Problematic Characters

Matt's post on Perry White gave me some long-term thinking to do.  Superman has to be one of the most problematic characters to write.  There are so many conditional limitations, both in terms of licensing and basic common culture in general, that must be in place when you consider the writing of a Superman story.  Superman must not kill (although he has).  Superman must not be oversexualized (although he's married, not a virgin, and has been subjected to at least one pornography-based attack in the '80s in the story featuring the villain Sleez).  Superman must not contravene the ideals of America (although he's certainly more progressive).  And those are just the big ones.

Now consider the wealth of Superman stories that have been written since 1938.  Stories for page, animation, television, films, novels, and more.  The prospective writer would face an amazingly daunting task.  On top of THAT, it seems that every Superman story that reaches for something different gets hammered by the fans these days.  The JMS walkabout story (which I did not like) took a drubbing.  The New Krypton story (which was better) also took a drubbing, partially because the action was spun into a separate series while Superman was replaced by other characters in his two core titles.

If you had the opportunity to write Superman, he has to be the most interesting nut to crack.  It's got to be nearly impossible in some ways.  But that doesn't mean we don't think about, does it?

Perry Knows, Dammit!

I love Superman.

I mean, I looooove Superman. I love what he stands for (as a concept), I love how he (archetypally) sees the world, I love the idea of a world with Superman flying around - sometimes upside down because you know what? He can fly, and flying upside down is occasionally more fun than flying right-side up.

I've thought about Superman a lot, and obviously, have some opinions on what's been going on with him recently...well, for the past five or so years. While I can't say that I've got a Superman story yet - I mean, I've got tons of ideas, just nothing that screams at me...I've got more ideas for the universe around him. Including this cranky guy at the left - Perry White.

Part of this blog is just a place that will allow me and Troy to vent a bit, so this is turning things waaay back - twelve, fourteen years or so.

So…. I think it was probably that I was influenced by the Dan Jurgens era of Superman, but for the longest time, I never saw Perry White as the hardass of Byrne’s reboot or the blowhard he was previously. To me, Perry was human, a father, an old-school newspaperman, and most importantly, a guy who cared about his staff and saw them as family. And also, it was early in my days of reporting/writing – I saw editors, especially the editors at the top of the pile as being smart. Why wouldn’t he be? After all, he taught Lois Lane everything she knew.

So, as my logic went, Perry had noticed that Clark…disappeared from time to time, and more often than not, Superman showed up on the monitors in the newsroom. There was never any “aha!” moment, just Perry doing what he must have done for years as a reporter – putting the pieces together and figuring things out.

Somehow, sometime, an inescapable situation comes up – I don’t know, the entire staff is on lockdown, or are all on deadline, and no one can leave the room. Then, on one of the monitors, a horrific accident. Not a cheesy villain or anything like that, but something that can be fixed or at least reduced by a certain guy who wears a cape. Close up on Clark, looking around nervously…he can’t just dash out. The accident is getting worse (no, there wouldn’t be any of that “Clark moves faster than people can see” bullshit because that is, well, bullshit). Perry, noticing a clearly agitated Clark walks over to his desk and quietly says, “Clark, go.”

Clark looks up at Perry shocked…how does he? How can he?

“Kent…go. Now. We can talk later.”

No words from Clark, just a grateful look, and he’s gone. Heck, throw in the iconic tugging his shirt open as he rounds the corner, out of sight of the offices. Pull back from the newsroom to the announcer on television saying, “Wait – yes, Superman is on the scene now…”

Later, Superman is flying back to the roof of the Daily Planet, and Perry – iconic Perry (vest, shirtsleeves rolled up) is there.Clark lands softly beside him.

“How long have you known?”

“I don’t know, months? A year or two?”

“But how did…” Superman’s question is answered by a look from Perry. “Oh, right. Reporter first, editor second.

“But why didn’t you ever say anything?”

”I figured if you wanted to tell me, you’d tell me. You didn’t, so I figured you had your reasons, and I moved on. And honestly, it’s kind of nice knowing that Superman is on your payroll.”

