And a bottle of rum.

Yo ho ho - or does nobody actually say that...?

Doctor Who, The Curse of the Black Spot

About a year ago I was in small claims court regarding a dispute over a transfer of intellectual property.  No payment was to be involved unless the other party decided to proceed with the web site proposal that I had helped create, but when they did proceed, there was some difficulty obtaining a cheque for the agreed upon amount (or any amount at all).

Part of the defendant's unsuccessful argument was that it wasn't the same site that had been created, and as such there was no obligation to follow through with the agreement.  In addition to detailing the various similarities and correspondences with the original proposal, I pointed out to the presiding judge that if it was so completely different, shouldn't they have at least have given it a different name?

Similarly, I'm a bit suspicious of the new Walt Disney film, On Stranger Tides.  If you look up this latest installment in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise on the Internet Movie Database site, you'll find the following writing credit:

Tim Powers (novel On Stranger Tides) (suggestion). 

For those of you unfamiliar with Tim Powers, this 59-year-old science fiction and fantasy author has based much of his award-winning fantasy around actual historical events and characters, such as his 1979 novel The Drawing of the Dark, which takes place during the 1529 siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks, or his 1987 pirate novel On Stranger Tides, which takes place in the 18th Century in the Caribbean.

The novel deals with a Caribbean equally rife with piracy and the supernatural, where the protagonist, Jack Chandagnac, unwillingly joins the ranks of pirates after the ship he is travelling on is captured by buccaneers.  One of the pivotal events in the book is the search for and discovery of the fabled Fountain of Youth in Florida, a trip that Jack makes in the company of the most famous pirate of all, Blackbeard.   

Now for me, a suggestion is about as simple and basic a contribution that you can make to something.  As an example, if someone was building a house, saying "Hey, maybe you should paint the kitchen green" would qualify as a suggestion.  In contrast, using Power's novel to develop a movie script dealing with a Caribbean pirate named Jack who discovers the Fountain of Youth with Blackbeard the Pirate - I'm sorry, that's not a suggestion, that's almost a full blueprint. As with my legal encounter, if it was just a suggestion, shouldn't they at least have given it a different name?

I realize that there's not a complete correspondence between the book and the movie.  Captain Jack Sparrow is a long way from Jack the reluctant swashbuckler in the novel, and from what I've read online there are other substantial differences in the plot structure.  However, I think that it would be appropriate for Disney to acknowledge Powers as having made a larger contribution than a "suggestion" - as it is, it looks like they've relied heavily on the book for inspiration but are reluctant to acknowledge just how much they've hijacked from the text.

Gosh, I guess that means that it really is a pirate movie.

- Sid

To Avoid Repeated Doctor Internet Sharing.

If you're in North America and you were pleased to be able to watch The Impossible Astronaut, the premier episode of the new season of Doctor Who, on the same date as its British debut this weekend, do you know who you should thank?

Me.

Yes, me. And thousands of other people like me, people who were unimpressed by the artificial gap between the BBC broadcasts of Doctor Who episodes and their arrival on this side of the Atlantic.  Admittedly, downloading bootleg copies of the episodes might not be the best response to the situation, but where letter writing campaigns had no effect, spikes in online piracy following the broadcast of each of last year's episodes caught the attention of the show's producers.

That's the specific reason cited by the BBC for the changed schedule this year - illegal file sharing - and apparently this simple solution actually works. The 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special was broadcast in North America on Christmas Day, the same as in Great Britain, and the result was a 10% increase in viewership.  Presumably this percentage was at least partially made up of impatient North American fans who for once didn't have to chose between waiting a few weeks or downloading an unlicensed copy. 

So - you're welcome.

- Sid

P.S. I would be remiss were I not to mention the untimely departure of Elisabeth Sladen, who passed away last week at the age of 63 due to cancer. Elisabeth Sladen played the role of Sarah Jane Smith, who was a companion to both the third and fourth Doctors from 1973 to 1976.  Following her departure from the show, she went into semi-retirement, but returned for Doctor Who specials in 1981 and 1983, as well as voicing Sarah Jane in several BBC Radio productions of Doctor Who stories.

Sladen's 2006 appearance in School Reunion with David Tennant signalled her full time return to the universe of the Doctor, with the popularity of that episode resulting in a spinoff series called The Sarah Jane Adventures. The show, aimed at a more youthful audience than Doctor Who, proved to be a remarkable success and had been approved for a fifth season at the time of Sladen's death.

I think that her appearance in School Reunion provided one of the best and most poignant insights into the realities of being a companion to the Doctor.  At one point in the episode, the Doctor says:

You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on, alone. That's the curse of the Timelords. 

