Human Torch/Iceman Notes

Bobby Drake. Johnny Storm.
Iceman. Torch.
Cool and collected. Afraid of true power.
Hothead, showy. Trying to contain power, remain human.

Brothers. Best friends. Dating. Relationships. Career. Identity.

How your opposite half compliments you, whether you like it or not.

Torch makes Iceman go out and date. He wants Polaris, but Mystique is who he dreams of. Torch brings him out to the city nightlife. Torch as candlelight clubs, Iceman as the stiff drink.

Meets girl while leaving Torch behind with the ladies. Maybe runs into Polaris. Torch has to piss him off. Mystique drives Iceman away from Torch. Polaris and Iceman date. Starts fighting. Iceman and Torch and Spider-Man all out at the bar, eating wings, get into a fight.

Polaris attacks. Mystique watches. Torch Mystique and Iceman Polaris fight.

Dazzler & Longshot: Mutant Romance

Their marriage is over. He's lost his memory and she wants a new life. Dazzler hangs out with her X-Ladies, hitting up nightclubs, performing at venues, and vintage shopping in Soho. Longshot trudges through life, looking for a purpose, who he is, and going out with his Mutant boys who try and set him up.

A metropolitan dating romantic comedy. All scripted by Mojo, recording the drama for the Mojoverse. Dazzler gets her shining moment, Longshot tries to halt it once he knows Mojo is involved, she takes it as jealousy, and then he shuts down Mojo with the help of his friends. Mojo wants to build up a star and then sacrifice her, virgin, pop stardom.

Chamber, Logan, Multiple Man, X-Force crew,

Dazzler, Psylocke, Jean Grey, Storm. Rogue, Siryn, M.

Marvel Pitches

Avengers Company Central Park Picnic
A quiet day of mingling among heroes. No bad guys attack. Shots of each villain at home, evil lair, or doing bad somewhere else and getting stopped by C-list hero.

Starjammers - Space Pirates
The tin bucket of space, stolen starship, low on supplies, ragtag group of Marvel Universe races bound together. Anti-Hero Star Trek. Mutant. Kree. Skrull. Shiar. All working together to survive. The Watcher as guide. Read Annihilation and figure out Marvel's space situation post Secret Invasion.

Dazzler - NYC Romance Action
A young mutant from the Xavier school comes to stay with Dazzler in the city. She sleeps on her couch as Dazzler zips across the city rebuilding her singing career. Night Club Dancing with the X-Ladies. Brooklyn Shows with Polaris. Rahne's first night out. Kitty & Logan down in the LES.

Generation X meets Sex in the City.

Spider-Man vs Human Torch in "the ROOF is on FIRE!"

Page 1
Spider-Man perched on the side of a building, camera in hand, nighttime cityscape all around him.

"Ugh. I really need some photos to sell to Jolly Jameson, but the only crime is that I'm spending my Friday night up here alone..."

Spidey spots something and zooms in with his camera lens. It's the Human Torch as he heads into a club down below, with a girl in each arm.

"While that matchstick makes out like a bandit."

"I knew I shoulda been Butterfly Boy, girls dig butterflys...hey what's that?"

Spidey spots a door closing on the roof of the building Johnny Storm just entered.

"Hmm"

Page 2
Spidey leaps across to the other building and fires a gob of webbing. The webbing plops around the handle and props it open. Spidey changes into his Parker dorky wear and centers the camera around his chest before sneaking in and down the stairs.

"Peter Parker, club photographer, paparazzi of the power crowd..."

Page 3
A few quick dodges and he makes it through the kitchen, close calls, physical comedy, slapstick. Just as he's about strut through the open doors, they fly open, and an awestruck/agitated lady in a business skirt busts in and grabs Peter.

"Photographer?! What are you wearing?! Ugh."

She musses up his hair, spruces his look up a bit, and slaps him on the butt through the doors into the crowd.

Page 4
Peter absently takes shots of swanky patrons who do their best to ignore him. It's dark in here and swirls of light spin around the room. The music is blaring as Peter imagines fake conversations for them.

"Oh I just love the photography of that Peter Parker, the sexy young lad that shoots for that rag Daily Bugle. Oh yes, we really must draw up a contract to have him shoot our models, especially with that hunky..."

