Superheroes for the 21st Centuryby Edward Carey

September 2008

McNally Jackson in New York City hosted a book release and signing of “Who Can Save Us Now?,” an anthology of short stories updating the superhero mythos for the 21st

century, edited by Owen King and John McNally and published by Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster.

Editors King and McNally were accompanied by three of the authors to read excerpts from their stories and sign books on August 20. The book includes original short stories by a variety of authors, including Laura Grodstein, Scott Snyder, and Kelly Braffet, who were in attendance, as well as Graham Joyce, mystery writer Sean Doolittle and Sam Weller [“The Bradbury Chronicles”]. It also features lush illustrations by Chris Burnham, who has done artwork for superhero comics [“X-Men: Divided We Stand #2”].

The reading/signing was organized by events coordinator Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, who introduced the two editors, both of whom wrote stories which appear in the anthology. King came up with an idea for writing a story about a meerkat superhero while at the gym, influenced by the television show “Meerkat Manor.”

“Let me tell you a little about the origin of this anthology . . . ‘Meerkat Manor’ is an amazing show about the travails of this desert mongoose family in the deserts of Zimbabwe and it occurred to me that the most precious superhero I could think of was one based on a meerkat, because he would be so adorable and no one would take him seriously; even though if you watch the show, you see that meerkats kick an enormous amount of ass and they have claws and teeth, it’s actually pretty cool. As I thought about the idea a little bit more, and I only thought about it to make my wife Kelly laugh, I thought maybe there was something here, but I couldn’t think of a venue for a superhero story like that, so it wasn’t really a comic book. It would be really cool if we could make a book, so I could write my story, and I asked my friend John [McNally] if he thought there was something there and if we could ask a bunch of writers who wouldn’t normally associate with the genre to write stories and do something with the superhero premise,” said King.

McNally read from his story first, “Remains of the Night,” about a butler who works for a superhero called The Silverfish. The story centers on the butler’s off hours, hanging out

with other superhero and even supervillain servants, mostly complaining about how their jobs suck.

(excerpt from “Remains of the Night”)

“He looks more like the villain than the good guy,” a famous talk show host has noted, and it’s true, if only because his suit is too lifelike. I tried telling him this once, suggesting that maybe a skintight bodysuit with the image of a silverfish embroidered on it might be the way to go, but he wouldn’t have any of it. “I’m not a poseur,” he replied. “When I’m the Silverfish, that’s what I am.” I tried explaining to him that real silverfish, the small ones, are known to cause psychological distress, so just imagine what people think when they see a 250-pound one barreling toward them! “Is that my problem?” he asked. “And what do you mean by real?” He wagged his head and glided out of the room. I have seen the Silverfish out of costume only a handful of times. He’s a normal-looking fellow, unassuming, even slight of build, but make no mistake, he’s still the Silverfish. In costume or out, he eats glue, paper, sugar, hair, dandruff, and dirt – anything with starch in it, anything with polysaccharides. I’d walk into his library and see him with a book cracked open, licking the adhesive holding the pages together.

The excerpts that the authors read were much longer. Following McNally’s reading, King read from his story simply entitled “The Meerkat.”

(excerpt from “The Meerkat”)

After Wade Hanes registered himself with the proper authorities, sworn an oath to use his powers for good and to protect the innocent, submitted to a battery of drawings, measurements, and intrusive questions, the Homeland Security official who was to act as his liaison, an elderly, choleric woman named Doris Krimsky, took him to a steakhouse called Shuster’s on K Street . . . When she sat forward again Doris caught the expression on the other side of the table. “Don’t worry. They know all about our kind here. You can order whatever you want. Friskies or whatever.” “I’m not a cat, I’m a herpestid,” said Wade, and immediately wished that he hadn’t. “That doesn’t impress me,” said Doris. She snapped her fingers for another gimlet. “And get Morris here some tuna!” Over lunch she explained that the superhero business was a lot like newscasting. You worked your way up through bigger and bigger markets. “You pay your dues for a year or two in Cleveland, and then you move on to Tampa. After that, Chicago, and after that, if you’re lucky, you could be called up to the Atom League and get national exposure.”“That doesn’t concern me really. I like it in Cleveland. I mean, it’s Cleveland – the river caught on fire once – but you know.” Wade shrugged. “It’s home.”

Kelly Braffet approached the mic to read from her short story, “Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo.”

