Something Different

My youngest turned two the other day and amongst his haul of presents (most of which revolve around tractor-themes) was a Mr Potatohead. This elicited screams of delight from the older two, who then ‘helped’ him make his Potatohead by taking it off him and doing it. They were unusually cooperative—they compromised on the choice of eyes, teeth, hat, arms and nose. The resultant Potatohead was anatomically correct (well for a potato-human hybrid) and they presented it back to Henry who chuckle and pulled all the bits out. Then Henry poked them all back into the various holes and created the sort of Potatohead you’d get from bathing in gamma rays and getting angry. Three arms, tongue jutting out of his arse, no eyes, that sort of thing. He finalised the whole thing by shoving the toy glasses on my face (better than shoving the tongue up my bottom, I suppose).

What made me chuckle was the fact Henry, being two, had very few conventions to follow. He put the limbs and eyes and hats where he fancied, and liked the general look of the creation. It’s like when he draws—he just gets crayons and scribbles like a Brass-Rubber on speed. It looks good to him so f%$£ it!

Creativity without boundaries is something many adult artists aspire to in their work. They try to emulate that period of your life where you can just splurge out something that looks/feels good to you and be damned with what others tell you. It doesn’t last long though. As soon as you hit school the restrictions start. Some are understandable—you have to write letters so others can read them... it’s called communication. Others try to channel you down conventional lines: stories have a start, middle and end. The kids are marked down if their short stories don’t follow that line. This was troublesome for my eldest son, Charlie, who has sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia, and tends to throw his ideas down like Jackson Pollock painted. Its taken years to adapt him into a conventional writing structure (and we only did it because he has an exam in two months where he has to write like that!).

But creativity isn’t just about form, it’s about content. One of the best things about being a Geek-dad is that my interests—reading, writing, comics, DnD, drawing, Dr Who, fantasy—have permeated into my kids in a positive way. Whether you’re a fantasy fan or not, or whether you think comics are a childish media or not, you can’t argue that they don’t fire the imagination. My two eldest have seen this geek-heritage, and seen my writing and publishing books, and been inspired. Charlie (10) is an avid reader, years ahead of his age, and is munching through fantasy and sci-fi series like there’s no tomorrow. He loves creating in his games, is mad-keen on DnD and creating stories around his characters, adores his Lego still, and scribbles comics all the time. Whereas his written work at school is constrained, the stuff at home is wonderfully imaginative.

Evelyn (8 ½) naturally enjoys all the things her elder brother does, with a slight chick-bent. When she plays DnD she likes the role-playing parts, and making the backstory, rather than the slaughter of kobolds. Her reading is definitely girly, although she is reading Harry Potter again (she read the first three at 7) and she’s discovered some wonderful series (Holly Webb’s Rose series, RJ Anderson’s Knife series). She read Jacqueline Wilson for a good while, but stopped recently as she felt they were a bit miserable in places. Although she does well at most things, Evelyn’s strength is writing. She’s written a whole bunch of stories, some only half-complete, others done and dusted. Some she illustrates, others not. She’s planning to be an author (as well as dancer, singer, actress—Charlie is planning to be in MI5...) and if the following story is anything to go by she may well manage it!

She wrote this after a shitty period of bullying at school, which I’ll tell you about another time. It was a way of trying to express her feelings and write a story about being believed by people. As convention goes, it has a start, middle and end, and you can see the influence that Disney Channel programmes and Jacqueline Wilson has had on her. But (proud dad that I am) this is her own work, with the help of Microsoft Word doing that red and green squiggles, Daddy. No-one else has touched it!

Here goes:

Something Different by Evelyn M Kitson

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” I was in the playground on a Thursday; chatting with my friends Lol, C and Abi, when guess who wandered up? Robin, the school bully, even though she’s a girl. She always picks me as her first victim. It all started in kindergarten. She asked me if she could sit in the empty seat beside me, so I said yes because I was new. She peered at my writing and suddenly burst out laughing and I didn’t even know what was so funny.

So since then we’ve been deadly enemies.

“What’s new Fesilly?”  She said, waving her arms about. “Look! Look! I’m Fesilly.”

“The name’s Felicity, Robin. Why don’t you go flap your wings and let us talk in peace?” My friends snigger uncertainly looking at Robin with weary eyes.

“Flick! I know a place were we can talk in peace! Lets go!”

