Tal

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-28

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-28/

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Our Library Notebook is the perfect way to record those moments that drive you crazy, but will make a great story one day!

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-28/Oh%20Canada%20Reminder

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-28/Oh%20Canada%20Reminder/

http://www.peterdavid.net/2012/05/28/amalgam-contest-results-part-2/

http://www.peterdavid.net/?p=7726

Originally published May 16, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1226

Just to be utterly different, I’ve decided that–even though I’ll be running the concluding installment of our little Who fights Who/Amalgam contest next week–I’m going to run the winning entry this week. Why? Because it showed a staggering amount of initiative. Because the entrant created not only a statue, but the beginnings of an entire story to accompany it, and because–most important of all–the entrant didn’t put his name and address on the story. And the problem is that, when the entry gets separated from the cover letter… like now, for instance… it means we can’t give proper freakin’ credit. So we eagerly look forward to hearing from the creator of…

DOC SAVAGE DRAGON

…and who also was gung-ho enough to write the attached the opening chapters of his own vision of a megacrossover (and fella, when you write in to identify yourself, be sure to tell us what was written in marker on the binder , so we know it’s you.)

Herewith the opening chapters of a crossover by… some guy.

Man of Steel

 A visit from a couple of strangers leads The Man of Bronze into one of his most perplexing adventures. Is this stranger only a curious reporter, or is he a strange visitor who represents the shape of things to come?

Chapter 1

“The Tourists”

 New York. The easiest way to spot tourists visiting the world’s busiest city is to watch for the people standing on the street corners looking straight up and gawking. When the tallest thing you’ve seen in your life is a grain elevator, a skyscraper is a modern miracle. Even now, more than 20 years following the Great War, something as simple as a tower of granite and steel was a source of amazement. The two out-of-towners that hurried down the busy street were not of the usual variety. Reporters don’t think of themselves as anything other than reporters.

“Clark, slow down. Where’s the fire, besides in your eyes?”

This remark either didn’t register or was overlooked by her male companion. The companion was a tall, brick house of a man, dressed in a dark blue suite that looked to have walked out of a suit advertisement. His companion was a modern model of female pulchritude.

“Lois,” the man eventually replied, “if we don’t track this Savage character down today, Mr. White will have our necks. And make us pay back the cost of the train tickets, to boot.”

“Oh Clark, don’t tell me you believe those stories and all that ‘Man of Bronze’ malarkey. Honestly, your hayseeds are showing.” Lois Lane was struck by Clark’s serious tone since they had taken this assignment. She had met him only recently since he began working on the Daily Planet. But since this assignment had called for an interview with Doc Savage, the living legend of pulp headlines and tabloid fodder, Clark had insisted on talking with the adventurer. His determination at this puzzled her. Lois hated puzzles.

The meeting was set for noon. The fact that they were getting an actual interview was a miracle in itself. The bronze knight was an enigma. Most news stories carried the same information that had been repeated time and again. New information on the famous Doc Savage was as scarce as honest politicians.

The tallest of the skyscrapers was the bronze man’s headquarters. High above the teeming streets below, in the offices on the 86^th floor, Lois Lane and Clark Kent arrived in a reception room. There they were greeted by one of the bronze man’s assistants. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair was a man of many talents. Industrial chemist, adventurer, and missing-link possibility were among his claims of fame. Charm was one of his foremost.

His eyes were immediately caught by Lois Lane’s charms, of which there were many. If she was with someone else, Monk hadn’t noticed. “Monk Mayfair at your service, and any service I can provide I will provide with a smile.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Mayfair,” said Lois, playing along with Monk’s approach. No matter where they are, men are men. No matter what they look like, they all think they have the appeal of Clark Gable and John D. Rockefeller.

“Say, ain’t you in pictures? I’m sure someone as beautiful as you would knock them dead on Broadway.”

“Why no, Mr. Mayfair, I’m Lois Lane, and this is Clark Kent,” Lois replied. “We’re reporters from Metropolis. We’re here for an interview with Mr. Savage. But I’m sure I’ve seen  you in the movies.”

