Introduction Because I just can't help myself.Burning Book Gif Created by Kris Kurian, my original JCF webmeister, from a photo by Ed Tilley, for an early version of this site.Top Complaints of Spouses of Science Fiction Writers Written from experience.The Failed Cartoonist My first and only professionally published cartoon.FAQ - alt.vengeance.weapons.swords I honestly don't know where this one came from. It just sort of exists.Authors Decry File Sharing A joke that nobody got.Gilligan A White Moments era April Fool's joke.Little Folks Quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever drawn. If only the art wasn't so bad. Not on this page, but still by me and still, maybe, funny:Lewis & Clark A direct link to the comic strip I occasionally tinker with at a site that automates the art.Odd Haikus:
(The Advertising Agency - Pop Up Ads - Unwanted E-Mail/Spam) Some of these were supposed to be funny at the time. I can't guarantee they still are.
I rescued this material from the oblivion of the older versions of the site because, in a sense, it provides an historical context for my writing. Back in the days when I had finished Old Loves Die Hard, I wanted to be a comedy writer. After I was married, I even thought about going to Atlanta to write for Bill Tush's come
dy show on WTBS, or to New York to write for David Letterman (this was back when his show was on in the daytime. I guess that ages me...
It also explains how, after publishing two dark 'n grim novels, one appeared that was actually funny in places. And it has been that way ever since. I guess that, like my conservatism, I had to reconcile myself to my sense of humor as well.
I wrote this especially for this web site. I'm no Letterman, true, but then he's no Science Fiction novelist.
WARNING TO THE MUNDANE:
The following is loaded with SF in-jokes.
Can spend weeks world building but can't think of a way to keep the kitchen sink from dripping.
Tired of saying, "It's all right, dear, the HUGOS are the ones that matter."
It's 5:15 and he just remembered to tell you that Harlan is coming over for dinner.
Still whining about ho
w original "Trek" phaser noises are better than "Next Generation" phaser noises.
Insists that getting cybered is part of research for next book.
Put kibosh on lucrative Hollywood deal by insisting that the lead be played by Wishbone the Dog.
Payment for last "Analog" story would've covered the rent if it hadn't been for that whole Pentium chip thing.
All that money to John Gotti and B
ujold STILL beat him out for the Hugo.
Pouts for weeks when LOCUS reports that "'So-and-so the hack" got a six-figure three-book deal.
Artist painted her as a sword-wielding maiden on the cover of her new book -- and now the phone won't stop ringing.
SF, Sci-Fi, what's the difference?
And the top complaint from the spouses of Science Fiction writers...
At one time I also wanted t
o be a cartoonist. Or a cartoonist/writer. Or whatever. But I guess my sense of humor was just too quirky. Anyway, before I gave up on cartooning, I did manage to sell one single panel cartoon to a magazine called Review of the News (December 24, 1980) . After that, I was never able to sell another. But I'm glad it was this one because it was always my favorite. Looking at it probably tells you a lot about why I failed as a cartoonist
.
Q. My father was slain by his evil brother and I wish to seek revenge. What weapon should I use?
A. There are many ways to seek revenge: a baggie of fl
aming dog excrement on his front porch; a beating by psychotic ex-Marines wigged out on crack cocaine; a simple bullet in the head; or smearing the miscreant with sausage and staking him out for wolverines to find. However, since this is alt.vengeance.weapons.swords, we recommend a sword.
Q. A woman in a pond is holding a sword up for me. Should I take it?
A. Not unless you want more problems than simply tracking down your evil uncle, making your way through his hordes of dim but loyal henchmen, escaping from a foul and dank dungeon, and winning the rightful love of the princess.
Q. A strange old man in a cave offered me a sword wrapped in moldy purple cloth. He said it was the One Sword of All Power, and that it was the one the Romans used to pierce Christ's side.
A. It's a counterfeit One Sword of All Power (the Romans actually used a spear to pierce Christ's side). However, if it's functional and a good fit, you might want to consider it, as long as
you don't pay too much.
Q. He also offered me a sword that he said was forged by elven smiths in the fires of--
A. No. You want revenge, not rule of the entire known world until you are done in by som
eone who is pure of heart and deed.
Q. So where can I find a sword?
A. There is one set in a stone in the town square.
Q. I tried to get the sword from the stone but it wouldn't come out. What now?
A.
Consider yourself lucky. If it had come out, you would be much too busy to avenge your father's death. Swords are available in most armorer's shops. You might have a metalsmith make one for you with a blood red ruby set into the hilt to represent your father's untimely end. Or you could check on eBay.
Q. Hot cha! Look at all the kinds of swords there are! Which one should I use?
A. If you lurk on this newsgroup long enough, you're going to learn that everyone has their opinion on which sword is the best. Some prefer Sheffield steel, others the rare and elusive Damascus formulation. Some like the foil because of it speed. Others find the foil too "wussy" and prefer the raw power of the broadsword.
