Casey Jones: Author

There’s one inherent weakness in certain stories about a contest to the death: If the story only has one protagonist, you automatically know who’s going to win. E.G., no-one ever tuned into Highlander: The Series fearing for the life of Duncan MacLeod. It’d be a wasted emotional investment.

In The Hunger Games, the noble and courageous Katniss Everdeen volunteers for such a contest– an annual one– in order to spare the life of her younger sister,  selected for the deadly games at the age of twelve.

I have yet to read the books– I read the book after seeing the movie, I get more enjoyment out of both, that way– but as I understand it it’s a trilogy. And there is not a doubt in my mind that Katniss will be the victor of the Hunger Games. She has to be. She’s the protagonist.

The only solution I know of to this kind of narrative challenge, is to make the cast of characters a true ensemble. This is one of the many reasons so many people are engrossed by Game of Thrones. George R. R. Martin has done a phenomenal job of giving us several main characters, all after the same thing: power, which by its nature cannot be shared. He’s also made it clear that most if not all of these figures will eagerly kill the people standing in their way to get it.

This is not a criticism of Hunger Games. I bear neither the series nor the author a shred of malice. It’s just the nature of that kind of story. I’m still going to see it because it looks original, (mostly) suspenseful, action-packed and seems to have an intriguing plot.

I know Katniss will win– but I don’t know who will lose. I don’t know how the games will affect our heroine. I don’t know how those repercussions will affect her loved ones, or her setting.

Those are all things I’m quite looking forward to. Period.

I love a good villain. Truly.  A quality villain drives the plot, forces the hero to grow, and stokes the audience in ways the hero can’t, by giving us someone we love to hate. I submit that The Adventure of Tintin‘s Ivan Sakharine deserves to join the ranks of the villainous elite.

As antagonists go, Sakharine has it all. He’s arrogant. He’s driven by greed and a thirst for revenge. He’s stylish and he  motivates his subordinates with fear…  What could he possibly be missing?

Not much. What I appreciate about Sakharine is that he seems to be perfectly balanced as a character: single-minded without being two-dimensional, and sophisticated without being an over-complicated mess. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Deliciously voiced by Daniel Craig, Ivan Sakharine arrives on the scene moments after a stranger warns our hero, Tintin, that dangerous men are after his newly-bought model ship. Enter Ivan, who proves to be very dangerous indeed.

A fan of the classic villainy tropes, Ivan is precise, intelligent and ruthless. He has no problem ordering his men (hired away from Captain Haddock) to try to kill Tintin.

He maintains at least one separate identity– to the Milanese Nightingale and Omar Ben Salaad, he might be nothing more than an enthused patron of the arts with the .

While his resourcefulness and cunning already make him a dynamic figure, his balanced flair for theatricality add volumes to his appeal. Of course his cane conceals a steel blade. It’s only natural that he’d travel with a trained hawk to do his bidding from afar. He does all this while still abstaining from becoming a complete ham.

What’s more, Sakharine is motivated by revenge. He holds a deep vendetta against Captain Haddock, for reasons that only become clear in the third act. It’s glorious.

I’ll refrain from saying more, to avoid giving away too much. Still. In the annals of truly great villains, Ivan Sakharine’s earned his rightful place.

Thanks to the marvel that is Reddit, my brother pointed me to the work of Patrick O’Connor, Psy.D. and his webpage, Comicspedia. Basically, Patrick has cataloged hundreds of comics based on the challenges their characters face in any given book: Issues about Issues. This is phenomenal.

I’ve mentioned before that I think comic book characters make potentially great role models. O’Connor has taken this idea and run with it. 

Something that came up a few months ago was the prospect of offering All Fall Down as a coping tool for people dealing with loss. The idea popped up at a job interview, of all things. I pursued this with some charitable foundations, but realistic applicability didn’t seem to be there.

To wit: I’ve reached out to this esteemed gentleman. I’m hoping he finds All Fall Down useful– and so do his clients.

Anyway: do check out his website. It’s well-organized and has categories broken up by lead character, by themes, even by demographics. Dude’s done his homework.