“When was this?” Monk asked, his chest puffing up in pride. “In a newsreel of important chemical breakthroughs or my great adventures?”

“I’m not sure,” Lois replied, “but I think that airplanes were trying to shoot you down.”

Getting the air was nothing new for Monk. “I’ll check with Doc and make sure everything’s jake. Have a seat.” Monk slunk out of the room.

Chapter 2

“Take My Life, Please–”

Clark Savage entered the room. The room grew remarkably smaller. Such was the presence of the bronze Goliath. It is commonly believed that women mature much sooner than men. It is a fact that Lois Lane matured much sooner than most women. So the fact that Lois suddenly felt like a teenager in the bronze man’s presence was to later embarrass her. However, this was now. Kent, on the other hand, was altogether different. He was like an unruly juvenile being met by the school principal.

“Mr. Savage, I’m Kent from the Daily Planet.” Kent had risen and held out his hand to the bronze man.

“Clark, please,” replied Doc Savage.

“Clark, please what?” replied the nervous Kent. Before he realized what he had said, it was too late.

They looked at each other and smiled. Lois was still oblivious.

At the large, inlaid table in the library, Kent began his questions. The questions began simply enough, but the bronze man began to sense a drive in the questions as Kent went on. “So why are you driven to act as the world’s guardian, Mr. Savage?”

“Well,” the bronze man replied, “I really didn’t have much choice. It’s as if I was born into a world where the normal man is either unaccustomed or unprepared to deal with such major threats that are out there. Most times, there are things that I cannot believe but can nonetheless handle. What the world needs is a true Superman.”

Pondering this, Kent followed up with his next question. “But you’re Doc Savage. You can handle anything. You don’t assume any other personality, right?”

“No, I am who I am. A secret identity would be more of a hindrance that a help.” Clark Kent thought this over as he took his notes. He wondered, how hard could it really be, after all?

Doc Savage watched Kent as the reporter asked his questions and wrote his notes. Savage sensed another motive but couldn’t pinpoint it.

“So, we know who Doc Savage is. We know where he lives and that the entire world is his battlefield. But where do you go when you need some time to unwind?”

“I have a place,” the bronze man replied, “a place of solitude, actually more of a fortress, you might say.”

Kent thought this over. A fortress of solitude. Wow, what a concept.

One thing that Clark Savage wasn’t taught by the army of professors and the tribes of bushmen and medicine men was the science of instinct. This was self-taught and never wrong in such matters. The room was suddenly filled with a low trilling sound. It rang in Kent’s ears. It was the first time he had heard such a sound, and although he could easily trace the source, he said nothing.

For Savage, the veils had been lifted and he suddenly knew the reasons behind young Mr. Kent’s questions. He felt that he owed Kent the following speech. The man of bronze, his voice firm, filling the massive room, began to speak to Kent.

“Each of us has a destiny to fulfill. We like to thank that we ourselves have little choice in the path that we travel. That there are conditions that are out of our control that make us what we are. Unfortunately, we have all the choice and all the responsibility of our actions and lives. In my case, I was born into a life that was to be dedicated to battling crime in all its manifestations. It is truly a neverending battle. I was given the training, the skills, and have shown the aptitude. Above all this, however, was my willingness to accept this life. In taking on such a life, every gain is a loss. To put yourself in the line of fire means no entanglements. No family, no friends, no close ties of any consequence. They all become targets. They are merely steps to get you.”

Kent thought of his attraction to Lois. Would that be denied him once his own quest began? Savage continued, “My five associates are trained for this life. Other friends have been murdered. My father was murdered. I cannot seek revenge. This is not part of my code. My code is set and I cannot change it. I have not taken another life.

“I know of a fellow crimefighter here in the city. He is not as open as I am. He works in the shadows and feels no compunction for the taking of human life. I don’t condone but I’m in no position to stop him. That is his code. Revenge is not the basis of my operations. I work for the common good. It is not a life to be rushed into. You must consider all the options, good as well as bad. Once you begin to travel down this road, there is no turning back. Don’t you believe all that stuff in those dime novels. If they had their way, they’d have me leaping off tall buildings.”

