to me, but just to himself, it'd make him half the asshole he so clearly is to me.
Case in point: At one point in our conversation, he said that he wasn't trying to push me into doing anything I didn't want to do. So I then said that I'd really have to give it some thought, and he quickly followed that up by really pushing me to do something I don't want to do. He's just so fucking fake! He started off telling me that he really wanted this newsletter to shine, and that its on the fast track to becoming a real newspaper or some such ridiculous shit, and it was going to require a real commitment from me -- and again, all this without any compensation other than the opportunity to spend more time with him. But as soon as I told him I wasn't really interested, it became this small thing that'd really only take fifteen or twenty minutes out of my week.
What a wretched fucking asshole!
Now, you know me. I'm not the type to just tell anybody off. But I'm telling you, this guy so repulses me, I could honestly tell him to just fuck himself... if not for the fact that it'd probably end up reflected poorly on my grandmother, and I just can't do that to her. I mean, the poor woman's got enough hassles, what with her feckless freeloading grandson in her guest room, and a fucking Rum Bandit raiding her liquor cabinet everytime she leaves the house for more than twenty minutes.
Seriously, what are my options here?
Either, I do this stupid goddamn newsletter, or I'm gonna have to beat this guy to the edge of death, throw him through the plate glass window of Stanley's Deli down on Teaneck Road -- you know, the place with the delicious pepperoni rolls that have that really stretch mozarella -- and then declare to everyone there that I'm the new King of Teaneck, New Jersey. And that means I'm gonna have to fight the fucking Yakuza, and do I look like the kind of guy who can take on 100 amped-up psychos? I don't think so...
For godsake, I'm 22-years-old! I think that's too old to have to cow down to some bully...
Now, here's the other problem: Everytime I meet someone I can't stand, eventually I start wondering what the real difference is between me and them. Am I as obnoxious as Jonathan Sessions? Am I as warped and clingy as Ben Hedrick? Am I as weaselly whiny as Will Honley? (I'm kidding Will, I think you're great.)
So I wonder, when I decided to impose myself upon four freshmen and claim them as my FIG, was I being as presumptuous and deluded as this fuckwit who wants to take me in under his wing? I mean, I was half-kidding in my 11pm prosem sessions in the first floor hallway. Sure, I asked them to write a final FIG paper, but when none of them but Will actually went through and did it, I certainly didn't get pissy about it, did I?
This guy's an asshole. Am I an asshole, too?
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