What I've Been Reading

Because of my injury, and because it's summer, and because I love reading (especially books with drawings--comics rule!), I've got quite a few books to mention. This isn't everything I've read in the past month, but it's a sample (of stuff piled next to my bed because I haven't put it away yet--I need to install built-in-bookcases in the living room if I even hope to shelve all of stuff):


1) Foul Play!, by Grant Geissman. It's subtitled "The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics," so if you know what that means, then you have a pretty good sesne of the book. If you don't, then you should know that E.C. Comics were reknowned for their beatiful artwork (and beautifully chilling stories), as well as causing a scandal leading to the Comics Code yada yada yada. Anyway, the artists of the E.C. era were some of the greatest illustrators who ever lived, and this book gives brief biographies on the creators and a sample story of each artist. My three favorites are Harvey Kurtzman (for his design and storytelling sense), Wally Wood (for his gorgeous figures and sold-looking gadgets and spacecraft), and Graham Ingels (for his eerie brush effects). I actually received this book for my birthday, but just had a chance to read it. It only whets my appetite for the upcoming E.C. Archive editions (which should be released this fall!).


2) The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, by Vladimir Nabokov. This is another step on my journey to read all of Nabokov's work. I'm not doing them in chronological order because, frankly, I have read some of the earlier Russian novels (in translation) and I like them less than his English novels. So I'm jumping around. This one is a good one, but only if you've read some of his other works. Sebastian Knight is easy to summarize: it's about a narrator investigating his dead half-brother's life in an attempt to write a biography. But it's not really about that--that's just the narrative coat-hanger. It's about the nature of identity, and the imprecision of memory. It's about "literary movements" and Nabokov's disdain for them. It's about the fallacy of the biographic form. If that stuff sounds interesting, read it. If you're looking for a detective novel, this one won't be very satisfying.


3) T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archive: Volume 1, by many talented artists (and some competent writers). Man, I love Archive editions. I have about 50 or 60 archive editions of various classic comic books, from The Atom to The Spirit to The X-Men (Marvel calls them "Masterworks," but they're the same basic format--glossy reprints in solid hardcovers). I picked up all SIX of these T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archives on ebay two weeks ago. I had never read any of the original stories--my only exposure to the characters (who, by the way, are basically Silver Age superheroes combined with a 60s spy setting) was from a 1980s revision done by some now-defunct publisher. But these original stories are as much fun as I had expected. The artwork is some of the best superhero art of the Silver Age, with work by Wally Wood (he did much more than just E.C. Comics), Gil Kane, Reed Crandall, and others. I can't wait to read the rest of the volumes.


4) Dracula adapted by Gary Reed and Becky Cloonan. This is the Puffin Graphics comic book adaptation of the Stoker novel, and I bought it for the Cloonan art. She's one of my favorites out of the young crop of indie artists (although she's doing a lot of work for DC now, so she's gone mainstream), and she brings this moody story to life with flair. I have about five of these Puffin Graphics books now, and they are all pretty good. My only complaint is that sometimes the cheesy covers ruin the appeal. In this case, while Cloonan does the inside art, some airbrush cheeseball does the cover, and he makes it look like a straight-to-video movie version. Don't be fooled by the crappy cover. The art inside is MUCH BETTER.


5) Elle, by Douglas Glover. I read this book a few weeks ago in preparation for a book discussion group I was asked to join. I've never been in such a group, and I often wondered what the point of such a group was. It's not like I need help understanding what I read, and it's not like my opinion about the book's going to change just because someone has a different opinion, and I don't really care about the characters and what they would do if...or what we would do if we were the characters...blah blah. I do that stuff all day as an English teacher anyway. I don't need to do it as an extra-curricular activity. But the group was excellent, because we talked largely about artistic choices and matters of craft, and the peeps in the group were all smart and funny. So--good times. The book, though, is not one of my favorites. I like Glover's style, on the sentence and paragraph level. I like his voice. But there's too much Native American mysticism and the novel, which starts with an amazing opening, eventually just becomes numbing (until a terrific ending, which is marred by a pointless epilogue). So, yes, Vivian Dorsel loooooooves it. I kinda like it. But I don't enthusiastically recommend it.


