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Which of these things was not like the other?
Answer to Question One:
The Hulk. The Hulk is the only one among Spider-man, Red Tornado, Wonder Woman, The Hulk, X-Factor, and The Avengers who has not been the subject of at least a mini-series by Kurt Busiek.
Answer to Question Two:
Wasp. Wasp is the only one of the superheroines Cimarron, Flex, Wasp, Donner, and She-Hulk whose power is not super-strength and (limited) invulnerability.
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just isn't the same
One of these things is not like the others,
Now it's time to play our game!
Question One:
Question Two:
Answers tomorrow!
Flash #135
by Morrison, Millar and Ryan
DC, color, $1.95
rating: Yeesh.
First, the good news: although this is the third part of a three-part cross-over with Green Lantern and Green Arrow, there appears to be no need at all to have read the first two issues, which is a welcome relief to those of us readers who wouldn't read Ron Marz' work on a dare.
That's it for the good news.
The bad news is that Morrison's and Millar's handling of the American legal system is so inept as to be embarrassing. While they did get an inadvertent chuckle out of me for the image of Superman calmly invoking the Twelfth Amendment procedures for the election of the President and Vice-President in the original electoral college system in order to avoid having to reveal his secret identity, when I was done chuckling I was done taking this issue seriously.
A note for non-U.S. readers of Amused in Review (or U.S. readers who either fell asleep in Civic or were to busy flirting with their neighbors to pay attention) is probably in order. Several times in the story M&M have the lawyers refer to the super-heroes' "Twelfth Amendment" right to protect their secret identities (apparently paralleling the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination). Presumably what happened is that they are aware of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively called the Bill of Rights, and when inventing one to insert in the DC universe decided to leave one unnamed inbetween theirs and the ones of which they had heard. Unfortunately for U.S. readers, what M&M apparently didn't know is that, not content with the first ten amendments (which were passed as part of a deal ratifying the Constitution from the beginning), U.S. citizens have been busy amending the Constitution ever since, until at present count we have 26 of them. Even allowing for some leeway in the evolution of Constitutional law in the DC universe as opposed to our own, that would mean that super-heroes had the right to preserve their secret identities before slavery was abolished (13th), or women were granted suffrage (19th), or that perhaps these things never became part of the constitution in DC's America (actually, given the way some of the British writers treat U.S. politics, perhaps they honestly believe that's the case even in the real world).
You might think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, but I honestly don't believe that a writer unfamiliar with basics such as these ought to be writing U.S. courtroom dramas, any more than an American writer ought to be writing English courtroom drama stories in which he refers to a "national secrets act passed by Parliament after the election of William the Conqueror". For a moment I thought that the case was going to turn on an actual legal point, albeit a mistake that no defense attorney as skilled as Weinstein is supposed to be would have committed (challenges to the jurisdiction of the court must be entered immediately or are considered waved), but no, the solution was a spurious-sounding (state attorneys, not even judges, of the courts of a certain state having, with no attempt at explanation, the right to overrule military courts--which, contrary to all logic, then causes the case to end up in Federal court) as it is possible to be--and in the annals of courtroom drama that's pretty spurious sounding indeed.
Several readers have written in to complain that they're having trouble finding the reviews, so I've added a Reviews page to point them here and to the back issues, and a link in the banner to point them to the reviews page. Of course, if you're reading this, you've found the right place.
JLA #16
by Morrison and Porter
DC, color, $1.95
Rating: So-so.
