Hal Johnson's Blog, page 18

A garland of quotations LXXX

(Perhaps this is cheating, but I thought, to celebrate last week’s release of my latest and potentially last book, I would weave a garland of quotations plucked from that very volume (which is, let me make clear, not exclusively made up of quotations, but also not, you know, devoid of quotation). The book is funny and weird and full of myths and legends and technically for kids but I don’t know how they let me put some of this stuff in. Anyway, thus we see art degraded by commerce, and next week...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

Come see me tomorrow at B&N!

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Chua/García-López!

A garland of quotations LXXIX

NEW BOOK RELEASED TODAY!!

(actually yesterday, but w/e)

When watched, even a snake becomes familiar in time.
•Budhasvamin, The Emperor of the Sorcerers (ca. 1000).

I have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog
For a schoolmaster to my children
•Blake, Vala, or The Four Zoas (1797–1807).

When the snake look me in the eye
he crawled over to the side and died.
’Cause I put chains on lightning and shackles on thunder.
And I walk through the grave make the dead wonder.
•“Signifying Monkey,” from Bruce Ja...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

It's almost here!

Brand-new book around the bend!

Myths & legends! Heroes & dastards!

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Kirby/Royer!

A garland of quotations LXXVIII

Coming soon! Knights of legend!

With the Gnostics, we find ourselves in the fantastic world of dreamers. They all sleep in the same room, but their dreams do not touch each other.
•Jean Guitton, Great Heresies and Church Councils (1963).

Set…is usually depicted in human form with the head of an animal which has not yet been identified; in later times the head of the ass was confounded with it, but the figures of the god in bronze which are preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere prove beyond ...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

Coming soon! Knights of legend!

Thanks for reading Hal Johnson Books! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Artist unknown (to me).

A garland of quotations LXXVII

Coming soon! Knights of legend!

God asks the mirror: “I don’t have the emotional depth other people do, do you?”
He never wanted to, though he wanted to.
God stares into the full-length mirror in the foyer—
The border guard at the checkpoint stares back.
The guard won’t let him enter the mirror.
“I only have one feeling and you’re hurting my feeling!”
•Frederick Seidel, “Sunset at Swan Lake” (2016).

Satyr is a sort of Glass, wherein Beholders do generally discover every body’s Face but their Own.
•Swift,...

Truly Wordless Comic Panels

Coming soon! Knights of legend!

Thanks for reading Hal Johnson Books! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Kirby/Ayers!

A garland of quotations LXXVI

Coming soon! Knights of legend!

Think not that a sin committed here in Babylon is less than had it been committed in Athens or Olympia; for a Wise Man Hellas is everywhere, nor consider any land desert or barbarian, since he lives under the eyes of Virtue, who deigns to look but on few men.
•Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (c. 220).

“Forget me, Lord, if I forget
Jerusalem for Babylon,
If I forget the vision set
High as the head of Lebanon
Is lifted over Syria yet,
If I forget and bow me do...

Immortal Lycanthropes twelfth-anniversary rerelease

My first (published) novel, Immortal Lycanthropes, turns twelve this year, which would be a bigger deal if we were not base-ten loyalists. Twelve years ago, the publisher, Houghton Mifflin, sent review copies exclusively to humorless scolds, who were immediately offended by every aspect of the book, and also thought it was hard to read. The first adventure novel to feature a were-red-panda sank into oblivion.

Until now! To celebrate the big one-two, IL is being released in a snazzy new edition, w...