Todd’s Blog

Images © DC Comics and the respective copyright holders.

I tried to like it, but this series is not for me. It’s a fun idea, getting together some of the pulp stars and early superheroes, but the treatment is grim and violent, and some of the characters are changed in ways I don’t care for. The Spirit’s sidekick Ebony as a sexy black woman? The Blackhawks as black ops? Sorry, no. Batman finally shows up in this issue on one page only. More of him might have made it better.

The art is okay, but in places I found the characters pretty far off from what I expected, and I don’t care for the over-rendered coloring either. There are a few character moments I liked, but on the whole, I’ll pass, and can’t recommend this series.

How about MAAOOUUI?

One of the sites I visit daily is the LETTERING SHOWCASE message board on the Digital Webbing site. There you’ll find messages and comments from seasoned lettering professionals (and friends of mine, I believe) like Tom Orzechowski, Clem Robins and Kurt Hathaway as well as Blambot font creator and chief Nate Piekos. There are also quite a few younger letterers or would-be letterers that have interesting things to say or questions to ask. I was struck recently by how much good advice about lettering, and comics in general I’ve been seeing there lately. For instance, one poster, in a thread titled “I never realized” was complaining about having to deal with a writer’s ego. Tom O replied:

“Writers are insecure, and we’re putting clothes on their babies. The wrong clothes. Too big, wrong color, wrong style. And, we want to be paid for getting it wrong over and over again. Yeah, that’s the job. Sometimes.

“Most writers never say a word, one way or the other. They’ll assume that you’re a professional in ability as well as in attitude, and they don’t feel the need to comment on the work. Drives me crazy. (So, am I about to be fired, or what?!) I just assume that no comment is good comment. I’ve outlasted a lot of writers, and I hope you will, too. Trust your instincts, keep your eyes open, and don’t take anything personally. It’s off sale in 30 days.”

That’s wisdom.

Oh, it’s not all sweetness and light on the board by any means, and even in that thread there are some testy replies, but I find comments like Tom’s above well worth looking for.

© William H. Patterson, Jr.

Continuing from Part 1, I’m taking a look at this book in sections, here covering chapters 11-19, up to page 251. More fascinating reading, more surprises, taking Heinlein into a second marriage, through his Navy service into a brief political career and the beginnings of writing fiction.

Without ever having considered the numbers, I always thought the man’s Naval service ran at least through World War Two, but in fact it was much briefer. He served in various jobs and officer levels on several ships, and seems to have learned a lot from some of his commanders and instructors there, but it was a harder life than one would think, and health problems began making that life more difficult. Eventually Heinlein contracted tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease that had no real cure in those days before antibiotics, and could only be put into remission. The Navy first let Heinlein recover at a modern clinic, but then put him into an antiquated Navy hospital where the primitive treatments and uncaring staff nearly killed him. Always resourceful, Heinlein managed to escape and get better treatment elsewhere, but he knew he was on the way out of the service. Putting a TB patient on a ship, even in remission, was too risky, and after about five years of service, Heinlein was forced to retire on 2/3 pay for life, not a terrible deal, but it meant he’d need to find a new career to support himself and his wife.

Heinlein met and married Leslyn MacDonald while stationed near Los Angeles. She was three years older than him, highly educated, and a published writer of poetry. They hit it off well, seemed to have common interests, and despite the fact that she had been dating his best friend, Heinlein proposed almost immediately and was accepted. They wed in 1932 and she set up house in Los Angeles while Heinlein served on ships in the area. There’s little in print about Leslyn, and I was prepared for another bad marriage, but in fact they seemed to have quite a good one, at least in the years covered in these chapters. She supported his efforts as a Navy man, then in politics and as a beginning writer, and seems to have been a good partner for him. They had an open marriage, meaning each apparently had permission to sleep with others, and while the author doesn’t go into that much (probably because there’s little information available), I found that a bit surprising. I always thought Heinlein’s somewhat radical opinions about sex and love expressed in his later books beginning with “Stranger in a Strange Land” were written to be provocative, and probably didn’t reflect the author’s own preferences, but perhaps I was wrong; it seems he walked the walk.

