WALL•E (2008)

WALL•E is…

A Charlie Chaplin/Little Tramp movie, but, with, you know, robots;

A not terribly subtle social commentary that nevertheless gets its point across without heavy-handedness;*

kind of reminiscent of Silent Running, if Silent Running hadn’t been so relentlessy pessimistic;

proof that Fred Willard is the cinematic equivalent of nutmeg: too much can be overbearing, but just the right amount can really brighten things up;

a great love story, with, you know, robots.

*However, since part of the commentary revolves around the fact that the human race had to leave Earth after filling up the planet with all their consumer stuff, I kind of question the practice at the theater where I saw the film of giving a WALL•E watch to the kids who attended the screening.

Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier

I’m not sure I can remember the first Jack Kirby comic I ever read. It was probably in a mass market paperback sized reprint edition of the Fantastic Four, but maybe I’m overlooking a standalone issue of something. For years after that, I was aware of Jack Kirby among the pantheon of comics greats, just one more name among a group of legendary names. Not fully knowing why he was special meant that I didn’t comprehend how much of the visual architecture of the comics I read during my first great comics awakening in the 1970s and 80s was sunk into the bedrock of Jack’s Kirby’s work.

It wasn’t until I read the Kirby tribute issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I began to understand that he was a breed apart within his field. I know that the first time I read a Jack Kirby comic and really got it was in my early 20s when I got my hands on a copy of a Marvel anthology that included “This Man…This Monster” from Fantastic Four #51.

I also know this makes me a bandwagon jumping poseur — it’s sort of like acclaiming Groucho as one’s favorite Marx Brother, as though 95% of the world didn’t share that view — but there is a reason that certain things are acknowledged for their greatness.

There is a lot of greatness on display in Mark Evanier’s oversize biography of Mr. Kirby. First of all, the dimensions of the book, more coffee table book than traditional biography, allows the reproductions of Mr. Kirby’s work to be shown to great effect. Showcasing early comic strips drawn under a series of aliases in a range of styles to pin ups, commissioned pieces from late in his career, and countless stops in between, the art in Kirby: King of Comics almost makes the story of Mr. Kirby’s life and work superfluous. Almost.

Mr. Evanier, Mr. Kirby’s former studio assistant and friend, writes something more akin to a biographical sketch than to an exhaustive exhumation of every facet of Mr. Kirby’s life. It is a narrative that seeks to illustrate the illustrations it accompanies, or perhaps the illustrations are intended to narrate the narrative. Either way, like great comics, the text and image complement each other and convey a more comprehensive sense of story than either alone might have accomplished.

Because this is a book written by an interested party, it is largely favorable, but also seems largely honest while still doing honor to its subject. If Mr. Evanier avoids putting Jack Kirby on a pedestal (if only because Mr. Kirby’s drawing table is a more appropriate venue) he similarly refrains from casting a cartoonishly villainous light onto any of Mr. Kirby’s collaborators and employers. While Mr. Kirby failed to share in the financial rewards his work generated for his employer, especially in the area of derivative and licensed work, Mr. Evanier is honest that this resulted not only from ungenerous business practices on their part, but also from Mr. Kirby’s lack of business acumen. But these controversies, while noteworthy and significant, are in some ways extraneous to the powerful, dynamic work Mr. Kirby produced, or the ways that work defined — and continues to define — a medium.

The Jack Kirby story as presented by Mr. Evanier seems tailor made for the sort of biopic treatment Hollywood has given to individuals such as Ray Charles and Bobby Darin. His life had the arc on which such films so often rely; humble beginnings, personal drive, early struggles paving the way for tremendous success, mastery of chosen profession conflicting with the unkind realities of the biz, the ebb and flow of the later career culminating in acknowledgement of the proper place in the history of his craft. The only difference is that Mr. Kirby seems not to have needed to tame his personal demons in the same way as these performers.
While his life would be fodder for a film, I personally hope such an endeavor does not come to pass. Perhaps the recent success of films based on Marvel Comics properties (with more to come now that the success of Iron Man validated the profitability of the Marvel Studios financing endeavor) will limit interest in such a project. To tell Mr. Kirby’s story in the Hollywood way would necessitate exploring his relationship with Marvel, and the — how to say this diplomatically? — disproportionate nature of his compensation relative to his contributions. Such a story carries with it the sort of controversy that large companies seek to avoid in order to ensure or improve profitability. Thus, were such a film ever proposed, it’s not difficult to imagine Marvel’s owners attempting to derail the effort in order to keep the grazing pastures for their herd of cash cows verdant.

If superhero comics are a form of modern mythology — at its best, Mr. Kirby’s talent certainly elevated the characters and stories he depicted to that level, both explicitly (Thor, New Gods) and implicitly (X-Men) — it is equally the case that Mr. Kirby’s own life and work embodied a uniquely American mythology. As work, his career reflected the defining ethos of the 20th century: work hard, make money, provide for your family, don’t rock the boat too much, ensure your family’s security after you’re gone. As art, his work continues to fuel the production and articulation of new mythologies. Not bad for a kid from Yancy Delancey Street.

I resemble that remark

Recently, someone referred to me as a heckler. That reminded me that this…

…was a fun comic that was canceled too soon. Granted, it was no Ambush Bug, but then what is? Aside from, you know, Ambush Bug?

“With moderate power comes moderate responsibility”

Rich Burlew’s The Order of the Stick is one of my favorite web comics.

It’s funnier if you are now or have ever been involved in a dungeon-crawling based fantasy role-playing game, but aside from the occasional meta-reference it also scans well as an epic fantasy adventure story.

This strip encapsulates a philosophy of life I can get behind:

And so I’ve come to realize that I have a duty to use my limited competence to have a partial effect on the world, from time to time.

Well played, Mr. Burlew. Well played.

Lit Graphic

Richly visual and intimately understood, graphic novels — with their anti-heroes, narrative appeal, and storylines sometimes off-limits in other modes of expression — may be prepared to usurp the role that novels currently play.

I call bull%$#@.

Didactics are an important component of the museum experience. Good wall text provides museum visitors with background, context, and history. It illustrates something about the relevance of a particular artist or work in their medium or relative to their position in the history of art. It also explains how a given artist or work reinforces the theme of they exhibition in which they appear.

But oh my; didactics also become a channel for curatorial excess, overreaching, and pretension. Case in point: the above text from one of the introductory didactic panels included in the Lit Graphic: The World of the Graphic Novel exhibition currently on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Comics (or “sequential art” if you prefer) are (or is it “comics is?”) a wonderful storytelling medium. The form is dynamic, flexible, and capable of rendering everything from the birth of an idea to the death of a god, and all stops in between.

But “storylines sometimes off-limits in other modes of expression?” What the heck does that mean? The melding of word and image creates a singular vehicle for exploring all manner of stories, but comics are no more boundary-breaking than any other medium. The closest comparison to comics is film, which is also about presenting visual ideas sequentially. But as with any comparison between print and film, there is a level on which reading is always the more active process, watching the more passive. Regardless of how the information gets into our brain, however, the fact is that neither comics or film (or poetry, or painting, or sculpture, or any other creative endeavor) is constrained by storylines.

