Press "Enter" to skip to content

Fiction Hack Posts

Ant-man and The Wasp: Fiction Hack Episode 006

Ant-man and The Wasp: Fiction Hack Episode 006

Published May 13, 2024 by Colin

Marvel Studios is about to release its 20th movie, Ant-Man and The Wasp! As a long-time comic nerd, that blows my mind. Ant-Man is a very unlikely hero who has been around since the beginning and has a hard time keeping his own series. The Wasp has generally been a tag-along character to him. Along with Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s been one of the most obscure characters picked to headline his own movie. So who is Ant-Man and/or The Wasp? Who are they in the comics, and who are they in the movies?

Ross’ Show Notes

  • My Fantastic Four review site is called FF 1 by 1, and it is totally ongoing (even though I’ve been taking a break this year).
  • The best info on comic characters (apart from me) is still probably Wikipedia. Here are the entries for Ant-Man and The Wasp.
  • Peyton Reed isn’t a name you probably knew before Ant-Man, but he directed the first Bring It On (2000), as well as Yes Man (2008), and every episode of The Weird Al Show (1997). For those alone I will forgive him Down With Love (2003).
  • My personal favourite tale featuring (the original) Ant-Man and The Wasp is Kurt Busiek’s 12 issue limited series Avengers Forever. Carlos Pacheco’s art is top tier and although it reaches deep into pre-90s comic lore, it’s friendly for a newcomer.
  • I don’t know if I made it clear, but Hope Van Dyne did appear first in Marvel Comics, although not in strict continuity. MC2 (Marvel Comics 2) were a spin-off imprint from the late 1990s, created when Tom DeFalco (one of my personal favourite writers) was removed from marvel as Editor-In-Chief in 1994. Fan outcry (or, let’s say, demand) was such that Marvel gave DeFalco creative control over a small group of titles, MC2, which essentially showed how the key marvel characters would have progressed under his supervision. Spider-Girl, with Ron Frenz, was the forerunner success and became known as the comic they couldn’t kill after fan outcry (it really was an outcry this time) forced Marvel to rescind several cancellations–eventually going on to be Marvel’s longest-running female-titled comic, hitting 100 issues. Other titles were The Fantastic Five, J2, Wild Thing, and A-Next. Hope Van Dyne, as the daughter of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, appeared in issue 7 of A-Next as The Red Queen, leader of the Revengers, squaring off against Cassandra Lang (that name familiar?) a size-changing hero called Stinger.
  • I’m supposed to put links out and embeds into my notes for SEO purposes. Here’s a trailer, I guess:

Leave a Comment
Chekhov’s Gun and the Mystery box: Fiction Hack Episode 005

Chekhov’s Gun and the Mystery box: Fiction Hack Episode 005

Published May 9, 2024 by Colin

As Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once said: “I’ve got a gun!” Why is this an important statement in the history of fictional narrative? And how does it relate to some sort of box that J. J. Abrams once got as a kid? (Hint: Alfred Hitchcock)

The answers are inside…

Ross’ Show Notes

“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

“One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn’t going to go off. It’s wrong to make promises you don’t mean to keep.” Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.” From Gurlyand’s Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No. 28, 11 July, p. 521.

“There is a distinct difference between “suspense” and “surprise,” and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: “You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!”

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

“[If I tell people who Cumberbatch plays, they know that they] would have a five-second rush of exhilaration followed by four months of being completely and totally bummed out that they can’t tell anybody else and that when it gets revealed in the movie, it will have been spoiled for them. That’s why they’re called ‘spoilers,’ they’re not called ‘awesomes.’”

  • J. J. Abram’s TED talk is still up on their website, but I’ll also post it below. I’m still scratching my head about it. I don’t know, should I let it go?
Leave a Comment
Star Wars is dead to me, and this is why: Fiction Hack Episode 002

Star Wars is dead to me, and this is why: Fiction Hack Episode 002

Published June 6, 2018 by Colin

In this episode, Colin and Ross delve into their evolving relationship with Star Wars, sparked by their reactions to “The Last Jedi” and its impact on their fandom. Ross experienced a drastic loss of interest after the film, despite years of dedicated fandom, leading to deep reflections on the franchise’s direction. They discuss avoiding mere nitpicking and focusing on broader issues with the franchise’s current trajectory. The episode explores audience reactions, nostalgia, and the delicate balance of criticism and appreciation for beloved franchises. The hosts also share the catalyst behind starting the podcast, inspired by this pivotal moment in their Star Wars journey.

Comments closed