A Fair(y) Use Tale

When librarians get bored, they watch stuff like this:

It's a wonderfully funny short film entitled A Fair(y) Use Tale put together by Eric Faden, professor of Bucknell University. Using various clips from Disney films, Faden explains some of the intricacies of U.S. copyright law. The last "chapter" explains why he chose to use Disney material to make his point. Very fun and very subversive.

Official Description:
Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms.

Excelsior

Review: Red Eye, Black Eye by K Thor Jensen

New Yorker K. Thor Jensen goes through a lot in the span of a few short days: the turmoil of 9/11, losing his apartment, getting dumped by his girlfriend and getting fired from his job. While any one of these would depress your average person Jensen takes it as an opportunity. After dubbing himself a professional hobo he buys an Ameripass---a ticket giving him unlimited bus travel for two months---and journeys from New York City to Seattle and back, making stops in just about every major city along the way.

He uses the internet to find people to stay with in each city, turning the bulk of Jensen’s graphic novel/memoir into a collection of vignettes as he retells the stories of the Gen X slackers he stays with. Jensen wisely shies away from idealizing anything or anyone, giving us fabulously odd anecdotes like the woman who keeps an aborted fetus on a necklace pendant and a deadhead who quits following his favorite band. Jensen goes through plenty of adventures of his own as he discovers the local color of each city by hanging out in bars, eating bbq in Kansas City and riding a flaming sofa as it's dragged behind a pick-up truck in Birmingham. Thematically he borrows a lot from Kerouac---always questioning the meaning behind his journey and hoping to discover some hidden truth about himself and the U.S. While it's a little obvious at times it's still an idea Jensen has a lot of fun with.

With its hard outlines and slightly cartoony faces the drawing style appears to have been drawn in the moment, adding to the spontaneous nature of Jensen's story. Jensen skillfully works subtle details into the background lending his adventure memoir an odd sense of realism. I would normally post some images of Jensen's work to illustrate, but his own website offers reproductions of the first 16 pages in much better quality than I can offer here.

The only negative criticism I can really offer is the price. For $19.95 readers might be expecting some over-arching plot line or deep message on the order of Craig Thompson's Blankets. It was originally published as an e-serial, and still reads that way. It's very anecdotal and while that didn't bother me, it might bother other people.

Excelsior.

Sometimes Kids Listen

Yesterday I had my first official book talk experience. Giving a book talk, I mean.

About two weeks ago one of the head librarians asked me if I'd be willing to go with Connie, our Young Adult Librarian, to some area middle schools (7th and 8th grade) to book talk graphic novels and talk up some of the programs our library is hosting over the summer. I said I'd love to, and then was asked to prepare a little talk on two titles.

But Friday they said another middle school called, and they wanted us to come there as well. And they wanted us to fill an hour by talking about 5 books each. And they wanted us by Wednesday. So it goes. I picked three more titles, made posters for everything and figured out how I was going to talk about these books to these crazy kids. They specifically asked for a couple of manga titles but I wanted to work in some other things as well. I ended up picking these:

Runaways: Pride and Joy. Story by Vaughan, Brian K.
Leave it to Chance: Shaman's Rain. Story by Robinson, James.
The Prince of Tennis: Volume 1. Story by Konomi, Takeshi.
Full Metal Alchemist: Volume 1. Story by Arakawa, Hiromu.
Elfquest: Volume 1, The Grand Quest. Story by Pini, Wendy and Ricard Pini.

Poster I made to talk about Runaways

Connie and I went in expecting to talk to two groups of about 20 each. When we got there we were told the program was a hit. The first group would be 55 7th graders and the 2nd group would be 85 8th graders. Not quite the comfy little sit down conversation we had in mind, but we adapted.

The 7th graders were great. They listened. They raised their hands to ask questions. And afterwards they came up to us and looked at our handouts and asked more questions. The 8th graders, on the other hand, were there to have fun. They shouted out their questions. Made quips and jokes as we talked. It wasn't that they were bad....just different. All in all, a good time though.

