I’ve talked a bit about this one before, as it was the first comic to ever lampoon the reality tv craze back in the day. The “show” begins in a cargo plane thousands of feet over New York, filled with contestants. One by one they jump through the opening of a giant device that alters their molecular structure, giving them powers with which to survive the fall and become superheroes.

But the villainous Eel (Lee spelled backwards and a playful nod to Stan Lee) has sabotaged the machine to give them mostly useless powers like turning into fragile glass, so at least half don’t survive the fall and the show has to make do with who’s left.

What follows is a very messed up reality tv show that I would love to see them actually create, especially the challenges. My favorite was placing everyone up on top of the George Washington bridge, and pushing the heroes significant others off the edge, forcing them to save them without snapping their necks.

Yes, I went a long way for a somewhat obscure, dark Gwen Stacy/Spider-man joke. 

Willis, the villainous star of “So, You Want to be a Super-Villain?” even makes an incompetent cameo.

I also got to indulge in my passion for creating heroes and villains and naming them, including a giant gang of villains at the end. 

Memory’s murky as to just how well this one did. I’m guessing the numbers on this one and the previous one weren’t great… I think. 

Both funny and dark, this was my last pure solo creation for a few years regarding comics—which is why I tend to think I wasn’t getting good orders. Why stop if things were going well? Moving on…

Capaldi was 5 years old when Doctor Who premiered in 1963, so not only is he a huge fan, but he watched it from the start. Another dream come true.

1)Deep Breath. Powerful, well written, acted, directed. A very good start for this new Doctor starting his whole new life-cycle. This one has just about everything from dinosaurs to cyborgs, to a Doctor who’s not that polite. It’s a breath of fresh air.

2)Listen. A masterwork from Moffat that keeps you guessing and off balance the entire time. An entire alien species who may, or may not be there listening to you. Incredibly well done, with Capaldi at his best. 

3)Kill the Moon. This will not be on many people’s list, because it either made them feel uncomfortable or they’ve got severe limits on their imagination. An insane situation with just as crazy a debate

4)Mummy on the Orient Express. A wild concept, an almost incomprehensible threat.

5)Flatline. Two dimensional aliens discover our 3D world and start killing people in horrific ways and with the Doctor trapped inside an ever shrinking Tardis, it’s up to Clara to be the Doctor. Excellent stuff. Both Mummy and this one written by Jamie Mathieson.

6)Last Christmas. Dream Crabs. Santa. North Pole. Face huggers. Terror. Excellent.

7)The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witches Familiar. Series 9 starts off with a bold tale by Moffat and the relationship between the Doctor and Davros, but with Missy, Clara and the Daleks on Skaro all added in. 

8)Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hellbent. Some bold storytelling here on a grand scale stretching out over billions of years. Three very different settings servicing one huge story. You’ll gape, you’ll cheer, you’ll cry. Highly recommended. 

9)The Pilot is a breath of fresh air in many ways, as we catch up with the Doctor after him having been teaching for 50 years at university and he meets Bill Potts. Almost a soft reboot of the show and well done at that.

10)World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls. This one is worth it for the further story of Bill, Missy, and the return of the Mondasian Cybermen. Originally was to be Capaldi’s swan song but ended up being the penultimate story.

Honorable mentions:

*Time Heist. Just what it sounds like and executed nicely.

*The Caretaker. Off balance, smart, funny ep.

*Dark Water/Death in Heaven. A very good story, soured slightly by some choices made at the end and some questionably horrifying choices at the beginning. But containing some in excellent writing in between.

*The Husbands of River Song brings Alex Kingston’s character to the end of the road and with some humor, some revelations and some real heartwarming touches, she and the Doctor live happily for quite a long time.

*Smile. Good, solid story developing the relationship between the Doctor and Bill.

*Thin Ice. –and this one strengthens their bond even more with a rich, interesting setting. The last, great Ice Fair in London.

*Oxygen. An interesting concept, well written and acted, where we end with the Doctor permanently blinded. 

*Extremis/Pyramid at the End of the World/Lie of the Land. An up and down story with the monks, who seek to take over the world but need to be asked, while the Doctor is blind. Even with the weaker sections, a worthy watch.

*Empress of Mars. An imaginative tale and a worthy watch with some nice surprises.

