Scott Parker, Author at Black Mask

Scott Parker

Same Characters, Different Authors?

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Aug 112012

by
Scott D. Parker

Maybe this is sacrilege, but have you ever wanted to see Philip Marlowe written by another author? A Stephanie Plum adventure not written by Janet Evanovich? The Continental Op written by someone other than Dashiell Hammett?

I got to thinking about this idea in light of my reading choices for this summer: Gabriel Hunt and Batman. For the better part of four months now, I have been immersed in old Batman comics, primarily ones from the 1970s. Can't say for sure how this desire started, but I've run with it. In this re-reading of my old titles--this fun time in Bat-History a few years after the cancellation of the Adam West TV show and more than a decade from the mid-80s Frank Miller-penned books that permanently changed the way Batman was viewed not only by the public but by DC Comics--where Batman re-discovered not only his brooding nature but also his detective abilities.

I've also run with the neo-pulp adventures of Gabriel Hunt, a character created by Hard Case Crime co-founder, Charles Ardai, back in 2009. I quickly read the first two book in this six-book series, but the remaining four remained unread until this summer. Back in early June, I looked over the books I have on my Nook and, upon seeing Book #3, Hunt at World's End, decided to give it a quick review. It hooked me and I blew through to the end of the series in no time.

Why do I bring these up? Because different writers have penned stories about the same character. There's a basic bible of the Bat-verse and the Hunt-verse that contains all the fundamental characteristics of each respective world. From there, using a basic character arc outline, various authors have written stories set in that universe.

Often, with the Bat books, one has to be a pretty decent comic fan to discern the differences between authors. Not so the Hunt books. Each of the six authors of those books put their own, discernible stamp on the prose and character of Gabriel Hunt. I'll admit that one or two of them were more difficult to wade through even though all six books are action-packed. And I could tell, at the start of each book, whether or not I was going to like the author. It was a dreadful feeling when I struggled.

Bringing me back to my opening, you ever wonder why authors don't let other writers touch their creations? The easy answer is, obviously, that authors spend lots of time creating a character, a universe, and a brand for themselves. After that hard work, naturally, one wants to be protective. But just the idea of some "dream" cross-collaborations is nirvana for crime readers. Don Winslow writing a Travis McGee book, James Reasoner writing a Doc Savage adventure, or Louise Penny crafting a Hercule Poirot yarn. How about some more out-there pairings: Ken Bruen working on Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, Anthony Horowitz writing about Wallander, or the aforementioned Evanovich taking on J. D. Robb's Eve Dallas.

The ideas are endless. Musicians collaborate, filmmakers collaborate, and television folk collaborate: why not authors?

Watching The Dark Knight Rises From the Heart

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Aug 042012

Scott D. Parker

I read Jay’s take on The Dark Knight Rises on Thursday (read it now) and agreed with a lot that he said. We saw the same film, but I think we left with a different emotional impact.

When I enter a movie theater to see a film for the first time, I rarely bring my brain. Other than my eyes and ears, I bring the one thing that suits me best for watching a movie: the heart. In this way, I allow the filmmakers to envelop me in their world, with all of its sights, sounds, and storytelling. It takes a pretty drastic film** to bring out my brain and start fussing over the details. It was with my heart that I watched John Carter this past spring and was so enthralled with the world of Barsoom that I overlooked its flaws. Yes, I saw them on subsequent viewings but that did little to change how I felt about the film when I first saw it in the theater. Ditto for many of my favorites films throughout the years. Sure, I can snark on and on about how so many bad choices were made with Return of the Jedi, but, when I sat down and re-watched it again recently with my boy, I became 13 again. (Well, I was 97% a thirteen year old; I still cringe with some of Han Solo’s antics.)

To date, I have seen The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) only once. In the week leading up to the film, I re-watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight because, after I had seen the third installment, there would never again be a time when TDKR would be new and unexpected. Oh, and SPOILERS abound here, so, like Jay wrote on Thursday, if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to be spoiled, bookmark this page and come back later. Bookmark his, too.

The trailers for TDKR pretty much indicated something I suspected: that Batman would not survive. When Batman responds to Selina Kyle’s comment “You have given them everything,” with his own “Not everything. Not yet.” I pretty much guessed—no, expected—Batman not to survive. So I was ready. As good as it is to watch/read a big story with a hero you know will survive (Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Frodo, every other superhero film), when you have a story in which your main character either dies of sacrifices himself (Batman, Harry Potter), the stakes are raised.

