Now, we have a certain attachment to this story.  We adapted the original F. Scott Fitzgerald story into a graphic novel for Quirk Books.  Our adaptation was 100% faithful, and our job there wasn't to add to the story or to change it.  It was simply to build the blueprint of a comic from it, and then step back at let Kevin Cornell's gorgeous artwork do the rest.

We immersed ourself in the story, despite it only being 17 pages long when published.  We grew very fond of it, but we could also see the problems, especially the problems that would come with trying to make a movie from it.  The women in the story needed serious fleshing out, the physical impossibility of a mother giving birth to a full grown elderly man and surviving (not to mention not having the size of the baby show was before birth) would need to be explained... lots would have to change for the more literal-minded Hollywood.

But a movie could be made from this story, one with a huge scope and a lot of humor and something intriguing to say about a couple of things - one, how the bookends of life, infancy and old age, are complete mirrors of one another, and two, how our emotional state isn't based on our age or even our experience, but instead upon the physical age of our bodies, and how that age shapes our hormones, our instincts and our desires.

We read an article about the film in Entertainment Weekly, which described David Fincher bringing "his own take" to the story, by insisting it should not be an epic love story.  And we knew there was trouble ahead.  Because no one should have to FIGHT to make that point.  Anyone who read the short story knows it's not a love story at all, much less an epic one.  Benjamin marries when he's young and his body old.  And as he gets older, his body gets younger, and he gets wilder.  This happens while his wife gets older... and he loses interest in her.  It's a credit to Fitzgerald that we still care about the schmuck after that, but we do.  Still, a romance, this is not.

The idea that Hollywood wanted to make it one was alarming.  The notion that Fincher was against it was reassuring.

So we approached the film unsure of what to expect.

The DVD was on 2 discs, and I stopped watching about 90% of the way through disc one.

I could review it with a handful of words:  Pointless, pretentious, boring, and a betrayal of Fitzgerald.

But because I am (as anyone who knows me can attest) more verbose, I will go a little more in depth, not on the first few, as they are subjective (I found it pointless, pretentious and boring.  Your mileage may vary).

I'll focus on the last:  this movie was a complete and utter betrayal of the story.

I'm not dumb.  I know, as most people do, that a prose work like a novel will have to become something different when adapted into a film.  It has to.  Different medium, different storytelling needs.  This is all the more necessary with a short story, which will require fleshing out the story to make it a full film narrative.

The key is to keep the spirit of the original piece.

And this is the biggest way in which the film fails, utterly and completely.  Some people are suggesting Eric Roth could (or worse, should) get an Oscar nomination for Adapted Screenplay.  Those people should either be shot, or should have someone explain the concept of 'adapting' to them.  Perhaps both.

This isn't an adaptation.  It's a completely new story, build around the concept of aging backwards, and beyond that retaining only (no joke) Benjamin's name and the title.

Little changes, like changing the name of Benjamin's father, suggest Roth may not have even read the story.  The bigger changes, like making it so that Benjamin's emotions reflect his age, not his body's age, pretty much confirm that Roth couldn't have.  Worse, they take the heart of what Fitzgerald was doing with his story, and turn it upside down.

Fitzgerald wrote a whimsical tale musing on how, even if our bodies aged backwards, certain things remain the same.  A person whose body looks and feels 70 will behave like a 70 year old, even if he's a newborn.  And a person whose body looks and feels like a teenager will mope and have out of control emotions, even if he's been alive for 50+ years and experienced a lifetime of wisdom.

In the movie, however, Benjamin is just a person with an odd physical disability.  For the first 10 years of his life, his moods were those of a child growing from 0-10 years old, even if his body looked like an old man's.  This way of emotionally aging continued throughout the film, or at least as far as I could tolerate watching it.

I suspect this was done to make the epic love story they tried to build not seem creepy (guess Fincher lost that one).  You see, when Benjamin has a 70 year old body, he's really 13, so it's okay that he gets a crush on a 13 year old girl.

There are changes everywhere.  Some, like the father's name, seem kinda pointless, but don't really betray the spirit of the short story.  Others, like giving Benjamin a happy home of senior citizens to grow up in, continue to miss the entire point of the story.

Like I said, everyone knows a story has to change to become a film.

But get the spirit of the piece right.

Then there's the pointless, pretentious and boring part.  That makes it all the more painful because at least if it were a complete betrayal of Fitzgerald and a decent film, I might have watched the whole thing.

Anyway, if you saw this movie, you have my condolences.  If you haven't, don't bother.  Check out the original story, or if you want something more visual, check out what Kevin Cornell's done with it.

I'm not just pimping our stuff here - I think you should all check out the prose story first and foremost (though I'd love it if you checked out the graphic novel).

