Eruditorum Press

Ideas may be bulletproof, but nobody’s tried plasma rifles

Elizabeth Sandifer

About Elizabeth Sandifer

http://www.eruditorumpress.com

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

Posts by Elizabeth Sandifer:

Saturday Waffling (February 6th, 2016)

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I’ve just gotten to the final section of the book I’m now calling Neoreaction: A Basilisk. Plans for release exist, and it’ll be out sooner than you think. Indeed, probably sooner than Last War in Albion Book One, though I got the first set of pages for that off to Jane this week as well. Now to confront the horror that is “Fearful Symmetry.” 

Anyone done their Hugo ballots yet? Post what you’ve got in comments. 

Oh, fine, three shorter-than-a-sentence excerpts from Neoreaction: A Basilisk:

Gödel, Escher, Bach, which is what nerdy teenagers in the 1980s read instead of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, largely to their credit.

the contemporary pagan community, which includes a white nationalist strain in the Nazi occultist tradition, of turning to European folklore to escape the corruption of Jew-tainted Christianity in amidst the NPR-listening Wiccans with artisan granola businesses

what other terms can Satan’s rebellion be described in besides “dude took the red pill hard?”

…

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Neat Little Analogy, Huh? (The Last War in Albion Book Two Part Twenty-Five: Scenes from The Nativity)

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Figure 923: The signatures upon the contract that led Dez Skinn to go to a seedy bar to pick up a couple thousand dollars in cash.

This installment of The Last War in Albion contains graphic images of childbirth below the cut. 

Previously in The Last War in Albion: In a comedy of errors, Alan Moore’s Marvelman series, originally published in Warrior, was republished under the title Miracleman by Eclipse Comics in the US. But with the reprints running out, Eclipse had to clear the way to commission new material from Moore, which required appeasing Dez Skinn.

Eclipse’s solution, ratified in a new contract dated February 1986 (the same month that Miracleman #6 is dated), was to buy the right to produce new Miracleman material from Skinn for a further $8000, payable in three installments, one of which Skinn recounts was given to him at a meeting “with Jan Mullaney – Dean’s brother – in New York, in some really seedy bar. He turned up looking like a real hippie with a couple thousand dollars in cash in a brown envelope. And I’m sitting there, this sort of funny Englishman in this really scary place and he comes in and this is like some dodgy transaction taking place as he slides the envelope over to me with a couple thousand dollars or more in cash and he says, ‘you will count it, won’t you?’” This contract also seemingly marks the point where Skinn abandoned his support for Alan Davis’s objections to having his work reprinted, noting simply that “Eclipse also assumes the sole responsibility of payment to and for the creative talent on all issues of Miracleman or any such other titles featuring “Miracleman” and the Characters, including payment of artistic royalties to Alan Moore and Gary Leach representing Alan Davis on the stories reprinted from Warrior Magazine,” and transferring all of the design copyrights Skinn had previously asserted that Davis held to Eclipse.

This is perhaps unsurprising – the fact that Skinn had chosen to direct his letter regarding Davis’s objections to Moore suggests that the position was more about trying to force Moore back into playing ball with Dez Skinn than about concern for Alan Davis. Whereas the entire point of this agreement was to clear the way for Eclipse to hire Moore directly (as opposed to the obviously unworkable plan of having Skinn/Quality employ him). For the purposes of filling out Miracleman #6 and publishing #7, Moore’s involvement was minimal – he’d been ahead in scripting for Warrior, and had three installments written but not drawn. But the problem of getting them drawn was more substantial, since it’s not as though Alan Davis was going to be returning to the gig. Unfortunately, Eclipse’s stable of available artists did not come close to matching that of the major companies. They presented Moore with a few options, and of them he picked an neophyte named Chuck Austen, though he was at the time still going by his birth name of Chuck Beckum on the grounds, as Austen put it, that he “didn’t draw everybody so that they looked like they were superheroes in street clothes.”…

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Comics Reviews (February 3rd, 2016)

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Mercurty Heat #7

A really strong issue that continues the momentum from the end of the first arc, is genuinely funny at several points, and has a thoroughly fascinating cliffhanger, not just for the double-page spread/reveal (which is a great hook) but the issue’s final line, which takes the reveal and puts it in a new light that’s full fo questions, all of them good ones. Really quite excited for this arc. So why is it at the bottom of the list? Because of that fucking awful pun on the issue-ending title page, of course.

