Work at home Friday, as we head into this weekend. It started sprinkling here around lunch time, and the deluge came after one. It was pouring, but only lasted for about an hour or so–but a lot of water came down. The rest of the day was just gray, with an occasional light sprinkle. My sinuses behaved, surprisingly, and I wasn’t that tired when I left for home. There was no traffic on the highway; I only had to slow down on the ramp to I-10 rather than the usual stop-and-go fifteen minutes it is usually. I guess a lot of people stayed home yesterday…but all of our appointments also showed up, which was nice. Looking at the weather this morning–currently sunny with scattered clouds, potential of rain at any moment until tomorrow–it appears we missed most of the rain yesterday, which wound up west of the city. The Atchafalaya basin got 11 inches of rain (!!!) yesterday instead of us; 11 inches of rain would have shut New Orleans down for the day. I slept very deeply and restfully last night, so I have no idea if we got any rain overnight. I feel pretty good this morning, too. The coffee is going down well, my coffee cake was perfection, and I’ll have either toast or cereal or yogurt as a follow up later. We’re still planning on going to Costco after work today, but that will depend on the rain. I also have dinner plans with a friend, but again–that will depend on the weather.
I did some chores when I got home from work last night–dishes and laundry–but my mind was pretty much mush by the time I was done with that, and then Paul came home while I was catching up on the news (Epstein! Epstein! Epstein!), and we started watching season two of America’s Sweethearts: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders–which we used to watch when it aired on TNN as Making the Team. It’s definitely lots of fun; Paul and I are always fascinated by the two women who run the program, Kelly and Judy, who’ve pretty much dedicated their entire lives to the Dallas cheerleader program. (They also belong on a Real Housewives franchise, but are probably too busy.) I’m always fascinated by how these young women are sexualized by that uniform, but the show is always very careful to focus the cameras on the ones who come across as very sweet and virginal–or can play the part for the cameras, at least. I will definitely be talking more about this show!
But we’re on the cusp of another weekend, and I don’t have nearly as many chores to get done as I usually do, so I have a bit of a head start on the weekend; I won’t have to spend tomorrow morning cleaning or doing much of anything around here, so I can focus on reading my current books (Megan Abbott, Elizabeth Peters, Jay Bennett) and write. I’m not sure if the plans for the weekend include seeing Superman, but it’s playing in convenient nearby theaters, so it’s not a huge stretch for us to be able to see it. I’ve been a Superman fan since I was a kid and discovered the comic books and all the other media featuring him; I’ve read books, comic books, watched television shows and movies with him over the years–but I am also not one of those “fans” who feels betrayed by differences in adaptations, either. (Did Archie purists whine about Riverdale?) I’ve always been interested in the concept of super-heroes/metahumans etc., and have wanted to explore it in fiction sometime. But how can you be original when so much has been already done? Sigh. I always feel derivative when I’m writing anything, but that, I suspect, is a part of my imposter syndrome.
I really wish I could analyze the imposter syndrome right out of my brain.
It looks like we aren’t getting much rain today, after all, which will make the day a lot easier to deal with for errands and so forth. Huzzah! (The sun is shining now.)
And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Sorry to be so dull, but that’s just the way it goes some weeks, you know? I will be back tomorrow morning, if not sooner; one never can be sure when the mood will strike! But have a great Friday, Constant Reader!
I don’t remember the first time I saw that phrase somewhere, and I don’t know where it originates from, but actually–being gay used to be a crime (and our “supreme court” seems determined to make that so again), so I’ve always wondered if that was where it started from. I do like the phrase, though.
I also don’t remember how Sins of the Black Flamingo came to my attention, but it did. I subscribed so as not to miss an issue, and intended to read it all in one sitting so I could write about it…but never got around to it, like a loser, and as I was looking through the draft entries for the blog the other day, I saw that I’d started an entry after reading the first issue…but never finished reading the book nor, obviously, finished writing the entry.
the book nor, obviously, finished writing the entry.
And since the main character is gay…what better time to finish reading it, and blogging about it, then during Pride Month?
It did make sense to me.
I’ve read comic books for most of my life (in fact, comics are why I bought an iPad in the first place), but I’ve also taken long breaks from them, so am neither an expert nor even a super fan (although I would love to do a crime novel set in and around a comic books store; which could be fun and comical). I remember comics I read as a kid, and have some vague memories of other times when I dipped into the comics world as an adult. My iPad is filled with comics that I’ve never gotten around to reading—but what a lovely long weekend reading them all would make! Or maybe just take the iPad with me on a trip and read comics the whole time?
