title: Denmark–Norway

text: Denmark was poorly prepared for the war, and Norway was reluctant to attack Sweden, which left the Swedes in a good position.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: The war ended as foreseen with a Swedish victory, and with the Treaty of Brömsebro in 1645, Denmark–Norway had to cede some of their territories, including Norwegian territories Jemtland, Herjedalen and Idre & Serna, and the Danish Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel. Thus the Thirty Years' War facilitated rise of Sweden as a great power, while it marked the start of decline for Denmark-Norway.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: The Dano-Swedish War (1657–1658), a part of the Second Northern War, was one of the most devastating wars for the Dano-Norwegian kingdom. After a huge loss in the war, Denmark–Norway was forced in the Treaty of Roskilde to give Sweden nearly half its territory. This included Norwegian province of Trøndelag and Båhuslen, all remaining Danish provinces on the Swedish mainland, and the island of Bornholm.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: However, two years later, in 1660, there was a follow-up treaty, the Treaty of Copenhagen, which gave Trøndelag and Bornholm back to Denmark–Norway.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: In the aftermath of Sweden's final secession from the Kalmar Union in 1521, civil war and the Protestant Reformation followed in Denmark and in Norway. When things had settled down, the Rigsraad ("High Council") of Denmark became weak, and it was abolished in 1660; the Norwegian Riksråd had already been abolished de facto (the Norwegian Riksråd was assembled for the last time in 1537). In 1537, king Christian III of Denmark–Norway staged a coup d'état in Norway and made it a hereditary kingdom in a real union with Denmark. Norway kept its separate laws and some institutions, such as a royal chancellor, and separate coinage and army. Norway also had its own royal standard flag until 1748, after that the Dannebrog became the only official merchant flag in the union. Denmark–Norway became an absolutist state and Denmark a hereditary monarchy, as Norway "de jure" had been since 1537. These changes were confirmed in the "Leges regiae" signed on 14 November 1665, stipulating that all power lay in the hands of the king, who was only responsible to God.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Denmark had lost its provinces in Scania after the Treaty of Roskilde and was always eager to retrieve them, but as Sweden had grown into a great power it would not be an easy task. However, Christian V saw an opportunity when Sweden got involved in the Franco-Dutch War, and after some hesitation Denmark–Norway invaded Sweden in 1675.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Although the Danish-Norwegian assault began as a great success, the Swedes led by 19-year-old Charles XI counter-attacked and took back the land that was being occupied. The war was concluded with the French dictating peace, with no permanent gains or losses to either of the countries.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: During the French Revolutionary Wars Denmark–Norway at first tried to stay neutral, so it could continue its trade with both France and the United Kingdom, but when it entered the League of Armed Neutrality, the British considered it a hostile action, and attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and again in 1807. In the 1807 attack on Copenhagen the British captured the entire Dano-Norwegian navy, burning most of the fleet and incorporating the remaining ships into the Royal Navy. The Dano-Norwegian navy was caught unprepared for any military operation and the British found the Dano-Norwegian navy still in dock after the winter season. The Dano-Norwegians were more concerned about preserving their continued neutrality and the entire Dano-Norwegian army was therefore gathered at Danevirke in the event of a French attack, leaving something undefended. The British attack of 1807 effectively forced the Dano-Norwegians into an alliance with the French, although without a fleet they could do little.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Denmark–Norway was defeated and had to cede the Kingdom of Norway to the King of Sweden at the Treaty of Kiel. Norway's overseas possessions were kept by Denmark. But the Norwegians objected to the terms of this treaty, and a constitutional assembly declared Norwegian independence on 17 May 1814 and elected the Crown Prince Christian Frederik as king of independent Norway. Following a Swedish invasion, Norway was forced to accept a personal union between Sweden and Norway, but retained its liberal constitution and separate institutions, except for the foreign service. The union was dissolved in 1905.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: After 1660, Denmark–Norway consisted of four formally separate parts (The Kingdom of Denmark, The Kingdom of Norway, The Duchy of Holstein and Duchy of Schleswig). Norway had its separate laws and some institutions, and separate coinage and army. Culturally and politically Denmark became dominant. While Denmark remained a largely agricultural society, Norway was industrialized from the 16th century and had a highly export-driven economy; Norway's shipping, timber and mining industries made Norway "the developed and industrialized part of Denmark-Norway" and an economic equal of Denmark.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Denmark and Norway complemented each other and had a significant internal trade, with Norway relying on Danish agricultural products and Denmark relying on Norway's timber and metals. Norway was also the more egalitarian part of the twin kingdoms; in Norway the King (i.e. the state) owned much of the land, while Denmark was dominated by large noble landowners. Denmark had a serfdom-like institution known as "Stavnsbånd" which restricted men to the estates they were born on; all farmers in Norway on the other hand were free, could settle anywhere and were on average more affluent than Danish farmers. For many Danish people who had the possibility to leave Denmark proper, such as merchants and civil servants, Norway was seen as an attractive country of opportunities. The same was the case for the Norwegians, and many Norwegians migrated to Denmark, like the famous author Ludvig Holberg.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Denmark–Norway was among the countries to follow Martin Luther after the Protestant Reformation, and thus established Lutheran Protestantism as official religion in place of Roman Catholicism. Lutheran Protestantism prevailed through most of the union's life span.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: There was however one other religious "reformation" in the kingdom during the rule of Christian VI, a follower of Pietism. The period from 1735 until his death in 1746 has been nicknamed "the State Pietism", as new laws and regulations were established in favor of Pietism. Though Pietism did not last for a substantial time, numerous new small pietistic resurrections occurred over the next 200 years. In the end, Pietism was never firmly established as a lasting religious grouping.


title: Denmark–Norway

text: Although the Dano–Norwegian union was generally viewed favourably in Norway at the time of its dissolution in 1814, some 19th-century Norwegian writers disparaged the union as a "400-year night". Historians describe the idea of a "400-year night" as a myth that was created as a rhetorical device in the struggle against the Swedish–Norwegian union, inspired by 19th-century national-romanticist ideas. Since the late 19th century the Danish–Norwegian union was increasingly viewed in a more nuanced and favourable light in Norway with a stronger focus on empirical research, and historians have highlighted that the Norwegian economy thrived and that Norway was one of the world's wealthiest countries during the entire period of real union with Denmark. Historians have also pointed out that Norway was a separate state, with its own army, legal system and other institutions, with significant autonomy in its internal affairs, and that it was primarily governed by a local elite of civil servants who identified as Norwegian, albeit in the name of the Danish King. Norwegians were also well represented in the military, civil service and business elites of Denmark–Norway, and in the administration of the colonies in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Norway benefited militarily from the combined strength of Denmark–Norway in the wars with Sweden and economically from its trade relationship with Denmark in which Norwegian industry enjoyed a legal monopoly in Denmark while Denmark supplied Norway with agricultural products.


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: Joshua A. Evans (born January 16, 1971) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, author and actor best known for his role in "Born on the Fourth of July" (1989).


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: Evans was born in New York City to actress Ali MacGraw and producer Robert Evans. His father was of Russian-Jewish descent, and his maternal grandmother was of Hungarian-Jewish ancestry. Evans is the nephew of the late producer Charles Evans, Sr., the stepson of actor Steve McQueen, and the stepbrother of actor and race car driver Chad McQueen. Evans grew up in Los Angeles and graduated in 1989 from the private Crossroads School in Santa Monica.


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: He earned a Young Artist Awards in 1988. He went on to produce, direct, write and act. Most notably, he acted as Ron Kovic's hippie younger brother in "Born on the Fourth of July", which won a 1990 Golden Globe Award, and John Lithgow's character's servile assistant in "Ricochet".


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: "The Daily Press"'s Kevin Thomas called "Inside the Goldmine", in which Evans starred in 1994, a "meaningful look at a nihilist" and "the kind of film that could be made only by someone prepared to strive for self-knowledge."


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: He followed "Inside the Goldmine" by producing and directing the 35mm "Glam", which a "Los Angeles Times" review called "an edgy tale of Hollywood innocence, corruption."


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: About Evans's third independent film, "The Price of Air", a "Los Angeles Times" review pointed out that "Evans also stars, giving a persuasive portrayal as the naive but likable slacker, Paul... ." "Variety" wrote about the plot, in which the lead character agrees to courier a package of illicit drugs, "Conceptually, it’s an intriguing notion for a movie... ."