Anti-heroes? Narrative appeal? Is there a form of storytelling that can’t include anti-heroes? I’m hard-pressed to think of one, and that’s a good thing. Anti-heroes are usually more interesting than heroes. Is there some sort of narrative that isn’t, or at least can’t be, appealing? That’s a qualitative issue, and not one related to the inherent nature of comics, or any other narrative medium. Some stories are appealing. Some stories aren’t. Good storytellers can take the most mundane story and make out of it something that makes the audience reevaluate the very nature of the world around them. Bad storytellers can take great ideas, strip them of all originality and vitality, and regurgitate them in a way that makes the audience feel debased and insulted.

A mode of expression is a box. Whether that box contains diamonds or dog%$#@ says something about the skill of the creator, not about the structural limits of the box.

And usurping the novel? What the actual hell? Again, any comparison that assumes an absolute scale of comparison between two narrative forms is misguided at best. If cinema has not entirely usurped the novel, comics won’t be the ones to knock the novel off its perch either.

Grandiose and unsupportable claims notwithstanding, there is a lot to like in this exhibit. There was also much that I found either flawed or frustrating.

The gallery featuring pages from Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner was simply amazing. Looking at these selections, there is no doubt why two of the biggest awards in the comics field are named after these creators. The Will Eisner Spirit story on display in the gallery is a revelation; The Spirit barely appears in the story but his absence creates the suspense that drives the story.

Then, the scale of many of the pieces on display was impressive. As a comics reader, I’m used to seeing art on the typical comic book sized page, or smaller. Many of the pieces in Lit Graphic were original art, rendered on illustration paper. When published, the camera-ready art is reduced to the appropriate size. As with any reproduction, the process eliminates some of the texture and detail of the drawn work. Seeing it as the artist intended showed off the skill, and the effort, and made these works all the more impressive.

Case in point, the selections from Dave Sim and Gerhard’s Cerebus. In particular, the cover illustration from the collected Church and State I is phenomenal when seen in a larger scale.

As anyone who has read Cerebus knows, Gerhard’s backgrounds are terrifically detailed, with intricate cross-hatching and meticulous shading, while Mr. Sim’s characters are designed down to the last wart and unfortunate hairdo. The reduced image on the “phone book” collection of the story simply can’t do justice to the amount of effort it takes to produce a piece like this, or the level of detail it contains.

Indeed, this may be the most meaningful contribution exhibitions like Lit Graphic make to the comics field. It’s not that showing comics in museums legitimizes this art form and allows people to play the “Comics aren’t just for kids!” card. Rather, these showings demonstrate that comics are (comics is?) art. Comics don’t need to be legitimized, they merely need to be seen from a different point of view. By displaying these works at the scale at which they were created, by showing every pen line and brush stroke, Lit Graphic demonstrates beyond any doubt the artistry of comic book art.

For me, this great strength was also part of Lit Graphic’s greatest weakness. While the artistry of the creators exhibited is diverse, taken in the aggregate the show feels like overkill. Howard Cruse and Jessica Abel, to pick two names from the exhibition group, are both wonderfully talented, incredibly engaging storytellers with unique artistic styles. Put them side by side (or in the case of Lit Graphic, in the same gallery) and the work of each creator remains distinctive and recognizable. Put them in a gallery with other (and in some cases, lesser) artists whose work encompasses slice of life narratives and the unique style of each artist begins to give way to a certain sameness of convention and form. Taken collectively as representative examples from larger works, these individual panels and sequences become, if not repetitive, then at least somewhat familiar. The similarities start to overshadow the differences in a way that does not happen with a collection of, say, portraits.

But no exhibition is perfect, especially those organized around a particular theme. Large group shows invariably include things that will resonate with some individuals, and leave others unimpressed. What I like may not appeal to everyone. What someone else likes, I may loathe. That’s part of the museum going experience. So long as the these works revolve around a curatorial idea that has the gravitational pull to hold the pieces together, the exhibition can work, regardless of the subjective preferences of any given visitor.

By presenting comic book art as art first and comics second, Lit Graphic does a great service to this unique and important art form. It is both interesting and appropriate for the Norman Rockwell museum to present an exhibition like this. Mr. Rockwell’s career and reputation embody the often dismissive tension between the respect afforded to the artist by the elite, and their dismissal of art with commercial appeal as mere illustration. Just as the museum (rightly) insits on Mr. Rockwell’s artistic legitimacy, so too Lit Graphic helps to legitimize comics.

That’s achievement enough without attempting to stake out exclusive narrative territory for comics alone.

Lit Graphic is on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum (9 Glendale Road, Route 183 Stockbridge, Massachusetts 01262; 413-298-4100 ) through May 26, 2008.

Would you like to buy an O? Toward an economic and lexographic analysis of the letter as commodity.

Among the few prized possessions of childhood that I haven’t chucked in a fit of unsentimental aceticism or austerity over the years is my copy of The Muppet Alphabet Album.

I randomly had the song “Would you like to buy an O?” pop into my head this morning. It’s a great song, but I found myself wondering: if it cost Ernie a nickel to buy an O in 1971, what would it cost to buy one in 2008 dollars?

In order to work this out, we have to first determine the value of comparable commodities to Ernie and the other denizens of Sesame Street. This requires that we first make a general determination of Ernie’s. On the one hand, he is old enough that he is able to live independently, or at least cohabit with a roommate. That suggests he has reached his majority. On the other hand, Ernie seems quite childish/childlike.

It is not necessary that Ernie’s age remains constant over time; what matters is his age in 1971, which is when the song appeared on The Muppet Alphabet Album. Beyond that, age isn’t the primary issue; it’s more a question of both buying power and type of products bought.

So, if an O cost a nickel, how does that compare to other things Ernie might have bought? A five-cent O was the equivalent of half a ten-cent soda (or one-sixth of a 30-cent malted) at Mister Hooper’s store.

To put this in some context, let’s consider the comic book as an example of Ernie’s consumer interest. In the real world, Action Comics sold for fifteen cents in early 1971, and shot up to a quarter by the end of the year. Thus, Ernie’s O was worth anywhere from one-third to one fifth of an issue of Action Comics. This makes sense, since there are two Os in the title Action Comics alone.

When you factor in the Approved by the Comics Code Authority, the O in the issue number [No. 400], plus any Os in other cover text ["The Duel of Doom"], it seems likely that DC comics must have negotiated some kind of volume discount, or at least purchased an unlimited use license for the right to use the O. Otherwise, where would Wonder Woman or Doom Patrol have been?

The reader must also remember that when you buy an O, you get not one, but two O sounds (long and short). On reflection, it seems the O purchase must be more of a licensing deal than a straight up purchase.