I'm just trying to undo the damage this story has taken at the hands of people who really should have known better.  Because if they didn't respect the Fitzgerald story, why'd they want to make a movie of it?

Besides, if they don't have any respect at all for F. Scott Fitzgerald, they don't deserve any of my respect or time.

We got our comps of Amazing Agent Luna V. 5 today.  We're very happy with how it (the volume, and the series as a whole) came out.

This is the last volume of AAL.  Which is very sad.

Or at least, it's the last volume for the time being.  Jason DeAngelis, publisher at Seven Seas is pretty upfront about calling Luna one of the company's flagship titles, and he has a strong desire to bring it back someday.  And we'd love to do more with Luna and the gang.  And we think Shiei would be onboard - though we haven't talked to her about it in a while.

So, there may be a future for Luna.   However, Original English Language manga is not a supreme moneymaker, and the drop-off from one volume to the next (moreso on other titles, but also to some extent with Luna) makes it hard to keep a series running for too long.

So, it's all very up in the air.

And that's how we wrote the finale.

It ends, but it shakes up the status quo, and ultimately has an epilogue setting up a new beginning.

I know some fans will want (and we've heard from at least one saying as much) more closure.

But closure would mean Luna was over, and I'm not ready for that just yet.  If you read Luna, Volume 5 will have closure at the end of Chapter 26.  While some elements transform in that chapter, if the series ended there, it would end relatively cleanly.  The epilogue, Chapter 27, that's a whole other thing.  That's more Beginning than End, and that's by design.

So, if you're looking for a big finish, when you hit Chapter 26's end, consider the series over.  Then, if you so desire, take a peek at 27 and see what the book MAY look like IF it returns.

Fair enough?

For now, I will be content to know that Christina and I have created a book that captures our love of ninja, teen drama, and Buffy all in one place, without veering too far into just aping what we'd seen before.  It is a book we are both incredibly proud of, maybe more than anything else we've done.

If you checked it out, we hope you enjoyed Luna's first year at Nobel High, and that you send Seven Seas a little mail once in a while asking for more Luna.

If you like our other work, please pick up Luna.  She's at Amazon, and we're so proud of our little girl that we absolutely know you'll love her.  If nothing else, Shiei is a fantastically talented artist whose work needs to be seen by as many people as possible.

Thanks for a great school year, Luna.  Have a good summer, and we hope to see you soon.

Yet, so deeply ashamed to be a Californian.

Today, the Constitution of this state has been amended.  Amended to strip rights away from one group of people.  Amended to say that one type of marriage is legitimate, and thus, the other types are not.

Shameful.

Last night was a microcosm of this country.  It showed how far we'd come, and how far we have to go.

How did this happen?

How did California vote for Barack Obama 61% to 37%, yet vote for Proposition 8, 52% to 48%?

For that matter, how did Florida vote for Obama 51% to 48% yet vote to ban gay marriage with 62% of the vote?

The answer is pretty clear, when you look at those numbers.  Failure of leadership.  Failure by Barack Obama, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

Barack Obama has said that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman.  He supports civil unions, but not gay marriage.

Yet, when Yes on 8 ads showed his picture with the quote "marriage is between a man and a woman," he argued with that, called it misleading, because he was against Proposition 8.

But why was he against it?  His public statements match the language that the proposition added to the California constitution.  Almost word for word.

The same for Joe Biden.  He, too, says that marriage is between a man and a woman and that he's against redefining it.

And he too was used on Yes on 8 ads.

Don't they get it?  Don't they see?  You can't walk this issue down the middle, guys.  There is no middle.  Either you think marriage should be available for all citizens, or you don't.  There is no third option.  Now, you can (and they do) argue for a separate but equal status, such as civil unions.  But don't pretend to be against Proposition 8 if that's what you're after.  Prop 8 didn't outlaw civil unions.

And, really, how is it moral leadership to say you're in favor of 'separate but equal'?  Is that what the civil rights movement taught us?

The bottom line is, the Democrats have failed to lead on this issue.  They want to be pro-gay rights, yet they don't want to alienate those who are against it.  That's not leading, that's following, and it's following two groups going in two different directions.  Which leads to meandering aimlessly in an ill-defined middle ground the way McCain wandered the stage in the second debate.

I want real leadership from the Democrats.

When Jews were being driven from country to country, it would not have been leadership to say, "I don't think they belong here, but I'm against people chasing them out."

Or during the battle for desegregation of our schools, it would not have been leadership to say "I don't want black kids in my kid's school, but I think a law preventing them from going is wrong."

Do those two stances sound half-assed and pathetic?  They should.  Do they sound remarkably like the Democratic stance on gay marriage?  As the woman who will (thankfully) not be our V.P. would say...  you betcha.

The saddest part was that this was the year for real leadership.   The economic crisis meant that fear-mongering and wedge issues wouldn't work.

