PeterDavid.net

So here's an interesting notion

The IRA, after a hundred years of strife, has announced it's laying down arms and wants to work toward its goals using non-violent means (as Kathleen has noted over on her website.)

So let's say we flash forward ten years, and Al Qeada is still strong, in business, and a major terrorist force. Iraq is still a fragmented mess. And suddenly Al Qeada announces that it wants to lay down arms and work toward a peaceful unification of Iraq and the Muslim world.

Do we accept that? Do we start working with them?

PAD

Animal Husbandry

A Kenyan City Councilman has offered forty goats and twenty cows to Bill Clinton in exchange for Chelsea's hand in marriage.

Hey...don't laugh. I have four daughters, and I very much doubt I'm going to get an offer anywhere NEAR as good for them. "Mr. David, I'd like to ask you for the hand of your daughter (Shana/Gwen/Ariel/Caroline) in marriage." And if I say, "Yeah? How many goats we talking about? How many cows?" the guy'll probably just give me a weird look while the daughter in question rolls her eyes and tells her intended, "Just ignore him. I told you he'd be like this."

I bet I don't get any livestock at all. The guy'll just say "Don't have a cow, man," and think it's all a joke, and I'll be lucky if I wind up with a coupon for a free Big Mac. Plus I have to pay for the wedding to boot.

Anyone have that Kenyan guy's phone number? I wonder if he's the one who's been writing to me about trying to get $5 million into the country if I just give him my bank account info.

PAD

Great. I'm a disease.

So I had the TV on just for background noise while I was working, and suddenly some TV doctor comes on and starts talking about how--if you feel tingling or heaviness in your legs--you may have peripheral artery disease, or P.A.D.

That got my attention. I looked up and watched in annoyance as the doctor proceeded to tell you everything you can and should do (including, of course, buying a particular product) in order to combat the terrible hazard that is P.A.D. And there's my initials all over the commercial. "Beware of P.A.D." "Know the early warning signs so you can avoid P.A.D." "P.A.D., the silent killer."

At least it's not something that requires a rectal exam to detect. "Make sure your doctor sticks his finger up your butt to see if there's any warning signs of P.A.D. in there."

PAD

I need your tourist pictures

Okay, here's the thing: I'm working on a book for Krause Publications on writing comics, and I need some specific photographs. However I can't simply download them from the internet because there's copyright issues. So what I need is some very clear, reproducable digital photographs that were taken by travelers with their very own cameras, and who won't mind if I repro them in the book with the total payment being you get a photo credit and a free copy of the book.

Here's what I need:

Mount Rushmore
The Citicorp building in New York
The Twin Towers (pre-destruction, obviously)
Downtown Schenectady, or a sign reading "Welcome to Schenectady."

Yeah, I know, that last one might be a problem.

Anyone who can help me out, drop a note to me at padguy@aol.com.

Thanks.

PAD

Barron's Fruit

March 20, 1992

Well, several weeks back, I slammed Marvel rather thoroughly for what I perceived as their rather craven and weak-kneed handling of "Alpha Flight #106." So now, to confuse everyone completely, I'm going to turn around and defend them on another matter entirely.

The topic of today's symposium is an article that ran in the February 17 issue of "Barron's," a weekly financial newspaper that has a great deal of influence in the world of investments...particularly for the small investor. In that issue, writer Douglas A. Kass elected to do what amounted to a hatchet job on Marvel, stringing together a series of "ifs," "ands" and "maybes" and concluding that Marvel is "over-inflated and due for a fall."

The article had an immediate impact on the financial community, sending Marvel's stock into a tailspin and causing Marvels reps scurrying into the position of damage control. Follow up pieces in the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune detailed the panic seizing investors.

Unfortunately, none of the newspapers, nor any of the investors, were really aware that Kass' article was rife with half-truths, omissions, and shoddy journalistic techniques. It was all chock-full of sound effects such as "Pow" and "Smash," which I must admit immediately puts me off. I had thought that the "Batman" film had left those damned relics from the campy 1960s TV show far behind. But here's Barron's to bring it back for us again. (Apparently following Barrons' lead, the Times and Trib likewise peppered their articles with "k-pows" and "Biffs.")

Perhaps I'm a bit thin-skinned about this derisive attitude towards comics, but if they're running articles that are going to panic investors and cost companies thousands, if not millions of dollars, it seems the least they could do is treat the subject seriously.

Kass begins his article with a detailed analysis of just where the money from stockholders is going. Putting aside the annoying sound effects (and Kass' impression that Marvel publishes the "Shazam" Captain Marvel), I found this section of the piece informative and interesting. The majority of the money, it seems, is going to financier Ron Perelman. I must admit this comes as no shock, but the amount of money passing into his pocket is amazing.

Once Kass finishes his analysis, he concludes that Marvel's current stock value "might be tolerable if Marvel had strong growth prospects. Instead, Marvel already has wrung just about as much out of the market as possible and could run into unfavorable earning comparisons in the second half of this year."

Now...did Kass conclude this from talking to Marvel and learning what their publishing plans were?

No.

Did he contact distributors and get their opinions? Get a feeling for how they were planning to order Marvel's, and how they viewed Marvel's growth prospects?

No.

He spoke to retailers. A dozen, to be specific. And, surprise surprise, the retailers gave a very negative assessment of Marvel's future. They didn't like the price of Marvel comics. They had overordered and had too much backstock. Marvel was, creatively, nowhere near as interesting as independent comics.

From these sentiments, Kass concluded that Marvel's future was bleak.

I have no doubt that retailers told Kass these things. There's just one problem: When I was Marvel's direct sales manager, I talked to a lot of retailers, too. Far more than Kass did. I was on the road an average of one week a month talking to retailers all over the country. And many of them said the exact same things that retailers told Kass, and predicted that Marvel was going to collapse.

But they were saying that five years ago. And seven years ago, and ten years ago.

Marvel, in the meantime, has continued to grow and prosper. Sure, it's had its bumps along the way, but it is still the dominant force in the comic book publishing industry.

What it boils down to is that many retailers simply don't like Marvel Comics. They don't like the title they're publishing or the company policies. Retailers would tell me that they hated ordering crossover titles or "yet another" mutant title...even if the books were selling for them. Retailers would also tell me that they would always recommend titles by independents to their customers because they were the retailer's personal favorites and, as far as the retailers were concerned, those were the books that should be pushed.

All of which is fine. But to Kass, the long-standing disillusionment that some retailers feel towards Marvel and forecasts it as the beginning of the end, rather than a decades-long pattern.

He shores up his findings with "facts" that are misleading and contradictory. For example, he states that Marvel is in for trouble because "Consumers are no longer willing to keep shelling out anywhere from $1.50 to $2.95 for a comic book." He does not point out (or maybe he's simply unaware) that the majority of Marvel titles are, in fact $1.25...including such top seeds as "X-Men" and "X-Force." It is, in fact the independents which generally start at $1.75 and up, prices dictated by their lower print runs.

Yet Kass later claims that one of the things hurting Marvel is that "consumers...increasingly are turning to upstart competitors," and proceeds to list various independents who publish titles with higher cover prices. But I thought consumers were unwilling to may $1.50 to $2.95 for a comic.