This would go on for a little while longer, and probably end up with Perry asking Clark if Lois knows, and Clark telling him that she does. Basically, the dialogue would allow for a bit of father-son relationship to build up between Superman and Perry, and both enrich the dynamics of those two characters as well as deepening Perry, and turning him from a cardboard cutout into a…oh, what’s that word….character. Also, it would be just something that Perry knew, not a springboard into a “Perry is kidnapped and tortured into revealing Superman’s secret identity storyline,” because that would suck.

Or at least that was my thought when I pitched it as a ten-pager to a then-Superman editor. This was back at a time when DC was publishing specials left and right, and ten page stories were fairly common.I had bounced it around to some writer friends (including a couple of Superman writers), and it had gotten a very good response. I think I got to the part about Perry and Clark meeting on the rooftop when the editor interrupted me, “But Perry doesn’t know.”

“But I just explained how Perry had figured it out, because he’s smart.”

“Perry doesn’t know.”

“But he taught Lois all she knows, and Lois figured it out.”

“Perry doesn’t know.”

“But if he doesn’t he’s a fool. Just a dottering old guy.”

“That may be, but Perry doesn’t know.”

It may have gone on longer, but the thrust never changed. Perry. Doesn’t. Know. Why? Not because my story idea didn’t make sense (it did – admit it – and besides, one of my favorite writers and pals said at the time that the idea had great internal logic… I thought that was the coolest compliment ever) but Perry doesn’t know because DC says Perry doesn’t know. The end.

One of my best friends in comics loves to quote Kirby who said, “Comics will break your heart.” I think that was the first time it really hit me. Here was a smart story (yeah, I’m biased, you think your kids are smart and pretty, too) that enriched a character and added richness to Superman’s world, but nope – can’t happen, because the rules say that Perry doesn’t know.

That was an eye-opener (and yeah, it happened a looong time ago), but since then, it’s always been amazingly easy to see the “rules” that keep things from actually, you know, being good in 90% of the books and with 90% of the corporate characters out there.

Pimpin' Buck

Sure we've been on Newsarama, but the fanboy inside of me gets a thrill to be on Ain't It Cool News. Back when Mike and I were feeding and watering the small plant that would grow to become Newsarama, Harry Knowles was doing his thing. To finally be on the site, being interviewed for something that Troy and I did together - cooler than cool.

Oh, and that picture on the right? More awesome than awesome. Carlos Rafael - it's like he was in our heads. That image is precisely as Troy and I described it. Those guys in the back - they're not named in the issue itself, but we call them the Faceless. They have that name for a reason. Yes, they're supposed to look like an amalgamation of the idea of "soldier," too. Carlos nailed it. Check out the AICN interview for more new art - I love that, in our very first issue together, Troy and I got to do a little of Buck and Wilma literally sitting and drinking coffee. Troy and I already want to take Carlos with us to _______________, but we'll have to wait and see.

Again, this issue hits in February. Tell your local shop to order it, re-order it, reserve it, or any other mumbo-jumbo that will make sure you get it. Troy and I want to make sure we sell out of this bad boy.

Troy Signs In . . .

Lest everyone think that it will be all Matt Brady all the time up here (not that that's a bad thing or anything), I figured that I'd chime in with my part of the introduction.  I'm Troy Brownfield.  I teach, I write for Newsarama, and I write/have written elsewhere.

In addition to still writing regularly for Newsarama as a columnist and occasionally checking in with other assorted pieces for places like Wired, I've spent some time in the past few years doing various work in the comics field.  I'll talk about some of those eventually, including my participation in Fangoria Comics.  You have been warned.

More recently, I had the chance to write the "Tales from Wonderland: The White Knight" one-shot for Zenescope.  That was a great working experience, and it clears up one mystery about comics: sometimes it's just the right story at the right time that gets published.   This is how it came about.

I met Raven Gregory several years ago on the convention circuit, and we became friends.  One day, he asked me and some other writers if we'd be interested in hitting him with some possible stories for a Wonderland anthology annual.  It hadn't been something that I'd been actively considering, but after revisting that world a little bit, I found myself with a three ideas.  I took a swing with those.

