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NEWS AND VIEWS - OCTOBER 2021
WRITING NEWS I finally started writing the third Chemical Empires novel this month -- I'm about halfway into the second chapter now. This one's going to take a long time; don't expect it to be out anytime soon. As for The White Ribbon and the Heart of the Night, well, I'm hoping to release it in November, or by the end of the year at least (I've finally found a cover artist). I'll have more to talk about next month. * * * * * * * * ON KOREAN DRAMAS Okay, I have a confession to make. I like to watch cheesy Korean dramas and romantic comedies. I don't know what it is exactly that appeals to me about these kinds of shows; maybe it's their earnestness and wholesomeness (they tend to be pretty old-fashioned), or maybe it's the cultural differences that I find interesting. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for romance. I don't know. But I've been waching a lot of these series lately, and really enjoying them. Here's some mini-reviews: Extraordinary You. Of all the Korean dramas I've watched recently, this one is easily my favorite. It's about a girl named Eun Dan-oh (played by Kim Hye-yoon) who discovers that she's actually a character in a romance comic (and a rather trite and unimaginative comic at that). Worse, she's not even a main character; she's a side character with a cliched story. Determined to live a life beyond the limits of what the story imposes on her, she finds romance with another side character and tries to change her apparently preordained fate. I absolutely loved this concept, which I found very novel, and the contrasts between the self-aware characters' real personalities and the fakey personalities the all-powerful "writer" imposes on them allowed for some fascinating interplay. The romance does get pretty cheesy towards the end (pretty cheesy even for me), but overall, yeah, this one's a winner. 
Backstreet Rookie. Another fun one. This one's a pretty simple story, about a girl named Saet-Byul who starts working at a convenience store in order to get closer to Dae-Hyun, a guy she's had a crush on for years (not that he knows anything about it). Dae-Hyun's rowdy family (who own the convenience store), his loser buddy Dal-shik, his successful girlfriend (who seems embarrassed by his lower class job) Yeon-joo, and Saet-Byul's pop star-wannabe sister round out the cast. Hard to put my finger on exactly what I liked about this one, but it's funny, quirky, and has very high production values, so maybe that's it. It also stars Kim Yoo-jung (as Saet-Byul), who's a real cutie. True Beauty. Lim Ju-kyung is an awkward, "ugly" girl whom everyone bullies. Upon transferring schools, she learns how to use makeup and transforms herself, becoming very popular, but also very paranoid about being seen without the makeup, which leads to all kinds of hijinx. Meanwhile her new looks have attracted the attention of the school's two heartthrobs, brooding Su-ho and bad boy Seo-jun. Unlike Extraordinary You, this is not a series that transcends its genre -- it's a pretty threadbare kind of romantic comedy, with obviously tropey characters and storylines you can see coming a mile away. It's still enjoyable for all that, though, partly because of Moon Ga-young's manic performance. (You really do have to suspend your disbelief about this girl being considered ugly, though; this clip from Not Another Teen Movie comes to mind.) Because This Is My First Life. A more grown-up drama, this one's about an aspiring screenwriter named Yoon Ji-ho and an odd, sort of Aspergery IT guy, Nam Se-hee, who decide to get married -- not out of love, but because Ji-ho needs a place to stay, and because Se-hee needs to get his pushy mother off his back about getting married. While their relationship slowly develops, the relationship between Se-hee's coworker Won-seok and Ji-ho's friend Ho-rang gradually disintegrates, which makes for an interesting counterpoint. This series is slower-paced, and kind of a downer at times, but still pretty good. (The resolution of the Won-seok/Ho-rang storyline was a fumble, though; it struck me as kind of unrealistic.) When the Camellia Blooms. This one's a little different -- it's a love story mixed with a murder mystery. Single mother Dong-baek moves to a small town and opens a bar, and lunkhead police officer Yong-sik immediately falls in love with her. They begin an awkward relationship, but matters are complicated by Dong-baek's son Pil-gu, who doesn't want a new dad, Pil-gu's father, a famous baseball player who never knew he had a son and now wants to reconnect with him (and with Dong-baek), and Yong-sik's mother, who doesn't want him marrying a single mom. Meanwhile there's a serial killer loose in town, and he's determined to make Dong-baek his next victim. Yong-sik has to figure out who he is. It's an odd, sometimes incongruous mixing of genres -- romance, family drama, police procedural -- but it works, because it's all very well done, with good writing and good performances all around. She Was Pretty. Kim