And my heart swells. It grows inside of me and gets me so wrapped up in the story that I let the narrative just sweep me along. That’s how I got with TDKR. This story is Big. As Jay pointed out, director Christopher Nolan aimed for the stars with this film. He wanted an epic and he delivered one. We can quibble about the details, but the epic size of the film—no, of the entire trilogy—was monumental. Let’s also note that the scope of his trilogy was enhanced greatly by the death of Heath Ledger. The actor’s death gave an exaggerated quality to that second film that was more than the sum of its parts. Don’t get me wrong: had Ledger lived to see the film open, word of mouth would still have made its way to non-comic book folks to get them to see the film, it just may not have been the groundswell it actually was.

Back to TDKR. Jay is astute in his observations on the new movie. Gary Oldmans’s Commissioner Gordan and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Officer Blake do provide the everyman quality to this story that you don’t normally get. Now, up until now, I didn’t really care that I didn’t have it because, you know, this is about the billionaire Bruce Wayne and all of his rich friends. Perhaps it’s a testament to Nolan’s craft is that he gave me something I didn’t know I wanted. I really, really enjoyed Gordon-Levitt’s role in this film, where he came from and why he did what he did. I could watch an entire film about Officer Blake (Gotham Central anyone?) and be happy. Tom Hardy’s Bane was a good adversary to Batman from a physical standpoint. Hey, he broke Batman’s back, didn’t he? And, yes, he lacked the intellectual capacity from the comics (I was a little disappointed that Bane was, like in “Batman and Robin,” just the muscle), but he physically commanded the screen for me. Whereas Joker, in The Dark Knight, talked on and on about anarchy, Bane was putting it into effect, and that proved quite scary. Michael Caine was called on to remind the audience of the tragic origin of Bruce Wayne-as-Batman. Yes, he cried a lot, but he was supposed to cry a lot. He failed, in his mind, Bruce’s parents and failed to keep the darkness away from Bruce. I think I’d be crying, too.

Another thing Jay finds lacking in TDKR is sub-text. Since all the characters stop what they’re doing and tell the audience how they feel, there’s no room for subtlety. There’s no room for the minds of the audience to put two-and-two together, to think on a line of dialogue or a character action later, while driving home from the theater, and then have that spark of understanding. Tis true, I’ll agree, but this is, after all, a giant comic book movie. Harry Potter, Frodo, Luke Skywalker: they all talk about what they’re going to do and then go do it. I didn’t have a problem with the characters in TDKR doing the same thing. It allowed me to experience the film viscerally rather than intellectually, and allowed me to get wrapped up in the final scenes with all the emotional baggage that had crept into me in the first two hours and the first two movies.

And I loved the ending, the one with Alfred sitting in that European restaurant, and seeing what he saw: a happy Bruce Wayne, a smiling Bruce Wayne, that had finally emerged from the darkness of his parents’ murder and the darkness of Batman that threatened to engulf him and destroy him from the inside. And, yes, my tears flowed.

Because finally, a superhero story ended. Don’t get me wrong. I love comics and read the new ones and re-read the old ones, but it’s great to have an ending. And it was a happy ending. It’s a good thing, too, because this trilogy is very “of its time,” that is, dark, almost oppressively so. Which is why I so reveled in the ending. The bright, sunlit ending of a great trilogy and a very good movie.

There will be another Batman and he’ll have to live in the shadow of this interpretation, and, either way, I’ll be there, in that theater, waiting for the new Batman film. There will also be time enough to re-watch The Dark Knight Rises and pick it apart from a structural, writerly standpoint. Heck, even I, in the theater, said to my wife, “Now, just how did Bruce get himself across the ocean to Gotham from that prison cell?” (I didn’t dwell on it because the entrance was awesome.) But for now, I am basking in the thrilling, emotional, heartfelt conclusion to this version of Batman.

**Lest you think I’m a deluded Bat-fan, I nearly walked out on “Batman and Robin” back in 1997. I didn’t, but it was years until I saw it again. And lest you think I think Batman should only be dark, far from it. Two cases in point: One, the old stories from the 1970s I’ve been reading. Batman is still a brooding figure, but he smiles, he has a bit of a sense of humor (current New 52 version doesn’t), and much of the emotional baggage is not present. Two, I absolutely love the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon from 2008. All the humor, all the corniness, all the flat-out fun of a comic book that is alive and moving. I really, really hated that it was cancelled to make room for—yet another—dark interpretation. Sigh.

Too Dazzling and the Anniversary Trick

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Jul 282012

by
Scott D. Parker

Sometimes, as a creative, you have to be a mental magician to get things done. As I continue documenting some of the struggles I've been having recently, I have two examples from this past week that illustrate this point and that rather cryptic title.

The Dazzling Dilemma

My wife is a jewelry artist. She makes beautiful, intricate, wearable works of art and has a great time doing so. As she writes on her website, she likes her art to make a connection with people. While she primarily makes jewelry for women, she does do the occasional piece for men. I wear a simple silver linked bracelet and it is often the one thing I have on hand to show folks what my wife does for a living.

