Exfanding Your Horizons Turns 4 Years Old!

It's official: Exfanding Your Horizons is four years old! Happy birthday to us!

Because it's now a tradition, we'll be following in the blogsteps of the last three years with a Q&A format guaranteed to please new readers and longtime Exfanders alike. (DISCLAIMER: That's just talk; we guarantee nothing.) Due to various circumstances, this year we've condensed the list from ten questions down to five. There's probably DLC already on the disc for the other five questions, though, so it's not like we're totally gypping you.

Our blog rules.


Hey...didn't there used to be two guys writing this blog?

NATHANIEL: Um...there did used to be two of us. It just occurred to me that perhaps I didn't back up the Alex Posts Stuff widget before I asked my HTML-savvy wife to do most of the work overhauling the blog, because I haven't seen him since.

ALEX: *Crawls out from under his rock, locks around, sees shadow, thinks about heading back under his rock.*


This past year, in an effort to minimize filler and still continue to write amidst everything else going on in your lives, you introduced a new weekly column and several revisions and reductions to the regular posting schedule. For the last six weeks, one of you has been blogging solo while the other has been completely occupied with other endeavors. How do you feel about all that?

ALEX: It certainly wasn’t the ideal for me to stop writing for the blog, but unfortunately, it was (and, sadly, still is) a necessary evil. I’ve pretty much stopped sleeping in an effort to extend the day, so sitting down to write up an Exfanding post should theoretically be something I can handle. And yet, apparently I cannot.

Handle writing an Exfanding post, that is.

I actually just got back from a week in LA for work, and this week has been nonstop crazy as I try to finish off everything that’s due. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though, and I honestly do hope to be back to the blog pretty soon.

NATHANIEL: Hey, you're here now, and that means a lot. Writing solo for a two-person blog is like performing without your co-star when the marquee clearly says "[pick one: Laurel and Hardy / Abbott and Costello / The Blues Brothers / Jay and Silent Bob / Penn and Teller / etc.]." You can make references to the other person, and carry on with the same kind of material as usual, but after a certain point it's almost disingenuous to work as a one-person duo.

It honestly feels like a different blog now than it did a month ago. Yes, the new look is part of it. But I think what was most jarring to me was spending a couple of years posting every single day virtually without exception, and then suddenly looking at the blog one day to see that it'd been just me posting two or three things per week. That all happened over the course of less than a month, and I don't think either of us expected things to be so drastic or last so long.

It'd be one thing if we'd just decided to pursue other projects, and I ended up starting up a blog of my own, but Exfanding has always been about collaboration. I find myself missing the joint posts and the theme weeks and the daily back-and-forth e-mail banter that we had before things got busy for us--and I miss having Alex's posts to read. Like I said two years ago, I'm a fan of Exfanding.

All that being said, there's still been a lot of good to come out of the changes we've made to accommodate both our crazy schedules. Sunday Spotlight has rejuvenated my focus on sharing new fandoms, which is ostensibly what this blog is all about. By relaxing our self-imposed posting deadlines, I've been able to take my time on writing the kinds of long, rambly posts I like best. Consequently, that occasional feeling of, "Aw, I need to write a blog post tonight," has all but disappeared, and the number of new "favorite posts" I've been able to write will make our Year in Review for 2012 even more of a challenge, assuming we get to our 2011 edition before then.


Whether it was Flashback Week, being on a Konami kick, the epic tale of the wedding saga, New York Comic-Con/Anime Festival, the ups and downs of self-publishing, or your latest D&D quest, you've told a lot of stories in the last twelve months. You've also been a bit more outspoken, reflective, ranty, and soapboxy than usual. Where do you see your writing going over the course of the next year?

ALEX: Hopefully on the blog.

No, really. I don’t care what I’m writing about; I just want to have the time to write for the blog again.

NATHANIEL: Well, if Alex will be writing again, then maybe I won't take over his Waiting for Wednesday column and talk every week about all the comics on my shelf that I picked up ages ago but haven't gotten around to reading yet.

Actually, that idea's not half bad...

::ahem::  I'm looking forward to taking a break from sprawling stories than span multiple posts. Writing them is fun, but it's also exhausting, especially when you get up to seven or eight parts. I've always been a short story and poetry kind of guy, and these things keep turning into novellas, so I'll be striving to find new ways to keep my storytelling concise. I'm hoping to maintain and expand the variety of topics I cover as well; I mean, off the top of my head, I can't even think of the last time I mentioned Mega Man.


Got any big, geeky plans we can look forward to hearing about in the near future?

NATHANIEL: Once The Avengers comes out on video in late September, you can bet I'll be hosting a 13-hour movie marathon of everything the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to offer so far.

Now that I've already brought up Mega Man once in this post, I can also mention that I'll be doing something for the Blue Bomber's 25th anniversary in December. If I can swing it, I'll do a streaming livecast marathon over the Internet, but I make no promises because I'm not even sure if "a streaming livecast over the Internet" is the proper terminology for what I'm thinking of, let alone something I've got the technology or know-how to properly pull off. I might have to get one or two of my tech-smart friends involved.

Alex, I know you've got something exciting planned.

ALEX: Yes! I have spent the past several days piled under printer files for my forthcoming children’s book, which is scheduled to be on sale the first week of October.

Aside from that, I’ve also started work on a comic book for which I’ve hired a really kicking artist. We plan on completing the entire first issue, then posting it (for free) on KickStarter in an effort to get people to pay for the rest of the series. It’ll be a four-issue mini, and it’s an idea I’ve toyed with for a while now.

Hmmm…what else? Oh! I’m going to the Baltimore Comic Con in an effort to drum up some interest in the children’s book, and in the comic series. I haven’t been to a convention since last year’s New York show, so I am really excited to make that trip.


Dare I ask about that blog book you keep threatening to release?

ALEX: I don’t even want to talk about books, or getting books printed. Seriously. Ask Nathaniel.

NATHANIEL: Oh, sure. Ask Nathaniel. I think it's been long enough now that we can file this one under "Things We'd Like To See, But Probably Won't," along with the full story of The Great Comic Book Adventure of 2011 and Part 2 of that Transformers 101 guest post.

Oh, jeez. Didn't we promise you a t-shirt, too?

ALEX: And Exfanding Hand Puppet Theater©.

NATHANIEL: Yeah. You can officially stop listening to everything we promise you.

Waiting for Wednesday, Volume 4, Issue 54: Even More Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing!

[Continued from Part Seven.]

I'm starting to scare myself with the amount of time that I spend not sleeping these days (um, or nights, I suppose). I'm at a point where there just aren't enough hours in the day to get to everything I have going on.

For the first time in a long time, my creative energies are hitting on all cylinders, and I just can't bring myself to unplugging. Heck, I'm even finding time to blog again, which, if you'd have asked me a couple of weeks ago, I would have told you was not going to happen for a good, long while.

But here I am, up after midnight after a long day at the office, typing away and sending off countless emails to the artist on my next project. At the same time, I'm emailing and communicating with a number of people about my current project, the children's book I can't seem to shut up about.

I have no idea where any of this is going to take me. And, tonight (or, more accurately, this morning) as I start contemplating the cost of doing these things that I want to do, I have some butterflies in the stomach and a bit of worry, but it's a good, anxious, let's get this done already kind of worry.

I know full well that there's a pretty large possibility that none of the projects I'm currently hammering away on will make one single penny, and that the money I'm about to throw into them may not ever find its way back to me.

But I'm at a point where I can't afford to NOT do this. It's time to take that stupid risk that I have always been telling myself I'd take. It's time to suck it up and let the sacrifices of the past few years mean something. I've saved money and I've made decisions in my personal life that have always been rooted in getting my work out there, in the best-looking form humanly possible.

Nothing is cheap these days, especially within the publishing industry, so the money I'm about to spend is not going to be peanuts.

But I've been smart about saving it, and instead of using the money for other things that will assuredly help me down the road in life, I am going to use the money to try to get this dream off the ground. Because, frankly, I've had my feet planted for far too long.

Saying you're going to do something is nothing. Telling yourself you're going to do something is nothing. Convincing yourself that you're going to do something someday is nothing. It's all meaningless unless you actually go out and do it.

