"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum..."

Batman: "I don't know what it was that bent your life out of shape, but who knows? Maybe I've been there too. Maybe I can help. We could work together. I could rehabilitate you. You needn't be out there on the edge any more. You needn't be alone. We don't have to kill each other."

"What do you say?"

The Joker: "No. I'm sorry, but... No. It's too late for that. Far too late. Hahaha. Y'know, it's funny. This situation. It reminds me of a joke..."

"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum..."

Alan Moore, The Killing Joke

Great things are being said about the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, with a lot of attention being given to the late Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. I was surprised to discover that the look of the original Joker was inspired by a 1928 silent film entitled The Man Who Laughs, based on a 1869 Victor Hugo novel and starring Conrad Veidt in the title role. The bizarre grin sported by the protagonist is caused by deliberate mutilation when he is only two years old.

I haven't seen the new movie yet (I like to give it a couple of weeks in order to let the fanboy community get out of the way) but I've heard a couple of people comment with surprise on how the Joker is portrayed as a complete anarchist, a villain with no motive other than the creation of chaos. I've also heard some media commentary on how the Batman is presented in a darker fashion, more brutal than previous incarnations.

Really? My god, where have you people been? Oh, sorry, I tend to forgot that the mainstream only knows Batman from the 60's TV series and the movies - which is unfortunate, since they really haven't done justice to any of the characters. In fact, the closest that the popular media have come to a satisfactory portrayal of the Batman and his villains is in the three animated series done over the last few years. (For you trivia fans, Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame was the creator of the superb Joker voice in Batman: The Animated Series.)

Recommended reading would have to be DC Comic's The Killing Joke, now celebrating its 20th anniversary. Brian Bolland, the artist, is not at his best with Batman, but his portrayal of the Joker as a grotesque clown is perfect. Alan Moore's script is equally perfect, and leads one to wonder about the difficulties of writing from the perspective of a character who is insane.

Less approachable is the 1989 graphic novel Arkham Asylum, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Dave McKean. This experimental work, done with a combination of illustrative techniques, points out the essential truth of the Batman series: all of the characters, including Batman himself, are insane.

Notice that no one ever goes to prison - the criminals are all incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane. And Batman, as much as any of his opponents, is psychotic: the product of a childhood trauma that created an obsession with cold, hard, rigorous justice that has extended to a schizoid alter ego that dresses like a bat and stalks the night in search of criminals, each of whom represents, in some way, the man who killed his parents. As the Joker observes in Arkham Asylum when one of the other inmates says that they should take off Batman's mask and see his real face, "Oh, don't be so predictable, for Christ's sake! That is his real face."

- Sid

P.S. I feel like someone who's gone into the supermarket for milk and come out with $200 of groceries. Originally all I was going to do was mention the Conrad Veidt connection for the look of the Joker, but an hour later, which included digging out The Killing Joke and scanning the cover, I end up with a psychological treatise...

"The beacons are lit!"

Now all roads were running together to the East to meet the coming of war and the onset of the Shadow.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

"The beacons are lit! The beacons of Minas Tirith! Gondor calls for aid!"

Aragorn son of Arathorn stands panting as Théoden and his council look up to hear his news. There is a brief pause - what will Théoden King do? Will he honour his people's commitment, to fight and die in battle for allies who are distant both in miles and in friendship? A pause, and then:

"And Rohan will answer. Muster the Rohirrim!"

To purists, Peter Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings is full of omissions and changes, most of which - to purists - are considered to be for the worse. For myself, I consider Jackson's work to be a brilliant attempt to adapt the unadaptable, and as such his compromises with the original material are made in the best interests of his vision of the work. Whatever your opinion, it's hard to deny that Jackson took the best swing at the ball that he possibly could, and the results have a visual impact that is undeniable.

In the original text, the lighting of the beacons and the summoning of allies to Minas Tirith as the hand of Sauron begins to close upon it is a relatively minor event, accompanied by foreshadowing comments about Denethor's ability to "read somewhat of the future" and "at times search even the mind of the Enemy".

 

 

In the movie version, Gandalf arranges for the beacons to be lit through trickery, and we see a long line of flickering signals, bursting into flame one after another, marching across the mountains to Rohan where Aragorn sits. The speed and immediacy with which the beacons light is obviously a narrative tool, allowing a quick transition from Minas Tirith to Rohan.

But imagine for a moment the realities of such a situation. Imagine the watch at the beacons, men who have been all but exiled to mountain peaks hundreds of miles from their homes, doomed to know nothing of the events that have prompted the lighting of the message fires. Freezing, probably close to starvation on whatever meagre rations have been transported to their posts on the peaks of the mountains, sentenced to an unknown period of sentry-go, and yet, when the moment arrives, remaining faithful and vigilant, acting almost instantly to perform their duty and initiate a war which will be resolved for good or ill long before they would be able to busk themselves and make their long weary way to the field of battle.

And when all is said and done, one can only wonder if such men would be honoured or forgotten.

- Sid

We'll go with "incestuous" for this one.

Over the last few years, television science fiction series have become oddly...recursive? incestuous? - you know, I couldn't find a term that was appropriate. I refer to the practise of casting both guest spots and ongoing roles using actors who have appeared in other shows. Ben Browder and Claudia Black from Farscape ended up on Stargate SG-1, as did Robert Picardo from Voyager, (who then moved to Stargate Atlantis, along with Jewel Staite from Firefly); James Marsters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a recurring role on Smallville and a guest spot on Torchwood, and Anthony Head did one on Doctor Who; Andreas Katsulas from Babylon 5 showed up on Enterprise; and in the great recursive coup of all time, Richard Hatch returned to Battlestar Galactica.

