The “freak nuclear accident,” or variations thereof, is a trope of comics and monster cinema, but in 1979, novelist Tom De Haven took that strange catalytic event, put it in the New Jersey of a tempestuous near future and into a relationship between disfigured brothers and a woman. He titled it Freaks’ Amour. 

The story seems eerily relevant as a new Dark Horse graphic novel by Dana Marie Andra, Phil Hester, Ande Parks with the lettering of Pat Brosseau.

Tomorrow (May 21) at 6 p.m., De Haven, also a Virginia Commonwealth University creative writing professor, will be at Chop Suey Books  to welcome Freaks’ Amour to a modern Richmond audience. He’ll read from his new prose short story sequel that is collected in this volume.

Creative forces have tried to transform the novel since its publication. “It was optioned five or six times for film,” recalls De Haven, who has worked in screenplays. Comic artist Gary Panter in 1980 made a three-page adaptation for the underground comic Young Lust. Panter went on to garner three Emmy Awards for his work on Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

In the early 1990s, the interest of director Alex Proyas (The Crow; I, Robot) led to two years of involvement and a script adaptation by De Haven — but no film. Around the same time, De Haven granted permission to Dark Horse for a three-issue comic by Mark Burbey and Phil Hester.

The novel begins in the 1980s, segues into a nervy, jagged early 21st century and features an epilogue dated, rather fancifully, May 15, 2013. “What’s weirder is the original Dark Horse publishing date was going to be May 15,” De Haven says with a slight laugh. “You know, back then, 2013 sounded impossible, like Buck Rogers futuristic.” Speaking of which, the new book is available through iTunes and Kindle.

The backdrop of the original novel includes terrorism, urban violence, orbiting weapons platforms, food shortages and factory failures, massive earthquakes and bacteriological warfare. The “freak nuclear accident” on Blofeld Street in Jersey City radically malforms the physiognomy of a newly married couple and their just conceived sons, making them pariahs in “normal” culture. The boys Grinner and Flour concoct a plan to raise money for expensive operations to make their appearances more palatable. They persuade their mutual love Reeni to participate in a bizarre touring live sex show that features them at first wearing theatircal disguises to make them seem "normal," that they rip off and ... thereby hangs the tale.

De Haven is a lifetime devotee of comics. His Derby Dugan series amounts to a fictional narrative history of the art form in the United States, and his novelization pertaining to the Superman myth, in this writer’s opinion, would’ve made for a better movie than the recent efforts.

A year ago, De Haven gave the commencement address for the Vermont-based Center for Cartoon Studies. While there, he had breakfast with renowned comic artist Steve Bissette, who it turned out had also wanted to do an adaptation of the novel. “Steve wondered if the three-book series had ever been collected as a trade paperback, and it hadn’t, and he said if Dark Horse would do it, he’d write the introduction.” And that’s what happened.

The Afterword is by Dana Marie Andra, who used to be Mark Burbey. “I didn’t know she’d had a sex operation and was living in Paris,” De Haven says. “She writes about how important the book was to her.”

Perhaps now with films getting made of comics, the freaks are ready for their close-up, especially with the advancement of computer and animation technologies.
De Haven says, “After all, Walking Dead can’t last forever.”

We last spoke to Chesterfield County native Clay McLeod Chapman when he was making the rounds with a short film called Henley about a peculiar young boy. He mentioned projects then in the works, one of which has turned into a trilogy called The Tribe. The first volume is Headroom Headhunters, out now under the Disney/Hyperion imprint, and the performer/writer Chapman is touring the country with it for its intended audiences.
He’ll be presenting selections to the public at 3 p.m. Sunday at Chop Suey Books.
Here, Clay reads a “remix” of a section of Headhunters on May 9 at Books of Wonder in New York City.

