luckysipe's old man blog

What would have been "Screamland 2"

Since I don’t really see much movement on the comics front - thought I would post a few things from the files. Below is the opening (about half of the first issue) I had worked up for what I saw as Screamland 2 or Screamland: Downturn. Actually I had wanted the volume one title of Screamland to be Screamland: In Turnaround but as a volume two looked sketchy, especially with the publisher we were working with at the time - the subtitle got dropped. Here you go - what might have been - this would have been roughly half to 1/3 of the first issue:

Screamland: Downturn

Preliminary plot

Prepared by Harold Sipe

First draft

Mr. Bingles and the Majestic Yellow Scooter

Walt Owens had written a classic and what’s more, he knew it. Nearly twenty years and two seeming long (actually short) marriages after his only television series, the puppet- driven psycidelic Saturday morning show: Mr. Bingles and the Majestic Yellow Scooter, Ownes had managed to write a script that held the weight of human tragedy and had literary merit. An actual film that would far outlive him, or at least would explain his failed relationships and inability to relate to the world around him.

His one problem, the only real work he had to his name in Hollywood was Mr. Bingles and the Majestic Yellow Scooter. Cue the never-ending desire of the thirty-something set for nostalgia. Mr. Bingles becomes a hit on DVD and (God help us) Blu-Ray. Flush off new buzz, Owens sells his opus to a studio. Here his real troubles begin.

The notes from the studio start to fly fast and furious. It all culminates in a call when a Senior VP of Development asks, “What can we do to really push this out to an audience? How can we take this to another level?”  A script that spoke to lost love, missed opportunities and the human condition would now tell its story using a vocabulary of explosions and monsters.

The studio’s only hesitation? How do you make a big budget monster epic in tough times? The answer comes as a copy of “Monsterhunter 3000” is found in the desk of a fired VP of development. At long last, a monster love epic made to order and on the cheap!

International Promotion

Open on the frozen wasteland of Siberia, Russia. Frankenstein’s Monster and Carl are barnstorming the frozen outback on the international promotional tour for the DVD release for “Monsterhunter 3000.” Carl has learned to ask for beer and indicate his desire for the company of prostitutes in Russian. The great cultural exchange drags on as the two monsters are exiled to Eastern Europe until the studio recoups its money on “Monsterhunter.”

Their modest signing at Glasnost Books and Video is cut short when a helicopter carrying Andrea Silverman lands. As always the agent brings the promise of work and a return to past glory. The three board the helicopter for the long trip back to Hollywood and Frank begins to read the script.

“This is good. This is actually good,” the monster thinks to himself.

Blood Lust

Open on an elegantly dressed and very elderly man being fed as he wastes away in a wheelchair. The person off panel feeding the older man is doing all the talking, recalling past days of nightclubs and picnics up the coast. It is Dracula speaking to a director with whom he shared a long relationship, and through the dialogue we learn they also share some past shame.

Dracula reveals that he now stars in a trendy cable show, “Blood Lust.” Continuing to walk in-between the raindrops he has dodged the stigma of “Monsterhunter 3000” altogether. Though through his recounting past times with his former lover we again are allowed to see old regrets and the weight of secrets upon the Count.

He kisses the older man gently upon the forehead and takes his leave of the bittersweet exchange. As he makes his way through the hallway of the rest home his cell rings:

“Count? It’s Andrea and I think I have a movie for you. Don’t hang up…”

Dark Garden

Now all the principals gather in Hollywood and it’s not an altogether happy reunion. Frank still has a certain amount of hostility toward the Count regarding his “work” in keeping Andrea’s stable of young actresses young. The Count is utterly disgusted that Frank would allow himself to be shipped off into studio imposed exile and the fact he already smells of boozes before noon doesn’t help matters. Carl is excited there are cold cuts.

Monsters and agent being to discuss the script: “Dark Garden.” Frank becomes far more animated than he has been in a long time. “It’s good,” he bellows, “it’s actually good.” The Count isn’t impressed, if anything the fact the script is quality makes him more worried. When has a monster ever won an academy award? What was the last “important” monster film that came out of Hollywood? It didn’t matter how good the script was now, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. The Count also points out this is the trouble with Frank, he wears his heart and hopes on his sleeve and somehow still has faith in a system that would never justify it.

They had tried to do an important genre piece once and that had turned out poorly for all involved. The room turns quiet at the mention of this. Finally, Carl speaks up: “Fuck it. The checks cash.”

As much as it pains the Count to admit, he feels that Frank can learn from Carl.

While this discussion unfolds we cut to a studio exec’s office. The studio president is hidden in shadows as he reads “Dark Garden.” He laughs and mentions how it involves all his favorite people. Touching his intercom he informs his assistant that they will indeed be fast tracking “Dark Garden, in fact the exec reveals he will be taking a personal involvement in this one. 

