BRAVE & THE BOLD this Friday

Thanks to Comic Book Resources, found out that they're doing a storyline this Friday following the run on Blue Beetle I did with Giffen. Specifically, our villains, the Reach, are showing up. BB fights the Green Lanterns! The Challengers of the Unknown! Batman in a space-bat suit!

Meanwhile, in the actual comics, The Rainbow Ponies Lanterns continue their year-long all-title cross-over fight with a space zombie lord who rips out heroes' hearts.

RERUNS: "Wait, Arent You Scared?"

(Conveniently enough, I'm doing hiatus reruns, and it's apparently time to drag this one out fo the closet. Originally posted August 2006, right after the Juicebox terrorists were rolled up)

"Wait, Arent You Scared?"

Errr, no. And if you are, you frankly should be a little goddam embarrassed.

No false bravado and it's not that I don't take terrorism seriously. I do, which I why I voted for the guy who believed in securing our ports and fighting terrorism with criminal investigation methods -- which is, if we may remind everybody, how this particular plot was busted.

I am just not going to wet my pants every time some guys get arrested in a terror plot. I will do my best to stay informed. I will support the necessary law enforcement agencies. I will take whatever reasonable precautions seem, um, reasonable. But I will not be terrorized. I assume that the terror-ists would like me to be terror-ized, as that is what is says on their nametag, rather than, say, wanting me to surrender to ennui or negative body image, and they're just coming the long way around.

Osama Bin Laden got everything on his Christmas list after 9/11 -- US out of Saudi Arabia; the greatest military in the world over-extended, pinned down and distracted; the greatest proponent of democracy suddenly alienated from its allies; a US culture verily eager to destroy freedoms that little scumfuck could never even dream to touch himself -- I would like to deny him the last little check on the clipboard, i.e. constant terror. I panic, they win. To coin a phrase, Osama Bin Laden can suck my insouciance.

I am absolutely buffaloed by the people who insist I man up and take it in the teeth for the great Clash of Civilizations -- "Come ON, people, this is the EPIC LAST WAR!! You just don't have the stones to face that fact head-on!" -- who at the whiff of an actual terror plot will, with no apparent sense of irony, transform and run around shrieking, eyes rolling and Hello Kitty panties flashing like Japanese schoolgirls who have just realized that the call is coming from inside the house!

I may have shared too much there.

To be honest, it's not like I'm a brave man. I'm not. At all. It just, well, it doesn't take that much strength of will not to be scared. Who the hell am I supposed to be scared of? Joseph Padilla, dirty bomber who didn't actually know how to build a bomb, had no allies or supplies, and against whom the government case is so weak they're now shuffling him from court to court to avoid the public embarassment of a trial? The fuckwits who were going to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with blowtorches? Richard Reid, the Zeppo of suicide bombers? The great Canadian plot that had organized over the internet, was penetrated by the Mounties on day one, and we were told had a TRUCK FULL OF EXPLOSIVES ... which they had bought from the Mounties in a sting operation but hey let's skip right over that. Or how about the "compound" of Christian cultists in Florida who were planning on blowing up the Sears Tower with ... kung fu?

And now these guys. As the initial "OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD THEY CAN BLOW US UP WITH SNAPPLE BOTTLES!!" hysteria subsides, we discover that these guys had been under surveillance, completely penetrated, by no less than three major intelligence agencies. That they were planning on cell phones, and some of them openly travelled to Pakistan (way to keep the cover, Reilly, Ace of Spies). Hell, Chertoff knew about this two weeks ago, and the only reason that some people can scream this headline:

"The London Bombers were within DAYS of trying a dry run!!!"

-- was because MI-5, MI-6, and Scotland Yard let them get that close, so they could suck in the largest number of contacts (again, very spiffy police work). The fact that these wingnuts could have been rolled up, at will, at any time, seems to have competely escaped the media buzz.

This is terrorism's A-game? Sack up, people.