Peter overhears, "Spider-Man? Hah, I know that chump. Little kid running round in pajamas."

Page 5
Peter parts the crowd and sees Johnny Storm up in the VIP section, girls surrounding him, gesturing wildly as he talks of himself.

"Now, a real hero, well he needs a high tech suit, a swank Midtown HQ, and most definitely some badass powers."

Johnny lets loose with a small pyrotechnic display.

Peter leaps up the stairs, over the rope, to get a shot of Johnny.

"A true hero talks trash at bars to get chicks apparently."

Johnny stands and walks over to Peter.

"Parker right? Always snapping pics of superheroes so that boss of yours can drag our name through the mud. Tired of following around your wannabe hero and trying to snap me? Piss off."

Johhny pushes Peter backwards down the stairs.

Page 6
Peter stumbles down the stairs backwards, quite gracefully, almost too gracefully. So he drops back and rolls into the crowd. Johnny laughs as he heads back to his table. Glimpses of Peter changing into Spider-Man between people's legs. Johnny laughs it up with his dates.

"That's how you gotta handle these photographers, bunch of kids running around, trying to provoke you, get a shot of you their paper can take out of context, ruin a hero's rep. That's enough of that though, what say we go dance..."

Spider-Man pops up the middle of the crowd.

Page 7
Spidey leaps through the crowd with skill, landing even more so. Johnny is not impressed. Spidey does some tricks with his webbing, some acrobatics, and flips backwards sliding across the empty dance floor.

"Top that Flamey."

Human Torch climbs the railing and leaps off as he Flames On! He seems to be heading straight for Spidey.

Page 8
Human Torch busts out some flamey dancey moves, sliding across the floor, making the crowd hot and sweaty, but the crowd seems to be getting into it.

Spidey slides under and around as their dance/fight escalates. Human Torch is pressing down on Spidey, his flame intensifying, the crowd is dancing and yelling, sweat flying everywhere.

Page 9
The whole dance floor is going mad as Human Torch's dates walk off with some other dudes. Human Torch & Spidey are whipping and flipping and things are getting intense when Human Torch unleashes a fireball straight up at Spidey in anger, but misses and sets the roof on fire. Both stop and look stunned as the crowd runs off.

Spidey raises the roof (dance move).

"The roof, the roof, the roof is on fiiiirrrreeee."

Page 10
Spidey & Human Torch are soaking wet as they get bounced out the front doors. The hit the pavement scowling at each other. Spidey shrugs his shoulders innocently.

"Dude, you trashed my entire night out. They prolly won't even let me back in there for at least a month."

"I wasn't the one who set off the sprinklers, dude."

A purse snatching happens right across the street, seen to be happening right between the heroes' line of sight. The snatcher runs off, they glance at each other and take off after him.

"I got this one Webhead..."

"You ain't gonna catch nothing but a cold, Human Splash."

Comicbook Rockstar Test Post

blogging from Pixelpipe and testing to see where it goes.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

PixelPipe Experiment

this is Just to see what happens really.

Posted via Pixelpipe.

The Beat Generation: East Coast Vs West Coast (600 word article version)

The literary movement that is referred to as Beat sprung from a generation that sought something that wasn't being sold to the general populace, a group of "disaffiliated young people coming of age into a Cold War world without any spiritual values they could honor." Caught up in a time where capitalism was coming on strong at the American people, a group of writers went searching for a life with meaning. Spirituality, sexuality, naturalism, and a derangement of the senses were what these pioneers of the soul were in search of.

This Beat Generation was comprised of two separate factions; the New York School and the San Francisco Renaissance which, despite being on either ends of the country, had a common bond. Although there was this strong unifying purpose, a rebellion against the oppression of American culture post World War II, there were also major differences in approach, thought, and beliefs.

The San Francisco Renaissance really set the scene for poetry to explode as it would after the Six Gallery Reading where Allen Ginsberg would debut his epic and Beat defining poem 'Howl'. In the years before Ginsberg and his fellow New York Beats would make it out to the West Coast, poets like Kenneth Rexroth were building a literary scene there. As surrealist poet Philip Lamantia described it, the San Francisco Renaissance, "an expression Kenneth Rexroth first used in 1946", was an "extraordinary convergence of poets, painters, ex-conscientious objectors, and radical anarchists -- rebels of all stripes" and that "Kenneth Rexroth was the central figure".