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: Evans also wrote, produced and directed the 2005 independent film "Che Guevara" starring Eduardo Noriega. The film screened at a 2006 conference sponsored by UCLA's Latin American Center's Working Group on Education and Culture.


title: Josh Evans (film producer)

text: In February 2014, filming in Las Vegas completed for "Death in the Desert", a full-length movie directed and produced by Evans and starring Michael Madsen, Shayla Beesley and Paz de la Huerta. The score for a song performed by Evans' second wife, Saint, was done by Chris Goss. The film is based on the book "Death in the Desert" by Cathy Scott with the screenplay written by John Steppling. The film had its world premiere at the Tucson Film Festival, on October 9, 2015, which was presented by the Arizona Underground Film Festival. Distribution was scheduled for 2016 by Osiris Entertainment.


title: James Ingram

text: James Edward Ingram (February 16, 1952 – January 29, 2019) was an American singer, songwriter and record producer. He was a two-time Grammy Award-winner and a two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Original Song. After beginning his career in 1973, Ingram charted eight Top 40 hits on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart from the early 1980s until the early 1990s, as well as thirteen top 40 hits on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. In addition, he charted 20 hits on the Adult Contemporary chart (including two number-ones). He had two number-one singles on the Hot 100: the first, a duet with fellow R&B artist Patti Austin, 1982's "Baby, Come to Me" topped the U.S. pop chart in 1983; "I Don't Have the Heart", which became his second number-one in 1990 was his only number-one as a solo artist.


title: James Ingram

text: In between these hits, he also recorded the song "Somewhere Out There" with fellow recording artist Linda Ronstadt for the animated film "An American Tail". The song and the music video both became hits. Ingram co-wrote "The Day I Fall in Love", from the motion picture "Beethoven's 2nd" (1993), and singer Patty Smyth's "Look What Love Has Done", from the motion picture "Junior" (1994), which earned him nominations for Best Original Song from the Oscars, Golden Globes, and Grammy Awards in 1994 and 1995.


title: James Ingram

text: Ingram was born in Akron, Ohio, where he attended Akron's East High School and received a track scholarship to the University of Akron. Subsequently, he moved to Los Angeles and played with the band Revelation Funk, which made an appearance in the Rudy Ray Moore film "Dolemite". He also later played keyboards for Ray Charles before becoming famous. James Ingram received his first publishing deal with 20th Century Fox publishing company, which is where he sang the $50 demo for "Just Once".


title: James Ingram

text: Ingram provided the vocals to "Just Once" and "One Hundred Ways" on Quincy Jones's 1981 album "The Dude", which earned Ingram triple Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist. "One Hundred Ways" won him the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his work. On December 11, 1981, Ingram appeared as a guest on the Canadian comedy series "SCTV" (which aired on NBC), singing "Just Once". Ingram's debut album, "It's Your Night", was released in 1983 and included the ballad "There's No Easy Way". He worked with other notable artists such as Donna Summer, Ray Charles, Anita Baker, Viktor Lazlo, Nancy Wilson, Natalie Cole, Kim Carnes, and Kenny Rogers. In October 1990, he scored a No. 1 hit on the "Billboard" Hot 100 with the love ballad "I Don't Have the Heart", from his "It's Real" album.


title: James Ingram

text: In 1984, Ingram received three additional Grammy nominations: "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" (his second duet with recording artist Patti Austin), for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals; the US Top 10 single, "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" for Michael Jackson, which Ingram and Quincy Jones co-wrote, for Best R&B Song; and the track "Party Animal" for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. In early 1985, he was nominated for his debut album ("It's Your Night") for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, and for its single, "Yah Mo B There" (a duet with fellow R&B musician Michael McDonald), for Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group, and won the latter.


title: James Ingram

text: Ingram is perhaps best known for his hit collaborations with other vocalists. He scored a No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 chart in February 1983 with Patti Austin on the duet "Baby, Come to Me", a song made popular on TV's "General Hospital". A second Austin–Ingram duet, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?", was featured in the movie "Best Friends" (1982) and earned an Oscar nomination. In 1984, he teamed up with Kenny Rogers and Kim Carnes for the Top 40 ballad "What About Me?" In 1985, Ingram won a Grammy Award for "Yah Mo B There", a duet with Michael McDonald, and participated in the charity project "We Are the World".


title: James Ingram

text: Ingram teamed with American vocalist Linda Ronstadt and had a million-selling #2 hit in the U.S. and a Top 10 U.K. hit in 1987 with "Somewhere Out There", the theme from the animated feature film "An American Tail". The song was awarded the 1987 Grammy Award for Song of the Year. It also received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. It was one of the last million-selling Gold-certified 45 RPM singles to be issued by the RIAA.


title: James Ingram

text: In the 1990s, Ingram's highest-profile team-up came again with Quincy Jones, on the song "The Secret Garden". This song also featured vocals by Barry White, El DeBarge, and Al B. Sure!. Soundtrack songs were popular for Ingram in the 1990s. From the movie "Sarafina!" came "One More Time", and from "City Slickers" came "Where Did My Heart Go?" In 1991, he and Melissa Manchester performed the song "The Brightest Star" in the animated Christmas film "Precious Moments Timmy's Gift". In 1993, they performed the song again in the film's sequel "Precious Moments Timmy's Special Delivery". Ingram's 1994 composition "The Day I Fall in Love", a duet with Dolly Parton, was the theme song for the movie "Beethoven's 2nd" and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. Ingram and Parton performed the song live on the Oscar broadcast. In 1997, he and Carnie Wilson co-wrote the song "Our Time Has Come" and lent it to the animated film "Cats Don't Dance".


title: James Ingram

text: During the summer of 2004, Ingram participated in the U.S. television reality show "Celebrity Duets" as a duet partner. The show combined professional vocalists, of various musical genres, with entertainers of different backgrounds in a weekly elimination competition. In 2006, Ingram and neo-soul singer Angie Stone teamed up on "My People". In 2011, Ingram joined Cliff Richard's list of special guest performers on his "Soulicious" Tour performing at various UK venues during November. He sang two songs from the album with Richard, as well a solo of "Just Once". In 2012, Ingram appeared as himself in the ABC television show "Suburgatory", in the episode "The Motherload". Also in 2012, he was a guest vocalist at Debbie Allen's October 13 live show at the corner of Crenshaw Blvd. and Martin Luther King Blvd. celebrating the arrival of the "Space Shuttle Endeavour", singing R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly".


title: Air traffic control

text: Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots.


title: Air traffic control

text: Air traffic controllers monitor the location of aircraft in their assigned airspace by radar and communicate with the pilots by radio. To prevent collisions, ATC enforces traffic separation rules, which ensure each aircraft maintains a minimum amount of empty space around it at all times. In many countries, ATC provides services to all private, military, and commercial aircraft operating within its airspace. Depending on the type of flight and the class of airspace, ATC may issue "instructions" that pilots are required to obey, or "advisories" (known as "flight information" in some countries) that pilots may, at their discretion, disregard. The pilot in command is the final authority for the safe operation of the aircraft and may, in an emergency, deviate from ATC instructions to the extent required to maintain safe operation of their aircraft.


title: Air traffic control

text: Pursuant to requirements of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), ATC operations are conducted either in the English language or the language used by the station on the ground. In practice, the native language for a region is normally used; however, English must be used upon request.


title: Air traffic control

text: In 1920, Croydon Airport, London, was the first airport in the world to introduce air traffic control. The "aerodrome control tower" was a wooden hut high with windows on all four sides. It was commissioned on February 25, 1920 and provided basic traffic, weather and location information to pilots.


title: Air traffic control

text: In the United States, air traffic control developed three divisions. The first of air mail radio stations (AMRS) was created in 1922 after World War I when the U.S. Post Office began using techniques developed by the Army to direct and track the movements of reconnaissance aircraft. Over time, the AMRS morphed into flight service stations. Today's flight service stations do not issue control instructions, but provide pilots with many other flight related informational services. They do relay control instructions from ATC in areas where flight service is the only facility with radio or phone coverage. The first airport traffic control tower, regulating arrivals, departures and surface movement of aircraft at a specific airport, opened in Cleveland in 1930. Approach/departure control facilities were created after adoption of radar in the 1950s to monitor and control the busy airspace around larger airports. The first air route traffic control center (ARTCC), which directs the movement of aircraft between departure and destination, was opened in Newark in 1935, followed in 1936 by Chicago and Cleveland. Currently in the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates 22 ARTCCs.


title: Air traffic control

text: After the 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision, killing all 128 on board, the FAA was given the air-traffic responsibility over the United States in 1958, and this was followed by other countries.


title: Air traffic control

text: In 1960, Britain, France, Germany and the Benelux countries set up Eurocontrol, intending to merge their airspaces.


title: Air traffic control

text: The first and only attempt to pool controllers between countries is the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC), founded in 1972 by Eurocontrol and covering Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and north-western Germany. In 2001, the EU aimed to create a "Single European Sky", hoping to boost efficiency and gain economies of scale.


title: Air traffic control

text: The primary method of controlling the immediate airport environment is visual observation from the airport control tower. The tower is a tall, windowed structure located on the airport grounds. Air traffic controllers are responsible for the separation and efficient movement of aircraft and vehicles operating on the taxiways and runways of the airport itself, and aircraft in the air near the airport, generally 5 to 10 nautical miles (9 to 18 km) depending on the airport procedures. A controller must carry out the job by means of the precise and effective application of rules and procedures that, however, need flexible adjustments according to differing circumstances, often under time pressure. In a study which compared stress in the general population and in this kind of systems markedly showed more stress level for controllers. This variation can be explained, at least in part, by the characteristics of the job.


title: Air traffic control

text: Surveillance displays are also available to controllers at larger airports to assist with controlling air traffic. Controllers may use a radar system called secondary surveillance radar for airborne traffic approaching and departing. These displays include a map of the area, the position of various aircraft, and data tags that include aircraft identification, speed, altitude, and other information described in local procedures. In adverse weather conditions the tower controllers may also use Surface Movement Radar (SMR), Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (SMGCS) or Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (ASMGCS) to control traffic on the maneuvering area (taxiways and runway).


title: Air traffic control

text: The areas of responsibility for tower controllers fall into three general operational disciplines: local control or air control, ground control, and flight data / clearance delivery—other categories, such as Apron control or ground movement planner, may exist at extremely busy airports. While each tower may have unique airport-specific procedures, such as multiple teams of controllers ('crews') at major or complex airports with multiple runways, the following provides a general concept of the delegation of responsibilities within the tower environment.


title: Air traffic control

text: Remote and virtual tower (RVT) is a system based on air traffic controllers being located somewhere other than at the local airport tower and still able to provide air traffic control services. Displays for the air traffic controllers may be live video, synthetic images based on surveillance sensor data, or both.


