“Judge me by my size, do you?”

As part of his presentation on creating the Epic Yarns adaptations of the original Star Wars trilogy, children's book creator Holman Wang mentioned being invited to the Sharjah Children's Reading Festival in the United Arab Emirates.  When his carry-on luggage, which contained examples of felted wire-framed Star Wars characters, was scanned, Security immediately took him aside to search his bag.

When Holman reported the results on Twitter™, @yvrairport, which is well known for the quality of its social media game, had the following reply:

- Sid

Epic Yarns.

It’s a pleasant Saturday morning for a walk to Granville Island, where I'm attending a talk by children's book creator Holman Wang as part of the annual Vancouver Writers Fest.  The front of the stage is decorated with samples of his work: fuzzy figures from Star Wars, and felt copies of him, his two children, and their dog.

Holman and his brother Jack collaborate in the creation of early reading primers that are intended for parents to read with their children.  Jack writes the stories, and Holman creates felted figures and settings that he then photographs as illustrations for the books.  The brothers got their start with the Cozy Classics series, featuring literary mainstays such as Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, and Huckleberry Finn, followed by Epic Yarns, a three-book retelling of the first Star Wars trilogy.

Obviously I've chosen to attend Wang's talk because of the Star Wars books, but their other creations are equally impressive.

I was initially curious as to how the brothers handled the process of adapting the stories for younger readers - after all, Moby Dick is hardly written for the pre-school crowd, and  the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke's hand is cut off by his father must be a bit traumatic for very young readers.

 

As it turns out, Holman and his brother strip the stories to their most essential components:  12 pictures, 12 words.  Rewriting the stories is Jack Wang's most crucial contribution to the process, along with steadfastly maintaining the integrity of the concept. I don't envy him the writing - it may sound easy to write a 12-word book, but I can easily imagine the difficulty of selecting 12 words that are both appropriate to the stories and accessible to small children.* 

 

After the writing is finished, Holman begins work on the elements for the photo illustrations. Each needle-felted figure takes him between 20 and 60 hours to create.  Holman, an entertaining and witty speaker, does a comically quick demo of the felting process, and comments that for felting, "Self harm is an occupational hazard."

"If I had a dollar for every time I’ve stabbed myself, it might be more than the royalties on the books."

 

The craftsmanship is extraordinary - the figures are about ten inches tall, created at about 1:7 scale. It's even more extraordinary considering that, when his brother initially approached him with the idea, Holman had never done felting - as he casually explains, his entire training is based upon "watching some YouTube™ videos".

The figures are constructed around wire armatures to give them some strength and to allow the figures to be posed for different settings.  In the case of the Star Wars books, Wang decided to make interchangeable heads and place them onto differently costumed bodies for different scenes out of the films, so that the faces would be consistent from image to image. In addition, he sometimes includes natural materials to create specific effects, such as uncombed sheep's wool for the Cowardly Lion's mane in their Wizard of Oz adaptation.

 

To simplify the process, he makes some of the clothing using sheets of felt, which he also uses for props such as Luke's X-Wing, constructed from styrene and bits of junk, and then covered in felt.  For larger figures such as Jabba the Hut or Luke's Tauntaun from Hoth, Wang carves rough figures in styrofoam, then works the wool directly into the foam.

For the backdrops to his felted figures, he builds sets that range from the simple to the complicated, "Macgyvering things together" and using elements like real fires in fireplaces, or dry ice for the Dagobah mists, in order to make the environments as realistic as possible.

In addition to creating studio sets, Holman also likes to shoot on location so that the scenes have natural skies and real backgrounds.  He jokes about wanting to shoot the SNOW image for The Empire Strikes Back, which features Luke Skywalker on a Tauntaun, on Seymour Mountain, but being unable to find a setup without trees in the background.  He ended up taking the final photo in front of a grimy snowpile in the parking lot, with the happily accidental result that the dirt and salt in the out of focus snow gave shading and texture to what would otherwise have been basically just a flat white background.

