Agent Orange: Contrary to popular belief, the New York Times is not actually the most anti-American news outlet. CSPAN is far more dangerous, and not just because it is more accurate than the average comic book. You couldn’t design anti-American propaganda more effective than around-the-clock Congressional coverage.

“You don’t change the world by whispering.” — NY Governor Eliot Spitzer

“Only a New Yorker could think that volume can change the world.”– Jacob Mallow

This is my storyboard for the page I’d like illustrated first.

Panel 1:
The camera is zoomed in on a young accountant in the doorway of his ideal suburban house (see reference below for the house). The angle here should be askew, slightly canted so that the frame is not quite parallel to the ground.  The accountant (Gary) is a disheveled wreck getting ready to run out to his car. His tie is hanging around his neck and his teeth are hanging on to a piece of toast that he didn’t have time to eat. He is frantic and has clearly overslept. His right hand holds a briefcase.

Panel 2:
He runs madly towards his car (reference below). I’d like the camera to focus on his legs and waist. His left hand should, at this point, reach into his pocket. (Yeah, it’s OK if running with a hand in his pocket looks awkward).

His car should look pretty plain but not boring. He’s an IRS accountant but I want readers to feel that they can relate to him. Something like this car below. (Colorwise, I’d like it in a beige or a weak blue).

Panel 3:
This shot should be angled so that the car is oriented like it is like it is in the shot above. We see him from the back as he’s facing perpendicular to the car from 5-10 feet away. He has pulled out a starter. We should be able to read the car’s license plate, which says TAXMAN. Again, this is meant to establish his style. I think that readers will like him a lot more if they feel he has flavor… so, if you need to adjust the angle or the car to get the license plate in, please do so.

Panel 4:
He clicks the starter. (Sound effect: Click). Again, it’s important that he be illustrated 5-10 feet away from the car.

Panel 5:
When he starts the engine, he unwittingly sets off a bomb that was intended to kill him. (Sound effect: boom).

Proportionwise, this is how I was envisioning it: 35% of the page’s height for panels 1 and 2, 25% for 3 and 4, and 40% for panel 5. Panels 1, 2, 3 and 4 would each span half of the page horizontally and 5 would span the entire page.

Visual References

Miscellaneous Details

• It’s very early in the morning.
• It’s summer.
• Please don’t illustrate any bystanders.  Gary should be alone when the bomb goes off.
• I want Gary’s house to look ideal and Eden-esque.  Please replace the bushes and hedges out front with some flowers (see reference for some examples).
• Except for the explosion, this scene should be very cheerful/bright/happy.

If you have any questions, please email me at bmckenzie05-at-gmail[dot]com.

FROM: AgentOrange@osi.hr.gov

TO: OfficeofSpecialInvestigationsListServ@osi.gov

SUBJ: December Morale Issues

As you receive your duty schedules this December, please think of the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What happened in the Rudolph case study

1. Team-members pulling together to complete an important task
2. Division of labor

What didn’t happen in the Rudolph case study

1. Reindeer complaining about “hazard pay” or “life insurance premiums”
2. Reindeer demanding to be at home on Dec. 24 or 25.
3. Threats of congressional investigations into Reindeer Resources practices and relevant reindeer being kicked into a food processor

Ho, ho, ho! Have a cheerfully nondenominationally cheerful December season!

–Human Resources

“I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.”– Richard Nixon

Sorry, I can’t think of any way to make that any funnier.

Hello, these are the first four pages of our script.

PAGE ONE (five panels)

Panel 1. The morning sun is rising over a cheerful-looking suburban house. It’s summer.

CAP: 7:35 Monday at the home of IRS Agent Gary Williams.

Panel 2. The front door is now open, showing a mundane-looking man around 25 years old, dressed for work in a drab suit and carrying a briefcase.

Panel 3. He is closer to his car. He reaches into his pocket.

Panel 4. He pulls out his keys and starts the engine remotely. He’s several feet away from the car.

SFX: Click.

Panel 5. The car explodes (because starting the engine set off a car-bomb). Agent Williams is within 5-10 feet of the car when it explodes.

PAGE TWO (four panels)

Panel 1. Williams wakes up in a hospital. He should have some bandages but generally look uninjured. A police officer with a US Marshal’s badge is staring out the window at a generic US cityscape.

WILLIAMS:
What happened?

US MARSHAL:
A car bomb. Someone wants you dead.

Panel 2. Williams looks shocked and scandalized.

WILLIAMS:
But who would want to kill an IRS agent?

US MARSHAL, with a grim smile:
300 million people, easy. But mainly we’re considering the criminals you investigated. Do any cases stick out to you?

Panel 3. Williams is counting on his fingers, recounting the criminals he’s investigated this year. He should look innocent and oblivious to the fact that many people have an incentive to kill him.

WILLIAMS:
Well, uhh… this year I had a money laundering case against a drug gang, a fraud case against the KKK, a few mob indictments, seven or eight hundred individual charges of tax evasion…

Panel 4: Williams cuts himself off after seeing a clock over the Marshal’s shoulder.

WILLIAMS:
–it’s 9:20. I’m late for work!

MARSHAL:
You are not going to work, Mr. Williams.

PAGE THREE (five panels)

Panel 1: Williams tries to get out of his bed, but the Marshal presses his hands down on Williams’ shoulders.

WILLIAMS:
But I can still make my 10 o’clock appoint—

MARSHAL:
We told the IRS that you’re dead. You can’t go back there.