Anyway, I digress. I do need to do a longer form essay about my comics history while stressing the importance of how little I do know about my beloved comics…maybe for Pride next year, since it would take some serious rereading and research to do properly…and it could tie into one of the books currently in progress…but I am getting away from the purpose of this post: Sins of the Black Flamingo.
I mean, isn’t this art amazing?
Comic books helped shape me and my tastes. The original DC superheroes I followed were still drawn as ideal men of the past, like the 40s and 50s, big with a barrel torso, and muscular but not defined. DC Comics hadn’t really updated its characters from their early days much; but it was during my childhood at the end of the 60s and early 70s that they began modernizing their comic characters, their costumes, and how they looked—which I also noticed. This was also around the time that men’s bodies became more sexualized, and what was hot and sexy for men began to change. The women super-hero’s costumes also became more sexualized, as were their bodies (the Legion of Super-Heroes ALONE had some of the more revealing sexy costumes. Queer super-heroes (although why I never made the connection about Wonder Woman and the Amazons with their island of women only is a mystery to me) were non-existent and wouldn’t start showing up until the late 1980s and early 1990s—and it’s still a few and far-between kind of thing (the Will Peyton Starman run always seemed queer to me, which I’ll need to explore at another time).
So, you can imagine my delight to find this run with a gay burglar as the main character, who wears a costume and is extremely good at his job (I’ve always had a soft spot for burglars in fiction) and that was why I subscribed to the series. (Still shaking my head at how long it took me to finally read them all, and there was an pretty amazing cliff-hanger at the end of #1.)
But when I was a kid, the characters and story interested me more than the artwork, and even with my love of the characters and stories, I never followed either artists I enjoyed or writers, either. Which is probably not the best way to enjoy them, really; it was a friend who was an exceptional artist and comics fan in the 1980s who made me aware I should be paying attention to the artists and the writers…and I did find some extraordinary comics by looking for artists and writers of books from there on. The two I remember the most from that time are Todd McFarlane and John Byrne.
Sins of the Black Flamingo is self-classified as “occult noir,” which is a term I absolutely love and now can recognize that occult noir is something I absolutely love and probably write…and will most likely explore more in my own work going forward, since I now know what to call it, because supernatural never really fit in the same way and I don’t feel like the books I write are actually full-fledged horror, but occult noir? Oh, hell, yes.
Anyway, the Black Flamingo is the alter-ego of our hero, Sebastian Harlow. The Flamingo is probably one of the top cat burglars in the world (as you may know, I love cat burglars and originally made Colin one in Bourbon Street Blues), and Sebastian is this interesting combination of my two series characters, of all things; he looks and is built like Scotty, with the same approach to sex as he did before he met the boys, but has the dark worldview and cynicism of Chanse MacLeod…so naturally, I was going to be drawn to the character. IN the very beginning of Book One, he is hired to steal something from a right-wing museum—basically a museum dedicated to honoring white supremacy. It isn’t until he steals the item they’ve hired him to find that we learn the backstory behind the item…and a golem named Abel is brought to life, and Abel is hunky AF, I might add.
We also meet Sebastian’s close friend and ally, Ofelia, a Black witch—and yes, this is very much occult noir. The art is fantastic, and done by Travis Moore, with Tamra Bonvillain as colorist, Aditya Bidikar, and editor Andy Khouri, and Andrew Wheeler was the writer.I highly recommend this—if for no other reason than it’s a great gay story with an interesting main character, and who would have ever thought they’d see a gay circuit party within the pages of a comic?
I do hope there’s more adventures in store for the Flamingo in the future. Highly recommended.
I have always loved Superman, ever since I accidentally pressed the wrong button on the comic book vending machine at the Jewel Osco on Pulaski Avenue in Chicago as a child and got Action Comics instead of the Betty and Veronica I wanted. I was disappointed, and asked my mom for some more change so I could get what I actually wanted, which was when my mom decided to teach me a valuable life lesson: if you hurry and don’t pay attention you won’t get what you want–and sometimes that’s the end of it.So always, always make sure you’re picking the right thing. (I still do, to this day, and whenever I “forget” and rush–it inevitably ends badly.)
I wasn’t happy about it, but made the best of it. I had a comic book, after all, and while I had never shown any interest in super-heroes and their comics before, I decided to read it when I got home.
