Todd Klein's Blog, page 230

And Then I Read: GREEN LANTERN 36

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

In the continuing struggle between the GL Corps and the New Gods, this issue takes time out for planning and strategy on both sides. The Corps is on Korugar, Sinestro’s home base, and he and Hal Jordan eventually put aside their animosity to work together, which usually makes for entertaining reading, as here. Then Hal is off to recruit a most unlikely entity to help his cause, while on New Genesis, Orion and Highfather have harsh words about their end of things. Not a bad issue.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: THE POISON BELT by A. Conan Doyle

The second science fiction novel by Doyle featuring Professor Challenger is one I had high hopes for. First edition above, but I read it on my phone and iPad. The cast of characters is much the same as “The Lost World,” and the story begins with reports of unrest and cataclysms around the world, and a newspaper article by Challenger suggesting the cause: the Earth, and the entire solar system, is drifting into a section of ether or space that contains some kind of poison, one that is affecting all animal life on our planet. Challenger soon contacts his “Lost World” team-mates, reporter Edward Malone (again the story’s narrator), adventurer Lord John Roxton and Professor Summerlee and invites them all to his home in the country, asking each of them to bring a cylinder of compressed oxygen. When they arrive and have the situation explained, they seal off a small suite of rooms in the house and prepare to try to stay alive when everyone else they can see is falling to the ground, and apparently dying. The oxygen keeps them going for a day or two, and when it runs out, they discover the poison has dissipated, and they go out to explore a world greatly changed.

This seemed a promising beginning, and I was expecting an end of the world story perhaps along the lines of Jules Verne’s “Off On a Comet,” or an even closer idea, “The Purple Cloud” by M. P. Shiel, written in 1901, well before this one, and very much along the same plotline. I was disappointed in Doyle’s handling of Challenger this time, though, as he seems to have lost his passion for scientific inquiry. The group of survivors is surrounded by those apparently dead, but they don’t even examine the bodies, other than to move Challenger’s chauffer from the yard into his bedroom. The rest of the book, the four and Challenger’s wife travel by car to London, or as far as they can before the number of bodies halts them, then they walk into the city. There’s no realistic description of the mass death, other than huge numbers of prone bodies, no smell, no signs of decay…and perhaps you can already figure out where this is going. Of course, everyone is not dead, merely in a catatonic state, and before long they’re all coming back to life and resuming their lives as if nothing had happened. The chief wonder that everyone keeps exclaiming over is the silent city, but they hardly get up the nerve to enter a few buildings.

So, rather than getting involved, as Challenger and his crew did so much of in “The Lost World,” here they’re mere observers, and of an episode that doesn’t go very far. I can’t recommend the book, but there’s one more Challenger novel and some short stories that I’m going to try next. In all, I felt the plot of this one was a cheat and a disappointment.

Watching THE HOBBIT, THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES

If I was required to pick one book from the thousands in my home and the thousands more I’ve read as my favorite of all time, it would be “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s been so since I first read it around age twelve, and I’ve reread it dozens of times since. While I did not initially warm to Peter Jackson’s version of “The Lord of the Rings,” I came around to it and now like it a lot, so of course seeing all three Hobbit films was a must. Having found a place in my head for Jackson’s version of Tolkien, I was able to enjoy and appreciate his version of “The Hobbit,” even though there’s so much in it that’s not in the book. A lot of that is, I think, a matter of creating a blockbuster action film, but even more, of introducing things he and his writing team wanted to see more of and more about.

It reminds me of fan fiction in a way, like “wouldn’t it be cool if, amid the madness, a dwarf and an elf-maiden fell in love,” or “what if the orcs had giant digging worms like the Sandworms in Dune,” or “let’s see the battle between the wizards and ‘The Necromancer,’ who’s really Sauron.” Some of these ideas are easier to go along with than others, I admit I liked the last one. Even Tolkien himself did some tinkering with his story after the first edition saw print to deepen the connections to “Lord of the Rings,” as evidenced in his introductory note in my edition from the 1960s. And of course it was a given that Peter Jackson’s version would have lots of action and lots of fighting, especially in this last film. It’s surprisingly non-gory action, but still very violent, and strays far from Tolkien, even when it’s kind of cool, as in the feats of Legolas, who of course isn’t in Tolkien’s “Hobbit” at all.

Despite all that extra stuff, the main points of the book are covered pretty well, I thought. And Peter Jackson’s version of Middle Earth is, in my view, a pretty cool place to visit, even if it’s not that much like Tolkien’s. Looking at my well-worn copy of the book, the one with Tolkien’s actual signature tucked into the flap, I see that the  Battle of the Five Armies is covered in one chapter of twelve pages. It’s about half the film. I did appreciate the many character moments in the film, even some of the ones not in the book, and could have done without so much fighting, but maybe that’s just me. In all, I enjoyed this and all the Jackson films. I think I liked the Hobbit ones less than the LOTR ones, but I did like them. It’s not something I would bring a kid to, let them read the book, and find the films later would be my plan, but I don’t have kids of my own, so I’m not sure how realistic that is.

