Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 06/28/24

You've GOT to be Kidding me Edition

Everyone here at the Bunker is stunned and saddened by the passing of Richard “Kinky” Friedman, a true Texas Renaissance Man in every sense of the word. Singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, animal rescuer (his no-kill sanctuary is still in operation), former Texas Gubernatorial candidate, bon vivant, and all-around hell of a guy.

The Kinkster was a regular at my Before-Times job, BookPeople, in Austin, Texas, where he was good for a personal appearance whenever he wrote a new mystery, which was about one a year, back in the day. He was funny, personable, quick-witted, and completely full of shit, all the time. I mean that in the most reverent way possible. Game recognizes game. He told and retold great stories and had some bits he liked to do with his running buddy, Little Jewford that always got a laugh.

I am not a cigar smoker, but I will have a glass of Jamesons and toast his life. He was an original voice, a Texas institution, and he will be greatly missed by his many fans and admirers. God Speed, Kinkster. Thanks for all the guffaws.

A cherished artifact on the wall of the Bunker from back in the day.

---

Campaign Updates

As of this writing, the Portuguese edition of Blood & Thunder’s crowdfunding campaign is at 50% and they have sweetened the deal. If they get to 200%, I’ll be signing bookplates and mailing them to Brazil!

Meanwhile...

Southern Fried Cthulhu’s crowdfunding campaign is over 300% with less than a week to go. I’m excited to see this anthology in dead tree form. You have made it possible for me to get a paycheck for this project, and I thank you. If you’re on the fence, just go back it. It’s not like you won’t find something in there to love. It might even be my story. You never know…

---

Field Report: SoonerCon 32

This convention was a blast, as per usual, wherein I get to see a lot of great people and talk about awesome things and all of that kind of stuff. It’s my 9th appearance, I believe, I think it was my best one, or nearly just. I’ve gotten to know many of the folks and fans in Oklahoma City and they are all fantastic. And because of its proximity to the Metroplex, I get to see and hang out with several of my Dallas/Fort Worth friends, too. It’s a win-win.

If there’s a more exciting convention picture than us four old guys at a table opining away about 1980s Fantasy movies, I don’t know what it would be.

This was the first year that I didn’t do a reading. In fact, I made a point of trying to engage with folks outside of the writing and publishing programming track. By and large, it worked out well. I saw a lot of new faces, and in some cases, a LOT of new faces. It turns out, talking smack about 1980s fantasy films will fill a room. Who knew?

The reasons for this change of my part are pretty easy to suss out if you’re a regular attendee of small to medium regional conventions. There’s been a marked uptick in the number of younger fans who are into cosplay, anime, and other media aimed at them, like My Little Pony. As the generation of older fans and pros in front of me is, I’m sorry to say, starting to die off, it’s natural and inevitable that newer, younger fans step into those spaces. And while I think that’s an overall good thing, there are some unintended consequences for the people running shows and the pros that prop up those programming tracks with panels, discussions, and readings.

A great panel talking about mystery and crime elements in other genres.

Speculative Fiction Writers have been feeling the pinch of cosplay and anime encroaching on convention programming tracks, and with it, the fans of same—most of whom are no older than 25 and could really not give a single shit what the old, gray haired, cis-white-male that is twice their age has to say about a movie that was made in the 1980s, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. I might as well be speaking Esperanto.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I want to say, I like cosplay a lot. I think that stormtroopers and ghostbusters and Deadpool and Domino walking around a con really adds to the scene and there’s always at least one cosplayer that hits me right in the 10-year old’s heart of mine. Last year, it was the guy who came dressed as Mark from Battle of the Planets. This year, it was this kiddo.

She was being all shy and laughing because I was being funny, but she looked like a dead ringer for Phoebee Spengler. I had to do a double-take.

I don’t begrudge any conrunners or conventions who are taking those necessary steps to ensure that the con still happens and that people are coming to it. That’s simply the way of things. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy thinking and talking about “aging out” of my local shows, and I know most of the writers and artists in my various circles are having those very same thoughts.

This is not a One-Size-Fits-All kind of solution, but I am kicking around an idea or two. I don’t have it all worked out yet, but I’m hoping to enlist some of those very same convention runners, who I know are sympathetic to our situation, because they are readers, too. My idea is this:

Reaching out to places like universities and libraries with a single day’s event in mind, and having 3-5 writers show up to hold round table discussions, do readings, talk about the craft of writing, and maybe even run a workshop or two that addresses a specific topic like how to plot a novel, or how to submit to smaller markets. Stuff like that.

It’s not the same as going to a convention, and that’s a good thing. The writers are local so there’s no hotels to shell out for. It’s a day trip. The authors can sell books afterward. The audience is smaller, but a smaller audience for a library gig might be 20-25 people, but they would be engaged because they really want to be there. And the writers would be doing the exact same thing they would have done at a convention, without worrying that the panelists would outnumber the audience.

There are some logistical considerations to iron out, but these kinds of day trips would be better for aging speculative fiction authors. We could do more, for less, and the engagement rate would be nearly 100%. What do you think? Hit me up below and tell me why you think this is a brilliant idea and you want to help develop it, or tell me I’m the most imbecilic chowderhead you’ve ever known and there’s no way something small and scrappy like that would ever work.

The Sunday morning Coffee Klatch became an Irish Coffee Klatch because I’m a grown-up and can do what I want.