Once I did, I was done with the Archie and the world of Riverdale for good. I started reading DC Comics–I already knew about Batman from the television show, which we watched every week with its epic cartoonish campiness–and all the other titles that involved Superman even if only in a peripheral way. Both Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane also had their own titles, there were at least three titles alone devoted to Superman, and of course, Justice League of America. There was a Superboy title, too, and of course we can’t forget Linda Danvers, Supergirl. I read them all, and finally stopped buying them when they reached the (to me then) insane price of a dollar per issue. But I never lost my sentimental attachment to DC Comics and their heroes. I was also terribly bummed when the peripheral titles, like Superboy, Jimmy Olson–Superman’s Pal, and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane–were cancelled. For the most part, Lois’ adventures that didn’t involve Superman–when she was actually doing her job as an investigative reporter–often involved her in mysteries she had to solve, which were a lot more interesting to me than her schemes to expose Clark as Superman, or to get Superman to marry her. The old television series, with George Reeves, was often shown in reruns on alternative non-network local channels, and while I of course watched, I was kind of disappointed with how bad and cheap the effects looked. Batman’s television show was campy, of course, and highly entertaining–but campy. Wonder Woman was also campy and cheesy, but had Lynda Carter, who personified both the super-hero and her alter-ego, Diana. (When I was watching Superpowered: The DC Story the other night Carter said something I thought was very perceptive and explained thoroughly her role on the show: “I didn’t play them as separate characters–I just played her as Diana, the Amazon Princess, with a strong belief in equality and that there’s a better way than fighting.”)
So, when they Superman movie was announced sometime in the mid-1970’s, I knew I’d go see it, but didn’t have a lot of high hopes. But the tagline was fantastic.
You’ll believe a man can fly.
I think I was at the theater, waiting to watch either The Deer Hunter or Animal House, when they played the preview for the upcoming December release Superman The Movie, starring Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder (among many other major names in supporting roles–from Marlon Brando to Gene Hackman to Ned Beatty to Valerie Perrine). I knew they were making the movie, and I had allowed myself to get a little excited about it as a Superman fan. I’d always found previous Superman adaptations–mostly the television show–to be so inexpensively done that it was almost comical. But special effects had been changed forever by the one-two punch of 1977’s Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and I also knew they were spending a LOT of money on this adaptation, so when the screen and theater went dark, and you just heard a voice saying “You’ll believe a man can fly” and then…there he was, flying. I caught my breath because it looked so real. And when Christopher Reeve turned his face to the camera, smiled, saluted and somehow got his eyes to twinkle, I also knew the movie was perfectly cast. I couldn’t wait for the movie to finally open (I think I also saw the sequel on its opening weekend), and yes, when it finally came to the Petite Twin Theater (apparently still there? No, no movie theater on Commercial Street anymore, alas) I saw it on that first weekend.
I’ve always loved Superman, and Christopher Reeve was fantastic in the part; the bar every actor who puts on the suit has to clear.
Obviously, the recent announcement that David Corenswet has been cast to play Clark/Superman in the new reboot of the film franchise, replacing Henry Cavill, has me thinking about Superman again. I was very pleased, frankly, when Cavill was originally cast; I’d first noted him playing Charles Brandon on The Tudors and thought, “that is one fine-ass man.” I thought he was the perfect choice to play the dual roles of Clark and Superman; he is drop dead gorgeous, for one, and his eyes have the ability to twinkle when he smiles and the dimples? Just take me now, Henry.
Mr. Cavill fills out the suit rather nicely, does he not?
The Henry Cavill version of Superman, which followed on the heels of a failed reboot with Brandon Routh (who returned to the televised DC Universe–the Arrowverse–in Legends of Tomorrow. I always felt bad for Routh, who I didn’t think got a fair break, either), wasn’t the best interpretation of the character but that wasn’t Cavill’s fault; that was the vision of the director and writers and the studio; and while I think I can understand the need to update Superman, the need to darken his story a la The Dark Knight 1980’s Batman reboot was a mistake. Superman is the World’s Biggest Boy Scout; he stands for hope and truth and all those things we used to believe embodied the United States; if anything, Superman was the personification of the idea of American exceptionalism.
