Well Actually …
In which I resist temptation while traveling, listen to a favorite character, and get ready for some conventioning.
This week I spent a few days down in Orlando for an industry conference with one of my content services consulting clients. The flight to Orlando was probably about half-full of folks heading out to the upcoming Star Trek Cruise. - Two people sat behind me were talking about Trek in comics …
I resisted the temptation to turn round and do the “well actually….” thing. (Just).
This got me thinking, is it ever right to do that? If I hear snatches of conversations about things I’ve studied and written about, most notably The Beatles, James Bond1, Batman, and yes, Star Trek comics it’s bound to pique my interest as to what is being said. But does that give me the right to jump in and correct what I consider to be other people’s mistakes or repetition of misinformation?
No, I don’t think so. I don’t know the context of their conversation, their level of interest, or what point they may, or may not, be trying to make.
It’s easy to go from thinking yourself as an expert to behaving like a jerk.
If someone finds out I’ve written about a subject and then asks me questions about it, that’s fine. But inserting myself into others’ conversations is a definite NO for me. I’ll smile quietly to myself, glad that others may share a common interest, and get back to reading my book, sipping my coffee, writing, or whatever I have going on in my life.
Other Stuff
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Word Slinging
Just a quick reminder that I’ll be at the FenCon literary SF convention in Dallas this weekend and be participating in panels about:
James Bond: Man of Mystery
How to Turn Your Idea Into a Graphic Novel
Networking for Introvert Authors
Science & Technology in Alternate History, and
The Cities and Locations of Comics.
Plus signing books at some point on Saturday afternoon.
Pages and Screens
Books Read in 2024 - “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - A Stitch In Time ” by Andrew J. Robinson.
For me, one of the delights of the Star Trek Deep Space Nine series was the development of the Cardassian tailor, Garak, from a background character to a fully rounded figure, whose secrets were teased and slowly revealed over the series run.
The actor who portrayed Garak, Andrew Robinson, started to develop a diary for his character which he would read extracts from at various Trek conventions. This then developed into a full biography of Elim Garak that was published as part of the Star Trek novel series in 2000. It only had a limited print run but quickly gained a reputation as one of the best Trek novels and demand for it means that it now goes for crazy prices. I did find a paperback last year but as much as I wanted to read it the $200 price tag was a bit too much!
Thankfully an audio-book version, read by the author/actor was released last year, so I snapped it up. It turned out to be a powerful and emotional listen as Robinson tracks his character’s life interwoven across three different periods, his childhood, career, and the events that led to his exile on DS9; his time on DS9; and his return to a Cardassia devastated by war.
It’s a very personal book, as well as scarily topical in some ways. You need a good grounding in Trek lore to get most of the references, and it helps to be familiar with the events of the last two seasons of DS9 in particular - but if you weren’t you probably wouldn’t be reading the book in the first place.
But if like me, you enjoyed Deep Space Nine, want to know more about one of its most intriguing and interesting characters, but didn’t want to pay the crazy prices for the book - then I highly recommend you check out this audio version. Having the character tell the story in his own voice adds a level of poignancy that you wouldn’t have gotten from the printed page anyway.
Podcast Procastinations
The latest episode of Rogue Agents is now live on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Podcast network, in which the crew takes a slight diversion from the worlds of 007, although remains with a Fleming connection, as we once more revisit the files of U.N.C.L.E to examine “The Deadly Games Affair.”
You can check out the discussion right HERE.
Bond Briefings
The new bi-weekly James Bond Lexicon newsletter is off to a great start with more subscribers than we could have hoped for over the first few weeks. - Thanks to everyone who has subscribed.
In our latest issue, I ask Is James Bond Science Fiction, plus news of another Bond museum exhibit opening next month, plus a new upcoming book release.
If you enjoy the worlds of 007 and haven’t subscribed, you can join us at the link below
Before They Were Beatles Updates
The next episode of THE FORGOTTEN BEATLES podcast is done and staged. In this episode, we cover the 3 Cs - George’s stand in Vince Calandra, acapella group The Chants, and drummer Norman Chapman - It is scheduled to go live on the first Wednesday in March.
The February issue of the Before They Were Beatles newsletter is now out in which we take a sidebar to talk about the influence of legendary “Play in a Day” guitarist, Bert Weedon. If you don’t want to miss out on the expanded story of the early Beatles history, you can sign up for a subscription below.
Weekly Web Round-Up
Forest Comics - It’s been another Saintly week of sales, this past week. And once again Gill has been hard at work adding a whole new box of graphic novels to the store. - You can always find out what we have in store right HERE
Batman On The Cover - The journey through Batman’s comics publishing history continues this week we look at the comics published in November 1968 in Lebanon, Mexico, and the Netherlands. All were reprints of original US covers and nothing really stood out enough to share this week.
Where on the Web is Alan?
You can now find links to all the places you can find me online, websites, newsletters, social media, and more in a single LINKS page on my personal website.
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See you next time
Alan J. Porter
The Can’t See The Forest (TM) newsletter is a production of Megrin Entertainment, a division of 4Js Group LLC
I almost did a “well actually…” to Stephen Fry this week too after spotting mentioning an often repeated Bond-related misconception in the footnotes of his own very entertaining Substack newsletter.
"yes, Star Trek comics it’s bound to pique my interest as to what is being said."
Shouldn't that be just Star Trek in general. I've seen you go on about all aspects of Trek. Think the only thing we have never discussed re Star Trek were the toys.
Wait, scratch that. I recall a lengthy discuss about the 70s Star Trek Enterprise bridge set with the "working" transporter https://www.megomuseum.com/galleries/enterprise/