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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: July 2020

The Curator of Schlock #328: Fantasy Island

31 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #328 by Jeff Shuster

Fantasy Island

Bad, Blumhouse! Bad!

Jervis is a liar! I pick the lock on the basement door (as I am a master of unlocking) and slowly creep down there during the wee hours of the night while Jervis is fast asleep. What do I find in the basement? Ain’t no canned peaches down there. Instead, I find a red velvet lined oak coffin filled with something like ashes. Hanging from the ceiling is a meat hook. I don’t what this is all about. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.

Tonight’s movie is 2020’s Fantasy Island from director Jeff Wadlow. This is a Blumhouse production, a studio known for cranking out budget horror movies that make big bucks. Fantasy Island reportedly cost about 7 million to make, but drew in over 47 million during its box office run. Not a bad take. Still, Fantasy Island was critically panned upon release. Perhaps, this was due to the fact that they took a kitschy 70s television series and turned it into a horror movie!

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I have to admit that I was never a big Fantasy Island fan. I was way too young when it was on, but would catch snippets of it on occasion, fascinated by the debonaire Ricardo Montalbán, who’d I’d only known as the terrifying villain from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Fantasy Island wasn’t for me. Too romantic and sentimental for a boy wanting to see starships shooting at each other. But now that I’m a bit more seasoned and while Fantasy Island still isn’t for me, I don’t begrudge its fans or their enjoyment of the show. Is there a Fantasy Island equivalent to Trekkies? I don’t know. If there is, they must be flipping their shit right about now.

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So the premise of the movie is that guests arrive at Fantasy Island after filling out a questionnaire detailing their deepest desire. The owner of the island, Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña), will make the fantasies of each guest come true. For Gwen Olsen (Maggie Q), it means saying yes to a marriage proposal she regrets turning down. For step brothers Brax Weaver (Jimmy O. Yang) and J. D. Weaver (Ryan Hansen), it’s a wild party filled with sex, drugs, and dubstep. For Patrick Sullivan (Austin Sowell), it’s getting the chance to be a soldier and prove to himself that he’s not a coward. And for Melanie Cole (Lucy Hale), it’s getting revenge of her middle school bully, a woman named Sloane Madison (Portia Doubleday).

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Melanie’s fantasy is the most interesting. She goes down the hotel elevator to a hidden basement room. Behind a one-way mirror is none other than Sloane, strapped to a chair. Sloane can’t see Melanie, but Melanie can see Sloane. At Melanie’s disposal is a console with all sorts of buttons and switches. Melanie delights in electrocuting Sloane and pouring toilet water over Sloane’s head. Another button posts a video to social media of Sloane cheating on her husband. It’s all in good fun. After all, that isn’t really Sloane behind the mirror. It’s all holograms and other visual trickery. That’s what Melanie thinks until she realizes from one of the videos shows Sloane being on Fantasy Island and that is indeed her in that torture chamber.

I don’t know who this movie is for. So far it’s playing out like a light version of a Saw movie. The other fantasies progress. Gwen now has a husband and four-year-old daughter and Patrick gets to meet his long deceased father. But little do they know that they are actually a part of someone else’s dark fantasy. There’s a twist. One of the guests is not what they seem. Blah. Blah. Blah. I’m only glad Ricardo Montalbán didn’t live to see this. I wonder if if there will be a Fantasy Island II.


Jeffrey Shuster 3

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #81: Pros of Cons

29 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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Tags

San Diego Comicon

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #81 by Drew Barth

Pros of Cons

Due to the steady spike in COVID cases across the country and the villainous ineptitude at the federal level, our lives are still rather sporadic. While many services and businesses are forced to open unnecessarily, conventions have been canceled or delayed for safety reasons. And this includes the biggest gathering of pop culture in North America: San Diego Comic-Con. The convention, however, was not completely canceled. Instead, SDCC pivoted to digital with its Comic-Con@Home. A digital convention brings a whole host of positives and negatives and although I haven’t been to SDCC myself in the past, it’s interesting to see just how they’ve been able to translate the feeling of a convention to a digital space.

