Writing according to canon for a show like Xena is a toughie, because it seems so chaotic. I’ve spent a lot of time compiling what I think makes up the show’s aesthetic canon, based on my watching the show, reading interviews, and researching the source materials.
A fair amount is guesswork on my part, but it was important to me that I have a grasp of things that couldn’t be figured out just from observing the show. Why did they repeat certain types of motifs throughout the series?
Why did they avoid using quite obvious stories from Classical Greek lit that would seem to fit the show like a glove? Such as the Trojan War? The depiction of Troy in #Xena & Herc are very non-intuitive, & seem totally unrelated. Why does the show look the way it does?
There’s no Greek architecture, for example. Every other kind, but instead of Greece, they depict a kind of gothic realm. Some say it’s a cost-cutting measure, but that doesn’t make sense. Greek buildings are highly modular. You can save a lot of money reusing those columns.
Ridley Scott did, in Gladiator, when he created the sets for the imperial palace & the Roman Senate with just a few pillars & curtains, moved around. In fact, RenPic did save a lot of money, by shooting a lot of scenes in forests & parks.
But they seem to have spent a lot of time creating an alternate Greece. So it was definitely an aesthetic choice to build things in such a distinctive & unique way. Others say they just didn’t know any better, but clearly, they did.
RenPic went on to make Spartacus, full of period detail. As I present this project, I’ll explain why I made the choices I did, based on what I believe to be the aesthetic logic of the show.
As I mentioned, I am attempting to make this #Xena webcomic as close to canon as possible. But what exactly does that mean? Is this a show that has that kind of organized approach, and even if it does, is it still applicable, 20 years later?
When I first started watching #Xena, I heard that the show had no story bible, that there was no real canon to speak of, & there were an abundance of quotes indicating that the writers made it up as they went. The show’s abrupt tonal shifts seemed to support this.
This was not an issue for most, for a number of reasons. This was an appealing action/adventure show, introducing a new iconic female hero, great characters, & a ground-breaking show in its depiction of a same-sex relationship.
Who cares about canon, when you’ve got all that? I agree! I myself thought the show was a mess, until the 6th season. “Path of Vengeance” (Eve’s last ep) was the 1st indication to me that the show was much more organized than I guessed. The series finale sealed it for me.
They obviously knew what they were doing. I needed to rewatch it to figure it out! I haven’t stopped, since 2001. Since then, I’ve heard about the need for a #Xena sequel to “fix” the series ending. Rob has recently said he doesn’t think anything needs fixing, & I agree.
But I agree with Lucy that it needs reviving. How do you do that without “fixing” the finale? As I see it: accept that everything on the show is canon. It all happened, & it all counts. Same for #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys, and #YoungHercules , too.
Will I succeed at this? I’m not sure. For an outsider, it’s sort of like resurrecting a dead language. You give it your best shot, by using everything you have, & incorporating everything you know. It’ll be fun to try, & it’s an extension of the fan experience, as I see it.
It’s all part of the #Xena Cinematic Universe, so embrace it all with a full heart! So lets talk this week about what canon means for this show, and how to build on it, and retain its magic. There’s no magic formulas other than accepting the show for what it is.
This is Salmoneus’s last scene on Hercules the Legendary Journeys: “ Genies & Grecians & Geeks, Oh My!” ( Note the Wizard of Oz reference!). Sal was peddling art to a sultan. He wears a beret, now that he’s in the art world. He get strapped by a genie in a magic lamp with Autolycus the thief. Sal makes a wish that harkens back to one of his earlier eps, when he goes into the self-actualization business, in The Outcast (co-starring Lucy Lawless). There, he just wants to be “the best Sal I can be”, & make money hand over fist helping people.
Here, he wishes for self-improvement, which conjures up 3 versions of himself. In the final scene, he & Autolycus manage to escape, & as they leave, Sal says to. Autolycus: “This could be the start of a beautiful friendship!” They each consider the implications of that, grimace, then slip away in opposite directions. This aired Oct 1998, & the final Herc ep ever aired a year later. During that time, it was joked on the show that Sal was arrested for tax fraud, & that gave me the idea of having Sal return as the object of Livia’s contempt, 21 years later. Sal’s final quote is a quote from “ Casablanca”, so it’s fitting that he’s exiled to Cyprus, which on Hercules, is a stand in for both Paris (given the Aphrodite connection & the use of similar letters), & the West African city of Casablanca.
It appeared on only one ep, “We’ll Always Have Cyprus,” (another Casablanca homage!) in which the city looks very much like a Moroccan milieu. To me, it’s a nice closure for the character.
In my alt history of this show, Sal’s next appearance is over a year after his last one, the first of a trilogy where he reconnects with a character he previously met, & later becomes his wife.