I wasn't quite sure how much they were paying attention until we got a call at the library last night from another branch. A kid who was at the talk was asking about some of the titles we pitched but couldn't remember what they were. Sometimes, I guess, kids do listen.

Excelsior.

New Samuel Delany

Author/critic Steven Shaviro has a review for the latest by Samuel Delany, a novel called Dark Reflections. It actually sounds like his best work in some time. I doubt the library I work for will get it, so I'll probably crack open my wallet for this one. Dalany's worth it, though. Even on a grad student's "salary".

Excelsior

Review: Chester Gould: A Daughter's Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy

I have to admit, I know next to nothing about Chester Gould or his comic strip creation Dick Tracy. Most of what I do know comes from reading a collection my dad had when I was a little kid. And, of course, that wretched, almost unwatchable movie directed by Warren Beatty. But judged fairly, in his own time, Gould both pushed the limits of his art form and gave birth to one of the great icons of comics history.

This biography, based upon interviews conducted just prior to Gould’s death and lovingly written by his daughter and creator of the official Dick Tracy Museum, present the highlights of Gould’s personal and professional life. The book traces all the steps Gould made, tracking his humble beginnings in the rural town of Pawnee, Oklahoma to his early cartoons for college bulletin boards and all the way up to his most prestigious successes and awards.

Early in his career Gould worked hard in contract positions for a number of different papers, working fill-in jobs, political cartoons and even theatre reviews in comic strip form. But Gould’s dream was to write and draw his own strip for the Chicago Tribune. The editors of the Tribune paid him little attention until Gould came to them with the fresh idea of a comic strip illustrating the increasing battles between police and organized crime. This was the 1930’s when this was the sexy topic of the day, a topic that made headlines and launched a style of films that still lingers today. Through serious research, colorful characters and a keen sense of drama the fledgling strip grew into a mainstay of comics that at its height was carried by hundreds of newspapers across the world.

This bio includes dozens of photographs of Gould throughout his life, but the real gems of this book are the black and white reproductions of his artwork. From his childhood drawings to drafts of Dick Tracy strips we witness the evolution of Gould’s art as he continually improved his craft at drawing and storytelling. Serious readers will be disappointed that Gould-O’Connell misses several opportunities for real critical thought. But I don’t think that was her intent. This book was written for fans, and fans will find her unique insider view carries us to a delightful, albeit somewhat light, portrait of a man who succeeded through that rare combination of talent, innovation and hard work.

Excelsior

Strange Bookmarks

Our admin staff recently did an unofficial survey to find out the strangest things that have been stuffed inside books when they've been returned. This is a partial list. Some are expected, some are funny and some are just downright odd.

$200 (in $20s)
$50.00 bill
airline tickets
Antique spoon
bag of dog poop in our book drop
bank envelope with $300.00 in cash
big yellow thin button
Bill of Sales on a new car
bill payment
bird feather
birthday cards (with money inside)
book in our book drop that had a big dirt clod in it
book of blank checks
Canadian money
card to a granddaughter with $5 in it.
check for $320
comb
credit card receipts
Dear John letters
diamond earring
divorce decree
Driver's license.
engraved silver bookmark
eviction notice
Funeral Service Program
Graduation card with 10 twenty dollar bills in it
health statement
hotel bill
Library cards
love letter written in Spanish
love letters
lovely tiny pink toddler's sock -- clean and pressed
mail
Medicine prescriptions.
nail files
Pantiliners (clean, fortunately!)
paper clips -- small, oversized, metallic and plastic
paystubs
Pencils
Photos, lots and lots of photos
piece of gum (had to charge for that one)
postcards
Q-tips
referral for a colonoscopy
report cards
rubber bands
Saving Certificated for the amount of 10,000 dollars
Sewing Needle (that was painful)
shoestring
shopping receipts
soiled Kleenex
The "rules" for visiting inmates at the Lorton prison. It included
things like "underwear must be worn at all times" and "no men dressed as
women will be admitted"
the strips that come off sanitary napkins
the wrapping of a slice of processed cheese
toilet paper
uncashed paycheck
used band aid
used lollipop stick
vintage photos
wedding pictures
X-ray of the inside of an organ


