How I Saved $999,990.00

You can create a million dollar movie set on a ten dollar comic art board! Here’s the plastination set in Pretty Vacant -- complete with Still Life's plastination vat, body shape moldmaker, flourine shower, cryogenic freeze and storage units, courtesy of Robert Zailo, Oscar DeAnda and myself:

Comics, thank goodness, are content related. People buy your book if they are interested in the subject matter inside. I’m not above taking advertising money, but that doesn’t dictate whether or not I publish. Compare that to television, where shows were renewed and or cancelled based on the level of advertising interest.

Of course, placing your material on the internet has little or no cost at all, but how many people make money on the web? Comics are still the cheapest way to get your vision across and make a little cash.

So if you want to make those million-dollar high-tech sets with cgi special effects, knock yourself out with a comic book! It won’t cost nearly as much as a summer movie blockbuster...

Chuck Me Baby One More Time!

NBC’s action-comedy “Chuck” is hard to sum up in a sentence, but I’m going to try anyway: “Chuck” is about a geeky but kind-hearted computer repairman who inadvertently downloads the entire US Intelligence database (Intersect) into his brain and must now go on secret missions for the government, aided and protected by the highly efficient, sarcastic NSA assassin Casey and the super-cool CIA super-spy Sarah.

Even with that lengthy sentence I have not done enough to accurately describe the show. I admit that I am not the harshest critic of the show. I am willing to wait out mediocre episodes in order to watch the truly great ones, because “Chuck” is the most hysterically funny, romantically sweet, hyper violent family show on TV today! Yes -- family show.

Despite having low viewer ratings for much of the year, NBC has renewed “Chuck” for a third season. The internet campaign for a third season renewal was very commendable, with fans, television journalists and advertisers all backing the show. Unfortunately, since network backing gave “Chuck” a second season renewal and fan passion won it a third, only more viewers will now ensure a fourth.

While the show’s hiatus until spring 2010 is not a perfect situation, now is an ideal time to acquaint people with “Chuck.” Lending your DVDs is a good place to start, and thewb.com, hulu and nbc.com are currently streaming episodes. And if the “You’ll like it” response isn’t enough to satisfy your family and friends’ curiosity, tell them that “Chuck” is a great show and there are some very good reasons as to why.

1. “Chuck” is fun. Other action shows are dark and gritty, but “Chuck” has a feel good quality to it. There is no other show on television that can have a major firefight with Styx’ “Mister Roboto” as background music or have a Special Forces unit plan a wedding with military precision! “Chuck” can be highly improbable and ridiculous (check out the workers at the Buy More store), but a lot is forgiven simply because it is funny.

2. Chuck's ingenuity. Chuck Bartowski is no ordinary agent. Chuck (Zachary Levi) comes up with solutions that top agents Casey or Sarah would never dream of having. Who else could stop a bomb with a computer porn virus? Or prevent a nuclear missile strike on Los Angeles by playing Missile Command? Or use laughing gas to elicit information on the whereabouts of an international terrorist? It also works with his day job at the Buy More by once having to explain his absence as “on-site computer repair” when he was actually helping a Chinese spy defect.

3. Sarah’s bodyguard crush. Yvonne Strahovski (Sarah) is INCREDIBLY good looking -- and a terrific actress as well! She can give viewers a Sarah who is tough, funny and vulnerable, sometimes in the same scene! Strahovski is completely believable as an agent who can kick major butt and fall in love with the “asset” she is supposed to protect. The third season renewal for “Chuck” gives us another year of this Australian’s amazing acting abilities!

4. The music. This show has used songs from musicians as diverse as crooner Burl Ives to indie artists Slow Club. I would have never listened to Bon Iver if it were not for “Chuck.” The music fits well with the action, especially when songs from the 1980s are used. Three ‘80s songs especially stand out with me: when Chuck and Sarah kissed in the Buy More to Huey Lewis And The News “Do You Believe In Love,” when Chuck and Sarah posed as a married couple in suburbia with Talking Heads “Once in a Lifetime” (“This is not my beautiful house – this is not my beautiful wife”) and when Sarah and Casey stormed an enemy organization's headquarters to rescue Chuck to the tune of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

5. Casey unleashed! Major John Casey is a man of few words. Even in the most extreme situation, Casey (Adam Baldwin) does more with a grunt than most characters do with entire sentences! He is quite efficient at everything he does, whether it is assassinating rogue agents or selling a barbeque grill at Buy More. A lot of humor comes out of Casey’s cover as a Buy More employee. And it’s fun to spot the Ronald Reagan photo in Casey’s apartment!

