A Station Eight Fan Web Site

Gargoyles

The Phoenix Gate

Ask Greg Archives

Weisman, Greg

Archive Index


: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #377 - #386 of 401 records. : 10 » : Last » :


Posts Per Page: 1 : 10 : 25 : 50 : 100 : All :


Bookmark Link

Jade writes...

Happy Brithday Greg!
All the best wishes!
Have fun and most of all make it a safe Brithday!!!!!

Greg responds...

Thanks, Jade.

Response recorded on February 03, 2000

Bookmark Link

Andrea "Elisa Maza" Ivanovs writes...

Hi Greg!

I just wanted to wish you all the best for your birthday!!!
Yepyep, have lots of fun and go on being a, can I admit this, excellent person. ;)

All the best,

Andrea/Elisa

Greg responds...

Thanks Andrea/Elisa!

Response recorded on February 03, 2000

Bookmark Link

Seth C. Bagnall writes...

Do you do any professional illustrations yourself, perhaps draw as a hobby, or are stick figures about the best you can do?

Greg responds...

I have one goofy face I can draw. Stick figures, I'm mediocre at. If I really work hard, I can doodle and/or copy something that will only look semi-awful. But no one has ever mistaken me for any kind of artist.

Response recorded on February 01, 2000

Bookmark Link

Todd Jensen writes...

You gave a list here once of Arthurian writers that you've read: Geoffrey of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Malory, T. H. White, Mary Stewart, Roger Lancelyn Green, John Steinbeck, Thomas Berger, and Norma Lorre Goodrich, as I recall. I was wondering if you might be interested in giving your opinions (in brief, of course) on their Arthurian writings - and Goodrich, in particular. Having read her Arthurian books myself, I'm curious as to what you thought of them. (My own response to them was that the author had an engaging style, but a lot of her notions struck me as improbable - such as her effort to substantially revise Arthurian geography by putting everything up in Scotland - and I even detected a number of factual errors and slip-ups in them).

Greg responds...

Believe it or not, I've never read Malory from cover to cover. I've read huge chunks of it. And I've skimmed the whole thing. But he doesn't really engage me as a writer. I'm not sure why.

Thus, it is Roger Lanelyn Green who almost acts as my so-called primary source. God, I loved that little book.

Geoffrey was endlessly fascinating.

Steinbeck didn't finish, which was frustrating. It wasn't the best read.

Berger was a lot of fun. Though I don't personally "believe" many of his interpretations of the legends, it was a great read.

I loved Stewart's THE CRYSTAL CAVE. But with each successive book, I found less and less to connect with Stewart's interpretations. And her Mordred book really bummed me out. It seemed like she felt a need to turn Mordred into a real hero at the expense of just about anyone else. Bugged me.

T.H. White's ONCE AND FUTURE KING. I love this book. And I love his "Book of Merlyn." Beautiful writing. Human and fanciful. Irresistable to me.

As for Goodrich, well, I don't have the background to argue her facts. I found much of the material unconvincing and flat-out dull. But I thought she had one real insight. Lancelot has always been viewed as a late addition to the mythology. As a character who was probably NOT historical. (Whereas Arthur likely was.) Her linguistic explanation, connecting Malory's Lancelot with Monmouth's Angus was very convincing. I'll try and duplicate it here...

ANGUS latinized becomes something like ANGUSELUS.

But Anguselus was a title that could properly be rendered as THE ANGUSELUS.

Frenchifying this would make it L'ANGUSELOS. With the last letter silent.

Over time, it would not be unlikely for the name to be simplified. If a syllable got dropped it could very easily become L'ANSELOS.

And if the last S is silent (as it likely would be in French) then it could easilty become an equally silent "T". Thus L'ANSELOT.

Or LANCELOT once it was anglicized again.

This may sound like a stretch. And I may not be doing it justice above. But early Celtic accounts include the character of Angus. Lancelot was assumed to be a later and fictional French addition to the legend. (And thus a character from France.) If Lancelot is in fact Angus, then that lends a certain credence to the entire legend. And I just love that idea.

Response recorded on January 24, 2000

Bookmark Link

Todd Jensen writes...

A little side-note. I happened to see the episode that you wrote for "Disney's Hercules" - I thought I'd mention it after noticing that somebody else on the list mentioned it. I quite enjoyed it - particularly the portrayal of Theseus as a sort of ancient Greek version of "Batman". I also noticed, as a side-note, that there was a certain thematic echo of "Hunter's Moon" in it (although I don't know if you'd intended it or not) where Hercules got so caught up in his efforts to wreak vengeance upon the Minotaur that he lost sight of what was really important, much the same way as Goliath in his pursuit of the Hunters.

Greg responds...

First off, Todd, thanks for the kind words.

There are certain themes that interest me, and so you'll see them revisited in my work (probably ad nauseum) over and over. The theme of, well, let's call it "What Profit Vengeance?" is one of my favorites. So I wasn't deliberately trying to echo "Hunter's Moon" so much as I was servicing a set of ideas that seemed apropos to both series.

As for the Theseus-as-Batman stuff. Well, that's a no-brainer. The Superman/Batman dynamic -- that is the teaming of a hero possessing superhuman abilities with a hero who merely makes the best possible use of his human abilities -- originated with Herakles and Theseus. (Or at any rate, it goes back that far.) So the notion of flipping that, and playing Herc/Theseus as Superman/Batman seemed wonderfully ironic and a fertile place to find comedy.

