Sakura-Con is a three-day event that unofficially lasts four days, since so many people arrive on Thursday, the day before the convention starts. For some of us it lasted five days, because I drove from Portland to Seattle with two cosplayer friends on Thursday (Day 0), and we returned on Monday (Day 4, or Day +1 perhaps). Every bit of that trip felt like it was part of Sakura-Con, even the parts that occurred outside Seattle on days before or after the convention. For example, we continued taking photos and talking about anime, manga, art, food, video games, and music, even when we were in Tacoma on Monday afternoon. Sakura-Con is more than an annual event on one specific weekend; it is an important catalyst for a culture that lives on outside that time and place.

So it’s not just that I went to Sakura-Con with some friends, and saw some other friends there. Rather, we became friends in the first place because of events like Sakura-Con and Kumoricon. Sakura-Con is a great social scene for people interested in animation, comics, cosplay, and video games. On Saturday I wore a shirt from the video game Mass Effect 3, and many people approached me to talk about the game and its controversial ending. It was great to see how people were willing to come up and start a conversation based on liking the same video game. For those going to Sakura-Con for the first time, I’d recommend wearing something that expresses your interest in a favorite game or show.

One of the old traditions still going on this year was the practice of giving high-fives to strangers. It wasn’t as widespread as in some previous years, but the people who did it seemed to really enjoy it. I think it’s one of the nicest traditions, because it represents the spirit of Sakura-con friendliness, but it can easily be ignored by anyone who doesn’t wish to participate. This started out as something to do while on the escalators or standing in lines, but this year I also saw a large group of people asking for high-fives while sitting down along a wall. I walked by and gave them all high-fives, and they cheered.

Of course, cosplay is a huge aspect of Sakura-Con, and as usual the vast majority of attendees were in costume. Some of the big cosplay trends this year were Homestuck, My Little Pony, and Adventure Time.

Madoka Magica was also popular for cosplay, perhaps in part because the Aniplex booth had some Madoka events and items, and the writer and producer for Madoka Magica were Sakura-Con guests.

Madoka Magica is popular enough to have an online parody “Meduka Meguca,” and a group of cosplayers portrayed the parody “gangster” versions of the characters.

I saw some of the well-established cosplays like Black Butler, Vocaloids, and Naruto. I also expected to see a lot of new costumes from Tiger & Bunny, because it is a recent series with memorable character designs. In fact, I was prepared for that show to be the kind of trend this year that Panty & Stocking was last year, but I only saw a few Tiger & Bunny cosplayers. I guess the show has yet to attain the popularity it deserves.

Sakura-Con cosplay had a huge variety of costumes offering something for everyone. There were huge groups like the Homestuck cosplayers who must have had over 100 people, and smaller groups like the one above that assembled all of the characters from the series Working!

And there were also more unusual costumes, like Haley as the Gold Robot from the Party Rock Anthem music video, or Katie doing a joke version of Miku as if she were the spokesmodel for Chicken in a Biskit.

The age range of cosplayers seemed to be increasing. Though teenagers still made up the majority, I saw more cosplayers under 12 and also more over 20 than I’ve seen in the past. In past years, walking into a bar near the convention center usually caused the percentage of cosplayers to drop to nearly zero, since so few of them were over 21. But this year I was surprised to see the bar at the Sheraton full of adults in costume. (Speaking of the Sheraton, the service there was fantastic as always. I have no affiliation with the hotel, but after many years of having great stays there every time, I have to recommend it.)

Cosplay photography also keeps growing every year. I was amazed at the number of photographers with really high-end camera gear. I happened to meet some other photographers on Thursday night and we spent some time wandering around together and taking practice photos, like the one of the exhibitor above.

On Friday I went to the Aniplex panels. In the first one, Aniplex USA announced new releases like Blue Exorcist, Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero, and Bakemonogatari. They will also be doing a re-release of Oreimo, which sold out last year. Fans asked about the problem of piracy; Aniplex said it is a problem in Japan too, not just in the U.S., and urged fans to watch streaming video from legal sites such as Crunchyroll and Hulu, and to buy the DVDs.

The second Aniplex panel featured Gen Urobuchi, Katushi Ota, and Atsuhiro Iwakami. Urobuchi is a writer who has worked on Fate/Zero and Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Iwakami is a producer who also has been involved with both Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica (among many other series), and Ota is a publisher who has been Urobuchi’s editor for 8 years. The room was full of fans of Fate/Zero and Madoka Magica who asked a lot of questions about both shows. When the hosts asked people who had questions to stand up and form a line, about half the people in the room stood up.

Urobuchi said that he originally wrote for games, until Iwakami asked him to start doing other things. He also revealed that he is a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and that some of Lovecraft’s creatures are scary not because they are deliberately evil towards humans, but because they are uninterested in what happens to humans. This led him to create a similar character. (He actually said something more specific than this, but it would be a spoiler for one of the shows.)

One audience member said that Madoka Magica is considered great because it is a deconstruction of the magical girl genre, and asked Urobuchi if he is interested in deconstructing any other types of shows. He replied that he had not intended to deconstruct a genre, just to surprise the audience and keep them guessing about what would come next, but if such a deconstruction was the end result of his involvement then maybe other projects he worked on would turn out that way too.

Aniplex also announced a special screening of some new episodes of Fate/Zero Season 2, which would be shown at Sakura-Con even before they had aired in Japan. This was a great way to do something special for the convention. I came away from these panels impressed with Aniplex and their way of reaching out to American fans.

Concerts are always a big draw at Sakura-Con, and Friday night’s concert was Stereopony, a Japanese pop/rock band whose music has been used in anime, including the series Bleach. They got a great reception from an enthusiastic crowd. I’ve heard that many Japanese bands are not used to the energy and excitement of American fans, because Japanese crowds tend to be more reserved. This may have been the case here, because although the first few songs sounded great, the band’s on-stage presence started out fairly subdued. But by the end of the concert, both the band and crowd reached a high level of energy, and bassist Nohana Kitajima even jumped through the air at one point.

Saturday night had more concerts which fans really enjoyed, but I did not go to these because the cosplay costume contest was held at the same time. The contest was entertaining as always, and it was great to see some new costumes I hadn’t seen before, like those from Dragon Age and Game of Thrones. The show moved along at a brisk pace and finished ahead of schedule. The only problem with this event is that it has been held in a space that is not ideal for viewing costumes. The room is large and most of the audience is very far away from the cosplayers most of the time. The lack of a raised stage means that people who aren’t in the front row have a partly obstructed view. It may not be easy to fix this, because of the size of the convention and the lack of suitable rooms, but it could help to add a raised platform, or a large screen showing a live video of the contestants.