I'm at the point where "someday" is now. Right this moment. We're past the dreaming stage. We're past the let's-find-a-way-to-put-this-into-practice stage. We're miles beyond the, "Gee, I hope people will like this" stage.

We're at the Do It Now, or Do It Never stage.

Time to toughen up, Exfanders, because this is it. Right now is the moment the decision is made. This night (morning) is the one I look back on years from now and say one of two things about. And, even if this all amounts to absolutely zero, I promise you this: When I look back on this moment, I will not say, "I wish I'd just done it."

Because it's being done.

I have no idea what happens next. I have no idea if it's a financially stupid move on the part of a naive wanna-be writer.

The only thing I know is that, moving forward, there are no regrets.

Because I'm doing it.

I'm doing it.

The Return of Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing

[Continued from Part Six.]

I had an interesting conversation with a friend the other day about being creative and just getting out there and doing the things you've always wanted to do. Luckily for me, those things do not include base-jumping or hiking Mt. Everest or skydiving, so achieving the things I want to someday achieve is theoretically within reach.

As I mentioned on Saturday, I'm awaiting pricing information about the printing of a children's book that I've written and had illustrated. The book, from my end, is basically done. It needs another couple pairs of eyes to act as objective observers and proofreaders. (That's what we call in the biz a "cold read," kids.)

So far, though, I've shown the book to a pretty good number of folks who have given me lots and lots of positive feedback. The same buddy I mentioned up at the top of this post also said about the book--about the art, specifically--that "It's somewhere I'd want to live in."

That's a wonderful compliment for the artist, and one that I was very happy to hear as the aesthetic of the book is not exactly your standard children's book fare.

Which is, of course, exactly what I wanted when I set out to find the perfect artist for the project.

As I've said countless times on the blog, I have quite a bit of built-up resentment for the publishing industry as it currently stands. I'm not too in love with the fact that, when The Walking Dead hit big, all the big publishers jumped aboard the zombie bandwagon.

Or, when Twilight first took over the world, you couldn't throw a bookmark in a Borders without hitting a tween vampire thing.

I'm also quite tired of the notion that one must already be published in order to get published. That, as I like to say, is the stupidest thing ever. And, despite the fact that people in the books industry will tell you that's not the case at all...let me break some news for you: That's absolutely the case.

Sure, there are first-time authors who break in--of course there are. But they're so few and far between that the actual numbers might well drive a would-be writer to, well, maybe try something crazy.

Like self publishing.

I've read countless pieces online (by people who are published, by the way) about how self publishing has so diluted to market because, as they like the decry, "Now anyone can write a book."

Yes. Yes, they can. And that's the point.

Listen, I know from being looked down upon. Nobody in publishing considers what Nathaniel and I do here on the blog "being published." But guess what? We are published, and our work--for better or for worse--is out there for the entire Internet to see.

I have no delusions of grandeur, though. I get that our blog isn't Neil Gaiman's blog. I get that. I really do. But for "professionals" to dismiss blogs as being amateurish and somehow unworthy of recognition? Short-sighted, plain and simple.

But, that's the publishing industry in a nutshell. I mean, so far they've done such a good job with transitioning to digital, right?

Oh, there's a meteor coming? I'm sure it'll just blow right over us.

Yep, that was a low blow on my part. Sorry. And, yep, I get that digital sales are actually doing quite well. But, if the publishers figured out WHAT THE REST OF THE PLANET FIGURED OUT 5 YEARS AGO, maybe there would not have been so many layoffs of so many talented people.

Think about this for a second.

In publishing, the writer (the would-be money-maker) has to go out and, basically, woo an agent. How backwards is that? Can you imagine if that's the way professional sports teams operated?

Nah, we haven't seen Bryce Harper. Why not? Well, because he never sent us a query letter. Oh, wait. Perhaps it's on this slush pile behind me. I'll have my assistant look through them in the morning. But this Harper kid--is he any good?

Insanity. It's insanity that publishing works the way that it does, and it's amazing that there are still people out there screaming that self-publishing has "lowered the bar."

Ya know what, though?

While they push through yet another vampire love story with zombies invading a high school, I'll happily continue lowering the bar.

[Continued in Part Eight.]

Waiting for ... Well, Whenever

Yep. Sorry. Kinda missed Wednesday this week. Instead of harping on the negative, though, I want to talk about printers. Though that, too, may delve into the negative. Still, I really want to express my frustrations about the publishing industry ... again.

So. Here we go ...

My little independently created children's book is chugging along, and I've finally chosen a printer. Now all I have to do is wait for the quote I get about printing in quantities of both 100 and 500 copies.

And that, as I was told by the nice man at the printer who apparently doesn't like talking to small press publishers over the phone, will be "very expensive."

Excellent. That's precisely what I was going for. "Very expensive."

I'll hold off until I get the actual numbers before I launch into my missive about why the current publishing landscape is so incredibly, stupidly wrong, but I will say that, if the price per unit (what each printed book will cost me to produce) is higher than, say, oh, thirty dollars, I will flip my switch, man.

I know it's a really small print run (though that's not entirely true, as 500 is the average in the industry--the numbers are just thrown off by the Big Boys and Girls who actually make their livings after selling one mega-hit), but think about it for a second.

Let's say my cost per book is $30. What, then, do I have to sell each book for to make a profit on the project?

Factoring in artist costs? A lot more than $30. Which I absolutely will not do. Heck, I want to give the thing away for free to get my name and my company's name out there. (Please don't tell the printer that, though.)

In order to break even, using that $30 price point, I'd need to charge around $45 per book.

Yeah, because that's what thirty-page children's books go for. (Also, that was sarcasm.)

I know this whole diatribe today is like trying to swing at ghosts since I do not yet have the actual quote. But, as you all know by now, I am not what one would call an optimist. I'm braced for the Worst Case Scenario. I'm ready to spend an entirely unfair and unreasonable amount on this project.

I'm going to get it out there, no matter what.

The only question is--how much will I complain about it come Monday?

You'll have to wait and see.

: )

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part Six

[Continued from Part Five.]

So today is a pretty special day for me.

The artist on the children's book I've been writing about these last few weeks has officially finished the final illustrations. She sent everything along this morning and I had a chance to check it out before I left for work.

Even though it was but a quick look through the pages before I had to fly out the door, I'm ridiculously happy with how the art came out. It was more than a little mind-blowing to see something that started as nothing more than thoughts in my head come to life on the page.

From here, the real work begins for me.

I'll need to sit down and edit my text and make sure that the illustrations and the words mesh well together. I'm waiting on a final cover from the artist, but then it's GO GO GO to the printer with the files.

We're shooting for an October on-sale for the book, so I'll need to get things moving rather quickly from here, and I've still not 100% decided on a specific printer, though there is one that's leading the pack thus far.

I also need to figure out the marketing of the book and follow through on several ideas I've had to generate some buzz about the project online.

Right.

Lots of work ahead, but for today at least, I'm gonna enjoy where things stand.

[Continued in Part Seven.]

Exfanded Universe

There are only three movies I can recall (willingly) seeing in the theaters more than twice: The Matrix Reloaded, Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. This should tell you something about my taste in movies. "Yeah, that you've got terrible taste in movies," you might be thinking. At a glance, to the average fan who loved The Matrix and the original Star Wars trilogy (and hated everything after them), that's exactly how it may appear. To Grand Admiral Thrawn, however, it might seem more likely that I had enough spare cash during the first half of the aughts to indulge in the pleasure of repeatedly watching a few of my new favorite big action sequences and big explosions on the big screen.

Up until three weeks ago, I had no idea who Grand Admiral Thrawn was.

I've been a Star Wars fan for years. I've marathoned all six movies in the prequel trilogy and original trilogy. I've seen the Clone Wars animated film, I'm more than halfway through the first season of the spinoff TV series, and I've watched the previous (and, in my opinion, superior) animated TV series as well. I've played Shadows of the Empire and Episode I: Racer and LEGO Star Wars 1-2. I like the Rogue Squadron video game series, love the Jedi Knight computer game series, and have spent more time with Knights of the Old Republic I & II than any other RPG in the post-SNES era. I own posters from the six main films, a handful of Star Wars trade paperback comics, about a dozen different toy lightsabers, about as many Star Wars PEZ dispensers, and nearly the entire line of Galoob Star Wars Micro Machines (and a fair number from their larger Action Fleet line, too). The list could go on, but I think it's clear that I am, in fact, a fan of Star Wars new and old, in all its forms.