6) The Mad Archives: Volume 1, by the usual gang of idiots (before they were called that). I told you I loved Archive editions! And guess what? This one has artwork by, you guessed it, Wally Wood! Plus, it's full of good stuff. This volume reprints the first six issues of Mad back when it was a comic book and not a magazine. I'd seen some of this stuff before, but to read each issue cover to cover was a joy. This was a time when Mad was about telling funny stories and satirizing the comic book storytelling tropes--it wasn't about just cracking corny jokes, or parodying movies by just drawing goofy looking versions of the actors. This was the good stuff. Although, Howard Cruse tells me that the post-Kurtzman era, when it first became a magazine, is amazing as well, because they actually hired read comedians to write the satirical stuff. Nowadays, the magazine is just a shell of its former self. Does anyone even read it anymore?


7) Batman: The Complete History, by Les Daniels. I've read the Superman volume, and I've read the Wonder Woman volume, both of which I enjoyed quite a bit. They are all designed by Chip Kidd, so they look great, and it was nice to see Daniels's overview of the comic books and the media appearances by these characters. The Batman volume, however, was disappointing. It's worth owning (so I can complete my set of the three, I guess), and I got it for free anyway, because my sister-in-law gave it to me (her boss gave it to her--they both work at Time-Warner HQ, and this copy was floating around the office apparently). It's just not very informative. Part of my problem with the book is that it doesn't seem to go into much detail about the interesting points of the Batman story (the much-disputed creation of the character, for example: Bob Kane got all the credit, but most sources now say that he did almost nothing on the series--a fact which Daniels glosses over quickly). Daniels does offer a comprehensive perspective, sure, but it's a bit too large-scale and doesn't provide much in the way of engaging anecdotes or critical perspective. Maybe the problem is that I know too much of this stuff already, whereas I knew a bit less about Superman and much less about Wonder Woman. But, hey, the book looks snazzy (and yes, that is the actual cover in its entirety).

The Deadman Travesty

Here's something that I've been griping about to anyone I've bumped into in the past week or two, but nobody seems to care but me. Either they don't care enough about comic book art or they think my concern is too out-of-date to matter. The people in the second category have a good point because I am talking about a book published five years ago, but I'm going to present my case to you anyway, and you can let me know if you are as offended as I am, or if I'm just being too picky. Here goes...

In 2001, DC Comics published an extravagant hardcover collection of Neal Adams's famed Deadman run. Deadman was a character who could inhabit the body of a mortal and control that person's actions, but because Deadman was, well, dead, he had no corporeal form himself. His goal was to find out who had killed him. It was like an existential version of "The Fugitive" but with a sorta-superheroic circus performer in the lead role (he was called "Deadman" as a trapeze artist because of his death-defying stunts, and he wore red spandex while performing, and he was murdered in mid-air).

Anyway, the series was most famous because it was the first major work of artist Neal Adams, who would go on to great critical acclaim in a few short years and be regarded as perhaps the greatest comic book artist ever. But the first issue of the series was actually drawn by Silver Age great Carmine Infantino. He had to bow out after only one issue because he was promoted within DC and so Neal Adams took over and continued the series as the main artist. The reason any of this is important is because I just paid about $50 for this fancy Deadman hardcover collection:

So this collection, published in 2001, is supposed to be the definitive collection of the series. The best of the best. The first Neal Adams story (which is the second issue in the collection, Carmine Infantino's being the first) is identified in the table of contents as "newly inked especially for this edition by Neal Adams." Okay. But let's look at some samples of the work. Here's a page from the first issue in the collection, drawn by Carmine Infantino:

Here's one of the "newly inked" pages from the second issue reprinted in the collection:

And here's a page from the third story, drawn by Neal Adams but NOT "newly inked":

These issues were originally published in 1967. Issues 1 and 3 seem like they belong. Issue 2 seems wildly out of place, doesn't it? It wasn't just re-inked! It was redrawn, recolored, and even re-lettered by Neal Adams. It might be better artwork (although I personally don't prefer it), but it's jarringly OUT OF PLACE in this collection. It's so shockingly different than ALL of the other issues in the collection that, for me at least, it ruins the integrity of the entire book. For the record, here's what the second issue looked like in its earlier version BEFORE it was "newly inked," followed by the "newly inked" version to the right so you can compare for yourself and see how extremely different it became:


















Which one would flow better with the pages from issues 1 and 3 above? The "newly inked" version is ridiculously different. I wouldn't have liked it if he'd redrawn and recolored the entire book, but at least it would have been consistent. As it is now, it's a horribly uneven looking collection.

