Realms of Fantasy: August 2010 (Issue 95)
Part ninety-five in my comprehensive retrospective as I read the fiction in Realms of Fantasy and offer my thoughts, right up to the final issue. This time around I’ll be dissecting the August 2010 issue.
There’s a lot to discuss regarding the cover to this one. It features a montage image from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. This marks the first movie cover published under Tir Na Nog Press. It’s also the first montage cover published during the magazine’s run. Credit for putting together the montage goes to E. Jay O’Connell. Jay was our webmaster after putting together a new website for the magazine that went up during December 2009 issue, but with this issue he took on additional duties of the magazine’s design and layout, which were handed off to him by publisher, Warren Lapine.
Now one nice thing about doing this retrospective series is that you can go back and revisit certain events that took place during the magazine’s run and shed additional light on them. For example, I can discuss why we ran a cover to a movie that received some understandable flack for whitewashing the lead character. But before I get into that, a quick bit of background on The Last Airbender: the movie is based on the wildly popular cartoon, Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s written for kids, but the storyline is sophisticated enough that adults who are open to cartoons can and will appreciate this one. The main character, Ang, is of a decidedly Far Eastern persuasion. In the movie version, he was recast as being white, and thus the accusations of whitewashing.
And now that you have the necessary background, I’d like to address why we ran such a cover, because I was neither deaf nor blind to some of the comments we received regarding this choice when it happened. There are actually a number of reasons this happened, and I’ll relay them as best I can (don’t forget that it’s been almost four years). First, I know that for some months Warren Lapine had been saying he’d like for us to try out a movie cover to see how that impacted sales, so right there my radar was up for a possible media cover. Now anytime we run a media cover, we’re also covering the featured item in the Movie/TV column of the magazine. Resa Nelson was our longtime columnist here, and our normal routine was for her to pitch me a set of choices for upcoming movies or programming. So some months before this issue, she mentioned The Last Airbender as a possible candidate for this issue. At this time, I hadn’t seen the cartoon, but I was aware of the tremendous positive buzz surrounding it, along with the excitement of there being an upcoming movie. So this led me to selecting The Last Airbender to be cover in the Movie/TV column.
With me so far? Good. So at some point during the process, Resa conveyed to me a request from the publicist for The Last Airbender to be given the cover. Remembering Warren’s interest in running a movie cover, I passed along this request to him. (Warren gave me a lot of freedom regarding the cover selection, but he was also the publisher-if he had a desire for us to try out a media cover, of course I was going to mention this to him). So Warren expressed a desire for us to try out this cover, which is how it came about.
Now before I go any further, I’d like to make it clear that I am not in any shape or form trying to pass the buck. I am simply relaying the chain-of-events. So several different images were passed along to us to choose from for the cover, and Jay took two of them and created the montage, and I think he did quite a good job with it. Now here’s something you may not know: besides the fact that I’d never seen the cartoon, neither had Warren. Neither had Resa. I’m fairly certain Jay hadn’t either. So when this movie was chosen for the cover, none of us were aware that this white lead in the movie was in fact Far Eastern in the original cartoon. The first I heard about the whitewashing was when Warren sent me an article he came across online, and by this time the magazine had already gone to press.
Other than the four of us, the only other people that would have been seen the magazine before it went to press were the copyeditors when they reviewed the PDF, and our advertising director. I can’t tell you if any of them were familiar with the cartoon or had read articles about the whitewashing before we went to press. I’ve never asked them. However, given their professionalism and the character of these people, I feel confident that if they were aware of any of this they would’ve brought it to my or Warren’s attention.
Now if you’d like to say I’m at fault for not researching the movie before greenlighting that cover, I’ll accept that criticism. I could have looked into it further. But the idea that the movie would be whitewashed never even occurred to me. Call me naïve, but why would it? M. Night Shymalan was attached to direct, and while I don’t care for most of his work, there is no denying that he was and is one of the more recognizable non-white directors in Hollywood. So I would never have expected him to attach himself to a movie that would become embroiled in this sort of controversy. And if you want to say I should have looked into the movie on a general basis beforehand, again, I’ll accept that criticism. But once again, it never occurred to me that such a thing would be necessary. The original cartoon aired on Nickolodean, a TV channel for kids. The movie in turn would be targeting kids above all others (thus its PG rating). With this in mind, I couldn’t envision too much controversy resulting from the adaptation.
Oh, how wrong I was. It wasn’t a full-blown controversy regarding our cover, but we received a number of comments. We could have addressed those comments at the time, but the truth of the matter was that I understood from past experiences that the more you try to explain yourself online the more you risk someone misinterpreting something you’re saying, and fanning the flames into a full-blown controversy. So even though a number of unflattering things were said about me, I bit my tongue and made no reply. Nor did anyone else (as best as I can remember), and as a result this whole matter went away far more quickly as opposed to escalating, which it almost certainly would have with people posting in the heat of the moment.