For my wife, however, what piece of jewelry to wear can be a dilemma. I mean, come on: she's a jewelry artist, right? She takes great care and consideration which piece of her jewelry she wears to certain events since, you know, she wants to represent herself well. We had a day off on Tuesday where we had a meeting to attend. We were all ready to go, but my wife was trying to figure out exactly what she wanted to wear with her outfit. She tried on and discarded a half dozen pieces before settling on a nice turquoise necklace. She turned to me and said, "It's funny that I sometimes have such a hard time picking out just the right thing because I always want to dazzle people."

Her statement struck me to the core of my writing self. My writing style, such as it is, is one focused on flash. I'll admit that. While I don't necessarily go for verbal gymnastics like Michael Chabon or Jonathan Franzen, I still like the fancy, flowery writing. But when I write a basic scene or story, I have, to date, tended to consider it not good if it wasn't, well, dazzling. It was a realization I made this week and, as it applies to my writing, I decided to just tell the story and, upon *subsequent* revisions, I can add in the flowers. But I will not let the flowers get in the way of the initial output.

The Anniversary Trick

I've long said that it's taken me longer to *not* write my next book than it took me to write my first one. When I wrote that first novel, I kept all of my notes in one of those black-and-white marble-looking composition book. Not only was that comp book the store house of my novel notes, it was where I kept all of my motivational messages to myself.

Recently, I opened that comp book again to review how I started and noticed that I began that first novel on 27 July 2005. Well, thought I, why not kick off the new project on the very same day in 2012. And, since I made a notation of when I completed the first novel, I have given myself a simple goal: complete the next book in the same time or less. I'm big on symmetry and figured I'd like to measure myself against…myself.

Yes, I know these two things are mere mental tricks and the fundamentals of sit-and-write still rule the day, but, sometimes, we creative types need a little extra.

Y'all do any mental tricks to help you keep writing?

What 1,000 Words Looks Like

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Jul 212012

(As this week began, I had planned on writing about one subject: Batman and specifically the three movies Christopher Nolan directed. This post here was going to be offered next week. After the unspeakable tragedy in Colorado, today is not the day for that post. We here at Do Some Damage offer our sincerest condolences and prayers to the victims and to the families that now are absent a loved one. Writing about writing seems so trivial and, to a degree, it is. But it is on days like yesterday where we are all reminded of the preciousness of life and all the tribulations and triumphs we endure. Each one of us copes with tragedy in different ways, and writing, for many of us, is one of those methods. Whatever you do, do it with passion and intensity and joy and abandon with as much zeal and verve as you possess.)

Accountants do not need any tricks to do their job. Neither do oilfield engineers, carpenters, teachers, or bus drivers. In my day job as a technical writer, I also do not need very many tricks to get my job done. However, when it comes to writing fiction, something seems to happen. We get stuck, we don't know where to go, we may not be able to think up interesting plots, we may not be able to carve out the time, and any number of other things that get in the way. Why is that? Is it because of the inherent creative nature of what we do? Is it, perhaps, the muscle of the imagination is the thing that needs to be honed and exercised?

The most obvious way in which we fiction writers measure our progress is by word count, the number of words that we have imagined into existence. Naturally, if you were measuring yourself by word count, the most basic metric is the daily word count. And, in that sense, the myth of the 1,000 words per day writing pace has developed. This is a modern metric, not nearly the pace and the output of the old pulp masters, and yet, quite a bit faster than the pace of some modern literary authors who publish a big book once a decade. If you do the simple math, it goes something like this: if you write 1,000 words per day, you will write 365,000 words per year. Since most novels are roughly 90,000 words, it naturally falls that you could conceivably write three 90,000-word novels per year.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a story about the new expectations of readers and how established authors are changing to meet demand. For certain name brand authors who publish one novel a year like clockwork, the article mentioned that publishing houses are beginning to wonder if these authors can't add in a novella, or short story, or a small e-book to fill in the gaps between novel publications. Having never published a best seller myself, I can't speak to what goes in to making one. But back to the 1,000 words per day metric, one would think that that is an achievable goal, or at lease one to strive for.

The late Ray Bradbury, who died in June, was a prolific author. No, he did not publish 3 books per year, but he did do something for much of his adult life that he advocates all writers do: write every day. Soon after he passed away, I pulled out my copy of his writing book, Zen and the Art of Writing. It was in this book where he advocated writing something––anything––per day. Here is one of the many money quotes from this book: “If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

Writing something every day isn't that difficult, really. If you want to be a writer, you just do it. But how does that compare with that modern 1,000-word metric? One of the arguments that have made for myself is that the thousand-word goal seems like a very high and threshold to reach. True, I don't *have* to meet that goal, but without setting some sort of goal, one would just meander, right? I mean, if you wrote a paragraph a day, you would be following Bradbury's advice, but you would not ever complete a novel.

