The Drink Tank 013 (2005).pdf

The Drink Tank

Issue The Thirteenth

Further Tales of Interest

Presented by

CHristopher J. Garcia

Andre Norton- 1912 - 2005

As I once said to a dear friend on his death bed "Even when the train's a long-time comin', it

still knocks it out of you when it hits." Anyone associated with fandom knew that Andre Norton

was very ill and not going to make it much longer, but still hearing of her actual death took it out

of me.

Andre Norton's particulars, like her birth name (Mary Alice Norton) and the fact that she lived

to be 93 are all sorta sidelights to the fact that she probably hooked more young readers into

science fiction and fantasy than any other writer I can think of with the possible exception of

some dude named Heinlein.

I went to an amazingly strange school district as a kid. They had a unit every year after about

4th grade dealing with Science Fiction. In sophmore year, you did a big author's report on a

science fiction author (well, any author from an approved list, but no chose the non-SF folks,

except for Sylvia Plath). I did mine on Vonnegut. Five kids did Andre Norton. They read all the

Witch World that had come out by then and a few more. I traded a couple of my Vonnegut books

for the four Time Traders novels. I read most of Witch World while I was in college and I wrote a

strong paper, which almost became my thesis, on Andre as an important station of entry into

science fiction for young readers. I think that when the future thinks of Norton, they'll see that

she was so important in bringing young readers to the genre. I think it's already started to

happen with the SFWA Andre Norton Award that will be awarded starting next year.

I read that Andre didn't want a funeral, but wanted to be cremated with a copy of her first and

last book. That is the way to go out in my eyes.

12 pt. Courier New by Jay Crasdan

Andre Norton's death means a lot more to me than to Chris. While I know

Chris has read some of her books, I may be one of the few who can say that

they've read every one of them. That's right, every book Andre Norton ever

wrote, I've read. I got hooked on her in 7th grade, reading The Crystal

Gryphon while waiting for the lights to go down on my first viewing of the

revived The Wild Bunch. I tore threw her books, all of them. I had to beg and

barter and steal to get some of them, but I have them all in my locker, all of

them trashed from over-reading.

I'd say that Andre was my gateway, but I had been reading several authors of

SF by that point. Norton was merely the first one to get my undivided

attention. Her style, at times simplistic and at others over-powering, guided

me ahead, bringing me to writing my first stories when I had not yet finished

Jr. High. I wrote my own Witch World book while a freshman and my second the

next summer. I even sent Andre one, whcih got me a letter back saying that she

rather enjoyed it, but that I shouldn't keep doing them.

To Andre Norton, Grand Dame of Science Fiction! I salute you and know we'll

never see the likes of you again.

The Drink Tank

Issue The Thirteenth

Marty Cantor's Holier Than Thou

I've been reading. Thanks to the Corflu auction and the generous nature of Jan Stinson, I've

got my hot little hands on a pile of fanzines from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The whole lot tend

towards great with a couple of stellar pinnacles.

The first of which is a three-issue run of Holier Than Thou, numbers 21, 22, and 23 from the

mid-1980s plus issue 27, which I believe was the final issue of Holier Than Thou. The first three

happen to be the ones the followed a piece by Richard Bergeron and the following issue devotes a

lot of space to the TAFF Wars of 1984. What's interesting is that I remember reading this stuff in

the early 1990s, when my friend Johnny let me have run of his collection, but now it seems

much different, and certainly much less important with another 12 years of distance. The take of

Ted White on the whole situation is interesting, though Marty's look at the whole thing is closer

to what I imagine my thoughts would be. Oddly, the whole TAFF thing isn't even the most

interesting thing in issue 21. That goes to an article by Richard Weinstock in his series called

The Law and Order Handbook. The issue featured the great edition titled It Ain't Easy Being

Brutal. There's also a great Brad W. Foster piece called Wooden Tits: An All American Totem. It

took me forever to warm up to Foster's work, but I've finally caught the fever and really enjoy his

stuff now.

