December 8th, 2009 by Neal
Look at it for a minute. You’ll get it.
Or if you don’t, please, spike your Tab with Drano.
This is real, btw, not a manip.
Math fail, ethics fail, and hypocrisy fail all in one.
May 11th, 2009 by Neal
I signed this last weekend at Brave New World in Santa Clarita, a damned fine shop with a damned fine ownership. It was, hands-down, my most successful signing yet, and a solid rocket blast!
The Signal of Santa Clarita was kind enough to devote space to it here.
The woman in the picture, Pamela, was so incredibly awesome. She bought a big old stack of the books to share with her friends and family. I hope they dig them, because I’d feel bad if they didn’t.
I also had a pure cane sugar Coke during a break, which sounds like a stupid thing to mention, but it tasted rather fine.
It’s incredible to have people who didn’t just happen upon my table at a con come to visit. One man drove 45 minutes. It’s flattering, and it’s also scary as hell. I got nervous and bit my tongue so badly that it hurts to speak and eat, but I also got such hope and joy… I hope I did well by Brave New World for their gesture of faith and kindness in flying me down.
April 15th, 2009 by Neal
Not relevant to the post at hand, just fucking funny.
I wrote something a long while back about a guy on a park bench who looked like he’d been through ten different shit rains. I walked up to him and said, “It’s okay, bud. It’ll be all right. It’ll get better.” And he just grunts at me and turns away.
The end of the poem was, “Well, fuck him then. On to the next chump. We do what we can.”
And that’s the broader point. We do what we can, and that’s never enough, and it never will be enough. But we try. We try in our own ways, even if it’s not as efficient as it can be. I didn’t cheer that guy up. Maybe he was inconsolable. Maybe he was a shit. Maybe I looked like the guy who killed his cat. I dunno.
I got to thinkinking last night about what my moral obligation to write is, and what, and how. I was talking with a friend last night about what ole Hunter means to me as an entity. Why I revere him. I figured, examining it, because he’s a clown. Same with Bukowski. I don’t like either for beating their girlfriends or getting drunk and passing out in the pool. I like Buk because he lived a shit life, and yet still found the poetry in it, and I like Hunter because he survived a Bush. Only it was a Nixon. Same shit, different day. Only his snake had a bit more bite.
I realize that I don’t really identify with or want to pursue the larger-than-life author. I like to clown myself, but I don’t think it’s so that people will buy my stuff, because that’s proven to be an absolute fail in that regard (and is outside of youtube for most folks, and as we know, youtube is not an author fount any more than Random House produces Tourette’s Guy.)
I realized that the only thing of Hunter’s I expressly regard with love (and it’s enough) is Fear and Loathing, because the writing is taut, but looks sloppy. With Bukowski, it’s the same thing. I realized that it’s stuff my dad, who never reads, could pick up and chuckle, and yet it’s stuff that I can look into and find a deeper meaning.
But I want to tell stories. And I am having more fun telling stories. And I have meaning in my stories, even so.
I backed away from message boards because I believed (I believed with a passion) that I could change people with rhetoric and help them see reason. Why? Because I grew up seeing it happen. In high school, rarely, but on occasion, you see some numb shithead learn that their preconceived notions about a given thing are wrong, and sometimes, despite social ostracism, they revise.
I realize in adulthood this is far more rare, and that Hunter Thompson wasn’t popular because he changed a lot of heads, but more because he found a lot of people with the same head and no outlet for expressing it (before he took his own head, thus ending his potential of worth in that regard).
In other words, and to put a fine point on it, that’s why I’m trying to do less political rambling and less message board posts and less rants and raves and more fiction. And the more I think about it, the more it seems smart to me. I miss Hunter, but jinkees, what he could have done if he had taken Fear and Loathing and written many more books of fine prose beyond The Rum Diary. He got caught up in his malice and the journalism.
And Bukowski, had he taken the seed of truth from Women and abandoned his dysfunction and told a hell and back story, he could have been beyond something, I don’t know what. But he was too attached to being a clown. So was Hunter. They got laid for it.
But I won’t be a clown.
I am a writer of truth, by god, and I will focus my laser, not turn it on the audience.
Now, to work.
April 6th, 2009 by Neal
Much obliged to Oregon Live, who did a kindly review of the Sarah and Hillary books!
The writer writes probably the most enjoyable piece about the books since the AICN piece (which was more pleasing because it had a positive vibe… on AICN), and actually does me the kindness of mentioning me by name and explores what I was trying to do, which is a bit harder to come by given the sensational nature of the works in question.
