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Post by beccabear67 on Feb 18, 2020 19:12:47 GMT -5
I'm kind of sorry I happened to mention him in context of his disliking Outland, I don't think the movie Outland is all that worth the bother of debating what if anything Ellison is generally known for. It's so generally unremarkable a film one of the few things I can say about it was that Ellison panned it and used it as a negative example of SF films.
So if people knew who he was at all... he wrote a Star Trek episode, and a lot of people know what Star Trek is/was... I'm fine with that actually. "Wrote a book? One of those paper things with words... I think I saw one of those once.... Star Trek... oh yeah, guy with ears, blokes in PJs, gotcha! They're always running that on some channel like Gilligan's Island."
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 18, 2020 19:25:13 GMT -5
Walk down the street of Anytown, U.S.A. and mention the name "Harlan Ellison." I would bet all the money Bloomberg is spending on his presidential campaign that 10 times out of 10, if anyone recognizes who Ellison was, it will be for Star Trek--alone. ^Yes, that does represent your tireless defense of a reality that never existed where Ellison is concerned. Actually, its best visual representation is... Thankfully, his book was the evidence anyone needs to realize he knew how significant that ST episode was in his life (yeah, no one covers allegedly insignificant/barely known parts of their career in a book dedicated only to that), and of course, its the most exposed/known of his work to the general public.
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 18, 2020 19:31:51 GMT -5
"His book" the man authored over 1700 works, but you act as if this is the only thing of his published.
When you find yourself in a hole....
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 18, 2020 19:48:04 GMT -5
You keep acting like "The Book" is some sort of significant achievement. It's a longish essay backed by a screenplay that had been written well over a decade before and was sitting around. "The Book" was initially printed by Borderlands Press which is a small press that does signed/numbered limited editions. I guarantee you that Harlan wasn't seeking a big audience with a book with a limited run of 1,500 copies. It wasn't until twenty years later than White Wolf Publishing brought it back out in a larger edition. It was literally one of the least important things that Ellison published in the 70s.
But sure. Keep trying to convince yourself it's somehow meaningful.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Feb 18, 2020 19:57:26 GMT -5
The average person of the 1970s and early 80s had a far better chance of knowing Harlan Ellison, as he was a regular fixture on talk shows, back when they actually used to talk to people who write books, aside from from celebrities and kinky Twilight fan fiction-turned erotic trash for moms and grandmas. He could be seen on The Today Show and the Tomorrow Show and any number of venues, with his latest work, not to mention such scenes as his window writing stunts... Readers of Starlog, which were hardly great in number, compared to Time or Sports Illustrated, new him as a writer of sci-fi and agent provocateur in promoting "good" science fiction orver flashy effects-driven films with little depth, which got Star wars fans bent out of shape. he was hardly alone in that, as "hard" sci-fi authors were also quick to dismiss Star wars as "just space opera," as if that was necessarily a bad thing. In the 90s, Babylon 5 fans were likely to know him from his screen credit as an advisor on the series, if they read the credits. Twilight Zone fans might recognize his name from the series revival, in the mid-80s. Most of those groups, though, would represent a microcosm of society, rather than society at large. The Today and Tomorrow shows would reach far greater audiences than Starlog or Babylon 5. He was a regular fixture on the Sci-Fi Channel, for a time; but, its reach was hardly as great as even the WWF, on USA Network. I can literally spend hours on YouTube watching old interviews from The Tomorrow Show and the likes with actual intellectuals. I point out The Tomorrow Show because Tom Snyder seemed to have a better ratio of wheat to chaff than the average talk show of the time. Ellison was all over TV talk shows in the 70s both in the US and in Britain. To marginally change the topic, this one SLAYED me when I came across it. Studs Terkel and Cal Trillin talking to Ellison, Isaac Asimov and Gene Wolfe. I'd kill for TV like this again.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 18, 2020 21:08:10 GMT -5
Walk down the street of Anytown, U.S.A. and mention the name "Harlan Ellison." I would bet all the money Bloomberg is spending on his presidential campaign that 10 times out of 10, if anyone recognizes who Ellison was, it will be for Star Trek--alone. Yeah, I dunno. The pool of people who watch Star Trek have a better than average chance of recognizing the most important science fiction short story writer and editor of the most influential science fiction anthology ...umm... ever? I'm going with ever. For both. I grantcha though that Star Trek was, basically, science fiction written by science fiction fans for an audience of idiots - the type that needed Harlan Ellison style science fiction camped up and dumbed down by about 98% or so*. (In other words how network executives viewed their audience in the '60s!) So there's probably some truth to your assertion. * Which probably still made Star Trek one of the smartest shows on TV at the time.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 18, 2020 22:59:14 GMT -5
