Ditko or the King? (Or, Why Does It Have to Be an Either/Or?)

Nearly every second of every day, we are confronted with choices.  Many are made without our even being aware of it.  Did you just tap your foot against the floor, and perhaps not even realize it?  Did you glance up at the ceiling?  Look to the left?  To the right?  Maybe you cracked a knuckle, stretched your calf muscle, took a quick sip of coffee.

 

We make choices all the time.

When writing–be it a novel, a short story, a newspaper article, or a journal entry, and everything in between–we also make myriad choices.  Again, the vast majority of these are at an unconscious level.  If you were to stop and ruminate over every word you wrote, you would, quite literally, be paralyzed, incapable of creating a single sentence.  The words come as they come. The story evolves–often on its own, as if imbued with a certain ineluctable magic.  Authors and thinkers and scientists have pondered the creative process for centuries.  It may never be fully understood.

 

But, whether understood or not, whether made beyond the awareness of the conscious mind or only after a tortuous and seesawing inner conflict–the choices are real.  And, when writing, one of those choices is:  Should you tell it with gusto, with in-your-face enthusiasm and beefy, muscular prose?  Or should you go for a more subdued, subtle approach, using the quiet power of understatement to capture the essence of the scene?

 

Fifty-five years ago, in the offices of Marvel Comics, Stan Lee faced a very similar dilemma.

********************

In the summer of 1962, Marvel Comics was on the rise.  Just over the past year alone, the company had introduced The Fantastic Four, The Ant Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and The Mighty Thor to the world.  The driving creative force behind this comic book revival–Marvel (previously called Timely Comics during the Second World War and Atlas Comics through the 1950s) had been mired in a slump for several years–was Stan Lee, the company’s lead writer and editor.

 

But Lee certainly wasn’t acting alone.  For any comic book endeavor to thrive, it needs the services of a top-notch artist, and Marvel, at the dawn of the 1960s, had two of them:  Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.  Both were accomplished, worked quickly, and brought their own, unique form of genius to their work.  Kirby was the older and more experienced of the two. The King, as he was called, had already put his stamp on The Fantastic Four--he would be their primary artist for a decade.

 

Nevertheless, Stan Lee’s next planned her0–The Amazing Spider-Man, set to debut in the high summer of 1962–needed a different touch.  Kirby’s work was larger-than-life, his covers and panels bursting with energy.  He was ideal for penciling giants and powerful, musclebound monsters, action sequences, and battle scenes.

 

But for Spider-Man, Lee wanted a defter touch.  Spidey’s alter-ego, after all, was Peter Parker, an awkward teenager, a nerdy bookworm, the antithesis of powerhouses like Thor and The Hulk.  Who better to draw Spider-Man than Steve Ditko, a master of shadows and the macabre?

 

Ditko’s Peter Parker would be skinny, almost scrawny, a science geek who accidentally is bitten by a radioactive spider.  And Spider-Man himself, particularly in those early days, is lithe, a creature of the night, hunting criminals in back alleys and climbing buildings, elusive, hunted by the law and striving to avoid the limelight.

 

And so–who is the top dog here?  Does the decision go to Ditko, or the King?  To subtlety and nuance or bold, in-your-face power?  Perhaps there isn’t a clear-cut decision.

Maybe it just depends . . .

*********************

When it comes to the writing process, the Ditko method, if you will, is ideal for dialogue, where the characters’ words and body language, along with a sprinkling of interior monologue or brief descriptions of place and surroundings, say everything, and the need for lengthy, power-packed narrative exposition is limited.  This approach also works for emotions–rather than crafting paragraphs that tell what the character is feeling, a writer can instead simply describe what the character does, or how he or she acts, thereby indirectly informing the reader what is going on inside the character’s head.

 

In chapter eight of The Eye-Dancers, there is an attempt to accomplish something like this with Mitchell Brant.  Mitchell, self-conscious and lacking in confidence, is afraid of girls his own age. And so:

 

“Suddenly, the girl appeared—the pretty one.  She looked at him, and, up close, she was even more beautiful than he’d feared.  She had shoulder-length dark brown hair, close in color to his, and wore a sleeveless sundress that showed off a summer tan.  Worst of all, she smiled at him.

“So he did the only thing he could think of.  He escaped into the diner.

“As soon as he opened the door, a bell jangled, announcing his presence.  Faces turned to look at him.  Grizzled old faces, coated with stubble.  Fresh, young faces, questioning, sizing him up.  Middle-aged faces, embedded with deep smile lines and wrinkles around the eyes.  The attention made him uncomfortable, and he glanced behind him, through the window.  He saw the girl walking away.