The end of the film is not as satisfying is the end of the LOTR films, because Jackson has spent so much time connecting his Hobbit to those films, and as viewers, we know there’s lots more trouble coming for Bilbo and the Hobbits, so that’s a little disappointing, but I suppose if you wanted to watch them all in chronological order, it makes sense. I know I’ll go back to the book again, and find more enjoyment in that in the long run, but the things accomplished in the films will also stick with me.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: AQUAMAN AND THE OTHERS 7

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

This title is headed into an espionage thriller, dealing with foes that are ex-KGB with powers. It’s an action-filled plot with lots of twists and turns, but I find it a little hard to see what Aquaman is doing here. In fact, he’s not here much, just doing a fly-in rescue. The previous storyline had Atlantis connections, this one seems rooted in Tom Cruise blockbuster territory, and not much water in sight. The writing and art are fine, but no one stands out in the rest of the team, there are no personalities to draw me in and get me involved. Having read this a few weeks ago, I now find it hard to remember the storyline, not a good sign.

Mildly recommended.

And Then I Read: SWAMP THING 36

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Machine intelligence. It seems almost as natural an enemy to The Green and its avatar, Swamp Thing as The Rot. The opening salvo with Swamp Thing aflame even threatens his new allies in The Green, Jonah and Capucine, but the machines still have a lot to learn about Alec Holland. Unfortunately, they’re fast learners. Alec pays a visit to the avatar of The Rot, another old ally, for some touching moments, while the machines go about choosing their own avatar from among many familiar candidates. A good issue, I’m continuing to enjoy writer Charles Soule and artist Jesus Saiz’ work on this title. It keeps going in interesting and surprising places.

Recommended.

And Then I Read: LITTLE NEMO, DREAM ANOTHER DREAM

I worked on this huge book, that’s my logo on the cover, and I lettered about a dozen of the more than 140 pages of comics inside, so I am not an unbiased reader, but I find it a remarkable achievement both artistically and conceptually. Even Leo, above, finds it worthy of an action pose! Measuring 16 by 21 inches, each page is the size that the original “Little Nemo in Slumberland” Sunday comic strips ran when Winsor McCay was producing them early in the 20th century. Many people feel that McCay achieved a pinnacle of visual comics art that has not been equalled since, but Locust Moon Books invited dozens of their favorite artists to try.

While each artist did something relating to the original comic strip, the approaches are as varied as the individual imaginations of all those creators, and it’s remarkable how little similarity there is among them as far as the actual content. Yes, many did artistic homages to McCay’s own Nemo style, but equally as many went their own ways. A few artists used more than one page to tell their tale, but most used a single large page. You can call it a themed anthology, but the experience is a bit more like walking through an art gallery, as the entries are so different, yet contain a common theme. The ones I liked best told an actual story in panels, often numbered sequentially as McCay did, but even there the creators were very clever and playful, with some leading the reading in very unexpected directions. There are many artists represented I know nothing about, but also quite a few I recognized, including a few friends I wasn’t expecting, always a nice thing. The printing and production is stellar, and on a personal note, I have to say I’ve never seen a logo of mine reproduced as large as it is inside this volume. The entire reading experience brings out the child in me, the book is so large, it made me feel small again, in a good way.

If you’ve seen any of the books put out by The Sunday Press, it’s a very similar format, but this is the first book I’ve seen using it for new material. And what truly wonderful material it is!

Highly recommended.

Remembering Mrs. Helen Thompson

Mrs. Helen Thompson, center, with students, in a photo from The Somerset Hills Exponent, May 25, 1961.

I’ve written about my favorite teacher from the Bedminster Township grade school twice before, a little in my article on our school newspaper and magazine, which she ran, and more in my article on the school itself. Mrs. Thompson taught English to my brothers and I in grades 6-8, and we all worked on the school publications doing art and, in my case, writing stories. I remember her as smart, entertaining in class, and very encouraging to me as a young artist and writer. Others remember that she was also a heavy smoker, and I’ve long wondered about how that might have affected her career and life. New information has come to light recently, so I thought I’d share it here.

