Stephen Aryan

Remakes

In general I’m not a fan of remakes. I understand why they exist, the in-built audience and familiarity with a franchise or character, but my main issue is there are thousands of new ideas out there crying to be developed. Sadly, some amazing ideas will never reach a large audience, because the risk of adapting something that is completely unknown, from a creator no one has heard of before, is too great a risk for some. Not all, but some.
Sometimes, remakes take the original material and they bring something new to the table. They update it for a modern audience and realise simply reshooting the material with new actors and better special effects isn’t good enough. That’s a point I’ll come back to. Some remakes have really impressed me and despite being initially wary they won me over, such as the new Battlestar Galactica. In my opinion the remake was better than the original 1980s TV show, which I am old enough to remember from the first time around. I always thought it was cheesy, but it was made for that period and the modern version took the original material and did something new. What followed, Caprica, was pretty dull in my opinion, but the new Blood and Chrome web mini thing, looks like a return to form. Shame it didn’t turn into a new TV series.

So, sometimes, remakes do work and are worth pursuing for characters or franchises. Look at the new Christopher Nolan Batman films for example. In my opinion they’re the best of the bunch, and now we have a new Man of Steel, Superman film waiting in the wings. Time will tell if it equals or surpasses the Christopher Reeve films.

All of which brings me around to two remakes I’ve watched in the last month. The Amazing Spider-Man and Total Recall. With ASM it brought Spider-Man back to the screen only a few years after Toby Maguire hung up his costume. Sony made lots of money from the first three films and, regardless of what I think about their varying quality, they were obviously keen to keep milking that old spider shaped cash cow. So ASM came out in 2012 with Andrew Garfield in the blue and red spandex suit. Ok, let’s start with the good. Garfield, for me, was a much better Peter Parker than Maguire. He was gangly, quiet, and a nerdy genius, which is what Peter is supposed to be. At times Garfield’s Peter did seem a little bit too confident at school and more of a skater-boy than a true outsider, but Peter is meant to be an ordinary kid and, in general, I was convinced. Martin Sheen and Sally Field were brilliant, but then they always are in everything. They felt like a real family with secrets and there were some great set pieces, fights and the CGI was good. Now the bad. It was an origin story. Again. Seven year old children are not idiots. They’ve probably been watching Spider-Man for years via cartoons, playing Spider-Man on video games, and (hopefully) reading the comics. So five years later, they’re just old enough to go and see the 12 rated film in 2012. If you ask anyone on the street, who is Spider-Man?, most of them will be able to tell you something. It’s the same with Superman or Batman. They’re international icons. So who, exactly, was this remake for? The best part of the previous Raimi films was that in the credits for the second film, I think, they recapped the whole of the first film, including Spider-Man’s origin. It took maybe five minutes while names roll past, boom, done, on with the action. So why, why, why, do yet another remake?

At times during ASM I found myself doing something else, flicking through my ipad or phone, because it wasn’t holding my attention as I knew what was going to happen. I’d seen it all before and so had the audience. It did well at the box office, but, not as well as the first Raimi Spider-Man film, or the second, or even the third film! There were some interesting new additions to the film this time, minor plot points, but apart from switching Green Goblin for The Lizard, it was more or less the same film. They’ll do another one, and this time, maybe, just maybe, it will be interesting because it’s not yet another origin story.

One other thing on ASM before I move on, and to me it’s a huge thing and is a major spoiler for the film, so look away now if you don’t want to know. The fundamental foundation of Peter Parker and Spider-Man is, with great power comes great responsibility. He had the power to stop the thief and he didn’t, and because of that someone else paid the price. On that occasion it was his Uncle Ben who stood up and said no. Peter makes a promise and is determined to do the right thing. So, at the very end of the new Spider-Man film, Captain Stacy is dying, he knows who Peter really is and what he’s done. He asks Peter to make him a promise to keep his distance from Gwen, because anyone in his orbit is in danger. He’s going to make enemies as Spider-Man and they will try to find his weak points and exploit them. Villain puts girl in peril, hero shows up to save her, they fight, and sometimes the girl dies in the process.

On his deathbed, Stacy makes Peter promise and he agrees. Peter keeps his distance, Gwen is hurt at first, but then works it out and sort of understands. Then, right at the very end of the film, Peter changes his mind. He breaks his promise to her dead father, he breaks his word and decides, ah, sod it, he’s never going to know and I know best, and I want to be with Gwen and he can’t stop me. What a load of bullshit. Utter, utter bullshit. That goes against everything. He may as well just let certain criminals go because he can’t be bothered to catch them. I mean, why not? If making a promise to a dying man means nothing to him, if his word means so little, if he is that bloody selfish, why not? This completely undermined the film for me and it undid all of the goodwill they’d built up. So, in ASM2, Gwen will no doubt get into trouble with the next villain and she may die, and then they can bring on Mary Jane from the wings for the end of ASM2 and she is the love interest for ASM3. Utter crap. I didn’t see ASM at the cinema and won’t be rushing out to see ASM2 either.

