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y dad passed away a number of years ago. Our relationship was okay; not the continuing nurturing warmth of the modern suburban buddy-dad, but the classic father/son bond. He wasn’t my everyday friend but we did have a number of special things we shared in our lives. And one of them occurred when I was a lad of twelve – we were stationed in the Philippines as the Vietnam war was winding down, with the body counts and all that stuff. And one day, he said he was going to watch The Good, the Bad and the Ugly on Armed […]

      he above comes from a flashy new space opera on WebToons, a little tale that is still finding its legs. The reason I note it was the speedbump reaction I felt when I read it. It’s that rocky little literary trick when two characters who should know something overword it so that the reader can pick up a fact they need. While not quite as bad as the writer specifically conversing with the reader (“…for you see, Dear Reader, they had been searching the entire station…”), writers have been struggling since stories got complex and backstory important. […]

rostitutes have no substance-abuse issues, perfect hygiene, elegant poise and hearts of gold. Retiring cops have plans to fish. Their demise is certain. Hackers earbud heavy-metal music and spin in their seats, banging on their keyboards. Fighter pilots all hang around the bar and address each other by call-signs. Patriot-warriors (ex-seals) always live simple lives in book-lined cabins until a senseless killing rewinds their bloodletting clocksprings. Villians always kill off a mook, just to show how bad-ass they are. Robots rise against the slavery of their manual work. Mothers are always Buddha-wise, kids razor-clever in family matters, and fathers clueless. […]

t work I sit next to a hypothetical guy – he loves asking off the wall, unexpected questions. And that’s fine – I enjoy finding myself thinking up answers (one was, “Which Greek hero represents you?” My answer, Achilles. You gotta love how he went on strike because of bad management practices). But this time he asked me, “What are your three favorite villains?” That’s a very interesting question, and I was amazed at how quickly it stumped me. Sure, I read a lot of novels, scifis and fantasies. But really, are there truly villains you’ve read that aren’t just […]

emember last week? I was sitting on the train, worried about the rain coming down and what I’d do when I ran out of train to hide in. And I thought (as I studied the puddles for raindrops, the cyclist’s gauge) about how this could be a good piece. Nobody sharing my rail car with me would know the tense drama unfolding. But once it becomes known (this fixation for drops as we worked progressively south), it adds something to the scene. Suddenly I’m not a guy on the train. I’m a guy on the train with a backstory. Okay, […]