An Interview with Darwyn Cooke

NASO: For a while now, people have been talking about the troubles of the comic industry, from the lack of mainstream acceptance to failed marketing to decreased sales. But historically there have been spikes in general public interest in comics. Does the change in the way people view heroes have anything to do with the fluctuations in the health of the comic book industry?

COOKE: Hmmmmm, I don't think so. There hasn't been any real spike in outside interest since the early 1990s, and it wasn't fueled so much by new readers as it was new club members and speculators. I firmly believe every other so-called spike was simply a spike within the existing market. That is, sucking more money per month out of the same customers. Both of the Big Two are terrified of the Mass Market for two reasons:

1. It would take a major investment and risk to regain the mass market.

2. Comic creators, editors and publishers would actually have to do their jobs — sell populist fare by the truckload that appealed to the mass market. They would have to give up this tight little circle where people care more about Bruce's feelings than they do whether there's a Batman story actually taking place. They'd have to work all ages with public light cast on the book's actual content, they'd have to compete with better written and produced entertainment from other media. Books that didn't sell would die. "Creators" who couldn't meet a monthly schedule would be restricted to specials and one-shots. Public taste and trends would have to be embraced. The precious superhero would have to share the stage with other more relevant genres like Romance, Crime, Horror, Humour and the like. Dicks like Kevin Smith would have to save their juvenile, oral-sex innuendo for something other than a mainstream DC comic.

The comic book industry in America is a cottage industry aimed at a very exclusive audience. That's why they don't sell. For 20 years, Hollywood has been making millions off comic properties and the zombies chant about how it will translate in sales... and it never does. Because the comics are cryptic, inaccessible, overpriced and aimed at anything other than a mass market.

Read the full interview here.

Beowulf coming to the big screen

http://www.beowulf-movie.com/
Looks fantastic...

Jimmy Page in Rolling Stone circa 1973

ROLLING STONE: You live in Aleister Crowley's home. [Crowley was a poet and magician at the turn of the century and was notorious for his Black Magic rites -- Ed.]

PAGE: Yes, it was owned by Aleister Crowley. But there were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it. It was also a church that was burned to the ground with the congregation in it. And that's the site of the house. Strange things have happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley. The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down. I haven't actually heard it, but a friend of mine, who is extremely straight and doesn't know anything about anything like that at all, heard it. He thought it was the cats bungling around. I wasn't there at the time, but he told the help. "Why don't you let the cats out at night? They make a terrible racket, rolling about in the halls." And they said, "The cats are locked in a room every night." Then they told him the story of the house. So that sort of thing was there before Crowley got there. Of course, after Crowley there have been suicides, people carted off to mental hospitals . . .

RS: And you have no contact with any of the spirits?

PAGE: I didn't say that. I just said I didn't hear the head roll.

RS: What's your attraction to the place?

PAGE: The unknown. I'm attracted by the unknown, but I take precautions. I don't go walking into things blind.

RS: Do you feel safe in the house?

PAGE: Yeah. Well, all my houses are isolated. Many is the time I just stay home alone. I spend a lot of time near water. Crowley's house is in Loch Ness, Scotland. I have another house in Sussex, where I spend most of my time. It's quite near London. It's moated and terraces off into lakes. I mean, I could tell you things, but it might give people ideas. A few things have happened that would freak some people out, but I was surprised actually at how composed I was. I don't really want to go on about my personal beliefs or my involvement in magic. I'm not trying to do a Harrison or a Townshend. I'm not interested in turning anybody on to anybody that I'm turned on to...if people want to find things, they find them themselves. I'm a firm believer in that.

Cairnwood.Net

Lots of changes at the parent site to this blog, cairnwood.net

Have a look around and let me know what you think.

Happy 13th Birthday Cassie Danielle Moore

Since I won't be at work to post in the a.m., let me give out a preemptive strike to the Birthday Gods and wish Cassie Moore a Happy Birthday. This little darling of a sister-in-law will turn 13 on Thursday the 24th.

13.

Egads!!! Quick, someone readjust the Time Flux Capasiter... obviously it is out of whack. Surely we're not aging that fast...

