How Me And The Marvel Man Tried To Get Full Metal Jacket's Source Novel Back In Print...
... and failed!
It’s funny the things that can occur after an article appears in print. By and large, the aftermath consists of a little light feedback from the readers. But then every once in a while, a piece can affect someone in such a way that you find yourself being whisked off on an adventure that’s as unpredictable as it is exciting.
Such a set of circumstances occurred after my article on Full Metal Jacket appeared in Uncut magazine in the summer of 2000. The surprise consisted of an email from a man claiming to be the cousin of Gustav Hasford, the author of The Short-Timers, the book from which Stanley Kubrick’s film was adapted. The man’s name was Jason Aaron and having expressed an interest in the article, I agreed to send a copy to him.
Scroll forward a couple of weeks and I received another email from Mr Aaron:
Hey! I really enjoyed the article. It's obvious you took the time to do good research. (For a prime example of someone who didn't do any research, check out the booklet that came with the new Full Metal Jacket Limited Edition DVD, where the author claims, among other things, that The Phantom Blooper [Hasford’s sequel to The Short-Timers] was never even published!)
It was then that Jason asked whether I would be prepared to email Terry Hasford, the brother of Gustav and the man to whom the rights to The Short-Timers had reverted following his sibling’s untimely death. And the reason for contacting Mr Hasford?
To persuade him to free up the rights to The Short-Timers so that the book could be brought back into print!
As Jason explained:
Terry has so far resisted every attempt to publish his brother's books, for reasons that apparently only he understands… I, like you, would love to see The Short-Timers on store’s bookshelves… Unfortunately, it's not up to me. I sent a long letter to Terry last year [1999], telling him how I felt about the situation, after he refused to let me reprint portions of Gus' work in a special issue of a Vietnam War literary journal. I haven't heard from him since.
There were silver linings, mind. For one thing, Jason had tracked down a new email address for Terry. For another, the marvelous Mr Aaron seemed to think that my article might be just the sort of thing to appeal to Mr Hasford. And since I had the ear of a publisher - I’d spent the previous year writing two books for Ion Mills’ No Exit Press - perhaps the idea of retrieving The Short-Timers from remainder hell wasn’t as ridiculous as it initially sounded.
So it was that I put together a lengthy missive, outlining my interest in Gustav Hasford’s work, my reverence for The Short-Timers and the Stanley Kubrick picture it inspired, and the advantageous circumstances that might make bringing the book back into print less of a ball ache and more of a breeze.
Admittedly my hopes weren’t too high but I was young(er) and convinced that few things were truly impossible. And then, before you knew it, there it was - Terry Hasford’s reply! It ran to just two lines:
Thank you for getting in touch. I have no interest in your proposal.
Terry Hasford
Oh well, at least me and Jason had our - definitive - answer.
Fast forward a decade and I’m living in Camden where I’m a regular visitor to Mega City Comics on Inverness Street. Perusing the new issue shelves one day, I notice that the latest Wolverine is written by one Jason Aaron. Could it possibly be my Jason Aaron? Indeed, it could!
In fact, Jason is now among the biggest names in American comics. Name a major Marvel or DC title and you can be pretty certain that Jason’s written for it. What’s more, he was the guy who came up with the idea of Thor’s lover Jane Foster assuming the mantle of God Of Thunder; the scenario that provided the basis for Taika Waititi’s highly successful Thor: Love And Thunder.
And to think, there we’d been 10 years earlier, trying unsuccessfully to persuade a truculent man to reprint his late brother’s largely forgotten book!
Like I said, stuff like this doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s worth writing about in its own right.