Again, this is not to do anything less than marvel as cool, well-trained, ruthless law-enforcement professionals -- who spent decades honing their craft chasing my IRA cousins -- execute their job magnificently. Should we take this seriously? DAMN STRAIGHT we take this seriously. Left unchecked, these terror-fanboy bastards would have gone down in history. These cretins' intent was monstrous; they should, and will, all go to jail for a very long time. This is the part where we all breathe a sigh of relief that there are some actual professionals working the job in some countries.

But God gave me a brain, and a modicum of spine. Taking something seriously, and panicking over it are two different things. I do not assign all dangers and risks equal value. Tight little freelance squads with leak-proof operational discipline, like the 7/7 guys, -- those I worry about. A nuke coming in through one of ridiculously open ports -- I am concerned. Not bio-terror so much, because it's a shitty delivery mechanism. That the Muslim population of England seems to be becoming radicalized enough to sprout up these plots, that's not a good thing to consider. al-Queda involvement -- good if true because this means their recruiting is shitty: bad if true because this means they're back in business: bad if false because it means al-Queda has indeed become a "brand": but good if false because it reinforces the idea that they're operationally crippled (and if Zwahari is involved, I personally would like a word with whatever idiot nation took their eyes of the ball and let him escape ...)

... You get the point. There are a million factors in this New World of Terror. You weigh 'em, you process, and then you move on.

You move on, building a better international society so that luddite fundamentalist criminal gangs/cults of personality are further and further marginalized.

Or, if you don't understand 4th Generation Warfare at all, you move on, bombing the shit out of nation-states and handing your opponents massive PR victories. Either way, you move the fuck on.

Maybe it's just, I cast my eyes back on the last century ...

FDR: Oh, I'm sorry, was wiping out our entire Pacific fleet supposed to intimidate us? We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and right now we're coming to kick your ass with brand new destroyers riveted by waitresses. How's that going to feel?

CHURCHILL: Yeah, you keep bombing us. We'll be in the pub, flipping you off. I'm slapping Rolls-Royce engines into untested flying coffins to knock you out of the skies, and then I'm sending angry Welshmen to burn your country from the Rhine to the Polish border.

US. NOW: BE AFRAID!! Oh God, the Brown Bad people could strike any moment! They could strike ... NOW!! AHHHH. Okay, how about .. NOW!! AAGAGAHAHAHHAG! Quick, do whatever we tell you, and believe whatever we tell you, or YOU WILL BE KILLED BY BROWN PEOPLE!! PUT DOWN THAT SIPPY CUP!!

... and I'm just a little tired of being on the wrong side of that historical arc.

This is it, folks. This is the world, from now on. Even assuming the War on Terror is a not just a bad metaphor and there is an actual measurable winning point (which is a bad assumption, by the way), even short 4GW struggles last fifty years or so. We're going to be stopping one or two of these bastard mass-murder plots a year, minimum, for the rest of our lives. Hell, the way terror tactics and tech evolve, five years from now we're going to be pining for the dudes with the flammable juice boxes.

It's now part of our life. Let's try not to hop like the trained monkeys every time it happens.

RERUNS: ADAPTATION pt. 5

The Rules of Adaptation
(originally published on this blog in 2005)

Rule 5: "This property already has millions of devoted fans!"
Rule 6: "... who HATE you."

I ruined it. I ruined it. I made all the wrong choices. That's not how the hero talks, that's the wrong part of the second book, who even cares about that character --

The point is, as we've discussed (in parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), that the sheer mechanics of Hollywood demand an enormous number of ideas, both original and adapted. The adapted properties come with some spiffy things -- ordinarily well-developed second acts, and a fan base which aids in its marketing -- and with some downfalls. Specifically, the fact that the movie already exists.

It exists in the fans' heads. That version cannot be beat. Except by Peter Jackson, but he plainly cut some sort of deal with the cinematic version of the Librarian from Gaiman's The Sandman, punched a hole into Moorcock's idea space and dragged forth each individual fan's fantasy, whereupon he burned the images onto film made from the souls of children who died because they hoped too much. So, exception that proves the rule, yada yada.