I had the good fortune to spend some time on the radio this past Monday with the charming Suki on WBZH!

She was kind enough to post the interview on youtube. Do go check it out!

I have news that I’m waiting to confirm, but you’ll be hearing from me again shortly!

 As of tomorrow, All Fall Down will be shipping out from Amazon. It’s already in some stores, but for whatever reason the official pub date is tomorrow.  I couldn’t be more thrilled.  While this countdown has been going, I’ve been wondering what’s next, and that thinking isn’t necessarily right. I want to reflect for a minute on what we’ve accomplished, and more importantly– why.

1. Because you can.

If I’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that those crazy, wild dreams that you might shuffle off to the ‘never gonna happen’ corner of your brain; absolutely can come true.

Take a look at where you are, and what you want. Even if you can’t figure out the whole trip to getting there, you can figure out the first step.  For me, it was going to a bookstore and learning how to write comics.

You absolutely can do this. It’s possible.  That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy– it won’t be. But if you keep pushing yourself and refuse to take no for an answer, then you might just pull off something amazing.

This has nothing to do with writing. At all. But it has everything to do with being human on this planet, which is currently our only option. I’m 31 years old and it’s been a long time since I’ve been bullied. But not that long.

I recently became friends with a guy named Lyle, a person with whom I have demographically very little in common– outside the facts that we’re both theatre folks and we have mutual friends. Regardless, we got along like a house on fire and became fast friends. It’s for that reason that Lyle felt comfortable sharing with me this; a video posted in August of this year by a young man named Jonah.

Go watch it. I’ll wait.

Rather than continue to punish himself for persecution he can neither understand nor explain, Jonah did something very brave– he went online and expressed his feelings. And whether he knew he was doing it or not,  he asked for help.

I cannot express this too strongly: what that young man has gone through is deplorable. And trying to punish the bullies that have made him suffer is absolutely the wrong move.

Why? Because you don’t solve anything by condemning it. And I can’t think of a worse label for a person than ‘bully’. It puts them in a category of disdain– you turn your nose up, you lose all sympathy, you start treating that person as the enemy.

There is no enemy. There is only us.

If one boy is bullying someone smaller, it’s because he is being bullied himself. Likely at home, or somewhere else he’s supposed to feel safe. So the fear he feels comes out as the need to assert dominance over someone else. Anyone else, provided they’re smaller and/or weaker than him.

A few months ago, a video went around the circuit of a boy, Casey Heynes, trouncing  his bully– a smaller boy, actually– after passively and unsuccessfully trying to walk away. You’ll find it if you look for it.

People cheered. Thousands called him a hero. And while I applaud him for standing up for himself, there must be a better way. Not because a brief display of self-defense was wrong, but because frankly, not everyone can do what he did. It doesn’t seem to be an option for Jonah.

In a perfect world, I’d hope that if someone came up and started trying to make me feel like crap to make himself feel better, I’d know what to do.  I wouldn’t ignore it. I wouldn’t defend myself with insults or violence. I wouldn’t walk away.

“Hey, are you all right? Stop for a minute and talk to me. What made you think this was the right thing to do? Who’s doing this to you? It doesn’t have to go down like this. You’re stronger than you think.”

42 words. Just 42.

Yeah– I know– we don’t live in a perfect world. Tough. We start to make things better by deciding to. By choosing a plan that could improve things.

No– not everyone is open to listening. Not immediately. I think bullying is more impulse than a choice. But no-one wants to be an asshole, do they?

If this comes off as preachy or philosophical nonsense, I don’t care. I felt the need to write this, so I wrote it. I hope you’ll share this line of thought with others.  That’s all.

The good people over at io9.com have shone the light on a violation most foul. Yes, dear god, DC is making prequel comics to Watchmen. Is nothing sacred?

Let’s take a look at why exactly this is such a horrendous notion.

1. Prequels are derivative. By their very nature, prequels are imitations. They’re trying to re-create something that already exists. Any chance for originality is immediately taken off the table. Sequels, as occasionally awesome as they are, can take characters in new directions and make them face new challenges. Prequels end with the foregone conclusion of the characters arriving at a place we already know.