Total Recall. Ugh. I admit, the original film isn’t the best film ever and despite the fact that I haven’t read the source material, I’m confident in saying the Arnie film deviates a great deal. However, it was charming, interesting, exciting, different and a great deal of fun. This remake was built on a crap premise to distance it from the whole Mars thing. All of the action was set on grimy Blade Runner-esque Earth in a post apocalyptic world where people take a lift from the British colony to Australia for work. That’s right, they commute, through the centre of the earth on a lift to the other side of the world.

Ignoring that, and putting to one side the updated CGI and special effects, the modern actors who are people I (normally) enjoy watching, I’m struggling to find anything original this film brought to the table. In general the film was just dull and really didn’t hold my interest. This wasn’t a shot for shot remake, but there was nothing we hadn’t seen before. The duplicitous wife, Melina coming to rescue him, the fight to find out who he really is, then rejecting that and deciding to side with the rebels. Fighting for a good cause, and for some reason, destroying the lift that connects the two sides of the planet. It was just really boring. It has been a long time (relatively) since the original Arnie film, and there were some nods in there for older viewers, the women with three breasts, the woman in yellow going on vacation for two weeks at the scanner, and probably some others I didn’t spot as I was doing two other things while watching this at home. It made it’s money back at the box office and some profit on top, so the film makers are not complaining too much, but it wasn’t the runaway juggernaut at the box office they were hoping for by trading on the name.

This, more so than ASM, was an example of where a remake was, for me, completely pointless. If they’d tried to do something new and taken the story in a very different direction, but had held onto the central premise of buying memories for recreation to become a spy, or fighter pilot or whatever, then I might be more enthusiastic. At least, even if it didn’t work, they had tried to do something new and fresh. This was just lazy at its core. I’m off to read something original, novels seem to be the best place for new stories.

Dredd

I absolutely refused to see this film at the cinema when it came out because to begin with it was only available in 3D. In general I’m not a supporter of 3D films. It’s not new technology and in my opinion it’s rarely needed. If the film is relying on 3D to bolster ticket sales, then that’s worrying. Leading with 3D as Dredd did, on all of the posters, was also worrying. I don’t think Dredd needed 3D, I think it was a big enough character, big enough name, big enough world to get by without it. Anyway, after a few weeks, cinemas started releasing it in glorious Two Dee, but only late at night in my local area and not very often. Did this ultimately hurt it at the box office? I think so. Also I believe the 3D was retro-fitted and it was not all shot in 3D, so that was an extra cost that the film didn’t need. After the last Dredd film with Stallone, which I’ll come back to later, people old enough to remember it were wary. 2000AD fans were extremely nervous and some members of Joe Q Public might have gone to see something else instead of paying an extra couple of pounds to see what, in their minds, was yet another comic book film. At the moment the new Dredd has made 35 million at the box office worldwide on a 50m budget. My opinion aside, something didn’t work as well as it should.

Before watching this film I read a fair bit about it, had watched a couple of trailers and was very excited. I was also very pleased to hear Karl Urban, the NZ hunk, last seen by me in Star Trek as Bones, say he would not be taking off the helmet. It was one of many gripes about the Stallone film. We’re not supposed to know what Dredd looks like. He’s faceless and it’s his will and unrelenting appetite for justice and his name that inspires fear. To me he’s a more extreme version of Batman in a dystopian future where killing criminals is something he does on a daily basis and doesn’t feel any regret. So, having done my homework and knowing a reasonable amount about the character and the world, I sat down last night to watch.

Overall I was pretty impressed by the film. I thought it was engaging, exciting and I came away wanting more. Urban was excellent as Dredd. He was grim, had a great chin and scowl, his voice was rough without it being Batman rough, and his depiction of Dredd’s unbreakable faith in justice and law and order was great. I’ve never seen Olivia Thirlby in anything before but I thought she did a really good job as the rookie Anderson. She was tough, but she also brought a naive and slightly child-like quality to her performance as someone on the cusp of fully embracing the law and all that comes with it. Such as carrying out lethal judgments on people on the spot. While Dredd may never hesitate, she shows how much he has already lost because she was emotional and she cared, even about those who were trying to wipe her out moments earlier. Bit of a spoiler, but there was also a moment where Anderson scans Dredd with her telepathic powers and she picks up on his emotional state, someone full of rage, and she hints at something else under the surface. I’d kind of like to know what it was, but I also think you’re not supposed to know. It’s like finding out what he looks like under the helmet. Sometimes you don’t need to know every little detail about a character.

On reflection I can see why this film didn’t deliver a record weekend at the box office and make everyone go back a second time. To me it felt very much like ‘A Day in the Life of Judge Dredd’. It was just another day, just another crime. At the start of the film the rookie picks a target and they go out and take care of it. That’s it. She could just have easily picked a different one and the film would have been a bit different, but not hugely. Given the post apocalyptic world, given the futuristic setting, given the larger than life character, I think people were expecting a story on a grander scale, more like a Prometheus or a Star Wars.