Panel 2. Williams looks puzzled.

MARSHALL:
We don’t know who tried to murder you or how they got your address.

Panel 3.

MARSHALL:
We have to assume that someone at the IRS helped them. If you returned to your workplace or home, word would get out that you survived and the killers would finish the job.

WILLIAMS:
Those are my friends! You can’t ask me to give my life away.

Panel 4.

MARSHALL:
I wasn’t asking. The alternative is being taken into Witness Protection until the investigation is complete. Probably a year. I hope you like Anchorage.

Panel 5. Williams slumps against the bed’s backboard, melancholy.

WILLIAMS:
A year…

MARSHAL:
We’ll put you on paid administrative leave and you can even get a new job if you’d like. It’s not that bad.

PAGE FOUR (five panels)

Panel 1. scrawny government agent in a business suit is having a telephone conversation with Williams from his bland office. In the back, we see an American flag and the FBI seal painted onto a window.

FBI HUMAN RESOURCES AGENT:
I’m sorry, Mr. Williams, but…

Panel 2. A very similarly dressed agent is having a similar phone conversation with Williams. This time, it’s a Drug Enforcement Agency seal painted either on a window or the back wall. To help differentiate this speaker from the previous one, please vary the character’s race and/or gender.

DEA HUMAN RESOURCES AGENT:
…our agents require at least a year of training, so…

Panel 3. Yet another government agent is speaking on the phone with Williams. This time the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau seal is somewhere in the office.

ATF HUMAN RESOURCES AGENT:
… I must inform you that, regretfully…

Panel 4. Another government agent is on the phone. This time, please use a seal from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. (Readers won’t recognize the seal, but they should be able to pick up the message that Williams is exhausting every option).

OCC HUMAN RESOURCES AGENT:
…we cannot hire you at this time.

Panel 5. Williams is slumped over at a mostly vacant bar, with a few empty mugs near him. On the edge of the paper, we see a muscular and hard-looking man approaching Williams, but the main visual here is Williams taking his job rejections hard.

“I’m a conservative, but I’m not a nut about it.”– George H.W. Bush

“And that is why you and I are different.”– Dr. Lizard, webmaster of the Lizard Lounge.

“Poor Darrell Hammond. What’s he going to do when I leave office?”– Bill Clinton

“Probably enjoy his internship more.”– Dr. Lizard

1. Post something every day. If you’re gungho enough to actually log on to your site every day, great. If not, write a few more posts than you need and set their timestamps so that they come out once a day. Having one post a day is vastly preferable to a few posts every few days.
   1. Daily posts encourages readers to check your site often. It also reminds your readers that you’re still alive and why they love coming back. (Right, guys?)
   2. Coming up with 7 posts each week is not too hard. I think we have 400 posts over the five months. Admittedly, we have a team of contributors, but to be fair I would venture to say that at least 200-250 of those are mine.
   3. If interested readers see that you haven’t updated in the past few days, they may stop coming. I loved Your Webcomic Can Still Be Saved but it hasn’t posted in quite some time. I no longer check it.
   4. Your readers won’t derive as much enjoyment from the second article as the first (diminishing returns). But it’s just as hard to write the second article as it is to write the first. From an economics standpoint, it makes more sense to stash the second article.
2. Strategic post timing. I think the most popular time to browse the web is (for adults) around 5pm-8pm. It’s probably around 3-5 pm for students. Target your posts to just before your audience is likely to check.
3. What should you post? That depends on what your site’s aim is. If you’re trying to market a novel, you can show your writing style with one-liners from your characters, strong scenes or a short conversation between two characters. Character profiles may be useful, particularly if your characters are fresh enough to draw us into the story.

I hate little writing guides. I read one this morning that offered only ~300 words on writing characters, all of which could be summarized as “write authentic characters,” which was incidentally the chapter heading. Write authentic characters. Thanks!

Hopefully, this article will prove more useful to you. As you craft and introduce a character, you have many tools at your disposal. I’ll offer some tips for the following aspects and tools of character creation.

1. Character genesis: what kind of character do you need?
2. Introducing your character
3. Making your characters memorable/sticky
4. Three dimensional characters
5. Character problems

Character Genesis: what kind of character do you need?

Virtually every well-designed character has each of the following:

1. Purpose
   1. This is the role he plays in your story. If your character does not play a unique and useful role in the plot, you need to rewrite or remove him. Characters are unique if their role can’t be performed by the story’s other characters. A character is useful he cannot be removed without dramatically weakening the story. That’s subjective, but often your beta readers agree which characters are productive and/or interesting and which aren’t. If you have beta readers, ask questions like “what role did John play in this chapter?” or “which character contributed the least?”—those are pretty direct ways of getting reader impressions on the material. If you don’t have beta readers, go to http://www.critters.org; it’s a very professional and free online writing workshop.
   2. Purpose comes first because everything else you put into your character hinges on the role you need him to play. Purpose should drive development. For example, if you want a character to add comic quips, he should be witty. Readers will notice if a supposedly slow character is verbally quick.
      
   3. Your audience and world often reach the same conclusions about a character. But, if you intend your readers not to agree with what your characters think about another character, make it clear why there’s a distinction. (Failing to do so will make your characters feel flat or unbelievable). NOTE: this should be done as sparingly as possible. Discrepancies tend to disconnect readers from the story.

