Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit: The Special Edition

Thirty years ago tomorrow...and for the sake of this story, you have to ignore the fact that I'm only six-an'-three-quarter years old...thirty years ago tomorrow I plunked down my three dollars and stepped into the single-screen cinema of the Bayberry Theater (now sadly defunct, going out of business only a few weeks after I saw Octopussy there). In the half-darkness of the Bayberry, I snuggled my little stuffed butt into the seat, popcorn and sody pop on my lap...in those days we didn't have staidum seating or cup-holders, oh no, we wore out snacks on our laps and liked it that way! And when the movie started up, my eyes flew wide open as that bombastic music, brand-new at the time but soon to become iconic and familiar, burst onto the screen, the giant title of the movie flying at the audience, followed by action, adventure, derring-do, reluctant heroes, a beautiful heroine, rogues and scoundrels, hissable villains, amazing special effects, and weird strange creatures from a place far far away. Yes, folks, I truly did love my first viewing of Annie Hall.



Haw! I kid you good folks. You all know I'm talkin' 'bout Star Wars. It wasn't episode one, it was Episode Four...but we didn't need a subtitle (that new hope came later). I sat glued to my seat for two hours and when it was over I saw it all over again. I saw Star Wars eleven times in the theater, including a couple times in the drive-in in a double bill with The Eagle Has Landed.

[EDIT on 5/26: in retrospect, I almost certainly didn't see it exactly on May 25, 26, or 27th. From Script to DVD.com has an excellent rundown of the relatively few theaters in which the movie opened, and the Bayberry wasn't one of them. It's much more likely that it didn't show up there until the film was more widely released in June 1977. I did see it opening night whatever day that was...the first time I ever saw a film the day it opened.]

I wanted to celebrate that momentous occasion and its thirtieth anniversary, so I went looking to see what the perfect gift for Star Wars would be. Let's see now. According to the internetmajig, you give the gift of aluminum for a tenth anniversary. So I will be buying a lovely roll of Reynolds Wrap for all my friends who got married in 1997. Twenty-fifth anniversary is silver. And thirtieth is...let's see...oh, the thirtieth anniversary is the gift of fan fiction.

'Cos, you see, I been thinkin'. I'm a big fan of the Marvel Star Wars comics from the seventies and eighties, and even when they're a little bit goofy, they're still relentlessly fun. Giant space station gambling casino? Water world with dragon-riding warriors? Fuzzy telepathic hoojibs? Yes sir, sign me up for those! But from all I understand, George Lucas wasn't too fond of all of the developments, plots, and characters in the Marvel Star Wars series...in fact, he downright loathed a few of them with his little CGI-designed-beflannel-shirted heart. And there was one he reportedly loathed more than any other Marvel character...you know who I'm talkin' about, don't you? Yes you do...

GIANT GREEN STAR WARS RABBIT!

Oh my oh my how Lucas loathed Jaxxon the Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit (or so the story goes)...so much that according to possibly-apocryphal Star Wars scuttlebutt and hearsay, Giant Green Star Wars rabbit creator Roy Thomas was off the book before you could say 'midichlorian." I ain't sayin' it wasn't a turn for the better...I started reading only after Thomas had left and been replaced by Archie Goodwin. My first Star Wars comic...in fact, my first Marvel comic of all...was issue #21, which I picked up fresh on the newsstand for the then-cover price of 35 cents, just because it had Darth Vader on the cover. The series went through some great ups (especially the Walt Simonson and Tom Palmer issues post-#50) and downs (those issues that were just redrawn inventory John Carter, Warlord of Mars stories), but I hung on to the very end. I'm glad, too, because #107 is worth a mint. Hoo hah! Put that in your space-hookah and smoke it, Jabba!



Thirty years later, however, you gotta look at the Marvel Star Wars comic and then look at the three "prequels"...episodes One, Two, and Three...and much as I liked 'em, those later three movies will never stand up to the power and inspiration of the first three. So, thinks my little bean-filled brain, with my usual optimism and action-oriented attempts to 'make things fun'...what can I, Bully, do to improve some of the weaker moments of, well, let's say, um, just off the top of my head...Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace? Hmm, what can I do, what can I do...?

There's a fan film floating around somewhere on the World Wide Web that consists of an edited version of Episode 1 in which everybody's "favorite new character", Mister Jar Jar Binks, has been completely excised from the film. That got me thinkin'. In this day and age of digital technology, CGI advances, and talking cartoon donkeys, why simply settle for removing Jar Jar Binks...

Why not replace Jar Jar Binks with a truly awesome and kickass character...?

Why not replace Jar Jar Binks with Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit?


Here's the point where I say "and I think it would go something like this." But I can't draw, or else I'd do a comic book of Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit kickin' butt an' takin' names during the events of Episode 1. A few little moving slideshows aside, I can't direct films. What I can do, he said modestly, is write. But just as when George plopped new characters into Episodes Four through Six he really wasn't creating from scratch, neither will I. What follows is my own re-writing of Terry Brooks's novelization of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Think of it as a redubbed movie or a comic book remix. I'm fully aware that I didn't write most of the words in what's below, and I certainly don't mean to diss Mister Brooks, partly out of respect for the craft and skill of a fine writer, but mostly because if he finds out he's gonna wallop me on the backside with the Sword of Shannara.

So here it is, a remix of the novelization of Star Wars Episode I, in which Terry Brooks has done most of the heavy lifting but I've been paddling around in his puddle and tracking mud across his nice clean floor in order to bring you:

Giant Green Star Wars Rabbit:
The Special Edition!

