Todd Klein's Blog, page 309

California Coast Highway

More vacation pics over the next few days. These are from our drive down the coast from Carmel to San Simeon on the Pacific Coast Highway. Above is one of the more interesting houses in Carmel, near where we stayed.

This sign says it all. The PCH here is all curves, with the highway embedded in steep drop-offs down to the ocean. Not exactly cliffs, but you wouldn’t want to go over the edge all the same. Ellen is not fond of heights, so she elected to drive this stretch herself, putting me in the over-the-edge viewing seat, which was fine with me.

There were lots of magnificent rocky coastline views.

While many smaller islands hold only birds or seals, this larger one has people on it.

There are also some nice beaches along the way.

We stopped in Big Sur to see some of the Redwoods in the state park. Not as large as the Sequoias we’ve seen further inland, but still mighty large and impressive.

Ellen with Redwoods for size comparison.

On the road again, these are typical of the coastal slopes we were driving along.

One area we stopped was full of roadside flowers…

…including these, which I think are California Poppies.

Ellen among the flowers.

As we arrived in San Simeon we found a preserved area of beach set aside for a large group of Elephant Seals.

There were dozens of them lying around, as seals do, and this species is pretty large, so they filled much of the beach. Tomorrow, pictures of the William Randolph Hearst home that was our main reason for stopping here.

Monterey, California

Here are some photos from our just-completed California trip, these are all from the Monterey Peninsula. This is the Point Piños lighthouse.

Ellen wanted to be sure to visit this subtle John Denver memorial on the beach there, marking the place where his plane went down in the ocean. Ellen still mourns him, her favorite musician.

Lots of these on the beaches, a Western Gull.

A Stellar’s Jay in the Monarch Sanctuary wildlife area near the lighthouse.

Some kind of Ground Squirrel living in the rocks along the beach.

California Sea Lions covering this small rocky island just off the coast.

Atop another larger rock were lots of Cormorants, not sure which species.

The often rocky coast has many views like this.

One spectacular view is of the Lone Cypress on the 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach golf club. We visited the club lodge for a quick look around and a bit of shopping for my brother, who’s a golfer.

Another place for great views is Point Lobos State Park, a few miles south of Monterey.

There we saw this California Quail.

This is either one or two Sea Otters, the image is a bit confusing!

These are definitely Brandt’s Cormorants, one male showing the bright blue throat patch they only have briefly during mating season.

And finally we have a seal basking on the rocks, not sure which species it is. Monterey was a great place for nature, and we also enjoyed Fisherman’s Wharf for lunch, and a great Italian restaurant in Carmel for dinner. More pics soon.

At the wedding of Erika and Sean 5/26/12

Erika is my cousin Bev’s daughter. Beautiful ceremony in California. Hope to add more family pics here soon.

Incoming: BATWOMAN Volume 1 Hardcover

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Arrived moments ago on my doorstep (UPS works late around here!), six issues of J.H. Williams III goodness, with help from co-writer W. Haden Blackman, Amy Reeder & Richard Friend (on the zero issue), colorist Dave Stewart and myself on ocarina. Worth a look!

And Then I Read: STALKY & CO.

I’ve been meaning to get to this for a long time. Decades, probably. I think it’s the only Kipling book aimed at young readers that I hadn’t read, and is often cited, along with “Tom Brown’s School Days” (which I read about ten years ago) as the most important early British school stories. I found it was a free download for my iPad from Apple recently, so I decided to read the ebook (not the first edition shown above).

“Tom Brown’s School Days” shares some qualities with this book. Both have groups of high-spirited boys engaged in all kinds of hijinks, pranks, bullying, and other escapades. Tom Brown is into sports, though, and the book famously gave British Rugby football a large boost in popularity. Stalky and his two partners in crime McTurk and Beetle hold sports in distain and avoid it as much as possible. Instead, they are literary types: reading and reciting poetry, putting on plays, and going on nature walks, though the latter are mainly a way to get out from under watchful eyes and have smoke.