2. Goals
   1. Real people have goals. Your characters should, too! Goals add plot coherence. If your plot moves from one characters attempting to achieve his goal to another thwarting him by pursuing his own agenda and then back to the first character trying again, it tends to flow nicely.
   2. Goals make characters deep and believable. Did Neville Longbottom go to Hogwarts just so Snape could pound on him? Hell no! He wants to be a man, which drives him to (hilariously) confront Harry Potter towards the end of the first book. Goals are essential to making your characters more than just props. Even your minor characters should have them.
3. Problems
   1. Real people have problems, too. Problems are a great way to develop your characters. In fact, sometimes the problems are more memorable than the characters themselves (how long could you talk about Luke Skywalker before saying “Darth Vader?”)
   2. Sometimes you reach for your goal and fail. Failure adds drama! Someone who succeeds the first time, every time is not really interesting. The higher the barriers are, the more your readers will enjoy watching the leap. Failure also helps develop characters. Adversity brings out resourcefulness, ingenuity and strength.
   3. Problems also help you mix up the plot. If your character tries shouldering open a locked door but fails, it wouldn’t be very dramatic if he just kept hitting it until it opened. This gives you an opportunity to show that your character is able to do more than solve all of his problems one way—action writers often tend to focus on violent or confrontational solutions. If you feel you have that problem, try mixing it up by placing your hero in a position where he’s hopelessly outpowered, ideally in a social setting. You can’t punch your boss…
   4. Are you using a broad set of problems? Here are a few to consider. 1) Nature/natural phenomena 2)Violent antagonists 3) Iagos (diplomatically savvy antagonists) 4) The hero’s shortcomings 5) The hero’s goals conflict 6) Conflicting heroes
4. Flaws
   1. Authors sometimes mistakenly confuse problems with flaws. Problems are obstacles or failures. Flaws are attributes that the audience won’t find endearing.
   2. Many authors tend to subconsciously write characters as reflections of themselves. That’s fine, as long as you don’t idealize yourself. Realistic characters virtually require flaws. “But I want my audience to sympathize with my hero!” That’s a good point, but keep in mind that flaws can accentuate positive traits. For example, an idealistic character might be depressed because the world doesn’t meet his expectations. His depression will remind us that he lives by his ideals.
   3. On the other hand, villains often have too many flaws. Sympathetic villains—with agendas we can relate to, even if we don’t want them to succeed— are often the most memorable and feel the most realistic (Darth Vader).
   4. Flaws tend to be more memorable. For example, in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, Temeraire has an interesting set of characteristics. Let’s see… he’s a dragon, enthusiastic about geometry, he is very affectionate towards his Captain/partner, is strongly anti-slavery and wants sweeping reforms to make British society more dragon-friendly (like tearing up London buildings to make the streets widers). But what is most salient about Temeraire—and characterizes him the best—is that he’s politically radical and doesn’t care about what society deems acceptable.
   5. Flaws tend to add plot coherence. Temeraire [SPOILER] goes rogue and refuses to carry out a plot to poison French dragons. [/SPOILER] That flows naturally from his deeply held views about the dignity of dragons. It doesn’t feel like the author randomly decided to have Temeraire rebel to spice the plot up. Plots driven by flaws tend to be more coherent and feel less arbitrary, partially because flaw-driven foreshadowing is more noticeable and memorable.

Memorable/Sticky Characters

You want your characters to be memorable, I’m sure. More precisely, your characters should be sticky—something about them needs to stick long and hard with your readers.

Readers will often miss minor details, especially one introduced only once or twice. The essence of stickiness is giving each character one or two defining characteristics that provide memory cues to everything else about the character. If you bring attention to those defining characteristics a few times, readers will gradually make a lasting impression and they will easily remember the character.

Here’s an example from my own work: one of Agent Orange’s defining characteristics is that he’s an (reptilian) alien. I assumed that readers would remember that unusual detail. WRONG! Not only had the majority forgotten that he was the alien, many more had gotten confused about the species of some human characters. To help cue my readers, I had Agent Orange say “mammals*” whenever he’s exasperated, faces a political obstacle, has to explain something about himself or is otherwise perplexed by American culture.

[1]

ORANGE: Do you smell that?

LASH: That you smell like an ashtray?

ORANGE: The squid. He’s a mile off.

LASH: How the hell could I smell a squid a mile away?

ORANGE: Mammals.

[2]

Agent BLACK: I’ll stick with the experience and Darwin factors.

Agent ORANGE: (Mammals). When Freakshow is melting your neural synapses together, let me know how much inspiration and comfort those give you.

BLACK: I will try to remember to do that, sir.

ORANGE: (Wiseass).

This recurring remark has benefits beyond reminding readers that Orange isn’t human. Sometimes I’ll ask my reviewers questions like “do you remember a passage that shows how Agent Orange (or nonhumans generally) get along with humans?” They almost always pick a “mammals” passage. I think the word “mammals” is a pretty good cue that the reader is supposed to make associations there.

Since I’ve introduced the “mammals” lines, readers have fared much better on open-ended questions like “how would you characterize human-nonhuman relationships in Superhero Nation?” I’m looking for words like “awkward,” “well-intentioned,” “strange” and “friendly”—at least, that’s what I meant to convey. Before I used mammal lines, most readers had no clue and the rest mentioned discrimination. That was certainly puzzling, given that the only recurring nonhuman character is a ranking government official that’s friendly with his co-workers.