The story was enjoyable, but it was everyday for Dredd. It wasn’t one tiny crime that was actually part of a much larger conspiracy which he investigated and that led into a plot to destroy the whole of Megacity One. It was a story about a drug dealer trying to flood the city with her product, protect her home and industry by getting rid of two nosey but determined Judges. For all that was wrong with the Stallone Dredd film, and there was a lot which I won’t detail, the core of the story was much bigger. The elimination of naturally born judges and birth of a new race of genetically created and severely unbalanced Judges all based on the DNA of Rico, who wanted to change the whole of Megacity.

There were explosions and lots of gunplay in both films, and mercifully the light touches of humour were black in Dredd 3D and there was no comedy sidekick this time, but the scale of the threat was pretty small. What epitomised it for me is when Anderson looks out across the city and we can see several other Megablocks with their own names in neon down the sides and you realise this is just one story, in one Megablock, in a giant city that stretches from Boston to Washington DC.

I know several other people have compared Dredd to The Raid, and have said the latter is a better film. I’ve not seen it so can’t compare, but part of me thinks they shouldn’t be comparable movies. As I said, I did enjoy Dredd, but it felt like a very small story in a giant setting. It’s like getting out a massive piece of paper and then only drawing in one of the corners. I know what comic book fans and experts on all things 2000AD might say, but the film is something divorced from the comic. It should true to the heart of the source but it should also be different and epic. Yes, you absolutely can have small and personal films on the big screen, but they don’t feature a big bloke in a helmet with a giant gun on the poster. Dredd at the cinema should be a grander story, told on a grander scale. I would love to see another Dredd film more along those lines, but unless Dredd does really well on DVD and blu-ray, I don’t think we’ll see another one for at least another17 years or so. Overall definitely worth seeing, and it’s a great action film, but I would suggest you go with the right expectations and then you won’t be disappointed.

YA Comic Books

This idea has been somewhere in the back of my mind for a while, but it came together last week when Marvel Comics announced that they are launching a series of YA novels, based on their superhero characters. The first two announced are She-Hulk and Rogue, written by Marta Acosta and Christine Woodward and they will be published by Hyperion. I’m going to be stay optimistic. I’m going to say I’m excited by these and I hope they do very well. And I’m not being disingenuous. I want young people, those under 25, especially those under 20, to be interested in comic book characters, whether that’s from Marvel, DC or other publishers.

Superhero comics dominate the US comic book market, but in other countries superheroes are not the main focus. Despite the diversity that now exists in the US market, the majority of the top 100 comics every month are superhero titles. There are exceptions (Walking Dead, Saga etc) but mostly it’s superheroes.

In the last 2 years both Marvel and DC have had one of their biggest reboots and relaunches in a long time. Not just a bit of a tweak, but an almost (almost!) wipe the slate clean and start from issue 1 across the board at DC. Marvel took a right turn and all titles are gradually relaunching with new creators and very new directions. All of which has been great for me, as a lifelong comic book fan. Sales are good in general, but my gut tells me that the percentage of brand new comic book fans, coming into Marvel or DC for the first time because of these initiatives, is very small. My gut also tells me that not many of those were women.

DC and Marvel are always actively seeking new writers and they do mentor new writers. They pair them up with an established creator who helps them learn the ropes. We’ve seen this time and again at Marvel and now some of their most interesting and unique writers were once being mentored. Jonathan Hickman and Matt Fraction are two names that immediately spring to mind. DC are also doing it as well, and people like James Tynon IV first partnered with Scott Synder before writing solo books. It’s a tried and tested method.

Both companies also bring in writers from other mediums, TV, film and novelists. Sometimes it works out very well and we get writers like Duane Swierczynski and Allan Heinberg, both of who have done some very memorable work for Marvel and DC. Sometimes it doesn’t work and we get Jodi Piucoult. I am sure she is a lovely person and I know her novels sell very well, but her run on Wonder Woman was very short and she’s not been invited back. Her view of the character did not gel with the audience, sales were poor, and they tried a different approach with a new creative team.

I’m very aware that women read comics and superhero comics, but I think there are more men reading them than women. I also think it’s fairly safe to say that the percentage of new and young readers coming into the books is fairly small. I’m also pretty sure that if you took the average age of a mainstream comic book fan, it would be twenty or thirty something, if not older.

Here’s a wacky idea to get more new readers and more women reading comics. Perhaps, in addition to the YA books, Marvel and DC should hire some YA authors to write their teen comic books. As I mentioned above, it doesn’t always work out and if the person is not a fan of comics to begin with, or is not at least familiar with the medium, then the chances of success are fairly small. But I know of several YA authors, most of them women, who are massive comic book fans and I know they would love to write comics. Can and do some of them write their own independent comics? Yes. But getting noticed and getting the word out about one of those comics is a lot more difficult. Also, both of the big companies have some very well known brands and icons that are immediately recogniseable. It’s a lot easier to convince someone to take a chance and spend their money on a new Supergirl comic than something they’ve never heard of before.

