Oddly, the thing that strikes me most about the passing of Robert Asprin is that if you’re looking for a better example to disprove the fallacy that substance abuse can create better writing, you couldn’t find a better example than him: it’s no secret that alcoholism turned his promising career to shit for a good swath of years, and no surprise that he used co-authors in his later years to keep up his expected output. You can even read his autobiographical allusion to his own alcoholism in one of the later Myth books (I think it was Sweet Myth-tery of Life), wherein he essentially scolds himself for being a bad alcoholic and letting it impede his career – which didn’t help him much.
It’s a pity, because the stuff he co-authored years later doesn’t come close to his early solo work, which is outstanding comic fantasy. I’m not sure how much of that had to do with his drinking problem (which I understand he eventually came to control) and how much of it with the simple degredation of talent that comes with age to ninety percent of all creative types. But when he was on, he was on.
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Part of it was also the IRS had a judgment against all his solo works. If he was a co-author, he got first crack at the money, the lesser-known co-author got a better break from the publisher and fans, and Bob didn’t necessarily have to do a ful half of the work.
NtB: True, but what’s undeniable is that Asprin’s contributions on the later books are… small. They simply don’t read anything like his solo work – especially the Phule books.
Are we really comparing alcohol to such things as LSD and cannabis? Did anyone ever said alcohol contributed something to anyone in the realm of creative work (with the exception of absinthe)?
I know these drugs have a bad rep due to (as well as many other reasons) people thinking they’ll create the White Album or something. But there is some valuable discussion to be had concerning what those experiences can bring into an artistic work, just like any other life experience, fucking, philosophic poderation, meditation etc. Or is any of that valuable if the person’s just shit (and would he be of less value than a shut-in straight-edge artist with little ‘life experience’, but with some form of formal and artistic merit the experienced doesn’t have)? Etc etc
For instance, going into the comics sphere, I love most of Grant Morrison’s works. But his ecstasy/lsd/hash-fueled days brought us things impossible to repeat, like Flex Mentallo, JLA and The Invisibles, and those weird logics and landscapes he’d use in his narratives and collages when sober afterwards. It brought a lot of shit as well, but some was valuable (and some could say a tiny portion of it was more rich than all the things he did afterwards put together). Or Alan Moore and his humid moss-feel green trip in Swamp Thing (amongst other works). Or Baudelaire’s works. Or some of the margins of sixties, for that matter. Or, or, or etc
Drugs don’t create jack. But I believe there’s more discussion to be had in that area for people who’d venture to waste time on it.
Wow, I rambled.
(no, I don’t do drugs)
Oh, the best example for not writing on drugs is Stephen King’s Cujo. Not only was he so coked up he doesn’t remember writing the thing, even my mother, who owns every book he has ever written, says it’s his worst book. It’s like 400 pages of a woman trapped in a car with a kid by a rabid dog. That’s it.
I was a fan of his earlier work and will admit they years of co-authoring really did affect his work, but he still did entertain for years.
I use to work with his son and I want them to know my wishes are with them.
In junior high, I was a huge fan of Asprin’s. All of a sudden, his output seemed to stop. I never really found out why until I read this. It’s really a sad thing to hear.
@Kanedoras: In theory, his output initially stopped because the IRS claimed he’d under-reported his income and thus they garnished his wages. He spent several years fighting that, during which time any income he’d make by writing new books would have gone straight to the IRS, and the whole point of fighting them was to avoid giving them any more money. (I also read somewhere that any manuscripts written during that time would be subject to the garnishment, even if not published until later.)
It didn’t help that the company with whom he had the Myth books contract basically went defunct, but did so in such a way that he wasn’t in the clear to shop for a new publisher. And that he hit one of his walls of terminal writer’s block at the same time.
The early Myth books were the books that really got me into reading (and later inspired me to become a writer myself.) My Aunt and Uncle took me out to a bookstore when I was in the 4th grade and picked up the first Myth book for me to encourage me to read for enjoyment, since reading the crap schools force you to read had turned me off to it. I devoured it and every other Myth Book that was out. 20 years later I’m almost finished with my first novel, I have a bookshelf filled with sci-fi, fantasy, and comic books, and I typically finish any book I get the day I get it. It all started with Another Fine Myth which still remains one of my favorite books. It’s also one of the books I give to my kids (I’m a youth director) to encourage them to read the way my Aunt and Uncle did for me.
Personally, I think the Myth Adventures were never quite the same after Phil Foglio stopped being their official artist.
One could also say that Phil Foglio’s art has never been quite the same since he stopped being the offical Myth Adventures artist.
(But I think it’d be more accurate to say that happened once he stopped having to meet other people’s deadlines and working for himself.)