Issue 22 is very different, with some more slop-over form the TAFF Wars. There's another great

edition of The Law and Order Handbook, this time on the Penal and Criminal Justice system.

The issue is solid over-all, though there was one majour problem that I had. Bob Lee did an

illustration called The Perils of Ethnic Take-Out Food. It features a big-breasted lass being

violated by a chili pepper while a Mexican-accented half-an-avocado commentates. This bugged

me mostly because it plays on all the stereotypes that I hate to see printed about my people.

Still, you could get away with doing stuff like this in the mid-1980s.

Issue 23 is good, though I'd say it was a step or two down from 22. The two best articles were

Callahan's Cross-Time Cat House by Milt Stevens and Donald Franson's (whatever happened to

him?) hilarious mock-interview with 1995 TAFF winner Mr. Holdover Funds. The Cover, a great

Foster piece, is another highlight.

I'd say Holier Than Thou was one of those great 1980s fanzines that sorta gets pushed aside.

Compared with the fanzines that came around in the late-1980s and early 90s that were

products of Adobe Electronic Publishing software, the design seems somewhat primitive, though

no question that it's solid through and through. The art, often sleazy and just the way I like it,

was uniformally good. I can see why HTT got three Hugo noms over the years. Marty's work has

always been top flight and this is no exception.

A Very Short Story

Her Work Day

Dara had been staring at the screen all afternoon. God,

she thought, what did I do to deserve this?

The brutal screaming of columns of numbers across the

monitor, the buzzing and whirs of the computers, the sound

of tape being passed through whatever the hell it passed

through. She nearly cried when the whistle went off.

Damn you Charles Babbage for unleashing this, she

thought as she walked to the cinema to see the lastest

Edison filmplay.

The Drink Tank

Issue The Thirteenth

Crossing: A film Review

I had just seen a movie which wasn't the best at Cinequest. I was feeling rather betrayed by the

entire festival, as always happens to regulars after they see a weak film in the theatre. As I

walked away, I saw that a film from the People's Republic of Canada was showing. The film was

Crossing and I am so glad I didn't just head out to the bar and start drinking.

The first thing I thought after stepping out of the film was 'Wow, this was what X,Y should have

been'. The film dealt with a soon-to-be-married wiseguy and his promise to his dying father to

make his family legit. Yes, you've heard that premise before (Sly Stallone's Oscar being a

personal fave) but this was wonderfully done with the character of Daniel, played with perfect

reaction by Sebastian Spence, nearly exploding once the beautiful Davina, played by the lovely

Crystal Buble, is introduced as a hooker ready to make his dreams come true.

The X,Y thoughts come from what those dreams are. Daniel wants to

be a woman, or at least wants to play woman in his sexual encounters.

Davina is more than willing to help him come to his fantasies, partly as a

way to escape her own nightmares. Daniel can't just become a

crossdresser, he's a mob guy after all, so he can't risk being found out.

Buble plays Davina so smartly that you see that all her actions are right

in the world the movie presents.

remarkable subtle performances these actors get out of such huge characters. Buble, who I

recognised from Rollercoaster, is a real find. She's radiant and heartbreaking at teh same time.

You can believe she's a hooker trapped by an unfeeling pimp while also believing that she wants

nothign more than to help Daniel by allowing his fantasies to come out. When she makes him

dress as a woman while she comes fully-equiped as a guy, you can see that Davina is doing

what's 'right' in her eyes. Buble walks a tightrope and pulls off an excellent performance.

Director Roger Evan Larry does such a great job here that I'd be surprised if Crossing doesn't

make it to US Home Video release. Canadians are lucky, they can watch it in a theatres later this

year. I highly recommend this film for folks who like great acting in films with great scripts.

