Reading Watchmen in the Bath (Ruminating on Prequels)

There are few things I enjoy more in this world than a good ‘ol bloody comic with some lavender bubble bath.

I am rereading Watchmen because I am still on the fence about DC’s latest money-making-PR-fiasco, Before Watchmen.

For those of you out of the geeky little comics loop, DC Comics is writing a prequel to the bestselling Watchmen. If you don’t know what Watchmen is, then please hold still so I can punch you.

There isn’t a lot known about the prequel series other than that it will be one-shots about various characters, some of the writers on the project, and Alan Moore absolutely hates the entire idea of it.

Now before I go annoying the entire fan community, let me say this: I love Alan Moore. I laughed out loud at Supreme, devoured Watchmen and V for Vendetta and even though I still am at odds with it I was fascinated by Promethea.

But here’s the thing: Alan Moore does not own Watchmen, and after abandoning comics and his creations he doesn’t have leave to act all angry anytime DC does what any company would do and try to make a dime (frankly, I can’t believe they waited this long).

I don’t mean this in a legal sense, or a moral sense. I am all for creators’ rights and giving respect where it’s due. I believe all writers should have some measure of control over there creation. However, I believe in stories more.

Watchmen is a universe. The book was not the beginning or the ending but simply a middle slice of this world. If Bob Kane had acted like Alan Moore, would we even have DC Comics? No. Good stories are built by people sharing together. Yeah, there’ll be some crappy ones too, but the point is that the world will flourish.

I hate those authors (*cough* Anne Rice *cough*) who rail against fanfiction, as if it’s some sort of horror that people love your writing enough to want to add to it. And frankly, for all of Alan Moore’s talk of artistic purity he hasn’t made any compromises himself, nor has he done anything in the genre for at least a decade. Comics are by nature a medium meant to be shared.

Do I wish that this was a Minutemen-focused series and not seven one-shots of the characters we already know? Yes. But you know what? The eighties are over. Moore isn’t writing anymore. Yes, DC’s been dickish, but so has he, and everyone needs to take a break and realize that no matter how good it is, it’s a comic. If Before Watchmen sucks it’ll be forgotten in 50-cent bins before the end of the year. If it rocks, we’ll all be better off. Its time for someone else to get a chance to play in the sandbox.

An interesting experiment, not a mortal sin.

Day 2 and Poetry

Hello, all. Today I wrote 343 words, so I am still on target! 28 days left before the scientists say that not writing will feel like not brushing my teeth.

Today’s Tidbit of Random is one of my favorite poems, a short little thing by Howard Nemerov.

Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow 
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

Addict

I realized today that I have devoured oner seventy issues of James Robinson’s Starman in slightly over ten days. And it’s not like it’s the most brilliant comic I’ve ever read (that probably goes to Batman: Year One or Supreme: The Return). I just had to finish it.

The same thing happened when I started watching The Office. It’s not one of my favorite TV shows. I don’t even find it all that funny. But somehow I watched all seven seasons in two weeks. While I was in school.

Books and I have a long and contentious relationship. I love them. I have had some book characters living inside my head for years (I’m talking to you, Leo). Others I have obsessed over and pulled apart until I feel like I’m going stir crazy inside the plots. 

On one hand, this is good. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without Sherlock Holmes (the books, my dear), Harry Potter, Captain Picard, Victor Frankenstein, and a host of other more obscure characters with me.

The first time I read Sherlock Holmes I was twelve, and it was a hot, sticky summer with nothing to do. It was the first summer where all we neighborhood kids felt too grown up and too pretentious to play the pickup capture-the-flag games that we used to. It was only a two-minute walk to the local elementary school and I used to go there and sit hunched over on a swing and read until my neck hurt from bending.

The copy I have was my mother’s, a complete set of all the Holmes tales. It’s about as thick as a brick, with onion-skin paper and gold writing on a black cover. It smells like dust, and back then I would have to switch hands every few minutes, from the heaviness. I always liked Watson a little better than Holmes, but then again I think we were meant to.

