Missing Review Catch-Up II

It's not been long since I put together my first missing review catch-up blog, but already a few more books have slipped through the cracks. As before, these are things that I skipped for various individual reasons, generally because I didn't feel I could write a half-decent full post about each one. Plus, I am a bit lazy.

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The Pratchett Portfolio (1996)
Terry Pratchett with Art by Paul Kidby

When I was a teenager I was already obsessive-compulsive with books, frequently scouring the bibliography page of my favourite authors' books. Even back then Terry Pratchett's was one of the largest, including not only his regular novels but various off-shoot works, and of all of these The Pratchett Portfolio was always the most intriguing- I really had no idea what it was, and I don't think I ever spotted it on ny bookshop shelves. Fast-forward to the present, and I found a copy in the usual charity bookshop place. Alas to my thirteen-year old self, it'd be very disappointing.

Though Pratchett's name dominates the cover, this is mostly the work of artist Paul Kidby. Released a year after he took over from the late Josh Kirby as Discworld cover artist, it features his detailed pencil sketches of the universe's chief characters, each given short biographies written by Pratchett, with the occasional brief bit of interesting design information. The art itself is very good, though I'm no art critic, as Kidby really does put definitive faces to the cast. The problem is that the book is extremely short, as in maybe forty pages long altogether, with Pratchett's writing filling perhaps a quarter of each page. I read the entire thing in about ten minutes, including gazing at the art. It's so short that I can only really describe it as exploitative of fans, who get very little back from their £7. I only bought it for 4, pretty much just so I could review it for this blog, and I still feel ripped-off.

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The Ancestor's Tale (2004)
Richard Dawkins

My occasional quest to semi-educated myself through the means of popular science books took on its most intimidating quest yet, with Richard Dawkins' absolutely epic The Ancestor's Tale. This mammoth tome weighs in at a whopping 670-pages of evolutionary information, as Dawkins takes a systematic approach at again trying to hammer some of the important details about evolution into my thick head. The often-controversial author, currently offending about a million people each week on Twitter, attempts to work backwards through the history of life on Earth itself; starting with species of flora and fauna from the present day and moving through stages of evolutionary convergences until receding into the proverbial primordial soup. It would be practically impossible to write a truly comprehensive catalogue of this type, but Dawkins Puts in a herculean effort.

The problem that I have, and thus the cause of this petty excuse for a mini-review here rather than a lovely full-page spread, is that I'm too stupid to keep up with such constant factual information. After a while, with every science book I read, my brain starts to actively rebel against the horror of genuinely educational non-fiction and my reading slows to a crawl. It took me a long while to read the second half of this book, retaining less and less information as I went, so I'm in no position to give this a proper review. I can, however, safely say that The Ancestor's Tale is a superb achievement for Dawkins in putting such an ambitious project to paper. As I do with all of his books, I still finished it feeling I understood more about the nature of life itself, even if I'm not brilliant at articulating it.

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 The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Horace Walpole

Curiously just a day after finishing this, an article turned up on BBC News about the importance of this book, so if you want to read about it from people who actually know what they're talking about, go here. Anyway, The Castle of Otranto, like Marlowe's Faustus from last review catch-up, is a book I was first introduced to at university as an important piece of genre fiction. Also like Faustus, I found this particular edition of Otranto included with another related book, 'reviewed' below. The key reason that I'm not giving Otranto a full review is that I don't think it would be fair, since from a normal critical viewpoint it's actually a fairly awful book; meandering, overwritten, with one dimensional characters and a plot that doesn't make any sense. It remains a memorable classic in English literature though for the influence it had by essentially being the first ever proper Gothic horror novel.

Set in a vaguely-defined classically gothic Germanic castle, The Castle of Otranto follows the trials and tribulations of Manfred and his family. Manfred is sent panicking by some ghostly manifestations when his son is crushed by a giant helmet that apparates for no reason, and so tries to reinforce his power by remarrying at any cost. The rest of the plot reads like a series of random events, punctuated by unconvincing, overwrought narration, and as such is both fun and stupid. It's interesting to read this so far in the future and remind yourself of how Otranto and books like it have eventually inundated popular culture completely, but other than that there's not much to take from it.