It's been a whirlwind month. He’s made readings in New Jersey, Idaho, Colorado, now Virginia, and next week Massachusetts, with New York City thrown in between each venture out. On Thursday, he appeared at his own alma mater middle school, Robious, which served as the source of inspiration for the book’s setting.
He recalls, “True story: I can remember being in class one day, either sixth or seventh grade, and hearing something shift on the other side of the fiberglass acoustic tile above my head. Whether it was a piece of metal shifting or a squirrel or whatnot, the fantasy played out in my head that there was someone up there. ... And 20 years later, a middle grade trilogy was born.”
This is not Sweet Valley High. We are not reading The Diary of A Wimpy Kid.
Nor is it Twilight.
It shares kin with The Hunger Games, but without the dystopia setting, and Lord of the Flies minus the plane crash and isolation. It is more related to the gang in The Outsiders, and The Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield, if he were to be suspended upside down from a basketball hoop.
Between a press of presentations, we caught up with Clay via email and telephone.

“What I've come to realize over the course of working on this project is that I wanted was to root Lord of the Flies in my middle school. I wanted to explore Peter Pan's clan of Lost Boys within a classroom environment. What all of these books have in common is a sense of escape, of removal from the outside society, of rebuilding society with the raw materials of our childhood id, and how those societies tend to collapse under the weight of their own chaos.”
The road that The Tribe took to perhaps what may seem an unlikely destination, that of Disney/Hyperion publishing, started with a 2006 birthday party where he read selections from his chilling Rest Area. Unbeknownst to him, in the audience sat a children’s book editor. They didn’t actually meet until 2009 at a going away party. The editor told Chapman that she’d be interested in hearing his ideas for younger audiences. “She told me, ‘You write it, I’ll go to bat for it.’” This was the summer of 2009 and Chapman figured, what the heck. He worked quietly. Then his email was hacked and a stray went to the Los Angeles-based Gotham Group. The vice-president of the organization replied, knowing Chapman didn’t want him to sign up for a free iPad, but wanted to get in touch anyway. “I sent them the manuscript, and they sent it on to the original children’s book editor — and she passed. Gotham took it to Disney. They asked, 'Can we get a trilogy out of it?' and I’ve learned when someone asks you that kind of question, you say ‘Yes!’”
He credits Disney’s acceptance of the book to editor Kevin L. Lewis. “He’s kind an odd mixture of behind the front scenes and front lines, a children’s book author himself,” Chapman explains. He edited the popular Captain Underpants and co-wrote My Truck Is Stuck. “And, honestly, the book is what it is because of him. Even when he had to fight me for it.”
“What makes the book feel dangerous or risque, on a certain level, is that there are no vampires in it. No hunky werewolves. No zombies. No fantasy to hide behind. There's something rather provocative, I've come to learn, about pulling away that protective blanket of fantasy ... of wizards and elves and hobbits. When you take away the unreality of it, the reader is left with nothing but the truth of the story, and that can be scary.”
There’s nothing more frightening — or engaging —  than the truth in fiction.
And, in Chapman’s case, something good about a trash email gone fortuitously awry.

Back in December in this space, I made mention of my premier adventure with the Richmond Arm Wrestling for Ladies champeenship at Balliceaux. And my colleague Chris Dovi got into the details.

But on Saturday afternoon, we’ll be brawling where such activity most often occurs: a parking lot. From 1 to 4 p.m., it’s going down on the blacktop adjacent to Carytown's Dixie Donuts, for yet another good cause: the Young Richmond Writers scholarship fund. 

Valley Haggard, writer, teacher and Richmond Young Writers program director, explains that the fundraiser for the past three years involved writing marathons. “We thought we’d try something different,” she explains. “So excited that there’s a ladies arm wrestling league in Richmond. I saw the Charlottesville league perform a couple years ago. It’s great fun and they’re dedicated to fundraisers for good causes.” There’s also an auction for a Kindle and restaurant gift certificates, among other fine items. A $25 donation also gets you a dozen Dixie Donuts. Now that’s a sweet deal.

The sometimes raucous lady wrestlers are promising to keep things age appropriate, though Haggard says, “ Our young writers like characters and the performance aspect.” And who wouldn’t want to see the furious bicep-bulging action involved in a match between the Swiss Miss Fit and Patty Cakes?

Spectators may show their favor of a particular competitor with the purchase of fake money for, you know, display purposes.

RYW executive director Bird Cox made the RAWFL connection, and she and Haggard created Haiku Thumb Wrestling for this event's attendees. “We’ll have a register sheet if they want to go up to the bout table between the RAWFL matches. The competitive Haiku Thumb Wrestling is when you’re making up the haiku on the spot while you’re thumb wrestling.”