The main complaint I heard this year was about long waits for the registration/pre-registration lines. More than one person told me that they spent 4+ hours in line to get their badge. It is always better to pre-register, but this year even the pre-registration lines were very long at times. (For other people who arrived at other times, the wait was only minutes, though. It had a lot to do with when people arrived.) This year the convention stopped offering single-day passes, which probably contributed to the problem by causing more people to show up to pick up badges all at the same time. All of this was discussed at the feedback panel at the very end of the convention, and the staff said they were aware of the problems and would fix things next year.

On Sunday I attended a panel about Japanese voice actors with Michihiko Suwa, a producer who has worked on anime such as Detective Conan and the Inuyasha movies. He said there are over 2,000 professional voice actors in Japan, maybe 10,000 if part-timers are included. And about 1,000 new people enter the field each year, but very few are really successful. Not many people are able to make a living solely from voice acting — he estimated that only 200 to 300 people were in that category. On the other hand, some of the Japanese star voice actors are extremely popular, and give live performances to halls full of thousands of people. Many people are attracted to the idea of voice acting as a career.

Suwa pointed out that Japanese voice actors are not exclusive to anime, they also dub the voices for American live-action TV shows that air in Japan. He said he thought that the Japanese voice actor for the part of Jack Bauer in the show “24″ was better than the original.

He talked about how voice actors get cast for a role. For the series Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne, some of the voice actors who got the parts were still in high school when they applied. More experienced actors also tried out, but they wanted to use actors whose real age was close to that of the characters.

Mr. Suwa explained that he had recently finished working on a live-action movie about Japanese voice actors called Kami Voice, to be released in Japan on May 2. Suwa also appears in the film in the role of a TV producer. We got to see a trailer for this movie — the first time it was shown in the U.S. The movie is about a voice acting school in Akihabara that has a battle with a rival school. While researching the movie, Suwa discovered that there are around 250 voice acting schools in Japan. Because real voice actors are in the movie, and they have very busy schedules, the big scene where all of them appear had to be planned months in advance. The trailer and discussion made me very interested to see this movie, so I hope it gets released in the U.S.

I had a lot of fun wandering around the Exhibitors’ Hall this year, more than in previous years. It felt like a lot was going on there. The Artists’ Alley area was large and was included as part of the main Exhibitor’s Hall, rather than off in a separate area. The Aniplex booth had an organized Madoka Magica photo shoot. Funimation’s booth had cosplayers dressed as the samurai warriors from Sengoku Basara. The Nico Nico Douga booth interviewed convention attendees on a live video stream. These interviews were very popular and added a lot to the atmosphere of the hall.

Near the interview area, I discovered a demo of Neurowear’s “Necomimi” product – wearable cat ears that move in response to your brain waves (necomimi.com). I tried these out and found them to be a lot of fun. I felt like a cyborg. It feels kind of like wearing headphones, but there is also a sensor on your forehead and another one on your ear that sense changes in your mood. You can feel the ears move. I was told that the ears can make different motions, and for example if you become very calm and relaxed the ears will flop down. But I was unable to be so calm in a big crowd of people while wearing cyborg cat ears. I was laughing and feeling energetic, so for me the ears kept twitching occasionally. One person said that with practice you can learn to consciously control the ears.

This year Sakura-Con did a great job with the convention schedule using the Guidebook app for smartphones. This application provides an interactive convention schedule that makes printed schedules obsolete. It can pop up reminders when an event you want to see is about to begin. It also allows the organizers to push out updates to the schedule, so your view is always up to date. For this year’s Guidebook schedule, Sakura-Con went far beyond the basic “name, time, place” information and also included detailed descriptions and photos. This made the Guidebook schedule very fun to use. One person at the feedback panel said it was the best implementation for the Guidebook app he had ever seen.

Though the official events were great, some of the best moments for me involved meeting new people and having fun with friends. I mention this because it is such an important part of the atmosphere. I think it’s very common for people to form friendships there that last beyond the convention, and that may be one of the most valuable things that Sakura-Con contributes to the community. I’m already looking forward to next year.

See my full set of Sakura-Con 2012 photos here.

And soon there will be a convention report. So there IS something to look forward to.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This is a different kind of Mystic Investigators tale by my New York homeboy, Patrick Thomas, and his latest collaborator Diane Raetz. I’m more accustomed to reading about the exploits of Agent Karver, and his empathic partner Mandi Cobb, in the Department of Mystic Affairs. They’re both pros at dealing with practitioners of the Dark Arts, fairies and mystic beasts. But the protagonist of this novel is a young witch named Jillian Anderson, an agent of Templar Mason, once known as the Knights Templar. She’s new at this business, so new that her mistakes can cause serious repercussions for the people she’s trying to help.

Jillian is a charming girl in her midtwenties, an aspiring fashionista who wears two different colored designer shoes, preferably Jimmy Choo, and always has the latest handbag by Ralph Lauren or whoever, and of course, she never wears anything off the rack. She also has an impeccable background. Not only is she a third generation witch whose family were all Templar agents, but her great-great grandfather was Hans Christian Anderson, who literally wrote the book about traditional folklore, or fairy tales as they’re more commonly known. What isn’t such common knowledge is that Hans was also an agent for Templar Mason, as were the Grimm Brothers, whose beloved collection of fairy tales also served as a handbook for TM agents about the things that go bump in the night, and how they frequently bump into innocent humans and cause their lives to go haywire.

You see, all those fairy tales you loved so much as a child are based upon a grain of truth, just as a beautiful pearl is formed around a single grain of sand. So they’re not just folklore, but history. And we all know how history tends to repeat itself. Yes, all those dark deeds perpetrated by evil magicians and stepmothers, tyrannical kings and queens, and heroic deeds performed by poor but honest heroes and beautiful, virtuous heroines keep reappearing in every century. Mercedes Lackey, another fantasy author beloved by this reviewer, is also familiar with this phenomenon. She refers to it as The Tradition, a non-sentient but powerful force that causes hapless humans whose lives bear even the slightest resemblance to these popular tales to relive them, over and over again.

So in every generation, we get a new Cinderella, a new Snow White, a new Hansel and Gretel, and so on and so on, and their stories seldom end happily. This dark force that toys with peoples’ lives doesn’t give a damn about happily ever after. It only wants to play out the chosen story, shoehorning its subjects, or victims, into the traditional roles whether they like it or not. That’s where Templar Mason comes in; they’re in charge of investigating these strange phenomenons, discovering which popular folktale they are based upon, and stopping them before they get out of hand. Unfortunately, our young heroine is a good witch, but only a novice as a TM agent. So quite a bit of mayhem results from her investigations, along with a few deaths, not all of them innocent.

In the first case, “So Much For Breadcrumbs”, she figures out that the Hansel and Gretel story is involved and finds out where the lost children are, but nearly gets them and herself killed. The second story, “Hair Apparent” turns out to be a variation of the Rapunzel story. And the third, “No Business Like Show Business”, is based upon the Snow White story, centered around a celebrity who sounds suspiciously like the late Whitney Houston. At least that was my impression; maybe it was the bodyguard that threw me off. Anyway, the same villain connects all three stories; an evil wizard motivated by the same age-old desire as most practitioners of the Dark Arts, to rule the world and everyone in it.