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The Mysterious Mother (1791)
Horace Walpole

As was the case with Marlowe's Faustus and Goethe's Faust last catch-up, Otranto and The Mysterious Mother came together in one volume- though this edition I bought seems to be a study guide-, collecting Horace Walpole's only pieces of fiction. Like Otranto, Mysterious Mother is a gothic horror, but this time in the form of a play. The subject matter is actually rather murky, far more so than Otranto (written almost thirty years earlier), involving the classical crime of incest, leading to murder, drama, and possibly the first ever example in fiction of an evil gothic monk. It also happens to be mostly terrible.

Stylistically, Walpole does what 99% of all other play-writes have consistently done since, and rips off Shakespeare and Marlowe. As a result the dialogue and stage directions are bombastic, epic-sounding declarations meant to capture the audience's attention and emphasise the importance of the drama. Unfortunately trying to live up to the dramatic standards of William Shakespeare is never really going to work, especially for a man who Otranto proved clearly has a limited handle on prose fiction, and as a result the entire play reads as hokey and self-important. I finished it, but may have lost many details in the read through thanks to how dull and unworthy Walpole's writing was. Lacks the charm and importance of Otranto too.

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Judge Dredd- The Complete Case Files 12 (2009)
2000AD

After a good six-month break from this marathon trek through the complete history of Judge Dredd, I was surprised to find upon my return that we'd already reached the late; probably due to the surprising amount of time it took for 2000AD to add colour to the proceedings. Volume 12 catches Dredd in the wake of the Oz saga (collected, of course in vol 11) where his adventures down under have left him with questions about his ability to continue patrolling the super metropolis that is Mega City One. Meanwhile, in the real world, creative differences regarding that saga resulted in the end of the writing partnership of Alan Davis and John Wagner, and as a result authorship of the strips collected here bounces back and forth. It's probably because of that that Volume 12 avoids throwing itself into any similarly-sized epics to instead build for the future.

Most of the stories included are quick two-parters, some of which receive sequels later on to wrap things up. Wagner and Davis stick to the tried and tested Dredd formula of utilizing the dystopian sci-fi as satire (and sometimes almost pantomime), each time exploring a new corner of the city and finding a new unlucky criminal to face Dredd's wrath. As a result there's nothing I'd call essential contained in this volume, at least as it relates to Dredd storyline lore- although it does contain the first appearance of a character set to play a prominent role in the future, in the clone Judge Kraken, and continues the development of quirky 12-year-old serial killer PJ Maybe, resisting the urge to have a Dredd-related payoff in these stories for the sake of building the character up. Other stories involve Dredd visiting Japan, battling a proto-Batman, and performing in a rather twisted Wizard of Oz parody in Twister (a personal favourite Dredd story of mine). So, nothing ground-breaking here, just another year of strange adventures notched on Dredd's belt, in classic Wagner style.

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Comics Snobbery II- Grant Morrison's Batman

Comics Snobbery II- 
Grant Morrison's Batman

Cover by Frank Quietly

 Comics Snobbery I- Judge Dredd

Despite the (hopefully) tongue in cheek title of this blogging miniseries, in hindsight my love for Judge Dredd comics isn't really that objectional in terms of snobbery. After all, classic Judge Dredd strips aren't nearly as widely read as most mainstream comics and sit nicely in the fantastically niche genre of classic British science fiction. Put another way, logging on to a comics forum and unabashedly proclaiming your love for classic Dredd isn't going to seem annoying to anyone, even in an environment where usually anyone will argue about anything for any reason. The subject of today's meandering ramblings, however, could start a mass fanboy fight in an empty room, in a vacuum in space. And I love it to death.

For those of you who don't keep up with comics, you still might have heard of Grant Morrison. The Glaswegian native began his career as a comics writer in the 1980's, making his name with various strips in UK comics including 2000AD and Marvel Comics' then fairly separate UK publishing house. Following the success of several UK authors across the pond (most notably Alan Moore), DC Comics reached out to Morrison, and so began a long-term association that led to Morrison's ascension to superstar status, thanks to DC universe comics like Animal Man, Arkham Asylum, his long run on JLA, All Star Superman, and the unique The Invisibles for DC's Vertigo imprint (more of which may be written about at a later date on this old blog). By 2006, the man could simply do whatever he wanted, such was his selling power and reputation. What he wanted was Batman, and lo, Batman issue #655 heralded the start of a near seven-year run with the character that, to me, stands as the definitive version.