Batgirl #48

As with many Marvel books in 2015, this is suddenly much harder to enjoy knowing that Rebirth is coming to reboot or relaunch or whatever this title, presumably with something that isn’t the Fletcher/Stewart/Tarr team or, for that matter, the attractive $2.99 price point. Anyway, it hangs over this perfectly adequate issue like an unpleasant cloud. Liked the end twist here, but this was oddly structured, and it’s tough to get invested in the current arc, not least because the book itself is forced to admit repeatedly how much of a retread of an earlier one it is.

Incinvible Iron Man #6

Mike Deodato joins temporarily for his usual habit of double page spreads that in no way indicate that you should be reading across two pages. Seriously, any artist who does a two-page spread that does not have any panels crossing the middle should be slapped. Deodato also brings his expressionless faces and his comically “moody” shadows, while Bendis brings a slow-moving but in no way unenjoyable script that mostly serves as a recap of the first five issues. I admit, I’m eyeing Civil War II as a great jumping off point right now.

Digital code: FCM6VBCCYLS4

Spider-Man #1

Perfectly adequate and standard Bendis-Spidey, which feels slightly shy of good enough for the third #1 that Miles has gotten and yet another new status quo that doesn’t actually feel particularly different from any of the old ones despite being in the not-the-616-anymore Marvel Universe. Still, it’s an issue #1 and pretty good, so someone should probably snag the digital code on it. 

Digital code: FCMV6CHUQ49D

Klaus #3

The surprise of this has largely faded since its sublime first issue, and at this point I admit I have no idea how Morrison thinks there’s four more issues of this to do. Still, this has several “bring a smile to your face” moments and remains a fun premise. Hoping it manages to keep the momentum up to remain one of Morrison’s best titles in years, but as I admit, I’d be a lot more excited about this at a four-issue mini than the projected seven.

A-Force #2

My fears about this going to a co-author again appear unfounded, which I shouldn’t be surprised by given that Kelly Thompson has long been one of the very intelligent people of comics fandom. Numerous laugh moments, and a real meatiness to the issue that feels well longer than its twenty pages.…

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A Very Rough Initial Take on Rabid Puppies 2

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Back in August, in response to Vox Day crowing about how his Xanatos gambit had come off so perfectly or something equally stupid, I made a stab at predicting how he’d play things in 2016:

I think we can safely assume that the Rabid Puppy slate in 2016 is going to consist of five nominees in every category, to try to maximize the number of categories with no non-Puppy nominees. I suspect he’s also going to pointedly include nominees that exist to dare the left to vote against them.

Vox is, of course, nothing if not banally and irritatingly predictable, having just released the first chunk of his Rabid Puppies slate for the year, his picks for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. And sure enough, his five picks include not only a writer whose sole publications have been through Castalia House but Andy Weir, author of The Martian, who would have been on the ballot last year were it not for the Puppies, and who I’ve had penciled in on my balloting spreadsheet since November.

First of all, then, my sincere sympathies to Andy Weir, who I’m sure had absolutely zero desire to be put on the Rabid Puppies slate, who self-evidently doesn’t and didn’t need Vox Day’s help and who really should have been allowed to enjoy his Oscar season in peace and without any of this nonsense. Now an award that he would have been up for anyway (if not ineligible on the basis of having won it last year) is fundamentally tainted. This should serve first and foremost as a reminder that Vox Day is a complete and utter dick, and that the only reason anyone would support him is that they are too.