I’m sure most, if not all of the YA writers, would need to be mentored first, and during that co-writing phase both the lead writer and the company would find out if it was working or not. But imagine if it worked. A Teen Titans book, written for a YA audience. Now this isn’t me dumping on any of the teen focused books that have gone before, because I have read and enjoyed some of them. But DC in particular made an effort to put some of their comics into sections. Here are the Dark books (Vertigo-esque) grouped into The Edge, here are the Teen books, here are the Batman books etc. So with the relaunch I’m not the target audience for Teen Titans.

In theory, it would also mean that if more younger readers jumped on board with the teen books and assuming they keep reading for several years, they would eventually progress to the mainstream titles. It would also mean more women reading comics, more female role models working in the industry, and hopefully more women who become mainstream comic book writers. The number of women writing at both companies, who are working on major icons, is tiny.

I’m not privy to what is going on behind closed doors at the Big 2, and I’m sure those who are may instantly reject my idea for a number of reasons, or perhaps if I am being optimistic, these sort of talks are already taking place. From an outsiders viewpoint, it seems like a sensible and logical idea to me. It ties together some of what they are already doing and it would tackle one of the biggest problems in mainstream comics. It wouldn’t solve everything but it would be a step in the right direction.

One Man Army

When I was growing up it seemed to me that there weren’t that many interesting books to read. Looking back, I know I was wrong. Obviously. However, at the time, I read fairly the fantasy genre and I went through pretty much everything I could find. Now I now read across several genres and non-fiction too, but if I just read fantasy novels there is no way I could keep up with the number being published. For starters I’m not a fast reader and although I love fantasy books and love reading, I do want to do other things with my spare time. So, now more than ever, whether it’s novels or comics or TV, it’s important to find your voice and stand out from the crowd.

Last week I read this tumblr article by comic book writer Gail Simone about brutal tips on breaking into the comics industry. It contains a lot of hard lessons, and some might whinge and say she’s just being mean, or she wants to discourage people from even trying. Yes, you have to be utterly realistic, but to be honest, if mean words and a harsh dose of the truth puts you off then maybe you should try something else. Or maybe you’re just not hungry enough. The most thought provoking part for me was her Step Three: Find Your Voice, Dammit. What do you bring to the table? What is unique about you and your view of the world? It’s something I’ll come back to in another post at some point.

For the longest time my parents have known I’ve wanted to be a writer, but even from a young age my dad impressed upon me the importance of a good education and good skills to get a good job. Writing was the passion, the dream, but it wouldn’t pay the bills and I had to be realistic. It didn’t kill my dreams, but it kept my feet firmly on the ground. I have those business skills now, and a good job and nice home, and although the road to get here has been a lot bumpier than I ever anticipated, my head is now in a good place and I can spend more time contemplating the creative. But, as Gail Simone mentioned, you need to be a sales person, so once again, and now it’s happening more times than I can count, I’m using my business and marketing skills as part of my creative endeavours. It’s something I honestly never thought would be needed. The article mentions being a good sales person, and you really need to be. You need to be able to talk convincingly and with passion about your work, about what it means to you, and what it is all about. See a previous post (Ok, but what is it about?) for more info on that!

As well as being a positive sales person you also need to be quite outgoing and approachable, because no one wants to work with or be associated with an arsehole. Ever. Find the worst or most obnoxious person on the train, or in your office, or on the street, and imagine that person wrote a book, comic or TV show you really loved. Now try and read it again with the same passion. I’m not saying you have to become someone else, but a friend of mine, Barry Nugent, is actually quite a shy guy, but in public you would never know it. He’s been podcasting longer than me, he’s written novels, hosted panels at events, and now he is running his own comics empire. He’s grown a thicker skin and the nerves that previously required liquid lubrication before being in public have faded. He’s a professional and he gets it done.

Whether you’re an author, comic book writer or any other type of creative person, you need to be able to navigate the online channels, be tech-savvy enough to know the difference between Facebook and Twitter, attend industry relevant events, get yourself interviewed, post articles on a blog or website, and basically create as much noise as possible about your work. Because although there are people that will help, and many more that work behind the scenes that most people don’t know about, you will have to do a lot of it for yourself. The work doesn’t stop when the novel, comic, or TV show is written. You need to make a splash, you need to stand out, you need to make your voice heard. There are exceptions to the rule, very successful authors, celebs and comic book writers even that never go near social media, don’t have a blog or a website. Good for them I say. But they’re pretty uncommon. For the rest of us, it’s necessary and very important. I saw some grumbling last week about people self promoting. Of course you have to do it and you should be. End of story.

If you’ve built up any kind of online following then those people are there for a reason. They like something about you and not telling them about your work is shooting yourself in the foot. Equally if you only fill your social media streams with self promotion posts and nothing else, then that is also shooting yourself in the foot.

In today’s crowded world, where there are more distractions than ever before across a multitude of different media, a creative person needs to be seen and heard, and you must be both business minded and bursting with imagination.

