Constance Ash March 5th, 2008
[ Mr. Whedon has developed their liaison over several issues. In No. 3 Buffy is overcome by a “Sleeping Beauty” spell undone only by a kiss from someone who loves her. In No. 4 Buffy realizes that Satsu saved her. Last month the pair discussed Satsu’s feelings. Buffy, although flattered by Satsu’s attentions, said the risks of involvement were too great. “People who love me tend to ... oh, die,” she said. Or, she added, they leave, because “sooner or later everybody realizes there’s something wrong ... something wrong with me, or around me.”
The matter seemed resolved, but in the newest issue, No. 12 — written by Drew Goddard, the screenwriter of “Cloverfield” — Buffy and Satsu are in bed, naked under the sheets. “It puts the reader in this ‘Oh my God’ moment,” Mr. Whedon said during a telephone interview. “And it puts Buffy in an ‘Oh my God, what did I just do?’ moment.”
But before fans start blogging frantically, they should know that Mr. Whedon is clear where this is headed. “We’re not going to make her gay, nor are we going to take the next 50 issues explaining that she’s not. She’s young and experimenting, and did I mention open-minded?” ]
More here.
Love, C.
Kevin Andrew Murphy February 2nd, 2008
Tor’s new Wild Cards website has been spiffed up and updated, with information on the mass signing in Albuquerque today with most of the Inside Straight authors. Moreover, Tor has just launched the American Hero website, the fully in-character blog and promotional website for American Hero, the superhero reality television show taking place in the Wild Cards universe and a central part of the plot of Inside Straight.
There are twenty eight characters on the show and we’ve got illustrations for all of them from the amazing Mike Miller. More, all of the authors have been writing confessionals from the standpoints of their characters. Up now for Week 1 are Joe Twitch (created and written by Walton Simons), Spasm (created and written by Daniel Abraham), Drummer Boy (created and written by S.L. Farrell), and Rosa Loteria (created and written by yours truly).
Go over and take a look. Ask the characters questions. Of course, the contestants are all busy with challenges on the show, but who knows, some of them might answer. (Mine are Rosa Loteria and The Maharajah.)
This is also kind of exciting as an author since it’s a new publishing venue. I’ve seen website expansions to the content from movies, most notably the rather amazing Donnie Darko site which had some neat fiction which expanded the movie, and likewise the (now long defunct) website for the Point Pleasant tv show. But this is the first time I’ve seen extra web fiction content being done for a series of novels and anthologies, especially author created and owned.
Anyway, please take a look and see what you think, and also, let’s talk about the web as a venue for new fiction in general.
Kevin Andrew Murphy December 16th, 2007
I’ve been mentioning it earlier about the new book coming out, but Tor has just launched the new website for Wild Cards, www.wildcardsbooks.com
There will be more added in the coming weeks, including bio with yours truly, but the preliminary launch is focusing on Inside Straight, which is coming out next month and as with all things publishing, may have early copies in some stores now.
There’s also a newsletter to sign up for and a story from Walter Jon Williams which is sort of the proto-Wild Cards tale.
David Louis Edelman October 23rd, 2007
As part of the planning process for how I’m going to wrap up my Jump 225 trilogy of novels, I’ve been thinking a lot about the structure of story. I think it’s useful for us writers and readers to occasionally step back from the process to remind ourselves of one crucial thing: stories are artificial. They’re constructs.
I’m not just talking about the difference between fiction and non-fiction. I’m talking about the very idea of storytelling itself. It’s an art form, which means it’s a product of the human intellect, which means it doesn’t exist naturally in the world.
Sometimes readers get so heavily focused on plot mechanics that they mistake the plot — which is simply one element of the art, albeit a crucial one — for the story itself. What happens at the end of the Jump 225 trilogy? they ask me, as if that’s the only question worth asking. Let’s say I tell you what happens at the end: Natch vanquishes his enemies and learns to live in peace with himself. Or, Natch dies heroically. Or, Natch and his enemies join forces to take on a different enemy altogether. You know the broad strokes of any ending I could possibly think up, and you’ve seen them all a million times before. So obviously the important question is not what happens at the end of the story, but why and how.