Second of all, then, my initial thoughts on how to reply to the tactic. For one thing, I’m still going to nominate Weir. He deserves it. Frankly, his breakout success is literally the exact sort of thing the Campbell Award exists to honor. He stormed on the scene and got a Ridley Scott movie for his trouble. I’m going to carry on with my ballot in all other categories, and if Vox turns out to make some of the same picks as me, so be it. I’m perfectly at peace with that.

Because, you see, when it comes to voting?

I have a plan.…

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A Brief Treatise on the Rules of Thrones 3.04: And Now His Watch is Ended

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Daenerys sees the tower through the trees

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Cersei Lannister, the Hand of the King Tywin Lannister

The Lion, Jaime Lannister

Dragons of Astapor: Daenerys Targaryen

Bears of Astapor: Jorah Mormont

The Direwolves: Catelyn Stark, Bran Stark

Roses of King’s Landing: Margery Tyrell

The Kraken, Theon Greyjoy

Direwolves of Winterfell: Sansa Stark

The Direwolf, Arya Stark

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

The Stag, Gendry

Stags of King’s Landing: King Joffrey Baratheon

The Dogs, Sandor Clegane

Spiders of King’s Landing: Varys

Bears of the Wall: Lord Commander Jeor Mormont

Winterfell is abandoned and in ruins. Riverrun is silent. Harrenhal is barren.

The episode is in eleven parts. The first runs three minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The opening image is of Jaime Lannister’s severed hand hanging around his neck.

The second runs four minutes and is set in King’s Landing. The transition is by family, from Jaime to Tyrion Lannister.

The third runs three minutes and is set at Craster’s Keep north of the Wall. The transition is by image, from Varys closing the crate over the sorcerer who cut him to a door closing.

The fourth runs two minutes and is set in the North. The transition is by hard cut, from Samwell turning away from Gilly to Bran running in a dream.

The fifth runs six minutes and is in two sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is two minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Bran’s face to Varys and Rosalyn talking. The second section is four minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Varys speaking of prodigies in odd places and Roslyn to Margery.

The sixth part runs five minutes and is set in the North. The transition is by hard cut, from Cersei scowling to Theon and Ramsey riding through the woods.

The seventh runs two minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by allegiance, from Ramsey Snow to Locke, also serving Roose Bolton.

The eighth runs ten minutes and is in three sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is three minutes long; he transition is by family, from Jaime to Cersei and Tywin Lannister. The second is four minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Tywin to Olenna. The third is three minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Varys and Olenna talking about Sansa to Sansa, and by family, from Olenna to Margery Tyrell.

The ninth part runs five minutes, and is set at Craster’s Keep north of the Wall. The transition is by hard cut, from Sansa and Margery to a funeral pyre. It features the death of Jeor Mormont, stabbed in the back by his own men.

The tenth runs five minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by hard cut, from Rast to the Brotherhood Without Banners riding.

The eleventh runs six minutes and is set in Astapor.…

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Eruditorum Press Hugo Eligibility List

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Edit to add: I forgot the category in which fans of this blog could plausibly put someone on the ballot – James Taylor, cover artist for all Eruditorum Press books, is eligible for Best Fan Artist, a category that required just 23 nominations to get on the ballot last year.

Hugo nominations have officially opened. If you were registered for Sasquan, you are automatically eligible to nominate (though you’ll have to join MidAmericon II to vote); otherwise you’ll have to register for MidAmericon II. If you’re eligible, you should have an e-mail coming in the next few days with details on how to nominate. 

I’m working on my nomination ballot, and will post it when it’s ready in the course of a “everybody post your ballot in comments” post. It remains my view that everyone should make their ballots public this year, just because that’s a sound anti-Puppy tactic.

Anyway, if you want to nominate anything we do over here for some bizarre reason, here’s a rough guide to it.

  • Jack Graham and Jane Campbell are both eligible for Best Fan Writer. The case could be made that I am as well; I personally disagree with this case.
  • Pex Lives is eligible for Best Fancast. They’re the name on the libsyn account all our other podcast content posts to, so as far as I’m concerned they get the credit for Shabcast, the Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Series 9 Podcast, City of the Dead, et cetera.
  • Guided By The Beauty of Their Weapons is eligible for Best Related Work. So is Recursive Occlusion, but as it’s included in its entirety in Guided by the Beauty, why vote-split?
  • TARDIS Eruditorum is eligible for Best Related Work. Yes. The entirety of it.

