Some of you may know that I’m a pretty big fan of comics, or to put it more broadly, stories told in a visual format. I’m not heavily into the superhero stuff, but I love newspaper comics and graphic novels as well as cartoons and animation of all kinds. So, naturally, I was pretty excited when I discovered Scott McCloud a couple of years back. McCloud is the author of two fascinating books, the first, Understanding Comics, is a study of visual storytelling. It is presented in a very clever comic format, and even if you never intend to create your own comic one day, it brings up a lot of interesting stuff about how we convey perceive narratives. A second book called Reinventing Comics addresses the many doors that have been opened to the medium by the advent of computers and the internet. Today I happened upon McCloud’s website. I’m not sure why I never thought to look for it before, but I’m glad I found it. There’s a blog, a daily improvisational comic, and tons of other comics by him and others. Check it out. It’ll keep you busy for a while.
Comics on the Web
Barthelme and Pynchon
Counterpoint is rereleasing a collection of Donald Barthelme tidbits (it’s subtitled “Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays”), The Teachings of Don B.. The collection is perhaps most notable in that it contains an introduction by Thomas Pynchon. I’m fairly certain it’s the same essay by Pynchon that’s found here. It begins:Though to all appearances a gathering of odds and ends, what this volume in fact offers us is the full spectrum of vintage Barthelmismo — fictions thoughtfully concocted and comfortably beyond the reach of time, reactions less exempt from deadlines and rent payments to news of past moments that nonetheless remain our own, not to mention literary send-ups, intriguing recipes, magisterially extended metaphors, television programming that never was, strangely illuminated dreams, elegant ranting, debonair raving, and more, much more.Now that’s a blurb.
Spring Break
You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a few days. I’m busy finishing up my work for the quarter, and I still have some more to go. But when I’m finished, I promise to share my spring break – via this blog – with all of you. See you then!
Staying Sane: A Year in Reading (Part 8)
As would befall a good William Boyd protagonist, I fell ill and had to get penicillin shots during my vacation in Turkey. My only consolidation as I lay there was reading Boyd’s A Good Man in Africa, the story of an aspiring diplomat, Morgan Leafy. Morgan is stuck in Kinjanja, a British colony in Africa in the aftermath of World War II, and gets involved in plots to rig the fast approaching elections, hence finding his way out of Africa and to a better, higher, position somewhere more civilized. Torn between his boss, mistress, love affair, local tribe leader, and adversaries among the British population, Morgan struggles to make ends meet but the rising demands of the British government and the impending visit of a duchess further complicates his plans. A Good Man in Africa presents an amazing build up of circumstances and characters for uproarious laughter. Towards the end of the novel I was laughing uncontrollably as Morgan dug himself deeper in a hole. Misfortune and reflection of absolute British arrogance has never been as funny as it is in Boyd’s A Good Man in Africa.Upon my return to the United States and catching up on my Millions reading, I decided to pick up Don DeLillo’s Libra per the venerable J.P. Hasting’s suggestion. Previously, I had only read White Noise by DeLillo, which did not really impress me that much and furthermore left a bad taste for DeLillo in my mind. I am, however, very glad to have read Libra, which, along very similar lines to Oliver Stone’s JFK, presents a conspiracy theory explaining the President’s assassination. I have a tendency to get carried away and believe in the pieces I read, and Libra took my fascination with JFK’s assassination to a new level. The context that DeLillo creates, post-Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crises, and the characters that he presents, all unique with their grudges, distrust, hate of communism, and patriotic frenzy, make for a marvelous “fictional” read and an excellent conspiracy that I, personally, find extremely convincing. I strongly recommend reading Libra and watching Stone’s JFK back to back.Previously: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 7
Crime Fiction Revivalists
Millions contributor Rodger Jacobs sent me a note about Hard Case Crime, an imprint that resurrects the pulp fiction format for “the best in hardboiled crime fiction, ranging from lost noir masterpieces to new novels by today’s most powerful writers, featuring stunning original cover art in the grand pulp style.” Among those powerful writers is Stephen King whose previously unpublished book Colorado Kid will join new titles by Ed McBain and Donald E. Westlake in headlining their 2005-06 lineup. Here’s Hard Case’s writeup on the new King book and here’s a sample chapter.
Chain store horrors
In the Guardian, Tim Adams bemoans the shrinking selection and big budget marketing fees wrought by ongoing consolidation in the British bookselling industry (taking their cues from the American chain stores, it seems.) Behind this trend is the head buyer of Waterstone’s, a man named Scott Pack.(via Using Books Weblog)
Nabokov and His Butterflies
This morning I read this bittersweet story in the New York Times about the auctioning of Vladimir Nabokov’s personal effects by his son Dmitri. As Dmitri has no heirs, it was agreed before the elder Nabokov’s death that it would be best to sell the collection before the death of the younger Nabokov. Reading the story, with its descriptions of invented butterfly drawings for Nabokov’s wife Vera — “They have variegated colors, delicate artistry and fanciful names. Only on these pages appear the blue ‘Colias verae’ or the dark ‘Maculinea aurora Nab.'” — reminded me of how much I enjoyed reading Nabokov’s lyrical memoir, Speak, Memory, when I was in college. I read it for a class called Transatlantic Identities, taught by the dandyish Professor Tucker (who was most of all devoted to John Ruskin). We read a dozen or so memoirs penned over the last 150 years on either side of the Atlantic. Among these, Speak, Memory, was transcendent, inspiring an interest both in lepidoptery and Nabokov’s expressive prose. As I read the book, Nabokov, in my mind, was transformed from the scurrilous author of the scandalous Lolita to the quiet emigre with a fascination for butterflies, and whose expertise with these brightly- winged insects landed him the curatorship of the butterfly collection at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. Now that these butterflies have been scattered throughout the world, one can only hope that the hands that now hold them will cherish the butterflies as much as the hands that created them.