One idea was tossed right away.  Like Charlie's Brown's Christmas tree, it wasn't a bad little tree; it just wasn't right for the moment.  Another was picked as a possible choice for the annual.  The third, which would become the White Knight, generated enough interest to move higher up the stack.  My whole concept was to do something with the White Knight, a Wonderland character from the novels that Raven simply hadn't gotten to yet.  And somehow, for whatever reason, he stuck.  After a few discussions, we pulled the short for the anthology into a larger story, and that became the book whose cover you see above.

Sure, it sounds easy.  But the moral should be that it's completely not.  It's a combination of luck, an idea that could be stretched, and a 33% success rate with ideas for one anthology.  The funny thing is that my anthology story ended up NOT being used when the annual came around.  Hey, that's comics.

At any rate, I really like how the story turned out.  Tommy Patterson and the rest of the artists killed the visuals, and I got some good response.  I'd like to revisit the Knight for Zenescope one day, mainly because I have a great idea for him.  Then again, maybe I should come up with two more, just in case.

A few thoughts after (finally) seeing Tron: Legacy:

1) I hope The Black Hole is better - are you listening Travis Beacham?

2) I actually got all nostalgic for the worldbuilding of James Cameron - as clunky as that can be - while watching it. Sure, Cameron's stories are pretty simple, but his world is detailed, and thought out. This one...from the very start. It needed someone as dense and unquestioning as Sam to go into it.

3) If this was Sam's story, why did we end with a shot of Cora? Why wasn't Cora's story moved forward more?

4) Speaking of programs coming into our world, what was/is Cora now? Likewise, how was Clu going to move all of those programs into our world, and what were they going to do? I would've loved to have seen a shot of one of them leaning over to the other and saying "Hey, why are we going over there again?"

"Hell if I know, just keep pounding your spear thing up and down and shut up."

5) Castor = Zuse screams of someone forgot to change the name of another character somewhere in an earlier draft of the script or they ran out of money and the director said "Screw it. Castor is Zuse!"

6) The movie screamed for an epilogue, and no, Disney, I don't want to read it online or in a comic book. All you needed was 45 seconds.

POV of someone lying on a beach. The sky is cloudy, but its beginning to clear. The water isn't "our" water, it's the digitzed water of the final scenes. We're still in Flynn's world. Through this POV we see the lower legs and bare feet of someone in a white robe/leggins walking toward the viewer.

FLYNN (kneeling and coming into the shot, but only showing knees and hands): You okay in there old friend?

Pull back to a mid shot, we see Flynn (from the back) is helping the semi-conscious form of Tron/Rinzler.

FLYNN: Come on, come on, buddy. (Muttering) Where is it...

Flynn pushes a button, and Tron's helmet whizzes back, revealing a young-looking Tron, waking...

shot from Tron's POV, showing a Flynn-hybrid of Clu and Flynn - the longer white hair od the elder Flynn, with the younger, unsaved face of Clu.

FLYNN: We've got a world to fix...

or whatever.... anyway...was fun, could have been better.

We're here! Pull out the crunk juice.

Do people even say that anymore?

Anyway, as the title says, this is the Impending Disaster Productions blog - the place where Matt Brady (that's me) and Troy Brownfield (that's him) talk about what we're working on, what we've worked on, what we hope to work on, and point out some of the good and bad in the stuff that's out there.

First up, of course is February's BUCK ROGERS ANNUAL #1 from Dynamite Entertainment (order your copies - or dozens of copies - now!) at the left. It's a cool little story (if we say so ourselves) about Buck's birthday. How does a man 500 years into the future celebrate his birthday? Heck, does he even want to celebrate his birthday?

Troy and I had a great time writing it, and we're hoping it will lead to some more Buck things in the future. We've got a sheaf-full of ideas (now I know no one says "sheaf-full" anymore) for Buck, and yes, to answer the question that always comes up, there are plans for Twikki.

What else, what else? This train is just getting rolling, really. We've got pitches and plans at a number of publishers, and are in talks with or waiting on a handful more. And that's just the start.

So that's that for introductions. Shout out if you're here.