Okay, here is a little thread about something that absolutely made my brain explode yesterday. I had never even put it together, somehow. But a tiny jump down a rabbit hole explained a HUGE part of my life in comics.
Wanna hear? It's weird.
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I have talked about growing up on a remote farm in the boonies quite a lot. There were mostly farmers, fishermen, and loggers where I lived, very tough, strong guys. Mostly very nice guys, too!
But we didn't get a lot of tv reception, so access to movies was limited.
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I can't remember the exact circumstances, but the only movie theater in our tiny town showed older movies on the weekends as matinees. They had a double feature of Doc Savage and The Man With the Golden Gun. I was just a kid, can't remember how old, but really young.
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I didn't know anything about James Bond, but I was a fan of pulp heroes. Doc Savage was my least favorite big name pulp character, but I was bored, I asked if I could go, no one wanted to go with, so I went by myself as a kid and planned up, it was going to be fun.
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Anyway, Doc Savage was first, I was bored to tears, I almost left because I didn't know anything about James Bond. But movie days were rare, so I stayed. And it's The Man With The Golden Gun, one of the most critically-loathed of the entire series.
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There are many, many people who hate this movie to their toes. The famous Bond score composer, John Barry, said it had the worst theme song. It was the fourth lowest-grossing of the entire series.
I had no interest in spies, I didn't like camp heroes.
Shoulda hated it.
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Instead, I loved it. Holy shit, I just did. The scenery of the locations, the clothes, the action, I loved it all.
And Barry was wrong about the theme song, it's an absolute banger, sung by Lulu.
Tell me I'm wrong.
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Here it is.
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And there's a couple other things that I thought were great...I loved Hervé Villechaize as Nick Nack. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, it's probably awful in it's LP representation, but there was something wildly charismatic and lethal about him.
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And the biggest bonus of all...CHRISTOPHER DAMN LEE as 'Six-Gun' Scaramanga, the Man With the Golden Gun.
I loved his portrayal, I loved the coldness of it. He seemed not just Bond's equal, but his better. Still my favorite Bond villain.
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Here's where it gets a little odd. I loved the movie so much, I became a Bond fan.
And weirdly, that made me LESS of a Roger Moore fan. I would go see the movies, because Bond, but the cornball humor really annoyed, and I ended up liking every other version more.
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Reading the books turned me off of Moore's Bond even more. It's only recently, having read a couple of his books, and reading stories about how gracious and kind he was, that I have re-looked at his appeal and can see why people like that version.
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But it meant that this movie that I genuinely LOVED as a kid, I kind of avoided ever since.
He made me love Bond, then I abandoned him for all the OTHER Bonds (except Brosnan, that's another story).
But yesterday, I randomly said, HEY! I LOVE THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN.
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And it hit me...why did I love it so much? All I remembered at the moment was that weird Southern Sheriff character.
Then it hit me, I remembered why I loved it, why it made me want to sit up and cheer, and why it changed my entire life and affects me to this day!
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Here it is. There's a scene where Bond infiltrates a compound in Bangkok, aided by a police lieutenant from Hong Kong named Hip.
Bong enters alone, ends up unconscious, wakes up as a lethal show of martial artists is taking place.
It's a fun scene, Moore seems game.
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But he's surrounded by martial artists and is barely able to hold his own against one of them, their champion. So he jumps out of the arena and makes a run for it.
And this is where everything changed for me.
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The two nieces, in their school uniforms, stand right next to Bond as they are surrounded on both sides by all these killers.
Bond looks genuinely like he knows an asskicking is coming their way. There is an unusual expression of, 'this is bad' for him.
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He gallantly tries to shield them.
"Stay behind me, girls."
Note the nieces' faces here.
That is an expression I have tried to recreate a thousand times in fight scenes.
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Without a word, the two young girls, in their schoolgirl blouses, skirts and shoes, both deliberately walk in FRONT of Bond, with an expression that so PERFECTLY says, "No, we got these assholes."
It is so elementally powerful, I'm surprised the screen didn't catch fire.
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And then they quietly, purposefully beat the living SHIT out of the martial artists, one after another. Kicks to the head, kicks to the balls, they are RUTHLESS.
I watched it yesterday for the first time in years, and it blew my mind all over AGAIN.
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No one is going to call the Bond films of that era progressive. But not only are they not sexualized, Bond shows them the respect of standing back out of the way while they take care of business.
I say again. LOOK AT THESE FACES.
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And watching this scene over and over again yesterday, it just unleashed this flood of emotion and memory. I was dog-tired of heroines who had to be rescued, they were EVERYWHERE.
I know a lot of martial arts films had fighting women, but they were RARE here.
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And it finally hit me that this scene has been in the back of my brain, pushing me on, EVER SINCE. Without me even knowing it.
First, I've written some deadly schoolgirls, especially in Birds of Prey, with Sin and Bethany. That's directly from this scene.
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But more than that, that one scene was quite likely the first time I ever saw a female of ANY age play the stoic, silent and lethal fighter in any medium.
And I have spent the rest of my life reading, and eventually WRITING, stories with just that archetype.
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So that is why my brain exploded yesterday, I realized an incredible scene in an okay movie led me DIRECTLY to this moment all this time later, still writing women who stand up and fight back.