Young Jillian is a faithful follower of celebrity gossip, which, since these fractured fairy tales always seem to happen to celebrities, the new royalty of our modern times, makes her well prepared to meet this menace in an occult sense, but her lack of experience shows in her spectacular failures, as well as in her near-miss victories. No, she’s not as experienced as Agent Karver, but neither is she as cynical. She can’t even kill one of the bad guys in self-defense without feeling guilty about it. I’m sure she’ll get accustomed to killing with time, but I hope it never comes as easily to her as it does to Karver. He’s a reformed serial killer who’s still atoning for all the damage he did in his former life while he was possessed by a homicidal demon, but she’s a relative innocent who’s just getting into the ancient art of demon hunting. I wish her well, and hope that she never becomes as cynical or hard-bitten as her male counterpart in DMA. That way lies despair, which in the Catholic Church is as much a sin as murder, though the only victim is usually yourself.

In conclusion, “Once More Upon A Time” is a fun, fast read for those who enjoy action and adventure mixed with the occult, but are too grownup for Harry Potter. Be sure and check it out at Patrick Thomas’ website, www.patthomas.net, or at www.darkquestbooks.com, as well as at www.barnesandnoble.com.

JManga.com will be holding a special gift campaign from March 13th to 26th (PST) for BL/Yaoi Feature “ABC of BL/Yaoi”. Subscribers who purchase one of the corresponding BL/Yaoi titles during the campaign will receive a special gift from JManga!

Just in time for the campaign, JManga will be adding the adorably drawn and ever so sweet love story, “My Darling Kitten Hair” by Haruko Kumota. Purchase “My Darling Kitten Hair” Vol. 1 during the campaign and receive a special illustrated message from the artist, Haruko Kumota! There is also a special illustrated messages from Nase Yamato to those who purchase “Pet on Duty” or “Cigarette Kisses”.

JManga will be also adding “70% of First Love is…” by Hiko Yamanaka and “100 Blossoms To Love” by Gido Amagakure on March 13th and will be giving away special wallpaper for both titles.

“My Darling Kitten Hair” (Released 3/13) / Illustrated message from Kumota Haruko-sensei
“Pet on Duty” / Illustrated message from Yamato Nase-sensei
“Cigarette Kisses / Illustrated message from Yamato Nase-sensei
“70% of First Love is…” (Released 3/13) / Special wallpaper
“100 Blossoms To Love” (Released 3/13) / Special wallpaper

 
JManga_NEWSRELEASE_ABC_of_BL_Yaoi

In the course of reading these scanlations in undisclosed locations, I became aware of a most wonderful thing: communities of manga loving females devoting their time, talents, and energy to producing this work, and producing it well enough, for other likeminded, non-Japanese reading females. I became very impressed by the camaraderie and professionalism of these groups offering new members a chance improve their Japanese, editing, or visual editing skills. I’m not a joiner, but this is one club I’d love to be in if I had the time, talents or energy for it. The scan groups, as they call themselves, have often been the catalyst for getting certain Japanese works licensed and published in the U.S. In every case that I’ve seen that happen, the scan groups do the following things:

1. A gracious note reporting the happy event.

2. A link to the publisher site and encouragement to buy the book when it’s published.

3. A notice that the scanlation files would no longer be available.

Of the communities I follow, I have never seen it be otherwise. (I am aware that there some unscrupulous places on the web that host scans they did not create, refuse to remove scans they did not create, and raise $900/month in donations to ruin the party for everyone, but they are not the subject of this essay, so they shall remain unnamed.) The civil society of the internet succeeds with success in the scanlation communities of my experience and I salute them. In many cases, this means a scanlation community will destroy years of work to support the publisher and the mangaka’s publication in English.

So you can imagine how distressed I was when I learned that one, possibly two, of my favorite scan groups were being attacked with DMCA (digital millennium copyright act [aka the Disney copyright grab act]) notices to their filehosting site and possibly their webhosts and were being reported to Google for TOS violations. Filehosts, webhosts, Google and their ilk do not generally have the time or resources to investigate allegations; they just shut the sites down when the get a complaint.

I was distressed squared when I learned that the culprits were the company run by a man I respect very much, the CEO of Digital Manga Publishing (DMP), Hikaru Sasahara. A few years ago, began a company called Digital Manga Guild (DMG); a collaboration between DMP and Japanese translators (many of them former scanlators) to produce ebooks of manga. The interesting part of this arrangement was that the people doing the work would not get paid unless the ebooks sold enough copies. (See Digital Manga Guild: Smells like Exploitation! for better financial analysis than I can do here.)

On March 3, 2012, this innocent thread started on the DMG forum: Dealing with scanlations of your titles, (here’s a pdf if the posts vanish GM) and ultimately snowballed into these from Shroud (Kimiko Kotani):

“Actually, as a member of the Guild, I have sent file sharing sites, blog hosts, etc as DMG has asked us to help combat the piracy by sending C and D’s, that means they HAVE given us permission to request on their behalf.

“The result was not only did filesharing sites take down where fans had uploaded files they had DL elsewhere, but Google removed search results to aggregators and such so that search results show only the legal listings. And yes, it is best to ask scanlators and bloggers and the like to take down the links and files themselves politely and informally first. But don’t be afraid to go further if you get ignored by anyone you contact. DMG asked us to send C and d req, and the polite thing Ben suggested is fine for an informal req but is in no way legally inforceable using that language, but since they have given permission AND requested we actually send a C and Ds for our titles, you can do so to the blog host, filesharing site, server host, etc. If a formal DMCA gets ignored or challenged by these, then ultimately DMP who has to decide how to take it further since the issued DMCA was on their behalf, and you’ll have to let them know so they can decide what to do. And that’s the crux of it. YOU are not the rights holder but you ARE the production partner DMP have given permission to send down take down requests/notices on their behalf for the titles you work on.”

And then, after Shroud (Kimiko Kotani) sent a DMCA to the filehost Mediafire (MF) on or about March 10:

“I filed for Takaga…not just the file I’d listed that had been in your acct, but files of it uploaded by others. I have NO idea why they they lumped your other removals with my request, but as they did, I am enquiring with them about it. if they did so after seeing the other copyrighted material present in your folder, they need to give the proper reason and not attach it to my complaint.”

“I never pretended that (she represented herself as the copyright holders of everything in the scan group’s Mediafire archive). The key legal statement is ‘that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.’ DMP gave us the right to request the take downs.