In reality, it's more of a curse for the companions like Sarah Jane, who is both saddened and angered by her reunion with the Doctor, and her meeting with a younger companion who is a reminder of her own lost youth.  For her, an entire lifetime has gone by, abandoned and all but forgotten by the Doctor, but unable to forget her experiences at his side or to stop waiting for him to return.

At the end of the episode, offered the opportunity to travel in the TARDIS again, she refuses in favour of finally leading her own life, and demands that the Doctor say the goodbye that had gone unspoken at their last parting, a final goodbye which we all say now.

Goodbye, my Sarah Jane...

Up, up and away.

Works of art are received and valued on different planes. Two polar types stand out; with one, the accent is on the cult value; with the other, on the exhibition value of the work. Artistic production begins with ceremonial objects destined to serve in a cult. One may assume that what mattered was their existence, not their being on view.

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

In the process of producing this blog, I often end up struggling to find just the right image to illustrate a posting. This is not always an easy process - due to the nature of the Internet, you'll have better luck finding a picture of Britney Spears with her head shaved than a good scan of the cover of Weird Tales from October 1936.*

As part of this search, I recently stumbled across an unexpected treasure trove:  an auction site called Heritage Auctions which specializes in "collectibles" - art, antiques, books, coins, comics, and so on.  As part of their catalogue, they post beautiful high resolution images of all sorts of interesting things such as comics, pulp magazines, and vintage movie posters.

I'm on their mailing list now, and as a result I receive promotional e-mails for upcoming material up for auction.  Recently I received one of these e-mails that, among other things, had an ad for Issue One of The Uncanny X-Men from 1963:  current bid, $8,000.  Original cover price?  Twelve cents.

This isn't an astonishing price compared to the comic collecting market in general.  After all, a "Very Fine" condition copy of Action Comics #1 from 1938, featuring the first appearance of Superman, sold privately for 1.5 million dollars a few years back.**

But unlike the legendary first issue of Action, I remember reading that first issue of the X-Men, although not at the age of two when it first came out.  I suspect that someone gave me a box of old comics at some point in my childhood, which must have included a battered copy showcasing the first appearance of Professor Xavier's mutated students.  Imagine that, at one point I owned a comic that's now worth at least eight grand.

Or is it?

Comic book collecting is quite probably one of the most grossly and artificially manipulated marketplaces in the history of mankind, with the possible exception of the great Dutch Tulip Boom of the 1630s***.  The comics collecting market peaked in the late 1980's, when it seemed that the only reason that comics were being published was so that they could be put in acid-neutral polybags and hidden away for future resale. Every second issue had some point of added value for collectors:  alternate covers, embossing, glow-in-the-dark inks, foil, and the ultimate triumph of collector's fever over original purpose, the pre-bagged comic.  Yes, it was possible to buy a comic book that was sealed into an archival bag, thereby preserving it in its original state from the printing press - provided you never actually wanted to read the damn thing.

I suppose you could make some kind of a case for the value of these first issues, some combination of rarity, artist's reputation, perhaps even historical value, but honestly, I have to side with the opening quote from Walter Benjamin at this point: it's cult value. The comics in question have become the equivalent of objects of worship, like religious ikons or fetishes, imbued with an importance and power far in excess of their actual worth.  And as such, they are hidden away from the eyes of the world, albeit in custom cardboard boxes rather than temple altars, but the analogy is still appropriate.  It's an odd coincidence that Benjamin's article was also published in 1938, along with Superman's first meeting with the world.

I stopped buying comics in the early 90s, and apparently so did everyone else.  Marvel Comics declared bankruptcy, and most of the smaller publishers went under completely.  The scale of the industry today is probably one-tenth of what it used to be 25 years ago, and the comic book collecting bubble popped, although based on the auction prices at Heritage, it obviously hasn't completely deflated.

But, if anyone is looking to make back the cost of developing a time machine, here's the the perfect opportunity.  Forget all that nonsense about visiting Shakespeare and so on - just find an American dime from the 30's, zoom back to 1938, find a newstand, and buy a copy of Action Comics #1.  Pretty good return on investment if you come back to the present and sell it for 1.5 million dollars.  But please, don't buy two copies:  flooding the market would just bring the price down.

- Sid

* I actually have a scan of the entire issue if anyone's interested - you just have to know where to look for these things.

** To Nicholas Cage, I believe, I gather Nick is a big fan and has tried several times to get the part of Superman in the various movie versions.  Sad that he had to settle for Ghost Rider.

*** No, really, there was a tulip bubble in the 17th century.  Look it up if you don't believe me.