In Montreal for Space Cases, part 2

Originally published December 15, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1152

As I continue to be situated in Montreal, working on Space Cases, here are varied and assorted notions and incidents:

Folks from Marvel and DC keep Federal Expressing me art xeroxes to script, which is perfectly fine. But what’s interesting is that they keep arriving sliced open, then resealed with “Customs” tape. In other words, customs officials are ripping open the Fed Ex envelopes to see precisely what the comic book companies—dens of inequity and vice—are shipping up to the fair country of Canada. More filth, the type of which is currently under investigation in the States?

Thus far, it’s been relatively benign pages from Hulk or Aquaman. Boy, it’s a good thing I don’t have a story with Sachs & Violens in the works. The art pages would probably be seized at Customs—and pinned up on a wall somewhere.

* * *

Cast members of Space Cases gathered in my apartment the other Friday to watch The X-Files, because one of our own was guest-starring in it. Jewel Staite, who portrays our Saturn girl, Catalina, appeared as a terrorized girl who was the subject of obsession for a demented photographer. (They were in my apartment because I’m the only one who paid extra to get the Fox network on the apartment-house cable system; in Montreal it’s a premium channel. Go figure.)

It was hardly one of Jewel’s more glamorous assignments: She spends practically the whole episode wearing a nightgown (with a wet suit under it to protect her from the cold somewhat). Much of the time she was shuttered in a basement, screaming to be allowed to go home to her mom and asking not to be killed. She was dirty, she was bloodied. At one point she was dashing through the woods in her nightie, screaming (it was kind of like an evil version of the opening of Little House on the Prairie). And then the villain shoved the poor kid underwater, nearly drowning her.

She did, however, wind up with David Duchovny giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation. I’m not sure how Jewel felt about it, but the kids’ mothers who were watching along with us were making comments to the effect that they wouldn’t find such an acting assignment to be onerous.

Next Space Cases cast member appearance: Kristian Ayre, who plays Radu the Andromedan, has a small part in the upcoming made-for-television version of Bye Bye Birdie starring Jason Alexander and George Wendt. Kristian plays Harvey Johnson, the voice-cracking teenager most noticeable during the song “The Phone Hour,” during which he appears to be calling every girl in town in fruitless pursuit of a date. (“Hello Mrs. Miller, this is Harvey Johnson, can [voice crack] I speak to Debra Sue…”)

* * *

I have got to start being more careful about how I phrase things in scripts. For instance, I wrote as an action description, “Radu intercepts Catalina in the corridor.” All I meant was that he catches up to her or steps out in front of her: that somehow he halts her forward motion through timing or body movement.

So imagine my surprise when I saw the dailies (the footage from the previous day’s shooting) to discover that the director had taken it literally. Perhaps he’s a football fan; I don’t know. But, for whatever reason, he staged it so that Radu came in from the side and literally slammed into Catalina. From the way that Jewel was rubbing her upper arm, it seemed as if he’d practically dislocated her shoulder. And, since the script didn’t have Radu saying “Sorry” (because I didn’t envision his making any sort of abrupt physical contact) naturally Radu didn’t say it. So it looked like he was unspeakably rude.

Here’s another example of poor word choice or cultural differences causing confusion in the script:

Our French-Canadian prop manufacturer came up to me in the hallway (intercepted me, if you will). Now I should emphasize that the job he was doing was nothing short of phenomenal. Not only did he rise to the challenges of the scripts (since everything had to be built from scratch) but he even came up with some interesting tweaks of his own which I gleefully incorporated.

But, as limitless as his resourcefulness appears to be, I discovered that I had just exceeded the boundaries of his knowledge of English slang.

He was concerned, you see, because of a script wherein Harlan (played by Walter Jones, formerly of Power Rangers), was described playing air guitar.

The prop master said, “I just received this latest script, and this scene with Harlan playing an ‘air guitar’—What is this? How do I build this?”

Smiling, I said, “Um, this is an air guitar,” and I proceeded to play thin air in my best Wayne’s World manner.

He watched me carefully. “So,” he said, cranial wheels turning, “it’s actually just shaped like a regular guitar, is what you’re saying? I don’t have to build anything fancy; I can just make a regular guitar?”

I realized I wasn’t getting through. “No, that’s not what I’m saying!” I started playing air guitar again. “You see this? You see what I’m holding? That’s all there is! That’s all you see! When you play ‘air guitar,’ you’re just playing air! There’s no guitar. You’re just miming playing a guitar, but there’s nothing there!”