“As for how long it took you to learn of the license..that does not alter the fact that you still relased it knowingly AFTER license and release. As for referencing the fact it affects sales and sales provide the livlihood of those in the publishing business, it does have relevance. This fact has been repeated again and again and again in articles to do with scanlations of licensed titles ad nauseum. It’s not just MY paycheck..it’s EVERYONE’s, incl. the mangaka. The one whose work is being promoted. Asking someone to respect that is not unprofessional…it is fairly standard. Look at the front of nearly EVERY ebook produced by many small press these days, and you’ll see the same plea “Please don’t share..this is the livelihood of…”. As for how I treat people, I have been polite. People with fingers caught in metaphorical cookie jars may not always like it when they get caught, or find their files are gone, but then, as you point out…the content is illegal and they do not work for, with, or represent the copyright owners in anyway.

“… I complained to MF about DMG stuff. mediafire however has seemingly looked at the DP acct and suspended the entire thing for illegal content that had nothing to do with my takedown request. That issue is between DP and Mediafire. I’m (done) talking about it.”

Kimiko Kotani (Shroud) on the DMG forums, might think she’s within what she perceives as her legal rights, but this certainly smells like cyberbullying to me. And she’s done a great deal of damage to my opinion of DMP. I know business is business, but allowing “partners,” not employees, not lawyers, not owners of DMP to run amok like this, is sad and horrifying at the same time, and I don’t think it’s done much good for the goodwill towards DMG. I know I’ll never buy a or promote DMG titles and probably won’t buy from DMP again either if this is how DMP is going to allow DMG to behave in the communities from whence it mostly sprang.

“A Founding Member of the World Famous Bones Anime Studio Comes to this Summer¹s Most Anticipated Anime, Manga and Music Convention this June 15-17, 2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center and Anaheim Hilton! Get your Passports
Today and Experience the Difference!

“LOS ANGELES, Calif. (February 17, 2012) ­ Celebrated character designer and director, TOSHIHIRO KAWAMOTO, of such famed animes as COWBOY BEBOP, MOBILE SUITE GUNDAM ZZ, MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 0080, MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM 0083, TEKKAMAN BLADE, BLOOD THE LAST VAMPIRE, ESCAFLOWNE, MOBILE ANGEL ANGELIC LAYER, WITCH HUNTER ROBIN, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, SCRAPPED PRINCESS, EUREKA SEVEN, OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB, GHOST IN THE SHELL and outside of Japan as the character designer and animation director for the beloved many more will attend this summer¹s most aniticipated anime, manga and music convention AM2 (June 15-17, 2012; Anaheim Convention Center and Anaheim Hilton). More info and attendee registration can be found at www.am2con.org

“Kawamoto founded the world famous anime studio Studio BONES in 1998 with Masahiko Minami (former Sunrise producer) and Hiroshi Ousaka (animator colleague who passed away in 2007. He has an animation career that spans over 25 years and has a long list of high profile works but is best known for his work as the character designer and animation director for the ever popular anime, COWBOY BEBOP.

“Attendees can avoid the anticipated huge lines at autographs, premiere screenings, workshops, main events, concerts and panels by purchasing a Passport fast pass for the event. The Passport fast pass will also provide holders with premier seating options at Main Events and at Concert events as well as major discounts with theme parks, retailers and local restaurants. Bypass the lines and get your Passport today and experience the difference!

“AM2 current activities include Exhibit Hall, AMV¹s, Arcade, Summer Festival, Behind the Voice Actors Studio, Masquerade, Dances, Fashion Shows, Table Top, Console Gaming, Workshops, Panels, Concerts and more!

“Follow us on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/AM2Con

“Follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/AM2Con

“About AM2
“Located in Anaheim, California ­ AM2, established in 2010, is a multi-day (3 days) 24 hour event with no general attendance/badge purchase requirement and is aspiring to be a key meeting place for fans that share a common
interest in Asian music, Animation/Anime, and Comics/Manga. Nominal fees are charged for certain activities that attendees choose to participate in. AM2 will be held on June 15-17, 2012 at the Anaheim Convention Center in
sunny Anaheim, California. More information can be found at www.am2con.org”
Press release 02/17/2012

So there is something to look forward to.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

Fresh from my review of Stefan Kanfer’s bio of Humphrey Bogart, here’s my review of another Bogie fan created by New York homeboy Patrick Thomas. Those of you familiar with the world of Murphy’s Lore will welcome the return of Negral, the forgotten fire god of Sumeria who became the Devil’s Detective to avoid fading away. Fresh from his triumph in Patrick’s previous publication, “Lore and Dysorder”, which this book keeps referring to (or was it this book that preceded “Lore and Dysorder”? Let’s do the Time Warp again!), Negral joins forces with a mortal cop, a police detective named Bianca Jones, to track down one of the Devil’s lost souls. That’s someone who signed a contract with the Devil and tries to get out of it.

Negral’s creator has also joined forces with another author, John French, who created Bianca Jones of Baltimore, otherwise known as Charm City, a tough lady cop who’s had experience dealing with the occult and has beaten the Devil three times. I’m not familiar with this French fella, but Patrick assures me that he’s the real deal, a crime scene supervisor in Baltimore, who seems to be into the fantastic and the supernatural as much as my homeboy. I’m as impressed with his creation, Bianca Jones, as I would be with any tough female cop. Being a bit of a tough broad myself, I’m always looking for suitable role models. Any woman who can take on the entire Baltimore police force, the local bad guys, and the Devil himself, and still win the love of a good man (her husband Joe Russo, a former CSI who now runs an arcane bookstore) is okay by me.

The book consists of a short, humorous introduction written by Patrick himself, followed by three chapters: “Dysclaimer”, in which our hero meets Sergeant Jones in his search for the lost soul. “Dysciple”, in which Negral finds a worshipper, an arsonist who learns his true name and devotes himself to the service of the former fire god, tempting him to revive his worship on Earth, which would enable him to void his contract with Satan. “Dysappeared”, in which an unknown enemy takes Negral prisoner and Bianca is the only one who can save him. She, too, is tempted, to either leave Negral where he is or force him to serve her in return for her help. Aside from the usual problem with mechanics (missing words, extra words and scrambled syntax that should have been caught by a cautious editor, or a simple Spellcheck), Patrick is at his best here. So is French; it’s easy to see which parts were written by who. Negral narrates in the first person, while Bianca’s bits are written in third person.

By the way, Patrick, it wasn’t Bacall on that last plane from Casablanca, it was Ingrid Bergman. Get it straight in your future editions, will you? I can forgive you for the misspellings and other editing problems, but don’t mess with Bogie or his movies, damn it! Get the facts straight, like a good PI should, or this particular Bogie fan may give you a knuckle sandwich at the next con where I find you signing books. Or maybe I’ll just give you a good tongue-lashing; it’s easier to buy a fresh tongue from the local butcher and use it to whip you into shape than trying to make a sandwich out of pig’s knuckles.