Back to Ernie, it would seem that even at a nickel, the O was a pretty good bargain, if Hooper’s sodas and comic books are reliable indices. What I have no way of knowing is what the going rate was for other commodities Ernie acquired (delicious pizza and yummy grape juice, as a way of illustrating the concepts of more and less; a mess of modeling clay for making a noseless bust of Bert, the better to steal Bert’s nose; a banana to stick in his ear) might have been, in the micro-economy of Sesame Street.

But, again, if we project based on what we know, we can start to make a pretty good guess. A 15-cent comic book from 1971 would cost $3.00 today, a twentyfold increase. Similarly, while a soda at Hooper’s would have cost 10 cents in 1971, it’s not unheard of for someone to pay $2 for a fountain soda as part of a restaurant meal. Again, twenty times more expensive.

If this comparison holds out, it would seem an O would fetch $1 in today’s market.

But consider that other factors contribute to price. On the one hand, the O is a static commodity. There haven’t been any significant innovations in its production or application over the past three and a half decades. Aside from routine maintenance, the manufacturer has not needed to make any significant capital investments on the production side. Granted, the number and variety of fonts has proliferated over the years, which gives the O a whole range of different looks, but these are aftermarket modifications rather than factory specifications, and should not affect the base cost.

Indeed, inflation notwithstanding, the only significant pressure on the manufacturing cost should be the cost of the raw materials used to produce the O. According to my best estimate; it takes 14 component parts to make an O; for the sake of convenience, let’s refer to these as parts A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, and N. Logically, any price increase among any of these materials (based on either scarcity or increased demand) must get passed on to the consumer. Consider that Apple alone has driven up the market price for I since the introduction of the first iMac, to say nothing of the iPod, iPhone, iTunes, and iMovie. Then there are is the degree to which the personal computing era and the whole internet age has increased demand for E: e-mail, e-commerce, etc. Finally, consider how language has evolved over the years, especially in youth culture; when Ernie bought his O, “lame” as a physical condition, and few people, if any, said “def” or “feh.”

On the other hand, as you rightly note, the O, like most other products, has become increasingly commoditized over the years. Back when Ernie was buying bananas to stick in his ear consumers might get one banana per bunch with a sticker on it.

Today, nearly every piece of loose produce one buys in the market carries a label. Taken by themselves, the marginal cost of these stickers is negligible. The larger issue is the branding and marketing costs that go into designing and developing a promotional campaign. Again, that’s a cost that gets passed on to the consumer.

Then, as you rightly note, the O has become identified with one of the most widely known and wildly successful celebrities around, Oprah Winfrey.

Given how lucrative the celebrity endorsement market is, her use of the O for her magazine, and other trademark ventures, must cost a pretty penny. Does the manufacturer eat this cost? Of course not. They recover the expense by charging the consumer more.

The marketplace of ideas has also evolved significantly since the early 1970s. While newspaper readership continues to fall, it seems like the number of magazines and niche interest publications increases every year. Then there is personal computing, word processing, the internet, blogging and text messaging; each has led to an explosion of content generation, which contributes significantly to the number of Os the average person uses in a given year. At previous licensing rates, the manufacturer must be losing money. Since the goal of business is profit, the only way to stem that loss is to increase the licensing fee.

Materials, marketing, endorsement, and licensing; each of these factors drives up the cost of the O beyond the rate of inflation. When you factor in all of these real and incidental costs, as well as shipping costs and retail markup, the going rate for an O could climb to as much as $2-$3, if not higher.

That said, the retail marketplace has evolved over the years in ways that may be detrimental to the retailer, but which may ultimately benefit the consumer.

The example of superstore retailers like Wal*Mart and Target, as well as wholesale clubs like CostCo and BJs provide economies of scale that result in savings to the consumer. At the same time, if the manufacturer is outsourcing production overseas or over the border, the reduction in labor costs should also put downward pressure on prices.

The unfortunate consequence of these savings is that independent retailers like Lefty the salesman cannot compete on price, and must compete on service if they are to remain in business. Available evidence suggests that by and large Lefty has a keen grasp of a service-oriented sales philosophy. He takes time with his customer. He describes the product in memorable terms (”round and neat;” “tidy and complete;” “circular and sweet.”). He points out key features and functionality (”You can sing a pretty song with it like so;” “you get two sounds for the price of one.”), and makes those features seem appealing by describing them with words like “catchy.”

Indeed, the only potential downside to the Lefty’s technique is that he may come off as too pushy for some customers when he tries to close the deal. As online research makes it possible for customers become increasingly informed consumers, the “Don’t ask any questions. Just buy the O and take it home tonight” approach must necessarily give way to a more persuasive, and less imperative sales strategy.

The author is deeply indebted to the groundbreaking work of Professors Henson, Oz, and Raposo of the Sesame Institute for Humor, Language, Numerical, Quantitative, and Ethical Development in guiding the creation of this presentation. Thanks also to Visiting Lecturer B. Bird, whose lyrical speech “ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ” was an invaluable research resource. Finally, Professor Herbert Birdsfoot, author of the definitive exegesis on folkoric lexography, “The Tale of Tom Tattertall Tuttletut,” served as faculty advisor during the preparation of this work.

This post has been brought to you by the letters O and P, and by the number 12.

Iron Man (2008)

First things first: If you have not seen the film yet, and if you style yourself any sort of geek at all, stay through the credits. You will thank me. Of course, if you truly style yourself any sort of geek at all, odds are this little public service announcement is wholly unnecessary, as you wouldn’t dream of not staying through the credits.

Those post-credit thirty seconds? Best part of the movie, hands down, and a great setup for both a sequel and a spinoff. The leadup to the Big Reveal at the end was well telegraphed throughout the film. And while I personally prefer the classic version of the thing revealed I appreciate the sheer coolness of the parallel version chosen for this film.

I’ve drifted in and out of Iron Man over my thirty-plus years as a comics fan. More out that in, but the character has always been one I’ve generally liked. The film version of Iron Man does justice to the essential core of the character — wealthy industrialist weapons manufacturer forced by circumstance to confront his mortality, and his morality. Robert Downey, Jr. is note perfect in the lead role as Tony Stark/Iron Man. Beyond Stark, the supporting cast is solid, with Jeff Bridges the strongest of the bunch. That’s hardly surprising as giving a great actor a nice juicy villain role usually works out well in comic book movies.

As with any comic book movie, the man behind the mask is only half the equation; the mask — or in this case the armor — that defines the heroic persona is just as important. The Iron Man suit presented in this movie is easily one of the most note perfect translations of comic book gadgetry to the big screen. It helps that the core concept of the Iron Man armor over the decades has been almost constant revision and redesign (and the film plays with this convention very nicely, with Tony Stark suiting up in three different armors over the course of the origin story. It would have been easy enough to design something kinda robotic looking, paint it crimson and gold, and call it Iron Man, but Stan Winston and his crew did that one better; they created a believable translation from comic page to film. The models are terrific. You will believe a man in a cybernetic exosuit can fly.