Then he understood and laughed in relief, amused at his own unawareness of the term—and also probably glad that it was one less thing for him to build.

Except that the evil thought which had occurred to me when he first asked was to say, “OK, first thing, you need to get a folk guitar. Not electric, but folk. I’d like to see it painted some really gaudy colors. Then we need tubing for the air hose—about five feet should do it. One end wraps around and connects to that hole in the middle of the guitar, and the other end has a valve or mouthpiece for the player to blow into.”

I bet if I’d done it with a straight enough face, I could have gotten him to build one. I could just see the prop guy handing Walter the Canadian-produced air guitar just before they shot that scene. It would have been great to see if Walter actually used it.

* * *

Since I was in town anyway, I did a store appearance at Captain Quebec Comics. I thought the turn out wasn’t bad; I was perfectly satisfied with it. The store owner didn’t have quite as many people show up as he would have liked. Then again, since I was already in Montreal, it’s not as if he had to pay my way there. It wasn’t a particularly expensive endeavor for him.

I always feel bad for store owners when I try to explain to them that my appearance at a store simply isn’t going to pull in the same number of people as a comic book artist would. Oh, there are a couple of writers out there who can probably draw in those kinds of huge crowds—Neil Gaiman could; Chris Claremont, quite likely—but not me. But the store owners—including the occasional “big fan” of mine—don’t believe me when I warn them, and have to find out for themselves.

Not to mention that it’s Canada, and I was told that some fans of certain Canadian Image creators have opted to snub me on general principle. How sweet, eh?

* * *

Some interesting things crop up on Canadian television. For one thing, in Montreal they run Babylon 5 on Tuesday at midnight, so I’m seeing it four days before anyone in New York. I loved the recent episode that had my Space Cases writing partner, Bill Mumy, as Lennier, hosing an obnoxious guy by telling him that he’s got a contagious affliction called “Netter’s Disease.” The sequence is a sort of bizarre double in-joke: Not only is the disease name itself clearly a reference to producer Doug Netter, but the obnoxious guy is played by John Flinn, the show’s director of photography, who also directed my episode entitled “Soul Mates.”

And on Monday night at 8 p.m. I’ve discovered reruns of Captain Power. It’s a kick to see familiar names from B5 (J. Michael Straczynski as creative spearhead; John Copeland as a producer) connected with a series that parents’ groups at the time attacked as just another toy tie-in but that actually holds up as a well-crafted little science fiction adventure series. Particularly considering the early-stages that computer enhancement and animation were in at the time, it’s nothing short of amazing what they were able to do with that show.

Plus on weekends I can catch reruns of Time Tunnel, if I’m up at 2:30 in the morning—which, considering some of the marathon rewrite sessions I’ve been putting in, I frequently am.

* * *

It should be noted that the new edition of City on the Edge of Forever is, indeed, out in time for the holidays. The book contains Harlan Ellison’s intro, the original script, and afterwords by a variety of folks including a dope named David.

* * *

I’m certainly pleased to see that Verotik is now making efforts to come to the aid of Planet Comics, the Oklahoma store busted on obscenity charges.

What I find amusing is that some people on computer nets wrote disparaging and condescending comments about my early columns on the subject of public attacks on comic books. I claimed that today Verotik and Eros comics were being targeted, which might not bother some people—but tomorrow the next target could be books such as Sandman. And some computer-board hotshots turned up their noses and sniffed that my “call to arms” was paranoid nattering, without foundation.

And now—although I don’t have the details on the story—my understanding is that someone in Florida is going after Sandman.

It’s the old truism: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that people aren’t out to get you.

So: Have you contributed your $10 (or more) to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund yet? You’d be well advised to do so; the fight’s only going to get uglier. That address again is: www.cbldf.org. Whatever your individual problem may be with sexually explicit comics, you have to understand that that isn’t the primary issue here.

The primary issues are freedom of expression, and the fact that even if a comic book you like isn’t being harassed today, nevertheless a precedent is being set for a comic you do like to be harassed tomorrow. And, if comic book stores are being driven out of business for whatever reason, that’s bad for the industry as a whole.

Judging by the full-page ad from Verotik in the December 1 CBG, it realizes that. Do you?

And if you’re a publisher who hasn’t contributed any money, as most publishers haven’t: Shame on you. Talk about irresponsible and shortsighted. Talk about dumb. Shame on you all.

And God help us all when Newt Gingrich notices comics…

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., P.O. Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)