[Re]Evolver is a project with grandiose dreams, but I believe there are enough people out there who are concerned enough to want to contribute, and maybe a few more who are concerned enough to want to learn. [Re]Evolver is a project that was built on the foundation of those two principles.

So if you think you might like to help the world, drop by [Re]Evolver and sign up for a free account. Look around and see if there’s anything you like. We’ve got lots of fun stuff. You can have your own blog, profile page, status updates and photo uploading. There’s a growing community of like-minded people to meet and make friends with. There’s an on-site wiki to catalog our developing genius, and a skyscraper full of forums in which to chat and elucidate.

Nobody’s asking you to change the world. Just to join a little website. In the long run, will that do any good? Maybe it will. We hope so. 

http://www.reevolver.com/user/register. We are the Last Indigenous Tribe.

The Flag of Earth symbolizes the Earth (the center blue disk), the Sun (the yellow disk on the left), and the Moon (the white disk on the right). The Earth and its most important celestial neighbors - the Sun and Moon - are overlaid on a backdrop of the darkness of space.

The Flag of Earth website is administered by NAAPO - the North American Astrophysical Observatory.

Of course, it’s the publisher’s fault, he who makes the demands of the writers.

Marvel EIC: “I need a six-issue series of Avengers where we introduce Wolverine as a permanent member!”
Writer: “But–don’t you think that’s inconsistent with his character, to join the Avengers?”
Marvel EIC: “Doesn’t matter! Avengers sales have been down for years. Wolverine’s our most popular character, we put him in Avengers and we’re giving the fans more Wolverine while at the same time bringing back the Avengers! It’s a win-win!!!”
Writer: “I’ll have to write this totally against his character…”
Marvel EIC (sounding more and more like J. Jonah Jameson): “Just make it work! What do we pay you for! Write Wolverine into the Avengers! Now get out of my office, I’ve got to talk to (writer B) about making the Fantastic Four the Fantastic Five with Wolverine as the fifth member! It’s a WIN-WIN!!!”

And if you think that conversation hasn’t happened, you haven’t been keeping up with Marvel. Wolverine’s origin never needed to be told. He doesn’t need to guest star in every single comic Marvel publishes. He’d have been dark, enigmatic… dangerous. He still is, to a degree, because when Len Wein created him some of those attributes were ingrained into his fiber. They are what he is. Despite Marvel’s atrocious mishandling of their number one character.

To see what I mean in more stark contrast, take a look at the “New Avengers.” It’s a comic I’ve never read, now would I want to. The reason for that is simple. It is comprised of a host of popular characters who do not belong on teams. Captain America belongs on a team, it’s in his nature to lead. Iron Man too. But Spider Man, Daredevil and Wolverine? Not on your life. Those guys are loners by nature.

Via BleedingCool.com on Warren Ellis’s new column “Do Anything,” an anecdote told by Mark Evanier of “King” Jack Kirby:

Kirby liked to innovate, not follow. His attitude was best summed up a few years later when he read that some new artist would be taking over on Captain America and hoped “to do it in the Kirby tradition.”

Said Jack, “This kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby tradition is to create a new comic.”

Despite my infrequent postings on this website of late, I am active on the web. I’m just trying to figure out in which direction mattmitchellfiction should evolve. I’ve been a long-time user of MySpace, although I have now abandoned that site because I am convinced it is just crap that got hot at the right time. For keeping up with friends and relations I now use Facebook, which is kind of the ultimate where that kind of thing is concerned. It’s one of the things that keeps me away from here. Not that I’m spending all my time on FB, not at all, but I can keep people, friends and acquaintances up to date on my personal life instantaneously on FB, so there’s no need for me to do any of that on Unabashed any longer. Not that I did all that much updating, it’s just that now it’s become entirely superfluous, so I don’t do it at all any more. But that was never what this website was intended to be any way. This was a creative venture, and in that respect, I have fallen short. I hope to change all that in the near future.