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Review: Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage

A few months back my coworker John and I were sorting through a bunch of new books the collection development office sent to us at work. Most of it was what you expect: a bunch of mysteries, a few books on Iraq, a couple sex books. In the midst of all that John shoved a book into my hand, saying, "Hey, look at the crazy mug on this guy. This looks like your type of book."

Wizened face, tufts of wild white hair shooting every which way off the guy's head. This author was either 1. a homeless nut, 2. a philosophy professor, or 3. both. So yes, this definitely looked like my type of book. We're not suppose to grab new items when they first come in so patrons can get the first crack at them. I finally checked it out last week and blasted through this short and witty novel.

Sam Savage (who, it turns out, was a philosophy professor at some point) has taken two parts Notes from the Underground, one part Mouse and the Motorcycle and a dash of Mark Twain to give us the thoughtfully funny novel Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife. Firmin is a rat, but he's no ordinary rat. The runt of a litter born in the basement of a used bookstore in the Scollay Square section of Boston, he's self-described as the thirteenth child "fighting it out over twelve tits". To help him get by he starts eating the one thing that's around: books. At first it's just food for him, but though some miracle of digestive osmosis he starts understanding, appreciating and even loving the written word. Now that he understands books he feels guilty for destroying them and moves to simply reading them, and read he does. Firmin mentally digests everything from bad joke books to Don Quixote, using it as material to expand his mind.

Firmin looks towards the owner of the bookstore as sort of father figure, and he watches this unaware paternal man as he magically finds books for every customer who walks in the door. Later in the tale Firmin becomes a pet for pulp sci-fi author Jerry Magoon, who teaches him about jazz and even how to play music on a tiny toy piano. As the story develops Firmin continually regrets his status as a rat and aspires to greater things, at one point composing poetry and another teaching himself sign language in a futile effort to communicate with the human world.

The neighborhood of Scollay Square works as a nice backdrop and becomes more important to the story as the novel moves along. Set in the late 60's, the square is a run-down section of Boston made up of low end apartments, porn theatres and local businesses barely surviving. Boston starts a campaign to clean up the area and we see the historic buildings fall down one by one as the city gets ready to revitalize the district. The slow disintegration of Scollay Square works as a nice elegy for a lost neighborhood but also echoes the continually darker and existential thoughts of Firmin's little brain.

This is a definitely a book for book lovers, for those who read indisciminately genre to genre and have a love for obscure literary references and odd philosophical tangents. So really it's no surprise that I loved this. At 148 pages, it's a short novel and Savage's wonderfully offbeat humor delivers some complicated ideas in ways that are imaginative and fun.

Excelsior.

Lloyd Alexander

Driving home from work today I heard a career profile on NPR on the author Lloyd Alexander. It was nicely done, and it reminded me a lot of how much I loved his books as a little kid. The Prydain Chronicles was probably the first series I was ever obsessed with and it's certainly a big part of why I came to love fantasy fiction. I wasn't sure why they were doing a profile on Alexander, but I had my suspicions. And they were confirmed here. He died Thursday of cancer, at the age of 83, leaving behind some 20 odd books that contribute brilliantly to children's literature and fantasy literature.

I actually saw him once as a little whippersnapper. He gave a reading at a children's bookstore in DC, a place called the Chesire Cat. Graying hair, a kind, wrinkled face and a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows, he looked every bit the writer. I've always wondered if that was how he really dressed or just an outfit to portray a particular image. I remember he read well and he handled all the questions from the 4-12 year olds in the crowd with a nice sense of humor. You writers who read in front of adults have it easy...these kids were tough. When they asked a question they wanted an answer, dammit.