So we did.

When we got inside the school, Robin was waiting. When I sat down she fired a spitball at me and by the lockers she grabbed my overshirt and threw it in the bin!

***

“Hey sweetie! How was school?”  asked my Mom as I walked in the door.

“If you want to know how many good things happened today, zero is your answer.” I answered.

“Robin?”

“You got it.”

“I don’t believe you, Felicity.  I think you’re as bad as each other.”

Ignoring her retort I went to the kitchen cupboard and got some oreo biscuits and started dipping them in my milk.

***

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! I woke up and hit my alarm clock. I got out of bed and pulled back my curtains. Aaahh!! Only two more weeks till the summer hols. 3 months of no school! It was a sunny day, which was what I needed, maybe, just maybe, it would lighten Robin’s rainy mood. I pulled on a white frill top and some denim shorts. Did I ever tell you I’m ten? Did I ever tell you I have 3 brothers and they tell on me at home? They also tell my head teacher that I’ve been naughty in the day so my head teacher sends a letter home to say I’ve had a ‘behaviour malfunction’.

I went and poured some granola and then my Mom walked in. My sly older brother Ben came in behind Mom and then Chazz, my 5 year old brother, and last but least my 8 year old brother, Harry.

" YOUNG LADY! Why on earth would you go skating outside late?” boomed Mom, “No skating for a week!”

I can’t believe it! Normally Mom would just give me a PS3 ban. Or maybe an XBOX ban or a PSP ban. Or sometimes a computer ban! No skating for a week?! .

***

 DDDDDDRRRRRIIIINNNGG! Went the school bell, ringing in my ears.

“Just stay away from Robin!”

“OK, Abi.” I responded, hoping Abi would come to my rescue if anything happened.

I went to tenth grade class and sat down. Robin sat down next to me and I ignored her just like Abi had told me to.

“Right! We are learning about when you wait longer for things to happen, they’re always better, ” said my teacher.

“Felicity couldn’t do that,” said Robin, “…and she can’t spell supercallafradjalisticexpialadousios, either.” A row of giggles shot through the class. I think my teacher had had enough already.

“PLAYTIME!” he bellowed. Normally, I would have jumped up and run out of the room without second thoughts and would be grabbed by Mr.Enliten (the teacher) and would be sent to the head. Today, however, I sat there, with my arms folded and just, well, waiting.

My teacher was surprised and said, “Felicity, you can go first.”

So I did. I did that day after day, as well as sitting quietly and instead of talking, paying attention. It had been 4 days since Robin had called me Fesilly, but she hadn’t stopped picking on me. She had been spreading rumours about me doing naughty things, but no one believed her. Because of that, Robin got narked and got her gooners and herself to push me into an alleyway near where I lived and beat me up. I was coming home with black eyes, bruises, scratches and sometimes even bloody noses and still Mom didn’t believe me.

It had been a week since Robin had ambushed me when I was talking in the playground. For some reason Mr. Enliten called me into the classroom to talk.

“Felicity, myself and some other teachers have been thinking, we have done a little look at your work, done a little bit of research, and we have, well, found out, that…you’ve…well…got… Dyslexia.” said Mr.Enliten, his eyes were full of kindness and warmth. I didn’t believe him at first, but then I saw he wanted to help me.

“OK.” I said, rather quietly.

“Felicity, you mustn’t worry. We will help you. You’re a bright girl. A lovely girl.”

I slipped out of the room. I’d heard of Dyslexia. It means that sometimes you might get your letters or your numbers the wrong way round. Mr.Enliten had already told my Mom. Still, I went outside and joined my friends. I could feel like someone, or somebody was watching me. I turned. 

“Felicity, we like you now ‘cos your not getting told off anymore,” said all of girls at the equipment area.

Robin’s followers and Robin were still worrying me. That night I hurried home and literally ran past the usual beating up alleyway. Then the next week all the boys said they liked me and thought I was a very nice girl! Then that was the best week ever. Still of course trying to run away from Robin would so not work. Robin grabbed me by the arm just as I was walking up the driveway.

“Hey, strangely different girl.” she said. I don’t now why, but my eyes suddenly welled with tears. “…and look! She’s crying!”

