Random News ‘n’ Notes

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the genesis of Waldo’s Hawaiian Holiday?
ALEX COX: In ’94-’95, I wrote it as a film script and gave it to Peter McCarthy, who was one of the original producers of Repo Man. And he showed it to Jonathan Wacks, who was the other original producer, and they said, ”Let’s take it to [ex-Monkee and Repo Man executive producer] Michael Nesmith and have him present it to Universal officially.” We all came down for the meeting at Universal, and the executive that we had been delegated to meet was, like, 21 years old and had never seen the original Repo Man. [Laughs] And so it was an absurd meeting of these four old men and this sprightly individual who just didn’t know what we were doing in his office. Nothing came of it. Then we thought, Well, we’ll try to make it independently. So Peter really did try and raise the money in the independent sphere by attaching cast and that kind of thing.

Anyway, the book finally exists and I’ll play humble here and not tell you how proud I am of it. I wish I’d had more pages because Jack is such a vast and important subject, and I know I’ve already angered a few folks by telling them that their favorite Kirby creation got either short shrift or no shrift at all. A much longer, detailed biography of the man will follow in a couple of years and will probably err in the other direction, telling you more than you want to know.

I recently got sent an issue of the magazine Tripwire, a British comics magazine I had not actually ever heard of. It’s deeply nerdy. Above every article the byline reads “words:” and then the author’s name, as if it were a comic and there were things other than words in the actual article. That’s quality nerdiness.

Thomas Nelson is making a serious commitment to the graphic novel category with plans to publish adaptations of the prose novels of bestselling author Ted Dekker as well as a variety of manga-styled series aimed at teens, especially girls. While some of these graphic novels reflect the publisher’s religious mission, most of the new works do not have overt religious content and are aimed at the growing secular book market for graphic novels.

Coming to the L.A. Opera this fall: “The Fly,” an opera with music by Howard Shore, libretto by David Henry Hwang, design by Dante Ferretti, conducted by Placido Domingo and directed by David Cronenberg.