title: Air traffic control

text: Ground control (sometimes known as "ground movement control") is responsible for the airport "movement" areas, as well as areas not released to the airlines or other users. This generally includes all taxiways, inactive runways, holding areas, and some transitional aprons or intersections where aircraft arrive, having vacated the runway or departure gate. Exact areas and control responsibilities are clearly defined in local documents and agreements at each airport. Any aircraft, vehicle, or person walking or working in these areas is required to have clearance from ground control. This is normally done via VHF/UHF radio, but there may be special cases where other procedures are used. Aircraft or vehicles without radios must respond to ATC instructions via aviation light signals or else be led by vehicles with radios. People working on the airport surface normally have a communications link through which they can communicate with ground control, commonly either by handheld radio or even cell phone. Ground control is vital to the smooth operation of the airport, because this position impacts the sequencing of departure aircraft, affecting the safety and efficiency of the airport's operation.


title: Air traffic control

text: Some busier airports have surface movement radar (SMR), such as, ASDE-3, AMASS or ASDE-X, designed to display aircraft and vehicles on the ground. These are used by ground control as an additional tool to control ground traffic, particularly at night or in poor visibility. There are a wide range of capabilities on these systems as they are being modernized. Older systems will display a map of the airport and the target. Newer systems include the capability to display higher quality mapping, radar target, data blocks, and safety alerts, and to interface with other systems such as digital flight strips.


title: Air traffic control

text: Air control (known to pilots as "tower" or "tower control") is responsible for the active runway surfaces. Air control clears aircraft for takeoff or landing, ensuring that prescribed runway separation will exist at all times. If the air controller detects any unsafe conditions, a landing aircraft may be instructed to "go-around" and be re-sequenced into the landing pattern. This re-sequencing will depend on the type of flight and may be handled by the air controller, approach or terminal area controller.


title: Air traffic control

text: Within the tower, a highly disciplined communications process between air control and ground control is an absolute necessity. Air control must ensure that ground control is aware of any operations that will impact the taxiways, and work with the approach radar controllers to create "gaps" in the arrival traffic to allow taxiing traffic to cross runways and to allow departing aircraft to take off. Ground control need to keep the air controllers aware of the traffic flow towards their runways in order to maximise runway utilisation through effective approach spacing. Crew resource management (CRM) procedures are often used to ensure this communication process is efficient and clear. Within ATC, it is usually known as TRM (Team Resource Management) and the level of focus on TRM varies within different ATC organisations.


title: Air traffic control

text: Clearance delivery is the position that issues route clearances to aircraft, typically before they commence taxiing. These clearances contain details of the route that the aircraft is expected to fly after departure. Clearance delivery or, at busy airports, Ground Movement Planner (GMP) or Traffic Management Coordinator (TMC) will, if necessary, coordinate with the relevant radar center or flow control unit to obtain releases for aircraft. At busy airports, these releases are often automatic and are controlled by local agreements allowing "free-flow" departures. When weather or extremely high demand for a certain airport or airspace becomes a factor, there may be ground "stops" (or "slot delays") or re-routes may be necessary to ensure the system does not get overloaded. The primary responsibility of clearance delivery is to ensure that the aircraft have the correct aerodrome information, such as weather and airport conditions, the correct route after departure and time restrictions relating to that flight. This information is also coordinated with the relevant radar center or flow control unit and ground control in order to ensure that the aircraft reaches the runway in time to meet the time restriction provided by the relevant unit. At some airports, clearance delivery also plans aircraft push-backs and engine starts, in which case it is known as the Ground Movement Planner (GMP): this position is particularly important at heavily congested airports to prevent taxiway and apron gridlock.


title: Air traffic control

text: Flight data (which is routinely combined with clearance delivery) is the position that is responsible for ensuring that both controllers and pilots have the most current information: pertinent weather changes, outages, airport ground delays/ground stops, runway closures, etc. Flight data may inform the pilots using a recorded continuous loop on a specific frequency known as the automatic terminal information service (ATIS).


title: Air traffic control

text: Many airports have a radar control facility that is associated with the airport. In most countries, this is referred to as "terminal control" and abbreviated to TMC; in the U.S., it is referred to as a TRACON (terminal radar approach control). While every airport varies, terminal controllers usually handle traffic in a radius from the airport. Where there are many busy airports close together, one consolidated terminal control center may service all the airports. The airspace boundaries and altitudes assigned to a terminal control center, which vary widely from airport to airport, are based on factors such as traffic flows, neighboring airports and terrain. A large and complex example was the London Terminal Control Centre, which controlled traffic for five main London airports up to and out to .


title: Air traffic control

text: Terminal controllers are responsible for providing all ATC services within their airspace. Traffic flow is broadly divided into departures, arrivals, and overflights. As aircraft move in and out of the terminal airspace, they are handed off to the next appropriate control facility (a control tower, an en-route control facility, or a bordering terminal or approach control). Terminal control is responsible for ensuring that aircraft are at an appropriate altitude when they are handed off, and that aircraft arrive at a suitable rate for landing.


title: Air traffic control

text: Not all airports have a radar approach or terminal control available. In this case, the en-route center or a neighboring terminal or approach control may co-ordinate directly with the tower on the airport and vector inbound aircraft to a position from where they can land visually. At some of these airports, the tower may provide a non-radar procedural approach service to arriving aircraft handed over from a radar unit before they are visual to land. Some units also have a dedicated approach unit which can provide the procedural approach service either all the time or for any periods of radar outage for any reason.


title: Air traffic control

text: In the U.S., TRACONs are additionally designated by a three-digit alphanumeric code. For example, the Chicago TRACON is designated C90.


title: Air traffic control

text: ATC provides services to aircraft in flight between airports as well. Pilots fly under one of two sets of rules for separation: visual flight rules (VFR) or instrument flight rules (IFR). Air traffic controllers have different responsibilities to aircraft operating under the different sets of rules. While IFR flights are under positive control, in the US and Canada VFR pilots can request flight following, which provides traffic advisory services on a time permitting basis and may also provide assistance in avoiding areas of weather and flight restrictions, as well as allowing pilots into the ATC system prior to the need to a clearance into certain airspace. Across Europe, pilots may request for a "Flight Information Service", which is similar to flight following. In the UK it is known as a "basic service".


title: Air traffic control

text: En-route air traffic controllers issue clearances and instructions for airborne aircraft, and pilots are required to comply with these instructions. En-route controllers also provide air traffic control services to many smaller airports around the country, including clearance off of the ground and clearance for approach to an airport. Controllers adhere to a set of separation standards that define the minimum distance allowed between aircraft. These distances vary depending on the equipment and procedures used in providing ATC services.


title: Air traffic control

text: En-route air traffic controllers work in facilities called air traffic control centers, each of which is commonly referred to as a "center". The United States uses the equivalent term air route traffic control center. Each center is responsible for a given flight information region (FIR). Each flight information region covers many thousands of square miles of airspace and the airports within that airspace. Centers control IFR aircraft from the time they depart from an airport or terminal area's airspace to the time they arrive at another airport or terminal area's airspace. Centers may also "pick up" VFR aircraft that are already airborne and integrate them into the system. These aircraft must continue under VFR flight rules until the center provides a clearance.


title: Air traffic control

text: Center controllers are responsible for issuing instructions to pilots to climb their aircraft to their assigned altitude while, at the same time, ensuring that the aircraft is properly separated from all other aircraft in the immediate area. Additionally, the aircraft must be placed in a flow consistent with the aircraft's route of flight. This effort is complicated by crossing traffic, severe weather, special missions that require large airspace allocations, and traffic density. When the aircraft approaches its destination, the center is responsible for issuing instructions to pilots so that they will meet altitude restrictions by specific points, as well as providing many destination airports with a traffic flow, which prohibits all of the arrivals being "bunched together". These "flow restrictions" often begin in the middle of the route, as controllers will position aircraft landing in the same destination so that when the aircraft are close to their destination they are sequenced.


title: Air traffic control

text: As an aircraft reaches the boundary of a center's control area it is "handed off" or "handed over" to the next area control center. In some cases this "hand-off" process involves a transfer of identification and details between controllers so that air traffic control services can be provided in a seamless manner; in other cases local agreements may allow "silent handovers" such that the receiving center does not require any co-ordination if traffic is presented in an agreed manner. After the hand-off, the aircraft is given a frequency change and begins talking to the next controller. This process continues until the aircraft is handed off to a terminal controller ("approach").


title: Air traffic control

text: Since centers control a large airspace area, they will typically use long range radar that has the capability, at higher altitudes, to see aircraft within of the radar antenna. They may also use radar data to control when it provides a better "picture" of the traffic or when it can fill in a portion of the area not covered by the long range radar.


title: Air traffic control

text: In the U.S. system, at higher altitudes, over 90% of the U.S. airspace is covered by radar and often by multiple radar systems; however, coverage may be inconsistent at lower altitudes used by aircraft due to high terrain or distance from radar facilities. A center may require numerous radar systems to cover the airspace assigned to them, and may also rely on pilot position reports from aircraft flying below the floor of radar coverage. This results in a large amount of data being available to the controller. To address this, automation systems have been designed that consolidate the radar data for the controller. This consolidation includes eliminating duplicate radar returns, ensuring the best radar for each geographical area is providing the data, and displaying the data in an effective format.


title: Air traffic control

text: Centers also exercise control over traffic travelling over the world's ocean areas. These areas are also flight information regions (FIRs). Because there are no radar systems available for oceanic control, oceanic controllers provide ATC services using procedural control. These procedures use aircraft position reports, time, altitude, distance, and speed to ensure separation. Controllers record information on flight progress strips and in specially developed oceanic computer systems as aircraft report positions. This process requires that aircraft be separated by greater distances, which reduces the overall capacity for any given route. See for example the North Atlantic Track system.