When doing an adaptation you have to settle for the fact that unless you really, really cross the strange attractor, you're going to be producing a reflection of the original material. It's even tougher if it's a property you actually love (as it should be). No, the best version is the special In-Skull Director's Cut, which clocks in at four hours and ... well, whatever the time is during red lights on the commute to work. However, what this version lacks is what makes art (and I'm hacking about above my pay grade, but coast with me for a moment) -- choice. Art is choice.

Maybe not for you, but for me. That's what a screenplay is, my friends, one gruelling choice after another, each image, each character fighting for the tiny bit of acreage on that precious whitespace. One of my favorite moments in film is in Wonder Boys, when Katie Holmes --

-- damn you Cruise, damn you monster will you LEAVE NOTHING CLEAN --

-- sorry, when Katie Holmes realizes that Michael Douglas' long awaited opus is a failure because he just couldn't make the choices necessary to elevate his scribblings from clever notes to a novel.

I recently faced this in a rewrite of a script DJ and I wrote three (EDIT: eight, now) years ago. It's our damn story. We were getting to go back and rip out all the shitty Paramount notes. It should have been a long weekend at best.

But I knew this version will probably go out essentially unchanged to the studios. I knew each choice I made would be, in essence, final as far as my piece of art goes. And so I barely dragged myself through it, agonizing over each scene. Kicked my ass.

So when looking at an adaptation, engage it in its medium. Don't just curse the abridged plots, or the missed characters. If you're a Spec Monkey, ask yourself why that choice was made. How you would have done it differently. Maybe you'll see why it had to be that way, or at least why that was the choice that made the most sense. Or, if you made a different choice, earlier, how you would have developed the movie out along different lines. At the worst it'll add another wrench in your toolbox, knowing how to recognize a mistake. At best, you've advanced your understanding of your chosen field. Produced scripts are like old chess games, in that they are theory forced inexorably to a conclusion within a specific physical framework. A fan is allowed the luxury of a raw emotional response. Your job is to pull it apart.

That's all I can contribute constructively to this topic. Hope you found it useful. As always, feel free to throw a question into the inbox. I'm never short hot air.

RERUNS: ADAPTATION Pt. 4

The Rules of Adaptation
(originaly published 2005, edited and cleaned up)

Rule 3: "Respect the source material."
Rule 4: "Don't be afraid to screw with the source material."

Even a short novel clicks in at 300 pages. A script is around 120, with lots of blank lines. Only so many people in so many locations can be paraded on the screen in two-odd hours. When a character shows up, the screenwriter can't just lay down a couple pages of backstory like the novelist can -- they have to establish character through action and dialogue. Every page spent on one plot point is a page that comes out of another. When a writer's very good, all that seems effortless. But trust me, it's all whirring away under the surface, waiting to blow a gasket.

A while ago I had a run at adapting Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. Yes, yes I am unworthy, file your complaints at the door. Anyway, fifteen hundred pages of 1950's sci fi. Stunningly cerebral and emotionally wrenching at the same time. I starter writing, well, more like transcribing like an old monastery illuminationist. Scenes transposed untouched. Whole speeches lifted ver. Just transferring the geniuis from one medium to the next.

One character, Bayta, is crucial to the arc of the second book. Her virtue inspires certain people people to fall in love with her, to change, and the fallout from this changes the course of humanity's future over a millenium. Bayta is the center of the movie.

And Bayta is, essentially, a space housewife.

Foundation and Empire was written in 1952. Oh, Bayta is a very liberated space housewife, to be sure. She worked outside the home. For 1952, Asimov was writing some pretty progressive stuff. It wasn't Mary Tyler Moore dancing in her Capri pants for Rob's drunken voyeuristic friends (what was up with that?) but it was progressive. For 1952. Yet if I transposed this character literally, I'd be making Asimov's very relevant work reek of obsolescence.

Ok, then, think. Foundation is made up of scientists. Good, let's try her as a scientist. She has a stake now, an intellect, a voice. She's not a spectator, she has an agenda with Foundation and its plans. She has personal goals LINKED to story goals. There's now a reason she seeks out Foundation's enemies -- or Enemy, if you know the book. Heresy? Maybe. Better film-making? Hell yeah. My job's to write the movie, not Xerox (tm) the book.