Kent smiled.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2012/05/last-kickstarter-post.html

We're in the last four days of Amanda's Kickstarter.

Over the last almost-a-month of the Kickstarter she's gathered a huge amount of support, set records for what crowdfunding can do, made the news internationally,  and she is now planning a giant webcast block party in Brooklyn on Thursday night for the people who supported the project and to count down to 11:59 when the Kickstarter ends and she starts to play.

She's certainly got enough supporters, and she's already well exceeded her goal and is somewhere off into the land beyond her wildest dreams. (As I write this she's 900% funded, and looks on course to make this a million dollar Kickstarter.) But I still thought I'd stick something up here, in the last few days, because...

We put together the Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer Kickstarter last year, to raise the money to professionally record the West Coast tour we did in November. We raised a lot more money from the Kickstarter than we had expected, so we made everything we could even better than anyone had expected. The double CD we had planned to do became a beautiful triple CD package, for example, and then we did a special super secret bonus CD with a banana on it to go along with that - as well as over two additional hours of extra material we released digitally for all the supporters. We worked very hard to make sure that everyone who supported us got something better than they had thought they were getting when they signed up.

And when the stuff started showing up in people's mailboxes and they started posting happy photographs of their stuff (like these...)




...then people here and on Twitter and on Tumblr started sending me sad messages, telling me they wished they had supported the Kickstarter, they'd missed it as they hadn't seen it, or had forgotten, or were broke at the time -- but was it too late to get the stuff?  I wrote back a lot, and said yes, I was sorry but it was too late. We'd only made enough for the Kickstarter backers.

(We do plan to release An Evening With Neil and Amanda commercially, probably towards the end of the year. And it'll be a nice package, but it won't be what the Kickstarter folk got. That was special, and it was just for them.)

Amanda will be releasing a version of her new CD to the public in September. That's the one you'll be able to buy at your local store. But the two CD set inside a book (the blue thing on the right), or the quadruple vinyl in its box, or whatever else she decides to throw in to the other levels, the art-book she's making -- that stuff will only exist for Kickstarter.  If you want it, or any of the other rewards (down to the $1 reward that gets you the whole album digitally when it comes out, which I promise will be significantly cheaper than it'll be on iTunes) then this is really just a reminder that you only have four days to click on the Kickstarter link and support it...



...

Amanda did a post the other day on her blog and for backers, explaining that, no, a million dollar Kickstarter wasn't actually going to make her rich. People are signing up for things, she'll make the things and provide them, but she doesn't get to put a million dollars into a swimming pool and then throw it into the air, like Uncle Scrooge. It's not tax-free donations, it's people signing up for services.

So, to clarify:

The Kickstarter exists to fund a CD release (to the public, not Kickstarter supporters) and a tour (ditto).

The Kickstarter money funds the studio and promotional costs (just as a record label might have done). The business model isn't, Make Money From 20,000 people. It's Use 20,000 people to crowdfund the costs of manufacturing and distributing and promoting a CD and a tour to the General Public. And then get rich from that.

You'd think a band who took their video and studio and promotional budget from a record label and used it as income instead of as an investment in their future were being pretty shortsighted. That's the Kickstarter money: it's a video and promotional and design and manufacturing and touring budget. That's what it's for.


...

There. That's the very last post about Amanda's Kickstarter, unless I start blogging from a rooftop in Brooklyn when it's all over, as the NYPD haul Amanda and the Grand Theft Orchestra away. She says they have all the permits in place for a midnight rooftop gig, and they've even hired the police to block off a road and so on. I just think of the Beatles on the roof of the Apple building, and the legion of uniformed cops who appeared to make them stop...

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-27

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-27/

link to this strip | tweet this | share on facebook | email us | signed print

This classic Unshelved strip originally appeared on 12/4/2002 .

Our Library Notebook is the perfect way to record those moments that drive you crazy, but will make a great story one day!

http://www.peterdavid.net/2012/05/26/poo-poo-poo/

http://www.peterdavid.net/?p=7770

See, I want to write all this effusive stuff about Kathleen because it’s our wedding anniversary today. We’ve been together eleven years and I want to write about how much she means to me and how I wouldn’t be able to get through days without her, and how my life only makes sense when I’m with her.