Generally the location photos have been taken locally in Vancouver, where the Lynn Valley stands in for the forest moon of Endor.  The sole exception hs been a desert shoot in Arizona's Yuma Desert, where the original movie scenes set on Tatooine and featuring Jabba's sail barge and the Sarlac were shot for The Return of the Jedi.

 

Wang's photographs are created almost entirely without resorting to Photoshop, relying instead on practical effects to set the scene - although Holman made an exception for the light saber effect for the Star Wars books.  He utilizes a variety of tricks and techniques to achieve the effects he wants, such as forced perspective to add in real background elements, and physically dragging backgrounds to create blur during long exposure times.

To date, Holman has done 17 books using these techniques: 12 Cozy Classics, three Star Wars, and a pair of books about the multiple jobs performed by parents on a daily basis: Great Job, Mom and Great Job, Dad.  These last two feature him and his family as characters, although he admits to claiming their two children for Great Job, Dad.  He deadpans, "My wife got the dog."  Alert readers will note that the Great Job books feature scale versions of Holman's other books as props.

When asked what his favourite was out of these projects, Holman admits that he enjoyed making the Star Wars books the most, because the movies were so much a part of his childhood.

 

"It was a chance to relive my childhood, and I was super excited to become part of the Star Wars universe in some small way."**

He also points to the Star Wars books as an example of successful self-marketing, or, as Holman puts it, "Sometimes you have to make your own breaks."

While exhibiting at the annual Bologna Children's Book Fair in Italy, the brothers made contact with Chronicle Books, a San Francisco based publishing house.  Chronicle asked if they had any projects they'd like to pursue, and they immediately expressed their desire to adapt the Star Wars movies.  Chronicle approached Lucasfilm on their behalf, and to the surprise of the Wangs, Lucasfilm gave their conditional permission for the project, but requested a sample.  Holman created a felted version of Luke Skywalker, and Lucasfilm gave the go-ahead for the books.

 

Holman was surprised by the degree to which Lucasfilm left the two brothers alone, to the point of not actually providing very much support out in terms of figuring out how to create the iconic figures and scenes from the films.  One of their few edits was to the page featuring Han Solo encased in carbonite: Jack Wang had chosen the word FROZEN for the image, but the Keeper of the Holocron, as the Lucasfilm Star Wars database manager is commonly known, vetoed it - apparently the carbonite process is hot, rather than cold.*** 

 

In conclusion, Wang discussed how his work on the books has allowed him to express his identity through creativity, and helped him with the struggle between wanting to be creative and the need to have a regular job.

For his next project, Wang is writing a middle-grade novel, commenting, "I have no training as a writer, but then, I became famous as a felt artist without training."

"People should pursue their dreams.  If you have an idea and a passion, just run with it - who knows what will happen?"

- Sid

* I take minor exception with one of the single-word story choices as displayed during Wang's talk:  Droids.  Even speaking as a science fiction fan, I think that there would have to be something that was more of a household word to which a youthful reader could be introduced. (Although I guess it would depend on your household.)

** Presumably no pun was intended.

*** If you, like me, think of that as the carbon freeze scene, apparently we're both wrong.

"Aliens."

The Doctor: Where’d you want to start?
Rose: Um. The inside’s bigger than the outside?
The Doctor: Yes.
Rose: It’s alien.
The Doctor: Yeah.
Rose: Are you alien?
The Doctor: Yes. Is that all right?
Rose: Yeah.

Rose, Doctor Who

I was recently killing some time browsing at the Indigo outlet at Broadway and Granville while waiting to meet my friend Chris at the Storm Crow, and idly picked up a Doctor Who novel.  Although I generally don't buy novelizations and adaptations, in this case, I was literally just looking (which can lead to some interesting discoveries).

 

The cover blurb for this 13th Doctor adventure read as follows:

"A ruthless alien threat."  Sigh...