My favorite quote, which covers the kind of attitude I tried to have with the work:
The Clinton and Palin comics, both written by Neal Bailey, trace the women’s backgrounds, accomplishments and how they rose to positions of power. Bailey includes himself as a character, an initially skeptical one in both titles. In one panel (drawn by Ryan Howe) the bearded Bailey says that when his editor approached him about a Hillary comic, he balked. “She tried to ban ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ right?” By the end, Bailey has grudging respect for the former first lady.
Bailey’s even more wary of writing about Palin. “I’m a part of the elite liberal media! I couldn’t possibly write a fair biography of Sarah Palin!” he writes. But with help from a Jiminy Cricket-style sidekick, Bailey traces Palin’s journey from Wasilla, Alaska, to vice-presidential candidate. As the comic ends, Bailey worries that he hasn’t included enough positive information. He wonders whether there was too much negative coverage of Palin — and also whether those stories resulted from her own actions. Bailey concludes, “it appears to be a little of both. Once the media turns against you, it’s hard to spring back.”
Head on over and check out the full article, and my thanks for a fine piece from Kris Turnquist!
March 25th, 2009 by Neal
Valerie D’Orazio has been an important influence to me in the last few years. I bring this up because today, she’s indicated in her blog that she’s going to step away from Occasional Superheroine after a fashion, and channel the energy elsewhere. There are a few quotes that particularly moved me, given that I’m going through a similar crisis of conscience:
Quote one:
…she said what I had already figured out myself. That the blog was so tied into this strong, adversarial, tumultuous energy that even if I wrote about harmless topics, it would still attract some people who wanted more anger, more tumult. So I could write about daisies and there would be some brilliant individual who would react angrily with: “Daisies?! What do you have against petunias?!” And so on and so on. Because they’re addicted to the drama. I get it.
I get told every once in a while by well-meaning people that this sort of tumult and schadenfreude is just the warp and weft of the Internet community, and not a big deal at all. Within that point of view, I often feel as if I’m the one singled out as doing the worst behavior of all — being real and saying how I actually feel at any one given time. I’m told not to act like a martyr, and then instead to just sit and not say anything. Which is sort of like…being a martyr. I guess it’s better to be a quiet pious-eyed martyr, of the old Christian variety, than an annoying loud-mouthed spouter of opinions. That’s what I got from those conversations.
Quote 2:
I do think there will be an end-point to this blog very soon, and I will carry the conversation onto another blog under my name. I will certainly talk about comics, pop-culture, my life, etc, but it will be done from a new forum. A lot of the passion I put in my posts…maybe it’s time to put them in my comic book writing. I need to do this. I’m not the same person I was when I started this blog. I’m not better or worse, I’m just different. My goals are different. My perception is different.
I sympathize with Val, because her audience is much larger than mine (I presume, or at very least, as I’ve witnessed, more vocally rude) and her site deals with a more controversial source material.
I also am going through some of the same things, albeit in diminished fashion, she is. On a smaller scale, I mean. And it’s hard for me. For eight years, I’ve written for the Superman Homepage and had my every word analyzed and spit back at me, most of the time by good people, but some of the time by the mealy fools that teem and fester like a bloated carcass across the internet (including, sadly, a few creators). People will log on anonymously and send me awful, unjustified streams of hate mail. Threaten my family. Threaten me. Some people will write with good intentions and engage me in a dialogue, and that dialogue will take a turn for the worse. Some people get angry when I can’t respond to them immediately. Others become the best friends I’ve ever had that I’ve ever met. It’s a complex bag.
I used to give creators crap for not wanting to dive in and interact. My logic was that the idiots can be ignored. My ignorance was that sometimes you can’t tell the ignorance from the kindness, and the trolls know that, and will capitalize on that just as much as they’ll take advantage of a sensitive, kind person.
I’ve not always agreed with Val on everything. But see, I’m one of those individuals that, when I disagree or agree, can say, “Well, that’s her opinion.” Below that class in my regard is the person that will then debate that person if their opinion is different politely, and below that is the person who insists you change to their viewpoint and threatens you if you do not change it. I would say 99 percent of the people are the people who are like, “Well, that’s her opinion.” or who close the browser if they’re mad. Unfortunately, they (the kind) are also dead silent on the constant for that very reason. They keep their shit to themselves. Which is, as I age, what I become more inclined to do (He wrote on the internet, chortling).