Yet liking the prequels and being over the age of five seems to disqualify me from being a legitimate Star Wars fan.

I always marveled at how people could claim to be Star Wars fans when Return of the Jedi received such criticism for being different from Empire Strikes Back, and when people outright refuse to acknowledge the existence of the prequels. Liking only two, maybe three of the six films that form the canonical basis for your fandom doesn't seem to make you much of a fan. I never minded too much when someone said they liked the original trilogy and not the prequels, but it was incomprehensible to me that I might be considered less of a Star Wars fan for liking something produced by the man who created it!

It wasn't until three weeks ago that my heresy began to make sense.

Early last year I'd picked up Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command, the three Star Wars books from the early '90s collectively known as the Thrawn trilogy. I'd read a few Star Wars books before--Tales of the Bounty Hunters, Shadows of the Empire (after playing the video game), the Han Solo trilogy, and possibly one or two other novels that have slipped my mind. While they were entertaining, and helped satisfy my curiosity about this Expanded Universe that Star Wars fans are always talking about, that was about the extent of their influence on me.

Heir to the Empire--the officially sanctioned continuation of the Star Wars saga--was where I first realized how little I understood about diehard Star Wars fans.

Strictly in terms of style--at least, as far as I've read--Timothy Zahn's writing favors function over form, providing only as much information the reader needs to adequately picture the action (with a few descriptions and turns of phrase here and there to add extra flavor, such as time being measured in "a pair of heartbeats"). What is most striking about Zahn's writing is how he seems to truly understand the characters, the Star Wars universe, and how the characters interact with the universe and each other.

I fell in love with Star Trek because of the characters, the universe, and how the characters interact with the universe and each other.

The moment that connection clicked with me was the moment I began to realize that being a Star Wars fan really isn't about the movies at all. The Expanded Universe isn't just an extension of the core fandom--it is the core fandom.

Suddenly, those big action sequences and big explosions on the big screen seemed like a pretty silly reason not to be disappointed by the prequels.

But that's a discussion for Saturday.

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part Five

[Continued from Part Four.]

Making things can be fun.

Creating something from nothing and breathing life into characters that didn’t exist before you came along and dreamed them up and clacked some keys can be one of the coolest feelings on the planet.

Going from that awesome, creative stage to the next part of the creative endeavor, however, can be the opposite of that warm, fuzzy feeling, mostly because the business end of anything just isn’t a whole lotta fun. Mostly because “business end” is a nice way to say “you’re gonna spend money, homes.”

I’ve learned this lesson (the hard way) a few times in the past, but with my latest creative project I intend to not screw it up.

Mostly because I’ve had plenty of practice screwing creative things up in the past.

But this time? This time I’m not gonna screw it up. Why? Well, it’s certainly not because I think I might actually know what I’m doing. No, no. See, I’ve learned that the moment you think you know what you’re doing is the very same moment that you realize how incredibly stupid you’ve been.

But this time, I’ve budgeted in enough money and time to account for the part when I screw up royally.

*sigh*

I have a lot to say about this, actually, but Blogger is driving me INSANE today, so I’m gonna stop here and try again tomorrow. Sorry, but I really don’t want to have to throw my computer out the window today…

Back with more soon. Promise.

[Continued in Part Six.]

Waiting for Wednesday, Volume 4, Issue 19

Hey, look at that—I’m actually writing this post the day before it’s due to go live on the blog! That...somehow doesn’t seem right. It’ll be fun to see what ends up getting in the way of the post this week, but until that happens, let’s keep a good thing rolling and dive right in.

And instead of going right to today’s new comics—though there are a number of very good ones this week—I want to take a moment to write about bookstores. (I know, I know. You’re asking, what’s a bookstore?) And, by “a moment” I probably mean “a lot more than a moment” as my ire was raised this past Sunday and I’d like to talk about it here.

Okay, so. Back to the question above—what’s a bookstore?

Apparently, the answer to that is: A place with very few books, all arranged haphazardly, and with very little in-store promotion, and with a bathroom that’s downright disgraceful.

Now, since the bookstore I’m talking about specifically here is a Barnes & Noble, and there are hardworking employees at this Barnes & Noble dealing with inane corporate policies that have led to such a sad state of affairs, I will not mention where this particular store is.

You know, because of the awe-inspiring power of this blog.

I even hesitate to bring it up at all, since I hate bashing one of the few remaining stores in my remote area, but my visit Sunday was so depressing that I feel it’s important to bring up as part of a larger problem.

For a mainstream store, I’ve always felt that Barnes & Noble does a pretty good job of carrying some lesser-known authors. That, apparently, is no longer the case. And, sure, I realize that this particular store was not one of their superstores, so the selection is, understandably, less than one of the larger stores.

Even so, there needs to be a better balance of big, honking mainstream titles and smaller ones. People don’t go to the bookstore anymore in hopes of scoring the latest big release—they simply pre-order at Amazon and get the thing at a ridiculous discount.

Barnes & Noble—and Borders before them—has no hope to ever compete with Amazon’s pricing.

And while they can’t compete with Amazon’s selection either, what the brick and mortars need to do is start carrying some lesser know, genre books. I don’t say this simply because I’m a dork and I want more books that I like in the store; I say this because the type of person wandering around a Barnes & Noble on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon is likely to be very similar to me and will likely spend just more time in the graphic novel and science fiction/fantasy section than he will in the new release section.

I know what the new releases are. People like me know what the new releases are. If I’m in the store looking for them, I’ll have picked them up first before wandering around aimlessly through the genre sections.

While I might buy a new release, it’s in that genre section that I’ll do the most damage, as wandering around the stacks makes me want to buy books. And if there’s one or two or three books I’ve not before heard of that look interesting to me just sitting there, chances are I’ll buy them all.

That, of course, would be the ideal bookstore experience.

What more usually happens, however, is that I come to—duh—buy a book. After an hour-plus of looking and coming up with nada, I get annoyed and try to find anything to pick up—even a magazine that I’ll likely just flip through once when I get home then recycle.

Going into a bookstore with the intent of buying multiple items and walking out both frustrated and empty-handed is a problem.

Going into a bookstore with the intent of buying multiple items and walking out both frustrated and empty-handed and having had to use a dirty restroom somewhere in the middle of searching for books I’d never find is even more of a problem.

Coming from publishing, this type of stuff just really annoys me. It's hard enough to sell books in this market. Barnes & Noble needs to do better, plain and simple.

 Oh, and also? Go read the new Batman issue today. It’s good. I promise.

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part Four

[Continued from Part Three.]

There’s a lot going on here at Exfanding HQ today, so I’ll be pretty brief. Instead of giving up on writing the next part of my (EPIC!) Adventures in Self Publishing! missive, though, I think there’s something pretty relevant to talk about.

Specifically, my lack of any free time to work on side projects.

This weekend will be my last relatively quiet one for a while, as I’m working through next weekend and then...well, who knows? So, despite the fact that I have two family commitments (one on Saturday and one on Sunday), I still plan to carve out at least a couple of hours to devote to my little publishing venture.

I’m in a holding pattern for the moment, but once I get final art pages from my artist, things are going to pick up considerably. So, my time now needs to be spent figuring out how to make that time as painless as possible.

Because my book has a spooky feel to it, our plan has been to release the book sometime around October.

Which means it’ll need to be printed by end of summer. Which means, in the next few weeks, I need to figure out how I’m going to print it (preferably without going bankrupt) and how I’m going to distribute, both physical copies and digitally.

As that’s happening, we’ll also need to launch our marketing campaign, which will be grass roots.

For any of this to happen, of course, I need to have the time to sit down and do it. And time has been the most fleeting of luxuries as of late.