In a summer movie season targeted at great geek expectations, including a new Hulk, a new Batman, and a new Indiana freakin’ Jones fer the luvva Pete, Iron Man started things off on a high note.

The Conclave of Shadows (series), by Raymond E. Feist

Hey, kids! Do you like fantasy stories?

How about a good revenge story?

And redemption stories; how do you feel about them?

If these are the sort of things that ring your literary bell, you could do worse than to check out this series (comprising Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, and Exile’s Return) set in Raymond E. Feist’s Midkemia. This is the severalth series of Mr. Feist’s that takes place in that world, but encyclopedic prior knowledge is not required to follow or enjoy these books. Personally, while I have read the Riftwar series, I have not read any of the intervening Midkemia books; although the Conclave of Shadows books make reference to events in the earlier books, I found these references came with enough context that I could either understand or infer the necessary details.

The books make for quick and entertaining reading, if fantasy is your kind of thing. While the series is self-contained, it ends with a cliffhanger that sets up the next Midkemia series. Indeed, the ending plays like the season finale of a fantasy or science fiction television series, with a reveal that just begs for a To be continued…

If I could figure out how to market this, I’d be rich (Warning: contains satire)

It’s Hacksercize, the new fitness craze*!

Here’s how it works:

1) Get the flu.

2) Cough for, like, three days straight.

3) By the end of the first day, you’ll be amazed at how much of a workout this simple coughing regimen gives to various muscles and muscle groups, including your abs, pecs, obliques, and trapezius…trapeziuses…trapezii…whatever.

4) By the end of the third day, amazement will have given way to whimpering, bargaining with the infinite for deliverance from the pain, and heartfelt promises to make eating better and exercising more a regular part of your daily routine.

*Don’t try this at home. Really.

Back from Hell

In college, there was a small parking lot near the residence hall where various of my friends who worked on campus during the summer lived. As a local, and without an on-campus summer job that provided housing, I lived at home, but spent most of my free time on campus. As the closest parking spaces to the residence, these spaces were always in demand.

There were seven spaces, which we ended up naming The Magnificent Seven. Not content with merely naming the lot, we not only went on to name the spaces after the actors who played the Seven in the 1960 cinematic classic, but we did so in order of decreasing badassitude. Thus, the space closest to the building was McQueen, followed by Brynner, Coburn, Bronson, Vaughn, Dexter, and Bucholz.

There is room to argue the respective rankings of Coburn versus Bronson. On an unweighted scale, Charles Bronson has the edge. He’s the only actor who hits the guy movie trifecta, having appeared in The Dirty Dozen, The Magnificent Seven, and The Great Escape. That’s a strong argument in his favor. On the other hand, the characters he played in these films are all cut from the same basic laconic and competent cloth. Being badass is also about being cool, and in The Magnificent Seven, Our Man Flint has it all over Mr. Majestyk.

When parking, you always hoped McQueen or Brynner would be available, settled for Coburn, Bronson, or Vaughn, and felt cheated if you got stuck with Dexter or Bucholz. Regardless, invoking Elmer Bernstein’s famous score was a karmic necessity to securing any of these much in demand spaces.

This ritual notwithstanding, I love The Magnificent Seven on its cinematic merits as well. While I certainly enjoy the coolness of the top tier characters, I’ve always had a soft spot for Robert Vaughn’s Lee. What can I say? I’ve always liked characters with a broad fatalistic streak. Lee is a man past his prime, and he knows it. Even though he’s lost the spark that defines him, he can’t stop being what he is, even as he know that what his is will be his downfall. In the film he talks about losing that spark. He says, “You can feel it. Then you wait… for the bullet in the gun that is faster than you are.”

I spent a lot of time thinking about the whole gunslinger past his prime trope last week. My friend the Stoat informed me of the Hell Night
dinners* at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge. Fortunately, a business trip to Boston coincided with a Hell Night, and we were able to check it out.

I’m a big fan of spicy foods. I’m one of those “the hotter the better, bring the pain mother@#$%er” types. You know, the obnoxious ones. I’m not one of the obsessives with a refrigerator full of boutique hot sauces, but given the opportunity to cauterize my taste buds, I’ll take it. It’s gotten me into some trouble over the years, as when my boast about my cast iron taste buds fell afoul of a chicken vindaloo that was well within my tolerance, but which sent a dollop of sauce down the wrong side of my windpipe on the first bite, causing me to lose all face among by dinner companions. By and large though, I like to test the limits of my endurance.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve noticed to my distress that my endurance was starting to have demonstrable limits. I hadn’t yet had my fateful encounter with the bullet (pepper) that was faster than I was, but I had to start acknowledging that such a pepper existed, and that it would find me some day.

So I was approaching Hell Night the way Robert Vaughn’s Lee approached the mission to save the village: as a chance to either face down a challenge worthy of my greatness, or to meet my end at the hands of foe worthy of taking me down.

I’m pleased to report that for one night, I found a third option: renewal. I not only faced my peppery nemeses, but conquered them.

I began my meal with habañero tequila, on the theory that if I was indeed courting doom, then as the poet says “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” Of the quality of the tequila I can make no report as the only thing I experienced of the drink was the heat of the habañero. I wouldn’t counsel drinking more than one of them, but it was a good way to start the meal. It was no so much a palate cleanser as a palate obliterator The tequila came with something the menu called sangrita as a chaser, but I can’t actually report any specifics. It was sorta pulpy, like maybe guava or tomato juice. It maybe had some flecks of chile in it. It went well with the habañero. It didn’t so much cool the flames, as provide counterpoint and restoration, making it possible to appreciate the flavors and complexities of the rest of the meal.

For an appetizer, I had spicy thai skirt stix, peppery beef skewers served with a spicy green dipping sauce almost like a chimichurri, and a thinner, but equally piquant chili vineagar. The beef was tender and flavorful, and the appetizer almost made me regret not ordering the skirt steak from the entree menu. The Stoat’s jalapeño cheddar Tasso hush puppies were terrific as well.

I chose the “Pissah Pork” as my entrée. This was a mixed grill consisting of blazing roast pork butt, an incandescent barbequed rib and a thermonuclear sausage-stuffed grilled banana. The sausage was like a chorizo made with habañero, and was easily the hottest thing on the plate. I suspect the banana was supposed to tame the heat somewhat, but it failed at this duty quite spectacularly, while providing a really interesting flavor combination. The rib was perfectly cooked, and featured both tender and cracklingly crisp bits, all wrapped in just the right amount of sticky spiciness. The butt was out of this world. The pork was rich enough to retain its own flavor, and subtle enough to serve as a delivery system for a really complex combination of herbs and peppers.