I can tell you all this about a book, and yet I can’t remember the first time I held my baby sister, although I know it must have been around the same time.

Not my drawing by the way. But squee-worthy.

And oh, how happy I was when I discovered fanfic. If you’ve ever been to Fanfiction.net you know the wealth of stories on that site, and how they could let a girl happily explore for months. And for months I did, delving into gen, slash, cross-overs, and every other geeky slang-tern you can imagine from fluff to lemon. There are very few things that compare to three hour chunks spent reading piles of Justice League and comic book and Sherlock Holmes fanfic. I’ve posted more comments using the word “squee” than I ever imagined I would. To date, I’ve contributed 100,000 words of my own. I find it soothing, friendly, and instantly gratifying. Also, a little shameful. Incidentally, this is about the mix of feelings I’ve heard alcoholics describe.

I alway have a book with me. I love them. I read under the table even though I know damn well that it would do me good to actually listen in Statistics for once. When things get awkward or when I just don’t know anyone I pull it out. My books are my security blanket.

Once, at the very end of tenth grade, a boy told me that I talk like a book.

I am quiet. I do not talk like a normal person. I like symbolism, and metaphors, and discussions about politics and religion. Sometimes, I think I would be better off as a girl who didn’t fall in love with Italo Calvino but who could comfortably have a conversation on the telephone.

The summer when I devoured Holmes, I devoured it because I had nothing else. The only two books in the house I hadn’t finished were it and Little Women, and the only thing Little Women ever taught me was what kind of girl I do not want to be. That was the summer when my mother refused to take me to the library. She said she was afraid I was addicted to books. I think what she thought was that by not letting me get new books she could break the cocoon of the imaginary world I’d built around myself, so I’d be the type of girl to smile at strangers and make friends with a handshake. My mother, you see, was not that type of girl either, though my sister was. I think she wanted to show me the easy path, and I also think she knew she would fail.

She was partially right in her fears. I have never had as many friends as my sister–the social butterfly and easy talker–but I have had better friends. Deeper ones. I have friends who I have known for a third of my life, who I can truly tell anything, and who trust me the same.

I don’t trust anyone who says they don’t read.

I do not talk easily, but I do it well. I can appear stony and cold, but I am not quick to anger or rashness. I am judgmental, I admit; I don’t like girls with high voices who giggle too loudly and think too little, but I know myself enough to choose my friends wisely. If I lose friends, it isn’t over fights or betrayal, we simply grow apart. I am smart. On the ACT I beat the boy who was three years ahead in math because there are two languages sections.

I am obsessive, but I am not alone in that. An addiction to language and words and imagination is certainly better than heroin or cocaine or vodka. I value my mind too much to lose it.

I would rather be this person than another. I would rather know what its like to roll lines of poetry around in my mouth like fine wine than give it up for comfort in crowds. I do not like people, at least not the sort of people who smile too easily and too often. This odd sense of humor I possess is better than being able to laugh at Will Ferrell. I’m the type of girl to smell old books and rub my hands across the leather, the type who collects ’50′s and ’60′s science fiction dime novels and stacks of comic books.

I like my life. I like being one of those odd little library girls. I am not the only one, I know. Perhaps this addiction of mine is not strictly healthy, but I would rather have it than not.

I Am a Bad Geek

I pride myself on my geekness. I can name pretty much every comics character ever, have picked apart obscure historical events for hours (did President Harding really die of heart failure? Or was he murdered?) and adore small art films.

And yet, I do not understand Ghost World.

I have tried. I have. Heck, this was the book that was called “a revelation about adolescence that is both subtle and coolly beautiful” and “evocative.” I should get this. It should speak to me.

I liked Fun House. Loved Persepolis (although I liked Part1 better than Part 2), and I am very fond of Adrian Tomine’s ultra-realist series Optic Nerve.

