Tony,
If Black Lightning did not secure your legacy, those quotes certainly will.
Harlan was one of my favorite writers and I met him at several signings.
After the first, I knew better than to bring my copy of Doomsman for a
signature.
😃
Miki A
On Jan 18, 2021, at 3:40 PM, Tony Isabella <tonyisabella@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The other Isabella quote he loved and used was:
Expediency is not heroism.
One of the last time I visited Ellison Wonderland, he had it on a plaque on
his office wall. I was speechless when I saw it.
Tony
On 1/18/2021 2:03 PM, Miki A wrote:
I always loved that Harlan quote.
I did not recall that you were the person that wrote it!
Miki A
On Jan 18, 2021, at 1:00 PM, Tony Isabella <tonyisabella@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Since Malcolm mentioned Geoff Johns, let me add this:
Without Geoff Johns, I would not have gotten a much improved (however
imperfect) agreement with DC Comics. You would not have seen BLACK
LIGHTNING: COLD DEAD HANDS, which is my best super-hero writing ever and
which is so vastly superior to the crap reboot of BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS
that it makes me weep. You would not have four seasons of a Black Lightning
TV series, a series that is unfortunately ending because some cast members
wanted to move on to other projects. I don't fault them. They're good
people who I love and not indentured servants.
Geoff Johns is a hero to me and my family. I'll weigh his character and
talent against those of a disgruntled actor upset because some of his
scenes were cut and against the Synder cultists who want that director's
dark and depressing take on super-heroes to become the standard for DC's
movies.
Geoff's accomplishments speak for themselves. If you had told me I would
enjoy a new Batman/Joker story - THE THREE JOKERS - I would have considered
you quite mad.
Harlan Ellison loved and used what he considered one of the best lines I
have wrote: Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved. What we see too
often are fans who don't have skin in the game attacking those who do.
We've seen fans savaging Jerry Siegel's heirs because Rao forbid the
creator of one of the greatest characters of all time and his family
receive a share of the enormous profits DC Comics had made from Superman.
Just one example.
I think too many fans have lost sight of the fact that the super-hero genre
is, at its core, optimistic and progressive.
And with that, I yield the soapbox to the rest of you.
Tony Isabella
