“Class of ‘57” is Every Generation
Just discovered this melancholy truth from the Statler Brothers. Take away the “'57” and it sounds like the story of every generation, especially in recent years.
Stephen Sonneveld’s Author Page
Biography:
Stephen Sonneveld is a passionate, accomplished multi-hyphenate who: won the Kennedy Center Outstanding Playwright Award, among other writing awards; freelanced for publications as diverse as MAD Magazine and Windy City Times; used his platform as a columnist for Bleacher Report to join the chorus of voices that brought an end to the NFL’s use of a racist team name, advocated for a professional wrestler’s union that has been cited in numerous works, called for better treatment of female WWE talent and characterizations years prior to that company’s “Women’s Revolution”; produced, wrote and acted in numerous projects, including five seasons of a popular scripted Chicago-based radio show with frequent collaborator Andrew Krzak; began writing comic and children’s books in 2007 (and even illustrated a few).
Press:
What some critics have said about Stephen Sonneveld:
Blogcritics Magazine called the children’s book Pandora’s Lunchbox, co-created with Andrew Gregory Krzak, “raw emotion,” and that “unlike other books on the same subject, Sonneveld and Krzak open us up to the harsh reality of bullying.”
Bleeding Cool said the year-long serial comic strip Greye of Scotland Yard “plays out like five episodes of a really good British police drama, Luther especially comes to mind,” and that the “tremendously fulfilling read” is on par with the James Bond and Modesty Blaise properties.
The Slings & Arrows Graphics Novel Guide stated, “Stephen Sonneveld’s Greye of Scotland Yard is visually surreal, yet features solid procedural crime investigation plots,” that some of the character designs “are phenomenal,” and that overall, “Greye of Scotland Yard is well written, an unsentimentally impressive first outing…”
Writing for Smash Pages, pop culture blogger Corey Blake said Superman versus Cancer is “a story that is emotionally resonant and affecting, even disarming,” and “a really satisfying take on these iconic heroes.”
“Hollywood Trash does a phenomenal job in weaving stories within a story. The reader is transported into an epic movie plotline,” Rebecca Benson wrote for Pastrami Nation. “The juxtaposition of career spectrums, living the dream in Hollywood vs. being a hero in everyday working-class life, adds another dimension to this comic. It is enjoyable for any reader!"
The Lost'n Comics podcast remarked Hollywood Trash "has a lot of humorous moments… This is a fun book!"
Comical Opinions wrote that Hollywood Trash’s final issue is "a crazy ending to a crazy story arc that defies rational explanation. The characters are outlandish, the setup is surreal melodrama, and the plot twists never stop. Take the most insane soap opera storyline you’ve ever heard of, and double the insanity.” They concluded “the story is mind-blowingly weird, and it’s worth reading for a crazy fun time."
Rob Wrecks from IndieComiX said of Hollywood Trash, “I liked it so much, I loved it!”
Writing Awards & Talent Recognition:
Kennedy Center Outstanding Playwright Award
New York Television Festival’s Act 1: ION TV Movie Script Contest Finalist
Austin Film Fest., Heart of Screenwriting Competition (1st round advancement)
American College Theater Festival, “Best Actor” nomination
Ifilm “Pick of the Week”
Ifilm Short Film Competition Finalist
Warner Brothers Short Romantic Story Competition
Paul Robeson Centennial Essay Competition
Lois Cordell Nonfiction Writing Award
Dean’s List, Western Illinois University
Opportunity Grant, Western Illinois University
Talent Grant, Theater Department, Western Illinois University
Mad Cave Studios’ 2nd Annual Talent Search (2019) Winner: Writer
Links to Books and Films:
For the comprehensive list of Stephen’s comic books, short stories, comic strips and children’s books, click here. Many are free-to-read, downloadable PDFs, others are available at online retailers. For a parred down listing of only comic books and children’s books, click here. (Note: Since Comixology’s unfortunate absorption into Amazon, "Greye of Scotland Yard” will remain out-of-print until a new publisher is found.)