I’m not gonna sit here and use this space to say something like, “If you really want something, you need to just go out and do it.” While good advice, it’s also impractical and, well, stupid, and I’ll be darned if my quasi-journal of starting a publishing company will include something as contrived and clichéd as that sentiment.

Most people have other, more pressing matters to take into consideration—like fulltime work, or family, or looking for fulltime work while trying to raise a family, and the thought of neglecting all of that to pursue a dream? As romantic as it may sound, it’s just not for me.

Let me put this right out there: I do not, nor have I ever, bought into the “Starving Artist” philosophy.

I believe that, while one’s art (whatever that may entail) should be an important—and, frankly, huge—part of one’s life, it cannot get in the way of one’s life.

There are all these great stories about indy filmmakers quitting their jobs, maxing out their credit cards, giving it “one last shot” to make it. Those stories are wonderful and inspiring and incredibly reckless. And I can hear you say, “Sometimes we all need to be a little reckless.”

Sure, but also remember that we usually only hear about the times that recklessness leads to something great and not the countless times recklessness leads to something not so great.

So here’s my thinking on the matter: Be responsibly reckless.

Huh. I think that’s my new motto.

[Continued in Part Five.]

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part Three

[Continued from Part Two.]

I think the single harshest word in the English language is, “No.”

I also think “no” is the one word that can really drive me to get off my backside and get motivated. So, in a weird, in-Alex’s-head-only-does-this-make-sense kinda way, “no” is also my favorite word in the English language.

It’s a good motivator, is what I’m trying to say.

I can’t help my ineloquence.

You see, I have a lot of ideas floating around in my coconut, and some of them are even worthwhile. I tend to get very passionate about things, and once I have my heart and/or mind set on something, I get really frustrated if I can’t see it to fruition.

When I started my own (tiny, independent) publisher with two of my best friends, one of the biggest reasons to actually go out and do stuff on our own was the simple concept of not having anyone there to tell us “no.”

It’s our money, it’s our time, and when it comes down to it, it’s whatever we want to publish, in whatever form we want to publish in.

I’d had the idea for a publishing house for quite a while, but it took a conversation one Sunday morning in an NYC diner to put the idea into practice. It’s always more fun to do stuff with friends, so we decided to give it a go.

Sure, it’s been a slow ride to where we are today, and we still have, well, pretty much all the work still in front of us, but we’re at the really exciting part.

As I’ve said in previous posts, I’m now waiting on the final art for my children’s book, which will be the first product we put out as a publisher.

But I think it’s important for us to establish ourselves as being capable of producing new, different, high-quality work. That last bit—the high quality part—is super important. We need to be able to show that we can go toe-to-toe with the big boys in terms of production value, even if—heck, especially because—we’re just three people who decided to start a publisher.

I know we have some cool stuff that we can show the world. I know that we have the independent spirit within us, and that we’re totally capable of pulling this off. Next time, I’ll talk about the process of “pulling it off.”

Stay tuned...

[Continued in Part Four.]

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part Two

[Continued from Part One.]

My time spent in traditional publishing--from my time with a very small publisher, then with a very nice but incredibly unorganized magazine publisher, and then a with a larger publisher--afforded me innumerable important lessons about the industry.

At my last gig, I worked for the smartest person in the book business, and I literally learned something every single day from him.

At previous jobs, I learned how not to do things--which, as I was told back in my baseball-playing days, is also quite valuable. One of my first coaches told me that you can learn a whole heck of a lot more by watching someone do everything wrong than you can by watching someone do everything right.

In publishing, a whole lot of folks have been doing a whole lot of things wrong for quite a while now.

One friend in the book biz likens even mid-size publishers to large ships incapable of changing course quickly. Publishers, no matter their size, should be just the opposite--small, quick vessels able to turn on a dime. Especially in today's don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-the-next-big-thing environment of technology, publishers need to realize that the old ways, though maybe not dead, are certainly in need of repair.

But the words "publishing" and "technology" haven't exactly fit well together since that Gutenberg guy came along.

Somehow, there's a 10-year-old kid at the Apple store in the mall who is more technologically advanced than the heads of most publishing houses today, large and small. I got so tired of asking questions about technological advances (like, "Hey, shouldn't this be an ebook?") that I left publishing altogether and now work in digital media.

I have a Kindle that I don't use (two, actually). I go to used book stores on a frighteningly weekly basis. I collect first editions. I am the guy that will never prefer an ebook to a printed book. But I'm also smart enough to realize that the rest of the world doesn't agree with me.

Digital isn't the future. It's last year.

The next big thing just flew by my window. He's being replaced tomorrow.

So the publishers, slow as they were to embrace digital, now finally have thrown themselves into the fold. Good for them. And, with the emergence of new and awesome digital products, the same publishers are now putting out lots and lots of new, exciting books and genres and characters to take full advantage of the new, exciting digital landscape, right?

Sure. Just this year (it's APRIL!!), there have been 100 books on Titanic published. IN THE UNITED STATES ALONE.

New and different, indeed.

I could honestly rail all day long on how publishers big and small refuse to take gambles or are simply restricted financially from taking a risk on something that's unique to the marketplace.

I've seen enough Profit and Loss reports to know how mind-numbingly difficult it can be to justify the expense of publishing a book. In that sense, it's an absolute wonder anything gets published.

But, for my part, I think I just got tired of hearing the word NO. Then, it dawned on me.

When you self-publish, there is no one to say NO.

So, along with two of my best friends in the world, I started a publishing house. Initially, we were going to open things up to a whole slew of unpublished and untested writers and artists and photographers and circus clowns, but I realized that, A. I'm deathly afraid of circus clowns, and B. In order to attract others to our cause, we'd first need something of our own to show.

Something professional and cool and different and, well, something that we did completely on our own, without the help of a "real" publisher. Without the help of agents or writing coaches (whatever that is) or a marketing team.

Just three friends looking to do something fun that might just work and might just attract others.

And it all started with a doodle on a Post-It note and a conversation in a diner.

But more on all that in Part Three.

Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing! Part One

So things are starting to move a little bit on the old self publishing front. The book (a children’s book that I wrote and am now self-publishing, for those playing along at home) is in the hands of the amazingly talented artist, who is now more than halfway through the final illustrations.

For my part, I’m in the middle of researching printers and costs of printers and trying not to pass out from looking at the insane cost of printing a book with full color illustrations.

You’d think paper was a hot commodity, or something.

Being in publishing for a while, I certainly understand how the paper market fluctuates, and how that fluctuation effects...well, pretty much everything when it comes to making and publishing books.

That in mind, you might be asking why I—as someone who has left a traditional publisher for a job in digital media—am now so fixated on the cost of printing a physical copy of a book. You know, with paper and everything.

The answer is simple: Actual books are nice...and I like them.

I’ll be printing a very short run of books, and then offering the whole thing digitally for a fraction of the physical price, but, darn it, if I’m gonna write a book, then I want to be able to hold a physical copy of that book.

Also, it'll be nice to give out copies of the book to family and friends.

But I completely understand that digital is where the industry is, and where I want to go with things.

Going digital is also a heck of a lot cheaper than printing physical books.

But I've jumped way ahead of myself with this post. So let's stop things here, and call this entry an introduction. An overview, if you will, to get everyone up to speed on the project.

Next time, I'll go back to the beginning and talk about how the book began, how I found and hired an artist, and I'll show design sketches and page layouts and all that fun stuff.

So stay tuned, Exfanders, because these Amazing Adventures in Self Publishing are just getting started.

[Continued in Part Two.]

Bending the Rules

Stephen King wrote an incredible book about his craft, entitled On Writing. It’s a brilliantly written book by a master storyteller who's a classic no-nonsense kind of guy.

One of King's main points in the book is to get in, and then get out, of a scene as quickly as possible. It's what stuck with me as I read the book, since, obviously, I have a tendency to go on for far too long in my writing.

But the thing about that is...King doesn’t take his own advice.

Known for his long form fiction, King has the tendency to write massive tomes. Like, serious, thousand-page buggers. He spends lots and lots of time in important scenes, letting his characters do and say things until they're finished doing and saying things.

And, often, it takes King characters a while to finish.