So this past week, I did little experiment. I went back to my Harry Truman novel and selected a chapter at random. It turned out to be in early one, chapter 4 I think. I want to note two things: how long it took me to literally type one thousand words and how long it took me to type each page. So with a copy of chapter 4 next to me, I started typing. At the end of the first full-page (double-spaced), 6:15 had elapsed. By the end of the second page, I was at 12:16 and I completed the third by 18:30. It took me an additional 20 seconds to type the remaining few words to get me up to 1,000. It doesn't take a math genius to pretty much see the rate of typing, that being around 6 min. a page. As you may have already figured out, 1,000 words is approximately 3 pages of double-spaced typed manuscript with one-inch margins on the side.

Three pages. That's all. I was surprised when I saw those three pages printed out. In my mind, the entire chapter was around 1,000 words, and the idea of writing a chapter per day seemed quite daunting. In reality, I chapter is 7-1/2 pages long. That equals approximately 2500 words.

Now, your your response will be the obvious one: I knew exactly what you're typing and all you did was type. I did no creating. That's true, but if you examine the amount of time it took me to type those 1,000 words––19 min.––you'll realize that it's less than half hour. One would like to think that, given eleven min. to come up with a scene or a bit of dialogue, that you could easily type out the 1,000 words it could take to describe that scene in the next nineteen minutes.

Thirty minutes. Half an hour. When we talk about carving out time to write each and every day, my mind almost always goes in to the hour block of time. And, given our busy lives, I can honestly say that finding a hour a day can be challenging, even though I want to be a prose writer. That was how my reasoning went before this week: which hour of the day do I want to carve out to write 1,000 words? After my little experiment, I am rephrasing the question: what half an hour do I want to carve out each day to write 1,000 words?

While this might be easier said than done, my modus operandi of writing is via outline. My Truman novel was written with the complete outline before I started. Yes I revised along the way, but what having it outline gave me was a purpose for each writing session. I didn't have to think what I was going to write, I merely had to pick up the next index card in the outline and write that one scene.

In the years since my first novel, I have experimented with other types of writing regimens. To date, as I like to jokingly say, it is taking me longer not to write another novel that did take to write my first. I think it is time to go back to what I know works: outlining and producing. And, after the initial burst of creativity to create the outline, might it only take me a half an hour a day over 90 or so days to create a novel?

I'm looking forward to finding out the answer.

How Do You Know If You’re a Writer?

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Jul 142012

by
Scott D. Parker

Am you a writer or merely a reader?

Do you ever have doubts about your writing? I have them all the time, and those doubts hinder my process as a writer. In fact, they get to looming so large that the doubts themselves begin to overshadow the actual produced-writing output. That's where I have been for some time, unfortunately. It's gotten so bad that I missed a great opportunity, two, in fact, and am regretting it.

Writers and how-to books all pretty much say the same thing: the only way to overcome doubts on your writing is to write. No matter how small or how bad, the mere act of writing will win out. I don't know about y'all, but when I'm in this doubt valley, nothing seems to go right. To use the old analogy, even one candle can make some of the darkness disappear. And, a few years ago, when I was blogging on a near daily basis and writing prose every day, I had a virtual bonfire going. The darkness was blasted by the bright light of my constant output. But, as time wore on, as life intruded and I didn't give my writing life its due, the fire started to ebb. More and more, each day I didn't write, the fire dwindled until I was left, frankly, with only a small candle, barely keeping me from total darkness. And, in the writing world, what amounts to a little candle more often than not for me proves futile.

I've been reading a lot, so I'm never far away from books, but my writing life has suffered. I'll readily admit that the perfectionist streak in me is a huge culprit. I've had writing sessions in the past where the tale I produced in one sitting went on to publication or won awards. I say that not to boast, but to indicate where I'm coming from. If I can do that, the doubting part of my brain says to me, then all material in one sitting should be that way. Right?

Wrong.

I've been working on a collaborative story for awhile now with a fellow author. We've gone back and forth, draft after draft, honing and fine tuning. When I had delivered my last comments, I thought the story good enough. I considered the story publishable and thought it should be submitted. My co-author thought otherwise, and enlisted the help of an outside reviewer. A week or so ago, I received the marked-up draft of the story from the outside reviewer as well as the four-page list of additional comments. Four pages of additional comments, mind you, on a story I considered okay, ready to be let loose on the world.

