Category: Books

must be really important to a lot of people, if the parking lot of the Borders in Marin County is any indication! I had figured that since I was working late anyway, I could drop by at midnight tonight and gawk at all the kids.

When I drove by at around 11:30, the parking lot was full, with cars double-parked all up and down the entrances and the aisles of the overflow lot. And there was a line of cars waiting to turn in, coming from both directions. Crazy! You’d never think there’d be all that fuss over something as silly as a book; you’d think it was something important like a new cell phone.

I just hope that they don’t run out of copies before I can get one tomorrow lol!! But seriously, I’m kind of disappointed to miss out on the last big-event release that’s going to actually incorporate excited children instead of the excited man-children of gadgets and videogame consoles. Disappointed sitting here in the comfort of home, anyway — my hesitation and disappointment were completely non-existent when I was driving past the store; I hit the pedal so fast you’d think I was making a run for the snitch.

Hey, speaking of Harry Potter and working late: ever since my familiar has become a latchkey cat, he’s gotten to be a real fat-ass. I never thought they really meant it when they said pets take after their owners, but he’s got enough of a gut to make me suspect that he’s been dipping into my Coke stash. I’m sure it’s more likely that he just spends the whole day with nobody to play with, so he just lounges around watching the window onto the street, or “Cat TV.” And since I haven’t been around, I’ve been guilt-feeding him. Since it’s looking more likely that I won’t make my resolution to lose weight this year, maybe I can put the cat on a diet instead.

And yeah, I’m aware that it’s weird an inappropriate for a 36-year-old man to be blogging about Harry Potter and his cat. I can’t be sitting around having fun when I’m still 2 chapters away from finishing my steamy Hermione/Steve Jobs fan fiction!

I thought I had more to say about comic books, but once you get past the fact that I’m 35 years old and I still read them, there’s not a whole lot more left to say.

I’ve gotten several collections recently that I’ve enjoyed the hell out of, so they go into the list of

Best Comic Book Collections

1. Batman: Year One by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli
I don’t like any other thing that Frank Miller has ever done, but this is my favorite comic book. Go figure.

2. Hellboy: The Right Hand of Doom by Mike Mignola
There’s only so many different ways I can say that Mike Mignola is a genius. He’s such a brilliant artist, that it’s almost unfair his stories are so good. I’ll admit that 90% of the time, I can’t even figure out exactly what’s going on in a Hellboy story, and it doesn’t matter — he gets the mood, the pacing, the congolomeration of folklore and mythology, and the snatches of dialogue so dead-on perfect. B.P.R.D. is a lot better at plotting, which in a way is to its detriment — the stories just feel “smaller” somehow. The Right Hand of Doom gets my vote just because it has the story Box Full of Evil.

3. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
When Garth Ennis took over the book, he completely made it his own, and this is one of the best stories ever, comics or otherwise. Plus there are plenty of Pogues references. John Constantine makes a deal with the devil to cure his own lung cancer, with a genius twist at the end.

4. The Sandman: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Matt Wagner, and others
What happens when Lucifer abandons Hell. This was the storyline that got me back into the series after I’d given up on it.

5. The Collected Sam and Max: Surfin’ the Highway by Steve Purcell
Steve Purcell is my hero.

6. Fables: Animal Farm by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha
This series is about storybook fables (Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Cinderella, etc) living in exile in the “real” (they call it “mundy”) world. From what I’ve seen, it’s the best ongoing comic running. It took me a while to get into it, because the first collection is a pretty weak attempt at a mystery story set on top of an engaging premise. It takes off with the second storyline, though, and it’s completely engrossing. It’s funny, shocking, scary, violent, sad, and surprisingly fast-paced.

Willingham could’ve taken the easy way out, and just had characters like Goldilocks and Snow White having sex and shooting guns and tried to ride through on “edgy” street cred. And there is plenty of that, but it always takes it a step further, and builds a really engaging and surprising story on top of a predictable concept. Plus, Buckingham’s art is just perfect for the story. The biggest fault I have with it, and it’s kind of a nitpick, is that the characters suffer from Kevin Smith Syndrome, in which all people, no matter their age, sex, education, intelligence, history, or background, all speak like chubby white college-educated pop culture junkies in their early 30s.

7. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
A ridiculously exhaustive tribute to Carl Barks’ Scrooge McDuck comics, this book traces the life of the character based on small, off-hand references throughout the earlier stories. And it may be sacrilege to say it, but I enjoyed it even more than Barks’ stories. (And I think Barks’ stories are fantastic, which tells you how much I liked this book). It just amazes me to see someone putting so much care and detail into something that relies so heavily on such corny jokes.

8. DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
The story really doesn’t do all that much for me. But the art kicks so much ass, you can’t help but like it. The premise is all of DC’s Justice League heroes recast in the 50s Cold War era.

9. Mage: The Hero Discovered by Matt Wagner with Sam Kieth
An 80s “urban” retelling of the King Arthur story. It seems a little juvenile and dated now, but at the time I first read it, it was astounding.

10. Essential Fantastic Four: Volume 3 by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
I was never a fan of Marvel, so all I knew about their comics and characters were from cartoons, and the bits that rub off just by nature of being a comic book fan. It’s always just been understood that Jack Kirby was one of the greatest comic artists there was, so I accepted that without ever really being sure why. When you look at these issues, you can totally see why. He’s got the cosmic power dots, and the 50’s-era white guys with overbites, and the chicks with swingin’ bobs, and the crazy space helmets, and the Silver Surfer and Galactus. Just like you can’t appreciate a movie just by looking at stills, you can’t appreciate Kirby drawings without seeing them in the context of the whole story. I can’t explain it; it just is. And also, as pandering, sexist, and shameless as the writing of these comics are, you can’t deny that they’re just plain fun. I feel like I understand for the first time why Fantastic Four was such a big deal.