Morrison's take on Batman is actually fairly simple to sum up, but is absolutely laden with intricate details that are going to make it annoyingly hard to sum up. For a start, the full run on the series takes in about six differently-titled comics across the seven year period; the long-running Batman comics from the aforementioned issue #655 to #702, Batman & Robin #01-16, Final Crisis #01-07, The Return of Bruce Wayne #01-07, Batman Incorporated v1 #01-08 and Batman Incorporated v2 (don't ask...) #01-13, with a few other single issue specials that vary in importance. Thankfully this madness is much easier to follow in the collected formats, which is what I've been doing for a while now, all in very nice looking and well-constructed deluxe hardback editions that, thanks to Amazon, were well-priced. 

With that out of the way, the essential motif of Morrison's exploration of the character of Batman was to progressively develop, change, and explore him through reinventing both classic and obscure Batman concepts and stories from past years (a lot from the apparently acid-infested 1950's) to create a fresh, progressive take on the Bat. The first, and most important feature is the introduction of Damian Wayne; the eight-year-old, league of assasains-trained son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul,, thrust into an unsuspecting Bruce Wayne's life to throw his whole world upside down. The second is the introduction of the mysterious criminal organisation known as the Black Glove, led by Dr. Simon Hurt; a cold, incredibly black and unnerving association of newly created villains determined to break the Bat. The majority of the Batman comic run is comprised of the escalating war on Batman, in which The Joker plays an integral part too. The art for the Batman books is mostly by Tony Daniel, who does a stereotypical 'serious' dark comic style that DC loves, which is fine but uninspiring.

Cover by Andy Kubert

After that came Final Crisis. Truth be told, Final Crisis isn't essential for someone only interested in Batman, since he only plays a small, but very important part. It's a big DC Universe wide crossover starring Superman et al battling an invasion of alien gods in the very essence of humanity. I'm not going to attempt to go into any more detail because it's massively complicated. A lot of people don't like it as a comic, and I can kind of see why because it's simply not possible to fully grasp the intricacies through a single reading. Or five of them. If you're me, anyway. Anyway, the wide-screen super-heroics of Final Crisis lead to the Batman and Robin series, and the Return of Bruce Wayne series.

The Batman and Robin collections are my absolute favourites. The key premise is that, due to the events of Final Crisis, Bruce Wayne is missing presumed dead. Taking his place in a more seemless and natural transition than I could ever have hoped for is Dick Grayson; aka Nightwing, aka the first Robin. On a fanboy note, Dick Grayson has always been one of my favourite characters as a guy who's as important to the foundations of DC Comics as Batman and Superman. Since jettisoning the Robin suit for his own identity he's naturally struggled to remain popular in the comics mainstream, but Morrison writes him perfectly. The key to the set-up, though, is Damian Wayne as Grayons's Robin, forming a new dynamic duo that are a joy to read. Fighting against the forces of Dr. Hurt and the Black Glove still, this is like a window into an alternative world where comics characters do age and progress, all the while furthering the long-term arc of just who exactly Simon Hurt is. The artist for this comic rotates with each story arc, and altogether comprises of Frank Quietly (who is absolutely amazing), Philip Tan, Cameron Stewart. Andy Clarke and Frazer Irving. From artist to artist, this book constantly looks fantastic. 

The Return of Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, is the six issue miniseries that tells the reader what Bruce Wayne has been up to since the events of Final Crisis, and his apparent death at the hands of Darkseid, the alien god of evil. Of course Bruce isn't dead, he's merely been thrown backwards in time and given a nasty case of amnesia. Like much of Morrison's run, the real theme of this book is showing just how capable Bruce Wayne is of defeating evil and the extraordinary resourcefulness propping up his superheroism. The first issue shows caveman Bruce Wayne, but each one propels him further through time, brilliantly giving us pirate Batman and cowboy Batman, amongst others. The overall plot becomes clearer towards the end of the series as it starts to explain the true danger caused by Darkseid, and the relation of all of this to Simon Hurt. I'm not giving anything away here, but there's a very circular, compact nature to the story that amazed me more and more further into it. The end of this series links up with Morrison's latter issues of Batman and Robin, finishing off certain key elements and clearing things up for Morrison's final part of his Batman odyssey.

