A WHOLE MESS OF LOGOS

LegalDispatch 0.94

Howdy.

I’d started this edition of LegalDispatch while I was traveling for my youngest’s spring break and, well, said travel kept getting in the way of finishing and publishing, so it’s been a couple of weeks without a newsletter edition. Sorry about that!

Consequently, we’ve got an extra-length edition for you this week.

IN ANY LIFETIME… A LITTLE LATE

Those of you who pre-ordered my novel, In Any Lifetime (BTW, thank you!) received an email this week informing you that the publication date is getting pushed back to August 1, 2024.

I’m not yet allowed to publicly comment on the reason for the delay, but believe me when I tell you that it’s for the best and truly the most exciting of reasons. This is a very, very, very positive development for my humble little book and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

In the meantime, if you haven’t yet pre-ordered, please consider doing so by clicking here.

Q&A

It always excites me to see that the comments section — and, on occasion, my email inbox — is alive with some really great questions and observations. Responding to them is always my favorite part of the newsletter.

Let’s dive in…

Adam Mallinger (a/k/a “Bitter Script Reader”) wrote in to say:

I really enjoyed Star Trek: The Motion Picture - Echoes. What about Echoes made it right for a TMP-era story? I'll admit that my disinterest in the “beige era” of Trek is such that I haven't even sought out any of the novels between TMP and The Wrath of Khan. Does that specific point in the timeline have particular appeal for you?

It holds nostalgia appeal, Adam. Although I’d seen Trek in bits and pieces of the original series co-watched with my dad, The Motion Picture was my first ‘proper’ introduction to Trek (such as it was) and I really enjoyed the follow-up series that Marvel published as well as the novels produced by Pocket Books. So, in general, the period between TMP and Khan is the period I most closely associate with Star Trek.

And as a follow up, how far does your Trek fandom extend into the novels and comics? Have you engaged with much of the licensed work, or do you stick to filmed canon?

Back in the day, I read a ton of the Pocket Book novels. I still have my copy of The Fearful Summons and absolutely devoured J.M. Dillard’s The Lost Years. There’s a lot of really great Trek prose out there.

I also checked out your X-Men: Days of Future Past - Doomsday and really enjoyed that too.

Thank you!

I’m still largely new to X-Men continuity, but it was easy to follow considering I know there’s been a lot done with that alt-timeline over the years and I’m only familiar with the original Days of Future Past. That can’t have been easy to dance between the raindrops of keeping all that history consistent even while making sure it all made sense to someone with almost none of that knowledge.

It was incredibly tricky — requiring me to create two separate chronologies, a spreadsheet and a Word document — and I was constantly worried I would trip a continuity landmine or two. But, to be honest, that was a big part of the appeal of the gig: The challenge of the whole thing. I really had a lot of fun working on it.

Craig Byrne writes:

That Arrow pilot DVD has me wondering: At what point was the decision made to change to the serif font logo that we ended up getting? I know that promo logo was seen a bit in the summer of 2012, at least.

Well, Craig, it wasn’t actually a decision in the typical sense. In the course of making a pilot, several different departments at several different entities will create versions of the show logo to serve their own specific purposes.

For example, the art department will often come up with their own logo (in Arrow’s case it was the serif version) while studio marketing will devise the “DVD logo” and network marketing and publicity will design a third logo. A fourth logo is not unheard of once design of the main title comes into play (typically after a pilot is picked up to series).

Also, you might be against opening themes for all I know, but if Arrow had a song over the opening titles, much like Smallville’s "Save Me," what would you have liked it to be? And were there ever discussions of having an opening theme?

Having grown up on shows like Greatest American Hero, I LOVE opening themes and, specifically, theme songs for shows. Unfortunately, main title sequences on broadcast have long since been reduced to title cards à la Arrow’s. But if I were to visit the alternate reality where Arrow got an extended main title with a theme song, I’d wish for it to be an original composition with music written by the legendary Mike Post. (Assuming Billy Joel were unavailable, of course.)

