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POSTS 2015-08 (Aug)

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Zuelaa writes...

And here's two questions about the Magus. I read one of your answers stating that you have considered giving him a name.

1. If you have chosen a name for him, any chance you can tell us?
2a. Was the Magus born at Castle Wyvern or did he travel there to become the Archmage's apprentice.
2b. If he wasn't born there, where was he born?

Thanks again~

Greg responds...

1. If I have, I don't recall.

2a. No Spoilers.

2b. No Spoilers.

Response recorded on August 07, 2015

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Zuelaa writes...

Greetings! I have a few questions concerning Owen/Puck. I'm really hoping I didn't miss this in the archives/question queue. If so, my apologies. As for the questions:

1. Does he live at the castle or does he have his own place?
2. Does his work for Xanatos come with set hours or does it alternate between days and nights? Seeing him working both days and nights has made me wonder. Poor man has to have some personal time / sleep sometime hehe

Thank you for your time~

Greg responds...

1. He lives in the castle.

2. He's forever on call, I suppose. But he gets as much free time as he'd like.

Response recorded on August 07, 2015

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YoungJusticeFan writes...

Hi Greg! I was wondering is Black Beetle just strong ( Goes toe to toe with Mongul) or does the scarab grant him his strength? If the scarab does, then how strong is Blue Beetle? Also who is stronger, Black Beetle or Superman?

Greg responds...

Black Beetle is strong. The scarab makes him stronger. As to who is stronger, I'll stick with my standard response to such questions: "See, now, the Hulk is more powerful because the madder he gets, the stronger he gets. But the Thing can still beat him if he keeps his wits about him."

Response recorded on August 07, 2015

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Campbell writes...

Hey Greg,

From the responses youve given in the past as to why you named Brooklyn's son Nashville, I get the impression he wasnt named for the city like mant people assume.

Was he named after the USS Nashville, a Brooklyn Class light cruiser in service from 1938 to 1946?

Greg responds...

No spoilers.

Response recorded on August 07, 2015

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Anonymous writes...

I recently watched the first season of Young Justice and I loved nearly everything about it. But there was two things that I didn't quite understand.

1. The first being Red Arrow's logic in determining there was no mole in "Performance". He claimed that since he now saw them in action that there was no way they (Artemis/M'gann/Conner) would betray the team. Yet Artemis did just that on the previous mission (Red Arrow was there) in "Insecurity", and that mission even involved the person that leaked there was a mole in Sporstmaster.

Not to mention it was clear that Superboy and the others knew about Red Arrow's distrust of them. So why would they do something when they knew he was watching them closely? Plus, if him theorizing that his programming was part of the reason he casted suspicion on them is correct, then how did he overcome it with such little evidence?

2. The second thing I didn't understand was Artemis' sudden romantic interest in Wally at the end. I get that he was shown to be crazy about her, but nothing from when she showed up in "Infiltrator" to "Performance" gave me the impression that she reciprocated those feelings. She was only show to care about Wally to the extent that they were teammates and sort of friends. She treated him the same way she did all the others aside from getting annoyed by him occasionally.

The only guy she was shown to have any romantic feelings for was Conner. So her agreeing that Wally should have kissed her "a long time ago" felt really out of place. It's not that I don't think she could have liked Wally, but there was nothing there that made me believe she did before it came out of the blue at the end.

Greg responds...

1. I think, given the fact that he knew that he was already in the League, there was less of a subconscious NEED for him to feel there was a mole. And so, for once, camaraderie won out over suspicion. OR - you could believe he was lulling them into a false sense of security. Pick your poison.

2. If you don't see she was interested in Wally, I doubt I can convince you. But from our point of view, her attraction was there (though intentionally somewhat subtle) from "Denial" at least, and probably from moment one. Certainly, in "Bereft," it's clear that they have a connection - no matter how hard both try to deny it. Many fans agree, so I feel like we succeeded.

3. She was, without a doubt, superficially interested in Conner. But that was a pretty shallow attraction.

Response recorded on August 07, 2015

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Anonymous writes...