So why am I saying something now? Quite simply, this is a retrospective series about the magazine, and I prefer not to rewrite that history, but examine it and where warranted, explain it. Obviously these explanations are through my perspective, but alas, I can only be me. So with the magazine canceled and this being several years in the past, I have no qualms about revisiting this matter in more detail. And if after reading this explanation you have a problem with me or anyone at the magazine for running this cover, then you have no tolerance for honest mistakes, however unlikely they might be. I’ll personally vouch for every last person on the staff who was aware of the cover before it went to press that they didn’t allow this to happen because of racial hatreds or insensitivies or anything remotely along these lines.
Hindsight is 20/20. If Warren or I learned about these accusations of whitewashing before the cover went to press, I am quite certain there would have been a serious conversation about whether to pull the cover. And before you ask, “What is there to talk about?” the answer is quite a bit. If we pulled the cover, we ran the risk of offending the publicist or studio, which could have prevented us from covering future movies of theirs, which could in turn hurt potential revenue avenues. And let’s say Resa had yet to conduct her interviews and we changed our mind about the cover. If the publicist or studio was upset enough, they might cancel the interview, leaving us without an article. It takes weeks and weeks to set up these interviews, sometimes more. Now please don’t misinterpret this to mean that any of this would have prevented us from pulling the cover. It simply illustrates the fact there would be enough factors at play to warrant a conversation. If you have a problem with a conversation taking place, kindly take two steps back and refrain from commenting. Conversation is pretty damn essential to proper communication. For my money, if I had all the facts in front of me, at the end of the conversation I would have voted for pulling the cover and dealing with any possible fallout as best we could. As to Warren, since this was his business I’d imagine he would have weighed everything even more carefully than I would have. And knowing Warren as well as I do, I can say that he is a very principled person, and I would have been shocked if he also didn’t vote for pulling the cover.
As to the movie, I’ve seen it. It was terrible. It was after this that I swore off all future movies by Shymalan. I’ve also subsequently seen the original cartoon series. It is awesome. I haven’t seen The Legend of Korra, another cartoon series set in the same universe, but I hear it too is awesome. I’ll check it out at some point.
There is one other detail about this cover worth noting. We always listed our website, but you’ll notice that with this issue, we started listing it as follows: “Additional Content at: www.rofmag.com.” The reason we did this is simple. For some issues now, Warren had occasionally been moving various columns to the website because there wasn’t enough room in the magazine (yes, this comes down to financial considerations). But with this issue, Warren and I made the decision to move the gaming column to the website fulltime. This was a tough decision to make, one we’d been weighing and discussing for a long time. But as Warren put it, the true value of the gaming column was the ad revenue it helped generate. Unfortunately, the ad revenue from the gaming column dried up soon after Warren took over the magazine. We had the same advertising director from Sovereign Media, and the columns were as a strong as always, so my honest assessment here is that the revenue dried up due to changing marketplace. The gaming companies were simply allocating their advertising dollars elsewhere. We could go into the wheres and whys, but that really isn’t germaine to this retrospective beyond saying that this ties into how the print markets were already undergoing radical changes at this time, something that has yet to stop as I write this. Quite understandably, these changes also impacted print advertising. So with this in mind, the gaming column was no longer pulling its weight in the magazine. But rather than cancel it entirely, we shifted it to our website. And as long as the column was going to be there fulltime for the foreseeable future, I asked that we include the “Additional Conent” note on the cover.
All right, let’s finally open up the magazine, shall we? There is one change to note in the masthead. As already noted, E. Jay O’Connell took over layout and design. So to cover this and his contributions as our website designer, his new listing in the masthead is Design & Production.
A rundown of this issue’s nonfiction is as follows:
In the Movie/TV column, Resa Nelson covers the already thoroughly discussed The Last Airbender; in the Artists Gallery, Karen Haber covers the work of Dan Dos Santos; in the Folkroots, SatyrPhil Brucato writes about the temptress in mythology. This issue also marks the last one for Ari Berk and Kristen McDermott as the Folkroots editors. Their stewardship lasted from December 2008-August 2010, a run of eleven issues. In the Books column, Paul Witcover reviews Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman, and Matt Staggs reviews The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee, Choices Meant for Kings by Sandy Lender, and Divine Misfortune by Lee A. Martinez, the last of which was moved to the website; and in Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Books, Elizabeth Bear reviews A Local Habitation by Seanan McGuire, Mind Games by Carolyn Crane, How to Make Friends with Demons by Graham Joyce, and Changes by Jim Butcher.
The Young Adult books column by Michael M. Jones was moved to the website this issue, though my records do not indicate which books he reviewed. Andy Wheeler’s graphic novel column was also moved to the website this issue, and my records once again fail to indicate which books he reviewed. As already mentioned earlier, the gaming column made an official move to the website with this issue. Matt Staggs reviews Dungeons & Dragons: Martial Power II, the RPG Amethyst: Foundation, and the RPG Death Dealer: Shadows of Mirahan, and Tony Sims reviews Dante’s Inferno for the Xbox360, the expansion pack for Borderlands for Xbox360, and Mount & Blade: Warband for PC.
