At least for me, it isn’t. I have two irons on every burner on the stove. But I like it that way. What am I working on? Let me tell you.
“But I Digress…” Returns (Again)
I recently did a livestream with fellow author and content creator Ryan “The Omni Viewer” Collins, and it got a surprising amount of traction. I even garnered a few more subscribers. I heard from someone last year who wanted “the show “But I Digress…” to come back with more topics. So, I’m going to give that a try because I have to take my writing career as seriously as I do my podcasts (more on those later). My goal is to have a monthly livstream on the channel that discusses a topic and gives updates on projects, among other things. The first one will be titled, “The Importance of Escapism.”
A Regular Contributor to Kaiju United
I’ve been sending articles to the website Kaiju United, and now I’ll be a regular contributor to them. It’s likely I’ll be published there at least once a month.
A New Podcast
My kaiju podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, will continue, but my other podcasts, Henshin Men and The Power Trip, will fuse into a new podcast later this summer. It will pick up where the other shows left off. Stay tuned for more details.
My First Audiodrama – “Origins: Rito Bandora”
I’ve been part of Karl Dutton’s stable of actors for Scyther Podcasts. While I’ve played Deadpool and soon the Human Torch in his fan-made Marvel productions, I’ve most popularly played Rito on Power Rangers: The Audio Drama. While (SPOILER WARNING!) the character was killed off recently, I’m producing a one-shot episode that chronicles his darkly funny origin. The script is finished and production has started. I hope to release it this summer.
Books, Books, Books
A few months back, I made a ten-year timetable for my writing projects, which included finishing the book series I’ve been working on for far too long. My current one is a standalone urban fantasy romance called There Sleeps Titania. I hope to market that to potential literary agents. Then I want to complete sequels and tie-ins to Pandora’s Box and Ninjas and Talking Trees. Then once I’ve tied up those loose ends, I want to launch the space opera I’ve had in my head for years.
EDIT: I’m editing another collection of unpublished short stories that is tentatively titled The Worlds of Nathan Marchand, Vol. 2: Tales of the Lost and Lonely. More details are forthcoming. In the meantime, check out my finally updated “Books” page.
As you can see, I have more ideas than time. Haha!
It’s been five years (crazy, right?) since I updated my podcast appearances for y’all. Being that I’ve (co-)hosted three in almost five years, there are a lot more to discuss! Before I add some more, be sure to read my previous posts here and here and here for my first lists. I’ll do my best to include every appearance, but I may miss one or two. If I do, let me know.
Strangers and Aliens GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS – SA315 June 7, 2019 Just a few short months before I started my own kaiju podcast (again), I was featured on Strangers and Aliens to discuss the second entry in the MonsterVerse.
STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Khan and William Shatner Live – SA401 February 21, 2023 Official description: “Recently, Ben joined his friends William and Nathan Marchand to see a theatrical showing of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which also had William Shatner do a live stage performance that was sort of a Q&A session. But it was really just an excuse for Shatner to tell some hysterical stories from his long career. For over an hour.”
X-Men: The Audio Drama Season 3, Episode 10: “The Trial of Magneto” March 23, 2023 After playing Rito Bandora for most of season 3 of Scyther’s Power rangers: The Audio Drama, I make my debut on their X-Men show as, of all people, Deadpool. I’m a post-credit gag.
“Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 Disney short that featured the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, fell into public domain Jan. 1, 2024.
Perhaps I’m a bit late to the whole “public domain” discourse. It’s February, after all, and everyone is over “Steamboat Willie,” the 1928 Disney short that features the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, falling out of copyright protection. But as the first weeks of 2024 have passed and I’ve watched a ton of YouTube videos on physical media (thank you, Almighty Algorithm!), it’s brought to mind a lot of my thoughts on censorship and how it all connects to all of this.
The public domain is a double-edged sword. As a creator, I believe artists are entitled to copyright protection; it allows them to profit from their creations because that’s their trade. It’s no different than a fisherman who needs laws against stealing fish to maintain his livelihood. However, copyright in the United States has been extended to an almost absurd extent, with it now lasting 95 years. That’s well beyond the lifetime of (most) creators. Perhaps it can support his estate after his death, but that’s the most reasonable justification for such a timeframe.