Unabashed is not going away. Not any time soon, anyway. I’m reprogramming myself, just as we all seem to do on a regular basis, in how I and the web get along. I’m reprogramming lots of things, lately. For instance…

I don’t write the same way any more. I think more and more about concepts rather than production. I constantly try to refine material I’ve already filed away as complete. I don’t worry so much about “success” as a writer any longer. I’m not as desperate to have my work in print. That was a goal of mine, and I met that goal, and now I’m finding new goals to set for myself. There are many things which need to be done.

Comic books. A love I’ve had since before I could read, when I would look at the pictures and just imagine what they were saying. The first comic book I remember looking at was Guardians of the Galaxy. I distinctly remember not being able to read it. I’ve always wanted to work in comics, but I’ve never put forth any effort toward it. Well, that may be my next goal. I’ve written a 24 pp comic book script and I’m submitting it to Dark Horse. This is not a superhero comic, no. This is the next Sandman or Hellblazer. This story is sure to make comic book history. Or get rejected a few dozen times. One or the other is bound to happen, though ;)

Is the comic book industry as tough to crack as the mainstream publishing industry? God, I hope not. But it probably is. Which means you’ll be reading a post from me in the next few years concerning the agonizing process in both industries.

But the main point with me has always been creativity. Having a medium that I can vent into. I have that. And then some. Writing has been my pressure valve for many years now, and it will continue to be, regardless of whether it’s read or not by other people. I guess so long as I have this website, though, and Facebook, at least it will be read by a few.

For instance: Hellblazer, a story of which I have often been in the middle of the cult following. Keanu Reeves, who I distinctly do not hate, was utterly wrong for the part. I’ve ruminated on the absurdity of casting directors before, and it’s a point that Hollywood really should pay heed to. This isn’t the ’50s, and we don’t go to movies just to see a star any more. Just because Keanu Reeves was great in Speed or Point Break doesn’t mean he’s going to be a major draw playing a modern-day British sorcerer with a nicotine habit. It’s time you realized that Point Break was a major draw because it was a good story, and because Reeves fit the role he was playing. But even worse, infinitely worse than the casting lunacy, was that they based the movie in Los Angeles, and made John Constantine an American. The problem with this is that California’s culture isn’t old enough to pull off the Gothic elements of the Hellblazer story. You walk around London and you feel the age of the place, you sense the despair of so many millions of ancient lives still lingering long after their deaths. Walking around L.A., with its sunshine and palm trees and trendy clubs and art deco and modernity just falls short on the effect. It cannot successfully tell the story of John Constantine. And so, the movie, though a successful one at the box office, fell far short of what it could have been.

What Hollywood sees, of course, is Keanu Reeves raking in another big take. They don’t see the fury of fanboys everywhere, or they choose not to see it, because the fanboys still paid to see the movie. I did. But if the movie had been any where nearer to what I might consider authentic, I would now own the DVD too. As it is, I do not. Stick that in yer ear, Hollywood.

I know sometimes Hollywood does what it does for budget concerns. But really, Keanu must have gotten in excess of ten mil for Constantine, ten mil that could have been spent shooting on location in London with an actor more suited to the part.

Lately, there have been some directors and some movies that have strived to be as faithful to the original story as possible. The Lord of the Rings movies, for instance. Or the Harry Potter movies. These movies put a premium on casting the right person in the right role and then became dedicated to telling the story as it should be told. And they’ve been rewarded. Honors have rained down on them, money, acclaim, awards…but did Constantine get any thing? Nope. It did well enough at the box office. But it could have been art! Constantine could have been a best picture nominee if they’d only tried!

Among the unfaithful movies of Hollywood: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or any number of Alan Moore adaptations. Even the Watchmen, which the director proclaimed would honor the original story religiously, shied away from the one plot point that made the entire story make sense. In the end, it was a good movie, but unfortunately flat. Lacking.