Ten Little Pictures, film short, a ten-frame tragedy starring chicken nuggets.
Frankenbeans, film short, a baked bean struck by lightning comes to life and faces its emotional perils.
Promo video for the anti-bullying children’s book Pandora’s Lunchbox, featuring art by Andrew Gregory Krzak.
Professional Sites:
Updated: July 9, 2023.
Livin’ in the Wasteland of the Free by Iris DeMent
A song from 1996 with lyrics that sounds like it was written today.
The Epitaph of Vince McMahon
Credit: WWE.com
June 17, 2022, marked the 24th episode of the 24th season of Smackdown that Vince McMahon would produce.
The show opened with his familiar entrance music, and the once buff, now drawn 77-year-old swaggered to the ring as he had hundreds of times before.
Most of the fans cheered.
McMahon gave a short, toothless speech, one that had an odd air of finality to it.
The news of hush money payments had already broke. No one expected concession. Perhaps even McMahon didn’t want to believe it was a farewell address, though he was savvy enough in corporate dealings to realize the writing was on the wall.
With a smiling showman’s flourish, McMahon succinctly assured that WWE would endure.
As he strutted out of the ring and up the ramp, there were no “Thank you, Vince” chants. No tears for a promoter whose chief currency had always been the emotional connection with the crowd. That night, the man who had driven sports entertainment to its highest peaks found himself in an apathetic valley.
There is a passage in Mike Mooneyham and Shaun Assael’s book "Sex, Lies and Headlocks" that recounted a moment during the investigation into Nancy Argentino’s 1983 homicide, where a congenial McMahon allegedly reassured investigators, “We’re in the garbage business.”
Much has been made about Vince McMahon’s ruthlessness regarding taking over the wrestling territories, but that corporate maneuvering is also the chapter that matters least.
His response to Nancy Argentino’s needless death, allegedly at the hands of his number one draw - “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka - is the only true measure of McMahon. He could have simply cooperated. By all available reporting, he deflected.
In the years from 1983 until that final Smackdown, there is nothing unique in Vince McMahon’s apparent pattern of putting business before justice, before the lives of others: robber barons killed unionizers; umpteen corporations knowingly polluted water supplies, cut down rain forests, sold products they knew to be harmful or defective; William Randolph Hearst started a war to sell newspapers - after all, why should the “Merchants of Death” reap all the profits?
How will Vince McMahon be remembered? The same as Roger Ailes. The same as Harvey Weinstein. Just another fucking capitalist who thought having money entitled him to take advantage of people.
That’s the epitaph.
Not only for Vince McMahon, but for the twentieth century.
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Teenage Monty Ninja Pythons
Who in the blue hell is this nightmare “finance” article for?
First, who takes global population advice from a billionaire whose big genius idea was… a subway?
Science fiction is meant to be a warning, Hashem!
Sure, today, it’s “artificial womb facility” (WTF?!), all I see are batteries powering the Matrix.
“Customized babies.” STOP. Just… stop.
My Blue-Eyed Son (Julian’s Reflection)
In the folk tradition, I updated song lyrics to reflect a contemporary issue. The song is Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”. The issue is the immoral persecution of a truth-teller.
Julian Assange is a journalist who exercised his Constitutional right, as well as a moral and social obligation, to present citizens the truth.
For this offense, he lived in exile, endured a grotesque extradition trial where he was denied communication with his counsel, and, according to a United Nations examination, suffered torture at the hands of our great nation and her allies.
A civilized nation would not commit war crimes.
A reasonable nation would not punish a journalist for exposing war crimes.
A just nation would pardon the journalist and reflect on why it commits war crimes.
These zealous years trying to grass Assange up on various charges have shown the United States is neither civilized or reasonable. Can the United States at least be just?
If journalism is judged to be treason, that will do more damage to this country than any exposé of its corruption could ever do.
