Comitatus

For some time now I've been fascinated by the idea of the comitatus, the group of heroes who form a collective legend.  Recent examples would include groups like the Avengers, but I haven't found very many of them compelling.  The Avengers as presented in the movies aren't really a team with, well...history.  They are thrown together, accomplish a common goal, and then go their separate ways. 

The kind of comitatus I find compelling is more in the vein of Buckaroo Banzai's Hong Kong Cavaliers.

Not exactly King Arthur's court.

They've got history and community, a kind of shared culture.  It makes them far more interesting, and allows them to pull on more threads than a bunch of heroes who join together just because they can't deal with a threat alone.

You almost have this with Thor's Warriors Three + Sif + Loki, but the presentation doesn't make me feel like these are characters that have known each other for, well, centuries.  Now, I imagine this is extremely intentional as to make them as accessible to audiences as possible.  Banzai managed to get away with a lot that most producers would likely see as risky, and the result is a more authentic and compelling movie - and a more compelling and authentic group of heroes.

I'm hoping to achieve a group with that level of authenticity as I write now.  I like to imagine a small community like my own circle of friends could achieve heroic things, and I think other people would like to think the same.

Dark Radio

Recently I've become enamored with the idea of radio presentation.  Specifically, the kind that is professional but, for lack of a better term, intimate.  The kind that makes you feel like it's just you, the radio and a host in a room somewhere, all alone, speaking to the night, the only other sound being the occasional rustle of papers in the background.

I kind of wish I had a reason to get one of these.

I'm thinking of incorporating something similar into my Sentinels urban fantasy project.  Some sort of mysterious radio voice that could add to atmosphere and act as an instigator.

Some good examples of this sort of thing can be found at thedebofnight and WBJC during their news segments.  It's likely a combination of little production and equipment that emphasizes deeper, darker audio tones.

Another neat project might be to do an in-universe podcast along those lines.  Don't know that I have the voice for it, though.

The First Last Thing I've Published

Amelia Belden's Ratcatcher Service.

Well, half of it.

I was once a Many More!

The folks over at Steampunk Tales decided to serialize it, so they put the first half in issue #13.  Somewhat fittingly, that's the last issue they ever put out.  You can't even buy it online anymore, and it was a little bit of effort to get a decent sized picture of the front page.  Their website appears to be hosted by a Japanese early retirement/investment scam. Oddly enough, their Facebook page is still active.

Sometimes I wonder if there's someone out there who read the first part and dearly wished to find out how it ended.

I also wrote and revised a sequel.  It occurs to me that if I should write enough to fill a book, I might want to try and have it go as a collection.