Thank you Cassie for being a perfect little sweetie. We love you very much and hope your Birthday is as perfect and wonderful as you are :)

Hunter S. Thompson R.I.P.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200502/s1307571.htm

Not the best article to send the man off, but at least some of the facts are there.

What can I say about HST? He was a hero of mine, without a doubt. I devoured his words like they were gospel. He was the epitome of the genre of writing that he himself created~ "Gonzo Journalism". He was a revolutionary, a nutcase, a drug-crazed loon, and a brilliant man. His words were fire and he brought them to the masses like a combination of Prometheus and Dionysis.

He wrote the truth, even when they were lies.

So long Raoul Duke! Give my regards to Lazlow!

White Stains examined

Interesting essay examing Aleister Crowley's pornographic White Stains.
Not for those easily shocked, and certainly not for anyone under 18.
Insightful and well researched.
http://www.occultforums.com/showthread.php?t=13006

What is it with the English?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4233289.stm

Brendan Deneen's Comic Mini-Series

http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27798

from cairnwood.net's Reading Room

As posted in "the Reading Room"

The Third Translation by Matt Bondurant (Hyperion)

Review: What can I say about this book? It has immediately leaped into my top 5 favorite novels list. Why? The prose is pure magic, the story compelling, the drama intense...and Rothchild's character development? Beautiful. I cannot express in words the utter joy I felt reading this book. Bondurant unveils an Egypt through the eyes of a scholar and poet without it ever seeming unobtainable. The secondary characters, from the divine Penelope to the seemingly daft Alan Henry, are alive and painted with a fine brush. This is the real world, with real dangers, and just when you feared that a supernatural element was on the verge of being revealed, Bondurant reels you back into reality. The supernatural is present, but it is the supernatural quality of the poetic, from love to disgust and back again.

And now, a bit of inspiring poetry...

Meanwhile drink deeply of life's essence,
Life's heady draught, enjoy it, friends!
I've learnt its disenchanting lessons,
Nor will it grieve me when it ends;
No ghosts can pry my lids asunder;
Only at times a distant wonder
Has power yet to stir my heart;
It would be better if my part
On this brief stage would not leave on it
The faintest trace. I live and write
Not for applause; my dismal plight
Let it but fuel the blazing sonnet,
One note that like a faithful friend
Bespeaks my name beyond the end.

(Pushkin, II. 39, p. 56)
Walter Arndt, translator, Eugene Onegin
E. P. Dutton & Co. New York. 1963.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

http://www.cthulhulives.org/CoC/screening-lg.html

Happy Valentine's Day

Ah, the day to celebrate LOVE. It does make the world go 'round.

What would life be like without my sweetie? Empty, I tell ya! I have a perfectly wonderful wife, who I am completely and hopelssly in love with...and without whom I would be less than I am. Sure we have our difficulties...I am after all a man, and therefore wrong from the moment I take breath in the morning (or so women have told me)...

We come together as a couple and smooth out the rough spots to form a union that is unafraid to stare Time in the face and challenge it to work against us. We're in it for the long haul and have a beautiful child to show for our efforts.

We also share our home with my wife's soon-to-be teenage sister, who my wife home schools on top of caring for our boy, and managing the house (and a part-time job to boot). I butt heads with her sometimes too, but again, it's my fault for being of the wrong gender to relate, I'm sure. But, more often than not she's a good kid and I'm happy to have her as a part of my little family.

My wife is a testament to what a good woman should be: a partner, a friend, a wife, a mother, a sister...and more, she's the love of my life and I appreciate her more than words can say.

Now, go out and kiss your sweetie and tell her you love her. You'll be glad you did.

