Jason Rodriguez's Blog, page 12
January 22, 2013
The Score
Probably my least favorite Parker book so far, primarily because it was so focused on the score and less focused on the characters. But, you know, the book is called The Score so what did I expect?
This one definitely had a very Hollywood feel to it. I’m not surprised to see that it was published four years after Oceans 11 because it had the same tone, in a way - an almost impossible crime pulled off by a collection (12, in the book) of specialized individuals. If viewed as a bit of a meta-commentary on the Hollywood-ization of crime fiction it works very well, in fact, and one can certainly make the argument that this is exactly what it is. Edgars, the finger on the job, knowing what he knows from the movies. Parker, the grounded one in all of this, and his reluctance to take the job because it seemed too big and implausible. Grofield’s “background soundtrack” and cinematic take on his life in real-time. Everything going smooth until the hiccup comes, as it does in the movies, but this particular hiccup was ugly and gritty and real. Sort of a thesis on real crime vs. Hollywood crime, real victims, real people with real fears and motivations.
In a way it reminds me of Heat, showing how jobs go wrong and why and how nobody ever gets a Hollywood ending in real life. And through it all is Parker - who’s perfectly summed up in the following exchange:
“I don’t kill as the easy way out of something. If I kill, it’s because I don’t hav e any choice.”
“You mean self-defense.”
“Wrong. I mean it’s the only way to get what I want.”
I love this character. I love these books. Even a “weaker” Parker book is better than most crime fiction ever published.
Books read in 2013:
Swallowing the Earth
The Signal and the Noise
The Mourner
The Book of Human Insects
Moonraker
Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia
The Score
Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia
A wonderful, somewhat progressive view of the role the non-gentlemen populations played in the Southern Colonies’ willingness to go to war with England. I’ve been focusing much of my reading on New England as it’s the setting for my first two Colonial Comics graphic novels but I’m starting to think about the third and this was a pretty fantastic introduction to the circumstances that seemingly pushed the people we think of as patriots towards war. I very much enjoyed the chapters on non-importation and non-exportation as a means for getting out of debt with British merchants, but my absolute favorite chapter of the book had to do with the white slave owner’s (well-founded) fears that England would promise them freedom in exchange for taking arms against the Colonists.
I struggled with taking on a Mid-Atlantic book and wanted to focus most of that story on Pennsylvania because at least there you get a sense of democracy and revolution. Virginia history, to me, always seemed so DARK and even a “happy” ending (freedom from England) would still be mired by the fact that the region had an enormous slave population that flew in the face of all notions of freedom and independence. This book, however, gave me an approach that would at least lead to a different angle on slavery and give the slaves a face and a motivation - it would allow me to show the malcontent of the slave population and their willingness to obtain freedom if given the opportunity. I believe the story of Joseph Harris, an escaped slave who helped Virginia’s last royal governor, Lord Dunmore, plan the attack against Hampton is a great story to include in the book, because it can act as a segue into a larger discussion of slave revolts and how white slave owners sometimes lived in great fear of the men and women they oppressed.
Not the happiest of endings for a Virginia story-line, but at least something to bring home what should be a very obvious fact: Slaves were not happy.
I think this is important. Whenever I tour any Virginia historical sites they take great leaps to try and paint their subjects as “different than the rest.” Washington freed his slaves (after he died)! Mason wrote against slavery (but never freed his slaves)! Jefferson wrote against slavery (because he feared a slave revolt)! Always with caveats, but the fact is: the slave population HATED these people, no matter how you try to spin it. And that’s important.
Great book, highly recommended.
Books Read in 2013
Swallowing the Earth
The Signal and the Noise
The Mourner
The Book of Human Insects
Moonraker
Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia
January 14, 2013
The Book of Human Insects
Book four of the new year. At this rate I’ll read 104 books this year (I won’t read 104 books this year…I have some thick non-fiction coming up).
This was a short(er) Tezuka book, coming in at around 360 pages. It’s also probably my favorite so far but it’s more inline with the type of comic I enjoy. Being a bit tighter helped, as well - it’s not like Buddha which was amazing but at 3,200 pages feels a little fat at times. It is very reminiscent of the underground American comics of same era, but probably a bit more inline with books that I’ve read in the 1990s and 2000s, to be honest. At times I was reminded of everything from Stray Bullets to Black Hole, and the initial set-up reminded me of 1Q84.