South Dakota and Colorado defeated measures that would have limited or removed a woman's right to choose.   Why?  Because the Democrats won big (even though they lost in South Dakota, they did better than usual there), and the party has taken a clear stand on this issue.

Imagine what could have happened if the Democrats had said "let's make all Americans equal" on the subject of gay marriage.  Imagine if the Republicans tried to make an issue of it, and Obama simply said, "they're trying to distract you with issues that don't affect your day to day lives because they have nothing to say on the economy."

He could have made people see the wedge issue of gay rights for what it is.  A smokescreen.

Really, what straight person's life is in any way affected by whether two gay men or two lesbians have the right to marry?  How does it affect anyone but those two, and their families and friends?

It doesn't, it never has, and it never will.

And the fact that the party that gave us an African American president refuses to say that tells me that as proud as I am of my party and my country today... we have a ton of work to do.

Our first family...

I have never been prouder to be an American in my entire life.

On my way back from Trader Joe's, I was listening to my ipod when Duran Duran's "Finest Hour" came on.  It's a gorgeous (California) fall day and I rolled down the windows and opened the sun roof and cranked the volume.  And so, because I am not nearly so eloquent as Barack Obama and his speech writers, I will leave you all with simply the words to this song.

Hey, it's less cheesy than posting the lyrics to "One Day More" from Les Miserables.

Each minipost will have its own title, as if I posted a blog entry on that day...

So, Buttons...  (September 10th)

Someone sent me an e-mail saying our comics adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looked good in stores.

I was unaware it was out.

Has anyone else seen it?

But I AM a gamer.  And proud of it.

Not a gamer in the video-game sense - though I'm that too.  I mean a gamer as in a player of pen & paper RPGs.

The reason I'm not a champion at D & D is that I haven't played actual D & D in about 25 years.  But I play a lot of other role-playing games.  Or more accurately, I run RPGs while Christina and our friends Gregory and Jennifer (and others, varying from game to game) play.

I've run (in the last five years) a superhero RPG, a Star Wars RPG, a Stargate RPG, and these days I play a swashbuckling RPG.

So what's an RPG?  It's simple.  You know how kids (and most likely, you, at some point) would play cops and robbers or cowboys and indians or Star Wars or whatnot?  You'd be a character, chase after the other kid, say you shot him and he'd say "did not"?

That's the earliest form of gaming.  You take on a character (or character type) and play out their adventures.  The rules are there to define that character, to help avoid the whole "did not" "did too" element.  Though in gaming, you rarely fight each other.  More often, each person creates a character who is part of a team.

But that's the basics of gaming.  It doesn't define what it is for me (or Christina, or anyone we play with).  We're not just telling adventure stories (though there are adventures).  We're creating characters, and telling the stories of their lives.

For us, as we've gotten older, gaming is a way to invent new, fully developed and well rounded characters and build an entire series of stories around them.

In other words, it's great practice for writers - which we all are.

The players create characters that ultimately wind up in our writings.

"Once In A Blue Moon" came from an idea we had for a fantasy RPG.

"The Tomb" is based on Christina's character from our Stargate RPG as well as a key character she teamed up with in that game.

Powers for many of the kids in our "New X-Men" run came from characters we created in our superhero game.

We're at work on a novel based on one of Christina's favorite gaming characters.

When we commit to playing a game, we invest all the same energy we invest in writing.  But because it is for us and our friends, there's none of the hangups and frustrations inherent in writing for a living.   There's no editor who might change the character concept.  There's no pitch process before we even get to write.

A lot of writers write for themselves.  They write stories and then if those stories find a market, great.  If not, they've gotten better at writing.  They've enjoyed writing.

We work so many jobs, most of which pay so little.  We have to juggle so much paid work, that we don't get a chance to do spec work.  And using our free time to write something with no way of translating it into paying the bills can be daunting.

So, instead, we use gaming as a way to stay creative, even in our free time.

So, for those of you who write and are frustrated by writing yet another piece 'on spec'... I recommend it.  You'll be creating in a different way, generating ideas.  And you'll be having fun.

For those of you who enjoy writing 'on spec,' for the sheer love of writing... I'd still recommend it.  Because gaming forces you to view all stories as being inherently about a character.  As a player, you focus on one character, usually in a big, vast world with large genre elements and huge casts.  But you get tunnel vision when you play a character.  You view the whole story through that character.

It's a great exercise for a writer who may get caught up in world building or complex plotting.

Now, I think well thought out worlds and intricate plots are good things.  But viewing it all from a character's perspective helps you use those things to further a character arc.  Because without a character arc, you rarely have a good story, no matter how compelling the world or well crafted the plot.

Anyway... my free advice for the day.  Check out an RPG.  Create a character.  It'll help you as a writer, and help you think like a writer if you're not one.