The rest of you mooks should make tracks to www.darkquestbooks.com or www.patrickthomas.net and shell out a fin via credit card to get your hands on this tract about crime and punishment, in and out of Hell. It may not be as high-brow as Dante’s Inferno, but at least it’ll keep you off the streets and out of temptation’s way. I know that Mark Twain said, “No girl was ever ruined by a book”, but I like to think that good books can be a good influence on people. Maybe I’ll test my theory by sending Patrick Thomas a copy of “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss to help him with his little editing problem. Just kidding, Patrick, you know I love your work. But that doesn’t stop me from picking it apart. That is what critics are for, you know.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

This has got to be one of the best books I ever read about one of my favorite celebrities! I’ve been a Bogie fan for as long as I can remember, and I’ve read a lot about him as an actor and a man, but nobody humanizes him as completely as Stefan Kanfer does. He goes into great detail about Bogie’s background and life—his socialite parents, the exclusive prep school that he dropped out of, his brief naval career and less than successful acting career on Broadway before he got his big break in the movies, his three failed marriages before he met Lauren Bacall—but he never gets boring, judgmental or moralistic. This Stefan Kanfer is a straight-shooter; he tells it like it was for one of America’s greatest male show business icons, and lets us be the ultimate judges on what kind of man Humphrey Bogart was.

The book includes black and white photos from Bogie’s past, showing us what a cute little Gerber baby he was, and how boyishly handsome in his naval uniform near the end of World War I, and in his ongoing ingénue roles on Broadway. By the way, his mother, Maud Humphrey, was a famous illustrator who specialized in kid’s picture books and labels for kid’s products, but contrary to popular belief, he was not the model for the original Gerber baby food label.

But he didn’t get his big break until he was in “The Petrified Forest”, which started as a play by Roger Sherwood in 1936. Thanks to Bogie, the play was such a big hit it was soon snapped up by Warner Brothers Studios, where he was able to reprise his role as Duke Mantee, an escaped convict who takes over a rundown diner in the Petrified Forest area of Northern Arizona, with a cross-section of citizens as hostages. Among them, a faded British intellectual and writer named Alan Squier, played by Leslie Howard.

After “The Petrified Forest”, there was nowhere to go but up. But it was a long, hard uphill climb. The Warner Brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack, four Polish refugees from Canada who ran their studio like a major corporation, with as little regard for their employees, knew they had a valuable asset in Bogart, but in their desire to typecast him as an action hero, they kept throwing silly scripts at him. Scripts that had more action in them than heroics, like the forgettable “Isle of Fury” (1936), where Bogie had to fight a fake octopus, like Bela Lugosi did in Ed Wood’s “Bride of The Monster” (1955). He also did “Bullets or Ballots” (1936), one of many gangster movies in which he co-starred with Edward G. Robinson, another big favorite at Warner Brothers. Incidentally, Robinson almost got the role of Duke Mantee in the movie version of “The Petrified Forest” instead of Bogie. If he hadn’t demanded more money and top billing over the then more popular Leslie Howard, that is.

In between battles with Sam and Jack Warner over scripts, Bogie battled with his brides as well. His first two wives, Helen Menken and Mary Philips, were also actresses and former co-stars on Broadway, who were more interested in their acting careers than in settling down. His third wife was a ball of fire named Mayo Methot, a hot-tempered, hard-drinking actress who was so jealous she was always accusing him of infidelity with his female co-stars. And she was usually wrong, until Bogie met Bacall.

This sweet, nineteen-year-old Jewish girl from Brooklyn, originally named Betty Joan Ann Perske, started out as a model until she caught the eye of Nancy “Slim” Hawks, wife of Howard Hawks, the famous director and producer, on the March 1943 cover of “Harper’s Bazaar”. Between them, the Hawks did a makeover on the young lady and cast her in a movie based on one of Ernest Hemingway’s least successful stories, “To Have and Have Not (1944), in which she co-starred with Bogie.

Talk about star-crossed lovers! It took him a while, but he fell for her like the proverbial ton of bricks. Mind you, he was forty-four years old at the time, and as pragmatic as they come. But he was also unhappily married to an alcoholic shrew, “A tough lady who would hit you with an ashtray, lamp, anything, as soon as not,” as Bacall admitted in her own biography, “Lauren Bacall: By Myself” (1978). Another long, hard uphill climb followed as Bogie fought to free himself of his boozy bride so he could be with Betty, or Baby, as he preferred to call her. (She always called him Bogie.) Eventually they got their happy ending, resulting in a happy marriage with two kids that ended only after Bogie’s death from esophageal cancer.

In between the happy times were hard times; good and bad movies, most of which they co-starred in, politics (he liked Ike, she liked Stevenson), the House Un-American Activities Committee, Bogie’s drinking, his constant defiance of authority, which got him in trouble with Warner Brothers as well as with the Commie-hunting Senator McCarthy, who equated dissent with treason. But through it all, Humphrey Bogart remained a man among men, the only real man in a business where good looks usually trumps talent. Take Justin Bieber—PLEASE!!!

To sum it up, the fundamental things apply when you want the straight dope on a straight-shooter like Humphrey Bogart. So buy this book and devour it from cover to cover; I guarantee you’ll be satisfied with Stefan Kanfer’s respectful, but not overly reverential treatment of Bogie. It’ll make you want to rent all of his movies and watch them with fresh eyes. Or, as the man himself said to Claude Rains at the conclusion of “Casablanca”: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

I was only able to attend BENTcon 2 at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA on Sunday December 4th. It was, I’m told in full swing from Friday night, and I’m sure I missed some good events and panels but what can one do? I am rather kicking myself that I misread the time of the Women in Gay Comics panel and missed it. Oh well, I got to talk to lots of cool artists and exhibitors on my one afternoon at BENTcon 2.

So here’s who I talked to that day:

THE HORNSMYTHE
www.thehornsmythe.com

Cal Cotton of the Hornsmyth. Specialize in drinking horn, blowing horns. He and his wife have been making horns for 23 years and his wife was making horns for five years before they met. They are based in Westminster, CA. They do events like BENTcon, the Ren Faire in Irwindale, and various Sci-Fi and Fantasy conventions. He said his wife makes 75% of the things in their booth and he’s her helper.

Also in the picture is Jeannette Smith wearing a costume from Pendragon costumes, which was so busy I never got a chance to talk to anyone there.

ELVIS SCHOENBERG’S ORCHESTRA SURREAL
www.eschoenberg.com (please click for the swingin’ music on the cool cartoon intro)

I spoke with The Fabulous Miss Thing (and is she evah). The orchestra has been around since 1996, they put out their first CD in 1997, and now they have three CDs out. It’s a very cool and twisted hybrid of classical music and orchestrated rock songs turned on their sides. The song playing on the monitor was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in a jump swing arrangement which I thought was Night in Tunisia at first. The Orchestra has been trying to do more conventions and because they have a burlesque comic book feel they’re doing more comic book conventions. The Orchestra, well, part of it, offered to do some live performances at their booth, but the convention nixed it. I think this is a terrible shame because Miss Thing can really belt ‘em out.

