tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post9150132255348058130..comments2024-02-22T02:31:34.108+00:00Comments on Too Busy Thinking About My Comics: One Last Look At "Knight & Squire"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-53638749351760018822013-02-26T22:26:35.938+00:002013-02-26T22:26:35.938+00:00Hello there:- I fear I very much doubt it. I asked...Hello there:- I fear I very much doubt it. I asked Paul Cornell about that on Twitter, and his comment was that the characters had returned to Grant Morrison. (He said so without anything that suggested ill-grace, I promise you.) Of course, since then, he's left DC for Marvel, and there have been moments, such as when Gail Simone was sacked from Batgirl, that he's expressed, shall we say, frustration with key aspects of how the company does its job.<br /><br />So, sadly, I think not :-(Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-43944926832490265812013-02-26T21:56:59.533+00:002013-02-26T21:56:59.533+00:00When will there be a sequel?I realise it may be h...When will there be a sequel?I realise it may be harder with recent events in batman inc but its comics there always a wayAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-9350810282937524142012-01-27T13:10:04.095+00:002012-01-27T13:10:04.095+00:00Hello Brian:- When I've a moment, I'll tak...Hello Brian:- When I've a moment, I'll take a look and see where my all-too-fallable memory picked up the idea of Gibson dictating his work. I have a small half-shelf of pulp histories, so if it's not there, I've misremembered.<br /><br />Thank you for the links. I sjall be following them up, I will assure you.<br /><br />I didn't know ESG was so nose-to-the-grindstone, but I should have given how many of the Splendid Wife's collection of old green-covered Penguin books are by him. Good for him. I admire industry matched with craft.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-43665886830332417822012-01-26T17:11:42.355+00:002012-01-26T17:11:42.355+00:00Hello Colin,
Here are some of Gibson's tips o...Hello Colin,<br /><br />Here are some of Gibson's tips on writing: http://www.mysticlightpress.com/index.php?page_id=131<br /><br />I mentioned Gibson once to someone I know whose a writer and documentary film maker, and he said that he'd interviewed him once, for a film about Houdini. Needless to say I was envious ... Not too envious to offer to introduce him to Benoit Mandelbrot, who he was interested in making a film about, but he never followed up, and now, unfortunately, it's too late.<br /><br />While I've never heard of Walter Gibson dictating anything, Erle Stanley Gardner worked that way, and as I recall he had three secretaries, one of them his sister. He'd write a novel in three days. Once one of his secretaries stopped him, because she'd noticed that he'd already written the book.<br /><br />And then there's Lionel Fanthorpe: http://www.peltorro.com/Briannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-56499242482095409482012-01-26T15:16:59.804+00:002012-01-26T15:16:59.804+00:00Hello Brian:-Yep, Pyramids of Mars is on my wish l...Hello Brian:-Yep, Pyramids of Mars is on my wish list. Four days of staying on the diet should free up the sugar-money to buy it. Huzzah.<br /><br />I've read some wonderful stories of Gibson's writing. Tales of big houses, Mr Gibson dictating stories to a secretary ... I wish he'd writtten a book about how to keep that degree of productivity up.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-61653472840816346842012-01-26T14:04:22.520+00:002012-01-26T14:04:22.520+00:00Hello Colin,
If I didn't do anything else tha...Hello Colin,<br /><br />If I didn't do anything else that was good yesterday (as I may not have), at least I brought Pyramids of Mars into somebody's life.<br /><br />Speaking of pulps and productivity, Walter B. Gibson (who wrote most of the Shadow novels, as Maxwell Grant) gave some writing tips. One of them was to leave your last sentence for the day unfinished. That way you were dying to get going again the next morning, and you had a place to start.Briannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-62703122430949419922012-01-26T13:00:22.372+00:002012-01-26T13:00:22.372+00:00Hello Brian:- I like that phrase pop abandon. And ...Hello Brian:- I like that phrase pop abandon. And the things which I realise appreciate where fiction is concerned are those which are entirely frivolous and entirely serious too. The best of Who has of course always been that, and it usually falls over for me when either quality is emphasised at the expense of the other. <br /><br />I also like the idea that a run of Spider novels might not contain emough of the right stuff, as if there's an vital quality there which might be a touch too diluted if the wrong mix of source material is accessed! As you say, it's hardly surprising how the majority of the pulp material falls down when it's read out of context. The amount of words that those writers had to churn out if they were lucky enough to be in demand. And yet, those were hard, hard years. Writing all day must have seemed very much better than the majority of options. And of course some folks actually worked themselves the ladder very well indeed.<br /><br />I have a guilty admission to make. I have never seen Pyramids Of Mars. I think I'd better go sort THAT problem out.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-53183643774205112262012-01-25T19:06:33.990+00:002012-01-25T19:06:33.990+00:00Hello Colin,