Talk about multitasking. Ladies are supposed to be good at that.

“I love them,” Cox says of RAWFL. “I might join up.” What might her wrestling persona be? The Woman Word Warrior? The possibilities are intriguing. 

I’ll be out there Saturday in seersucker and brandishing a megaphone to keep the barbellerellas in something resembling order.  

The rain date is May 25.

If you can’t make it but want to contribute, here’s the scholarship donation page.

We last ran into Praheme — who grew up Patrick Ricks in Sherwood Park — last September when he was completing his first motion picture, Troop 491: The Adventures of the Muddy Lions. Completed now for a budget of approximately $300,000 — yet somehow managing helicopter shots — it’ll receive its world premiere at the Byrd Theatre on Saturday (May 18) at 1 p.m.
The project, which has been in front of Praheme since November 2010, has now entered its crucial phase of public presentation and, he’s hoping, distribution. He admits to feeling tremendous relief.
“I’ve known that I’m capable of making movies since I was 17," says Praheme, now 28, "but nobody believed me. Prior to this, I wasn’t sure I’m actually a filmmaker. I’m not the greatest filmmaker, but I know now that I have a movie to show, I’m capable of making one. People who worked on it — they sacrificed a lot of time.”
The film was made in part because he told volunteers, “I can feed you and put your name in the credits.” For that reason, Praheme says, the end credits may be the longest in film history. “I wanted to make sure every name of anybody who had absolutely anything to do with making the movie got their name on the screen.” Actually, a quick search determined that another indie filmmaker can take a bow for the longest end credits. 
He’s grateful, too, for the one-stop-shopping post-production house of 9 West Grace Studios, where the film received color grading at Mad Box Post, and sound design and mix at Red Amp, through which he found Los Angeles composer Dan Martinez. “I think [that] out of this, we got a movie the entire city of Richmond can feel proud about,” he says.
Praheme started shooting last July, using hundreds of extras for Scouts, parents and crowds, as well as a cast of six boys ages 12 to 14. 
He says he feels as if he broke all the rules of filmmaking, including working with children and animals. The story concerns Triston, who grows up next to the projects and is pushed into the Boy Scouts by his mother, where he meets adolescents from all social strata. Triston witnesses a murder and ultimately goes to his Scout friends for help. And, well, I'll let the movie tell its own preview.

Praheme has watched the film at home more times than anybody ever will — thus he’s able to spot the flaws that may be lost on the casual viewer. “When we do the DVD, we’ll have a fun drinking game to the mistakes,” he says, laughing. To his knowledge, there aren’t any boom mikes lazing in a shot. 
What follows after the Byrd screening is still to be determined. His mentor, Tim Reid, may set up private screenings in the coming months. Praheme also wants to utilize his Howard University connections, and he envisions a three-day event during which the film is simultaneously screened around the world. This may sound ambitious, but then again, a year ago he didn’t have a movie to show.
And about those helicopter shots. In typical indie fashion, there was a friend at Helo Air through whom an hour of flight time was acquired. Praheme shot all he could in his effort give the little film a big budget feel.
While enduring the editing process, he got to the point where he couldn’t accomplish anything else while waiting for sound design, music composition and other details that were out of his hands. He added three script concepts to a burgeoning list. Praheme has three to five films that he wants to make in Richmond, then he’d like to travel. There’s a whole world of stories he’d like to tell in film.
“I’d work with Mr. Reid again and my editors, if they want to work with me again, I’d love to work with them,” he says. “I’d like to build a group of people I know who’ve done all this with so little, and see where that goes.”
Admission for Troop 491: The Adventures of the Muddy Lions is $5 for children 10 to 18, $15 in advance for adults and $20 at the door, with various specials for churches and other groups. See the website for details.