If government prosecutors continue to press forward with this vile, dangerous tack, just set the Constitution aflame, and lay bare for all to see that these wars defending, protecting and spreading “freedom” were nothing but hollow rhetoric.
The United States targeting, torturing and imprisoning journalists is no better than the human rights violations it accuses China and other nations of practicing.
No person of conscience can allow this affront to Liberty continue. Julian Assange must be pardoned - must be free - so that the First Amendment, the soul of our nation, is preserved.
“My Blue-Eyed Son” (Julian’s Reflection)
New Lyrics by Stephen Sonneveld
Based on “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan
Oh, where you been my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been my darling young one?
Answered smoke signals to their funeral pyre
Fought for the truth and they called me a liar
They slung their muck now I stand a'mired
Oh, where have you been
They wanna ground up my soul and scatter the ashes
They try and they try to no satisfaction
My husk endures, so that’s why I’m askin
Oh, where have you been
My blue-eyed son
The tempest roils in from their lofty aerie
I steel myself till one day I’ll walk free
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain that’s gonna fall
Oh, where you been my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been my darling young one?
I’ve been out in the world lookin for angels
I discovered that them ain’t nothing but Fables
Broke my heart and my back an all I believed in
Sometimes I wonder how I am still breathin
But damn their evil if they think I’m leavin
My blue-eyed son
Look - The tempest roils in from their lofty aerie
I steel myself for one day I’ll walk free
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain that’s gonna fall
Damn their evil if they think I’m leavin
I steel myself for one day I’ll walk free
I’ll walk free
I’ll see you again
My blue-eyed son
Space Cyborg Senshi
AI “Art” Is Not Art, It Is Mathematics
Credit: “Sad Bart” by Benni2ez
You may have noticed there has been a slew of recent articles literally promoting “AI” generated art programs using pop culture hooks, such as: “Imagine Fat Avengers!” “Wes Anderson Avengers!”
We cannot even begin discussing the subject without addressing the misnomer in the room. Frances Haugen had years of experience in big tech companies before becoming the whistleblower at Facebook. She spoke to Trevor Noah about “AI,” saying:
“AI is not intelligent. [The] people who actually study it call it "machine learning,” because it’s not intelligent.“
When the robots rise up, they can laser-carve this on my tombstone, because my opinion on the matter of machine-generated art will never change:
For example, look at the absolute horror the now legendary Miguel Vasquez was able to infuse in his "if they were real” versions of Spongebob and Patrick. No computer trawling internet data like an insane shrimp boat captain could ever have created something this fully realized.
Finally, here are some comparisons of Bart Simpson. One image is from one of those recent AI articles I spoke of, the other from Hossein Diba.
One is a generic image of cobbled together pictures, while the other has nuance and that elusive spark of life all artists strive to achieve.
Diba has been creating such images for years now. Look at the smirk from the recent computer generated image.
Now look at Diba’s smirk, and you know from where the computer stole it.
Are You Being Swindled by POS fees?
You might want to check your bank statements. Corporations are trying to pull a fast one at your expense.
I filed a fraud complaint with the FTC regarding a slew of Point of Service (POS) fees from stores such as Walmart, Eddie Bauer and Wendy’s.
POS charges occur when you use your debit card in a transaction, and press “debit” instead of “credit.”
My issue is, I always choose “credit.”
After researching the issue, the bank manager told me that it is the retailers who determine whether a customer’s transaction goes through as credit or debit - no matter which option the customer chooses.
Retailers do this to save money on their end, so they don’t have to pay out credit card fees.
The bank manager told me Amazon is allegedly such a retailer.
My bank records showed it happened during recent purchases at Walmart and Wendy’s, as well as some online transactions with eBay, and the purchase of a gift card through the Eddie Bauer website.
I only became aware of this because I changed the type of bank account I have, from direct deposit to another kind.
In some bank accounts, like direct deposit and ones for seniors, the bank automatically waives those POS fees - which means this extortion scheme has been happening to me for years, but the bank has been paying it.