Of the various items on the entrée menu, there was only one that promised to be hotter than the pork, which was rated at five out of six bombs. There was a six-bomb lamb shank on the menu. Tempting though it was, I opted for the variety offered by the Pissah Pork. As so often happens, the decision was made easier by the choice of sides that came with each entree. The lamb came with basmati rice and spinach, both of which are perfectly respectable accompaniments, and ones I happen to enjoy. On the other hand, the pork came with mashed sweet potatoes and grilled pineapple. There are few things on this earth that will make me pass up grilled pineapple, and neither spinach nor basmati rice is on that short list. The pineapple was a terrific accompaniment. The chili mashed sweet potatoes were even better: sweet, creamy, and peppery. Both of these sides, along with the banana that came with the sausage, served as a reminder of how well sweet and hot flavors combine, and why that combination is the cornerstone of so many Caribbean sauces.

In the end, I don’t know whether this meal represented my last hurrah or a true Renaissance. As the final tolerably hot meal of my spicy food career, it was a fitting capstone. As a return to form, it makes me yearn for the next challenge. Whether I’m riding into the sunset, or merely over the horizon, this gunslinger sits high in the saddle.

*While the Hell Night writeup also uses the the chilehead as gunfighter metaphor, I thought about it this way before I visited the East Coast Grill website.

The Stoatsack Dispatch #1: The Children of Men, by P.D. James

Toward the end of last year, my friend the Stoat came for a visit. One of the (many) reasons we’ve sustained our friendship down through the years is a shared love of, and largely complimentary taste in, books. Her shelves regularly serve as an extended foster care facility for portions of my collection, and some of her books sublet space on my shelves. Books one of us has obtained, read, and enjoyed enough to recommend get passed along, along with the responsibility for their final dispensation (continued passing down a chain of readers, donated to a library book sale, consigned to moulder in a box in the closet).

Our taste is similar enough that most things one of us likes will appeal to both of us. We’re individual enough that sometimes our tastes diverge in interesting ways. This is good. After all, if all we encountered were people who simply mirrored ourselves back to us, how much less interesting a world would we live in? Finally, there are times when a recommendation backfires: in my defense, I thought Make Love* (*the Bruce Campbell Way) was a thoughtful gift. I was wrong. While I yield to no geek in my appreciation of Mr. Campbell’s work, this book was unfinishably unfortunate.

During the visit in question, my friend brought me a largeish paper bag full of books (the eponymous Stoatsack). It’s an interesting assortment: some mystery, some fantasy, a swashbuckling pirate tale, and a few others. I decided to use the Stoatsack as a strategic reading reserve, something to dip into when I’m between books or when nothing on my reading pile grabs my interest.

Faced with both of these requirements recently, and garnished with an impending airplane trip, I started the Stoatsack odyssey with P.D. James’s The Children of Men. I’ll admit I was not a tremendous fan of Ms. James going into this book; I’ve started a few of her mystery novels over the years, but never managed to finish one. In addition, my interest in reading this book was motivated more by wanting to see the film adaptation (I try to adhere to the rule of not seeing the movie until I read the book) than in any real desire to give Ms. James one more try.

Having completed the novel, I look forward to watching the movie. I can’t say I feel any particular sense of urgency about picking up another P.D. James novel.

The book presents a world in which the birth rate has declined to zero as a result of collective male infertility. The cause of this condition is never revealed. Indeed, it is somewhat beside the point, as the novel chronicles the consequences of this reality, rather than the condition itself.

Faced with the impending extinction of the human race, global society has largely collapsed. England is largely immune from chaos, due to the machinations of its seemingly benign dictator, the Warden Xan.

Xan’s cousin, Theo Faron, becomes involved with a group of revolutionaries who want to force Xan to practice the democracy he claims to champion. Through his involvement with the group, Theo, a historian and academic content to allow the ending of the world unfold as long as it does not impinge on his solitude, finds a reason to abandon his passive stance, and becomes central to a struggle — and a secret — that may herald a new status quo.

The book is about its themes more than its content. It is about how society responds to the collapse of established order. In Ms. James case, this collapse comes in the form of the absence of children. It could just as well come in the form of rising sea levels, or atomic devastation, or any other extinction event, and the questions would be the same. How does the human race go on beyond hope? Why does the race go on? How can faith survive? Who will maintain order, and what liberties will they sacrifice in the name of order? What happens to those who refuse to look away, or to those forced to look at truths they prefer to avoid? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? How thin is the line between these imperatives?

About ten years back, during one of my periodic re-readings of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I noticed something that had never occurred to me previously. Great swaths of the story are conveyed in exposition. Mr. Tolkien’s sense of place and attention to detail meant that the characters’ journeys where documented in exhaustive detail, with every feature of the landscape given attention perhaps beyond its due. This same level of meticulous taxonomy plagues the later sections of The Children of Men. As the novel builds toward its conclusion, the pace of the story becomes (frustratingly) tempered with descriptions of forests, and bridges, lakes, and lodges.

Detail is important. Ms. James is quite effective at establishing that while the forests and lakes will abide, the bridges and lodges will outlast their creators if nothing fundamental changes. When the change comes, why delay its arrival through fidelity to the extraneous?

All-Star Batman & Robin, The Boy Wonder #9, by Frank Miller and Jim Lee [Haiku review]

The goddamn Batman!
Robin kicks Green Lantern’s ass
Then the heroes cry

Unpack your (culinary) adjectives

A few towns over from where I live, there is a spoon of indeterminate but presumably highly concentrated greasiness. Whenever I drive by this beanery, I notice the sign in front that has the words “Large Food Menu” printed on its face.

I always wonder which noun the word “large” modifies, and which of the various meanings of large the sign’s creator intended.

Does the eatery have a menu of large food — meatballs the size of grapefruits, cheeseburgers with the same diameter as manhole covers, omelets made with a gross of eggs apiece?

Is the term “large food” related to portions? For example, do they serve diners enough pasta to choke a horse that was itself used to choke a blue whale?

On the other side of the equation, perhaps “large” is a measure of the extensivity of the menu itself. Perhaps this seemingly unassuming slop house has a selection reminsicent of a place like the Cheesecake Factory, where the diversity of the offerings raises the inevitable question of if they offer so many different things, how can any of them be good?

Regardless of the application of the word “large” one thing seems certain: I derive more satisfaction from pondering the meaning of this sign than I ever would from a meal at this restaurant.

Our Gods Wear Spandex: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes, by Christopher Knowles, with illustrations by Joseph Michael Linsner

Mr. Knowles has strong opinions. Show me a comic book fan who doesn’t. Like too many fans, Mr. Knowles often mistakes his opinions for facts. He falls into the trap of investing his blanket statements (particularly statements of subjective judgment) with the force of fact and truth.

In discussing the X-Men, Mr. Knowles writes,

Later in the 80s, The Uncanny X-Men became nothing more than a revolving showcase for the hot artist du jour. This process reached its apotheosis with the arrival of Jim Lee. Lee’s tendency to disregard Claremont’s plots rendered the book completely unreadable, but no one seemed to care because the art was so gorgeous. (page 176)

The tail end of Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men was weaker than his reputation-making collaboration with John Byrne. While the elevation of the comic book artist during the 1990s changed the storytelling balance, there are quality moments throughout Mr. Claremont’s later run. A larger problem with the coherence of later X-Men stories was the number of multi-title crossover stories that became common during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Writers like Mr. Claremont had to not only advance their own storytelling vision, but also advance plot threads inherited from other writers. This tension, combined with the increased prominence of marquee artists, worked in tandem to dilute, but not eclipse, coherence and creativity.