Now, I see a lot more answers that use words like “strained,” “symbiotic,” different perspectives, etc.

Big picture, “mammals” helps characterize Orange. It reminds us that he’s not a human and that his relations with humans are mostly positive but kind of outsider-looking-in (I like “symbiotic”).

*I experimented with him saying “humans” but that came off much more sinister and lacked the whimsy and exasperation I was looking for. Reviewers overwhelmingly agreed that “mammals” was friendlier. One said that “humans rings with contempt. It sounds like a slur.” Another agreed that mammals was less threatening because it paralleled racism less. By using “mammals” instead of “humans,” Orange implicitly contrasts himself as a reptile rather than a dragon. “I don’t think he’s suggesting reptiles are categorically superior to mammals, but I think using ‘humans’ does suggest a categorical assertion about the superiority of his species [dragons].”

I’m only done with part 1 of this, but it’s pretty late here. I’ll complete this later.

The Miami Dolphins, vying to be the first team ever to lose more than the 0-14 1976 Buccaneers, will beat the Patriots and end their hopes of a perfect season.

I saw it in a dream.  It was one of those trippy-as-hell dreams that you KNOW is a dream even before you wake up.

KAPOW. 

My execution has improved somewhat. This time I actually remembered the mana cost and the art looks a bit cleaner than my first two attempts. Art c/o the White House.

Note on the OSI Human Resources Branch Refrigerator

ATTENTION HUMAN RESOURCES TEAM:

Several letters, ‘Special Investi,’ faded off my door placard. Since this sort of event happens passively all the time, there’s no reason to suspect that any of you were involved or spike the office coffee with truth serum. I’m sure the scratch marks are coincidental and entirely unrelated to the cruelly disfigured statue of Albert the Florida Gator that was left as a doorjamb.

–Agent Orange, Human Resources Director and Special Investigator

Postscript: In completely unrelated news, I’m holding an interrogation information session office party today. Everyone with claws or a proficiency with knifes/cutting implements is invited. (RSVP not mandatory but attendance is. These employees can check the attached schedule for their required party time).

Post-postscript: Agent Black, don’t even bother checking. You’re first.

Post-post-postscript: In other completely unrelated news, the OSI is adjusting its service schedules to enhance public safety. We will deploy a number of agents to conduct the esteemed work of bomb-searching every dumpster within a ten mile radius of the University of Florida’s Griffin Stadium before each football game. OSI-HR has not yet decided how many agents to deploy; the investigation roster evaluation is still pending.

Post-post-post-postscript: You—you know who you are (and I do, too)—are considering time-travel. “What if I undrink the truth serum but decapitate Albert anyway?” Please. Unless you’re also interested in Florida baseball, I’d recommend against it.

Post-post-post-post-postscript: Mammals. [Note: this is not a legal statement implying that I know the species of the partyer-of-honor. However, it is a statement that I know it’s Black.]

This next one is dedicated to a certain fictional counterterrorist we all know and love, rather than anything in real-life.

My last fake card was done like a Magic: The Gathering card. It’s come to my attention that there are superhero card games (!). One of my Australian (!!!) readers says that he has actually played one, OverPower.

He says: “Your art [expletive]s but I bet Hegemon will be funner to play than” Overpower.

In honor of this alleged card game that has apparently made its way to Australia already, I give you your second Hegemon card, There’s No Time!

(Please click to see the full image if it’s cut off).

To the extent that the art is not painfully bad, I made use of Dali’s classic Persistence of Memory.

The following is not based on my work as a journalist… but it could be.

Political scientist: I noticed that your article called me an “imperialist.”

Journalist: Right. You said you were an imperialist.

Political scientist: Empiricist! I’m an empiricist!

This article describes some remotely technical details of search engine optimization, particularly for authors/novelists.

Continue Reading »

ATTN: SOCIAL JUSTICE LEAGUE

It has come to our attention that you have continued to violate our intellectual property rights. Continuing to infringe on copyrighted terms and concepts, including but not limited to the following, will force us to pursue alternate methods of defending our legal rights.

1. “superhero”
2. “superpowers”
3. The concept of superpowered individuals concealing their identities with masks and capes.
4. Accusations of lurid conspiracies by government personnel against the public interest

We eagerly anticipate your cooperation in this matter.

–Wonder Comics

ATTN: WONDER COMICS

It has come to our attention that you are attempting to restrict our linguistic rights for your selfish profit. Please refer your legal staff to the following concepts in US-American jurisprudence.

1. “Common usage”
2. Lawyers/media vs. police/military. Who do you think we have on staff?
3. Billionaire playboys: you’ve either got them or you don’t.

We eagerly anticipate your lawsuit.

–The Social Justice League

Quotes from USMC Drill Instructor Oliver Ryan.

Dammit, maggot, if I wanted your opinion I’d give it to you!

Movies are big on “be yourself.” That’s a bunch of crap! When you’re ready to be more than just yourself, you too might make the Marines.

Goddamn… you’re drinking like someone in a Stanley Kubrick film.

I am not a “drill sergeant”, maggot!

I’m Drill Instructor Ryan. Today might be the longest day of your life… but it’ll probably be the shortest.

You can’t spell party without P-T! [author’s note: PT = physical training]

Exclamation marks make life more interesting!

The International Society of Supervillains has the dirt on “superheroes” that are really tools. Reed Richards, Namor and Superman take the cake.

