Pentian is a New Crowdsourcing Platform for Publishing

A few months ago I launched thrillsandmystery.com, a website for crime/thriller/suspense/horror/mystery/adventure writers to test the waters with their short-form fiction, and build buzz for their other work. The idea was that a fraction of a story would be placed in a vetting  forum where readers could get a taste and suggest ways to punch the story. The story would then move to a contest page, where a bigger sample of the now re-worked story could be voted into an anthology based on story merit. The idea being that if readers were emotionally invested in a story, they’d want to read the conclusion, so the stories with the most promise – the most merit – would advance.

So obviously I am a believer in the crowd-sourcing model of publishing. I like the idea that readers – fans – should be allowed the opportunity to dictate what floats to the top. For years we’ve been wedded to this old-school idea that publishers, agents, producers, and other corporate players should be in charge of dictating to us what we find entertaining. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes they hit the ball out of the park. But just as often excellent, potentially ground-breaking work winds up languishing on the slush-pile.

Which is why I’m going to tell you about a new site and service called Pentian. Now I have not tried this service myself, so this is not a testimonial. I am also not receiving any kind of financial compensation, so this is not an ad. This is just me letting you, my fellow authors, know about something else you might want to consider as part of your overall publishing strategy.

The way Pentian works is similar to gofundme or indiegogo or kickstarter, only those who decide to help fund a project are treated as publishing partners and they share in all future royalties. Here’s how Pentian describes their service:

Pentian crowdsources publishing with a great twist: backers share in future royalties and Pentian operates as a publisher, insuring the success of the books with worldwide print + digital distribution. and production. There is NO cost to the authors; once a book is successfully crowd-funded, Pentian does the rest.
 Pentian has had stellar success with over 180 books published in Spain & South America in the first 9 months, and recently soft-launched in the USA (with 3 American books funded already!) 

If you have a novel you have been shipping around to agents and publishers with no success, perhaps Pentian might be something you could consider. It will give you all the same cred that publishing a book with a trad publisher offers thus avoiding the still present though dwindling stigma associated with self-pubbing, although you would sacrifice the control and potential profitability self-publishing still offers – but does not guarantee.

Should you decide to go the Pentian route, use this promo code when you sign up; UA69. I personally get nothing from it, but you will receive a 10% boost in your funding goal leaving a mere 9/10 of your publishing costs unfunded and up to your fans, friends, family, and future business partners.

Good luck. http://pentian.com

The Return of the Dragon is FREE - Tempus Fugit!

If you own a kindle or have the kindle app on any of your devices, you can download, own, and read my graphic novel, The Return of the Dragon, for FREE today through Valentine's Day!

   According to legend, King Arthur of Camelot did not die at the battle of Camlann. He was taken by the faeries of Avalon to await the time when he will again rise to prominence and lead the world in a new Camelot. 

    A mysterious influential leader with ties to no countries has emerged on the world stage. Arthur Penn has influenced most of the nations in the UN to adopt a new charter: one without veto powers and a new cooperative form of economic inter-dependence at its core. The US and Russia are dubious and are the last two hold-outs in establishing this new utopia of federated yet autonomous governments. 

    Ferapont Vernyy and Karen White are sent by their respective governments to meet with Arthur at a secret compound in the Olympic Mountains in Vancouver. They are both drawn in by his principled charm and magnetic personality, but neither is comfortable with his nocturnal nature … and neither understands his urgency to come to consensus. 

    A modern take on the Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur saga with a vampire twist, The Return of the Dragon is a graphic novel blending elements of political intrigue, romantic fantasy, Arthurian legend, and vampire lore.

This is a truly limited time offer. Once it's over it's over. So get your free copy NOW!

http://www.amazon.com/Return-Dragon-Graphic-Novel-ebook/dp/B00OEONH5S

Author Interview: Jeff Mariotte, Author of Empty Rooms

Jeffrey J. Mariotte is the bestselling, award-winning author of fifty novels, including supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, thriller The Devil's Bait, and the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet. His newest novel, the dark thriller Empty Rooms, was released in January 2015.

He also writes occasional nonfiction, short fiction (some of which is collected in Nine Frights), and comic books, including the long-running horror/Western comic book series Desperadoes and graphic novels Fade to Black and Zombie Cop. With writing partner Marsheila Rockwell, he has published several short stories and is working on more short fiction, novels, and comic book stories. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book business, as a writer, editor, marketing executive, and bookseller. He lives in southeastern Arizona’s high desert.