I hope DC has learned from this mistake (although, Neal Adams has apparently done something similar with the Batman books reprinting his work). It literally disgusts me. I think it's far, far worse than the modifications George Lucas made to the Star Wars trilogy. Am I wrong? Am I overreacting?

Ultimate Frisbee and Why I Haven't Posted

I haven't posted on this blog much lately--except for my two posts below (you should read them first!). Even after I VOWED to post twice a week. I lied, clearly.

Anyway, I don't have a good reason for my poor showing here, and I know all of the readers out there in blog-o-land have missed me dearly, so I make a new vow: I will post EVERY DAY for one week. Let's see if I can do that! Isn't that exciting? After that, we'll see where it goes. Maybe I'll post every MINUTE! What's the record for most entries per hour? I could top that! Yes, that's what I'll do, or probably not.

So here's a tiny excuse as to why I haven't been as productive as I should have been this past month: I have been lying on the couch watching a lot of TV and movies. Not much of an excuse, right? But I HAD to lie on the couch because I couldn't walk! I was horribly injured in a frisbee tournament! The doctor wanted to perform foot-replacement surgery, but I said, "no way--I don't want a robot foot, unless the robot foot has like a drill bit for a big toe, and a switchblade for the little toe" and then I kind of went on and on like that for a while, dreaming of my ideal robot foot, when the doctor said, "I didn't say 'foot replacement surgery,' I said, 'sprained ankle' and it will heal in a few weeks, but you need to stay off of it." Oh. I misunderstood.

How did this injury occur, you ask? Well, it was a calm Sunday morning a few weeks ago...

My team, The Justice League, named thusly because of the Superman shirt I was wearing (to match my red shorts) (and because we were so friggin' awesome!) was playing against Jason Gamache's team in the first round of the tournament. After we scored a few quick points, there was a slight controversy about a foul that was called. I thought it was the correct call, but my team didn't, and so I demonstrated the rule that was violated. I showed them what you CAN'T do when you're defending a player. As I demonstrated what not to do, I leapt into the air and bumped into my teammate Trevor (showing exactly how the foul had occurred), and I landed on his foot, and my ankled turned over with a SNAP! I hopped around, swearing left and right, because I knew my tournament was over after only a few points.

I sat on the sideline, icing my ankle as it swelled to mythic proportions. But I couldn't just sit around and watch, so I told my team I'd rest a bit, tape up my ankle and wait for the finals to make my return. Yet even waiting for a few minutes, I grew bored. So I had teammate Mitch Maselli tape up my ankle so I could play in the very next game. It hurt to play on it. A lot. I couldn't really run. I could start to run, and then quickly hop on my left leg for a bit. That's about it. But I still played. And played. And played.

We made it to the finals, of course. And the finals were best-out-of-three (which we won in two), so that means I played 5 games on a badly sprained ankle. Not smart. At the end of the tournament, we recived gold medals, a team trophy, and two of us received individual trophies. They had kept stats for all the games, and they awarded Mitch with the "Most Touchdowns Caught" trophy, and I received "Most Touchdowns Thrown." That's right, even though I was barely able to walk, I was the hero of the tournament, the idol of millions. My teammates began calling me Curt Schilling. (I'll be travelling around New England with my trophy--check your local paper to see the dates and times.)

So I limped toward my car, trophy in hand, drove the 45 minutes back home, basking in my own glory, crawled to the front door of my house, and told my wife, "I need to go to the emergency room. Now."

The x-rays didn't show a break, luckily (which I knew anyway--I wasn't dumb enough to play on a BROKEN ankle), but the sprain was really bad and my entire foot (from the middle of my shin down to my toes) had swelled up enormously--it looked like a giant rubber hobbit foot. Blood had pooled below my ankle, beneath the skin on both sides. The doctor said it wasn't very smart to keep playing on it. I said, "check out my trophy, bizzatch," and she was immediately silenced.