When Mr. Knowles isn’t grinding his numerous critical axes (against Rob Liefield, Image comics, and comic books in the 1990s generally), Our Gods Wear Spandex is rife with factual errors. In particular, Mr. Knowles has a problem with chronology. Consider:

Batman and Robin, the nearly unwatchable 1997 film directed by Joel Schumacher, brought the Batman franchise to its knees and nearly took the Warner Brothers empire down with it. This was followed by a string of superhero flops like Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, and The Phantom that threatened the future of the entire “comic book movie” genre.(page 7)

I have no objection to a bit of hyperbole in the service of making one’s point. Batman and Robin was both a bad Batman movie and a bad movie, period. The problem is, whatever cinematic crimes can be laid at Mr. Schumacher’s feet, inspiring “a string of superhero flops” is not one of them. Both Judge Dredd and Tank Girl were released in 19954. The Phantom disappeared from screens as quickly as it appeared in 1996.

Later, in discussing Alan Moore’s career, Mr. Knowles writes,

Rejuvenated by his occult awakening, Moore reentered the industry mainstream, hijacking Rob Liefeld’s Superman knockoff Supreme and turning it into a paean to the innocence of the Silver Age heroes. He followed this with a mini-series that paid tribute to the Silver Age called 1963. (page 201)

Again, that old devil linear time plays havoc with Mr. Knowles’s assertions. Mr. Moore’s 1963 commenced in 1993. Mr. Moore took over Supreme (which launched in 1992) with issue 41.

While I admit a preference for The Comic Book Heroes by Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, Our Gods Wear Spandex is perfectly serviceable history of the American comic book. When Mr. Knowles sticks to the facts, his work is solid. When he stretches to make a point, shore up a pet opinion, or to force the facts to fit his occult thesis, the book suffers.

Black Dossier, by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill

All the cool kids and smart people have weighed in on this already, but I needed time to reflect. Saying anything sooner would have been like trying to deconstruct a multi-course gourmet meal while your stomach is still full. It’s possible to break down the experience, but you’re still to close to it. Better to get some rest, have a Bromo, and wait until the concept of food is no longer so uncomfortably immediate.

That Alan Moore creates on his own special level, there can be no doubt. That Kevin O’Neill is an equal partner in chronicling the case history of the League(s) of Extraordinary Gentlemen is equally self-evident.

That’s the first thing; there’s just a hell of a lot going on in this book, which covers thousands of years of public (and not so public) domain stories, stitched together by Mr. Moore’s and Mr. O’Neill’s imagination and creativity. I would call this a crazy quilt, but the seams between each panel are too neat and tight, and the panels themselves so internally consistent and true to the various source materials to which they owe credit, that the result is something damned impressive, and also damned frustrating.

Personally, while I’m impressed with Mr. Moore’s setting for the framing story that serves as the foundation for Black Dossier — a jump forward in time from the end of the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume — I miss the earlier turn of the century steampunk wonder of the earlier stories. Seeing Allan Quatermain and Mina Murray rejuvenated in a post-Orwellian England is interesting, to be sure, but it’s difficult to connect these eponymous characters with their precursors.

The various accounts of Leagues past are hit or miss. I quite liked Mr. Moore’s ability to write in a credible Shakespearean idiom in the “lost” play Fairy’s Fortune’s Founded, while also connecting Prospero from The Tempest to a stalwart of contemporary popular fiction. “What Ho, Gods of the Abyss,” a synthesis of H.P Lovecraft and P.G. Wodehouse, is similarly compelling, while maintaining absolute fidelity to its respective source materials. On the other hand, the extract from the faux Beat novel The Crazy Wilde Forever is all but unreadable for any reason other than sheer bloody-mindedness.

The other extracts are equally effective, but of less interest to me personally. Depending on how you score such things, that is either a strength or a weakness of the book. I suspect any reader willing to make the investment of time and attention — as funnybooks go, Black Dossier is text-intensive, with quite a lot of text packed into each page — will find something to appeal. At the same time, the book as a whole does not add up to a single coherent narrative, which may frustrate readers who find themselves engaging with some aspect of the story only to be swept into another mode with little transition between them.

My pal Scott tells me there’s a TARDIS hidden somewhere in the final sequence of the book, but I haven’t managed to locate it yet.

Thursday Next in First Among Sequels, by Jasper Fforde

Forget the story, which provides the usual blend of puns, word play, time travel, and social commentary. If you enjoy these things, and can overlook the author’s occasional tendency to get overly precious and smug, you’ll enjoy the book. If you enjoy these things and aren’t familiar with the Thursday Next series, I refer you to The Eyre Affair, the first novel in the series.

What really matters here is that Mr. Fforde slipped one past me. He set up a joke I was predicting in a way that eluded me until I reached the payoff. I would like to say this was a testament to his cleverness and skill, but it was really a case of my being insufficently observant. Bastard.

Making Money, by Terry Pratchett

Imagine you are a powerful leader — king, president, senator, mayor, what have you. You have been in your job for a very long time, and have secured a reputation as a tyrant (with modifiers ranging from benevolent to absolute, depending on who is doing the modifying, and how much they truly understand about what leadership requires). At the same time, you are smart and savvy enough (not only do you not miss anything, but you know the precise location and configuration of every possible thing those around you do miss) to know that nothing lasts forever, including your own term of leadership. What do you do?

On the surface, Terry Pratchett’s latest Discworld novel is about banking and finance. It’s the second book featuring Moist von Lipwig (introduced in Going Postal, a book ostensibly about the postal system in Mr. Pratchett’s all too realistically fictional city of Ankh-Morpork). Lipwig is a semi-reformed con man whom the city Patrician, the above referenced leader Lord Vetinari, spares from execution and sets to work serving the city.

In Going Postal, he resuscitates the city postal service. In Making Money, he is rewarded for his efforts by being given command of the city’s ailing Royal Bank. This being a Terry Pratchett novel, there are the required complications — including, guardianship of the dog that is the bank’s majority shareholder, missing gold, prison breaks, ancient golems, lecherous necromancers, the sudden return of a former con game partners — that Lipwig must navigate in order to keep the bank running and his skin intact.

That’s the surface story. The larger story concerns the questions posed above. This is pure speculation on my part, but the real point of the Lipwig story appears to be an attempt to answer the question How does a leader choose his successor?

In Mr. Pratchett’s previous outings, the civic leaders of Ankh-Morpork are regularly depicted as scheming incompetents with limited understanding of the reality of anything beyond their own ambition. They see power as something to grab in order to wield it as a blunt instrument. The Patrician, on the other hand, has developed his rule into a precision machine, one that keeps the city running as smoothly as so complex an organism can possibly run. What happens to that machine when he no longer operates the controls?

