HATE FUEL - Episode III 'No Child Left Unbrainwashed!'

Trying to condense some space from my Yahoo e-mails archives- delete them from my account and save them here for prosperity. So you guys get to be the lucky recipients to read into some of my personal history-

Continuing from where I left during some of my many online squabbles with former Deposit Man 'editor' Scott Goodell-

One of Scott's small demands in working on the Deposit Man with me was this:

i should also take over doing dm's static. i like what larry does, but i have experience putting white paint on top of zip. it's not easyfinding the right consistency, and zip is not a workable medium, meaning it shouldn't be painted on. i learned how to get past this, and you'll be amazed at the results.

It wasn't so much the demands themselves that bothered me so much, it was the fact that he had to pepper my Yahoo account six or seven times a day with the same list of suggestions over and over again AND if you didn't get back to him straight away - he would call me at my workplace and yell at me for not getting back to him sooner, even though the concept of working eight hours a day at a place of employment didn't seem to sink in enough. Scott, at the time was fairly new to the concept of the internet with sending and receiving e-mails, so I had to forgive him for his indiscretions of not using proper cyber etiquette. Here's a mild example while we were working together on the ashcan for the Last Great Gate of Mortality aka Marty Goes APE for a Buck special:

coat- just letting you know, on the day that i needed to send the package that was so important, this is the very first time that you didn't e-mail me back once. the disk is gone in the mail, and it's up to you to have the cover printed. i'm counting on you to get it printed in the most optimum quality. if there was anything i could have done on my end,to help do this, i am now helpless, since the deadline of getting you the cover was so important to me, and it had to go out. i held the package for as long as possible, hoping i would get a call or e-mail from you, advising me how to resolve this. frankly, i spoke to larry about this situation,today, and he agreed with me, that since you guys are so professional, and equally determined to make this ashcan look as good as possible, that there is nothing to worry about. i'm willing to do this process myself next time, so read the e-mails, and do what's necessary, this time. i look forward to continued success in our working relationship. we don't understand at all....sg..

I like the fact that even though Scott lives 3000 miles away in Brooklyn - he was under the delusion that people in LA must drop everything that they're doing at the moment and go out of the way to obey his every whim. But as shown here in my reply - I had to put the poor guy in his place:

Yo, Did anyone say that we were blowing you off? You have to understand both Mark and I work very high stress level jobs. We can't just drop everything at the drop of a hat to reply just because you have to send 3-6 e-mails a day when 2 will suffice. I don't get in until 10 in the morning and 3 days out of the five that are in the week there is a literally a pile of work THAT HAS TO BE DONE IMMEDIATELY FOR THE PAYROLL PEOPLE, SO THAT PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR ****** **** CAN GET PAID and it has to be out at certain points throughout the day. Mark has to deal with 75+ clients a day at his job. So it's like nobody is blowing you off. So please simmer down and act more professional- I shouldn't have to scold you like this- but sometimes you're too much like Mr. Ultra Sensitive. I'll be looking forward to the package, and thanks for getting it out to me in time- I'll buzz you when I get it. And I'll try to make it look as good as I can. I should be getting Larry's package either today or tomorrow.

The Mark that Scott is referring to is Mark Capuano, who helped with the design of my first two Deposit Man books and splurged for half of the printing cost- they were published under the auspices of his website www.independent-comics.com and www.actionfigures.net both now residing in that world famous delete websites in the cyber hole in the sky (these links no longer work, so stop with the clicking already!). I'm down to my last few hundred copies and if demand warrants- I will either reprint them in new editions or save them for the paperback collection under the Landescape Productions banner. In this following e-mail, I was explaining to Scott that I was starting to develop problems with Mark on my own just before going to press with this ashcan:

I said yesterday that I might call you from the office tonight- that is if Mark shows up with your package. He said he was going to call me at work today- I relayed the message today to his "new girlfriend". If he doesn't show up then I'm going to have a problem with him. Between you and me, having him move a girl out here out here all the way from upstate New York, signifies that he's just losing interest and doesn't have the balls to tell me- We were supposed to have this thing mapped out three months ago. I published the new book three months ago, so I could raise the capital to print this ashcan- because I don't want to be known as the one comic book year man. My new goal is to jam out three issues in a row with you spearheading the deal. We talked this over and he agreed to it. Now we're two weeks away and he's still farting around with that chick and we're not getting anything done or having meetings at his house because of this chick moving in with him. Here's how absentminded he's been over the past five days: First he wanted me to download every e-mail you> sent me onto disk so he could go over them. He told me that Saturday afternoon Two days ago, I called him, I'm leaving him a message on his machine, he picks up and when I tell him about finishing up the disk, he acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, then he goes: oh yeah, but now I want you to go through those e-mails and make an outline, blah, blah. I told him to get the fuck out- I don't time for this in addition to constructing the ashcan. Another thing that's been bugging me- is he doesn't want to publicize the website at all even though the Deposit Man is on it- and it just befuddles the fuck out of me with this constant procastration. How am I going to get word out to the masses about the book if I can't plug the website? He totally against putting ads in the Comics Buyer's Guide and the Comics Journal, because he says they don't work. The only thing he recommends is doing the Shrine every month, but I can't afford the Shrine every month. I'm clueless here, Scott. This guy says he knows everything about Marketing- but he doesn't do any marketing for it and he agreed to being the publisher. This is supposed to be the publisher's job, right? Nobody can make money on the Deposit Man if no one is putting a hundred percent behind it and all he's doing is throwing money around.