The issue, I argue, is when mega-corporations get involved. They see their IP’s as only a means to make money, and they’ll be damned if they allow anyone but themselves to profit from them without permission. In the “old days,” actual people in these corporations needed to discover these unauthorized uses, but today it’s done through automation. That’s why YouTube bots constantly flag user content for copyright infringement. The problem is it ignores context and/or misidentifies the material in question. I know this firsthand because the remix I use as the theme song for my podcast, The Monster Island Film Vault, is now being flagged on YouTube as a completely different song by a record company I’ve never heard of. The whole system reeks of greed and even a bit of paranoia. In most cases, users are creative fans engaging with the content they love. They shouldn’t be punished for that. If anything, it’s free publicity for the studios.
Falling into public domain allows a piece of media to be used by anyone—which is both good and bad. On one hand, that can break an IP out of restrictive molds that have stagnated it or save it from mismanagement by the powers-that-be. (Just look at what Hollywood and other creative industries have been doing to beloved franchises the last 15 years or so). In some cases, it might be the only option to save something from ruin. I can tell you that I will jump at the opportunity to legally write and publish my own Superman stories in ten years since DC Comics likely won’t hire me. (I’ll leave it at that).
But, as a great man said, with great power comes great responsibility, and some creators have no business mucking around with public domain IPs. A.A. Milne’s beloved Winnie the Pooh books fell into public domain in 2022, and five seconds after that honey-eating bear was released into the wild, the movie Blood and Honey was revealed. Yes, a slasher flick about a guy wearing a Pooh mask. Now, sadly, it seems to have started a trend. On January 1, not one but two horror films “based” on “Steamboat Willie,” were announced: Mickey’s Mouse Trap and an “untitled horror-comedy.” There are also twosurvivalhorror video games in the works! I understand the creative drive to do something completely new with established characters. I can even understand the desire to stick it to Disney. But these? They strike me as uncreative and, at points, repugnant cash-grabs. Slasher movies, especially, are stupid-easy and require little thought. They flooded the market in the ‘80s and, with few exceptions, offered little value. Give someone a mask, a knife, and a bunch of top-heavy co-eds to chase and butcher, and you have instant “movie.” Boring. If a creator must make a horror film, why not lean into the unique features of the IP? For example, make “Steamboat Willie” a ferryman to the underworld. (You can have that one for free, writers!) Instead, they take the easy route. More than anything, though, this just seems corruptive. These are children’s icons, and these creators seem hellbent on destroying their innocence. I daresay it’s evil.
This brings me to the virtues of physical media. I’ll probably end up writing a whole other blog about this, but suffice it to say, in this case, it provides a means of protection and preservation for IPs in these culture war assaults. Unless Fahrenheit 451happens and govern-controlled firemen are sent to people’s houses to collects books, DVD’s, and vinyl records to burn, those stories will remain as originally intended. No amount of censorship can completely destroy them. They can’t be removed or edited with a few keystrokes. Physical media, in a way, is like a halfway house between copyright and public domain. You’re granted a “share” in the ownership of something. Ownership grants you power. The power to control when, where, and how you partake of a story. The studios and publishers can’t decide that for you. It shows that you’re invested in the story, which will motivate you to protect it; it gives you skin in the game.
Is copyright a good thing? Yes. Is the public domain a good thing? Also, yes. But both can be abused. That’s why we must learn to use both wisely—but we’re in short supply of wisdom these days.
Julian Bleach as Davros in 2023 (left) and 2008 (right).
While I still consider myself a Whovian, I haven’t watched “Nu Who” for several years. To put it succinctly, Chris Chibnall was Doctor Who’s worst showrunner ever, and Jodie Whitaker’s 13th Doctor has proven to be as unlucky as her numbering. That’s why I had some hope when Russell T Davies, the man who successfully revived the franchise in 2007, was announced to be returning, although I found the return of David Tennant to be a desperate gimmick to bait the show’s lost audience into coming back. Still, I was willing to give it a chance.
