Morning from the frigid isle of Prince Edward. It’s officially -18 here now (-30 with the windchill). This is the aspect of Winter I didn’t miss. Luckily it’s the perfect weather to stay inside and write.
Getting back into the work groove was a little tough if I’m being honest. It’s rare that I get a week off, let alone two in a row, so I find myself quite rusty when I sit back down in front of a blank script. I had ambitious plans (hell I still do) but they’re quickly getting away from me.
We had a call about PROJECT WITHERING this past week. Things are on track to grab us another round of funding and then we can push ahead on this massive thing and get into production. Working in film is such a different beast than comics. There are a lot of moving parts and approval processes. Combine that with a global pandemic that just won’t quit - and things are a little complicated. I honestly love writing screenplays and this process has been really eye-opening on a number of things as it relates to my career. More of that when I can talk about it.
This week we’re getting into:
SUPERIOR FOUR #1 is out tomorrow.
Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway
Zank on Cinema: The Talented Mr. Ripley
End of Year Roundup.
SUPERIOR FOUR #1
Four Otto Octavius variants come together as a demented Fantastic Four.
Admittedly this is a weird one in a career of weird ones. I was approached at the end of the summer to contribute to Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s epic Daredevil event. The basic premise was that Doctor Octopus had just manipulated his way into taking control over the Baxter Building (home of the Fantastic Four). While the core book in the event is a street-level superhero story… this is not that.
I wanted to do something that was only possible within the context of the event. When series editor Annalise Bissa (Annalise is wonderful and was my editor on Marvelous X-Men) originally reached out about the idea, I was serendipitously in the middle of rereading Jonathan Hickman’s run on Fantastic Four. So I jumped at the chance to do something a little offbeat. Thus… Superior Four was born. A team comprised of four different Otto Octavius (Octavi??) scouring the multiverse and making a big ol mess in the process.
The main intent of this three-issue miniseries is to have insane fun in the mighty Marvel manner. Nothing about this is serious. Except for their collective egos and ambitions, those are very serious.
The madness drops tomorrow and I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished with these three issues! We just got the final inks on the last issue yesterday and honestly, I’m stunned we were allowed to end the series the way we did. I crossed multiple things off my Marvel bucket list with this mini.
SUPERIOR FOUR is illustrated by Davide Tinto (Commanders in Crisis), coloured by Matt Milla and lettered by Ariana Maher. It all goes down tomorrow. For now, here’s a preview.
What I’m Reading
My first book of 2022 was Sara Gran’s excellent detective novel Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway. I talked about the first book in this series last summer and honestly this is the first time in a long time I’ve read the second book in a mystery series. I find Sara Gran’s prose magnetic. There’s something about the way she weaves Claire DeWitt mysteries that feels like a blend of the Coen Brothers and David Lynch. Which I know sounds insane. But there’s this wonderful metaphysical thread that guides a lot of the tropey detective stuff in this book that just sings to me. It’s aware of its influences and doesn’t shy away from them. There are weird meta-narratives and dramatic reversals abound. So it’s pretty much catnip to me.
The plot itself is rather straightforward. Drug addled detective Claire DeWitt gets word that her ex boyfriend has turned up dead in San Francisco. So she travels to the bay area to figure out what happened. What unfolds from there exposes the banality of the human condition, the apathy inherent in places like San Fran, and the lengths we’ll go through to reconnect to our past.
I promise you’ve never read anything quite like it. You can read any book in the series in any order. Though, I’d recommend reading Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead first. As it’s an incredible introduction to the character and set in New Orleans directly after hurricane Katrina.
Zank on Cinema
THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY - One of my particular fascinations this past year was decoding the tropes of neo-noir thrillers. There’s something so formulaic about the genre - that even when you’ve seen it all before - it just works. So when you find something that subverts the formula - it feels really special.
Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film isn’t perfect but it’s very interesting. The film is unflinchingly homoerotic, incredibly tense, and an inversion of just about every trope in used in neo-noir thrillers. I just wish Damon's central performance was a little better. Every supporting role is acting circles around him (particularly Phillip Seymour Hoffman).
But I digress. I think why this film works (SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT) is because Tom Ripley acts as an inversion of the typical femme fatale role. He’s a homme-fatale through and through. Manipulating all those around him to fit his own warped agenda. He’s not afraid to use his sexuality to get what he wants and his downfall only comes due to his sprawling ambitions. His overwhelming want/need to be something or someone he’s not - ends up creating such a complicated web of lies that he can’t help but lose himself to it. It’s a powerful and (ultimately) tragic origin story just not for the typical reasons. Tom gets away in the end maybe with some psychic scars, sure. But the film gives no indication that he’s going to change his behaviour any time soon. He’s stuck in this now and there’s something beautifully fatalistic about that.
I need to read Patrica Highsmith’s novel ASAP…
End of 2021 Roundup
This week is a short one. I’ve got a script that’s eating away at me and I need to jump in and finish it. I just wanted to take a moment and share my appreciation for all those end-of-year shoutouts and lists that some of my books made. It’s incredibly humbling to see this kinda stuff year after year. It means the world to see my work resonate so deeply with folks.
ComicsXF called I Breathed A Body one of the best comics of 2021. They said, “The rot and decay is so intense that its smell is almost something you can reach out and touch, even if the body is somewhere you cannot see.”
SYFY also called I Breathed A Body one of the best comics of 2021. They had this to say, “One of the most unsettling horror comics you'll find anywhere, and a dark ride well worth taking.”
HorrorDNA called I Breathed A Body the fifth best horror comic of 2021. Saying, “It hits on multiple levels, putting characters on the edge of a cliff with no looking back.”
Comicsbookcase called I Breathed A Body one of the best comics of 2021. They said it was “One hell of a trip.” I’m inclined to agree.
Finally, Doomrocket called Ka-Zar Lord of the Savage Land one of the best comics of 2021. They were kind enough to say, “Thompson’s a right perfect fit for Ka-Zar, nudging this wild-maned Kirby-Lee innovation towards his strange new destiny as a Cronenbergian warrior-philosopher who can tame the most savage of beasts.”
Apart from trying not to think about that kinda stuff too much, I’m largely just hanging out at home and trying not to die. Omicron is serious stuff. I’ve taken to getting outside in nature whenever I can. I’m trying to get off social media for most of the weekend and spend less than an hour on it per day. With so much changing every minute - it’s not good (or healthy) to be tapped in all the time.
Here’s this week’s playlist. Hope you dig it.
Later
Until next time - be good to one another. We’re back in two weeks with the finale of Ka-Zar. It’s a wild one.
Z 01/11/22
Superior Four #1 is definitely weird and fun. Also that last page reveal, featuring a version of one of my all-time favorite characters... :D :D
Congratulations on the many top lists for I Breathed a Body. Well deserved.
There's a great BBC Radio adaptation of the Ripliad (Highsmith's Ripley series). Brilliant and atmospheric.