Coatster

And Scott's reply was to rip off on my hard ass persona:

coat- when you tell me about mark, i'd sympathize more ifyou didn't blow off every important question i askyou. what did you think of the 3 cover sketches? i wasvery proud of what i did, and am looking forward tofleshing them out with you. scott.

Scott refers to his orginal cover sketches to the Last Great Gate of Mortality- which for some unfathomable reason I could not download off that disk which he mentioned. Since we've parted ways, I did not use his ideas except for a variation on Act One. In Scott's version the Deposit Man in a close up shot is suspended between two rungs of a ladder, tipping his fedora hat. In Mas's version, there's the same tight shot, but one of his fists is tightly gripped around a rung on a gate. Scott had a thing about injecting references to Yes music in his paintings- something I'm sure that Roger Dean wouldn't appreciate- if he had known about it. My version is a swipe or idea from a IQ song called the Last Human Gateway- but the overall difference between Scott and me is that I had secured permission from IQ keyboard player Martin Orford himself in order to ape the idea- Scott didn't consort with anyone and I didn't want me or him to risk a lawsuit- we were too young for that kind of thing and plus we had our whole entire lives ahead of us not to be squandered away in some municipal courtroom bickering back and forth. Anyway back to our program:

Do you listen to your phone messages ? I called you over the weekend and told you that Mark only dropped off the disk. I do not have your tapes yet and - therefore I have not heard them or seen the sketchesyet. You're welcome to call Mark's number and leave a fiery message with his chickee Andrea. Coatster

no, your message wasn't clear to me. let me know what you think when you get them. I want to be clear on how you're fleshing out the nazi character ( Scott making suggestions on how Haupt Carl is to be treated even though Scott had no input whatsovever in his creation- it was something that was concocted between me and artist Mike Lilly while we were all having lunch in San Diego one summer) . it has to be funny or satirical in the right way. like you handled the esquire row scene. if it shows the holocaust in any kind of tasteless or inappropriate light, i might have a problem.

Days later:

coat- ever get the 3 cover sketches? if you never get back to me on this, instead of asking again, i'll just assume they're just the way you want them, and refuse to make any additions or corrections. you can always get it back...s.

No Scott- I still didn't fucking see them -

And still-

coat- when you call after you've seen the sketches, let me know where we stand as far as compensation. haupt carl sounds interesting.

Eventually I did wind up seeing the sketches and they weren't what I had in mind- plus Scott had his upstairs neighbor help out on them I didn't really consider his input to be of any artistic functional ability - maybe his material would have worked out better for a coffee table book on preschooler fingerpainting - but not on Deposit Man.

coat- you didn't call me this weekend. did you get the box of comics? what is the exact money arrangement for dr.revolt? since i am donating all my time for free,(apparently) it wouldn't be that cool for me to pay him out of my earnings from book sales. again, he doesn't need a lot, just something. i donate my time out of friendship, so i require more cooperation than most business partners. about the covers.

Dr Revolt is some pseudonym invented by dopehead that Scott knew who happened to have studied under Neal Adams and had done a recoloring assignments for Neal on many of his deluxe reprint books of Green Arrow/Green Lantern and Deadman. Dr. Revolt did a favor for Scott in computer coloring for a Marty sketch - (probably for a nickel or dime bag of pot, knowing Scott's preoccuption with his recreational time ). This was the probably the best professional work I had ever seen Scott deliver from a outside source - despite the horror stories I would hear rumors about in Scott's usual collect call or phone card conversations. He really did a bang up job - and I still have to give credit to Scott for co-creating the look for Marty.

I'll end this chapter right here- but I assure you that in the next episode of HATE FUEL!! - you're going to start seeing this blog's version of a Comic Book Pro Celebrity Death Match when the mention of money and how many comp copies of a ashcan I should be ponying up for my collaborators starts to ignite a sore subject.

~

Coat

ALSO STARRING JESSICA ALBA AS.....THE INVASOLINE GIRL....

