2020-03-18

I read some comics (and Jane Austen) and then started the Covid Comics Extravaganza because what else am I supposed to do?

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017) Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks, finished February 29

Terrific little comic for, oh, ages six to death, about the three great women of primate observation (1, 2, 3). I don't have much to say about it other than, even though it was slight, it has heft and I learned more than I knew and someone who knew nothing might be amazed. I can easily imagine this being a book that sends someone on this sort of lifepath.
two days


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018) Calexit by Matteo Pizzolo | Amancay Nahuelpan | Tyler Boss, finished March 7

Can't remember how I first heard of this comic, but it was the same time I heard about balancing right-wing products.

I wasn't going to buy any of these, but I was curious. The libraries didn't carry any of them at that time either, but three weeks ago, I bumped into this at a local branch and checked it out.

The storytelling is pretty solid. I expected it to be more side-taking political (and there's not mistaking its spin), but everything is more complex than I expected. This is recognizably L.A.---these are recognizable Angelinos.

This is also wildly violent and sexual---do not give to your kids.

I'm mostly irritated this is just a volume one. Come on. I want a movie, not a tv show.

Sigh.

Almost half the book is interviews by the writer, Pizzolo, with a wide variety of white liberals.

A wild fact about this book is that it was well underway before Trump became president. Naturally, that played into the development and the finished product, but hey. Way to go, Cassandra.

three weeks


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019) Emma by Jane Austen, finished March 8

I first started Emma nine years ago, but laid it down and never got back to it. Then a few months ago I picked up a paperback from a Little Free Library, and then I saw a compelling poster for the new film and made an attempt to read it by the release date (didn't quite make it, but it's still in theaters).

I liked it.

I was also intensely irritated by it through out. Even when Emma finally starts to actually learn some lessons and grow up (post-Box Hill, that is, right near the end), she's still largely clueless and obnoxious.

The version I read includes an intro by one Margaret Drabble which I read afterwards. She's not totally enthralled by the novel, but she read it quite differently than I did. I'm pretty convinced Jane wasn't eager to have us like hardly anyone in this book. Some of the characters seem like, had they been the protagonist, would have made much more delightful novels---but she didn't make them protagonists, did she?

The number of characters I desired to throttle at one point or another during the course of this book is enormous. At times, say with the introduction of Mrs Elton, I though Emma's dislike of her was a hint I would like her. Nope. She was awful too.

The endless series of happy endings that prevents the novel from ending when I would have liked it to is also very strange. Do these people deserve happy endings? Are these endings happy? Will they still be happy endings as the years pass? I genuinely do not know.

The best humans in the book are Mrs Weston and Mr Knightley, but even they are suspect. This may be my modern eye, but Mr Knightley for instance fell in love with Emma when she was just thirteen.

I'm not convinced Austen is selling that to us as a meet-cute. It feels like it should really make us rethink the best person in the book as slightly suspect.

Anyway, it was good but I can't imagine rereading it, which puts it in a bucket with Northanger Abbey.
two months


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020) Animal Man by Grant Morrison, Book One, by Morrison and team, finished March 14

I love when you finally pick up a Seminal Event that Changed Everything and it really is (even still) that good.

Sadly, we're on covid19 lockdown now and I may not be able to get volume two where the most famous moment---the moment I've been reading about for years---must occur, but volume one really was great. Intelligent, witty, fun. So much more friendly and charming than some of Morrison's later work.
maybe a week


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021) The Chuckling Whatsit by Richard Sala, finished March 16

I think I may spend part of the covid19-inspired weeks-long shelter-in-place reading some of the many comics I've long owned but never read. This is the first. Bought it at Half-Price Books (they made many, brandnew) some long time ago. Put it on a shelf. Now I've read it!

And it was great.

The black-and-white art reminds me of Cypher; it also has a similar surreal touch, but Chuckling Whatsit maintains a grasp on reality, nightmarish though it may be.

It's sort of Scooby-Doo-level madness, but it's gruesome and horrific---the violence and madness do nothing but grow bleaker and wilder as the book continues. The ending is slightly ambivalent and certainly unresolved, but satisfying. Sort of like a Series of Unfortunate Events for grownups.

The art is rich and evocative with chiaroscuro up the wazoo, but I do have one complaint. The male characters come in many shapes and varieties. The women have near-identical bodyshapes and similarly clingy clothing. And they are a marvel to see, to be sure, but ... I mean ... come on. Put as much thought into how female bodyshape can evoke character as you did with the male characters.

Even so, if this sounds good to you, it will be.
one evening


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022) Gloriana by Kevin Huizenga, finished March 18

Book two of the Covid Comics Extravaganza!

I saw Huizenga on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con last summer with luminaries such as Seth and Chris Ware and Mary Fleener, and I was like---who's this guy? He was much younger and ... but I did recognize his name, didn't I?

Later, at the Drawn and Quarterly table, I saw his books and I was like, oh yeah.... this guy. I had read Curses and loved it so much. The next time we walked past he was signing, so I had to decide: book I loved or a different one. I went different and picked up this reissue of an earlier book.

Then immediately got afraid to read it. Like picking up a band's first album, sometimes #1 is not ... their best work. But also Gloriana isn't quite the punch Curses is, it's still terrific. I've no regret paying full sticker price for it.

Huizenga's style seems very straightforward but you never know when it might devolve into pages of abstraction or pages of scientific explanation---and yet, those pages still build emotionally. Glenn Ganges is one of the great creations in comics and I'd better start reading more of him.
two sittings




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books from the recent and distant past

books one through five
001) Titiana in Yellow by Dayna Patterson, finished January 1
002) The Tree at the Center by Kathryn Knight Sonntag, finished January 5
003) After Earth by Michael Lavers, finished January 12
004) Monstress, Volume One: Awakening by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, finished January 15
005) The Last Hot Time by John M. Ford, finished January 17


books six through eleven
006) The Marriage of the Moon and the Field by Sunni Brown Wilkinson, finished January 25
007) My Parents Married on a Dare by Carlfred Broderick, finished January 26
008) The Garden of Enid: Adventures of a Weird Mormon Girl (volume one) by Scott Hales, finished January 26
009) The Garden of Enid: Adventures of a Weird Mormon Girl (volume two) by Scott Hales, finished January 27
010) Solid State by Coulton / Fraction / Monteys, finished February 9
011) Into the Sun: Poems Revised, Rearranged, and New by Colin B. Douglas, finished February 16


books thirteen through sixteen
012) Wag the Dog: A Study on Film and Reality in the Digital Age by Eleftheria Thanouli, finished February 17
013) Flaming Carrot Omnibus: Volume 1 by Bob Burden, finished February 17
014) The Electric State by Simon Stålenhag, finished February 22
015) The October Faction Vol. 2 by Steve Niles and Damien Worm, finished February 24
016) Minus by Lisa Naffziger, finished February 26


books seventeen through twenty-two
017) Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks, finished February 29
018) Calexit by Matteo Pizzolo | Amancay Nahuelpan | Tyler Boss, finished March 7
019) Emma by Jane Austen, finished March 8
020) Animal Man by Grant Morrison, Book One, by Morrison and team, finished March 14
021) The Chuckling Whatsit by Richard Sala, finished March 16
022) Gloriana by Kevin Huizenga, finished March 18




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