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  1. Location

Pros: The biggest plus to any convention that goes digital is that it’s now a convention in your house on your time. There isn’t the issue of spending thousands getting to and from San Diego, finding a place to stay, feeding yourself, and so on. There also isn’t the risk of being around thousands of people as they’re all crammed together to get into Hall H or threatening your life for a Funko Pop.

Cons: Conventions are the lifeblood for many artists and creators. They’ll begin ordering prints, stickers, pins, zines, comics, anything that can be sold on the show floor months in advance in anticipation of making that money back once con season begins. And although many creators are still selling their work online—many times at discounts to help recoup losses—their missing the Artist Alleys and foot-traffic that would account for most of their business. I’m looking at eight prints on my wall right now from artists I didn’t know about that I discovered walking through an Artist Alley and that isn’t happening this year at all.

  1. Access

Pros: Everyone has access to panels right now in a way that hasn’t been done before. A convention schedule was the kind of thing a con-goer would toil over to figure out what can and can’t be missed this day, but could be skipped that day, but maybe could be a filler for this day. That doesn’t happen now. All of the panels exist online in a YouTube video and are able to be more widely seen throughout the world. One of the panels I watched, Comics in the Classroom Ask Me Anything, would normally have been in a room of maybe two hundred people now has more than 1900 participants counted and over 14000 views online. Anyone can watch these panels now and they absolutely have done so. It’s knowledge for everyone without the constraints of the physical convention space.

Cons: I don’t know, you’re not the first person to see costume concept art for the unannounced Stilt-Man spin-off webseries exclusive to the Nokia N-Gage. IGN is going to have the story ten minutes after the panel anyway, so who cares?

  1. Safety

Pros: Two things are synonymous with convention season: con crud and Bar Con. The former is the sickness that just comes from too many people, not enough showers, and not enough personal space. The latter is where the “deals” are made in hotel bars and where many powerful men in comics would prey on women. For the most part, these things don’t exist in a virtual convention. But still: wash your hands and don’t abuse women, that shit should have been obvious.

Cons: Are there any? Maybe being at home you don’t notice that you’ve shotgunned two sleeves of Oreos while watching multiple panels in a row.

With everything else going on, writing about comic conventions feels like critiquing the Hindenburg’s lunch menu. But it’s also finding some kernel of familiarity and comfort in a world we’re watching burn down. Sometimes we need these little moments that feel normal to just breathe and laugh with and enjoy before diving back down into everything else.

Get excited. Get virtual.


drew-barth-mbfi

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Episode 430: Jared Silvia!

25 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Music

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Episode 430 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Jared Silvia and Gear

In this week’s show, I talk to writer, musician, and producer Jared Silvia about the connections between music and writing, the history of synth-pop, and the role of randomness and patterns to experience.

 NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out Jared’s label Circuit Church over at Band Camp.

Jared’s King-of-the-Hill-inspired fiction appeared on episode 167.

Michael Iceberg brought some strange hardware to play at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in the late 70s and early 80s.


Episode 430 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #327: Starchaser

24 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Film, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #327 by Jeff Shuster

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin

Still better than Rise of Skywalker

As I’ve stated. I’ve been residing in a wonderful, antebellum mansion with my manservant, Jervis, blissfully sheltered from the chaos of the outside world. My role as curator of The Museum of Schlock is becoming a distant memory, but I almost feel too at ease in this place. There is one thing that bothers me though. The door to the basement is locked. I want to know what’s down there. Jervis says it’s just a bunch of canned preserves, to not worry myself about it. Still, I have to see it for myself.

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This week’s movie is 1985’s Starchaser: The Legend of Orin from director Steven Hahn. I was a child in the 80s and somehow this one never made it on my radar. Starchaser is an animated science fiction that borrows from Star Wars. You’ve got a young hero wielding a sword of mysterious energy, a surly smuggler, a princess in distress, a villain clad in black, weird aliens, funny robot companions, and spaceships galore. A major selling point of this movie is that it was billed at the first animated 3D movie.