But I just…don’t get it. At all. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t seem like much to me. The ending confuses me. While I can relate to the “problem” (if you want to call it that) I can’t figure out what it all means or why all the events are there or how everything connects.

Maybe in two or three years I try it again. But for right now I’ll let this one remind me that for now at least I haven’t accessed the highbrow comics.

Stalking People in the Supermarket

I’ll admit it–I like people watching perhaps a little too much. Have you ever seen those commercials where they show three items someone bought and then whatever inane scenario they’re going to use them for? There’s one with Batman? I swear they stole that idea from me.

Take the elderly lady in line ahead of me. She was buying scarlet nail polish, a foot bath…and a butcher’s knife.

Or the 20-something guy who spent literally five minutes reading the nutritional information on all the different brands of pickles.

Or the couple who argued about what flavor of Kool-Aid to buy (lime or orange) despite the fact that those things are like a dime apiece and if you’re so hard off that you can’t afford two Kool-Aid packets then you got bigger problems, honey.

Heck, even the kid who kept darting in front of me, shouting “Can  get this? This? This?” until his mother ran him over with the shopping cart. And when he went “Waahh!” she said, “Well look out.”

Whoo boy. I’m sure glad I ain’t her kid.

I don’t know if any of these people will end up as characters in one of my projects (hint: the mom’s a definite) but they’re now filed away in the back of my head. All writers should try stalking grocery shoppers.

Seriously. Social convention, you say? Who’s ever cared about that?

This is Why Scholarships are So Hard to Get

“Write about a memory in which you realized you were growing up”

“Write about why you feel you are ready to apply at this point in your life, or choose your own topic”

“Write about an accomplishment that was important to you but went unnoticed by others.”

“Write about an elected official who used courage to solve a problem. We do not recommend using presidents, nor anyone who was written about in a previous winning essay.”

“Write about how your generation is different than the one that raised you.”

Is it any wonder that college regularly triggers hidden mental illness and various psychosises including but not limited to frequent headdesking?

Victory!

I have had a bang-up week. Not only did I submit a story (finally!–and I’m really proud of this one too. Time travel crossbred with steampunk and existentialism) but I got down the first draft of a scholarship essay, wrote almost 1,500 words in a new story, managed to get a little in Project Carson and even revisited The Revolutionaries, my much neglected sci-fi project. On top of that, I’m looking forward to completing the infinished short story I unearthed in my hard drive and even have an idea for my Frankenstein analysis that should fill 1,700 words.

I still haven’t been writing every day, but it’s certainly been much more regular. Feelin’ good.

More Reflections on Being a @#$%-ing Female

Because this week is angst week here on Alphabetically Inclined.

Certain things befuddle me about being female. For instance, pantyhose. Pantyhose are the spawn of Satan. Parachutes, t-shirts, and waterproof sports bags are all made from nylon, and yet you’re telling me that humanity is incapable of producing a pair of pantyhose that doesn’t run the minute I take a step? That does it, pantyhose, not men, are oppressors of women. The things cost as much as a couple of comic books a pop.

Speaking of comics, here is a word of advice to all school-age nerdy girls out there. Never tell your highschool counselor that your career aspiration is “comic book writer”, especially not if your GPA is over 3.5. Because he (being a foggerty old person) will look at you and say, “Comics? But you’re a girl, and smart.”

To which you will reply, with a long-suffering exhalation, “Yes. I know.” And he will recommend you take the “successful relationships” class because that is the class for deviants.

Sigh.

Or shop class. I took shop class. Guaranteed, it was called the super-fancy name of “Tech Ed” but I was one of about 4 girls out of 31 kids. And when it was clean-up time at the end of the hour, the teacher (male) said, “The girls will sweep up, they know how to do it right.”

Well, if we do it so well maybe you ought to teach the boys to be SELF-SUFFICIENT HUMAN BEINGS.

The best thing about being male is that males are allowed to not fit the mold. If you’re an antisocial male computer nerd, everyone assumes you will be Bill Gates. If you’re an antisocial female computer nerd, everyone assumes you will die alone.