However, the important thing isn't to gut the source for ego's sake. I've read those scripts, where a writer's peed all over a story to make it his. That's not adaptation, that's bullying. It's usually done by someone who never solved the "why do I love this story" question we addressed earlier.

What's odd is that the one group of authors who can complain about changes to their books -- the living ones -- have never had a problem with what I've done. Because, trust me, when the script goes in, I'm sitting there wincing, waiting for the original author's feedback. Matt Wagner loved the new character in Mage. Lee Child was incredibly gracious about my adaptation of Killing Floor. Greg Rucka dug Tara's new relationship with a character who'd been a one-page cameo in the book. I had to rewrite the entire ending to Matt Reilly's Ice Station, and he was not only fine with it, he pitched out some possibilities. Hell, unless Warren Ellis lies like James Earl Ray, even he liked the Global Frequency pilot screenplay. A book' s a static thing, for better or worse. When writers get a chance to breathe some more life into the work, they tend to enjoy it. They understand that writing is all about choices. Different choices allow them to see the work that might-have-been.

(This is not always true, of course. Alan Moore hates the movie adaptations of his work. He also hates, well, all of us. Yes, you too. No, I don't know why. Just be afraid. He can smell you.)

That concept of choice leads us to the last two big rules in the art of adaptation ...

RERUNS: ADAPTATION pt. 3

(Hiatus Reruns until the New Year. Merry Christmas!! This article was originally published on this blog in 2005)

The Rules of Adaptation:
(adapted from an article for CHUD)

Rule 1: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
Rule 2: "Don't take the gig for the money."

As we've previously seen, in the last five years I've written somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-odd projects, maybe two-thirds of them adaptations. That's first draft, revisions, notes, more revisions -- Fermi it out to 17,000 PAGES of work on adaptations alone.

(EDIT: in the four years since this article was written, add six more movies, including the adaptations of Transformers, Shibumi, the unshot sequel to Thomas Crown, the adaptation of Adieu L'ami I was going to direct, and the YA novel adaptation I'm working on now. So between rewrites, development docs, etc, add another 500-700 pages of just adaptations.)

That's a whole lotta typing, never mind writing. If it were just for the money, I'd grow bored. I'd learn to hate these things. My hate would be there on the page. It's inescapable.

The first challenge in adapting something is to ask: "Why do I love this story?" You don't have to start by loving the story. Bryan Singer, as I understand it, was completely ignorant of the X-Men universe when he began his adaptation work. He grew to love it, to find the themes of alienation and acceptance he could relate to in a world of bamfing blue guys and adamantium claws.

The first adaptation I wrote was a screenplay of Matt Wagner's classic graphic novel, Mage. Strip away Matt's cool art, insanely clever Arthurian trappings and engaging characters, and the base story boils down to a familiar one: shlub - Kevin Matchstick - gets superpowers, shlub must learn to use superpowers. I was enthusiastic about writing cool fight scenes and exploring a rich fantasy world. As a fan of the series, I couldn't wait to bring Edsel and Mirth to life. I wanted the world to see Kevin's power while fighting updated evils of myth. I sat down to type.

In my first rough draft, Kevin gets his powers, is reluctant to use them, then accepts his responsibility, because with great powers comes great aggggggggggggggghhhhh...

Wait. How the hell is this not Spiderman?

Okay. I sat down. I paced. I drank. I paced. I sat back down, because I'd gotten very, very drunk while pacing. The bare framework of the story was hanging me here. I had to figure out, why did I care about this story? Slowly, I pieced it together. Kevin's not some teenager, giddy with power. He was (at the time) my age. Late twenties. I'd been thinking about that generation, an entire generation who'd never seen war, never really been tested. We're observers, keeping a sardonic distance away from clumsy emotions like faith and sacrifice and love. We're supposed to stay cool.