I think I may need to go back and re-read those stories again. It's been years, and it would be a good summertime project.

Excelsior

Filtering in Virginia Libraries

Well as you may or may not know, back in March Virginia Governor Tim Kaine signed legislation requiring all public libraries to install filtering software on public computers with internet access. Currently slightly less than half of the counties in Virginia use filtering software in public libraries.

Yesterday we had a staff meeting about how Fairfax County will be conforming to the new law. Filtering will go into effect starting July 7. The software used will block websites featuring child pornography, child abuse, adware, spyware, gambling, malicious code, adult pornography, web-based proxies, anonymizers, phishing, and material deemed obscene or tasteless. We will have the ability to disable the filtering on a case-by-case basis if a patron requests it.

I have mixed feelings about it. Most of the items being filtered certainly make sense, especially the ones dealing with viruses, adware, etc. These could potentially harm the equipment and filtering these out helps keep the computers safe. Child pornography and internet gambling are both illegal, so those make sense as well. A public institution granting access to these is probably not the best idea.

It's the last category.....the material deemed obscene or tasteless....that bothers me. Supposedly sites people are accessing will be reviewed daily to make sure they conform to the standards, but it's a little unclear to me what the standards of being tasteless are. I'm hopeful the people making these decisions will err on the side of not flitering when something is borderline, but we will see. These last categories weren't included because they are illegal or harmful to equipment but because they offend people, particularly people with small children. While a library will fight to keep a book on Mapplethorpe on the shelves it becomes to difficult to fight it when it comes to internet access because it is so much more in your face.

I like the option of allowing us to turn off the filtering, but it makes it like having a separate room in the video store for porn. It takes a certain type of person to walk into that room and not care what others think and it will take a certain type of person to walk up to the reference desk and ask to have filtering turned off. It all creates an unfortunate barrier between patrons and certain types of information. I wish there were other options but for right now this seems to be the best compromise to keep both sides happy.

Back in 1998 the Virginia arm of the ACLU raised a stink when Loudon County, Va. started using filtering software. I'll be curious to see if they say anything now that the whole state is moving that direction.

Excelsior.

Promise of a Premise

One of the great joys of Netflix is getting to revisit old t.v. obsessions. This past week I've been reliving one of my favorite shows from the mid 90's, a series called Nowhere Man.

Bruce Greenwood plays Tom Veil, a successful photojournalist. The pilot episode features Veil at his first art opening and the center of his art show is a piece called "Hidden Agenda", a photograph he took in South America of an political execution. Veil's wined and dined by art critics and buyers, and, at least for the evening, is toast of the town. Of course, following Miss L's rule of drama whenever things are going too well it means something bad is about to happen.

Veil and his wife go to dinner to celebrate Veil's newfound artistic success. Midway through the meal Veil gets up to use the restroom---and sneak a few drags from a cigarette--- and he returns to find his wife missing. He questions the owner of the restaurant, who claims to not even remember him or his wife. Veil makes his way home only to find his wife with another man and claiming not to recognize Veil. Not knowing what else to do he returns to his studio to figure out what's going on.

He learns that someone wants the negatives of "Hidden Agenda" and Veil refuses. He's captured, imprisoned and, by the end of episode, finally escapes. The episodes that follow work like a dramatic dance as Veil tries to keep from being caught while also attempting to unearth clues to identity of the people who destroyed his life.

It mines some of the same grand conspiracy material as the X-Files. The nameless villains were not only able to erase every trace of Veil's life but they also seem to have control over pieces of the Army, the FBI and even television broadcasts. Not surprisingly, there seems to be a good bit of overlap with staff who worked on both shows, the most obvious being Mark Snow, who did the theme and incidental music for both shows.

