A Comic-Book Co-Written With L.G. and Concerning the Amazing Exploits of an Indian Superhero? Sure! What Could Go Wrong?

Hello everyone. To the left is the first page of a would-be comic book I started with L.G. my freshman year at film school. This was back in my Die Hard With A Vengeance hat-wearing days, and, though I'm fuzzy on what art of mine he'd seen that brought him to me, he suggested that we write a comic book together, and I would then draw it up. This appealed to me because a) I didn't know L.G., b) I didn't yet know to avoid L.G., and c) because he told me he knew someone who might be able to publish our finished product. I believed L.G. back then because he seemed like THE hot shit. He was confident, smooth, rented his own house (he didn't OWN did he?), knew he wanted to be a producer, and seemed to my 18-year old self like a guy who could get things done. We met twice or so over at his place. I ended up writing most of the text and action, figured how the thing was going to look, and then, of course, drew it. The price for all of this autonomy was that the comic had to be based on his idea for an Indian (dot, not the feather) secret-agent, superhero type. Sounded kind of goofy to me, but I was game. It was going to be published after all, right? I'm not sure why precisely our "collaboration" fell apart, though I guess it was probably because I realized I was spending a lot of time writing and drawing a comic book I had zero interest in for reasons that were vague at best. Anyway, the result is uber-dumb, but the layout for this thing turned out pretty well by my standards. The story, such as it is, is the hero has to break into a building and steal a McGuffin (which was a term, coined by Hitchcock, that I had just learned in film-school. A McGuffin is an object whose attributes and descriptors are essentially irrelevant so far as the story's concerned; all that really matters is that it is central in some conflict, meaning someone wants to take it, and someone else doesn't want to give it up. Anyway, just for my non-film-geek readers ). So the hero goes into this building to get this McGuffin. That's about as far as I got. I shall post more pages (there are 5 in all) when I'm short on a good blog idea for the day. You know how it is.

Also, I wanted to mention that, today, I had two surreal moments of admiration for people I think are reprehensible. 1) Saddam Hussein. He is an awful guy who did unspeakably evil things, and it's comforting to know that he'll likely be put to death, but there's something, I don't know, stirring(?), about reading Saddam's testimony from his first day on trial in Iraq. He is charged with barbaric acts of cruelty, acts that he is undoubtedly guilty of, but he stands there, a defendant on trial for his life, thundering in the courtroom that the Kurdish judge and the entire court doesn't have the authority to try him because he is still the elected president of Iraq. Saddam didn't give them an inch. When the guards tried to grab his arms while they led him away, he straight up fought with them to walk out on his own and he won. In the end, they just walked behind him. I'm not sure what it is exactly I like about this. I guess I like seeing people, even monsters, keep their dignity in the face of death; staying true to who they are all the way to the end. Louis XIV went to the scaffold dry-eyed and coatless on a cold day. He died with his dignity intact. You know, William Wallace style. And it will be pleasant to hear Saddam meet the same end he'd sentenced so many others, it will also be gratifying to hear that he died honorably. We'll see if he can keep it up all the way to the gallows.

And 2) Tom DeLay. The Smoking Gun has his mugshot online and it is great. He is smiling like he's having the greatest day of his life which is, of course, the absolute smartest thing he could have done when posing for a mugshot. Publicists are going to be showing this picture to their clients worldwide. "This," they'll say, "is how you do it." Looking at the picture it's not even altogether clear that it's even a mugshot. If anyone's capable of steering themselves through this fetid legal swamp comprised of their own base, criminal behavior, I think it's this guy. Anyway, his killer political instincts are still in full-effect. Even still, I sincerely hope he gets convicted and has to spend a little while in jail. Because he is a very dangerous guy when he is in Congress. The little guy gets in the neck all the harder when the Hammer's driving in the nail.

More tomorrow.