You Don’t Always Have to Start from the Beginning of a Series

By

Scott D. Parker

 

A few years ago, I was shopping at Kroger when my eyes landed on the cover of a book. It was The Race by Clive Cussler. Here’s the cover.

 

I was immediately captivated. Old-fashioned planes! Cussler’s name! And was that trailing plane firing weapons at the leading plane? I picked up the novel and read the description and discovered the Isaac Bell series.  

The Race was the fourth one and I made the decision to start from book one and make my way forward from the beginning. With all of my other reading, it took me months to get to The Race but I read, listened to, and enjoyed every book in the series ever since.  

 

 

Daredevil: Born Again

 

Cut to this spring’s television. I didn’t immediately jump on the new Daredevil series on Disney+ because I had barely watched the Netflix series nearly a decade ago. I watched maybe two or three episodes and then just never kept going. Ditto for Luke Cage. Never even watched Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, or the Defenders. With so much content, I picked and chose what I wanted to watch and, well, these never landed in my queue.

A co-worker of mine talk Star Wars and Marvel movies and the Reacher TV show and books. After Reacher’s third season ended, he asked if I was watching Daredevil. I said no for the reasons I just listed. He told me it was quite good so I watched the trailer.

And was intrigued. Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk sitting in a café, just talking? Both Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were born to play their respective roles. I last saw D’Onofrio in the Hawkeye series and for Cox, it was She-Hulk. So I said why the heck not give episode one of Born Again a try.

I was hooked.

It took me a few weeks—Daredevil is a show my wife doesn’t watch so I had to fit it in—but I caught up in time to watch the penultimate episode and the season finale when they debuted. I thought the season was fantastic. 

I loved the emphasis on Murdock and Fisk both trying to absolve their former selves to do something different only to be drawn back to what makes them themselves. I appreciated that we got basically a two-episode arc of Murdock just being a lawyer. I savored D’Onofrio’s portrayal of Fisk, including his peculiar way of speaking. And I loved the judicious use of action.

Stan Lee’s Famous Mantra

Stan Lee, creator of many of the mighty Marvel heroes, always had a mantra: every issue is someone’s first issue. As a result, nearly every Marvel comic in the 1970s and beyond featured a short bio, bringing a new reader up to speed on the character. From there, the new reader is empowered to read the issue and, hopefully many more.

When I read a few articles and listened to a few podcasts that ended up talking about Born Again, I discovered some disappointment. More than one person commented that elements of Born Again was a rehash of one of the Daredevil seasons from the Netflix era. That the Netflix version was better. That there wasn’t enough action.

But for me, Born Again was my real re-introduction to the TV Daredevil. I barely have any memory of the episodes I watched on Netflix nearly a decade ago. Now, it acts as my own template by which to judge any future Daredevil show, including the Netflix version if I choose to go back and watch those shows.

As my co-worker and I discussed each episode of Born Again, he extolled the Netflix series as something I should go back and watch. But, again, there’s just too much content out there that I want to watch. Andor season 2. Paradise season 1. The final season of Bosch. Mobland, Friends and Neighbors. The Studio. Heck, I didn’t even bother rewatching Ander season 1 because there’s just too much content and too little time. 

Go With the Book Whose Cover Grabs You

So, my experience with the excellent Daredevil: Born Again reinforces what I’ve started doing ever since I went back to the beginning of the Isaac Bell series: If a book captures your attention and you pick it up, read that book. Watch that show. Watch that movie. Listen to that album. It doesn’t matter if the book is the seventh in the series, it’s season three of a TV show, or if it’s the sequel to the hit movie you never watched. 

You can always go back. But you don’t always have to. 

Remembering Neal Adams

by

Scott D. Parker

There are weeks in which I prepare my Saturday posts, letting them gestate and allowing me time to hone the words. Then there are other weeks in which Friday afternoon arrives and I don’t have hook. Well, unfortunately, this afternoon, I do.

Famed comic book artist, writer, promoter, businessman—Neal Adams-passed away on Thursday, 28 April 2022. He was 80.

It is difficult to overstate how big an influence Adams was in the comic book industry. His art alone ushered in the Bronze Age of comics (more or less 1969ish to 1985/1986). After the bright version of Batman that existed in the comics and TV screens for the 1960s, Adam, along with writer Dennis O’Neil, brought the shadows back to the character.

Those stories again took place at night, and the grittier outlook of the 1970s pervaded in many of the Adams and O’Neil tales. The pair co-created Ras Al Ghul, the villain from 2005’s Batman Begins and, arguably, Batmans’s most equal adversary.