Man, was I wrong. Again.

In reviewing the comments and suggestions, things that I took for granted were exposed. Turns of phrase that I thought pretty clever were proven to be corny and deleted. Logic flow, something I considered, um, logical, proved illogical. In short, the story that I had considered good enough (key phrase there) to be submitted was, in fact, not.

And the doubts, those black-shadowed things that ooze and creep upon you, got that much closer to extinguishing the small candle I was barely keep alight. Had the story been one where only I was the author, I might have just chalked it up to another reason why I should just stick to reading and not bother writing.

But I wasn't the sole author of the tale. I had a co-author who needed my help to complete our joint venture. And he assigned it to me. So, like it or not, I had to make the corrections. So, I started to do so, and I made an on-the-spot decision that has, so far, proved crucial. Instead of merely accepting the changes and adding/subtracting new material, I opened a blank file and started re-typing the entire story. In this way, much like when I used to write longhand and keyed in the words to the computer, I was able to accomplish two things. One, make easier the decisions suggested by the outside reviewer. And, truth be told, I've not accepted them all, but their mere presence has given me room to think and to expand the paragraphs where the reviewer indicated. More importantly, however, for me, is the process of typing in the words. The rhythm of typing, the clickedy-clack of the keys being struck is hypnotic, and it's been too long since I've heard those sounds. Now, granted, I am learning to dictate my material, but nothing beats the sounds of a keyboard being struck. When I'm going and my fingers are flying, I can make those storytelling decisions much easier than were I merely accepting the changes. It's a little like reading a story aloud, which I do for every tale I write. By retyping the words or reading them aloud, I'm able to pick up the flow better, and the story is better as a result.

This thing I'm doing now--I'm working through the entire draft and I'm not yet finished--is working. It is reminding me of the *process* of writing that, frankly, I let slide and fall by the wayside. This comes not as a revelation to most of y'all--and I've known it all along, I've just ignored it. Not everything I write in one sitting is good enough to be put out there. Not everything I spend seven drafts on is good enough for publication. Like it or not, there's a lot of stuff I write that will only have an audience of one…and I've already read it.

But the action of this particular revision and this particular style of revision has reminded me of something. I am a writer, and not merely a reader. I am a creator of stories, be they fiction or non-fiction. I am made that way, and it's been a real pleasure to be reminded of that fact.

That sound you hear? It's the sound of a match being struck on the matchbox and the flame igniting. Now, there are two candles, and the darkness ebbed just a little bit more.

The Mount Rushmore of Mystery and Crime Fiction

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Jul 072012

by
Scott D. Parker

Yesterday morning, as I am wont to do most weekdays, I watched MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show. Over my cup of, um, joe, I enjoyed watching the two hosts discuss the American presidency with Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, and Evan Thomas. The host, Joe Scarborough, asked the three authors which presidents they would put on the "modern" Mount Rushmore.

For those of y'all that don't know, the current Mount Rushmore has the likenesses of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, four of America's greatest presidents. The ones the historians named are obvious--FDR and Reagan--while they debated who should fill the other two positions.

That got me thinking: who would be on the Mount Rushmore of Crime/Mystery fiction? Sticking to four, here are my choices.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - While Washington (1st president) made the real mountain, I would not put Edgar Allan Poe on the Crime Fiction Mount Rushmore. Sure, he invented the mystery story, but he only wrote 3 tales. Doyle was not the next one on the list (Wilkie Collins was certainly a prime mover), but, to me, he was the one who popularized the idea of a mystery story. And, of course, he created perhaps the greatest fictional detective ever in Sherlock Holmes. For over 125 years, Holmes and Watson in the pages of Doyle's stories have lived on and endured and, with modern reimaginings coming along, it's probably a safe bet that they'll last another 125 years.

Agatha Christie - If Doyle popularized the mystery story, Christie perfected its formula. The puzzle-type mystery was the story at which Christie excelled, and her shadow looms large over all those who came after her. Add to this two extraordinary detectives--Poirot and Marple--and Christie's place on the mountain is, um, set in stone.

Dashiell Hammett - For all the good the previous two English authors did for mystery fiction, there was a certain level of unreality to it all. Christie's poisons and Doyle's trained snakes, while entertaining, seem a bit esoteric. Crime, as any cop or beat reporter knows, is committed by normal people for normal reasons: money, sex, power. As has been famously said by Raymond Chandler, "Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse." Hammett brought a rough, American sense to crime fiction, ushering in the hard-boiled era of mystery fiction and, for all intents and purposes, split the genre into "mystery fiction" and "crime fiction." Like Christie for the mystery side, Hammett's shadow covers just about all hard-boiled writers in his wake. Plus, he gave us the quintessential hard-boiled detective (Sam Spade) and the quintessential man/woman team (Nick and Nora Charles). Throw in the Continental Op and you've got a powerful quartet of stars.