The Virginia Capitol stands as proof that while long-distance relationships are difficult, sometimes they can work, even if one of the parties involved comes away disappointed. Thomas Jefferson tried to oversee the building’s design from 4,000 miles away by sending specifications to local builders with details down to 1/100 of an inch, then returned from France to view this Temple of Democracy. He commented with a resigned philosophical attitude that later generations would have to make right what went wrong.
But what went so right has influenced the design of public buildings since 1788 and on Sunday, we’ll see why.
Renowned Chicago architectural guide and commentator Geoffrey Baer came to town Thursday evening through the Virginia Capitol Foundation on a national barnstorming tour with writer and producer Dan Protess. Singly and together, Baer and Protess are promoting Chicago WTTW television’s 10 Buildings That Changed America. Baer is well known in Chicago because of his array of tours and portable podcasts that allow visitors to take him along.
He’s often seen on Chicago public television, but this is his first big, primetime PBS program, and it airs Sunday at 10 p.m. on WCVE, as well as on stations around the country.
A group of interested parties met in the splendid underground Capitol annex and entrance center to view segments of the film and converse with the engaging and eloquent Baer.
He emphasized in opening remarks that these are not THE 10 buildings that shaped America, and not a Top 10, either, but rather an attempt to point out exceptional buildings as well as the stories of the men and women who created them. Not mere mortar and glass and steel, the very best buildings are living embodiments of the people and culture that made them.
“Most people don’t think about architecure,” he said. “They walk around the cities considering buildings as a given, as if architecture was handed down from on high. If we’d not included the Virginia Capitol – it’s one of the obvious ones. Its presence, site and historical context make it impossible to ignore.” Jefferson’s shining adaptation of a Roman temple to a public role was a repudiation of imported English architecure and an announcement that a new nation had arrived rooted in, as Jefferson saw it, the verities of Greek and Roman culture. The Capitol’s descendants include the U.S. Supreme Court building, the New York Stock Exchange and scores of courthouses, banks and churches, as well as columned mansions sited on hilltops.
The intention for 10 Buildings is to get a conversation going about architecture. On the richly informative and easy to navigate website for the program, audiences may suggest their own candidates. There’s also 10 more buildings that didn’t make the program, and, indeed, Baer says the future will bring at last four more shows like this one. There's also a book and a DVD. 
People love lists, Baer remarked.
Oh, man don’t they ever. Can you say, “Best & Worst”?
Lists did very well for David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace and Amy Wallace
The 10 buildings for this show were selected by a panel of 16 architects, none of whom agreed on everything. Baer and Protess wanted to present a group of distinctive structures that are so iconic that they may even have become overshadowed by the designs they influenced. To come up with the 10, they used strict criteria: no repeats of architects, one per locality and cultural importance.
Virginia is the only state in the program with two representatives: the Capitol starting the show, and the remarkable 1962 Eero Saarinen Dulles International Airport, which adds a poetic flourish toward the end. The swooping structure with its characteristic roof that appears ready to float off like a handkerchief in the breeze is massive concrete and glass, but looks as if it wants to fly. Saarinen’s sudden death didn’t allow him to see the building completed. His vision combined a curvaceous modernism supported on a colonnade that reflects Washington's official architecture — which, by the way, resonates all the way back to Jefferson’s Capitol. After the screening Baer conversed with Capitol historian Mark Greenough and Department of General Services Director Richard Sliwoski, who shepherded the renovation and annex projects. Greenough expressed enthusiasm for seeing the Capitol appearing “as itself” after a number of television shows and films have altered it — including the recent Lincoln — to play the U.S. Capitol and the White House. The influence of the building abounds and fits Jefferson’s desire that it should be “an object and proof of national good taste.”
Silwoski spoke of a few surprises during the renovation — good ones — including that finding that the dentil work in the Rotunda was original to the structure. “We thought that it was all taken out in the 1906 renovations,” he said. Then in the west stairs on the third floor, under the tile, was found the note, “This floor was laid by,” with a signature and a polite, “Good-bye.” Baer recalled how at Boston’s Trinity Church during renovations in 2004, architects working on the tower’s interior found a multipage letter attached to a back of masonite placed there by restorers in the 1950s. The conservators wrote their own letter and returned the section as it was, with the old missive inside, too. “People become quite attached  to the buildings they’re working on and feel compelled to leave these notes to the future,” Baer said.
Before I left, Baer wanted to tell me how impressed he is by Richmond’s riverfront. He was really knocked out by what we’ve got in terms of the river, accessibility, renovation and interpretation. Baer was wowed by the Pipeline Walk  and the Belle Isle Pedestrian Bridge under the Lee Bridge.
“This should be a model for how other cities create their riverfront renovations,” he said.