This little gap in logic apparently does not deter Mr. Kass' evisceration of Marvel comics. But why use logic when you can fall back on groundless supposition? He characterizes "Alpha Flight #106" as Northstar's "widely publicized gay `outing,'" and implies that Northstar's revelation was "fortuitously timed to coincide with the January price increase."

He doesn't bother to point out that the publicizing didn't come from Marvel, but from news services who picked up on the story. His contention that Marvel saw "AF #106" as a means of making price increases go down easier, when in fact Marvel would have been much happier if the story had never seen print, is typical of his absurd logic. Marvel's handling of "AF #106" was not one of its more shining moments...but it was hardly a cold-blooded marketing maneuver.

Even on those occasions where Marvel looks bad, Kass manages to make Marvel look even worse. Kass describes Marvel's botched edition of "Cage," where the promised fancy cover for the first issue failed to materialize. Dealers who thought they were getting an acetate-overlay, 3-D effect cover, "accordingly stocked up on non-returnable orders," and without that cover to give it the additional push, are "stuck with cases of surplus comics."

What Kass doesn't bother to mention is that, because the title was incorrectly solicited, all of those surplus comics are fully returnable. The retailers aren't "stuck" with them at all. Certainly no one is happy that Marvel didn't deliver with the promised goods--least of all Marvel--but the company has a decade-old policy that if a book is missolicited, it's fully returnable. Distributors and retailers know this, but Kass doesn't. Nor did he check.

Kass (unsurprisingly) predicts bleak futures for Marvel's licensing side. Marvel has recently made tremendous strides in licensing, finally getting out action figures and playsets (whereas DC had such toys available years ago.) Yet incredibly, Kass actually manages to see this as a negative, claiming oversaturation. Has he bothered to call toy stores or manufacturers and ask if they're pleased with the sales, or what their forecasts are? Need you ask?

He manages to downplay the announced Spider-Man movie by stating that the buyer, Carolco, has financial problems of their own. He states that if the Spider-Man movie doesn't materialize, it loses Marvel potential licensing fees.

Fair enough. However, Kass makes no mention of the "X-Men" animated series scheduled to run on the Fox network. Now who knows...maybe that series will be lousy and it will have no impact on Marvel. On the other hand, an animated series generated millions upon millions for the heroes in a halfshell, so the cartoon X-Men could represent a major windfall for Marvel. More action figures, more playsets, more exposure for the comics. But hell, why should Kass present a potential upside at any point in his article when he's this far along?

Kass states that Marvel is vulnerable because three privately held distributors account for more than 50% of publishing revenues...and that if any of them hit financial problems, Marvel could have difficulties. Okay, that's true. Did he contact Capital City to find out if they're having difficulties with receivables? Is there an indication that Diamond is flawed? Nope. Just more "what if's." And if Toys-R-Us went belly-up, then Hasbro and Kenner would be in trouble.

Even the direct market itself is a negative to Mr. Kass. Nearly 80% of publishing revenues, he claims, are derived from the direct market.

Now...this is good. Sales to the direct market are inherently more economical and more profitable for publishers, because it means they can print exactly what they can sell. Minimum effort for maximum profits (as opposed to the print three/sell one situation existent in the returnable market.)

But no, Mr. Kass claims this is bad because...in essence...there's a recession on, and retailers are vulnerable. Of course they are. Everyone is. No one ever claimed that Marvel is recession-proof. Nothing is recession proof. So why single out Marvel?

He claims that collector interest is waning in comics. His proof? He claims the Sotheby's auction was a "disappointment." By whose estimation? Sotheby's, who states that the money brought in didn't meet their estimates. But in order to convincingly prove that collector interest is waning, Sotheby's should be able to compare the results this time with their previous auction, so they can say, "Look, a year ago we made X dollars, but now we made X minus $100,000."

Unfortunately, Sotheby's can't do that. Why? Because they never had a comic book auction before. So a quarter of the items failed to sell altogether. So what? Collectors gasped at a number of items which did sell, for many times what they were priced at in the Overstreet Guide. And who published a number of those high-selling comics? Why...Marvel.

More proof of Marvel's certain doom? Kass cites the "imminent exodus" of Rob Liefeld, Erik Larsen, George Perez, Jim Valentino, and Todd McFarlane. Hot news flash, Mr. Kass: Todd hasn't done work for Marvel for close to a year; George Perez is presently busy pencilling a two-issue "Hulk" bookshelf format (I know, because I'm writing it; the first issue is already pencilled); and Jim and Erik, for all their talents, are not (no disrespect, guys) what I would term, in baseball parlance, as "franchise players." The only one who possibly fits that category right now is Rob, who has yet to prove his long-term selling power.

Who is an example of a franchise player in Marvel's history? The kind of people who, when they leave, makes you go, "Oh my God."

Jack Kirby. John Byrne. Chris Claremont. The Simonsons. People whose work has been an underpinning for the success of Marvel Comics. And they've left. And Marvel continued. And they came back, and Marvel continued. And they came back and left and...well, you get the idea. And Marvel has continued to grow. Not without its hiccups. But it's grown.

I'm sorry, but there is simply no historical precedent upon which to base Kass' contention that the defections of Liefeld et al "will create a serious threat to Marvel's creative franchise." Inconvenience and embarrass, yes. But history does not support the conclusion that Marvel is seriously threatened.

This is not to say that Kass might not be right. Perhaps Marvel will indeed run into major problems. But it's just as likely...indeed, based on historical precedent, more likely...that it will not. Kass, however, doesn't bother to point that out to investors. Why ruin a perfectly good butchering job by pointing out that the slaughtered cow has its own point of view?

There's only one point that Kass makes solidly enough to stick: That Marvel might become editorially timid, unwilling "to take artistic and literary risks."

One can already see that happening. Marvel's horrified reaction to the splash that "Alpha Flight #106" can only lead any thinking individual to conclude that Marvel will probably take steps not to let it happen again. That means editorial clampdowns and an inclination to play it safe whenever possible. Because Marvel is now answerable to licensees and investors, all of whom now have a stake in the company and want to make sure that nothing is going to come along and ruin their status quo.

This would be, of course, the single worst thing Marvel can do. Because, sooner or later, Ron Perelman is going to go away. He will have made his money and will sell the company. It's inevitable. But the characters and (with any luck) the readers will still be there. And if they become editorially stagnant in order to satisfy the desires of a transitory boss, that...and that alone...will the most damaging thing that could happen.

Marvel's already seen the results of trying to play it safe. They tried to ignore "Alpha Flight" so as not to upset all the investors, and Barron's came along and upset the investors anyway.

The question becomes, What will Marvel learn from this Barron's piece? They could decide that playing it safe is no guarantee of anything, and that you might as well go out there and publish the best damned comic books you can. Let the chips fall where they may.

Or they may decide that, since they can't control ill-informed gentlemen like Mr. Kass from stirring things up, they should do everything to control that which they can control, namely the contents of the comics. The reasoning will be, "We have to do what we can so that things won't get worse." This little piece of logic, of course, will not only not protect them, but in fact will make things worse.