Say what you will - one of the most controversial subjecst raised at this year's San Diego Comic Con was the casting of the big budget Fantastic Four flick centering around Jessica Alba nabbing the role of Susan Storm, the Invisible Girl or Woman considering on your politically correct point of view. When I first heard it through a co-worker of mine at the studio before taking off on vacation, chasing me down and panting for breath at my office door in fear that I might have already taken off without hearing this gut wretching news. It may just be me, but I think Ms. Alba is wayyyyyyy too young for the role. Foremost, she's not a natural blond, but is indeed more scrumptious looking as a brunette (mayhap some one could persuade her to do Scarlet Witch?) as she so infatuatedly demonstrated on two seasons of James Cameron's footnote foray in genre tv's Dark Angel (whose final season seamlessly teetered on the parapet of absurdity). There are reports chiming in about how she's really determined to bone up on the role and really put some heavy research into it. If that being the case- my suggestion would be to concede the argument: if she has the ambition to give it her damnest and make this out to be the role of her career, then everyone should be wishing good luck to her. Now that I'm catching up on my regular website haunts after being away for a week or so, what I'm starting to find really discerning is the outcry of these no-life message board posters questioning her ethnicity in her ability to take on the role. By all looks and mannerisms, Jessica has that definitive allure of a gum cracking hot pillow talking sensual booty shaking latina (sort of reminds of me of a certain cuban girl of whom I like to run circles with) - which is something I'm sure she's already worked out of her system in last winter's sleeper hit, Honey - but with comic adaptations running rampant with box office records these days (well, there are a few rotten eggs in the bunch if you're counting Halle Berry's bastardization of Catwoman. Uber pretty to look at, but a real mind slop to entirely sit through) , the general populace of movie goers are not really all that hard up when the subject of a character's race is shifted than to what's already portrayed in the comic books. No one that I knew personally had thrown any kind of a shit-fit temper tandrum when Michael Clarke Duncan wooed the role of Kingpin in Daredevil - I embraced it wholeheartedly and I thought he did a tremendous job at it too. People seemed to have forgotten that back in 1989 Tim Burton had casted Billy Dee Williams in the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face in the first Batman film and from what I recalled, there was no violent upsurging or fervor that occurred after the movie's release- although the casting was later motified years later to allow Tommy Lee Jones to puff out the character in the seemingly medicore Batman Forever. However, floating rumours can become killjoys for the franchise when the single notion was suggested that the role of Robin be handed over to a black person. Eddie Murphy was also scoffed at when he expressed interest in bringing the Green Hornet to the big screen. With Jessica, I personally don't find it that too much of a big deal- now that I've seen stills of her for the new Sin City movie, but her kittenishness is going to be distracting. And it's seems to be some kind of warp drived fashion statement when the Latinas to bleach their hair platinum blonde- maybe for some it's not instantly noticeable, but for some it most definitely needs to be a best kept secret amongst each other as evident by what I see climbing aboard a MTA bus on a daily basis or when I'm flipping the tv through Telemundo.

I guess we can only wait and see. I hear the production is off to a rocking good start (pardon my Thing pun) with co-stars Chris Evans as the Human Torch, Ioan Gruffudd as Mister Fantastic, and the inspired casting choice of Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing.

I hear that maybe Jessica could use some Slip & Slide practice tips from David Spade - especially after when I read Jessica's comments on the fitting for her costume which went through a grueling process of molding her body and having to apply Vasoline jelly over every, every luscious inch of her body. Yeah, yeah I know Eliza Cuthbert would have probably been the better slip and slide contender (my personal pick of another actress out of Fox's stable who would have been better suited for the role- and I had both my fingers and the tips of my ass hairs crossed for it to happen too!) - special attention applied to Jessica's very sensitive areas. Lucky mold making schmucks!

This morning when I first arrived at work, I managed to scoop Heidi MacDonald's the Beat on the casting of Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom. This adds yet another actor whose popularity had begun on a cable or regular network television show. Julian is best known for portraying one half of the philandering plastic surgeon team that run amok each week on FX's Nip/Tuck. Everyone knows Chiklis as the emmy winning dirty cop Vic Mackey on the Shield and like I mentioned before, Alba used to play a genetically altered super soldier on Dark Angel. Heck, if they manage to nab Dennis Leary- he'd make a great Molecule Man.

Some quick observations:

* If the country is so tweaked up on Orange Plus Tang alert - was it wise to be opening the Statue of Liberty monument to the public on the very same day that terrorists want to trade stock and bonds on Wall Street?

* M. Night Shyamalan's The Village was utter painful shit to sit through. It was just as about entertaining as your grandmother or great aunt piercing your gonads all the way through with a croquet neddle and almost just a snoozer as the remake of Solaris was. What a ruse and what a fucking rip-off on the theme of the great 60's cult show, The Prisoner. With a ending that you can see telegraphed from a mile away, all I can say upon leaving the theater that it's a very disappointing fourth effort from a reputable filmmaker. Well, I guess they can't be all winners, or a Hitchcock clone for that matter. Shyamalan's Unbreakable still remains a genius ahead of it's time- and I'll argue that proclaimation until I'm blue in the face.

* Earthsea has finished filming on the lot.

* I spotted Joey Pants off the set of Dr Vegas grabbing a Starbuck's on the studio lot


~

Coat