“Whew.”

 

But the Kirby approach definitely has its place, as well.  The Eye-Dancers is a sci-fi/fantasy novel, so there are parts of it that are “out there,” complete with interdimensional transfers and dreams that are far more than “just dreams.”  These portions are built for Kirby-esque flair.

 

In chapter six, Marc Kuslanski and the others are pulled into the void, bridging this universe with another.  From Marc’s perspective, the journey begins this way:

 

“‘Wake up!’ he said.  ‘You have to wake up!’  He wanted to shake them, hit them, but he couldn’t.  He had no hands.  All he could do was yell and plead and hope they would hear.  But they were almost gone now—beyond the point of hearing, perhaps beyond the point of anything.  And he was joining them.

“His arms were gone.  He had no feet, no shins, it felt like he was standing on air.  Horrifically, he watched as his thighs slowly vanished, eaten away by the invisible force that had trapped him.  The others were completely gone now, and he felt himself being pulled . . .

“He had no body now, none of him remained, but he could still think, was still aware of his surroundings.  The basement grew indistinct, fading out of focus.

“He tried to talk, to say something, anything, but no words came out.  And now the basement was gone, the bar, the blue glasses and bottles of champagne, a memory.  He looked around, saw nothing, no one—only emptiness, a vast blue ocean that spread out as far as he could see.

“‘What the . . .?’ he said, or thought he said.  There was no sound, only thought.

“And then, in a flash, he was there again—his hands, his feet, his legs, all of him—there.  He clenched his hands into fists, smacked himself in the chest.  Yes.  He could feel.  He could move and kick and reach.  But what good did it do?  There wasn’t anything solid to hold onto, no firm ground to walk along.  He was surrounded by blue, the deepest blue he had ever seen, stretching on forever.”

 

So often in life, we want to declare a winner and a loser, to settle a competition.  But some contests are better left undecided.  Or, perhaps more accurate, some contests are better left unplayed.  Because when said contest calls for us to choose between the literary equivalencies of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, that is just as difficult, and unnecessary, as choosing between the artists’ original creations.  Why decide which style, or which approach, is “better” than the other?

 

Stan Lee found room for both men in the offices of Marvel Comics.

Surely, we can do the same.

Thanks so much for reading!

–Mike

“Super,” “Fantastic,” and “Batty”? — Milestones All Around!

It was a gala event, an anniversary for DC Comics’ signature hero, and the creative team made sure to announce it to the world.

When Superman number 100 hit the newsstands in the late summer of 1955, the title had been going strong for sixteen years, and the character (introduced in Action Comics number 1, in 1938) for seventeen.

 

The 100th issue would serve as a celebration of what the cover proudly proclaimed to be the “World’s Greatest Adventure Character!”

 

In 1955, this sort of special anniversary issue was a new phenomenon, in part because the comic book industry had yet to become the collectible gold mine it would morph into several decades hence, but also because most titles simply hadn’t been around long enough to feature major anniversary issues.  But the celebration of the Man of Steel’s status kicked off a trend in the industry.

 

The following year, it was Batman’s turn.  The Caped Crusader’s title hit number 100 in the spring of 1956, and just as with Superman, Batman’s title was celebrating sixteen years at the time issue number 100 rolled around.  (The character of Batman had been around one year longer, introduced in 1939 with Detective Comics number 27.)

 

Once again, DC pulled out all the stops.  “Batty” stuff indeed . . .

 

Meanwhile, and several years later, another powerhouse in the comic book field–Marvel Comics–was marking the anniversaries of some of its signature titles:  The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, The X-Men, and Mitchell Brant‘s favorite, The Fantastic Four. All hit their 100th issue in the early and mid 1970s.  By this time, it was fully expected that such a milestone issue would be celebrated with pomp and circumstance . . .

 

The stories housed within these special anniversary issues may or may not have been among the best of the genre.  In some ways, it didn’t matter.  More than anything, a title’s 100th issue represented a benchmark, a reminder, if you will, that the heroes had been able to stand the test of time and that the writers and artists involved still possessed a passion for storytelling and a desire to press on.

************

I began The Eye-Dancers blog in the summer of 2012, a complete novice to the blogosphere.  If you were to look up the word “blogging newbie” that summer, my picture probably would have been looking back at you.

(Okay, so putting my kindergarten picture here is probably a bit of an exaggeration.  Chalk it up to poetic license!)

I remember feeling overwhelmed and confused as I launched the blog.  I was about to release The Eye-Dancers, the novel, and I knew I wanted to “get the word out,” but how would I manage to do that?  And how many original posts would I be able to come up with?