And Mr. Kass' little hatchet job will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, was not only amazed to discover that Mr. Byrne shared his sentiments about the Feb. 21 column, but was further astounded to learn that that they both have a fondness for Edmund ("I have a plan so cunning you could brush your teeth with it") Blackadder. Good lord! Could the "great feud" be ending as common interests are discovered? Stay tuned...)

"Oh, Da! It's the moon!"

There's certain rides at Disneyworld where, if you don't go on it while you're there, you just don't feel like you've actually visited (although your next month's Amex bill will probably provide confirmation that you did.) It's different rides for different folks. In my case, it's always been the Peter Pan ride, one of the very first rides I ever went on back when I was on a high school trip to the Magic Kingdom.

As it so happens, it was also Carol Kalish's favorite ride. Carol, Marvel's former direct sales head and a good friend who died far too soon, loved the Peter Pan ride (although it was marred for her during one outing when she went on with a comic book retailer and he spent the whole ride talking about Marvel's rack credit program).

So I was very interested in how her namesake, Caroline, would react on her first excursion on that same ride.

As we stood in line, I pointed at the passing pirate ships and told Caroline we were going to fly. "Fly?" she said uncertainly. "Fly in ships?" She wasn't sanguine about it at all. When we clambered into the vessel (Kath and Ariel were in the one in front of us) Caroline clutched tightly and nervously to the lap bar that settled on us. Her eyes went wide as we moved forward, up, and then appeared to be hurtling into thin air (naturally she didn't look up to see that we were being carried on an overhead track.)

"See, Caroline? We're flying," I told her, and pointed at the "night sky" over London. "See? There's the stars. And there's the city, way down there!"

"Stars," she whispered in astonishment. And then, as we went higher, she suddenly pointed and gasped in delirious joy, "It's the moon!"

Sure enough, just to our left was a large full moon. The silhouettes of Peter, Wendy et al were moving across it as it turned. I had my arm wrapped around Caroline just to make sure nothing happened. And she stretched out her little fingers, desperate to touch it, not quite succeeding. Completely enthralled in Disney magic, she cried out, "Oh, Da! It's the moon!"

She watched the rest of Neverland with proper amazement. And although there were any number of rides and character greetings she enjoyed, that was the one moment in the park where she was totally swept away by pure fantasy-made-real. For a few seconds, one little girl sailed through the stars in a pirate ship and came justthatclose to touching the moon.

If Carol was watching through her eyes, I think she liked what she saw.

PAD

Okay, wait a minute...

I was reading up on the new Supreme Court nominee to try and determine when (not if) Roe v. Wade will be overturned, and came across the following:

One Roberts case receiving particularly close attention involves a 2003 challenge to the federal Endangered Species Act. At issue was whether the act could be invoked to protect a certain species of toad that exists entirely in California and was being threatened by a development project. The appeals court ruled that under Congress's commerce-clause powers, the Endangered Species Act extends protection to the toad.

In his dissent, he said the full court should agree to hear the case to more faithfully apply two Supreme Court precedents establishing limits on Congress's commerce-clause powers. He noted that the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals had recently adopted a similar, more restrictive, reading of commerce-clause authority and the Endangered Species Act.

That Roberts, who routinely appears to side with big business (and also appears to reject any restriction on presidential power--gee, hard to see what makes him attractive to Bush) wanted to take on the case isn't the issue for me.

What bugs me is that if someone wants to build a development on MY home, and I protest that, then it's tough beans. I lose my home. I'm screwed. But if someone wants to disenfranchise a freakin' toad, THAT'S where the line is drawn? What the hell--?!?

That's it. I'm building a small enclosure in my back yard and getting me some of those toads. Either that or I'm going to lobby for Jews and/or liberals to be considered an endangered species.

PAD

Having a Disney Day

Spent the morning at Animal Kingdom, with the highlight being an audioanimatronic velociraptor named "Lucky" who actually free-range walks down the streets of the AK's Dinosaur section. We saw him just in time since, at the end of the month, he's being shipped off to the newly opening Hong Kong Disney (now all we need is a gigantic free-roaming Godzilla for Tokyo Disney.)

Not sure what to do about dinner. We had reservations at a restaurant in the Magic Kingdom where Caroline would have a chance to meet Pooh and friends. Unfortunately she is currently sound asleep and we're reluctant to wake her, since that will put her in a fiercely bad mood for the rest of the evening. We don't want to be the kind of parents who basically browbeat our kids into having fun.

We'll be at the Adventurers Club this evening, just me and Kath getting to be grown-ups. Ariel has gamely agreed to watch her little sister tonight.

PAD

Jetblah

I've flown Jetblue any number of times and had no problem. So it was startling that my return from San Diego was as much of a fiasco as it was, especially considering that I was lied to by virtually every Jetblue employee that I encountered.

I was slated to leave at Noon from San Diego, get into JFK at 8:30 PM and connect to an Orlando flight at 9:10 PM. I wasn't sanguine about the tight connection, but was assured when I made the reservation that their on-time record practically assured I'd make it.

So we sat on the runway at San Diego for a solid hour, and as I watched time erode, the flight attendant assured me that they'd hold the connecting flight.

Riiiiight.

Well, thanks to reroutes to take us around bad weather, we wound up flying waaaay out of our way and had to refuel in Buffalo. So the flight attendant comes up to me and tells me, at 10:10 PM, that JFK is way behind in its flights taking off, and the plane would very likely still be there. (Unbeknownst to me, the flight from JFK to Orlando had taken off at 10:05.)

So as we approached JFK at 11:10, the same stewardess comes to me and tells me apologetically that the chances were "very slim" that the connecting flight would still be there (since it had departed 65 minutes earlier, "very slim" was a generous assessment at best.) However, she assures me "if the plane is gone, we'll put you up in a hotel for the night."

Riiiiight.

"And there will be a gate agent right at the gate to give you all the information you'll need."

Riiiight.

So I get off the plane at 11:30 PM. No gate agent, no info. I'm told to go to the customer service desk. I'm waiting behind a guy going to Burlington, Vermont, who's told that his plane is about to leave but if he runs he can still catch it. Off he runs. They tell me about the already departed flight and book me on the 7:05 AM flight, telling me I have an aisle seat in the front of the plane. I'm supposed to then go down to the main office in baggage claim where I'll be sent to a hotel.

I pass the angry Vermont passenger who got to watch the door closed as he sprinted toward it. So he wasn't in much of a good mood either.

In the main office, they give me a piece of paper with a code number and tell me to go to a nearby hotel. "We've called ahead, your room will be all ready, and we'll be paying for it."

Riiiiight.

So I cab over to the hotel, my "Fantastic Four" t-shirt now soaked through from perspiration. I get there and the desk clerk has no idea what I'm talking about. Jetblue didn't call, they have no vouchers left with this hotel to comp passengers, and the hotel doesn't have any rooms available anyway. They're booked solid. Absolutely no rooms available.

As I'm standing there trying to figure out what to do, the desk clerk asks me if I've seen the FF film. Yes, I have. Is he a comics fan. "Huge fan," he says. I stick out my hand and say, "Hi. I'm Peter David. I wrote the Hulk for 12 years."