Agent Orange: I just had a dream that the villain was the sentient White House.

Captain Carnage: You weren’t dreaming.

Agent Orange …

Agent Orange: I’m going back to sleep.

ABC did a story called Why Black Superheroes Succeed– and Fail. That’s interesting for whites writing black characters (or vice versa) or those wondering why some characters are popular and others aren’t.

I think black superheroes tend to fail because they get typecast as persecuted heroes. Even the article confuses two very separate ideas.

1. The article’s first sentence: “Would Spider-Man be the box-office juggernaut he is today if he had been created as an African-American character?” All other things being equal, would a successful hero become unsuccessful if he is made black?
2. The article’s second sentence: “What if Peter Parker had had to deal with the problems of being black in America in addition to adjusting to his powers when he was first introduced in 1962?” Would a successful hero become unsuccessful if white-on-black persecution were inserted into his plotline?

These two questions are very different! The second implicitly assumes that a black hero must face white-on-black persecution, which probably makes less sense now than it did in 1962. And, regardless of whether it is plausible that every black is persecuted by whites, persecution stories are usually depressing (particularly when the persecution is based on real-life events, rather than hating mutants or Muggles). Making the hero the victim of persecution changes the tone of the plot far more than just making him black.

Do black heroes have to be persecuted? I don’t think so. Most young people, especially, haven’t lived with the intense and highly visible racism of the 1960s, but the comics industry doesn’t seem to have caught on to that. Plot elements that were commonplace (or at least plausible) fifty years ago, like racial violence and particularly caustic racist remarks, often seem outlandishly cynical now.

If you do focus on racism, I recommend using elements of racism that are likelier to resonate with your readers circa now. People might step away in hallways and elevators or sit at different tables in cafeterias—I think that most readers would agree that’s how racism manifests right now more than, say, burning crosses and even racial slurs. More provocatively, someone might suggest that a minority has gotten where he is because of affirmative action or that affirmative action hires as a whole are less qualified than other employees. Bank guards might get antsy. Etc. (For some more manifestations of modern racism, please see the footnotes).

The point is that modern racism has become subconscious—I suspect that most racists genuinely believe that they aren’t— and that portraying racism as in-your-face, 1960s slurs will likely feel out of touch and preachy to your readers.

When I watched Crash, I laughed so hard when a car crash caused people to immediately start screaming slurs. Wouldn’t you, uhh, want to get their insurance information first? NO CUZ KKKALIFORNIA IZ RACIST. Crash wants to Make A Point and comes off as totally cartoonish.

Freedom Writers portrays a racially balkanized community much more plausibly.

If you feel the need to include intense racism in your work—something that will significantly affect the tone and marketability of your piece—Freedom Writers offers a pretty good model. It treats racism more seriously.

1. FW is set in a school district with some really poor areas. Meeting basic, everyday needs is a struggle.
2. Gangs and ghettos form as an attempt to form communities to meet those needs.
3. Intense, Hobbesian struggles and racism arise as the communities clash.

FW suggests that racism arises from economics*. That offers FW’s world a sort of grim, perverse logic. FW’s world is deep—you see where the racism came from and why it is so damn hard to overcome. Readers understand economic motives and how much money matters, especially if you have very little. Readers won’t sympathize with race-based gangs, but they will appreciate that tolerance is a harder choice than they thought. That raises the stakes and makes the heroes larger-than-life.

In Crash, racism just sprouted from nowhere and persists despite economic concerns. Insulting someone rather than getting their insurance information is irrational. Furthermore, the story offers no explanation why the characters would think it’s rational. Why are characters intolerant? Because they’re emotional, maybe. That seems flimsy and unsatisfying. It also gives the story an arbitrary feel– the characters couldn’t overcome racism at the story’s start, so how are they able to at the end? It would feel much more logical if we knew why racism was a problem at the start.

Footnotes

*Although some sociologists do agree with Freedom Writers that racism is primarily rooted in economics, they’re in the minority. But that doesn’t matter– Freedom Writers feels coherent and plausible anyway.  99% of your audience has no idea what most sociologists think, so it’s the feeling that matters.

More modern racism

For the purposes of helping you write, I’ll broadly define racism as anything that might create discomfort or division along racial lines.

1) Affirmative action. I actually already mentioned this before, but I think it’s particularly useful because blacks and whites often strongly disagree not only about AA but about which statements/opinions about AA are socially acceptable. For example, in one class a white student discussing AA made the (not extremely controversial?) assertion that race influences faculty hiring decisions. This offended the black professor, who may have thought that the white was insinuating he was less qualified. The professor asked, “do you think I was hired because I’m black?” The white was taken aback by that point-black, personal question about what he probably perceived to be an impersonal, general statement. He said that he thinks that the professor’s being black was a factor.

As the author, you could paint this a few ways. Maybe the student is wrong to treat the issue impersonally, maybe the professor was being oversensitive, or that there’s just a gap in understanding between the white and the black that doesn’t suggest anything negative about either.

2) Whites saying “sup” to black peers. In terms of awkward hilarity, this is one of my favorites. Whites often feel pressured to act differently with blacks. You might chalk this up to insensitivity and/or oversensitivity. Saying “sup” probably isn’t sinister, but it may create tension because the black knows that the white is acting differently because he’s talking to a black. In a related example (one I can hopefully offer without making a political point), Hillary Clinton once adopted a painfully bad drawl when speaking before a black audience.

