Allan Duffin - Writer/Producer

Comic books, Charlton Comics, and how the job gets done

If you're a fan of comic books, head on over to Diversions of the Groovy Kind for lots of info and even scanned artwork to enjoy. I've always loved comic books, and it's nice to be able to look at issues online, appreciating the stories and art that provided fun diversions when I was a kid -- and still do today. Two of my favorite artists, Russ Heath and Pete Morisi , are featured in Diversions. (Morisi, by the way, was an officer with the NYPD who moonlighted as a comic book artist. How's that for variety?)

Diversions of the Groovy Kind includes material from the big companies like Marvel and DC, but also takes the time to feature smaller publishers (many of them defunct) like Charlton Comics, one of my favorites. Charlton was never known for quality printing, but they published a lot of fun books with material by big names in the comics industry, including John Byrne, Mike Zeck, Dick Giordano, Sam Glanzman, Tom Sutton, Steve Ditko, Joe Staton, and others. Many of these luminaries were new to comics and had their early work published by Charlton.

As a kid I visited the Charlton plant in Derby, Connecticut. It was my first real exposure to how the publishing world worked, and it was fascinating -- especially since Charlton was vertically integrated. All functions, from layout to printing to distribution, were under one roof. My visit was a crash course in the publishing process. Later on I worked in a printing plant for awhile. All of this occurred before I became a writer, but I'm grateful that I learned about -- and learned to appreciate -- the industry at such an early age.

(Graphic: A gorgeous Mike Zeck cover for Charlton Comics' Scary Tales. Click here for a closer look.)

Paper periodicals take another hit

Time, Inc.  — publisher of Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, and of course the venerable Time magazine  — will be announcing $100 million in cuts. This means that even more magazine staffers will be pink-slipped in large numbers. From the New York Times:

At Time Inc., cuts have already been heavy. A year ago, it announced it was dismissing about 600 people, or 6 percent of its staff. Since 2007, it has shut magazines including Business 2.0, Cottage Living, Southern Accents and Life, which it had revived as a newspaper supplement. A stricter expense-account policy has been in place for some time, and some magazines have decreased the weight of the paper they use.

Though I write for a variety of media, it's particularly heartbreaking to watch the painful demise of the newspaper and magazine industries. I don't think that paper periodicals will ever disappear completely, but online access to the hottest and latest news has made obsolete one of the biggest selling points of magazines and newspapers. It's been a slow process over the last decade or so, but the poor state of the economy isn't helping.

Best wishes to the staff and writers who fall to the latest swing of the sword. Hopefully they'll find new homes and continue to do what they love.

Farewell, Rocco

It's been such a strange and tragic month. While Michele and I were out of town for the funeral of one of our family members, I received word that I'd lost a friend who was serving a combat tour in Afghanistan. Rocco Barnes was one hell of a guy. In addition to working on film and television projects, he was also a U.S. Army Reservist. Excerpting from his obituary in the Los Angeles Times:

Maj. Rocco M. Barnes was supposed to be back home in Los Angeles this summer at the end of his fourth overseas tour with the California Army National Guard. But the 51-year-old entertainment company executive was killed June 4 in Afghanistan, the victim of what officials described as a vehicle rollover.

An Ohio native selected for the elite Special Forces, he served two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Friends say he was driven by his passion for both the military and the movie business.

As a young man, Barnes worked as a coal miner before getting into the security field. He  provided security for [Arnold] Schwarzenegger on the sets of "True Lies" and "Collateral Damage," and was head of West Coast operations for the security company Vance International before beginning his career in entertainment.

Although he was quiet about his military activities, friends said, Barnes was in the thick of combat. About two weeks before his death, he was part of a team that cleared the way for the landing of a helicopter that airlifted a severely burned, 22-month-old Afghan boy to emergency care.

I had the privilege of working with Rocco on several TV projects and always appreciated his quiet confidence, warmth and camaraderie. He was modest about all he had done and all he was doing, and my heart breaks to know that he's gone.

(Obituary in the Los Angeles Times, written by Steve Chawkins)
(Details on Rocco's last mission, from AfghanistanMyLastTour.com)

Handmade for Baby

If you're looking for new clothes for your munchkin, I'd like to introduce you to a friend's business, Handmade for Baby.

"Handmade for Baby" designs begin with the practical needs expressed by my friends and colleagues who are mothers to infants and toddlers. Add concepts based on images from my childhood, observations from nature and studies in childhood development. Then, using ecologically responsible and ethically produced materials, I produce the various pieces you see in this shop.

Custom orders can also be placed via this site.  So, if there's a piece with the right idea but you need it tweaked to suit the little one in your life, get in touch with me through Etsy and let's create something beautiful to welcome and nurture baby.