I couldn’t name Adams as the key artist when I got into comics, but I knew his work because it was everywhere in the 1970s. Naturally, his Batman and Joker became as iconic as this cover.



He also drew one of the more famous Superman poses.

He re-designed Green Arrow’s costume shortly before he and O’Neil sent both green heroes—Arrow and Lantern—across America to face real-world challenges.



And then there is this glorious wraparound cover for a treasury edition I still own. One of my all-time favorite Batman sagas.

He also lent his talents to a series of cover illustrations for the 1970s-era Tarzan reprints.

Standing Up for the Rights of Others

I met Adams at Houston’s Comicpalooza a few years ago. He was an insatiable salesman who genuinely seemed to love the convention scene. And before his illness, he would often go live on Facebook and I’d tune in. He was good and he knew it, but he could also back it up.

As good an artist as he was, however, he was not afraid to use his bully pulpit to help others. It’s partially because of him modern comic book artists can get their original artwork returned to them.

But if there is one thing he should always be remembered for, it’s this: he made sure the world knew and remembered that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman. He spearheaded the effort for DC Comics to recognize Siegel and Shuster’s contributions, including paying them a pension and forever promising that whenever you see Superman in any media, it will always have his creator’s names right there.

There are a ton of other stories and all you have to do is Google them today and through the weekend.

And if you haven’t in a while, find a comic as illustrated or written by Neal Adams and give it a read. You’ll instantly see why he deserves a place on the Mt. Rushmore of comic history.

The Summer 2021 Box of Comics

by

Scott D. Parker

If there's one great thing about ebooks and electric comics is that you can carry potentially your entire library on vacation. 

But that wasn't always the case back in the days before Kindles and iPads. No, back then, you'd have to be judicious with what you wanted to read while on vacation because you'd have to carry everything. In my adulthood, I would spend almost as much time deciding on what books and magazine to bring on a vacation as I did on my entire vacation's wardrobe. I know I'm not alone here. I mean, as much as I enjoyed the 800-page, hard cover history book was I reading, there was no way it found it's way into my backpack for reading on a plane. 

Before adulthood, however, there was another factor that determined what we might bring on a vacation: our parents. I remember my youth in the 70s when we'd go on vacation, my parents would not let me take EVERY comic I owned. Even as an only child, it was just not feasible to bring them all. A friend of mine were talking this week and he mentioned his mom told him he could only bring ten comics on their annual trips. He always prioritized the 100-page giants and the like so he could maximize his reading experience. I did something similar. 

Most of the time, those issues would have a then-current story backed with multiple reprints ranging from the 1940s to the 1960s. In an era where back issues were few and far between, these issues rocked. Well, unless is some crappy story feature Prince Valiant or some Viking nonsense. Didn’t like it then. Still don’t. 

Summer 2021

One of my summer projects is to catalog all my comics. I’m almost done. A nice side effect was seeing all these old issues. Some of them have distinct memories associated with them. Others—many others—do not. In fact, I started culling many issues. “Why the heck did I buy that one?” I asked myself more than once.

Seeing all these issues made me want to read them again. Sure, I could keep all my long boxes in the front room all summer, but I think we know how that would go over with the rest of the family. So I made my own Summer 2021 comic box. I’ll probably go back and pull a few other issues, but mainly, the titles I want to read are in this box.

Those thicks ones are those awesome black-and-white reprints where you get 500 pages of comics in a single volume, the modern equivalent to those old 100-page giants.

I’ve been reading through the Master of Kung Fu collection for a little while, but I’ve sped up knowing the movie is on its way. The others are just hankering I’ve been having: 70s-era Marvel books I never read back in the day.

Marvel also published eight magazine-sized Doc Savage issues, all black-and-white. I have them all, but I’ve only read the first one.

This is one where I remember buying it but have zero memory of it. I like the 70s and 80s when comics artists and writers would just try anything, like apparently making a quarterback into a super hero. Sure.

I have a ton of Superman tiles, second only to Batman. But this Time and Time Again series is something that looks interesting.

Then there are titles like this. Have to read it for the historical value.

I discovered a few X-Files comics which are in the box, but that also led to re-discover this entry where the Dark Knight is abducted. 

This issue of Detective is one of the earliest I ever had. Can’t remember the story, but I will this summer. You can see the frayed edges of a well-loved book.

I’ve got a few novels lined up to read, but I think the Summer of 2021 will be comic heavy.

So, did your parents limit the number of novels and comics for your trips? Did you get to buy some on the road? And what specific comics can you remember reading during the summers?