Ten minutes later, I have a room. So that was something. But I had to pay for it myself.

Later that morning I return to JFK where I discover that my ticket has transmuted from an aisle seat in the front to a middle seat in the back. By this point I'm too exhausted to care.

Jetblue will be hearing from me. Oh yes.

PAD

James Doohan

This blog notes the passing of James Doohan at the age of 85.

As many of you know, Peter worked with James on his autobiography, Beam Me Up, Scotty. I'm sure Peter will have more to post about this sad event, and the man himself, later.

Feel free to use this as an open thread.

Back from San Diego

Well, not "back" technically. Down in Florida where my family is vacationing....the "getting to" of which via Jetblue was a horror story that I'll write up in my next blog entry.

Most of my San Diego "news" has already been posted elsewhere. Yes, "X-Factor," the continuation of "Madrox," will be starting up in November. Yes, I've signed with Pocket books to do two Marvel novels, "Fantastic Four" and "Wolverine." Yes, I'll be leaving the Hulk because my work load has effectively quadrupled, although I certainly wouldn't rule out coming back to it at some point in the near future.

Overall, had a really good time this year. Made a lot of very positive contacts, had meals with a variety of friends including Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Mike Richardson, Mark Evanier, Maggie Thompson, Paul Dini, Chris Valada and her son (whose name escapes me, sorry, dude.) Attended fun parties including a Stan Lee bash where I met Dallas Cowboy Darian Barnes, who turned out to be a big fan of my work (he let me hold his Superbowl ring while he checked out my 800 Bowling ring, an action that Barbara Kesel opined had a bizarre subtext she didn't want to dwell on.) Met John Landis and his son, attended the Eisners, participated in panels, actually walked the entire floor of the dealers room, resisted the temptation to drop $250 on a replica of the Shakespeare bust from "Batman", meeted and greeted many fans including folks on this board (including various lurkers who I urged to participate), and found the time to buy and read the latest Harry Potter book (which I'll start a thread on once more people have had a chance to read it, so please don't comment on it here.)

For me, a high point was having the chance to chat with Ray Harryhausen. I asked him what he thought of today's CGI effects versus the way it was done in his day. He made a really valid point: That he preferred the monsters and such that he produced in his day, because the fact that they weren't perfect--but only close approximations of human or animal movement--gave them a nightmarish quality that heightened the fear element. But that the computerized images generated now are so perfect, that they've taken the fantastic and rendered them mundane. I think he may well be right.

In any event, more abot the Jetblue horror show later. We're off now to visit with Shana.

PAD

Spontinuity

"Continuity you weren't expecting". Coined by Peter at the Comics Weblog at San Diego Comic-Con-- which oddly enough, none of the celebrity bloggers are blogging now.

Yes, I'm cheating, I had to wait till I got back to my room. I stopped paying $4.95 an hour for connectivity when AOL went to an all-you-can-download plan.

Where are our heroes?

March 13, 1992

One of the most often-repeated observations being made of late is that heroes in comics have changed to their very core...and not for the better.

There have been, to my mind, three stages of comic heroes so far. The first was the Element Age, so-called for two reasons: It encompasses gold and silver age, and the heroes of the time were elementary. Their purpose was clear. Their morals were spotless. If there was any initial flaws in their characters (Batman originally killed people and was hunted by the police, notions that were clearly ahead of his time; relatively quickly he stopped packing guns and became an extension of the Gotham police force) they were done away with. Oh, maybe the Spectre was somewhat creepy, but he pretty much had God backing him up, so it was okay.

Perhaps it helped that, at the time, there was such a clear and present evil in the world--namely the Axis powers. The good guys of fiction had to be that good because the bad guys of reality were that bad. Heck, perhaps it's no coincidence that as America moved into the 50s, leaving Hitler and his evil behind, comic heroes lightened up more and more. Superman and Batman, notably, had less and less of an edge to them. But they were still morally stand-up guys.

Then we moved into the second hero age of comics, which can only be termed the Marvel Age, because the angst-ridden characters were so closely associated with those published by Marvel. The tortured Thing, the hard-luck Spider-Man, the Thunder God who could command elements but not a woman's heart...they wore their difficulties on their sleeves, and were extremely appealing to readers. Teen-agers in particular, who are, by definition, little more than angst on two legs.

The emotionally-plagued heroes became so popular that DC even endeavored to graft angst onto their own characters, which is like trying to parallel park an 18-wheeler into a space large enough for a VW: You can do it, but the final result isn't going to be pretty.

An outgrowth of angst was "relevance." Excessive aggravating about their own problems began to wear thin, so heroes began agonizing about the problems of society as well.

And then we rolled into the third age of heroes. The age that I refer to as: The Mess Age.

Why? Two reasons. First, because heroes went from having problems to being complete societal messes. The hero community of the Mess Age includes, among its membership: alcoholics, drug addicts, emotional cripples, psychos and mass murderers.

And second, because the more popular a hero is seems to be directly related to how much of a bloody mess he can leave in his wake.

Look at Superman, for heaven's sake. Once upon a time, the icon of perfection and flawlessly moral behavior. But in "Dark Knight" he was portrayed as a puppet of the American government, a mindless object of scorn. In his own title, he carefully and deliberately killed renegade Kryptonians and agonized over it for months afterwards.

And Batman, Superman's long-time pal? He became dementedly singleminded, alienating Kal-El, Dick Grayson, and going through kid sidekicks like they were potato chips. (The last thing you want to do is really draw attention to the fact that Batman routinely engages in child endangerment, as Bob Ingersoll has pointed out. But that's precisely what they've done.)

Jailing badguys was no longer enough. Their bodies piled up like cordwood, as the Punisher, Wolverine, Lobo and their brethren cut a bloody swathe through the legions of the nasty. The line between heroes and villains has blurred as to be invisible. Not only are the most popular heroes guys who you can't count on for rational and just behavior...they're not even people you'd want to share a cab with.

Why has this happened? Why is the notion of a hero with a stable moral center...a hero who is heroic... suddenly so passe?

Look around you.

Art reflects society, and at this point, society is extremely aware that many of its heroes are hardly paragons of purity. Each new revelation, each new sordid action, each new headline that's splashed across supermarket tabloids or ballyhooed on the evening news, rips away at the fabric of heroism in this country.

(A recent local newscast led off with politicians hurling racial epithets, and closed with covering a new sport: Nude Bungee jumping. Personally, I think they should have combined the two stories: Any politician who's into nude bungee jumping would get my vote. It beats heaving on the Japanese Prime Minister.)

Where do we look for our heroes? Who have our heroes been in the past?

Sports figures. Magic Johnson recently played what will probably be his final game, voted to his position by fans who didn't care that he hadn't played a single game this season. And he responded with a bravura performance that earned him the game MVP award. He deserved the accolades, and it added to his rightful stature as an heroic figure.

But what can't be ignored is that he became exposed to AIDS through sexual conduct that was--to put it delicately--not thought out. If he'd had the moral center that heroes are "supposed" to have--the moral purity that people wax nostalgic for when they speak of the current crop of the comic book Mess Age--he wouldn't have been sleeping around in the first place. The one who's really heroic is his wife, who is standing by her man rather than, say, appearing on Oprah and complaining about his less-than-sterling conduct.