The book is entertaining if you can read it. It’s full of nearly impenetrable school jargon and British boys slang from the period (1890s). As a longtime Anglophile I usually have no trouble with this sort of thing, but much of what the boys said, especially early in the book, was hard to follow. As you go on it gets easier in context. Stalky is the brains behind the company’s best-planned exploits, and there are some clever ones, with professors usually the target, especially their nemesis King, who they are often at war with. Other students also come into the line of fire when they try to bully or cross the three.

There are some moments of cooperation with school goals here and there, and Stalky and Co. are not always going in the wrong direction. The headmaster seems to know this, and even when he punishes them, he does it with a knowing smile, as if he was just that sort of student himself once. The character of Beetle is in fact supposed to be based on Kipling, and the school one he attended.

Surprisingly, many of the boys are aiming at a military officer career, and at the end of the book is a sort of coda telling how they fared in the army in India, as some of the schoolmates reunite to share stories from the battlefields and postings there. Stalky, as you might expect, comes out as a clever and heroic soldier. In this way the book becomes a tract of pro-military propaganda that might have convinced a fair number of British boys to head in the same direction. Something Kipling would probably have considered a worthwhile achievement.

In all, I enjoyed the book, though it was sometimes a slog getting through the slang to meaning. Recommended.

And Then I Read: WONDER WOMAN 8

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

Wonder Woman goes to Hell, guns blazing! Well, not exactly, the cover notwithstanding. She does go to Hell to confront Hades and attempt to rescue the girl Zola, and she does bring guns. Quite unusual ones, and as writer Brian Azzarello knows, if you show a gun, you must use it. I’m enjoying this title again in general, though the depiction of Hades I still find quite silly, and something that keeps me from taking the character seriously. But the rest works well, and Hell itself in this book is quite different than you might expect in ways I like.

The art by Cliff Chiang continues to be completely right, perfect and charming. I can’t think of another artist I’d want to see on this book.

Recommended.

Rereading: FLEX MENTALLO

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

I read and enjoyed this when it came out as a four-issue Vertigo series in 1996, but didn’t remember a lot about it, so I’ve reread the classy new hardcover edition, which is everything a fan might want except for a sewn binding.

Grant Morrison takes us on quite a trip in this story. A good part of it is nostalgia for the comics of our collective youth, and there are plenty of fanboy moments and comics insider jokes. It’s also a rather dark story of a comics creator who is suicidal and self-destructive, and by the way, perhaps the creator of Flex and other characters in the book. There are many moments of stark contrast between these two themes as the narrative jumps from one to the other, or mixes the two in other ways. Grant is endlessly creative, going from zany romps to horrific real-world disasters to trippy mind-bending explorations of the human psyche. All that is greatly abetted and enhanced by the terrific art of Frank Quitely.

Quitely has an illustrative approach that does not seem to draw much from comics, at least not super-hero comics. He likes detail, and none of his characters are beautiful in the classic comics style, but they’re all fascinating to look at. While the technique is realistic, Quitely has no trouble capturing every weird visual idea Morrison throws at him, and probably adding embellishments of his own. These are two creators who seem to bring out the best in each other, as we’ve seen since on such titles as ALL-STAR SUPERMAN and WE3. Not sure if this was the first time they worked together, but it’s certainly one of the very best.

Highly recommended!

And Then I Read: MYSTERY IN SPACE 1

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

Vertigo puts out these large anthologies every so often, and I like them for several reasons. First, it’s a place to check out creators that are new to me and see if they can write a complete short story, not an easy thing. Some can’t! Second, as it’s Vertigo, there are some unusual and even experimental entries, plus usually some by long-time pros I like. Third, they’re using titles I used to read as a starting point, though when I read MYSTERY IN SPACE it was dominated by Adam Strange stories.

I lettered a six-page Michael Allred story for this comic, so I won’t cover that, but there are plenty of other entries under a fine cover by Ryan Sook.

“Verbinksy Doesn’t Appreciate It” is a nice take on the twilight-zone “loop” story that feeds back on itself by Duane Swierczynski (there’s a name to give letterers pause). The art by Ramon Bachs reminds me a bit of Sean Murphy.