One possible answer is to find someone who doesn’t crave power, but who needs a challenge to feel truly alive. Then, having found such a person, to put them through a rigorous apprenticeship organizing large systems and ensuring that they not only function properly, but that people accept and embrace the integrity of these systems.

I could be wrong — predictions often are. At the same time, I read the Lipwig books as the education of the next Patrician. Presumably Mr. Pratchett still has plenty of Lord Vetinari stories to tell, but having crafted such a rich and sweeping world, I have to believe he thinks of such things. A suggestion near the end of the book would seem to bear out this speculation, but, of course, only time will tell.

The Warrior’s Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold

This is, technically the first novel in the (Miles) Vorkosigan saga, although it may or may not have been the first one written/published, and there are stories that take place earlier in the Vorkosigan universe chronology, but this is kinda, sorta, more or less where it all began. Or maybe not.

I confess I find the whole thing more than a little bit confusing, and trying to sort it out just gives me a headache*. In this regard, I am a bit like Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of this novel. His story is not so much a narrative as an accretion of escalating crises and obstacles that he must bluff, finesse, or simply demolish in order to save his own skin, pay off a mountain of debt he incurs, resolve one interplanetary war and keep another empire from suffering a coup. Also, there are spaceships and doomed romance.

I’ve worked my way through most of the series, and took advantage of a recent library book sale (twenty-five cent paperbacks; how can you go wrong?) to come back around to this one.

[*Note, if you're the sort of obsessive-compulsive SF completist who feels compelled to explain things like this in exhaustive, patronizing, and DSM-IV-diagnosable personality disorderly detail, please be aware of the following: a) if I truly cared to be enlightened, I possess sufficient brainpower to work it out for myself; and b) I'm exaggerating my ignorance just a smidge.]

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

As you continue on your path, you will lose some friends and gain some new ones. The process is painful, but often necessary. They will change and you will change, because life is change. From time to time, they must find their own way and that way may not be yours. Enjoy them for what they are and remember them for what they were.

— John Sheridan, Babylon 5, “Objects at Rest”

Not only is life change, but the passage of time brings change to all things. Not terribly profound, I know, but relevant to Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. This direct to DVD feature includes two short stories set ten years after the founding of the Interstellar Alliance, in the time between “Objects at Rest” and the series finale “Sleeping in Light.”

The first story concerns a case of the apparent demonic possession of a B5 crew member, and station commander Colonel Elizabeth Lochley’s (Tracy Scoggins) summoning of a priest from Earth to perform an exorcism.

The second lost tale recounts President John Sheridan’s (Bruce Boxleitner) return to B5 for a ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the ISA, and the burden of life and death laid on him by the Technomage Galen (Peter Woodward).

The first story is the weaker of the two. The musings on religion — and faith — among the stars feels like an interesting science fiction idea grafted onto the Babylon 5 framework rather than a story native to the established universe. Structurally, it’s divorced from Babylon 5 aside from taking place on the station and featuring the Lochley character, neither of which are essential elements of the story. Beyond that, it’s a largely static story, a conversation between Lochley and the priest, interspersed with confrontations with the “possessed” crewman. The Babylon 5 series features plenty of conversations about a whole range of big ideas, and many of them work. The essential ingredient to making this story effective is a level of energy that’s unfortunately lacking in this case.

The second lost tale turns on the classic conundrum of the morality of killing someone currently blameless if doing so might save countless lives in the future. It’s the “If you could go back in time and kill the infant Adolph Hitler if by doing so you know you would prevent World War Two, would you do it?” thought experiment. To use a different science fiction metaphor, it’s the ol’ Edith Keeler question from the classic Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” In the story, Galen shows Sheridan a vision of future destruction, and tells him that killing a young man will prevent the war that gives rise to that destruction. The story turns on Sheridan’s decision.

In this case, the big idea is meatier, and Sheridan’s response draws more directly on what Babylon 5 is all about. At the same time, while the moral question is real, writer, director, and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski can’t help stacking the deck in Sheridan’s favor.

This return to the Babylon 5 universe was like a much-anticipated visit from an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time. Initially, it is exciting, and comfortable, and reminds you of the good time you shared. In this case, the familiar music swelled, and the familiar faces flashed across the screen, and I was able to remember how this show grew on me, and how invested I became in these characters. Sure, the faces are showing some age (but whose isn’t?). Seeing the past and the present side by side can be jarring — in this case, I couldn’t help but be thrown by the fact that the computer generated color palette of the Babylon 5 station was off; the blue of the station wasn’t the same blue used in the series. But all in all, it was, initially, a welcome reunion.

Gradually, though (or not so gradually, as this feature only ran for 72 minutes, including credits), time spent with old friends not only reminds you of the things you love about them, but also of the things that drive you up a goddamn tree. In the case of the Babylon 5 universe, this includes things like being too clever by half, being overly verbose, and indulging in an almost treacly sentimentality. Against an epic backdrop, with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance, or the life of a much beloved character at stake, these…limitations can become assets. In stories as small, and personal, and divorced from everything that came before as these two lost tales, they just serve as reminders that nostlagia tends to idealize.

As with all such reunions, getting together with old friends/characters also points out the empty spaces around you shaped like the friends who aren’t part of the reunion. The Lost Tales stories focus on Sheridan, and Lochley (and Galen, who was part of the Crusade spinoff, and not properly part of the old gang; a friend of a friend crashing the union, to further torture an already well-abused metaphor). While the characters reference other series regulars, these passing mentions largely reminded me that I always found Garibaldi, and Londo, and Vir much more interesting characters than the ostensible series leads.

And then, much as I missed the characters, their absence made me wonder why the actors weren’t part of the stories? Budget constraints? Lack of interest? Too busy? These ruminations interrupted the flow of the narrative and brought me out of the story.

The one place where this storytelling device works for me is in the reference to the characters of G’Kar and Doctor Franklin, played respectively — and always respectably — by the late actors Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs. The in-story tribute to the them is touching, despite feeling forced from a script perspective. The bonus feature memorials to the actors are quite nice as well.

And so, while I tried to enjoy Babylon 5: The Lost Tales for what it is, the DVD served as a powerful reminder of what Babylon 5 was, and that change often creates distance, even among old friends.

Powers Scriptbook, by Brian Michael Bendis, with illustrations by Michael Avon Oeming

I read and enjoyed the comic book series Powers for the first couple of years of its run. I gradually lost interest in it. This should not be taken as any reflection on the quality of the series, but rather an indication of how my attitude — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say my level of investment — toward comics has evolved over the past decade. I’ve become more subjectively discriminating. If a particular storyline no longer grabs my attention, I’m more willing than I used to be to put aside a series for a few issues or a few years than I am to ride out the storyline. Should I decide I missed out on something along the way, well that’s what trade reprints are for, you know?