Empty Rooms introduces Detroit police detective Frank Robey, a comic book‐loving former FBI agent‐turned‐cop whose obsession with the case of a missing child gives him no peace; and Richie “Maynard” Krebs, a former cop whose encyclopedic knowledge of crime and criminals colors everything he does. Initially strangers, the two men form an unlikely partnership which becomes a close bond forged by their determination to hold onto their humanity while investigating the most heinous acts one person can do to another.

Mariotte says the novel grew out of his experience writing a true crime book detailing the offenses of dozens of the world’s worst serial killers, sexual predators, cannibals, and other notorious criminals. “In researching that book I was surprised to learn about several times that my life’s path had brought me uncomfortably close to real serial killers, and I suspect that’s true of many people. Spending so much time immersed in the lives of murderers and madmen, I had to do something to pull myself out of that mindset, or I’d become hopelessly depressed. Then it occurred to me that homicide and sex crimes detectives have to deal with the reality of these acts on a daily basis and still stay sane. That realization was the genesis of Empty Rooms.”

Who are your influences?

My influences are legion. I’m a genre-promiscuous writer—I like to read and write in many different genres, and I have different influences in each, as well as some whose work inspires and informs all of my writing. Since I’m here to talk about my thriller Empty Rooms, I’ll discuss a few of the thriller/crime/mystery-specific influences.

In the beginning, there were the Hardy Boys. When I was a kid, I read everything published at the time about those brother detectives. Later I graduated to Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, and other detective writers, including the one I still think is the best of the lot, Ross Macdonald. Empty Rooms is more of a thriller than a PI story—although one of the two main characters, Richie Krebbs, pretends to be a PI for a while, and in that vein, there are again lots of writers I follow carefully. To name just a few, James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, James Grady, Michael Connelly, T. Jefferson Parker (those last two, I’m pleased to say, had very nice things to say about Empty Rooms—their comments are on the front and back covers). I’ve learned a million things about writing suspense from William Goldman and Thomas Gifford. I could go on, but that’s probably enough for now.

When did you begin writing?

Remember when I mentioned the Hardy Boys up there? I used to write very derivative stories about brother detectives, when I was just a little tyke. They were, no doubt, terrible. But they got me started writing and I never stopped. I won third prize in a literary award in college, was first professionally published with a short science fiction story in 1988, and had my first novel published in 1999. Empty Rooms is my 50^th novel.

How do you come up with your stories, characters, character names, POV, etc?

Having written so many books, that’s a tough question to answer, because it’s different in every case. In general, the POV I like to use is limited third person, so I can get into the heads of several different characters over the course of a book, but without showing anything that wasn’t seen by at least one of them. Stories are suggested by all sorts of things. As one example, Empty Rooms is a very dark thriller. Before I wrote it, I wrote a book called Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers and Other Deviants, which told the real stories of every criminal mentioned on the first five seasons of the TV show Criminal Minds, and of some whose crimes inspired episodes but weren't mentioned by name. As you can imagine, that involved a ton of research into some of the worst crimes and criminals in history--just some really terrible people doing terrible things.

Doing that research, having all those horrific facts swimming around in my head, I started thinking about people who have to deal with such awful situations on a daily basis. How do homicide or sex crimes detectives cope with the stuff they see every day and still remain human? The more I dug around in that, the more the novel started to come together. It's about a cop and an ex-cop teaming up to solve a very cold case of a missing little girl. That case leads them into some incredibly dark places--but in addition to being about the case, it's about how they maintain their humanity while they're looking into it. A lot of the research I had done for the Criminal Minds book came in handy on the novel, because it enabled me to write a realistically creepy villain, as well as to have a solid grounding in what would go into solving the case.

Do you work from an outline?

Usually, yes. I’ve written a lot of licensed fiction, or tie-in fiction—books set in existing fictional universe, like that of CSI or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Spider-Man or whatever. With those books, I have to turn in an outline first, because the licensor has to approve what’s being done with the characters they own. I find an outline is most helpful if I treat it like a road map on a long trip. I know where I’m going and approximately how I’m going to get there, but if I see something along the way that’s intriguing, I can go check it out, knowing I can find my way back to my main route.

Tell me about your favorite scene in your novel.

