Canada Day is here again, and what better topic for today's patriotic posting than Captain Canuck, Canada's favourite (if not only) superhero.

The first homegrown Canadian entries into the superhero market were Johnny Canuck and Nelvana of the Northern Lights, who made their debut in World War II during an American ban on comic exports.  Johnny was an adventure hero/pilot along the lines of the American Blackhawk Squadron comics, and, like Wonder Woman, Nelvana found her origins in the world of mythology, although in her case, in Inuit legends rather than Greek. (Just for the record, Nelvana's 1940 debut beat Wonder Woman to the punch by a full year.)

Following the demise of Johnny Canuck and Nelvana after the war, there was a long gap in the Canadian comics market*, a gap which lasted until 1975 when 24 year old artist/author Richard Comely released Issue One of Captain Canuck under the banner of Comely Comics.

Set 18 years in the future, when Canada has become one of the major world powers, Captain Canuck's story is really that of Canadian International Security Organization agent Tom Evans.  While on a camping trip with the Boy Scout troop that he leads, Evans is the victim of alien abduction.  When he and his Scouts return to civilization, Evans discovers that:

Suddenly I was twice as strong! I could lift twice as much and move twice as fast as I could before! It wasn’t long before the heads of C.I.S.O. were also aware of my new power and they had a plan on how to capitalize on it.

C.I.S.O. directors and specialists created a costume and a code name. They wanted to create an image – a symbol of C.I.S.O. authority and power – a show piece for Canada!

To be honest, the early issues of Captain Canuck suffer from average art and mediocre storytelling, but over time the Captain began to develop his own unique style and attracted a solid (if almost exclusively Canadian) fan base.  Sadly, financial issues led to an early demise for Captain Canuck, although over the years there have been two other incarnations of the Captain, along with various special editions, mini-series, collections and so on.

In spite of this relatively unsuccessful career, Captain Canuck seems to hold a special place in the Canadian mythos.  He continues to receive media attention, he appeared on a stamp in 1995, and the National Archives now have ownership of some of the original Captain Canuck artwork.

And I guess I'm part of that ongoing interest, although I come by it honestly - I bought three or four issues of Captain Canuck back in the 70s. In fact, I sent Mr. Comely a fan letter when I was about 17, and to my youthful astonishment I received a hand-written response within a week.  To my intense regret, I cannot for the life of me lay hands on that letter, although I've looked in all the logical places.  In my defense, I have done eight or nine relocations since then, and things do get lost over time, but let's be optimistic, maybe in the next box of miscellaneous memorabilia that I open...

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

- Sid

* Strictly speaking, not a completely empty gap, there were one or two one-off parody comics published, but Captain Canuck is arguably the first fully-fledged attempt to create a Canadian comic book hero after World War II.

"My name is Erik Lensherr. You killed my mother, prepare to die."

Professor Charles Xavier: Erik, you said yourself - we're the better men. This is the time to prove it. There are thousands of men on those ships, good, honest, innocent men. They're just following orders! 

Erik Lensherr: I've been at the mercy of men just following orders... never again! 

X-Men:  First Class

I've explained my doubts regarding prequels in a previous post, and to be honest, left to my own devices I probably would have skipped X-Men: First Class.  However, the reclusive Ms. Smith decided that she wanted to see the latest adventure of Charles Xavier's students on the big screen, and given the rarity of movie outings with Laurie in the last few years, I felt that it would be unreasonable to refuse to accompany her.

That being said, I was unexpectedly pleased by First Class, which turned out to be a far more interesting and dramatic piece than I had anticipated.

Ostensibly, First Class deals with the origin of the X-Men, and how Professor X and Magneto met and became friends before their eventual moral division.  (Not to mention the whole wheelchair question.)  However, it's immediately evident that First Class is really about Erik Lensherr, and Charles Xavier ends up with something very close to a supporting role.

Lensherr, as portrayed by Michael Fassbender, is a surprising anti-hero whose magnetic abilities are still developing.  Fassbender has a commanding on-screen presence and his Magneto is a forceful, dynamic character who is willing to sacrifice anything and everything in the name of vengeance.