Don’t Bother Reading writes:

Your stance on the Middle East: Any opinion is bound to infuriate (see opinion piece in the NYT this morning: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/opinion/israel-american-jews-zionism.html), but it seems to me that your take is both meditative and sternly principled. You demonstrate, yet again, that superhero comics are morally complex, and that they demand that we reflect upon our own value systems. In so doing, we come to know ourselves philosophically.

Thank you so much. Well said.

I recently read a piece in The Atlantic entitled “The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending” which I found as illuminating as it is frightening. The article is, unfortunately, pay-walled (but well worth the money). Here’s a money quote (emphasis mine) that really struck me:

Liberal Jews once celebrated Israel as the lone democracy in a distinctly undemocratic region. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of theocrats and messianists seems bent on shredding the basis for that claim. But many governments in the world share these undesirable traits. Still, no one calls for the eradication of Hungary or El Salvador or India. No one defaces Chinese restaurants in San Francisco because Beijing imprisons Uyghurs in concentration camps and occupies Tibet.

The anti-Zionism that has flourished on the left in recent years doesn’t stop with calls for an end to the occupation of the West Bank. It espouses a blithe desire to eliminate the world’s only Jewish-majority nation, valorizes the homicidal campaign against its existence, and seeks to hold members of the Jewish diaspora to account for the sins of a country they don’t live in and for a government they didn’t elect. In so doing, this faction of the left places itself in the terrible lineage of attempts to erase Jewry—and, in turn, stirs ancient and not-so-ancient existential fears.

Since writing the above, Israel killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers to justifiable international outrage. And yet, I still can’t shake the belief that Israel continues to be held to a different standard than every other country, including America. I may support Israel, but I don’t support the way it’s conducting this war and I’ve never supported Netanyahu, but none of that changes the fact that Israel is being held to a double standard and some people are using the misdeeds of its leadership to vent their long-suppressed feelings of antisemitism.

WHERE TO FIND INSPIRATION

My friend Cole Haddon runs a great writing-centric Substack called 5AM StoryTalk (many of you are subscribers already). He recently published a piece with 25 creatives, including me, about where they find their inspiration. It’s a great read. You can check it out below:

How to Find That Sweet, Sweet Creative Inspiration

FROM THE VAULT

Craig’s question above sent me back into the archives in search of the very first designs of the Arrow logo. The first was the one created by the art department for use on production documents, director chairbacks, and the camera slate:

Arrow Show Logo dated February 2012

This deep dive also surfaced some of the “rough” designs for that DVD cover. I’m sharing my faves below. I think you can see how they influenced some of the very first network-created posters for the show:

BEWARE THE PLANET OF THE APES

This Wednesday (4/17), the fourth and final issue of Beware the Planet of the Apes comes out. A preview hasn’t been made available yet, but I’ll put out a mini-edition of the newsletter when it does. In the meantime, you can pre-order it digitally or find it at your local comics shop.

Here’s a look at the cover (my favorite of the series) by Taurin Clarke:

WHAT I’M ENJOYING

This week, I finished up the first season of 3 Body Problem (Netflix) and the second season of Tokyo Vice (Max). Both were bravura seasons of TV, albeit for entirely different reasons. 3 Body is an intriguing, very Lost-like mystery with social implications while Tokyo Vice immerses you in the real world of late 20th Century Tokyo, Japan. I enjoyed the first season of Vice very much, but the second season was far more focused and tightly-plotted.

Strong recommend for both.

Be good to each other.

Best,

Marc

Encino, CA 91436

COMING ATTRACTIONS

I’ll be updating this list as information on new books and events comes out…

BEWARE THE PLANET OF THE APES #4 (4.17.24)

RETROSPECS TABLE READ OF THE WEST WING (4.21.24)

HEROES CON 2024 (June 14-16, Charlotte NC)

IN ANY LIFETIME Novel (7.16.24)

FAN EXPO CANADA (August 22-25, Toronto, Canada)

FAN EXPO SAN FRANCISCO (November 29-December 1, San Francisco CA)