David Corenswet certainly has the right look for the part; he’s from the Ryan Murphy stable of dark-haired blue-eyed square jawed hunks who regularly appear on his television series. I first saw Corenswet in The Politician, and then again in Hollywood. I found the following fan art through a Google search, as there are no available official images of him as the Big Blue Boy Scout. James Gunn’s vision for the DC Universe is one I am interested in seeing; while I didn’t enjoy the second and probably won’t watch the third (I’ve come to detest everything about Chris Pratt over the last few years), I did think the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was pitch-perfect for a popcorn super-hero type movie.
But I do hope they move away from the dark broodiness of the Cavill version. I enjoyed them (and love Henry Cavill for reasons that should be obvious; look at the posted picture above again), but they didn’t feel right for Superman movies. The underlying theme and element of all the Superman stories is his positive energy and determination to protect people from harm and most importantly, lead by example. One of the core elements of the original Superman series (before the first of many DC reboots of their universe) was that Superman’s most sacred vow was that he would never take a life, no matter who or how much they deserved death. That didn’t matter to Superman, whose pursuit of justice was limited to capturing the bad guys and turning them over to the judicial system. It wasn’t his job to determine justice and punishment.
I keep hearing good things about the animated DC movies and series, but have yet to really watch any of them. I don’t know why I have this automatic resistance to animated super-hero shows/movies; I love Disney animation, and there are literally hours of DC animated entertainment available for streaming. I’d been hearing good things about a new DC animated series on MAX called My Adventures with Superman, so while I was waiting for Paul the other night (and was tired of LSU football highlight videos) I decided to give My Adventures with Superman a chance.
Constant Reader, I am so glad I did.
The show is utterly charming. It’s very well animated, for one–Clark/Superman is handsome, which is weird to say about a cartoon–and it’s refreshingly well-written with more emphasis on the characters and who they are, as well as their relationships with each other, over the adventure aspects of it, which makes it all the more likable and enduring. The premise is that Clark, Lois, and Jimmy Olson are all interns at the Daily Planet; Clark and Jimmy are just starting, and Lois is given the job of breaking them in and showing them the ropes. Lois is ambitious and determined to become a star reporter, and her impetuosity and ambition quickly leads them all into trouble–not only with the bad guys, but with Perry White back at the paper. Fortunately, Clark is, well, Superman, so all turns out for the best and Lois gets the scoop of all time: there’s a super-man amongst us! Which gets all three of them hired on staff. Clark is exactly the way he should be: kind, thoughtful, empathetic, a little bit shy–and the cold open of episode 1, which has young Clark suddenly discovering that he can, actually, fly; and his excitement and wonder at discovering this sudden new ability slowly begins to fade–imagine learning at age ten or eleven that you have super-powers–and he begins to wonder not only who he is, but what he is….then after the opening credits it flashes forward to Metropolis and Clark and Jimmy–roommates–getting ready for their first day as interns. The chemistry between the three of them–truly the Holy Trinity of the Superman stories is Clark, Lois and Jimmy (it’s so nice to see Jimmy Olson finally getting something to do and being included as something more than just a bit part, which is a nice nod to Superman history), and I am really looking forward to watching more of it.
And the art is fantastic.
Well done, DC. I hope this series lasts and is a hit–and I hope James Gunn is watching so he can see how to do the Big Blue Boy Scout properly.
So, on National Coming Out Day this past week, October 11th, the current Superman—Jonathon Kent, son of Lois and Clark—came out as bisexual. When I saw the New York Times piece I literally gasped out loud. This wasn’t some minor character in a team comic; this wasn’t even a second-tier lead of a less-popular title. This was fucking SUPERMAN, the Big Blue Boy Scout, the tentpole character on whom all of DC Comics, and the DC television and film franchises, are built around.
I literally had tears come up in my eyes. This was So. Fucking. HUGE.
I cannot even begin to tell you how much that would have meant to me as a deeply closeted and terrified gay teenager in the Chicago suburbs and later, small town rural Kansas. I really don’t know how best to explain what this meant to me as a sixty-year-old gay man, but here goes.
Oh, Superman. You are the ubiquitous comic book character; since your debut back before the second world war you have become the default; the super-hero every other super-hero is judged against. It’s even right there in your generic name: you are the super man, hence you are Superman.
Superman is kind of the Bill Jones or Joe Smith of comic book heroes: basic, simply named, and the best of them all.