However, I was intensely disappointed by the change in motivation behind that desire for revenge.  One of the more intelligent developments over the lifetime of the X-Men has been the move toward mutation as a metaphor in the discussion of prejudice and bigotry.  The question of mutation as a "curable affliction" is resonant with connections to being gay, and Storm provides an obvious link between the treatment of mutants and the treatment of people of colour. This concept has been part of the X-Men plotline for decades now, with the 1982 Marvel Graphic Novel God Loves, Man Kills being one of the best stand-alone explorations of the idea.

Placing Magneto's origin in the Holocaust provided historical depth to the metaphor, which deepened and extended the motivation behind his struggle against humanity far beyond his original role as a common criminal. Having Lensherr's mother killed by the evil mutant Sebastian Shaw - Kevin Bacon taking a villainous turn -  cheapens that metaphor:  as I've already discussed, comic book characters with their origins in parental trauma are a dime a dozen.

As with previous X-Men movies, the script stirs the traditional comic book timeline with a large spoon.  Cyclops, Iceman and the Beast were all approximately the same age in the original X-Men, whereas First Class introduces us to the young Hank McCoy, before his metamorphosis into the blue-furred middle-aged figure we meet in Last Stand.  One of his teammates in First Class is Havok - Alex Summers, who in the original comics was Cyclop's younger brother.*  Another team member is Sean Cassidy, the Banshee, originally an Irish mutant who had been in a relationship with Moira MacTaggert.  In the movie, MacTaggert is both at least a decade older than the Banshee and, mysteriously, transformed from a scientist into a CIA agent.

Questions of continuity aside, the appearance of the X-Men at the Cuban Missile Crisis creates an interesting precedent for future X-Men prequels.  Marvel Comics takes place in what, for want of a better expression, we will call the real world. Whereas Batman prowls the alleys of Gotham, Spider-Man swings through the streets of Manhattan, and although Superman and Captain America both originated during the 1940s, it's only the Captain who made his way to Europe to fight Hitler. 

Having resolved one historical crisis, where will the X-Men next appear?  Will we discover that Lee Harvey Oswald was a renegade mutant?   See Magneto failing to prevent Martin Luther King's death? Or, worse, causing it...

- Sid

* Normally I object to this sort of thing - for example, considering that Star Trek was set on a galactic stage, the cast ran into a lot of friends and relatives - but given the genetic nature of mutant powers, it makes perfect sense for siblings and children to be part of the story.

The Permanent Floating Riot Club.

Well, it seems that there are people who like riots. 

Larry Niven, Flash Crowd

One of the most difficult things for a science fiction author to do is to extrapolate all the possible end results of an innovation in technology.  As an example, a good science fiction writer in 1930 might have successfully anticipated the eventual mass acceptance of the motorcar, and probably seen the inevitable need for freeways and gas stations that would result. An extra-ordinary 30s SF author would have also projected traffic jams, parking tickets, gas wars, road rage, and six-dollar-an-hour parking meters.

Science fiction and fantasy author Larry Niven has always been very good at exactly that sort of if-this-goes-on extrapolation.  Niven's semi-organized Known Space future includes, among other things, the invention of the teleportation booth, and Niven beautifully explores the various effects that such an invention would have on our culture. This exploration includes the disturbing phenomenon of the "flash crowd", which in his stories is portrayed as something far too close to what Vancouver experienced last Wednesday after the Canucks lost Game 7 of the playoffs.

Niven's stories have the advantage of instantaneous travel - people are able to be on the scene of a disturbance literally within seconds, ergo the title Flash Crowd for his first story dealing with this problem.  In Flash Crowd, a roving wireless cameraman reports a disturbance, which instantly makes its way to network distribution, leading to a instantaneous influx of viewers who happen to be curious, angry, or just plain bored enough to jump into the centre of a riot.