Raymond Chandler - Crime and Mystery Fiction, for all the talent that can be brought to bear in the writing of the tales, still suffered from a lack of flourish. Chandler was the author who showed that lyrical, artistic prose and crime fiction could go hand in hand. When we think of voice overs in movies, with the typical tough guy language replete with the occasional simile that really sings, you can thank Chandler. He showed that crime fiction could also be literature, and he did it with finesse. That his major creation--the PI Phillip Marlowe--is, with Hammett's Sam Spade the quintessential type of private detective is just further proof of his impact in the field.

Those are my four for the Mount Rushmore of Crime/Mystery Fiction. There are, of course, other ones that are important--Robert B. Parker comes to mind for "saving" detective fiction--but, like John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, and George H. W. Bush, merely being important doesn't get your face on a mountain side.

What do y'all think?

The Ads in Old Comics

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Jun 302012

by
Scott D. Parker

So far this summer, I have been reading more than writing. Hate to admit that, but it's true. Part of the problem of non-writing is that words just aren't flowing. The other part, however, is that I'm really enjoying just reading. Here's a list of some of past few titles: The Chase (Clive Cussler), Master Mind of Mars, Captain Blood, On Stranger Tides, The Presidents Club, and Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain.

When I'm not reading books, I'm reading comics. A LOT of comics. And not only the new ones from DC and "Atomic Robo" from Red5, but old ones, too. I've pulled out many of my long comics boxes and have flipped through them, gazing at all those covers. Inspired by the new "Batman in the 1970s" feature series over at bare bones e-zine, I've started re-reading many of the same titles. It's really neat to rediscover how Batman was portrayed before Frank Miller got a hold of him.

Now, back in the day, the Batman team-up book, the Brave and the Bold, was my favorite, and I recently pulled out #122, the first team-up of Batman with Swamp Thing. I'm not here, today, to discuss the story itself, but everything in the book except the story. The advertisements. In all of my historical research when I had to read and take notes from an old newspaper or magazine, I always loved looking at the ads because they often gave a more clarifying picture into the time of the magazine than the content.

The same is true for comics. Issue #122 had 32 pages, of which 18 told the story. Removing the two-page letter column, that leaves 14 pages of ads. Throwing in the insides of both covers and the back of the book, you actually have 17 pages of ads. Four of those pages are house ads for other DC comics and publications, leaving 10 pages of non-DC ads. (And I'm not including the glorious ad that Shazam starred in for Twinkies. Remember when your favorite hero hawked dessert products?)

The number of ads isn't really what I'm focusing on. It's what the ads are selling. Sure you had the standard ones: Slim Jims, "X-Ray glasses", binders in which to store your comics, magic stuff, and the near omnipresent ads for "100 Green Army Men" (although this one is a naval task force). What struck me were the ads offering up ways for kids to earn money by *working*. Both inside covers display a full-page spread of prizes kids could earn by selling personalize Christmas cards. This was not a page of things they could buy, mind you, but prizes to earn by working. Sell 9 boxes of cards and you could select a pair of walkie talkies, 16 gets your a pocket electronic calculator, and 25 gets you a portable 8-track player. Or, if the young salesman didn't want any of those things, he could pocket $1/box sold. Not a bad deal for 1975.

Another ad was for LaSalle Extension University. Here, readers of this comic book could send off a postcard and receive information on any number of carer opportunities: accounting, dental assistant, automotive mechanics, drafting, interior decorating, executive development, or even the high school diploma program.

What do these ads say about the comic buyer in 1975 ? He (or she) had the opportunity to order more comics (naturally), buy any number of cheap toys ("X-ray" glasses), or buy Twinkies. But it also provided an opportunity (key word there) for self improvement.

I buy comics digitally almost exclusively nowadays and the ads are few and far between. Mostly house ads for other DC merchandise and video games, but that's all that is there, Gone are the ads for trade schools. Candy is still there, too. Gone are the ads encouraging young people to sell stuff to earn extra money.

Might this say something about our culture? What do you think?

Loving "Longmire"

Characters, Police procedurals, TV, Westerns Comments Off

Jun 232012

By
Scott D Parker

Now that Don Draper's gone for another year, I have a new Sunday companion: Walt Longmire.

This new A&E television program follows the cases of Sheriff Walt Longmire in the fictional county of Absaroka, Wyoming. A recent widower, Longmire has a grown daughter, Cady, a staunch deputy in Victoria Moretti (Katie Sackoff), another deputy vying for Longmire's job (Branch Connally), and the "Barney Fife" deputy (The Ferg). To top it off, Lou Diamond Phillips plays Henry Standing Bear, a bartender at a local bar, friend of Longmire, and the diplomat between the sheriff and the folks on the reservation.