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It’s strange to watch Starchaser for the first time after I’ve been subjected to Stars Wars Special Editions, a prequel trilogy, a sequel trilogy, spinoff movies and animated series. I’m not saying that I’m sick of Star Wars; it’s just that I’m sick of Star Wars. I think I was 6-years-old when I saw Return of the Jedi. The movie came out. It was a big deal, but it left theaters and everyone seemed to move on from Star Wars. As cool as my Star Wars toys were, I moved on to Indiana Jones and Universal Monsters action figures. Other kids started obsessing over He-Man and Transformers. Star Wars felt kind of done.

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I can only imagine that Starchaser: Legend of Orin was an attempt to rekindle that flame since George Lucas had moved on to other masterpieces like Howard the Duck. Don’t be blinded by nostalgia. The 80s was an odd decade for popular culture and it seemed for every hit, there was a miss. Starchaser was critically panned upon release, many dismissing it as a nothing more than a Star Wars knockoff. I watched an old At the Movies episode, and Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert weren’t kind. In fact, I think Siskel wondered if the producers of this movie might be hearing from George Lucas’s lawyers.

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However, Siskel and Ebert did make one interesting observation. They were impressed with how the movie did 3D. Instead of launching objects at the screen, Starchaser played around with depth of field. Could it be that the technology employed in our modern 3D movies was first pioneered in an animated Star Wars knock-off from 1985? I don’t know. It might be worth investigating.

That’s all I’ve got for you this week.


Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #80

22 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, Memoir

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Cecil Castellucci’, Girl on Film

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #80 by Drew Barth

I Won’t Make a Duran Duran Joke

Graphic memoirs are one of the most important genres within comics. The interplay between memory and picture can resonate immediately with readers and allows them to better witness the past. And recently, no other graphic memoir has worked with the idea of memories and pictures together quite like Cecil Castellucci’s Girl on Film. As a memoir, it is an unrelenting look at how memory and creativity work together to build the foundations for who we are as creators. As a piece of comic nonfiction, it is one of the most interesting takes on utilizing graphic narratives to create different aspects of the past to paint Castellucci’s life.

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What makes Girl on Film so fascinating is that Castellucci is not alone in creating her journey—she is joined by artists Vicky Leta, Melissa Duffy, V. Gagnon, and Jon Berg. The entire memoir centers on two ideas: memory and art. From a young age, Castellucci wanted to be a filmmaker and have her life continuously steeped in art. But wanting to be an artist and becoming one is precarious—her own path is a winding thing that takes her across North America and parts of Europe before figuring out who she is to become. During all of these moments taking place in the past, she also splices in conversations with her father on the nature of memory. Does Castellucci remember the past correctly? For her own memoir, should she represent things exactly how they happened or how they had felt in her memory? She treads the line well by acknowledging that the past is a nebulous thing and representing what she can to the best of her abilities.

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What makes Girl on Film such an interesting graphic memoir is what its art is able to do for it. The artists create distinct periods and aspects of Castellucci’s life, from infancy to now, represented by their different styles. Melissa Duffy and V. Gagnon expertly capture those feelings and moments from middle school through the beginnings of college where the world still feels like it’s something you can survive. Jon Berg’s lines create a starker reality as Castellucci’s dreams start collapsing and rebuilding and collapsing again. And it is Vicky Leta that begins and ends the story with the meta-narrative woven throughout—Castellucci’s introduction and afterward to her life as well as the conversations with her father concerning the memory of a memoir. These different artists’ styles create the tone and act as a signal flare to readers to show them the ways the story is changing as they read.