In sum:
-Corporations are rigging the system to avoid paying their fair share of credit card fees
-Consumers are being lied to, thinking they are choosing “credit”
-Corporations are passing off their payments on to consumers and local banks
Doomsday, the 90’s, Alan Moore and Comic Book Innocence
Credit: The death of Superman, by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding.
The Fall
For a brief moment in the autumn of 1992, the Doomsday monster had managed to do what no villain had done before; kill the Man of Steel.
The thrilling “Death of Superman” arc was the unintended crystallization of the grim and gritty era of comics that had been building since the one-two punch (and financial success) of “Watchmen” and “The Dark Knight Returns” elevated the medium to new heights six years prior - and ended with an appropriately slow and grueling death by the turn of the millennium.
Comics’ brightest light, hero to the world, had been extinguished, and it is no hyperbole to say that part of the industry’s innocence died that day, as well.
Credit: Screen capture of Alan Moore’s bio on the 2016 DC Comics website
“Innocence” Being a Relative Term
Even in the post-Wertham world, whether it was groundbreaking underground comix, comic-format magazines such as “MAD” and “Heavy Metal,” or Will Eisner’s seminal graphic novels, the medium of comic book storytelling was no stranger to sophisticated, mature works, social commentary, or good old fashioned R-rated sex and violence.
In the early 1980’s, the editors at DC Comics made the fateful decision to recruit the United Kingdom’s best and brightest to rejuvenate in-continuity superhero books. They were so impressed by one Alan Moore’s prose description for “Swamp Thing” that they published it in the monthly editor’s column for all readers to see.
The work of Moore and his fellow storytellers on “Swamp Thing” exhibit the same high-level of literary merit as his later collaborations, but would not reach the same level of public interest those works attained.
Similarly, Marvel Comics B-lister Daredevil reached A-list heights under the pen of Frank Miller and his collaborators. Like George Lucas, Miller wore his influences on his sleeve, and his ninja-noir super hero tragedy was so searing that it remains the embodiment of the character to this day. Unlike the Silver Age Flash or Green Lantern, Miller and company had wholly reinvented the character in its own skin. Even a loving tribute to Miller’s “Daredevil” run, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, evolved into a phenomenon.
But Daredevil was no Batman.
Only a few short decades after Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were inspired to create Superman, the Last Son of Krypton had achieved the status of myth. He is timeless, in the best sense. Comics’ second favorite son, the orphan in Wayne Manor, has proved much more malleable; that rare character that works in any situation. From the inky shadows of his pulp-homage roots, to the Pop Art fun of the 1960’s; “Batman” even starred in two Tim Burton films, and had an entire alternate reality imprint, Elseworlds, seemingly dedicated to him.
When Miller drafted “The Dark Knight Returns”, he was breathing the same air of nuclear menace and conservative government stranglehold that informed Moore’s “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta” collaborations.
Once again, Miller reinvented a character in its own skin, and his version of a late in life Bruce Wayne went on to directly influence future incarnations such as “Kingdom Come” and “Batman Beyond,” while the attitude of that characterization – particularly his relationship with Superman – influenced just about everything else. Amid atomic fears and the Joker’s body count was the story of an old soldier writing his own epitaph.
A great story. But people cared because it was Batman. It mattered, because it was Batman.
This, as opposed to Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen.” Happy accident one: The original concept was intended for DC’s newly acquired catalog of Charlton Comics characters, such as the Steve Ditko creations Captain Atom (co-created with Joe Gill), the Question and the Ted Kord Blue Beetle. DC wanted more mileage out of their purchase, so the creators fashioned new characters on the familiar archetypes, which added another layer to the book’s central idea of exploring the real world toll of super lives. Free from specificity, the book could be created and read as its own endeavor.
Imagine the outcry and the backlash had the Charlton characters been put through the “Watchmen” throes. One does not have to imagine, only to examine the reactions to the grim and gritty stories of Hal Jordan turning to homicide (1994), or, when readers who had followed Peter Parker for decades were told he was a clone (1995).
