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My Untitled Novel Project, Part One (Still Unfinished)

27 Feb

February 27, 2018

Russia tried to influence the Presidential election? Give me a break. They have bigger ambitions than that, and back in 2015 I spelled it out in the opening chapter of my novel.

August 9, 2015

The Time: Now
The Place: The Kremlin

Vladimir Putin has assembled all of his most trusted Communist Party leaders. Standing at the head of a long conference table, Putin dims the lights as a video screen blinks to life behind him. On it is a map of Europe. He leans forward.

“Thank you all for coming here on such short notice.”

The others smile small, tight smiles. Some nod, others simply look straight ahead. They were all summoned out of their beds mere minutes ago.

“As you know, it is our Russian destiny to put our stamp on the world.” As he speaks, the Russian hammer and sickle appears on the view screen above every European capital. “What most of you don’t know is that our destiny is now. It begins tonight.”

The assembled men shift slightly in their seats, glancing at each other out of the corners of their eyes, careful to maintain the smiles on their faces. None want to appear disloyal.

Putin pauses. He looks at each of the men, mentally cataloging which he can trust and which will “disappear” this night. After a deliberately long silence, he gestures to the screen.

“And this is how our dominion begins.”

The picture on the screen changes, dissolving into recent news footage. Now the smiles of the men fade. They openly stare at each other. They have seen the news footage before. It is from a recent Japanese tragedy, and all of them are afraid of what it may mean. Of what Putin may mean.

“This, comrades, this is how we will rule the world!” Putin presses a button, and the video freezes, with one single, terrifying image lighting the darkened room. It is reflected in the glasses of the other men, on their shiny medals, and in their fear-struck eyes.

It is Godzilla.

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Hey, what do you think? Is this a winner or what? Didn’t that have you on the edge of your seat? I don’t want to give too much away, but crazy ol’ Putin has found a way to control Godzilla, and he going to use him to destroy the world. Will he succeed? Can he be stopped? And what the heck do Gummy Bears have to do with it? You’ll just have to wait and find out!

(It might be a long wait. That’s all I wrote.)

putnin-rifle

He’s a bad man!

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The Saturday Comics: The Phantom Gets Good!

29 Dec

December 29, 2017

Let’s end the year by checking back in on one of the classics. It is the Phantom, a comic character from the Golden Age created by Lee Falk. He’s “The Ghost Who Walks,” but basically just a guy in a suit who fights crime. He’s the latest in a family line of crime-fighters to use that name. When we last checked in back in 2011, there was literally nothing going on. For an entire week nothing happened. And I mean that exactly as it sounds. Let’s go back and see, then we’ll check in with the strip today and see what’s up.

UPDATED from April 16, 2011DAY ONE:

OK, I get it. I came in at the end of an adventure. It looks like a happy ending. It is actually a good thing I came in now so I can enjoy the start of a whole new story tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

DAY TWO:

Well, that’s nice. Sort of the same thing as yesterday though. And it seems a bit of a waste, story-wise, to do it in one big splash but I guess it gets the emotion across. OK, let’s see where this goes tomorrow.

DAY THREE:

What the? What’s the point of this? Is the next arc about haircuts? If this were a play I could almost hear the stage manager hissing “vamp!” while the star desperately searches for her line. This is ridiculous, the big splash yesterday should have ended the arc. I’m getting a bit tired of this, hopefully things will move ahead tomorrow.

DAY FOUR:

Um, Ok. More wasting time. Maybe they haven’t hammered out the next script yet and just tossed this in? I can’t figure out a purpose to this strip, unless it is to reinforce their dedication to fighting evil? This isn’t much of a superhero strip, it is more like a bad show on the religious station with Kirk Cameron. I’m not hopeful for tomorrow.

DAY FIVE:

Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere.

DAY SIX:Huh? Where’s The Phantom? And isn’t that the guy who was supposed to be in jail? Who are these people? I sat through almost a week for this? That strip could have been told in three panels. And re-read the second panel. “Colonel Weeks met the unknown commander.” “Worubu doubts it.” There is a verb tense problem there, and I’m usually not that picky outside of a grammar blog but that is really annoying to read. I really hope The Phantom picks up but I’m losing hope.

DAY SEVEN:

UGH! Back to that? It’s like the Sunday strip exists in a different timeline, and maybe it might. Many strips do a separate storyline on Sundays because some papers only run the Sunday strips. So I can follow the annoying story on Sunday, or follow the slow and boring story during the week, or maybe wait and see if indeed that Sunday strip is part of the same story as the weekly though it doesn’t seem to be.

DAY EIGHT:

To Hell with The Phantom. Popeye never fails. I got more out of that strip than an entire week of The Phantom. And why not? It looks like they are running a classic Sagendorf strip.

That Phantom run may have been the worst week of a comic strip that I have ever read, and that’s coming from someone who read comics written and drawn by Rob Liefeld so you know I’ve read some bad comics. The artist of this strip, Paul Ryan, was the artist on one of my favorite runs of the Fantastic Four so this hurts all the more.

DECEMBER 2017 UPDATE!

Here are the current strips from Monday December 25 to Thursday, December 28: 

Whoa, what happened? First, you might notice a change in the art. Comic book veteran Mike Manley (another favorite artist, and cool name- “Manley”-) has taken over from Paul Ryan, who died in 2016. The strip looks great. I have to give credit to the colorist too. The explosion on day two really pops. But most notably,  the writing is top notch. It zips along! There’s action! I want to know what happens next. And look at the bad guy. Despite not knowing what the plot of the story is, I feel I know all I need to know about him at this point. As a new reader I’m already drawn into the action and fairly knowledgeable about the characters. Did they change the writer, you may be wondering? Nope, it is still Tony DePaul. So maybe the 2011 run was an aberration? Or maybe he simply improved. Either way, this week’s strip is a winner. I deliberately left out the Friday strip. And that’s today (as of the date of this posts publication) so go over to comicskingdom.com and see where this story is headed. I know I will!  

 

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