title: Air traffic control

text: Some air navigation service providers (e.g., Airservices Australia, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Nav Canada, etc.) have implemented automatic dependent surveillance – broadcast (ADS-B) as part of their surveillance capability. This new technology reverses the radar concept. Instead of radar "finding" a target by interrogating the transponder, the ADS-B equipped aircraft sends a position report as determined by the navigation equipment on board the aircraft. ADS-C is another mode of automatic dependent surveillance, however ADS-C operates in the "contract" mode where the aircraft reports a position, automatically or initiated by the pilot, based on a predetermined time interval. It is also possible for controllers to request more frequent reports to more quickly establish aircraft position for specific reasons. However, since the cost for each report is charged by the ADS service providers to the company operating the aircraft, more frequent reports are not commonly requested except in emergency situations. ADS-C is significant because it can be used where it is not possible to locate the infrastructure for a radar system (e.g., over water). Computerized radar displays are now being designed to accept ADS-C inputs as part of the display. This technology is currently used in portions of the North Atlantic and the Pacific by a variety of states who share responsibility for the control of this airspace.


title: Air traffic control

text: Precision approach radars (PAR) are commonly used by military controllers of air forces of several countries, to assist the pilot in final phases of landing in places where instrument landing system and other sophisticated airborne equipment are unavailable to assist the pilots in marginal or "near zero visibility" conditions. This procedure is also called talkdowns.


title: Air traffic control

text: A radar archive system (RAS) keeps an electronic record of all radar information, preserving it for a few weeks. This information can be useful for search and rescue. When an aircraft has 'disappeared' from radar screens, a controller can review the last radar returns from the aircraft to determine its likely position. For example, see this crash report. RAS is also useful to technicians who are maintaining radar systems.


title: Air traffic control

text: The mapping of flights in real-time is based on the air traffic control system, and volunteer ADS-B receivers. In 1991, data on the location of aircraft was made available by the Federal Aviation Administration to the airline industry. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA), the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the Helicopter Association International, and the National Air Transportation Association petitioned the FAA to make ASDI information available on a "need-to-know" basis. Subsequently, NBAA advocated the broad-scale dissemination of air traffic data. The Aircraft Situational Display to Industry (ASDI) system now conveys up-to-date flight information to the airline industry and the public. Some companies that distribute ASDI information are FlightExplorer, FlightView, and FlyteComm. Each company maintains a website that provides free updated information to the public on flight status. Stand-alone programs are also available for displaying the geographic location of airborne IFR (instrument flight rules) air traffic anywhere in the FAA air traffic system. Positions are reported for both commercial and general aviation traffic. The programs can overlay air traffic with a wide selection of maps such as, geo-political boundaries, air traffic control center boundaries, high altitude jet routes, satellite cloud and radar imagery.


title: Air traffic control

text: The day-to-day problems faced by the air traffic control system are primarily related to the volume of air traffic demand placed on the system and weather. Several factors dictate the amount of traffic that can land at an airport in a given amount of time. Each landing aircraft must touch down, slow, and exit the runway before the next crosses the approach end of the runway. This process requires at least one and up to four minutes for each aircraft. Allowing for departures between arrivals, each runway can thus handle about 30 arrivals per hour. A large airport with two arrival runways can handle about 60 arrivals per hour in good weather. Problems begin when airlines schedule more arrivals into an airport than can be physically handled, or when delays elsewhere cause groups of aircraft – that would otherwise be separated in time – to arrive simultaneously. Aircraft must then be delayed in the air by holding over specified locations until they may be safely sequenced to the runway. Up until the 1990s, holding, which has significant environmental and cost implications, was a routine occurrence at many airports. Advances in computers now allow the sequencing of planes hours in advance. Thus, planes may be delayed before they even take off (by being given a "slot"), or may reduce speed in flight and proceed more slowly thus significantly reducing the amount of holding.


title: Air traffic control

text: Air traffic control errors occur when the separation (either vertical or horizontal) between airborne aircraft falls below the minimum prescribed separation set (for the domestic United States) by the US Federal Aviation Administration. Separation minimums for terminal control areas (TCAs) around airports are lower than en-route standards. Errors generally occur during periods following times of intense activity, when controllers tend to relax and overlook the presence of traffic and conditions that lead to loss of minimum separation.


title: Air traffic control

text: Beyond runway capacity issues, the weather is a major factor in traffic capacity. Rain, ice, snow or hail on the runway cause landing aircraft to take longer to slow and exit, thus reducing the safe arrival rate and requiring more space between landing aircraft. Fog also requires a decrease in the landing rate. These, in turn, increase airborne delay for holding aircraft. If more aircraft are scheduled than can be safely and efficiently held in the air, a ground delay program may be established, delaying aircraft on the ground before departure due to conditions at the arrival airport.


title: Air traffic control

text: In Area Control Centers, a major weather problem is thunderstorms, which present a variety of hazards to aircraft. Aircraft will deviate around storms, reducing the capacity of the en-route system by requiring more space per aircraft or causing congestion as many aircraft try to move through a single hole in a line of thunderstorms. Occasionally weather considerations cause delays to aircraft prior to their departure as routes are closed by thunderstorms.


title: Air traffic control

text: Much money has been spent on creating software to streamline this process. However, at some ACCs, air traffic controllers still record data for each flight on strips of paper and personally coordinate their paths. In newer sites, these flight progress strips have been replaced by electronic data presented on computer screens. As new equipment is brought in, more and more sites are upgrading away from paper flight strips.


title: Air traffic control

text: More efficient ATC could save 5-10% of aviation fuel by avoiding holding patterns and indirect airways.


title: Air traffic control

text: A prerequisite to safe air traffic separation is the assignment and use of distinctive call signs. These are permanently allocated by ICAO on request usually to scheduled flights and some air forces and other military services for military flights. There are written callsigns with a 3-letter combination followed by the flight number such as AAL872 or VLG1011. As such they appear on flight plans and ATC radar labels. There are also the "audio" or "Radiotelephony" callsigns used on the radio contact between pilots and air traffic control. These are not always identical to their written counterparts. An example of an audio callsign would be "Speedbird 832", instead of the written "BAW832". This is used to reduce the chance of confusion between ATC and the aircraft. By default, the callsign for any other flight is the registration number (tail number) of the aircraft, such as "N12345", "C-GABC" or "EC-IZD". The short "Radiotelephony" callsigns for these tail numbers is the last 3 letters using the NATO phonetic alphabet (e.g. ABC spoken "alpha-bravo-charlie" for C-GABC) or the last 3 numbers (e.g. "three-four-five" for N12345). In the United States, the prefix may be an aircraft type, model or manufacturer in place of the first registration character, for example, "N11842" could become "Cessna 842". This abbreviation is only allowed after communications have been established in each sector.


title: Air traffic control

text: Before around 1980 International Air Transport Association (IATA) and ICAO were using the same 2-letter callsigns. Due to the larger number of new airlines after deregulation, ICAO established the 3-letter callsigns as mentioned above. The IATA callsigns are currently used in aerodromes on the announcement tables but are no longer used in air traffic control. For example, AA is the IATA callsign for American Airlines; the ATC equivalent is AAL. Flight numbers in regular commercial flights are designated by the aircraft operator and identical callsign might be used for the same scheduled journey each day it is operated, even if the departure time varies a little across different days of the week. The callsign of the return flight often differs only by the final digit from the outbound flight. Generally, airline flight numbers are even if eastbound, and odd if westbound. In order to reduce the possibility of two callsigns on one frequency at any time sounding too similar, a number of airlines, particularly in Europe, have started using alphanumeric callsigns that are not based on flight numbers (e.g. DLH23LG, spoken as "Lufthansa-two-three-lima-golf", to prevent confusion between incoming DLH23 and outgoing DLH24 in the same frequency). Additionally, it is the right of the air traffic controller to change the 'audio' callsign for the period the flight is in his sector if there is a risk of confusion, usually choosing the tail number instead.


title: Air traffic control

text: Many technologies are used in air traffic control systems. Primary and secondary radar are used to enhance a controller's situation awareness within his assigned airspace – all types of aircraft send back primary echoes of varying sizes to controllers' screens as radar energy is bounced off their skins, and transponder-equipped aircraft reply to secondary radar interrogations by giving an ID (Mode A), an altitude (Mode C) and/or a unique callsign (Mode S). Certain types of weather may also register on the radar screen.


title: Air traffic control

text: These inputs, added to data from other radars, are correlated to build the air situation. Some basic processing occurs on the radar tracks, such as calculating ground speed and magnetic headings.


title: Air traffic control

text: Usually, a flight data processing system manages all the flight plan related data, incorporating – in a low or high degree – the information of the track once the correlation between them (flight plan and track) is established. All this information is distributed to modern operational display systems, making it available to controllers.


title: Air traffic control

text: The FAA has spent over US$3 billion on software, but a fully automated system is still yet to be achieved. In 2002 the UK brought a new area control centre into service at the London Area Control Centre, Swanwick, Hampshire, relieving a busy suburban centre at West Drayton, Middlesex, north of London Heathrow Airport. Software from Lockheed-Martin predominates at the London Area Control Centre. However, the centre was initially troubled by software and communications problems causing delays and occasional shutdowns.


title: Air traffic control

text: A system of electronic flight strips replacing the old paper strips is being used by several service providers, such as Nav Canada, MASUAC, DFS, DECEA. E-strips allows controllers to manage electronic flight data online without paper strips, reducing the need for manual functions, creating new tools and reducing the ATCO's workload. The firsts electronic flight strips systems were independently and simultaneously invented and implemented by Nav Canada and Saipher ATC in 1999. The Nav Canada system known as EXCDS and rebranded in 2011 to NAVCANstrips and Saipher's first generation system known as SGTC, which is now being updated by its 2nd generation system, the TATIC TWR. DECEA in Brazil is the world's largest user of tower e-strips system, ranging from very small airports up to the busiest ones, taking the advantage of real time information and data collection from each of more than 150 sites for use in air traffic flow management (ATFM), billing and statistics.


title: Air traffic control

text: In Europe, the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) programme plans to develop new methods, technologies, procedures, and systems to accommodate future (2020 and beyond) air traffic needs.