Getting access to Disney Plus like a lot of people, the whole family finally got to see Hamilton last night. I’m kind of astonished that they put the play on the streaming service. I’m glad they did though.

I’ve heard Lin Manuel Miranda perform a song or two from Hamilton on various shows over the years and I’ve always admired the guy’s talent. I’m not a big hip hop guy by any stretch of the imagination but there have been bits and pieces of stuff I’ve heard over the years that I’ve liked. I couldn’t name of any of the songs performed in those cases because when it comes to 98% of *all* music, I’m horrible at remembering the names of songs, period.

In the end, I was never going to go see Hamilton on stage anyway because the nature of the hot ticket would always be more than I’d want to pay. Linda has said that sometimes it’s hard for a production to even seem “worth it” no matter how good it is when you’ve thrown down $1,000.00 a ticket for a three hour play. Or $200.00 for that matter, plus parking, etc. So, much like Wicked, Spamalot or The Book of Mormon, or sporting events, I was never going to be in those seats. 

So it was fortuitous indeed that Theresa added Disney Plus to her Hulu account for less than a dollar and the family got to watch the spectacle.

It was every bit as good as I expected on every level– and when something like this can live up to the hype already built up in *my* noggin? Nice job, LMM.

I like how the varied personalities of certain historical figures are represented here. The stoic Washington, the flamboyant Jefferson. I’ve heard complaints from some quarters about the racially diverse cast not being historically accurate. Some can’t get past that. All I can say is that it’s a re-imagining of historical events in a very entertaining way. Yes, Thomas Jefferson probably dressed similarly but may not have been able to bust a rhyme with as much style. More’s the pity.

Amongst the stellar acting, dancing and singing on stage, it really is hard to single out  any one player, as I can’t speak highly enough about this whole cast. But I must admit, King George totally killed it. The King himself was cast with a more traditional song so as to possibly stand out in all ways from the rest of the production and he kinda steals the show. In this version shown from 2016, King George is played by Jonathan Drew Groff. 

When he waltzed out there, he looked familiar and it blew my mind when I finally placed him. He plays the co-lead in the Netflix series Mindhunter. Jesus, this guy has range. I had no clue about his background but he’s been nominated for Tony awards a few times. He absolutely kills it as King George. I may have to watch it again just for him.

But on a technical and design level, I love what they did with the main set. The inner and outer rotating circle of the main stage are utilized brilliantly in a variety of scenes and their method of applying microphones almost invisibly to the performers is well thought out. 

Some people were initially taken aback as during the production, there are a number of close ups of performers in many scenes. Thank goodness– that’s good storytelling and the advantage of this set up over sitting in one seat and having one long shot view from a certain seat that never changes. It’s kind of like most major sporting events. You get to see a lot more action and see it much better on tv, as opposed to being there.

If there’s anyone who *hasn’t* seen this yet, well, getting it as part of Disney Plus almost seems criminal, but I’m happy to be an accessory at this point. I’d be curious at how many new subscribers DP got when Hamilton came into the picture.

Up until now, the only draw for me was the upcoming Marvel series, as I really don’t care that much about anything Star Wars related. I have seen a bit of the Mandelorian and I might check out more of it but we’ll see.

Here’s hoping that adding Hamilton gave Disney no much more $$$ that they’ll think about adding Wicked at some point…..

Minding my business today when I noticed a bizarre blister on the inner latter third of my right pinky. This was especially curious I don’t remember any abrasion or friction being applied to the inner latter 3rd of righty.

I finished chopping all the wood in the backyard yesterday, and there was no sign of this tiny, mysterious, organic waterbed on my digit then.

I did go for a walk/run this morning and that may have something to do with it. I think we’ve gone over my rather bizarre and delicate skin condition in the past. Another of it’s occasional, strange attributes is that when I’m exercising in a warm climate, on a few occasions, there’d be a sweat build up so great that a sweat blister might be created. A summer blister water baby. Makes you want to keep running your finger over it. A little wobbly speed bump on the intersection of inner latter 3rd and pinky road.

I know exactly what you’re thinking.