Hip Hip Hooray (I hope)

Film notoriety awaits Beowulf
Richard JinmanMonday February 14, 2005

He is the original action hero, a fearless Norse warrior who slew a murderous troll and helped inspire Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. And he is coming to a multiplex near you.
The race to turn Beowulf, the hero of the first great written English poem, into a box-office star to rival the likes of Aragorn, Achilles and Alexander the Great, has begun. Two films starring the fictional 6th-century sword-slinger are in production.
Beowulf & Grendel, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, is a $12m co-production from Britain, Canada and Iceland, starring the Scots actor Gerard Butler. Filmed in Iceland, it is described by its producers as a "spiritual film".
Butler's Beowulf is a complex man who grows to understand and even sympathise with the troll Grendel.
The second film, Beowulf, is a $70m Hollywood production financed by the American millionaire Steve Bing and Sony Pictures. Its director is Robert Zemeckis, whose crew will use the stop-motion technology recently employed in the children's film The Polar Express.
Beowulf is no children's film, however. The script, co-written by Roger Avary, Quentin Tarantino's collaborator on Pulp Fiction, has been described as "... a sort of dark-ages Trainspotting [as in the film], filled with mead and blood and madness".
Beowulf & Grendel is to be released this year; Zemeckis' film is in pre-production.
Adam Minns, the British film editor of Screen International magazine, said filming Beowulf was symptomatic of the industry's interest in "epic-scale, fantasy-type" material following the success of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
"Beowulf was one of the key inspirations for Lord of the Rings and I'm not at all surprised the success of that franchise has galvanised these two projects," he said.
But adapting the poem to the big screen has proved difficult in the past. The 1999 Beowulf-inspired epic The 13th Warrior, directed by John McTiernan, was an expensive flop. It was followed a year later by Beowulf, a lamentable science-fiction take on the poem starring Christopher Lambert. Both films failed to impress critics and audiences.
Andrew Rai Berzins, the Canadian screenwriter for Beowulf & Grendel, cites the implausibility of parts of the story, which was written in Anglo-Saxon by an unknown author sometime between 700 and 1000.
There was also a 50-year gap between the early events of the poem and Beowulf's climactic battle with a dragon, which proved a big hurdle in filming.
His screenplay focuses on the battle between Beowulf and the troll, and fleshes out the story with "several significant characters".
But he believes the script is true to "the bones of the story, the horror, the beauty and the doom".
He said: "If the Beowulf poet rolls over in his grave, I'm trusting it'll just be to get a better view of the screen."
A spokeswoman for Steve Bing's production company, Shangri-La Entertainment, declined to comment on its Beowulf script.

John Burrow, emeritus professor in the University of Bristol's English department, said Seamus Heaney's accessible 1999 translation of the "ripping yarn" had broadened interest, and that he would welcome the kind of mainstream interest the films might provoke.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

the Reading Room

The Reading Room can be found at: www.cairnwood.net/1.html

Bullet Proof Soul by Steven L. Shrewsbury (Black Death Books)

Interesting set-up, intriguing characters, and fast paced action make Bullet Proof Soul a quick and entertaining read. The book is a collection of short stories, all centering on uber-agent Dack Shannon, an albino with a bad attitude and a thirst for heavy handed justice. Blurbs on the book cover liken "Shrews" to Robert E. Howard, and while I find that to be an overstatement, the author certainly produces a kinetic prose that would have set well next to Howard's work in Weird Tales. A valiant effort and one I recommend.

What I'm reading now:

I'm now deep into Matt Bondurant's The Third Translation http://www.hyperionbooks.com/titlepage.asp?ISBN=1401301819

Wow. This book is fantastic so far. As the reviews and blurbs state it is a very original first novel that I feel invokes the best of authors like Umberto Eco and Robert Anton Wilson. Highly recommended thus far. Will review further once I've completed it.

In defense of Ward Churchill?

Alright, the lynch mob is ready to string up Colorado professor Ward Churchill for daring to voice an educated opinion about the Bush Administration's policies on the world stage and how their actions have given justification to the "terrorist community". At no point does Churchill side with the Sadamm's and Osama's of the world, nor does he justify their actions beyond holding them to the same standard that we, meaning the U.S. military, hold ourselves to. You just might want to read Steven Grant's Permanent Damage column over at CBR.

Let me clarify that I am not a Ward Churchill supporter...but I do support "free speech" and "truth"... It bothers me to see Churchill's essay dismantled and misinterpretted, despite whatever else he has ever said and done.

Family Jailed for Vampire Slaying?