The Beats of the New York School, comprised of Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, were all academics living in New York City. Ginsberg and Kerouac, both disillusioned Columbia students, began hanging out with the slightly older Harvard educated Burroughs, who was out and about among the junkies, criminals and underworld of New York City. They met at various apartments, drank, experimented with drugs, and associated with known criminals. They seemed to be self-destructive and seeking out some sort of "real" life as compared to the capitalist one that was being sold to the American people at the time.

Overall, I see the San Francisco Renaissance doing all the work in the cultivating of a scene so as to support a new crop of poets, and the New York Beats as the marketable characters that are "sacrificed" to the masses so that the scene can expand beyond the small circle of writers. Although there seems to be a fair amount of resentment from the West Coast of being lumped into the Bat Generation label, I imagine that a lot of the work that people see today wouldn't be as widely read if not for the East Coast writers erupting into glorious fame and infamy.

There's something about New York City that one has to survive, and in that it seems to make a person a bit mad, but also a bit more of a survivor and worldly person. The West Coast writers all stayed mostly on the West Coast, where as the New Yorkers all spread out from NYC to San Francisco to Berkley to Mexico to Tangiers, etc.

The San Francisco poets all seemed to be living where and how they wanted, which I like to imagine as the modern equivalent of pioneers moving out to the Wild West to make a new life for themselves. The East Coast seems to be somewhere you escape from, and the West Coast where you escape to.

Naked Lunch: the Film (600 page article version)

In adapting Wiliam S. Burroughs’ ‘Naked Lunch’, I feel David Cronenberg has created one of the most important works of film, at least in regards and our schizoid society. It’s about addiction, control, and our personal perspective of reality. It’s about Burroughs’ life, how he wrote the book, what his mental state could have been as he descended into his hallucinogenic delusions. It’s about the loneliness of writing.

It is this internal prison that I see in Cronenberg’s 1991 film. Rather than straight adapting the story of Naked Lunch, which mixes autobiography with fantastic satire, he juxtaposes Burroughs life story and writing (and drug ingestion) as a heroic journey, making Burroughs alter-ego William Lee into more of an archetype rather than actual person. Part historical, part fantasy, part hallucination induced initiation into artistic endeavor, this is Cronenberg’s take on Burroughs’ creative process.

Cronenberg definitely makes this movie his own, treating all of Burroughs life as the journey of one story. Although the story is of an exterminator and his junkie wife living in the city and writing a book while under the influence of all manner of drugs, a lot of what’s covered is based on actual events reimagined as hallucinations. It is as if within the other reality the future is being revealed to him, as people in his life become extensions of his own consciousness, aspects of his personality he is not able to accept.

The combining of addiction and writing is powerful, as I can feel the pull of writing, the downward descent into myself, even as I type this. It seems to also lead to wanting adventure, drama, in order to collect more information to write about.

The killing of his wife, a major event in Burrough's life, is the killing of the feminine that looses Bill into this world of sexual deviance, where he reinvents his wife as another man’s wife, an object of desire, a goal, an escape route from this decadent lifestyle. A metaphor for the cutting off of the outside world and going deep within yourself, to get in touch with your masculine feelings, but keeping a female form there as a reason to come back.

The typewriter is a symbol of his potency as an artist, and as a man, he must rescue the princess. Sexual slavery, in an alien format, Mugwump creatures being suckled upon. Dr. Benway, the doctor who tried to help William Lee, frees himself from Fedela’s (the dealer) identity, revealing himself as the villain, the mastermind.

Benway throws a cigar in a puddle. Both feminine and masculine in one, he is the combined sexuality that Bill can’t be. Offers Bill whatever he wants, and he wants Joan. A retrieval of the feminine from the grave. An underworld journey to rescue all that is good from the suffering of eternal torment.

In short, this movie is everything I think about every day. Writing, my identity, classic 50’s fedoras and suits, hallucinations, alternating points of view and perspective of reality, sexual identity and the creative process, the meaning of life, and the realistic look at the mark inside.