What's heroic is that Johnson has tried to turn his own misfortune into the potentially life-saving message of, "Heterosexual transmission of AIDS is a real threat." Hopefully that will pierce through the notion of "Yeah, but it couldn't happen to me" that pervades our population.

Then there's Mike Tyson. Here is a man who beats people up for a living. Who has a history of violence in and out of the ring. Who raped a young woman that the defense was so desperate to discredit, that they put forward the notion that she was sexually hyped up from listening to rap music. (Thank God I wasn't on the jury, because my doubtlessly audible "Aw, come on" would not have endeared me to the judge.)

But each day, when he was escorted to and from the court house, the path would be lined with well-wishers and supporters. Even after the conviction, his old neighborhood of Brownsville clung to Tyson as a hero through and through. Jesse Gibson, 38, told one reporter, "He's a great guy who got a bum deal... Anytime somebody looks up to somebody, they want to break him down." Other residents echoed the sentiments. "He was made an example of," said Lyman May. "Now they can show you another black man who has failed," who pointed out that Tyson failed where the white William Kennedy Smith succeeded.

(To my mild surprise, there hasn't seemed to be all that much emphasis on the notion that Tyson was given unfair treatment because of skin color. Actually, you can look at the Tyson case from the other angle: Tyson's accuser, a black woman, succeeded in making herself a credible witness, whereas by all accounts, Smith's accuser, a white woman, did not. So what does that say about race relations?)

So to some Tyson remains a hero, while to Judge Patricia Gifford he is simply another criminal for sentencing. Again, I'm no lawyer, but I've been wondering...maybe they should have tried an insanity defense. My (limited) understanding of the law is that it has to be proven that you understood you were committing a crime. I'm convinced Tyson did not, and still does not, understand.

Let's face it, the guy's not a rocket scientist. For the past ten years he's been consistently told that sometimes it's okay to beat people up, and sometimes it's not (as opposed to the average child, who is told it's never okay.) Not only that, but his own testimony makes it clear that he doesn't think of women as people, but rather sacks of meat to be grabbed and used. Hitler thought of Jews not as people, but as subhumans, and nobody thinks Hitler was a candidate for the mental health poster boy. Tyson is hardly Hitler, but his grasp of male/female interaction is certainly not societal norm.

Or maybe it is. Maybe he just personifies what all men secretly think, especially when hormones first kick in... but whereas other men clean up their act, Tyson never did. Never had to. And now he'll probably he slapped away somewhere, which is good, because he's a rapist and dangerous. But it's sad, too. Especially to those people who held him to be a hero because he was black and uneducated, but still successful. Because they could aspire to that, too. But who wants to aspire to being a jailed rapist?

More heroes. Look around. Who are the traditional heroes?

Policemen? By and large hardworking and dedicated. But look at the travesties over the years. The police corruption in New York and Philadelphia. The brutality of some LA cops immortalized on videotape. Who can overlook the notion that the Milwaukee police stumbled over a blood-covered boy who had escaped the horrors of Jeffrey Dahmer...and when Dahmer told the cops that it was just "a lover's quarrel," gave the hysterical boy back to Dahmer who killed the kid in short order.

Astronauts? Anybody heard from the space program lately? No one notices astronauts anymore. Most kids don't know the significance of the names Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. And NASA is the outfit that blew up the Challenger.

Doctors? Once they were almost Godlike beings, typified by the fatherly, all-knowing Marcus Welby. Nowadays, though, doctors have to be just as worried about malpractice as they do about their patients. House calls are a thing of the past. We desperately want to trust our medical practitioners--but everything you read and hear makes you afraid to do so.

Soldiers? Absolutely heroic--and yet look what this country did to the returning Vietnam soldiers. Indeed, they might have been the very first of the heroes to be pilloried by changing societal mores. Like Rip Van Winkle, they returned to a country that was not what they left behind. The lionizing of Desert Storm participants, while a tribute to people who did their duty, comes across like a nation trying to assuage its guilty conscience over the lousy treatment of the Vietnam vets.

Our nation's leaders? Living or dead, they're objects of attack. George Bush, without the winds of war puffing his sails, finds himself becalmed on the seas of America's financial frustration and despair.

And whether you're John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, your sexual exploits--in the eyes of the media--take on far more import than your political agenda or the desire to do right by your constituents. I wonder why Clinton hasn't tried to attack the focus on the Gennifer Flowers business by claiming that it's a conspiracy to bring down the uppity white man. After all, Clarence Thomas pushed his way past sexual harrassment charges by claiming it was a plot to bring down the uppity black man.

The Supreme Court? Now there's a group of people who used to be my personal heroes... until the make-up of the court changed, and it went from being a body of justices out to protect free expression for the people, to being a group out to protect people from free expression.

Firemen? Well... uhm... hm. Okay. Firemen. Nobody badmouths firemen. Ultimately no one cares what firemen do in their private lives, or what their motivations are in their chosen line of work. You're just so damned glad to see them if your house is burning down that, unlike the Bridge over San Luis Rey, what brought them to this moment in time is of no consequence. Thank heavens they're there. Firemen, America's last undisputed heroes.

But they're outweighed by the battlefield of destroyed individuals that, back in the Element Age, were held up to the heroic ideal. We've become a country that knows entirely too much about entirely everything, and as a result we're basically cynical and disbelieving. Perhaps that's why we love the Olympics so much... once every four years, we get a set of pristine heroes to enjoy and take pride in. Guys like Team USA, or the intrepid Paul Wylie. And the beauty of those heroes is that they'll fade into obscurity, or go on nice tours, or become announcers... stuff that will do nothing to diminish their places in our hearts and minds so that we can continue to treasure those fond memories without the heartbreak of subsequent disclosures (Film at 11).

So why are so many heroes cynical, nasty, angry... even unheroic?

Look around, babe. Look at the newspapers. Look at the mirror. Just... look.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can now be written to directly c/o To Be Continued, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, New York, 11705-0239.

Where are our heroes?

March 13, 1992

One of the most often-repeated observations being made of late is that heroes in comics have changed to their very core...and not for the better.

There have been, to my mind, three stages of comic heroes so far. The first was the Element Age, so-called for two reasons: It encompasses gold and silver age, and the heroes of the time were elementary. Their purpose was clear. Their morals were spotless. If there was any initial flaws in their characters (Batman originally killed people and was hunted by the police, notions that were clearly ahead of his time; relatively quickly he stopped packing guns and became an extension of the Gotham police force) they were done away with. Oh, maybe the Spectre was somewhat creepy, but he pretty much had God backing him up, so it was okay.

Perhaps it helped that, at the time, there was such a clear and present evil in the world--namely the Axis powers. The good guys of fiction had to be that good because the bad guys of reality were that bad. Heck, perhaps it's no coincidence that as America moved into the 50s, leaving Hitler and his evil behind, comic heroes lightened up more and more. Superman and Batman, notably, had less and less of an edge to them. But they were still morally stand-up guys.