What Niven doesn't anticipate in his flash crowd scenario is the Internet - in other words, social media.*  When you think about it, between cell phones, texting, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube, how hard would it be to assemble a group of, say, five hundred people in relatively short order?  We don't have the advantages and disadvantages of teleportation booths, but the added ease with which news of an event can be disseminated makes up for the lack of being able to get there in fractions of a second.  (And apparently this is exactly what happened after the trouble started here:  people invited their friends to head downtown and join in the fun.)

More interestingly, Niven also anticipates a more disturbing aspect of riots:  the fact that some people like them.  In The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club, a followup to the original 1983 story, Niven described a group of criminals who specialize in taking advantage of flash crowds and the opportunities offered therein for theft and looting.  Disturbingly, Vancouver seems to have played host twice now to the Canadian equivalent:  black-masked anarchists, last seen causing trouble at an Olympics protest parade last February**.

However, if Niven fails to anticipate the Internet, he also fails to anticipate the other side of human nature.  The Facebook-organized volunteers who spent Thursday morning cleaning up Granville Street never make an appearance in any of his flash crowd scenarios, but let's be fair, "The Permanent Floating Kindness Club" doesn't have the same impact as a title for a story.

- Sid

* As with the Spanish Inquisition, no one expected the Internet, although I'm willing to perjure myself on that after a little research.  Maybe Arthur C. Clarke - there's a bit in 2001 which is pretty close.

** I have to be fair here.  Reports vary as to whether the instigators of the post-playoff rioting were part of the same group that caused the problems at the Olympic protest.  I suspect that the great majority of the rioters last week were just drunken idiots - but I also suspect that they may have been joiners rather than initiators.

The Who Brothers?

 "The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history, when disaster comes, he's there.  He brings a storm in his wake.  And he has one, constant companion..."
"Who's that?"
"Death."

"Rose", Doctor Who

"The Campbell Brothers are lushes weaving throughout history, when disaster comes, they're responsible.  They bring the steins to a wake. And they have one, constant companion..."
"What's that?"
"Booze. Okay, two companions - alcohol, and there's this funny smell..."

The Campbell Brothers Adventures

This is the 200th posting on The Infinite Revolution, and I thought it only appropriate to pay tribute to the gentlemen (and I use the term loosely) who inspired me:  Colin and Ralph, the Campbell Brothers.

But their appearance here is not only because of that initial blogging impetus.  In some awful fashion (in many awful fashions, actually, as you can see from the pictures) the Campbell Brothers are Canada's answer to Doctor Who.  (Yes, Doctor Who is a question - the character calls himself the Doctor, but never offers a name, so the question is: "Doctor who?"*)

Like the Doctor, the Campbell Brothers have explored the distant depths of time, and the far reaches of space.  (Admittedly, it's a bit odd that their time/space vehicle looks like a tree spade, but we have no tradition of police boxes here. It's probably far more odd that Ralph has a squirrel on his head.)  They have been seen in ancient Greece, in medieval England, in 1920s Chicago, London's psychedelic Sixties, and several times in Port Perry during the winter of 2006.  They have solved crimes in the Victorian era, committed them in the modern era, performed acts of piracy in the Caribbean, and acts of lunacy in Toronto.

They are masters of disguise - a necessity of survival forced on them by the various explosive catastrophes which seem to follow them everywhere like a bad smell.  (Just for the record, an actual bad smell also follows them everywhere.)

So, once again, thanks to the Campbell Brothers for their inspiration. Long may they continue their mad dash (or inebriated wobble, more accurately) through past, present, and future.  We leave you with one final image of the Brothers, seen here suddenly realizing why that nice fellow in the uniform offered them blindfolds along with the free cigarettes.

- Sid

Sidebar:  the first time I met Ralph Campbell, seen screaming like a little girl to the right in the above photo, Colin was working on the Death of Socrates image, and I was asked to photograph the two brothers.  As a result, Ralph was clad in an attractive floral bedsheet for the entirety of our initial encounter - my relief at discovering that this was not his standard weekend garb can only be imagined.

*Sorry, Doctor Smith is NOT the correct answer, Laurie, but you're very close - the Doctor does sometime use John Smith as a nom de guerre.

