Monday I looked at the pages that needed lettering....and did something else. Yesterday I sat down at Mid-day and by 20:15 hrs I had lettered 19 pages. Lots of text and re-writing since most of the stuff in my head from before the book was due to be published (2014) has been changed.
Something people haven't commented on -communication devices.
When Invasion Earth was originally conceived in 1987 there were no mobile phones (well, there were the "brick-phones") and the public had no internet. There were no ear phones. Messaging was mainly by fax or telex or sending a telegram. Oh...you could use the telephone box or home phone. So, in Return of the Gods there is no instant communicating which would have helped in the situations involved.
I think that it was in one of the old Black Tower Adventures (vol. 1) back in the early 2000s that I introduced communication watches. Why not? Any such deviceswould have been pointless in The Cross Earths Caper since the characters were either on parallel Earths (1950s and 1960s) or stuck in pre-history. With The Green Skies there are ear communicators and all sorts. Video communications were featured in stories before but it's almost a quantum leap in tech since then.
I think it shows howmajor changes have been since the 1980s. Back then if I wanted to communicate or send a finished script to a publisher I had a choice: mail it (which involved waiting a long time and hoping the item was not 'lost') or fax it to someone. Now I can instantly talk via Skype (which I do not use), email or Messenger with someone in Hong Kong, Moscow, New York....anywhere.
Rather than go into super sci fi as in many American super hero comics, I always preferred to have a little more down-to-earth tech. Some characters will not use phones because GPS and pother features are -or can be- a big security risk. Imagine: Tommy Lightning uses his phone to call an ambulance to the scene. He then goes home. Tommy Miller lives at the house where that GPS was tracked to. No secret identity and a villain not getting their hands on that info....come on.
The Avenger, when he used the Comm-Watch, disabled it after use. Before deciding not to wear one.
It's very easy to just write all the tech in but if I do that I tend to suddenly stop and "Uh-oh" echoes in my head. Anyone having a secret identity has to consider all of the options. A "Throw-away" mobile phone for (let's call it) "heroic use" and a registered one for personal use but with GPS disabled. Then there are the advantages -a character injured/unconscious/lost- is under most circumstances, going to be relatively easy to find with a beeping GPS.
There are a lot of pros and cons to the tech. As Captain Cosmic said: "Can't get a bleeding signal in the middle of the city??!"
Telepaths will still use telepathy and magic folk will still use sapells 'n' stuff.
Not using Skype (yes, I do know HOW to use it and I did at one time) or a mobile phone I tend realise more the pros and cons but how these apply in the world of comics and super-dupers clicks in automatically when it comes to story telling.
How would Black Tower's Japanese heroes work in what is seen as a very high tech country? Or in China where more and more electronic tech is being developed?
Also....you can use a mobile phone from space to call someone on Earth! Not joking: "Inside the International Space Station or a shuttle where it's not subject to the harshness of space it wouldn't have a problem and indeed astronauts are known to take phones with them. A smartphone can even fare pretty well as part of a satellite if STRaND-1 and PhoneSat are anything to go by"
So that opens up a heck of a lot scenes for writers.
Just a few thoughts.
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