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Due to Castellucci’s experiences and relentless commitment to creating art, her voice is something unique to comics. She is able to transfer that love for film to a love for comics—namely when looking at some of her fiction in The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Shade, the Changing Girl—and that continues in Girl on Film. This is a work that continues the tradition of graphic memoirs becoming some of the most significant works in the graphic canon and, even now, there’s very little else that will ever be like it.

Get excited. Get your memories together.


drew-barth-mbfiDrew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

Episode 429: Lindsay Ellis!

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Film, Science Fiction

≈ 6 Comments

Episode 429 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Ellis.2.credit Emily VanDerWerff

Photo by Emily VanDerWerf.

In this week’s show, I talk to novelist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis about science fiction; the structure of novels; exploring character interiority; alien invasion narratives; Chomskyian linguistics; the joys of making academic arguments about pop culture outside the academy; Transformers; and author platforms.

TEXT DISCUSSED

Axiom's End

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out Lindsay Ellis’s youtube channel!

Or these vids.

The music for today’s show is by Modal Plane, used by permission. Check out more of his music over at Circuit Church.

Modal Plane

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.


Episode 429 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

 

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #13

17 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Sozzled Scribbler

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The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #13

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

17 July 2020

Recently the Canal+ TV series, War of the Worlds has been labelled alienist, a piece of hate, and cultural appropriation on social media. The respected broadcaster has been described as part of the earthling supremacist system, provoking riots in the US, England, and Australia. In all other countries governments just shot their citizens.

So strong is the voice for reform about how aliens are depicted in film and television that it has created the #alienlivesmatter movement. To help Earthlings understand what is going on, I invited the creme de la creme of off-world actors to have their say.

S.S: Welcomes Klaatu, Uncle Martin, Davros, Predator, Doctor Who, The Thing and Ms Xenomorph. Have I left anyone out? It’s hard to distinguish some of you from a chair or a pot plant.

[A cacophony of horrendous screeches, clicks, and unearthly squeals follows.]

S.S: Why do you call filmmakers ‘earthling supremacists’ and accuse them of being mean to those who come from another planet?

Davros: Look at the way we are depicted. Cliches and stereotypes abound. It’s absolutely appalling. And we are usually killed off at the end.

S.S: By Pan’s beard, you can actually speak in coherent sentences, without shouting.

Davros: That’s what I’m talking about. Stereotypes, cliches. I received a sound education at Oxford. But nobody knows about that. All they’ve got me saying on his ridiculous show [gestured at Doctor Who] is EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE in a hysterical voice. I’ve been doing it since the 1970s and I’m sick of it. I want to play Othello or Hamlet.

Doctor Who: You’re not exactly love interest material, Dav.

Davros: How dare you! I don’t look like this all the time. I’m wearing make-up for your stupid show.

Klaatu: What do you really look like?

Davros: A baby squid.

Doctor Who: I rest my case.

Ms Xenomorph: [Knitting.] That’s easy for you to say, Doc. You and Klaatu and Uncle Martin look human. You can pass. The rest of us can’t. I can’t even get my feet into a pair of Manolo Blahniks while I’m chasing that skinny bitch Sigourney Weaver on set. People must think I’m a lesbian or something. Always chasing chicks and hissing in their faces. Prometheus help me if my parents ever saw those films.

S.S: Can we bring it back to #alienlivesmatter please?

Predator: This is a righteous movement, long overdue. Tear down human society, destroy the nukiler family, I say.

Davros: I don’t mind being the tough guy in TV shows, but let’s not confuse that with real life. I was taking a self-isolation trundle through Clapham Upon-Upper in London the other day when a bunch of kids mugged me to prove they can beat the leader of the Daleks. And then a policeman kneeled on my tentacles.

Uncle Martin: Testicles?

Davros: Tentacles, tentacles!

Ms Xenomorph: Tisk, tisk, that’s sort of behaviour is unacceptable in civil society.

S.S: If the entertainment industry didn’t cast you in these films, you’d all be lining up for the dole.

Predator: You say that again and I’ll rip your head off and shove it up your ass.