All right, let's.

One of the more entertaining parts of writing these postings is coming up with the titles.* Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's a struggle.  Sometimes I don't know what the title will be until the end, and sometimes I start with a title and then change my mind after writing the content.  Some of them are just obvious statements on the content, such as last month's "And a bottle of rum." for the posting about piracy, and on other occasions I've drawn upon the titles of famous science fiction novels, lines from favourite songs, bad puns, and quotations from a plethora of sources.

The science fiction and fantasy market is probably more famous for changed titles than the general rank and file of book headings.  Offhand I can think of several novels that were the victims of editorial alterations, either for better or worse, and ended up being published under titles other than the ones that the author had picked.  The Stars My Destination?  Original title Tiger! Tiger!.  Daybreak - 2250 A.D., later renamed to Star Man's Son.  Or The Space Merchants, whose original title of Gravy Planet suggests a far more intriguing novel, at least to my ear.

Some titles are a mystery until a moment of revelation.  When I originally read Terry Pratchett's The Monstrous Regiment, about a group of army recruits who are all eventually revealed to be women masquerading as men, I didn't give the title much thought.  After all, one of the soldiers is a vampire, another a troll, it didn't seem that noteworthy.

However, earlier this year I was reading a blog posting by an unhappy female teacher who was complaining about the conduct of some of her male students.  In her posting, she made reference to a 1558 treatise by reformer John Knox, in which he rails against the possibility of women ordering men around.  The title of this extended rant regarding the Bible and its position on the position of females?  The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.  Full points to Mr. Pratchett for a title which is both appropriate and obscure.  (Well, obscure to me, for all I know it's a common reading in British public schools.) 

And then there are the titles that speak for themselves.  I just finished watching the mid-season finale of Doctor Who - yes, mid-season, they're taking a break for some unknown reason.  Normally at the end of the episodes they show a little preview of the next program, but in this case they just gave us the title:

Kudos to whoever came up with that clever little three-word teaser, which manages to be mysterious yet undeniably informative at the same time - and really, isn't that what a good title should do?

- Sid

* The most difficult part is coming up with the final paragraph.  More than one posting has languished as a draft file until I could come up with a punchline.

Actually, she looks okay for 900 years if you ask me.

As I've said before, I generally try to avoid just publishing links to other content online, but in this case, I had to make an exception.  My god, who would think up something like this???

And is it just me, or does it sound wrong to have Greedo's lines in English? 

- Sid

Drama 101.

I went to see Thor last weekend, and whenever this came up in conversation during the course of the week, people would ask the standard question: "How was it?" I'd answer in greater or lesser detail, depending on my evaluation of the questioner's knowledge of and interest in comic book characters, but all of my answers started with the same basic evaluation:  "Oh, it was pretty good."

And it is pretty good, as to as comic book movies go, even without the added appeal of 3D.  It has a good lineup of acting talent, with Anthony Hopkins taking the role of Odin Allfather, and relative unknown Chris Hemsworth does an impressive job with the part of Thor. Thor is very definitely a larger than life character, and Hemsworth plays it as such, but with absolutely no self-consciousness or winking at the camera.  Tom Hiddleston is a bit of a scene stealer as Loki, but it's not a bad thing to have a strong actor in the role of the villain. 

It also contains the usual callouts for long-term fans, such as references to Don Blake, who was the original secret identity of Thor in the early days of the comic, a brief appearance by Clint Barton aka Hawkeye, bow and all, and a variety of iconic Marvel Comics items such as the Infinity Gauntlet and the Eye of Agamotto* that have somehow found their way to the treasure room of Odin.

And, icing on the cake, it's directed by Kenneth Branagh, presumably added to the project in order to provide a sort of Shakespearian gravitas to the whole package.

 

Anyway, a pleasant experience, bit of fun for a Saturday afternoon, but not a great movie, not an astonishing movie.  But why not?  As I've already said, everyone does a good job**, it's in 3D, Good triumphs, Evil fails, why does Thor miss the mark for greatness?  After some thought, I decided that there's a very basic problem that all of these comic book movies share, along with their source material:  lack of dramatic tension.