I was a kid when I first started reading comic books about super-heroes. Before I bought my first Action Comics (all I remember is that Lex Luthor was the issue’s villain), I read Archie in all of its iterations; I also read Millie the Model, Dot, Little Lotta, and some others that have faded from memory. The Jewel Osco where my mom used to buy groceries when we lived in Chicago had a comic book vending machine near the entrance, right next to a soda machine dispensing cans of Pepsi and its variants. You put in a dime and two pennies into the appropriate slots, and pushed the appropriate buttons for the comic you wanted; the metal spiral thing holding the comics would spin and drop your comic down, so you could reach in through the door and pick it up. That particular day I wanted a Betty and Veronica, which was A5 but I was in a hurry and accidentally pressed B5 instead; voila, I got an Action Comics instead, much to my bitter disappointment. One of the local independent stations, Channel 32 (which also showed repeats of The Munsters, among other black-and-white classics) aired reruns of the old Superman television show; which I thought, even for my unsophisticated childish palate, was cheesy and silly. I remember grousing about it to my mother—whose response, “Boys read super hero comics anyway” was the kind of thing that usually would guarantee that I would never read a super hero comic book, but I picked it up after we got home and I started reading, certain that I would hate it.
It probably should go without saying that I didn’t hate it.
And it opened an entirely new world for me. Sure, it got a little frustrating from time to time for me (Superman was such a goody two-shoes, but that was kind of his job) and Lois being so desperate (and jealous) to either marry and/or expose his secret identity was annoying; especially because Lois otherwise was such a kick ass woman. There were any number of Superman or Superman-adjacent titles, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen had their own titles; Superman often appeared in (and was definitely a charter member of) Justice League of America; there was also Superboy (“Superman as a teenager!”) and Supergirl…it was like the comics readers couldn’t get enough of Superman and his world. I eventually moved on to other DC Comics titles, too—everything Batman (Detective Comics was always my favorite, because there was a mystery to solve) and Flash and Green Arrow and Green Lantern and…yes, my dollar allowance every week for a long time went to comic books (Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were $1.50 and my allowance was $1 per week; and no, I couldn’t wait until I had two dollars to get one; I always needed to spend my money as soon I got it on Thursday—Mom’s payday—at either Jewel Osco or at Woolworth’s…because I could always talk Mom into buying me a book if there were Hardy Boys or Three Investigators to be had). When we moved to the suburbs the Zayre’s didn’t carry comics, nor did the grocery store in town; the 7/11 only carried Marvel (I tried with The Mighty Thor, but the continuing story aspect Marvel used irritated me because I would inevitably miss an issue), and when Zayre’s finally started carrying comics, things had… changed. Wonder Woman was no longer an Amazon, and was just an every day modern woman running a boutique (somehow she’d given up her powers). Supergirl had been poisoned, which meant her powers came and went without warning; one moment she’d be super, the next she wouldn’t. It was an attempt to modernize the books, of course, make them appeal to the newer, more sophisticated modern audience of the 1970’s; some of them started addressing social issues and became a lot more adult in theme. (Green Arrow actually became my favorite book during this time; he was drawn naturally—had curly chest hair AND nipples—and he had no powers other than being an expert archer and skill at hand-to-hand fighting). I eventually moved away from comics because I started spending my money on novels—Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, etc.—and comics were, I thought, really for kids.
Later on, when we moved to Kansas, I got back into comics again, and things had changed yet again. Some of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ costumes made them look like strippers (male and female); the drawing of the characters had become more natural and realistic (Superman, for example, went from being barrel-shaped to having a narrow little waist and abs showing through his skintight costume), and Wonder Woman was an Amazon again. This was my Howard the Duck period, when I also started delving into Marvel a bit more. Comics always remained of interest to me throughout my life, with me going through periods of collecting and reading in large volumes at different times…before moving on from them again. I am not an expert on comics by any means; I know the names of some artists and some writers, but for the most part, I always paid more attention to story and character (go figure). But I’ve always maintained a love for the characters; and yes, the original Christopher Reeve Superman movie (which I rewatched recently for the Cynical 70’s Film Festival) indeed made me believe a man could fly.
I’ve always had, and always will have, a soft spot for Superman.
To me, Christopher Reeve was Superman–the prior versions of the character, including the popular television show (which I watched religiously) always seemed, to me, to be an actor playing the part; Reeve somehow just was the character. He was so insanely and ridiculously handsome; the body was just right, and he had the right mix of charm and charisma the part demanded. Reeve’s Superman could never be seen as a threat–and he also made it completely believable that no one could tell Clark was him, with different hair, glasses, and street clothes; he physically changed how he stood, his posture, everything about him that was Superman, when he was playing Clark.