Art by JG Jones

That comes in the form of Batman Incorporated, which is basically exactly as it sounds; the now-returned Bruce Wayne, now sharing the Batman mantle with Dick Grayson, begins to put together an international Batman-themed crime fighting force comprising of local vigilantes inspired by his work. The purpose; to fight the mysterious crime group known as Leviathon, who have been quietly attempting to lower a noose over the Bat's head without him noticing. Without giving too much away, this story comes full circle in relation to the origins of Damian Wayne, as Morrison closes up his arc and prepares to leave Batman for good. Unfortunately, the final run of Batman Incorporated (which, due to reasons I do not want to discuss, comes in two individual 'volumes', where the latter suffers from awkward DC editorial interference that ruins it as a continuity piece) is the weakest part of Morrison's whole run. After Simon Hurt's fate was resolved and explained in Batman and Robin, things loose a little oomph as the Leviathon group just don't offer the same intrigue as the Black Glove. Also I'd grown incredibly attached to Dick Grayson as Batman, and found it disappointing that the Dick & Damian partnership ended before its time. I could happily have read those two as Batman and Robin forever.

Okay, that was a much longer summation of Grant Morrison's run with Batman than I intended, but somehow I feel I barely scratched the surface. The bottom line is that it was the most progressive, interesting and traditional use of the franchise that I've ever seen, and everything else in comparison just seems bland and uninspired- including Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for comics to really make you think, that stand out as legitimate literature rather than just overblown genre fiction. Unfortunately the reoccurring nature of the comics industry actively seeks to stamp out progression with its long-standing classic character, so inevitably most of the cool ideas, themes and plots that Morrison came up with were never going to fully stick, but on the other hand I have to give props to DC comics for allowing him to run for so long, so powerfully with such an important money spinner of theirs. I had a whale of a time; my mind was truly blown away by the imagination of the author and the talented artists portraying his directions, where somehow they managed to create a Batman that was both perfectly definitive and derivative at the same time.

Comics Snobbery I

 Comics Snobbery I

 In the near two year history of this humblest of humble blogs I've successfully managed to resist the constant temptation to write about the comic books I've been reading (or 'graphic novels', if you're insecure), based on the entirely accurate logic that I can barely write two individual book reviews per month anyway. This has been hard since I've been a big reader of comic books since I first noticed the growing collection of the local library when I was about ten years old (and for years before that I read The Beano and The Dandy every week, back when they only cost 40 pence), and since the arrival of the Internet in its current form made it easy to follow the industry on a 24/7 basis.

Still though, it's only been over the last couple of years that my physical collection of comics- a slight misnomer since, unless I'm forgetting, 100% of my collection is comprised of hard and paperback collections or original graphic novels- has really grown. I borrowed a lot of complete series of classic contemporary comics when I was younger, and my heart's desire to revisit and own them won out over my brain's desire to protect my wallet.

In this ever-growing blog post I just want to talk about the comics series that I've only partially collected, but before I do that I must explain; I'm a self-confessed comics snob. That is, I only put down my money on widely well-regarded series with critically acclaimed superstar authors. I don't buy comics on a whim and I don't give chances to authors of whom I feel aren't up to presenting comics as real literature (I'm not overly worried about artists). My reasoning is pretty simple though; I've only got a certain amount of money to spend and only so much free time to read, and my comics reading time is integrated into my novel reading time. And I'm a snob. Let's crack on;

Judge Dredd- The Complete Case Files (2000AD)

Cover art by Cliff Morrison

I'm ten volumes deep in to this absolutely massive complete collection of Judge Dredd stories; the only bullying fascist lawman of the future I ever loved. For those who don't know of him, Judge Dredd first appeared back in 1977 in the second issue of the British science fiction anthology strip 2000AD and perseveres to this day as the country's number one character, popular enough to star in the half-decent 2012 Hollywood movie Dredd. Created and consistently written by John Wagner, Judge Dredd as a character and concept is an immensely curious blend of influences, born of a depressed British society swamped by a deluge of US popular culture, creating this mean, stone-jawed militant policeman who, early on in the strip especially, appalls almost as much as he appeals. The overt fascist, right wing politics of Dredd are cranked-up tongue-in-cheek portrayals of a world too big and too dangerous to be organised by diplomacy. 