---

Qui-Gon Jinn slipped wraithlike through the thick brush, listening to the sounds of heavy rustling and snapping branches behind him as the Trade Federation transports began to advance. Mixed with the deeper, heavier whine of the transport engines was the higher pitched buzzing of STAPs—single trooper aerial platforms—small, individually piloted mobile gun units used to transport battle droids as scouts for the main army. The STAPs whipped above the watery terrain of Naboo, fleeting shadows as they surged in front of the larger transports.

Animals of all shapes and sizes began to scatter from their places of concealment, racing past Qui-Gon in search of safety. Ikopi, fulumpasets, motts, peko pekos—the names recalled themselves instantly to the Jedi Master from his preparation for this journey. Dodging the frightened creatures stampeding around him, he cast about for Obi-Wan, then picked up his pace as the dark shadow of a transport appeared out of the mist directly behind him.

He was running out of firm ground and searching for a way past a large shrub when he saw a strange green rabbitlike creature before him. The rabbit was squatting on the ground, his furry body crouched over a small animal he had snatched up, his sharp incisors gnawing at the animal's soft underbelly as he ate its prey raw. Qui-Gon grimaced—while it was not the Jedi way to consume other living beings, he understood enough of the wide variety of lifeforms to realize that not every being in the galaxy felt as the Jedi did.

Casting aside the bloody fur, the rabbit stood to face Qui-Gon, towering well above the Jedi, his green furry and floppy green ears rising in alert at Qui-Gon's approach. The nostrils in his whiskered snout flared and the rabbit bared his incisors, speckled with mauve blood from whatever delicacy it had just consumed. His large pink eyes narrowed and a massive green paw paused over the belt slung on his hips. Qui-Gon's gaze took in the blaster hanging from the rabbit's belt and he hoisted his lightsaber in warning. A tense moment passed as the rabbit regarded the Jedi cautiously and then took his hand away from the blaster, his mouth squirreling up into a crooked grin.

Qui-Gon turned, lightsaber at the ready as he heard the crash of trees behind him, followed by the roar of the Trade Federation transport. For the first time the rabbit spoke, in a deep guttural growl: "Crummy droids!" he grunted, drawing and raising his blaster, standing shoulder to shoulder with Qui-Gon. "You take the left an' I take the right," he barked, nudging the Jedi. "Howzabout you an' me take these rustbucket Roger-rogers down together?"

Qui-Gon had no intent of facing off against an armored Federation transport, even with a giant green rabbit covering him. He broke left past the strange creature, anxious to get out of the path of the approaching transport. The rabbit dropped the blaster, eyes scowling, and grabbed onto Qui-Gon's robes.

"Where you goin', Grandpa?" he scolded tauntingly, furry face contorting in scorn and derision. "'Fraid of a few tin cans?"

"Let go!" Qui-Gon snapped, trying in vain to break free. The transport thundered toward them, skimming the surface of the swamp, flattening grasses and stirring up water spouts in the wake of its passing. It bore down on Qui-Gon as he fought to break free of the creature that clung to him, dragging it sideways in a futile effort to escape.

Finally, with the transport only meters away and looming over him like a building about to topple, the Jedi Master pushed the rabbit into the shallow water and sprawled facedown on top of it. The Trade Federation transport passed over them in a wash of sound and shocked air, the vibrations hammering into their prone forms, flattening them into the mire.

Almost before it was even safely past, Qui-Gon was bodily lifted out of the water by the rabbit-creature, its towering strength pushing the Jedi back out onto the muddy ground. "What's the idea, pal? Little eeny-weeny robot-carrier too scary for the big fraidy-bantha Jedi Knight?" He gave a quick glance after the departing transport, and shook himself frantically, water spraying from its sodden green fur everywhere. "Sheesh. It's like I say: never send a man out to do a rabbit's job."

"Stop that!" Qui-Gon huffed. "Are you brainless? You almost got us killed!"

The rabbit's eyes glowered. "Brainless? Look who yer talkin' to, Beardo! Where I come from, them's fightin' words!" He tapped his large skull with one oversized paw, producing a resounding and solid thunk. "This sound like I'm brainless, grand-dad? It ain't fluff an' pleasant thoughts holdin' these big beautiful ears up, ya know!"

"The possession of giant ears does not make you intelligent!" Qui-Gon was having none of it. "Now let go of me and get out of here!" He pulled his robe free from the rabbit's clutch and began to ran off, glancing around uneasily as the high-pitched buzz of STAPs sounded in the distance.

The creature scowled, then began stomping after him, its gigantic green feet thudding on the soft ground as it easily kept pace with the running Jedi. "My name's Jaxxon. You can call me Jax for short—which I ain't. An' I ain't no fluffy bunny. Lepus carnivorous, if you gotta know. Do these floppy ears'a mine detect that you might need a li'l help help 'gainst these bolt-buckets?"

The Jedi Master barely glanced at him, watching the shadows' searching now for Obi-Wan. "Thanks, but that won't be necessary. Better be off with you."

Jaxxon snorted and splashed after him, his powerful thighs almost springing him along Qui-Gon's sprinting pace. "What do ya think, pal, my mother raised me to run away in a fight? Not on yer life. Like mama always told all eighty of us kids, when yer in a jam, put yer fluffy tail to the wall and start shootin'. An' don't stop 'til everybody else is more fulla holes than a Caiyan milk-beast cheese log."