Then we moved into the second hero age of comics, which can only be termed the Marvel Age, because the angst-ridden characters were so closely associated with those published by Marvel. The tortured Thing, the hard-luck Spider-Man, the Thunder God who could command elements but not a woman's heart...they wore their difficulties on their sleeves, and were extremely appealing to readers. Teen-agers in particular, who are, by definition, little more than angst on two legs.

The emotionally-plagued heroes became so popular that DC even endeavored to graft angst onto their own characters, which is like trying to parallel park an 18-wheeler into a space large enough for a VW: You can do it, but the final result isn't going to be pretty.

An outgrowth of angst was "relevance." Excessive aggravating about their own problems began to wear thin, so heroes began agonizing about the problems of society as well.

And then we rolled into the third age of heroes. The age that I refer to as: The Mess Age.

Why? Two reasons. First, because heroes went from having problems to being complete societal messes. The hero community of the Mess Age includes, among its membership: alcoholics, drug addicts, emotional cripples, psychos and mass murderers.

And second, because the more popular a hero is seems to be directly related to how much of a bloody mess he can leave in his wake.

Look at Superman, for heaven's sake. Once upon a time, the icon of perfection and flawlessly moral behavior. But in "Dark Knight" he was portrayed as a puppet of the American government, a mindless object of scorn. In his own title, he carefully and deliberately killed renegade Kryptonians and agonized over it for months afterwards.

And Batman, Superman's long-time pal? He became dementedly singleminded, alienating Kal-El, Dick Grayson, and going through kid sidekicks like they were potato chips. (The last thing you want to do is really draw attention to the fact that Batman routinely engages in child endangerment, as Bob Ingersoll has pointed out. But that's precisely what they've done.)

Jailing badguys was no longer enough. Their bodies piled up like cordwood, as the Punisher, Wolverine, Lobo and their brethren cut a bloody swathe through the legions of the nasty. The line between heroes and villains has blurred as to be invisible. Not only are the most popular heroes guys who you can't count on for rational and just behavior...they're not even people you'd want to share a cab with.

Why has this happened? Why is the notion of a hero with a stable moral center...a hero who is heroic... suddenly so passe?

Look around you.

Art reflects society, and at this point, society is extremely aware that many of its heroes are hardly paragons of purity. Each new revelation, each new sordid action, each new headline that's splashed across supermarket tabloids or ballyhooed on the evening news, rips away at the fabric of heroism in this country.

(A recent local newscast led off with politicians hurling racial epithets, and closed with covering a new sport: Nude Bungee jumping. Personally, I think they should have combined the two stories: Any politician who's into nude bungee jumping would get my vote. It beats heaving on the Japanese Prime Minister.)

Where do we look for our heroes? Who have our heroes been in the past?

Sports figures. Magic Johnson recently played what will probably be his final game, voted to his position by fans who didn't care that he hadn't played a single game this season. And he responded with a bravura performance that earned him the game MVP award. He deserved the accolades, and it added to his rightful stature as an heroic figure.

But what can't be ignored is that he became exposed to AIDS through sexual conduct that was--to put it delicately--not thought out. If he'd had the moral center that heroes are "supposed" to have--the moral purity that people wax nostalgic for when they speak of the current crop of the comic book Mess Age--he wouldn't have been sleeping around in the first place. The one who's really heroic is his wife, who is standing by her man rather than, say, appearing on Oprah and complaining about his less-than-sterling conduct.

What's heroic is that Johnson has tried to turn his own misfortune into the potentially life-saving message of, "Heterosexual transmission of AIDS is a real threat." Hopefully that will pierce through the notion of "Yeah, but it couldn't happen to me" that pervades our population.

Then there's Mike Tyson. Here is a man who beats people up for a living. Who has a history of violence in and out of the ring. Who raped a young woman that the defense was so desperate to discredit, that they put forward the notion that she was sexually hyped up from listening to rap music. (Thank God I wasn't on the jury, because my doubtlessly audible "Aw, come on" would not have endeared me to the judge.)

But each day, when he was escorted to and from the court house, the path would be lined with well-wishers and supporters. Even after the conviction, his old neighborhood of Brownsville clung to Tyson as a hero through and through. Jesse Gibson, 38, told one reporter, "He's a great guy who got a bum deal... Anytime somebody looks up to somebody, they want to break him down." Other residents echoed the sentiments. "He was made an example of," said Lyman May. "Now they can show you another black man who has failed," who pointed out that Tyson failed where the white William Kennedy Smith succeeded.

(To my mild surprise, there hasn't seemed to be all that much emphasis on the notion that Tyson was given unfair treatment because of skin color. Actually, you can look at the Tyson case from the other angle: Tyson's accuser, a black woman, succeeded in making herself a credible witness, whereas by all accounts, Smith's accuser, a white woman, did not. So what does that say about race relations?)

So to some Tyson remains a hero, while to Judge Patricia Gifford he is simply another criminal for sentencing. Again, I'm no lawyer, but I've been wondering...maybe they should have tried an insanity defense. My (limited) understanding of the law is that it has to be proven that you understood you were committing a crime. I'm convinced Tyson did not, and still does not, understand.

Let's face it, the guy's not a rocket scientist. For the past ten years he's been consistently told that sometimes it's okay to beat people up, and sometimes it's not (as opposed to the average child, who is told it's never okay.) Not only that, but his own testimony makes it clear that he doesn't think of women as people, but rather sacks of meat to be grabbed and used. Hitler thought of Jews not as people, but as subhumans, and nobody thinks Hitler was a candidate for the mental health poster boy. Tyson is hardly Hitler, but his grasp of male/female interaction is certainly not societal norm.

Or maybe it is. Maybe he just personifies what all men secretly think, especially when hormones first kick in... but whereas other men clean up their act, Tyson never did. Never had to. And now he'll probably he slapped away somewhere, which is good, because he's a rapist and dangerous. But it's sad, too. Especially to those people who held him to be a hero because he was black and uneducated, but still successful. Because they could aspire to that, too. But who wants to aspire to being a jailed rapist?

More heroes. Look around. Who are the traditional heroes?

Policemen? By and large hardworking and dedicated. But look at the travesties over the years. The police corruption in New York and Philadelphia. The brutality of some LA cops immortalized on videotape. Who can overlook the notion that the Milwaukee police stumbled over a blood-covered boy who had escaped the horrors of Jeffrey Dahmer...and when Dahmer told the cops that it was just "a lover's quarrel," gave the hysterical boy back to Dahmer who killed the kid in short order.

Astronauts? Anybody heard from the space program lately? No one notices astronauts anymore. Most kids don't know the significance of the names Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. And NASA is the outfit that blew up the Challenger.

Doctors? Once they were almost Godlike beings, typified by the fatherly, all-knowing Marcus Welby. Nowadays, though, doctors have to be just as worried about malpractice as they do about their patients. House calls are a thing of the past. We desperately want to trust our medical practitioners--but everything you read and hear makes you afraid to do so.

Soldiers? Absolutely heroic--and yet look what this country did to the returning Vietnam soldiers. Indeed, they might have been the very first of the heroes to be pilloried by changing societal mores. Like Rip Van Winkle, they returned to a country that was not what they left behind. The lionizing of Desert Storm participants, while a tribute to people who did their duty, comes across like a nation trying to assuage its guilty conscience over the lousy treatment of the Vietnam vets.