It was a perfect cult show because it was one of those shows where you never really knew exactly what was going on. Characters and plot points from past episodes reappear, but in new ways causing you to continually question whatever assumptions you made about the show previously. Back in the day I kept a notebook filed with clues the show, and I even trolled usenet to find more clues (this was in '95, well before every t.v. show had its own message board). The series ended after 25 episodes, which let down the fans since nothing really got answered. I always wondered what the full story was and was excited to see the DVD's available. I've been enjoying them all week.

Unfortunately, I've also watched some of the DVD extras. One of them features an interview with series creator/producer Larry Hertzog. He admits a strong influence from earlier t.v. shows like The Fugitive and The Prisoner (which I really need to watch someday), but also went into some things that were a little disappointing. He said he didn't know who the ultimate villains were and that he didn't think it was important to the show. He never thought of it as a show with an endpoint, but more as an ensemble show like The Twilight Zone where writers and directors could come in and play with odd ideas. The only common threads were the character of Veil and that each episode explored a different type of paranoia.

I almost didn't believe him. It always felt like there was a larger story behind the scenes and it's too bad to discover there really wasn't. I'm apparently not alone in this since sites like Nowhereman.org host a fair amount of fan-fic. Someone with a sense of humor has even given Veil his own myspace page.
Possibly a larger story would have formed if the series had been given more time. Or maybe not. But whatever the case it's all made me think about writing and living up to the full premise of what you create. When you don't manage to do that you fail the story and you fail the audience. I, of course, also thought about one of my current favorite shows, Lost, and all the layers upon layers of unanswered questions the show still has. At one point I thought there had to be a master plan behind everything but now I wonder.

In the end it might be best that Nowhere Man never reached an endpoint. If it had, the paranoia would have ended. Instead fans can still think of Veil out there wandering, questioning and struggling to find the answers. In a way a nice, albeit dark, metaphor for life.

Excelsior.

Georgetown Library Fire

If you're outside the D.C. area, you may not have heard about the fire at the Peabody Room, a division of the DC Public Library in Georgetown that houses a number of rare books, documents and artifacts. Last week they had a pretty major fire, a fire that was exacerbated by the non-working fire hydrant the fire department first tried to use to put out the blaze. Photos here, both before and after the tragedy, courtesy of H-Net online (thanks to Miss L. for forwarding it to me). Pretty damn scary how much damaged was done. For the original story, check out The Wasingtonian.

Thank goodness it looks like the employees had their act together in getting materials frozen and ready to be repaired. It's all a rather shocking reminder on the importance of good disaster plans, especially if you're building is housing rare materials.

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Onward

Well I've made it through another semester of grad school. Monday was particularly fun, since our prof sprung for a catered dinner afterward. Nothing extreme.....a couple of pasta dishes, some salad and a lot of wine. It was a nice bit of relaxation after the stress of the exam. Plus I got sent home on the metro with a big jug of wine. And if you're ever starved for entertainment I highly suggest waiting around on a metro platform with bottle of wine twice the size of your average milk bottle. I got all sorts of strange looks that night.

For some reason I feel different at the end of this term. My other classes have been so theory based, but the two I took this term were more practical. I feel better prepared to work as a librarian than I did a few months ago, and that's a nice feeling. But it might also be that now I'm more than halfway through the program, I can feel the end that's coming about this time next year. I'm still enjoying classes....and looking forward to the ones I'll be taking this summer....but I'm ready to move on to that next phase of my life.

But what I'm really curious about is my paper. What I thought would be a simple ten-pager on comic book criticism turned into a 30 pager without a lot of difficulty. There are apparently a lot of people out there saying some pretty cool things about comics. I discovered the International Journal of Comic Art, an academic-level journal edited by a prof at Temple University. I also discovered Mechademia, a fun looking academic journal that focuses on anime, manga and the surrounding fan culture. I'm curious to find out what my prof thought, because if my paper's good enough I might look into sending it out to one of these crazy places.