Last week, six men were jailed for ripping out the heart of a corpse they believed was 'undead'. As Monica Petrescu in Bucharest writes, to many Romanians, vampires are not legend but terrifying reality
It was just before midnight as Gheorghe Marinescu and five of his relatives crept into the graveyard in the small Romanian village of Marotinul de Sus. They knew which plot they were looking for – a simple earth grave with a wooden cross bearing the name Petre Toma – and quickly, but quietly, set about digging.

continue reading here:

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/06/wvamp06.xml

I want to visit this region sooo bad. Think I can convince the wife to make a trek to Bucharest? I'm sure my brother and sister-in-law, Nick and Cassie, would be up for it. :)

On writing

Charles Shultz, creator of Peanuts, once wrote, "Writer's Block is for Amateurs." The man, besides being a certifiable genius for creating Snoopy and company, is also correct. Any writer worth their salt should never experience "writer's block" for more than 60 seconds. This is your job. It is what you do...there's no time for moping around or "searching for your muse". There is an old maxim: "Writer's write." So, "blockheads", get off y're duff and write. There's no rest for the wicked.

For me it's simple. I might have a scene or two in my head, but for the most part, the stories tell themselves. I'm writing as fast as I can so that I can find out what happens to character "x"...I am as shocked as anyone by the twists and turns, because they just flow out of me. Now, sure, I go back and tweak it here and there after the fact, but I am essentially a first time reader and in the exact same boat as you are when you pick up one of my books. The characters write themselves.

I love writing and creating new worlds and I love meeting all the varied characters and learning what makes them tick. When I'm writing I get lost in the world I'm creating, led about by an invisible tether like an astral form projected into the realm of fantasy. It's a beautiful and sometimes horrifying experience. I'm sure my fellow writers and their spouses would agree.

Hmmm. I feel like getting lost right now.

"Adam Moore stood on the balcony overlooking Princes Street and watched the throng of revelers disappear beyond St. Cuthbert's."

Gotta run. Mr. Moore has a date with a demonologist. :)

This article ran in this Sunday's paper

Sharing a different kind of faith
Asatru brethren teach openness
BY KRISTIN HARTY of the Marion Chronicle Tribune (2/6/05)