Mega City One is the home of Dredd, an immense metropolis stretching down almost the entire east coast of the US and home to millions upon millions of potential criminals. The only thing that can keep things civil is the power of the judge system, where each highly trained judge patrols the city and acts as policeman, judge, jury and executioner rolled into one. Dredd is the most capable and the most feared of all the judges, and he's always at the front line when Mega City One needs protecting. The 10 volumes I've read (though there are 21 available so far) chronicle Dredd's mission to protect the city against all manner of apocalyptic threats, while dealing with crime on the street that you could barely imagine if John Wagner hadn't done it for you.

The earlier volumes mostly contain the more traditional, often straight-faced sci-fi stories written in multiple parts, such as The Cursed Earth Saga, The Judge Child, and The Apocalypse War. They're exciting, classic, and full of admittedly zany British comics humour influenced by the more traditional comics of the time. There's also a strong sense of pastiche as Dredd fulfills a traditional bad ass, never give up, never compromise hero role despite pretty much being a bastard. The later volumes change the tone of the stories somewhat, shortening the long form stories into typically one or two part strips. There's an increased focus on comedy, more satirical and blacker than ever before. It would take a far better deconstructionist than I to properly analyse the development of Dredd in relation to John Wagner's views of society (which, by the time of the contents of Volume 10, was deep into Conservative political territory), but there's no doubt Wagner's authorship improves over the years.

With so many more volumes to read, I'm not entirely sure if I'll make it to the end, simply because I've already been suffering from Dredd fatigue. I'll almost certainly be buying volume 12 though, as it marks Judge Dredd's first foray into colour; a very welcome addition by this point, as the heavy black inks only offer limited detail and add a massive dose of extra repetitiveness. The other nine volumes (so far) may have to wait. Still, despite my complaints of over exposure I can only say that, individually, each volume is of great value; they're massive, and fairly cheap by typical standards. They're also very consistent in quality, though the fact remains that there's a fairly specific niche aspect to the satirical elements that, thirty years on specifically, might not be particularly obvious to non-Brit readers without reference points. 

That's enough comics talk for now. Especially since I originally planned on doing this all in one post, and completely failed. More comics talk soon, probably around 2052 or so.

Trapped in L-Space...

Today I feel like writing stuff, but I couldn't be arsed with the concentrated attention (well, attempted) required for a proper book review, so instead here's what you might call a normal blog post, where I'm going to ramble on in a self-absorbed manner until I run out of steam. It's like an adventure, and we're all in it together. Anyway, I managed to catch up a little on my list of things to review, though there's always the danger of quickly adding to it by getting absorbed in a new book. It actually makes it easier to keep this blog updated when I'm labouring through something that I don't particularly enjoy but feel like I have to finish. I had that with A Feast for Crows and then John Updike's Marry Me, which is a pretty small book but took me ages. Here's a preview of my eventual review (it's third in the queue right now); I didn't like it. Right now I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart, which won't take long to devour because I'm addicted to Murakami's writing; and running dangerously low on unread material.

The real problem is the to-read pile, which is more literally a to-read cabinet. I'm wary of looking over and counting the actual number because it's out of control now. Sometimes I do look at it, and each time I spot something I don't remember buying. It's giving me the nagging feeling that I've opened up a hole into L-Space. I think there's about forty paperbacks sat in the cabinet, plus four I haven't bothered putting in, plus Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 10, plus my yet-to-be-delivered copy of The Absolute Sandman Vol. 3, which was kind of a Christmas present to myself, because I'm generous like that.

The thing is, as I've mentioned many times in my blog, I can't resist a second-hand book shop. While I occasionally get tempted by Amazon, almost every time I'm in town I check out one of the two shops I like, and usually they've got something for around £2.50 that I like the idea of reading at some point in the far future, so the pile keeps growing. Plus, the thing with charity book shops is that if you don't grab it when you see it then it won't be back in stock when it's gone.  There's even a few things that I've grown less fond of the idea of reading, like Cormac McCarthy's complete Border Trilogy. If I don't like the first one, they're all getting kicked out of the pile. Just not literally because it is actually a glass cabinet.

But as overgrown as it is, I do love having this ever-expanding personal library to pick from, and it's going to give me plenty of material for this blog, as long as I don't let the laziness slip in. I've got a review of Douglas Coupland's Generation X to do next, and I'm always tempted to get back to the Discworld, especially with the next installment being a Granny Weatherwax episode in Witches Abroad. Ah well, back to the real world...