Reeve never got enough credit as an actor, frankly.
And while my memories of Margot Kidder as Lois Lane aren’t fond ones–I thought she was a fine actress, but miscast–overall, the first two Reeve films were good ones. They could have stopped there, but didn’t–and the last two weren’t good. I enjoyed Lois and Clark (despite what Dean Cain turned into) and Paul and I eventually succumbed to the simple pleasure that was Smallville…but I wanted to see Superman back up on the big screen, where he belonged. I was very excited when they cast Henry Cavill in the part (I’ve been crushing hard on Cavill since first noticing him on The Tudors)….and then came the movies. I enjoyed them for what they were, and I did think some of the changes made to update and modernize the story (how would Americans today react to the discovery of a super being from another planet?)–and you can never go wrong with Amy Adams, either.
But…they forgot the most important thing about Superman: his kindness and genuine concern for people. In the quest to make the DC Film Universe of all that is dark and angsty like the Batman movies–the direction Batman has gone in since the comic mini-series The Dark Knight Returns–was a bad one. Patty Jenkins got Wonder Woman so fucking right–and it was the same basic formula as Superman. Superman used to be derisively called “the world’s oldest Boy Scout”, but that can work with the character, and with the right actor. I think Cavill has the charisma and the charm–and the extraordinarily gorgeous smile–to pull that off; I just wish they would have let him have the chance.
The new show on CW, Superman and Lois, is also excellent; I absolutely love it, and I do think that Tyler Hoechlin is one of the best Supermans of all time, frankly. (The entire cast is stellar, frankly.)
So, as I said earlier, I was pretty fucking jazzed the other day to see the piece in the New York Timesearlier this week about Superman “coming out”–on National Coming Out Day, no less–and even if it turned out to not be Clark Kent, but Lois and Clark’s son Jonathan (in the comics they have the one son; on Superman and Lois they have twin sons, one of whom is named Jonathan), and while I, in my white gay male privilege assumed this meant that he was gay–he’s actually bisexual. But he is attracted to other men, and even has a boyfriend.
There was one particularly noxious piece posted on Medium, which the homophobic piece of trash who wrote it proudly posted on Facebook (I reported his post on Facebook as well as the piece on Medium as hate speech; the Medium piece came down, but the last time I looked, of course Facebook had done nothing about it). I read the whole thing–poorly worded, not grammatical, would have given a C- grade on the construction basics level alone–but the part that I couldn’t get past, the part I can’t forget, was him saying this: But why take one of the few heroes left for the “Straight World” and make him abnormally offensive to us?
Abnormally. Offensive.
I guess I missed the massive closet exodus for the DC and Marvel Universes? Let me see–right off the top of my head, at DC aren’t Batman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Nightwing, Cyborg, Aquaman, the Flash, the Martian Manhunter, the Question, Beast Boy, the Elongated Man, and Shazam, all straight? (And that is just off the top of my head., and only DC.) But you know those people who are so afraid of the queers–you know, like the piece of shit who wrote the Medium piece–they just can’t help themselves or keep their fucking mouths shut. Oh, no, Mr. I’ve Never Brought a Woman to Orgasm just can’t let us have anything without letting us know how much it offends their delicate, needle-dicked sensibilities. You know, the same kind of guy who undoubtedly always complains about “cancel culture” and “social justice warriors” and “wokeness” and I don’t have a problem with gay people but why do you have to exist? Those kinds–sad, bitter little men with so little joy in their lives they have to spend their precious time on this planet letting everyone else in the world know how much they object to our existence.
But he has a right to his opinion and we are oppressing him if we call it out for the hateful trash it is…and him for the piece of shit he is.
As my editor at Kensington wrote on a note he included with a copy of a bad review of one of my books, this just reeks with the stench of failed author.
This guy claims to be a crime writer, and claims to work for a publisher (I’ve never heard of it or him before this moment)…but after reading this piece and another one he published on Medium, the real crime is his actual writing.
Fuck off, dude. And know that bisexual Superman is going to have way better sex than you could ever pay for, no matter how long you live.