I've had to wear an air cast since. I'm supposed to wear it for another week (although I didn't wear it when I went out yesterday, and my ankle is throbbing today), and I'm supposed to stay away from frisbee for 6-8 weeks.

So that's why I had to lie on the couch and watch all those TV shows and movies.

And that's why I couldn't blog. (Without a laptop, it's hard to blog and keep your foot elevated.)

But school is starting soon. And that means frisbee season is starting up at Drury. Can I wait two months to play? Nah. I'll just play with the air cast on! It will give me another horrible injury to blog about.

The Callahan Gallery--Samurai Squirrel

Here's a drawing I did last Spring to amuse my AP English class. I had already drawn Ninja Gerbil (co-created by Erin Floriani) and pinned it to the wall (and if I find a copy of that illustration lying around, I'll post it here someday), and we had watched Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood" earlier in the year and just finished reading Nabokov's "Pnin," so I had samurais and squirrels on my mind anyway.

If you've been in my classroom, you've seen this drawing. Most people think it's a photocopy of a coloring book page or something. But nope--it just looks that way because I outlined the figure with a Sharpie to give it a bold presence.

You can't go wrong with putting armor on a cute little furry creature.

My Lunch with Howard

I went to lunch yesterday (without wearing my air cast--I'm a rebel) with the amazing Howard Cruse. I'd asked him to make an appearance at Word Street--to show up as a "special guest" in my Graphic Novel course that was supposed to take place this summer, but that course was cancelled due to low enrollment. But he still wanted to meet me, and of course, I certainly wanted to meet him. His "Stuck Rubber Baby" graphic novel is one of the greats, and it's one of the few graphic NOVELS that actually deserves the term (it's not just a bloated short story like so many of them).



You should all buy it.

Anyway, our lunch went very well, and he was kind enough to let me browse through his bookshelves when I picked him up. Like any writer or artist, I love to see what people have on their shelves. I was glad to see Crockett Johnson's "Barnaby" visibly represented. You know Johnson from his "Harold and the Purple Crayon"--that was a huge influence on me as a kid. It was probably my favorite book for a time. I think "Barnaby" is out of print these days--but if you see a collection of it on ebay, you should snap it up.

We had a long discussion about Mad magazine, and talked about education and art and writers and on and on. Howard is a kindred spirit, and I was glad to get the chance to hang out with him. We'll definitely do it again.

He was disappointed that I didn't bring any of my artwork to show him. I was way too embarassed to show my amateur hackwork to a professional (award-winning!) artist. But maybe I'll send him some minicomics. I promised him I'd at least post some more of my work on this blog, so he could check it out (with the added bonus that the entire world can see the awesome and awesomely bad stuff I've drawn). So over the next few weeks, I'll constantly update this blog with pieces of work from the past and present.

(Actually, when I went though a pile of artwork to see what I should post, I found a few things I did over 15 years ago--and it's fun for me to think about why I decided to draw that stuff and why I chose that particular style back then. In many ways, my art was better back then, maybe because I was more serious about it--I was going to go to art school I thought--but it also reflects my interests of the time. Not that my interests have changed that much since I was like 5 years old--I liked superheroes and space ships and swordfights then, and I like that stuff just as much now.)

So, buy Howard's graphic novel, (actually, buy all of his stuff), and keep checking back here for illustrations from my pile.

On street names

Why do street names sound so wimpy? Around our house, the streets are named girly names like "Elaine," "Leona," "Kara." A mile down the hill, they're named after American Romantic poets: "Bryant," "Longfellow," "Whittier."

I propose street names should be more badass. Next time you find yourself in charge of naming a street, why not go with "Laser-sword Blvd" or "Nunchuck Lane"?

Seriously? Who wouldn't want to live there?

Recommended for Some: The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana

I'm highly recommending this book (with some reservations). I loved it. If you're just like me, you'll love it too. Sadly, you're not just like me no matter how hard you try. You should still read the book, though. Here's why:

1) It's about an amnesiac who is trying to recapture his life by re-reading books from his youth.

2) We all love books, and so does the narrator, but the narrator is better at distilling the beauty of books into a passionate reminscence than we are. We should admire that (and celebrate the glory of books).