title: Air traffic control

text: In October 2018, European controller unions dismissed setting targets to improve ATC as "a waste of time and effort" as new technology could cut costs for users but threaten their jobs.


title: Air traffic control

text: In April 2019, the EU called for a "Digital European Sky", focusing on cutting costs by including a common digitisation standard and allowing controllers to move to where they are needed instead of merging national ATCs, as it would not solve all problems.


title: Air traffic control

text: Single air-traffic control services in continent-sized America and China does not alleviate congestion.


title: Air traffic control

text: Eurocontrol tries to reduce delays by diverting flights to less busy routes: flight paths across Europe were redesigned to accommodate the new airport in Istanbul, which opened in April, but the extra capacity will be absorbed by rising demand for air travel.


title: Air traffic control

text: The average Spanish controller earn over €200,000 a year, over seven times the country average salary, more than pilots, and at least ten controllers were paid over €810,000 ($1.1m) a year in 2010.


title: Air traffic control

text: Many countries have also privatized or corporatized their air navigation service providers. There are several models that can be used for ATC service providers. The first is to have the ATC services be part of a government agency as is currently the case in the United States. The problem with this model is that funding can be inconsistent and can disrupt the development and operation of services. Sometimes funding can disappear when lawmakers cannot approve budgets in time. Both proponents and opponents of privatization recognize that stable funding is one of the major factors for successful upgrades of ATC infrastructure. Some of the funding issues include sequestration and politicization of projects. Proponents argue that moving ATC services to a private corporation could stabilize funding over the long term which will result in more predictable planning and rollout of new technology as well as training of personnel.


title: Air traffic control

text: Another model is to have ATC services provided by a government corporation. This model is used in Germany, where funding is obtained through user fees. Yet another model is to have a for-profit corporation operate ATC services. This is the model used in the United Kingdom, but there have been several issues with the system there including a large-scale failure in December 2014 which caused delays and cancellations and has been attributed to cost-cutting measures put in place by this corporation. In fact, earlier that year, the corporation owned by the German government won the bid to provide ATC services for Gatwick Airport in the United Kingdom. The last model, which is often the suggested model for the United States to transition to is to have a non-profit organization that would handle ATC services as is used in Canada.


title: Air traffic control

text: The Canadian system is the one most often used as a model by proponents of privatization. Air traffic control privatization has been successful in Canada with the creation of Nav Canada, a private nonprofit organization which has reduced costs and has allowed new technologies to be deployed faster due to the elimination of much of the bureaucratic red tape. This has resulted in shorter flights and less fuel usage. It has also resulted in flights being safer due to new technology. Nav Canada is funded from fees that are collected from the airlines based on the weight of the aircraft and the distance flown.


title: Air traffic control

text: ATC is operated by national governments with few exceptions: in the European Union, only Italy has private shareholders.


title: Air traffic control

text: Privatisation does not guarantee lower prices: the profit margin of MUAC was 70% in 2017, as there is no competition, but governments could offer fixed terms concessions.


title: Air traffic control

text: HungaroControl offers remote airport tower services from Budapest, and since 2014 provides upper air space management for Kosovo.


title: Air traffic control

text: The United States airspace is divided into 21 zones (centers), and each zone is divided into sectors. Also within each zone are portions of airspace, about 50 miles (80.5 km) in diameter, called TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) airspaces. Within each TRACON airspace are a number of airports, each of which has its own airspace with a 5-mile (8-km) radius. FAA control tower operators (CTO) / air traffic controllers use FAA Order 7110.65 as the authority for all procedures regarding air traffic.


title: The Seagull

text: The Seagull () is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. "The Seagull" is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatises the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev.


title: The Seagull

text: Like Chekhov's other full-length plays, "The Seagull" relies upon an ensemble cast of diverse, fully developed characters. In contrast to the melodrama of mainstream 19th-century theatre, lurid actions (such as Konstantin's suicide attempts) are not shown onstage. Characters tend to speak in subtext rather than directly. The character Trigorin is considered one of Chekhov's greatest male roles.


title: The Seagull

text: The opening night of the first production was a famous failure. Vera Komissarzhevskaya, playing Nina, was so intimidated by the hostility of the audience that she lost her voice. Chekhov left the audience and spent the last two acts behind the scenes. When supporters wrote to him that the production later became a success, he assumed that they were merely trying to be kind. When Konstantin Stanislavski, the seminal Russian theatre practitioner of the time, directed it in 1898 for his Moscow Art Theatre, the play was a triumph. Stanislavski's production became "one of the greatest events in the history of Russian theatre and one of the greatest new developments in the history of world drama".


title: The Seagull

text: Stanislavski's direction caused "The Seagull" to be perceived as a tragedy through overzealousness with the concept of subtext, whereas Chekhov intended it to be a comedy.


title: The Seagull

text: Chekhov purchased the Melikhovo farm in 1892, where he ordered a lodge built in the middle of a cherry orchard. The lodge had three rooms, one containing a bed and another a writing table. Chekhov eventually moved in and in a letter written in October 1895 wrote:


title: The Seagull

text: I am writing a play which I shall probably not finish before the end of November. I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage. It's a comedy, there are three women's parts, six men's, four acts, landscapes (view over a lake); a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, tons of love.


title: The Seagull

text: Thus he acknowledged a departure from traditional dramatic action. This departure would become a critical hallmark of the Chekhovian theater. Chekhov's statement also reflects his view of the play as comedy, a viewpoint he would maintain towards all his plays. After the play's disastrous opening night his friend Aleksey Suvorin chided him as being "womanish" and accused him of being in "a funk." Chekhov vigorously denied this, stating:


title: The Seagull

text: Why this libel? After the performance, I had supper at Romanov's. On my word of honor. Then I went to bed, slept soundly, and the next day went home without uttering a sound of complaint. If I had been in a funk I should have run from editor to editor and actor to actor, should have nervously entreated them to be considerate, should nervously have inserted useless corrections, and should have spent two or three weeks in Petersburg fussing over my "Seagull," in excitement, in a cold perspiration, in lamentation... I acted as coldly and reasonably as a man who has made an offer, received a refusal, and has nothing left but to go. Yes, my vanity was stung, but you know it was not a bolt from the blue; I was expecting a failure, and was prepared for it, as I warned you with perfect sincerity beforehand.


title: The Seagull

text: I thought that if I had written and put on the stage a play so obviously brimming over with monstrous defects, I had lost all instinct and that, therefore, my machinery must have gone wrong for good.


title: The Seagull

text: The eventual success of the play, both in the remainder of its first run and in the subsequent staging by the Moscow Art Theatre under Stanislavski, would encourage Chekhov to remain a playwright and lead to the overwhelming success of his next endeavor "Uncle Vanya", and indeed to the rest of his dramatic work.


title: The Seagull

text: The English title for the play The Seagull is a potentially misleading translation of the title from its original Russian. Although the words "gull" and "seagull" are often used interchangeably in English, the text of the play makes no mention of the sea and is set on an estate somewhere in the inland regions of central Russia or Ukraine. The titular gull in question was likely meant by Chekov to be a black-headed gull or common gull. A more exact translation of the title would thus be The Gull, as the word "seagull" could erroneously evoke maritime connotations when no such imagery was intended by the playwright.


title: The Seagull

text: Pyotr Sorin is a retired senior civil servant in failing health at his country estate. His sister, actress Irina Arkadina, arrives at the estate for a brief vacation with her lover, the writer Boris Trigorin. Pyotr and his guests gather at an outdoor stage to see an unconventional play that Irina's son, Konstantin Treplev, has written and directed. The play-within-a-play features Nina Zarechnaya, a young woman who lives on a neighboring estate, as the "soul of the world" in a time far in the future. The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a new theatrical form. It is a dense symbolist work. Irina laughs at the play, finding it ridiculous and incomprehensible; the performance ends prematurely after audience interruption and Konstantin storms off in humiliation. Irina does not seem concerned about her son, who has not found his way in the world. Although others ridicule Konstantin's drama, the physician Yevgeny Dorn praises him.


title: The Seagull

text: Act I also sets up the play's various romantic triangles. The schoolteacher Semyon Medvedenko loves Masha, the daughter of the estate's steward Ilya Shamrayev and his wife Polina Andryevna. However, Masha is in love with Konstantin, who is in love with Nina, but Nina falls for Trigorin. Polina is in an affair with Yevgeny. When Masha tells Yevgeny about her longing for Konstantin, Yevgeny helplessly blames the lake for making everybody feel romantic.


title: The Seagull

text: A few days later, in the afternoon, characters are outside the estate. Arkadina, after reminiscing about happier times, engages in a heated argument with the house steward Shamrayev and decides to leave. Nina lingers behind after the group leaves, and Konstantin arrives to give her a gull that he has shot. Nina is confused and horrified at the gift. Konstantin sees Trigorin approaching and leaves in a jealous fit.


title: The Seagull

text: Nina asks Trigorin to tell her about the writer's life; he replies that it is not an easy one. Nina says that she knows the life of an actress is not easy either, but she wants more than anything to be one. Trigorin sees the gull that Konstantin has shot and muses on how he could use it as a subject for a short story: "The plot for the short story: a young girl lives all her life on the shore of a lake. She loves the lake, like a gull, and she's happy and free, like a gull. But a man arrives by chance, and when he sees her, he destroys her, out of sheer boredom. Like this gull." Arkadina calls for Trigorin, and he leaves as she tells him that she has changed her mind – they will not be leaving immediately. Nina lingers behind, enthralled with Trigorin's celebrity and modesty, and gushes, "My dream!"


title: The Seagull

text: Inside the estate, Arkadina and Trigorin have decided to depart. Between acts Konstantin attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head, but the bullet only grazed his skull. He spends the majority of Act III with his scalp heavily bandaged.


