In April of 2011, I went to my first Boston Comic Con, right around the corner from my old apartment. It was a bit of a homecoming–a breakfast of eggs benedict and Guinness at Charlie’s, a lunch at Chili Duck.  My first evening at the Con, I went to McGreevy’s (another former haunt, the perfect beer stop midpoint between Berklee and my apartment) to attend the League of Ordinary Gentlemen podcast Comic Con Party. I ended up meeting Matt Dursin, one of the eponymous Gentlemen, and we decided that I should go on their podcast at some point.

That some point ended up being Memorial Day of 2013, and the conversation was well worth the wait. I had a blast catching up with Matt, meeting (or re-meeting) Clay and Josh and discussing my work, both in the non-fiction and fictional realms (as I say in the interview, my non-fiction work supports my fiction habit). In the space of an hour, we covered everything from Comics for Film, Games and Animation: Using Comics to Construct Your Transmedia Storyworld to Whiz!Bam!Pow! to the massive debacle that is DC’s New 52 to my attempts to sell my DVD of Frank Miller’s The Spirit at a garage sale. We also chatted about our love of old school comics and the dire straits (in spite of spawning billion-dollar franchises) in which the comics industry currently finds itself.

So if you’ve got a free hour, hop on over to the League’s website, and have a listen. And be sure to check out their other podcasts – the Gentlemen do some fantastic work.

League of Ordinary Gentlemen Podcast Episode 153 – An Interview with Tyler Weaver

The vast majority of my (public) output these past few months has been in the form of a series entitled “Stories I Love.”

To qualify for that monicker, a story must speak to me in ways that inspire my own work and make me look at things a little differently. In short, they inspire me to do better. Here’s the collection as it stands, with the newest edition penned on May 26, on Horror of Dracula.

Stories I Love: GRAND THEFT AUTO

Stories I Love: HORROR OF DRACULA 

Stories I Love: DEUS EX 

Stories I Love: THE RITE (RIOT) OF SPRING

Stories I Love: THE THIRD MAN

Stay tuned as I’ll be adding more to this collection. And for a deeper peek at things I love or things that fascinate, be sure to follow my Tumblr blog, Penny a Word.

In 1954, Frederic Wertham, a psychiatrist and advocate for underprivileged children, published Seduction of the Innocent, a book which would go on to decimate the comics industry of the 1950s, leading the legendary (and sadly, recently passed) artist Carmine Infantino to remark, “The work dried up, and you had nowhere to go. You couldn’t say you were a comics artist, and you had nothing to put in your portfolio. If you said you drew comic books, it was like saying you were a child molester.”

In the sixty years since Seduction‘s publication, Wertham’s findings have been considered dubious and deceptive (at best). In 2010, his personal papers were finally released and Carol Tilley, Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana, discovered hard evidence of Wertham’s deceptions. Tilley’s resultant article, Seducing the Innocent: Frederic Wertham and the Falsifications That Helped Condemn Comics, was published in the November 4, 2012 issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History.

Professor Tilley was kind enough to chat with me at ComicStoryworld. Here’s an excerpt of our interview:

While best known as the man who nearly killed comics, Wertham was also an advocate for underprivileged children, with Seduction of the Innocent being a rallying cry of overprotectiveness. With the fabrications you uncovered in your research, and your access to his personal papers, did you come across anything that spoke to a view on the part of Wertham that “the ends justify the means?”  Did Wertham truly believe that he was acting in the best interest of those whose stories he over-simplified (at best) or manipulated (at worst) to fit his thesis?  

Wertham was genuinely motivated to help people who he believed were vulnerable, whether those folks were young comics readers or children attending segregated schools or patients in psychiatric wards. Yet in his work on children and comics, he seemed early on to have gotten blinded by his dislike of and anger toward comics publishers and others who profited from the industry. As I wrote in my paper, Wertham “gave readers a clear indication that rhetoric must trump evidence: commenting about a colleague, Wertham wrote [Seduction, p. 351], “Neutrality—especially when hidden under the cloak of scientific objectivity—that is the devil’s ally” [Tilley, “Fredric Wertham and the Falsifications that Helped Condemn Comics,Information & Culture: A Journal of History 47 (4, November 2012)].