3) Subways, trains and buses. I’ve noticed that people (including nonwhites) strongly prefer to sit by people of the same race. Visual media, like comic books, have some fantastic opportunities for some grim humor by showing a black (or white?) sitting alone in a crowded bus like he has leprosy or something. However, I’ve never seen anyone change seats to specifically move away from someone of a different race.

4) The assumption that whites and blacks have substantially different skills, traits or tastes.

Journalist: Is it true that the government has systematically tried to conceal the truth so that the American people don’t know how threatened they are?

Mike, the head of the Office of Special Investigation’s RETCON unit:  We usually get accused of playing up the terrorist threat. At least you didn’t throw out the psychic amnesia theory.

Journalist: You didn’t answer my…

Journalist: …

Journalist: What was I saying?

Mike: Damned if I remember.

And you thought “Army of One” was bad…

“We’re not really black-ops assassins or conspiracy bagmen, but encryption and information assurance are sexy too!”– NSA

“Our acronym doesn’t really stand for ‘Systematically Eliminating Troublesome Information.’ Not officially, anyway.” — SETI

Strictly speaking, our mission generally entails tasks like garbage collection/inspection, bomb sweeps and surveillance, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have battle royales in the Oval Office. — Secret Service

“Package delivery anywhere in the world, any time. Special service to China available. What can Blue do for you?” — US Air Force

Striving to keep New York free of supercriminals, starting with the prisons. — NY Department of Corrections

• I thought of a related quote that I didn’t want to list separately. Agent Black: “The only place in NYC that’s free of supercriminals is Rikers.”

“Taking unconventional warfare to the next level.” — USAF-STRATCOM

“Have you ever killed anyone? Do you want to?” — CIA

Captain Carnage: That’s dumb as asking a hog to hootenanny.

Lash: One, we know you aren’t really Texan. Two, no one has a clue what the hell you’re saying.

Captain Carnage, translating: “That’s as dumb as getting advice on napalm from Joann Fabric.”

I think what America clearly needs is another board game. This is where Hegemonopoly comes in.

Some aspects of the game.

In place of Park Place, we’d have National Missile Defense.  In place of Boardwalk, we’d have Strategic First Strike.  The “Go to Boardwalk” card would be “Accidental nuclear launch on your enemies.  Uhh, whoops.  Go to Strategic First Strike.”

Since the three reds are the most popular squares in the game, they will be perennial victims Manchuria (Kentucky), Poland (Indiana) and the Caucasus (Illinois).  The “Go to Illinois” card would be replaced by Caucasian Invasion.

The two utilities will be replaced by Russia and North Korea.  It seems like all they do is supply (nuclear) power and (heavy) water, anyway.  And they have about as much impact on the game.

Since the three oranges are conspicuously correlated with total annihilation, I’ll go with such tried and true methods of statecraft as Carpet Bombing, Untargeted Assassinations, and Death by Slaughter.  (Yes, you can get there with Go Back 3 Spaces).

St. James, States and Virginia will be Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India. The “Go to St. James” card will be replaced with “You always knew it’d be the little one, didn’t you? Go to Sri Lanka.”

The four railroads would be replaced with the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Guinea, Siberia and the Arabian Peninsula.  The more oil someone acquires, the more dangerous they get.

The School Tax card would be replaced by Second-Rate Brinksmanship: choose a player.  Unless the two of you immediately conduct a land deal, you both lose $150.

In place of Baltic Avenue, we’d have Exploding Sheep.  In place of Mediterranean, we’d have France. (Worth $60? Questionable).

Income Tax would be Contractor Surcharge, but I’d have to make it take more than 10% of your money to maintain plausibility.

Jail would be replaced by UN Conference.  (Somewhere you want to be when the game gets hot, but otherwise a death sentence to the aspiring hegemon).

This article builds on “Why Notre Dame? What’s it like?”

This article will cover some ways for you to distinguish yourself (on the application and otherwise). It also features a way to make your college visit a substantial boost to your application by networking with faculty.

Getting into ND

In the personal statement and essays, it’s usually pretty obvious who wants to go to this university and who just selected it because it was in US News and World Report. That’s probably true to some extent for all universities, so I’d really recommend visiting at least a few of the schools at the top of your list so that you get a better feel for the campuses and cultures.

At Notre Dame, students often try to show that they know the campus by writing an essay that refers to the sense of community and football fever that permeate the campus. These essays frequently refer to Rudy, the quintessential Notre Dame football story. It’s really, really hard to write a Rudy essay that sticks out from all the rest.

I don’t know what your academic interests and future plans are. I certainly wouldn’t want you to write a dishonest essay/statement! But, if your plans might conceivably involve going to a Ph. D. program and eventually becoming a professor, then Notre Dame wants you bad. One of the ways universities compare themselves is how many of their students go on to get Ph. Ds and Notre Dame scores a woeful five percent. Even Northwestern, my most reviled adversary, trounces us.

A good essay usually features you and Notre Dame. You might write an essay saying that you want to become a professor someday (because of whyever that would make sense for you), so you want to go to Notre Dame because it’s the best place to make that happen.

Notre Dame is pushing hard to give students chances to explore their intellectual horizons. These are some of the opportunities available to ND students that you might find it useful to reference in an admissions essay to demonstrate that you’ve actually considered why ND makes sense for you.

Research/creative opportunities

1. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program; it awards grants to undergrad students interested in working with a faculty member to conduct research or a creative endeavor together.

