Back when I told you what I bought at this year’s Small Press Expo in Bethesda, I mentioned that I’d attended three presentations. What I didn’t say was that I recorded the one that interested me the most, “The Secret History of Women in Comics.” Not just so I could share it with you, but so that my wife, Impish Irene Vartanoff, who wasn’t able to be in the audience that day but who could be considered a part of that history, would be able to witness it, too.

Sorry it’s taken me two weeks to get this up on YouTube, but, hey … I’ve been busy.

In any case, the panel, held Saturday, September 10, 2011 at SPX, was described as follows on the program: “The increased involvement of women in the comics field over the past several years has been a significant positive change in a historically male-dominated industry. However, just as it’s worth celebrating this progressive revolution, it is also worth noting that today’s women cartoonists are part of a lineage of pioneering women who have made many contributions to the field. Heidi MacDonald will discuss this history with Jessica Abel, Robyn Chapman, Alexa Dickman and Diane Noomin.”

And here it is!

Thank goodness those guys got rid of that silly upside-down spaceship headquarters in exchange for something more environmentally aware.

I used the Everyday iPhone app to snap a picture of myself each day from March 23-September 23 … the result of which tells me little more than how boring I am!

I’ll be attending Capclave next month, a local science fiction convention held in Gaitherburg, Maryland. If you’ll be there, too, here’s where you’ll be able to find me. (Well, when I’m not hanging out in the bar or con suite, that is.)

Ideas into Story
Saturday, October 15, 1:00 PM
”Where do you get your ideas ?” is a question that writers always get asked. The real work is taking an idea and turning into a story. How does that happen?

Reading
Saturday, October 15, 6:30 PM
Got a few weeks to decide exactly what I’ll be reading … all I know is that it’ll be something I’ve never read at a Capclave before!

Self-Editing: From Rough Draft to Finished Work (m)
Sunday, October 16, 1:00 PM
How do writers look critically at their own work? What steps do they take to hone their drafts into polished stories?

Endings: Varieties of Wrapping Up (m)
Sunday, October 16, 3:00 PM
In the final pages, the resolution of the present story becomes clear (and so might the nature of the sequel). It’s not always done well—let’s talk about how and when it is done well, as well as the many other challenges of creating good endings.

See you there!

When I was a kid, I loved reading all the reissued novels in the late ’60s that featured the adventures of Doc Savage and other pulp heroes. One of the things I liked the most was that sense of time travel; that is, experiencing a story from another era. Which is why when I came across a Spider reprint that had been updated—I think the vintage of a bottle of wine was of a date which had come after the original story had been published—I felt cheated.

Didn’t the publisher realize it was eliminating one of the things that had attracted me to the book in the first place?

Based on how Wikipedia recounts what happened, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way:

It seems likely that these four books were edited and modernized reprints, one of several reasons why they may have never caught on with their intended audience. In one, Death and the Spider, with an original publishing date of 1940, Nita Van Sloan is shown driving an Jaguar E-type X-KE, a sportscar not created and on the streets until 1961, some nineteen years later.

I was even more offended when I learned that James Schmitz had been edited in rerelease to eliminate numerous references to smoking, which later came up at a World Fantasy Con panel I was on during which I, without realizing it, ended up sitting next to the guy who was responsible for that expurgation. (You can check out the discussion—and see the flabbergasted Nancy Kress—starting at 11:56 here.)

So you can imagine how I felt when I read the following in a review of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth’s The Space Merchants in the September 19 issue of Publishers Weekly:

Pohl has attempted to make this classic novel relevant to modern readers with new references to Wal-mart, Enron, and Reagan, but the revisions only throw the 1950s attitudes and gender stereotypes into sharp relief, resulting in a dated, muddled mess.

It’s been years since I last read that 1950s classic, so I can’t speak to the palatability of its attitudes. I only know that this type of updating is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea.

Please, kids … don’t do this at home.

Let’s leave this sort of thing to George Lucas … agreed?

Back in 1975, a much younger me caused a much younger Stan Lee to burn money. Well … pretend to burn money, anyway.

It was staged for a subscription ad I’d written which appeared on the inside back cover of Crazy #14. The fake flames, which today would have been Photoshopped in, were quite obviously airbrushed.

As I recall, he required no coaxing to go along with this.

Whenever I happen to remember I used to see Stan each day for years, I can’t help but think … wow.

Man, was I lucky.

I’d have shared a Science Fiction Age rejection slip with you long ago as part of this series if not for the fact that even though thousands of them passed through my hands during the eight years I edited the magazine (I was seeing 8,000-10,000 stories per year), I apparently didn’t save any for my records. So I had to wait for one of you to dig up a copy.

As you can see, it was certainly one of the wordier rejection slips out there.

Thanks to Brad Torgersen for taking the trouble to find this.

It’s Irene’s birthday tomorrow, and as part of the weekend’s celebration, we’ll be driving to Richmond for a visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to catch their Fabergé exhibit. While we’re there, I hope to snag her one of those eggs I keep hearing so much about.

And along the way, I hope to add two more Man v. Food restaurants to my “yeah, I’ve eaten there” list—Buz & Ned’s Real BBQ and The Black Sheep.

But as for Caliente … never. I don’t do heat, and poor Irene would probably burst into flames if we even drove past the place.

I’ll let you know what I thought of these restaurants—and how they compare to other Man v. Food picks—once we get back.

I’m going to write this post without digging into my old journals, notes, and memos, so I may end up being off on some of the dates, a point I want to get out of the way first thing. But the spirit of what I’m about to share with you is true, and I want you to hear it today even though I don’t have the time for that. I may someday write something longer and more detailed on the subject with all the i’s dotted, t’s crossed, and details revealed, but for now, this will have to do.

I edited Science Fiction Age magazine from 1992 through 2000, but what very few people know is that I almost quit before the first issue ever appeared. (Or perhaps it was during the space between the first and second issue. I can no longer be sure without doing that research I mentioned.) And the reason for my possible resignation is a short story that’s just gotten published in the September/October issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, a story which you’re only finally getting a chance to read nearly two decades later than you should have.

Sometime during 1992, before the first issue of Science Fiction Age was published, I read a submission titled “Anise” from writer Chris DeVito. I loved it, and sent out a contract immediately. If the name doesn’t mean anything to you, or if the name does mean something to you, but you only know Chris as the editor and publisher of the magazines such as Fuck Science Fiction or Proud Flesh, well … I still feel guilty about that.

Because “Anise” was NOT published in the second or third issue of SFA. Instead, the publishers overruled my decision due to the story’s explicit sexual content. I was told that maybe we could publish it a couple of years down the road, but not during the first year or two of our existence, when the chain stores were still paying close attention to the magazine’s content.

I was furious. (more…)

According to a May 1937 Associated Press article, blonde drivers are “much more dangerous” than brunettes, because:

When the lights of an oncoming car hit a driver’s eyes he drives blind for a certain number of feet. … It takes from one-fifth to one and one-fifth seconds to recover natural night-driving vision. Blondes with light eyes take far longer than brunettes with dark eyes and should drive much slower.

Since this 74-year-old article is the first time I’ve ever heard of this theory, I figure it’s safe to assume it was disproved a long time ago.

You’ll tell me if I’m wrong in that assumption, right?