6. “Chuck” got better. There were some mediocre episodes halfway through Season Two, but the later episodes were exceptional. The last ten Season Two episodes built on the previous ones and expanded the storyline all the way to the season finale, making those episodes must see viewing! The characters grew, mysteries were solved, and the stakes got higher -- all culminating with Chuck now possessing Intersect-aided super powers! And Season Three seems limitless…

… if not for the ratings. Frankly, the ratings for “Chuck” are not good. Even if it is debatable, NBC has done its part. Advertisers such as Subway have done their part. Now it’s time for us to do ours and watch “Chuck,” even if Chuck now knows kung fu, even if Casey is now a Colonel, even if Sarah’s new cover is making sandwiches! If any character can make those Subway employee uniforms look good, the smart money’s on Sarah!

It's Alive!

Creating the perfect woman is hard work!

The one thing to remember when writing a damsel-in-distress story is the damsel! Without a female character for the reader to cheer for in the story the thriller will not be as exciting.

With that in mind, I wanted certain criteria when I first created the Gigi Gutierrez character for Pretty Vacant:

1. Gigi had to be pretty
2. Still Life would want to use Gigi for their evil scheme
3. Gigi would be scantily clad
4. Gigi had to be able to fight back

People have asked who my inspiration was for Gigi. I based Gigi off a real person, Colleen, a sales rep acquaintance of mine. Colleen is always happy to see me (probably because I prepare her tax returns every year), and she was flattered that I thought of her when I created Gigi.

I don’t see Colleen that often, so I used more of my imagination with Gigi. I tried to match Colleen’s amazing eyes with Gigi, but I made Gigi much taller and athletic. I wanted Gigi to match Still Life’s ideal mannequin model, so Still Life would want to keep her in ice as a “body mold.”

Very few people are comfortable showing off their body. It was tough to choose a profession for Gigi that requires as little clothing as possible. An actress, cheerleader or model was too clichéd for me. An athlete seemed ideal, but which sport? Watching the Summer Olympics provided the answer with a sport that has bikinis for uniforms: beach volleyball!

One thing I didn’t want Gigi to have in my first Pretty Vacant story was a gun. I did want Gigi to have a weapon, I just wanted something unconventional. Being a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers made the choice simple. A baseball may at first seem harmless, but imagine getting hit by one thrown at 90 miles an hour. It’s not fun!

My greatest thrill in comics is creating. And I created a cool female character in Gigi!

The 'Joie de Vivre' of Comics: Lettering

Lettering a comic book sucks!

There. I’ve said it. Comic book lettering is akin to playing the bass in a cool rock band. Nobody cares! I have to wonder if Adam Clayton of U2 looks at his other bandmates and tells himself, “I didn’t join this band to make those doofi look good!”

Think about it this way: nobody thinks about the bass line Paul McCartney played when John Lennon sang Strawberry Fields Forever. However, Lennon’s bass playing on McCartney’s The Long And Winding Road was so atrocious that the Beatles hid the bass by adding strings! Nobody thinks about the bass line when it’s good. They only care if it sucks!

It’s the same way with comics. The incredible 1977-1981 X-men run of Chris Claremont and John Byrne had wonderful stories and art. Anybody remember the letterer? Tom Orzechowski. How many people know that Dave Gibbons drew and lettered the classic Watchmen? Not too many. Now imagine how these great stories would look if they were lettered by an eight year old and a crayon!

So what does this have to do with me? I was asked by my friend Robert Zailo to letter a story he illustrated, titled Speed Trap! I don’t really think of myself as a comics letterer, but he told me that he really liked the lettering I did on my previous books. I only letter my books because I’ve been disappointed with lettering in my past stories! But I agreed to do it anyway.

Comic lettering is a balance between the writer’s story and the artist’s drawings. I’ve never gotten any chicks by lettering a comic, but it’s an important job -- one that hardly ever gets noticed. I worked hard to letter Robert’s pages. I lettered the writer’s words without blocking Robert’s storytelling. I turned them in on time. Robert said thanks, made photocopies, and promptly forgot them! Perhaps I should too…

Date With Destiny!

It's tough with the L.A. traffic to reach Dodger Stadium, but there is no better place to watch a baseball game in the world!* I have seen some great games at the ballpark, including Dodger second baseman Orlando Hudson hitting for the cycle on opening day.

