Follow me to the reckoning of all things.

I've got Mastema on the mind. This is an ongoing thing: I've been semi-obsessed with her story since high school, and have written her in short stories, films scripts, TV scripts, and now in a potential comic book.

Over the course of all this I've written several different versions of her. All of them are hot and vicious and snarky; this is immutable. Beyond that, though...I reread the opening of the film script that I wrote a while ago and was struck by how much more human she was.


WIDE ON the kitchen. It was porn set, but now it looks like a horror film. Dead bodies lie everywhere, including the SLUTTY WAITRESS, the DIRECTOR, and the CAMERAMAN. It's a grotesque mess of camera equipment, nudity, broken limbs, and blood.

ANGLE ON Paul. His own chest is stabbed to bits. He stares.

PAUL
(whimpering)
Oh my God...

By now Mastema's got a neat little row of plastic forks in front of her. She looks up at Paul.

MASTEMA
No. No God yet. I need you here.

PAUL
Who are you?

MASTEMA
My name is Mastema.

PAUL
What happened?

MASTEMA
You died. More to the point, you were murdered. I brought you back.

PAUL
How?

MASTEMA
Magic.

PAUL
Really?

MASTEMA
No, not really. I just don't feel like explaining it to you. Did you see who killed you?

Paul's not listening; he's staring at the holes in his chest. Mastema leans forward and SNAPS her fingers at him. Paul jumps.

MASTEMA (CONT'D)
Paul. Focus.

PAUL
How do you know my name?

MASTEMA
Magic.
(off his look, irritated)
No, not really. I went through your wallet while you were dead. Who killed you?

Okay, so not a WHOLE lot more human - but she has moments of such vulnerability in the movie version. Basically she's this immortal spirit who's been forced to take human form in order to escape a twisted science experiment, aka Heaven. In becoming human, tho, she has to contend with pesky things like pain and hunger and fear and being stupidly, achingly in love with someone who (at the time the script starts) hates her guts. She looks down on human beings a lot for their many flaws, but at the end of the day she's just as messed up as everyone else.

TV-Mastema was a lot harder, a lot meaner. She had to be: I'd set up a typical TV cast of secondary characters around her (a single main lead would never work in the 14-hour workdays of television), and populated it with similarly cutthroat, duplicitous demons. She was swimming with the sharks, and she had to have more teeth than anyone else around. It was kind of a pointless viciousness, tho: she was very much at the beck and call of the angelic host.

The comic-Mastema that I've written so far is a lot colder than movie-Mastema, and a lot more calculating than TV-Mastema. She has an endgame and she's more than willing to sacrifice other people, including those closest to her, in order to further her goals. And yeah, that ultimate goal is a doozy and worth the sacrifice, but I don't know how much readers are willing to stick with that sort of character...particularly, I have to say, that sort of female character. Which was kind of my motivation for writing her that way, but I have to also be realistic about my audience, here. Walk that fine line and all.

The long and the short of it is: I think I'm gonna try rewriting the Mastema comic to reflect more of the movie-Mastema characterizations. It means scrapping a lot of work, but I think it's for the best - and hey, that means I won't be abandoning the whole movie script that I wrote.

It's not so much a call for justice, as a scream.

From a 1979 interview Roman Polanski gave to the UK publication The Tatler, two years after he raped a 13-year-old girl and had gone on the lam to evade justice.

"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But hell - f***ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f*** young girls. Juries want to f*** young girls. Everyone wants to f*** young girls!"

And the thing is, the thing is - he's right. Look at all the high-power types who have lined up to demand his release. (And how has Woody Allen never been charged with something? He had sex with his DAUGHTER.) Look at the French dignitaries saying that Polanski made a "teensy mistake." Look at us.

*****

One good thing coming out of this hubbub: it makes me want to write. People often ask artists where they get their inspiration; everyone has a different answer, but for me, I get my best stuff from a place of rage. Pure, unadultered fury, usually directed at the injustices of society - criminals who go free, victims who we fail to protect, discrimination that goes unrectified or even unacknowledged.

That's definitely where Mastema came from. As she says:

"Sooner or later, everyone gets exactly what they deserve. I make sure of that."

Pure, clean, uncorruptible retribution. Oh, yeah, I'm in a Mastema state of mind.

Breaking the block.

Have been struggling with ye old writer's block for a little bit. So instead I did some research and while I always knew that we had a high proportion of Christian churches in my hometown -- and wanted to use that as Max's introduction to the town -- but I never realized exactly how many: 16. For a population of 2,659.

Kristen is back on Mastema. She sent me a character sketch of the lady herself. YAY.

Bump in the road, literally.

My friend Kristen, aka the gal that was beginning work on Mastema, was in a bike accident. She's okay, but the bike was totaled and the end of her middle finger was almost severed clean off. Seriously, they described it as "dangling." O.o Fortunately the medics were able to sew it back on.

So, that puts a damper on those plans, eek.

What I'm reading:
"Understanding Comics," by Scott McCloud, finally. Several people have called this the Bible of comic books and I can see why. I'm about halfway through and while it's been mostly background and theory so far it's still very worthwhile. In terms of actual how-to nuts and bolts, the "Drawing Words, Writing Pictures" book might turn to be more helpful, though.

Go soak your brain

Baths are awesome. They're relaxing, they leave you feeling fresh and healthy, and very often they get my brain going. Case in point: I have a towel wrapped around my head and am still dripping slightly because I just mentally tripped over half the plot for "A Teenager's Guide," and had to write it all down before I forgot. Not only is it fun and funky, it makes Kara's situation and her very existence integral to Max and his parents being able to pinpoint the origin of the zombie outbreak. I love it when my brain does that.

Talked to an artist last night, my college friend Kristen. She sounds like she's really going to do the "Mastema" teaser I wrote! Thumbnail script next week, penciling to follow. Yay!