Heinlein’s political career, though brief, would have been even more surprising if I hadn’t read about it recently elsewhere. Until then I’d known nothing of it. As outlined in this book, it all makes perfect sense. Heinlein was in California during a turbulent time: the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl brought hordes of hungry refugees into the state looking for work, and Heinlein became friends with Upton Sinclair, the author famous for his book “The Jungle,” among others, who decided to try to run for governor on a socialist platform to bring relief to the common citizen and refugee alike. Naturally, business interests wanted none of that. Having read of Heinlein’s own poor upbringing, and knowing his feelings about doing the right thing and helping others less fortunate, it’s easy to see how he got involved, and even ran for state office, unsuccessfully. Some of his experiences showed up later in his fiction, particularly “Double Star.”

Out of politics, Heinlein needed a career, and several ideas went bust, including a silver mine operation that wiped out most of his savings. He was still reading the science fiction pulps, and soon got the idea to give writing for them a try. But first, to put together some of his ideas, he wrote a novel that was only published recently, “For Us, The Living.” In it were the seeds of much of his later work, but it never found a publisher. He turned to shorter stories and began sending them to the magazines, and found a friend and fan in ASTOUNDING and UNKNOWN editor John Campbell, who nurtured the novice writer. The most surprising thing about the beginnings of his writing career to me were how much he was willing to rewrite and capitulate to editors in the beginning (though not always happily), and that he began as a very poor two-finger typist and taught himself touch typing by taping over the letters on the keyboard and putting a keyboard diagram on the wall behind the typewriter where he’d have to look up at it. What a smart idea!

Again, this book is terrific reading, and highly recommended. More later.

Images © Eric Shanower.

While Eric continues to tell the massive epic story from Homer’s “Iliad,” he’s making it even larger by including other related works, even those not from Greek mythology at all, as in this issue’s focus, the romantic couple Troilus and Cressida, brought together for a lover’s tryst by the scheming Pandarus. This story first appeared in mediaeval times, most notably in a poem by Chaucer and a play by Shakespeare, the latter being, I think, the main source here. It’s an interesting idea, folding these later myths and stories into Homer’s work, it makes this series a sort of metafiction, adding new layers.

While in love with each other from afar, the couple is very timid about getting together, and they need lots of help from the older Pandarus, whose name gave us the verb “to pander” and the noun for his sort of person, a “pander,” one who acts as a go-between for sexual liaisons. All this gives us, the reader, a bit of respite from the horrors of the Trojan War, not such a bad thing, and as always, Eric handles it all with great style and fine art.

A few words on the lettering: Eric has been lettering his own work since he began in the business, and I’ve always liked that and admired his lettering. Gradually over time, though, the lettering has become more stylized, and I’ve been noticing with the last few issues of AGE OF BRONZE that it’s now becoming a bit hard for my old eyes to read. Looking closely, I think the horizontal top bar on the T has become so short that it tends to read like an I, and the very narrow letters with vertical sides like U and N and H begin to look too much alike. Eric has always drawn an extra long center stroke on his E, and now it’s so long that it tends to break up some of the words its in, like SWEET in the second balloon above, which I tend to see as SWE  ET. Eric, if you’re reading, perhaps you might consider us older readers and ease up a bit on the attractive but less readable elements in your lettering.

Despite that minor point, this book continues to be a favorite, and is highly recommended, though getting the collections is the best way to begin it, rather than picking up an issue this far into the story.

© William H. Patterson, Jr., art by Donato.

I don’t read many biographies, but this, of one of my favorite writers, was preordered as soon as I learned of it. It’s very long, over 600 pages (and that’s just volume 1 of 2, though about 100 of it is notes), and will take me a while, so I thought I’d report on it as I read. At present I’ve read the first 10 chapters, 125 pages.