Based on the novels by Craig Johnson, I have never read these books, but I'm very much enjoying the new television program. As in nearly every good mystery program, it all boils down to the characters. Longmire, as played by Australian actor Robert Taylor, is exactly who you would think would be the sheriff of the western state. He wears jeans, boots, blue denim shirts, brown jacket, and, of course, the cowboy hat. Mr. Taylor is a striking figure when he is dressed like this, the typical hard, rugged man as any grade-school kid would imagine him. He is the visible embodiment of integrity, according to my wife. His mouth is often set in thin, hard line with his study chin and chiseled jawline. From the looks of him, he's the kind of bad-ass sheriff you want on your side.

But Longmire is different. When he's wearing the hat, you can barely see his eyes. When he removes the hat––always when walking into a building and when talking to the relatives of recent victims––you get to see his eyes. And that is where his soul lives. He may have a hard, gruff exterior, but his eyes are soft, tender, full of empathy because he knows what it's like to lose a loved one. In the first episode, he has to tell a new widow her husband is dead. Instead of the more efficient way of doing this (phone), he insists on driving hours to meet the woman in person. The tears in his eyes as he breaks the bad news, the haunted look is pretty much what sold the entire program for me. Longmire's empathy and sympathy reminds me of CSI: Miami's Horatio Caine, especially as both pilot episodes show a lead protagonist that is as compassionate as he is tough.

The stories themselves are good, especially when you add a brand-new twist at the 45–minute mark as they did last week. As good and compelling as Longmire is as a character, it's the supporting cast that can make a good show more than the sum of its parts. Sackoff's "Vic" Moretti is a former police officer from back east. As the show premieres, Longmire has been in a funk after the death of his wife, with Vic and Branch picking up the slack. In Longmire's absence, the two of them started doing things their own way, something that rubs Branch the wrong way once Longmire returns to the game. Vic has Longmire's back and, lest you think that the older Longmire and the young Victoria are destined to be romantic with each other, nothing can be farther from the truth. They basically have a father–daughter relationship or mentor–student relationship. He trusts her, but often leaves her to do the small-ball work of police work while he goes off and interviews suspects.

Branch Connelly is exactly what you think of with the modern detective in a Western state. He's young, has a military looking persona, and has modern ideas about police work, even if the feelings of the people don't exactly enter into his equations. And, given the fact that he's running for sheriff against Longmire, there's some natural conflict.

As you might expect from a laconic character like Walt Longmire, the show "Longmire" can best be described as unhurried. I'm not saying it's boring, not by any stretch. This show shares the spirit of the good BBC mysteries like "Foyle's War" where there's a lot unsaid and subtle, but, this being the west, gunfights do ensue. That's always fun.

"Longmire" airs Sunday night on A&E. Here's the website. Give it a look and see if there's a better way to spend an hour a week during this summer.

A Tomato Is Not a Book

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Jun 162012

Scott D. Parker

A tomato is not a book.

A shocker, I know. We all know what a tomato is and we all know what a book is, but, for the sake of this essay, I wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Last weekend, at a local nursery, I attended my first tomato contest. My wife is the gardener in the family and she takes great pride in its care, what things grow in it, and the overall look of this little piece of earth in our backyard. My role is typically in the tilling stage early in the year: clear out the dead stuff from the previous year, crack the hardened earth, and make the ground ready for the new crop.

This year, our garden produced the largest tomato she has ever grown. Excited, she took it and a couple cherry tomatoes up to the nursery where, with a dozen or so other contestants, the various tomatoes were graded on both size and taste. The rewards were pretty good: $100 gift cards. Two judges, a man and a woman, held court in one of the interior, air-conditioned decorating rooms, surrounded by artificial plants, an odd thing at a nursery. Bottles of water were made available to the contestants and patrons and a few chairs were arranged in front of the judging table. My wife sat next to an elderly couple and across the aisle from a middle-aged couple and a family of three. I stood and observed while my son—although one to enjoy digging in the dirt and, on occasion, helping his mom in the garden—entertained himself on my iPod Touch.

The weighing portion of the judgment was first. My wife’s tomato, a Cherokee Purple for all you vegetologists out there, was among a dozen or so vying for the Largest Tomato prize. One thing was obvious from that group: there was a clear winner, and it wasn't my wife’s Cherokee Purple. There was one other that looked close, but this one, large, misshapened tomato was going to carry the day.