It’s impossible for me to pick just one scene from Empty Rooms. I like a lot of them. Mostly, what makes the scenes work, I think, is the interplay between the two main characters. Frank Robey is a Detroit cop, experienced and worldly wise, a love of comic books and classic soul music. Richie Krebbs—who Frank calls Maynard, after Bob Denver’s beatnik character, Maynard G. Krebs, in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis—was fired from the police department. He’s not good with bureaucracy but he’s a walking encyclopedia of crime and criminals. They’re very different guys, but together they work really well—on solving crimes, and in a fictional sense.

Can you tell us a little about your writing philosophy?

The closest thing I have to a writing philosophy is the idea that writing is like a muscle. The more you use it—the more you write—the stronger it gets. The more you’ll be able to count on it when you need it If you want to be a writer, you need to sit in the chair, put your fingers on the keyboard, and go to work. Write whenever you can, whatever you can. It doesn’t matter so much if you’re writing letters or short stories or poetry or novels or whatever—the very act of writing exercises that muscle, and makes you a better writer.

Have you ever tried writing in any other genres?

Professionally, I’ve written a lot of supernatural horror, some science fiction, some fantasy, some mystery, some western, some mainstream fiction, some nonfiction, probably other things I’m not even thinking of. I’ve also written novels, short stories, comic books, graphic novels, a CSI DVD game, journalism, advertising, press releases, newsletters, and more.

Learn more at www.jeffmariotte.com, and follow him at https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyJMariotte and @JeffMariotte on Twitter.

Media Blitz: Sanguinary and Bound by Blood on Sale

Join the Night Shift for a SALE!

 February 2 – 4, get Sanguinary for $.99 and Bound by Blood FREE from Amazon!

Night Shift Novel 1

Only fifty years left before vampires rule the world.

When Dallas police detective Cami Davis joined the city's vampire unit, she planned to use the job as a stepping-stone to a better position in the department.

But she didn't know then what she knows now: there's a silent war raging between humans and vampires, and the vampires are winning.

So with the help of a disaffected vampire and an ex-cop addict, Cami is going undercover, determined to solve a series of recent murders, discover a way to overthrow the local Sanguinary government, and, in the process, help win the war for the human race.

But can she maintain her own humanity in the process? Or will Cami find herself, along with the rest of the world, pulled under a darkness she cannot oppose?

Only $.99, 2/1 – 2/4:  http://www.amazon.com/Sanguinary-Night-Shift-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00MR5VGV8/

_____________________________________________

Night Shift #2 ~ A Novella

Sometimes the monsters in the dark are real...

As a child, Lili Banta ignored her grandmother's cryptic warnings to avoid children outside their Filipino community in Houston. When many of those other children fell ill, Lili ignored the whispers in her community that a vampiric aswang walked among them.

Years later, Lili returns to Houston to work for the Quarantine Station of the Center for Disease Control—but she is plagued by dark, bloody dreams that consume her nights and haunt her days. When a strange illness attacks the city's children, Lili is called in to find its source, and maybe even a cure.

But in order to save the city, she must first acknowledge the sinister truth: A monster stalks the night—closer than she ever expected....

FREE 2/1 – 2/4: http://www.amazon.com/Bound-Blood-Night-Shift-Novella-ebook/dp/B00PB3AIGC/

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About the Author

Margo Bond Collins is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She has published a number of novels, including Sanguinary, Taming the Country Star, Legally Undead, Waking Up Dead, and Fairy, Texas. She lives in Texas with her husband, their daughter, and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them—and sometimes fight them.

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Connect with Margo

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/margobondcollins

Email: MargoBondCollins@gmail.com

Website: http://www.MargoBondCollins.net

Blog: http://www.MargoBondCollins.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MargoBondCollin  @MargoBondCollin

Google+: https://plus.google.com/116484555448104519902

Goodreads Author Page: http://www.goodreads.com/vampirarchy

Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/MargoBondCollins

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mbondcollins/

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Guest Post: Gender in Genre Writing by William Galaini

Cover art by Christopher M. Jackson

Today's guest post comes to us from William Galaini. He is the author of The Line, a sci-fi tale involving time travel and modern themes.

Suspended in the nothing between timelines, the station Janus is an unseen marvel: the greatest technological achievement in human innovation. From Janus, Gustavo and his hand-selected team of historians and engineers venture into the past and observe history, unseen and unnoticed.

But they are not alone.

Another traveler is shattering history. Unhindered by desires to remain scientific and uninvolved, the intruder’s technology is far advanced with methods more brutal and a present more terrifying than anything Gustavo and his team are prepared for. As they apply their intellects and skills towards solving the mystery of the ferocious interloper, they discover than they have its full attention. 