Hye-jin was a very pretty child, but as she grew older she began to take more after her father, with his bad skin and frizzy hair. When her childhood friend (and crush) Sung-joon returns to Korea after years spent overseas, he wants to meet with her, but she's embarrassed by her looks and gets her beautiful friend Ha-ri to stand in for her. Hye-jin figures she'll never see Sung-joon again, but unfortunately it turns out he's her new boss, which means she has to keep up this whole charade, and meanwhile Ha-ri keeps seeing him without telling Hye-jin, and eventually falls in love with him. I'm not really sure why I watched this one; it's a very girly fantasy. And again, you really have to suspend your disbelief about Hye-jin being considered ugly. But I must have got something out of it, because I watched it all the way to the end. * * * * * * * * HALLOWEEN 
Halloween's one of my favorite holidays, but I only went trick-or-treating a couple times as a kid. For most of my life I've lived in a very rural part of Minnesota, miles away from any town, which made the logistics of trick-or-treating kind of difficult...and anyway, by late October the weather in Minnesota is usually terrible and there's a very good chance you might get stuck out in a blizzard or something if you venture out on the 31st. My mom would usually make up for it by going to the store and just buying us a boatload of candy, which was very nice of her. Nowadays it's my custom on Halloween to watch old Universal monster movies: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and if I can fit it in, Young Frankenstein, which is freakin' great. * * * * * * * * MY (BROKEN) TOY COLLECTION Like most kids, I was pretty hard on my toys when I was growing up, especially the action figures. My guys were having huge epic battles all the time, which led to broken limbs, missing heads, scuffed-up paint jobs, and damaged accessories; very, very few of the action figures I had when I was a kid (back in the 1980's) are still completely intact today. Unlike a lot of kids, though, I didn't throw away an action figure just because it was broken; in fact I even hung on to some of their broken-off limbs. And I still have a lot of these parts, because after I stopped playing with these toys, I basically just put them all in a big box and left them out in the garage, where they remained for a little over thirty years. Some of the intact He-Man and ThunderCats figures eventually ended up on a toy shelf I put together. The broken ones remained in the box, but the other day I got kind of curious about what was in there and decided to go through it, to see if I could identify the broken toys by their parts. I made some interesting discoveries. This cowboy figure with the skull-face belonged to the "Cosmic Cowboys" lineup; his name is Iron Jaw. These seem to be relatively rare -- eBay only has a couple of examples, and they're all fairly expensive, in the $150 range. Unfortunately my guy is missing a forearm and a couple of accessories, and his holster is damaged. And yeah, he's pretty scuffed up. He might look better if I cleaned him up a bit. 
I have a Batman from Kenner's Super Powers collection. He's missing an arm, but he still has the original cape and is in relatively good condition. If I had that arm, he'd probably be worth about $50-$75, even scuffed up as he is. I also have parts of a Kalibak from that same line; he's missing his head and one leg. But I still have his accessory, a pointy club. 
I have a Spider-Man from the Secret Wars toyline (1984) in very bad condition; his paint's mostly worn away and it looks like a dog or something chewed off his hands and feet. But at least he has all his limbs. The same can't be said for poor Doctor Octopus, from the same line; all that remains of him is a torso. 
I have parts of a Centurions action figure (Ace McCloud) and a villain called Terrortech from Remco's Mantech toyline. He's missing his legs and his head and several other accessories. 
Here's my only vintage Star Wars figure -- half of a Bib Fortuna from the Return of the Jedi line. Curiously, I also have a Bib Fortuna eraser. 
I have one busted-up G.I. Joe, Mainframe. I also learned that the karate dude my mom bought for me on the day I had to go to the hospital for swallowing a nail (long story) was a Dragon Force Ninja or Karate Master from Lanard Toys. Worth pretty much nothing, but this guy was always one of my favorite figures. Wish I still had his white robe. 
Some of my ThunderCats figures didn't fare too well -- Jackylman and Vultureman both have broken legs, and my Tuska Warrior is missing his tusks. Looks pretty painful for him. Hachiman is still intact, with his helmet and all, but he's missing his sword, which makes him look kind of silly. 
And my only surviving Battle Beast: 
I think it'd be kind of fun to hit up eBay and buy some replacements for some of these figures, but there's a lot of really expensive ones in there, and frankly I'm just not as into toy collecting as I used to be...plus I've pretty much run out of space on my toy shelf. Shrug. |
