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NEWS AND VIEWS - AUGUST 2020
WRITING NEWS The latest Signalverse novel, Sneak and the Shadow of Darkplanet, is available now! This one's about an ordinary guy named Alan who gets drawn into an unlikely superhero adventure after his pal Raye shows up at his apartment with a stolen gadget. I wrote it as a sort of palate cleanser after spending several months working on the more difficult Demon in the Metal, and I think it turned out quite nicely. Here's the awesome cover, by the awesome Tom Martin: 
Buy a copy! Buy two! Tell your friends! In other news, I'm now approximately 26,000 words into The Brassfire Fleet, the second book in the Chemical Empires series. I seem to be averaging about 15,000 words a month, which is pretty good for me. After I wrap up The Brassfire Fleet I'm probably going to write the sequel to Sam Fortune and the Wisdom of the Ancients, despite the fact that no one really cared about the first book. Since I've pretty much given up hope of ever having a real writing career, or indeed of selling more than a dozen copies of any one of my books, there's no reason now for me to write anything but what I want to write, and Sam Fortune is the series I'd most like to return to. After that it's on to the final book in the Chemical Empires series (A City Burnished Silver) and then back to the Signalverse with either The White Ribbon and the Heart of the Night or some big crossover starring several of the protagonists from the earlier books. I keep meaning to write something like that. * * * * * * * * MY TOY COLLECTION The portable DVD player in the center plays Saturday morning cartoons and commercials from the 1980's. I've also got some trading cards, magazines, Choose Your Own Adventure books, NES games, Smurfs glasses, and old Mtn Dew cans on these shelves, because why not? 
* * * * * * * * WHAT I'M READING Last month I tracked down a copy of Spider-Man: Goblin Moon, a Spider-Man novel from 1999, written by Kurt Busiek and Nathan Archer (actually Lawrence Watt-Evans). I like Spider-Man, I like Kurt Busiek, I like LWE, and I like prose superhero fiction -- I've certainly written enough of it myself -- so I figured I'd have a pretty good time with this one. And I did. It has a tight, fast-paced plot, and the Norman Osborn/Green Goblin depicted here is a better villain than any that appear in my Signalverse. We really get a sense of how dangerous this guy is, of how devious he is, and of how determined he is to wreck Peter's life. And that's the other thing I liked about this book -- the protagonist. I'm a traditionalist; I'm not interested in Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Ham, Silk, Spider-Girl, or any of the zillion iterations of Venom. I want to read about Peter Parker, the geeky teenager who was bitten by a radioactive spider, was taught a hard lesson about power and responsibility, and who, ever since, has struggled to balance his crime-fighting career with his personal life. It's easy to come up with alternate versions of Spider-Man; coming up with a new, original story idea for a character that's been around for sixty years is much more difficult, and I think much more impressive. I also finished Mike Duncan's The Storm Before the Storm -- a pop history book about the end of the Roman Republic -- and Ross Macdonald's The Zebra-Striped Hearse. And I started reading Hugh Thomas's gigantic history of the Spanish Civil War, about which I know practically nothing. * * * * * * * * REVIEW: NFL SUPERPRO Here's a review of a very silly comic book, which I wrote a few years ago for another site. Okay, so this is pretty dumb. The basic premise of the short-lived NFL SuperPro comic is this: by day, Phil Grayfield is an ordinary television news reporter, but by night, he fights crime with the aid of a super-powered football uniform given to him by an eccentric billionaire collector of NFL memorobilia. Now, granted, the series (which ran for twelve issues back in 1991) is pretty juvenile -- clearly, it wasn't intended for adults -- but I think you'll agree even kids deserve better than a guy who dons a football uniform and fights (for example) maniacal steroid-abusing villains. This is just one step above those Spider-Man vs. Smokescreen comics they give away in elementary schools. (According to Wikipedia, writer Fabian Nicieza admitted he came up with the character to get free NFL tickets.) 
This particular issue (NFL SuperPro: Special Edition, Vol. 1, No. 1) follows Grayfield's quest to break up a steroid production ring. Fortunately for this review, it also recounts SuperPro's origin, which I've always found to be good for a laugh. The story starts at a "warehouse in Newark, New Jersey, just after sunset." SuperPro is on the trail of some steroid smugglers or something, and he's caught them in the act of loading some boxes of the stuff into the warehouse. So he kicks the crap out of them, all the while saying stuff like "you missed the first-down marker by the length of a chain!" Later, after failing to get any real information out of the goons, he remarks, "this little play from scrimmage didn't gain me much yardage!" The crooks, meanwhile, display a cutting wit all their own: one of them asks, "Who duz this guy think he is, 'Super Football Man'?" That's probably pretty close to what I'd say, too, if a guy in a weird-looking football uniform spouting cheesy lines about missing the first-down marker suddenly attacked me. SuperPro splits after the police show up, somehow jumping about forty feet onto a rooftop even though I'm pretty sure that's outside the range of his abilities, which consist merely of "enhanced strength, speed, and stamina." SuperPro then changes back into his civilian guise of Phil Grayfield and arrives forty minutes late for his date with Jane, his long-time girlfriend. They banter back and forth about nothing for a while; it's a pretty unimportant scene (not much yardage to be found here, either, in other words). Later, we find reporter Phil hanging out at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands with his cameraman Ken Reid. The Chicago Bears are in town practicing, and Phil's doing some interviews here and there with some players. He meets up with Ron Macedon, a player for the Bears, who clues him in to rookie Carl Bennings's apparent steroid abuse: Bennings is a hulking, belligerent lineman (I guess) whom Macedon refers to as a "walking pharmaceutical firm." Phil figures Bennings must be getting his juice from the steroid production ring he's been following as SuperPro, and his suspicions are confirmed when he notices Bennings screaming (loudly and obviously) at some guy in the parking lot about how he wants to "feel a difference" with the new stuff he's been given. Convenient. Anyways, Phil and Ken follow Bennings's supplier to the fictional New Jersey State University, where they discover his name and eventually his occupation: he's Professor Henry Morrison, a bio-chem guy who also happens to work for the Jakobs Corporation, a big pharmaceutical firm. SuperPro sneaks into the place at night, looking for clues, but doesn't really find anything of interest there. 