title: The Seagull

text: Nina finds Trigorin eating breakfast and presents him with a medallion that proclaims her devotion to him, using a line from one of Trigorin's own books: "If you ever need my life, come and take it." She retreats after begging for one last chance to see Trigorin before he leaves. Arkadina appears, followed by Sorin, whose health has continued to deteriorate. Trigorin leaves to continue packing. After a brief argument between Arkadina and Sorin, Sorin collapses in grief. He is helped off by Medvedenko. Konstantin enters and asks his mother to change his bandage. As she is doing this, Konstantin disparages Trigorin, eliciting another argument. When Trigorin reenters, Konstantin leaves in tears.


title: The Seagull

text: Trigorin asks Arkadina if they can stay at the estate. She flatters and cajoles him until he agrees to return with her to Moscow. After she has left the room, Nina comes to say her final goodbye to Trigorin and to inform him that she is running away to become an actress against her parents' wishes. They kiss passionately and make plans to meet again in Moscow.


title: The Seagull

text: It is winter two years later, in the drawing room that has been converted to Konstantin's study. Masha finally accepted Medvedenko's marriage proposal, and they have a child together, though Masha still nurses an unrequited love for Konstantin. Various characters discuss what has happened in the two years that have passed: Nina and Trigorin lived together in Moscow for a time until he abandoned her and went back to Arkadina. Nina gave birth to Trigorin's baby, but it died in a short time. Nina never achieved any real success as an actress, and she is currently on a tour of the provinces with a small theatre group. Konstantin has had some short stories published, but he is increasingly depressed. Sorin's health is still failing, and the people at the estate have telegraphed for Arkadina to come for his final days.


title: The Seagull

text: Most of the play's characters go to the drawing room to play a game of bingo. Konstantin does not join them, instead working on a manuscript at his desk. After the group leaves to eat dinner, Konstantin hears someone at the back door. He is surprised to find Nina, whom he invites inside. Nina tells Konstantin about her life over the last two years. Konstantin says that he followed Nina. She starts to compare herself to the gull that Konstantin killed in Act II, then rejects that and says "I am an actress." She tells him that she was forced to tour with a second-rate theatre company after the death of the child she had with Trigorin, but she seems to have a newfound confidence. Konstantin pleads with her to stay, but she is in such disarray that his pleading means nothing. She embraces Konstantin, and leaves. Despondent, Konstantin spends two minutes silently tearing up his manuscripts before leaving the study.


title: The Seagull

text: The group reenters and returns to the bingo game. There is a sudden gunshot from off-stage, and Dorn goes to investigate. He returns and takes Trigorin aside. Dorn tells Trigorin to somehow get Arkadina away, for Konstantin has just shot himself.


title: The Seagull

text: The first night of "The Seagull" on 17 October 1896 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg was a disaster, booed by the audience. The hostile audience intimidated Vera Komissarzhevskaya so severely that she lost her voice. Some considered her the best actor in Russia who, according to Chekhov, had moved people to tears as Nina in rehearsal. The next day, Chekhov, who had taken refuge backstage for the last two acts, announced to Suvorin that he was finished with writing plays. When supporters assured him that later performances were more successful, Chekhov assumed they were just being kind. "The Seagull" impressed the playwright and friend of Chekhov Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, however, who said Chekhov should have won the Griboyedov prize that year for "The Seagull" instead of himself.


title: The Seagull

text: Nemirovich overcame Chekhov's refusal to allow the play to appear in Moscow and convinced Stanislavski to direct the play for their innovative and newly founded Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski prepared a detailed directorial score, which indicated when the actors should "wipe away dribble, blow their noses, smack their lips, wipe away sweat, or clean their teeth and nails with matchsticks", as well as organising a tight control of the overall "mise en scène". This approach was intended to facilitate the unified expression of the inner action that Stanislavski perceived to be hidden beneath the surface of the play in its subtext. Stanislavski's directorial score was published in 1938.


title: The Seagull

text: Stanislavski played Trigorin, while Vsevolod Meyerhold, the future director and practitioner (whom Stanislavski on his death-bed declared to be "my sole heir in the theatre"), played Konstantin, and Olga Knipper (Chekhov's future wife) played Arkadina. The production opened on 17 December 1898 with a sense of crisis in the air in the theatre; most of the actors were mildly self-tranquilised with Valerian drops. In a letter to Chekhov, one audience member described how:


title: The Seagull

text: Nemirovich-Danchenko described the applause, which came after a prolonged silence, as bursting from the audience like a dam breaking. The production received unanimous praise from the press.


title: The Seagull

text: It was not until 1 May 1899 that Chekhov saw the production, in a performance without sets but in make-up and costumes at the Paradiz Theatre. He praised the production but was less keen on Stanislavski's own performance; he objected to the "soft, weak-willed tone" in his interpretation (shared by Nemirovich) of Trigorin and entreated Nemirovich to "put some spunk into him or something". He proposed that the play be published with Stanislavski's score of the production's "mise en scène". Chekhov's collaboration with Stanislavski proved crucial to the creative development of both men. Stanislavski's attention to psychological realism and ensemble playing coaxed the buried subtleties from the play and revived Chekhov's interest in writing for the stage. Chekhov's unwillingness to explain or expand on the script forced Stanislavski to dig beneath the surface of the text in ways that were new in theatre. The Moscow Art Theatre to this day bears the seagull as its emblem to commemorate the historic production that gave it its identity.


title: The Seagull

text: Uta Hagen made her Broadway debut as Nina, at the age of 18, in a production with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in 1938 at the Shubert Theatre.


title: The Seagull

text: In November 1992, a Broadway staging directed by Marshall W. Mason opened at Lyceum Theatre, New York. The production starred Tyne Daly as Arkadina, Ethan Hawke as Treplyov, Jon Voight as Trigorin, and Laura Linney as Nina. In 1998, a production by Daniela Thomas, assisted by Luiz Päetow, toured Brazil under the title "Da Gaivota", with Fernanda Montenegro as Arkadina, Matheus Nachtergaele as Treplyov, and Fernanda Torres as Nina.


title: The Seagull

text: The Joseph Papp Public Theater presented Chekhov's play as part of the New York Shakespeare Festival summer season in Central Park from July 25, 2001 to August 26, 2001. The production, directed by Mike Nichols, starred Meryl Streep as Arkadina, Christopher Walken as Sorin, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Treplyov, John Goodman as Shamrayev, Marcia Gay Harden as Masha, Kevin Kline as Trigorin, Debra Monk as Polina, Stephen Spinella as Medvedenko, and Natalie Portman as Nina.


title: The Seagull

text: In early 2007, the Royal Court Theatre staged a production of "The Seagull" starring Kristin Scott Thomas as Arkadina, Mackenzie Crook as Treplyov and Carey Mulligan as Nina. It also featured Chiwetel Ejiofor and Art Malik. The production was directed by Ian Rickson, and received great reviews, including "The Metro Newspaper" calling it "practically perfect". It ran from January 18 to March 17, and Scott Thomas won an Olivier Award for her performance.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2007/2008, a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company toured internationally before coming into residence at the West End's New London Theatre until 12 January 2008. It starred William Gaunt and Ian McKellen as Sorin (who alternated with William Gaunt in the role, as McKellen also played the title role in "King Lear"), Richard Goulding as Treplyov, Frances Barber as Arkadina, Jonathan Hyde as Dorn, Monica Dolan as Masha, and Romola Garai as Nina. Garai in particular received rave reviews, "The Independent" calling her a "woman on the edge of stardom", and the "London Evening Standard" calling her "superlative", and stating that the play was "distinguished by the illuminating, psychological insights of Miss Garai's performance."


title: The Seagull

text: The Classic Stage Company in New York City revived the work on 13 March 2008 in a production of Paul Schmidt's translation directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev. This production was notable for the casting of Dianne Wiest in the role of Arkadina, and Alan Cumming as Trigorin.


title: The Seagull

text: On 16 September 2008, the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway began previews of Ian Rickson's production of "The Seagull" with Kristin Scott Thomas reprising her role as Arkadina. The cast also included Peter Sarsgaard as Trigorin, Mackenzie Crook as Treplyov, Art Malik as Dorn, Carey Mulligan as Nina, Zoe Kazan as Masha, and Ann Dowd as Polina.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2011, a new version directed by Golden Mask winner Yuri Butusov debuted at Konstantin Raikin's Satyricon theater, notable for its return to comedy and "Brechtian-style techniques." In 2017 and in coordination with Butusov, a production was filmed and subtitled in English by the Stage Russia project.


title: The Seagull

text: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival staged "Seagull" in the New Theatre from 22 February until 22 June 2012, adapted and directed by Libby Appel.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2014, a translation into Afrikaans under the title "Die seemeeu", directed by Christiaan Olwagen and starring Sandra Prinsloo, was staged at the Aardklop arts festival in Potchefstroom.


title: The Seagull

text: In October 2014, it was announced that the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre would present a new version of "The Seagull" by Torben Betts in 2015. The play opened on 19 June 2015 and received critical acclaim for its design by Jon Bausor and the new adaptation by Betts.