Each tomato, the large ones and the other ones up for Best Tasting, was placed on a Styrofoam plate with a number. Under each plate, taped to the underside, was the contestant name. As the judges brought forth the knife and began slicing (the romas were first), the two of them spoke in hushed undertones. I was only five feet away and I could barely hear them. Very soon, the air was filled with the meaty, earthy smell of tomatoes. It was not an altogether unpleasant experience, that smell. I may not be a gardener, but I do appreciate the sweet smell of the earth and the things produced by it. All the while, soft murmuring conversations were taking place. The folks talked methods of growing, types of food given to the tomato plants. As our election season hits the warm months of summer ahead of the fall campaign, with heated words already starting to fly, the contestants all were congenial and kind to each other. After a bit, we started talking about fishing off the coast near Palacios, Texas. With the growing odor of tomatoes in the air, I quickly started thinking how good tomatoes would go with red fish. Shoot, I'm already thinking about a weekend trip down there. Been wanting to get some fishing done since the end of this season of "River Monsters."

Before the winners were announced, an honorable mention was awarded to a young lad of five. His entry nearly won the tasting contest, and he was quite pleased with his certificate of merit. That, and the extra tomatoes he inhaled after the contest. I asked him his secret: fish heads in the soil. Yes, really. When I disclosed this to my wife, she nodded. She knew, of course, having purchased the vile, oily liquid variety. I never knew you could actually bury a fish head.

During the time at the nursery, a strange thought occurred to me: these growers, unlike us authors, basically had very little to do with the end result of the thing by which they were being judged. Sure, there are different methods of feeding the vines, tending the leaves, and helping Mother Nature out, but, in the end, it is she that does all the work. In recent days, lists of nominations for various mystery awards have been released and all of those authors have been happy to be nominated. Each one wants to win because, in some part, the award will be the reward for the long hours of imagineering, writing, editing, proofing, and selling the fruit of their labors. While you might make the analogy that writers are gardeners of the imagination, they are not only the gardener but also the Mother Nature of a book. They control every aspect of a book, for the most part, and, as such, have much more invested in the outcome.

Once the winners earned their awards and had their pictures taken, we all got to sample the winning tomato and the others on the table. Of all the flavors of summer, fresh tomatoes are among my favorites. It was a very pleasant way to spend a part of a Saturday morning in June, and it proved just a small insight to a different type of competition: one in which Mother Nature was being judged more so that mere humans.

Three Thoughts for a Saturday in June

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Jun 092012

Scott D. Parker

Story Development

There are a lot of books out there. And many of those books cover common things: mystery, crime, SF, fantasy, romance, etc. It’s a wonder that some authors rise to the top and the vast majority live in middle.

When I come up with story ideas and work through them, I spend time at the outset thinking about them, writing ideas, and wondering if they are deserving of my time *before I start writing*. It’s a limited resource, you know. Often, I will consign an idea to my mental dust bin since I don’t *think* that it’ll stand out amid the sea of books that flood the marketplace.

Is that wrong? Should I actually put for some time actually writing prose rather than merely discarding an idea before it has a chance to take shape? What do y’all do?

Ray Bradbury

I have read woefully few Bradbury stories, so I am not the best judge of his works. In the days since his death, I have been reading a bunch of memorials and have cracked open my copy of Dandelion Wine and Zen in the Art of Writing. Fellow readers of DSD know that I have a penchant for nostalgia and history. So imagine my happy surprise when many of the remembrances focused on Bradbury’s own nostalgic writings. It’s nice to know that a few of my thoughts were shared by one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century.

Louis L’amour's Place on the Bookshelf

Seeing all the writing about Bradbury made me remember the day, last year, when I went to four estate sales. The historian part of me drooled (and sweated a lot) at the treasure trove of magazines in one garage: Life, Saturday Evening Post, Time, among others. I picked up the issue of Life from 1971 with the cover story about the opening of Disney World (two words back then). I also found the first issue of Time after JFK's assassination. Cover: President Johnson.

While those were good finds, I was struck by something else. In two of these homes, the man of the house literally had shelves of nothing but Louis L'amour westerns. Mostly they were paperbacks, a mix of the Bantam titles (with the black spines) and the more recent white ones (with the westerny font on the spines). One house had what we now refer to as a man cave but was, probably, just the library. With all the stuff of a certain age, the L'amour westerns did not seem out of place. In fact, they seemed almost a requirement. I say that because, when I was growing up, my dad and his dad both had their collections of L'amour westerns on their respective bookshelves.

Which led me to this question: is there an author's work nowadays that is required reading for a man? In forty years, at estate sales in 2052, will some future buyer look at the bookshelves of men who lived in these early 21st Century decades and think: "Ah, right, it was altogether fitting and proper for a man to have read those books."

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