Suddenly all Robin’s followers came out from behind trees and cars. Robin threw me to the ground and kicked me hard.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” I yelled desperately. My chest (where Robin had kicked me) was throbbing. It hurt so much. The pain was like losing friends. Friends that weren’t worth losing. I suddenly realised that everyone from school was there watching. Them? Why on earth would they do that! I looked further into the crowd of people… and… there… I could see… three sad faces. Lol… C…and…Abi. After a while people started to speak, not droop.

“Robin why… don’t… you, well… like… leave her alone?”

“Yeah, can’t you see she doesn’t like it?”

Suddenly three familiar voices started talking. “Yeah, Robin. All these years you’ve made us scared. From… well…you.”

“Abi’s right Robin. Leave her alone,” said C.

“Uh-huh. Leave her alone. Leave us all alone.”

“B-u-u-t…” Robin started but trailed of. “I mean, like… look, she’s crying!”

“Well of course she is, Robin! You made her!”

“Robin, you’re… well we’ve never brought ourselves to say this… Robin… well… you’re……mean.”

“Oi! You there!” Came a familiar voice… Mom! “Leave my daughter alone!” Mom ran out and pulled me from Robin’s grip. Robin stammered and ran away, faster and faster until she was nothing but a dot miles and miles away. Her gooners did likewise.

***

 “I’m so proud of you!” said my mom, as we walked in the door. “…about the boys and Robin, I believe you now, and after the school holidays, I will step straight into that school. I can’t believe it! It’s horrible! It’s mean! Why it’s more than mean! It’s disgraceful! I’m going to go to your head soon. What’s his name? Oh, yes Mr. Flint, I’m going to tell Mr. Flint what they’ve done to you!”  

“Thanks,” I said, baffled.

Now every body trusts me and likes me because I did the right thing. And when you wait longer for things, they’re always better.

THE END

Take Cover!

I can remember when I was a teen and getting big into music how excited I'd be about new releases. My mate Woodsy would fire me up and we'd nip out of school at lunchtime, bike down to town, and count out the 10p pieces to buy the new LP/12 inch/single. Downloads and CDs have never replicated that for me. I loved the covers as much as the music--in my earliest music loving years it was the album covers of Iron Maiden and Marillion that did it especially.

So it is with comparable enjoyment that I can unveil the cover for Darkness Rising Book Two- Quest. This is the second part of Volume 1 of the Prism series, and it boasts a fresh edit, a new prologue (with Torm) and an extended epilogue. I might post the extra material on the Nurolia website, for those who bought the original undivided Volume 1 which was available between Sept 11 and March 12.

The cover was done by Ceri Clark, an author previously at FIBP. Ceri is independent now, but is doing some stuff with a new label called Myrddin (appropriate as she's Welsh!). She has a fantastic style and technique and we set out to make the cover link with that of Book One (Chained). Hence we used the same model, but altered the background and colour tone to make it distinct.

The full dustcover/ wrap around displays a coastal scene with a castle/city atop a rocky outcrop. This is representative of Goldoria City, which is where the finale of the book is situated. The book begins with Emelia, wounded by the demonic humour being taken by Jem, Hunor and Orla to the sanctuary of Master Ten. En route they bump into some old acquaintances from Book One. A parallel story arc follows Aldred, Baron Enfarson's son, as he investigates both Hunor and the murder of a maiden in Eviksburg.

To me the real star of the book is Vildor, Lord of the Ghasts, whose scenes in the Dead City provide most of my quotes for Twitter's Sample Sunday. Having just written Prism book 5 (first half of volume 3) its great knowing where the story takes his character.

The book is pencilled for release in early August. I'll update on here, and on the World of Nurolia website here! Until then bask in the glory of Ceri's work, and check out her website at http://cericlark.com/

'Yes it is, not that it be...'

I’ve just finished reading the astonishingly good ‘ThreeHearts and Three Lions’ by Poul Anderson. It’s a book that was writtencontemporaneously to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but unlike the rather sombreprose of the master it fair bounces along. The gags are funny, the charactersgreat and I can’t recommend it enough. Yet there was one bit of it that irkedme, and that was one of the character’s dialogue.

The character in question is a dwarf (Hugi) whom Holder, themain guy, picks up on the way. He’s a Scottish dwarf and, given this book setthe standard for many fantasy works since, I have no issue with that.Unfortunately the author writes his dialogue in mock-Scottish style. I cansense the cringing through my keyboard already. For example:

‘Mon, where’ve ye been a while?’ cried Hugi. ‘We’ve beenfretted sick o’er ye. Na word or track past the lake’s edge, till ye returnsoaked and reeking o’ wicked places.’