As fond as I am of Doctor Who, I feel that the show has one problem: it always has to be aliens.  Mayor of Cardiff pushing for a nuclear power station?  Turns out to be a Slitheen who wants to use it to power the Cardiff Rift to create a passage home, destroying Earth in the process.  Random visit to the city of Pompeii just before the eruption that destroys the city? It's being caused by alien Pyroviles trying to make a new home for themselves after the destruction of their planet. Superhero origin story?  Accidentally swallows alien technology.  Time travel to 1938 New York - turns out the Statue of Liberty is a giant alien Weeping Angel.

At some point this can become absurd.  Local supermarket runs out of milk?  Plot by bovinate aliens to rescue cows from servitude and slavery.*  Piece of gum stuck to the Doctor's shoe?  Alien hitch-hiker attempting to take over the TARDIS.

To be fair, there have been a few episodes, such as Season 11's Arachnids in the UK, that have relied on human malfeasance rather than alien malice, but by and large, yep, it's aliens.

It may be surprising, but I'd actually like to see more stories without the alien factor.  The Rosa episode really didn't require a time-travelling conservative trying to stop Rosa Parks, it could have just dealt with being witnesses to history who become participants in order to ensure that events transpire as they are meant to.  Similarly, The Demons of the Punjab doesn't need any demons, the tragedy of families in conflict was all the story they needed.

So, in the unlikely event that anyone at the BBC is reading this, hey, maybe it would be interesting to invest some time in looking at all the reasons that the Doctor decided to spend so much time on this ridiculous little planet on the edge of nowhere - with only the one alien involved.

- Sid

* The part about servitude and slavery is a Jean-Luc Picard quote, which really has no place in a Doctor Who posting - although there was an eight-issue Star Trek-Doctor Who crossover comic book miniseries published in 2012 by IDW.

Which actually sounds like the concept for a Netflix series.

Photo by KT

Last night we saw British indie pop band Bastille in concert, on tour to support their new Doom Days album.  Obviously I'm going to support a band that decides to do an apocalyptic concept album based around an all-night party that takes place during the end of the world - apparently Pompeii was just a warm-up in terms of disaster music.

- Sid

NYNY 2019: "IF WE DON'T HAVE IT, A SUPERHERO DOESN'T NEED IT."

 

Captain America: You got heart, kid, where are you from?
Spider-Man: [Straining] Queens!
Captain America: Brooklyn!

Captain America: Civil War

With our New York vacation finished, I have to admit to one small regret:  that we didn't have an opportunity to visit the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, located, as you might guess, in the savage heart of Brooklyn itself. (Okay, actually kind of north and to the west of the actual heart, but you get the idea.)

The BSSC is exactly what its name implies, a storefront location that sells the necessities of day-to-day heroic life:  masks, capes, utility belts, tins of Invisibility, cans of Antimatter, and convenient packs containing Intuition, Gumption, X-Ray Vision, Reflexes, Mind Control and Bravery.

 

As with its meta-powered clientele, the Superhero Supply Company has its own secret identity, accessible through a hidden entrance at the back of the store: that of a mild-mannered non-profit arts and literature organization, 826NYC, whose mission statement is more than a little reminiscent of the opening voice-over from Star Trek - or maybe the Superman TV series from the 1950s:

"Our mission is to encourage the exploration of endless possibility through the power of writing. To empower students with the skills to write their own paths forward, undefined by circumstance. To support new and exciting approaches to writing and inspire student engagement. And to foster generations of creative writers and thinkers, who together will define a better future."

826NYC, a branch of 826 National, is dedicated to helping students between the ages of 6 and 18 to become better writers through workshops, tutoring, and by providing publishing opportunities for student work.  All proceeds from the sale of superhero supplies go towards supporting 826NYC, but that's not their sole source of funding:  luminaries such as Jon Stewart, David Byrne, Sam Rockwell, Cynthia Nixon, Bob Balaban and many others have appeared at fundraising events.

I realize that I could easily order from the Company's website, but somehow it doesn't feel the same as strolling up to a counter with an armload of assorted superpowers.  However, it's very likely that Karli and I will visit New York again in the not too distant future, and maybe we'll find the time to take the train over to Brooklyn to stock up on some Inspiration.