The Spider novels, I think, fall und...Hello Colin,<br /><br />The Spider novels, I think, fall under Sturgeon's Law. After all, if you're writing a novel a month, it's a wonder it gets done at all, let alone that it's ever any good. What surprises me is the degree to which Page really did commit to the work at points, well beyond what he needed to do meet some very hard deadlines. Another example is the Empire State Trilogy, where New York State falls under a fascist dictatorship.<br /><br />But, you know, creo quia absurdum, to once again misquote poor Tertullian. I love the luridness and absurdity, mixed in sometimes with something that's genuinely involving. There probably wasn't much of the latter, and whatever Spider novels you have lying around might not be a big enough sample to contain any of it. In contrast, comics often seem as if they're too busy telling you they're adult (why, they're turning seventeen and a half years old next month) to unbend and have some good dirty fun, as Paul Cornell does so well. Doctor Who hasn't been all Pyramids of Mars all the time, but it's never really lost that pop abandon, particularly under Moffat.Briannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-34846176753521593592012-01-25T16:56:34.308+00:002012-01-25T16:56:34.308+00:00Hello Brian:- I think there's a really good ar...Hello Brian:- I think there's a really good article to be written on the topic of the best comics since Sandman came on the scene. The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that it would be a long list, but of course, as with most things, the list of those books which weren't too good, to say the least, would be considerably longer. <br /><br />I'm really pleased to hear another good commenter declaring for Knight & Squire. Thanks for your kind words about the pieces. It is the real thing, isn't it, and perhaps it's a step forward in a way that I've not really paid enough attention to until the above. By which I mean, it's a step forward but it doesn't advertise itself as such. In fact, it's actually happy to be seen as something which is at first comfortable and unchallenging when it's in many ways anything but. We're all used to those great steps forward which carried obvious innovations with them, but Knight & Squire uses narrative smartness in a way that makes it hard to spot. In that, it joins a small number of works which are radical while appearing at first to be anything but. And that's the kind of writing that I'm particularly interested in, as I suppose is obvious :)<br /><br />I've been meaning to re-read a Spider novel for years now. I have a few on my shelves, so I shall take a visit into the catacombs to check one out. Thank you for the inspiration. I've been reading a great deal of literature recently which the younger me would've thought as worthy. He'd have been wrong, of course, but I do fancy a touch of grit would do me good too.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-76682984358925716982012-01-25T16:27:47.444+00:002012-01-25T16:27:47.444+00:00Hello Colin,
I've been packing up to move, wh...Hello Colin,<br /><br />I've been packing up to move, which has led, in part, to my getting access to things that had been lost to clutter. One of them was a box of comics from the time I began to read them as an adult, originally to practice my Swedish, around 1990. It included a lot of strong stuff -- Miracleman, Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Sandman, and so on. <br /><br />It struck me how little after that had made any impression. I'd once decided to quit after Sandman, but put it off, and then decided to stop after Planetary, and didn't. Some nice work by Warren Ellis, James Robinson, Kieron Gillen, Gail Simone, and other people along the way, but not much of it was going to change your life.<br /><br />The one exception I could think of -- and it was a huge one -- was Paul Cornell, first with Captain Britain, then with Knight and Squire. It was a comfort to think that drifting along with all that mediocrity had at least gotten me there. Both were absolutely compelling, but Knight and Squire was the real thing. I'm pleased that you've written so much about it, and so well.<br /><br />While packing I was reading some old Spider novels, and one, in particular -- Slaves of the Murder Syndicate -- just seemed much better at many things superhero comics attempt to do. It had that pop license to be lurid and to be indifferent to realism when it doesn't advance the story, but paid attention to character and even drama, and knew how to write involving conflicts. One fight scene goes on for, I suppose, twenty pages, and it nails you for the entire time. It does this by paying attention to detail -- for example, Wentworth is very concerned with losing his center throughout the fight, and when he does he tries to make use of it. It succeeds because it sets up rules about action and consequence that define risk and opportunity and at least touch on the plausible, and so leads you to think about what your own next move would be. It's well thought out enough to be engrossing, and lucidly presented, with a beautiful sense of timing.<br /><br />It isn't impossible to do this in comics -- Scott Snyder does it well, for example -- but it is very difficult, and hardly anyone bothers. It's much easier to fall into grunts and magical thinking. This led me to think about what comics were naturally good at, as a medium, and what they weren't. But that's probably a good question to pose and leave open.Briannoreply@blogger.com