title: The Seagull

text: In January 2015, Toronto's Crow's Theatre produced "The Seagull" in association with Canadian Stage and The Company Theatre. Helmed by Crow's Theatre's Artistic Director Chris Abraham, the creative team was composed of set and costume designer Julie Fox, lighting designer Kimberly Purtell and sound designer Thomas Ryder Payne. The Robert Falls adaptation, based on a translation by George Calderon, featured an all-star Canadian cast:


title: The Seagull

text: In March 2015, Hurrah Hurrah and the Hot Blooded Theatre Company presented "The Seagull" in an unused shop-front with the help of The Rocks Pop-up.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2016, Thomas Ostermeier, director of Berlin's Schaubühne theatre, directed "The Seagull" at the , Lausanne.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2017, a new version by Simon Stephens was staged at the Lyric Hammersmith in London, starring Lesley Sharp as Irina.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2020, Anya Reiss's adaptation of "The Seagull" began previews on 11 March in the Playhouse Theatre, starring Emilia Clarke as Nina and Indira Varma as Irina. The production was suspended on 16 March due to the COVID-19 pandemic but subsequently reopened at the Harold Pinter Theatre in July 2022 and ran until September. Also in 2020, the Auckland Theatre Company presented an on-line production during the COVID-19 lock down, using the device of a Zoom meeting for the stage. It was adapted by Eli Kent and Eleanor Bishop, who also directed it, with rehearsals and performances carried out online. It was well received by critics around the world, with "The Scotsman" declaring it one of the "best plays to watch online."


title: The Seagull

text: In March 2021, the Crane Creations Theatre Company led a play reading with its professional theatre artist team on its monthly Play Date. The Play Date aims to raise awareness and appreciation of playwrights from around the world.


title: The Seagull

text: It has been remarked that the play was "a spectacle of waste" (such as at the beginning of the play when Medvedenko asks Masha why she always wear black, she answers "Because I'm in mourning for my life.").


title: The Seagull

text: The play also has an intertextual relationship with Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Arkadina and Treplyov quote lines from it before the play-within-a-play in the first act (and this device is itself used in "Hamlet"). There are many allusions to Shakespearean plot details as well. For instance, Treplyov seeks to win his mother back from the usurping older man Trigorin much as Hamlet tries to win Queen Gertrude back from his uncle Claudius.


title: The Seagull

text: "The Seagull" was first translated into English for a performance at the Royalty Theatre, Glasgow, in November 1909. Since that time, there have been numerous translations of the text—from 1998 to 2004 alone there were 25 published versions. In the introduction of his own version, Tom Stoppard wrote: "You can't have too many English Seagulls: at the intersection of all of them, the Russian one will be forever elusive." In fact, the problems start with the title of the play: there's no sea anywhere near the play's settings, – so the bird in question was in all likelihood a lake-dwelling gull such as the common gull ("larus canus"), rather than a nautical variant. In Russian both kinds of birds are named , simply meaning "gull", as in English. However, the name persists as it is much more euphonious in English than the much shorter and blunter sounding "The Gull", which comes across as too forceful and direct to represent the encompassing vague and partially hidden feelings beneath the surface. Therefore, the faint reference to the sea has been seen as a more fitting representation of the intent of the play.


title: The Seagull

text: Some early translations of "The Seagull" have come under criticism from modern Russian scholars. The , in particular, has been criticized for its elementary mistakes and total ignorance of Russian life and culture. Peter France, translator and author of the book "The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation", wrote of Chekhov's multiple adaptations:


title: The Seagull

text: The American playwright Tennessee Williams adapted the play as "The Notebook of Trigorin", which premiered in 1981. That year, Thomas Kilroy's adaptation, "The Seagull" also premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London. The Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor wrote an adaptation called "His Greatness".


title: The Seagull

text: In 2004, American playwright Regina Taylor's African-American adaptation, "Drowning Crow", was performed on Broadway.


title: The Seagull

text: Emily Mann wrote and directed an adaptation called "A Seagull in the Hamptons". The play premiered at the McCarter Theatre May 2008.


title: The Seagull

text: Libby Appel did a new version that premiered in 2011 at the Marin Theatre in Mill Valley using newly discovered material from Chekhov's original manuscripts. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, plays underwent censorship from two sources, the government censor and directors. The removed passages were saved in the archives of Russia, and unavailable till the fall of the Iron Curtain.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2011, Benedict Andrews re-imagined the work as being set in a modern Australian beach in his production of the play at Sydney's Belvoir Theatre, which starred Judy Davis, David Wenham and Maeve Darmody. He did this to explore the ideas of space and time.


title: The Seagull

text: In October 2011, it was announced that a contemporary Hamptons-set film adaptation, "Relative Insanity", will be directed by the acting coach Larry Moss, starring David Duchovny, Helen Hunt, Maggie Grace and Joan Chen.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2013, a deconstruction of the play by Aaron Posner, set in the modern day under the title "Stupid Fucking Bird", was premiered at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.; it won the 2014 Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical and has been staged widely across American theatres.


title: The Seagull

text: A 2022 gender fluid adaptation of the Tom Stoppard version was completed by the Doris Place Players to great success in Los Angeles.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2022, Emilia Clarke starred in Anya Reiss’ adaption in Harold Pinter Theatre in London. It was described as a unique 21st century modernisation.


title: The Seagull

text: Sidney Lumet's 1968 film "The Sea Gull" used Moura Budberg's translation. The play was also adapted as the Russian film "The Seagull" in 1972.


title: The Seagull

text: The 2003 film "La petite Lili" from director Claude Miller, starring Ludivine Sagnier as Nina renamed Lili, updates Chekhov's play to contemporary France in the world of the cinema.


title: The Seagull

text: Christian Camargo directed a 2014 film adaptation of the play, titled "Days and Nights", set in rural New England during the 1980s. The film starred Camargo, William Hurt, Allison Janney, Katie Holmes, Mark Rylance, and Juliet Rylance.


title: The Seagull

text: An American film titled "The Seagull" went into production in 2015. It was released on May 11, 2018, by Sony Pictures Classics; directed by Michael Mayer with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, starring Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan.


title: The Seagull

text: A contemporary Afrikaans-language film adaptation directed by Christiaan Olwagen, titled "Die Seemeeu", debuted at the Kyknet Silwerskermfees on 23 August 2018. Cintaine Schutte won the Best Supporting Actress award for her portrayal of Masha.


title: The Seagull

text: The play was the basis for the 1974 opera "The Seagull" by Thomas Pasatieri to an English libretto by Kenward Elmslie.


title: The Seagull

text: The 1987 musical "Birds of Paradise" by Winnie Holzman and David Evans is a metatheatrical adaptation, both loosely following the original play and containing a musical version of the play as the Konstantin equivalent's play.


title: The Seagull

text: In 2015, the play was adapted into "Songbird", a country musical by Michael Kimmel and Lauren Pritchard. "Songbird" sets its story in Nashville and centers around Tammy Trip, a fading country star. Tammy returns to the honky tonk where she got her start to help her estranged son launch his own music career. The show was produced at 59E59 Theaters and featured Kate Baldwin and Erin Dilly. It was recognized as a New York Times Critic's Pick.


title: The Seagull

text: It was made into a ballet by John Neumeier with his Hamburg Ballet company in June 2002. This version re-imagined the main characters as coming from the world of dance. Arkadina became a famous prima ballerina, Nina was a young dancer on the brink of her career. Konstantin appeared as a revolutionary young choreographer and Trigorin as an older, more conventional choreographer.


title: The Seagull

text: An earlier ballet in two acts, by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin, was first performed at the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow in 1980.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Todd McFarlane (; born March 16, 1961) is a Canadian comic book creator, artist, writer, filmmaker and entrepreneur, best known for his work as the artist on "The Amazing Spider-Man" and as the creator, writer, and artist on the superhero horror-fantasy series "Spawn."


title: Todd McFarlane

text: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics' "Spider-Man" franchise, on which he was the artist to draw the first full appearances of the character Venom. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics, pulling the occult anti-hero character Spawn from his high school portfolio and updating him for the 1990s. Spawn was a popular hero in the 1990s and encouraged a trend in creator-owned comic book properties.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Since leaving inking duties on "Spawn" with issue No. 70 (February 1998), McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: In September 2006, it was announced that McFarlane would be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by major league baseball pitcher Curt Schilling. McFarlane used to be a co-owner of the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers before selling his shares to Daryl Katz. He is also a high-profile collector of record-breaking baseballs.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: As a filmmaker, he produced the 1997 film adaptation of Spawn starring Michael Jai White. He will make his directorial debut with the reboot film, which will star Jamie Foxx.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Todd McFarlane was born on March 16, 1961, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to Bob and Sherlee McFarlane. He is the second of three sons, which Farlane says contributed to his competitive streak. Curtis and Derek. Bob worked in the printing business, which led him to take work where he could find it, and as a result, during McFarlane's childhood, the family lived in thirty different places from Alberta to California.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: McFarlane began drawing as a hobby at an early age, and developed an interest in comics, acquiring as many as he could, and learning to draw from them. He was a fan of comics creators such as John Byrne, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller and George Pérez, as well as the writing of Alan Moore. (John Parker of ComicsAlliance has also noted the influence of Walt Simonson in McFarlane's work.) McFarlane created the character Spawn when he was 16, and spent "countless hours" perfecting the appearance of each component of the character's visual design.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: One day while in the twelfth grade at Calgary's William Aberhart High School, McFarlane, working as a groundskeeper for the Calgary Cardinals, was standing in the bleachers when a 13-year-old ninth grader sitting near him named Wanda began flirting with him. The two began dating, over the objections of Wanda's father, who thought she was too young for him, though in time McFarlane won him over.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Right after high school, McFarlane attended baseball tryouts at Gonzaga University. Despite being a good fielder and fast, he was not a good hitter. Moreover, he could not afford Gonzaga, so he attended Spokane Falls Community College for a year, his relationship with Wanda developing into a long-distance one. In 1981 McFarlane began attending Eastern Washington University (EWU) on a baseball scholarship, studying as part of a self-designed program for graphics and art. His practical goal was to join his father in the printing business in Calgary, Alberta, though his dream was always to be a comic book creator. He worked part-time on campus as a janitor in the school's administration building, as his scholarship required an on-campus job, and also worked weekends at a comics shop called the Comic Rack, devoting a couple of hours late at night to practice his comics art.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: He sought to play baseball professionally after graduation, but suffered a serious ankle injury in his junior year during a game with arch rivals Washington State University. He subsequently focused on drawing, working at the comic book store to pay for the rest of his education, and living in a trailer park in Cheney, Washington with Wanda, who had moved to the area to be with him and attend EWU as well. In 1984, a year after his injury, McFarlane's final chance to play for the big leagues came when he tried out with the Toronto Blue Jays' farm team in Medicine Hat, Alberta, but he ended up being ranked last on the roster, ending his professional baseball prospects. McFarlane graduated with a bachelor's degree that same year. He stayed in Spokane while Wanda finished her degree.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: While still in college, McFarlane began sending 30–40 packages of submissions each month to comics editors, totaling over 700 submissions after a year and a half, most of which were in the form of pinups. Half resulted in no response, while the other half resulted in rejection letters, though he received some constructive criticism from a few editors. One of them, DC Comics' Sal Amendola, gave McFarlane a dummy script in order to gauge McFarlane's page-to-page storytelling ability. Amendola's advice that McFarlane's submissions needed to focus page-to-page stories rather than pinups led McFarlane to create a five-page "Coyote" sample that he initially sent to "Uncanny X-Men" editor Ann Nocenti at Marvel Comics, who passed it along to Archie Goodwin and Jo Duffy, the editors of the Marvel imprint Epic Comics, which published "Coyote". They in turn passed it onto "Coyote" creator Steve Englehart, who called McFarlane to offer McFarlane his first comic job, a 1984 backup story in "Coyote".