Ignoring the admirable real-world purpose of the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, it seems like such a logical idea that there would be an outlet offering supplies to the superhero community* - or, more interestingly, superhero supplies to the rest of the population.  Lord knows there have been lots of times when a quart or two of Invincibility would have been a handy thing to have around.

And, to make the whole joke even funnier, imagine if the superpower supplies actually worked...

- Sid

* By extension, that suggests that there would be an equivalent organization supporting super villains, and I do recall owning an issue of the Avengers that introduced the Taskmaster, who ran a school for evil minions - no, not the little yellow guys, I mean the sort of people who worked for the Joker, you know, the ones that Batman and Robin would punch with an accompanying visual sound effect.

NYNY 2019: THEY LIVE.

 

Well, that would certainly explain a lot...

- Sid

NYNY 2019: Ray Fay?

There's a new Empire State Building photo op setup on the way to the sightseeing deck elevators - new since our last visit, anyway.  I have to give them credit for a well-executed gimmick in the way that King Kong's head moving back and forth in the windows, although I'm a bit dismayed by the affectionate manner in which the big ape is eyeing me - after all, I'm a married man.

- Sid

NYNY: FPNY

 

After our visit to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum and the Enterprise Space Shuttle, we head back toward the Lower East Side and the New York Forbidden Planet store, the only North American outlet for the British comic book and collectibles chain.

 

The New York location has a smaller footprint than the London Megastore, and doesn't sell books, specializing instead in comic books, action figures and toys, and comic, movie, TV and video game-related merchandise - but it's just as much of a geek paradise.

 

Karli has generously offered to take care of my purchases as part of my birthday gift, so I judiciously select a couple of graphic novels, and we get into the checkout line so we can pay for those, adding in a Brian Bolland Forbidden Planet New York t-shirt to complement the one we bought at the London Megastore.

My graphic novels of choice are Old Man Logan and The Infinity Gauntlet.  To be completely accurate, they're actually collections of Marvel comics storylines rather than stand-alone stories, although Old Man Logan could easily have been done as a single story.

The Old Man Logan miniseries, originally published in 2008, is one of those alternate universe stories that both DC and Marvel seem to be so fond of* - perhaps more Marvel than DC, although I think that DC's Elseworlds comics from the 1990s and early 2000s are perhaps a bit better than their What If? Marvel equivalent.  (That being said, watch for the animated version of What If? on the new Disney+ streaming service in 2021.)

In this version of Logan's future, the supervillains have won the war against the heroes by forming an alliance and wiping out their opponents, after which the ringleaders have divided up the United States amongst themselves.  Almost 50 years later, a grey-haired pacifist Logan is living quietly as a tenant farmer and father of two in Hulkland, ruled by the Hulk, who has mated with his cousin Jennifer (aka She-Hulk) and produced an inbred cannibal army of greenskinned, rednecked offspring.**

Sworn to never again use his adamantium claws in anger, Logan is savagely beaten by members of the Hulk Gang after he's unable to pay his rent, and the lives of his family threatened if he doesn't make a double payment in a month.  In desperation, he agrees to join the blinded Hawkeye in a road trip across the United States in order to deliver a shipment of super soldier serum to resistance operatives in Washington, where the Red Skull is the new President of the United States.  Over the course of the trip, we learn of the tragedy that caused Logan to renounce violence, as well as getting an overall view of America after the fall of the heroes.

The concept was popular enough with fans that it eventually spawned an ongoing series, but the graphic novel only collects the initial eight issue run.

The collected Infinity Gauntlet series might appear to speak for itself, given the popularity of the two movies derived from the storyline, but that's not necessarily the case.  I say "derived from" but I might as well have gone with "inspired by" - other than the concept of Thanos the Mad Titan eliminating half the life in the entire universe with a single snap of his gauntleted fingers, and the idea of the entire MCU going up against him in battle***, there's not a lot of resemblance to the original comics.

