Recent Comments

1. about 3 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Well, keep in mind Mike came from writing for comic books, which is a shorted form of writing. As such, it imparts a sense of tying up things relatively quickly and can give you a sense to plusses to add into the scripts.

   I wrote for comics and wrote a weekly radio anthology seriesin my college days, so that’s pretty much what I picked up over the years.

2. about 3 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   They’re Rigor and Mortis, two largely lethargic ventriloquist dummies who will play a significant tole in What Is To Come.

3. about 3 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   OT SCREAMING RANT: Ah, ‘tis Tax Time, that merry time of giggles and guffaws. And what’s wrong with TRYING (note ) to get my waddling quackers duly lined up n advance? Wellll…Hotmail, plain and simple.

   I have two accounts for audio books: one for those I’ve narrated, and for those adapted from my books. Well, Hotmail lost the e-mail password for one, which I need in order to access the one account. I have spent three days and about 40 tries to reset it and gotten nowhere.

   So bad that, after try # 41, I took a hot bath and considered never coming out. I just want to change the contact e-mail to another provider and dump the secondary Hotmail account.

4. about 3 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Kinda doubt I’ll be around. No word from Mike in…what…a year

5. about 9 hours ago on Brewster Rockit

   Actually a direct refenece to Olin Howland’s old man. who first encounters the blob in the ’58 THE BLOB.

6. about 9 hours ago on Rip Haywire

   You KNOW, he’d make a great background character in future strips. Maybe in a distant bed in hospital scenes.

   This may well outlive my personal war on Sam over at DICK TRACY (though I did give him a moment of glory in my second guest strip, I’ve always worried about Sam…).

7. about 9 hours ago on Luann

   Sounds VERY much like a first draft of one of my books. Fine. I’m going into therapy for that one of these days. Only, with my luck, I’d probably go to thearpy.

8. about 9 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   I’d say that Mike’s writing tends to have more of a point to it, and the stories encapsulate better. You’d get a story with development and action points. Then you’d be switched to an entirely different story to perk your interest. Sure there were longer stories, but still…

   While this story, as an example, is well thought out, it’s very slow in development. There’s an element of suspense, but it’s somewhat diluted by being stretched out without some key point intruding now and they to reestablish a more urgent pace. It would be interesting to see it AS a novella.

   Let’s be fair. We don’t know the circumstances. Take it from me, there are a lot of aspects of writing for an editor/publisher that readers aren’t privy to.

   Stretched-out story flow? He may have been given a specific time frame to fill. Last time I dabbled in Tracy, I was advised that there would be a finite end to Mike’s break. If this is the case, it would explain the somewhat drawn out approach.

   In writing for anthologies, I HATE having to work to a very specific length. On one hand, it can mean you have to write X number of pages and then edit them down. Much hair pulling and swilling of double shots of Ovaltine ensue.

   On the other. you may have a tightly developed concept which you then have to stretch. This, for me at least, is the worse of the the two scenarios. In my experience, whether in comic book scripting, detective fiction or sci-fi, having to essentially add padding is a nightmare.

   Matter of fact, I had a stand-up routine on the perils of writing radio drama that covered this quandry, based on my writing and producing a weekly series for the collage radio station.

9. about 9 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   A home-made reworking of PSYCHO is in the works, and they need a (excuse the pun) body double for Sweet Miss Primrose, the gentle yet vindictive school marm. (It’s also a twisted homage to LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, UNCLE VANYA, and CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG HITS THE BEACH AT MALIBU.)

   Surfing dogs, angst at he artel, and the ABCs. I smell a WINNER at Cannes here!

10. about 9 hours ago on Dick Tracy

    I am beginning to wonder when this will switch to another, separate story.