At the time I was reading Powers regularly, I enjoyed it enough to invest in the collateral materials, like the coloring book, and the Powers Scriptbook. I bought the scriptbook five or six years ago, and it sat on my bookshelf, or in a box of books ever since. When I was reading the issues, I never really had to motivation to reread them in script form, and then once I dropped the series I just never got around to it until recently.

It’s an interesting way to approach the story. The script format provides an effective contrast to the comic books story. It also serves as a blueprint for the collaboration between Mr. Bendis and Mr. Oeming. In particular, it demonstrates the degree to which Mr. Bendis is an extremely visual writer. I suspect he’s hardly unique in this among comics writers, but the level of detail and precision he indicates for certain of his panels, pages, and scenes. There are also places where he directs Mr. Oeming to…indulge himself.

As someone who likes The Process(tm), I found a lot to enjoy in these scripts. As someone who is fanatical about spelling and grammar in published work, I found the rough and unedited content of the scripts variously distracting and frustrating. I recognize that there is a different standard for script work, which represents the story in its preliminary form just as rough pencils and sketches are less polished than finished art, but I still wanted to go through the damn book with a red pen.

American Born Chinese, by Gene Yang

This is a beautiful piece of work.

It’s funny, and exciting, and sad, and embarrassing, and moving, at times touching two or more of these bases at the same time. American Born Chinese tells three stories that end up interlocking, all of them tied togehter by the themes of pride and humility, tradition and assimilation.

Gene Yang uses Chinese mythology — specifically stories about the legendary character The Monkey King — realistic narrative, and stylized cultural stereotypes to tell his story. In doing so, he taps into the often overlooked potential of the comic book form. American Born Chinese is a reminder that the combination of words and images is incredibly powerful.

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

At the risk of getting all Comic Book Guy on the matter:

I will not make a movie without a good story to tell.
I will not make a movie without a good story to tell.
I will not make a movie without a good story to tell.
I will not make a movie without a good story to tell.
I will not make a movie without a good story to tell.

I was deeply disappointed in The Simpsons Movie. It wasn’t bad so much as flat. For every laugh out loud moment there were two moments that felt recycled and downright tired.

Homer’s selfishness and thoughtlessness almost dooms his marriage? Been there.

Bart rejects Homer in favor of a stronger father figure or more positive role model? Done that.

The Simpsons acquire a new/unusual pet? Do the names Santa’s Little Helper, Stampy, Laddie, or Mojo mean anything to you?

The Simpson have to escape Springfield one step ahead of a person/group? All this plotline did was make me wonder where the hell Sideshow Bob was. They have the opportnity to tell the quote ultimate unquote Simpsons story, and they leave out Bob? For shame!*

Homer is dragged into a spiritual/vision quest in order to find the clarity/redemption he need to do the right thing? It was funnier when Johnny Cash was his spirit guide.

A Simpsons movie should have been epic. Granted, if you look to the box office returns, it didn’t need to be epic to get the job done, but without a good reason, why make the transition from television to film? Don’t get me wrong; seeing Homer and Marge and all of the rest of Springfield rendered in a richer color palate with a sharper resolution was nice and all, but the results just scream “wasted potential” to me.

For that matter, President freakin’ Schwarzenegger? Why? Did the producers think audiences wouldn’t be able to infer the connection between the Governator’s Springfield doppelganger Ranier Wolfcastle and the real thing? Was this supposed to be some kind of half-assed attempt to plant the seed for the constitutional amendment required to pave the way for a Schwarzenegger presidency? Curse you and your manipulative perfidy, Rupert Murdoch!

50. Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman

This is a fun book. Not a great book, necessarily, but a damn fun book. It helps to be conversant with a broad range of superhero lore, but the general story should be reasonably accessible — if a bit less fun — without that specialized knowledge.

Doctor Impossible, the villainous protagonist (which is not the same as an antagonist) is a pure comic book archetype. He’s three parts Lex Luthor, one part Doctor Doom, one part The Flash’s Rogues’ Gallery, with just a dash of Charlie Brown (technically a comic strip rather than a comic book character, but, hey, they’re practically in the same sequential art zip code, so work with me here, willya?) sprinkled over the top. He’s likeably evil, undeniably brilliant — something he wastes no pains reminding the reader at every turn — and more than a little bit pathetic. If he can’t have acceptance, then at least he’ll get plenty of attention.

Fatale, the novel’s heroic co-narrator, is the weaker character. Where Doctor Impossible is busy enacting his latest scheme for world domination, Fatale, a novice member of the latest incarnation of the world’s greatest super team, is far more reactive. Throughout most of the book she’s a witness rather than a player, serving as a viewpoint into the world of the superheroes. That is to say the things she sees, and the perspective she brings to them, are by and large more interesting than most of the things Fatale herself does. This allows Mr. Grossman to find amusing new angles on stock characters (the impetus behind that Batman-analogue character’s obsessive nature, for example, is logical, once you think about it).

Of course the action builds to the inevitable climax in the villain’s lair. While the execution of the story is reasonably predictable (including a late story revelation about one character’s true origin which was telegraphed Mr. Grossman has enough familiarity with and respect for the conventions he’s employing to leaven that predictability with a level of energy that makes the story fast-paced and engaging.

46. Sci-Fi Private Eye, edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg

The stories in this anthology run the gamut from Sherlock Holmes pastiches (Poul Anderson’s too precious by half “The Martian Crown Jewels” and Philip Jose Farmer’s more inventive “A Scarletin Study”) to noir/SF hybrids ranging from the hard-boiled (Tom Reamy’s “The Detweiler Boy”) to the half-baked (Wilson Tucker’s “Time Exposures”) to selections that have only the most tangential relationship to the SciFi PI theme (Robert Silverberg’s “Getting Across” as well as the two best stories in the book, Donald Westlake’s “The Winner” and Philip K. Dick’s “War Game”).

Why are you here?

Every now and again, I check the blog stats page of the WordPress dashboard for the ol’ Bowleg. Since pretty much nobody I know aside from The Lovely Wife knows about this little bit of real estate, I’m always curious how — and more importantly, why — people out there in the wide world happen to stumble across this

Yesterday, for example, I note that I had one hit, based on the search terms “robert crais, watchman.” Now, being that Mr. Crais is a reasonably popular writer, this is the latest installment in his Elvis Cole series, and there are plenty of people who log and or review books online, I’m actually somewhat surprised that it only takes 614 Google hits before one finds the link to my particular log of Mr. Crais’s The Watchman. This puts me in the top 1% of all references to the book. Take that, hit number 783!

But that’s not my point. I’m curious why someone looking for information about Mr. Crais’s latest book would dig a minimum of 624 hits in, and click through to read my pointless little trifle about the novel. Is there really anything that requires 624 hits or clickthroughs to get a comprehensive picture of what has been written about any subject? Isn’t that taking obsessive compulsiveness to an obsessive compulsive degree?

So, welcome, reader, to the 624th most relevant thing said to date about The Watchman. Onward to 623rd place!