The swamp reverberated with the sound of STAP engines, and now two of the gun platforms burst from the mist, bearing down on a fleeing Obi-Wan Kenobi, battle droid drivers wheeling their speeders to the attack.

Qui-Gon pulled free his lightsaber, motioning Jaxxon away.

"I have no time for this now--"

"No time for jawin', ya mean," Jaxxon growled. "Only time we got is to do or die, pallie..." He glanced up, hearing the STAPs, turning to see them bearing down, eyes narrowing again. "And it looks like it's gonna be die!"

Qui-Gon grabbed the rabbit by his gunbelt and pulled him out of the path of the enemy laser fire. "Stay put." He flicked the lightsaber back on, bracing himself as Obi-Wan and the pursuing STAPs approached. "I suggest you stay out of the line of fire."

"Yeah?" challenged Jaxxon, raising his blaster. "Then I suggest we get up off our fannies an' cotton tails," he growled, firing a few well-aimed shots at the STAPs, "'Cause I got a hunch trouble's on the way!" The battle droids opened fire with laser cannons from their gun platforms just as Obi-Wan reached his friend. Qui-Gon blocked the blots with his lightsaber and deflected them back into the attack craft. Between his deflected fire and Jaxxon's blaster bolts the STAPs exploded in shards of hot metal and fell into the swamp.

An exhausted Obi-Wan wiped his muddied brow, gasping for breath. "Sorry, Master. The swamp fired my lightsaber."

He pulled out his weapon. The business end was blackened and burned. Qui-Gon took the lightsaber from Obi-Wan and gave it a cursory inspection while Jaxxon's whispered nose scrunched up and sniffed the air at the sight of it.

"You forgot to turn off your power again, didn't you, Obi-Wan?" Qui-Gon asked pointedly.

Obi-Wan nodded sheepishly. "It appears so, Master."

"It won't take long to recharge, but it will take some time to clean it up. I trust you have finally learned your lesson, my young Padawan."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan accepted the proffered lightsaber with a chagrined look.

Jaxxon snorted, his long ears bobbing and pink eyes scrunching in disdain. "Some Jedi Knights. One guy who doesn't know when to stand and hold his ground an' another one who can't find an 'off' switch."

Obi-Wan gave a sideways glance at Jaxxon. "Who's the rodent?" he asked Qui-Gon.

Jaxxon grimaced menacingly. "I ain't no rodent!"


Qui-Gon held out his hands calmingly. "This is one of the locals. His name's Jaxxon." Qui-Gon's attention was directed out at the swamp. "Let's go, before more of those STAPs show up."

"Bring 'em on," snorted Jaxxon. "Bring 'em all on, I say!"

Qui-Gon was already moving, shifting into a steady trot through the mire. Obi-Wan was only a step behind, but even though it took Jaxxon a few moments to start moving after him, with his powerful legs working effortlessly he caught up with them in seconds.

"You 'warriors' are so intent on running," he snarled, "Then at least you oughta retreat to a safe hidey-hole rather than makin' yourselves easy target. Best place to hunker down an' rest yer fluffy tail is the Great Hutch." All about, lost in the mists, STAPs sounded their high-pitched whine. "It's where I grew up. Safe city."

Qui-Gon brought them to a halt, staring fixedly now at the rabbit. "What did you say? A city?" Jaxxon nodded sharply. "Can you take us there?"

The rabbit seemed suddenly distracted. "Ah, um...well, maybe there's better places to stuff our ears into. Naw, the Great Hutch ain't the place you want. C'mon, I'll take ya someplace even safer." His eyes shifted from side to side nervously.

Qui-Gon leaned close, his eyes dark, his hand raising and waving slowly before the rabbit's face. "But you want to take us to the Great Hutch."

A buck-toothed grin broke out in Jaxxon's fuzzy face. "Grandpa, you can stop it with the Jedi mind tricks right there. They don't work on us lepus carnivorous. Too much brain stem in our beautiful ears." He stroked his left ear almost fondly.

"Then stop distracting us!" snapped Qui-Gon, lowering his hand. "Can you take us to this Great Hutch or not?"

Jaxxon glanced sideways, his eyes darting evasively. "I ain't exactly welcomed there no more, is all," he grunted reluctantly. "They ain't rolling out the bunny hail and welcome for old Jax at the Great Hutch no more."

"What happened?" Obi-Wan asked, in spite of himself. Qui-Gon shot him a sharp look, but Jaxxon had already begun to reply:

"Let's jus' say Boss Grass...he's the king o' all us meat-eatin' rabbits...well, he ain't likely to welcome the guy who got his daughter pregnant." He looked sheepishly at his large feet. "He's got a powerful mad-on for yours truly here."

Obi-Wan grinned. "So you gave her a kid. Forgive and for..."

Jaxxon shook his head, his ears whipping back an' forth. "A kid? Ain't the work it works with us, cloak boy.m Sixty-six kids. We have litters. No, Jedi pallie, I ain't goin' back to the Great..."

A low, deep, pulsating sound penetrated the whine of the STAPs, rising up through mist and gloom, growing steadily louder.

"You hear that?" Qui-Gon asked softly, placing a finger on the rabbit's furry barrel chest. Jaxxon scowled but nodded. "There's a thousand terrible things heading this way, my green friend..."

"And when they find you, they will crush you into dust, grind you into little pieces, and serve you up as piping hot rabbit stew to Nute Gunray," Obi-Wan added with more than a little glee.

Qui-Gon nodded. "Is that truly a better fate than facing up to your responsibilities, Jaxxon?"