On Black Panther, 'tho I Haven't Seen It

I'm so glad I was poor in the 90s.

To be black in America is to always be at risk of the collective head fake. Go for self and fulfill your own leanings to any success and you'll meet charges of being skin-folk rather than kin-folk. On the way up, however, it's all about getting that money. Once you get it, other folks start counting it and seeing how much of it you use to do some good in your community. Depending upon who is authoring the indictments, you'll either get props for paying faint attention to kids or the poor, or lambasted for selling out which, quite honestly, is just being black, rich, and minding your own damned business. There's really no way to win, and even in its most casual presentations that should be obvious.

Take Black Panther for instance. Its box office is near-universally regarded as a bold indication of the collective cultural, political and economic possibilities of black Americans. See, it has something to do with black folk, hence it just can't be a movie. It has to be a movement. A movement that makes boatloads of money for very few and raises the bar way too high for everyone else who doesn't enjoy the windfall. So, yeah, pretty much like most of our movements.

Yes, the bar has been raised. Everywhere black American parents push STEM camp on their kids. Everyone is getting a 23andMe kit. Customer service is going to be swamped with calls. "So I'm looking at my pie chart and I'm not seeing any Wakandan DNA." Everyone is all up in their Black Pantherness. Twitter names are all "T'" whatever, which really looks goofy next to so many pre-existing apostrophes. Like, for real, you can T'Challa your name but maybe you should take off the D' before Vondre. To be T'L'Danian is just going to confuse people even more.

Can you imagine what it must be like for a black person who chooses not to identify with that movie's themes and notions? Can you imagine how it must feel to be the only black person in your community who isn't, or even refuses to be, so Wakanda'd out? I still haven't seen it. I've been busy. Once I do, I'm pretty sure it'll be good, but not quite good enough to justify how mean black Americans have been to everyone else since they announced it. We've been so buck wil' over a comic book movie, you wonder when we're all leaving for Africa. We see a teaser trailer and, all of a sudden, we don't have to worry about white folks anymore. Like, who is coordinating travel, and may I use rewards points or my Costco membership to get a better deal? I'm saying, once that bad boy is on Blu-Ray and Disney streaming and no longer front page news, we're gonna hear about all that Wakanda Forevering we've been doing in the lunchroom and in our cube suites on the job. Folks left the movie theater as if they were unplugged from the Matrix, except there wasn't a Morpheus to help you upload kung-fu into your cortex and explain how they woke you up to fight against the oppressive forces who ensure your enslavement.

More like it's your group manager Gary who almost gave you a good performance review until a few weeks ago when you started wearing African tribal garb to work although it's against the posted dress code (and although it ain't your culture.) They could've let that slide but then you kept crossing your arms and fists in solidarity with all the other blacks in the office and now the Director is raising questions about your ability to project manage a diverse multi-disciplinary team.

The idea that we are 'the black community' irks me to absolutely no end. We're no different than anyone else in America. We form tribes with far more specificity and granularity than the skin we're in, and we hold fealty to our tribes so long as they serve us individually. Yep, black folk, too, and not just those who actually uphold and defend tribal distinctions, such as NFL fans. Oh, and street gang members. What I mean by that is we're all colluded in this American mess, even black folk, and yes, even in our own suffering and oppression. A quick tale I'm telling out of school: We rarely acknowledge our mutual blackness unless we're surrounded by a perceived risk of anti-blackness. That lovely bit of physical code the thinkpiece writers describe as The Nod? Try getting one from another black person if you're the only one lighter than a paper bag, or you're on college fraternity/sorority turf and you didn't pledge. Or if you can't relate to anything in a film that appears to be a wild billion-plus box office success because it's easier for black Americans to go see a superhero film with African cultural window dressing than it is to vote. Didn't need an ID or anything.

A recent encounter with a friend of mine at the local car wash—a friend who isn't black—resulted in a call-out for me not having seen Black Panther. Now, I'm the type to flip the bird against any criticism of being out of step with the zeitgeist, but when a white guy chastises my black ass for not letting a Marvel movie change my worldview, that's taking things a bit too far. Perhaps it was frustration at my people over their euphoric nearsightedness (don't you ni**as still have a drawer full of Karl Kani, Fubu and Malcolm X medallions??) I may have been disbelief at our short memory, as this whole marketing-as-movement happened before and our condition—and the manner in which we regard each other—hadn't improved then either. Thing is, we were at a car wash, and only one of us was going home to deal with the existential issues black Americans face, so the only appropriate response at the time was comedy:

"Just so I'm clear, there is a direct analog of slavery in the MCEU, right? Pretty much the same slavery, just like it's the same NYC and Washington, DC, yeah? Bet. So then Wakanda would have known we were being led out in chains and some dood in a mask would've been, "Not our problem," and Wakanda would've been, "Aight." Same kind of enslavement situation, right? And none of us in the US could be Wakandan because they weren't enslaved by the west, right? Wouldn't have been any Wakandan Americans, I'm sayin'? Like, no one's Ancestry.com is sayin' "13% Wakandan DNA," that's what I'm talkin' about. So, essentially, the root of Wakanda's black fabulousness is no reflection on our blackness as Americans, right? We got plenty of black Americans in the cast and crew, which is lovely, but they're playing characters who ain't really been checkin' for black folk in America, right? I mean. Skinfolk, though not kinfolk. Am I off with that? No? Aight, bet. Like, I know we got a lot of L' and D' names, like L'Marcus and D' Vondre, but that's not the same as T'Challa and M'Buku, right? Naw, dawg, I ain't trippin'. I'm sayin', I'm just tryin' to go see this flick without having to AncestryDNA first. I ain't tryin' to buy, like, a kufi and carved walking stick 'n shit. It's a superhero flick about a cat who rules a country that didn't want anything to do with black folk in America up until just recently, when it was convenient for them, right? So, basically the MCEU in general, yeah? Okay, great. I'll see it. Maybe they have it on at the barber shop."

Lessons I've Learned About Publishing

(The writing advice comes at the end.)

I grew up knowing there were things girls couldn't do, because they were girls.

I really wanted to take karate. The parental veto quashed that. Karate, I was told, wasn't for girls.

It's forgivable. It was a different time, and changing people's perspectives wasn't quite as easy. Small town people like us could live small town lives, surrounded by neighbors with the same skin color and back then, you kept your nose out of other people's business. Nobody told anyone how to raise their child. You could see a crying kid dragged down the road, being told to just wait until they got home, and people wouldn't interfere. It was nothing to spank a child in public.

It was nothing to rape a wife. I suppose legally it likely wasn't even possible to be charged with such an offense.

For all our alleged progress, sometimes it seems little has changed. Oh, laws have impacted the way kids are disciplined, but it comes to gender issues, one doesn't have to go far to see that women are still treated as inferior; consider the fact that women are more likely to be killed by a partner than men are, and that 1/3 of murdered women in the U.S. are killed by a current or former partner.

Overt and subtle sexism exists within the world of entertainment as well. A few years ago, it was gamergate:

Gamergate started with a man lashing out at his game developer ex-girlfriend through a blog post crafted to incite the Internet against her. The maelstrom of subsequent accusations and threats sent Zoe Quinn into hiding. The furor soon sucked in anyone associated with her and those who sought to defend her. Targets were barraged with hatred via email and social media. Their employers were pressured to fire them. Sometimes their home addresses were publicly disseminated. Harassers made fake 911 calls to dispatch SWAT teams to their targets’ houses. (Link)

Over the weekend, an editor was attacked for posting a selfie.

As my own Facebook friends are aware, I had an issue last week with someone who had submitted a story to Spinetingler Magazine. Despite the fact that our submission guidelines are clearly posted, this person sent an incomplete submission.

Now, our system is set up to send an automatic reply, and that automatic reply reiterates how important it is that story submissions be complete. It actually states that incomplete submissions may be deleted without notification and that they will not be considered for publication.

I thought I'd be nice and take a minute and email the writer to let them know that unfortunately, we couldn't consider the submission as it was and it had to be deleted, and advised them to refer to our submission guidelines. I mean, all they had to do was complete the submission and resend it.

Instead, I received this:

I took the rare move of sharing it on Facebook because I have privacy settings in place, and because the name was so generic that it didn't paint a target on anyone's back. After being told to shove Spinetingler up my ass, I wrote back and informed the individual that further correspondence from them would not be read. They have also been informed that they are banned from submitting to the magazine.

The response?

I have not written back to this individual since; however, they have continued to email Spinetingler. When they did not receive a personal reply, they changed their email address and emailed again.

And again.

I haven't read them in full, although while filing all the documents in case of pursuing legal harassment charges, I did notice I'd been called shit-for-brains.

Such a way with words. I mean, I must seriously regret not fawning all over this individual the minute they graced our inbox with their so-called writing.

In this midst of this, some possible blame was thrown my way on Facebook by someone who seemed to think that the person's behavior could potentially be excused if I hadn't expressed myself clearly.