‘Noo we maun galumph quick’s may be oot o’ this ill realm,’ gruntedHugi. ‘Sooner we’re in honest kands, better oor chances be o’ living to bragaboot this dunce’s trip.’

You get the idea! WTF? Or in Irish dialect ‘Wa thi feck?’Why on earth do writers do it? Throw in a little dialect, perhaps a fewcolloquialisms appropriate to the character, but whole speeches sounding likesomeone taking the piss? It brings to mind Dick Van Dyke’s attempts at aCocker-nee accent, which must have made the Kray twins put a bounty out on Dickback in the sixties. Or Russel Crowe’s unforgivable attempts at regionaldialects in the last Robin Hood romp, which were a whistle-stop tour of everyaccent in the British Isles.

But you can kind of pardon films. Actors are, after all,human and not all are nutters like Gary Oldman (who insisted on specific voicecoaches for his eastern European accent in Dracula, and still sounded like a camp Hammerhorror vampire). And it’s well acknowledged that most of the US think the UK islike a Sherlock Holmes film, all smog, cobbles and rowdy taverns (Halifax ISlike that, but most of the UK isn’t...). From authors, though, I expect adifferent standard. And for fantasy authors I expect the best. Why? Becausethose of us who write in it have to battle through years of prejudice againstit being a succession of Tolkien rip-offs, plump with dwarven singing, orcsa-chopping and wizards with pointy hats. And the mock-Shakespearean dialoguesdon’t help (my personal opinion is that only one character in the whole offiction can use phrases like ‘Forsooth’, ‘Verily’ and ‘Varlet’ and that isThor... no one else... ‘I say thee nay!’).

It’s like there’s a covert style-guide brought out by amateurauthors...

Step 1: add –eth and –est to verbs in a strangeunpredictable fashion. Geteth me?

Step 2: extra (silent) E’s will augmente the realisme ofthine worke.

Step 3: Reverse thine order of nouns and verbs. E,g. ‘Verilythe Emperor most darke shall be banished thus.’ ‘Smite the ogre foul, I beseechthee.’

Step 4: it’s ‘Ye’  and‘Thee’ not ‘The’

Step 5: Sling around a few medieval terms... ‘thee’ ‘thy’‘thou’ ‘art’ ‘doth’ ‘mine’ (not ‘my’ as in ‘Taste mine war-hammer, orcish scum’)

No-one minds one or two, and to be fair it’s perpetuated bythe UK Touriste industry in places like York andChester (Ye Olde Fucking Tea Shoppe, my Wife ofBathe sized-arse!). But authors really screw their books up with it. Wags likePratchett and Eddings mock its usage in their books

Oddly I don’t mind modern slang in dialogue, or evenreasonable use of apostrophes in regional dialect, or even use of the word‘feck’ in Roddy Doyle’s books. It’s the bogus medieval dialogue that reallygets to me. And pirates that say ‘Arrrhhh’ a lot (unless it’s in response to acannonball blowing their leg off).

So I’ll leave you with the classic sketch from Blackadder 2in which Lord Blackadder goes in search of the wise-woman....

Hello Kidney!

I was asked the other day why I didn't blog about serious stuff, you know, the sort of thing that I do at work. The answer's kind of obvious- that's work, that's what I do during the day, this is fun, this is what I do when I'm relaxing.

Nonetheless it did give me a thought, and that was 'What could I blog about related to work, the wouldn't be too gory, too boring, too technical or too confidential?'

Tough one. I split my time between Intensive Care (synonym 'Expensive Scare') which isn't renowned for laughs, and anaesthesia, which someone said is 99% boredom, 1% sheer OMG. I do have other stuff that I do, related to patient safety, management, education and so forth. And then it occured to me I could write a bit about organ donation.

Organ donation is a strange topic. I say this because it always reminds me how difficult it is to remember when I didn't know about something. Let me elaborate. Before I became a doctor I was a fairly astute kid. I watched plenty of TV, read a lot, was into science (and comics, and DnD, yeah, yeah, get to the point). What exactly, back then, did I think organ donation was?