Eruditorum Press as a whole is not eligible; it does not meet the criteria for Best Semiprozine or Best Fanzine. TARDIS Eruditorum Volume 6 is also probably not eligible; it would depend on whether it’s considered to be “substantially revised” from its original electronic publication, and the precedent set by booting “Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” last year makes me suspect it’s not. 

Now go nominate something with an actual shot at getting on the ballot.…

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While The Past and Future Exist Simultaneously (The Last War in Albion Book Two Part Twenty-Four: Miracleman at Eclipse)

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{Impressively, Alan Moore’s second publisher for Marvelman/Miracleman was an even bigger trainwreck than his first. It is perhaps unsurprising, given this, to find out that Dez Skinn negotiated the bulk of the deal. The financial plan for Warrior had always involved selling the strips to foreign markets, and Skinn was determined to sell them as a package, reasoning that “strips like Spiral Path – which I put into an anthology alongside Shandor and Bojeffries Saga – were not the stars of the show,” but that Warrior would never have happened without them and that they deserved the same shot at foreign publication as the heavy-hitters like V for Vendetta and Laser Eraser and Pressbutton. But ironically, it wasn’t the lesser Warrior material that made selling the strips abroad a challenge, but the nominal crown jewel, Marvelman, as neither of the two biggest comics publishers would touch it. DC was the obvious first choice, since they were already having considerable success publishing Alan Moore in the US market, and were indeed interested, but Dick Giordano pointed out that there was simply no way that they could publish a comic called Marvelman, citing the number of problems they were already having with Captain Marvel, which they’d bought from the smoldering ruins of Fawcett and started publishing under the name Shazam! But the obvious second choice proved no better; Marvel wouldn’t touch it either, pointing out that if they were to publish a strip called Marvelman it would be read as representing the entire company, which was perhaps not quite what they wanted Moore’s psychologically damaged take on superheroes to do.

Figure 920: An advertisement for the never-published Challenger #1 from Pacific Comics.

That left smaller companies. Initially the plan was a company called Pacific Comics, but after contracts were signed and the first issue of Challenger, headlined by V for Vendetta, advertised Pacific abruptly went belly up in August of 1984, leaving all of the Warrior properties homeless once again. Ultimately they were acquired, alongside some other remnants of Pacific, by Eclipse Comics, created by siblings Jan and Dean Mullaney, but edited by cat yronwode (lack of capitalization per her wishes), a small publisher originally out of New York, but by this point run out of Guerneville California. But there were still other problems. Not only was Marvel uninterested in publishing Marvelman, they were uninterested in the idea of anyone else publishing him. This started with Marvel UK’s dispute with Skinn over the latter’s decision to break the informal truce they had by actually publishing a comic called Marvelman on the cover instead of featuring him inside Warrior, but rapidly spread to the US branch of the company.

In Moore’s telling, the figure at the heart of the dispute was Jim Shooter, who he characterizes as “one of these comic book industry führers,” which doesn’t actually rate very highly in the list of awful things Jim Shooter has been called by his fellow professionals.…

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Comics Reviews (January 27th, 2016)

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You know the drill, I’m sure. Digital codes redeemable at this url for the first person to try them.

Chew #54

A twenty-page fridging as this book continues its long march towards an ending that should have come at least fourteen issues ago.

Saga #33

Another “oh, right, those guys” issue for me, although it reintroduced its characters well enough to actually be followable, which is nice. I’m firmly out of love with this book, though, and honestly considering dropping it and waiting for it to all be over and go on some eventual big Comixology sale. It occurs to me that it’s basically become A Song of Ice and Fire with all the attendant problems – too many characters who are spread out over too many settings, and switching among them in single point-of-view chapters that feel like they take too long. Ah well. Loved the “writer gets first byline” gag though.