Kevin became that guy. Every time he succeeded, it wasn't a triumph, it dragged him deeper into a game of big damn magic-y passions he didn't want to play. He's supposed to lead a team, but he can't even run his own life. And most of all, in the end, he realizes that his attitude's crap. In the end he doesn't choose to fight and maybe die because "that's what being a hero is all about" -- he chooses to fight, knowing he'll PROBABLY die, because that's what being a man is all about. I agonized over what Mirth, his mentor and best friend, would say to push him over that final hump. I grew to love that poor, doomed bastard. I wanted him to make the speech we'd all make, do what we'd all hope we would do. I wanted to WEEP.

Annnnnnd ... it was a comic book. I mean, really, reread that last paragraph. I sound insane. But that commitment got me through the brutal notes, literally a dozen drafts, the bone-breaking stupidity on the part of executives who didn't get this whole "superpowers" thing (this was two years before the comic movie boom).

By the end of the process, I was taping sharpened spoons to my wrists like a prison fighter before I went into notes sessions. Having that story mean something to me -- even though it started out as somebody else's story, started out as an assignment -- gave my life as a writer meaning. Even as I was writing swordfights with baseball bats.

How bad did it get, by the way?

True story:

Disney Exec: "You see, our current studio head doesn't like complicated characters and stories. He likes simple stories. Simple, clear characters. A bad guy ... becomes a good guy. Just one emotion. See?"
Me: "So ... BAD WRITING. What you're looking for is BAD WRITING."
Disney Exec: "Well, if that's what you call bad writing -- yes."

If you take away one thing, from this section -- just because you get paid, doesn't mean you're for sale.

Next: Rules 3 & 4 ...

(EDIT: And again, the benefit of hindsight. I distinctly remember the meeting where someone said "Heath Ledger as Kevin and Paul Bettany as Mirth? Nobody knows who those guys are ..." Although if I remember correctly, there was a strong Joaquin Phoenix faction in there, too)

RERUNS: ADAPTATION pt. 1 & 2

(Re-running screenwriting articles during the Christmas holidays. Adapted from an article in CHUD's Movie Insider Magazine, originally published on this blog in 2005. Copy-edited and cleaned up a bit)

PART 1

TRUE STORY:
Movie Exec: They're insane. His last movie made a nickel. There's not a single star in the thing, the whole project's going to cost something like two hundred million dollars, they're shooting in New Zealand so the studio can't be down there and maintain control -- they're ruined. What the hell were they thinking?
Me: The Lord of the Rings is the most popular set of books in HISTORY.
Movie Exec: Eh. Elves. Please.

An adaptation is a movie based on source materials: a novel, a comic book, a series of newspaper articles, etc. I also count most remakes and sequels as adaptations, because what the writer's doing is taking source material -- the first movie -- and telling another story using elements from it, be they characters or actual story beats.

Reality check: if you want to make a living as a professional Hollywood screenwriter, then odds are you will wind up writing an adaptation.

Time for some Hollywood 101. Let's take a best-case scenario. Say your career begins by selling an original script, a "spec sale". In this dreamy version, a man holding an automatic office door closer (they exist) sits opposite you across a coffee table covered with art books by artists he's never actually heard of. And he says:

"Great script. Wonderful. Characters are incredible, real director-bait. We're not going to rewrite it or give you notes, we're just going to make this as fast as humanly possible. Hmm? Oh, no more than three years. Five tops."

Now let's even spot you a pretty good deal for a young writer's first spec sale -- low six figures against high six figures. You don't get the high six figures until the movie's actually produced. If the movie's ever produced. That's what the "against" means in all the movie articles you've read. And kid, trust me, that money -- my imaginary friend has an imaginary friend, and even he doesn't believe in that money.

Low six, let's say $150,000. Sweet Jesus, not bad, right? Take out taxes. $75,000 left. Commissions, that's $15-20k depending on your agent/lawyer deal. Say $60,000 left over three to five years (I'm not even counting the time it took you to write the thing and somehow get it to a Hollywood human), the value of any rewrites (if you get them, which you won't), pretty much canceled by the free "courtesy passes" you'll do for the producers and execs.