The Dodgers are riding on a 13 game home winning streak to start the season, a new major league record. I just hope I don't jinx their winning streak by attending tonight...

*In my humble opinion.


Update: Drat! And double drat! I'm now three wins and one loss this year at Dodger Stadium. The three wins were boring, and the one loss was exciting. I would rather take a boring win any day!

The Beautiful Demise -- My Top Five

It has been said that death is never pretty. Ancient Spartans never believed that and neither do I. Killing off a beautiful lady is an effective way to move the story along, whether the intention is heroic, shocking, or even illuminating. The only hard and fast rule is that the woman is more beautiful after her demise than when she was breathing! In my upcoming Pretty Vacant comic I use the demise (and plastination) of the Mindy character to show how dangerous the situation is:

The beautiful demise is a time honored tradition, from Shakespeare to the current day. In descending order, here are five from movies that have left an impression on me. It is the only reason why I would even mention some of these actresses at all!

5. Jill Masterson – Goldfinger (1964)

An all-time classic! Jill’s death propels James Bond to enact revenge against her employer, Auric Goldfinger, by way of Fort Knox and flying bowlers. Shirley Eaton was in other movies, but I don’t remember her in any role except for the gilded Jill.

4. Scooti Manista – Doctor Who: The Impossible Planet (2006)
Did I mention television? I didn’t, but this episode was so epic in scale that I thought I was watching a movie. It’s a classic base-under-siege Doctor Who story, but with a lot more money in the BBC’s budget. Scooti (MyAnna Buring) glimpses the ultimate evil and the ultimate evil returns the favor by shooting her out of an airlock into space!

As Scooti’s lifeless body drifts toward a black hole, The Doctor, his assistant Rose and the surviving base members are helpless to do anything but watch! Fortunately, The Doctor wins his face off with the ultimate evil. Think biblical.

3. Lucinne Garnier – Prix de Beauté (1930)
I had to attend many an all-night cinema during my freshman year in college due to my roommate banging more chicks than a poultry farmer! However, I did get to see films directed by Fritz Lang and Akira Kurosawa and silent movies starring Louise Brooks. Brooks was a revelation to me, someone whose beauty transcended time, sound and color!
In Prix de Beauté (Beauty Prize en Francais), Lucinne (Brooks) is pestered by her boyfriend to enter a beauty contest, which she wins. She then decides to enter the Miss Europe contest. Surrounded by admirers, Lucinne enters a theatre watching a film clip of herself singing a song, when she is shot by her jealous boyfriend. I was floored when I first saw this movie’s end, watching the dead Lucinne in contrast with her film image still ‘alive’ on the screen!

2. Gretchen Maollmann – Anatomie (2000)

This German film was really well done, combining German creepiness with the American horror movie model. Gretchen (Anna Loos) is the top student accepted to a prestigious medical internship at the prestigious Heidelberg research institute, where there are plastinated cadavers on display for study.

A big twist is that Gretchen is not only the top student, but the school slut, sleeping with various students. One particularly eye-popping scene has Gretchen and a fellow student making out on a morgue table. This unfortunately leaves one jealously psychotic ex-boyfriend…

Not only does the ex-boyfriend kill her and the other student, but there’s this wonderfully creepy scene where he unveils Gretchen as a plasticized statue! One half of Gretchen’s body reveals her nude, where the other half has had the skin peeled off – showing her true inner “beauty.”

1. Wilma Soong – Kiss The Girls And Make Them Die (1966)

For only 15 minutes of screen time in the movie, Miss Soong (Seyna Seyn) made the most of what she had. When the Chinese spy meets the villain, Ardonian, for the first time, there’s a pause in the film. While this is supposedly done to give Ardonian time to study Soong’s facial features, it foreshadows a more sinister desire...

Inevitably, Ardonian betrays Soong and her Chinese government employers. Now what is he going to do with the Dragon Lady? Will he shoot her, gut her, feed her to piranhas? Nope. Soong’s demise is highly original: Ardonian freezes her in a cryogenic tube.

I know what you’re thinking: Soong’s not really dead. However, she is not breathing, not moving and not even thinking! Being in a state of suspended animation is the closest thing to death there is without actually dying. And with her perfectly preserved body on display for everyone to see, Soong has become a work of art -- and a beautiful demise!

I know that there might be other beautiful demises out there. Please comment if you can. I look forward to reading about other examples!