On the evening of Tuesday, 13 September 2011, the New York Review of Science Fiction Readings Series opened its season with a pair of readings by celebrated superhero comics writers turned fantasy novelists, Chris Claremont and Louise Simonson, at the Series’ current venue, the SoHo Gallery for Digital Art on Sullivan Street. (Screens around the room niftily depicted covers from the authors’ novels and comics.)
The NYRSF Readings Series’ executive curator, Jim Freund, host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf radio program on sf and fantasy (now broadcasting and streaming every Thursday morning from 1:30 to 3:00 AM on WBAI, 99.5 FM), greeted the audience, welcoming them to the Series’ official 21st season (and not, as feared, its third 20th season), and announcing upcoming readings. Of note, 4 October will be the annual vampire event, guest-hosted by Margot Adler (who has, we were told, read 175 vampire books in a row), and will feature Vampire Empire‘s Susan and Clay Griffith; and 1 November will be the annual author tribute, this year honoring Murray Leinster. Freund then turned hosting duties over to guest curator, print and online editor Amy Goldschlager.
Goldschlager confessed coming to comics late, discovering New Mutants, X-Men, X-Factor, etc. while in college. She then introduced the evening’s first reader, Louise Simonson. “Weezie” is best known for her Eagle Award- and Comics Buyer’s Guide‘s Fan Award-winning work on comic book titles such as Power Pack, X-Factor, New Mutants, Superman: The Man of Steel and Steel. (Earlier that day, this writer was asked by a comics store staffer if she was still married to Jon Bogdanove. Um, no; her husband is, of course, Walt Simonson, himself a giant in the comics industry.) Simonson read the first chapter from her work in progress, a contemporary urban dark fantasy, Night Terrors, centering on Penny and C.R. (“Seer”), an extraordinary brother and sister sharing psychic abilities, who have lived—and been bullied—in a series of group homes.
After a short break, Goldschlager introduced the evening’s second reader. Chris Claremont is best-known for his unbroken 17-year run on Marvel Comics’ The Uncanny X-Men, for which he received numerous Eagle Awards and Comics Buyer’s Guide‘s Fan Awards, though he has written other iconic comics characters such as Batman and Superman. In addition, he has authored nine novels. He read from a just-completed, yet-unsold dark fantasy novel, Wild Blood, in which Jo, a teenaged British girl, sneaks away trans-Atlanticly to visit her father in New York City, only to find him missing and herself plunged into an otherworldly adventure. The audience was rapt.
An exceptionally revealing question-and-answer session with the readers followed. Simonson, who has also been a comics editor, described editing Claremont as “a dream, easy, easy, easy,” noting also that, in general, it is easier to work with writers after feeding them (but, alas, the comics industry’s prosperous days, when it could afford to treat writers to lunch, are gone). Both agreed that it was easier to work with characters of their own creation than established characters, as they didn’t have to worry about continuity. Claremont further observed that, whereas in novels he had to write the proverbial thousand words to create a picture, in comics he effectively had “an audience of one, the penciller,” whom he “provokes” to realize the image. (A downside of the globalization of talent is that the artist may never have seen New York, and must rely entirely on photos.) Responding to another query, Claremont disclosed that his first published short story in over 25 years, “The Ghost of the Superstition Mountains” (which will be appearing in the anthology Under the Moons of Mars: New Adventures on Barsoom, edited by John Joseph Adams), grew out of an unused story that he wrote for John Carter: Warlord of Mars before Marvel lost the rights for the character.
On a more sensitive topic, a questioner asked how they felt watching stuff that they had written turned into movies “that make billions,” none of which they see. Claremont conceded that it can be “frustrating,” but, on the other hand, he got to see his characters brought to visual life by Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Anna Paquin, and Ellen Page (it was “a treat” to have McKellen say to him “Dear boy, your character was brilliant!”), which “almost makes up for the money silliness.” Simonson related that she and Walt watched them making Thor (and Walt cameo’d in it) and it was fascinating and satisfying to see so many people coming together in a single vision. From the audience, and the Marvel Bullpen of yore, “Uncanny” Danny Fingeroth stepped up to share an anecdote about Weezie’s work on Marvel’s ill-conceived adaptation of Xanadu (which, despite the “X,” wasn’t about mutants).
In the high point of the Q-and-A, the audience discovered that the two selections read were far closer in conception than had been initially apparent, beyond both being set in New York City. Describing her story’s inspiration, Simonson commented that she likes dark fantasy, likes dark fantasy set in New York, and likes stories in which things happen beyond our senses. In Night Terrors, the Spirit World we don’t see is becoming aware that demons are taking over our world of physical reality, and is breeding half-human/half-fairies. Picking up from her remark that New York City is a melting pot, even of the otherworldly, Claremont said that Wild Blood is also a story of immigrants (coming from the UK, Jo sees the entire city with fresh eyes). A thousand years ago, there was a conference between the Queen of England and the ruling court of Faerie; yielding to the fact that other religions (Christianity, Islam) were taking over the world, they moved, of course, to America. (Accordingly, a neighboring landlady is a dragon, there are djinns in Sheepshead Bay, and stretch limos carry off the dead from Grand Central.)
The audience of 40 included Richard Bowes, K. Tempest Bradford, Danny Fingeroth, Beth Fleisher (Claremont’s wife), Rajan Khanna, David Barr Kirtley, Barbara Krasnoff, Delia Sherman, and Walt Simonson. After the ceremonial folding-up of chairs, the readers and a number of audience members adjourned, as customary, to Milady’s, a nearby pub.