Not anymore.
The 2023 Children in Need special.
Recently, a Children in Need special was published on YouTube that shows an able-bodied and unscarred Davros, the iconic creator of the evil Daleks. While I thought the special’s comedic tone toward the “genesis of the Daleks” undermined the threat of the Doctor’s archenemies (a whole blog unto itself), fans, including myself, assumed Davros looked like this because it was a prequel, but Davies revealed this will be Davros’s look going forward.
We had long conversations about bringing Davros back, because he’s a fantastic character. Time and society and culture and taste have moved on, and there’s a problem with the old Davros: he’s a wheelchair user who is evil. I had problems with that. A lot of us on the production team did too, associating disability with evil. Trust me, there’s a very long tradition of this.
I’m not blaming people in the past at all, but the world changes. And when the world changes, Doctor Who has to change as well. So we made the choice to bring back Davros without the facial scarring and without the wheelchair – or his support unit, which functions as a wheelchair.
I say, this is how we see Davros now. This is what he looks like. This is 2023. This is our lens. This is our eye. Things used to be black and white; they’re not anymore. Davros used to look like that, and now he looks like this. We are absolutely standing by that.
It’s well-documented that the Daleks were inspired by the Nazis. These pseudo-cyborgs were created in the 1960s by filmmakers who still had fresh memories of World War II. Davros first appeared in 1975’s “Genesis of the Daleks,” which was written by Dalek creator Terry Nation. In keeping with the Nazi inspiration, Davros bears mannerisms often associated with Hitler and the SS. (In fact, he reminds me of Peter Sellers’s Dr. Strangelove, only not satirical). He is blind and disabled due to constant eugenic experiments he, in true mad scientist fashion, conducted on himself. This eventually led to the creation of the Daleks. In other words, Davros being confined to a wheelchair is a consequence of his attempts to make a master race.
The problem is Davies is concerned with optics. The image of a villain in a wheelchair, he fears, will make the audience assume all disabled people are evil. This ignores the clear origins of and creator intentions for Davros. His disability was self-inflicted and motivated by racial supremacy. So, by curing Davros to avoid “ableism,” Davies is removing the consequences of a far greater evil and disrespecting the creators who came before him. He has made a Nazi pastiche look more like the so-called “Aryan ideal.” Doesn’t this validate that evil ideology? Isn’t it, in some bizarre way, actually ableism?
If Davros must be able-bodied to avoid portraying disabled people as evil, then other iconic villains must be changed to remain consistent. Villains like:
Doctor Doom, who has a disfigured face.
The Weird Sisters of Macbeth, who are blind.
Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, who is a burn victim.
Baron Harkonnen from Dune, who is morbidly obese.
Darth Vader, who is a burn victim, an amputee, and an asthmatic.
In all of these cases, these disabilities are the consequences of their evil actions and often motivate the evils they are now committing. We fear them because they’re stark representations of the true face of evil and its consequences (and also the fear of the unnatural or abnormal, but that’s a blog for another day). Removing these disabilities fundamentally alters the characters to the point that they are no longer those characters. It also implies that only “perfect” or “able-bodied” people can be evil, trading one prejudice for another.
There are plenty of counterexamples with disabled heroes. Characters like Marvel’s Daredevil (blind), Zatoichi the blind swordsman, Jonah Hex (disfigured face), and even Spawn (burn victim). Characters like them either use or overcome their disabilities; their disabilities motivate them to be heroic. In other words, it boils down to virtue vs. vice. Contrary to popular belief, these are not exclusive to particular groups. As a Christian, I believe “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), which means all people are on equal ground before the Almighty. Sadly, we will in times that deny this reality. Instead of understanding the deeper motivations and philosophies at work in disabled villains (and heroes), creators look only at the surface and/or see them as representative of entire groups of people instead of as representatives of themselves. It’s the definition of “shallow.”
All that to say, I won’t be watching the new Doctor Who anytime soon.