3) The narrator's quest allows us to recall our own love-affair with fiction and how these artifacts from our childhoods not only shaped our memories but shaped the ways in which we interacted (and continue to interact with) the world.

4) It's got a brilliantly evocative discourse on why Flash Gordon is so important.

5) It has pictures of really cool italian books that we can only dream about reading.

6) It's by Umberto Eco.

If you haven't read anything by Umberto Eco, you should. One of the first great works of literature that I actually read in high school (outside of English) assignments was his Foulcault's Pendulum which is basically an older version of The DaVinci Code but for smart people. I'm also a great admirer of his Sherlock Holmes-as-a-medieval-monk story--his masterpiece--The Name of the Rose. And I've deeply enjoyed his essays and non-fiction books on semiotics and literary theory. His last two novels have not been his best, but The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana connected with me on a personal level and excited me by presenting such a compelling case for how closely we're linked to the books we read (especially the ones we read as children).

So what are my reservations? Nothing serious, but some readers might be turned off by the ending (which I won't spoil but it's not what I expected--I personally thought it was an excellent ending, though), and others may be turned off by the very concept of a guy basically telling us about the books he's reading and how they may or may not help him remember his past. There are, for example, no ninjas. But if you love books the way I do, and if you would rather spend a weekend in the attic of an old house unpacking boxes from your childhood and re-reading your favorite stories and looking at your favorite covers than you would getting a tan on the beach, you should read this book. You will love it. If not, go waste your time on the sand.

A Movie Review: Superman Returns

Judy and I finally escaped the kids long enough to see two movies at the actual movie theater this weekend. So that means I can tell you what I liked and didn't like about two new releases! I am so excited. I could be sleeping right now, but nope--I am sacrificing sleep for the good of humanity. Anyway, I only have time for one review right now, and here it is (#2 will come shortly--by Friday at the latest, okay?):

Movie #1: SUPERMAN RETURNS

I will be spoiling this movie for you if you haven't already seen it, but that's not really such a big deal, because it's not so good. So yeah, spoilers and stuff. Watch out. Here we go: Is this movie less cheesy than the strangely-revered Donner film? Yes, but not much. At least he doesn't reverse time at any point in this one--although, if he did, that would solve every single problem he has. Why doesn't he reverse time? The moron! Is this movie full of better-looking action sequences than Superman II? Yes, better looking because the technology has improved, but not better imagined. Zod and the Phantom Zone villains are cooler than any amount of giant crystal rock formations and/or plane/space shuttle disasters. Okay, I did love the shuttle sequence from the moment Superman arrived until the silly-but-simultaneously-AWESOME landing with applause at the baseball stadium. That was the best part of the movie, though, and the John Williams theme was there and everything, which is like cheating (as I've said to my brother, even Kangaroo Jack has a bit with the Superman theme by John Williams and it makes a part of that horrible movie into something magical--the theme is that good, but you know it is already, right?). But the scenes leading up to the shuttle catastrophe (especially the "press conference" on board the plane) were embarassingly awkward and goofy. Is this movie as great as Superman III in all its Richard Pryor glory? Well, that's a trick question. Superman III is actually my favorite of the original movies. It's terrible, I know. It has the worst villain, and it is as much about the Richard Pryor character as it is about Superman and it's just not a good film, but we owned it on VHS when we were kids and we watched it more than almost any other movie besides Star Wars just because it was one of the few things we owned. So it's a sentmental favorite. I can't imagine Superman Returns ever being anyone's sentimental favorite, but it could happen. Kids might respond well to that ugly little scraggly-haired child who is supposedly Superman's son. How could he have a son? Unless he knocked Lois up that one time they slept together in Superman II, which he made Lois forget about with his magical Kryptonian kiss at the end of that movie. In which case, isn't she thinking now, "Wtf? How could I have Superman's kid? When did we have sex?" which would be pretty alarming, because I think you'd expect to remember something like that. Is this movie better than Superman IV, the one that was unwatchably horrible and I can't even remember at all. No, it's way better than that. Even Lex Luthor's stupid plan in this movie (and it is a stupid plan--especially for a genius) is better than even the best five minutes of number IV.