My Thirty Year Sporting Tradition

In general, I don’t like sport. For anyone that knows me, that statement doesn’t come as a surprise. Using the word sport in conversation (outside of the Olympics every 4 years) is a rare thing for me. I don’t follow any of what I would call the popular sports, football, rugby, cricket, golf, Formula One etc. I don’t support any teams and I don’t have a clue, nor care about player transfers, football managers being fired and hired, and so on. This excludes me from certain conversations, but that’s fine with me. I’m happy not to know and don’t want to. There are plenty of other things I’d rather spend my time, money and effort focusing on. So, what’s the sporting tradition then? And why today, the first day of the new year?

geoff When I about five or six years old, there was a local strongman event in my home town in the UK. I watched enormous men throw huge weights around, carry cars and pull trucks like they were toys. I’ve been a fan of strongman events ever since, and in particular the World’s Strongest Man event. Thirty of the strongest men in the world, whittled down to just ten, and then one. When I was very little I remember seeing Geoff Capes in person at such an event and he was a monster of a man, but also very nice with it.

Every Christmas, through the holidays and leading up to new year and final, WSM has been shown on TV. This year marks the 35th year of the World’s Strongest Man event. I watched it with my dad and brother when I was growing up, I watched it when I came home from university during the holidays, and I’ve continued to watch it every year now that I’m in my own home. There aren’t many traditions that I’ve followed that religiously but this is an important one to me.

logo2 I avidly watch the heats, cheer and shout at the television, and probably do all of the other things fans of other sports do on a weekly basis sitting in the stands at a match or game. I can quote stats, tell you about past performances and I’ve followed certain athletes for many years. Despite all of that, I’m probably a fairly moderate fan, as I don’t study it to the degree of some sports fans who know everything about their team, players and its history right back to the day it was started. There are WSM fans like that out, and good for them and their passion I say, but I am certainly passionate about it and hope to see it get more widespread attention.

giants Last year (well it’s only a few months ago now, but in the summer of 2012) I attended a live strongman event in Leeds. It was to find out who was Europe’s Strongest Man and it was a qualifying event for the big one. Ten of the strongest men in the world competed in front of a sell out crowd of five thousand and it was an amazing day. Afterwards I was also lucky to be able to meet some of my favourite athletes in person, shake their hand and have a quick chat. An amazing day, I’m booked up for next year in Leeds already, and there are other qualifying events all over the world ahead of World’s Strongest Man 2013 in Poland, Quebec, Finland, London, Melbourne, India and several other places. So if you’re looking for something new in 2013 check out Giants Live. I might see you there.

Books That Changed My Life – Part 2

This has slightly morphed into authors that changed my life more than particular books, but it’s still appropriate as I do mention specific titles by each of the authors.

Legend by David Gemmell – Gemmell was an enormous influence on me growing up, and together with Eddings and Brooks, he is partially responsible for my continuing love of the fantasy genre. Long before someone coined the phrase grim fantasy, or the more recent mocking term, grimdark fantasy, several writers were telling stories about grey characters. People who walked the line between good and evil. Those who stepped over the line in one direction and then the other, so that you were never certain of their loyalty. Starting with Druss, Gemmell showed me a world of very human men and women who were able to achieve the impossible when caught up in extraordinary circumstances. But there was always a cost. Even when magic was involved, which some people say gives you the ultimate mcguffin to get out of any trouble, there were consequences and the piper had to be paid. His characters lived by their own moral code and while some were to be admired, others were definitely disturbed individuals who believed they were doing the right thing. A couple of years ago I wrote a short article about why you should read Gemmell over at Fantasy Literature and I still believe he is required reading. Fantasy has even more striations and sub-genres than a few years ago, but he covered several of them over the course of his career and his audience went with him because of the strength of his writing. I hope some modern fantasy writers will also spread their wings in the same manner rather than continually mine the same sub-genre for the entirety of their career. Many modern fantasy writers are walking in Gemmell’s shadow and some may not even realise it, but long before they came up with it, he’d done it a few times and done it well. After the almost antiseptic feel of Eddings and early Brooks (I say early as his later novels were murkier), where good characters were nice people who fought the good fight, and the bad people all wore hoods and were born in darkness, Gemmell showed me that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it what’s you do that defines you. A hero can be cut-throat who saves an old woman from being mugged or a villain is a warrior who’s fallen from grace or has a moment of weakness. Redemption, loyalty, honour and protecting the weak. These themes were common in Gemmell’s stories and while some people find them archaic and quaint, I think they’re incredibly important and apt, now more than ever in our busy modern lives.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson – This is an incredible book. It’s short, and as I mention below with Le Guin, Matheson tells you a great deal with very few words. I’ve read this novel several times and I’m never bored of it. It’s truly horrifying, it’s disturbing, it’s worrying and it’s a story that has sat in the back of my mind for many years, lurking in the shadows like a patient toad. It’s one of the main influences on my comic series, Empyre, and there again Matheson showed me the power of having a good ending that really pays off. I’m not going to spoil it, but the end of this book is a real gut puncher. It makes you look back at everything you’ve just read and reassess it from a different angle. None of the film adaptations have done it justice and the ending is never loyal to the heart of the novel, which is a shame as it is incredibly powerful. One day a ballsy film-maker might do it right but we’ll see. This book also showed me how thin the veneer of modern society is and how quickly people can revert to something more primordial when a few modern comforts are taken away. It’s also a novel about the human spirit, about hope, about faith in humanity and struggling against seemingly impossible odds. There are so many things to discover in this novel and, depending on what you bring to the table when you read it, you can get something different from it every time. A remarkable novel by a master storyteller.

