The Final Case of the Society of Elderly Detectives
A bit more on Hollywood. As I worked to get other comics projects off the ground, we acquired an agent to handle the media rights for Screamland. This being a task I am sure the agent regrets, and had certainly done nothing to advance the wealth or prestige of anyone involved.
In the course of this, I had the opportunity to pitch new ideas and concepts for possible adaptation to film and television. Why would I do this? Well, again, it has been explained to me that the best bet to get something I actually wanted write off the ground, was to write something more “commercial” (this, frankly, quickly became a code word for dumb) in another medium. Comics having such low self-esteem, that when the film people showed up to pillage what is left of the industry they were welcomed as liberators.
This went on for a couple of months, and I will say with some relief that it is a process I no longer subject myself to. Comics as an industry may view itself as the ugliest girl at the dance that would commit ANY act to be noticed, but frankly I had a life I was pretty happy with before any of this dropped in my lap and I’m very happy to leave it by the wayside.
So, for a few months I wrote several pitch ideas and outlines for this sort of thing. All this accomplished was to make me angry and crazy. The most baffling aspect of all this to me was I was getting notes asking for something “more like Screamland.” Keep in mind, that Screamland was very well reviewed, but it’s a comic that the publisher now acts embarrassed to have put out. It was a book that I was told several times by several folks was a really strong first work, but it was nothing I could show to editors. So, doing anything that resembled “Screamland” if I wanted to keep doing comics stuff was clearly not in my best interest. Also, the notes I had gotten on any “Screamland” adaptation showed me that the folks asking for some thing “more like Screamland” didn’t really want that anyway.
After several of months of this, I am happy to announce I am out of the Hollywood business. I was asked to submit a few things as the TV pilot season came around, and I couldn’t resist throwing out something of a joke. I sent in the below, claiming this would be “my most Screamland-like idea since Screamland.”
The Final Case of the Society of Elderly Detectives
So crime procedures on TV are now all based on CSI, gritty and frankly kinda gross. Remember when the cornerstone of the American crime drama were elderly folks? Hard boiled detectives that always got their man while looking like your grandparents or your favorite aunt or uncle.
What happens when the old gang are called together one last time to investigate the murder of one of their own? Do the old gumshoe tactics apply in the world of forensic crime solving? Can they solve a case in which the culprit is not the obvious spooky cousin with bushy eyebrows and a dangerous look about him?
I declared that the storytelling here would be “as familiar as Saturday afternoon re-runs, and as distant as your father’s side of the family.” With that, I was done. I didn’t expect this to warrant any sort of a reaction, but it did get me one of my favorite notes:
This is exactly the type of idea I’m looking for from you. However, old people are not at as commercial as monsters, so I’d like for you to keep churning them out…
Hollywood, you bastard, I’m through.
