John Seavey: The Man, The Myth, The Artist

Here it is--for everyone wishing to amass a complete collection of the John Seavey ouevre, you can now use this handy (if occasionally vague or inaccurate) checklist! Comes complete with my small ruminations on the stuff I've written.

Title Unknown, short story, Impressions (junior high collection), Spring 1989. This was a one-page short story I had collected in our junior high magazine. It was bloody awful, I mention it only for the sake of completeness, and if you ever manage to track down a copy, please let me know so I can burn it. It dealt with a guy who invented a time-travelling car, and was full of bad jokes. Never mention it in my presence, lest I smite thee.
Untitled, article, senior high paper, Fall 1992. An article on why you should vote, written by someone who was only seventeen at the time of the election that year and wanted to do _something_ to keep the country away from another four years of George Bush. I don't remember it as being actually bad, but don't expend any real effort in tracking it down--which is probably impossible anyway.
Untitled, letter of comment, 1963 #6, Image Comics. Alright, I'm not going to be utterly pathetic enough to list every time I got a letter published in a comic book (I think I've had maybe a dozen printed), but this is a very special case for me, and damnit, I'm going to be exteremely pathetic here. First, 1963 was the first work I read of Alan Moore's, and Alan Moore is a genius. So this holds a special place in my heart. Second, the letter I wrote was to a comic that never existed. See, the series 1963 was all about a fictional comic publisher, 1963 Comics, and each issue was supposedly part of their output for a single month. So there was Mystery, Incorporated, and The Fury, and Tales From Beyond...etc, etc. And each issue had a fake letter column, filled with "fan letters" about previous issues of the title. So, knowing that issue #6 would be about The Tomorrow Syndicate (thanks to Advance Comics), I wrote an entirely fake fan letter, raving about a fake issue of The Tomorrow Syndicate, asking about supervillains that never existed, and begging for additions to the team roster. When I saw this letter in the issue itself, and Alan Moore responded with explanations as to what happened to the supervillains I asked about...well, I think I've never had a buzz like that in my life. OK, pathetic moment over.
Dark Solitaire, short story, Gallifreyan Guardian #130, 1995? The original version of the story that you can find elsewhere on my website was also printed in the Australian fanzine, "Gallifreyan Guardian." I never received my contributor's copy (not that I'm bitter), but I have it on good authority that it came out. However, I've since revised it tremendously.
Untitled, article, Scrye #4.4 or 4.5, 1996. This was an article on strategy for the Battletech trading card game, and it was butchered pretty badly. It was rewritten after I sent it in, without consulting me, and for reasons I can't begin to understand. They took forever to respond to my every communication, and they spelled my name wrong. But they paid well, and promptly, and it was my first paid commission, so what the hell.
Untitled, book review, Oh Yes It Is #1, 1997. This was a book review of "Ship of Fools", the Dave Stone Benny NA. In sum: I liked it.
(Co-Author) Seal of the Wheel, RPG sourcebook, Atlas Games, (forthcoming in November 2000.) I'm forever indebted to Greg Stolze for this one--I basically sent him an email saying, "I figure that you're looking for an author for a sourcebook on this subject right about now, and I'm willing to do it!" And, astonishingly, he didn't just give me the brush-off. He asked for samples, liked what he saw, and 14,000 words came my way. Shortly after finishing the book, he went freelance. This could be a bad thing....In case you're wondering which bits are mine, it breaks down like this: Chapters One and Two are entirely mine, the sections on the Unspoken Name in Chapters Three and Four are mine, the write-ups for Reverend RedGlare and Clara Duvall are mine (the Clara Duvall one is a strange story--Greg told me, "See the picture on this page of the basic book? She looks really neat. Write up 400 words on her.") In Chapter Five, I did the Zodiac Martial Arts Academy, Habbakuk, Area 51, Shining Dragon Productions (although David Blewer later wrote the adventure that uses it--he'd been planning something with "a movie studio", and those two things dovetailed together neatly), the Bat Caves of Texas, the Mundane Chambers, and possibly one other (as I write this, it's been six months since I finished the book.) Interestingly enough, Habbakuk and the Bat Caves were both based on actual military projects during World War II, although neither were ever completed. In Chapter Six, I wrote up the jet-pack, the gyro-copter, the aqua-car, the personal hovercraft, and the gyro-jet pistols...all based, sad to say, on real inventions. I also wrote up the Path of the Raging Bear. There might be other stuff I wrote, but it'd be minimal.

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