William grew up in Pennsylvania and Florida. His mother gave him an early love of reading, especially when it came to the great classics of science fiction. He is also a history buff and fascinated by mythology and folklore. His various vocational pursuits include being a singer in a professional high school choir, manager of the call center at a luxury resort, U.S. Army medic, prison guard, and middle school English teacher. As such, he is perfectly suited to breech a solid metal door, humanely restrain the enemy within, and politely correct their grammar all while humming Handel’s Messiah and drinking a lovely cuppa tea.

He currently hangs his hat, rucksack, and tweed smoking jacket in Northern Virginia.

~][~ ~][~ ~][~ ~][~ 

Administrator's note:

   Today’s guest post tackles the touchy issue of gender tropes in modern genre fiction. As a male author who writes crime and mystery fiction (from a female narrator's POV none-the-less,) I often find myself tempted to fall into the same old stereotypes that have long defined the genre. One need only look at the cover of a dime store novel to see the streetwise dame in distress motif and the grizzled probably somewhat older gumshoe (Spade, Marlow, Hammer) who she will ultimately inexplicably throw herself at.

   These tropes have their counterpart in sci-fi as well, the genre our guest calls his own. In fact, the only real difference being the grizzled anti-hero of mysteries is generally replaced in space opera and fantasy by a clean-cut Lothario (Kirk, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers) who is more of an actual hero than an anti-one. You know, all the characteristics that defined Zapp Brannigan.

   It's also significant to recognize that in my genre, the "woman sleuth" sub-genre is the fastest growing sub of them all. So the topic of avoiding these pigeonholes in today’s post-feminism, Bechdel aware landscape is a particularly interesting one for me.

Dave

Ah, genre writing…where the heteronormative, straight-jawed men battle hordes of Nazis/ninjas/cyborgs/cultists or an awesome combination of any two of those. Or three. If you manage all four, you’ve got something special going on.

Sorry. Genre writing. RIGHT. In regards to fiction writing, genre leans toward the more pulpy side of literature. Maybe you are thumbing through H. Rider Haggard’s adventures in Africa or engrossed in Heinlein’s troopers of the Starship variety. Either way, when you pluck a book like this off the shelf you have expectations of the genre. You want aliens, slithering monsters from the deep, and buried civilizations with names nobody can remember.

At no point do you pick up a genre novel and think, “I can’t wait to read a misogynistic adventure!” and if you do, just grab Twilight and call it a day. In genre, especially with science fiction and fantasy, we have grander and more ambitious desires. Yet we are still saddled with a predominant focus on masculine idealism that panders to the primal insecurities and lusts of a youthful male demographic.

Why are our fun, adventuresome books so shackled by brutishness? Aren’t genre books supposed to be loaded with ideas and imagination? Why are the Conan stories, filled with some of the loveliest prose in fantasy writing, loaded with minimally dressed, curvy women who are accomplishments for the male character to either achieve or lose? Why do we have so many damsels in distress or femme fatales misleading our male characters down treacherous paths?

Can our genre stories evolve beyond their mid-century, male-centric growth spurt? And what would that look like? Would progressive genre stories still look and read like the pulp we love?

Let’s explore the question and worry behind it. Genre writing has exploded into the mainstream, and we see people sporting their geekcred with Marvel t-shirts and Firefly memes on their Facebook page. Genre stories are BIG and men, women, children, and the elderly alike adore them. They appear, despite much of genre fictions boy’s club origins, to be bridging all gender and racial gaps. Some areas still need work, but it is happening.

And it has been happening for some time! What’s more, I will give you several examples of how the titans of our genre have treated women magnificently.

Let’s talk about Isaac Asimov. In his series “I, Robot,” we find an amazing female character in Dr. Susan Calvin. She is a calculating woman with a controlled exterior, but tender and compassionate on the inside. Dr. Calvin might be my favorite female character in written science fiction and nobody blinks when she arrives or comments that she is a woman. None of her characters are fazed by her gender, and it in no way deters her or complicates her life. Susan isn’t defined by a male, and her conflicts do not revolve around her sexuality.

Interesting how progressive “I, Robot” is given that it was published in 1950. When compared to its film counterpart starring Will Smith, Dr. Susan Calvin is tossed into the roll as sidebar eye candy, her entire narrative stolen by a hulking man. And of course, the film gave her a shower scene and held her at gunpoint. Don’t worry, though, she saves Will Smith by blind-firing an automatic carbine. Because she can’t handle a weapon. Because she’s a woman.