Ms Xenomorph: Ignore him, Pred. He’s just trying to provoke you. Don’t play into his hands. You’re better than that.

Predator: No, I’m not.

S.S: Statues of prominent humans have been torn down by enraged aliens and their human supporters. Do you think that’s right?

Predator: You bet. Down with Earthlings. Up with aliens.

S.S: Doctor Who, as a proud Gallifrey man/woman/thing and one of the planet’s most important actors—even if you do have an eye for young gals—what do you have to say about this?

Doctor Who: We need to remember Canal+ and many others champion the work of diverse filmmakers, who do not fit easily discernible categories.

Uncle Martin: Granted we are usually cast as brutes out to invade the planet, impregnate nubile women and give unwary men anal probes. But so what? At the end of the day, as Mr Sozzled says, it is money in the pocket.

Predator: You would say that, you preening old queen. How’s pretty boy Tim O’Hara? Must be expensive keeping a dimwitted human in the lap of luxury for 60 years.

Uncle Martin: Watch it, Pred, you won’t like me with my antennae up.

Ms Xenomorph: [Continues knitting.] Hmm, is that what they call it nowadays?

Predator. Oh, I’m scared. Why don’t you get Ms Xeno to lay an egg in little Timmy’s chest? Then you can start a family, you conformist.

The Thing: Something is dangerously askew in the way that we are talking about aliens in the arts, and I feel like that it’s time we spoke up.

Predator: [Throws claws up in air.] Not you too!

The Thing: We are sick and tired of being depicted as ugly and nasty. I mean look at me. Am I like ugly? Am I like mean?

Predator: You are fucking hideous and there’s no two ways about it, Thing. Accept it. Don’t conform to beauty stereotypes perpetuated by Ella Bache.

The Thing: I’m a victim of hierarchical oppressive systems that marginalize and oppress creatures of no discerning form.

Predator: Come on, kid, keep it together. You’re not a victim. They want you to believe that so they can control you.

S.S: Who, pray tell, is they?

Predator: Those giant non-binary ants that appeared in a film back in the 1950s.

S.S: That was Them!

The Thing: Flash in the pans. Nobody remembers them but everyone remembers me.

Predator: Atta boy, Thing! You’ll pull through.

E.T: Hold on a minute. Spielberg did his bit with Close Encountersand with my memoir, which he unimaginatively called ET.

S.S: Oh, you’re here too ET. I thought you were an old cushion.

E.T: Well, I never. I go out of my way to appear on your show and all I get is insults. [Waddles off in a huff.]

The Thing: The Spielberg love-fest is like a drop in the ocean. The rest is a deluge. It’s like so depressing. I’ve been like living on Zoloft for so long I can barely shape shift any more, which impacts the parts I’m offered.

S.S: The correct word is affects. Not impacts.

Predator: How dare you impose your imperialist dialectic values on him.

S.S: Thing, your last job was in 2011 in the Norwegian version of The Thing, wasn’t it?

The Thing: No, I played a blancmange in a Japanese ad last week. So like humiliating. I’m scared my agent’s gonna like dump me. [Starts to cry.]

Predator:  [To S.S.] See what you done!

Ms Xenomorph: I want to play a Bond girl before I die. Extend my range a little.

S.S: Is the current focus on public shaming and burning down the industry misguided and ahistorical?

Klaatu: It started as an attempt at genuine critique but it descended into online bullying. The activists accusing the content creators of being part of earthling supremacy are not taking into consideration the long history of ground-breaking, intergalacticly recognised alien and culturally diverse work, much of which has been supported by the film and television industries.

Uncle Martin: Equally, they have not understood the history of struggle against alienism on Earth, which has established structures that have enabled alien actors to assume their current positions within mainstream media, and to provide ongoing opportunities for others.

Doctor Who: In painting the industry as ‘all human’, they fail to acknowledge the changes already happening, driven by the hard work of aliens and sundry monsters who have come before them. The most powerful TV executive in England, Nyah, is The Devil Girl from Mars, for heaven’s sake. She has a lovely BBC accent.