But, I think, somewhere in that contradiction lies King’s best piece of advice when it comes to writing—and, really, to doing anything creative. Follow the rules, but only until you come up with something better.

Or something more fun.

This is especially true with writing fiction, I think, but it can be applied to all forms of creative output. I think, as anyone else who needs to work within certain boundaries at work, it's always better to do something differently than how others have done it.

As long as it works.

And there's the key. It's cool and different to be cool and different, but that won't fly--ever--when what you come up with just doesn't work. But when it does work, even though it's different and not what people are used to seeing?

That's when you go with it.

Exfanding Review: ‘Salem’s Lot

Somehow I’ve managed to make it to the weekend, and, what’s more, I’ve even managed to have something of substance to write about for today.

Which, if you’ve followed the blog at all lately, is a bit of a change of pace for me. I’ve been the King of Innocuousness© this week and last, but all that changes today, as I write about a book that’s now nearly 40 years old.

Don’t be mean.

Anyway. Back to the almost-40-year-old book.

Somehow, amidst my crazy schedule of the past two weeks, I managed to squeeze in Stephen King’s seminal vampire novel, ’Salem’s Lot. Now, the fact that I made time to read the whole thing shows just how good the book was, as—you may have noticed—I haven’t had much time to do much of anything lately.

Written in 1975, ’Salem’s Lot is King’s second book, written and published after Carrie took the publishing world by storm a couple of years prior. When King wrote ’Salem’s Lot, he was still teaching high school English (it was a class on Science Fiction and Fantasy literature—wish I could have taken that in high school), and he was, like many Americans, at odds with the government.

Both those things had obvious impacts on his sophomore novel; the former in that one of the books assigned to the class was Dracula, and the latter becomes quite obvious while reading the text.

Now, clearly, I’m a horror fan.

And, as such, I’m quite familiar with the work of Stephen King. Oddly enough, though, I haven’t read all that much of the man’s bibliography. The work of his that has resonated deepest with me is actually a book called On Writing.

I say oddly because On Writing is not a horror book, but rather a book about (you guessed it) writing.

I’ve read the first two of the Dark Tower books, and I’ve started the third in that epic series. "Rita Heyworth and Shawshank Redemption" is one of my favorite stories ever, and I’m a proud owner of a first edition of the compilation book in which it appeared. I remember reading Green Mile back when the book came out in monthly installments—a format that I think is genius, and should be utilized today.

But King has many, many more books out there and as a horror fan I really have no excuse for skipping out on them. I’m working to rectify that, and I decided to start with ’Salem’s Lot.

In an interview long after the book was released, King said he set out to “create a fictional town with enough prosaic reality about it to offset the comic-book menace of a bunch of vampires.”

He succeeded.

’Salem’s Lot works on a lot of levels—allegorical tale of the intrusive reach of a corrupt government; portrait of a small New England town and the kinds of people who live in them to name a couple.

But where the novel really shines—where it really succeeds, I mean—is in its goal of being a wicked post-modern vampire story.

King set out to make nasty, scary, threatening vampires set in a world of modern technologies capable of laying waste to them rather quickly. And yet, there is still the feeling that no one is going to make it out of the story alive.

King’s vampires are a believable threat, even though they are of the classic, Stoker species—can’t enter a home unless invited, religious items have an effect on them, etc. Even with their myriad weaknesses, King’s vampires are dangerous and terrifying.

But the human characters are never completely overmatched—they’re smart, and brave, and they act selflessly when faced with an impossible reality. There’s that perfect balance of fear for—and belief in—the characters who make their way through the book and its horrors.

Which is something missing from so many horror stories, especially post-John Carpenter’s Halloween. In the vast majority of recent(ish) horror tales, you can pretty much guess who’s gonna bite it.

Or, I suppose, who’s gonna get bit.

Not so in ’Salem’s Lot. No, here King creates a world wherein every character is totally up for grabs, and that's the real horror in the story.

I've read a lot of vampire literature over the years, but now that I've read ’Salem’s Lot, I'm ashamed to say it's taken me so long to get to it. It's right up there with I Am Legend and, dare I say, Dracula.

And, really, that's the best comparison I can make--’Salem’s Lot is a modern day Dracula, revised and updated to fit into a contemporary society. Sure, it's a few decades old now and there are a number of anachronistic things that keep the setting from being timeless, but its message is still as relevant today as it was in the 1970s.

And it's still scary as hell.

Which, really, is all that matters.

The Secret World of Poor Marketing

Today we present a guest post from Exfanding guest post veteran and wedding victim neko-chan.

As Nathaniel stated earlier in the blog, I dragged him out last week to see the new anime movie, The Secret World of Arrietty. This film, produced by Studio Ghibli and renowned Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, beautifully reimagines the characters and setting of Mary Norton’s classic British children’s book series, The Borrowers, from a Japanese perspective. It is a heart-warming tale of friendship, adolescence, and growing up.

In this version of the story, Sho, a sickly boy who is sent to rest at his family’s country estate before his upcoming heart surgery, strikes up an unlikely friendship with Arrietty, a rambunctious 14-year old girl who is the size of a mouse and lives with her family under the floorboards of the house. Over the course of the story, these two children learn important life lessons, both from the adults around them and from each other:

• They learn that their actions have both positive and negative consequences, and that they must bear the mantle of responsibility for the decisions they make.
• They learn that rules are in place for a reason, and to trust in the firm guidance and wisdom of those with more experience; however, they also learn that personal beliefs can colour or transcend logic, and that sometimes rules and values must be re-evaluated as new knowledge is gained.
• They learn to cultivate a sense of self-respect and dignity – to be able to believe in their own value, strength, and abilities, while at the same time being able to accept help and correction with grace and humility.
• Finally, they learn that while sometimes there are hardships, and life won’t always work out the way you hope and expect, you can still take pleasure and comfort in the company of loved ones, and in the good memories that you have shared with others.

Nathaniel and I both enjoyed this movie, and appreciated the way parenting and friendships were handled and portrayed. There was a sense of “realness” and humanity, despite it being a fantastical tale, and I think the movie is as instructive as it is entertaining. Diehard fans of the books may have issue with the literary license Miyazaki takes with the plot, but honestly it was more true to the spirit of the characters than past incarnations in film and television.

Having said all that, I now want to talk a bit about how this film has been marketed, targeted, and received in the USA, and the continuing problem of how anime is conceptualized in America.

Aside from one poster in the back corner of a movie theatre lobby a few months back, and a passing mention by a fellow anime enthusiast on Facebook, I did not hear anything about this film until after it had already been released. The same thing happened a few years back with Ponyo. There always seems to be the dual reaction of “Wait, there’s a new Miyazaki film?!” and “Why didn’t I know?!” which goes to show just how critically under-marketed these films are. If anime fans themselves don’t realize they should be flocking to the theatres for a new release, how are average Americans going to take any interest?

It just strikes me as odd that Disney, who is responsible for releasing these films in the US market, and who is a recognized master of branding, can’t seem to properly promote any of the anime titles it licenses. Even if they didn’t own the merchandising rights, they could have at least released a few previews in the theatres to spark public interest, right? But I don’t remember seeing any kind of advance trailers or sneak-peeks at all.

It all comes down to economics. In this day and age, with so many movies being created and distributed, advertising is necessary to capture the public’s attention and make them spend their $8-$12 on your movie, rather than anyone else’s. Yet, on the main Disney website, Arrietty is just a passing mention on their “Characters” page; all of their efforts are instead devoted to promoting their own upcoming projects, Brave and John Carter. Why? Because the cost to license a film made by someone else is less than the cost to develop and release a film from scratch, so they need a bigger return on their own investments, and only need to break even on the films they have brought over from other countries.

I guess I don’t blame Disney, as they would potentially be shooting themselves in the foot if they got everyone excited for the newest anime release and then had no one come to see John Carter; however, it doesn’t seem fair that this disparity in marketing is partially responsible for the lackluster performance of anime titles in the American box office.