On to the fiction …
The lead story this issue is “Super. Family.” By Ian Donald Keeling, which marks his second appearance in the magazine. This one is a superhero piece in which Magnet Man tries to balance being a superhero with a dysfunctional family life. And things only become more complicated when his past comes back to haunt him at the same time as his rebellious teenage daughter struggles with the recent discovery that she has superpowers of her own. Art to this one was provided by Eric Fortune, which marks his sixth illustration in the magazine. This also marks the final piece of art we had inventory from the purchase of the magazine from Sovereign Media. Interestingly, this piece also appeared in Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. Normally when a piece from Realms of Fantasy appears in Spectrum, it appears in the Editorial section. In this case, the piece appeared in the Unpublished section. Having never spoken to anyone in the know about this piece, I can only surmise that Eric submitted this piece to Spectrum following the magazine’s cancellation by Sovereign Media but before Warren Lapine purchased it, and that he marked it down as being submitted for the Unpublished section.
I should pause here and also note that this issue marks an excellent example of how after seven issues under our new publisher, the magazine was still very much in transition. In this one issue, we published the last of our art solicited by the previous art director, we moved the gaming column to the website, we had a new person working on design and layout, and this marked the last issue for our Folkroots editors. This all comes on the heels of launching a new column in the previous issue, and a new website not too long before that. My point here is that at this point I think the magazine was still rediscovering itself. It was still absolutely recognizable as Realms of Fantasy, but at the same time we hadn’t fallen into a true rhythm yet. This isn’t a complaint, but an observation. It wasn’t until the publication of this issue that I felt as though we had fully transitioned away from Sovereign Media, but as you can see we were still tinkering with the magazine, trying out new things to make it work. And it’s good that we tried all these things. Magazines need to evolve. If they remain exactly the same for too long, they run the risk of growing stagnant. But at the same time, I know that it was very much in my mind that I was looking forward to the magazine falling into a rhythm. Not too lighten my workload or make my life easier, but simply because I wanted a complete picture of what the magazine had evolved into, and also because while change is good, you never want too much change too soon. Right until the very end, I don’t think we ever changed things up so much that it hurt the magazine-most of our changes were quite good in my biased opinion. But I know that with this issue, I let myself take half a breath, because barring any curveballs we had reached a point where I knew exactly when the magazine could start falling into its rhythm. It would have been with the February 2011issue, but there were in fact some curveballs thrown our way before then, some big ones. But we’ll get into that later. For now let’s keep the focus on this issue by continuing with the fiction.
Next up we have “Father Peña’s Last Dance” by Hannah Strom-Martin, another one of my slush survivors (and an Odyssey almumni-I always enjoyed discovering stories by writers from my old workshop). The story marks Hannah’s first pro sale, and it deals with a rare vampire piece for the magazine, one dealing with a young woman and an aging prists in modern Buenos Aires, Argentina, attempting to recover their lost loves, both of whom were kidnapped by vampires. In order to find them, they rely on mastering the tango. Yes, you read that correctly. The vampires in this world are very much attracted to passion, and when the tango is mastered and you truly you give yourself to it, our main characters have discovered that it generates enough passion to attract the vampires, leaving them hopeful this can lead them back to their lost loves. But the young woman Cole has secret motives of her own for wishing this reunion to happen, and in helping Cole Father Peña encounters another obstacle he must contend with, something he never expected to find again: love for a living woman. Art to this was provided by Tony Shasteen, which marks his eighth illustration in the magazine. I remember when I told Hannah that Tony would be illustrating the story she was rather elated, as she had been a fan of his works in the magazine for some time. It was rather gratifying helping her indulge her inner fan girl, even if I did so inadvertently.
Then we have “Seagull Girl’s Butterfly Tongue” by Sara Genge. In this piece, zombies have overrun the planet, only the zombies are an intelligent organism comprising and somewhat homogenizing Earth’s various lifeforms-like semi-zombie-borg, I guess. When they come across a holdout in America who is inexplicably alive all this time later, they attempt to absorb him into their collective, not through eating or biting, but by swaying him through intelligent conversation. Art to this one was provided by Jill Bauman.
This is one of those rare issues with only four stories, so finally we come to “[Dragon]” by T.D. Edge. This one is a young adult piece about a girl on in a fantasy kingdom on the verge of adolescence who to become a princess-the first in a hundred years-must meet the dragon. She doesn’t want to be a princess, and doesn’t believe in the dragon, but everything changes soon enough. Along the way, she learns that the dragon is far from what one would imagine, and that the while she wishes to be a princess after all, the price is far steeper than she could have guessed. Art to this one was provided by Scott Altmann.
So that wraps up this issue. And my favorite story? “Super. Family” by Ian Donald Keeling. And my favorite artwork? Scott Altmann’s illustration to “[Dragon].”
Next time around I’ll dip into the October 2010 issue. Until then …