My last big discovery, though, was something I should have stumbled across long ago: a comic series called Strangers in Paradise. I've heard about the series for a long time....l mean it has the unusual distinction of winning both Eisner and Glad awards....but I've never picked it up. I bought the first trade collection on a whim and loved it. The story centers on two women, Francine and Katchoo. It's a mixture of stories told in present time and flashbacks, and the core of it is whether the two women are close friends or something more. It's very dramatic but also surprisingly character driven. Some of the strongest characters and most vivid writing I've seen in comics in a long time.

I'll have some reviews and other nonsense up soon. Right now my head is still full, so I think I'll empty it out by watching some mindless cartoons. So until next time...

Excelsior.

Finals Time

There won't be much to see here for the next week or so. I'm fully immeshed in studying for finals and finishing up my final papers. Thursday I'm attending a workshop, so I may post about that. Or I may not. Regular posts should resume by May 2.

Can't wait until the term is over. I want to spend my couple weeks off from classes hiking and (finally) reading the newest Thomas Pynchon novel. I'm thinking about blogging that monster chapter-by-chapter. We'll see.

Excelsior.

Eisners Announced

Nominations for the Eisner Awards, one of the big awards in comics, were just announced. This year they seemed to include more manga, more stuff by women, although a few less indie titles. Marvel came in really strong this year, which I think shows how much they are really try to improve (despite the Cival War fiasco). There are already cries of outrage from fans yelling "But what about (insert favorite here)". I will say they picked a really broad range of stuff and really tried to present a cross section of the best of each type of comic. Some of my favorites were skipped over as well, but I don't have any issues with anything they did pick. I'll be curious to see what actually wins.

On a somewhat personal note, two people I really admire were on the panel this year: editor/author Jeff Vandermeer and librarian/critic Robin Brenner, who runs the great website No Flying/No Tights that reviews graphic novels and hosts a good number of essays touting their merits.

Excellior

V-Tech

I wasn't going to post anything about the horrible events V-Tech, but I've gotten a few emails and messages through myspace asking me about it. I really don't know anything other than what's been on the news. I am in Virginia, but I'm several hours away from Blacksburg. My next door neighbor has a son there in the engineering program and he is (thankfully) ok, but that' s really my only connection to the school.

I haven't been sleeping well the last few days, so I've been listening to a lot of late night talk radio. When something like this happens all the crazies pop out of the woodwork to try to explain how and why it happened. Over the last two nights I've heard everything from "if students we're allowed to have guns, that nut wouldn't of had a chance" to "the chinese planted a microchip in that guy's brain". I even heard someone blaming creative writing programs, now that Smoking Gun and some other sites have put some of Seung-Hui's writing online. I'm more than a little angry at the way the the media has been exploring and taking advantage of this tragedy for the sole reason of ratings and not to explore ways to heal the community.

So please keep your personal and political crusades out of this. The families who lost loved ones and the entire V-tech community needs time to grieve. Please give it to them.

Excelsior.

Lit Links

A somewhat random assortment of lit-oriented links I've stumbled and tumbled across the last week or so. Enjoy.


In celebration of National Poetry Writing Month, Sandra Beasley is blogging drafts of a new poem. The old drafts go away when the new ones go up, but it's fun to watch her process as the poem gets honed.

Thanks to some participatory help from Kim Roberts and Richard Peabody, Madam Mayo is putting together a pretty comprehensive list of all the women authors who live or have lived or have a strong connection to the DC area. We often don't get thought of as a literary town, but we really are.

Special congrats to issue 51 of Gargoyle. Word around town is that Nik Houser's story "First Kisses From Beyond the Grave" has been picked up for the upcoming edition of Best American Fantasyr. In the very same issue, Angela Threatt's story "Bela Lugosi's Dead" will appear in pages of the new edition of Best New Stories from the South. Congrats to both of the writers and to Gargoyle.

The Wild River Review has an interesting interview with Neil Gaiman, where he talks about freedom of speech, his creative process, and the differences between writing for comics and writing for books.

Bat Segundo features a fun interview with one of my favs, China Miéville.