And it’s not just the films released by Disney. When is the last time an anime movie was marketed using the same principles as a regular film? Pokemon: 2000? Films such as Ghost in the Shell in 1995 were quietly marketed to the wrong demographic, and even newly developed films like Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos are only getting a limited theatrical release in the US, with the sole advertising strategy being a few web banners on the distributor’s webpage, and an email announcement to fans on the distributor’s newsletter. There is a prevailing belief that anime fans will either watch these films online or will wait until they come to disc, and that the rest of America is simply not interested, which will continue to be the case until a successful marketing campaign actually informs fans and causes the rest of America to get interested.

The companies that release anime in the United States also seem to be unable to grasp the intended target demographic for these films and series. They wrongly assume that anything animated is made exclusively for children. They market and advertise according to that standard, and are reluctant to pick up titles that may contradict or break from this pattern. In the past, they have even gone so far as to heavily edit the visual content and dialogue of anime shows (removing cigarettes, nudity, violence, homosexual relationships, etc.) in order to make them conform with American norms and values for children’s programming, because that is the only way we can conceptualize cartoons.

However, animation in Japan is merely another way of telling a story, no different from live-action, CG, puppetry, stop-animation, or any other visual film media. Stories run the full gamut of human experience and subject matter, and the choice to portray these stories in an animated format is not made for age reasons, but for budgetary and stylistic reasons. Simply, you can do things in animation that would be difficult to do in the physical realm of live-action, and you can create a unique visual “look” or artistic style with the 2D line that is distinctly different from the visual style of any other media. You cannot lump all anime under the category of “Kids Only” any more than you can lump all live-action movies under the canopy of “Kids Only.” Yet American companies still try their hardest to do exactly that.

Of course, I can give some obvious examples such as Akira and Perfect Blue as being distinctly not made for kids, but let’s take a look at The Secret World of Arrietty as a less-obvious example. Was this based on a children’s book? Yes. Was it intended to be watched, in part, by children? Yes. But is that that the target demographic? No.

The target demographic should have been people in the 25-50 range. These are the people who grew up reading and loving Mary Norton’s books, and who have a special connection to these characters. These are the people who have seen the last four movie and mini-series adaptations of these stories (1973, 1992, 1997, and 2011). These are the people who initially grew up with anime such as Speed Racer and Astro Boy, who have probably seen all of Miyazaki’s other films, and who have maintained a history and a relationship with this media and its story-telling style. These are the people who have children or grandchildren that they are excited to see these films with as a family. These are not the people who were targeted by Disney - the original pioneer of the “animated family movie,” and the one company that should have known better.

Now let’s take a look at how said movie was received by the American public: 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience rating of 87% liking it, yet over the course of the past two weeks it has pulled in only $4.5M in box office sales. It is critically acclaimed, it is loved by fans, yet the public is not rushing out to see it. This, to me, is a tragedy. Compare that to the fact that Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds, which received a Tomatometer rating of only 27%, made $16M in the past 3 days. This says that we, as Americans, are willing to pay more to see a bad movie that we can easily understand and classify than we will pay to see a good movie that challenges our conceptions of what animation is and can be in the movie spectrum.

Oh, and speaking of the public reception to this movie, let’s not forget dear old Lou Dobbs, who has repeatedly demonized the movie in our national media, stating that Arrietty is preaching a liberal agenda, anti-1%/pro-Occupy message to our children. He gives no mention to Norton or to when the books were written, and he glosses over the fact that this movie was not made in Hollywood or even in this country, thereby making it unlikely that either the creators or the inspiration of this film had any sort of American political agenda in mind.

Apparently to Dobbs, the way the Borrowers gather natural resources from their environment (the house and garden), and use these resources to manufacture their food and shelter equates to “justifying the right of the poor to steal from the rich,” and is not simply making a direct parallel to how humans gather resources from their own environment in order to manufacture goods and meet the needs of food and shelter.

Likewise, the borrowers’ outright refusal to take the ornate luxury items in the dollhouse is not, as Dobbs thinks, a rejection of wealth and the elite, it is a choice by the borrowers to live with freedom and dignity, instead of like dolls or caged pets. Dobbs’ ethnocentric viewpoints taint a perfectly innocent story by trying to force it into a modern political paradigm it was never intended to fit in.

Overall, I am glad I had the opportunity to see this movie in the theatre. I am glad it is getting wonderful reviews by both fans and movie critics. However, I worry about the fate of anime in the realm of the American theatre due to poor marketing, the misunderstanding of intended demographics, and the misinterpretation of themes as “culturally-threatening” due to blatant misinformation and existing bias.

We need to start showing movie producers that Americans are mature enough and open-minded enough to embrace films of quality, regardless of national origin, with formats that challenge our conception of what movies look and feel like, and that may or may not have anything to do with the messages and themes we are used to hearing.

So I urge you to go see this film. Take a chance on something different. I guarantee that whether you love it or hate it, whether you think it should be seen by everyone or whether you think it should be demonized, you will at least have exfanded your horizons of Japanese film, and of what animation can mean to film as a visual media.

[Click to enlarge]

Weekend Work

Don't really have anything comparable to follow up Nathaniel's epic--and awesome--Harry Potter marathon post from yesterday, so I think I'll be pretty brief today.

So far, it's been a busy weekend of…well, work, mostly. And there's plenty more in store, as I have lots of stuff going on, both at work and in my at-home work endeavors.

The work-work stuff is, well, it's work and there's lots of it today, but I'm not gonna talk about it here. The at-home work, though? That's the fun stuff.

As I’ve alluded to in the past, I’m in the process of self publishing a children’s book. I’m now pretty far along in that process, and things are getting to the nitty gritty—but the fun part of the nitty gritty (if that makes any sense). I'm in that wonderful stage where I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing, which despite how it might sound, is actually a lot of fun.

You see, it’s one thing to write something, and to then stick it in a (digital) drawer for a while before making a decision to do anything with it. I've found that I'm quite good at that part of the game.

There's plenty of stuff that I've written and just socked away.

But, for a number of reasons, I decided to go all out with this latest project and sometime around October of last year I took the first big step--teaming up with an artist. Just getting to that step can prove to be quite the task, but this time it just felt like the right thing to do.

Since then, things have progressed nicely and I've received layouts for the entire book. I am, to say the least, incredibly excited with what I've seen, and I cannot wait to see what the final product looks like.

While the artist is hard at work on the finished pages, I'm now venturing out into the big, scary world of printers. There's lots of options from which to choose, and there's quite a bit of a difference in price with...well, with everything. Low print runs, in color, with a hard cover?

Incredibly expensive.

Because it's a children's book, we need to print this bad boy in full color, which ain't cheap, let me tell you. Still, along with some very smart friends of mine, I think I've narrowed things down enough to at least have a very real possibility of producing a high quality product for a price that isn't going to ruin me.

And, while those words may well come back to haunt me in the future, Present Day Alex is quite happy, and quite confident in what's to come.

Which, if you know me, is not like me at all.

But just going over page layouts and planning out both the printing and the marketing strategies for the book have me riled up--in a good way for once.

I know full well the pitfalls and the landmines of the publishing business. But, like one of my very first baseball coaches used to say, you can learn a whole heck of a lot more by watching someone who's doing everything wrong than you can from someone who's doing things right.

And I've watched plenty of people go about doing things the wrong way over the course of my career.

So we'll see what happens, and as I like to say: What could possibly go wrong?

: )


-- -- -- --

Enjoy your Sunday, Exfanders.

Mischief Managed!

A Harry Potter movie marathon should only take 19 hours and 38 minutes, assuming you're watching all 8 films back-to-back, in their entirety (including credits), with a one-minute break between films. A timeline of your day might look something like this:

7:00 AM - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone + breakfast
9:33 AM - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
12:15 PM - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban + lunch
2:53 PM - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5:15 PM - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7:34 PM - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince + dinner
10:08 PM - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1
12:35 AM - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2
2:45 AM - Collapse into a heap

You might invite a group of friends over to your apartment, extend the offer for them to stay overnight, recommend they come in costume, and provide ample food and drink to keep everyone in peak marathoning condition.