I don't know. I know that Mark Waid thinks this book is the cat's meow (or at least he did last time I talked with him), but I'm really having trouble keeping up my interest. Not only do I have the feeling that I've read this before--I keep getting the feeling that I've read this before in Morrison's run on the book. That can't be good, can it? I'm not exactly sure what it is that gives me the "been there, done that" feeling, unless it's that as far as I can recall, every single arc that Morrison has done begins with showing each member of the JLA (or occasionally, a pair) getting their asses whupped by the villain-du-jour, before they get rescued by the over-looked team member (usually Batman, but it's also been Green Arrow, and probably will be one of the new guys just inducted this time out). Granted (no pun intended), it's probably the easiest way to write the JLA, since you don't have to deal with big crowd scenes, and don't have to come up with a villain that's a match for all of DC's "Big Guns" working as a team...but I'm not particularly interested in reading the easy-to-write stories. If it's a challenge coming up with interesting situations for the JLA to face, it's a challenge that the writer should be willing to face head-on if he's going to take on the title.
And what about the new members of the JLA, now that they've finally revealed ("This is it! The NEW lineup!") who's going to be in the expanded team? Does anyone besides Morrison really care about/for Zauriel, for instance? Again, it's probably nice for the writer to have a character on the team that he invented and completely controls (probably the justification for when Aztek was on the team), and not have to deal with the other writers' use of the character, or the tug-of-war between the various editorial offices that plagued Kesel and Mattsson on Superboy and the Ravers, but why should I as a reader give a fig? There was nothing about Zauriel in the arc that he appeared in previously that made me want to read anything more about him--not even a few panels per issue: as a hero, he's a zero. Steel and Huntress are another couple of yawns for me. Plastic Man at least I like, although I really wonder whether he fits in with the tone of the rest of the book, or even the tone of the rest of the DC universe.
Basically, this is another Morrison title that's teetering on the edge for me. Flash I'll probably continue with, just because I know that Mark Waid and Brian Augustyn will be back on it soon enough, but unless the current story takes a turn for the unexpected, for me JLA will be history.
Let's have another quiz (what the hey, they're easy to produce, and I'm running a little behind, having just updated the quotes and history files through the end of February, so that I don't have to worry about feeding them while I'm vacationing in Paris later this month).
Here are two authors. Supply the title written by both authors such that the last word of the first title is the first word of the second title (dashes are given as a hint to the number of words in the title). An initial 'a' or 'the' doesn't count.
Arthur C. Clark: _____ _____.
Isaac Asimov: ____ __ ____ _____.
Harry Harrison: ____ ____, ____ ____!
E.M. Forster: _ ____ ___ _ ____
Barbara Michaels: ___ ___ ________
Karl Edward Wagner: ________ ______
Sterling Lanier: ______ _______
Jules Verne: _______ __ ___ ______ __ ___ _____
Jane Haddam: ________ __ _____
Rex Stout: _____ __ _ ____
I've finally gotten around to tweaking the program that generates the back issues page; now you can see which comics are reviewed in which back issue. If no comics are listed for a particular date, that means that the column that day didn't contain any reviews (next I'll fix it so that the columns without reviews will display the first few lines of the column).
Mage: The Hero Defined #5
by Matt Wagner
Image, color, $2.50
rating: Keen
Kevin Matchstick and Joe Phat head North to Canada (cue Slappy Squirrel: "Oh Canada, Oh Caaaaaanaaaaaduh!"), and run into an impromptu convention of heroes, all attracted by the unusual number of magic nasties that are also gathering...There were some pretty good moments in this issue, but too much time was spent looking in on the Big Bad Guy, who quite frankly doesn't seem much different from the BBG in the first series (Mage: The Hero Discovered) from oh, so many years ago. Favorite scene: Kev hiding the magical nature of the bat from the border guard.
Answers to yesterday's quiz:
Arthur C. Clark: Imperial Earth
Isaac Asimov: Earth is Room Enough
Harry Harrison: Make Room, Make Room!
E.M. Forster: A Room With a View
Barbara Michaels: Into the Darkness
Karl Edward Wagner: Darkness Weaves
Sterling Lanier: Hiero's Journey
Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of the Earth
Jane Haddam: Fountain of Death
Rex Stout: Death of a Doxy
Young Heroes in Love #10
by Dan Raspler and Christopher Jones
DC, color, $1.95
Rating: Keen.