PW offers up a Hot Books For Summer list. At first glance, I'm really only drawn to the upcoming books from DeLillo and Gibson. But then I'll read anything anyone puts in my hand (eventually).

Interesting thoughts on teaching creative writing by Daniel Green at The Reading Experience.

Elizabeth Bear has a good column on rejection from editors.

Short article on the band Harry and the Potters.

Artomatic's Back

You either love it or hate, but either way Artomatic is back in the DC area.

For the uninitated, Artomatic is a large scale event that puts an unjuried art show in an unused building. I've seen it's various incarnations in old hardware stores, office buildings and factories all across the city. Some, particular the critics at the Washington Post, feel that it's a waste of time, effort and space since each work is not a piece of heart-wrenching genius.

But that's not the point. The point is to get a bunch of work by artists all together in one space. Many of them are artists who don't show regularly, so yes the quality can be uneven. But the dialog between the pieces and the overall atmosphere is great fun.

Here's the info:

April 13–May 20, 2007
2121 Crystal Drive, Arlington, Va.
Metro stop: Crystal City
Free admission. Donations accepted
HOURS
Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Noon–10 p.m.
Thursday: Noon–11 p.m.
Friday, Saturday: Noon–1 a.m.
Closed Mondays

Excelsior

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

I walked into work today, completely unaware of what had happened. Instead of spending the morning listening to the radio like I normally do, I was working on my projects for school and listening to music. When I got to library I was given the task of touring the shelves and pulling off titles for our current display on Shakespeare (his birthday is sometime this month). So when I saw a new display tucked away to the side of the checkout desk I had no idea what happened. Seeing familiar titles like Cat's Cradle and Bagumbo Snuffbox, I smiled. I haven't really been happy with the types of displays we've had lately, so I've made some suggestions for some. A display of Vonnegut being one them, I thought someone had finally taken my suggestion to heart.

But then I looked over and saw the sign next to the books. There was a black and white photo of Vonnegut's familiar whizened face. Below the photo it said, in plain black letters, "Kurt Vonnegut, jr. 1922-2007".

I dropped the Shakespeare books on the floor. I looked down at the books I dropped, then up at the display, then back down at the books, and then up again. I couldn't believe my eyes in either case. I walked up to the information desk, just leaving the Shakespeare books scattered on the floor.

"What happened?" I asked in a tone that was probably a little stronger than it should have been.

The librarians working the desk just looked at me, not knowing what I was talking about.

"The Vonnegut display. Is he really..."

I couldn't bring myself to say the word dead.

"He died," one of them said. "I heard it on the radio this morning. Something to do with injuries related to a fall he had a few weeks ago."

I nodded, then went back and picked up the books I had dropped on the floor. I spent the rest of day reading snippets out of his books and looking up odd quotes from him online, each one making me smile and tear up a little at the same time. Every once in awhile I'd see a patron look at the Vonnegut display, but the only person to express anything to me was a woman who had him confused with Ray Bradbury.

So it goes.

What Kilgore Trout wanted on his tombstone, from chapter three of Breakfast of Champions

In comparison to a lot of other people, I came to Vonnegut late in life. Not until after college. Not that I hadn't heard of him or had other people suggest him to me. Tracy---this crazy-mad art girl I had a big crush on in high school----was always telling me to read him my Junior and Senior year in high school. My friend Rusty at JMU never understood how I could enjoy satirical nuts like James Morrow and not worship Vonnegut. But at that point in my life I still had it in my head that I couldn't read anything by choice that was shelved outside the sci fi section.

When I finally did get to him after college, he blew my mind. First with Cat's Cradle, then with Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions and beyond. It was still sci-fi, but it was also something else. Something beyond. Along with Philip K. Dick and one or two others writers, Vonnegut became my bridge off the island of sci fi to the world of experimental lit. He's one of those rare writers who danced between popular, genre, experimental and mainstream fiction, each claiming him but not ever really belonging to any of them.