Friday morning, and I had an absolutely lovely night’s sleep, thank you for asking. It’s the final day of the work week, the weekend looms, and as always, I have a million and a half things to get done before Monday. I somehow managed to fall behind on the writing again–by the time I was finished with my work-at-home duties yesterday I was exhausted again–and as such, didn’t write another word. So I need to get my writing going again today, knowing I am at least two chapters behind that need to be caught up, and yes–NO PRESSURE THAT AT ALL, is there?
I have some copy edits for an essay that dropped into my inbox this morning, which shouldn’t be too terrible an issue to deal with over the course of the weekend–then again, I’ve not really looked at them, either, so it could be absolutely horrifying once I open the document–but again, I don’t see that I won’t be able to get caught up on everything that must be done this weekend. What I really need to do is make a to-do list; I’ve been meaning to all week and yet somehow have not managed to get around to it yet. Gah. But that’s the kind of week this has been; 2020, after dragging all fucking year, seems to have now speeded up time now that it’s coming to a close, continuing to prove itself to be a shit-bag of a year.
Given how much optimism we all had for 2020 and what we ended up receiving, I am a bit afraid of 2021, to be completely honest.
I did manage to get some things done yesterday, and I managed to watch Superman whilst making condom packs yesterday; the 1978 version with Christopher Reeve. I hadn’t seen the movie in years–I saw it originally in the theater and then watched again when it was on HBO in the early 1980’s–and wasn’t really prepared for the impact it would still have, many years later, on a rewatch. As I watched, my nimble hands breaking off condoms in groups of four and shoving them into little plastic bags, along with a packet of lube and instructions on how to properly use them, I found myself catapulted backwards in time and remembering the time period. The movie’s slogan was You will believe a man can fly and you also have to remember the late 1970’s was when films–and special effects–were changed forever after Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Superman was the acme of super-heroes; perhaps the most famous, the most loved, and possibly the very first comic-book hero with superpowers, and bringing him to the big screen with a huge budget and special effects to make it look like he actually had powers was a huge deal. It was a huge hit, set the stage for several sequels, and showed Hollywood that comic book heroes were big-ticket items–it can easily be argued that there would be no MCU, no Arrowverse on television, and no Batman movies had there never been Superman first. The first sequel was also a huge hit, but the franchise began to run out of steam with the third, and the fourth was misbegotten from the very beginning.
On this rewatch, Christopher Reeve was even more perfect than I remembered, and Margot Kidder, whom I always believed was miscast, actually fit the role much better than she had in my memories. But what made the movie work–just as how the Patty Jenkins Wonder Woman worked–was how Reeve, at that point a complete unknown whose biggest role had been on the soap Love of Life, fit the role like a hand in a glove. He looked the part, had the right body for the part, and he just was Clark and Superman–and the physical differences between the two different characters–entirely dependent on how Reeve held himself, stood, and his posture–I could see how you wouldn’t see one as the other. Obviously, there were some flaws–how on earth did Lois Lane afford a penthouse with that glorious view and patio deck on a reporter’s salary? How did reversing the Earth’s spinning turn back time so he could save Lois–and didn’t turning the clock back change a lot of other things as well? DC was still in its Golden Age–the Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot was still some years in the future–and so this film fits into that comic book era; they were trying to update the comics and giving their characters more of modern flare and new costumes for the most part at this time, before realizing their universe was so convoluted and confusing they needed to start over. This was the period when Wonder Woman had gotten rid of her powers; when Supergirl was poisoned, which led to her powers becoming unreliable and actually coming and going beyond her control; when two more Green Lanterns turned up on earth in addition to the original; and Green Arrow going more in a Batman-like grim direction.
But it was an uplfiting movie, putting a clear-cut hero on the screen, and it is to Reeve’s credit that he made Superman’s integrity, code of ethics, and kind concern for all humanity from a two-dimensionality to a fully fleshed out, completely believable character that you root for. The John Williams score was excellent, and it really was perfectly cast–I apologize to Margot Kidder for hating her performance for all these years. It was also interesting to see the New York of the 1970’s (passing off as Metropolis), and remembering the way the culture saw the city in that decade (the Cynical 70’s Film Festival has also done a really good job of this); in some ways the perception of New York hasn’t really changed much since then, but it isn’t the same city today that it was back then. It was, I think, in the latter half of the 1970’s that Hollywood began to turn away from the cynicism of the decade and began making movies with happy endings or that were more uplifting in general–Star Wars, Superman, Rocky–the melding of those polarities in film deeply influenced the films of the 1980’s.
And on that note, I am heading back into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader.
Queer and Loathing in America 