Predator: She’s one hot bitch. I wants to shag her while she pulls my dreadlocks and calls me names.

S.S: Get a room why don’t you?

Predator: Fuck off, you old prune. When was the last time you had a root?

Klaatu: And let’s not forget Netflix just hired a man from Uranus…

Uncle Martin: Really? What’s his name when he’s on Earth?

Klaatu: Calm down, Uncle Martin. You know people from Uranus cause a stink when they’re propositioned.

Doctor Who: We must remember that many of the most significant creatives in the industry are from another planet or from a dark pit at the centre of the earth—Harvey Weinstein for instance.

Predator: Yeah, the real world is becoming more frightful every year. We need to celebrate that.

Ms Xenomorph: Just because I incubate my babies in random chest cavities doesn’t mean I’m not nice. I’m at an age when I can play the parts previously played by Sharon Stone, but are producers calling me?

Uncle Martin: We recognise there is a lot more work to be done, and that we can never rest on our larvae. However, we believe in constructively changing the system, rather than burning it down.

Klaatu: Well said. I believe in having strategies and policies, informed and researched targets, open and safe debate.

Thing: I’m sick of earthlings appropriating our stories to portray the growth of human characters. It’s like no, okay Just no.

Predator: [Stands.] No more compromise. I’m for tearing down the house, sowing the seeds of discord and relishing chaos. Come on Ms Xeno, Thing, let’s go for a drink. Leave these turn-coats to discuss strategies. You want to join us, Dav?

Davros: No, thanks. I’ll go home to read Shakespeare’s sonnets.

[Ms Xenomorph and Predator depart with their arms around a sobbing Thing.]

S.S: [Looks at remaining party.] Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today.

Klaatu: We propose the best way forward is to create a safe forum with all players, that offers solutions to lift up and not tear down.

S.S: Yeah, whatever… Get out of my penthouse. I’ve got martinis to drink, freaks to insult.

Until next we meet. Cheerio!


people-2570596_1920 Sozzled

The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker (his father) and a Greek bear wrestler (his mother). He has lived in Istanbul, Rome, London, New Orleans and is currently stateless. He partakes of four bottles of Bombay gin and nine packets of Gauloises cigarettes a day.

Dmetri Kakmi, is a writer and editor. His first book Mother Land was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia, and his new book The Door will be released in September 2020.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #79: Take It To the Banks

15 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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Tags

The Banks, TKO comics

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #79 by Drew Barth

Take it to the Banks

I’ve mentioned them briefly before, but TKO is doing something different with monthly comics. Instead of waiting for trade paperbacks while a monthly series comes out, they opt to publish the entire story at once either in a collected edition or as a box set of six issues. As readers, we can binge our way through a series right as it begins, no waiting required. And if we’re going to talk about binging an entire series, we have to talk about a new crime family story courtesy of Roxanne Gay, Ming Doyle, and Jordie Bellaire: The Banks.

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The Banks centers around three generations of the Banks family—Clara, Cora, and Celia—and their family’s legacy as the best thieves in Chicago. Celia, the youngest of the Banks, rejects her mother’s and grandmother’s professions, opting instead to work in the financial sector. But even here she is surrounded with thievery of a different kind and this brings her into contact with the man who killed her grandfather. And this could just be a heist story with a touch of revenge, but Gay, Doyle, and Bellaire are the kinds of storytellers that push a medium. These women know the best stories come from the best characters and the Banks as a family feel superbly realistic in their desires, their disappointments, their quirks, and their squabbles. A heist story is good, but a heist story with characters we can connect with on a personal level is even better.