A Wizard or Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin – I borrowed this book, and then the sequels, from my local library when I was a boy and the stories stuck with me for years. A couple of decades later I bought my own copy of the trilogy (there was no quadrology in my day!) and re-read them. Le Guin taught me about the power of words and how you can use the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks. She taught me about how being frugal with your word count can force you to shape a sentence or paragraph so that it creates a very clear picture in the mind of the reader. You don’t need to ramble on and on, filling pages with endless details and world building, in order to make a character, race, city, or object appear convincing or realistic. In fact some of the most powerful books I’ve ever read are very slim volumes and some, not all, of the modern fantasy novels that are huge doorsteps are extremely padded with fluff. As a boy these novels fired my imagination and that is exactly what should be happening, especially in more fantastical novels. Your mind should help shape the world and characters and be partially responsible for transporting you there. In my opinion putting every single little detail on the page is a bad idea and it can have a negative effect. It can make the reader lazy, it can make the reading experience more passive than engaging, and no matter how exciting the story is, it can appear dull and flat, because the reader is observing it from a distance. Simplicity can beautiful and leave the audience wanting.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher – I’ve put Storm Front but in reality the whole Dresden Files series has had a massive impact on me. To date this is the longest series of books I’ve ever read by a single author. I’ve read more books by Stephen King and some other writers, but they’ve not been parts of a much larger story. In my opinion Jim Butcher is the best architect I’ve ever read. He spends a lot of time planning his novels and he’s done lots of interviews online if you want more info about how he does this. But in short he lays out the structure, works out the ebb and flow and the character arcs so that he knows exactly where he is going with the story. From speaking to some writers I know this approach horrifies them as there is less spontaneous creativity and no veering off down side streets to explore unexpected ideas that crop up during the writing process. The flip side of that is all of his novels have several pay-offs that are really well executed and extremely satisfying for the reader, and when you read the novels one after another, they hang together as a cohesive whole. Despite each novel in the series being a standalone story, each builds on the last as it follows the life of the main character, the wizard Harry Dresden. Butcher has taught me about the benefits of planning a story ahead of time, how subtle foreshadowing can pay off further down the line. He’s also taught me to trust the reader and to respect them. If you start to build towards something then you’d better do it right when the time comes and don’t wimp out or you’ll lose your audience if they can’t trust you. If that means wiping out a favourite character, and it is fitting with the story, then you should do it.

Books That Changed My Life – Part 1

The title and idea of this is…borrowed…from Den Patrick and the other good people at Blackwell’s in Charing Cross. They have written about 5 books that changed their life so go here and read them. So far I’m managed to whittle my list down to 8 books. I’ve probably missed off a couple so I’ll add them later. It also turns out I had more to say on these books than I anticipated so I’ve split it into two parts.

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings – When I was ten or eleven I remember seeing my brother reading this book. It wasn’t a big book so I wasn’t intimidated by it and when he told me it was fantasy I was intrigued. Looking at it now, in my thirties, I’m less enamoured by it and can’t read it without wincing, however, at the time it was fresh, exciting, and quite simply a wonderful book. Tolkien is a huge influence on many fantasy and genres writers, and he did have an impact on me, but I think Eddings had a greater influence because I read all of the Belgariad and then years later the Mallorian and several other books by him. I spent more time immersed in the worlds that he created and I spent a lot more time with his characters than Tolkien. I felt like Garion was someone I could see wandering the hallways of my school and I really wanted an aunt like Polgara and a grumpy old grandpa like Belgareth. By this time Tolkien had already passed away, so in my mind (at the time when I was eleven) he was old-fashioned fantasy, whereas Eddings was current and writing it for me, right now! Eddings gets a lot of grief from some quarters, and I think some aspects of the criticism are valid, however he was instrumental in my early reading and my love of the fantasy genre, so he definitely deserves to be on this list. These are definitely books to give to younger readers, pre YA even, to ease them into the fantasy genre.

