Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Three of these in a month. I think Ron Zimmerman is really enjoying this. And after the warm and affectionate response from you Talk Backers, I can understand why.
Hi there.
I have recently been sent a website called, "With Great Power" that reviews Spider-Man comics and a few others. Now I have been given two good reviews and one whorrendous savaging on there, and here’s my problem with this site. Of course the book I like best was the one he trashed but when I went to write the guy that he was a shortsighted fucking idiot, there was no place to email the author! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?! I get hate mail from you pricks by the cyberbarrel. This toad doesn't even sign his reviews (remember, he's given me two good ones so this isn't sour grapes). This fella is what I hate about the Internet: a faceless, nameless, coward full of opinions. Don't "review" stuff anonymously, you weasel. Slap your name on there and take your hate mail like a man.
Now that brings me to a comic mini series I wrote called, "GET KRAVEN." I know that many people hate this book. I also know that in five years, compiled into a trade, people will love this book.
I am accused of having a flawless hero. He's rich, big, strong, handsome, has a gorgeous super cool girlfriend and he's smart. Eek! What a crime. Take me to writers prison. GOOD FOR AL KRAVEN! He's that way on purpose. I'm not out to reinvent comic characters (yet); this book was a way to tie up some loose ends I had when a TV show I wrote and produced with four men, one more gifted than the next, Chris Thompson, Joel Silver, Don Reo and Jim Vallely, called ACTION, was canceled. I had a few more stories to tell. It didn't need a flawed, neurotic hero anymore than Chili Palmer is flawed in GET SHORTY (hat tip, Mr. Leonard) Chili Palmer (not Ray Palmer—it’s a novel not a comic, you Atom freaks) was not a flawed character. He was a badass, sweat-free, confident guy. That's all Al Kraven is. What's wrong with that? I can appreciate Peter Parker's neurotic angst but still enjoy the fact that William Powell as the Thin Man had NO FLAWS WHATSOEVER.
It's called "apples and oranges", folks. DIFFERENT.
Is GET KRAVEN a big, wild, seven issue, sloppy, uneven mess? Yup. Absolutely. Is it gonna change your life or the comic book industry? Nope. Not a chance. Are the "Rothstein brothers" supposed to be trying to fool anyone that they AREN'T a giant, over the top, parody of the Weinstein brothers? Nope (the "Rothstein brothers" were in the final episode of ACTION and had the show continued, they would have become reoccurring characters and I'm told, the Weinsteins loved the razor sharp poke.). By issue seven will you feel like you went on an interesting ride if you JUST LET THE FUCKING STORY UNFOLD? Yup.
So eaaaaase back on all-too-perfect Al Kraven a little. Maybe by issue seven he'll even have a problem he can't solve with looks or money. Then again, maybe he won't. Maybe Spider-Man will show up again. Maybe not. Maybe Wolverine himself will drop by. Probably not. Maybe Scott Baio will become his crimefighting partner and I'll write, "Green Kraven/Green Chachii, Hard Travelin’ Heroes."
Maybe he'll just kill himself trying to fly his private plane up the east coast in a storm with a cast on his leg. Who knows?
Meanwhile, I think I shall now tell you a story.
"Cool without trying."
Once upon a sleeping time ...
C.G. Jung and I were walking down the street in a small village near Zurich or Asgard. It must have been Asgard now that I think about it, because when we stopped in a tavern for a beer, Odin's obnoxious son Thor challenged C.G. to an arm wrestling contest which never got underway cause C.G. broke the handle off Thor's hammer, threw it in a spittoon and whispered in his ear, "look, motherfucker, I came in here to have some mead with my buddy and talk about girls, not act a fool with some rich, spoiled little demigod, so walk away, shit for brains." Thor burst into tears and C.G. laughed. So did I. I said, "C. G., you're pretty tough for a balding little psychiatrist with opinions most people think are insane." He lit his pipe and said, "Not really, I just hate trust fund babies."
He was cool without trying.
C. G. and I shot eightball till nine and by then we were both drunk. He told me about two broads he knew on the outskirts of town who were shrink groupies and if I pretended to be Freud we could probably both get laid. We ended up in front of a gingerbread cottage. C. G. knocked on the door after making a very distinguished looking beard for me out of his pipe resin. The door opened and there stood the most beautiful ugly woman I ever saw. Her name was Chazmaine. Behind her behind was her sister, Leezbah, who was drop dead gorgeous, even though she had two heads and her mouth was on backwards. One of Leezbah's heads looked like Jennifer Jason Leigh and the other like Lee Majors and if I wasn't in the company of a brilliant psychiatrist I might have lost my mind. The girls asked us in and CG insisted we drop acid and have a seance to try to contact Barabbas or Fatty Arbuckle; he didn't care which and I didn't, either.
God, he was cool without trying.
By morning I had spoken to the dead and gotten two different blow jobs from the same woman and decided I wanted to marry Leezbah. I fear sexual boredom and she was the answer. Meanwhile C.G. had put on quite a show with Chazmaine and I had to bail him out of jail the next day for not-too-malicious mischief with intent to kill. We had to go in front of the judge and it was Odin, who had heard that C.G. had scared the crap out of Thor yesterday. Odin ordered us to a slave galley and C.G. offered free therapy instead. Odin made C.G. include his whole family including his other asshole son, Loki, which C.G. wasn't thrilled about since he had treated Loki once before and said he was impossible to get through to. But I asked C.G. to weigh it against life on a slave galley, which he did, then thanked me for talking such good sense. C.G. was just that kinda guy. Always right even when he was dead wrong. I love people like that and have been friends with many throughout history. That's the interesting thing about being immortal, you get to meet a lot of cool people. The bad part is as soon as you warm up to someone, they die.
C.G. and I walked out of Asgard and waited at the Amtrak station for our train back to Stockholm. I was just about to tell Dr. Jung that I was immortal when he said, pulling out his pipe and stuffing in a fresh bowl of sweet tobacco that has the kind of smell you can't get out of your head, "Hey, Ron, how come you never told me you were immortal?" I just had to laugh and lit his pipe for him.
He was just so cool without trying.
Thanks, Ron. Thanks, Andrew.
"Moriarty" out.