Next week, I’ll discuss how I view canon on #Xena & #HerculesTheLegendaryJourneys
A footnote to yesterday’s post about Proteus: this god appeared on Hercules The Legendary Journeys. It’s an unusual episode because Herc admits he used to be kind of a jerk to him. There are elements of the myth in this ep: Herc plays the role of Menelaus, wrestling with Proteus while he changes shapes. The story of Protean Challenge also concerns a father & daughter, with Iolaus standing in for Menelaus for that portion of the story. More specific to the play, the ep ends with Proteus changing into a dove.
Is that an intentional reference to the only surviving line from Aeschylus’s lost play? The writer of this ep, Brian Herskowitz, went on to write another Herc ep, A Star Shall Guide Them, which ends with a nativity scene hinting at the birth of Christ.
Interestingly, the feeling they all get from this baby of destiny is peace, the message Eli will deliver. This is one of numerous coy suggestions that the show is set in New Testament times, but none of them actually line up chronologically.
For example, 8 months later, #Xena’s Christmas ep, A Solstice Carol possibly shows us Mary & Joseph looking for an inn. This teasing of the arrival of the one God continues until the appearance of Eli & Eve.
I’ll talk more about my definition of #Xena’s canon, & how I intend to comply with it, next week, but a big part of it is its referential style. That is, the way it borrows from various sources. Without those, it’s a very different show, in my opinion.
In keeping with that, I want to make sure I’m also borrowing from the same, or similar types, of sources. Since Greek theatre was a big part of the show, I plan to also incorporate it. It’s not hard, but for this story, it’s a bit tricky.
I draw upon a number of Greek plays, but the main inspiration is “Proteus,” a Greek comedy that Aeschylus wrote as the brief ending for his famous Oresteid trilogy (the only surviving Greek trilogy from its golden age). It’s difficult to borrow from it because it’s lost!
Only 1 Greek comedy survives, & half of another, so we know what the genre was like. We can use our imaginations to figure out how “Proteus” must’ve looked. We know the general plot, & we have a single surviving quote, about a slain dove.
We don’t know anything about the context of this quote. What did this poetic image mean? Since “Rock of Ages” is a story about Eve, a disciple for Peace, I use it as a symbol of endangered peace. In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Proteus is a wizard, & sea god, who lives on an island.
Helen of Troy’s husband, Menelaus, lands on this island, en route from the conquest of Troy, & needs directions home (or he’ll be lost, like Ulysses, for 10 years). He meets Proteus’s daughter, who tells him the secret of persuading her father to help him:
Because he’s the God of Change, a magical shape-shifter, Menelaus’ll need to catch him & not let go until he stops changing shapes. It works! Menelaus gets directions home, while finding out his brother Agamemnon got home 1st but was killed (i.e., the plot of the Oresteid.
Because this is a “satyr” play, as Greeks called their comedies (they used goatmen as comedy relief), a typical Greek myth gets turned into a screwball comedy as a result. I love the themes of change, romance, family strife, & bawdy hijinks all in the service of peace.
So it’s the perfect inspiration for this webcomic. I want to glean its details for use in “Rock of Ages,” just like the show runner clearly did elsewhere for #Xena. How to do that if the play is lost? By writing it and drawing it myself!
Whenever I got stuck in the story, I would consult my version of “Proteus”, its plot, motifs, & images. It worked! It provided a general unifying logic to “Rock of Ages” that kept the story on track. This mini-comic will be the first part of this project that I’ll post.
Because it’s unabashed & a bit bawdy (though nothing you wouldn’t see in a Danny Kaye movie), I modeled it after “Jack of All Trades,” & took inspiration from Bruce Campbell in shaping the performance of the lead role of Menelaus.
It’ll be drawn in the style of Disney’s “Hercules” cartoon, which came out shortly before “Hercules and Xena: The Battle For Mt Olympus”. Disney is an influence for me, drawing-wise, so it’ll be good practice, before I start to draw the main story.
To end this week’s theme, I want to post a video that influenced me a lot while writing “Rock of Ages.” Its story has Eve entangled with numerous sects of the Elijian peace movement, some violent, some peaceful, some strict & severe.
This video inspired my portrayal of a fourth group: the freewheeling Elijian youth movement swept up in the Dionysiac enthusiasm of its teachings, wanting to spread its message in the form of music & dance. There was a similar movement during the 1960s which inspired the protean musical “Godspell”, among others. A modern-day reenactment of the gospel, this scene shows John the Baptist as a voice in the wilderness (modern-day New York), gathering the disciples, preparing for the long-awaited messenger of peace.
My story sticks to the show’s portrayal of the Elijian movement as incorporating tropes from Hollywood’s classic Bible epics (such as Ben Hur, in “The God You Know”), but I’ve also borrowed from later musicals & film treatments as well.
I’ll talk more about Eve & the Elijians in a few weeks, & how we should think about them, as well as the practice of alluding to a modern-day religion, & the sensibilities of its followers (as well as the feelings of those not always keen on present-day religious values).