Still trying to capture the gold standard of 'don't fuck with me' face. :)
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I ask you, how weird are the building blocks of our lives?
If I hadn't seen that movie, I might never have loved Batgirl and Wonder Woman so much. And I'd probably be a garage mechanic somewhere.
WEIRD.
But kind of wonderful.
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Sadly, the girls aren't even credited in the movie's titles.
That sucks. I hope they know what an impact they had!
One quit the movie business for good. One quit for 28 years, until...
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...she returned in triumph to play the best part of a masterpiece, KUNG FU HUSTLE, as the ultimate badass, the landlady. It's true, it's that same schoolgirl kicking ass decades earlier in Man With The Golden Gun!
STILL WITH THE 'DON'T EVEN TRY IT, CUZ' FACE!
28/
That's it, no big message, BUT if I was GOING to say something about it, it would be this:
Don't be a rock. Be a goddamn sponge.
Creators get their stories and their images from everything, good and bad, sweet and sour.
You never know.
You never, ever know.
Thanks!
end/
Thank you, Yuen Qui.
P.S. Here's the actual scene, the girls come in about halfway through. PLEASE ENJOY!
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All right, so this will take a bit, but this is a thread I have wanted to do for a while.
This is it, the X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES mega-thread!
Interested in the upcoming X-books but a little overwhelmed by the new characters, creative teams, and titles?
Well, I had an idea!
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In this thread, I am going to give an unapologetic personal opinion about each of the upcoming titles, starting with tomorrow's X-MEN #1.
I admit up front I am biased, okay? These are MY opinions, I have not consulted with the creative or editorial teams.
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I have read all the issues of all these books so far. They are all creative teams I like. They are all pushing for the best books they can. And I am on a bit of an X-Men high and don't deny my OBVIOUS enthusiasm.
I have a @jimlee story. Legendary comics writer John Ostrander needed eye surgery. A couple others and myself went all around SDCC to ask artists for an art donation to raise the funds to literally save not just his eyesight, but his eyes.
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It was for John Ostrander. And so I asked legendary artists that normally I would be intimidated just to talk to. We got pieces from Neil Adams, Matt Groening, and lots more.
Again, because it was for John, I worked myself up to ask the giants.
Everyone was lovely.
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But it was still intimidating. Asking legends whom I know get asked for stuff ALL THE TIME.
At the time, just as now, Jim was the biggest artist in comics. Not to mention…
DR. PHIL: Now, I’m just an impartial observer, okay?
PENNYWISE: Heh heh heh we all float slobber drool heh
DR.PHIL: You’re an entertainer, You do great work with kids.
PENNYWISE: come down into the sewers Georgie heh heh hee
DR. PHIL: You have a great smile, you know that?
DR. PHIL: I want to thank you for agreeing to an interview, but I warn you, I won’t be pulling ANY punches.
ZOMBIE: …
DR. PHIL: Zombie, why don’t people like you?
ZOMBIE: BRAINS
DR. PHIL: You have a thick skin.
ZOMBIE: SKIN YUM YUMMERS
DR. PHIL: Well, I’M sold.
DR. PHIL: Dr. Lecter, I’m just gonna say it. I think you got railroaded by a ‘woke’ court system and the lamestream media who focused on the word ‘cannibal,’ and—
LECTER: Excuse me.
DR. PHIL: Pardon?
LECTER: My agent set this up. You disgust me. (Leaves)
I have a Roger Corman story. It’s fun, but weird, as I am gathering most Roger Corman stories tend to be.
I was a fan of his movies and his legend and legacy.
At the very beginning of my comics career, his office contacted me.
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I was very new to writing professionally. I didn’t become a writer to make films, comics were not a stepping stone. And I had mostly been drafted, so my sense of value in myself as a writer was a bit shaky and tinged with a lot of, ‘how did I get here? What’s happening?’
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The idea that a legendary movie guy would contact me for anything made no sense. I still had my hair salon. I hadn’t even written very many comics, and I was pretty sure it was all going to go away very quickly.
I remind everyone of this each year, apologies for repeating myself.
This Saturday, May 4th, is @Freecomicbook Day! Please go and enjoy and have a wonderful time. Some great shops have sales, cosplay, events, guests, even treats planned for you, PLUS FREE COMICS!
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Howerer, this is just a gentle reminder that, unlike what many think, the stores DO have to pay for the comics they give away for free. They pay for them in bundles. This year there are dozens of individual comics being given away...imagine how much that might cost!
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But that's not all. They also pay (often outrageous) shipping on all those books.
Stores often pay for extra employees, decorations, advertising, cosplayers, guests, and lots more. It is EXPENSIVE.
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Here is my central core thought while writing Deadpool.
It is no secret that I don't like endlessly 'zany' Deadpool. He was described as 'serial killer Daffy Duck' to me early on, that's the version I don't care for.
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I also don't care for endlessly bleak, 'nothing matters,' kill everyone Deadpool.
I think that could be a thousand other characters, and it's far from the magic potion that makes Deadpool fun.
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So the Deadpool is a subverted version of both of those.
He is a goddamn loudmouth, whose humor comes from tragedy.
But he's so endlessly high energy that it saves him from being insufferable and dreary.
And ALSO so internally sad and broken that he's not a constant punchline.