So how does it compare with, let's say, Batman Begins. I say, about the same. Maybe not quite as good. I didn't love Batman Begins--I hate Katie Holmes because she acts like she's 12 in a role that needs to be stronger--I hate Christain Bale's tough-guy Batman voice and puckered lips--I hate that Ra's al Ghul is on that train at the end just so Batman has someone to punch--why would he ever be on that train???!!? That's what minions are for! But Batman Begins has a good interpretation of Scarecrow and no cackling villains and it has ninjas, so it can't be all bad. I would watch it again. Meanwhile, Superman Returns has good performances by pretty much everyone. I was surprised by how much I didn't mind Kate Bosworth and I actually liked Brandon Routh. Kevin Spacey was misguided--he was playing some variation on Lex Luthor that I didn't really like, but he played that variation well. The supporting cast was not distracting. The special effects during the action sequences were almost totally fantastic. I hated, hated, hated the sequence with the young Clark jumping around the fields--that was bad CGI--terrible!--but the stuff where Superman is flying around and saving stuff was pretty great. I liked James Marsden's character--he didn't have much to do, but I like that he was heroic and likeable and not a dick or a wimp. I didn't expect that angle on the character. I hated that Superman has a son. If Singer and company cast young people like Routh and Bosworth to leave room for lots of potential sequels, why add the burden of a son to the story? Every sequel now has to be about the son in some way. It totally changes the dynamic, and it's a bad choice--it's an interesting choice, but it's no longer Superman--it's something else entirely. Maybe I'll grow to like that choice, but the sequels will have to be way better than this movie to convince me that it was the right direction to go in.

Basically, I like Superman: The Animated Series.
I think that's the only good version of Superman available right now (besides some of the comics--obviously Superman: Man of Tomorrow Archives Volumes One and Two are unbelievably great--they reprint the Weisinger era crazy-genius Superman stories from the late 50's. All-Star Superman is also a must-read. And I'm partial to the John Byrne revamp stories--epecially the Action Comics team-up issues. And there are a few good issues here and there, but overall--Superman: The Animated Series is the best, consistently right Superman as far as I'm concerned. Superman Returns, not so much. Unless you like your Superman to be a creepy stalker guy and you like your Lex Luthor to have sex with old ladies to earn money (he's a sex machine with all the elderly chicks, apparently--is that supposed to be a funny part of the movie? It's not).

Overall, not recommended. But you probably have to see it anyway. It's Superman.

Recommended: Icelander

After reading "Atomik Aztex," I thought maybe I was just burned out on fiction--I go through that phase every once in a while--but I just finished Dustin Long's brilliant "Icelander," and I'm happy to say that I just needed to find the right book, and this one is it! It's a fun (and funny) novel that's a Nabokov homage tied in with Norse mythology and Nancy Drew and Ethan Hawke (what more could you want, seriously?). Unlike "Atomik Aztex," this novel combines disparate elements into a satisfying narrative, a parody of detective novels and metafiction that is also an enertaining detective novel and clever metafiction in itself.

I highly recommend this book. Reading it will make you a better person.

Not Recommended: Atomik Aztex

Sesshu Foster's "Atomik Aztex" is a novel about meat packing, Nazis, supernatural beings, and and alternate reality where the Aztecs kicked the crap out of Cortez and his Spanish cronies. It has relentless prose by a manic narrator. I wanted to like it, and there were a few sequences I enjoyed, but I don't recommend it. I'm sure it was carefully crafted and honed by an obviously talented author, but I just found it too excessive.

Excessive "alternate" spellings (like in the title), excessive dream-like interludes, and excessive plot moments with little characterization. Perhaps I would like it more upon re-reading. But when will I have time to re-read this? Never, probably. I'll let you know if I do.

What I'm Currently Reading

I know I love finding out what people are reading, so I'm going to share my list of what I've recently finished and what I plan on reading over the next month or so. I hope it inspires you to read all of this stuff so I can have intelligent conversations with you instead of the normal small talk and chit chat that we call "conversation" but is actually just a facade to cover up your own insecurities and fears. Plus, you're pretty boring. Anyway, here's the list:

WHAT I JUST FINISHED:

Here They Come by Yannick Murphy. 30% great. It's supposedly a novel, but it's not. It's an extended short story with a nice prose style but little else. It's thin and underdeveloped and disappointing. Don't bother.