Dune by Frank Herbert – There are some really amazing books, like certain TV shows, films, comedians or even individual comedic sketches, that people will quote for decades after the fact. Monty Python hasn’t been on TV for a long time but people still quote the Dead Parrot sketch, the Knights of Ni from the Holy Grail film, bits from the Life of Brian and so on. This book not only spawned several sequels by Frank Herbert, but it also generated several prequels written by his son and Kevin J. Anderson several decades later. The book has also been adapted into one film and, in my opinion, one really good mini TV series. Regardless of the quality of the sequels and the other spin-offs and adaptations, the ideas in this book are vast and the ground so fertile and rich, with ideas that they need exploring. The material is so interesting and so thought provoking and unique, that I still quote sections, ponder some of the decisions made and I also re-read it. The latter might sound like no great achievement, but there are so many books being published nowadays, and there are so many other distractions vying for my attention and my time, that to actually go back and reread a book is something I almost never do anymore. What Herbert did with Dune is expand my horizons and make me think beyond not only myself and my life, but beyond Earth to the future of mankind and what we, as a species, might accomplish if we ever stopped looking inwards so much and went out there to the stars. It also exposed me to ideas that were so big I couldn’t really grasp them at the time. The first time I read Dune I was too young and I knew I was missing some of the nuances and other material that was there between the lines. It’s such a rich and fertile universe that I just love spending time there and going on an epic journey with Paul. The other incredible thing is that this book hasn’t aged and someone reading it for the first time in 2012 would be as gripped as someone who read it in the 1960s or 1980s. The power of some classic SF novels has diminished, not just because of the advances in technology, but also because the world went in a different direction.

The Green Mile by Stephen King – I first read this in 1996 when it was still coming out in a serialised fashion. I was working in the USA for a summer and on the regular trips into town with my roommates I would regularly check the book store to see if the next installment had come out. You can buy it as a complete novel now, but back then King was releasing in approx six 100 page little booklets. It wasn’t my first King book by that time, but it is the one with which I connect the most. I’ve read many King books, not all of them, and some I’ve enjoyed more than others, but this is still my favourite King novel by a long distance. It’s been more than fifteen years since I read it and I’m still thinking about it. The man is an amazing storyteller and in my opinion he excels at characterisation and making the impossible and the unreal and the scary seem very possible. This is also one of the most emotional novels I’ve ever read and although the phrase rollercoaster is over used, the story took me through a huge range of emotions. This is an incredibly powerful novel about love, loss, the human spirit, sacrifice, compassion, cruelty and miracles. It really puts you through the emotional wringer and for me it is an incredible and very moving book. I should also point out that it is rare that a film adaptation of a novel is very good. The Green Mile by Frank Darabont is one of the exceptions and the film is one my favourites of all time. It’s just that good. For those who are unsure about Stephen King, I always recommend this book over his others.

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz – I came to Koontz quite late and I took a risk on him, because at the time, I’d not heard much about him. I was browsing a book shop and I lamented to a friend there was nothing new in the SFF section that looked very interesting. She told me to try another genre, so in a slight huff I wandered slightly to my right into the horror section and started reading the back of several books. This was my first Koontz novel but definitely not my last. Some of Koontz’s novels are brilliant and some I haven’t enjoyed, but I’ve now probably read 90% of his back catalogue. In terms of sheer creativity and the breadth of ideas, the man is a genius. He starts with a tiny seed of an idea on a card, often just a few sentences, and from that he turns it into a gripping and spellbinding story. He doesn’t plan, he does it all as he goes along completely organically and most of the time he’s successful in making the story a cohesive whole. Only a few of his novels are huge doorsteps and he taught me about economy of words and that you don’t need to waffle on and on to get the message across. Like King he also taught me that using an everyday word is often far better than something you’ve picked out of the thesaurus. He also taught me about conveying character through dialogue. Odd Thomas is a spooky, weird, and gripping story which starts from a slightly familiar premise but Koontz then takes it in a very unique direction. This novel proved to be so popular that he’s gone on to write several more with the same character, which is something of a rarity for him that he’s only done on a couple of occasions in his career, so it shows you there was something very special about this first one.

Part 2 next week.

Show Don’t Tell

I’ve posted a few times on here in a vague fashion about some of the comic projects I’m currently working on. Today I’ve decided to just show you some of the artwork and you can judge for yourself. The first two pages are from Empyre (with Adam Bolton and Ryan Taylor on art) and the second two from Flux (co-written with Pete Rogers and with art by Maysam Barza). Empyre has been submitted to a publisher and we’re awaiting their response and we haven’t submitted Flux yet but are getting close.

A New New Hope

I could be referring to the recent news about the American election, a result which gives me hope for the future, but I’m actually referencing the news about George Lucas selling Star Wars to Disney for the small sum of $4.05 billion. Disney have already announced that they are going to release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015 and they will make more films after that.

As an reasonably old person, to me Star Wars means Luke and Han Solo. It means puppet Yoda and puppet Jabba. It means the Death Star and model space ships. It doesn’t mean Qui-Gon, Darth Maul and dare I say it, Jar Jar. I have very mixed opinions about the prequel films, but on the whole I was extremely disappointed by them. The problems with Star Wars have never been the same as the issues that I have with Star Trek. For example in Trek, an alien can be a human with a bit of plastic stuck to the bridge of their nose and that’s it. Not all of the aliens are like that, and some of the most interesting ones in Trek are those who have been fleshed out over many years, Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians etc. Star Wars has always featured dozens of weird looking races, big and small, feathered and scaled, bug eyed and brightly coloured. The technology is diverse and endlessly fascinating. The worlds we glimpse in the movies are varied and there is so much imagination you couldn’t help being curious. The films went on to spawn so many novels, comics and animated projects over the years, which just shows what a big universe it is and how much fun people have spending time in it.