Gah.

I promise to return to something remotely related to writing next week.

Age Awkwardness

(Note: I am rating this Not Safe For Work just in case)

I am at that strange point in one’s life where I consider myself an adult, but an not considered an adult by the over-thirties (aka the “adults”). Physically, I am capable of bearing a child but if anyone suggested I do so I’d probably clock them.

The women’s undergarments section of a department store is one of the oddest bundle of contradictions I’ve ever seen. The entire marketing goal of the industry is to make females feel younger, and yet they seem almost psychotically incapable of marketing to anyone over thirteen and under thirty-five.

What self-respecting person wants little kitty cats on their bras? Or fucking rainbows? A woman who wants to keep her pedophile boyfriend interested?

Meanwhile, all the other ones scream AGE DEFYING LIFT! with pictures of happy half-naked exhibitionists grinning and posing either with their hands on their hips or cupping their own breasts because apparently the brassieres aren’t doing a good enough job. Frankly, I don’t think I’ve quite hit the point where I need to worry about defying it with hidden underwire.

While I was standing in the aisle an extra helpful saleslady decided that I looked lost.

SALESLADY: Can I help you?

ME: Well, I….I think I’ve pretty much got it here. Just buying a new bra.

SALESLADY: Well this style is good for you “perky” girls.

Trust me, men, there is no way for a random customer-service person to comment upon a woman’s anatomy without making said woman stare at them and have an intense desire to kill them. Perhaps that’s my overreaction, but call me crazy for not liking saleslady oogling.

I’ve been having a lot of these experiences lately, where I’m both glad that I am a young whippersnapper but also wanting to look people in the eye and say “Yes, I am capable of independence, but thank you.”

Or maybe that’s just my grumpy old man side.

 

The Ever-present Mystery Girl

I was digging through my stuff today (continuing from when I attempted to clean but got distracted by all the lost things on my computer), and of course I found more things–namely, my first three “novels”.

The first is about eight pages written in purple magic marker on a third-grade dare. It’s called Angle Kid (because as a third-grader I couldn’t spell “Angel” apparently). The first line is “Cam (short for Cameron) was again daydreaming.” The rest of the story (or the 2 1/2 chapters I completed) is about Cam making friends with a mysterious girl who lives in the forest by her house.

The second is from fifth grade, around 30 pages this time. This one was titled Children of Fate and began, “New York City’s Central Park. An area for fun and nature. Unseen, however, are hints of other things. Poverty, hunger, and unknown magic.” This one is about a rich boy who meets a girl who lives in Central Park, and they go have an adventure in a magical land.

The third (and last) of my childhood novels is called Legion and is the only one that’s actually finished–if you count 114 handwritten pages as ‘finished’ but I digress. I thought I’d lost this one until I found it in a box of random papers under my bed. It’s the tale of a gang of superhero teenagers and essentially follows what you would expect from a comic book put to paper. And yes, there was another metahuman whom they discover–a mysterious girl.

For awhile I tried to resist this character, but the stories I wrote during that time were never quite as important to me. Eventually I matured a bit (or hopefully a lot), and finished my first novel. And then I promptly realized that that book’s leading lady was just Mystery Girl named Becky instead of Anya. Holy crap, can I not get rid of this chick?

I put that novel down and started my three most recent projects (Project Carson, Project Karen, and The Revolutionaries).  Karen failed. The other two, in one way or another, both have forms of the Mystery Girl in them. Not always main characters, but they’re there, darn it.

Augh.

So I guess I’ve got to accept that this weird green-eyed chick keeps invading my stories. Some writers have themes (Andrew Clements and child empowerment, anyone?), or settings, or heck even weirdly specific genres that permeate their body of work. Maybe I’ll get famous someday and years afterward English students will curse my name because they have to analyze the significance of the green-eyed girl, and how she evolves throughout my fiction.

(Well I can dream at least)