All posts by Cullen M. M. Waters

Internet humorist, Writer of Speculative Fiction, movie reviewer, and all around good guy
The Big Three

The Big Three (IV) – Summation

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So. Why start out like this? Why talk, if ever so fleetingly, of these three characters as a personal introduction?

I could have, of course, listed the authors that made me want to be a Writer (Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and H. P. Lovecraft, in order, for the record.) I could have talked about the One Big Moment in Junior High that pushed me in that direction. I could have talked genre, of my interest in Horror, Science Fiction, and Fantasy.

I could have done a lot of things.

This, I think, covers most of who I am. Why I am.

All three characters have stories of action and adventure.

All three have moments of Horror and bits of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

All three filled a bored child’s life when he needed it.

And all three, for good or ill, influenced and influence me. They were the first. They lead the way.

It might be important to know that. Heading forward.

Doctor Who, Sci Fi TV

The Big Three (III) – He Walks in Eternity

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There’s a minor family dispute over the following history. But we’ll get to that.

The main facts are these: My Dad watched Doctor Who back in the Seventies and was not impressed. He did, however, tell My Mom about it and suggest that her monster loving eldest might like it.

Correction: According to Mom, Dad had only heard of Doctor Who when recommending me watching it. Would have sworn she had told me differently. Hey, it’s been over forty years, it’s a miracle I remember anything from back then. Or now.

Which was how I ended up having one of the most terrifying viewing experiences of my young life.

See, there’s this pretty lady in a room, and while she was watching something on a TV this metal snake monster attacks her. A guy in the scarf comes to rescue her, but he’s too late, she’s been Got. He and another guy take her away, leaving behind this old guy who stares at the snake monster.

Now I knew for a fact that another snake monster is in the room. Doesn’t matter that there was no reason to believe this, I just knew. And that monster was going to jump out any second and Get the old guy!

This scared me to death.

Now here’s where the dispute comes in. Mom says I ran out of the room. She also says the episode was about cannibalism, so her memory of the issue is suspect.

My memory of is of turning the TV off. I might have ran away after that. That is a possibility.

You can never be too certain with monsters.

There were other terrifying encounters with the show, which piqued my Dad’s interest. What could possibly be frightening about Doctor Who? He watched it and got hook.

It became a family favorite, more so than my other two heroes.

(Me? I finally watched an episode with the Doctor beating a monster. That helped.)

Any ways, as with the others, I collected, I had help collecting. And to a large degree, even now, I’m a fan.

Site Info

Identifying the Sites Peccadilloes 

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This site has always had two main problems. Well, it’s really one main problem as it all connects back to me. Call it two symptoms, if you will.

The first is that it doesn’t update regularly. I did wonders at the start, but at the start I was a jobless wastrel with plenty of time on my hands. These days I have a draining job and frantically working on finishing even one of my novels before I die of old age.

(Over twelve potential protagonists. Some with series story lines. With more coming every day it seems. Where was this wellspring in my youth?)

The point is I plan to post every Friday. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. But I’m trying to do better.

The second problem of the original run was that I’d start series and never finish them. Just ran out of things to say, stopped, planned to go back, never did.

This is more of an issue than the first. As guys like G. R. R. Martin might tell you.

This I don’t want to see happen now that I’ve started over. But when the well runs dry, when I don’t know how to proceed, there’s a problem.

Hence no updates.

Problems been solved. The series is finished (should have been finished before I started, but that’s something for another day)

The next two updates we continue on this strange little excursion. Then we’ll see what we shall see.

Monster Movies

The Big Three (II): That Strangely Innocent and Tragic Monster

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For me, Godzilla will always be a hero. The monster that stops the bad monsters from… well… being bad.

This, of course, plays hob with my watching some of his films. Especially the newer ones, which for some reason insist on making him the villain.

It’s not my fault. I grew up in the Seventies, during which time Godzilla really was a hero. When he appeared in his cartoon series everyone would cheer. Other heroes would fight him in the comics, but it was always a mistake to my mind. He didn’t mean to do bad things.

That was something a kid could understand. Other people made the rules, and they didn’t always tell you until after you broke them.

Now I understand and appreciate the movies where my big buddy is less than noble. I do. But I still root for him, deep down.

What’s the appeal? Outside of the face he’s a dinosaur that breathes fire?

Well for starters, he’s a very simple character. Very hard to get wrong, unlike, say, Spider-Man.

See, all Godzilla wants is to be. To do what he wants, when he want. If he wants to walk from Point A to Point B, that’s what he does.

Trouble is that he has a pesky habit of walking through cities. Literally.

That’s it. That’s really all there is to him. But with that you can have stories of him being a mindless beast, an antisocial creature, or a veritable demon, and they all work.

Some better than others, of course, but it’s not that hard to make a good Godzilla movie.