Honorable mention goes to Why I Hate Saturn by Kyle Baker, which would’ve been forced me to drop something from 1-10, but I can get away with it because it’s a “graphic novel,” not a collection. The real number 11 would’ve gone to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Volume 2.

I didn’t include Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, on purpose. The Dark Knight Returns, I’ve never liked, at all. And Watchmen is a great comic like Citizen Kane is a great movie — sure, I can look at it and see how meticulously set-up everything is, and how it’s full of allusions and references and literary influences, and how the design of it all some perfect construct. But I don’t like reading it at all. It’s clever, but doesn’t feel at all real to me. The plot, especially the resolution, is kind of weak.

Now, the most fun comics collections I’ve read recently are DC Showcase Presents: Teen Titans and DC Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold Batman Team-Ups, both by Bob Haney. You’ll see lots of things describing his writing as being “wacky” or “over-the-top;” better descriptions would be “batshit crazy” and “shamelessly pandering.” And it’s all awesome. You can tell with Fantastic Four that Stan Lee was having a lot of goofy fun with comics, but Haney just takes it to the next level. When you’ve got some free time, do a blog search for Bob Haney and read about some of his master works. It’s really what the silver age of comics is all about.

I realize you’re supposed to finish a book before you write a book report on it, but 1) I’m really enjoying this one, and 2) I’m bored and want to virtual-talk to somebody, and c) who knows, I could die tomorrow, and everyone would be at the wake lamenting, “If only there’d been more time. Now we’ll never get the chance to ask Chuck if he enjoyed In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson.” (In case I drop dead while blogging: the answer is yes, I’m enjoying it a lot).

When I was reading A Short History of Nearly Everything, I said that I was really impressed with Bryson’s writing but was frustrated with how he handled the material. While a historian and magazine columnist writing about science didn’t work well for me, a humorist writing travel memoirs works great.

For starters, it’s about Australia. Who doesn’t love Australia? Satanists, that’s who. And possibly New Zealanders, which is just about the same thing. The impression you get from In a Sunburned Country is that the country has the most bizarre and inhospitable environment on the planet, with the friendliest people in the world trying to counter-balance that.

The book is also funny as hell. I was sold as soon as I read the passage where Bryson describes himself falling asleep in someone’s car:

Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside — tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air — decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling.

Reading that was the first time I’ve laughed out loud at a book since I first found Roy Blount Jr.’s stuff. And he’s consistent; the book is filled with genuinely funny passages; even when he goes for the corny or predictable joke, it’s hilarious.

The best surprise of the book for me is that it’s reminded me to drop the preconceived ideas I have about people. Not Australians, in particular — the country as described in the book matches pretty well with how I’ve always imagined it — but people in general. I was pretty dismissive of Bill Bryson’s books, figuring anything that popular can’t possibly be good. I assumed they were light, and easy to read (both of which are true, it turns out), and full of Country Home Companion-style heartwarming, wry humor. I imagined the target audience, like Bryson himself, were suburban mid-westerners in their 50s who had excess income and leisure time they wanted to fill with something mildly adventurous. In short, the CBS crowd.

That was dispelled the first couple of times he said “fuck” and described himself drawing a cartoon about salmon masturbating. It sounds as if all you have to do is cuss and make giggling jokes about sex to keep me entertained, and while that’s true, that’s not my point. In fact, my point is the opposite. We’ve gotten so used to the idea that comedy has to be “edgy” to be funny, that it’s become just as tired a stereotype as the opposite. I suspect that people are a lot less sheltered and tightly-wound than we imagine them to be, and when your whole schtick is built around shocking people, more often than not you’re just being boorish.

The real talent isn’t in taking it upon yourself to shock people out of their complacent Father Knows Best existence, it’s having the subtlety and nuance to recognize exactly when saying “fuck” makes the joke. I’m glad I was wrong to be so dismissive about Bryson; he’s a lot more talented than I’d assumed.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud has gotten a lot of praise over the years, and it’s justified. It’s well presented, and it has some genuine insight into how art works (not just comics) and how people communicate. And even when you don’t agree with the points he makes, the book itself is an excellent example of how to make a presentation and of what comics can do.

Making Comics is even better. This is just a great, great book.

Everything about it — from the art to the tone to the organization — is cleaner, more sophisticated, more direct and uncluttered. It’s like attending one of the best, most insightful presentations you’ve ever been to, with a speaker who can make his head pop off his body and change shape.

He covers the insights into art and communication that have been his trademark since Understanding Comics, but never condescends, never seems removed or too “old-school” to be irrelevant, and grounds everything in the practical. McCloud covers all the topics from staging and framing to facial anatomy to perspective to buying art supplies, always showing you what others are doing while reminding you there’s no one right way to do any of it. You’re not just encouraged to make your own comics, you’re inspired to.

Because it’s such a practical book, it might not find as wide an audience as Understanding Comics did. That’d be a shame, because it’s a great read even if you don’t plan on making comics yourself. (And I think after reading it, it’d be hard not to want to make them yourself). It doesn’t come across as a lecture or a textbook or even a book, for that matter, but as a conversation with someone who just loves comics and wants to share them with everyone.