But somehow all of that seems to pale against recent events from Doctor Who. Rumour has it that David Tennant, the Doctor, has recently started dating Georgia Moffett, who appeared in an episode of Doctor Who entitled "The Doctor's Daughter" in the titular role of the Doctor's daughter. Just to make the situation a little weirder than it already sounds, Ms. Moffett is actually the daughter of Peter Davison, who played the fifth incarnation of Doctor Who. So, just to clarify that, they cast the daughter of the fifth Doctor to play the daughter of the current Doctor, who then decided to ask her out. I realize that there's nothing actually wrong with any of that, it just seems odd, somehow.

- Sid

Less than one?

You know, you really have to wonder how many semi-SF amputee-babe-with-weapon-on-the-stump movies the world really needs...

- Sid

A Million Vacations.

SIGHTSEEING 

You are not my guide. My guide was bipedal.
We Earth people do not do that.
Oh, what a jolly fine natatorium (mating perch, arranged spectacle, involuntary phenomenon)!
At what hour does the lovelorn princess hurl herself into the flaming volcano? May we participate?
Please direct me to the nearest sentient mammal.
Take me to the Earth Consulate without any delay.

- Joanna Russ, Useful Phrases for the Tourist

Just returned from a week and a half in Ontario, and I have to say that as vacations go, it was pretty good. Usually I visit foreign locations when I have time off, but it had been almost a year since I'd been back east, and I felt more than a little overdue. 

The World's Biggest Bookstore at Edward and Yonge in Toronto continues to be a superior shopping location. I can't speak for their approach to other genres, but from the perspective of the science fiction and fantasy fan, it's a great spot. Although currently under the umbrella of Indigo/Chapters, the WBB seems to be free from their more irritating policies: science fiction and fantasy aren't separated, thereby allowing more continuity for authors who write in both areas and avoiding conflicts over exactly what category in which to place some of the more ambiguous authors. (What IS Perdido Street Station, really?) 

In addition, they also seem to have some extra latitude in terms of their selection. One of their end displays prominently features a pulp fiction retrospective which includes lesser known characters of Robert E. Howard's such as Bran Mak Morn and Almuric in addition to the inevitable Conan the Barbarian selections. 

The same display includes a couple of C. L. Moore short story collections, Leigh Brackett, and two Norvell Page collections featuring the Spider, Page's answer to the Shadow et al. The WBB also has enough distance between displays that it's possible to see the bottom shelf without bending over or crouching down, which is greatly appreciated by those of us with iffy knees.

Moving on from the WBB, I head down to Queen Street and the Silver Snail, a landmark in the Toronto comic book scene since 1976. (Gosh, what year did they move to their current address? They were about a block or so further east when I started visiting Toronto in the late 70's.) Originally focused purely on new and used/collectable comics, over time an increasingly large and varied selection of action figures, models and toys has been added to the store's lineup. Although I gave up buying comics a few years ago, I still like to go in and see if things have changed in either the store or the marketplace, and end up making a purchase after all: the DC Comics Elseworlds edition of Red Son. What if Superman's capsule had landed in Russia instead of the American Midwest? It's an interesting question - after all, Superman was only fighting for "Truth, Justice and the American Way" because that was how he'd been raised. Red Son examines how different things might have been if he had grown up on a Soviet collective farm. (Sidebar: Stalin translates into English as "man of steel".) 

A rippling drumbeat from a sidewalk performer echoes along the buildings as I cross Spadina, and a young man in cargo shorts and t-shirt rushes by, clutching a hammer and three sharpened stakes - presumably en route to some kind of Buffy inspired rendezvous with a trio of vampires. Further along the block is Bakka-Phoenix, the latest incarnation of the venerable Queen Street science fiction and fantasy bookstore. 

Originally just Bakka (it's a Dune reference, for those of you not among the cognoscenti) it opened further east on Queen Street in 1972, moved to Yonge Street in 1998, and it's been back on Queen since 2005, just a little further west and comfortably out of the trendy section. Sadly, the front window no longer explains the provenance of the name. 

 Even more sadly, the used book section is a pale shadow of its former self, although it's possible that this may not be a planned development. While I'm there, a young woman comes in desperately seeking the Amber series by Roger Zelazny, and heads to the used section in hopes of saving a little cash. The staff member on site provides the surprising statistic that no one has brought an individual Zelazny text in for sale since 1998. (Frankly, I'm a little sceptical about that, ten years seems like an awfully long dry spell, although it's a nice little tribute to the late Mr. Zelazny.) 

Bakka (I'm sorry, the Phoenix part doesn't fly for me, no pun intended) has always been distinguished by the dedication and knowledge of the staff - not surprising given the number of genre authors who have worked there. I have no idea if the woman working the cash is an author or not, but she displays a wide and varied knowledge of both the inventory and the field as customers ask her a variety of questions.

I buy a couple of books, and manage to make my escape after only a limited interaction with Michelle, a long term employee (and monumental bitch) who sweeps into the store just as I'm paying for my selections. 

 Interestingly enough, all three stores provide evidence that the US/Canadian book price situation is being dealt with on the grass-roots level as well as being addressed by the publishers. My Charles Stross novel from the WBB only has a one-dollar difference in price, as opposed to the illogical three-dollar difference of last year. The Silver Snail sells me Red Son for US cover price, rather than the four-dollar-higher Canadian price, and Bakka has marked down one of the books that I buy by fifty cents - okay, not a lot, but for an independent outlet where every penny counts, it's a noteworthy gesture. 

- Sid