 

So I thought about it, and struggled through the first few months, still grasping for blogging ideas, flailing and poking and writing posts that I doubted anyone other than myself would read.  I’d hit the Publish button and imagine the words drifting outward, not to other bloggers, but to some nowhere zone at the center of a lost cyber-galaxy, an eternally hungry black hole that feasted on unread sentences and paragraphs.

 

But then I would see a Like appear, and before long a few intrepid fellow bloggers began to follow the blog.  Very few at first, but their support filled me with enthusiasm and optimism.  Someone out there was reading my words.  Encouraged, I again thought about what I could do, how I could potentially blog for the long haul.  And I decided–why not just write about things that interest me?  Sure, I would want them to tie in to The Eye-Dancers, the novel, in some way, but even so, the possibilities seemed endless.  I dove in, and a remarkable thing happened.  The insecurity lessened, the ideas started to arrive in waves, and I had a blast!  It was fun.  And more surprising still, more and more bloggers began following The Eye-Dancers.  Suddenly that black hole I had initially imagined disappeared, and an ongoing and wonderful adventure kicked into high gear.

 

And now, four years after its inception, The Eye-Dancers blog has reached 5,000 followers. If someone had told me in the summer of 2012 that, by 2016, The Eye-Dancers would be fortunate enough to acquire such a following, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.  But that’s been the great thing about these four years.  The WordPress community welcomed me with open arms, and things just continued to get better and better.

 

Then again, there’s no need for me to break out the past tense here.  I’m not going anywhere.  The sequel to The Eye-Dancers–as long as the literary stars stay aligned–will be due to come out during the early portion of 2017, and I will certainly be blogging about that, as well as many other things, in the months ahead.

 

It is my great hope that you all will continue to read and follow these ramblings and ruminations of mine.  Certainly, The Eye-Dancers doesn’t compare with the great superhero icons and their anniversaries from yesteryear, but your ongoing encouragement has often been as much a tonic for me as any radioactive spider bite or red Kryptonian sunlight.  You are the reason this blog is so enjoyable for me, and you are without a doubt the reason The Eye-Dancers blog is still going strong four years in.  I can’t thank you enough for all your support over these past four years.  You are all the best.

 

Thanks so much for reading, and I can’t wait to get started on the next four years!

–Mike

Many Years Before The Hunger Games . . .

Mitchell Brant (like me) is a big fan of The Fantastic Four.  It’s his favorite comic book, and he tries his best to collect as many of the old original copies as he can.  In chapter one of The Eye-Dancers, we see him pull out a copy of Fantastic Four number 99.  I’d like to think he also owns four remarkable issues from 1969–numbers 90–93.  These four issues together form one story arc, a continuing saga that, in many ways, foreshadows Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games four decades later.

Did Suzanne Collins ever read Fantastic Four # 90–93?  Chances are very high she did not.  But the premise behind both stories is similar.  Amazingly so.

In Fantastic Four number 90 (September 1969), The Thing is captured by a Skrull slave hunter.

In the Marvel Comics universe, the Skrulls are an alien race with shape-shifting abilities  from the Andromeda galaxy.  They first appeared way back in Fantastic Four number 2 (January 1962), so by ’69, readers were very familiar with them.  In number 90, this particular Skrull fools The Thing into believing he’s Mr. Fantastic, the FF’s leader, and then renders him unconscious with a nerve ray.  He plans to make The Thing a slave and transport him to the Skrull galaxy to battle in something called The Great Games.

What are The Great Games?  They take place on the Skrull world of Kral.  There, each year, participants  are captured and brought in from worlds throughout the galaxies and forced to battle to the death in The Great Games.  Once captured by the Skrulls, they relinquish all rights and are known only as  “slaves.”

There are odds, bets, favorites and underdogs.  The Games are the biggest entertainment spectacle of the year, televised and watched by nearly everyone.  Two “slaves” are hand-picked before each contest and then forced to enter the arena, before a sellout crowd.  They must battle to the death–only the death of one ensures victory for the other.  Weapons are provided, tossed onto the arena floor, between the combatants, who then scratch and claw and fight for their use.

If a “slave” chooses not to fight, not to kill, the Skrulls have a device called the Sonic Disrupter, which they then direct at the resister’s home planet.  The Disrupter fires a ray, forcing the planet out of its orbit, destined to fall into the sun.  In this way, the combatants are forced to kill their opponent.  It’s either kill in the arena, or have their own home world destroyed. 