Jaxxon rolled his eyes and snorted through his fuzzy nose. "Yeah, yeah, I get the point." He gestured grumpily. "This way. Jus' a hop, skip, and jump to the entrance to the Great Hutch. But I'm tellin' ya, Boss Grass's gonna serve us up for lunchmeat himself when he sees I came back..."

In a rush, they raced away into the twilight mist.

To be continued? Maybe. Yes, someday, if little stuffed me isn't sued into the ground by Lucasfilm. And incidently, why am I doing this post thirty years from tomorrow instead of on the actual thirtieth anniversary? Well...tomorrow's an even more important anniversary, folks. Stay tuned!...

Four butlers and a valet

Stevens!

Wadsworth!

Prawn Salad?

Blackadder!

And Jeeves!

Special bonus: a non-embeddable clip of the greatest butler of them all.

The secret stealth department of fun at Marvel

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS SPECIAL #1: This comic is fun. As I mentioned a handful of weeks ago, and some of you may have noticed, I'm not buying very many floppies at all anymore. Part of the reason is economics—the books I'm interested in are mostly likely to come out in trade paperbacks within a few months after storylines or runs are completed, often for less cold hard cash than the separate floppies, certainly less when you count in the Amazon.com discount. But it's not mere penny-pinching alone that has turned Bully into a patient and neglectful comics reader, oh no no no. It's in many ways also the product of an age where the two big companies...especially post-Civil War era Marvel...are producing dreary and dystopian storylines that featured my once-favorite heroes. You know that I'm much more of a Marvel than DC fan (making me rare among the comics blogosphere, I think) and I don't think I'm alone in believing it's not the best time to be a fan of the old-school Marvel heroes. Spider-Man? Coming of a period where he had his eyes eaten out, now wearing the uniform of a known killer and a creature who terrified his beloved wife. Iron Man? Master manipulator and betrayer of the decency and good he once stood for. Mr. Fantastic? Justifier of horrible, horrible deeds. Captain America? Gut shot. Etc., etc., etc. One of the most popular series of books for Marvel in the past few years? Story after story of a nightmare zombie world where heroes eat their friends and beloved and even Reed Richards infects the Fantastic Four because he's impressed by the efficiency of the zombie neurosystem. Now, I ain't sayin' there's no place for titles and stories and even heroes like this...it's just simply that there is no joy to much of the Marvel Universe any more for me, and I'm taking a breather from it. It's not so much "good riddance to bad rubbish" as it is "stay away from the bad kids." Look, I've got nothing personal against Joe Quesada. He's selling a heck of a lot of comic books in which Norse god clones kill people and at the end of the day that's what Marvel is...a business. It's just that they're publishing huge gobbets of stuff I don't wanna read anymore.

But every now and then...a glimmer of light...

Do you get this feeling that there's a secret stealth department at Marvel, working away under the noses of Joey Q. and the powers-that-be, sneaking away to some basement lair and firing up the old printing press to occasionally publish a sneaky-pete good old-fashioned fun comic? Just like Harry Potter formed Dumbledore's Army, doesn't there seem to be a kind of "Stan's Army" fluttering around the edges of Marvel today? If not, how else to explain that while the mainstream Marvel books featuring the top iconic characters all seem to be doom, gloom and Jarvis's corpse being greedily gnawed on by the Avengers...there's almost a whole other Marvel line, not as distinctly delineated as Epic or Star or the New Universe, but sure enough a more upbeat and high-spirited antidote to the rest. Nextwave. Agents of Atlas. Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane. Marvel Adventures: The Avengers. Franklin Richards. Chris Giarrusso's Mini-Marvels. Little parts and bits 'n' pieces of Heroes for Hire (but not "that cover") and She-Hulk. And the comic I did buy last week and clutched in my fuzzy little hooves like manna from heaven: X-Men: First Class Special #1.

This follow-up to the critically acclaimed and yes, absolutely fun X-Men: First Class miniseries features three short stories and three gag pages about the original X-Men, long before that guy with the knives for hands came along. Sure, they're continuity implants. Who cares? Heck, you might even want to argue that the continuity doesn't follow properly with the original Marvel Universe. Again, who cares? Previous "reboots" of the original X-Men have attempted to follow the general track and mood of the first Stan 'n' Jack 'n' Roy 'n' Company books, p'raps missing one very important point: while the concept of 1963 X-Men is solid gold, the execution frankly often left a lot to be desired. Whoo boy, a lot of those early X-Men issues are kinda stinkers, ain't they? Go ahead...I dare you, pull your Essential Classic X-Men off the shelf and try to read more than two or three stories before your mind wanders away.

What Jeff Parker has done in the original miniseries and this follow-up special is keep intact that basic concept of the X-Men—five teenage mutants trying to help their own kind and save the world—and tell modern stories using modern conventions and pacing (not, however, decompression...each of the stories have very wonderfully been done-in-one), and most important to me, with a humor and glee and a joy that is oh-so-missing from modern Marvel comics. Sure, you can point especially at the wonderfully giggleworthy Colleen Coover gag pages in this book. I love Colleen Coover's work (even tho' John won't let me read her book about the two girls who like each other very, very, very much). But did you ever think you'd see panels like this in an X-Men book?


Yeah, yeah, I know everybody and his brother posted that panel in their blog. How about this one?


Or this one?


It's humor that's not only well-written and well-paced, but is...and this is rarer than you might think...is actually funny.