You've said before that Disney is unwilling to sell the property of Gargoyles because they don't want to risk it making money money for somebody else...but that implies that they do in fact think it has the potential to make money. So what is their rationel for not doing something with it for all these years if they think it is potentially profitable?

Have you or anybody else ever offered to fund a project independantly and share profits? Would they even go for that if you did?

Do you see Disney ever letting Gargoyles fall into "public domain"?

It just seems greedy for Disney to hold on to the property with an iron grip so nobody else can use it, even though they have essentially forgotten about it - dispite the fact there remains interest for it by both it's creator and thousands of fans. If you don't think it will make money, then sell it. If you do think it will make money, then for god's sake do something with it. What is their problem...do they just not want to be proven wrong?

Greg responds...

1. Opportunity cost. No one at Disney (that I know of currently) believes they can make more money with Gargoyles than they could by spending money on other properties they own or might develop.

2. I have offered to fund and share profits. They've said no.

3. No. Disney resists letting anything they own fall into the public domain. In fact, they are at the forefront of the corporate movement to allow copywrites to renew indefinitely.

4. Calling Disney 'greedy' is both redundant and unfair. They're a publicly held corporation with obligations to their stockholders. Of course, they are focused on profits.

5. Yes, indeed, they do not want to be proven wrong. If an executive is proven wrong, he's at risk of being fired.

I should note that you sound outraged, and I'm not even a little outraged, even though I'm the creator of Gargoyles. I KNEW what I was doing. I was paid a salary to create something for Disney. And I knew they would own it when all was done. But without Disney, there is no Gargoyles. Or at least not the Gargoyles we all now know and love. And I still have hope that as time passes and executives change over, we might get another bite at the apple. It's not impossible. After all, for years we didn't have the comics or DVDs. And then we did.

Response recorded on August 06, 2015

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Phoenician writes...

So here's my entry into the Rain of the Ghosts typo contest -- In Chapter 12 "The Storm," on page 114, in the first full paragraph, we have Rain studying the familiar faces of the Eight. In the middle of the paragraph we read the sentence, "She looked at young Joey C. Wounded but smiling--and now so obviously good Old Joe."

But what I think happened was that period was taken as the end of a sentence and not part of an initial of a last name. So there after the 'Joey C.' I think was supposed to be a dash with a lower-case 'wounded' instead of just the upper-case 'Wounded.'

For example: "She looked at young Joey C.--wounded but smiling--and now so obviously good Old Joe."

Whether it's an actual typo or not, know that I only noticed it while I was rereading the first book in anticipation for Spirits of Ash and Foam! :)

Greg responds...

I see what you're saying, but no. That was intentional. The period after Joey C doubles as both the period after the initial and the end of the sentence.

Nice try though!

Response recorded on August 06, 2015

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Phoenician writes...

This is definitely overdue, but better late than never!

I picked up Rain of the Ghosts the day it came out with the simple struggle in figuring out just how fast I wanted to turn the page to know what happened next when I quickly realized that I would eventually have to wait a fair heap of time for the next installment, thanks to the knowledge previously revealed on AskGreg that Rain was intended to be a series. In short, I wanted to cherish the ride that I had been waiting to get on. But now that the ride has finally started, I can finally say I don't ever want to get off!

Without getting into the details that makes most of these reviews sound all too similar (and to minimize any spoilers), let me just take the time to point out some of the strongest (and/or favorite) aspects of the story that stood out to me. As someone who has enjoyed a lifetime of reading books (and well aware I've not read enough) and watching more than a few shows with Greg Weisman at the helm, this book almost felt like the long awaited cosmic alignment that I've only just realized I should have been anticipating, lol.