I’m excited to announce that I’m one of the contributors to the upcoming anthology A Time for Everything, a collection of time travel short stories inspired by Ecclesiastes 3. My story involves time travel through ballroom dance!
Artwork by Tyler Sowles. Designed by Nathan Marchand.
I’m “unoffcially” participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. I say, “unoffcially,” because I haven’t signed up and plan to write 25,00-30,000 words instead of the target 50,000. It’s my first time trying this, so I thought I’d start with a smaller goal. (Plus, who in their right mind thinks November is a great idea for this when Thanksgiving and holiday activities happen during it? There’s a reason some use January as an alternative).
My project for this is the much-demanded sequel to Destroyer, which is currently titled Apollyon: Body and Soul. I’m four chapters and 7,500 words deep into it, but I’m sharing its prologue here for you, True Believer, to read. Forgive me, for it is an unedited first draft. Enjoy!
***
“Come not between the Dragon and his wrath.”
–King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1 (William Shakespeare)
Prologue: Resurrection
Hydraulics growled as the Ilyushin Il-215’s jet engines rotated to VTAL position. Ivanov tapped a few buttons on the aircraft’s dashboard with his calloused fingers, and the words, Autopilot Activated, appeared on the monitor. The dark-haired, hard-faced man stood, reflexively brushing flecks of dried blood from his camouflage fatigues, stepped over the aircraft’s dead pilot on the floor, and walked out the cockpit’s door to the transport’s long main bay. There he saw his lieutenant, Nikitin, also clad in dirty fatigues, standing by a Typhoon Titan armored truck. The vehicle bore several years of rust after years of sitting in storage after the World War. Nikitin was a haggard man with a shaved head and long scars on both cheeks.
“Remember the Coalition!” said Ivanov in Russian.
“It will rise again!” replied Nikitin, also in Russian.
“We’ve reached the coordinates above the Zmei Crater, comrade. We have little time before the VVS realizes we have stolen their aircraft.”
“Do not worry. I have completed the Muromets Cocktail and placed it in the Typhoon. It will provide excellent raw materials for the microbots.”
“We lost a dozen Warriors gathering the alien crystals, dinosaur DNA, and alloys for it. If their sacrifices are wasted, you will pay with your life.”
“I assure you, comrade, we will succeed for the glory of the Coalition!”
Ivanov tapped several buttons on a control panel on the wall. Hydraulics hissed as gray light flooded the tunnel-like bay from the back of the aircraft. The thunderous wind coming from the open hatch was not unlike a roar shooting from a great maw, Ivanov thought. “‘Come not between the dragon, and his wrath,’” he said.
“Indeed,” replied Nikitin.
Ivanov pressed a final button, and the clamps restraining the Typhoon snapped off the vehicle’s wheels, letting it roll back and disappear out the hatch.
***
Darkness. Unending.
Coldness. Smothering.
Silence. Everlasting.
Crash!
Bugs crawling.
Teeth biting.
Eyes…seeing.
Lost limbs regrown.
Open wounds closed.
Severed sinews reconnected.
Skin wraps his body.
He feels the dirt.
Buzzing fills his ears.
Fire burns in his throat.
Heart beats in cold fire.
Blood flows in metal veins.
A voice cries in his brain.
Moaning escapes his throat in response.
His hands claw at the cliff.
***
Ivanov maneuvered the aircraft in a patrol pattern around the Zmei Crater under Russian radar for several hours. Waiting. Waiting for the results of this grandiose and desperate experiment. An experiment to avenge Mother Russia’s disgraceful defeat. What better way to do so than the irony of reviving the enemy’s greatest weapon and unleashing it upon them? Yet still, they wait.
“We must go, comrade,” said Nikitin, who sat in the co-pilot chair, “before the VVS finds us!”
Ivanov shot him a glare. “No, not until we know if the dragon lives again!”
“And join our fellow patriots in Siberia? No!” Nikitin threw his headset on the dashboard and shot to his feet.
But as he stormed off, Ivanov called, “Down there! Something moves!” Nikitin looked out the windshield where his leader pointed.
