The Dallas Damsel

It’s interesting how versatile the Western genre and the Western Hero archetype can be. You can put them in space, of course, and that’s been done very well on numerous occasions, from Outland to Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. I still have a bit of an itch to write one of those. But you can also do a lot of fun stuff with westerns right here on Earth. Western comics were big back in the ’50s, when nobody was really making superhero books, and of course that was their heyday on the big and small screens.

I wonder, has anyone done a western underwater?

Westerns have kind of made a comeback recently, with some fantastic movies and a few comics. I’m loving the new Lone Ranger comic, and I hear Zorro is quite good as well (both from Dynamite). There’s the fun Daisy Cutter series from Viper, one of which I picked up at a Free Comic Book Day a year or two ago. DC has Jonah Hex, supposedly one of their best titles at the moment. Marvel has a history of old western comics, like the Two-Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, and Kid-Colt (sensing a theme here?), that they don’t really use anymore. It’s good stuff.

So here’s mine, the Dallas Damsel. No doubt her adventures will include aliens and steam-driven robots and mad scientists. Making her a red head kind of feels cliche, or at least wrong. I may change that. I dunno.

This was my first writing prompt of the month, and as I was chugging through it I realized I was revisiting my time traveling supervillain. I wrote a couple of little exercises about him a while back, then totally forgot about his existence. I changed his name (though I’m sure I’m not the first to use “Epoch” for a time-hopping bad guy), but otherwise he’s very similar, even hanging out with the same incompetent henchman. I realized when I reached the end that I should have written it from an entirely different point of view, which would have allowed for a really great ending and actually explained why Epoch was there to kill her to begin with. Oh well.

Prompt: Create a story using

• one of these settings: Luau, western bar, funeral, big city, construction site

• One of these people: comic book villain, DJ, poet, damsel in distress, business tycoon

• And one of these things/objects: nail polish, magic door knob, cancer, samurai sword, banana

(I played it a little loose with the requirements. About 600 words.)

Story Every Day - Day 9

Whew!

This is a little piece that may turn into a Simon Temple, aka, Tenebrous, adventure. Tenebrous seemed pretty popular with my writing group, and I do have a certain fondness for him. But until now I haven’t really put much thought into more Tenebrous stories. What sort of villains would he normally face? What are his nightly patrols like? What drove him to his crusade against crime? I’ll want to address all these questions. I really enjoy writing about him simply interacting with his civilian peers.

Saw the Hulk today. I may chat about that some tomorrow.

EDIT July 1: Evidently someone who goes by Tenebrous (an online name I assume?) stumbled across this and suddenly I’m getting a tons of hits on this particular entry. In case any of you are curious, this Tenebrous character is featured in my superhero story “Shades of Red,” available over at the journal “A Thousand Faces.”

Story Every Day - Day 6

Did my writing early today. Weekends are always crazy busy around here, and this weekend is no exception. We’ll be having a little Mystery Science Theater Birthday Party for Kevin tonight (I don’t believe it is his 3,000th, though).

A few posts back I mentioned a new character for my superhero universe, Astro Jack. I envisioned him as a Superman-type hero from the ’40s and ’50s. So I thought I’d give him a little chance to breathe. I may expand this into a full-fledged story. It’s only a little over 500 words at the moment.

The Animal Trainer

I kind of cheated and used the same prompt again:

Write a story about someone larger than life (superhero, werewolf, sorcerer, movie star, rock star, super spy, etc.) in one of the following situations: dealing with the mundane, on vacation, on a blind date, changing sidekicks/minions/personal assistants.

I really haven’t done much with super villains. I guess that’s kind of strange, given that I’ve written a bit about superheroes. But villains, on the whole, just don’t interest me as much. I get why they’re fun and everyone loves them, but for the most part I don’t care. I guess there’s just not as much variety in villainy - I almost feel like they can write themselves. You can plug a villain into a story without really explaining much. Most of the have pretty much the same motivations and goals, so you end up treading a lot of the same ground over and over again. Plus, I feel like it’s easy to be a villain. The world gives us plenty of opportunity and reason. It’s pretty much the natural state of humankind to be dicks to each other.

That’s not to say there aren’t great villains that buck the trend. But a lot of times they feel interchangeable and disposable. Not everyone can be Magneto or Doctor Doom, I guess.

Anyway, I need some villains for my world of heroes, so here’s a fun one - Lord Drak of the Imperium, a cluster of conquered parallel dimensions over which he rules with an iron fist. Of course, the heroes of earth have frustrated him several times. I put in this idea of a time shift between the dimensions, so time passes more quickly on Earth than it does in the Imperium. Presumably, Drak would try to conquer Earth, get defeated, then flee home to come up with new weapons and strategies. After spending a couple of years on this, he returns, prepared to annihilate his old foes, just to discover a whole new generation of heroes for whom he’s completely ill-equipped. Thus the cycle begins again. It amuses me.

I also mention a new hero, Astro Jack. I’m imagining him as a ’40s-’60s era Superman-type. I may explore him more later.

Drak is probably the most generic alien warlord name ever. Drak’s little pet is heavily inspired by jinxlets, but not nearly as cute. About 900 words.

First date

Writing prompt: Write a story about someone larger than life (superhero, werewolf, sorcerer, movie star, rock star, super spy, etc.) in one of the following situations: dealing with the mundane, on vacation, on a blind date, changing sidekicks/minions/personal assistants.