I had almost no concept of what it entailed. I'd seen donor cards in the GPs surgery, and perhaps adverts in papers. I can recall comedy sketches about it (the bouncing heart in Airplane; the organ collectors in Monty Python's Meaning of Life). But what did it involve? Were these organs you donated when you were dead popped out days after? Weeks after? How were they put back in? Who actually needed them?

It's a very difficult thing as a doctor specialising in an area to try and think back to the days of not knowing what we know. It'd be the same for anyone who dedicates themselves to an area (whether law, education, IT, whatever). Of course, things are a little different now. In the 70s and early 80s computers were basic, and you had a homeopathic choice of TV channels. Books were the main source of info, which required forewarning and access. Now even the 10 year olds have smart phones, and Google has a frightening amount of power. Patients are far more informed, irrespective of social class and intellect. It makes the job bothe easier and harder when you are discussing topics like organ donation with them, because information doesn't always come with quality controls!

My first real experience of organ donation was as a registrar in Birmingham, about a decade ago now. Prior to this I had a mixture of ignorance and indifference, not really being aware of the benefits. In a sense I thought there was a ghoulish-ness to the process. Then I worked on a paediatric ICU, followed by  liver and cardiac ICUs, and saw the patients in need of transplants. It's one thing to be told statistics; it's another thing entirely to see an eight year old dwindling day on day praying for a liver transplant.

So now I'm the Clinical Lead for organ donation at my small trust in Manchester, and its part of my job to try and raise awareness in the hospital about it. Because most doctors are like I was pre- my experience in Birmingham-- a little bit indifferent and a little wary. And if doctors are like that, you can see why the average Joe is even more so. About 30% of the UK population is on the Organ Donor Register, and about 800K join each year. Soberingly in the UK there are almost 8000 patients awaiting a transplant, ten times that in the USA. Most of these are kidney transplants.500 people die each year in the UK whilst waiting, of all ages. About half of donations in the UK come from living donors (kidneys obviously) which is an amazing figure.

But these are numbers, and seeing the benefit of transplants, I can say that I'm really pleased that my career has taken me in that direction. It's an amazing thing to be part of.

Serious post over... click on the link if you wanted to find out more about transplants and donation in the UK here or in the US right here.




Next time I'll be back into the realm of fantasy, but in the interim here is one of the comedy clips on how it DOESN'T HAPPEN (and feel free to contact me if you wanted more info on any of the above).

Byrne, baby, Byrne

Of the dozens of influences that have snuck into my writing (and by that I mean not just the published fantasy stuff, but the unpublished sci-fi and contemporary fiction pieces) comics have to be a major part.

Those who read my sporadic blog posts will have ascertained this, from my posts on Stan Lee, Superhero movies and Bryan Talbot. There are plenty of literary comic examples which would make the comic  devotee nod with agreement: Gaiman, Moore, Morrison, Wagner, Ennis. But (bar the 2000AD writers) most of those I loved as I matured. The stand out for me as a kid was John Byrne.

I got thinking about this after two 3 star reviews for my book on Amazon US. They were fair reviews- both liked the book, but commented that it jumped about a bit and spent time on characters who didn't seem to feature much. Part of that is the fact Volume One, of which book 1 Chained is only the first half of, was written as a larger book and then divided. But, to be fair, the other reason is that's my style.

I always loved stories where minor plot lines  and characters were introduced, hinting at a larger future sub-plot, which developed later and linked in with the main plot threads. The comics author and artist John Byrne was a master of it, and my love of his work in the 70/80s has stayed with me since.
I first recall reading Byrne during his X-men run with Chris Claremont. Inked by Terry Austin his style was awesome: he defined the look of what was to become the most popular Marvel title of the decade. Such great stories then too: Dark Phoenix, Days of Future Past, Arcade, Alpha Flight, Prometheus. Stunning. I read both US and UK reprints back then, so also caught the reprints of Iron Fist, plus his Captain America work (Union Jack and Baron Blood sticks in my brain).
So when Byrne took on Fantastic Four I was really pleased- I started collecting them around the time they went into the Negative Zone, catching up the older issues as I went. To me the FF run (perhaps 60 issues) was his greatest work. I adored what he did with the characters. The sub-plots, the acknowledgment of the rich supporting characters and prior stories. He loved both the cosmic tales (Galactus especially was done well by him) and the human (Sue loosing the baby springs to mind).