Heinlein wrote very little about his own life directly, aside from one travel book (“Tramp Royale”) and in his rare interviews he usually answered only questions about his work or his philosophy. Therefore, nearly everything I’ve read so far here has been completely new information. I find that biographies are often most revealing in the early chapters, covering childhood, as we can often see how family, upbringing and pivotal events lead a person to the life we know them for, and it’s very true here. Author Patterson was chosen by Heinlein’s widow Virginia for this project, and he’s clearly spent years in research. He tells what he knows succinctly, offering some opinions but usually keeping the facts in the forefront. He also makes connections to Heinlein’s fiction where pertinent, as where the writer drew on his grandfather’s persona in some works.

It’s fascinating to think of what a different world young Bobbie came into in 1907 Butler, Missouri and soon Kansas City. Cars were a rare novelty, his grandfather did country doctoring with a horse and buggy. Rural Butler, the home of Heinlein’s mother’s family, seems an idyllic pastorale just barely past the Civil War era. The family was large, Heinlein was the third boy, other boys and girls followed. While their father worked hard, he never could really get ahead of the costs of raising that family, and young Bobbie soon learned that each of them were expected to fend for themselves much of the time. The older brothers got most of the parental attention, too. While at times cash poor, the entire family was intelligent, hard working and religious, and Bobbie learned to pull his own weight early, starting to find work of his own at age 12, and doing all kinds of jobs while still going to school. Having spent some time in Kansas City myself in the early 1970s, though it was very different by then, I got some extra enjoyment of Patterson’s descriptions of the settings.

All of the family were avid readers, and Bob read everything he could get his hands on. One favorite author was H.G. Wells, but he read widely. Other than Wells, there was little that could be called science fiction when Heinlein was young, but as soon as Hugo Gernsbach started publishing it in his magazines, Heinlein was reading it.

Military careers were a tradition in the family, one reason Bob pursued that avenue, but it was pragmatic, too. He found an opportunity to get recommended for either West Point or Annapolis through his local Senator, and it looked like the only way to get an advanced education for not much money (and even then it was a struggle). Heinlein managed to work all the angles and get a Navy appointment at Annapolis, where his older brother Rex was already attending. His time there is covered in these chapters, and while some of it is lists of classes and studies, there are many surprising moments and adventures, from practice cruises around the Atlantic to fencing victories to petty brutality and unfair treatment.

After graduating, Heinlein’s story continues to be surprising. An early marriage just before he went off for his first Naval assignment was news to me, and it doesn’t seem like much of a marriage, as his wife continued to live at home with her parents while Bob reported to San Pedro, California for duty. Later, Heinlein is sent to New York City for training for several weeks. His wife declined to join him there, too, so the young man got an apartment in Greenwich Village and briefly lived the Bohemian life.

There is also, of course, discussion by Patterson of what may have informed the adult Heinlein’s viewpoints on all aspects of life, from morals to religion, politics to philosophy, the latter a topic the young man is said to have loved to discuss. Again, events that seemed pivotal are highlighted and commented on, and where Patterson found no facts, and is just speculating, he says that. I’m impressed with the author’s work so far.

I’m having a great time reading this. If you’re a Heinlein fan I can’t recommend it enough. More later.

Images © Scott Snyder & Stephen King.

The two stories in this book seem to be working together better as they go along. Both have picked up the pace with lots of action and horror in each. Pearl’s story by Snyder continues to impress with great character development, while King’s story here is back to masterful in-your-face western showdowns of the vampiric sort. His main character Sweet seems to be getting more vicious, and with good reason. Perhaps the creepiest thing about these new vampires is the way their fingers can extend into long, slashing claws. The biggest horrors here for me are the psychological ones, as when a trusted friend turns out to be allied with your worst enemy.

