And so to take a brief break, I thought I'd take a look at the sliver of nerd culture that is most often evoked about the bad trends of the 90s - Comics. Sure, there was bad movies, bad television, bad fashion, and bad music in the 90s, but you often see it balanced out either by the good stuff or by sincere nostalgia for the not-so-good stuff. But when it comes to comic-books, it often feels like most of the fandom is ready to just write the whole damn decade right off. Granted, this was the era when the industry hit its highest peak ever, only to come crashing spectacularly down to earth, but there was much more than that at play. To fully understand why 90s comics are so uniquely infamous, one has to understand the four separate, yet confluent phenomena that conspired to cause all the madness:
The Dark Age The Rise of the Superstar Artist Image Comics and the Speculator Bubble Each of which can be the subject of a feature-length documentary in and of themselves. Let's see if I can summarize all briefly in a blog post. *ahem* The Dark Age Okay, so as briefly as possible: in 1986, Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns both hit the stands. Two books about classic superheroes reimagined as dark, brutal, and sexually-charged epics. Suddenly, mainstream popular culture woke up to the idea that comics could be both literally and superficially grown-up. Which in turn, led to the grown-up long time fans of the genre, who had been quietly keeping the industry sales numbers humming for years, to be more publicly open about their comic-book hobby. Publishers figured out that they could make a lot more money selling more expensive merchandise to older fans rather than just scrambling for the meager allowances of children, and sell more books by making the characters they already had more mature in the most pandering and superficial way possible. By the time the 90s were on the horizon, these factors had helped to create: The Speculator Bubble The vast hordes of newly out-of-the-closet comic fans weren't just buying new books and expensive merchandise, they were re-buying classic comics that had made them fans to begin with, and catching up on the decades of Marvel and DC universe continuity that informed the stories they were reading today. Funny thing about that, though: since comics until now had been regarded as a disreputable and disposable medium for children, very little effort had ever been made to preserve older comics, making the few that remained major collector's items with extravagant price tags to the right director. Soon, news reports were hitting daily, all telling versions of the same amazing human interest story: "Holy crap!! I bought this comic for pennies as a kid, and I just sold it for THOOOUSANDS!" Some canny business types called 'Speculators' got an idea from this: they would buy some comics that looked like they'd be worth a lot of money later on now, and hold onto them as investments, angling that these books might depreciate in value the same way the older ones did. But how would they find the right books? Now at this point if you're reading this far and you're familiar with the subject, ya'll will have already figured out why this was a stupid idea. They would find these "right" books by paying attention to the types of old books that fetched high prices; debut issues, first appearances of popular characters, deaths of popular characters, shocking story turns, artwork by specific now-famous artists. Soon, publishers learned to take advantage of this interest by gearing their books toward creating as much of those kinds of issues as possible. They killed major characters, created tons of new ones, staged a bunch of big twisty-event storylines, and they pulled stunts like limited-edition covers and giveaways. But what they did most was heavily promote the involvement of a new generation of artists. The Rise of the Superstar Artist Fairly or not, with the notable exception of the King of All Self-Promoters, Stan Lee, comic-book artists have up until recently always gotten more attention than writers, and with comics being more visible than ever, the big artists of the late 80s and early 90s were bigger names than almost any other artist before them. Sure, they weren't exactly movie stars, but guys like Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Todd McFarlane had public profiles that dwarfed even that of the late great Jack Kirby. For the first time, thanks in no small part to the aforementioned speculation investors, books could turn a profit just on the name of the artist, and publishers looked to keep them happy