But what exactly are we talking about here?  Dramatic tension?  What does that mean, anyway?  It's a very simple answer - dramatic tension is what you get if the audience doesn't know what's going to happen. 

Most comic book movies - in fact, far too many science fiction and fantasy movies as well - suffer from a disheartening degree of predictability.   Once the stage is set, there seems to be a limited number of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-powers, boy-kills-villain, boy-blows-up-Death-Star, boy-dies-then-comes-back-to-life gambits that writers are willing to use.

As a good example, I cried a little when I heard rumours of a sequel to Inception.  I don't know if, oh, The Dark Knight is a better or worse movie than Inception, but I guarantee that no one walked away from The Dark Knight trying to figure out what the ending really meant.  People argue about the ending of Inception - can you imagine anyone sitting down to argue about the ending of Iron Man 2?

It also doesn't help that Thor, along with the upcoming Captain America, the Iron Man movies, and the Hulk reboot, are all in some small way teasers for the upcoming Avengers movie being released in 2012.  How innovative can your plot be if the character in your film has to end up as part of a supergroup next year?

But there's hope:  the Avengers film is being written and directed by Joss Whedon, one of the least predictable and most creative talents in the realm of pop culture.  Let's hope that the man who kept audiences guessing for seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, five seasons of Angel (and one short mis-managed season of Firefly) can find a way to pull a rabbit out of his hat for The Avengers.

Actually, given that it's Joss Whedon, a rabbit is the last thing I'll expect to see.

- Sid

* I leave it to the individual reader to either a) trust me that these are iconic items or b) look them up. Same with Hawkeye.

**  Okay, almost everyone.  What, was Rene Russo the only person who showed up for the audition for the role of Odin's wife, Frigga Allmother?  Because that's pretty much the only reason I can come up with to explain how she got the part.

Hoopy froods - or not.

Hey you, sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is!

Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Whenever I feel self-conscious about something, that's what I look at in other people.  When I get a new haircut, I look at their hair, if I'm worried that I forgot to polish my shoes, I look at their feet, and so on.  Yesterday, I was looking for towels.

As per previous blog postings, I've had a hit and miss relationship with Towel Day, which commemorates Douglas Adams, author of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.  However, this year I marked it on the calendar well in advance, and on Wednesday morning, I chose a mid-sized white towel from the linen closet, looped it through the handles of my shoulder bag, and headed off for the bus.

As per my already established self-consciousness, I spent the day looking for towels, and to my disappointment, I didn't spot one other terry-cloth indicator of hoopy froodhood - or of terminal geekness, depending on where you stand on this.  Regardless, it left me feeling a bit sad and alone.  Perhaps next year I'll just throw in the towel, then...

- Sid

Raptured.

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

Jesus Christ, Matthew 24:36

(Although this is a marginal entry in terms of blog suitability, I consider the end of the world to be one of the standard science fiction topics, and as such I'm willing to extend my mandate a bit for the purposes of discussion.)

As probably everyone knows, the Rapture was scheduled for this weekend, May 21st, and the popular media has been full of commentary regarding the failure of Harold Camping's predication regarding the start of the End Days, with the end of the world coming five months later on October 21st.

In the wake of his apparent mistake, Camping has gone back to the drawing board and announced that the day of Judgement will coincide with the end of the world in October as per the original schedule.

But what if he was right in the first place?  There's another interpretation here, and it's possible that we've all been guilty of overlooking the obvious.  As I understand the concept, the Rapture is the moment when God takes the righteous to Heaven still in their own bodies - ergo the common* bumper sticker, "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE UNMANNED."

The righteous...the righteous...okay, let's define our terms.  What if the strictures applied by the Lord are so stern that no one, not one person on the planet, can be considered to be righteous?  What if the reason that no one is missing is because no one qualified - because even the slightest deviation from the code of conduct laid down in the Bible gets you crossed off the list?