---

Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review

Note: we are eschewing our regular review schedule so that we can offer up our thoughts on The Boys, Season 4, and The Acolyte, both of which dropped their fifth episodes this week and both of which effectively leveled up in a number of ways you won’t likely hear about because of the hew and cry from the sub-media about woke and ruin and politics and all the rest of it.  

This has got to stop

The amount of time and energy being expended on shitposting, review bombing, YouTubing, and meme-making to express your collective displeasure about how something you once liked is now something you don’t like is the most disproportionate thing I’ve ever seen. Do you always swat flies with hand grenades? Asking for a friend who thinks you are wasting hand grenades.

The Boys, Season 4

Hey, “content creators” and Twitter Keyboard Warriors: you JUST NOW figured out that The Boys is taking the piss out of corporations and Big Media conglomerates? Thank you for letting me know. Now, turn in your reviewer card, because if you didn’t pick up on that unsubtle cue, how can I trust you to look at any other genre-heavy show or movie and expect you to have a cogent or insightful thought?

This isn’t a Swiftian satire we’re dealing with here; it’s a bunch of blood-soaked, profanity-laced, ham-fisted metaphors designed to instantly spark recognition and understanding for modern audiences. Four seasons in, and you’re finally all “Hey! They just tipped over one of my sacred cows!” Jeez, Louise.

Your best bet going forward is to not finish the series. Go watch Magnum P.I. reruns or something. Pick a show you’ve never watched and broaden your mind. It apparently needs all the help it can get.

The Acolyte

I wish there was a way for you to not like the show for actual reasons instead of made-up ones. Surely you must get tired of eructating out the same thing every week? And who’s listening to you? I mean, who’s listening to you that wasn’t already listening to you? Picking up new fans? I doubt it. I’m going to guess that the only reason you’re this worked up is because that skinner box you’ve made your core identity pays you a penny a click for google ads, and that’s just enough money to make it worth your while.

And hey, fifty-something year old man who’s upset that girls have lightsabers now? When did your memory get so bad? There has never been a perfect Star Wars anything. Not once, not ever. Being a fan back when you were a kid was a constant trade-off of how much you liked the stuff in the movie that was awesome versus how much you didn’t like the stuff in the movie that was not awesome.

We did that for every movie, every tv show, until roughly somewhere between 1999 and 2007, when stuff got lots better and those “errors” and “mistakes” and “bad casting decisions” and whatever else we were on about suddenly didn’t matter as much, because Iron Man was great, and Game of Thrones had dragons, and it looked better and more people were watching it and suddenly, WE were cool, and not just “cool within our sub-culture” but “cool within pop culture.” We had arrived. And y’all could not wait to establish a pee corner.

I hate that for you. I hate that your identity and sense of self is tied up in an online persona that’s a cast iron asshole who willfully misinterprets simple things and makes up wildly inaccurate things to spackle over information you don’t have or just don’t know. I wish you could break that cycle—for all of our sakes.

There’s no such thing as a perfect, Platonic Ideal Star Wars show or movie. Well, there is, but it’s not fair to compare new thing that they release with The Empire Strikes Back. That’s not a realistic standard.

What’s also not a realistic standard is the “I haven’t watched the show but based on a one-minute trailer, I’m going to pronounce judgement on the whole series” stance you’ve all apparently taken. There have been ten shows on Disney+ since 2020 that are ostensibly aimed at most adults, kinda. Certainly all of the live-action shows are intended for a grown-up, if not necessarily mature, audience.  Do none of you remember 1980? Or what about 1983? What came after Jedi? Some kids cartoons that were made to sell breakfast cereal, and then nothing until the Zahn novels many years later. What a letdown.

Do you know how long I’ve waited for Star Wars to hop back in time a couple hundred years or so and tell us how the Jedi/Sith rift came about? I’m going to round up to a nice even 45 years. Nearly the entire span of the franchise. And now, in 2024, we’re finally getting that, under the eye of Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau, who have not only managed to burnish the flagging brand but also retroactively fill in a lot of story, plot, and characterization that was missing under Lucas’ reign, and the only thing you’ve got to say is, “Those girls have lightsabers”? What the hell is wrong with you? You’re embarrassing yourselves, and you’re dragging everyone down with you.

Wrapping It Up
For those of you who have slogged patiently through my rant, wondering about The Acolyte and The Boys, here’s the bullet points for you:

The Acolyte is good. So far, I like it better than Kenobi and Book of Boba Fett, and not as much as Ahsoka and The Mandalorian. Any other problems you might have with the series (real plot and story issues; not the Kathleen Kennedy bullshit) may well have been handily wiped out by a near-prurient extended lightsaber skirmish that left me wide-eyed and stunned. If that didn’t bring you around, then please send me your address so I can come to your house and take away all of your vintage Topps trading cards. Imma put the stickers on my footlocker.

The Boys is an acquired taste. It’s the most graphic, most vile, and most gonzo-over-the-top depiction of super heroes in a modern world, but owned and controlled by a giant media corporation that is, well, pretty much a stand-in for Disney and an allegory for the Fox News wing. That point is made in the first episode and everything flows from there. Oh, and it is hyperviolent, drenched in gore and outlandish sexuality to the point that it becomes absurd and ridiculous. If you can get through all of that, it’s a brutal commentary on the state of our increasing dependence on Corporations and why that’s inherently bad. It’s not anti-capitalism, but it’s definitely anti-Free Market Capitalism running amok, unfettered and unchecked. Just when you think they’ve gone as far as they can go in outlandishness, along comes Season 4, episode 5, to say, “Hold my beer.” Your mileage may vary, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”