“In Cretaceous Seas”art by Chris Burnham

“Anybody who knows me knows it’s semi-autobiographical, because I’m the clumsiest human being on the planet,” said Braffet. Her tale follows a female superhero with rotten luck for herself, but not for others, and the search for her biological father.

(excerpt from “Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo”) The only person for whom Cass wasn’t lucky was her mother, Elmira. The story of Cass’s life as it had been related to her, from her spermatozoal days to the present, was as follows: Her mother had been a professional ballet dancer – corps, not principal, although Elmira always swore that it would have only been a matter of time. One night, on a whim, she accepted a date with the delivery boy who brought her costume from the dry cleaner. After a plate of spaghetti and two bottles of wine, she slept with him. (“Why?” the younger Cass always asked at this point in the story, hoping against hope that this time her mother would say, “Because he had lovely eyes,” or “Because he was so kind,” or even “Because I was so lonely,” because that at least would have made Cass feel like there was at least one thing in the course of her life that had a reason to happen. But instead, what Elmira always said was, “Damned if I know. Biggest goddamned mistake I ever made.”) And, since the life of a professional ballet dancer requires a level of overexercise and undereating that often leads to irregular menstrual rhythms, Elmira didn’t think anything of it when she missed two cycles in a row. By the time she missed the third and fourth cycles, and began to get suspicious, it was too late to do anything about the embryo growing in her lithe dancer’s body. Elmira had been n the pill, she would tell Cass; taken it every day like clockwork. And even though the little leaflet that came inside the package said that it was ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent effective, Elmira had been the point-oh-one-one percent ineffective, and what was worse – as she also told Cass – that failure had come when she was with the one guy she couldn’t have cared less about ever seeing again. The least handsome guy, the least glamorous guy, the least acceptable guy. The guy she wanted most to forget. Except that now she couldn’t. “And that, my little bad-luck charm,” Elmira would say, “is why your mommy is a telemarketer.”

from “The Pentecostal Home for Flying Children,” art by Chris Burnham

Scott Snyder, an avowed comics’ fan, read from his story “The Thirteenth Egg,” which Braffet pointed out has nothing to do with an egg. It centers on a 19-year old who has just returned home from World War II in 1946.

(excerpt from “The Thirteenth Egg”) “Are you sure you’re all right, honey?” said his mother. Everett presented a smile. “I’m great.” “You don’t have to be great, yet,” said his father. “You’ve been home a month. You can be anything you want.” “Okay.” “Evvy,” said his mother, “if you’re feeling up to it, we have something we want to show you.” “Right now?” said Everett. “No, next week,” said his father. “Yes, now. How are your marks?” “Still there.” “Are you using your ointment?” said his mother. He told her he was. Everett could feel himself coming back; the sensation was like being poured slowly into his own body, his feet and legs taking on weight, his chest filling. “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see on that one,” said his father. “Now put on some clothes.” “Right,” said Everett. “Will do.” He went to close the door, but his father blocked it with his foot. “No more locks.” “At least for now, okay?” said his mother. “Okeydokey,” said Everett, gently closing the door.

Lauren Grodstein finished up with an excerpt from her story, “The Sisters of St. Mercy,” about a woman named Marie who can understand and read any language, but is a mute, so cannot speak those languages. Her excerpt centered on “the backstory, where you find out how it all began,” she said.

(excerpt from “The Sisters of St. Mercy”)

from “The Thirteenth Egg,” art by Chris Burnham

In fact, it was not until I was five years old that my maternal grandmother, making her quadrennial visit from her home in northern Quebec, mentioned to my mother that perhaps there was something medically odd about me, that I wasn’t just quiet, but that perhaps, internally, all was not exactly as one might hope. “Odd?” my mother said. They were speaking in their husky, clangy Quebecois French, the language my parents relied on when they didn’t want their children to understand them. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that Marie never says a word?” “She’s just quiet,” my mother said. If I remember correctly, she was busy scrubbing lunch dishes. Only she, my grandmother, and I were in the kitchen. “Marie,” my grand-mere said, crooking a gnarled finger in my direction. “Come here and sit on my lap.” My mother’s back was turned; I did as I was instructed. “Now tell me, Marie,” said my grand-mere, “do you know how to speak?” I nodded. “Then say something to me. Say anything.” I opened my mouth . I wanted to please her very much, this baggy old lady who brought us maple candy and hand-knit sweaters. I tried to push noise, any noise, from my throat, but nothing came. “Maman,” said my mother, still scrubbing dishes. “You must speak in English to Marie. She doesn’t understand French.” “But of course she does. You understand French, don’t you, mon coeur? See? She’s nodding!” “She’s nodding because she knows we’re talking about her. There’s no way she could understand French. She’s heard maybe twenty words in her life.” What foolishness from my poor mother! I understood French the way I understood the sound of my own name. I looked from my grandmother again. I nodded furiously.