title: Todd McFarlane

text: McFarlane soon began drawing for both DC and Marvel, with his first major body of work being a two-year run (1985–1987) on DC's "Infinity, Inc." In 1987, McFarlane illustrated the last three issues of "Detective Comics"' four-issue "" storyline. From there, he moved to Marvel's "Incredible Hulk", which he drew from 1987 to 1988, working with writer Peter David.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: In 1988, McFarlane joined writer David Michelinie on Marvel's "The Amazing Spider-Man", beginning with issue 298, drawing the preliminary sketch for that cover's image on the back of one of his "Incredible Hulk" pages. McFarlane garnered notice for the more dynamic poses in which he depicted Spider-Man's aerial web-swinging, his enlarging of the eyes on the character's mask, and greater detail in which he rendered his artwork. In particular was the elaborate detail he gave to Spider-Man's webbing. Whereas it had essentially been rendered as a series of Xs between two lines, McFarlane embellished it by detailing far more individual strands, which came to be dubbed "spaghetti webbing". McFarlane drew the first full appearance of Eddie Brock, the original incarnation of the villain Venom. He has been credited as the character's co-creator, though this has been a topic of dispute within the comic book industry ("see Eddie Brock: Creation and conception").


title: Todd McFarlane

text: McFarlane's work on "Amazing Spider-Man" made him an industry superstar. His cover art for "Amazing Spider-Man" No. 313, for which he was originally paid $700 in 1989, for example, would later sell for $71,200 in 2010. One critic of McFarlane's detail-heavy style was "Comics Journal" editor Gary Groth, who said of McFarlane in a 2017 interview, "He doesn't have any authentic virtues as a visual stylist. His work is so overembellished that it disguised the fact that the composition is chaotic and cluttered to the point of being almost unreadable. He never really learned the craft of comics — he just faked it really well."


title: Todd McFarlane

text: During his run on "The Amazing Spider-Man", McFarlane became increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of control over his own work, as he wanted more say in the direction of storylines. He began to miss deadlines, requiring guest artists to fill-in for him on some issues. In 1990, after a 28-issue run of "Amazing Spider-Man", McFarlane told editor Jim Salicrup that he wanted to write his own stories, and would be leaving the book with issue No. 328, which was part of that year's company-wide "Acts of Vengeance" crossover storyline. In July 2012 the original artwork to that issue's cover, which features Spider-Man dispatching the Hulk, sold for a record-breaking $657,250 USD, the highest auction price ever for any piece of American comic book art. McFarlane was succeeded on "Amazing Spider-Man" by McFarlane's future fellow Image Comics co-founder Erik Larsen.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Wanting to appease McFarlane, Marvel gave McFarlane a new, adjectiveless "Spider-Man" title for him to both write and draw. "" #1 (August 1990) sold 2.5 million copies, largely due to the variant covers with which Marvel, seeking to capitalize on McFarlane's popularity, published the issue in order to encourage collectors into buying more than one edition. This practice was a result of the comics speculator bubble of the 1990s, which would burst later that decade. McFarlane, unbeknownst to his parents at the time, was making about a million dollars a year. McFarlane wrote and illustrated 15 of the series' first 16 issues, many issues of which featured other popular Marvel characters such as Wolverine and Ghost Rider in guest roles.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Despite his acclaim as an artist, according to David Wallace of Comics Bulletin, many found McFarlane's writing to be "clumsy, unsophisticated and pretentious", and questioned the wisdom of allowing him to write a new "Spider-Man" title in the first place. At the same time, editorial had problems with the dark tone of the stories McFarlane was telling, beginning with the inaugural "Torment" storyline, which depicted a more vicious version of the reptilian villain Lizard under the control of the voodoo priestess Calypso. Subsequent storylines such as "Masques" featured Spider-Man confronting the demonic Hobgoblin, while "Perceptions", which involved Spider-Man dealing with police corruption, child rape and murder (a hint of the work he would later do on "Spawn"), led some stores to refuse to stock the book. This created further tensions between McFarlane and editorial, which viewed Spider-Man as an historically light-hearted character marketed to young readers. Editor Jim Salicrup in particular was required to make a number of compromises for McFarlane's work, including enforcing McFarlane's minor costume changes across the entire line of other Spidey comics, placing limitations on his choice of villains for his stories, and dealing with strong disagreement on the handling of the character Mary Jane Watson. This strained McFarlane's relationship with Salicrup, which was expressed in the remarkable amount of public disagreement that appeared in the book's letters page. Eventually McFarlane's attention to his deadlines again began to waiver, and he missed issue 15 of the title. His final issue on the book, #16 (November 1991), was part of a crossover storyline with "X-Force", and led to creative clashes with new editor Danny Fingeroth. According to McFarlane and editor Tom DeFalco in the 2000 documentary "The Devil You Know: Inside the Mind of Todd McFarlane", among the examples of the issues that prompted his departure were editorial's censorship of a panel in that issue in which the character Juggernaut was graphically stabbed in the eye with a sword. DeFalco supported the editing of the panel, calling it "inappropriate", while McFarlane called this "lunacy", arguing that such graphic visuals are commonplace in Marvel's books. Fed up with editorial interference, he left the company under something of a cloud. In the words of David Wallace of Comics Bulletin, "McFarlane's fifteen issues of Spider-Man are now (perhaps slightly unfairly) held up alongside the likes of "X-Force" as the epitome of everything that was wrong in 1990s comics, and their cash-in approach to the then-booming speculator market precipitated the near-collapse of the industry."


title: Todd McFarlane

text: McFarlane then teamed with six other popular artists to form Image Comics, an umbrella company under which each owned a publishing house. McFarlane's studio, Todd McFarlane Productions, published his creation, the occult-themed "Spawn", written and drawn by McFarlane. It was Image's second release, following the release of Rob Liefeld's "Youngblood" the month prior. Upon its release in 1992, "Spawn" #1 (May 1992) sold 1.7 million copies, still a record for an independent comic book.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: Responding to harsh criticism of his abilities as a writer, McFarlane hired acclaimed writers to guest-write issues #8–11, including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim, and Frank Miller. Subsequent writers he would hire on the series included Grant Morrison, Andrew Grossberg, and Tom Orzechowski. Greg Capullo penciled several issues as a guest artist, and became the regular penciler with #26, with McFarlane remaining as writer and inker until #70. The series continued to be a hit, and in 1993 "Wizard" declared "Spawn" "the best-selling comic on a consistent basis that is currently being published." "Spawn" is notable for being one of only two Image books that debuted during the company's 1992 launch, along with Erik Larsen's "Savage Dragon", that continued to be published into the 2020s.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: During Image's early years of operation, the company was subject to much industry criticism over aspects of its business practices, including late-shipped books, and its creators' emphasis of art over writing. One of these critics was McFarlane's former "Hulk" collaborator, writer Peter David. This came to a head during a public debate they participated in at Philadelphia's Comicfest convention in October 1993, which was moderated by artist George Pérez. McFarlane stated that Image was not being treated fairly by the media, and by David in particular. The three judges, Maggie Thompson, editor of the "Comics Buyer's Guide", William Christensen of "Wizard Press", and John Danovich of the magazine "Hero Illustrated", voted 2–1 in favor of David, with Danovich voting the debate a tie.


title: Todd McFarlane

text: In 1994 McFarlane and DC Comics collaborated on an intercompany crossover, each producing a book featuring Batman and Spawn. The first of the two books, "" was written by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant, drawn by Klaus Janson, and published by DC. It was followed by "Spawn/Batman", which was written by Frank Miller and drawn by McFarlane. That year marked the point when McFarlane ceased to be the regular writer and artist of "Spawn". The first issue that he did not draw was issue 16, which was drawn by Greg Capullo. Aside from the four fill-in writers on issues #8–11, it was the first issue on which McFarlane was not the regular writer, as it was the first of a three-issue storyline written by Grant Morrison. Over the course of the ensuing decades, he would hire other writers such as Brian Holguin and David Hine, and artists such as Whilce Portacio, Angel Medina, and Philip Tan. McFarlane occasionally offered story input and inked covers. He would sporadically return as the interior artist for intermittent issues, and for a few years wrote it under a pseudonym in order to generate interest in the book by fostering the illusion that new talent was being brought into the book's production.