In high school, I acted in a play called THE WARRIOR'S HUSBAND. I played Theseus, and I've had a real affinity for the character ever since. In that play, Hercules was kind of a mope. (Very strong, but a mope.) The Greeks were waging war against the Amazons. Hercules was in charge, but Theseus was the real brains of the operation. Yet he's also the guy who really falls hard in love for Antiope, sister to Queen Hyppolyta. So instead of conquering -- as he had originally intended -- Theseus winds up manipulating everyone into a compromise. I like that in a hero.

Theseus is part of a sub-genre of archetypes, (an off-shoot of Trickster figures like Puck, Coyote or Odysseus/Ulysses). He's the primary example of the Archetype of "THE BASTARD", which includes such diverse characters as Shakespeare's Edmund from KING LEAR, Joan of Arc's ally Dunois and multiple characters from Arthurian legend (including Merlin, Arthur, Percival, Galahad and Mordred). There are so many parallels between Arthur and Theseus that reading Mary Stewart and Mary Renault seemed almost redundant. (Not really.)

In fact, Luach (or Lulach) is also a prime candidate for that archetype. When he was born, Gruoch was still married to Gillecomgain. But gossip around the castle hinted that the babe's true father was Macbeth. After Macbeth and Gruoch married, Macbeth adopted the boy as his own. At which point the gossip shifted to insist that Gillecomgain was the boy's father. (You can't win.) Pre-DNA testing, there would be no way for Luach to ever be certain of the truth. Maybe Macbeth didn't even know. Hell, Gruoch might not know.

Life's a bitch when you're a bastard.

Response recorded on January 19, 2000

Bookmark Link

Aris Katsaris writes...

Well... I could ask in the comment rooms for this one, but here goes: How is it pronounced anyway? Your name I mean. Is it pronounced WISE-man or WAYS-man or WIZ-man or what? Thanks. :)

Greg responds...

It's a hard "I". But the S is pronounced S not Z. So it rhymes with RICE-man. But, you know, with a W.

Response recorded on January 10, 2000

Bookmark Link

Greg "Xanatos" Bishansky writes...

I recently saw the "Hercules" episode you wrote, "Grim Avenger"

I laughed my butt off during it. Great job. I particularly liked the bits where Theseus/Grim Avenger kept narrating outloud without realizing it.

I also liked the bits you wrote with Cassandra falling in love with Theseus. She's usually such a cynic, it was fun to see this other side of her.

On the whole, great job. You are great at everything you write.

Greg responds...

Thanks. I liked writing that one. I've always loved the Superman/Batman relationship. And Herakles/Theseus is the original. I just pointed it up a bit more.

Though I should say that the wordless stuff where Cass is running across the beach toward Theseus wasn't mine. I guess the board artist added it.

It was also fun to have Michael Dorn playing another Minotaur.

Response recorded on January 10, 2000

Bookmark Link

Galaxy Quest

I saw Galaxy Quest this past Saturday. Not a perfect film by any means, but I enjoyed it.

But mostly it got me thinking. The Star Trek parallels were obvious, and it's hard to apply the same kind of scenario to, say, a Gathering.

But I wondered how I'd respond this summer in Orlando if Thom Adcox and I (for example) were confronted by a woman who looked sort of like Salli Richardson but with blue jeans, black shirt and a red jacket. She tells us she really's Elisa Maza and she need our help.

I wound up coming up with this whole scenario in my head about Alexander accidentally using his magic to send Elisa, Fox and Lexington to our universe. I finally find out definitively what I've suspected all along, which is that I'm not inventing these stories, I'm simply tapping into another universe. Turns out I got a lot right and a little bit wrong here and there. (See previous comments about how I missed beats on "Hero of Ulster" and "Grief" as examples.)

Trapped in our universe, the unlikely trio happen to see an episode of the show. They get on the net and find out about me. And with no other idea how to get home they track me down at the Gathering, hoping I'd know how they are SUPPOSED TO GET HOME.

Then I got stuck. The whole idea got very messy. (This story is really up Cary Bates' alley. I still have that old issue of JUSTICE LEAGUE where Cary travels to EARTH-TWO, turns evil and tricks the JLA into killing the JSA. In that story, the Spectre personally intercedes with God to fix things.)

Anyway, I think this is what Todd calls a 'creativity demon'. I've been trying to "crack" open this story since Saturday night, with little success. But I'll keep working on it, and if I come up with anything good, I'll ramble further.


Bookmark Link

Greg "Xanatos" Bishansky writes...

What is it like for you to have so many people worshiping the ground you walk on?

Greg responds...

Pretty cool most of the time.

And then I get an embarrassing question like this one...

Response recorded on December 30, 1999

Bookmark Link

Airwalker writes...

Do you currently read any comic books?

Have you done any comic book work recently?

Greg responds...

No. I gave them up cold turkey in 1996. I was already down to very few books. Bone. Cerebus. Maybe a couple of others. But it was getting too hard to find the books I liked. And many had been cancelled, discontinued or rendered unreadable.

As I'm sure you know by now, I did write a JUSTICE LEAGUE/CAPTAIN ATOM/GARGOYLES story that was just published. But that's it.

I'd love to write comics again, but no one's busting down my door, and I don't have the energy to initiate a hard sell of my own.

Response recorded on December 30, 1999


: « First : « 100 : « 10 : Displaying #377 - #386 of 401 records. : 10 » : Last » :