Even a handful of wonderful gag pages don't make a comic a stand-out. What works best for me in X-Men: First Class is the upbeat sense of hope and triumph that is oh-so-missing from "mainstream" Marvel Comics. More often than not in these stories, the X-Men don't battle a foe to a stand-still and utterly defeat him: they figure out what makes him tick and work alongside him to help out. A gargoyle in a haunted house? A mysterious psychic neo-mutant at the X-Men's favorite coffee shop/beatnik hangout? Dragon Man, for Stan's sake? For First Class X-Men, these aren't foes to be defeated, they're puzzles to be figured out. That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of action and good fight scenes. It simply means that yes, it's not necessary for death and destruction of entire alien empires and guys with big swords to follow in the wake of the X-Men in every comic being published by Marvel today. The feel-good effect is nearly foolishly gambled away with a handful of X-Men stat pages featuring the modern-day X-Men (really, who gives a flying fig that Scott Summers was once called "Slym Dayspring" in an alternate future miniseries) and a couple full-page house ads for contemporary X-Men books full of over-detailed impossible anatomy (and I ain't even talking about Colossus's muscles; what's the deal with Xavier's big-as-his-ear lips and Magneto's wrinkly, wrinkly nose?) but hey, go ahead and tear those pages out of your comic and throw them away. I won't tell anyone.

I've probably blathered on long enough when all I really need to say is: : This comic is fun. But it occurs to me that we're living in a Marvel Age which is almost the exact opposite of the 1970s Marvel. In the 1970s, mainstream comics—the big guns like Spider-Man, the Hulk, the FF and Captain America—were all running the usual type of Marvel storylines for that time: stories that were once in a while classic, but usually just serviceable, and most of all safe. There were no great risks taken or changes being made in Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, the quintessential seventies Marvel superhero title. But. Under the surface...in what may have seemed at the time to be a hidden basement secret printing press, a more involved and, let's face it, adult type of Marvel comic was also being published: Tomb of Dracula. Master of Kung Fu. Howard the Duck. And, towards the end of the decade, one of the lowest-selling titles in the Marvel pantheon—X-Men—suddenly became more adult and nuanced. Those small pantheon of titles in many ways set the tone for the reinvention of superheroes in the eighties: without them, no Uncanny X-Men, no Frank Miller Daredevil, maybe no Watchmen or Dark Knight. All fantastic comics. But when everything Marvel published was trying to be like those eighties and nineties comics, trying to outdo themselves with bigger and bigger steps: no secret identities, national superhero registries, one of Marvel's iconic characters killed: well, there was no place for the fun to go but to be the hidden comics—published but seldom promoted by Marvel, acclaimed by fans and accepted as cult classics. As our old friend Kang would tell us, it's all just a case of history repeating, and this reader has his hooves crossed that as time goes by, the wheel will swing back around, and what's a stealth comic of today will gradually grow acceptance and acclaim. The best first sign of this? X-Men: First Class is becoming a regular series. In other words, the fun is slowly but surely peeping its head out from the basement at Marvel. It's still only Groundhog Day...as far as I'm concerned, there's a lot of time and work until the fun returns to Spider-Man and Iron Man...but like a baby duck, it's the first sign of a glorious Spring on the way.

A Wodehouse a Week #4: Bachelors Anonymous

Scoff all you like when a meteor lands a few feet away from Peter Parker in Central Parker Park, sparkering the beginning of action, adventure, thrills and merchandising that leads to the wacky, nutty adventures of Spider-Man 3. (What's this got to do with A Wodehouse a Week? Please stay patiently tuned, gentle reader.) It's both a massive coincidence and a plot device that you more or less must forgive or else the story doesn't really get going. Sure, we can all try for the No-Prize and justify it: maybe the symbiote was looking for and zeroed in on the most powerful human in the vicinity. Or maybe there were hundreds of meteors carrying symbiotes and this is the only one that made it to a strong host. Or maybe it purposefully came to New York City just because it likes chocolate cake and cold delicious milk. Take yer pick and it really doesn't matter which, does it? Because the story needs it to happen and you can shrug and forgive it because it's not too outrageous to have on coincidence like that in a story. Now, pile on six or seven coincidences, well, then maybe it might get a little outrageous...

Or maybe it might be a P. G. Wodehouse story, in which synchronicity and serendipity merrily rule, and coincidence is merely just another chance for a boy and a girl to come face to face and realize they love each other.



Speaking of coincidinks, the first paragraph that greets me when I peel open the cover of Bachelors Anonymous re-introduces me to Ivor Llewellyn, bombastic Welsh Hollywood magnate, one of the larger-than-life characters of two-weeks-ago's Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin. More to the point, this is more-or-less a direct sequel to...um, let's momentary call it PGMB...because it follows directly on the heels of that novel and picks up Ivor Llewellyn a few months following his happy divorce from the shrew Grayce (the fifth Mrs. Llewellyn) in PGMB. Aside from Llewellyn, however, there's no recurring characters from the previous book, but it's a lovely little touch of consistency showing what we comics fanbulls would call Wodehouse's "universe." Bachelors Anonymous was actually even published directly after PGMB: in 1973, making it his second-to-last finished novel. That's completely coincidence in and of itself, by the way: I chose Bachelors Anonymous merely because it was a slim paperback and easier to carry on the subway. And yet I'm yet again at the tail end of Wodehouse's career here, flitting back and forth like Doctor Sam Beckett. Luckily it's quite a happy journey and despite Pearls being fresh in my mind it wasn't actually essential that I have read it two weeks before to enjoy and understand Bachelors Anonymous. Such is the skill of P. G. Wodehouse: even more than Chris Claremont, he's a master at making certain you're quickly up to snuff whatever book in the canon you crack open.