A few hundred feet below, a huge metal hand half-covered in blood-red flesh rose from the crater. Its claws dug into the ground, anchoring themselves, and with a great heave, a malformed cyber-serpent dragged itself from the hole. Crimson skin seemed to grow on its half-melted endoskeleton. A crown of horns slowly grew on a head that flopped wildly like a suffocating fish. It crawled on the ground like a snake, leaving a trail of dark fluids and dead scales in its wake.
“The dragon lives!” exclaimed Ivanov.
Nikitin pulled a computer tablet from his coat pocket and unfurled it. “I will upload instructions to the microbots to begin Operation: Dragonstrike.”
As if in response, one of the dragon’s red eyes flared, shooting a crimson laser.
A crash. Alarms blared. Red warning lights flashed on every dashboard monitor. The Il-215 spun and lurched and divebombed. Ivanov fought the control stick as his lieutenant screamed behind him. With lightning reflexes, he tapped buttons to lower the landing gear and forced the aircraft level out. But it landed cockeyed and slid across the rugged ground, grinding to a halt several long seconds later. It lay at a 60-degree angle, propped on a broken wing.
Sparks flared from the dashboard, singeing Ivanov’s fatigues, as smoke filled the cockpit. The Russian shook his aching head to regain his bearings, blinking to clear his blurry vision. He felt blood trickle down his left cheek. Cursing, he struggled to free himself from the seatbelt, and a giant hand smashed the ground in front of the downed aircraft, quaking the earth and rattling his teeth. A shadow fell over the cockpit as the rebirthed cyborg dragon slithered by, a low rumble echoing with his every movement.
A rare smile cracked Ivanov’s face.
He finally unbuckled the seatbelt and turned to speak with Nikitin–only to find the man lying dead in a mangled heap with the pilot’s thrashed corpse. The tablet lay shattered next to him.
“May the dragon avenge you, comrade!” whispered Ivanov.
He reached into his pocket and produced a cellular phone and tapped its cracked screen. It rang twice before someone answered. “I require extraction,” Ivanov said.
A voice with an Asian accent replied in English, “Is it done?”
As an FYI to my readers, I have removed several of my speculative fiction stories from my website. These include “Bow to Your Sensei,” “Baptized in Fire,” and several others. I did so because they’ve been published in my short story collection, The Worlds of Nathan Marchand. You can always read them there. I appreciate your readership and support. Thanks!
Hollywood is now infamous for attacking its audience. Directors, screenwriters, and actors have gone on rampages in recent years, blaming fans for the failure of every bad movie and TV series. It’s one of several big reasons why even the seemingly invincible Disney is on the verge of collapse. To call it grand scale gaslighting would be an understatement.
I bring this up because I recently had a conversation with a fellow creator about the importance or unimportance of audience. For him, there are auteurs who simply want to share their vision with the world and don’t care about audience. They create for themselves. That’s his own personal philosophy. While I understand that and would say a creator must be passionate about what he makes, which means there’s some self-interest, I don’t see a point in sharing a work of art if it was made only for the creator’s benefit. If it’s only for them, why release it? By putting it out into the world, you’re asking an audience to engage with it, which has its positives and negatives. (I said, “invite,” and not “engage” during this conversation, which I now realize wasn’t the best word choice). At that point, it can’t only be about the artist.
When I was in college learning how to be a writer, I was trained to always think about audience. It would determine what I wrote and how I wrote it. Sometimes that audience was only me. Most of the time, though, it was for others. Writing, as I was taught, required a level of service and selflessness. I had to know what the audience wanted and give it to them; or I had to learn how best to explain something to the audience. Different genres, publications, and mediums appealed to different demographics. Understanding them often required research. By catering to the audience, you could increase your chances of success. An audience is annoyed by most art that’s obviously made for the artist’s enjoyment and not the audience’s enjoyment.