But this book was originally published in 1970/71, so it’s more accurate to say that Stray Bullets, Black Hole, and 1Q84 reminds me of The Book of Human Insects.
Definitely a darker books compared to Tezuka’s other offerings that I’ve read so far. Frightening, at times, and Tezuka’s use of heavy blacks and trippy visuals and lack of true moral characters made the overall experience heavy and nightmarish.
Highly recommended. Check it.
Books Read in 2013
Swallowing the Earth
The Signal and the Noise
The Mourner
The Book of Human Insects
January 10, 2013
24 Hours Later, I Finished THE MOURNER.
Book three of 2013. Pretty dumb, honestly. I have way too much to do and shouldn’t be reading a book in under 24 hours but…MY GOD.
Seriously. MY. GOD.
These Richard Stark/Parker novels just keep getting better and better. And what’s insane is I see folks on GoodReads and Amazon saying that this is the weakest Parker novel and I just want to slap them and tell them that they literally have no idea what they’re talking about.
The prose in this book is just beautiful. It is some of the most wonderful bits of prose I’ve ever read in my entire life. And the supporting cast is wonderful and Parker is always wonderful and…just, for real, where have these books been all my life?
I want to go back to college so I can get a PhD in literature and write a thesis on Richard Stark and Parker. I want to defend my research and slap original 10-cent pulps onto the table and challenge the board to find me any American writer (fuck it, any WRITER) who was as consistent and beautiful as Westlake/Stark was while writing these novels.
It hurts me to read novels this good, because they just feel so effortless and it’s not fair. It’s not fair, it’s not fair.
Read it or un-follow. Seriously.
Books Read in 2013
Swallowing the Earth
The Signal and the Noise
The Mourner
"The second book I want to talk about here is Once Upon a Time Machine which is an absolutely AMAZING..."
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And lest you forget, I did a story for ONCE UPON A TIME MACHINE with artist Scott White. The books just got yet another nice little review and you should check that, too.
If you’re just looking for a teaser, you can get the story I did with Scott White on Amazon for $1.99. Then get the rest of the book. Or just get the book. Either way you get some great comics.
DISTRICT COMICS gets named as one of the Washington Post's Best Books About Washington
First they name it one of the 20 best books of 2012 and now this! I have a story in the book with artist Charles Fetherolf about the 1867 Washington Nationals - check it!
Arlington Adult Ed Winter Courses
It’s that time of year again, Arlington residents! Here’re my classes for the winter semester:
A Writer’s Workshop - An 8-week course on Wednesdays from 7-9PM starting January 23rd. This course is for folks who are currently working on novels, plays, comic books…whatever. A collaborative environment where we take turns reading excerpts from our work, give each other constructive criticisms, and I’ll occasionally (usually) talk too much. There are currently four spaces open.
Get Yourself Published - A course that I usually only do once a year but I was talked into doing it twice this year as people seem to be liking it. It’s a one day thing, Monday, February 4th from 7 - 9PM. In this class we talk about the various ways to get published and try to craft pitches and log-lines for our work. There are plenty of spots still open for this one.
Write Right Now - A 4-week course on Mondays from 7 - 9PM starting on February 25th. This is my writing boot camp that a lot of people seem to enjoy. We just do writing prompts, lots and lots of writing prompts, and in turn we learn about our comfort zones, where we are as writers, where we want to be, and how we’ll get there. People seem to really love this class so I’m guessing it’s working.
January 8, 2013
Leading You On
This is pretty cool! Chris Murrin did a nice, detailed analysis of a page from Chris Steven and Gia-Bao Tran’s POSTCARDS story (a book I put together for Random House…Jesus…SIX YEARS AGO).
Ok, not cool anymore. Old man bones.
I’m cheating a bit this week, but for good reason. Not only am I covering more than one panel this week, but more than one page. The three panels above comprise pages 4 and 5 of the anthology Postcards, published by Villard. I’m a sucker for anthologies, and this one, under the guidance of editor Jason Rodriguez, is a personal favorite. This page, from a story by Chris Stevens, with art by Gia-Bao Tran, has both personal and objective significance to me. I’ll begin with the personal.