Ivor Llewellyn, as previously mentioned, is freshly divorced which should make him as happy as a clam, but instead he's stewing in his own oyster juices. He's attracted to handsome and harpyish actress Vera Dalrymple, and there lies his problem: he's terrified of getting re-married. And yet, he often can't help himself. He's a compulsive marrier. Enter the mysterious (and yet oddly practical) Bachelors Anonymous, an organization of confirmed bachelors who rely on the moral and mental support of each other to help their comrades avoid marriage at all costs, by hook, crook, or slipping a Mickey Finn. Capital idea, wot? Ephraim Trout, lifelong bachelor, steers Llewellyn in the direction of the London law firm of Nichols, Erridge, Trubshaw and Nichols (pay attention to those names, mind you!) to suggest he hire from them a personal bodyguard to keep him from proposing to Vera in moments of weakness. Joe Pickering, on the other hand, would like nothing more than to be married to a beautiful and bright Sally Fitch, journalist extraordinaire. Joe fell in love with Sally at first sight when she interviewed him during rehearsals for the play he wrote...a play which stars Vera Dalrymple and whose backstage has Ivor Llewellyn hanging about like a lovesick puppy. Also present behind the scenes of this doomed production: Sir Jaklyn Warner, a ne'r-do-well (delightfully, the closest the Wodehouse world ever comes to true villains are ne'r-do-wells) who borrows money from Joe. All clear so far? That's two balls in the air criss-crossing each other. Following the failure of his play, Joe can think of nothing else but Sally (whose last name he has forgotten, meaning he can't contact or find her), and goes to lunch with his friend, the lawyer Jerry Nichols (where have we heard that name before?). Jerry suggests a bit of buck-you-up by proposing a new job for Joe: some Hollywood bigwig chappie who hired his law firm is looking for a personal bodyguard to keep him from marrying an actress. Meanwhile, young Sally Fitch heads to an appointment at a solicitor after a mysterious letter hints at a situation of advantage to her. That solicitor? Oh, surely you have guessed that it's Nichols, Erridge, Trubshaw and Nichols. Much hilarity ensues, of course. Jerry and Sally are reunited and make a date to meet later, and Sally soon finds out she is due to inherit twenty five thousand pounds in the will of her old employer, but only if she can give up smoking for one year. (Still with me?) Overcome by the news, Sally misses her lunch date with Joe (now employed by Llewellyn), but meets her own personal bodyguard: Daphne Dolby, a detective hired by the law firm to ensure she keeps to the non-smoking clause of the will. Daphne is quite looking forward to living with Sally for a year, if only to keep her rather dodgy boyfriend Jaklyn Warner at bay. Oh, and for good measure, Warner is Sally's ex-boyfriend. But how will Sally find Joe again now? Well, she'll have to worry about that later, as she's off to interview Hollywood mogul Ivor Llewellyn...

Well, with coincidences like that, I've certainly lost count of the number of balls that Wodehouse has tossed up in the air, but they're all crossing paths so elegantly it might as well be a ballet...or as Wodehouse would put it, a musical comedy without the music and singing. What I've just described above (without the charm and the grace that Wodehouse gives it) is merely the set-up: the first fifty pages of an exceptionally fast-paced novel. It's short, yes: I read it in one day in one and a half trips between Brooklyn and Manhattan on the subway. Fair warning: if you're going to read Wodehouse in public be prepared for sideways glances when you laugh out loud. Bachelor's Anonymous is in some ways a quieter book humor-wise than some of Wodehouse's early work, and he does sometimes repeat jokes (the whimsical Barribault's earthquake metaphor he used a year ago in Pearls pops up again here, though delightfully rewritten). But then of course you have sequences of pure joy like these (brush up on your Shakespeare for maximum giggle-effect):

'Mr Pickering here tonight, Mac?'

To which Mac replied:

'He's round in front'—which would not have been a bad description of the visitor propped against the wall, who was noticeably stout. Julius Caesar would have liked him.

and

...in less than the specific time he was in a chair at 8 Enniston Gardens, and Mr Llewellyn was saying 'Listen', prepatory to cleaning his stuffed bosom of the perilous stuff that weights upon the heart, as Shakespeare and the Welsh school marm would have phrased it, though Shakespeare ought to have known better than to put 'stuff' and 'stuffed' in the same sentence like that.

Lesser writers would be satisfied with a sentence like, say, 'He gave Joe a disdainful look.' Not Wodehouse. Oh no, no, no, no:

Even to an unobservant eye it would have been apparent that he was not one of Joe's admirers. In the look he gave him as he entered there was something of the open dislike a resident of India exhibits when he comes to take his morning bath and finds a cobra in the bath tub.

It's not one hundred percent prime Wodehouse, but there's a lot of gold here in this late novel of his career—you're along for the joyous ride and you either must forgive the coincidences or accept them as part and parcel of the Wodehousean World: that nothing happens in this universe that does not spiral around itself in an elaborate dance. Joe meets Sally and she spins away again, dinner dates are broken and chances are missed until the very last few pages. Thanks to Bachelors Anonymous, Joe is slipped a Mickey Finn by Ephraim Trout to help him avoid the terrible catastrophe of falling in love, but a few dozen pages from that Trout himself is falling in love with Sally's old nurse, Amelia Bingham. (Even Rosie M. Banks, romance authoress and wife of Bingo Little from the Jeeves stories, gets a name check and provides us with ammunition to continue to tie the Wodehouse Universe together into a cohesive whole.) Nearly everybody falls in love, Joe gets a lucrative Hollywood writing contract, Sally blows her chance at the twenty-five thousand pounds with a careless puff (but isn't love better than money?) and it of course all ends happily, especially for Llewellyn, who's the only one who actually gleefully escapes marriage to a nurse in the hospital who just happens to be Amelia Bingham (she of the betrothed-to-Ephraim Trout-fame). Oh, don't look so shocked and yell at me for not posting a spoiler warning. You don't need a spoiler warning in the world of Wodehouse, you know everyone will end in each other's arms as bluebirds tweet merrily outside of the drawing room.