You just averaged $15,000-$20,000 a year. Congratulations. You're a feature film writer, and the guy humping the Freezie machine at the 7-11 takes home more than you.*

Even as you toil away on your next original opus -- one you're in no way sure you'll be able to sell, remember -- the bills keep coming. Your kids need food. You need health insurance. You want to write for a living? Then you need to write and get paid for it. You need to go where writing gets done. You need to go to adaptation-land.

"No WAY!" I hear the goateed ones scream. "I'm only doing my own, brilliant original material. I'm no hack!"

Well, okay. If you're going to make indies, that can be true, and good on ya. You're a god. I admire you. (You're also probably a director, so fuck off back to your Guild and cackle over your egregious "FILM BY" credit. Bastards.) That's a whole different game, one I am absolutely not qualified to write about. You know who could write that column? Kevin Smith. He's gutsy as hell, and I admire him immensely. He'd write the shit out of that column.

I also have his script for The Six Million Dollar Man on my shelf.

***************************************************

PART 2

Those Who Can't Teach, Develop.

Why are so many adaptations written? Many were born of something beautiful: passion. Somebody read the story, and it thrilled them or inspired them or terrified them. Many directors want the challenge of bringing images to the screen they'd only imagined. Sometimes writers love something, and they just want to share it with their friend sin the darkness. Adaptations like that are often nursed for years, clutched to one creative madman's chest like a baby chick with a wet cough. Some -- but not all -- adaptation jobs come about this way.

So where do the rest come from?

The real bear is the "business" side of this business we call "show." In 2002, Sony was the box-office winner, garnering 17% of total box office for a staggering 1.5 BILLION dollars. You know how many of that year's top 100 movies they released?

Thirteen.

That's right. Don't focus on the obvious win, focus on this: those poor bastards in the Sony exec offices were gambling in a billion-dollar game based on just thirteen movies.

Movie executives do not lead happy lives. If you are an executive, this is your day: a scruffy man in a Hawaiian shirt walks into your office and says, "I need you to be personally responsible for giving me one hundred million dollars so I can go to Ireland and have people who pretend for a living act like they're fighting imaginary dragons."

"Will I get to see the dragons first?" you ask hopefully.

"Oh, no the dragons won't exist until after we're done shooting. The professional pretending people will be yelling at sticks. Occasionally, they will flee from a mop."

And your job, as the exec, is to write him the check. Any sane man would break.

So, what would any sane person do? Hedge the bet. Generate as many scripts as possible, to get as many choices as possible. If I'm Joe Blow executive, I need ten movies this year. That means I need ten shooting scripts -- how many scripts are the right budgets AND attracted a director AND got the right actor involved? One in ten? So I need a hundred shooting scripts! How many scripts are far enough along to be in that pile? One out of ten? I need a THOUSAND scripts in various stages of development! How many major Hollywood studios are there? Ten. At any given time Hollywood the industry needs ten thousand scripts in development ...

I'm exagerrating, of course, but not by much. Faced with such high stakes, studios and the people who sell to them try to find an edge, any edge. This book already has an audience? Well then, hell, at least those people will come. This comic book is practically a storyboard! It's 90% of the way to being a movie! Buy it, buy it, BUY IT!

Is this insane? Yes. Is it artistic? Hell no. Will it change any time soon? I have my theories, but no, I wouldn't bet on it. In theory, pure capitalism always creates the most efficient market. But in the movie business, Adam Smith's invisible hand is giving us the finger.

So there they sit, literally vaults of stories waiting to be readied for the big screen. Somebody's gotta turn 'em into 120 pages. Might as well be us. Now, roll up your sleeves, and let's get to work ...

Next week: Rules 1 & 2 of adaptation




*("What about those million-dollar script sales?" I hear you cry. Quick hint: if you're counting on a million-dollar script sale to justify your work on breaking into the film industry, go back to the filth-encrusted messageboard from whence you came. Adults only here, please)

Breaking In: Hollywood University

My path to showrunning is essentially unique. I'm not sure that if you want to write/run a television show you should do hundreds of gigs on the road as a stand-up, get a failed sitcom pilot, then spin that into a staff position and spec feature career, all oriented solely 'round your geek identity. I mean, I can help you with some tools in the writing toolbox, but I basically backed my way through the process of building a career.