YOU’RE thinking that it’s not out of the realm of possibility that within the blister is a microscopic waterworld civilization and that *in* that world, time moves at a much faster rate than out here. A million times faster. Even though it couldn’t have been formed more than six hours ago *our* time, for them, after a Big Bang occurring around 4pm, life crawled out of the dermal muck around 5pm. They walked upright by 6, invented the unicycle by 7, improv by 8, two world wars by 9 and are perhaps on the cusp of space travel right about now as I write this around 10pm. 

And of course, this is where things get awkward. This will be the Truman show moment when someone realizes they’re in an awkward, salty liquid world that is enclosed in a porous membrane. Kind of like the Truman show meets Atlantis. 

I hope there’s an Aquaman there and not that weird Kevin Costner dude from Waterworld the movie. 

Probably not. Could be Sea Monkeys. The porous membrane sky’s the limit, really. 

Listen, I’m typing this in bed on the iPad. The glow from it is illuminating the interior of Hydro-World as I hold my finger up to it.

I *was* going to take a weekend break from Creation Month and talk about Hamilton for Fantastic Friday but I’ll shove that to Saturday. Sure, the play has Thomas Jefferson flitting around stage like Prince and it’s very VERY entertaining but c’mon…

A possible microscopic Atlantis on the verge of space travel? On the inner latter 3rd of my right pinky? 

PRIORITIES! 

*Addendum. This morning, there was no trace of the blister. In its dilated sphere of time, perhaps the civilization enjoyed its billion years and slowly burned out, possibly it was plague, or maybe I scratched my finger while sleeping — we’ll never know. 

Guh, have to go back to some semblance of regular life now? Talk about Hamilton? Sigh.

This has been… Unsolved Mysteries…about lost civilizations. Good day.

I had thought about this story for a number of years before even committing it to paper. 

A dystopian near future where the U.S. is ruled by three dictatorial supermen, identical triplets who rise to power via their genetic abilities (strength, speed, pyrokinesis) after breaking free of the institution that had the hubris to artificially engineer them in the first place. We also meet the group that is trying to formulate a plan to destroy them.

Having gone the route of straight Superhero, Twilight Zone, sci fi comedy then back to super villain comedy, I wanted to get serious with his one. This one was pretty dark and I think holds up pretty well. It was the longest story I’d done to date at 64 pages. 

This was also the biggest technical challenge for me at the time, as I’d not figured out certain things in Photoshop at that point when putting the book together in late 2001. 

All in all, I think the story, dialog, effects all work pretty well and come together fairly okay. I think I hit all the notes I wanted too. 

Relative side notes: Mike Sobey once again did the cover only this time inks with color. 

And in general, I look back and think about how much I’ve improved from these early days. Woo!

I had thought about this story for a number of years before even committing it to paper. 

A dystopian near future where the U.S. is ruled by three dictatorial supermen, identical triplets who rise to power via their genetic abilities (strength, speed, pyrokinesis) after breaking free of the institution that had the hubris to artificially engineer them in the first place. We also meet the group that is trying to formulate a plan to destroy them.

Having gone the route of straight Superhero, Twilight Zone, sci fi comedy then back to super villain comedy, I wanted to get serious with his one. This one was pretty dark and I think holds up pretty well. It was the longest story I’d done to date at 64 pages. 

This was also the biggest technical challenge for me at the time, as I’d not figured out certain things in Photoshop at that point when putting the book together in late 2001. 

All in all, I think the story, dialog, effects all work pretty well and come together fairly okay. I think I hit all the notes I wanted too. 

Relative side notes: Mike Sobey once again did the cover only this time inks with color. 

And in general, I look back and think about how much I’ve improved from these early days. Woo!

A guy named Peter Willis is going through a midlife crisis. An old inventor friend of his has died and leaves him his invention, a belt that gives its wearer Tornado powers. Willis is distraught and somewhat drunk, and makes the rather unconventional leap of deciding it’s a sign that he must become a super villain. Comedy and super villains together. It’s kinda my jam.

Willis makes a to-do list of things he needs to do in order to get his villainous stature in order. He trims his eyebrows to menacing points, interviews henchmen, leaves a deceptively charming outgoing message on his answering machine, amongst other things. He does quite a bit of evil prep but in the end, he’s an incompetent narcissist who’s eventually brought down by an unassuming and unlikely opposite number. 