By extension, it's possible that no one has ever met the standard.  Imagine the forlorn streets of the Heavenly City, unmarked by the passage of even a single soul.  And, worse, imagine a Hell which contains the tortured souls of every human being ever born, a Hell in which, ironically, eternal torment has to take place in shifts as overworked hordes of demons attempt to keep up with the demand.

Actually, come to think of it, this isn't a bad idea for a fantasy story - maybe this was a suitable blog topic after all.

- Sid

* Common in the more fundamentalist regions of the United States, anyway, I doubt that you would see a lot of them in British Columbia.

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.

House of a Hundred Dragons

(Contributed by Colin Campbell)

Well, that title may be a bit misleading. Actually maybe it should be called something like Basement of 100 Dragons, except it doesn't really sound all that great. How about the Dungeon of Dragons? Hmmm... That sounds a bit too familiar, I might have to get permission to use that from someone. Better not go in that direction. I often think of where I live as the Electric Cave. I picked that up somewhere in my reading. So what about the Electric Cave of Dragons? That sounds a bit too, ah, contrived or something. I looked it up on-line as well and there's quite a few references to Electric Cave and so that idea might have to be kiboshed as well. Now, a plethora is nice, but sounds a bit too snooty. Repository of Reptiles? Hmmm... no I don't think so.

Okay, let's just leave it as 'House of a Hundred Dragons or we'll get precisely nowhere. Now what's next? How 'bout a spiffy quote?

A collection is something that you don't realize you have until someone gives you the third one as a gift.

-me.

I suppose that will work.

I happened to buy my first two dragons many years ago, on the last day of the CNE (that stands for the Canadian National Exhibition for those not in the know) at one of the displays in the Arts and Crafts Building on the Exhibition grounds. They were on sale - discount dragons, as it were. And from that start a collection has grown.

So there's a hundred dragons in my living space. Well I say 100 dragons, and there are, but there are really more than that if you include all the dragon paraphernalia and oddments. So I have not only the standing dragons, but also pictures, post cards, books, a tattoo (yes I have a dragon tattoo as well, I carry it with me at all times), wine glasses, a tea set with cups and a tray, a cookie jar of all things, knife, sword cane, another wooden cane, incense burners, puzzles, et al. Many of these things have been sent or given to me over the years. And, yes, I bought a bunch of them, too.

My first two dragons

There are big dragons (big in the figurine world anyway), some a foot or so in height (or length), although I do have one wall mask that's just short of two feet; and I have many small dragons. The smallest, and not a pendant or anything (and yes I have a couple of those too), is only an inch or so big. (Those interested in metric conversions will have to do the math themselves). I even had a glass dragon made specifically for me by my sister-in-law Linda. Thank you so much.

Dragon wall  mask

They sit patiently on shelves, they adorn the walls, they peek out from on top of the fireplace, they amass on my chest of drawers, and they have even invaded the bathroom. They are of many colours and from many cultures; they appear fierce, cunning, proud, sensuous, powerful, and many fire the imagination ...and above all else they are wondrous and terrifying creatures to behold.

Dragon wall skull

Dragon battle

And how have I managed to get to reach the magic 100 dragons? Well, time helped. As you can tell I've been collecting off and on for years, but I was actually far short of having a hundred. I would like to also say that I haven't really been looking to add to the collection for the last couple of years and so I wasn't really looking. Well, kind of.

Water dragon

Dragon mirror

Carved wooden dragons

This latest frenzy of dragon acquisition had actually started with a recurrent thought. I had often thought that it would be nice to have for my 'collection' a scaled down model of one of those dragon costumes that you see in Chinese celebrations, the ones that have all the guys underneath, snaking their way through the crowds at festivals, accompanied with horns and fireworks. Very neat that. I actually thought it would be cool to have a full sized version of the costume but I haven't got the space or the financial resources to afford to buy one. My 'scaled down' idea first came to me many years ago, but I never saw a smaller version of the costume. Until recently.