We’re not done. When we think of pulp genre and its tropes of adventure and exploration, a film that rages to the surface almost instantly is Indiana Jones. My god, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a crazy good movie. I cannot wait to show that film to my son so he can see how excellent genre films can be without a mountain of digital noise propping them up. I also can’t wait to show him my favorite scene in the whole film, one that involves Marion Ravenwood playing mind games with the smitten Belloq in his tent. She turns his male expectations against him, knife drawn, and regardless of her betrayal, Belloq is still delighted by her. Marion embraces her femininity, uses it as a tool when needed against lesser men, but still carves out a life in the frozen parts of the male dominated world.

I think we all loved Marion. Such a shame the two following films replaced her with a screeching prima donna and a seductive villainess.

These two incidents are hardly isolated. In quality genre writing, we find that male dominance is not required for them to be effective pieces. You can still have your tropes that involve train-car fight scenes and sinister aliens without needed to diminish women. Ripley, of Alien and Aliens, will be a paragon of womanhood and motherhood while beating the tar out of her rival female villain, the alien queen. Robin, of Stross’s Glasshouse, changes gender and still is a complete badass either way without flinching in a sword fight. Some of our best genre works are flooded with equal and honorable treatment of their female characters. I’d go even further and say these works are fantastic and enriched because of their equal and honorable treatment of their female characters.

So why is Conan flanked with toys in the shape of women, and why are so many horror and science fiction stories loaded with busty women running upstairs, desperate for a man to save them? Is this type of writing pandering to primal male desires in an effort to earn their dollar? Is this type of writing lazy and unintelligent?

Yes to both. “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” as H. L. Mencken put it, and when you watch a movie like Transformers that has the protagonist’s underage daughter being violated by the cameraman in IMAX while you are sitting next to your kid, Menken’s validity is reinforced with terrifying efficiency.

There is no excuse for poor representation of female characters, and the genres we love are no longer stifled by male gatekeepers to a boy’s club. And not only can I cite examples of how misogyny is exclusive of genre stories, but I can write genre stories that prove it wholesale.

My first novel, The Line, was to be a hardcore time travel work of earnest science fiction. I chose my main character, Mary, to not only be a historian but an archivist of their time travels and discoveries. This was intentional because nearly all of history has been recorded and peer-reviewed by men, and historical feminist revisionism is a mindset that is still in its infancy. I wanted a woman’s perspective of American history, World War II, and West African conflicts.

Writing a woman was terrifying, but not as challenging as I expected once I finally calmed down about it. I simply wrote a brilliant, calculating woman with a hard edge to her, and as long as I kept the conflict within the context of her character and not her gender, The Line held up. My beta reading team was all women, every single one with a master’s degree, and the first question they were asked after reading it was “what gender was the author.” None of them felt that The Line was overtly written by a man.

My second novel, Withered Zion, had a rape scene with one of my male main characters. Rape is often a present danger against female characters in genre writing, but I wanted to be clear and brutal in regards to a male being raped. Sometimes we might read a rape scene in a novel, and it is clearly a male writer sexualizing and glorifying the rape in an attempt to make it sexy and forbidden. You’ve read that book. So have I. And it infuriated me. Go ahead, Mr. Heteronormative-Misogynist. Try and get off on my male protagonist being raped.

My third novel, currently in the works, has a homosexual main character. It is about Hephaestion breaking into Hell to rescue his true love, Alexander the Great. I’ve had a gay friend read it as a gay litmus test of sorts, and he gave me the go ahead, and it was far easier than I thought. Basically, I thought of my character, how I’d feel if I were him, and the rest was simple. He doesn’t prance around, squealing, “gosh, I am so very gay,” just like a female character doesn’t prance around announcing, “gosh, I am on my period.”

I will say that a love scene between two men gets very tangled when it comes to pronouns. That was the sole challenge in the novel so far.

So, there you have it. Three works of genre that I wrote that either promote feminism overtly, illustrate that men are as susceptible to sexual crime as women, and has a homosexual character doing exactly what I would do in his position.

The trick is to never take your audience for granted, always have people investigate your work and give you earnest feedback in regard to your intentions, and listen to that feedback. Your genre work isn’t about you. It’s about your character.

“Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” as M. L. Mencken said. But let’s not forget: those gender-equal classics and the new genre works that smack of feminism like Firefly and Buffy are hardly driving folk broke, either.