How much food and drink does it take to survive a Harry Potter movie marathon? I myself polished off a half can of Pringles, a dozen powdered mini-donuts, half a Canadian bacon pizza, a pile of regular ruffly potato chips, a big glass o' grape juice, a big glass o' Hawaiian Punch, multiple cans of Barq's, Mello Yello, and Cherry Pepsi, and...you know what? I don't think I actually want to continue this list.

While food and drink certainly help, just as important are the people subjecting themselves to this insanity with you. Watching all eight of these films alone, or for the first time, is an ordeal, both physically and mentally. Participating in a marathon with seven other people who've seen the films, and who have both thought-provoking and riotous commentary to share, is a party.

Two weekends ago, we had a party.

The setup: Facing the television were one couch, one loveseat, a papasan chair, a recliner, and some random chair we pulled out of the back room--sufficiently comfortable seating for all. A spare DVD player was in place, should the primary one catch on fire or explode after so many hours of continuous wizarding. Nearby, still within eyeshot of the TV, the dining room table was laden with a smorgasbord of snackery. Cold beverages and snacks occupied the majority of the refrigerator, save for the space in the back with the leftover chicken that really needed to be thrown away. Our chintzy blue Christmas tree, still up after two months, found a new festive purpose with my wife's papercraft Harry Potter tree topper.

The plan: Wake up, shower (please, for the sake of your neighbor on the couch), start the first movie at 7:00 AM sharp and proceed as outlined in the timetable above. Sit down to watch the first movie with breakfast in hand, make available lunch fixin's during the credits of the appropriate movie, and order pizzas for delivery at the appointed hour. Break for the bathroom if necessary between films, and during the films, enjoy all the Harry Potter-themed goodies my wife and our guests prepared in advance--butterbeer, pumpkin pasties, pumpkin juice (pictured earlier in this post), Hagrid's rock cakes, Cockroach Clusters (both pictured below), Wizard Wands, and so forth.

The hitch: My wife, who had spent the better part of the previous week with me preparing the apartment for guests, had run out of time to make anything before the marathon began, and the guest who was planning on bringing the rest of the themed snacks had taken ill about two days before the marathon, preventing her from making and bringing as much as she'd planned.

The other hitch: 7:00 AM sharp is more like 7:15-ish for most people on a Saturday.

The other other hitch: Apparently, activities such as assembling lunch sandwiches, taking photos of people in costume, and saying goodbye to friends who can't stay for the whole event, cannot be compressed into the 1-minute disc-switching break between movies, even if we start the process during the credits.

The end result: The marathon didn't actually end until closer to 3:45 AM. My wife spent half the marathon in the kitchen with experimental recipes. We suspect she was cooking with Ron's damaged wand from Chamber of Secrets, as we ended up with a plastic measuring cup destroyed by scalding butterscotch and a lump of chocolate pudding cake batter containing splinters of what was formerly my favorite wooden spoon.

Regardless, the important part is that we did watch all eight movies.


7:12 AM - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Having recently seen Deathly Hallows - Part 2 in the theater, it was jarring to return to the first movie in the series. It wasn't the drastic age difference between the heroes of the last movie and their considerably younger counterparts--practically toddlers, really--so much as the difference in production values. By the time the series ended, the filmmakers had settled on a dark, distinctive style, but in the beginning, production values weren't too far off from a particularly nice-looking film produced specifically for TV.

"Whimsical." I think that's the word I'd use to describe it. There was a real emphasis on the colorful characters and the unusual world they lived in. Storytelling and cinematography seemed secondary, though the whole thing still held together quite well. Perhaps even more striking was how British everything felt. The later movies are not so rooted in their country of origin; the cultural peculiarities and even the accents gradually soften into an innocuous Americanized British that neither contributes nor takes away much of anything to/from the feel of the films.

I made the observation that, if this were a video game, I would be casting Wingardium Leviosa on everything. Similar to my fondness for levitation in Morrowind, my enthusiasm for inflicting flotation on others is a matter of both amusement and practicality. Confronted by a three-headed dog sitting on a trap door? Wingardium Leviosa. Attacked by a troll in the bathroom? Wingardium Leviosa. Both you and your club can hang out on the ceiling a while.

Oh, and bathrooms! We didn't realize it at the time, but J.K. Rowling apparently is fascinated by bathrooms. And socks. Or so one of my guests pointed out.

Props to the child actors, by the way. Rupert Grint was especially emotive as Ron Wonderstruck By Everything Weasley. Props also to the casting department; selecting a trio who can effectively and convincingly stay in the shoes of these characters for an entire decade is surely no easy feat. Lastly, props to the props department. Obviously.

One thing that stood out is how neither Draco Malfoy nor Severus Snape ever reached the heights of antagonism one might expect after reading the books. Up until You-Know-Who returns at the end of Book 4, Snape and Malfoy are the real villains of the series, with occasional distractions by the likes of Professor Quirrell and Tom Riddle. At least, that's the way it always appeared to me--the movies, on the other hand, downplay the Malfoy rivalry to an extent, and Snape never once looks like a bad guy (up until the end of the sixth movie) if you can separate poor people skills from villainy.


9:48 AM - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I'm not sure what happened here. I was awake, comfortable, and totally in the marathon zone...but I had enormous difficulties keeping focused. For starters, we had a disorganized start--after shouting at the other viewers a few times that we were STARTING THE MOVIE NOW TEN NINE EIGHT SEVEN SIX, I still got some baffled looks from people wandering in from the kitchen wondering about why I had started without them.

After a while I realized it wasn't just me--it was the movie itself. Whereas the first film flowed rather smoothly from one scene to the next, the second film seemed somewhat scattered, a little unsure of where it was going for a while, and what was important to show. Strange, considering I had previously believed the second movie to be superior to the first in most regards. Random spiders at the scene of the crime? ANOTHER BATHROOM? Alright, so I don't actually have a complaint against the den of Moaning Myrtle, but we started to notice the pattern here.

One of the most disappointing parts of the film--and it almost hurts to say this--was Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. Now, a decade ago, I would've told you he was my favorite part of the movie. However, following some discussions with my fellow viewers, a consensus arose that Branagh's Lockhart forced his charm on others to make them like him, while Rowling's Lockhart was so self-centered that he couldn't help but suck others in. It's the subtle difference between an arrogant teenager dragging you by the arm, and a black hole. Someone proposed Ewan McGregor as a better fit for the part, and despite the group's deep respect for Kenneth Branagh in his other endeavors, no one seemed to disagree.

What really sealed the Chamber's fate as a low point of the series was the ending, which did not strike me as anything particularly terrible until one of the guests pointed something out to us: there is NO reason for Hagrid to get that kind of applause when he returns. The man was gone for a trivial amount of time, he's ignored, disrespected, or downright hated by half the school, and thoughout the entire movie he did absolutely nothing!!! YAAAAAAY!!! STANDING OVATION FOR HAGRID!!! We were in stitches.


12:37 PM - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The third film, as well as the third book, are my favorite in the series. I always chalked it up to clever time-travel, a good balance of seriousness and good cheer, the Knight Bus, two of my favorite characters from the series--Sirius Black and Remus Lupin--and the wonderfully creepy Dementors. Upon further inspection, I began to understand that my appreciation of the film goes a bit deeper.

I enjoy a certain amount of mystery and surprise in my stories, but I also like to have a sense of direction; within fifteen minutes, the main focus of the movie is clearly in place (with some GREAT setup), and the pacing remains consistently tight throughout the rest of the film. I also enjoy a story where everything matters. From the lesson on riding a Hippogriff to the fleeting glimpse of Lupin's fear when facing the Boggart, details both great and small come full circle, which makes for a very satisfying tale.

The group seemed to agree with me: moving from director Chris Columbus to director Alfonso Cuarón for this film was the right choice.


3:03 PM - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

I must have miscounted somewhere, because at the beginning of the third movie we were 22 minutes behind schedule, and now we're only behind by 10. I chalk it up to clever time-travel and good pacing.

One guest celebrated Goblet of Fire as the best in the series, as it was sufficiently mature and dark for her tastes. Given her criteria, I can understand where this film would be a favorite, but given mine...I think only the special effects put this a notch above Chamber of Secrets for me. It didn't help that this is where it was brought to my attention that Cedric Diggory was played by Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame--Diggory was totally hip until I was no longer able to separate the character from the series I'm supposed to be innately angry at despite never having read or watched any of it.