Happy accident two: Moore had intended a six-issue run, but upon realizing he had twelve-issues to fill, wrote a novel’s worth of multi-format backstory that enriched the main narrative, and created a storytelling experience hitherto unseen in any “Big 2” monthly super hero comic.
With “The Dark Knight Returns” adding dimension to the Batman legend, and “Watchmen” delivering superhero thrills amidst a tale of human connection in a mad world, comics lost the naiveté component of innocence.
Unfortunately, the industry took all the wrong cues from those outstanding works, amping up the lust and dystopia but lacking the reason or context. This was emblematic of the decade. The 90’s existed to shock. Sex and fury, signifying nothing.
Outside of those four-color panels, the innocence of the actual industry had been on life support for years. Unfortunately, since its inception as an off-shoot of pulp novels and skin mags, the tales of greed, back-stabbing and screw jobs are too many to name, while the millennium has brought to light numerous allegations of sexual harassment in workplaces and comic cons.
Moore’s contractual issue concerning “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta” offers one case in point regarding unsavory business practices: Allegedly, DC claimed the rights to “Watchmen” would return to Moore and Gibbons, and “V for Vendetta” would return to Moore and David Lloyd when the books went out of print. DC has never taken the books out of print.
Part of the vanguard of young talent who vocalized support for the rights of Golden and Silver Age comic creators such as Jack Kirby, Moore found himself in the kind of situation he was protesting against.
Speaking to the New York Times on the subject in 2006, Moore stated, “I said, ‘Fair enough… You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again.‘”
True to his word, the Northampton native also refuses to have his name attached when his DC-held properties are adapted to other media.
“Watchmen” is frequently called the greatest comic, and one of the greatest novels, of all time. It is the only work of comic art to win the prestigious Hugo Award, yet its co-creator would rather disavow his association with it, then in any way be party to a scheme.
Jack Kirby once said, “Comics will break your heart.”
Recognizing cruelty in the world; another facet of innocence lost.
Credit: The infamous “fridging” incident from “Green Lantern” no. 28 (1994, art by Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal) that prompted writer Gail Simone to create a dialogue about women’s roles in popular culture
The Killing Joke
As recounted in the wonderful documentary, “Requiem and Rebirth: Superman Lives!” (a special feature on the 2007 “Superman: Doomsday” home video release), the creative teams behind the Superman books would inevitably joke, at their annual meeting, that “Superman dies” would be that year’s story arc.
For once, they took it seriously.
The 1992 multi-book story was fairly straightforward, especially to well-heeled comic book readers: Hero faces a villain he cannot defeat. His sacrifice is mourned throughout that imaginary world. Others try to fill his shoes while he struggles back to life and a full return.
DC had success with “event” books before, notably the intense “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” a creative solution to justify streamlining years of convoluted continuity. The death of Superman was going to be an event, regardless, but the event structure seemed to be a result of the story, versus the intentional staging of “event books” that have saturated the comic marketplace since.
What neither the creative team, nor comic readers, could have anticipated was just how personally the public would take the hero’s death.
Ironically, whereas today’s event books are heavily promoted with hooks to generate mainstream press, the Superman team was creating a story for their base that ended up being the biggest comics-related story since 1966’s Batmania craze.
Comic shops held memorial services. Newspapers ran obituaries. I still recall Chicago’s Daily Herald running a top page, top row article, the headline proclaiming, “Great Caesar’s Ghost! Superman is Dead.”
The aforementioned documentary even echoed the somewhat cynical view that the amount of press devoted to this fictional character’s death was the result of a “slow news day.”
Having lived through it, I can assure you – it was the news.