Slam: You can flame as much as you like, but facts are undeniable. To even suggest Roddenberry was not known to the general public--especially after TOS become a global phenomenon in syndication, while he was interviewed / toured in as many locations about it is what can be accurately labeled as absurd, or willfully in denial of history. Of course, you are missing the point: if that ST episode never existed (in its rewritten form), are you going to argue that Ellison would be known to as many people over the decades-- millions around the world who have seen that celebrated episode... and his screen credit for more than half of century? To argue that would be rather laughable and defensive--in the extreme--over HE. You cannot erase how the impact of "City" played out, and all of the alternate theories, misplaced anger and flames in the world will not change that. I agree with Slam.. if you ask 100 random people on the street who created Star Trek... I suspect a goodly number would answer with the name of a character, and some would say Shatner or Stewart...a couple would likely say George Lucas... probably less than half would come up with Gene Roddenberry. It's hard to remember that sci fi itself is only moved past being a niche recently.
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 19, 2020 0:13:15 GMT -5
"His book" the man authored over 1700 works, but you act as if this is the only thing of his published. When you find yourself in a whole.... "Hole" Is the word you're looking for, and you have certainly fallen into it. Regarding the book--its relevant evidence, which is far more than someone constantly saying the equivalent of "nuh-uh!" and failing to support his position. Buy hey, if you think selling yourself on the fallacious notion that Ellison having an entire book to essentially dig up and carefully reexamine the details of a job experience on a show known the world over for decades somehow does not fall in line with said job experience being his claim to fame to the general public...a general public Star Trek had grown to appeal to from the point of its syndication breakout-forward ('cause the book was not meant for a handful of nerds in a garage somewhere), then that's up to you. It will never align itself with the truth. Its just more hyper-defensive fan crap over a man who--by his need to "set the record straight"--was acknowledging the fame and power of association with Star Trek, which-- at the time of the book's publication--had long been a global phenomenon built on episodes like "City." No one dedicates any work to a failure, minor credit or something largely unknown.
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Post by beccabear67 on Feb 19, 2020 0:37:51 GMT -5
To marginally change the topic, this one SLAYED me when I came across it. Studs Terkel and Cal Trillin talking to Ellison, Isaac Asimov and Gene Wolfe. I'd kill for TV like this again. To misquote Will Rogers, I never met a Studs Terkel book I didn't like! Also could say the same for Isaac Asimov (including his magazine I had the first few years of and then some). I have met some Harlan Ellison writing I wasn't sure if I liked, or was confused by, but I think that was the intention in part possibly... although I definitely do like a writer unafraid of being disliked by a reader. Well, what qualifies as serious 'literature' in comic strip/story/book form anyway? I'm thinking possibly Jack Jackson's Comanche Moon and Tejano books would qualify. They don't seem to come up as often as things like Maus or Watchmen, but I feel they could be presented without any kind of explanation whereas I feel the other two I named would need some explaining to a lot of possible readers. I think the old Krazy Kat strips might well be fine capital A art, though not necessarily 'literature', perhaps more equivalent to poetry than prose. I could see some of Percy Crosby's Skippy strips perhaps also finding a place in a gallery. Literature is a tricky term, I have a feeling for what it is as something that would stand the test of time even if it was just published... regardless of subject matter, somebody isn't really reading a story about a whale with Moby Dick, nor having to have an interest in whaling or the era. Comics as a form are sort of like the special-effects movie mentioned in the Terkel program, they require something very visual else why be in the comics story form? Historical detail can be of interest and you get a wonderful lot of that in Jackson's books and also in Dave Stevens' Rocketeer. I think before all that Harvey Kurtzman set a high standard on the E.C. war titles! Getting a combination of a literary caliber author, and an illustrator of not only skill but knowledge, would be rare enough, but together in one person, and for the scant rewards the medium often gives... oy! You wonder why some of the great science-fiction authors created for pulps with lurid covers and 5 cents per word, or paperbacks in wire racks at airports, how about the genuine mature serious comic book creator. I'm not sure we will see them without massive compromise like much of the story of Harlan Ellison writing for tv and film. By compromise read having to conform to a genre, the marketing category etc. How many pitches start with, there's this superhero/barbarian/spaceman, and... ? If I have a Crime And Punishment in me for instance, and say I can even illustrate, aren't i more likely to go where I know the audience for that would be... text literature publishers! I wouldn't think to go to a comic company even if I wanted to include copious illustrations. I just think it's such a hard road to such a tenuously existing audience even in this day of so-called graphic 'novels'... we are just going to see things that are genre and very visual, and if not visual (talking mice, costumes) it's going to not get noticed. How many printings have Jackson's amazing historical books had? I know the E.C. war books have had various printings and packagings, but they always seem overshadowed by the more popular horror and science-fantasy as well as Mad. Well, there's some grist for the mill maybe. I won't even get into whether science fiction is/can be literature of a lasting sort or not... have to go dig out my Penguin edition of Mary Shelley's 'A Modern Prometheus' after watching the Doctor Who set in Geneva in 1816 the other night.