I drew a lot from the images in this video for the story, which inspired its central set, Aphrodite’s Fountain of Love. I really like the way this scene captures the burst of Dionysiac freedom of the times, joyful & bittersweet.
The premise of this webcomic is that it’s based on an unreleased theatrical film version of #Xena, opening in the summer of 2000, a direct sequel to season 5’s ender, “Motherhood.” Because of that, the story’s music had to have been released prior to that.
Most songs are from the 80s & 90s, the earliest from 1930, and the latest from January 2000. In comparison, “Lyre, Lyre , Hearts on Fire,” the show’s 2nd musical, featured songs from the 60s, while season 5’s “Antony and Cleopatra” featured a 90s song by Natalie Merchant.
Let’s talk about that song, “Carnival”! I think it’s the perfect song for the show’s sensibility, and harkens back to the show’s chief influence, the film “Black Orpheus”, set in Brazil’s Carnivale. It describes the experience of being swept up by the world’s illusions,
& glimpsing the possibility of a much larger one, perhaps viewed with a new wisdom & compassion. The lyrics describe “a wild-eyed misfit prophet on a traffic island stopped & he raved of saving me. Have I been blind, have I been lost inside myself, & my own mind, hypnotized, mesmerized by what my eyes have seen?” I think these lyrics are salient to the show’s journey of experience, and for me, the opening lyrics are especially pertinent:
“Well, I’ve walked these streets, A virtual stage, it seemed to me, makeup on their faces, actors took their places next to me.” To me, this is where Eve finds herself in this story, & the island of Cyprus is like a stage in which she takes on a new role.
I don’t use this song in this story, but we hear it in the episode right before “Looking Death in the Eye,” the beginning of the Twilight of the Gods arc, in which Eve’s destiny changes forever when she’s separated from her mothers & raised by Caesar’s manipulative court.
I’ve tried to look for as many details like this as I can in building this new addition to Xena’s story. I want to expand Xena’s world, but without any kind of retconning, or changing/deleting existing facts.
That said, I’ve tried to add as many new elements as possible, without altering the existing reality. Part of my agenda in writing this story is to expand our idea of what’s possible when thinking ahead to any future revivals. If we can dream it, they can be it!
This story introduces a number of things that have their roots in the earlier show. For example, Salmoneus has a history here that traces back to after “Hercules The Legendary Journeys” ends. I want to show flashbacks that fit the show’s format, so I made an addition to the past: HTLJ, in my alt history in which we have a year 2000 Xena movie, did not end 8 eps into season 6. It ran a full year, as a Herc-lite season (like 4th season), allowing time for Sal to have full arcs to himself to develop a backstory.
Since “Rock of Ages” has a nautical theme, I imagined a 7th season of HTLJ, with a new star, and crossover ties to a #Xena spinoff of its underwater fantasy ep, “Married With Fishsticks”. I imagined what it might look like, & will include a screencap or 2 of that as well.
It’s not necessary to the story that I imagine these things, but it’s a good way to loosen up creatively, and further develop the world of Xena while faithfully coloring outside its lines. One thing that I do strongly believe in, however, is a #Xena revival.
I very much agree with Lucy Lawless’s recent statements about a next generation-oriented revival, one that will allow the legacy cast to participate. By imagining all these additions to the past, I’m practicing imagining how a revival would also expand #Xena’s world.
Myself, I’m most excited about an Eve spinoff set 20 years later. I think it’s the perfect time for it, & having spent the last several years building the world of this story, I’m convinced it’s a worthy extension of #Xena’s magical world. I see no end to the possibilities.
Some folks will have to see it to believe it, so I’ve also tried to imagine exactly what such a series would look like. I’ve speculated on its twists & turns, & experimented with its look, & its crazy cast of characters, & how they tie in to the show’s aesthetic legacy.
Throughout this project, I’ll be occasionally posting
“Spoiler-free” images of how I envision an “Eve” spinoff. As I mentioned yesterday, Rob & R.J. had already planned a spinoff, so RenPic doesn’t need me to tell them how to do their job, but maybe the networks need someone to tell them (or their AI trendbots) what the audience wants to see. Here’s my vote! If it doesn’t work, then we’ll always have Cyprus!
Tomorrow, I’ll discuss the 1st part of this project, & post the 1st video.
Continuing yesterday’s post: I’ll be posting links to YouTube videos as often as possible because in some cases, their visual content will be relevant, especially in cases where the video’s images are iconic. I’ll be creating my own videos as well, for a number of reasons.
I’ll be creating drawing videos paired with music taken from my alternate soundtrack. I drew inspiration from a number of songs for each chapter. For example, the chapters dealing with flashbacks to Livia’s schooldays were written with multiple soundtracks.