Arriving back at the hotel he's staying at, he discovers that the perspicacious Ken has deduced his superhero identity in his absence (by looking at side-by-side photo comparisons of Phil and SuperPro, and noting that SuperPro seems to appear in every city they get assigned to). Huh. Well, I suppose this was bound to happen; the only thing covering Phil's face when he goes out adventuring as SuperPro is a transparent visor. Still, to have your alter ego so easily deduced has got to be a little embarrassing. Anyway, Ken demands an origin story, so Phil goes ahead and gives it to him. Phil, as it turns out, was once a promising NFL prospect, a first-round draft choice out of Notre Dame. Unfortunately, he broke his leg on the first day of training camp (with the Eagles) and went out for the season. The next year, after months of rehab, the same damn thing happened to him, so the Eagles cut him. After this, he lands a tryout with the Bears, but breaks his leg yet again, while saving Ron Macedon's kid from a fall off some bleachers. This last breakage spells the end of his football career, so he gives up that dream and becomes a journalist. Now, here's where it gets interesting (and ridiculous): one of Phil's first assignments as a journalist is to visit the home of Rudy Custer, the "Howard Hughes of NFL memorabilia" for an interview. Rudy, also a kook inventor, shows Phil around his place, and introduces him to the SuperPro uniform he invented back in the 1970's. "Bullets bounce off the sucker!" he proudly exclaims (apparently Rudy was anticipating the NFL would allow the use of handguns at some point). The prototype uniform on display is made of out experimental plastics and cost him five million dollars to make, but the NFL wasn't interested in his design, because each uniform would have had to have been "individually molded on a per-player basis" making the whole idea prohibitively expensive. Suddenly, a bunch of goons break down the door -- these guys are looking to steal Rudy's NFL junk. They tie Phil up with the film they find in some old reels, grab Rudy and some of his stuff, and start the place on fire. In his struggle to escape the inferno, Phil knocks over some experimental plastic compound (the same stuff Rudy used to make the SuperPro outfit, I guess) which burns him. Here's Phil's own words: "It spilled over me -- burning hot -- I screamed. Then the overhead extinguishers turned on -- I was drenched in chemical foam, gasoline, plastics, and chemicals from the old films." Instead of killing him, this combination of plastics and gasoline and stuff being poured on him inexplicably gives him super-powers. Like, enhanced strength and speed and stamina. Thus empowered, he immediately dons the SuperPro uniform and goes after the bad guys. He beats them up, then hands them over to the police, and Rudy decides to let him keep the five-million-dollar SuperPro uniform to fight crime with. (It's never stated explicitly, but I can only assume the chemicals or whatever permanently healed his thrice-broken leg, too, which makes me wonder why he didn't just go back to the NFL after this incident. Then, of course, there's the matter of how exactly Phil managed to fit into the SuperPro uniform, since Rudy explained not two pages ago that it has to be individually molded on a per-player basis.) Ken, upon hearing this preposterous tale, agrees to keep quiet about it (who would believe him?) and further agrees to help Phil take down the steroid ring. They do some quick research on Bennings and conclude, to their satisfaction, that he's taking steroids. The next day, they confront (on camera) bio-chem prof Henry Morrison on his involvement in producing the steroids and in giving them to Bennings. He cracks instantly: "We knew what we were doing was wrong -- and illegal -- but it's what they want! It's what they all want!" Wow, this is some hard-hitting journalism. Anyway, Morrison says something about how Bennings is planning on using some new super-juice before the game, so Phil and Ken rush off to try to stop him. 
They're too late: Bennings takes the new drug, and immediately turns into a drooling, rampaging giant. I particularly liked the words used to describe the sound of his transformation: shripp fesh fesh plim plum shresh. Bennings, all gross and nearly naked, jumps out of the building he was in just as our hero arrives at the scene. "You rookies are all the same!" SuperPro declares. "And you all need to be taken down a notch or two!" He pummels the insane, tumor-ridden Bennings (one of his favorite moves is a sort of place-kick) until the man finally collapses of a heart attack. His subsequent demise later that day leads his teammates to throw away their own steroids -- lesson learned! The last few panels feature Phil and Jane discussing the whole unlikely incident over bagels. It's all pretty silly, as I said. The plot is boring, the villain is dumb, SuperPro's origin is laughable, and all the lame football-related repartee gets old fast. Needless to say, neither Marvel nor the NFL have done anything with the character since that initial twelve-issue run. * * * * * * * * BH Bringing this feature back, at least until I run out of strips. 
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