This is a good time to consider how you plan to do in your opponent. If you want him to die the Death of a Thousand Cuts while you wax poetic with expository dialogue ("You killed my father and banished my mother to a brothel! You thought you had taken care of everything, foul wastrel! But you did not! You made one crucial mistake, dear Uncle! You left me alive!"), then the foil may be your weapon of choice. For an extended duel with witty banter ("Why you're breaking a sweat, Uncle. You probably haven't done that since you killed my father! Let me loosen that collar for you!"), the cutlass is excellent. However, for sheer bloodletting terror, this moderator prefers the broadsword. These are especially effective if you are planning to simply impale your foe through the groin and up into the abdominal cavity with a simple declaratory statement ("King Dolphus was my FATHER!").
Q. Okay, I got my sword and I have run my evil uncle through. But now my sword is stuck in his body. How can I get it out?
A. Removing the sword is a good idea since your fingerprints are all over it. Plus, if it's a sword of vengeance that was specially made by a metalsmith, it will easily be identified by the blood red ruby mounted in the hilt that represents your father's untimely end. To remove the sword from the body cavity of the victim, place one foot next to the blade and pull with all of your might, in much the same way you tried to remove the sword form the stone. It should come out easily. Be careful, though! Remember blood is a biohazard. This is also a good time to take a moment and spit on the corpse of your evil uncle. We do not recommend urinating on the body as it may leave you in a vulnerable pos
ition if he still has henchmen lurking about.
Q. I tried that, but this sword is like, really stuck in my Uncle's body. What do I do now?
Compiled from staff and wire reports - A coalition of best-selling authors have joined forces against a sophisticated network that they claim is eroding profits to publishers through unrestrained file sharing.
"We chose to come forward at this time to bring this problem to light," said Stephen King, one of many authors who spoke against the network at the most recent gathering of the ABA. "There has been much attention paid to music piracy over the last few years, with controversy over systems like Napster and Kazaa. What many people don't realize is that writers and the publishing industry have been plagued with the same problem for much longer. It became clear to all of us here tonight that this network must be shut down."
Michael Crichton, author of such high-tech thrillers as Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain explained at the conference how the network was able to conduct such "wholesale theft of intellectual property."
The key, said Crichton, is that those wishing to indulge in illicit file sharing must register, and are given a membership card with unique identifiers. This gives the operation the air of legitimacy. The membership allows its owner to access thousands of volumes, which are maintained not by individuals, but by a localized central committee. Users can keep the materials for a set period of time and then return them for further sharing.
Crichton explained that the system is so efficient that the range of pirated materials now includes newspapers, magazines, and in some areas, works of art such as paintings or sculptures. "This is really the tip of the iceberg. The network also distributes music and films in a manner that completely eliminates download times. Not even Kazaa can do that."
The Hunt for Red October author Tom Clancy, while frustrated with the system as well, showed grudging admiration for the network's modus operandi: "With Kazaa and Napster, you have one easily targeted central location that is a storehouse of information, a massive database. This network is much more fragmented. They established nodes almost everywhere - even places of low population density. It's like they took a page right out of a terrorist training manual and are operating as individual cells."
But while the network appears low tech, Clancy said that it is interlinked. "I wanted to see how extensive the network was, so I went to a nearby node and asked for a book on Soviet Arms Specifications during the First World War. The node did not have access to the volume, but they sent out crawlers through their system. Within two weeks they found the volume and put it in my hands."
John Grisham, lawyer and best-selling author of The Firm and the recent The King of Torts said that the legal implications of the network are tremendous. "Even though the time users have the material is limited, there are no restrictions on its use. They could be loaning them to friends or family mem
bers, photocopying them, who knows what all else. This network is probably what enabled (disgraced New York Times reporter) Jayson Blair to get away with feigning his research.
"What's insidious about this is that they have removed consumers completely from the chain of ownership," Grisham continued. "With music file sharing, at least you have individuals out there buying the artist's music. With this system, all incentive to buy a book is removed."
While many authors have joined the movement against the network, similar numbers do not see it as a threat. "It's a boon to research," said biographer David McCullough, author of Truman and John Adams. "If I need information on, say, Soviet Arms Specifications during the First World War, I don't have to buy the entire book for something I would peruse for ten or fifteen minutes and then never pick up again. When I use the network, I get access to the information for two weeks, which is plenty of time. Sometimes I don't even download the information. I just sit at the local node and copy it. I don't see anything wrong with it."
Lesser known authors also tend to favor the network, claiming that it brings exposure to their work that they wouldn't otherwise receive. "Besides," says Joe Clifford Faust, author of such science fiction tomes as A Death of Honor and The Company Man, "when I've used the network and found a book I really liked, I usually ended up buying a copy anyway."
Congressional hearings scheduled for later this year will determine whether the situation warrants legal action or legislation. Jack Nicholson and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who both portrayed writers in recent films, are expected to testify on behalf of the publishing industry.
The Good News: Several years ago I told my agent that I'd be open to the idea of writing the novelization of a screenplay. I thought it would be a good experience and the extra money from the advance would come in handy.