I just watched Batman Begins for the umpteenth-plus-oneth time the other night. Spoiler alert: Batman defeats Ra’s al Ghul. He chats with Lieutenant Gordon at the end, only to discover that there’s a new villain named the Joker out there causing trouble. Roll credits.
So what happens after the cameras stop rolling? We assume that Batman goes on to defeat the Joker (and indeed, we’ll find out next summer when The Dark Knight hits theaters). And then he defeats another villain, and then another, and then another, until Bruce Wayne dies in battle, hangs up the cape, or hands the keys to the Batmobile down to the next guy in line. We can safely assume that Batman will never completely succeed in vanquishing crime, that there are certain villains that will always elude his grasp.
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Constance Ash May 4th, 2007
A lot of you probably know about this, but this is the first time I’ve heard of it.
Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow (Saturday, May 5 — which is also the Kentucky Derby, and this year the Queen of England shall be in attendence, as well as my Lexington native pal, T.R. Johnson). The link is to the NY Times, which requires free registration ….
[ There is no better day to visit your neighborhood comic store than tomorrow: Free Comic Book Day, the annual industry promotion in which participating retailers nationwide will give away titles ranging from “Little Archie� and “The Amazing Spider-Man� to “The Lone Ranger� and “Transformers,� a spectrum as wide as the stores that sell them. ]
 The article also provides a survey of the best comic retailer in each of the 5 boroughs of NYC.
Love, C.
Constance Ash April 3rd, 2007
It’s a comic book. Season 8, I mean.
Today’s U.K. Guardian tells us all about it.
 [ "Joss Whedon, the show's creator, has launched "season eight" of Buffy - not as a TV series, but as a comic. There have been other Buffy-related comics since the TV show finished, but this is "canon", the official Whedonesque version of events post-season seven. In America, the first instalment, from Dark Horse Comics, sold out in a matter of days." ]
After reading the description of this first installment of “Season 8″ this reader thought it sounded so dreadful that it is just as well the thing sold out and she shall never see it in this life. If she’s good. Not bad.
In other tenuously related Buffy news, Jane Epson, on her website, passes on the information that Danny Strong, who played Jonathan Levinson in the nerd trio that constituted Buffy’s Season 6 Big Bad, has sold a script to HBO. The project is a movie about the 2000 U.S. election, focusing on the month during which the dems challenged the pubs, and what happened. It is to be directed by Sydney Pollock.
Love, C.
Constance Ash September 3rd, 2006
Brian K. Vaughn is the creator of controversial, intriquing SF graphic novel series, Y: The Last Man, among other works. In Pride of Baghdad he’s tries to work out his angers and confusions concerning the Iraqi invasion via a graphic novel that sees the war through the eyes of the animals in the Baghdad zoo.
Reviews are available on the net here; and here:
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Again, here is an occasion where the format — the graphic novel — and the form / genre — harmoniously come together to deal with terrible contemporary events, and yet provide, somehow, beauty and insight too.
Love, C.
Kevin Andrew Murphy July 27th, 2006
Last year, just in time for Comicon, my sister scheduled her wedding opposite the Masquerade, which I consequently missed. This year? Well, I missed the Masquerade again, but only because of other complications.
Where to start? Where to end? Egads, I’ve been going to this thing for twenty years now, saw it when it was small, saw it when it was dying, then saw it when it moved to the new convention center and doubled in size every year, even as they continued to enlarge the convention center. I remember a couple years ago when I made the mistake of being on the main floor when the crowd capacity overtaxed the air conditioning and I nearly fainted on top of Guillermo Del Toro as he was slipping out the back of the Marvel booth and under my arm as I supported myself on a pillar.
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Constance Ash July 16th, 2006
“Industry veterans Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón have collaborated to produce “The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation,” which is being published by Hill and Wang, the nonfiction imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The two are well established in the graphic world. Jacobson, 76, the creator of “Richie Rich” series, used to be editor in chief of Harvey Comics. Colón, 75, who drew “Richie Rich” and “Casper” for 25 years, also worked for Harvey before a short stint as an editor at DC Comics — the home of characters such as Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman and the Flash. He also illustrated for Marvel Comics, where Spider-Man and the X-Men were created.”