John Powell gripped the hammer of Thor in both hands and began the short ceremony, facing north.
"In the name of Thor, god of thunder, I ward this stead against all evil and unholy beings," said Powell, 53, an ordained ghodi, or priest, of the Asatru religion. "Make it a place of goodness this day."
Stepping to each of the four cardinal corners, Powell repeated a version of the prayer.
"By the power of Mjollnir" (pronounced "MILL-ner") "hammer of Thor, I ward this stead against all evil and unholy ettins, wights, jodins and trolls," Powell said. "By the power of the god of thunder, I make this place pure."
Thus began Jan. 31's "blot" (say "blet"), or blessing, the regular service of a small group of Grant County area residents who practice Asatru, the ancient religion of the Norse. A pagan religion, Asatru is the original pre-Christian religion of the Europeans. The word Asatru means "belief in the gods" in old Norse.
Raised as a Christian, Powell, owner of Natural Gifts & Healing on North Washington Street, has been practicing Asatru for about five years. He leads a small kindred that gathers at his shop once a month for a blot, which includes a short formal ceremony followed by a Hoosier-style feast and quiet conversation.
"An ettin is an elf," said Powell, an articulate and intelligent man, who is a walking encyclopedia of Norse mythology. "A jotin is a giant. A wight is a ghost, for lack of a better word. A troll is a dwarf."
On that Sunday, Powell blessed each of the six guests gathered for the blot by dipping a yew branch into a ram's horn full of homemade ale and sprinkling liquid on each person's head. He offered a small bowl of food to the gods as a sacrifice, walking outside and saying a blessing before flinging the apple and piece of bread onto the snowy ground.
"All here are welcome. All here may partake of the feast. And all are welcome this day to the feast of the Valkyrie," Powell said, ending the ceremony after returning to the table inside.
"Well, let's eat, guys," he said. "Who wants some mashed potatoes and chicken and noodles?"
"Me!" said Donna Powell, John's wife, who is also an ordained gydha ("GO-da"), the Norse word for priestess.
"Do you want a plate or a bowl?" John Powell said. "Pass 'em down one at a time. ... Do you want the mashed potatoes underneath the noodles or separate?"
Although Christianity is mainstream in the Midwest, Asatru is not unheard of. The Indiana Asatru Council lists more than a dozen kindred Web sites in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. A spokesman at the council couldn't be reached by telephone.
Powell's kindred, called the Kololf Cadby of Jarlsfjord Kindred - translated the Dark Wolves of the Warrior Settlement Kindred - isn't affiliated with the IAC. He has remained independent, he said, because he doesn't want to restrict membership to those of Scandinavian descent, which some organizations require.
"We are open to people with open minds," he said, adding that he has not encountered too much discrimination because of his beliefs. "We don't try to force our beliefs on anyone. We have had a few incidents where, literally, teenagers were told by their grandparents that if they came into our shop, they were going to go to hell.
"There have been times, we are sure, when Christians in the area have come in and checked us out," Powell said. "They look around, they're looking for satanic Bibles and skulls. They don't find them. So they pretty much just leave."
Although the word "pagan" conjures negative images in many mainstream minds, local adherents of Asatru say the path they follow promotes health and well-being for all. Powell sells a variety of herbs, stones and crystals in the store that he believes have healing powers.
"He made something for me we call leopard balm," said Donna Powell, who has degenerative arthritis and gets around in a motorized scooter. At the front of the scooter is a royal blue dragon's head, which John Powell made out of wood, to resemble an ancient Norse long ship.
"It's made from virgin olive oil and different herbs and spices," Donna Powell said. "It does everything from calm down muscles that are spasming to helping your sinuses if they're really congested to opening your lungs if they're really screwed up."
"It will stop migraines in a matter of seconds," John Powell said.
Huntington resident Darin Redding, 34, joined Marion's kindred about two years ago. Raised in the Salvation Army church, he is now studying to become a godhi.
"The only thing I can really say is it's what's inside of you," said Redding, who is called Ottar by fellow kindred members.
After espousing Asatru, he learned that his great-grandmother had practiced white witchcraft, another pagan religion that focuses on natural healing.
"It has to be part of you," he said. "When I told my mom, she said, 'I wondered how long it was going to take you.'"
Initially uncomfortable being open about his religion, Redding now wears a Thor's hammer pendant on a chain around his neck. Thor, the Norse god of thunder, is usually portrayed as a large, powerful man with a red beard. He carries a hammer, which flashes lightning whenever he throws it.
"I was a little worried about it at work," Redding said. "There's a lot of holier-than-thou people where I work. They're always trying to convert everybody. But I thought, 'I'm happy with this religion. This is what I want to do. There's no reason I should hide it.'"
Although most Asatru adherents don't believe the Norse myths are literally true, adherents believe the gods are spiritual realities and are helpful influences in their daily lives. They communicate with the gods by casting runes, or symbols, through which they believe the gods answer questions.
Powell, a Marion native, said he believes there are plenty of people in the area who practice alternative religions.
"I truly believe that if you could get everyone in Grant County who had nontraditional beliefs together at one time, you could fill Matter Park," he said, adding that he knows of a number of Christians who have bought crystals in his store.
"There are many people who are curious. Paganism is an open religion. It's not a religion that says, 'You do it our way or you're going to suffer.' Paganism says, 'Do what's right for you.'"

from the latest "AFA_Bearclaw"

"I believe in Asatru, in the Gods and Goddesses as mighty livingforces within us and without us, and in the fatherhood of Odin, first among Gods. I believe that these are the Gods of our Folk, and that Nature would have us follow them. I believe in the preservation and furtherance of our Folk, the People of the North, as a religious imperative for we live in the Gods and they live in us. I believe that we are tied by special bonds of duty and destiny to all People of theNorth everywhere, and that we are one with our ancestors and our descendants. I believe in orlog, which is the fate we make for ourselves, and in the values and virtues of our Folk as revealed in the history of our people."

~Steve McNallen, AFA

What have I been up to?

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