I had been looking forward to posting something more about Doctor Fate after I finished the script I was writing.

Unfortunately, I crashed instead — spent the entire weekend either asleep or staring slack-jawed at the walls. Didn’t go anywhere, didn’t even talk to anyone until Sunday night. Phew.

But it was a good kind of exhaustion and left me eager to tackle the next script, which I’ll begin later today.

Depleting myself utterly on each script doesn’t seem like a very salubrious strategy for either myself or the schedule of the book, so I’m going to try to manage my energy a little better on this next one. Hopefully, that will leave time for a little blogging as well as the work on the script.

Amazing, the stuff I’m having to relearn…

Comments, anyone?

(You’re allowed to be critical.)

(More on Doctor Fate after I get some sleep…)

I’m letting some Doctor Fate ideas roll around in the back of my head tonight, so I thought I might use the front of my head to post a few thoughts on the series — finally. First, let me take a moment to review what I’ve said in interviews, on various bulletin boards, and in reply to comments on this blog…

* The star of the new DOCTOR FATE series is an entirely new character.

* His other identity is Kent V. Nelson, and his grand-uncle was the original Doctor Fate.

* While the new character has that tie to his forebear, the connection won’t be emphasized in the new series.

* Readers will be able to understand and enjoy the new DOCTOR FATE #1 even if they have *no* prior knowledge of *any* version of the character. I’m avoiding any attempt at “retconning” for exactly that reason. Doctor Fate’s prior continuity is so over-complicated and confusing — second only to Hawkman’s, in my opinion — that I honestly don’t believe new readers should have to contend with it. At the same time, I’m emphatically *not* on a mission to contradict or erase earlier continuity. My intent is to respect the past by raising the subject as little as possible.

* The new Doctor Fate wears both the half-face and full-face versions of the familiar golden helmet. In fact, they’re two configurations of the same helmet. The helmet no longer contains any pocket universes, and it’s no longer the abode of Nabu, the lord of order. (Nabu died in DAY OF VENGEANCE: INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL #1. His passing was the event that marked the end of the Ninth Age of Magic and the beginning of the Tenth, to which our new Fate belongs.) Also, the helmet no longer confers instant knowledge and power upon the wearer. The new kid will have to *learn* how to use it, and sorcery in general.

* The new Doctor Fate is no longer grounded in Egyptian mythology. In fact, he’s not confined by the mythology of *any* culture. What I hope to do over time is construct an entirely new and original system of magic for this series. In earlier versions of Fate, his powers and weaknesses were never clearly defined. He seemed able to hocus-pocus-dippity-do himself out of almost any situation with some handy-dandy-cotton-candy theretofore unmentioned spell that just *happened* to fit the occasion. That’s going to change. As this new series develops, Fate will acquire an arsenal of specific spells and charms that will behave the same way each time they’re used. No more nondescript rays from the hands! It’s my intent that Fate’s spells be as distinguishable from one another as x-ray vision is from a batarang.

* The art team on the new book will be Justiniano and Walden Wong. Paul Gulacy, who was originally slated to draw the book — and who did indeed provide the very striking first-issue cover — had to leave the project due to a scheduling conflict.

Okay, that took more than a moment.

And I’m not even sure I hit all the major points.

It’s a start, anyway.

If you have questions, please include them in a comment on this post. I’ll try to answer as many as I can next time.

Has Panda Express really discontinued its Eggplant & Tofu dish, leaving patrons with a choice of entrees consisting of chicken, chicken, chicken, chicken or chicken?

Oh, well — back to the Anthony Burgess Burger (the old In-Out-In-Out), I suppose.

Another day or so, and I should be able to get my head above water long enough to splutter out a post or two.

This much I can tell you already: DOCTOR FATE is turning out to be an extremely interesting, highly unconventional series. It’ll probably be yet another love-it-or-hate-it book — I seem to specialize in those — but my hunch is, we’ll be getting more hearts and flowers than letter bombs on this one.

Does anyone know if DC’s made any announcement recently regarding the creative personnel on the book?

Are we at war with Iran yet? (I’m not kidding when I say I’ve been burrowed in.)

I’ve been burrowed in, working, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to come up for air before mid-week — and then only briefly.

Bear with me. Or, better yet, go visit Mark Evanier’s blog, and you won’t notice my absence. Mark is as prolific as he is thought-provoking and funny. I have no clue how he does this on a daily basis.

If you stopped by here and found the blog totally redesigned, it’s because I’ve been
experimenting with several WordPress “themes”, in search of an alternative to the one I currently run. The “MinimaPlus” theme, the current one, causes a weird display problem in IE 7 — and the use of IE7 is about to become much more common with the release of Windows Vista.

(If you’re running Firefox, you’ve never seen this display problem and likely never will. The temptation to switch to that browser grows daily. I currently use a “front end” for IE called Maxthon. It’s wonderful, and somehow much faster than IE itself, and it had tabbed browsing before the first release of FireFox, if I recall. Nonetheless, deep under the hood, it’s still IE, and still subject to the kernel’s secret recipe.)

Oddly, though, I don’t recall experimenting with that racetrack theme. (Its real name is “PressRow”.) It wasn’t half-bad, though, was it? A few modifications and it might work here.

Anyway, if you navigate to this page and find yourself looking at a completely unfamiliar layout, that’s the reason.

(I play around with WordPress themes when my head needs a rest from scripting comics. It seems to use a different part of the brain.)

It’s an extra special day for me, every year.

I try not to think about it, but sometimes fail.

I’m seeing ‘way too much of this godforsaken predawn daypart lately.

As soon as I finished the script I just told you I finished, I learned we had an emergency situation that could only be remedied with the speedy completion of another script. (It’s crazier than that, of course, but I’d rather not go into the details just now.)

So, basically, I’m crawling back in my word processing burrow again and may not be seen or heard from for awhile.

That was Wednesday, which I spent staggering about in a state of near-stupor after an all-night writing session Monday, followed by a too-wired-to-sleep Tuesday morning and early afternoon.

My biological clock is now on Malaysian daylight savings time.

But I think the resultant product may have been worth it.

More after I’ve had some *real* sleep…