Info on William's book, The Line, can be found at the Amazon page, at Barnes & Noble and on Goodreads. He can be found on Twitter @WGalaini 

The Thrills & Mystery Podcast Debuts Today

On January 5, 2015 at 8 AM Eastern Time, the Thrills & Mystery Podcast makes its debut.

A weekly fiction podcast featuring crime stories, noir, thrillers, mysteries, adventure and other tales of high intensity written by many of today's up-and-coming indie-writers and publishers. 

The show can be found at Thrillsandmystery.com, or by searching for the podcast by name on iTunes. In the meantime, enjoy this brief sample.




Also, as a side note, the three published editions of the Lupa Schwartz Mystery series are now available through Google Play.

Opinion: Free Speech and Bad Taste in re The Interview

I watched The Interview last night. It’s a silly movie with a ridiculous plot, but it’s funny in a way that only dark humor can be. I had decided that I wanted to watch it long before the controversy began over the movie. (I wouldn’t call it a film. That’s a highbrow word used to define art-house/Oscar contenders.) I like Seth Rogan and James Franco. Always have ever since their Freaks and Geeks days. I enjoyed Pineapple Express and This is the End. So I was looking forward to spending my Christmas day in a movie theater enjoying the two of them being ridiculous together. That’s it. I had no political agenda, and I didn’t assume the movie had one either.

Now, I’m not going to bother analyzing or deconstructing the free thought issues or the geo-political ramifications of Sony buckling under to hackers who may or may not have been acting on behalf of the North Korean government. Rather, I’m going to answer an annoying meme which has been riding coattail on the political discussion associated with Sony’s decision to yank the movie from most movie theaters. That meme being that the film crossed some imaginary line by making a joke of the assassination of a living political leader.

Crossed a line? What line? It was an American comedy movie. A farce. It was over-the-top, socio-political mockery. There is no line.

Did it cross a line because it was a comedy about murdering somebody? If so, then a lot of American movies have crossed that line over the years: Arsenic and Old lace, The Trouble with Harry, Throw Mama from the Train; and some of them were about true stories where actual people were either murdered or attempts were made: I Love You to Death, The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom, Fargo, Bernie. Comedies about death and suffering are as old as comedy itself. Humour noir can be found in the writing of Voltaire (Candide,) Edgar Allen Poe (The Cask of Amontillado,) even as far back as Aristophanes (The Frogs.)

So what line does The Interview actually cross? Did it cross a line because it suggests that governments make assassination attempts on foreign dignitaries? Because it is not the first movie to make that claim: Inglourious Basterds (American service men attempt to assassinate Hitler,) Assassination Attempt (Germany conspires to kill FDR, Churchill, and Stalin,) JFK (movie which posits that the Kennedy murder was a giant intergovernmental plot and cover-up.) Or is it simply wrong to spoof the leaders of foreign governments? Because that has been done before as well by everyone from the Three Stooges to Charlie Chaplain to Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase.

Perhaps it crossed a line because it suggests that the American government utilizes celebrities and other non-government persons to do its dirty work. If so, somebody should have told George Clooney he was off base when he made Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. And nobody better ever make a movie about the 1960 plot to kill Castro where the CIA asked for mob boss Sam Giancano’s help. And speaking of celebrity spies, Mata Hari anyone?

Or maybe it crossed a line because since 1976 it has been American policy that we do not assassinate foreign leaders. “Yeah, right,” said Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Hugo Chavez.

Was it line-crossing because Kim Jong-Un is a living person, and it’s wrong to make a comedy movie about a real person’s fictional death? If so, this is the second time Rogan and Franco have made that gaffe. In This is the End Michael Cera playing Michael Cera is impaled by a light post, Rhianna as Rhianna falls into an abyss, and Jonah Hill as Jonah Hill is engulfed in flames among others. Other movies where actual living persons are fictionally killed include Bill Murray in Zombieland, and Alec Baldwin in Team America: World Police. There was also a film made in 2006 in Britain about the fictional assassination of then living and acting US President George W. Bush. The film was called Death of a President, and it pissed off a lot of people, but nobody tried to ban it, and it got little attention because – frankly – it wasn’t that good a movie.

The bottom line is that The Interview doesn’t really break any new ground nor does it flout any unfloutable taboos.  It’s satire and it’s a black comedy, and whether it’s a good or bad movie doesn’t really matter. They had a right to make it, and we have a right to watch it. Good taste, bad taste, appropriate or not, that’s a personal matter for individuals to decide for themselves.