Improbable coincidences? Sure. But I say, hoorah for them. Wodehouse always used coincidence as a weapon. But he used it deftly and accurately: a foil rather than a broadsword, and he always used his power for good.

I've got two copies of Bachelors Anonymous, a Penguin Books paperback with a lovely Ionicus watercolor on the cover (though one that really doesn't represent a scene from the book at all), and a Simon and Schuster US hardcover, one of my exceptionally few first edition/first printings in my Wodehouse collection. A listing on Amazon.com for this particular edition is asking $60.00 for it, which ain't bad, as I paid $8.50 for mine. But I'm in this to collect books, not bucks. Really, I collect 'em for the joy and the diversity, not for the investment, and later Wodehouse is easier to find than earlier, of course. But most of all I just like the Simon edition for its gleefully romantic cover by distinctive British cartoonist Osbert Lancaster. That's Ephraim Trout and Sally's nurse Amelia Bingham, on the cover, by the way. Doncha just love the expressions? I think I want to be in love now simply so I can have an expression like that.

Even if you don't want to spend sixty smackers, you can get your very own copy of Bachelors Anonymous using the link on the right. Although it's apparently out of print (really, what is wrong with you publishers? It's even out of print in the UK!), you can pick up an inexpensive paperback through one of Amazon's third-part Marketplace sellers. If you're the sort of person who falls in love at the drop of your trilby you'll emphasize with Joe and Sally. If you're the sort of person who says 'Bah, humbug!' to love, you'll emphasize with Ivor Llewellyn. And if you're the sort of person who enjoys reading about Mickey Finns and smoking you might enjoy the works of Raymond Chandler, but this ain't bad, either.

Ten of a Kind: To Infinity and Beyond

(More Ten of a Kind here.)

Separated at Birth: Death be Not Mxyzptlk

L: Superman v. 2 #75 (January 1993), art by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding
R: Superman: The Man of Steel #75 (January 1998), art by John Bogdanove and Dennis Janke (credited as "after Dan & Brett")
(Click picture to Mxy-size)

Friday Night Fights: The Mane Event

Hmmm, it's time for Bahlactus's Friday Night Fights again, and I'm not certain if I'm actually allowed to put up the fighter I've been training all week. Let me consult the Friday Night Fights rule book: Hmmm, according to this the only rule is 'Two men enter, one man leaves.' And here's the important part: it says they don't actually have to be men. Okey dokey then!...here's my fighter...weighing 529 kilograms, standing fifteen hands high and with shoes made of tempered steel...ladies and gentlemen and bulls of all ages...the fighting skills of...Black Fury! Hey! Stop laughing! My new fighting horse is unstoppable! Don't bullieve me? Well, check it out:

Horse versus cougar!

Horse versus mountain lion!

Horse versus what looks like a man in a bear suit!

Horse versus wolves!

Horse versus snake!

Horse versus wolves and snakes!

Horse versus horse!

Horse versus puma!

Horse versus some more wolves!

...and yet some more snakes!

Horse versus man!

Horse versus nature!

Horse versus...what, is that a midget in the bear costume now?

Horse versus gravity!

But lest we think that the life of our equine hero is all fight fight fight...yes, even a horse needs love!

Everybody does laundry sometimes

Math: Knight equals King

Prove your work:

Inspired by watching the wonderful but more than slightly wacky Blue Hawaii.

Excowsions: Torvald Has Been Bullied!

Fellow blogger Laura (aka Tegan) has already done most of the heavy lifting in recounting the tale of our momentous meeting in their Seattle suburban home last Friday (in a post and photos she put up while I was still bouncin' around Seatac Airport on Friday night!), but out of synergy and also in synchronicity with a very special day both Friday and today (more on the latter at the end of this post), here's my post and photos about meeting one of my favorite pair of bloggers, Laura (Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog) and her husband Eric (The Wonderful Blog of Oz). I'm a big fan of both blogs and I'm definitely a big fan of the Gjovaags.

It was very wonderful to meet them and have them shake my hoof. They invited me into the home, and yes, I saw the amazing Aquaman collection. Of course there were photo opportunities for me as I met the incredible Torvald, Laura's troll who has been more places and met more celebrities of the SF and comics world than you have had hot dinners. Really, Torvald's travels make mine look like wandering down to the corner to pick up a loaf of bread and a can of condensed milk for a teatime snack...check 'em out here! (He's even met Two-Face!) But for all that world-trotting, he's a pleasant and placid personality and we soon became close friends. Maybe it's our similar stature but I think we saw eye-to-eye on a lot of things:
John and Laura snapped away merrily like paparazzi—funnily enough, they both managed to take almost exactly the same photos every time!—as I met another member of the Gjovaag household: Monty the television-top penguin:


Monty even let me try on his beautiful Fourth Doctor scarf. Thanks, Monty! And check out the Gjovaags's ultra-cool comic book spinner in the background...man, I'm jealous!:

We had a lovely dinner at the award-winning Italian restaurant down the hill (early for Laura and Eric, late for me still on New York time, but it all balanced out.) Pay no attention to Laura's scurrilous comments about my table manners and eating habits, though: I do not chew with my mouth open. (My best pal and traveling companion John on the other hand sometimes has to be reminded of that and to keep his elbows off the table). I did fall in the ravioli at one point but thanks to the wonder of the Shout Stainstick, no harm done. We had a lovely chat about our lives, respective towns, travels, blogging, Aquaman, Doctor Who, and Oz, until full of pasta and garlic bread, we all waddled back up the hill where I got a chance to meet another member of the household: Scraps the Patchwork Girl of Oz, the star of my very favorite L. Frank Baum Oz book. Oh, Scraps, you are so colorful and lovely with your patchwork dress and button eyes!


Together we giggled and danced and sang:

Kizzle-kazzle-kore;
The wolf is at the door,
There's nothing to eat but a bone without meat,
And a bill from the grocery store.

Which brings me to that momentous occasion of today that I mentioned earlier: today, Tuesday May 15, is the birthday of L. Frank Baum, the First Royal Historian of Oz. Although it's not as an amazing confluence of events as last year when it fell on the same day as Miracle Monday, celebrate today and Baum's life and work by reading an Oz book or comic book (I'm especially fond of this one myself!). Oh okay, you can watch "The Film" too if you want! But especially today's a great day to check out Eric's Wonderful Blog of Oz...fun any day of the year, but especially on May 15!

Back to Friday: we all exchanged some fun 'getting to know you' gifts (thank you for the books and DVDs, Laura and Eric!) and then John and I had to hop back into the rental car and zip down Route 5 for our red-eye flight back to New York. We were both beaming all the way. It's a wonderful thing to be part of the blogosphere and I love reading other blogs and when people email or comment on my little puppet-town cow-blog here, but it's fantastic when you finally get to meet and shake hooves with the people behind your favorite blogs. I'm especially looking forward to this year's San Diego Comic-Con to meet some more of y'all, because, blogs are fun. But people are funner! 'Specially good folks like the Gjovaags. Thanks for welcoming little stuffed me into your home, and hope to see you again soon!

Excowsions: Dream Country

Dream Country. Neil Gaiman may or may not have coined this phrase, but the title of his Sandman arc has a different meaning in my little stuffed-with-beans head.

I like dreaming. Cause dreamin' can make you mine. I like dreamin', closing my eyes and feeling fine. Oh wait, I'm channeling seventies pop radio there for a minute. Let me start again. I like dreaming. It's a dandy way to have a vacation without ever leaving your bed. I especially enjoy those dreams—c'mon, you know you've had 'em—where you're in some new and detailed oneiric landscape that is both vaguely familiar within the context of your actions in the dream and at the same time someplace you've never been in before. It's a fictional environment, not necessarily a fantastic one: there are houses and hills and roads and trees, not aliens and time machines and dinosaurs. In short, it's like the world around the corner, but you've never seen it before, and after you wake up, you'll never see it again unless you fix it in your head, which I like to do when I jot down my dreams (don't worry, I'm not gonna blog 'em—I know how boring dreams can be if you haven't dreamed 'em yourself). I call these fictional landscapes my own Dream Country.

Of course, I dream about London a lot—y'all know how much I love England's capital city. But more often than not I'm not dreaming about St. Paul's or Big Ben or the Thames or Hyde Park, I'm dreaming about out of the way corners I've never been in before, mundane and ordinary London locations—and nearly always set in a London Underground Tube station or catching a big red London bus. Not surprising, if you know my obsession with London Transport. I will be happily wandering in my dream and come across a London bus in an usual locale and run to hop on board even though I don't know where it is going. I love dreams like that.

What's this got to do with my drive around Seattle last Friday, you ask? Well, imagine my surprise riding in the big rental car down the Bothell Everett Highway towards the home of fellow bloggers Laura and Eric, idly looking out the window while John drove, and spotting this:


"Stop! Stop!" I screamed, and John swerved and pulled off the highway with a crunch and spray of gravel into the parking lot of Country Village, an antiques and craft market. After John scolded me for yelling in the car, we hopped out and ran up to the mirage only to discover that yes, it is indeed an authentic London Routemaster double-decker bus:


Now, it's not that I've never seen a London Routemaster outside of London before. They're all over the place in Manhattan as tourist buses, for example. But it was just the surprise of finding one purely by serendipity, added to the fact that it's basically unrestored, that gave me that weird and uncanny feeling of déjà vu. Why, you could even see where this bus was supposed to go, the wonderful Dream Country of Clackney Wick:


Or maybe I'm misreading that crumpled destination roller and it says Clapton and Hackney Wick. But...no. This is a Dream Country bus, and it goes to a place only in my dreams, that you can't find on Google unless I'm talking about it. (See?) That's the joy and the delight of Dream Country: a place that doesn't exist but ought to.


Maybe this only matters to someone as captivated by London Transport as me. Maybe it only felt spooky and mysterious because there was no one else around, and whatever the Routemaster had been turned into (I thought it was a photography studio, although someone on one of my Flickr groups thinks it's a bead store), it was closed so I couldn't find out its true purpose. Or maybe the utter surrealism of the place was due to the freakin' giant chicken behind us in the parking lot:


Whatever it was, that's one of the things I love best about excowsions: finding the usual and unexpected around every corner. Just like in Dream Country, real-world travel is the journey, not the destination.