It had a huge influence on me. I compared all other writers to his style, and felt few came up to scratch. His art was excellent, irrespective of the inkers, and when he wrote Alpha Flight I was hooked on that as well (though my brother bought that one). It had the same style- the sub-plots, the evolving story-lines, almost soap opera in style.
I followed Byrne for a while after FF and Alpha Flight. He was becoming a bit of a victim to his own success. West Coast Avengers was good, but he tried to screw around previous writer's work too much; Hulk didn't work for me (Hulkbusters...?). When he bounced to DC I bought a few, but I never liked re-boots and never really liked DC heroes.



My tastes in comics changed around then, becoming more interested in mature readers titles. I lost track of JB, although I saw his New Men in Forbidden Planet the other week and was tempted.
His influence is obviously double-edged. When you read his work in one go the plots work great, building over time. If you read them as isolated issues then it's frustrating. My Prism fantasy series will run to six books, and when read together all the little strands knit together. I think of a few fantasy writers who do the same: George RR Martin and Erikson are two. And to be fair, not everyone likes that style. But I enjoy it, and it seems to work for me. And I have JB's influence to thank for it.
Perhaps I need a new sub-genre, like Space Opera, but fantasy style. "Soap Fantasy" comes to mind, but that sounds a little too late-night naughty TV channel for me....any (clean) suggestions welcome.

Come and meet the SkullDust Circle

I've been a little negligent with my blog this month, for which I apologise. Firstly work has been crazy busy/poorly, which is kind of fair enough (as I get paid for that stuff). Second there's a lot going down at the publishers meaning I've had to re-upload my Kindle book. Third, there's those three little people that live with me, whom I thought were hobbits but turned out to be my kids. Seems they like to spend time with me--quality time that doesn't involve me playing with my i-phone.

The final reason is that I've become part of a new blog. It's a writers blog, specifically its a group of us who've joined together to post stuff about our genres and writing. I thought it'd be good as I've tried to avoid droning on about my book on this blog, and the Roaring Mouse is to present others small-press/self-pub works.

It's called the Skull Dust Circle, and there are seven of us in the Circle (well, strictly its a septagon) and all of the guys on it are awesome authors that I'm flattered to be associated with. William Kenney and Gary Vanucci got the blog up and going. William is the author of In the Shadow of the Black Sun epic fantasy series, and is a superb artist as well. His own site is here. Gary is the author of the Ashenclaw books and their preludes, the Wothlanda series. His books have a very DnD/RPG bent to them, much like my own. His Eye on Ashenclaw blog is here.

Jeremy Laszlo will be familiar to those who read the Roaring Mouse as I interviewed him earlier in May. He has written three books of his awesome series Blood and Brotherhood Saga. His style is greatly detailed and great fun to read. His website makes mine look like its written on a chalkboard, and you can find it just here! Benedict Martin writes fantasy, and draws rather amusing cartoons on his blog. He's at this site. David Woods and Stefain are both new authors whom I have yet to meet, but am certain I'll be hearing more of.

So the site will be a place for us to talk about our work, fantasy and sci-fi in general, and post about topics of interest. I've posted two so far- one on David Eddings and his rules of fantasy (Fantasy by numbers) and one a re-post about anti-heroes in fantasy (anti-heroic fantasy).

Take a look over at the Circle if you get the chance. Cloaks of Elvenkind optional.

On stretchy trousers, shark-repellent spray and ZOD

There’s a scene in the new Avengers movie where Captain America is sat feeling like a man out of time, not getting the cultural references around him. Then someone says a line about flying monkeys (as in the Wizard of Oz) and he smiles and says, “That one I get.”

It’s a scene slightly reminiscent of a great piece in the Civil War: Frontline comic where Ben Ulrich and Sally Floyd interview Cap in his cell and point out all the things about modern day America he doesn’t know about or doesn’t get. That’s an aside, as this blog isn’t about the comic (although I do love the Avengers franchise dearly)—it’s about the changing nature of superhero films.

When I came out of the Avengers last week, with my two eldest kids (9 and 8) we were buzzing about the movie. What was so special about it? My son hit the nail on the head as we drove home (as he often does). “Dad, that was awesome... it was just like the comic.”