You can read the entire interview, Contrary Evidence – An Interview with Carol Tilley at ComicStoryworld. 

The Chimes of Baoding is the first installment in Mystery Illusion Theatre, my new series of stories featuring heroes, villains, ne’er-do-wells and ruffians forced into trees and dodging the rocks I sling at them with unrepentant malice.

With each installment written in two weeks, Mystery Illusion Theatre harkens back to the penny-a-word heyday of “The Pulps,” where thrills were the lifeblood of newsstands and writing was a full-contact bloodsport.

The Chimes of Baoding is available on Kindle for $1.99… or, you could sign up for The Spinner Rack and get it for free.

Kick-ass cover art supplied by Blair J. Campbell.

Dig deeper into the experiment with my new post on the writing of the project, Behind the Chimes of Baoding, on my Penny a Word blog.

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to interview Henry about fans, fandom, and his love of comics for my book. Last week, he was gracious enough to interview me about continuity, the decline of comics readership, accessibility, why superheroes are perfect matches for transmedia experiences, and my thoughts on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This interview appeared in two parts, on February 25 and February 27. Here is an excerpt from Part One:

On the Importance of Serialization to the Evolution of Comics

Seriality plus Elasticity (or, Evolutionary Ability of a Character) plus Craft equals Longevity.

Spider-Man just celebrated his 50^th birthday. Batman? Going strong at 74. Superman? 75.  Superman alone has been published regularly for nearly 900 months, usually more than once a month in a variety of books (in the 1990s, he was up to five solo books including the quarterly Man of Tomorrow). When something is published for that long on a regular basis, the confines of reality and human lifespan make it inevitable that the original creator won’t be with the character all those years. Again, there are exceptions, such as Will Eisner and The Spirit, though I would argue that The Spirit is more known for the craft and innovations Eisner brought to the medium through that character than the character himself.

But, in most cases – such as Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man – this is where the elasticity of a character – the evolutionary ability of that character – comes into play. Each creative team can build upon, pay homage to, deviate, stretch, and bring their own vision to the character because of the serialized nature of American comics and the reality of reality.

Continue reading What Transmedia Producers Should Know About Comics: An Interview with Tyler Weaver (Part One) at Confessions of an Aca-Fan.

In part two, we discussed the concept of absorptive audiences, fan-policed continuity, and the Marvel Method:

On Fan-Policed Continuity

As for what transmedia storytellers can learn about fan-policed continuity? Embrace it. Make it part of the experience. The Marvel Universe of the 1960s is the single best effort at a shared universe put to paper. The Marvel Universe was the superheroes yes, but it was more than that. It was a family that contained the fans and foragers of the second generation of comics fans. And Lee, Kirby, and the Marvel Bullpen, while they took the work seriously, never took themselves seriously – at least outwardly. Look at the brilliant No-Prize (in its early incarnation) for example. An empty envelope for spotting a continuity error. Simple, cheeky, but effective. Most importantly? Fun and engaging.

Continue reading What Transmedia Producers Should Know About Comics: An Interview with Tyler Weaver (Part Two) at Confessions of an Aca-Fan.

I have also posted the extended version of my interview with Henry from the pages of Comics for Film, Games and Animation at the book’s companion website, ComicStoryworld. Here’s an excerpt:

Henry Jenkins on what keeps him coming back to comics:

Comics is the most compelling of contemporary media because it’s trying so much new stuff just to survive. It’s always on the cusp of collapsing on itself. It’s also the quickest “response medium” in terms of any development in the culture. We could see in comics’  response to 9/11 prototypes for the way the rest of the media were going to respond. But the comics were on the scene — literally in the case of 9/11; they weren’t very far from the World Trade Center, DC and Marvel in particular. They also had quicker turnarounds and there was an interesting moment where the lines between “independent” or “alternative” comics and mainstream comics just completely collapsed. We’ve seen such interesting work coming out there since then. But it’s just part of a larger process of just being the “testing grounds” for ideas about genre, world-building, backstory, seriality that are very much driving the entertainment industry right now. So I see it as my “early warning system” for everything else that I look at.