In Hitchhiker–granted a story that probably wouldn’t have gotten a nom from the Academy, but still–the entire story is rearranged and restructured to make the Hollywood ending, to include an element of a love story. The HHG2TG books sold over 15 million copies before Adams (the author) died in 2001. Do you really think this is a story that needed changing? That’s really what’s so aggravating to me. They take perfectly perfect stories and “adapt” them with their arcane, devious and moronic methods to be something less than they were, in order to…what? Certainly not to create a work of art. To make money? Well, of course to make money, but art would make money too, so it can’t be that. I’ve got it: they’re idiots.  

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was a movie that was kind of like the comic series: it’s not really any one’s favorite, but it’s entertaining and usually delivers some worldwide or universal scourge that we all must be saved from. As a movie, it really wasn’t actually all that bad. Right up until the end. The cast was fine, I don’t have any real gripe about the casting…but like The Watchmen, they bailed at the end. Maybe they needed to wrap it up within a minute or two, I don’t know, but they essentially threw the whole script down the toilet with that ending. Read this: there’s no story without Galactus. The threat of Galactus, the imminence of his arrival, the doom hanging over all our heads and then…what? A cloud? That’s the threat? No. Galactus is an elder of the Universe, almost an entire different element unto himself. You can’t just crap out on Galactus, sorry. Fanboy won’t buy it.  And don’t you tell me that vague shadow was Galactus, no. And even worse–even worse–they had the audacity to suggest that if the Surfer got really emotional that he could vanquish Galactus. No. That was a travesty possibly even greater than Constantine. It turned a decent movie into garbage. Garbage!!!

The really good news is that there are some making the attempt. The aforementioned Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson, for instance. Why did he win the award? Hm. I wonder. Was it because he took a really marvellous story and retooled it to fit 93 minutes and to add the element of a love story? Er, no, it was actually because he made the books real. He brought the story to life. That, my friends, is art. Art is rewarded. Mediocrity is not. Marvel, now that it owns its own studio, is staying more honest to their own characters. Although Marvel is obviously capable of mucking things up, as evidenced by the way they’ve sodomized their own series’. I’m still hopeful that they’ll at least keep things real. In the end, that’s all I care about anyway. If you’re going to adapt a movie from a story that I love, just keep it real.

Keep it real.

Why not go ahead and publicly state your policy that articles will only be approved if an article of the same title also appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica? That would save a lot of time from people who want to be interesting.

But I really shouldn’t complain about Wikipedia. It is free, after all. And nearly as accurate as the mighty Britannica beast is itself. Try looking up something on the Britannica website and you’re prompted to upgrade to a premium account. So, in reality, I can’t really make a comparison of Wikipedia v. Britannica, because I can’t really look at Britannica’s material. All I know is that’s what it seemslike Wikipedia is doing.

And the point to all of this? It’s simple: I want my articles to be entertaining as well as informational. Give me fun facts as well as the stuff we must learn by rote. Of course, there arises the problem of accuracy again. If you’ve got people hamming it up all over the place, there’s sure to be a lot more errors. People would report on urban legends as fact. But I think I’ve got a way to solve that problem. You’d simply have to make sure that everyone understands that, in the event that reality and the material do not match up, reality is the one that is wrong. Here’s a bit of legalese I’ve prepared to satisfy this end (supposing that our new encyclopedia’s name is Coolpedia):

In the event that information presented in the Coolpedia is found to be in direct conflict with the ‘presumed’ reality of any topic specified or unspecified, Coolpedia’s stance is that it represents the more actual reflection of accuracy and should be acknowledged as such. If circumstances are found still that suggest a conflict between a Coolpedia entry and a ‘presumed’ reality, it is the official stance of the Coolpedia Corporation that the ‘presumed’ reality is incorrect and that Coolpedia and all information presented therein is thereby factual and complete in dynamic. Therefore, the Coolpedia is a more accurate representation of reality than any specified or unspecified ‘presumed’ reality.