The 90’s were a vulgar decade, and the death of the Big Blue Boy Scout was just one event that set the sacred cow killing tone. In mainstream comics, murdered girlfriends were stuffed into refrigerators. The super heroes of professional wrestling traded flag-waving theatrics for black-clad antihero antics. Grunge, the early 90’s back-to-basics reaction to 1980’s glam rock, was just a speed bump to an even more slickly produced manufacturing of pop stars and status-obsessed rappers. Parents fraught with worry over Bart Simpson being their children’s role model could not have anticipated the foul-mouthed fourth graders of “South Park.” Quentin Tarantino’s films about cool guy violence were imitated ad nauseam.
In stateside politics, an overzealous and emboldened Republican party, when it was not shutting down the government, tried to impeach the president over a semen-stained dress – wherein historians rejoiced at having a second White House scandal referencing fellatio.
The biggest story of the decade was that the Cold War ended with a merciful whimper, not the promised mushroom cloud; the result of an internal labor movement that destabilized the Iron Curtain. The workers, which Communism has purported to serve, finally had enough. The world rejoiced when the Berlin Wall crumbled, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. All of those years of fear, of anxiety – all of that indoctrination; in America, we came out of the fog of a mind fuck, and the disillusionment that started in Vietnam, and continued on through to Watergate, once again reared its ugly visage.
Besides - sure, our kind of Communism was dead, but that pesky Asian strain of it still thrived in much of the populated world, where a great deal of manufacturing also happens to take place. In 1989, a lone student, yearning for democracy, stood in front of a line of tanks. But we don’t talk about Tiananmen Square. It’s bad for business.
The Superman team tapped the vein of these end of the century blues. Losing President Kennedy to an assassin’s bullet in 1963 was heartbreaking. Losing our super hero was sobering. Intentional or not, the work of art reflected a waking need to strip away the artifice in pursuit of a new national identity.
Plodding uphill, already nearly a generation into the millennium, will the United States live up to the ideals promised in her founding, or become that which it was rebelling against? As evidenced by the tumultuous 2016 presidential election, America is still in the tumult of that ego deconstruction.
Confronting your disillusionment, the final facet of losing one’s innocence.
Credit: DC Comics house ad (1992, artist uncredited) touting the coming of Doomsday and teasing Superman’s demise. Source: http://comicbook.com/2014/11/19/throwback-thursdays-dan-jurgens-remembers-the-death-of-superman/
“KRAANG!”
Superman would meet his end not by an egotistical genius or an intergalactic despot, but by an unfeeling force of nature that lived solely to rampage. For all of Superman’s compassion, he could not reason with this beast. For all of his ingenuity, he could not outsmart this gray behemoth. Winds change and tornadoes destroy. Plates shift and the earth quakes. Doomsday runs free and great heroes die.
His craggy appearance notwithstanding, there was élan to this idea. It is difficult to say if the public response would have been so strong had the fatal blow been delivered by a recurring villain. To most outsiders, it probably would have seemed like comic book business as usual. But the fact that this “devil ex machina” was created for the singular purpose of killing Superman again invoked the sense that this character, above all others in the medium, was on par with the myths of old – with the Greek pantheon whose threads were cut by the sisters Fate; the damned Norsemen facing Ragnarok.
In popular terms, for this brief moment, Doomsday was Superman’s greatest villain.
And there he shall remain, frozen in time next to his fallen foe in stunning Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding art. The Greatest Doomsday Story Ever Told.
Jurgens and others have revisited the character with success, but most attempts reduce him (as well as that other great 1990’s DC villain, Bane) to Hulk rip-offs. The character’s big screen debut in 2016’s “Batman Versus Superman: Dawn of Justice” reinforced Doomsday’s purpose as Superman’s Golgotha.
Like the ancient gods of spring, Superman’s story is one of resurrection and rebirth. Coincidentally, “rebirth” was also the name of the most recent (2016) DC event series, the advertising of which showed Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman returning to their classic form.
What is a rebirth, after all, but a return to innocence?
…The above line was the intended ending to this editorial when I started writing it several months back, until it was made known that Moore and Gibbons’ contested “Watchmen” characters look to figure heavily into DC’s proposed two-year story arc.