Of course, eventually, the rest of The Fantastic Four realize what’s happened, and through the often corny magic of 1960s-era comic books, they come to The Thing’s rescue.  They even help to dismantle the Sonic Disrupter and put an end to the Great Games.

Obviously, in The Hunger Games, the tributes were children, not super-powered natives of other planets captured by a Skrull slave hunter.  But the similarities are striking.  The televised/entertainment spectacle of a society watching and relishing combatants fighting to the death, forced into the act by an oppressive, powerful government.  The preparations beforehand, building the Games up to be the event of the year.  The contest itself, with the fighters provided weapons to help them finish the job.

The differences between Fantastic Four # 90-93 and The Hunger Games are many and profound.  The Hunger Games, being a novel and featuring rich and multi-layered characters, is a far more in-depth work.  But the basic themes from these Fantastic Four issues resonate and penetrate through the veil of forty years.  The basic concept is clearly a winner, and it captivates audiences.

Comic books are often trivialized and thought of as disposable entertainment, and many of them are.  But there is a richness of ideas, concepts, fantasy, and wonder to be found in the pages of the classic FFs from the 1960s.  Before Panem and Katniss, Peeta and Rue and District 12, there was The Thing, battling in The Great Games of the Skrull world of Kral.

Just ask Mitchell Brant.  He’ll be sure to tell you all about it.

Thanks so much, as always, for reading!

–Mike

Short Story–“Reading the Story”

In addition to The Eye-Dancers, I’ve written many short stories over the years.  I would like to share a few of them on here in the days ahead.  This first one is called “Reading the Story,” which I wrote several years ago and then revised a couple of times.  Hopefully the revisions have helped!

Like Mitchell Brant (and me), Peter, the protagonist of “Reading the Story,” is a devoted comic book collector.  And old, beat-up comics play an integral part in the story . . .

“Reading the Story”

Copyright 2012 by Michael S. Fedison

*****************

Peter had always loved the musty smell.  It made him think of old things, buried treasures, mysterious secrets waiting to be discovered.  But now as he sniffed the comic book in his hands, that smell bothered him.  It reminded him too much of decay and brokenness—and of Tanya.

He leaned back against his pillow, and looked absently at the comic book—a worn, brittle copy of The Amazing Spider-Man # 28.  The cover was lined with numerous creases, the edges were frayed, and even the staples were loose, barely holding the issue together.  But he loved it just the same; he loved all of his old comics, even with their multitude of imperfections.  And the smell.  That old-comic smell.  He’d always savored that.  But not today.

There was a knock on his door.

“Peter?”  It was his mother.

“Yeah, Mom,” he said, bagging the comic in its protective Mylar sleeve and setting it aside.  “I’m on my bed.”

The door opened.  His mother looked tired and sad.  “Peter,” she began, and he knew where this was going.  He didn’t want to deal with it, but he knew he had to.  “Why don’t you go in and see your sister?  She’s in her room.”

“Do you really think that’s such a good idea, Mom?  I mean . . .”

His mother closed the door and walked over to him.  “I don’t know,” she said.  “It’s not easy knowing what to do, or what to say.  But I really think you should.  Avoiding her isn’t the answer, Peter.  That won’t help at all.”

No, it wouldn’t, Peter knew.  But then, if what had happened to Tanya, to her face, had happened to him, he wasn’t sure he’d wish to see anyone.  He might just hide away in a corner and let the world pass on by.  But he didn’t want that for Tanya.

“Okay,” he said.  “I’ll go.  But I won’t stay if she doesn’t want me around.”

His mother smiled.  It seemed to Peter that stubborn rusty hinges were being forced open in her face.  But they gave way, however reluctantly.  Then the smile vanished so fast, he wasn’t sure he’d even seen it.  Maybe he hadn’t.  His mother rarely smiled these days.  Why should she, after what had happened to Tanya?

“Would you like me to come in with you?” his mother asked.

“No.  Thanks, Mom, but no.  I think it would be easier if I went alone.”

She nodded and left.  Peter picked up his comic again (he didn’t know why; it just felt like a friend, a comfort somehow) and walked into the hallway.  His sister’s room was just across from his.  He took a deep breath.  He wasn’t sure if he could handle this.  He wasn’t sure if he could stand to look at Tanya’s face.

The weight of that thought, the strangeness of it, rammed into him with the force of a pile driver.  Tanya had always been beautiful, so much so that Peter had often taken her beauty for granted.  It was constant, something you counted on, like the sun rising every morning or the teacher calling on you in class when you weren’t paying attention.  Tanya was voted Most Attractive in her senior yearbook, and she had no trouble making a new boyfriend once she went to the local university.  This would have been her sophomore year in college, but she wasn’t attending this fall.  There was hope she might resume her courses again in January.  But who knew?  Who knew if Tanya wanted to do much of anything anymore?