After the readings, the group took questions from the audience. The first asked about “any great, weird superhero ideas that ended up on the cutting room floor.”

from “The Rememberer,” art by Chris Burnham

“There was Ottoman, which was like an ottoman. We decided not to, but maybe someday,” said McNally.

The next question asked about the contributors experience with superhero comics.“It was about half and half. I think the idea was to bring in people who didn’t have any preconceived ideas about superheroes, that weren’t so influenced by comic books, but certainly I read a bunch of comic books as a kid, Scott read a lot of comic books,” said King.

Braffet added, “I have read a lot of comic books in my time, but they happen not to be of the superhero variety, but of the geeky college kid variety; a lot of Sandman, a lot of Jhonen Vasquez, stuff like that, which I think informs my story. When Owen read mine, he said it was like a Daniel Clowes, that it was more of a Ghost World comic book than a Superman comic.”

“I still read comics,” said Snyder, which prompted King to talk about going to the comic store with him.

“Going to a comic book store with Scott is really harrowing, because he has to engage with the very possessive . . . you all know Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. That guy is real and he’s at every comic book store in America. And when you go to a comic book store with Scott, Scott has to engage him and ask him what the comic books to buy are and the guy sternly leads him through the store. ‘Buy this, buy this,’” said King.

Snyder said he wanted to be a comic book writer right up until his senior year of college.

Another question focused on the humorous nature of the stories read and whether the serious subject matter cause the authors to tackle these subjects in a humorous fashion.

Braffet answered for her husband King, knowing how he wanted to tackle the subject matter.

“What he wanted to come out was how much he loved the genre, but also how much he was aware of the genre’s failings and the areas at which one could poke at it a little bit. But, the most successful stories in the book are successful stories in their own right, that they’re not about things people can do, but they’re actual stories with an actual set of emotions and heart behind them,” said Braffet.

McNally said, “When Owen first brought the idea to me, my first ideas were really earnest in approaching the subject matter and those didn’t work for me, because that’s not my sensibility. And I thought, because I grew up on the Southwest side of Chicago . . . what if a superhero lived on the Southwest side of Chicago? Who would he be and what would he do? He wouldn’t get the attention of a superhero from, like, the north side of Chicago. In Chicago, there’s a real North side/South side sensibility and I really thought about what a South side superhero would be and I just thought the comic sensibility was a natural for that.”

Braffet added, “There are a lot of stories that come from an ironic bent, but then there are lots of other stories that are heartfelt and serious, like Scott’s for instance, which is actually one of the most amazing pieces of anti-war writing that I’ve seen in a long time.”

“I was about to say that Scott’s story of the exploding man is not as hilarious as it may sound. One of the things, we asked a bunch of people who, this was outside of their comfort zone and they almost all said yes. So many people were willing to take the risk,” said King.

Another questioner asked, “What was it like writing this genre in a medium where you didn’t have to keep it PG, which traditionally it has been?”

“I guess I never thought of it that way. It was almost liberating to me that the comics I liked were always those kinds of comics. I grew up reading superhero comics and I wanted to be a comic book writer up until college . . . and you know, Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Sandman . . . Even when I was a kid and reading comics like Spiderman, which seemed to be PG, I feel like a lot of the time the emotional palette is so light and dark that it’s really not quite as PG as it seems. The stories deal with serious issues even though the guy might be dressed like an octopus, or Spiderman, and the anxieties that the character feels, the desires and fears that the character feels are very relatable, especially as a teenager. I guess the things that were labeled PG as a kid, seemed really advanced at the time,” said Snyder.

The last question asked about the tradition of superheroes in literature and whether the editors looked at that.

“No, we didn’t,” said McNally, “there was an anthology published maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, that’s by sci-fi writers writing superhero stories. That was the closest one I could find to our book, but because it’s sci-fi writers, it’s quite a bit different from what we were trying to do. Once we were published, we were contacted by websites that had just superhero fiction. I didn’t even know there was such a website. It’s kind of new to this medium. It’s not natural to this medium. It was a whole group of writers that this was outside their experience . . . literary writers, Sean Doolittle a mystery writer, and Sam Weller, who wrote Ray Bradbury’s autobiography.”