The Orchestra has a performance coming up on December 26 at the Typhoon Restaurant in Santa Monica.

RICK WORLEY
www.rickworley.com

Rick was fighting a cold so he was on Dayquil but still lucid. Full disclosure: I have a copy of Rick’s wonderful comics collection, “A Waste of Time,” sitting on my desk waiting for a review, so I spent a little time apologizing for that. He said the book is doing pretty well, that it’s a gradual thing getting people to know it exists (like, y’know, through reviews and stuff like that). He’s had a good convention even though he’s been sick all weekend. (Everybody get a flu shot!) Rick’s been drawing “A Waste of Time” for the past four years, but he’s been drawing comics since he was a little kid. He used to make his own comics in fourth grade, usually Spiderman mash-ups, but he’s only into Grant Morrison’s work now. He worked at Borders until he got laid off, he said they were a horrible company to work for: arrogant, abusive, and stupid. This is sad because it should be fun to work in a bookstore. He’s mostly self-taught, but has taken drawing classes here and there. Rick grew up in southern California, but has lived in San Francisco for the three years now. There’s another book with the same characters in the works.

ZAN CHRISTANSEN, NORTHWEST PRESS
www.northwestpress.com

I spoke to Zan Christianen of Northwest Press, the publisher of “A Waste of Time.” Zan actually sent me the review copy sitting on my desk, waiting to be reviewed (so, as you can imagine, there was more groveling about it). Northwest Press has been all over the country, but BENTcon is the biggest and gayest convention of the year, so they got the biggest and gayest booth at the convention. He was even opening a bottle of champagne, that’s how cool this booth was. He had several big comics, one of them was “The Power Within,” a very timely comic to help kids deal with bullying. Last years, Zan and the artist on the book, Mark Brill, were trying to figure out what to do for 24-hour comics day and this is what came out of that. 24-hour comics day is in October, and the previous September there had been several gay teen suicides in the news. In doing research for the book, Zan discovered that there were eleven suicides in September 2010. So, he and Brill did the 24-page comic for 24 Hour Comics Day and afterwards they polished the work up and released it as a self-published comic in the Spring of 2011. Then Zan recruited some guest artists—Phil Jimenez, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, to name a few—to contribute more pages. They did a fundraising event so they could do a big print run and started sending them out for free to schools, gay alliances, and other resources for gay teens. The book is designed as a life-line to isolated, alienated kids. Zan says it tells kids that they might not have a supportive family, or teachers or they might not have friends they can reach out to, but even if they don’t have any support, each kid has the strength to get over the hardest parts of their life with the power within. They can make it through and get to the better part of their life. So Zan and his people sent the book out over the summer of 2011 and Zan and Brill got an email from OUT magazine letting them know that OUT would be honoring them as two of their OUT 100 for 2011. Zan encourages anyone with any kind of skills to try to help kids who are being bullied because it’s been going on for far too long and it’s time to stop pussy-footing around it. It’s time for parents to realize they’re better off with a live gay teen than a dead one and stop freaking out about it. I asked Zan why it was getting worse, why there were more gay teen suicides now, and he said it’s actually getting better because it’s getting more attention. It’s not being swept under the rug and he thinks that people are more willing to call it what it is. When a child kills him or herself because they’re queer or harassed for being seen as such, it’s not just swept under the rug and ignored by mainstream society. Surviving your teens is tough enough without bullying, but it’s worse if there isn’t even a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not a freight train, it’s Zan and people like Zan throwing you a rope. Sorry for the mixed metaphor. It really does get better.

Speaking of Dan Savage, Dan wrote the introduction for another Northwest press book by David Kelly (of Boy Trouble fame) called “Rainy Day Recess.” This books is about a tween boy growing up in the 70s, liking Wonder Woman and Charlies Angels, and being a very sensitive boy. “Rainy Day Recess” is a window into the life of a kid before he starts having to conform or being bullied.

Northwest Press has recently released “A Waste of Time” by Rich Worley (grovel grovel grovel), which Zan describes as Calvin and Hobbs meets lots of butt sex with adults. In 2012 Zan plans to release their first “L” book (as in G”L”BT), their first lesbian book by Lea Weathington’s “Bold Reilly.” An action adventure heroine who always gets the girl. Zan describes Bold as kind of like Conan the Barbarian except she’s a better conversationalist and has smaller breasts.

So far of Northwest’s GLBT alphabet soup, they’ve done “Glamazonia, the uncanny tranny” (T), “A Waste of Time,” “Rainy Day Recess” (G) “Teleny and Camille” (G, B), and “Bold Reilly” (L). Hopefully the Northwest press will be around for a long time and do many other wonderful titles like these and “The Power Within.”

Northwest books are available in print, but also in the iPad e-book store.

DAVID KELLY
Prism profile

Is the co-editor of Boy Trouble and more recently, the author of Rainy Day Recess. Rainy Day Recess is about a boy growing up in the 1970s in a family dealing with separation and divorce and him dealing with all the struggles with that. He finds joy in having a crush on a boy in his class and drawing this own comic, Star Woman, in which he is her sidekick, Star Boy. Lots of 1970s pop culture references. The strip ran in gay and lesbian newspapers in the 1990s, and it’s only recently that Zan Christenson and Northwest Press have collected them into the edition I saw at BENTcon.

David would like to do more young adult graphic novels with older teen characters. So there is something to look forward to.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of David. This is too bad because he’s very handsome. I also could not find a link to a David Kelly webpage, so I linked to his profile on the Prism website.

ALEX WOOLFSON, YAOI 911
www.artificecomic.com

He started the Yaoi 911 project in 2006 when he wanted to write guy and guy romance comics that were in a particular action genre and involved a rescue theme. He wanted to write for a broad audience that included women, especially since he wrote his work for one woman whom is a good friend of his, he was looking to write for a predominately female audience. At this point in 2011 his audience is 60% women and 40% men. His men look like men, which takes it out of most of the yaoi genre. For Alex, plot and character come first and the erotic element comes naturally into the story, contributing to the story, not overwhelming it. Alex is striking a middle ground between yaoi comics and traditionally gay erotic comics by creating the comics he’s always wanted to read himself, and he’s very gratified that there’s an audience out there for it.

Yaoi 911 used to be a review site, but has morphed into an original comic website. He does all the writing and works with a variety of artists. So far he’s been working on a gay sci-fi comic and next year will be doing a gay superhero comic. The two artists whose work was at Alex’s booth were Winona Nelson and Adam Dekraker.

Alex’s next book will be Artifice, currently being serialized on the web (it was at page 56 when we spoke), it’s science fiction and will be collected and published as a book in 2012. His superhero comic will also be a webcomic and then a book and should be on the web sometime in 2012.