Continue reading Henry Jenkins – Extended ComicStoryworld Interview at ComicStoryworld. 

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I have a free, monthly newsletter called The Spinner Rack. It’s filled with news, announcements, links to interestingness and exclusive, free access to new work before anyone else. Sign up and enjoy!

Whiz!Bam!Pow! is back!

Book Two continues and deepens the tale begun in A Linen Forcefield and Book One – Ollie by going backwards. Set on the night that The Sentinel died, Book Two follows Frank, a caricature artist determined to reunite with his family. But his bitterness overtakes him, sparking off events that will change the lives of four people forever.

Whiz!Bam!Pow! Book Two – Frank is also available on Kindle devices for .99. 

The interview appeared in two parts on February 6 and 7. Here is an excerpt from Part One, Teaching Transmedia with Comics: A Conversation with Tyler Weaver: 

On Teaching Transmedia In Schools: 

As far as teaching the “transmedia stuff,” there are tremendous benefits to be had. It can foster a better understanding of how stories are told today. It can teach kids to think critically about how they consume entertainment. Not only that, but by teaching transmedia storytelling, the teacher exposes students to the combinatorial nature of transmedia, showing how deeper meaning can be mined through the combination of media and divergent paths. Video games follow this combinatorial and divergent path methodology. Look at Bioshock. There’s the main story of Jack, of Andrew Ryan, and of the various characters that populate the world of Rapture, but if you pick up tape players/recorders, you can hear the history of Rapture via different inhabitants and points of view and find deeper meaning in your adventures. It’s a medium within a medium representing divergent paths from the main narrative. The Internet is built of divergent paths: do you read an entire article on Wikipedia or do you click on links as you go, going deeper into the main story? Everybody does it differently.

Continue reading Teaching Transmedia with Comics: A Conversation with Tyler Weaver at School Library Journal

In Part Two, Transmedia in School and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver, Peter and I discussed the incorporation of transmedia studies into a library setting and allowing kids to create games as part of a school project. We also looked at the dismissal of video games as “too violent:”

On Creating Games in Schools:

As far as students developing their own games in school projects, I completely understand and agree with saying to a kid, “Okay, maybe you shouldn’t make something so violent.” My issue is that when that statement is used as an excuse it labels an entire storytelling medium, one with tremendous educational and social benefits, as the medium of violence and ne’er-do-wells. How could the question be used to focus on the particular story the student wants to tell? What if we went one step further and asked this hypothetical kid, “Okay, instead of using a rocket launcher to blast zombies to bits, what else can we pull out of it? What’s another way to tell this story with a medium you love?” It’s the idea that profanity is the last refuge of the moronic. How can you tell a story in a game and have it be school-appropriate, while simultaneously making the student think about the implications of what they enjoy playing? Make it a creative challenge.

Continue reading Transmedia in School and Libraries: Thoughts and Strategies from Tyler Weaver at School Library Journal. 

Many thanks to Peter for letting me wax philosophic on a multitude of topics, and for his extremely kind words about ComicStoryworld! 

In the space of seven weeks, I’ve watched the two women who inspired or encouraged me more than any other to write something, anything,  lowered into the ground.