2. We already know the characters. The beautiful thing about Watchmen is that it spends so much time establishing these characters. (Alan Moore once said that this plot, which could have unfolded in half as many chapters, isn’t the most important part of the story.) Nite Owl II. Doctor Manhattan. Silk Spectre II. Rorschach. We know their history. Some of it was spun out in dialogue. Other parts, we learned in flashbacks. (Doc Manhattan’s entire life existing simultaneously is genius.) The profile done on Rorschach in prison tells us everything we need to know about him.  What’s left for these new writers? What burning questions do readers have about any of them?

3. The creator is having none of it.  Okay. When the original creator of the characters you’re about to use, washes his hands of the concept, what does that tell you?  It’s like telling your Dad you want to come in and work at his office, correcting his work. What does that feel like?

4. The law of diminishing returns. There’s a reason a joke isn’t as funny the second time you hear it. Because we already know everything these characters are capable of, any experience they have in their formative years won’t have nearly the same impact on the reader.

5. It cheapens the existing work simply by association. Three words. Star Wars Prequels.  That is all.

To cap this off, I’ll let the inimitable Patton Oswalt do his thing on prequels. I hope I’ve made my point.

There is nothing quite like a powerful role model– especially if she’s hot. We are just 8 days away from the release of All Fall Down. To commemorate that, today I’m reflecting on 8 amazing superheroines. Let’s do it!

1. Wonder Woman. Now this may seem obvious to some, but no list of female superheroes would be complete without the one and only warrior amazon. Strong, independent, noble, she encapsulates some of the best qualities womankind has to offer. And she has her own theme song. 

2. Storm. An African Queen and once revered as a god, this powerhouse has been a long-time fixture at Xavier’s School For Gifted Students. Even when she lost her powers– temporarily– she didn’t let that stop her from taking over the X-Men and leading them on to continuing glory. Better yet, she suffers from crippling claustrophobia– but she hasn’t let this stop her in the slightest. She powers on through to do what’s right.

3. Kitty Pryde. This is a personal favorite, for a lot of people. It’s easy to understand why. Kitty’s power is passive– it’s not easy to hurt someone by walking through them. Nevertheless, since her teens she has played an invaluable role within the X-Men.

4. Rogue. A southern belle with a  potentially deadly touch, Rogue has faced a critical challenge her entire adult life: she can’t so much as hold hands with anyone, lest she steal their powers and memories.  Still, she soldiers on and has been an iconic mutant superhero for decades.

5. Black Widow. A Russian double-agent, Natalia Romanova has been a thorn in a lot of sides, making trouble for heroes and villains alike before she officially signed up with the Avengers– and later S.H.I.E.L.D.  What’s remarkable about her, however, is how she revels in her sexuality. It’s part of what makes her dangerous, and she knows it, and she uses it with devastating affect. (She once took out an entire room of mercenaries with nothing but a bath towel and a french accent.)  It’s criminal how good she is.

6. She-Hulk. Where Bruce Banner sees a burden, Jennifer Walters sees a gift. Her green skin, toned muscles and sharp mind make her a dynamic threat in and outside the courtroom. That’s right, she’s a lawyer. While great advantage of her looks was taken in her own series, these days she plays a more serious role in Marvel’s line-up.

7. Lois Lane. This Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter may not have superpowers, but she is absolutely fearless. (She dated Lex Luthor, for cryin’ out loud.) She’s impatient, short-tempered, curt, and has a personal integrity that is unimpeachable; all adding up to one damned fine journalist.  She’s also a bad speller… but that’s what copy editors are for.

8. Gearhead. A staunchly independent road warrior who takes after her old man, Shelby Cooper is one of a dying breed– a grease monkey in a world that’s outlawed internal combustion engines. When she learns the truth about her father’s demise, nothing will stop her from taking bloody, satisfying revenge.  Remember, girls: It’s important to have lofty goals.

An honorable mention goes to Jean Grey & Buffy The Vampire Slayer; who exemplify strong women. The only reason they’re not on the list proper is because they have a nasty habit of dying and coming back from the grave. They’re both repeat offenders.

Thoughts? Comments? Leave ‘em below!