But I’m having real trouble doing so and for a while I wasn’t sure why. I mean, normally writing about stuff isn’t difficult for me at all. It’s kind of, y’know…my thing. But I found myself stymied, and especially after reading her lengthy testament to me over on her own blog. Why would I have trouble with writer’s block over something like this?

After giving it some thought, I think I’ve determined why.

I think it’s because I’m Jewish.

See, here’s the thing: as one would expect from a people whose biggest holiday involves spending three hours in synagogue apologizing for sins while not eating, and whose country has been under siege pretty much non-stop from the day they hung up the “Open For Business” sign, we have a knee-jerk tendency to (as Mel Brooks notably wrote) hope for the best but expect the worst. This is so ingrained that if someone shows off their newborn infant, and you say “What a beautiful baby” within earshot of your great grandmother, she will immediately say “Poo poo poo.” Complimenting a baby, according to tradition, risks attracting the attention of the Evil Eye,which abominates beautiful children and will do horrible things, up to and including taking the child in its sleep. So either you say, “What an ugly baby” to make sure the Evil Eye doesn’t notice, or else–if someone should thoughtlessly say something flattering, say “poo poo poo” to ward off the Evil Eye. (Hence the lasting popularity of A.A. Milne’s work in Jewish families.)

So I now realize the reason I internally flinch at the prospect of talking about how happy I am, and how wonderful and patient and loving and caring and giving Kathleen is. How wonderful she has been not only as a constant, dependable and steady maternal presence for my three older girls, but also how much joy I feel for the beautiful (poo poo poo) youngest daughter she gave me nine years ago. Because if I talk about all that, I can’t shake the fear that the Evil Eye will be reading this blog and say, “Challenge accepted!”

So instead I will simply confine myself to saying that I love her and can’t imagine life without her.

Poo poo poo.

PAD

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-26

http://www.unshelved.com/2012-5-26/

link to this strip | tweet this | share on facebook | email us | signed print

This classic Unshelved strip originally appeared on 12/3/2002 .

Our Library Notebook is the perfect way to record those moments that drive you crazy, but will make a great story one day!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OutOfAmbit/~3/I9ay6gKpLO4/

http://www.dianeduane.com/outofambit/?p=2581

This is a work I did long before there was much of an (accessible) internet on which to discuss it, and it’s a hoot to find now that the bits of it I liked best, which were inaccessible to me for a long time, are now on the Web where I can get at them. (Along with everybody else.)

Erin Roberts at Electronic Arts brought me on board to help develop the story and do the screenplay for P2:TD in 1995, and to this date it holds the record for the largest piece of screen work I’ve ever done — more than three hundred pages of screenplay, counting all the alternate endings and side-branchings of the story. It was a very early attempt at interactive film, with healthy doses of live-action material interspersed amid the gameplay. This being the reason that until now I’ve seen so little of the filmed material: I kept screwing up the gameplay and couldn’t advance.

What astonishes me now, though, is the cast. You can see the credits sequence here — and if you now tried to cast a film with all those Names in it, you’d be implying a very serious budget indeed. The marvelous thing is that they were all apparently quite excited to get involved with what was then a most unusual project. (Though probably not half as excited as I was to find out they were getting involved with it. I mentioned to Erin at one point that I had developed the beer-related religion that appears at one point with Brian Blessed in mind as its preferred local cleric… and was completely knocked flat when I found out that they’d actually cast him. That was the way things kept going all that while: it was a magic time for me, even if the writing work meant that I sometimes had to spend a couple of weeks at a time away from home, shut up working in a hotel in Slough and missing Peter like crazy.)

…When we were down at Warpcon in Cork in January of this year, we ran into fellow writer Gunnar Roxen, and while chatting with him, P2:TD came up in passing. So I was delighted just now to find that Gunnar’s posted background and links to some of the cinematic material from the game to YouTube (as have various others: normally they seem to come up in the YouTube sidebar, for those who’re interested in investigating further).  The teaser to the game is here: and here’s a YouTube playlist of some of the filmed sections that Gunnar posted up.

Enjoy!