Metal shelf dragon

I work as a bus driver in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto. It has a very high Asian population. I mean that there are many people who live there who are of Asian descent, not that great numbers of them are in a drug-induced perceptually disorientated state of awareness, at least as far as I know. On this particular evening I had parked the bus in the large parking lot of a mall (it's okay, we're allowed to park there) and had gone across the road and into a large Chinese grocery store, The GooDY Mart, looking for rice bread (there's a story there too but this isn't the place for it) while I was on a short break. I didn't find anything remotely like I wanted in the baked goods section, but on one of the lighting fixtures over an open refrigeration unit I saw a golden dragon hanging, it was a dragon marionette.

Dragon marionette

I don't think I ever told you that I have a thing for marionettes as well. I even built one out of bits of flotsam and jetsam that I collected in the whirlpool below Niagara Falls. No foolin'. His name is Cyrino. I even have a Balinese shadow puppet, but that's another other different story. Sorry, I'm wandering again.

As I said, I couldn't hang around in the store for very long, I had to leave and head for the bus shelter at the corner of the major intersection where I was going to do a break relief for another driver (take over his bus while he had a chance to grab some lunch and relax for a half hour or so while I did part of his route). Oh, did I mention that this was just past Chinese New Year in February of this year (2011)? I don't know what the Chinese date for the year might be. I do know that it's the Year of the Golden Rabbit. So I saw a dragon marionette, actually several, used as store displays. I couldn't then stop to inquire about them.

I wasn't able to return to the corner, to the store, until the following week. Same situation as before, only this time I was hoping that all the dragons I had seen last week hadn't been either sold or stored away. I went in, looked, and there it was (or they were, but I had already fixated on one particular dragon). I actually took the thing off the display and after a bit of looking for someone to help me, and a comic moment trying to get the Chinese shelf stockers to understand what I wanted, they called over someone up the chain of command, a manager of some kind. We talked, he brought me and the dragon first to a large display of dragons (actually different from the one I was holding, and not as nice to my mind) and other Chinese New Years decorations, and then on to a cashier. When I asked what the price of the dragon was I was told $14 (during the week I had done a bit of investigation on-line and had seen ones there, again not as nice as the one I saw at The GooDY Mart, going for $27). Sold!

I was so pleased in my purchase I showed it to the driver whose break relief I was doing. He mentioned that he had once been into dragons, didn't have the space for them in his new place, asked if I might like to have them, maybe buy them. I said I'd be interested.

The next week, same corner, same break relief, same driver. When I took over his bus he didn't mention anything about the conversation that we'd had last time. I didn't push it. I figured that if he was interested in passing on his dragons, then fine, if not, if he had reconsidered, then that was fine as well. When I brought back the bus to the stop he got on and then asked me if I was still interested in his dragons. I said yes. He mentioned then that he also had something else that was kind of special. He also said that it wasn't really practical to bring all of them into work (we have different shifts and it would be difficult to meet and to put them in my car, also I think that he just wanted to see them and show them off for a last time) so could he bring them over to my place.

A couple of days later he brought two boxes over to my place and down into the, ah, dungeon. He put the first box on the table and opened it, removed a bunch of paper that was serving as packing material, and then unwrapped six figures: four dragons and two wizards. He then started opening and unwrapping the second box and it contained a dragon chess set (again something that I had long wanted, thought was cool, and didn't think I could see my way to affording). I gave this driver some money for the brood, a sum that I won't mention but seemed to satisfy him and that I thought made this a good deal for both concerned.

Dragon chess set

In the end I had to rearrange a bit of the collection to make room, that's how the new dragons ended up taking over the bathroom (with a couple of additions of similar pieces from my previous hoard). The dragon chess set I set up on my dresser. It's very cool.

In about a week I did a count of all the figures I had (and it wasn't always easy to keep track, some of the dragons are very elusive) and, voila, the magic one hundred was reached. The chess set alone has the 32 men (and women, don't forget the queens) and 4 corner dragons that hold up the glass board itself.