and prolific by letting them write books as well so they could have more control. Granted, a lot of them weren't nearly as good at writing; we'll come back to that - but given the kinds of writing that publishers were looking for, they didn't need to be. And yet they still didn't feel like they had enough say over their own work. Image Comics From the very beginning of the comic-book industry, pretty much all work done by a writer automatically became the property of the publisher; including concepts and characters they created. For example, when he became Canada's representative on the new international-flavored X-Men in 1975, Wolverine became one of Marvel's most popular and profitable characters for selling toys, shirts, etc. But the guy who created Wolverine didn't see the kind of royalties you might expect. He already got paid his salary for writing the issue of the Hulk where Wolverine was first introduced. This had obviously never sat well with anyone in the business, but now the aforementioned Superstar Artists figured they might have some pull to make new demands; specifically of Marvel who was at the time, regarded as the bigger offender of the two publishers. When Marvel didn't budge, six of the industry's biggest guns of the moment - Eric Larson, Rob Liefeld, Jim Valentino, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, and Mark Silvestri - with ideological backing and support from Wilche Portacio and Chris Claremont, shook the industry by quitting and founding their own publishing company, Image Comics, which soon drew even more talent from around the industry thanks to its promise of autonomy and emphasis on creator's rights to their own intellectual property. A lot of Image's books sold really well and soon, they were getting movie, toy, and cartoon deals that rivaled those of Marvel and DC. For just a minute there in the 90s, things were looking really really bright. So what happened? Ehhhhh well, everything fell apart, basically - though the biggest contributor was the speculator bubble finally bursting. See, somehow, everyone managed to ignore one simple and logical flaw: old comics became valuable collector's items because there weren't a lot of them left, because no one had ever thought they'd be valuable collector's items. But since these new books were being bought and sold specifically with that in mind, there were tons of them out there, soo they weren't gonna go up in value anytime soon. Oh, and since the publishers had turned their universes into pandering Dark Age messes chasing sales trends to create collectables, you wound up with not only a surplus of comics, but a surplus of bad comics nobody was eager to revisit. The bottom fell out of the market, sales plummeted, stores closed, and many many people lost their jobs. It was really more of a slow-motion train-wreck than an immediate thing that some like to tag 1996 as the Year of the "Great Comics Crash" because of the mega-disaster that was Marvel filing for bankruptcy. Oh, and the guys at Image? Well, for all their good intentions, as businessmen, they were pretty good cartoonists. Egos, work-ethics, schedules clashed almost immediately, very few of them could actually write all that well on their own, and while the company never fully fell apart, the dream of a sustainable, fully-independent challenger to Marvel and DC was never fully realized either. Especially since one of the team's star players, Todd McFarlane, turned out to be more interested in becoming a merchandising mogul than making comics. In the wake of all of this, the comics industry got much, much smaller - even as the pop-culture presence of its properties got much, much greater. And the ripple-effects of the disastrous 90s continue to be felt well into the 21st century. In fact, one of the most infamous dust-ups from that era would rear up back in the news in 2013, and I'll...try to explain what it was next time. Catch ya'll later!
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Umbral Siren definitely wouldn't be where it is today if not for the numerous inspirations that came before it. So I decided to make a series of blog posts recounting some of my experience of writing Umbral Siren thus far. Granted, this won't be a ‘how to write a novel’ guide, and I definitely don't claim to have all the answers when it comes to the art of novel-writing. Or even most for that matter. In a way, think of it as like the ‘extras’ on a DVD / Blu-ray disc. These blog posts will be looking into the story's biggest inspirations, as well as explain why those works were important to my conception of Umbral Siren.