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Post by beccabear67 on Feb 19, 2020 0:41:52 GMT -5
I have a mouth and yet I must type! Well, I think the 'is the Star Trek episode the most known work' thing is just going to go around and eat it's own tale like Ouroboros (I used to get every Ballantine Adult Fantasy release I could find).
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,596
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Post by Confessor on Feb 19, 2020 3:31:32 GMT -5
JUST A REMINDER
Hey folks, just a reminder to watch your tone and language with each other. This discussion is getting rather heated, and while it's fine to have a heated, impassioned debate, be careful not to use language that could be construed as insulting or as a personal attack.
Remember rule #1 of the CCF: "This is a respectful community. Many members will tell you their main reason for coming here is the decency and politeness, even when folks disagree. Personal attacks, passive aggressiveness, just plain combative posts, and/or a general disregard for others will not be tolerated."
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Post by Icctrombone on Feb 19, 2020 9:08:55 GMT -5
I only ever heard of Harlan Ellison from Star Trek and his name on comic book adaptations. I believe that if you ask the person on the street, they will recognize Star Trek more than Harlan Ellison.
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Post by brutalis on Feb 19, 2020 10:13:47 GMT -5
I want a Knights of the Realm series from Marvel/DC. The team made up of "Knights" confronting villainy across the multiverses. Batman leads the team as the Dark Knight. Members: Moon Knight, Black Knight, Shining Knight, Silent Knight, Rom Spaceknight. There. I said it!
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Post by tarkintino on Feb 19, 2020 11:51:28 GMT -5
I want a Knights of the Realm series from Marvel/DC. The team made up of "Knights" confronting villainy across the multiverses. Batman leads the team as the Dark Knight. Members: Moon Knight, Black Knight, Shining Knight, Silent Knight, Rom Spaceknight. There. I said it! Sounds like another group of dissimilar heroes to come together with Batman as the leader. Batman and the Knightsiders?
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 19, 2020 12:03:56 GMT -5
"His book" the man authored over 1700 works, but you act as if this is the only thing of his published. When you find yourself in a whole.... "Hole" Is the word you're looking for, and you have certainly fallen into it. Regarding the book--its relevant evidence, which is far more than someone constantly saying the equivalent of "nuh-uh!" and failing to support his position. Buy hey, if you think selling yourself on the fallacious notion that Ellison having an entire book to essentially dig up and carefully reexamine the details of a job experience on a show known the world over for decades somehow does not fall in line with said job experience being his claim to fame to the general public...a general public Star Trek had grown to appeal to from the point of its syndication breakout-forward ('cause the book was not meant for a handful of nerds in a garage somewhere), then that's up to you. It will never align itself with the truth. Its just more hyper-defensive fan crap over a man who--by his need to "set the record straight"--was acknowledging the fame and power of association with Star Trek, which-- at the time of the book's publication--had long been a global phenomenon built on episodes like "City." No one dedicates any work to a failure, minor credit or something largely unknown. Your truth does not align with everyone else's reality. So I will leave you to your red sky world and bow out.
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