The Simpsons Season 5

Anyone who knows me at all knows

that there is nothing I love more than

The Simpsons. The Season 5 DVD set

is great, easily the best of the seasons

they've released so far. Why do I claim

that? Well, there's the fact that two of

my all-time fave episodes, Cape Feare,

where Sideshow Bob comes to kill

Bart, and The Boy Who Knew Too

Much, where Bart can clear Freddy

Quimby from an assault charge only

by exposing his truancy, are both on

the disks, as well as Homer's Barber

Shoppe Quartet.

The extras are far too much to watch

all at once, but they are great. I love

the deleted scenes, mostly because

they explain a lot of the little foul-ups.

It's been a while since I've talked about Rasslin'

I write my twice weekly column, Falls Count

Anywhere, for Fanboyplanet.com. It's a fun little piece

and it lets me watch a lot of wrestling, both new and

old. I recently picked up one of my favourite DVDs, the

Chris Benoit Story, and watched his old matches from

Japan.

You can watch Chris Benoit matches from Japan with

non-wrestling fans and they'll at least see the level of

athleticism in them. Evelyn loves his older stuff,

though she doesn't much care for modern wrestling.

Five year olds are excellent judges of quality.

The DVD is full of great matches from Chris' days

with ECW, WCW, and from Japan along with the WWE

stuff that he's done over the last 5 years. He's a Hall of

Famer and this DVD set makes me happy to be a

wrestling fan in the age of the good worker.

Now all I need is soem Giant Haystacks footage and

I'll be happy

A couple of years back, I was asked to write a series of articles

for OnceUponADime.com, a site promoting the film Comic Book:

The Movie. The site only used one of my fake comic history

articles, but I had written about twenty of them. So, since I now

have somewhere to use them, I'm going to start putting one in

every couple of issues. The first one is about my persoanl

favourite false hero: Mr. Excelsior!

The Mr. Excelsior Story

How a Comic Book Hero can Annoy a Generation

December 3rd, 1938. Duluth, MN. A young Armenian immigrant called Al Saboungian drove his

cousin's car from store to store while trying to find a place to sell his new comic book, Fantastica!

Featuring Mr. Excelsior. The book, written by Saboungian and drawn by his close friend Morris

Nichols, was a 16-pager printed on an old press Saboungian found in a barn three months prior

while working a day job for the owner, Mr. David Larry. Al negotiated the use of the press three

evenings a week in exchange for Saboungian working on his farm. The agreement first led to a

small pamphlet titled: Heroes of Today, a small hand out featuring a character from a distant

planet that could fly, was impervious to bullets and heat, and could run at supersonic speeds. In

Saboungian's haste, he forgot to name the hero. As of 1989, only three copies are known to exist

of the 30 or so printed, and only the Smithsonian's is in better than fair condition.

After a few weeks, Saboungian and Nichols began working on a new hero, one who had a name

in addition to the power of flight, being impervious to bullets and heat, and running at supersonic

speeds. He named the hero Mr. Excelsior. This time, instead of just letting the hero do his

heroing, Saboungian invented an alter-ego, a Harvard English professor named J. Alfred Cantrell.

The action in the first issue focused on Mr. Excelsior stopping a band of robbers from taking a

bank vault. The story was predictable and more than a little derivative. As Saboungian drove

throughout Duluth, all looked bleak until Michael J. Brandon came across Saboungian in a

diner.

"Al looked down, and he had a small stack of Fantastica on the counter next to him," Brandon

remembered for the 1987 documentary The First Heroes. "I asked what he had there, he showed

me the comic and I was hooked. I took him to my office and we made arrangements."

Brandon was a powerful lawyer in Minnesota, and had graduated from Harvard as part of the

class of 1922. He bought the press from the farmer and set up a small shop for Saboungian and

Nichols to work in. Brandon used his connections to get the book carried in more stores than

any other small-press comic available at the time. Early issues of Fantastica had between five and

seven thousand issues printed, though only a few dozen would actually sell. Saboungian and

Nichols would produce an issue in 4 to 5 days, and then print the run over the next week.