Last summer, she had gone on a camping trip with some girlfriends.  They spent four days in the Adirondacks.  On their last night there, a stray mongrel dog came up to them as they roasted marshmallows over a low fire.  The dog did not seem threatening at first, had in fact wagged its tail when Tanya gave it a marshmallow.  But when she turned her head, the dog suddenly ripped into the right side of Tanya’s face.  The girls she was camping with later said there had been no warning, no provocation.  One minute the dog seemed friendly, the next minute it simply attacked.  Brutally attacked.  The only reason it hadn’t killed Tanya was that the other girls threw themselves on top of the dog and pulled it away from her.  They beat it and kicked it and punched it, and finally it ran back into the woods.  When a search party later looked for the dog, it wasn’t found.  It probably belonged to some backwoods hermit who didn’t keep it chained, they said after returning from their search empty-handed.

Tanya’s friends were lauded as heroes, and their bravery made the local news.  But they said they didn’t feel brave.  They just did what came naturally.  Maybe that was true, but they had saved Tanya’s life.  Too bad they couldn’t save her face.

Peter knocked on the door.  No answer.  He knocked again.

“Go away,” Tanya said from behind the door.

“It’s me,” he said.  “Peter.  Can I come in?”

There was silence.  It seemed to drag on forever.  Then, in a small voice, Tanya said, “Okay.”

He opened the door, cringing at what he might see and hating himself for it.

“Close it,” she said as soon as he stepped inside her room.

He closed the door.  Looking around, things seemed normal, as though nothing had changed.  Same flowery wallpaper.  Same bookshelf complete with the classics Tanya liked to read—Shakespeare, Dickens, Bronte.  She was an English Lit major at the college.  But looking closer, Peter realized not everything in the room was the same.  The mirror that had hung on the wall no longer was there.  The fashion magazines that Tanya used to have strewn on her dresser top were gone.  And something else was gone, too, wasn’t it?  He couldn’t put a finger on it, but he could feel it.  It was as essential as it was intangible.  Was it innocence?  Girlhood dreams?  Optimism?  He wasn’t sure.  But he sensed its absence, whatever it was.

Tanya was lying on her bed, the scarred part of her face against the pillow.  Late-afternoon sunshine, mellow and lazy, streamed through the window.

“Leaves are turning color,” Peter said, not sure why.  “They’re real nice.”

“I know,” Tanya said.  She kept the ruined side of her face against the pillow as she spoke.  She wasn’t looking at Peter.  Peter couldn’t tell if she was looking at anything.  “I saw them the other day when I left the hospital.”

He cringed.  He’d hated that place, hated the aura of sickness that always hung in the air as he and his parents rushed through narrow corridors on their way to Tanya’s room.  And he hated seeing Tanya have to go through so much there.  She’d stayed in the hospital for weeks, and she underwent five separate surgeries on her face.  When they’d visit her, the right side of her face was always bandaged, and they couldn’t see the damage.  Then, just three days ago, they all saw it for the first time.  After five surgeries, they had hoped it wouldn’t be that bad.  The doctors warned them not to expect a miracle, but they hoped anyway.  How terrible could it be?  How—

“Look,” Tanya said from her pillow, “you don’t need to do this, okay?  I know you don’t want to be in here with me.  So you can go, okay?”

He almost did.  He wanted to, that was sure.  But it didn’t seem like the right thing to do.  Instead, he went over and sat on the foot of her bed.

“What’d you do that for?” she said, sounding hostile.

“I don’t know.”

Silence.  Penetrating silence.  Peter wished he could think of something to say, but he couldn’t.

“What’s that?” Tanya said.

Peter turned to look at her.  Her voice nipped into him like a gust of wind.  He hadn’t expected her to say anything.  “Huh?” he said clumsily.

“What are you holding?”

“Oh,” he said.  “It’s a comic.  Spider-Man number twenty-eight.  Classic issue.  First appearance of The Molten Man.”

Peter saw Tanya’s good eye roll.

“Why don’t you just rent the movie, you dork?” she said, and he thought he heard a faint echo of her old playfulness.  But then, maybe that was just wishful thinking.

“The movie’s not the same,” he said.  “Besides, The Molten Man isn’t in it.”

“Lemme see that for a second,” Tanya said.

He handed her the comic.

“Boy, this is beat.  Why would you want a rag like this?”  She was still hiding the right side of her face from him.