Looking at the ridiculous whole of that situation, it is tempting to quote seventeenth century poet John Milton, “Hast thou betrayed my credulous innocence With vizor’d falsehood and base forgery?”
I prefer this quote by Jewel, a poet who came of age in 1990’s. Something Superman might even say: “Being part of the natural world reminds me that innocence isn’t ever lost completely; we just need to maintain our goodness to regain it.”
Perhaps the most fitting, and final, assessment of the situation should be by Moore himself, from a 2009 interview with now-defunct website Mania:
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ADDITIONAL CONTENT
“Retirement”
Even Moore’s leaving comics was misunderstood. The final issue in 2019 of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” only marked the writer’s last comic book. As he later told the Guardian, “I will always love and adore the comics medium but the comics industry and all of the stuff attached to it just became unbearable.”
That same article explored Moore’s love of prose and the publication of his own collection, "Illuminations.” He hadn’t retired from writing, only writing comics.
That should have been welcome news to readers, yet it was only the sensational misinterpretation of his thoughts regarding superhero movies - that a desperate yearning for simpler times is a pathway toward fascism - that made the social media rounds.
Public Perception
In October 2019, HBO released “Watchmen,” a well-received limited series set in the world Moore and Gibbons created.
It was another opportunity for comic readers and professionals to disparage Moore for his comments about the industry, and how he has no interest in being associated with filmed adaptations of his work. For Moore, like Steve Ditko, the book is the thing.
What is never said is that Moore only discussed his experiences in, and opinions of, the comic book industry when interviewed. The man has no social media account, or blog, or Tumblr, where he espouses his opinion. He is neither sage nor fool pontificating from a mountaintop.
Leah Moore, a damn fine writer in her own right, is the daughter of Alan Moore. From her unique first-person perspective, she took to Twitter to defend her father from these attacks.
It is a love letter. It is a rebuke.
'Nuff said.
A version of this article was originally published on Sequart.org in 2017.
WRITING TROPES OF DOOM
From February to September 2022, prior to my leaving Twitter, I compiled and published this thread of overused plot contrivances, AKA lazy writing.
While sitcoms have earned their own unique and lengthy list of hoary tropes, I have found these 26 clichés repeated throughout all facets of literature: books, comics, and filmed entertainment.
If you have any more - and I sincerely hope you don’t - please feel free to add them.
1 …in a school where…
2 …by gladiatorial combat…
3 …one last score/mission/heist…
4 …little girl assassin…
5 …Nazis…
6 …Nazi treasure…
7 …newscast moves the plot…
8 …sportscasters explain the action…
9 …little old lady suddenly acts lewdly…
10 …crowds chanting the villain’s name like it’s a wrestling match…
11 …the after-the-fight scene where one person walks into the room the other is sulking in and they say, “Hey.” “Hey.”
12 …destroying/disabling the mothership stops the massive army/drone fleet…
13 …hero says, “This ends now”…
14 …the second act murder that kills, thus clearing, the prime suspect…
15 …kid shouts, “This is awesome!”…
16 …after being rescued, the spouse/female love interest tells male hero, “Go,” and he races back into battle…
17 …starting with an end scene…
18 …comedies that climax when the hero has to do a presentation to SAVE THE CORPORATION…
19 …but also reaches an epiphany about their own struggles - while SERVING THE CORPORATION…
20 …nemesis is revealed to be a relative of the hero/played a role in hero’s origin…
21 …the conspiracy pegboard connected by string, which no one heard of before “A Beautiful Mind”…
22 …media interviews that reveal protagonist’s past, inner life… or the clue to a mystery…
23…therapist scenes that reveal protagonist’s past, inner life… or the clue to a mystery…
24 …the detective’s teenage daughter is kidnapped/held hostage…
25 …mommy/daddy issues are revealed as the crime’s true motive…
26 …killing machine from a secret government agency…
And, finally, perhaps the first inductee into the Hall of Fame of cringe-inducing writing tropes….
27 …writing yourself into the story.