Which, to be honest, is not necessarily a bad thing.  I'm generally not a big fan of massive changes from source material, but in this case, the movie versions offer a much more dramatic and plausible take on the story.  The comics paint an epic and grandiose version of the struggle to defeat Thanos, drawing in the great powers of the Marvel Universe such as Galactus, the Celestials, and the Stranger, and eventually even avatars of the cosmic constants such as Love and Hate, Order and Chaos, and Eternity, the living personification of the universe.  Unfortunately, the story itself is almost ridiculous in its depiction of Thanos and his irrational responses to the possession of infinite power over all of reality.

When we're done at Forbidden Planet, it seems a waste not to make a quick return visit to the Strand, conveniently (and literally) located right next door - which may explain why FPNY doesn't bother to stock books.

 

Because it's a return visit, I only grab a couple of books to add to my previous purchases:  the rapture of the nerds, by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, and No Time To Spare, by Ursula K. Le Guin.  For the rapture of the nerds, even if you didn't have me at Charles Stross, I'm obviously going to be intrigued by the possibilities of a geek singularity.  Equally obviously, anything by Ursula K. Le Guin is always a good choice, although the title of this collection of blog postings is sadly prescient, given her death only a month after its publication in December of 2017.

To cap off the day, we have a tasty casual barbecue dinner at The Mighty Quinn, just around the corner and a couple of blocks away on 2nd Avenue, and that's my birthday.  Thanks again to Karli for a great (birth)day out in New York City - I think we managed to ring all the bells in terms of a geek birthday, although it's a shame that we didn't think to bring Dancing Jesus from our London outing, he really does get the party started.

- Sid

* I think that both of these concepts are an inevitable response to new writers and artists coming into their respective comic universes and wanting to take a fresh look at the well-worn trials and tribulations of both heroes and villains.

** It never says whether or not She-Hulk undergoes this experience willingly or unwillingly.  Nor is it explained why the Hulk has joined the alliance of supervillains by killing the Abomination and taking his place, although there's an elaborate Hulk storyline from 2006, Planet Hulk, which  involves the Marvel Illuminati - Professor X, Tony Stark, Mr. Fantastic, Doctor Strange, Namor the Submariner and Black Bolt of the Inhumans - exiling the Hulk from Earth by blasting him into outer space. The Hulk is not happy with them when he makes his inevitable return.  (Parts of the Planet Hulk story inspired the Hulk's career as a gladiator in the Grandmaster's arena from Thor: Ragnarok.)

*** The comic book version pulls a few more heroes into the story  - obviously the movies can't feature the X-Men, the Fantastic Four just haven't made it on the big screen to date, and outside of the world of comics fans, no one has any idea who Adam Warlock is.

NYNY 2019: Virtual Space

In addition to the Enterprise shuttle, the Intrepid Space Shuttle Pavilion provides a wide range of exhibits dealing with the space program in general as well as the shuttle missions:  display panels detailing the history of Enterprise, a Soyuz TMA-6 capsule, dismounted shuttle control panels (which, sadly, don't come close to the real thing), and, for Canadian content, Chris Hadfield's guitar pick and mission patch, along with a video of the commander performing "Is Someone Singing" from the ISS in a video duet with Barenaked Ladies member Ed Robertson on Earth.

 

It also features a couple of VR experiences:  Defying Gravity: Women in Space and and the International Space Station VR Experience.  With no offense to Women in Space (or women in space) I'm a bit more fascinated by the option of a virtual reality tour of the ISS - although it is intriguing to watch headmount-wearing participants walk accurately from location to location in the Defying Gravity area.

The ISS VR program was created by Oculus for their headsets in 2017, working in co-operation with NASA.  The program combines NASA 3-D models and input from astronauts to make the experience as accurate as possible, allowing users to explore the station, check on experiments, dock a capsule, and perform an EVA tour of the station's exterior.

Over half the units are out of order, so Karli and I patiently wait in line for about 25 minutes.  Karli takes a seat first, and then a few minutes later I'm supplied with a sanitary mask, ushered to my module by an attendant, and equipped with the VR headmount and hand controls, after which the VR program starts.

I am instantly spellbound - the illusion of floating in low Earth orbit is compelling and believable.