“Well,” he said, “the main reason is it’s affordable.  But I like it like that, too.  I mean, smell it.”

She put the comic to her nose and sniffed.

“Whaddaya think?” he said.  “Pretty awesome, huh?”

“Smells like dust and mouse turds,” she said.  “Why don’t you just get the new ones?”

“I do,” he said.  “But they aren’t nearly as good.  You just can’t beat a classic old Spider-Man or Fantastic Four.  And you know what?  I like that it’s beat up.  Some guys will only buy a comic if it’s in mint condition—one little scratch, and they won’t even look at it.  It’s gotta be perfect, y’know?  And they won’t read it, either.  They’ll just store it away somewhere, or maybe sell it to somebody else.”

“But you’re not like that.”  He wasn’t sure if she was complimenting him or insulting him.

“No way,” he said.  “I mean, I couldn’t be, even if I wanted to.  Like that Spidey there—” he pointed to the issue in his sister’s hands—“it’s over forty years old.  If that was in nice shape, it would cost four, five hundred bucks, easy.  I’d never be able to buy it.  But that’s not even the biggest thing.  I know it sounds weird, but I like it to be rough, I like the creases and the scuff marks.  They make it more mine, y’know?  More special.”

“More special?” she said.  “You’re right, Peter, that does sound weird.  Even for you.”

He smiled.  “I don’t really know how to explain it,” he said.  “I just love the stories, that’s all.  You don’t get the comics I do for the way they look.  You get ‘em to read the stories.  And the stories in those old comics are the best.  They’re like magic.”

She put the comic on the nightstand beside her bed.  “Look,” she said, “thanks for coming in here, Peter, but I really do want to be alone, okay?”

“Okay.”  He stood up.  “You’ll be going back to college in January, won’t you?” he said, surprising himself.  He had intended just to walk out without saying anything else.

“I don’t know,” Tanya said.  “I want to.  I mean, I really like it, y’know?  I like my classes and stuff, but . . . I just, I . . . don’t know.”

“I hope you do,” he said.  “They’ll be missing a lot if you don’t go back.”

“Will they?  I didn’t know they missed seeing freaks every day.”

“Tanya—”

“Oh, I can see it now.  First day back to classes, and as I walk in, everyone just stares.  Maybe even a few run away screaming.  Oh, yeah, I’ll be missed all right!  Sure!”

“No, Tanya, you’ve got it all wrong.  You—”

“Look at my face!” she shrieked, and she finally exposed the right side of her face to him.  It wasn’t a surprise—he had just seen it yesterday when Tanya was in the kitchen pouring herself a bowl of cereal.  But it still shocked him.  He wondered if it always would.  She wore a white patch over her right eye.  The dog had bitten into it, destroying it and robbing it of any usefulness.  Two scars snaked angrily down from the patch.  One of them cut across to her ear.  The other twisted down to the right side of her mouth, forcing her lip into a contorted, clownish sneer.  More scars lined the ruined flesh of her cheek.  She looked like the survivor of a terrible knife fight.  What must her face have looked like before? Peter thought, and shuddered.  Before the five surgeries, before even the first surgery?  What did it look like on that night, when the dog ripped into it?  What did it look like then?

Peter turned away from his sister’s face.

“See?” she said.  She was crying now.  “Even you can’t look at me.  My own brother!  What do you think the people in my classes will do?”

He forced himself to look at her.  A fat teardrop seeped out from under her eye patch, slowly working its way over her scars.  She wiped it away.

“I used to be pretty,” she said.  “Well, maybe not pretty, but normal at least!”  No, Peter thought.  No, Tanya.  You were pretty.  You were beautiful.  “Now what am I?  I’m a monster!  A freakshow!  I hate my face!  I can’t even look in the mirror anymore, and it hurts.  It hurts so bad all the time.  It hurts even to talk and to chew.  My God, it hurts!”

That was all she could say.  She just cried then, burying her face in the pillow.  Peter stood there a moment longer, wishing he could help but knowing he couldn’t.  He left.  As he closed the door on his way out, he noticed his comic on her nightstand.  He had forgotten to take it.

♣

He couldn’t get to sleep that night, couldn’t stop thinking about Tanya.  He had never really been too close with her, and they often fought, but it wasn’t so bad.  They got along all right, when you really looked at it.  The thing was, he had often been a little jealous of her.  She was always so popular.  Ever since he could remember, boys had flipped over her.  Peter?  He was sixteen and hadn’t even been on a date yet.  He recalled one day, about three years ago, when Tanya had still been a junior in high school.  Four boys had come over, all at different times.  She sent them all away, but that wasn’t the point.  He wished he could have even one-tenth of her popularity.  But now, he wouldn’t trade places with her for all the money in the world.