So I live with a bunch of dragons, a hundred or so of them. It's a peaceful enough coexistence, they seem to put up with all my idiosyncrasies, I put up with theirs. And to be honest, in spite of what I just related, I'm really not looking for any new acquisitions, but if something comes up, well...

- Colin

Really BIG paper towels, that is.

In order to further the eventual goal of putting something on my blog I gave several of my dragons a bath today ("I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille."). I had a veritable dragon wash assembly line going. They are currently drying on paper towels on the table.

From a recent Colin Campbell e-mail

Is it just me, or does everyone get e-mails like this?

By way of explanation...my friend Colin collects dragons.  Sadly, not on the scale of the one reclining in the tub at the top of this posting, but his apartment has a definite draconic flavour in its decor due to the various scaley statuettes that he's found over the years.  Hey, Colin - I know that I tend to make gentle fun of your infrequent additions to your blog, but even so, maybe a piece on the joys of dragon ownership might be a good guest posting for here rather than there.  We'll talk.

- Sid 

Yes, I do the opening quote thing in e-mails, too.

"So the hours are pretty good then?" he resumed.
The Vogon stared down at him as sluggish thoughts moiled around in the murky depths.
"Yeah, but now that you come to mention it, most of the actual minutes are pretty lousy."

Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I recently pulled my 1979 paperback copy of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the shelf to look up a quote from a Vogon guard for an e-mail to my friend Colin, and to my sharp amazement I realized that the apostrophe was missing from the title.  "Hitch Hiker's" is possessive on the spine, the back cover and the inside content, but somehow they screwed it up on the front!

But, let's be fair, it took me 32 years to notice...

- Sid 

In case some of you ARE psychotic bellybutton fans...

Sucker Punch manages to be simultaneously incoherent, woefully misguided and downright insulting.

Matthew Turner

ViewLondon

A great movie if you are a psychotic fan of Emily Browning's bellybutton.

Bob Grimm
Tucson Weekly

I feel I should get some kind of recognition for disliking Sucker Punch almost a full five months ahead of the rest of the world.  To be fair, I haven't seen it yet, but if I had doubts based on the trailers, the reviews that I've read strongly suggest that a full two hours is not going to improve my opinion. In fact, the reviews that I've read strongly suggest that science fiction now has its own version of Showgirls.

And, frankly, it doesn't look like that great a belly button.

- Sid 

We're definitely sorry for all the slash fiction.

I'm not Spock.
But if I'm not, who is? And if I'm not Spock, who am I?

Leonard Nimoy, I Am Not Spock

In an odd coincidence, this week saw the 80th birthdays of two of science fiction's best known faces:  William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. 

It's impossible to deny that it's been a difficult path for both of these actors: Star Trek may well be the most frightening cautionary tale in existence in regards to typecasting. No doubt every actor who is offered a part with the potential for the same degree of role identification must take a moment to wonder if they will suffer the same fate as the cast of Star Trek.  And over the years that fate, that astonishing identification with the roles of Kirk and Spock, has been a burden that both Shatner and Nimoy have struggled with, railed against, returned to, joked about, profited from, and, I think, ultimately accepted.

But let's have a science fiction moment here.  Let's imagine an alternate time line where Star Trek never happened.  Where would these two men be today?  Would William Shatner be performing King Lear as his swan song after over fifty years as a fixture on the Shakespearian stage at Stratford in Ontario?  Would Leonard Nimoy have pursued his interest in photography to the exclusion of his acting career?

If nothing else, Spock and Kirk gave Nimoy and Shatner an opportunity to leave a mark on our society that very few pop culture figures can match.  I think it's fair to say that, thanks to Star Trek, these two men have probably done more to popularize the exploration of space than all the NASA missions put together.

Bill, Leonard - on behalf of all of us, thank you, and, well, maybe we're all a bit sorry too. But still, thanks.

- Sid

P.S. I strongly recommend I Am Not Spock, Nimoy's 1977 autobiographical examination of his life before, during and after playing the role of Spock on television.  There's a sequel entitled I Am Spock which I didn't find to be as interesting, but feel free to read both.