Brandon bankrolled the operation, hardly noticing the hundreds of dollars a month he lost on the

project.

"Brandon was the ultimate money mark." Said comic expert and curator James "Wizard" Reel.

"He never asked any questions, just wanted an issue on every newsstand so he could say he was

a part of it. His connections got them wartime paper exemptions, too. He just loved being in, or

at least near, the business."

The comics never sold well for a number of reasons. First, Saboungian, while a fine writer in his

native Armenian, never quite caught on to the English language, and had Nichols fix his spelling

and grammar mistakes. Nichols did not posses a strong sense of style, so the issues

The Drink Tank

Issue The Thirteenth

The Drink Tank

Issue The Thirteenth

of style, so the issues seemed flat.

"A large part of the Excelsior character was the fact that he corrected criminals of their

grammar as he fought them, and with Saboungian doing the writing and poor Nichols correcting

him, he often got the corrections wrong." Noted the Wizard.

Another problem was the comic itself. Since Saboungian was always a thrifty man, he used

the cheapest paper he could get his hands on, often getting extremely thin paper that you could

almost see through. To save on binding, Nichols always stapled each issue once in the upper

left hand corner. The ink had a tendency to come off on the fingers of anyone who touched it,

and there was no real cover.

"(It was) among the cheapest books ever made," recalled retired Harvard professor Merrill

deHubot "but it still had charm many books lacked. Brandon would have three copies of each

issue sent to the university, and I would always get one, as I was the only graduate student who

would admit to reading comic books."

Many young people picked up one issue and then never tried another comic again. Super

collector Walter Zamias, the 79-year old owner of more than half a million comics, bought one

issue early on and never bought another. He claimed the cheap ink Saboungian used rubbed off

and smudged other covers. Nichols was the one who suggested following the standards of the

industry, but his suggestions were ignored until the on-set of WWII.

"With the War on them, many publishers were facing shutdown due to paper rationing.

Brandon lobbied for, and got, exemptions due to the fact that they claimed to be a service to the

children of America, and the Armed Services." DeHubot noted. "Brandon would see to it that a

thousand copies of each issue made their way to the boys on the front."

Brandon acquired high-quality paper and inks for Fantastica, as well as bringing the title into

a size that the men overseas could take in their kits. Sales were still slow in America, and many

of the issues that made it to Europe were unread.

"I can remember getting an issue when I was going across to France," deHubot noted, "and it

was the most horrible thing, even worse than many of their other issues I had read. I traded it

with another man in my unit for a harmonica, and later than night, I was beaten in my bed and

the shredded issue of Fantastica lay all around me. I don't really blame him, since who would

want to read a comic with a three page segment discussing the inappropriateness of 'ain't'"

After a few issues, Fantastica was sold to a publisher from New York. The group, Battle

Comics of America, purchased the title from Brandon and brought Saboungian and Nichols to

New York to continue to write and draw the stories. The book was renamed American Victory,

and featured Mr. Excelsior going to Europe to help the boys, and always ended the issue with a

lesson on proper grammar and the importance of correct speech.

"There is nothing Saboungian hated more than a man who swore, even if he was in the heat of

battle." noted Steve Sabellico, writer of the failed revival book The Golden Boys, a title which

featured Mr. Excelsior in a prominent role.

American Victory sold no better than Fantastica, though there were always thousands of

issues in backpacks across Europe and the Pacific. Mr. Excelsior fought the evil menaces,

always making in back to Harvard Yard in time to teach his 8 am Shakespearean Literature

class. The stories also made grand leaps of the impossible.

"Sometimes, it seemed that Saboungian had no concept of time and distance," Sabellico

claimed. "One issue that I read had a student of Cantrell's getting drafted, and then shipped out

immediately after class for the Pacific. Mr. Excelsior followed him on the boat from Boston to

the Pacific, a trip that apparently took several hours, and then saved him on the battlefield. The

young lad was discharged, and came back to class, completely healthy the following afternoon."

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