Our nation's leaders? Living or dead, they're objects of attack. George Bush, without the winds of war puffing his sails, finds himself becalmed on the seas of America's financial frustration and despair.

And whether you're John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, your sexual exploits--in the eyes of the media--take on far more import than your political agenda or the desire to do right by your constituents. I wonder why Clinton hasn't tried to attack the focus on the Gennifer Flowers business by claiming that it's a conspiracy to bring down the uppity white man. After all, Clarence Thomas pushed his way past sexual harrassment charges by claiming it was a plot to bring down the uppity black man.

The Supreme Court? Now there's a group of people who used to be my personal heroes... until the make-up of the court changed, and it went from being a body of justices out to protect free expression for the people, to being a group out to protect people from free expression.

Firemen? Well... uhm... hm. Okay. Firemen. Nobody badmouths firemen. Ultimately no one cares what firemen do in their private lives, or what their motivations are in their chosen line of work. You're just so damned glad to see them if your house is burning down that, unlike the Bridge over San Luis Rey, what brought them to this moment in time is of no consequence. Thank heavens they're there. Firemen, America's last undisputed heroes.

But they're outweighed by the battlefield of destroyed individuals that, back in the Element Age, were held up to the heroic ideal. We've become a country that knows entirely too much about entirely everything, and as a result we're basically cynical and disbelieving. Perhaps that's why we love the Olympics so much... once every four years, we get a set of pristine heroes to enjoy and take pride in. Guys like Team USA, or the intrepid Paul Wylie. And the beauty of those heroes is that they'll fade into obscurity, or go on nice tours, or become announcers... stuff that will do nothing to diminish their places in our hearts and minds so that we can continue to treasure those fond memories without the heartbreak of subsequent disclosures (Film at 11).

So why are so many heroes cynical, nasty, angry... even unheroic?

Look around, babe. Look at the newspapers. Look at the mirror. Just... look.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can now be written to directly c/o To Be Continued, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, New York, 11705-0239.

My San Diego schedule

Getting ready to hustle out to San Diego. Here's my schedule at the present time:

Thursday, 4:30 to 5:30 — Comic Book Weblogs
Saturday, 11:30 to 1:00 — Impact University: How to Write and Draw Comics
Saturday, 1:00 to 2:00 - Signing at IDW.
Saturday, 3:00 to 4:00 — IDW Publishing Overview
Sunday, 11:30 to 12:30 - CBLDF panel (I *think* I'm on this.)
Sunday, 1:00 to 2:00 — Marvel Comics' Spider-Man: The Other

I'll also be signing at the Claypool table from 4-5 on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and I'll be at the Krause Publications/Impact booth as well. I'm not sure of the times on that yet, so we'll all be surprised.

PAD

Fantastic Fun

In the interest of full disclosure, I will state what most of you already know: I wrote the novelization of "Fantastic Four." So obviously it's to my benefit for the film to do well. Anyone who feels that linkage to the film colors my opinion can disregard it as he or she sees fit.

Now--

Just came back from the FF screening in the city. I heard a number of adults crabbing about how terrible it was, and I was left wondering whether they saw the same film I did. I then asked every kid I could find who was in attendance what they thought of it, and kids of (literally) all ages loved it. Girls liked Sue Storm, boys grooved on the Thing and, particularly, the Human Torch. No one loved Reed. But, hey, what else is new?

Whatever you're expecting in terms of the more mature angle that comic book films have taken, be it "Batman Begins," "Sin City," or even the sophistication of X2...to enjoy "Fantastic Four," you simply have to set the wayback machine in your mind back to when comic books (and movies thereof) were mostly cornball fun. Think "Superman" but without the camp. Some mild spoilers follow:

It's a well-made film with some wince-worthy dialogue that you then realize could have (and possibly did) come straight out of Silver Age FF, and a lot of sequences that just nail the entire squabbling-yet-loving family nature of the FF. The film is at its best when it keeps it small. The character interactions, the throwaway casual uses of their powers. Johnny's tormenting of Ben, including a hilarious practical joke while the Thing is sleeping. And you sit there and say, "That's the FF."

When it goes big, there are stumbles. The main problem centers on Doctor Doom. My concern was not that they changed Victor Von Doom from a Latverian monarch to a corporate douche bag. My concern is that Von Doom blames Reed Richards for the accident that essentially ruined Von Doom's life. In the comic book, this blame is misplaced. In the film, it's not. That Von Doom goes bonkers as a result doesn't change the fact that Reed really IS responsible. I'll grant you, that's consistent with the comic in that Ben blames Reed for rushing them into space without the proper shielding in place. But the thrust of the comic isn't Ben trying to kill Reed as a consequence. In this case, the FF isn't battling a supervillain so much as they are doing damage control, cleaning up after the mess the themselves made (or at least that Reed made).

But there's more than enough in the film to make it worthwhile nevertheless. The Thing should defnitely be seen on a big screen, because all the cries of "Foam rubber" were misplaced. Between the acting, the sound effects, and a few CGI boosts, you'll believe a man can be made out of rock. And the must-see of the film remains the Human Torch. Basically he's an exuberant jackass, but hey, again, that's Johnny. That he's not callow doesn't bother me. After all, he grew up and married a Skrull in the comics, so why not just start with him as the older model? Instead of being a teen and thus expected to be a jerk, he's a guy who refuses to grow up. Johnny Storm with the ultimate in Peter Pan syndrome considering he really DOES learn to fly.

Several key scenes were in the script but not in the film, which would have topped two hours had they been there. These include an entire sequence with Ben attending a soiree at Alicia's art gallery, and Johnny running afoul of a football star and his date at a singles bar. I'll be interested to see if they show up back in the eventual DVD release, as they were excellent scenes (although admittedly they didn't advance the plot much.)

Bottom line, go in expecting a hip, up-to-date rethinking and redefining of the FF, and you're largely going to be disappointed. Expect a reasonably faithful (Von Doom issues aside) translation of the style, spirit and stories of the Silver Age of comics, and you'll have a great time.

PAD

London calling

We have a number of regular participants and occasional contributors to this blog who reside in London or vicinity. Please sound off so we know you're okay.

PAD

"Spike: Old Times" written up in Comicsworthreading

Johanna Draper-Carlson was, and is, a bigger supporter of "Fallen Angel." So when she expressed enthusiasm about the upcoming Spike one-shot, I offered to send her the completed script. She read it and loved it. Her comments can be found in the July 5th installment of her blog, "Cognitive Dissonance." If I do this right, the link below should take you to it.

http://www.comicsworthreading.com/blog/cwr.html

PAD

New York loses out on Olympics

I think I speak for most New Yorkers when I say--without the slightest intention of sour grapes--good. One less thing to worry about.

PAD

Spin cycle

So to give Kath more time to work on the costumes, Ariel and I took Caroline to a local kiddie amusement park that she'd never been to. Dead center of the place was a carousel. Caroline absolutely loves carousels, ever since Kath took her on the main one at the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld. Having bought unlimited ride passes for the sisters, I stood behind the fence as Caroline was seated on one of the horses, Ariel one horse over. The young lady running the ride clipped Caroline into place with a seatbelt that snapped behind her.