Why should anyone ever have to open email that is this abusive? This person initiated contact with us. This person even admitted that they knew the submission guidelines and ignored them.

But it's my fault they started swearing at me?

Others speculated that the reason this person was acting that way was because I'm a woman. When I go online and see a Marvel comics editor being harassed for being a woman, it's hard not to think that's a reasonable conclusion.


Lawmakers don't seem to treat this issue seriously.

When discussion of online harassment exploded into the mainstream a few years ago after Gamergate, I thought it would mean change was on the horizon. Today, I can see these years have been an utter waste. A federal bill to punish “swatting” sits in limbo. Reddit is still convulsed in the same battle with itself that it’s been fighting since 2014. A handful of bad actors are permanently banned from Twitter (though white nationalist Richard Spencer was un-banned this week). (Link)

Where does that leave us? Well, Spinetingler has always been a labor of love. The odd bit of money generated hasn't come close to covering costs of investment over the years.

And let's be real; nobody wants to pay for these things. We talk about artists being expected to give their work away for exposure, and I've experienced that as a writer as well. However, with Spinetingler, there are people reaching into their pockets and others banking off hours upon hours of time to keep things going.

We've watched ezines and magazines fold one by one, and from the glory days of online ezines promoting crime fiction, few of us are left.

We can celebrate being the first venue to publish a number of writers who've gone on to great success. James Oswald is one; Mindy Tarquini is another.

But the inference from someone that there was any justification at all for this person's continued harassment had me start thinking it was time to pull the plug after 12 years. I have my 9-5 responsibilities. I have a family. I have my own writing, and that's the main thing that gives out when I work on Spinetingler. While I'm certainly sad to see places shut down and don't want to pull the plug, there's an issue with how professional women are treated, and the backlash over a Marvel comics editor's selfie is proof of that.

If anyone's looking for a woman who may be occasionally seen but not heard, they've got the wrong woman here.

I don't want to believe that in 2017, women still need to have a platform extended to them because they're less than equal, but a lot of things lately have demonstrated that's the reality of the world we live in.

Do I ban books by male authors from being reviewed?

Do I prepare a female-only issue of Spinetingler?

This issue that I'm working on is a tester. If it can't generate ad or sales revenue to break even on the costs of paying writers and artists involved (no pay to editors, no contribution to website costs) then it may be the last we ever do. We've been toying with an option to put it into print, but I'm reluctant to do that because I'm not sure we'll be continuing next year.

Working as an editor has schooled me as a writer in ways I never could have imagined when I started out. What I learned that every writer should know before they submit material anywhere:

1. ALWAYS follow the submission guidelines.

2. You are not the exception to the rules.

3. Editors are very busy. Don't email them every few weeks to check on the status of your submission. (I have writing I submitted to publishers six months ago that I still haven't followed up on.)

4. Professionalism and courtesy will go a long, long way in the publishing business.

5. Editors will reject stories because a writer is difficult to work with.

6. Writers unwilling to make corrections to their work or consider developmental editing suggestions earn a reputation of being difficult to work with. (See #5.)

7. The publishing world is small. Chances are, if you've make a horrible impression on one editor, they've told at least three others.

I referenced this writer being banned. Spinetingler has a shitlist. I'd bet cold, hard cash that other publications do as well.

Editors don't put rules and guidelines in place because they're anal or because they enjoy tormenting writers. They do it to ensure that writers have the best chance of success with their submission. I learned years ago to include strict formatting guidelines because I accepted a story that wasn't properly formatted. The writer had used a hard return at the end of each line like a typewriter, and that meant that all of those hard returns had to be extracted... Only they refused to do it.

I gave up hours of my time to do it, and in the end, after talking to some other editors, I realized I had made a mistake by coddling this writer and wasting my own time. Any writer who won't correct their material will be unaccepted.

I hold firm on that to this day. Occasionally, I still get to read a story that blows me away and I instantly love it, but within what we accept there are a number of stories that went through a period of time where they were simply under consideration. They may have been similar to another story in terms of theme. There may be technical writing issues that need to be corrected. Error-free and original stories will always rise to the top, but many stories simply just edge another story that's comparable out because we have to make decisions.

That's taught me that for every piece of writing I send out, there are a hundred others who've submitted and are fighting for the same slot. The odds are against even those of us who've been traditionally published. Nothing is guaranteed to anyone in this industry.

Whether you're a man or a woman, you have to work for what you get.

And if you really are a sexist asshole, you'd best keep that on lockdown while dealing with professionals in the industry.