“Transmission” by Andy Diggle and Davide Gianfelice is set up rather like an actual mystery in which man (or woman in this case) outwits machine. I like the stylized art.

“Asleep To See You” is more of an episode than a story, didn’t care much for it.

“Here Nor There” by Ann Nocenti and Fred Harper is a delightfully dark yet funny tale of a man, a woman, a cat and a squidlike alien with sparkling dialogue by Nocenti and pretty good art by Harper.

“The Elgort” by Nnedi Okorafor and Michael Wm. Kaluta is a delight to look at, and starts out well, but the story has no resolution, and in fact seems to be about to go further when it ends. Either that or I didn’t understand the ending.

“Breeching” by Steve Orlando and Francesco Trifogli is an interesting tale about centaur-like creatures and some sort of coming-of-age ritual battle that seems to be mostly in the minds of the combatants. Didn’t quite understand this one, but I liked it anyway.

“Contact High” by Robert Rodi and Sebastian Fiumara is about a space mission with three guys that each have a personal agenda. When one of them is contacted by telepathic beings, everything takes a new twist. Not bad.

“The Dream Pool” by Kevin McCarthy and Kyle Baker didn’t work for me. I found the very cartoony art didn’t mesh at all with the serious political/societal story.

As always with anthologies, it’s a mixed bag, but there’s lots of variety here, so you might want to give it a try. Recommended.

This Week’s Nature Photos

I’ve had a busy week. Ellen’s been away visiting Disney World with her sister and nephew, so I’m keeping myself and three cats fed and cared for. Monday was a slow work day until 2 PM, but I’ve been quite busy with that since then, too. I have been out taking a few pics in the yard. this Eastern Box Turtle showed up Monday. We get them wandering through our yard at this time of year, searching for mates, and a few usually stay in the woods nearby all summer, visiting the pond for a dip when it’s very hot, or the compost pile for leftover lettuce and fruit rinds (they love watermelon).

The rhododendrons are in bloom. I decided one close bloom was more interesting than the usual more distant shot of many, but in volume they’re impressive, and the three plants in our front yard are getting quite large.

Another yard visitor was this young Fowler’s Toad. That’s the only species we have here, so I didn’t need to look it up. This one was in the front garden Monday, hope he stays around to eat bugs. I saw a larger one today out by the main road.

The blue iris at the edge of our pond started opening Thursday. Here’s the first bloom, with our large, solitary goldfish in the background. Today there were about 10 blooms open.

I’ve also helped lead two field trips for the Cape May Bird Observatory. Thursday’s walk in Belleplain State Forest gave me this shot of a Question Mark butterfly with wings folded so you can see the white crescent and dot of the backwards question mark that gives its name (on the center of the lower wing, a little hard to see).

Today’s walk in Peaslee Wildlife Management Area gave us good looks at this handsome male Orchard Oriole, the only bird on either day I got a decent photo of. One more field trip tomorrow morning in Belleplain, and I’m done with that until fall. Ellen comes home too, so it’ll be a good day all around!

And Then I Read: WORLD’S FINEST 1

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

This is part of the Earth 2 continuity, which I have no interest in reading, but I decided to try this one because I like the writer and artists. Though some things are a bit confusing, in general Paul Levitz does a good job of telling his part of the story without leaving me feeling  there are massive gaps that need filling. So, we have alternate versions of Supergirl and Robin (a female one) who have been thrown out of their own alternate Earth into a different one where they become alternate versions of Power Girl and Huntress. Without trying to hard to follow the convolutions of that, I enjoyed the action and dialogue.

The art by George Perez and Scott Koblish on the PG/Huntress section is lovely, though some of the faces are missing the true Perez look that he himself and a few other inkers provide. Still good, though. The art on the SG/Robin section by Kevin Maguire is equally nice, and has more action in it than usual for Kevin, handled well.

In all a good read. Not sure if I’ll read more or not, but you might like to.