He was an interesting character to write and draw, the tornado powers and belt logo were fun to realize and there was even a set up for a possible sequel if I so chose to do it. 

I think as a comedy, it’s pretty damn solid and a lot of people seemed to agree at the time. I had one of the highest order numbers for this one and some articles and favorable reviews put up right away, as it hit the stands on September 5th of that year. In fact, there was talk of interviews and some store owners on the west coast were talking about setting up displays, etc. 

I was told all this on September 10th, 2001. The next day, comics and everything else was put on the back burner. 

Peter Willis would go on to make a cameo in a future project, “I was a Superhero Survivor”. 

One day, some 20 or 25 years ago, while watching tv, a lame auto insurance commercial appeared on screen. It must have been “Lincoln Insurance” or some such place because after showing black and white footage of old cars crashing into each other, the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln popped up in the corner of the screen telling the viewers about getting insurance.

Well this was just so entertaining, I simply had to create a comic which featured the disembodied head of our 16th president. 

*Side note: I found gobs and gobs of entertainment in the notion of the floating, disembodied head of Lincoln dispensing advice. So much so, that I would take our baby monitors and plant the receiver in a room. When Linda would come in, suddenly she’d hear a voice introducing himself as the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln, asking if she’s happy with her car insurance.

I thought this was high hilarity. Linda has no memory of it. Now I’m sad. Ah well.

Back to the comic—I created the Temporal Investigation Squad. A team which would go backward or forward in time, presumably to right wrongs. The team consisted a dotting old professor, an attractive blonde girl who was a combat expert, the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln and an emu. Those last two never got along. 

They were able to achieve time travel through a portal that for all intents and purposes looked and acted like an old wooden door, which you would open up and step through to another time. This amazing device was invented by the professor and never fully explained because comedy.

In the issue, the team goes back in time to the old west to kill a Hitler clone that had escaped the lab. I think I was fairly successful at taking several time traveling tropes and turning them on their head. 

I loved writing and drawing the disembodied head of Abe Lincoln, fighting and screaming his battle cries, “It’s Wrasslin’ Time!” and “Don’t Mess with the Rail-Splittah’!”

I made a shirt.

The professor actually created and purposely released the Hitler clone as an excuse to go back in time to get him. In reality, it was a scheme to steal money at poker or some such gimmick. The real fun came in portraying the diverse team of explorers. The only one who was an accomplished explorer was the girl, Suzie. Everyone else was either in it for personal gain, was somewhat clueless or an emu.

Although there’s plenty of potential for future iterations of the team and plenty of possible adventures, I never really pulled the trigger on that. 

Maybe someday. 

Maybe.

It’s up to Abe.

God, I love Abe.

Creative side note: this comic featured a painted cover by good friend and the ultimate illustrator, Mike Sobey.

By this point, I had the distribution/solicitation/marketing thing down pat. 

I put together for Mascot, a story set in a bizarre sector of the Twilight Zone. Basically, in an abandoned baseball field, a large bunch of baseball mascots (giant foam heads, uniforms) all battle to the death. The things I do to amuse myself. To be clear, there’s not necessarily anyone *wearing* the costumes. There’s a pirate, a Marlin, a Giant, a Tiger, etc., all just beating the hell out of each other. In an empty ball field.

It was bizarre, odd, violent and kind of fun, although I don’t think anyone really understood it, and if so, that’s on me. And I certainly didn’t help matters when I did the stupid cover.

The cover was simply the logo over a photo of clouds, with a hint of baseball park lighting in the lower corner. This was a huge tactical error on my part and especially stupid considering I’m painfully aware of just how important covers are in selling a book. 

So sue me, I was in a cloud phase. 

Why…. why not a couple Mascot heads on a baseball mound? Something to actually give an indication as to what might be happening IN the book?!?! Whatever my thought process was here… it was wrong. Lesson learned. 

Plenty of copies of Mascot are still in the basement, I think. I probably threw some boxes out by this point. I’m not sure. 

And there was a back up story as well. Something along the lines of the Pillsbury Doughboy coming alive at breakfast time and killing people. Then I was reminded that one of my clients did the advertising for pillsbury and I did some tweaking. Either way, this was not award winning material. Moving on…