For me, the problems with the prequel films are the way in which the story was told. The actual story itself, the fall of Anakin from cheeky lad in the desert slum to surly apprentice, to uber-overlord of evil in the black mask, is a great story. It’s a tale of loss and falling into shadow. The journey from hero to villain, one that has been told many times before, and long before Breaking Bad did it.

So, I’m very hopeful and positive about Episode VII and beyond, because if VII doesn’t work and the story is not told very well, and the director is poor, that’s fine. Put it down to experience, get someone else in and try it again for the next one. Look at the Batman franchise over the years, or more recently the X-Men film franchise.

The reigns of the story and the universe are no longer in the hands of one man. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan of George Lucas for many reasons, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and all of his charitable work that doesn’t get mentioned as much. I also respect him enormously for saying he is going to give away his money from the sale of Star Wars to charity. He’s a remarkably creative man, but there are other people out there who are better at telling stories. Before, it was his world, his characters, his universe, and he could do whatever he wanted. He could tell the story he wanted in his own way. But we’re moving beyond that now.

So even though in the past I let myself get excited over the prequels, only to have my hopes dashed, I’m going to do it again, keep my fingers crossed, and stay positive about the new films and new direction of the Star Wars universe. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed that someone manages to persuade Mark Hamill to make a brief cameo as an older Luke. It would be very brilliant to see him in the role of older sage that Obi-Wan played to his character as a boy. Here’s hoping.

Bring Me My Red Shirt

There’s an old joke I remember from my childhood about a brave pirate. Whenever his ship is about to be attacked he calls for his red shirt which he wears over his other clothes and then fights as hard as he can. The idea being that no one will know if he is wounded because the blood won’t show. Then one day they are attacked by several ships at once and he calls for his brown trousers.

Anyway, the story is apt as I’m now approaching the critical red shirt stage. I’m not quite at stage two yet, but I think that will be next year when projects are no longer under my control and are in the hands of readers! This week, my artist partner in crime, Adam Bolton, will be at the New York Comic Con. Adam is the artist for an all ages book called ‘Where’s My Shoggoth?’ which came out about two weeks ago from Archaia and he will be signing copies at the Archaia booth. So if you are going to the show, please drop by and say Cthulhu at him and jibber and rave about monsters from the sea. He’ll appreciate that. And buy a copy of Shoggoth as well please. Anyway, Adam is also armed with about ten pages of Empyre (the four issue series which I wrote and he drew) which he will be showing to various people. While he is doing that I’m going to be sat here in the UK, biting my nails down to the quick, checking my phone every ten seconds to see if he’s sent me a text. And if not, why not? Should I text him? When is it appropriate to text him? After the first hour? First two hours? How many times can I text him before I become a nuisance? and so on. As I said, red shirt time.

Next month in the UK, is the Thought Bubble comic book convention, and Pete Rogers and I will be armed with completed pages from Flux, the mini series we have co-written. Maysam Barza, the artist, has been doing a remarkable job and I am very impressed with his work. Both Pete and I are confident that we have something quite special, so now it’s our turn not to mess it up and speak about it with both passion and clarity. The schedule for Thought Bubble was released yesterday and there is more of a focus on creator owned comics and Image comics than in previous years which is very encouraging. Eric Stephenson, the publisher of Image comics, and several Image creators will be attending, so I’ll be taking notes and listening closely to conversations throughout the weekend.

I think there’s definitely been a shift in the comics industry in the last two years, more so in the last ten months. More established creators are getting involved in creator owned projects, crowd funded projects and digital only projects. I could talk at length about that but I won’t here. The relevance to me is that readers are more open, now more so than ever before, to new voices, new characters and new publishers. For every well established creator working at the Big2, there are now two dozen names I’m vaguely familiar with who are slowly building their own following, through their creator owned and work for hire comics. Three years ago no one knew who Scott Snyder was, but now he is a rising star and his name is very familiar. Equally Jeff Lemire was known to some for his creator owned work like Essex County, and his Vertigo book Sweet Tooth, but it was his step into the mainstream with Animal Man that put him on the radar of many mainstream readers. There have always been new faces (artists and writers) at both companies, but there’s definitely been a bit of a change lately, or at least it seems that way to me.

Online digital platforms and catalogues like Comixology mean that once a reader has gone through their usual stack, there are so many other comics they can try with just a click of a button. Some people, retailers in particular, are very afraid of digital but in my opinion it’s another flavour, not something that will completely replace print. Nothing digital will ever be able to compare to a glorious hardback, super sized, collected edition with a sketch and signatures from the creators. IDW have been publishing some amazing art books that are glorious artefacts that would be inferior, in my opinion, if read on smart phone or tablet.

So the market is shifting and constantly evolving, and I’m trying to wade in and tread water and it is both terrifying and exciting. I’m really looking forward to what happens in the next few months and what 2013 will bring, which could see writing posts about when a comic book project will be published, rather than if it will be published. That’s when I move out of the red shirt phase.