A Blast from the Past
In my post earlier this week discussing various projects inspired by the writings of Robert E. Howard, I mentioned that I was editing an older interview I did with Christy Marx who had been the Head Writer on the animated show Conan the Adventurer. That interview took place on February 25th, 2008 and was the forty-fourth episode I recorded with Shawna Benson, Bill Cunningham, and Eric Lytle and in the interview we discuss a wide variety of topics that are very much relevant today.
Key among the topics was the, at the time, recent writer’s strike in Hollywood and how and whether it had addressed the needs of screenwriters in the changing marketplace. The 2007 strike was the first time that the WGA began negotiating with the studios regarding streaming rights and online rights. The fight for proper revenue sharing may have begun in 2007, but it’s still going on today and the WGA still hasn’t caught up with the changes brought about by streaming and with the addition of AI as a new challenge they have more and more work cut out for them.
Christy Marx’s television filmography is amazingly varied in that she’s worked on titles ranging from Jem to GI Joe and from Conan to Stargate. Given her long time love of comic books, it’s no surprise that she worked on X-Men: Evolution, but the one project of hers I’ve always wanted to see get an expanded treatment is her Sword & Sorcery comic book series The Sisterhood of Steel. The original eight issues of the series were published by Marvel’s Epic Comics line and a graphic novel called Boronwë: Daughter of Death was published by Eclipse Comics in 1987.
Like a lot of Sword & Sorcery from the 1980s, the title shows its age with regards to certain themes, but that is all the more reason for Marx to get the opportunity to explore the world more completely. The books were written early in Marx’s career and she adhered to certain tropes a little closer than I imagine she might today, but if the success of the Game of Thrones television series, based on George R.R. Martin’s unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire saga, it’s that a lot of society really likes some of those tropes no matter how controversial they might be.
I didn’t ask a lot of questions about Conan in the interview, only one or two, and I wish I’d ask more. I do ask the most important question about Jem and the Holograms though because we all know that The Misfits’ songs are better.
Marx touches on her love of the X-Men, Science Fiction and Fantasy stories, as well as her mini-Warcraft obsession in the interview. This discussion may have happened 17 years ago, but as much as things have changed so much has remained the same.
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