So I'll heartily recommend Hollywood University, where Jessica Butler -- former producer and newly minted writer -- attempts to run you through the basics of the business and craft. She's got a nice eye for detail, does actual research (as opposed to my anecdotal style) and has already accumulated a wide range of links over a good spectrum of resources. Warren Bell also contributes the occasional article. Considering Warren was running shows when I arrived in Hollywood (in, actually, the office two doors down from mine) that's a good ringer to have.

They've inspired me to fill the holiday schedule with reruns -- just like the networks. A lot of you started coming here years after I began writing about screenwriting. So for the next two weeks, I'm going to repost some of my old screenwriting posts while I recharge for the new year.

I'll start tomorrow with ADAPTATION. Hope you find it amusing. If there's an old post you want to see revisited, or any requests for topics in the new year, throw them into the Comments.

All I'll Say About the Blogwars

Last fall:

Republicans: Jesus, you're just voting for Hopey McChangey because he's a great speaker and he's promising unicorns and rainbows of change.

Democrats: How condescending. No, I'm voting for Obama based on his stated policy goals and his deliberative nature. We are, after all, the reality-based community.

Now:

Democrats: WHERE THE &#%&@ IS MY GODDAM UNICORN?!!


FWIW, until we rise up with pitchforks and get rid of the Senate (and, seriously, I've had my pitchfork sharpened for years), I think we got HCR about as far as it could go this round. Although I disagree with the idea we live in a center-right nation, we operate within a center-right system.

Congratulations Internet Apocalypse Lord

Release date set for a film based on Warren Ellis' Red.

And, as noted, no mention of Warren, creator and writer of the original comic, in the Variety article. It's a "DC/Wildstorm comic". Much like a movie based on a novel is always described as, say "a movie based on the Random House Book Angels and Demons." Prats.

Luckily, Variety just did a nine page interview with Mark Millar explaining how Red is just further evidence of his own coming dominance of All Media, so we have that.

Lil' Miss Grifter

Gina asked me to pass this along to the fans:



Little Miss Grifter was born November 2009. Mother and baby are both well, and itching to get back to work.

Geektastic - Parker stats

I'm finishing a movie rewrite, but to keep you amused here's Parker as I statted her out for True20, from a discussion on modern RPG systems over on the EN World Forums.

8th level Parker in True 20 would be

Parker
Expert 8

Str +2
Dex +4
Int +1
Wis +0
Con +1
Cha -1

Background: Criminal: Burglar (from Expert's Handbook)

FEATS (2 BG, 4 starting, 7 level-ups)

Second Chance (Trigger Alarms)
Talented (Disable Device & Stealth)

Talented (Acrobatics & Athletics)
Talented (Bluff & Sleight of Hand)
Benefiit (Alternate ID's)
Firearms Training

Talented (Notice & Search)
Skill Mastery Acrobatics/ Disable Device / Stealth / Sleight of Hand
Challenge: Disable Device - Fast Task
Slow Fall
Acrobatic Bluff
Sneak Attack
Challenge: Stealth - Slip between cover

SKILLS (2 BG, 9 starting, 9sp/level)

+17 Disable Device (uses Dex as she's usually lockpicking)
+17 Stealth
**************
+17 Acrobatics
+15 Athletics
+5 Bluff
+17 Escape Artist
+3 Gather Information
+12 Knowledge (crime)
+13 Notice
+14 Search
+17 Sleight of Hand

TOUGH: +1
FORT: +3
REF: +10
WILL: +2

Combat Bonus: +6
Dodge: 20
Parry: 18
Reputation: +3
Wealth: +18

Virtue: Fearless
Vice: Greedy

or, arguably

Virtue: Crazy
Vice: Crazy

Possessions: Lockpicks, specialized climbing gear, 9mm pistol (attack +10, Damage DC 18), Alternate ID documents

Parker's bright, surprisingly strong from climbing (her 6th level Att bonus went to STR) and tough from her childhood. She concentrates during heists but is otherwise easily distracted, evening out her WIS. She's attractive, but is oblivious to the fact and is really bad with people (neg CHA)

Note that I folded Climb and Jump into Athletics because, well, all right-thinking humans do so. She started with Bluff (for pickpocketing) and Gather Information (finding fences for her loot) but then never really levelled them up. I only used Talented, not Skill Focus -- I only allow one or the other in my campaigns. Also, all these feats are from the True20 core rulebook. The Expert's Splatbook has a few more tasty treats.

