WAITING FOR TOMMY 2

Hello. I'm still Rich Johnston. I'm best known for being a gossip
<http://litg.comicbookresources.com> monger but here you get to read some of
the scrapings in my head. Let Dynamic Forces be your petri dish as you
examine the remains of my synapses, squashed as they are, upon a glass pane.

Last week's pitch session with Joe Quesada was so successful, I decided that I should approach DC and see if my progress would be as smooth. This week, I pitched one idea to he-of-the-rolling-eyes, Mike Carlin, Vice-President and executive editor.

Plasticman: Man Of Floppiness

I've been thinking about Plasticman hard for about ten years. No, don't call the police, it's just that I know how to do him right. And no one else does. Indeed, only because I've been thinking about him so much, through at least two divorces and the lifetime of a child I've never seen that I have the right to totally change the character. No one else does, or should ever. Anyway. Here are my demands: if you acquiesce to all of them, I think we've got a go.

1.	Starting out as a criminal is WRONG. We want people to look up to Plasticman. George W Bush started life as a criminal - do we really think children look up to him? They look *down* on him - and not just because they can use cutlery better then he can.
2.	His plastic nature is down to exposure to a unique strain of the Ebola virus that makes his body leak everywhere in a controlled manner. This is a realistic twist that explains every aspect of his powers - except for the colour coding. I don't want to explain that one - and neither should anyone else!.
3.	We make Woozy Winks a serious private detective rather than a bumbling fool. I suggest either a rape or an infant death in his past. Something to ground him and make him all serious now and then. He can furrow his brow and everything.
4.	I want total control over Plasticman when I'm writing the book. No one else is allowed to use him. This means when I'm exploring the sexual possibilities involved in changing your shape into any form possible, I don't want sodding Joe Kelly to have him turning into a swan for a feathered love session first, okay?
5.	Give me a million dollars.

Mike Carlin's response:  Thanks. But we already have a "Plastic Man" series in the works. Good luck with your "Mr. Fantastic" maxi-series.

My response: Oh Joe.

Next week, since I'm British, I might as well try my hand with Karen Berger.

Mark Millar used to go on at me about how good Mark Waid was. That he was a
brilliant writer, Mark's personal favourite in comics and how I was blind
not to see it. And I didn't. Hell, I still don't. Thought his Flash was
boring, Kingdom Come deadly boring (apart from a few interesting thoughts in
the middle), Captain America plodding and deadly boring and it was only when
Empire came out that I thought "hmm".

Fantastic Four 60 is out. It costs 9 cents. And it feels like Mark Waid has
been possessed by the gestalt entity of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore. This
book feels a lot like Tom Strong but moves at a Grant Morrison pace, speedy,
quick witted and clever.

It's not the Fantastic Four we know. Hell, the initial squabbling between
Ben and Johnny is jarring, but your mind soon adjusts to this very
functional of families. I'd like to read more of this Fantastic Four. And if
any future movie doesn't use this as a reference point, they're very silly.

As an introduction to mainstream superheroes for a mainstream audience, I
don't think it could have done better. Leagues ahead of the Batman Ten Cent
Adventure, Gen 13 0 or any of the superhero Free Comic Book Day titles.

It's nine cents. What have you got to lose?

Tom Baker - or is it Daddy?

Continuing the series of Tom Baker anecdotes from the radio advertising industry.

A colleague of mine once had to drag Tom Baker away from a bar for a recording session. Entertaining a gaggle of young ladies, it was a brave man who attempted to do such a thing. Pretty much everyone between the ages of twenty eight and forty in the UK has a sense of awe about Tom Baker, he was Doctor Who, he was a father figure and to be frank, much better at beating off the flailing Daleks, Cybermen and Silurians than Dad. And doesn't Tom bloody Baker know it.

Anyway, arm, tucked in arm, Tom was dragged towards the door. He left shouting "Antony Hopkins had a permanent erection from the years nineteen seventy-seven to nineteen eighty-two. Huge priaprism it was."

I'll never watch Remains Of The Day the same way again.

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