Her backstory required layers of moods to capture properly. In some cases, I actually preferred my alternate track, but the lyrics didn’t totally fit, or couldn’t be rewritten without changes to the song’s character, but it set the right tone for the scene in my mind.
I’ll be providing text commentary to discuss each chapter, but I realize that may not work for all folks, so for key chapters, I plan to create shorter video commentary. These will have less detail, but given my “tldr” tendencies, less may be more for some!
My first planned video will be for the first #Xena musical, “The Bitter Suite.” The web has a lot of great resources for it, but I have updated insights that will fill in key gaps on our understanding of it, such as identifying missing Tarot cards, etc.
I’ll also be working on a music video for the project as a whole, hopefully ready by the fall. It will provide a glimpse of the entire project, & time permitting, I plan to include some animation for key moments.
Once this site gets well underway, my hope is to include interviews with various folks related to this project. That depends on availability, & whether I have the courage to pull that off, but mostly, I’m guessing, on my project’s credibility. We’ll see how that goes!
I did think about setting up a podcast commentary for this project, but visuals are key to it. I’d rather spend 5 minutes showing you, with voice-over, than much longer describing it to you. Given the length of this project, that’s a lot of podcasting!
A brief word on the schedule re: this #Xena #webcomic: I plan to release one chapter at a time. They vary in size, but I’ll post at least a part of one each week. I’m learning as I go, & plan to work in advance to even things out. Wish me luck!
Nearly each chapter has a song, and that will be posted on my site via YouTube, but I plan to list them on Spotify as well. I don’t actually use Spotify myself, so this may change if I find a better service.
Spotify does not actually have every song I’ve chosen. YouTube does, though not always reliably. I’ll create my own YouTube video for any that go missing. For Spotify, I have alternate selections that’ll fit the mood, since those few happen to be wordless.
I own copies of all musical selections used, so I can always fall back on my own collection. Though much of the music is interwoven into the story, I’m flexible, & have several alternates for each chapter. Just today, I added a new song, towards the end. More tomorrow!
So, what is this #Xena project about? What does it entail?
This will be a free webcomic on my blog over the course of the next year, & should begin in a few months.
In the meantime, I will be getting pages ready offline, while posting essays & work-in-progress online.
It features #Xena’s daughter, Eve, her mothers, & a host of other characters, including Salmoneus, a Hercules regular. Both characters are unusual choices for fan fiction, as they are difficult to depict. At least, they tend not to fit well with the usual fan fiction topics.
Of course, Eve is quite popular among fans in her former self: the evil Roman commander Livia. It’s her redeemed version, Eve, that’s less accessible to fans, mostly because she involves difficult concepts that didn’t have time to flourish in season 6’s hectic pace.
I love a challenge, however, and I particularly love Eve as a story subject, whose arc has always fascinated me. I’ll talk more specifically about the challenges involved, in a few weeks, & why I think Salmoneus is a good fit for this subject.
My goal is to tell a #Xena story that’s as close to canon as I can get, but more than that, I want to expand on Eve’s character in a way that feels authentic and consistent with the show. I’m hoping to present a clearer yet credible picture of her story arc.
Because the actor, Adrienne Wilkinson, is a singer/dancer, I felt a musical comedy the best way to go to really stretch the possibilities of the character. Much of the cast can also sing, & there’s been several musicals during the show’s run.
My belief is that eventually there’d be a musical featuring Eve, had the show lasted long enough. And if I’m wrong, then there should’ve been, let’s just say. I first had this idea shortly after the show ended, in 2001, when there was still realistic talk of a sequel.
In fact, an Eve spin-off was in the works, at that time, & came very, very close to happening; everyone was on board, but it fell through for the kind of trivial, logistical want-of-a-nail reasons that we are all too familiar with these days.
Like many fans at that time, I speculated what that show could’ve looked like, how it would’ve been structured, & how it would’ve kept the world of #Xena alive. An Eve spin-off is still a possibility imo, & I’ll talk more about my ideas on that in the weeks to come.
A #Xena revival is also a possibility; I’ll talk about that too, & in some ways, this project is my attempt to visualize what a “Xena: The Next Generation” would look like. Of course, I consider Eve a key part of that next generation!
Each day this week I’ll have more to say about the scope of this project, then in the coming weeks, I’ll get into the nitty-gritty of what went into my thinking behind this effort, decades in the making. Content warning: I may talk your ears off about #Xena!
In the works: a #Xena fanfic webcomic sequel to “Motherhood“: “Rock of Ages”
Each week I’ll address the following topics outlining this project, and issues it entails. Once done, I’ll post various stages of production sketches until I’m ready to publish the first chapters:
1. Why am I doing this? What does this project entail?
2. What does “canon” mean in XWP?
3. Challenges in writing for Eve
4. Who are the Elijians? Aren’t they just Christians with the serial #s filed off?