All-New All-Different Avengers #4

There’s a cute “political correctness” gag here, but for the most part the “all-different” part of this title is an increasingly bleak joke. This is ruthless traditionalism with a diverse cast. Fair enough, and probably something that should exist, but hard to get excited about. Al Ewing’s been doing the same vibe with a much bolder and fresher tone for years now. I do like Thor’s characterization, but ironically the final cliffhanger, in which Iron Man wonders if she’s “really who she claims to be,” is really one that only would have worked during the interminable “who is the new Thor” plot. Instead the answer to “why is she acting like she’s not immortal” is straightforward, even if it’s the first time she’s actually seemed like an interesting character.

Digital code: THM8ZFRF8513

Black Magick #4

This picks up, with the cop book/occult thriller balance feeling well-struck. It still feels more style than substance, and I’m hoping things settle in the arc-ender (presumably before it takes a break so Nicola Scott can catch up, as she’s not a monthly artist). On the whole this remains a bit of a disappointment to me – not least because I remember years ago when Rucka said he was waiting for Nicola Scott to be free to do another book of Queen and Country, so it’s especially frustrating to see them not quite clicking into high gear on a great premise instead of that. But I’m holding out hope.

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #3

This continues to fall slightly short of outright sparkling, and there’s something a little depressing about seeing Ms. Marvel reverse engineered into a formula, even if it is well-executed. But this is probably the best issue yet, and it’s starting to become clear how this is going to work as an ongoing book. The first half is a bit weak – the fight scene is muddy and hard to follow, depending on a “everyone’s chasing the ball that gets tossed around” sequence in a space that isn’t visually clear enough to support that.…

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Stray Kitties

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Weird Kitties fizzled out, but I had a few spare reviews lying around and Jane’s holiday is going to run one more week, so here they are.

Material, by Ales Kot, Will Tempest, Clayton Cowles, and Tom Muller

Reviewed by Sean Dillon, eligible in Best Graphic Story, available on Comixology.

What does 2015 look like? That is a question at the core of Material, an Image comic written by Ales Kot, drawn by Will Tempest, lettered by Clayton Cowles, and designed by Tom Muller. The comic follows four people, living in these turbulent and fragmented times1.

The first is a Philosophy professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the name of Julius Shore. Every issue, save the fourth one, opens with a lecture he is giving, ranging from the incompatibility of Art and Business to a nervous breakdown in the form of wearing Su-Real dynamite on his head while ranting about how he is a failure. His ongoing conversations with an emergent sentient AI, which he dubs as Alien Intelligence, make this comic eligible for a Hugo Award2.

The second is an actress in Los Angeles by the name of Nylon Dahlias. She is escaping from the failure of her film career and the death of her mother via Alzheimer’s by doing a lot of drugs. She has just been cast by an up and coming auteur in his new film that’s missing its first 10 pages. Nylon’s story culminates with her running into her producer in the middle of the street having a nervous breakdown, unable to deal with the fragments of the reality around him3.

The third is Franklin, a young man from Chicago who went to a “Black Live Matter” protest. As with many of those protests, the cops showed up and beat everyone to the ground. Franklin woke up hours later in Homan Square where an officer of the police confronted him. Said officer is now blackmailing him to act as a mole in his uncle’s New Black Panther Movement. It is implied, though never directly stated, that other things have been going on between the two of them4.

The fourth is Adib, a man who was wrongly put into Guantanamo Bay (for being the wrong person, the wrong skin color, and worshiping the wrong god instead of the humane reasons it is wrong to be locked up in Guantanamo5). Now that he’s out, he can’t talk about what had happened to him in his time, not even to his wife. The only person he can relate to about his experiences is his female BDSM partner6.

The narrative is an unflinching look at the modern day, covering subjects from the Black Lives Matter movement and how it relates to the progressive movements of the past to the complexity of wanting your life not to be dominated by the cruelties that have happened to the man you are married to. The four issues are told masterfully as Will Tempest conveys a sense of control with the 9 Panel Grid as well as a sense of chaos with sketchy art style used for the characters within it7.…

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