When I started writing I wanted to be Vonnegut. My first published piece of fiction was an introduction to an imaginary novel that was heavily inspired by Vonnegut's intro to Slaughterhouse Five. It amazed me that he was able to get away with essentially telling his whole story in the intro. Later, Breakfast of Champions cracked my head open to meta-fiction and to mixing pieces of your own life into your work. I'm still dealing with all of that garbage. Vonnegut made it all look so easy, and the more I write the more I realize how nearly impossible it is to do that.

Vonnegut made us laugh. He made us cry. And, most importantly, he made us stop and think. I can't imagine an author trying to do anything more important.

Lots of other great tributes out there to him. My favorites thus far are at And I Am Not Lying For Real, Mumpsimus and the online chat Michael Dirda did via The Washington Post.

Excelsior.

Review: Lucifer: Evensong

Bill Willingham's series Fables gets a lot of credit for carrying on the audience that devoured Sandman 15 years ago. They certainly share a lot of common threads: mixture of fastasy, myth and "real life" all rolled into one big postmodern stew. In reality, though, Mike Carey's series Lucifer is much more in the tradition of Sandman. Lucifer started as a spin-off from Gaiman’s iconic series Sandman when Carey took the idea of Lucifer as a hero and turned it into a darkly philosophical story.

The new trade Evensong collects issues 70-75 of Carey’s series Lucifer, bringing the series to a final conclusion (oddly, the original Sandman series also ran for 75 issues). The Christian God Yahweh has left the universe and turned its management over to the hands of Elaine Belloc, a young woman with a mystical and mythical past. Elaine’s story of recreating the afterlife encompasses a large part of the book, and it works as an oddly fascinating form of world-building. Like Yahweh, Lucifer left his realm of hell, releasing all the tortured souls out into the rest of the universe. Lucifer visits old friends and enemies, closing plot threads and making final amends to those few he feels emotional ties with.

Once Lucifer leaves the known universe he meets the one entity he wants to avoid more than any other: Yahweh. With comics you often expect a battle royale. Something like Lucifer pulling a giant flaming sword out of nowhere and Yahweh knocking him around with his bare hands. But instead the two argue like people who once loved each other but were driven apart through circumstances and choices they made. The two enter into a debate arguing points of destiny versus free will that echoes both Milton’s Paradise Lost and the C.S. Lewis classic The Screwtape Letters. Overall, it’s a very fitting end to a series that works better than a lot of fantasy fiction being published today in novels and short stories.

Done by a different artist for each issue, the series doesn’t have an overall visual style. The issues featuring Elaine are simpler, working in a more direct comic book style while those featuring Lucifer hold a grittier feel. Evensong also includes a 48 page stand-alone story titled Nirvana that’s brilliantly illustrated by the dark and disturbing watercolors of Jon J. Muth.

I've only read a smattering of issues of Lucifer over the past few years. It was one of those titles I thought I'd start picking up when I had more money. But now reading the ending and seeing how well things close out, it's making me want to crack open my paypal account and start picking up the earlier trades so I can see how it all developed.

Excelsior.

Comics Links

A random selection of posts and articles related to comics I've stumbled across over the past week.

Rabbi Harry Manhoff speaks on the crossover between Jewish culture and comics. Not sure how he missed classics like Eisner's New York series, but glad he's finally catching up.

After Ellen offers up an interesting column on the growth of comics exploring lesbian themes. Again, nothing new to the genre, but glad they're catching up.

Graphic Novel Review gives a very thorough review of Megan Kelso's collection Squirrel Mother, which I reviewed way back here. It's damn good....I'm glad to see it's finally getting noticed. Also a follow up post tracking the other reviews online.

Hoo-ray! Top Shelf puts everything on sale to celebrate their ten-year anniversary. Time for me to load up on all the James Kochalka I'm missing.

Jog reviews the newest issue of Mome, arguably the best mag out there promoting new literary comics.