Speedball Mini Notes

Showing how the darker side of Marvel has corrupted even the most fun and light-hearted heroes.

It's hard to have a sense of humor about war, even if you're dressed as a clown with a painted on smile.

Slapstick stands slack looking on a scene from Civil War. The heroes are all fighting each other brutally as he weeps. Showing Slapstick brooding, mocking Speedball as Penance. Build up the friendship of Slapstick & Speedball. New Warriors as emo heroes. Howard the Duck as mentor. Oddball, Madcap, other insane villains reforming. Battle of the silly.

Secret Invasion. Marvel Apes. Marvel Zombies.

Stamford Speedballs. Kids that also survived the explosion reborn with kinetic powers. Speedball rounds them up and helps them with their powers. Reconnecting superheroes to kids.

A team book. Each issue from a perspective of hero. Slapstick. Howard the Duck. Speedball.
Perspective. Detective. Superheroing.

Slapstick as bearer of innocence.
Howard as the Brains.
Speedball as teacher/mentor.

Fun satire. Comics with heart. All ages adventure.

Speedball didn't survive that blast in Stamford that kicked off the Civil War among heroes. Robbie did, but his powers spread out at the last moment, saving the kids in the school and sending them erupting all across the globe. Only now have the kinetic powers these kids all possess begin sparking up, drawing them all together in a massive explosion of kinetic energy that only Robbie can prevent by reclaiming his kinetic powers. Aided by fellow New Warrior, Slapstick, the sad clown, and the mover and shaker in the Marvel Universe, Howard the Duck, they set out to save the kids and all of reality.

It ends with hope, smiles, and a bouncing kitty cat.

Slapstick drowns his sorrows in energy drinks. Goofball of the Marvel Universe. Lone wolf, emo, the clown who cries, but puts on a good show for his friends. His pink hair covers his eyes, hands buried in his pockets, unable to become human again, or not wanting to. He finally turns back to human to come to Robbie and cry, unable to deal with the darkness overcoming his friends.

Howard the Duck rushes in with information. Readings have come in from all over of kids with similar energy readings as Speedball. They begin destroying towns bouncing like mad through the buildings, unharmed in protective bubbles. They all start coming closer. Niels, the bouncing cat comes into play, as the kids draw closer to Stamford.

Speedball reclaims the power he inadvertantly exploded out of him to save the kids. He bounces and soars back and forth across the globe connecting with the kids bubbles and shooting them back to Stamford dropping them off with Slapstick catching them with a giant baseball mitt, bouncing castles, butterfly nets. Finally Speedball saves all the kids and lands in the center drawing the power back into himself, an explosion played in reverse, superpowering Speedball who launches straight up into space, all reborn in bright colors.

Nova saves him and gives him a new perspective on life. From out in Space, the barriers of the dimension of his energy source crackling all about his body, Nova helps Speedball channel the type of explosive power that will come from him. And a wave of joy is sent rippling through the know universe. Skrulls and Kree hug in the trenches. Iron Man takes a bubble bath. The Hulk sits on a riverside and splashes his feet in the water. The Watcher weeps. Human Torch and The Thing bond, smiling and giving thumbs up. The Punisher cuddles up under his blankets, dreaming of his wife. J.Jonah Jameson smiles and waves at Spider-Man as he swings by waving back. A moment of peace and harmony for all of the Marvel Universe. Even the Marvel Zombies take time to have a BBQ.

Speedball has returned.

Write Club! Episode 4 Notes

http://www.optimumwound.com/the-submission-guidelines-for-every-comic-and-manga-publisher-in-the-universe.htm

http://www.yelp.com/biz/comic-burger-brooklyn

http://209.85.173.132/search?gl=us&source=android-chrome&hl=en&q=cache%3AdKfTscRIFvUJ%3Awww.eastern-district.com%2F

http://209.85.173.132/search?gl=us&source=android-chrome&hl=en&q=cache%3AdKfTscRIFvUJ%3Awww.eastern-district.com%2F

http://www.desertislandbrooklyn.com/

http://www.comixology.com/iphone/#_home

http://www.wheatmark.com/blog/2009/03/best-series-tip-no-8-drive-demand-to.cfm