There now. That takes care of any unnecessary lawsuits that might arise due to errors, right? (For the record, I doubt I would use “Coolpedia” as the name, but if anyone does and wants to pay me royalties for coming up with the idea, I am at their disposal.) But I’m not saying that I would want to read information that is wildly inaccurate. No, I just want accurate information to be passed on to me in a way that is pleasing, that might even make me chuckle or gasp once in a while. Is that too much to ask? And what kind of participation might someone get if they attempted to take on a venture like that themselves? “Our business model is to be truthful AND entertaining, factual as well as fun.” Now that’s a business model I can get behind. Any investors willing to throw some cash in my direction to get the venture started…I remain at their disposal, as always :)

Really, what’s so difficult about this idea? I just want to catalog everything that exists, in a fun, entertaining way. I think people will come back for that again and again. I would. Jump on board.

In many ways it’s like you’re riding in a delicately contained thunderstorm, or a tornado. And the realization that it could all go horribly wrong in an instant is at once a thrill as well as something akin to a death knell. But really the most disconcerting part of it to me is the sensation of the alien dimension, and the understanding that, until we land, we are entirely separated from our people, in many ways dead already. Needless to say at this point, I imagine, but thundering about at thirty thousand feet and eight hundred knots is not an entirely thrilling sensation to me. It’s boredom times separation anxiety times paranoia. I don’t have a fear of flying, I just really, really despise it.

I suppose, as with many things, that I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was me in the cockpit. I don’t like riding motorcycles when I’m not driving, nor cars. Maybe that’s a control issue, and I’m willing to own that, but for me, I can only be really comfortable if I know that I am the one whose hands are handling my fate. So, it’s not like I haven’t thought about being a pilot, I just can’t for the life of me imagine it being anything I would enjoy. After takeoff and before landing, you simply point the thing in the direction you need to go, level out your altitude, and then wait for the countless hours until you finally begin your descent. It just doesn’t sound fun to me at all.

But if I were a pilot, I can tell you unequivocally that I would be a pilot of a seaplane. A plane that would hug the Earth, not work as best it can to separate from it. A plane that could splash through cool blue Caribbean waters as easily as it posts up on the tarmac. And, for my money, there are few other planes that I would care to command as the Grumman Albatross. Part of the reason for that is because Jimmy Buffett immortalized the aircraft in his book A Pirate Looks at Fifty–a decent book at best, but made wondrous by the characterization of his adventures aboard the Hemisphere Dancer. But the biggest part of the reason is because the Albatross is one of those throwback planes, built in the ’50s it hearkens to the golden age of many things. It’s big enough to haul cargo, or you can dress it out to better resemble an RV. It makes me think that flying might not be entirely boring after all.

The Grumman Albatross is one of the most remarkable aircraft ever built, with beautiful, boat-like lines that any 18th century Post Captain of the Royal Navy would have fallen instantly in love with. I could drop her in a lake or on the sea, I could become a pirate and haul coffee, tobacco and rum to the Keys from Cuba. I could be a bush pilot in Alaska, landing hunting parties deep in the interior of the arctic wild on placid, icy, unspoiled lakes shimmering in the midnight sun. I could see Africa and India, Bangladesh and Bora Bora. I could wear khakis and a leather flight jacket and people would understand that I had been to the edge and back and was returning to the edge in a moment. I would know many ancient languages and could communicate with the bush people of the various exotic locations I would visit. I would be an adventurer of Earth. I would fly fish the Big Blackfoot in northern Montana, alone, utterly connected with the Earth in ways I have never experienced. The Albatross makes me think that flying would be uncannily cool, and if I ever finally strike it rich, you may not be surprised to find that I have purchased one and am searching the South Pacific for a remote desert island where I can disappear for a few years.

Answer:  You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry and the Pacemakers

Youll Never Walk Alone (2002 Digital Remaster) - Gerry & The Pacemakers

In my opinion, this goes a long way to furthering the proof of Douglas Adams’s genius. What better song could there be to have sung to you when you’re on the doorstep of destruction?