When I was constructing and writing this story, my goal was to make my own branch of the supernatural action/horror genre - only with more emphasis on the psychological horror aspect. In order to do so, I looked at and studied an extensive collection of works by masters in the fields of horror, storytelling, and film-making, among other mediums. I aim to cover the process from the initial ideas for a novel, through research, planning, draft-writing and editing. I hope my posts will offer some fruitful points of discussions and useful ideas for writers and would-be writers; I also hope to help you avoid some of the pitfalls into which I stumbled! I'll begin by looking at the inspiration behind the writing of the novel. The action of the novel takes place in a small village within Tajikistan in our present day, which is an independent micro-nation ruled under a theocratic order. Years ago, the imperialist monarchy known as Sigma withdrew its grip from the town, which would eventually plunge the town into a period of war, instability, and chaos. Waves of mercenaries and rogues descended onto Tajikistan, with these newcomers becoming the dominant force in the town. In some ways, while the setting is contemporary, there is a post-apocalyptic air throughout - in the sense that the action revolves around scattered individuals navigating and struggling to maintain their sense of self in the bones of a complex plot centering around the remnants of Sigma's past, and the remaining evil that the fallen empire would leave in its wake. What started before as an occult-themed Silent Hill/Devil May Cry/Fullmetal Alchemist mashup has since become a complex and psychological urban-fantasy infused among many things with elements of occult horror, experimental avant-garde literature, new age sci-fi, and afro-futurism. Those last two are especially important. The latter for consolidating and establishing the African element in Umbral Siren's lore, which was another thing that transformed Umbral Siren into what it is today - given my own expanding knowledge of my history, culture, and roots expanding over the years. The former is what really makes Umbral Siren stand out - but also something that gives it a somewhat-difficult-to-approach narrative edge. While Umbral Siren and the style of fantasy and magic for its story has the occult, pagan mysticism/witchcraft aspect, it's also made a shift over the years to where it hails less from action-focused dark-fantasy type of stuff, and more towards the esoteric, philosophical branch of early new-age sci-fi. Thus, while many of the magic and lore is based around demon summonings, medieval grimoires, witchcraft, magic, etc, a LOT of it is also based on theoretical quantum mechanics, self-actualization through introspection, metaphysical shifts in reality, one is metaphor for the other, etc etc. And a LOT of it plays out in the realm of 'Psyche' rather than purely 'Physical' - though there is plenty of physical action scenes between the characters to be sure. So it's not exactly 2001: a Space Odyssey, but it's not Mortal Kombat or Berserk, either. This is all the case even as the actual story at first glance presents itself as a deceptively simple occult-themed horror narrative in which a highly-intelligent but disturbed and troubled man who develops psychic powers as the result of living in seclusion for years, summons a trio of ancient gods to take revenge for his parents' death years ago and as a result, inadvertently reawakens a malevolent spiritual power that has permeated the town and regions since ancient times, and which the other nine characters whom the power makes contact with are drawn into the town. And with a lot of the keys to fighting said spiritual power, demons, and etc lying in mind-induced travel between planes of reality. The fact is that Umbral Siren is really as much a story about ideas, thoughts, feelings, concepts, theology, philosophies, and ideologies as it is an dark action-based occult urban-fantasy with witches, assassins, souls trapped in armor, beastmen, sword-wielding demons, and all that good shit. Another one of the largest contributors to my collection of literary inspirations is Stephen King. King has become so widely-recognized as a master of the horror genre, that most of his writing has been adapted for film and television. In his book about horror fiction, Dense Macabre, Stephen King describes three different types of horror: Terror, Horror, and Revulsion. While Horror and Revulsion are visceral reactions to monsters jumping out or aliens bursting through chests, as well as blood and gore in general, terror is a psychological effect we feel when imagining the horrors to come. It is this psychological terror of Stephen King's books that I'm picking up on. This is not the only thing learned from Stephen King's books. It seems like every third or fourth story he writes is about a kid with psychic powers, or a parallel universe, or the mystery of an abandoned town, or some combination of the three. For instance, The Regulators is about an autistic boy who acquires the power to control reality from a demon. He uses this power to transform his neighborhood, and his manifestations attack his neighbors. The book also has a sister novel called Desperation that depicts an alternate reality, with doubles of all the characters from the Regulators. In Desperation, the very same demon is in control of a small desert town where it has killed all of the residents. This is where the inspiration for the basic premise of Umbral Siren came from. Children of the Corn is about a married couple that ends up