STEVE MACISAAC
www.stevemacisaac.com

I hadn’t seen Steve in a year and in this past June, he published Shirtlifter 4, two and a half years after his “Unpacking” story cliff-hanger (for me) in Shirtlifter 3. He said it will probably be two and a half more years before Shirtlifter 5 due to having a life and a day job. There’s 60 pages of “Unpacking” in Shirtlifter 3 and also 4 and he goes through a little post-partum depression after each book comes out. He said he hasn’t really written anything since Shirtlifter 4 came out, but he does have the final part of “Unpacking” planned out in his head, and he’s started working on Shirtlifter 5, so there is something to look forward to.

I bought a copy of Shirtlifter 4 because I’m totally hooked on Steve’s story, “Unpacking,” and it was totally worth the wait. “Unpacking” began in Shirtlifter 3 and was serialized on the web, which is where I fell in love with it. It’s got a good story, good characters, and bears! I don’t usually like bears, but I like these bears because they’re Steve MacIsaac’s bears. “Unpacking” can be read as a complete story, with a beginning-middle-end, in each volume, but the story wraps up in Shirtlifter 5. Well, wraps up as much as Steve wraps things up; he always leaves something open ended in all his work.

BRADLEY RADER
www.raderofthelostart.com

Brad has just had a wonderful book called “The Art of Brad Rader” published by his comic book store in Burbank, The House of Secrets, which has a publishing arm called The Art of Fiction. In December of 2009, they asked Brad to be part of their line of small art books by local animation artists. Brad provided them with 300 image files Art of Fiction culled into a gorgeous 60 page, 5.25×8″ semi-paperback book. There’s more information about how to get your hands on a copy at Brad’s website. Right now, Brad’s comics projects are in stalled-out mode while he works full time storyboarding “Bob’s Burgers.” But he said that in early 2012 when he’s on hiatus from animation, he’ll be back on top of the comics projects.

Brad said BENTcon 2 has been a fantastic event. He’s staying at the convention hotel, the Boneventure Hotel (awesome con rate of $109!!!) and it’s been a blast. The food and parking are expensive, but there’s a Subway across the street. Brad went to the film festival the previous evening and one of the standout short films for him was Michael Derry’s “Troy” 2-D, possibly flash animated, cartoon. He also said he really enjoyed Wendy Pini’s “Mask of Red Death” cartoon.

IN SUMMARY…

I am told by reliable sources that BENTcon 2 was a success! The exhibitor area completely sold out, the room block sold out, attendance was high, and there was interest from abroad in attending this one and the next one. So look forward to BENTcon 3 in 2012.

Here’s the J LHLS coverage of BENTcon 2010.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

Sure, and if it isn’t another fine book by that fine Irish laddie, Patrick Thomas! This one is about another of the regulars at Bullfinch’s Bar, a forgotten Sumerian fire god who goes by the name Negral. He’s the chief of Hell’s secret police, 666th Precinct, who channels Humphrey Bogart. I kid you not; Negral is such a big Bogie fan that he manifests himself as a tall, dark man in a suit wearing a trench coat and a fedora. He talks tough like Bogie too, and doesn’t bother to tell his suspects their Miranda Rights. That’s because most of them are the damned souls who inhabit Hell, or the demons who own them. Satan thinks so highly of him that he gave him the right to investigate and interrogate any resident of Hell, answering only to His Satanic Majesty.

Despite his tough guy persona, Negral is really a nice guy at heart. When the devil isn’t looking, he performs random acts of kindness for any stray soul that deserves it. In this slim volume, whose front cover is colorfully illustrated by Patrick himself, you’ll find six stories of Hell’s Detective walking his beat in Hell and on Earth, rounding up the escaped demons and damned souls who are the rightful property of Satan, or helping the innocent souls escape from his clutches, making sure that the devil gets his due in return for refuge from wherever it is that forgotten gods go when they no longer have worshippers.

Patrick Thomas gives us a funny and touching account of life in Hell, consistent with Christian theology as well as some ancient folklore that has managed to survive to this day, along with Negral. Nobody escapes roasting in Patrick Thomas’ version of Hell; lawyers, politicians, bureaucracy, even supposedly sacred institutions like marriage. Speaking of which, wait till you meet the demon named Nupchuel, who specializes in punishing vow breakers, married people who cheat on their spouses. His realm looks like a ghastly Los Vegas wedding chapel, all the souls who end up there, male and female alike, are forced to marry him (they wear black, Nupchuel wears white) and promise to “honor, respect, and obey him without question or complaint”; the vows are enforced by a cursed wedding ring that can “electrocute, deep fry, freeze, and dismember among other things,” if the wearer is the least bit disobedient or tries to run away. While Nupchuel promises to “punish, torment, abuse, cheat, and otherwise make his spouse’s afterlife miserable”, starting with the wedding night. According to Negral, he’s been known to “line up his spouses twenty deep and perform his husbandly duties working his way from the outside in,” with a manhood—I mean a demonhood that’s “a combination piranha, chainsaw and jackhammer”. Ouch! Well, like Negral says, “Hell isn’t supposed to be pretty”.

If you think that’s bad, pray that you never end up as a contestant on Hell’s highest-rated reality show, No Survivors, where all the contestants are damned souls that are killed off one by one in various sadistic and painful ways for the amusement of the demonic audience. Oh, did I mention that there’s no death or unconsciousness in Hell? You can be raped, tortured, and killed in over a million ways, but you won’t stay dead or unconscious for long. Your wounds always heal, your missing body parts always grow back, and there’s always another demon waiting to take its turn tormenting you.

A small sample of stories from Negral’s casebook:

“Dysenfranchised” is about Negral’s search for a newly damned soul who has the power to put demon lords into a coma, earning herself the title of the Comanator.

“Dysembodied” is part two of a story from “Empty Graves”, Patrick’s collection of zombie stories, about a body-snatching demon that turns his victims into zombies so he can prey on the living. In this one, Negral gets help from two of New York’s Finest tracking down the living dead serial killer.

“Dysenchanted” tells how Negral helps out a hard-boiled dame with a body that won’t quit, a beautiful succubus named Bambi who wants him to find her lost virginity. If you think that’s weird, wait till you meet Balchain, the Lord of the Dance, a pink tutu-wearing demon who loves ballet.

