I tend to be a Young Adult Fiction writer. There are lots of reasons. Not the least of which are all the many wonderful and horrible things that have happened to me as a result of being a public school teacher. I also have since early childhood dearly loved and emulated comic books. Marvel and DC, Charleton and Gold Key, and nowadays Black Horse and Image Comics… They have all incited me to crazy wild stories of science fiction action and adventure. My first novel (first published, not written) called Aeroquest was a science fiction story of young space ninjas with psionic super powers who are the classroom students of an action hero named Ged Aero who is teacher, explorer, hunter, and psionic shape-changer himself.
So is it just because I like to read action adventure in books and comic books? Not at all. I believe you can’t live life without partaking in action adventure. There are lots of ways that teachers become action adventure heroes and never get credit for doing it. I once faced off against a boy armed with sharp metal ninja throwing stars who was intent on killing another boy who was in my class at the time. Together with the history teacher and an assistant principal who got thrown to the ground we stood up to the apparently psychotic boy, and made him give up on the attack. He ran off into the nearby woods and was later apprehended there by the deputies from the Sheriff’s office. This is a kid that I personally knew and taught. If I hadn’t been able to talk to the kid before that day and connect with him at least a little bit, we might have suffered a lot more damage from him than we ended up with that fateful day. And that isn’t the only life-threatening situation I have been in. I can’t count how many fights I broke up, bomb threats and threats of violence I’ve dealt with, and situations I was able to tip off the administration about because I actually talk to kids, win their trust, and listen to what they say. Teaching is an action adventure sort of job, and violence can be successfully defended against with reason, wit, and preparation. Understand me, though, I am not the only action adventure hero among the members of the teaching profession. I have stood next to women of small stature that could handle linebacker-sized bullies and leave the bullies quaking in fear. One teacher I knew was robbed in San Antonio when she was carrying money earned in a fund raiser by her class. She chased the thief down a public street screaming for help and tackled the guy herself. People around her were stunned at first, but then helped her subdue the guy. She got the money back, made the newspapers for her outstanding courage, and helped put the thief in prison for a very long time. Good teachers are action adventure heroes. It’s in the job description. You could look it up.
So that leads to today’s Paffooney. These three kids tackling the raging lion-man from the Aslani Star Mines Corporation are Aeroquest mutant ninja space babies from my novel. Rocket Rogers (on the left) and Phoenix (looking at us for assistance on the right) are both psionic pyros who control fire with their minds. Taffy King (the half-reptilian, half-human girl in the middle) has the power of telekinesis. But the ultimate lesson behind action and adventure is that no matter how tense the situation gets and no matter how drastically dangerous things are, there are peaceful and non-violent solutions to everything. By surrounding the lion man with fire and burning up the air he needs to breathe, the two pyros render him unconscious, while Taffy has prevented him from getting his hands on Phoenix by using a wall of flying knives to dissuade him. I intend to write a lot more action and adventure before I’m through and decide like a Sioux warrior that a good day to die has finally arrived.
