Coming up in one week: FanX Salt Lake—September 24th through 26th at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. I haven't been to the beautiful state of Utah for many years and I've never attended a con there, so this should be a great time. If you're attending, please come by and say hello.
"Dematteis and the Mormons." Sounds like a Golden Age of Hollywood movie.
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to know if there is a specail appreciation for Spider-Man: The Lost Years, given it took place in Salt Lake City.
Jack
I wondered the same thing!
DeleteWait, did you end up writing that Kraven's Last Hunt prose novel? When it was announced it was with a different writer, which seems to be the edition I see on-line. Was that cover just an early mock-up when they thought you might write it?
ReplyDeleteNeil Kleid wrote the novel. That was just a convenient image.
ReplyDeleteNow that Amazing SPider-Man has reached issue #1000, do you regret telling him in 1981 he should give up the Superhero thing and go into plastics?
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you ever wonder if that door in the twilight zone opening was a Foley door from when CBS made radio dramas?
Jack
Considering everything he's been through since 1981, he would have been better off in plastics!
DeleteFoley door? Interesting!
Speaking of Twilight Zone and radio dramas: Have you ever listened to the radio adaptations of TZ that were done about 15 or so years ago>
Well, it is hard to picture a demon wanting the marriage of a guy who just works in plastice. Things also probably would hve gone smoother when Ben Reilly showed up. Or maybe less smoothly, I don't know. Pete probably would not have been buried underground by some weird Russian aristocrat still bitter about teh RUssian revolution.
DeleteBut, you know, there is something interesting about Peter's job... or ratehr how people percieve it.
Ever Since Stan "Yes, I enjoy an ocassional root beer" Lee, Peter PArker has been billed as an "everyman. Of course, most people do not actually know what an "everyman" is, they think it just means blank void for teh audience to project themselves.
Anyway, the point is that people actually sometimes get mad at teh idea of Pete being a photographer, and struggling with money. They ask why he si a photographer, despite him saying why back in the 1980s.... he likes it, it gives him a sense of purpose.
It is sort of a strange commentary on our society that so many people cannot fathom making less money to do a job you enjoy and gives you meaning. I actually know a decent number of freelance photographers, and most not only want to keep snapping pics, but also don't even want to steop being freelance.
AS FOR THE TZ RADIO SHOWS: I remember them being advertised, but no. I think that was about the same time that Rod Serling's widow as editing two twilight zone anthology books. I did read one of those.
It is interesting that you bring them up, bcause just last eek I was musing about how strange it was that for as popular as podcasts are... for some reason... not many creatives have used them to create radio stories like in the old days.
I am sure some have here and there, maybe a cult following with one or so, but you would think it would be more common.
Jack
When I started in the business, the money didn't matter. I was just thrilled I was doing this thing I'd dreamed of all my life. The fact that I got paid—which, in the beginning, wasn't much!—was icing on the cake.
DeleteYou can find those TZ radio dramas on any podcast platform (Apple, Spotify, whatever).
Years ago, I was a guest artist at a radio drama workshop and wrote my one and only radio play, called "Knocking On Heaven's Door." It was so much fun!
If you want a theory as to why that potential is not exercised...
DeleteI looked into it, and the first podcast was in 2003, two years before Youtube was created.
If you remeber teh early days of youtube, it was mostly just stupid little clips, but it could have been anything, and indeed it was there. There were music video, attempts to create sitcoms and sketch show, game shows. There were all kinds of things... but it settled on being mostly being video essays and discussion groups. This settled in around 2011.
In 2012, I first read teh terms "loneliness epidemic." I know that has tekn on other elements since then, but at the time it was a newly arising issues. Men and women from across ages and ethnic backgrounds were interviewed, and they said they felt like they did not get to spend enoigh time with friend and family. Either due to time contraints or lack of money or other normal things.
This was also around the time that podcasts took off. Podcasts and youtube becamse frindship simulators. I am not saying it was conscious, but it is what happened. Think about teh podcasts you have been on. The interviewing style is trying to project the idea of just guys in pub hanging out. Most "reviews" of things are not actual reviews, it is more craking wise.
That is why the popularity got so big in the days if the pandemic.
Back int he golden age of radio, they didn't need that. They went to local bars, talekd to peole at chuech, invited people over to play bridge, you get it.
It is actually reminicent of something you lived through... TWICE. Marvel and comics as a whole in the 70s had a much more varied catallgue of genres. By 1981, it was pretty mush just superheroes, and more rigid in types of stories. You could still do a loot, but you weren't getting teh Magus saga.
Then post-Crisis Dc was trying everything, but by 1993 a lot of the genre stuff was pushed into Vertigo, and the mainstream books were decidedly superhero.
Jack
Interesting...as always.
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