Too much heroing, not enough loving. Or something like that. I find this comic the most interesting when it's squarely focussed on the inter-personal relationship of the team members. Second best is when the team members talk about the heroes in the DC universe the way that people probably would talk about them--as pop cultural stars along the lines of super-star athletes or rock singers. Dan Raspler is one of the only writers working in the DC camp who seems to have taken any time to think about what the effect of having all these heroes running around would have on pop culture, and there's a good example of this in the current issue. There's also some neat-o giant monster dialogue ("Belching! Bellicose! I Besiege! Truculent! Transcendent! I Trample!"), but I don't really care much about the Young Heroes solving the mystery of the giant monster; I can get that sort of thing elsewhere just as good or better.
Pinky and the Brain #21
by various
DC (Warner Bros.), color, $1.95
Rating: So-so.
I keep saying that each issue will be my last, but this time I really mean it. I don't think I got a genuine laugh out of the entire issue.
I'm giving up my soap-box today in favor of someone who has touched on a subject near and dear to my heart, Spider Robinson (author of the fantastic and funny Callahan's Crosstime Saloon books). I haven't altered the text except to fix the formatting a little so that it will flow correctly on my site.
[--Spider's text begins--]
I'd appreciate it a great deal if you would post, forward, link, and/or otherwise disseminate the following screed to all those at alt.callahans, #callahansIRC, the Compuserve SFLIT Forum, AOL's Callahan's Forum, and/or any related sites you can dig up or swing up out de jungle:
"Squeegee That Monitor For You, Sir?"
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALT.CALLAHANS AND RELATED SITES FROM SPIDER ROBINSON
My toast tonight is, "To writers--may the saints add preservatives to them. And FAST!"
!!!SMASH!!!
This is something I swore I would never do.
But I'm too worried not to. The horse I ride on--the publishing industry, never exactly a thoroughbred--has just begun to stumble and cough up blood. Suddenly I need your help too badly NOT to pull on your coat-tail. You alt.callahans folk and related accomplices owe me nothing. You have made YOUR Callahan's Place all by yourselves, with no help from me, and I think it is in many ways a better, finer creation than my own--one in its way more wonderful than I COULD HAVE imagined. I'm not trying to call in some nonexistent marker--just asking for a minute of your time. I promise I'll play you out with a song when I'm done, at least, like the last time we spoke. Okay?
Let me try and give you an idea of HOW worried I am: I have recently given serious thought to what else I might do for a living, besides write books. No, really. I have even...God, this is hard...I have even contemplated honest work. Of some kind. There must be some trade you can pick up at age forty-eight...right?
As concise a statement of the problem as I can provide:
The publishing business has, in slow stages over the twenty-five years I've been writing, essentially been captured by the same kind of vampires that ruined Hollywood. Freebooters, parasites, looters...oh, come out and say it: SHAREHOLDERS, and their chieftains and goons...who want only to milk the industry--ANY industry--for the maximum possible short-term return, and don't mind at ALL if they bleed it dead in the process, so long as they personally get sufficient advance warning of the crunch. People who--for reasons I will NEVER comprehend--actually WANT to be Very Rich. (People, in other words, who either don't know or don't care whether they themselves are happy or not...as long as they have all the marbles.) They have the same swing-for-the-fences mentality that is screwing up cinema. All we want here are zillion-dollar superstar blockbusters...and a few "little" pictures in which to groom the superstars of tomorrow. Nothing in between; no second features.In like manner, many of the people making decisions in publishing today would like to have a list consisting of nothing but Clancys and Parkers...and a handful of talented newcomers who might be the NEXT Clancy or Parker, but meanwhile are willing to work for first-novel prices. (I hasten to add that I mean no slightest disrespect to either Tom Clancy or Robert Parker; I picked them because I respect them both highly, and buy their new books on sight.) This isn't the editors and publishers themselves I'm talking about, either. Many if not most of them love good books, even now. But their policies are being made for them by the conglomerates that swallowed them up in the last decade or so. Men and women who got into the business for the fundamental purpose of publishing (at least some) books they were proud of, are now working for people whose ONLY guiding principle is the mantra, "Place yourself between the talent and the money." The ultimate, industry-shaping decisions are being made, as in Hollywood, by people who don't give a toasted DAMN about the PRODUCT, much less the producer-slaves. What they want is simple: HUGE profits, NOW. Blockbusters...and good first novels, or hacks who are willing to work REAL cheap.