in an abandoned town where every building is run-down except for the church, where a cult of children sacrifices adults to a demonic creature that lives in the cornfields surrounding the town. The leader of the cult, Malachi, is where the central character/antagonist of Umbral Siren gets his name, with "Malakai". Also among the stories Stephen King has written that I took influence from were Carrie and It. These are the two works by Stephen King that most influenced the writing of Umbral Siren. Carrie is the story of a young girl with psychic powers who was tormented relentlessly by her schoolmates. She lives an extremely sheltered life with her mother, a religious fanatic who broke from the church and preaches her own crazy religion. Two of Carrie's classmates, Tommy and Sue take pity on her and Tommy invites Carrie to the prom. As you might already know, it doesn't end well. Stephen King's Carrie is where the inspiration for Malakai's psychic powers originates. This also came with it not only the motivation behind him using these powers to invoke the Old Gods, but the manifestations of his inner fear, hatred, turmoil, and vengeance being projected onto the town/reality. Which in turn, draws in individuals with darkness in their hearts -- aka the other fighters. Stephen King's It is about a nameless otherworldly entity that feeds on humans. The entity can reach into a person's mind and manifest itself as anything it finds there. In Umbral Siren, the manifestation of inner fear is all the spiritual power of the town and surrounding region does after Malakai invokes the Old Gods through his ritual. Other literary inspirations include Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin, which is about a Satanic cult trying to impregnate a woman with the seed of a demon - a scenario that doesn't sound at all out-of-place in the Umbral Siren universe. This was the main inspiration for Malakai's family and the cult which they belonged to. Richard Matheson's Hell House is about a physicist, his wife, and two mediums who stay the night in a haunted house in order to discover its secret. Matheson also wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation, The Legend of Hell House, and is also cited by Stephen King as the author who most inspired him. Hell House had inspired the appearance of the mansion where Malakai dwells on the outskirts of the town in Umbral Siren, as well as its terrible history. Carl Sagan is an astrophysicist and the author of Contact, a story about an alien race that challenges humanity to build a device that can transport people billions and billions of light-years away, where the aliens can communicate with them by manifesting as dead people from their pasts, drawn directly from their minds -- like what the power of Malakai's summoning can do. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that all of these disparate elements offered strong potential for a contemporary action urban-fantasy novel. It was a story I wanted to tell; hell, even one I needed to tell. And I do think this is an important point when it comes to writing novels – the subject matter has to grip you, the author at the end of the day. And I'm prepared for the long haul, doing not just writing, but research; and this journey is so much more rewarding writing about a subject that fascinates and excites me. Anyway, I'm starting to get tired, so tune in next time when I continue onto Film, TV, and other major inspirations for Umbral Siren. What's happening, everyone - I'm Kurt R. Sunderland, the author of the upcoming Records of the Astral urban fantasy series, and the soon-to-be completed Crownlands, a fantasy novel set in Austria-Hungary during World War One.
So this would mark the very first post on my new blog and new website (of which you can find linked below the RSS feed to your right)! Thanks for visiting - and I hope you'll drop on by regularly. Now as far as the content of this blog, it'll be far more than just promoting my books. Aside from being a writer, I'm also a movie buff, a competitive gamer, a sketch artist (both traditional and digital), an avid reader of novels and literature, a music lover, a politics-buff on my spare-time, a history scholar (particular fields are ancient African history and early Medieval European history), a religious scholar, an animation fan, an amateur Taijutsu practitioner, Tarot-reader, a semi-anime fan, and a big-ass smoker of the Mary-Juana. Basically, I'm into a lot of stuff and I love what I do, and as well as talking about the wide menagerie of books, films, novels, video-games (fighting games, Silent Hill, and Sonic the Hedgehog, in particular), music, and stuff that I enjoy, I also plan to share many of my experiences (both good and bad!), along with a lot of my inspirations as a writer going into the making of Umbral Siren and its broader installments, and I hope this will help and encourage other writers in my age group and demographic out there. Aside from that, I also enjoy talking about and discussing many different ways of seeing the world, so I'll go into all of what that entails. The primary motivation of this blog is ultimately to provide a place for me to express my opinions, thoughts, and general ramblings n shit, particularly on the video game industry, movies, and just eclectic ranges of topics that I'm deeply passionate about or have interest in. See you around! |
What's going on, everybody! Thanks for dropping by the Conflicting Views of Gunrose! Take a look around and be sure to grab the RSS Feed to stay updated. See you around!
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