And there you have it. The reasons it’s so good is that it was just like the comic. From the dialogue, to the plot, to the action, to the depiction of the Hulk. It was spot on. Now that’s no great surprise—Joss Whedon, amongst many things, wrote for Marvel (The Runaways was excellent, and his run on X-men was OK). But he carries something more to it... an understanding of how to translate what looks good on the comic page into something that doesn’t look like CGI cheese on the screen. It’s not simply a matter of special effects- Transformers 2 proved that. It’s the actors and the plot not coming across as too daft that makes it work.

Of course Avengers can’t claim to be the first to achieve that. There have been some amazing superhero movies over the years—but it made me think, when did they really start to reflect the comics? As I supped a glass of red wine I pondered the question, with the world becoming as fuzzy as a James T Kirk love scene

I grew up (well got chronologically older) in the seventies and eighties. It was an era where special effects really came into being, and marked the boom in sci-fi films and series (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Alien, Buck Rogers etc). There were attempts at fantasy films that hit or missed (Hawk the Slayer, Excalibur, Sword and Sorcerer, Conan, Krull... a rather mixed bag). And there were superhero films.

 I adored the sixties Batman re-runs as a kid, and indeed the film, which was shown fairly regularly in the pre-VCR days. Ironically it reflected the comic at the time it was made, but by the time I watched it Batman the comic was undergoing a re-birth with darker stories and grittier characters. And I was never a big DC fan. Then the big screen played host to Superman, and the little screen to the Hulk and Spiderman.

They just weren’t right. Superman was a great film, as was Superman 2, and I got the duvet cover, the posters, the bubblegum cards, and so forth. Superman 2 had the super-villians (kneel before Zod!) but it still didn’t feel like the comic, which was far more cosmic and on a different power scale. Similarly the Hulk series gave us great lines about not making me angry, and the eternal debate about stretchable trousers, but it was a different kettle of (green) fish to clashing with The Leader, The Abomination, Doc Samson, The U-Foes etc. And Spiderman? Loved the wall crawling, could cope with chunky white bracelets, but here was a dude with the best roster of villains ever in comics. And he spent most episodes battling hoods with pistols. Sigh.

The effects, the costumes, the stories just couldn’t match the comics. When did that change? I’m tempted to say with Batman, in the late Eighties. Yet even with the wonder of Tim Burton, and I do love those first two films, there is a vibe of underlying campness to it, a sort of silliness, that didn’t reflect what we were reading at the time (Batman in late eighties had seminal works like The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One).

It was Spiderman who saved it for me. The X-men was close, and in retrospect probably turned the tide, but Sam Raimi’s trilogy was perfect. I’d loved Raimi’s Evil Dead films as a student, mainly for the brilliant Evil Dead 2, which has the best lines ever in a horror film... and a chainsaw grafted to a stump of an arm. With Spiderman he got it perfect—the effects, the story, the acting. The sense of pity you had for Peter Parker that pervaded the comics from day one was captured, as was the menace of the Green Goblin and the tragedy that follows. Spiderman 2 was even better—I can watch and re-watch the scene in the bank where he pulls Aunt May down as the vault door hurtles overhead.

And they’ve gone from strength to strength. The X-men trilogy was well done, as were the two prequels. The two Iron Man films were also great, and I loved Thor. Less certain about the two Hulk ones, Daredevil and Elektra and I’ve never been a big Batman fan so the Dark Knight style films have left me feeling a bit despondent. The prospect of a Spiderman re-boot isn’t thrilling me, I’ll admit, perhaps because I’m sick of re-boots and liked the previous films so much.

Of course, other (non superhero) comics have had the big screen flourish. They are a mixed bag too: Alan Moore’s have struggled notably, sadly as he’s probably the best comics writer alive (Watchmen was OK, as was V for Vendetta, but League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contravened the Geneva convention); 300 was cool, Wanted I’ve not even seen (although the comic was a let down). Kick Ass is on my to be watched list (the comic pushed the taste boundary for me too).

Now they’ve got it right, from a comics fan perspective, I hope they stay on track. The worst thing in the world would be to get carried away and let shite stories slip in. I’m hoping for an awesome Avengers 2, and given the popularity of the current film I’m certain they’ll do one. And despite all I’ve written, I loved those superhero movies/series when I was a kid because it was still a buzz seeing characters you love coming to life on the screen—even if they weren’t quite right.

Which would lead perfectly into talking about The Hobbit....

But that’s a blog for another day....

A funny Spiderman clip to finish with... Kenny Everett's take on the Web slinger...