I wrote Val, however, so I’m a hypocrite, but it was to encourage her to ignore the bastards, and as a point of sympathy for what she’s going through. I see a lot of people hesitate to write courageous things for fear of the response. I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be courageous. Like I would have, she responded to me in kind, taking time out of her day, being courteous. Those interactions (when I’m the one responding) are ones I value and want to encourage. But they’re vastly outnumbered by the shitstorm of assholes with personal agendas or failings. For every one kind letter (which I hope I could have been for Val at a hard time), there’s people who will not let it go and have your email and hate you.
Brian K. Vaughan left the internets, semi-famously. That’s probably a wise decision. I’m not that brave. I know that I have my corner on the Superman Homepage, and that I love this site, and that there are a few places that really enhance my life and never bring me grief. But I tire of message boards. I tire of vitriol. It’s not that most of the time it’s not something I can do, it’s that in the long run, folks wait until your grandmother dies, and then they pounce. They fucking do. And it ruins your shit for a week. What could have been an important, good week.
It’s time, as a damned good friend related to me, that I could be spending doing any number of awesome things. It’s time, as Val points out in her article, that I could be spending working on my comics. Or banging my gal. Or eating a hoagie. Or reading a book. Or running. Or anything, anything, anything in the known universe and including Hugh Jackman OTHER than justifying myself to people who I have already justified myself to with my goddamned work. Or not. But explaining the work has never changed anything in that regard to anyone.
To that end, and as a gesture of solidarity for the trouble Val has gone through, and others I know have gone through on a regular basis, I’m gonna stop hitting message and comment boards at the Superman Homepage, where I was formerly a rather large mod presence. Over the last year I’ve gone to the steps of deleting any letters that come my way that are cruel or rude. Now I’m going further, and will not respond to every letter I get that’s kind, only the ones that truly intrigue me, because I too often fall into the trap of, “Oh! He’s asking questions, he must be curious and have good intentions, so I must respond to them.” And then it’s not.
Too often, it’s, “Cool reviews! I was wondering what you think about Watchmen!” (or insert X topic of the day here) And, to be cordial, I reply, “It is a movie on film.” (IE, the most banal, noncommital thing ever) To which they reply, “I disagree with you there, I think, I think, I think.” And I’m thinking, “I don’t even know this guy, and he’s debating me.” It seems like a kind letter or gesture, but it’s actually sucking away time I could be working. This is probably fifty percent of my correspondence on boards. The other forty is people who debate why I write what I write, and the other ten are the constant stream of good damned people who just want to say thanks. And I love them. But they’re fighting to get the loaf of bread with midgets that have long fucking knives. And anyway, they can still email.
And it pervades your consciousness and fucks up things. You second guess yourself. I was with FRIENDS today, honest-to-god friends, not internet people, and I was afraid to say to them, “Yeah, I liked the new Indiana Jones” because whenever I say that online, I get the shit ripped out of me. So I downed it a little, then brought up the thing I liked about it or wanted to talk about, and it made me look and feel like an ass. Turns out, I was among friends, I didn’t have to be ashamed to be myself, but the internet and my interactions with it over the years pushed me to second-guess myself (and overanalyze, like I am here), which I find it doing more and more often lately. When I say, “I really dig Stephen King.” I feel I have to caveat it instead of it just being a fact of opinion for me, because when I mention it in articles I get nasty letters. Or when I say, “I really fucking hated George Bush.” I am presumed to have to explain why to other people, despite the fact that I know why I have come to these things in my own mind, and feel justified in doing so.
So I’m gonna lay off that bullshit.
What irks me is that the intellectual in me says, “Yeah, but that’s what the fucks in the political spectrum do. They square themselves off against any alternative thought and don’t respond to critics, and they thereby suck.” And that’s generally true. It’s generally true about comic book writers, too, in my experience, who think that their shit doesn’t stink. They don’t listen to valid criticisms, don’t vette their own work with themselves or others they are creating with, and resultantly, you get shit like Final Crisis, which blew ass because it was the Grant show with no thought to telling a story people would dig. IN MY FUCKING OPINION, he felt he had to caveat like an ass.
But that (intellectual walling off) doesn’t happen because they don’t listen to the media or the internet or naysayers. That happens because they don’t put proper effort or time or thought into the craft of a thing. I can anticipate, being a wise man, any criticism of my beliefs and works, and thereby decide to include or not include elements based on that. I can be my own fucking critic, and accept where I fail, without the help of a fat man in a Star Sapphire shirt. Failures in work occur from this lack of consideration of the work on the part of the artist, as I know from viewing the people I see as role models who put in the fucking work. They care for their craft. They work into it. The failures just coast and whip shit out. I’ve known them and seen that as well.