Not to mention Myrth, a demon lord who looks like a clown and runs his Hellish realm like an amusement park, the sort that only the Addams family would love. (Imagine a merry-go-round with beautifully carved horses and other fantastic animals, but with the naked bodies of the damned impaled on the poles while the animals chew on them.) This clown prince of darkness appears in another story entitled “Dysconnected”, where he helps Negral track down The Great Betrayer, Judas Iscariot, Satan’s greatest prize, after the deceitful disciple is stolen from him. Not only does Negral find Judas, he helps him escape from Hell long enough to see Jesus and beg His forgiveness for the act of betrayal that resulted in His crucifixion. Does Jesus forgive him? Sorry, sweetheart, you’ll have to read the book to find out. Go ahead, buy “Lore and Dysorder” and get to know Hell’s Detective. It’ll be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Review by Ida Vega-Landow

While wandering through the dealers’ room at this year’s Fest for Beatles Fans at the Parsippany Hilton in March, I met a charming lady named Aviva Rothschild. She was selling copies of a book she had written, a privately published fanfic about the Beatles, along with homemade soap. I got two pieces of soap, shaped like a cat and an octopus, for free by buying the book, which was a big, pink tome. I wasn’t expecting anything other than your average piece of fanfic about my favorite British rock group, stretched to epic size. What I got was a lively romp that made “Magical Mystery Tour” look like an Afterschool Special. The author started this magnum opus 29 years ago and finally published it last year. I found it poignant that the story begins on April 11, 1980, eight months before John Lennon’s death in the real world. In this alternate universe of Ms. Rothschild’s, the Beatles are reunited on an alien world by a group of alien Beatle fans, who enjoy their music so much they want to thank them by giving them the gift of an adventure.

The adventure begins on the above date at 3:00 a.m. London time, with Paul McCartney sleeping peacefully with his wife Linda, while dreaming of sheep grazing in a pink field. But soon a giant hand brushes away the field and deposits Paul into a living room with a couple of comfy overstuffed chairs, a table full of snacks, and a wide-screen TV, which turns on as soon as he sits down and begins showing him scenes from various movies of men having adventures; cowboys and Indians, knights in armor, spacemen and so forth. This gets boring after a while, but there’s no remote, so Paul just has to put up with it until a shadowy humanoid figure materializes in the other chair and asks him how he likes the movie. After a short discussion about adventures, the alien gets Paul’s consent for him and his friends to send him on an adventure, and he proceeds to do so, after telling a stunned Paul that this is not a dream, but a “hypnagogic telepathic contact. It’s a lot less scary and intrusive when the subject is not used to telepathy…”

Shortly afterwards, Paul McCartney and John Lennon wake up on a grassy plain as younger versions of themselves, dressed in generic jeans and tee shirts, freshly shaven and shorn with their original Beatle haircuts, minus their wedding rings. Each of them suspects the other of having set him up in this bizarre scenario for a laugh; the ensuing dialog is painfully accurate, reflecting the hostility between the real John and Paul at the time. “This was one of Yoko’s little ‘instructions’, right?” an angry Paul says to John. “Don’t you have better sense than to do every daft thing she says? You take me home right bloody now or I’ll hit you with the biggest lawsuit you ever saw!” Poor John is as confused as he is. By the time the younger editions of George and Ringo join them (Ringo having been snatched from the set of “Caveman”, the movie he was making back then in Mexico, while George, newly converted to Hinduism, is convinced that he’s been sent on a mission by Krishna), it has finally sunken in that they are here, wherever here is, and they have to make the best of it. So all four of our lads from Liverpool, together again for the first time, go forth to explore this brave new world, which surely isn’t Earth.

It doesn’t take long for our lads to discover that the planet they’re on is called C’hou (pronounced cuh-HOW), where magic is as common as talent, and just as unequally distributed. The ruling class is a bunch of parasitic fascists who invaded and conquered the country years ago and now oppress the people with their phony religion because the symbol of the true religion, called the Vasyn, has been stolen by the local gods, disassembled and relocated in areas impossible to reach for ordinary mortals. That’s where our lads come in. One by one, they are given extraordinary magic powers—sometimes without even asking for them!—and gradually they learn what their mission is on this world: to recover the missing pieces of the Vasyn and put them back together.

Of course the lads like having magic powers, at first. But when it starts to sink in on them that their new talents could be quite a hindrance when they get back to their own world and their normal lives, well, that’s when disillusionment starts to set in, and their grand quest to save the world doesn’t seem so grand anymore. Sometimes they’re so busy fighting among themselves that they’re in more danger of beating each other up than they are of being beaten by the bad guys. It’s only when the bad guys start coming at them fast and furious to prevent them from recovering the Vasyn that the lads “come together” and start acting more like the Fab Four they used to be, one for all and all for one against the authority figures trying to keep them down.

Little do our lads know that their extraterrestrial fans are really a group of college students using them as subjects for their psych project, without their professors’ knowledge. After one timorous fan bows out because he’s a Goodie Two Shoes who can’t take the pressure of acting covertly, the remaining aliens, Varx and Shag (she’s a girl, but they’re both the same species, which seems to be part lizard and part bird), are forced to recruit an exchange student from another galaxy (who, from the brief description, seems to resemble a white slug) to help them continue their project. This geek(and I do mean geek, he makes Bill Gates look like a party animal)turns out to be a dedicated gamer, who decides to change the rules of the experiment behind the fans’ backs and put our lads into a perilous sword and sorcery adventure, starring one of his own most popular characters. Just when our lads have finally gotten the hang of their newfound powers, they find them being put to the test in the company of the most obnoxious swordsman you ever saw outside of Conan the Barbarian.

Dedicated Beatles fans everywhere will appreciate Aviva’s jaundiced view of gaming and the role of heroism in the modern world, as well as her realistic view of the Fab Four and how they would interact with each other after their split-up. Remember, despite their much vaunted musical talents, they were just four working class lads from Liverpool who got a lucky break when their music took off. That means they’re not quite as reverent toward traditional sword and sorcery tales as today’s generation. The Beatles were much too pragmatic to be swayed by mysticism—except for George, who became a Hindu because he craved spiritual values that he couldn’t find in Western religion. But even George was basically the same sensible, working class lad from Liverpool as the others, whose attitude toward their appointed task is more in the manner of “Let’s get this daft thing over with so we can go home” rather than “We must save these people to prove our moral superiority over the villains”. So they’re more anti-heroes than heroes. And they’re funny, too, even when they’re being stubborn, snotty, or downright stupid. In other words, our lads act like real people, not idealized heroes out of epic tales like “Lord of The Rings” or “Star Wars”.

This has got to be the best book of Beatles fiction I’ve read since “Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion” by Alan Goldsher, which I reviewed last year. Now that was a riot, the Beatles as zombies. Granted, most of the humor was dark, to the point of being gross at times, but a splendid time was had by all in the novel. I’d have to say the same for Aviva’s book. In fact, I’m looking forward to her latest reissue, in which she promises to include illustrations of the lads along with her original characters as well. To get a copy of this big, pink tome, just go to: www.rationalmagic.com/Strings/Strings.html
There you can either buy the book or read the half that’s online. Oh, by the way, the author is already working on a sequel. Let’s hope she has more luck publishing this one. And I hope you have as much fun reading “With Strings Attached” as I did. When you’ve finished the book, look her up on her Facebook fan page and let her know how much you liked it.

Our new contact number is 323-201-7147 Yeah. If you have J LHLS business cards, please make a note when you hand them out. I’ll be generating new cards soon-ish.