Naked Emperors

I left a job involving New Media in comics this past year. I wasn’t laid off, I chose to leave as the environment of the company got worse under the CEO the parent company had installed late the year before. Though the parent company seemed to have a policy in place of saying they supported New Media efforts and expanding their demographics beyond the 60 year-old plus newspaper reading set, they didn’t really at all. I had spent much of the last year and half there thinking about leaving, but was proud of things we were accomplishing with or without the support of the family that ran the business. 

Things that kept me there for so long are summarized here on my resume:

I have been responsible for launching titles including Jeff Smith’s Bone and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the mobile content space.

In my position as Mobile Product Manager, I designed mobile interfaces and marketing web sites, worked with the developers on user experience issues and facilitated the working relationship between license holders and xxxxx.

Then in June of 2008, our company was afflicted by new “leadership.” 

The thing that killed this publishing initiative more than anything else was the fact the then-CEO killed the successful mobile platforms that operated on the majority of US handsets at this time. He chose instead to focus solely on the iPhone as a publishing platform. This drove a publishing line that had hundreds of possible handsets as a platform at 2.99-3.99 a month as subscription revenue to one publishing platform where the price point was set at 99 cents for one download. 

The then-CEO also laid-off all of the games staff - even though this was the true cash-cow of the entire business. The great and mighty OZ didn’t understand games and clearing away more headcount allow him to hire more senior staff from his last job. The real joke is as he brought in more of these type people the company’s product output has dropped to almost zero as he left no one on staff that could actually produce or release product. 

The more I hear in the news about the country being in “turnaround” the less I see in the “lessons learned” column. Here is a guy that came to an existing business and devastated it. In fact this division no longer exists in his wake. Instead of being fired or somehow else held responsible for this - he was allowed to resign and his daughter that he hired directly out of college was allowed to keep her job. 

Those of us in the field that are tasked with actually performing are held accountable for our actions and output. What has happened over time is that corporate America has developed into this kinda of Feudal system - where the top of this chain move of job to job with no real accomplishment and pillage as much as possible before being allowed to do it again by what I am coming to think of as the ruling “management class” in this society. 

To add insult to injury - this jackass actually tried to add me to his email newsletter and on Facebook. This is the sort of crap we have to deal with in 2009, have a misguided egomaniac destroy your livelihood and then have to pretend to be friends via social networking. Well, I refused. I sent the this guy a Facebook response that some of you have seen and I keep getting requests from many who this “executive” has wronged or has in other ways hurt their careers. So I am now making this an open letter of sorts - an open letter to the naked and foolish “emperor”

“XXXXX,

I find it to be the culture of corporate America that failure and incompetence are not acknowledged. Often they are glossed over in false platitudes and then are later ignored out a sense of keeping a veneer of social pleasantry. Honestly, I would have been very happy never to encounter you again in any form, but as you have attempted to enlist my facebook “friendship” I thought I would take the opportunity to be pretty clear on the utter and complete contempt I have for you as both co-worker and a human being. 

I have had the opportunity to work with many talented and driven firms in my career and have never seen arrogant failure on the scope you visited upon xxxxx. You are so utterly self-involved and obsessed that you refused to acknowledge that you knew nothing of the content and entertainment business. Rather than try and learn the business, to take a business a lot of people had worked very hard to bring to profitability, you loaded the deck with ineffectual, overpaid sycophants that knew even less than you about the tasks at hand and lacked any drive or work ethic. You had taken a 10 year-old business that overcame huge adversity and was finding it’s way and single-handedly killed it within a year. If this was your goal, then to be congratulated in the single-minded push which you pursued this goal. If not, I would invite you to revisit the last year and consider the outcome. 

This would only earn you the status of being considered incompetent. The contempt I hold for you comes from having to suffer through working under you for six months until I elected to leave. You are a liar, you treat people poorly (this being an understatement) and you have become so enamored of a vision of yourself as a Steve Jobs-type character that I personally witnessed you discard good business decisions because that did not spring from you: The Great and Mighty OZ. You trashed relationships that it took many of us years to build and left xxxxx with a toxic reputation in your wake. You removed professionals that understood the business and had built everything you were just handed and in some cases removed them to replace with your own children, being allowed to do this earned the management at xxxxx similar ire. I also believe you to be guilty of purposeful age discrimination. This based on your pattern of lay-offs, the people hired to fill those roles (an aside: the point of downsizing is to reduce staff and overhead – I am not sure you understand that concept, but thought I would clue you into it as I am wasting enough of my time responding to you), and statements I witnessed you make in the course of having to work with you. 

I am writing this to let you know: I don’t want to be your friend on Facebook. I don’t want to be on your self-aggrandizing email newsletter. I am sure given your massive ego you will feel compelled to respond, just know I have no intent of reading your response or any other attempts at contact. I want you to go away. 

-Harold”