Geek out in the Comments.

LEVERAGE 2.5 - back on Jan 13

I like this one. We're a fun show, I like TNT's new focus on that fact. A new one hour con/heist movie every week.

Netflix Friday #6: JEKYLL

You came thisclose to a long discussion about Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew. That's also streaming on Netflix Instant. You can watch it any time. Instantly. In your home.

Any. Time.

Just lettin' you know.

Juuuuuust sayin'.

...

Now, a good chunk of you may have already seen this six-hour series from our friends at the BBC. But those of you who don't torrent probably missed this when the DVD blew through your local Best Buy.

James Nesbitt is Dr. Tom Jackman, a man with a problem. Michelle Ryan, rocking some seriously kicky boots, is hired to help him. Gina Bellman is Jackman's wife. She tricks you into thinking she's just playing the aggrieved wife role, and then transforms into an unexpectedly ruthless heroine. Gina was actually hired for Leverage based on footage we showed TNT from this show. As much as I love her work in Coupling, this is my favorite thing she's done.

Steven Moffat rolls the story out flawlessly, starting with what is easily the best opening on television in years. That opening five minutes is textbook. Little clues. Momentum. An actual goddam ticking clock.

Moffat expertly toys with the meta-text here. We know it's called Jekyll. He knows we know it's called Jekyll. He knows what clues we're putting together, and what conclusions we're drawing. He plays with that extra layer of emotion, laying it into his work as a crucial part of the narrative. Letting us draw the wrong conclusions is a crucial part of the mini-series. All the while this thing hurtles along at a classic pulp breakneck pace, with gasp-inducing acting moments that sneak up on you. Jekyll has a couple scenes that are textbook examples of:

a.) something's happened.

b.) the audience has to take a moment to figure out what's happened, yet it's timed perfectly so

c.) the characters are a perfect number of beats behind the audience, so the audience gets both the thrill of recognition and a horrible frisson of anticipation.

And Moffat knows who we're waiting for.

When ... he arrives, it's a triumph. Where an American show would fuck this up by ladling on special effects, this show, um, doesn't.

While the first hour is flawless, I think the back two sometimes get a little too clever/writery for their own good, even some of the beats I adore. A lot of things blow by unexplained in the end, and I can only hope that they'll be explored -- not cleared up, but explored -- if they ever get around to doing a sequel. Unfortunately Moffat's taken over a little show called Dr. Who this year, so he's a bit busy. Bastard.

BBC's Jekyll, streaming Instantly on Netflix, is your weekend recommendation. Tag your spoilers in the Comments -- there are moments in this show I am sorry I will never get to experience for the first time ... um, again (I'm honestly not sure how to construct that sentence). I want new viewers to get on the ride clean.

BADASS at Secret Headquarters Thursday

Friend-of-Blog artist Matt Haley and author Ben Thompson will be signing and talking about their book BADASS, a collection of illustrated essays dealing with famous bad-asses from history, at The Secret Headquarters bookshop this Thursday, between 7-9:30 pm. I'm a big fan of both of them, big fan of Ben's site and I dig the book. I urge all fans of righteous bad-assery to attend.

You Wound Me, Scalzi ...

... you wound me to THE CORE. [:: dramatic music::].

The science is worse than 2012? Oh, I am coming for you, buddy.

SLINGERS!

Ahh, I've been sitting on this. Warren broke it this morning, so it looks like we're cool with throwing it up. The first guy who linked to this blog who wasn't Warren -- Mike Sizemore -- is making a TV show.

SLINGERS from Mike Atherton on Vimeo.

The link to his blog is here.