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The ways Ming Doyle is able to convey complex montages and play with how weird time can be in comics is just another aspect of how goddamn good The Banks is as a comic. A two page spread can encompass Clara Banks and her husband’s entire courtship and marriage before we’re brought back to the present. What Doyle does so well here is showing the past only when we need it and not a moment more. At times, we’re provided the same kind of information and backstory as Celia—we’re in the dark as much as the main character. And, in a family who has been known to hide pieces of the past from one another, this method of storytelling only works to further bolster this idea of only getting a portion of the story at a time. This allows for the story of the Banks family to unfold with a slow determination that builds upon the foundation of the past without ever being trampled by details.

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Works like The Banks, Far Sector, and The Low, Low Woods are easily some of the strongest comics to come out in the past couple years and they’re also all comics written by some of the best authors alive right now. It’s a trend in comics that should continue. There are voices in monthly comics—or in the case of TKO, seasonal comics—that have long been underrepresented. Women, especially women of color, aren’t as large of a portion of this comic writing world as they should be, but hopefully with such prominent authors working in the medium, we can start to see a shift toward having those voices being represented even more.

Get excited. Get more.


drew-barth-mbfi

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

 

Episode 428: David James Poissant!

11 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode

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David James Poissant, Lake Life, The Heaven of Animals

Episode 428 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

David James Poissant

In this week’s show, I talk to my friend David James Poissant about novel-writing, sex scenes, The X-Men, graphic art, focus, and many other things.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Lake LifeThe Heaven of Animals


This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

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TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.


Episode 428 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #326: Underwater

10 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Blog Post, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Jeff Shuster, Kristen Stewart, The Curator of Schlock, TJ Miller, Underwater, William Eubank

The Curator of Schlock #326 by Jeff Shuster

Underwater

It’s like The Little Mermaid only totally different. 

I like to think I’m not a difficult house guest, but Grantchester is back on Masterpiece Mystery and I will not miss a single episode for anything! Unfortunately, we had quite a storm this past Sunday and I had to send my manservant Jervis out into the thick of it. I asked him to keep the satellite dish steady so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting those nasty digitized bits while I find out if the dashing Will Davenport can repair his strained relationship with his mother. Jervis got a bit drenched and seemed to be working through a fever while cooking my eggs the next morning. He made them over easy instead of sunny side up, but I didn’t say anything because I’m a good guest.

underwater1

Tonight’s movie is 2020’s Underwater from director William Eubank. We get flashes of news headlines in the beginning stating something about a drilling station deep at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Kristen Stewart plays Norah Price, a plucky and nihilistic engineer/computer wiz. You remember Kristen Stewart. She played Bella Swan in those Twilight movies. I’m a bit of a Twihard myself. Team Jacob for the win! Am I right? So Norah is busy brushing her teeth when the underwater bunker begins to shake and the computer is rambling about structural integrity or something to that effect. She runs into another employee of the drilling company, a young man named Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie) before the two of them decide to seal their part of the station off before their section gets flooded..They watch in horror as other crew members run for their lives only to get obliterated because they couldn’t reach safety in time.

underwater2

The two of them run into other survivors as they climb through the rubble of the station. These include Paul (T.J, Miller), a funny crew member that won’t be the first to die, Lucien (Vincent Cassel), the French captain of the station, Liam (John Gallagher Jr.), a manly engineer, and Emily (Jessica Henwick), the station’s biologist that loves corgis.

underwater3

They need to get out of the collapsing part of the station and don’t ask me to repeat all of the scientific doublespeak spewing from their mouths. The gist is they have to put on these heavy and dangerous high-tech scuba suits that allow them to walk on the surface of the ocean.

UNDERWATER

A crack forms in Rodrigo’s helmet once underwater and he can’t handle the pressure. I’m not talking about psychological pressure, but the physical pressure of having no protection from the water at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The rest of the crew move on and gradually learn the cause of the station collapsing. There be monsters swimming around under the sea, squid-like creatures that most likely came through the surface when the drilling crew drilled vin the wrong spot. It’s basically Alien underwater, but it’s better than Deep Star Six. There are worse ways to spend 95 minutes.


Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, and episode 284) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

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