He remembered when their Aunt Helen came to visit from across the country.  She had looked at Tanya, then a little girl, cupped her face in her hands, and said, “You are so pretty, Tanya, do you know that?  You have the face of an angel.  The boys are gonna be after you like flies on butter.”

Aunt Helen’s voice reverberated in Peter’s mind as he looked out his bedroom window into the cold October night.  You have the face of an angel.  Now what did she have?  Half of an angel’s face?  That was the worst thing.  The left side of Tanya’s face was just as smooth, just as flawless as ever.  It seemed to Peter that Tanya might have been better off if both sides of her face had been scarred.  The way it was now, it just seemed like a taunt—the good side laughing at the bad side.

He went to his dresser and pulled out another of his old comics.  He brought it to his nose and smelled the musty smell he had always loved.  But now it only made him think of fallen leaves rotting in stormdrains.

♣

Tanya’s boyfriend came over the next day.  He had seen her at the hospital after the bandages had been removed, and he had looked pale.  Now, he went up to her room, was in there all of five minutes, and then he raced back downstairs.  He said good-bye quickly to Peter’s mother, and left.  Peter knew they’d never see him again.  He wasn’t sure if he hated Tanya’s boyfriend or sympathized with him.

For her part, Tanya rarely left her room.  Peter tried to get her to go outside with him before the weather turned too cold, but she always refused.  She wouldn’t eat with the family, either.  Mom usually brought a plate of something up to Tanya after the rest of them had eaten.

Peter tried to tell himself Tanya would pull through, that she’d be fine.  Then he’d see her lying on her bed, without any motivation, without any hope—and he couldn’t deal with that.  He tried telling her not to feel sorry for herself.  She threw her pillow at him and screamed for him to get out.  So he did.

♣

Two weeks later, Peter stood by his sister’s bed.

“C’mon, Tanya,” he said.  “I’m not taking no for an answer this time.  Let’s take a walk.  It’s nice out—this will probably be the last nice day of the year.  Let’s go.”

“Go away.”

“Not this time.”  He reached for her hand and pulled her into a sitting position.

“Hey!  Watch it, Peter!”

“Let’s go,” he said.  He noticed the comic he had brought in with him that day a couple of weeks ago was on her dresser.  “You read that yet?” he asked.

She shook her head.  “Of course not,” she said.  “Why would I read one of your beat-up old comic books?  It would probably fall apart in my hands even if I did want to read it, which I don’t.”

“It’s great,” he said.  “It’s a great story.  And just be careful with it.  It won’t fall apart.  Just remember, it’s special.  Now, c’mon.”

She came.  He figured it was just to shut him up.  They walked around the block.  It was cool but nice, a sunny November Saturday afternoon that felt so clean it made Peter’s eyes water.  They walked in silence, but he could tell that Tanya was enjoying the air, the sun, the exercise.

At one point, a little boy on a bicycle crossed their path.  They didn’t recognize him, but he stopped anyway.

“Wow,” he said, staring at Tanya, “what happened to you?”

“A big dog bit me,” she said.

“Ow,” the boy said.  “That musta hurt.  I like your eye patch, though.  It’s neat.  See ya.”  And he rode off.

Tanya laughed.  It was the first time Peter had heard her laugh since she’d come home from the hospital.

“He didn’t think you’re a freak,” he said.

“That’s because he’s little,” she said.  But he thought he heard something in her voice that hadn’t been there.

Later, he sat on his bedroom floor, his door swung open, and he could hear Tanya crying in her room.  He didn’t know why she was crying.  He thought the walk had done her good.  Was he wrong?  He looked at his windowpane, watching it fog up.  Dusk was descending, and the faint warmth that the sun had brought was evaporating like steam rising from a lost river.

♣

He drove to the comic shop after supper.  He liked going on cold Saturday evenings.  No one was ever there, and since the shop closed at nine, he had a lot of time to browse.  The old-comic smell was overpowering in the shop.  Every time he inhaled, it was there, and it was comforting, like a pleasant childhood memory, or the rock-solid assurances of a faithful friend.

He went to the checkout counter.

“I’ll take a look at that one,” he said to Granger, the shop’s owner.

Granger looked over his shoulder.  Various old comic books were taped to the wall.  “Which?  The FF?”  Peter nodded, and Granger gently took it down.  He took it out of its Mylar sleeve, and handed it to Peter.  This was a measure of trust that Peter had earned.  He knew Granger did not allow just anyone to flip through the merchandise.