Now, what an audience says they want isn’t always what they actually want. Or, in some cases, what they want isn’t what they need. That’s where a creator can take risks and try something different. Otherwise, an art form can never evolve. An audience may complain, but that doesn’t mean their opinions are gospel truth. An artist should have the confidence to disregard bad faith feedback but also the humility to accept good faith criticism. Deciphering which is which, especially in the polarized times we live in, can be difficult if not nerve-wracking.
Some would say the audience doesn’t matter unless they’re paying customers. I agree to a certain extent. This is especially true if a creator is sacrificing his emotional, mental, and/or physical wellbeing to please his audience. But there are other ways an audience can “pay” a creator. As a podcaster, I don’t charge listeners for my material, but they “pay” me with their time. They invite me into their day as they jog, work out, or clean their house. Some even go the extra mile and e-mail me feedback or write reviews on Apple Podcasts. I’ve gotten stories about how my podcasts help listeners get through their days or survive hardships. I don’t take any of that lightly. To do so would be the epitome of “biting the hand that feeds you.” I’d be no better than the narcissists in Hollywood.
I firmly believe art should be shared. But sharing it comes with risks. You can’t guarantee the audience will understand or appreciate what you make. That’s why in some cases, it’s best to keep it for yourself. Most of the time, though, you have to let those brainchildren go off into the world to forge their own paths, so to speak.
What do you think? How are audiences important or unimportant? How much weight should their feedback be given? Should an artist only create for himself? Leave your comments below!
While at JAFAX a few weeks ago, my friend, Eric Anderson of Nerd Chapel, and I took a few minutes for me to read one of my entries in our Christian devotional for geeks and nerds, 42: Discoverintg Faith through Fandom.
My book signings have been few and far between since the pandemic, but now I’m finally getting back into the swing of things! The next six months or so will be quite busy for me when it comes to conventions, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be back in my element (well, my other element). So, here’s a quick rundown of my upcoming appearances.
Local Author Fair – Eckhart Public Library in Auburn, IN DATE: April 22, 2023. TIME: 10am-2pm LOCATION: Eckhart Public Library – Auburn, IN
I’ll be one of 15 local authors from northeast Indiana selling books at the Eckhart Public Library. I’ll also be part of the fiction writing panel (the other two are on nonfiction and poetry). The Brown House Foodmobile and Hoosier Mama food trucks will be there.
Days of the Dead – All Monsters Attack 2: Chicago S.O.S. DATE: May 7-9, 2023 TIME: Friday: 5pm-10pm Saturday: 11am-7pm Sunday: 11am-4pm LOCATION: Crowne Plaza Chicago Ohare Hotel & Conf Ctr. Rosemont, IL
I attended this upstart spin-off convention last fall as a con-goer, but this year I’ll be tabling there to promote Kaiju Ramen Magazine, a publication for which I edit and write. It’s a kaiju-focused con with a guest list that goes on for days. Check out the convention’s website for more details.
JAFAX DATE: June 9-11, 2023 LOCATION: DeVos Place Convention Center – Grand Rapids, MI
My friend Eric Anderson of Nerd Chapel is in the process of acquiring a table that he will share with me and our friends Tim and Becky Smith of the Redeemed Otaku podcast. This is an anime convention. I’ve never attended it before, so I don’t know what it’s like. Because we don’t have a table guaranteed, my attendance is uncertain, so stay tuned for more. Read more about the event on its website.
G-Fest XXVIII DATE: July 14-16, 2023 LOCATION: Hyatt Regency O’Hare – Rosemont, IL
The biggest kaiju convention in North America returns to the Hyatt in Rosemont. I’ll be part of several panels on various subjects and attending many events. The details of the panels are still being worked out, so stay tuned! Learn more about the show at the G-FAN magazine website and the event’s new website.
Gen-Con 2023 DATE: Aug. 3-6, 2023 LOCATION: Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis, IN
After taking a year off, I return to the “best four days in gaming” in Authors Avenue. I may also look into hosting some events. This is my flagship convention, and I can’t wait to see my Gen-Con friends again! Learn more about the event on its website.
The next few conventions are events I’m interested in attending or have been offered a spot by friends, but details are still being worked out. I’m including them so you know where I might be. Watch for updates!