Anak takes a lot of care in everything she does, so give her online store a look. Thanks! Expanding her line, she'll be introducing doggie clothes in the near future.

Patrick Duffy and the Crab discuss Facebook

Random strangeness, starring actor Patrick Duffy and a puppet crab. Courtesy Adam Donshik.

Adam Donshik in writer/director Scott Cervine's short film "Symbiotaxiplasm"

Great news! Actor Adam Donshik won the Best Actor award at the Elevate Film Festival held on October 5th at the Nokia Theatre here in Los Angeles. Adam appeared in writer/director Scott Cervine's terrific short film "Symbiotaxiplasm." (That's Scott's photo on the left, Adam on the right.)

You can view the film by going to Adam's website: www.donshik.com. Enjoy!

Here's a still from the film: Adam's character just bought a Prius, and he drives it to [SPOILER] and then [SPOILER]. (Just watch the film, okay?)

Not Over "The Wire"

I wish, how I wish, that "The Wire" got its due. Last night's Emmys really should have recognized this show for its energetic, multi-layered storytelling, compelling characters and gritty location shooting. I'm glad that HBO saw fit to let the show run for five years.

Created by journalist-turned-writer/producer David Simon — whose book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets inspired NBC's classic 1990s Baltimore cop show "Homicide: Life On the Street" — "The Wire" asked tough questions about today's society.

The show took a hard look at how politics, economics, business and government meshed with daily life for Baltimore cops, union members, educators, journalists, gang leaders and others. Because the series featured multiple plotlines that crisscrossed repeatedly over its five-year run, it's difficult to describe "The Wire" in ten words or less. A cop show? At its heart, sure. But at its best, the series was a realistic though fictionalized examination of the fabric of inner-city life — an indictment against greed and corruption, and a call for us to pay attention to the slow, painful deterioration of formerly thriving communities.

Bruce Campbell's new movie finally releases

After more than a year, Bruce Campbell's new indie feature, "My Name is Bruce," finally hits theaters this fall. And Bruce kicks off a national tour in October to screen the film and take questions from the audience. Color me so happy!

"My Name is Bruce" is the heroic struggle of a small mining town (Gold Lick, Oregon) to rid itself of a vengeful monster. Guan-di (Jamie Peck), the Chinese god of war and protector of the dead, has been unleashed by cemetery desecrating teenagers to protect the graves of Chinese miners lost in a deadly cave-in of yesteryear.

The deadly demon’s mission is to eradicate all those who transgressed against the tomb (relatives included), which is virtually the entire population of Gold Lick. The inbred community has to find a solution so Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), the sole survivor of a deadly Guan-Di encounter, takes it upon himself to kidnap his idol, Bruce Campbell (Bruce Campbell), star of countless B-movie horror films, and recruit him to be their local savior.

The tour schedule is available at Bruce's website. More Bruce Campbell news appears at Bruce Campbell News Central.

New book underway: Policewomen

I'm happy to announce that my second book is underway: Policewomen: A History in Blue (working title) is scheduled for publication in Fall 2009. Many thanks to my literary agent, Adina Khan at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management, for guiding me through the process and for pitching it to publishers; and the editors at Kaplan Publishing, who liked the idea and bought the book.

Policewomen was pitched via a written proposal and a sample chapter — a concise package that explained how the book would be organized, who the audience would be, and other information for potential publishers to consider. Now I'm doing research and interviews to complete the rest of the book. By contrast, if you write fiction — a novel, for example — typically you have to complete the entire book before pitching, because an agent who's interested in it might ask to review a few pages all the way up to the full manuscript.

In Policewomen I'll cover the last 160 years of women serving in law enforcement in the United States. It's wonderful to see a book take shape, and I'm privileged to be writing it.

Daily Monsters everywhere!

A shout-out to Stefan Bucher, friend and graphic designer extraordinaire, who appears in the current edition of L.A. Weekly. Stefan's ongoing blog and book, The Daily Monster, have garnered a huge following. The plot is simple: draw a monster a day, record its creation, give it a backstory. Here's a clip from Gendy Alimurung's feature on Stefan:

For the past year, Bucher has videotaped himself drawing monsters. The videos, 199 of them, are archived on his Web site, dailymonster.com. This new toucan-beaked critter, Monster 200, is the last of the “daily” monsters for a while. They’ll be going on hiatus while Bucher develops their cousins into an animated TV segment for 2009’s rebooted Electric Company on PBS. His work is also collected in the book 100 Days of Monsters.

Here's a video of Stefan drawing Monster #200:

(From the L.A. Weekly. Photo by Linda Abbott)