He looked at her sideways, “Whatever you want. That’s what I’ll do. I can’t deny it any more.” They were surrounded by whippoorwills in a humid Alabama night, amongst a din of crickets and frogs, sitting on a blanket an arm’s length apart. There was a lantern on the ground between them and an almost perfectly round pond.

“You’d leave them?”

He skipped a rock across the pond, watched moonlight ripple on its disturbed surface, and then he looked straight into her eyes, “I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m yours.”

She held his eyes for a few moments, but had to break away. There was something shockingly serious in them at that moment, and she didn’t want to ponder on their severity. “Those are serious words,” she said as the pond returned slowly to its placid state, with one big fat moon right in the middle of it, like a bowl of milk.

“Which ones?”

“‘I’m Yours.’”

He nodded. Damn right they are, he thought inwardly, but only said, “I mean them.”

“And all that they imply?”

“What more do you want me to say? I’m yours. They mean what they mean. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I don’t want this to end.”

She could have said, I said those words to you months ago, but she didn’t. She let the words trickle down through her consciousness and warm her like a tot of rum. They implied mighty things, for two simple words. Even more than “I love you,” which has a power all its own, but is singularly expressive. I’m yours is much more far reaching, expansive. He’d told her he loved her many times over the past few months, but he hadn’t yet told her that he was hers.

“If you’re serious, then run away with me.”

“Where to?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Anywhere. Somewhere warm.”

He sat in silence for a few moments, long enough for her to think he was changing his mind. Her lips thinned and she squeezed her eyes shut and her fists into balls waiting for him to respond.

Finally, he said, “Anguilla. I’ve never been to Anguilla.”

She nodded, her tension ebbing away like the ripples on the pond. Could there be a happy ending in all this? Could there really be? It was difficult to contain her excitement. Butterflies were churning in her stomach and a brand new, but different, form of tension began to spread through her body and mind. This was only the beginning.

He was looking at her, shaking his head and smiling a sly little grin. “What?” she asked.

“I’m kidding. I’m not moving to Anguilla.”

Her breath caught and held fast, and she felt an amazing pressure constricting her chest. But his smile was still there. “I don’t want to leave the country,” he said.

She relaxed, breathed, said, “Where then?”

“How about Mississippi?” He tossed another rock across the pond.

“Ugh. Why don’t you just buy me a moo moo and some curlers and then, while you’re at it, let me shoot myself.”

“Ha.”

She was grinning when she said, “Ha yourself. I’m not moving to Mississippi.”

“Where then? Where do you want to go?”

She nodded a few times, weighing her answer. “Actually, Anguilla doesn’t sound so bad to me. Or maybe even Mexico. So long as it’s coastal.”

“You’re serious?”

“Hell yes.”

His eyebrows raised and he put his hand over his mouth, resting his chin on his thumb. “Fuck it. Why not? When do we leave?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m leaving in the morning” she said.

“‘Summer in Anguilla,’” he intoned, nodding. “It makes sense. But how exactly are we going to pay for this?”

Summer looked at him. “Why don’t we just steal it?”

Max stared blankly for a few seconds, and then tipped his head back and laughed a full, deep belly laugh for minutes on end. Summer crawled over to him, smiling, put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back onto the grass. She straddled him, with her hands on his chest, and was still smiling down at him when he finally stopped laughing.

“So,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “We’re thieves now?”

She shrugged, in that adorable way she had.

His heart thudded insanely in his chest. He knew without a doubt that he would do anything for her, anything at all.

She leaned forward and kissed him, parting with a heavy smack at the end and smiling steadily. He realized he must have had an odd expression, because she threw her head back and chuckled softly. Again, in that beautiful, adorable way she had.

“So what are we stealing?” Max asked.

“Money, crazy.”

“Well,” he said, knowing he was at the cusp of a great adventure. “We’d better steal a lot of it.”