While I spent lots of time with Mrs. Thompson in and after class, I knew nothing about her personal life except what little ran in the 1965 graduation issue of The Bed-Post, as part of a guessing-game called “Spotlight on People.” Mrs. Thompson was the subject of this entry:

While I saw Mrs. Thompson occasionally when I had moved on to High School in Bernardsville, NJ (when my school bus would stop at the Bedminster School to pick up more students), I lost touch with her at some point in that time. Recently my youngest brother Russ found some copies of the school publications from his grades 6-8 in 1968-70, and entries there filled in some of the gaps in my knowledge. from The Bedminster Tribune of Oct. 27, 1969:

As you can see, Mrs. Thompson was out sick in the fall of 1969. I have no information on what the illness may have been, but I suspect that she did not return to the school. In the Spring, 1970 issue of The Bed-Post, this editorial by Ellen Burden appeared:

As you might guess, Mrs. Thompson had passed away before the issue saw print, and with help from Patricia Bankowski, I now have her obituary from March 19, 1970:

I may have heard about this from my parents at the time, but if so, I had forgotten it, so it’s good to have that long-lingering question of what happened to Mrs. Thompson answered. The issue of The Bed-Post this appeared has replaced Mrs. Thompson’s long-standing credit as Advisor with “Acting Advisor: Mrs. Stout,” and the following year the Advisor credit went to a new English teacher at the school, Mr. Melovitz.

As noted in the obituary, Mrs. Thompson had no children. Her husband, J. Miller Thompson continued to live in Bedminster, and died in 1992 after remarrying a Mary E. Nevius, who died in 2000.

 

And Then I Read: 75 YEARS OF MARVEL

Images © Marvel.

Took me a while, but I’ve read it. Or at least as much as I wanted to. This gigantic book is meant as an overview and retrospective of the comics publisher now known as Marvel, previously as Timely, Atlas, and many other lesser-known imprints. As such, it’s about half pictures, but even so, there’s lots of text. I read the first two sections covering 1939 to 1961 the most thoroughly, as it’s the period I knew the least about. I was buying and reading Marvel comics from that point on, and had a chance to catch up with a lot of the issues I missed later, so the period from 1962 to about 1990 was a fun reminiscence of things I was mostly familiar with. From 1991 to the present my Marvel reading has declined steadily, so those sections didn’t mean as much to me, and I generally skimmed.

Roy Thomas has done a fine job with the text, but it’s such a large subject that often he was only able to briefly mention some titles and creators that stood out from the crowd, especially when the output of the company began to grow in the mid-70s. And it’s an official company history, so anything that might make the corporation look bad was glossed over or ignored, but since the emphasis is on the books and the creators rather than company politics and business deals, I didn’t mind that. And there’s always Sean Howe’s “The Secret History of Marvel Comics” if you’re interested in that side of things.

The art is glorious, lots of larger-than-life reproductions of covers and story pages. To make layouts work, other elements were sometimes a bit too small, but I understand they did the best they could without making the book twice as thick. In all, it’s a fine book, if difficult to lift and read. I’m kind of glad to be done! I imagine I’ll be going back to it for reference in future.

Recommended.

Farewell, Katie

Our older cat Katie has gone to her final rest. She was a rescue, abandoned at a kennel where we used to board our other cats. We had her a little over 17 years, but she was full grown when she came, so must have been at least 18. Katie was not an easy cat to love. Grouchy and feisty, she never sat on laps. She liked to be petted JUST on the top of her head, and when she decided. Any other time and place you might get nipped. When we brought our orange tabby brothers Tigger and Leo into the house five years ago, Katy would have none of them, and until about a month ago, when she got too weak, would hiss and swipe at them if they got too close. Katy had been in decline for a few years. This past year, Ellen gradually went to greater and greater lengths to keep her going, including hand feeding and fluids, but finally she was too weak to walk much, and had trouble breathing, so it was time. Our lives will get a little easier now, but we will miss her.

Incoming: MANHUNTER ARTIST’S EDITION

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

I love looking at original comics art, but I have yet to buy one of IDW’s wonderful Artist’s Editions that reproduce large quantities of such art at original size. This one arrived today from IDW, and I’m not sure why, though I am listed under “special thanks” inside. Maybe either editor Scott Dunbier or artist Walt Simonson will remind me if I did something helpful for this book, I know I didn’t letter any of the contents.

In addition to the terrific Manhunter series that ran in DETECTIVE COMICS in the 1970s, this book has an almost as lengthy section of other early Walt Simonson work including a Batman story, Dr. Fate from FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL #9, three wonderful Captain Fear pirate stories that ran in UNKNOWN SOLDIER and two issues of METAL MEN. Not everything is shot from original art, but much of it is, and I love seeing all the production notes, lettering corrections, pasted-in art fixes, and everything that brings the creation of the work to life, and of course the stories are great reading.

If you haven’t seen any of these Artist’s Editions, you should try to. They’re fabulous in every way.