The art by Rafael Albuquerque is great, I like the slightly cartoony style that allows the horror an extra theatrical edge. He’s still using a gray wash technique for the backup and regular inked linework for the main story, but with similar coloring the differences are not that striking. It all works well for me.

Recommended.

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

This title will end with issue 16, so the current storyline, about the son of Travis Morgan taking his father’s place as The Warlord, will be the last for now. I’m sorry to see it go, I think Mike Grell’s art is looking as good as ever when he does it all himself, as on issue 15, and when he doesn’t it looks pretty good, too. The writing was a little rocky at first, but then fell into a good rhythm for the last 10-12 issues. Why didn’t it sell better? My theory is the market for it is too spread out. When the original series came out in the 1970s there were far fewer comics being published, and only a handful of them fell into the “sword and sorcery” category, with CONAN being the main one. Grell combined the tropes of that genre with Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Pellucidar” stories of a world inside our own, added some relevance with his fighter pilot hero, and readers loved it. Now there are so many other comics dividing their attention, not to mention games along similar lines, I think it got lost in the crowd. Too bad.

Though Travis Morgan is gone, he’s fathered another child, Morgana, a girl baby with powerful magic who helps save her brother Joshua in a battle with a dragon that turns out to be something else entirely. A “Chariots of the Gods” storyline develops, but there’s also a fun encounter with a hippogryph in issue 15 that shows off Grell’s art and love of action perfectly. If you’re looking for grim and gritty, look elsewhere, this is heroic action with a fantastic flair, and recommended. Get it while you can.

Image by Rory Phillips.

Over at the LETTERCULT site, the continuing display/competition of amazing letters is just past the halfway point. Some great work, some entertaining ideas, and some that are just puzzling to me, but it’s well worth a browse.

© Diana Wynne Jones, illustration © Brandon Dorman.

This new book by fantasy master DWJ (which I loved, by the way) has clarified something for me about the majority of her work. Perhaps it’s because it includes some characters from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” With a few exceptions like parts of “The Dalemark Quartet,” Jones’ books have these elements in common, in varying proportions: plots based on mistaken identity or characters who don’t know their own true identity, characters who seem very powerful but have hidden weaknesses, characters who are very powerful but either don’t know it or don’t know how to use their power, romantic entanglements, humor, trickery, luck both good and bad, many things that are not what they seem, and of course magic. Much the same could be said for Shakespeare’s play, and if you left out the magic, nearly all of his comedies. What Diana Wynne Jones is writing is Comedy in the traditional sense, but with magic added. Magical Comedies.

There are many characters in this delightful magical comedy, with the two most important ones being Andrew, a college professor who has just inherited the large estate of his grandfather, and taken up residence there. Andrew knows vaguely that there is powerful magic in the place, and that he’s supposed to take charge of it, but he’s not sure how. Aidan Cain is a boy who has just lost his grandmother, a woman with powerful magic of her own. While social services wants Aidan to stay with a foster family, he soon finds himself besieged there by magical beings who seem to want to capture him, and Aidan escapes and runs to Melstone, the home of his grandmother’s friend and fellow magician. Unfortunately, when he arrives, Andrew tells him that man has died, and Andrew is now the master of the estate. Andrew takes the boy in, along with an ever growing troupe of other characters who keep showing up on his doorstep. Aidan and Andrew soon find themselves helping each other to explore and understand the deep undercurrents of magic in Melstone, while trying to keep Aidan’s pursuers at bay.

There’s lots more, and it’s all good. Like the last few Jones books I’ve read, this one has a less frantic and more relaxed feel than some of her earlier work. I’m not sure why, there are many of the same elements. Perhaps it’s that the characters seem to have time to relax a bit and enjoy themselves between perilous adventures and annoying encounters with those who wish them ill. Then too, there’s a good feeling of teamwork in this book, as each character on the side of Melstone finds ways to contribute to their success and discoveries, even the ones with bad tempers and annoying habits. If you like fantasy without tragic consequences, you’ll enjoy this one. Recommended!