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders. 80% great. You should read the whole collection anyway, because George Saunders is easily the best short story writer in the history of the universe. Or at least one of my top five favorites, anyway. Just read the book.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. 45% great. The Lincoln chapter is worth the cover price. The Garfield stuff is somewhat interesting, but the McKinley section is dullsville (yes, I said dullsville because I am a beatnick all of a sudden, daddy-o). I really loved the Lincoln stuff though. Maybe you should just read that part, then return the book (perhaps use that thing they call a lie-berry).

Doom Patrol issues 19-63. 95% great. I'm writing about these issues in my Futurespective: Grant Morrison column at sequart.com. By the way, Sequart is sending me a contract this week so you just might see my book on the shelves in time for Christmas. (Ask Santa for it, because I ain't givin' you no free copy, sucker.)

Easy by Kerry Cohen Hoffman. 96% great. Kerry just moved to the Berkshires and I met her the other day. She'll be teaching some summer courses at Word Street and we're all definitely excited to have such an impressive writer join our crew. Her book, though, is excellent. It's marketed as a Young Adult novel, but I think it transcends that label without a doubt. You should read this book.

Solo issue 11, featuring the work of Sergio Aragones. 92% great. This series features a different comic book artist each month (actually, I think it's bi-monthly, but whatever), and collects new stories by just that one artist (hence, "Solo"). Previous issues have been fantastic, and this one is no exception. Sadly, the title has been cancelled, and it will end after issue 12. It's probably one of the consistently most entertaining and interesting comic books DC publishes, and they shouldn't cancel it. But sales suck, apparently, because people are idiots. So don't be an idiot. Buy it while it's still around.

On the video front, I also just finished the complete second season of Deadwood and the complete first season of The Venture Brothers. I HIGHLY recommend both. 95% great at least. Both series get better each episode and look so darn purty on my fancy TV. I like purty stuff.

WHAT'S IN MY TO-BE-READ PILE:

Atomik Aztex by Sesshu Foster. This was a Believer recommendation, and it's been compared to some other book I read that I'm totally blanking on, but anyway, something made me want to read it and the title is cool, so it must be good, right? I'll let you know.

Strong Opinions by Vladimir Nabokov. I'm actually about halfway done with this. It's a collection of interviews with Nabokov and it's no good to read in one sitting because some of the interviews are kinda similar. But spaced out, it's great, because Nabokov is a genius and probably the greatest novelist of the 20th century. No lie.

The Grove Centenary Editions of Samuel Beckett Boxed Set by Samuel Beckett, obviously. This is the four-volume hardcover collection that I am totally going to order as soon as I have some more money. I think I love the idea of the collection as much as I'm excited about the collection's contents, and it will probably take me a year to pace myself and read everything (I have trouble reading plays unless I'm preparing to teach them), but how can I resist such a nice set of books? I can't.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I finished half of this and then got caught up in end-of-the-school-year stuff that made me set it aside. I started it because I plan on systematically reading everything that Nabokov covers in his "Lectures on Literature" book. This is just the first title he lectures on. I think Bleak House is next. That's gonna take me a while.

Uncanny X-Men Omnibus by Claremont, Cockrum, and Byrne. This thing is huge. Like 900 pages of oversized X-Men reprints from the glory days. I have probably read these stories back in the late 80's when they were reprinted in the "Classic X-Men" series, but my memory of the stories is imperfect. I can't wait to start reading them again in this much nicer format.

Alpha Flight issues 1-25, by John Byrne. I read a book of interviews with comic book creator John Byrne a month or so ago. Byrne used to be my favorite artist when I was a kid, but as he became more of a crackpot and his style loosened up, I drifted away from his work. After reading that book, I recalled why I liked him in the old days. In his prime, he was as good as anyone. I began looking on Ebay for complete runs of his various titles, and I picked up a few things like "Generations" and "Jack Kirby's Fourth World," but I was really interested in completing my run of his Alpha Flight series (which featured the one and only Canadian super-team). Well, when I stopped in Fantasy Realms to buy my comics this week, respected owner James Arlemagne (hey James) pointed out his brand new dollar comic bins, and sure enough, he just happened to have all the issues I was missing (which was a heap of issues--but getting them for a buck each was cool, especially when the average comic book is $3.00 these days). So, yeah, I'll be reading these issues soon.