This is a fun concept for a prompt. It’s easy to make it funny - a super spy picking up his dry cleaning and trying to explain all the blood stains, or a super strong hero trying to, say, pick a flower without crushing it. The basic premise has been used a lot for comedy. Back in the ’80s, Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis wrote much the Justice League International based on this sort of humor - I’m pretty sure Blue Beetle and Booster Gold spent more time on monitor duty than actually battling evil (and I love every panel of it). Joss Whedon used it a ton in Buffy. It’s a fun way to buck expectations and have characters act completely out of type. Sure we all know that Spider-Man had to sew that suit at some point, but actually watching him struggle with the needle is hilarious.

When I was writing “Shades of Red” I had a blast writing the scenes between the Scarlet Ranger and Asta. Their personalities couldn’t be more different, and the dynamic there, with the passionate and occasionally impulsive Scarlet struggling to deal with the always calm and one-step-ahead android, was a lot of fun.

I hinted at a romantic relationship in the story between Scarlet and another hero, the Chicago Defender. (I actually have a very brief Defender story here, if you want to see him in action.) The Defender is very much like Asta; distant, emotionally closed off, and quite reserved. Scarlet would just eat that sort of thing up. She would have a blast making him squirm, then become frustrated when he ultimately never really opened up the way most women would like. Hence the problem with their relationship, and why it’s not as stable as either of them would like.

Anyway, I thought I’d take the opportunity presented by the prompt to write about their first date. I’ve been struggling with it for the last couple weeks, mostly because there’s no end in sight. It’s two people sitting down to a meal. Nothing really happens. It’s boring. It’s awkward. They’re talking exposition, mostly, and revealing little tidbits about each other’s personalities. It’s starting to ramble and I have no idea what to do with it. Just like a real date, come to think of it.

I do introduce a new character, the French mystic Jasmine, who seems like she might be fun. I was tempted to use Sevastian, but I want to keep him in a separate universe. I may need to come up with a better name for her. That’s just what popped into my head for whatever reason.

I wouldn’t say I’m done with this, but I’ll just post it before it goes any further. It’s at about 900 words.

My first review!

Lyndon Perry over at The Fix has reviewed the whole of issue 4 of A Thousand Faces. There’s a lengthy paragraph on “Shades of Red“! It is glowing!

Thanks to Jens for the heads up!

The Liberty Gang

Just finished watching the last of Extras. I’m a big fan of Ricky Gervais from The Office, and Extras does not disappoint. I think the scene of Ian McKellan explaining how to act might be one of the funniest moments in television history.

Writing exercise: Write a story about a superhero with an embarrassingly mundane power.

This one ended up a little long, so I’m just going to post the first half of it. It’s a pretty stupid last half anyway, so you’re not missing much. I actually really like the concept of the Liberty Gang; obviously, a patriotic-themed supergroup is nothing new, but I dig the concept that, if something were to befall the core team, or any single member of that team, there are sleeper agents, if you will, among the citizenry who can step up to take their place. It seems very appropriate, power to the people and all that. With some tweaking, I might work them into the Scarlet Ranger’s story, as they have a very Silver Age feel to them, which is about when Kelly would have spent her formative years. They’ll probably have disbanded by the time we reach the “Shades of Red” era.

About 560 words.

The Scarlet Ranger

The hero of my story “Shades of Red” (which should be available in the next month or so over at A Thousand Faces, stay tuned for more details!) was the Scarlet Ranger. She’s super strong, nigh invulnerable, kicks ass with the best of them (what am I saying, she is the best of them), and is the most beloved superhero of her city. She’s flirty, can cuss any damn boy under the table, and looks really hot wearing your sports jersey the morning after. She’s pretty much become my Buffy. In “Shades” she’s the veteran superhero who has to bail everyone else out of trouble when the fit hits the shan.

Originally, she was pretty much just a cardboard cutout, however. She was there to get killed in the first five pages. The rest of the story would be about the two-bit loser villain who inadvertently managed to kill her and how he deals with it. There was a whole thing. That story, however, morphed into what became “Shades of Red,” in which the Ranger takes the central role. Even while I was writing “Shades,” I had a lot of trouble getting a handle on her personality, up until the very end, when certain events I won’t give away happen and her reaction is just priceless. After writing that moment in the story, I had to go back and rewrite much of the earlier dialogue and interactions, because I finally had a handle on her.

Well, it’s been far too long since I’ve dipped into the Scarlet Ranger well, so I thought I’d take a little gander into her secret origin… (almost 1500 words!) Bloody hell, I’m enjoying this. Maybe I’ll make this my supernatural story.

(It’s Nee-kay, by the way, not like the shoe.)

Edit: I just realized the small television in the story is probably anachronistic. I don’t know. Were there TVs small enough for that in the ’70s?

Exclusive

Watched “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” last night and quite enjoyed it. It’s pretty much everything you’d expect from a Terminator series. I’m not totally sure how much story there is to tell that wasn’t covered by the first two movies (I never saw the third), but we’ll see if they can pull it off.

Plus, Summer Glau. She could be in “Hee Haw: The Next Generation” and I’d watch it.

Anyway, writing exercise!

Exercise: Use these words in your piece: fastidious, esoteric, spiffy, cat, retro, slippery, synthesizer, record, vinyl, rice cake, chocolate, red, bald, chopstick, tiger, British, proper, chicken

This turned into a dialogue exercise as much as anything. It was running a little long, so I wrapped it up kinda quickly, but this is something I might come back to and expand. 1200 words!

Hexes

So far, everyone has been liking my “Crush” flash piece. I’ll probably send it out this weekend with a few minor tweaks. Exciting!

Exercise: Start your piece with this sentence: The moment the black cat stepped in front of me, I knew…

Might this be the start of a new story about a certain Mystic Extraordinaire? Just over 500 words.