We took this opportunity to make our own butterbeer--a combination of cream soda, butterscotch syrup, and unicorn giggles--which turned out to be the single most delicious thing anyone could have hoped for that wasn't an actual stick of butter in a mug of beer. Which would be pretty terrible, actually.

Our viewing of the film started off disjointedly, and the film itself--directed by a new guy, Mike Newell--felt a bit aimless at first. After the last movie, I had started counting how long it took each film to get to the main plot. Despite the basic explanation of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, I counted 36 minutes until the story finally moved past the exposition phase--more than double the time it took Prisoner of Azkaban to get rolling.

I had difficulty putting my finger on it the first time I saw the movie, but it had always felt a little "off" to me. Part of it was the sluggish start, and part of it was the overwhelmingly darker atmosphere (both visually and figuratively), but the missing part of the equation revealed itself as Angry Dumbledore.

Pick any other movie--any other movie--and Dumbledore is consistently a man who is calm and in control in every circumstance; even when he's losing his mind drinking crummy Horcrux water in the sixth movie, he's at least prepared for it. Here, Dumbledore resolves every situation by shouting until the problem goes away. Monitor the volume and tone of the man's voice; I think you'll find that it never dips below "mildly annoyed at the person across the room."

This must've been the movie I was thinking of when I first decided I preferred Richard Harris as Dumbledore over the man who later inherited the role, Michael Gambon. Looking back, my opinion seems to have been primarily based on my initial interpretation of Dumbledore as merely a kindly old wizard, and on my general resistance to new actors in familiar roles. This time around, Gambon ultimately felt like the right fit for a successor.

The first sign of Marathon Fatigue set in at 4:55 PM: for a brief moment, I caught myself beginning to nod off.

Also...we ended up back in the bathroom again, cracking the mystery of the screaming egg.


5:55 PM - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Dinner arrived in the form of pizzas during this movie, marking the last concerted effort of the day for any kind of special food outside of the snacks already on the table and in the fridge. I was initially concerned about our ability to stay focused without another meal or major snack to boost us, but the cohesiveness of the films from here on out helped the flow of the evening significantly.

For one thing, the last four films were all directed by the same person, David Yeats. For another, the Harry Potter novels were still very much in development when the first four movies were released, and it wasn't always clear which characters and details would be important in later books.

Columbus focused on whatever would make a good tale for the kiddies; Cuarón focused on whatever would allow the movie to stand on its own as a creative work; Newell focused on whatever seemed most likely to be relevant to future sequels; Yates, however, began filming Order of the Phoenix the year before the final book was released, minimizing the amount of guesswork required in his storytelling. The direction and tone of the series were clear from here on out, so Yeats was able to focus on simply telling the rest of the tale.

Order of the Phoenix was and is my next favorite film after Prisoner of Azkaban in large part because of how much detail it manages to cram into such a short amount of time without feeling at all overwhelming. And 17 minutes to get to the main plot? Atta boy, Yeats.

One major observation I made during this film--which seems to apply to all the other films--is that, despite a huge repertoire of magic tricks up their sleeves, not a single wizard can put out fire. Almost without exception throughout the entire series, if something is on fire or surrounded by fire, the heroes are rendered helpless.

If the heroes merely followed my approach to wizarding, they'd be in much better shape. Surrounded by flames? Threatened by Dolores Umbridge? Your cousin Dudley collapsed after a run-in with Dementors and needs to be dragged home? Wingardium Leviosa.


8:15 PM - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Now that the series had settled on just one director, and now that the actors were no longer growing up so rapidly between films, the look and feel of the series was finally settling into a consistent groove. The music, however, became notably repetitive by this point--not only did many of the tunes start to sound the same, but I'm positive I heard some of the more backgroundy ones in previous films. Not a major strike against the films, but definitely a detracting factor.

I found myself having trouble focusing on this one. Actually, upon further inspection, I realized I'd been having difficulties focusing on all the even-numbered movies, and I'd been enjoying all the odd-numbered movies more. This one started off slowly, as did Chamber and Goblet, so I'm thinking it must be an inherent problem with the most plot-intensive installments in the series.

This is the film where the bathroom fad was supplemented by an alarming trend of dead birds. Between Fawkes the phoenix, Headwig later on, and the victims of the Whomping Willow, we began to wonder whether the people responsible for the films had a thing against our fine feathered friends.

During the scene at the end of the film where Harry and Dumbledore take the creepy boat across the creepy lake, I pointed out that they could have avoided the whole miserable situation of almost being pulled under and drowned by the creepy lake creatures if they had only Wingardium Leviosa'd themselves across. Sheesh. These people.

Lastly--and I don't recall whether I misheard, misread, or misspoke this--I have scribbled down in my notes the name "Horace Snugglemouth."


11:14 PM - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1

After a few departures between movies, our viewing group was now reduced to half its previous size. We were still awake enough, but the "party" feel had subsided back to "straight-up marathon." It was up to the movies more than the participants to keep the momentum going.

I caught myself momentarily nodding off for the second time at 1:02 AM. Hurry up and kill Voldemort, you guys.

Without the whimsical backdrop of attending classes at Hogwarts, Deathly Hallows - Part 1 felt much closer to a traditional Hollywood movie than something specifically Harry Potter. Removed from their usual context and dressed in civilian clothes, the main actors tended to stand out more than the personalities of their characters. Daniel Radcliffe seemed to have grown out of the role of Harry Potter, while Rupert Grint had completely made Ron his own. Emma Watson still made a convincing Hermione, but Hermione herself had lost her snotty, nerdy edge over the past few movies without seeming to develop or pick up any other traits.

As if to compensate for this, Dobby--finally--left behind his roots as a pale imitation of Jar-Jar Binks and became a real character. When you can get an audience to shed a tear of legitimate sorrow over a grating little elf, you have truly accomplished something.

When you can get an audience to start counting the number of times your characters visit a bathroom, you've accomplished something altogether different. What IS it with these movies!?


1:43 AM - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

I saw both parts of this movie in the theater, and I felt a jarring disconnect--all the character development was in the first film, and all the action was in the second film. The first time around, I enjoyed the first one and found the second one to be too much, too often--not unlike Quantum of Solace.

On a second viewing, also like Quantum of Solace, the second one became more satisfying than the considerably slower first one after I had sorted out my expectations. As the second half of a whole, Deathly Hallows - Part 2 is a satisfying conclusion, but I'm still not convinced it's a necessary one. With the kind of pacing and selective scene trimming exhibited by films 3 and 5, Deathly Hallows could have been a single movie on the order of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: long, but epic enough in scope to warrant the length.

After repeatedly ignoring my peanut gallery suggestions to use Wingardium Leviosa on EVERYTHING, the heroes at last took advantage of the other spell I'd continually pushed for throughout the series: Accio, the summoning charm. The ONE time they decide to use it to find a Horcrux, it doesn't work. Fine, whatever. They then proceed to flood the vault by slogging through self-replicating trinkets that multiply when touched...and all the while, I'm thinking, "You guys could've just Wingardium Leviosa'd yourselves to the ceiling and floated over that mess." Forget these heroes; I'm rooting for Neville Longbottom next time.

At 3:54 AM, more than a full hour after we had originally planned, we shut off the television and lurched toward our respective sleeping spaces to collapse into our respective heaps.


Conclusion

Overall, the marathon was a great success. We not only survived, but I hopefully speak for everyone when I say we had a good time. In many ways, the marathon didn't truly start until the fifth movie--with all the drastic directorial changes, the first four films served more as a foundation for the last four movies than the first half of a series. Still, roughly ten years in the making and without a clear endpoint for most of it, this movie series came together impressively well.

When organizing this event, I billed it as "The Stupidest Thing You Will Do All Year." Twenty hours of continuous Harry Potter? Jamming eight people into a space better suited for five? Consuming unspeakable amounts of junk food and caffeine to stay focused? Well, with good company, thoughtful conversation, and frequent wisecracks, it wasn't so arduous after all--time flies when you use Wingardium Leviosa.