For future video action, I plan on a lot more TV shows on DVD this summer. I don't really have a huge pile of movies on the agenda, though I'm sure I own plenty that I haven't seen (Malick's "The New World" and Clooney's "Good Night and Good Luck" probably top the list--I'll see them some day). I would like to catch up on my Justice League viewing. I own Seasons One and Two and I want to watch those episodes in order, and Judy and I plan on finishing up (if possible) the second half of the Buffy and Angel seasons (actually, I don't think we're quite halfway yet--we're around Season Five for Buffy, I know that). Judy loves the Whedon shows, and I haven't seen all the episodes, so that's our big geek TV project for the summer (and maybe next summer by the looks of things).

That should keep me busy for a while.

And if you have any recommendations for what else needs to be addded to my list, let me know.

Ulric by Jeff Lemire

"Lost Dogs" creator Jeff Lemire sent me this crazy sketch after I praised his work on this blog (and e-mailed him with compliments). I guess the character's name is "Ulric" although I thought he was nameless in the graphic novel (maybe I just missed the part where his name was mentioned). Anyway, "Lost Dogs"=Good Stuff.

Drawn on a Scrap of Paper Tonight

Superhero Leg: Episode 2--The Showdown

Recommended: Lost Dogs

This is the best graphic novel I've read this year: "Lost Dogs" by Jeff Lemire (and I've read a lot of stuff this year--I like Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness a ton, but this is better). It's a haunting story about a man trying to do what's right. Just look at that cover. If that cover doesn't make you want to read the book then you won't understand the beauty of the book anyway, so don't bother. But if that cover looks intriguing, with its splashes of red and blocky composition, then you just might be cool enough to get what makes the book so special. Check out Jeff's website at www.ashtraypress.com to see more of his work (and a preview of his upcoming stuff).

Superhero Leg: Episode 1

MOME

I bought the first issue of MOME, the Fantagraphics comic anthology last summer at Comic-Con, and I enjoyed it, but I was a bit disappointed by it as well. I guess I was hoping to see an anthology with a lot of diverse work by different artists and each issue would be full of new and different creators. I was hoping for something like that Chris Ware McSweeney's issue, published every four months. Instead, MOME uses a regular group of artists who each produce one or two new things each quarter. So even though I liked the first issue, I wasn't excited about seeing just these same creators again and again. But I was wrong. After picking up issues #2 and #3 at the MoCCA fest last weekend, I realized that MOME is much more interesting and signficant than I originally thought. First of all, they have brought in a few new artists (like David B.) and the regular artists are producing some excellent work each time. It's such a nicely packaged book too. So, I've reversed my opinion. You should buyMOME. Regularly.

My new pledge

Okay--I forced you to look at my glorious moustache long enough. Now that the school year's winding down, I can update this thing more often, so you can look forward to AT LEAST two updates a week beginning THIS WEEK and running all summer if not forever...

I have so many things to discuss. Like the old photos I found at my aunt's house--I stole a few and I will be posting them with commentary to trace the development of my awesome hairstyles over the decades. Also, I just got back from MoCCA fest and that place was hoppin' with comic book goodness, so I'll have to take some time to wade through all of my purchases, but I'll soon be posting some "hey, kids, comics!" alerts and reviews and recommendations. Plus, if you're lucky, I'll even post some fancy new drawings that you may not have seen yet--MoCCA fest certainly inspired me to whip out the pens and brushes and get to work.

Until then, check out the brand new Word Street website--I'll be back in a day or two with new stuff here.

That's Right--You're Jealous

International Moustache Awareness Day: April 18, 2006. Admit it, you're jealous.

Book in Progress

So I know I haven't updated this thing in weeks, but I've been busy. Busier than you, obviously, if you actually have time to read this junk. Anyway, I've had some requests (one request--from my brother) to link from here directly to my supergenius work in progress at Sequart.com. It's a weekly column now, but within a year or so, it will be a book on Grant Morrison. You'll see. And I may autograph your copy if you pay me enough.

So check out my Animal Man essay. Once you're there you can see links to all my previous posts. I suggest you read them in order, otherwise you will make the Earth rotate backwards thereby reversing time and saving Lois Lane and stuff.