Space is probably the ideal environment for VR exploration - there's no issues involving movement or walking, it just feels like you're flying.

I spend most of my allotted seven minutes zooming around the station, going out past it into a higher orbit for a panoramic view, and then doing close-up fly-bys of the structure, punctuated by looking down at Earth's distant surface.  Near the end of my session I briefly go inside the ISS, bounce amateurishly along the corridors in zero-G, visit the cupola, and look at some controls, but it doesn't have the same impact for me that the spacewalk did.

 

Higher resolution would have been nice, it didn't have the razor sharpness that I'm used to from my 5120 x 2880 iMac Retina screen at home, but it didn't really matter - I found the experience was so immersive that it was more than a little jarring when the time ran out and unseen hands took the controllers from me.  I could easily imagine spending hours rather than minutes exploring the simulation - maybe it's a good thing that I don't have any kind of VR technology at home.

Although, hmmm...a compatible Oculus Rift S headset comes in at $550 CAD on Amazon™, which is a bit expensive but not ridiculous, but it would also require a substantial upgrade to my PC video card - perhaps more of an investment than strictly practical, regardless of how much I enjoyed it.

 

We make out way out through the inevitable gift shop - yes, even aircraft carriers have gift shops - and Karli buys me a NASA mug and pin as part of her birthday gift to me.  I've had a great birthday morning at the museum with Karli, much thanks, love - next stop, the New York branch of Forbidden Planet.

- Sid

Sidebar: Space Shuttle.

It's a shame they don't give visitors access to the space shuttle cockpits at the Intrepid Museum or the Kennedy Space Centre, how cool would it be to see this in person?

- Sid

NYNY 2019: Enterprise.

Birthday card courtesy of Cloin, the pretty Campbell brother - who
is, in fact, even older than I am.

It's my birthday today, and as in previous years, we're having a bit of a geek day in the middle of our New York vacation.

We start out with a visit to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, located on the USS Intrepid, a decommissioned Essex-class aircraft carrier moored at Pier 86 in the Hudson River. Intrepid is the current home of the Enterprise space shuttle, as well as having been the primary recovery ship for the Aurora 7 and Gemini 3 orbital missions.

We do a quick tour of the flight deck - I'm disappointed to see that the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, stealth aircraft of choice for the X-Men, is not in the best of condition - and then proceed to the Space Shuttle Pavilion for the main event.

Admittedly, in this case the word "Space" is only there as a courtesy. Completed in 1976 and making its first flight in 1977, Enterprise was designed to be a test vehicle for atmospheric operations with the modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, and it was never used for orbital missions.

As a result, it lacked most of the elements necessary for use in space: no orbital manoeuvring pods or reaction thrusters, no thermal tiles for re-entry protection, no radar - and no main engines, the shuttle was intended for unpowered "dead stick" landings.

Although it had been planned to refit Enterprise for orbital missions following testing, NASA had modified the shuttle design to such an extent when constructing Columbia, the first operational orbital shuttle, that it was more cost-effective to start from scratch on an alternate test chassis rather than update Enterprise.

After additional test usage, Enterprise was stripped for parts for the other shuttles, and then sent on an international promotional tour, after which it was donated to the Smithsonian Institute in 1985. In 2011 it was moved again, and put on display at the Intrepid museum.

Enterprise was originally going to be named Constitution, but the Star Trek fan base successfully launched a letter-writing campaign to change the name, and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and most of the show's cast* were guests at the shuttle's unveiling.**

And you know what?  If we keep doing this sort of thing for long enough, Star Trek fans yet unborn will eventually persuade some future government to name an actual starship Enterprise.

- Sid

* Explanations for William Shatner's absence vary - he was either shooting a movie, trying to avoid high-profile Star Trek events in an attempt to escape type casting, or his agent demanded an appearance fee.

** If you spend a lot of time looking for images on the internet, as I do for the purposes of blogging, you quickly discover that there are some photos that are THE image of choice for a particular topic or event. As an example, this is THE photo of the Star Trek cast and Enterprise.  And, my god - look at the leisure suits!!