   1. For example, I got a UROP grant to write half of Superhero Nation with an English professor that helped me storyboard and edit. And I’m not an English major!

   2. Notre Dame has done a nice job of tailoring these to student interests rather than academic department politics.

2. A political science undergrad co-authored one of my professor’s papers.

3. A horde of political science students have banded together to create their own political research journal, Beyond Politics, to introduce political science research to a much broader campus community. (Good luck, guys!)

4. Grad courses

   1. I’ve heard that it’s generally easy for undergrad upperclassmen to take grad courses in their major. I’m a political science major and I’ve found that it’s really easy to take PS grad courses.

   2. Grad courses are really effing hard.

   3. If you’re interested in grad school, I’d recommend taking at least one, so that you know what the workload will be like. They’re also hugely useful for your applications to grad school. The recommendation letters could also prove extremely useful.
5. Notre Dame lets undergrads take directed readings with professors. That’s an interesting way to pursue a particular interest in a specific field with a professor/advisor.

So that all is one broad strategy—showing that you satisfy what the university wants (students that will go on to get Ph. Ds).

More Application Strategies

By the point in the application cycle you’re probably reading this, a lot of your application is essentially locked into place. You probably already have 4-6 semesters of high school grades and your SAT/ACT scores will probably not rise more than 50-100 points if you take it repeatedly. Your extracurricular achievements will probably not drastically improve—adding a lot of activities junior year usually looks flaky and it is virtually impossible to do anything in a year that would impress college admissions staffers.

So what can you do at this point to make your application stronger, besides rewriting your essays over and over?

Your single best option is a campus visit. It takes you 2-3 school days (or a weekend, but that won’t work as well) and the benefits can be enormous. (I know that many students can’t afford to invest a plane ticket in a prospective school, so I’ll offer some suggestions along the way about how you might be able to replicate many of the benefits of the campus visit with electronic legwork).

The conventional (less effective) approach to a campus visit

1. 1. Do the tour

   2. Visit the most prominent places on campus

   3. Visit the admissions office

   4. Speak with students

That isn’t bad, per se. It’s certainly better than staying at home. But doing the tour and knowing what the stadium looks like probably won’t improve your application much. (If you speak with admissions staffers, they will note that in your file. That suggests commitment, so it certainly won’t hurt).

But I’d feel pretty comfortable predicting that the following approach is likely to substantially increase a marginal student’s competitiveness in the applicant pool at Notre Dame.

Campus visits done right

Prepwork

1. Two weeks in advance, get a course catalog or look online to see which courses will be open during the days you’ll be on campus. (This is one reason that weekend visits are not very productive).

2. Email the professors of all the courses you’re interested in looking at. Something like “Dear Professor X, I’m a prospective Notre Dame student and I’ll be on campus on the 28^th and I was wondering if it would be possible to sit in on your International Security course.”

   1. Some of the professors—probably at least half—will email you back and say that’s OK. Promptly email them back: thank them and ask if there are any recent, small assignments that the class has done. Say that you really, really want to get a feel for what the class is like.

   2. At least one professor will suggest something small like a 1-4 page paper. Look online for what office hours that professor (or professors) has. You will want to meet with him (them) personally during your visit, after attending their class. If they do not have office hours that work for you, try to schedule appointments.

   3. Do the paper(s). Don’t be pretentious and/or reach for a thesaurus. Treat the paper(s) like a high school assignment that is unusually important to your grade. Talking with an English mentor and someone who’s knowledgeable in the course content might be appropriate.

The Visit

1. Forget the tour. Go to as many classes as you can. If there’s any way you feel you can contribute to class, like answering a general question from the teacher, do so. Understandably, you’re at a huge disadvantage because it’s your first time in the class.

2. Turn in your paper(s).

3. Speak with the paper professor(s) after class. Emphasize how much you enjoyed their class (try to mention at least one detail that reinforce how enthusiastic you are) and arrange to meet with them personally by the end of the visit during office hours.

4. See them again in office hours or whenever you scheduled your appointment. Make The Pitch.

The Pitch

1. Ask the professor(s) to write you a super-short letter of recommendation based on your participation in the class and the assignment you’ve written.

   1. “Hi, I’m Brady McKinerney. I’m an applicant to Notre Dame. I really enjoyed your History of Democracy course and I’d love to actually take one of your courses next year. I was wondering if you could write a short letter of recommendation for me.”

2. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION ONE: “I don’t really know you all that well.”

   1. “I understand completely. I know you’ve only had me in class for a day and only have one assignment from me. But I’d really appreciate if you’d be willing to offer even a qualified assessment of my academic ability—I think that would boost my chances of admissions a lot. I’d be really grateful.”

3. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION TWO: “I’m not sure I can fit it into my schedule.”

   1. “I certainly wouldn’t want to impose on you. The dedication for applications is in three weeks [or whatever], and I don’t anticipate that it would take more than half an hour of your time.”

   2. Remember to send him a hand-written thank-you card for agreeing to do the recommendation. That will also serve as a subtle reminder in case he had forgotten.

4. PROFESSORIAL OBJECTION THREE: “I’ve never written this kind of recommendation before.”

   1. This is probably more of a matter of comfort than reluctance. He just isn’t used to this kind of recommendation. They’re very rare.

   2. Suggest that his recommendation mention how you two met and how you participated in his class, both by participating and with your paper. Even a mild statement like “his paper was pretty good” will mean a lot because it came from a professor who obviously knows what is expected of Notre Dame students.

