Forgive my ignorance but I had no idea about the Wildcard stuff on Tor.com. I am very excited about it. Considering I am submitting my novella to TOR, I am disappointed I did not see the connection.

I am a huge Marvel fan have around 3,000 Marvel Comics. When I heard you say, "The Wild Universe is better due to the depth." something along those lines. I about Marc Spector Moon Knighted! But low and beyond I checked out Wild Cards. You were right! Wild Cards is better. Stan Lee is a hero of mine, and you are right up there with him George.

Honored by the reply. I know Marvel comics had a big impact on you as well. I was beyond excited the first time you talked about Stan Lee and Marvel about how they inspired you.

The reason why? Every English teacher I ever had turned their nose up at the idea comics were literature and laughed at my notion at how well crafted the characters in Marvel were. Of course, they were all too good to read them as well.

This was back in the 1980's and 1990's. I guess until Marvel got popular in the movies that attitude still thrived in my experiences. I was supposed to be reading Moby Dick, Catcher and the Rye and Shakespear 24/7. Quite honestly they looked at me like I was crazy when I called comics an influence. They had their mind made up, "successful", or "real authors" do not have such influences.

Fantasy was not held much higher in that regard. Science fiction as never talked about at all. The reading material in school was never Kipling (Rikki Tikki Tavi is my favorite Novella of all time), Tolkien, or Richard Adams. Watership Down is amazing, forgive me George but when I meet people who have no idea about Watership Down, not to cast shade at Adams but I tell them, "Imagine if GRRM wrote a Pixar movie."

Hopefully, in schools, the attitude has changed and in literature circles regarding Fantasy and Comics. Hate when teachers crap on young Author's influences. I use you as an example of how ignorant they were. Other Author's too obviously.

I would love to invent a time machine go back and give them one of your books and tell them to suck eggs. But if Flashpoint and Dr. Who have taught me anything? Don't mess with the Timeline!

Do you enjoy his cameos as much as I do George? I always find myself waiting to see him in each of his films - and I do mean HIS films.

Speaking of which, have you considered any roles in the last season of GoT? I think it would be tragic if you didn't have at least one cameo in the series before it's all over. I do recall you mentioning something about this in an interview, and how it didn't work out in seasons past for some reason. It'd be a shame IMO if you didn't appear, even in some non speaking/extra roll, prior to the wrap of this whole project.

Ah yes! That's where I remember it from, it was an article on the first pilot of GoT - It stood out because there was a picture attached to it of Ian McNeice in the most ridiculous hat I think I've ever seen. No offense to Ian, I think he's fantastic, and the newsreader role he had in Rome is a favorite little bit of Rome of mine.

Hopefully you get a chance next year for the 2017/8 filming schedule for season 8. If not, there are always the spin offs - I'm hoping there are spin offs, HBO or any other network would be INSANE to not take advantage of all the other ASOIAF works you've written.

Edited at 2016-12-10 08:27 am (UTC)