“Whatcha think?” Granger said.  “Pretty hosed copy, ain’t it?  Seen better days.”

Peter finished flipping through it and gave it back to Granger.  “I’ll take it,” he said.

Granger nodded and put the comic back into its sleeve.  “Hey,” he said.  “It’s Fantastic Four number thirty-three.  They don’t exactly grow on trees.  And it’s a great read.  They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.  You could do a lot worse.”

Yes, you could.  The copy he was buying was tattered, it had a bad spine roll, and there was even a corner chewed off—probably by a mouse.  But the story was all there.  The wonder was all there.  The magic.

When he got home, he was surprised to see Tanya sitting on the sofa in the living room.

“Hey,” Peter said, “whatcha doin’?”

“I don’t know,” she said.  “Mom and Dad went out to a movie, and I just figured I’d come downstairs for a change.”

Her good side was toward him, and it was easy to pretend that everything was normal, that Tanya still was pretty, that no dog had ripped into her.  Then she turned to face him—and the pretending stopped.

“I thought I’d finally take a look at this,” she said.  She held up the Spider-Man comic that had been lying on top of her dresser.

Peter smiled.  “Yeah, sure,” he said.  “And remember, be careful with it.  I’m actually gonna go upstairs and read one I just bought.  Need anything while I’m down here?”

“No, I’m fine.  I have your dumb comic, don’t I?”

He smiled again and went upstairs.  He read his comic, loving every panel.  When he finished, he sniffed it and then put it back into its sleeve, carefully, making sure not to inflict any further damage to the fragile spine.  He looked out his window.  A full moon shone at him.  As he had done since he was little, he looked for the man in the moon, but he couldn’t find him.  He thought he’d seen him once, a long time ago, though it was probably just his imagination.  But he liked to think it was true.  His old comic books had that effect on him—they made the magic seem real.  You just needed to look past the deteriorated cover and discover the richness within.  That made him think of his sister.  Was she still reading the Spider-Man?

He went downstairs, quietly, and looked into the living room.  Tanya was still on the sofa, holding the comic in her lap.  Unaware of Peter’s presence, she let out a little giggle, then flipped the page, gingerly, tenderly, treating the comic like fine china.  A few moments went by, and she turned the page again.  She was completely rapt, completely absorbed in the comic book.

She was reading the story.

**********

Thanks so much for reading!  As always, any and all feedback is welcome.

–Mike

Mitchell Brant, Comic Books, and Me . . .

If you’ve read chapter one of The Eye-Dancers, you already know that Mitchell Brant is a big fan of comic books in general and The Fantastic Four in particular.  It’s always dangerous to read too much into a fictional piece.  What I mean by that is–just because someone writes a story, populates the story with characters, that doesn’t mean they are writing an autobiography.  On the other hand, bits and pieces of any writer filter in to his or her fiction.  They have to, really.  How could they not?  The Eye-Dancers is chock-full of things that resonate for me as an individual, and one of those things is comics.

One of my older brothers was a comic collector.  So I did have that influence.  But my fascination with comic books (“graphic novel” is a fairly recent term–back in the ’80s, when I grew up, they were comics, plain and simple) surely was innate.  As far back as I can remember, comics, especially old ones, printed and produced long before I was born, have called to me, beckoned, urging me to read them.  And like Mitchell, I have always loved The Fantastic Four.  In chapter one, he pulls out Fantastic Four # 99.  I know it well.  I own it, have read it many times.

 

A good old comic book has the power to transport me back to a simpler time, a time when I used to go to the local collector’s shop and talk with the owner, Jim.  (These were the days before eBay and online shopping, which, sad to say, dates me a bit!)  As far as I know, Jim is still in business, still operating his shop on the south side of Rochester, New York, where I grew up.  Walking through that shop, looking at the old issues displayed in the glass case, smelling the scent of Mylar and decades-old paper in the air, I felt a magic, an excitement.  I couldn’t wait to buy something.

I haven’t been back to the old shop in years.  But it’s still there, inside of me, and a small part of it comes alive in Mitchell Brant.  So, thanks, Mitchell.  For helping me, hopefully for helping all of us, to rediscover the magic, to reclaim the wonder we once knew.  We still have it, after all.  Maybe it’s been pushed down, deep, hidden, struggling to reemerge.  But it’s there.  And for me, The Fantastic Four and all the old comics of yesteryear are sure-fire ways to find it again.

If you’ve never read The Fantastic Four, the originals from the 1960s, check them out.  They might surprise you . . .

–Mike