   3. Normally, a high school teacher or advisor writes a letter of recommendation that’s about a page long—and you’ve known the teacher for at least a semester. If a ND professor is willing to write even five sentences about how eager you were to participate and how obviously passionate you are, that could be enormously effective. If you are academically competitive, at your best you can outperform the average Notre Dame student in a class he doesn’t care much about.

A note posted on the Office of Special Investigations’ office refrigerator.

At some point in the past six hours, a Gatorade bottle disappeared from this refrigerator. It had blue contents and a label reading “Agent Orange’s: do not take under penalty of death. I MEAN IT.”

I must consult with the unauthorized drinker immediately to discuss his/her/its future with the agency and any appropriate HR paperwork (benefits, next-of-kin notification/estate planning and last rites arrangements).

Possible symptoms include:

• Hemoglobular disassociation (“blood feud”)
• Sore throat and coughing
• Writhing
• Loss of appetite
• Headache, disorientation and/or brain strangulation
• Spontaneous combustion

Thanks!

–OJ

Agent Orange: You find time for congressional hearings, field missions, heading Operations and a dual life as a psychiatrist that somehow isn’t compromised by a high degree of celebrity.

Captain Carnage: Yeah.

Agent Orange: … how is that possible?

Captain Carnage: You’re missing the point. I’m Captain Carnage. Of course it’s possible.

Bartender: New Hegemon movie’s coming out.

Catastrophe: I heard.

Bartender: …

Bartender: How much do they pay you to wear that?

Catastrophe: Not enough.

I recently wrote a scene where Agents Orange and Black discussed how the government might profile the alternate identities of superheroes. Black focused on relationship troubles and Orange goes for characteristics like being close to people that have been kidnapped more than once.

I think I missed two important characteristics: cheerfulness (specifically the lack of it) and extraordinary and seemingly inexplicable job performance.

Job Performance

No matter how “ordinary” superheroes pretend to be, they always end up having spectacularly successful alternate identities. They won’t just be a mild-mannered journalist, they’ll be a Pulitzer-quality mild-mannered journalist. Even freelance photographers, the homeless bums of the media world, will be so eminent that they publically tell their boss they want twice the money. Industrialists will invariably build world-shaping conglomerates. Let’s not even talk about super-scientists. (Well, actually, I will talk about them, in the chapters with Jacob Mallow and Dr. Berkeley).

If I were in charge of the OSI, I’d *definitely* have a watchlist of the 500-1000 most productive and influential members of American society, with a focus on top performers in the scientific, media, academic and business communities. We can rule out the political/governmental/judicial sphere, but definitely not pro bono civil rights attorneys looking to make the world a better place. That’s obviously too many people to run surveillance on, but it should seem highly suspicious if any of these individuals is involved in anything supercrime-related. Who misses one board meeting too many? Who has cranked out one Nobel-worthy advancement after another? Of course, that works for government-friendly scientists as well.. .

The OSI’s WWII-era predecessor did a comically bad job attempting to cover up the species of Dr. Joe “Slizard,” who showed that an atomic bomb was theoretically possible. Of course, in WWII keeping the identities (and species) of your scientists was critical because roughly a third of the nation’s lab assistants were fanatically hardened Nazi assassins. The real Slizard was saved on several occasions because a Nazi threw himself at a paid actor that played Slizard at public functions.

Cheerfulness, a lack of

Ever since the end of the Silver Age of comic books, most superheroes seem to have been pathologically unhappy. This unhappiness often stems from personal tragedy, government/social persecution, or the realization that you’re a tool who only get published to make shots at Vietnam veterans.

On the whole, superheroes often demonstrate a marked inability to cope with loss and trauma without becoming 1) totally withdrawn/asocial 2) pathologically violent 3) internally conflicted. It’s probably a good thing that American servicemen have proven much more resilient than Captain America; beating the Nazis and subsequent foes would have been quite tricky if everyone went to pieces as soon a friend died. NOOOOOO, BUCKY!

Speaking of post-traumatic stress disorder, Andrew Sullivan and Blackfive, the Paratrooper of Love, go at it over how best to help the traumatized deal with PSTD.

In terms of OSI target identification, I think that I’d place a special emphasis on people that are…

1. Cynical– though many heroes try to hide it with quips, pretty much every superhero is cynical and/or grim
2. Unable to find happiness in everyday affairs; perpetually depressed
3. Noticeably asocial– have you seen the latest Batman movie?
4. Short on intimate, deep relationships.

Spiderman is the crucial exception to most of these, but even he can get emo when Venom is involved. This rubs against Rule 27 of Comic Books: He who is the most well-adjusted is the most ass-kickarific, with the corollary “with great power comes great instability.”

But, generally, I think that a psychiatrist would have some success identifying potential targets of concern. Just another reason that the hero-in-hiding should stay away from the counseling services of the Bedlam Clinic.

Superhero Nation specifically

I don’t think that many of my characters are deeply unhappy except perhaps Jacob Mallow. I’m inclined to think that angst and superheroicness are mutually exclusive. And angsty supervillains are damn unsatisfying and lack the charisma to really move the audience and plotline. So even Paingod is pretty optimistic, in a villainously libertarian kind of way.

Agent Orange:  It’s been said that truth is the first casualty of war.  But usually RETCON gets involved after there’s a bodycount.