The other thing is that he’s unique in the fact that he has a cast. The opponents he faces are among the most memorable in film history. Dinosaurs galore. Flying three headed dragons. Bionic bounty hunters with blades in their belly. Giant insects. Even sentient sludge. Only his rival Gamera comes as close in terms of wildness (and technically has the King beat in pure weird monsters.)

Really, Godzilla’s the best.

Of the three, he’s the only one I’ve never fully parted with. There have been stories of his I won’t watch again willingly, but there was never a time I stopped watching the “modern” version of him.

Some of my favorite movies are Godzilla movies. I own entirely too many Godzilla action figures. Hats. Shirts. Tote bags.

Seriously, I might have a problem.

My hero, the King of the Monsters. Long may he reign.

Next, we travers time and space to talk about the final of my Big Three fictional heroes.

Comics

The Big Three (I): Does Whatever a Spider Can

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One of the potential joys of restarting this site is “doing things right”. Like introducing (or reintroducing) myself to the Reader. Laying out my interests, showing where this blog will lead. I’m not saying I did it wrong the first time. But I am strongly implying that.

How to do it varies. I think, though. I’m going to start by talking about the Big Three Heroes of my childhood. After that, I plan on reposting a few of the essays related to these oh so similar characters before moving on.

Where to start with these three is ease enough: Spider-man. As in all likelihood he really was the first fictional hero I had.

When I was a little guy (a very little guy) my most favorite cartoon was the original Spider-man series. I would watch it on channel 44 so often that the number 44 was my favorite. From the cartoon I’d go on to the PBS series Electric Company, which on occasion had a Spider-man sketch, and, of course, the comics themselves. If it was related to the Wall Crawler in any way, I no doubt saw it in my youth. From Spider-man and His Amazing Friends to the live action TV series to even slightly connected stuff like Spider-woman.

This has continued to a degree to this day. I’ve been collecting Marvel Masterworks of the original Amazing Spider-man run, the Marvel Team Ups, and even Spectacular Spider-man. Up until Disney got its claws in him, I’ve watched most every series, with Spider-man Unlimited.

All of this begs the question, why? What has Spider-man got that other super heroes don’t? For me, at least.

Maybe it’s a combination of things. When well written, the comics are entertaining adventure stories, full of wit and excitement. While powerful in his own right with his spider strength and spider-sense, Spider-man tends to be the underdog, especially in the early days. His foes range from dastardly criminal minds to mag geniuses to literal monsters. A good Spidey story is a thing of beauty, something I can reread again and again.

I should point out that the teenager aspect was never a part of his charm for me. I was a toddler when I started being a fan. He might as well have been Batman’s age for all I cared.

Still kind of saddens me thinking about how much older that he is I am now.

As this site continues, I’ll no doubt be going into further details, talking about stories and characters I like or dislike, trying to make a case for the opinion. I’m not much of a fan of the newer stuff. Around the Nineties they started moving away from what I liked about the character and these days he’s Flanderized beyond belief.

And I don’t plan on talking about Miles Morales. Ever.

Next on the list, a larger presence on my childhood. Much. At least thirty stories high, breathing fire, standing in the sky…

Site Info

The Obligatory First Post 2.0

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Seventeen years and one free blog service ago I started out one of my longest running and (relatively) most successful projects. A blog site.

It was meant to improve my writing. I started it out with a few whimsical words, which I reprint here:

I have literally no idea what I’m going to say here. What do I need a blog for, anyway? What can I offer that millions can’t?

The only possible use I can think of for this thing is improving my writing, and I have NO intention of publishing fiction here. Essays maybe? The occasional review? Pretentiousness all the time, every time!

That’s me.

Maybe this will go with all the other blogs, started then discarded, forgotten amidst the wasteland that is the Internet.

Whatever. Who cares.

Here’s to hoping that something fun develops.

Any one out there?

Thankfully in the seventeen years I’ve been doing this, I’ve improved. I credit the work on this site in that regard, and hope to continue forward.

However, seventeen years is a long time. A lot of… not quality work has be built up. And I’d like to have a place that showcases me at, if not my best, then near to.

Thus I “dumped” over seventeen years of my life, and as of today I’m starting fresh!

I put “dumped” in quotes for two reasons:

  1. I didn’t want to lose the good stuff that I did do, so I marked it all as draft, intending to go through and separate the chaff from the straw. Over two thousand entries. Moved in bulk. Using two different windows. But still. Yikes.
  2. I didn’t want to lose seventeen years of my life, so I backed everything up on a new site called Welltun Cares Archives. You want the warts and all Cullen M. M. Waters, there it is. Right now the site’s kind of rough. I may or may not get back to it.

My intent going forwards is at least once a week post something, new or reclaimed. 500+ words. Fiction, essay, commentary on my art, what have you. No movie reviews, as I have a site for that.

There’s going to be better categories, better tags, and, with a little luck, better writing. ‘Cause even if I’m the best (I’m not) I can always be better.

So, as I said seventeen years ago, here’s to hoping that something fun develops.