Category: Opinion

John Ostrander on Giving Your Audience Some Nasty Surprises

by John Ostrander

aandeI’ve heard it said that old friends are the best friends. That makes sense to me. Over time, you’ve shared experiences together, both good and bad. You’ve grown to know each other, to know the little idiosyncrasies that make up who we are, that make the bonds between us.

You can form that kind of relationships with books as well, especially series. The first time you read the book, it’s to discover the story, to learn what happens next. As you return to it, or read another book in the series, it’s because you want to revisit them.

For example, for me every new book in The Number One Ladies Detective Agency series byAlexander McCall Smith is like a new visit with old friends. I know the characters, the main ones and the wide supporting cast as well, and I want to learn what is going on with their lives. There are surprises in each visit, to be sure, but I now know the locale and what these people are like, I know their foibles and their virtues. They do grow but they are still the same characters I know and love. read article

John Ostrander: Radical TV Surgery

Castle-TVby John Ostrander

It was announced this week that Stana Katic, who plays Detective Kate Beckett on the ABC seriesCastle, was not going to be asked back IF the series is renewed for a ninth season. The reason cited was cost cutting which also accounts for the shortened 13 episode season planned IF the show comes back.

The premise of the show is that mystery writer Richard Castle, played by Nathan Fillion, worms his way onto the NYPD and helps the detectives solve actual murder mysteries rather than the fictional ones he creates. Central to the series has also been his relationship with Beckett; he started by annoying her but, after as many complications and delays that the writers could conceive, they fell in love with each other, acknowledged they were in love, and finally married.

Which makes the loss of Katic/Beckett difficult to understand for me. The show may have been titled Castle, but its core was that relationship between the two leads. Yes, I originally tuned in the show because I had really enjoyed Fillion on Firefly (and the movie that concluded that series, Serenity) but it wasn’t the sometimes predictable mysteries or the often interminable story arcs that made me a big fan of the show. It was the relationships between the characters and central to it all was that relationship between Castle and Beckett. That WAS the show so far as I was concerned and has been since the first episode. read article

A Few Words About Salesmen

Time now for an important public service message…hehe.

Ever wonder why the world seems so, erm, shitty these days? Politics? Entertainment? The arts? Mike Gold, editor-in-chief of one of our favorite sites, Comic Mix has been pondering. And when Mike Gold ponders….

hoverboardThe Future is Behind Us
by Mike Gold

A well-timed survey indicates two out of every three people do not trust self-driving cars. Amusingly, this survey was released just as a Google self-driving car in California became the first of its ilk to cause an accident in traffic. It hit a bus; thankfully, nobody was injured. read article

John Ostrander: They Grow Up So Fast

H'wood's version of Mr. Ostrander's Amanda Waller of SUICIDE SQUAD
H’wood’s version of Mr. Ostrander’s Amanda Waller of SUICIDE SQUAD

by John Ostrander

I’ve been watching DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow over on the CW. Among the characters that have been appearing on the show are Firestorm and Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Well, not so much Hawkman any more, maybe. I didn’t create those three characters but I certainly played with them a lot and, for a while, left my sticky fingerprints all over them. So it’s interesting watching manifestations of them in other media.

I’ll be experiencing that big time come August when the Suicide Squad movie hits the multiplexes. I created Amanda Waller and I defined characters like Deadshot and Captain Boomerang and it will be exciting to see how they translate for the screen. I hope.

None of the character portrayals will translate directly from the comics to movies or TV. I’m okay with that; none of them have so far. Different media have different needs. That’s why they’re called adaptations. The material is adapted from whatever the source was. My only question about any given adaptation is – how true is it to its roots? Did they get the essence of the character or the concept right? If you’re going to do Captain XYZ Man, there should be a resemblance to what makes up Captain XYZ Man. Right? read article

Peggy Bechko’s World: Do You Wanna Be a Writer?

by Peggy Bechko

Do ya? Do ya?

Or maybe you’re a writer already but things are going just the way you’d like and you’re having a crisis of faith in your decision to write and be a writer.

It happens. I suspect to all of us. At some point we break down, throw our hands in the air and question … well, everything! read article