Moments I liked (***POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!***):

-- This was brought up at CONvergence for Gargoyles and Young Justice (ConJournals on the way I promise!), but I LOVE that Rain of the Ghosts is also dedicated to the realism so as to make the fantastic pop . . . from the Spanish to the slow track of time, it really does flesh it out. Such attention to detail - detail that's far more engaging than encyclopedic - makes the first novel feel like a diary for the entire Ghost Keys (at the least, the personal diary of the native omniscient narrator).
-- 'Bastian's nickname for Rain, and happy we'll be hearing it for at least a little longer :)
-- I enjoyed the magicked-scenes where Rain and Charlie (and whoever else) sees and hears different things. Especially since we actually get a lot of detail on what the folks who don't see *are* in fact seeing. If it played on television, I'd imagine it'd feel very familiar to the Weird Sisters in "City of Stone."
-- I was actually lulled into a false sense of security when Rain had snuck out of Callahan's window . . . not so much that I didn't think Callahan was clever enough to put two and two together (I do think I give him a touch more credit than Rain currently does), but I guess I didn't anticipate them having a row with each other so soon.
-- Appreciate the subtle and conscious effort to demonstrate how Rain's parents handled raising a kid with guests. Even when things got heated, there was a delicate approach to show how Alonso and Iris needed to check Rain's antics, taking her skeleton key but giving her a break. Tough - but fair.
-- I enjoyed the notable paces set by the various uses of commas, ands, and ellipses (among other tools in the syntax) in the exposition . . . whenever I noticed a pattern, or even a notable pause, it got me visualizing not only the scene but also the theoretical direction and use of the camera (transitions and cuts and everything), which, now that I'm thinking about it, would be (more often than not) from the point of view from Opie, right?
-- On that note, I remembered reading a line when a character paused for nine seconds (it even emphasizes that it was exactly nine seconds). Lines like those had me going back and trying to read the sentence in the allotted time. With the nine seconds line, I do remember its length and beat actually made it quite feasible. :)
-- Oddly enough, all the mouth wordplay . . . Alonso pushing his tongue against his cheeks, Charlie biting his cheeks, Old Joe licking his lips, Rain sticking her tongue out at Charlie . . . the visuals just seem like signatures for each character, lol.
-- And of course, finally meeting our native omniscient narrator, Opie, lol.

Overall, it's a great story with a ton of heart (Rain's experience with a death in the family is so relatable that you absolutely feel for her the minute she realizes she's pushed away the ghost she most desperately wants to see), with probably a ton more other stories to tease out. Needless to say I'm looking forward to each and every one of them!

**POTENTIAL SPOILERS END***

Greg responds...

Thanks! All the things you mentioned were quite intentional, so I'm glad they registered - as long as they didn't interfere with experiencing the story.

Hope by now you've also read SPIRITS OF ASH AND FOAM and are looking forward to the AudioPlay version of RAIN.

And I'm told positive reviews on Amazon help a lot!

Response recorded on August 06, 2015

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Greg Bishansky writes...

This is a question about Bialya and Qurac. These are both Middle Eastern countries (and according to wikipedia, both are located near Saudi Arabia and Iraq), and I am wondering about their conflict.

How long has this been going on? Since before Queen Bee took power in Bialya? After? Is there a Sunni vs Shi'ite element at work here, too?

Queen Bee's powers provide an explanation for how she is able to keep such absolute power in Bialya, given her gender in a Middle Eastern state... but her power only works in close range, so I wonder how much loyalty she has from her military and police force. Either way, it seems like a pretty liberal country by the standards of that region... which makes me think Bialya is, at least on paper, a Shi'ite state... at the very least, it doesn't appear that wahhabism has taken root in either state.

So, I guess what I'm asking is, in your mind, what are the religious politics of these two countries?

Greg responds...

These are all fair questions, but I haven't invested the time to work the answers out.

I think Queen Bee's powers combine with her intelligence to make her military feel pretty good about serving her. It probably helps that the male half of the royal family is non-existent. Some military men may rationalize their service by thinking she's a figurehead - until they're around her. They might on occasion question her decisions except for this - she's keeping them in power too.

As for the Sunni vs. Shi'ite thing, I don't feel comfortable locking down an answer.

Response recorded on August 06, 2015

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Anonymous writes...

Who (in universe) suggested that the holographic effigies of the Team and League members be placed on the Grotto?

Greg responds...

Uh... Greg Vietti? Brandon Weisman?

Honestly, I hadn't given any thought to that question. Out of universe, that was my idea.

Maybe Wonder Woman suggested the effigies, and Nightwing suggested they be holographic? I'm not confirming that until I've had a chance to sit with it, but it feels likely.

Response recorded on August 06, 2015


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