Anyone who has seen my Twitter profile has seen my location as “2,790 miles from home.” This is home. I grew up in Wildwood and Ocean City, and visited Storybookland and Smithville often. Heck, I visited Smithville just a year ago. Every moment I’m away from these landmarks, my homesickness grows ever larger. So seeing these sites depicted in Postcards, in a story centered around Lucy the Elephant from Margate, N.J., started the book off in the right direction for me. It’s definitely part of the reason I love this anthology so much.
But that’s not why I chose to discuss these pages.
One seemingly lost aspect of comic art these days is the need for the artist to “lead the eye” of the reader across the page. In particular, those times when an artist must force a reader into a “carriage return” or make them read right-to-left, against their natural reading order, can be a particular challenge. Gia-Bao Tran executes this difficult skill perfectly on this page.
Below, I’ve loosely diagrammed where Tran is leading your eye as you look at the page. Reading left-to-right as normal, the reader sees the first caption, which directs us onward to the soldier. Combined with the angled parapet, the image of the soldier leads the eye down and to the right, to the base of the castle. The castle (which is lost a bit in this scan, sorry) leads the eye back up the panel to the road. Following the road, we find the blocks and the woman’s dress, which acts as a panel border, and directs the reader’s eye downward to panel two.
In panel two, we see the mother approaching the apple cart. We follow her arm down to the little girl she hangs onto. The girl’s other hand points upward, and the reader can’t help but follow. That trajectory leads to the worker, who is clearly looking left at something. We follow his gaze and find the next word banner, hovering just over the Z-shaped sign. The sign zigs and zags its way down, leading to panel three.
Panel three has a literal and figurative path leading the reader around the depiction of these Jersey shore towns, guiding you past the three banners in the panel and taking you off toward the next page.
On a well-composed page such as this, the artist uses the readers’ natural reaction to the imagery to overcome their proclivity toward reading only left-to-right, top-to-bottom. The result is that the reader is taken on a journey across the page as well as the textual journey of the story.
colonialcomics:
Now that my creators are getting more and more...
Now that my creators are getting more and more work done for the first book they’re starting to make announcements for me.
A. David Lewis (who is also the assistant editor for Colonial Comics) is currently doing some research for his story about Jewish history in Colonial New England and he working with the great JT Waldman.
For those of you keeping track, our announced creators so far are…
A. David Lewis and JT Waldman doing a story about Jewish life in the colonies
Erika Swyler and Noel Tuazon doing a story about Elizabeth Glover, owner of New England’s first printing press
Connecticut State Historian Walt Woodward and Matt Dembicki doing a story about Connecticut governor (and alchemist) John Winthrop JR.
Alexa Dickman and EJ Barnes doing a story about Merry Mount
And, I kind of strongly hinted at this earlier, so why not talk up Philip Hoare and Charles Fetherolf doing a story about whalingThat’s just five stories out of the 25 we have planned for this volume alone.
A Colonial Comics’ creator update!
January 7, 2013
Swallowing the Earth
First book of this year (my goal’s 52 books this year…24 of which will be Bond and Parker books, 12 graphic novels, and 12 books that other, less refined people read and call “literature”)
A good read. I picked up bits and pieces of it in the past but this is my first time reading the whole, massive, 500+ page work. It’s kind of interesting in that it bridges the gap between Astro Boy-Tezuka and Message to Adolf-Tezuka, that is to say his more kid-friendly output and his more “We Will All Kill Ourselves” work. The book starts off as lighter manga fair with a bit of late-60s sex and violence and sex and sex with lots of comedy but slowly deteriorates into vitriol and nihilism. The ending feels a bit rushed and, judging by Tezuka’s work that follows this book, almost feels as if he experiences a mental shift and decides that he wants to do commentaries on humanity now but in a framework that isn’t supported by jokey characters.
Having said that, every time Gohonmatsu Seki pines for a drink (which is every time we see Gohonmatsu Seki), I laugh and it kind of reminds me of…well…me, and maybe that I drink a lot but, like Gohonmatsu, it makes me happy and I’m still super productive.
Four of five stars - recommended, especially if you’re going deep Tezuka catalog. Check it.