One, MoMo, was ashes, a hole dug into the cold earth with a post hole digger, her ritual passing from above to below accompanied by no frills, only the beautiful stories told by the family – thank you for saving us, we should have given you that beer. I said nothing, simply kept my hand from shaking too much, holding my right with my left hand, the hand adorned with the turquoise ring she made on my middle finger, a testament to the lesson she left me: make what you make and fuck ‘em if they don’t like it. There were no words of God, words that I find no comfort in anyhow. That was December 8, 2012. It was the only time I saw my dad cry. My mom said she saw him cry on December 8, 1980, the day John Lennon was murdered. When all was said and done, I walked to my car and drove from the cemetery. I got lost, driving around gravestones for awhile until I found my route of escape from the maze of the deceased minotaurs. Then I went home, changed clothes, and photographed a wedding. The reception was nice, though I’m relieved I didn’t drink from the tiny champagne bottles. They were bubbles.

The other, MeMe, was buried in a beautiful casket with a cloth sunburst covering her, a picture of Orson and a lock of his hair wrapped in toilet paper (family joke) resting in her navy-blue polka dotted arms, crossed at the wrists, right over left. She went into hospital a little over two weeks ago. She died on Sunday, on what would have been the 62nd wedding anniversary of MoMo and Bubba. She was buried yesterday. There was a procession from the funeral home. I got to run red lights legally, with police lights in front of me, rather than in back. I wore the very same ring as on December 8, and was slightly concerned when my hand got stuck in the coffin’s swing bars as we led it out of the hearse to the green “red” carpet and the pulleys and levers in the grey tent.  There were long-winded words of God spoken, none of which gave me comfort, but perhaps gave others comfort. The funeral director said a few words. Those were comforting. There was a family get-together at BobBob’s house. I walked over to the park, the same park where MeMe had walked Orson on “their walks” every time we visited. Except those last few times.  I walked there knowing he had given her happiness in the last year and a half of her life, happiness that I’m not sure I was able to give.  I sat on the benches and looked out over the baseball field. I counted breaths, one through ten. And then I returned to the house and was the closest approximation to a family man as I could be. That she would want me to be. On April 9, there will be a memorial service. April 9, 2013 will be BobBob and MeMe’s anniversary. Maybe I’ll say words then.

Death is that perpetually expected unexpectation. It doesn’t matter if you have years to prepare, or weeks to prepare. It doesn’t matter when that “funny feeling” shows up, that gutpunch that says “I will never see these people again.” For those who take comfort in the belief that they will see their loved ones again, it is only the beginning of a journey to eternity. For those, like me, who take no comfort in that, rather in the living, breathing remnants of memory, of smells of creamed chicken and chocolate cake, of bacon cooked just right, of Trident chewing gum and acetylene torches, they are forever relegated to those living organisms of memory, to the idealized version of who they were. They cease to be MoMo and MeMe the people, named by a little kid with curly hair and the ability to utter only monosyllabic combinatorial cuteness and become that which they truly were: my grandmothers, beautiful and wonderful, inspiring and encouraging. Now they are immortal. They are stories.

I will take the lessons you gave me, be it cooking or living or writing or loving, and keep doing what you have inspired and encourage me to do: write something, anything.

I love you both dearly.

With the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, talk has turned to the next iteration of the BATMAN film series. Everything from a whole new beginning under the auspices of a new team to Batman Beyond to launching a new series with the Justice League filmBatman has been floating around the rumor ether of the Internet.

I have my own proposal: Set the next BATMAN films in the already-established and popular world of the video games Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. I’m not talking about an adaptation of the video game. I’m talking about a new story told within theArkham-verse in a film – or ongoing series of films –  that would treat the events of both games, the comic series Arkham City and the digital series Arkham Unhinged as canon.

Let’s look at a few of the benefits:

• Both games have shown that even the more fantastical elements of Batman are accepted within the confines of the Arkham Asylum world. While they all have a more realistic, street-level look, the characters are still there and recognizable – perhaps even more terrifying than their comics counterparts. From Mr. Freeze to the definitive Penguin and Killer Croc, the villains in the Arkham-verse work beautifully. Not only that, but…

 

Read the complete post, A New Approach to BATMAN, at ComicStoryworld.