George Bush was a smart enough man to know, had he actually looked at all sides of things before acting, that the Iraq War would fail. I know this because I knew this as a lay asshole with no military experience. I didn’t need to write him a letter to convey that to him, and my letter wouldn’t have changed anything. He consciously ignored common sense to justify the actions he wanted to take, and thereby failed. There were a million things he could have done better, but as I realize (and the reason I quit CTF is), a thousand internet trolls debating over the angels on the head of a pin never solved a goddamned thing, and as much as I could intellectually debate our former president, if he stepped down from his ivory tower and went toe to toe with me and I empirically whipped his ass where he’d done wrong, he’s still be the same person he ever was, and it would not profit him intellectually to listen to me, because he’s a fucking moron. People who are not fucking morons can self-regulate, and so I must.
It seems simple, and self-evident, but I need to cram that into my fucking cranium by taking a step back and using the internet as a consumer instead of a provider, and leave my providing for the texts I craft, generally, or in fashions that I can control and do not bring me stress. Not the letters or the response.
No more letter columns for the Smallville review. No more responding to petulant requests and demands. No more comment boards unless the purpose and intent is plain.
A good example of how it fucks up your life is the way I’m considering ending this piece. My mind is saying, “God damn, man. They’ll come at you from the angle, “Oh, you wrote a shitload of reviews, and now you’re saying you can’t take criticism.”
But I’ve written a hundred times about how there’s a difference between someone putting a work into the public and asking it to be reviewed after you pay for it, and me giving an article up freely to people who don’t pay for it as a piece of analysis and having people attack the analysis simply because they disagree with matters of opinion. The person who can’t see or comprehend that shade? There’s no helping them. There’s no reward in making that assertion for them. And the person who CAN see it doesn’t need my words to tell them that, so there’s no profit in it. None. None. None.
I don’t need it, I don’t want it, and I’m done with it.
Thereby you will see “Caveat Emptor” on the top of this page in the title bar, forever more. And if you cannot comprehend it, then go fuck the fuck off. I will, in turn, give you what you pay for. A good piece of writing, and little more. That’s my duty as an artist.
And Val… don’t let the bastards get you down. I hope she’s off working on Cloak and Dagger, and they’re still masturbating to furry porn wondering why she didn’t reply to their complaints.
March 14th, 2009 by Neal
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! CHRISTIANS OF ALL STRIPES! FINE CAPITALISTS!
The time has come, where we, the intelligent, shall no longer deign to support the rabble! For WE are the intellectual elite! WE are the stuff that dreams are made of!
Following this post, I, along with my fellow intellectuals, will be leaving this country for a secret base in the mid-west, where we will develop PROJECT-X!
All hail the almighty dollar! We are GOING GALT! For TOO LONG we have put our support into that mongrel dog, the artist, the mother, the out-of-work person with a chemical addiction! They are scum, and do not warrant our attention or treasure!
We are AMERICANS, by god, and as uniquely American as we can be, because we are supporting capitalism by moving somewhere to start a commune! We are uniquely American, because we can run a factory that needs workers WITHOUT THE WORKERS! We are totally American, because the figurehead of our movement, that of good Christian men everywhere (and I do mean men, ladies, though we will deign to rape you if your name is Dagny, because that name is fucking HAWT!), is so Christian that she in fact DOES NOT NEED GOD! She is the most Republican atheist on the face of this planet! Her god is the dollar, and PRAISE BE!
Some might say this is contradictory! Ignore them! They are part of the rabble, and obviously not sophisticated enough to keep up with the likes of I or Glenn Beck!
Instead TAKE UP YOUR FURS! LIFT UP YOUR HEDGE FUND! BURN THE YOKE OF YOUR MARGINAL TAX RATE THAT DOES NOT IMPACT YOUR STANDARD OF LIVING!
Are you with me?
I SAID ARE YOU WITH ME?
March 13th, 2009 by Neal
So…
First off, my editor was on Greta Van Susteren.
There’s also mention at Air America.
Then The Daily Beast. (Thanks, Susan!)
And in other news, a spinoff character from my “Michelle Obama” series, a lanky dude I created as a dramatic foible named Barack, just got a guest shot on Youngblood! I hope I get royalties!
At any rate, point being, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, The Guardian, Fark, CBR, Newsarama… the only major media missing is the Daily Show.
The first two books have completely sold out, and Michelle, which has yet to be released, is apparently the top selling indie book for its month.
See, what I don’t remember is when Biff gave me the book. So when that snot-nosed kid comes and starts asking questions about his old man, what do I do? WHAT DO I DO?
