Meanwhile…

On Jens’s recommendation, I’ve picked up Shadow & Claw, by Gene Wolfe. I’ve so far read the first half, The Shadow of the Torturer, and it is excellent. I get the impression that I’m not really smart enough to catch all the allusions and what not, but that’s fine. I’m enjoying it and eagerly look forward to seeing more of this dark, declining world. It’s difficult to summarize, but if you took my advice and read and enjoyed any of China Miéville’s books, you’ll probably like these, too.

Between the two halves of that I happened to notice Sharpe’s Tiger at the local HalfPrice Books and nabbed that. It’s the first of Bernard Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe books. I’ve always wanted to read them, but never actually came across the first book of the series before. Technically, it’s not the first, but it is the first chronologically, being Sharpe’s first big military adventure, and set earlier than the other books. I’m guessing it doesn’t really matter what order you read them it, but the comic book reader in me wants to read it this way. I love that period of history, with the rampant deluded colonialism and technology just advanced enough to be dangerous to user and victim alike. There is still plenty of opportunity for adventure in 18th-19th century Earth. It’s been a lot of fun so far.

I’ve been obsessed with Phonogram: The Singles Club lately, having finally obtained the couple issues I missed when they first came out. Written by Kieron Gillen with Jamie McKelvie on art.  It’s a series about music, the effect it can have on us, and how magical that is. These comics haven’t left my side for the past week.

The series is set in a London dance club and all takes place over a single night. Each issue presents the night from a different character’s point of view, and by the end of the (fantastic) last issue you get a pretty complete idea of everything that happened. Each of the tales has a bit of a supernatural twist (in the Phonogram universe, music is literally magical), but the stories are still grounded and human. It’s a beautiful, funny, heartbreaking series. At some point I need to pick up Rue Britannia, the original Phonogram series.

I don’t think it’s vital to be familiar with the music that’s referenced throughout to enjoy the stories, but I noticed my enjoyment of the series ramped up considerably once I started checking out the bands (praise be to Pandora).

What are you reading?

Good news – A Thousand Faces accepted a new flash piece from me! I had a lot of fun writing this one. Look for that later this year.

Tuesday evening I pounded out more than I’ve written in a while. Perhaps I’m getting back on track after a pretty dry couple of months.

I’m a fan of writing these interview-style works. I enjoy writing dialogue, and the form really lets you explore the character and how they see the world and interact with others. Don’t have to worry about advancing a plot or framing an action scene. The story is in how the characters reveal themselves through their speaking. Just a couple of people sitting around chatting. It also makes me feel like I’m working on a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary (though I’m not nearly so talented as those guys).

There’s great poetry done in this style, too. So I thought, more as an exercise to get my brain going again more than anything else, that I’d write a few interviews with my fictional alien rock band, Virtuoso of the Serious Combat. By the time I got through the first section, the spark of a fuller story had ignited.

But do these sorts of things work as prose stories? I don’t know how entertaining they really are to anyone other than me. It may be that this will make a great screenplay for a short film, but not a short story. We shall see! I understand Script Frenzy is next month, too. Perhaps this will give me a chance to break in my copy of Celtx.

Anyway, here’s the rough first part of the interview series. Let me know if this looks like something that might be entertaining, in any medium. Continue reading

DC finally saw fit to release the second half of Morrison and Quitely’s All Star Superman in paperback. I raved a bit about the first volume a while back, and got to read the rest of the story this past weekend. To my great irritation, an absolute edition was announced shortly before I received mine in the mail. You’ve won this round, DiDio.

With the first volume I was most struck by just how amazing they made Superman. He was powerful and could perform phenomenal feats, and the reader feels great just watching him do these things. All of Superman’s greatest traits are showcased, from his selfless compassion to his intelligence (which is often overlooked).

Some people complain that Superman is too powerful, and they can’t identify with him as a result. That’s all bullshit. It’s not like more the modest powers possessed by the likes of Spider-Man or  Captain America are attainable by us lowly humans, either. Even non-powered heroes like Batman are far better than any real person ever will be. Powers are little more than plot devices, anyway. They aren’t important. The personality behind them is what matters, just like any other genre. Kal-el of Krypton has plenty of personality to identify with.

The second volume is focused on another theme: the world is a better place with Superman. To me, this is vital. In my years of studying stories of heroes, from the epics of Gilgamesh and Beowulf to The Odyssey and Star Wars and Seven Samurai, one of the most important questions asked of any good hero story is whether the hero and their deeds makes their world a better place. Gilgamesh returns from his quests for immortality to discover that his people haven’t just gotten along just fine without him, they’ve actually thrived in his absence. Beowulf’s heroic deeds brought nothing but trouble on his people. The motley band of surviving ronin at the end of Seven Samurai muse on what it means that the people they’ve historically oppressed are capable of turning on them or abandoning them when the warriors are no longer needed. What does it mean to be a hero? And who gets more out of the experience? Is it worth the collateral damage?

By the end of All Star Superman volume 2, I’m convinced that this is a book that has found a hero who makes the world a better place. His legacy is inspiring. His actions improve lives. He has stopped evil that wasn’t somehow his own fault. Even when he’s just a character on a page, Supes changes things.

I’ll need to reread volume 1 and then this one again to really catch everything (it’s that kind of book), but my initial impression is that this book has effectively made the case for Superman. Not that he really needed any help, but it’s nice anyway.

Since I have been known to occasionally venture into talking about feminism in pop culture and journalism both, I thought I’d bring this up (since not much else has been happening here lately).

You may have heard already, but a couple of weeks ago Mattel announced Barbie’s new careers – computer engineer and television news anchor.

What? She's a mathematician!

Computer engineer, fine. Young women should be encouraged to pursue technical fields. No problem.

[Is there a physicist Barbie? I don't keep track of these things. Perhaps she could come with a Large Hadron Collider playset and miniature black hole, and will be unattractive until she takes her glasses off, at which point she becomes a sexual dynamo. But I digress. (Mattel, call me)]

But I have to take issue with television news anchor. Television news, particularly the 24-hour news networks that have become so huge over the past decade or so, has done nothing but destroy actual journalism. I rarely bother with any of it, but it seems like every time I flip past one of those networks it’s either someone reading Twitter posts on air or some raving lunatic like Glenn Beck.

If I were an editorial cartoonist, I would take a minute away from feverishly updating my resume to draw an image of a man in a Newspaper suit dragging a man labeled “Journalism” into a grave while another guy in a Television hat stood smugly by with a shovel.

Not that Barbie couldn’t be a grave digger if she wanted. I just think she’s a classier gal than that, is all.