The carousel began turning. It was going at a pretty brisk pace, but Caroline was undaunted, grinning like a loon.

Then I noticed she appeared to be shifting off-center, hanging more toward the outside. That was when I saw that the belt had somehow come unclipped from behind her and was dangling uselessly on either side. Ariel hadn't spotted it yet. The only thing that was preventing Caroline from being flung off the carousel at high speed was her own grip on the pole.

The operator was in the middle of the carousel. I shouted over the music, "Shut it down! She's not buckled in" as I yanked open the gate. The operator saw it and killed the power, but there's no braking mechanism; it moves until it stops. Ariel, realizing, grabbed Caroline's foot, but Caroline was now 3/4 of the way off the horse.

I ran alongside the carousel, grabbed one of the freestanding poles, and jumped on while it was still spinning, bounced between two horses like a pinball, got to Caroline and yanked her back up onto the horse. Caroline continued to grin. Not a trace of concern. I buckled the seatbelt around her myself this time, testing it. It must not have fully engaged the first time. The operator asked if I'd like to stand next to Caroline and just ride along, which was fine by me.

Ariel then went off to drive the Go-carts. And Caroline, who didn't have to get off the carousel because there really wasn't a line of kids waiting to get on, proceeded to ride to her heart's content.

Forty five minutes.

Forty five frickin' minutes of non-stop carousel. The more nauseated I got, the happier she got. Finally I couldn't take it anymore, forcibly removed her from it and said, "We're doing something else now." I carried her away while she was kicking and screaming and yelling, "Horse! Horse!"

Later, as Caroline rode on the teacup ride with Ariel, I called Kath and said, "Just out of curiosity, how did you get Caroline off the merry go round at Disneyworld? Did she eventually tire of it?"

"No," said Kathleen. "I had to carry her away while she was kicking and screaming."

Twenty years from now, when they ask me at what point I knew she was going to be a jockey, I'll be able to tell them. Although she'll probably be over six feet tall, so maybe that's not really a career path for her.

PAD

This just in...

TOKYO (July 3) - Japanese coast guard officials said Sunday they believe an underwater volcanic eruption has caused a 3,300-foot high column of steam to rise from the Pacific Ocean near Iwo Jima.

Defense officials who flew over the area in a helicopter said the surface of the water appeared red where the column was reported, which could indicate underwater volcanic activity, Shirai said.

Okay, now honestly...am I the only person who read this and thought it'd be cool if Godzilla emerged from the midst of the smoke?

PAD

FF screening

Got an invitation to the advance screening for the Fantastic Four movie. Not TERRIBLY in advance. It'll be next Thursday at 7 PM. But hey, at least I'll have seen it before Shore Leave, a convention in Maryland I hope as many of you as possible will be attending.

PAD

Chilling Effects

When I was getting my BA in journalism, one of the subjects that came up, naturally, was anonymous sources...a staple of journalism. And what we had drilled into us was: You don't give up a source. Not for any reason. Not ever. To do so would create a chilling effect, making other sources believe that they dare not approach the media for fear of retribution.

(And as an aside, there's a difference between anonymity in newspaper articles versus on the net. The latter is people who want to be able to state their opinions without having to attach their names to them. The former are people who, for instance, may see their bosses engaging in wrongdoing and feel they should be stopped, but don't want to throw their lives or careers away in doing so.)

We knew going in that there was no such thing as journalist/source confidentiality. The reason is that it's impossible to determine what qualifies as a journalist. Lawyers go to school, pass a bar, they're lawyers. Same with doctors. But what constitutes a reporter is murky at best, and has since those days gotten even more fuzzy. Is Harry Knowles a reporter? What about me? What if someone is approached by a grand jury because he knows something about a murder and he happens to publish a local shopper, or writes for the PTA newsletter. Does HE claim privilege?

So we knew going in that there's no mechanism of law to protect journalists should grand juries come calling. Some people claim that journalists are acting like they're above the law. Wrong. Journalists are taught that the law affords them no protection. If you're asked about a source, you clam up, and if it means going to jail, then you go to jail, because that's the job you took on and that's the way it goes.

I know this. All reporters know this. And Time Inc. sure as hell knows it.

It was painful enough watching the media be the government's lapdog post 9/11, but this latest development--in which Time Inc. is knuckling under to grand jury pressure over revealing sources, even though the reporters themselves were ready to do time under a contempt citation rather than give up their sourcess--trumps it all. It sends a frightening double-edged message: Sources, beware. And grand juries, go after reporters. In serving its short term needs, Time has guaranteed long term problems. Because when the Fourth Estate stood firm and united, there was little point to courts trying to pry info out of reporters. They knew it was a waste of time. Now they know there's cracks in the foundation. So Time has ensured MORE problems for reporters, rather than less.

I know I personally will never be buying another copy of Time magazine. That's not out of a sense of desire to boycott, but simply because I'm going to assume from now on that whatever stories Time covers, there will be sources who won't dare go to them, so why bother getting incomplete coverage?

PAD

(PS--Ignore the signature at the bottom. I, Peter, posted this. I posted it while working on Kath's computer and forgot to log out of her Movable type account and move into my own.)

(Should be fixed now -- GH)

Internal Server Error

I know, I know, I've been getting them too. Constantly. We're working on them. In the meantime, here's what you do: Write your comment. Try to post it. It'll say "Internal Server Error." Arrow back to your comment. Reenter your name (since it seems to make it disappear). Hit post again and this time it will go through. However, it won't appear immediately when you look at the page. But it's there.

PAD

(UPDATE: We're being told by our service provider that the problem has been fixed, although we're still seeing problems here and there. If you are as well, please drop a note in this thread. --GH)

Hold your breath

We now have one new opening on the Supreme Court, with another possible one to come, and an extreme right wing President seeking to satisfy supporters who don't believe in the separation of church and state and consider Roe v. Wade the work of "activist judges" which should be overurned.

I'm guessing the Democrats will be steamrolled over in the vetting process, which means we've got one hope: That Presidents who appointed extremely conservative judges to the SC have not always gotten what they bargained for.

PAD

Disemvowelling, a.k.a. X-Ry Spcs

(Just to make it clear before we start, This Is From Glenn. I'd use the blink tag to say so, but that's just so Mosaic 1.0.)

Having come to the conclusion that no one here is paying any attention to a certain individual's commentary because of his abusive and abrasive style, and noting that it's a real pain scrolling past all of his frequent posts, they'd best be shortened a bit.

So I yanked all the vowels. This makes his comments significantly shorter while making them only slightly less incomprehensible.

Does this mean it's now forbidden to have arguments in PeterDavid.net's comment threads? Not at all. Arguments are fine, including vigorous ones, as long as you maintain a civil tone. Does that mean you can get away with saying anything here, as long as you say it well enough? Pretty much.

If a case can be made by X-Ray that his posts should be restored, I'll consider it. In the meantime, he can post anything except the letters a, e, i, o, and u.

Special thanks to Teresa Nielsen Hayden for the inspiration.