Well, as you can tell, nothing really came through. The projects weren't right or the film's producers wanted more of a name author.
Until yesterday.
After a month of negotiations, my agent called yesterday to let me know that I'd been picked - on the strength of the Pembroke Hall novels - to write the novel for Tim Burton's next big project, which starts filming this month. The contracts are being FedEx'ed to me as I type this.
The Bad News: Because of publishing deadlines needed to have the book on the stands when the movie hits the theaters, I've got about three months to get the thing written to final draft and in. So everything else will have to go on the shelf... including The Word Foundry.
I hope you don't mind.
So what is this big project?
Happily, I can talk about it a little. It's a film version of Gilligan's Island (actually, the draft of the script I have calls it Tim Burton's Gilligan's Island, but that will likely change. The first draft of the script was done by Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation), and word has it that his feathers are ruffled over the title, so the matter is with the Writer's Guild at the moment.
The cast is nailed down; Matthew Lillard (Gilligan), Jason Alexander (the Skipper, too), Edward Herrman (the Millionaire), Jane Curtin (and his wife), Madonna (the Movie Star), Hillary Duff (Mary Ann), and Gary Oldman as the professor, whose interest in the island may be related to its possible use during post-WWII atomic testing.
According what I'm told, Burton wants Albert Finney in a small role as a U.S. Senator who has more than a passing interest in finding the Minnow survivors. Ditto Scott Glen as the Navy Commander in charge of the rescue mission, who is conflicted by his duties to the missing castaways and the orders he gets from on high in regards to the search.
How can the Minnow get lost in this age of satellite reconnaissance and GPS locators? I can't really say, but the way they get around it is clever. Not quite as clever is the Agatha Christie-like whodunnit involving the death of an eighth castaway, who might be played by a surviving member of the original television cast. Part of my challenge will be to write that part into the book in such a way that it can be taken out because there's talk of cutting that part from the film. The script I have also looks into that whole "little buddy" thing, but Burton's people tell me that this will disappear in the next draft, because he wants to keep the film to a PG-13 rating.
That might sound restrictive, but I've actually got a lot of freedom to play with the plot for the book to flesh it out.
And yeah, there is that whole "But it's Gilligan's Island" stigma, but like my agent said, the show is still in reruns, there have been several successful TV reunions, there's a successful musical version making the community theater circuit (a local theater group is doing it this summer, but, ironically, I'll be too busy working on the book to audition), so it's a viable commercial project. The time is definitely worth the money.
If there's time, I'll check in at the end of May to let you know how the first draft went. Otherwise, I'll see you all in August, and hopefully I'll have some interesting stories to tell. This is going to be fun, I think. For sure it's going to be an experience...
Now here's something I dredged up from my cartooning days - rather, the tail end of them, because I haven't really done anything but work-related brainstorming sketches in the last ten years. And it's been probably 15 since I've done any cartooning.
Anyway, I used to get ideas like this all of the time, and I'd sketch out the basics, and if I turned out to be lucky, I'd go back and try and work it into a full drawing, which was only marginally better that what you're about to see. Or else I'd file them and forget them (which is what happened with this one). Another throwaway idea, created just to be creating.
If you've only seen this one residual example of my cartooning, then you have no idea how important that outlet once was to me. Once upon a time, it was a coin toss as to whether I would push writing or cartooning as my primary form of artistic expression. There was even a point in college when I was corresponding with Shary Flenniken, at the time the cartoon editor of National Lampoon (during the brilliant P.J. O'Rourke era) about doing a strip for the mag. I was sending her strip concepts and she was sending me feedback on how to make it better. All in all, she was only one of two editors who ever took me seriously as a cartoonist (the other being the one who published the example linked to above).
(And Shary, if by some Internet miracle, you're reading this right now, thank you for the experience of getting to work with you as such - I can see now how much it meant to me at the time.)
But in the end, it turned out that it was easier to be taken seriously as a writer than it was to be for a cartoonist. I continued to scribble out cartoons through my Sheriff's Office years, but those creative tendencies would gradually wither away. The last time I tried to do something like that was when I worked in broadcasting and did a satirical strip about life in radio in order to blow off some steam.
I don't know. Maybe I could get it back...
Anyway, on to the day's document.
This one dates from the Sheriff's Office period. Again, the paper is the giveaway, this time the lined yellow legal pad that this was cropped from. I don't remember writing this at all, nor what was going through my mind as I wrote it. What I do know is that when I found it a couple of days ago, I laughed so hard that tears were dropping from my eyes.
I'll prepare you now: get ready to shake your head and go "Huh?" But trust me: I found this hilarious. And I mean, really hilarious.
I also get the impression that this strip was the end of the line for me. Seeing this again, I get the wistful feeling that this was the last time I drew until I got to the radio station. By then, I was blowing off steam. But this is the last strip I ever drew as something that was just for the pure joy of creating something funny.
P.S. "PMA" is that great buzz-word of the late 70's/early 80's - Positive Mental Attitude (it took me a while to remember).