What they DON'T much want anymore are MID-LIST writers. Quirky scribblers. Ones with faithful but not mammoth audiences. Ones difficult to sum up to a salesman in Paducah with a one-sentence soundbite. Ones PEOPLE magazine isn't talking about. Ones whose books haven't been a sma-shit (no, that's not misspelled) movie yet. Ones whose works not only reward, but REQUIRE a high-school education and some imagination. Ones who sell well...but not VERY well--or not all in one big lump, but over time.
They'll keep a few around, for show...but only if they're willing to accept a little serious downsizing. I'm not the only one squawking. At least one colleague recently circulated an urgent open letter similar to this one, triggered when he learned that after over 25 years of award-winning publishing, he can literally no longer sell a book in New York--even to editors who like his work. The sales figures for his last book (and ONLY his last book) just weren't good enough...
Upon reading this, I suddenly became very interested in things I'd never paid any attention to, like my own sales figures and print runs. I was fairly cheered by what few numbers I could find, lurking under concealment on assorted "royalty statements"; my printruns were routinely well over 100,000 copies, always sold well enough to call for at least a second printing, always hit the Locus sf Best Seller list. The rent always got paid--often on time. But lately there has been all sorts of Bad News in the publishing biz, talk of "cutbacks," so I resolved to keep a weather eye out, or peeled, or whatever it is you're supposed to do with a weather eye...
Guess what I just found out? Tor, citing "industry retrenchment," only printed up less than ONE QUARTER AS MANY copies as usual of the latest Callahan paperback, CALLAHAN'S LEGACY. That's right, a book which carries in it printed acknowledgment of all 60,000+ of you alt.callahans members out there plus all the related forums, channels and groups was not printed in sufficient numbers for HALF of you to buy a copy, should you be so inclined.
They will only go back to press if most of those sell out. Those pitifully few copies, like ALL paperbacks, have a maximum shelf-life of about a month. Tops. In some venues, a week. (If they GET to the shelf at all...)
So here at last is what I'm saying: if you were by any chance thinking of picking up a copy of Spider Robinson's new one -- or the new one by ANY author you care about who isn't already a blockbuster superstar -- for the love of God, PLEASE DON'T PUT IT OFF! This chance may not come again. If it's not on the shelf, ORDER it....FAST, before they pulp the returns and unshipped copies...
Times have changed. If you love books, you must now start to change your thinking, and come to see them as precious, evanescent fireflies, which flicker briefly and then are no more. If you do not stay alert for them, and grab them on sight, they will probably never be reprinted: the concept of backlist is on its way to the ash-heap. All of us who put words in a row for
your enjoyment are in serious no-shit danger, and we need your help and support. I know *I* do.
How much? Let me give you a clue: I LEARNED the above information about my most recent print-run while trying to get an explanation for why the proposal I had submitted to Tor for my NEXT book about Jake Stonebender and his family and friends (working title: CALLAHAN'S KEY) had, after months of puzzling silence, just brought back an offer of...60 percent of what they paid me for the last one. (In devalued dollars.)
Cousins, I was just barely making it at the OLD rates. Until a month ago, when a miracle occurred, I was composing my books--all my work--on a computer which I just saw advertised in MacWorld for US$49 plus shipping. I can't TAKE a 40% pay cut and pay my rent. And at 48, I just haven't got the stamina to go back on the road as a musician; it's a young man's game.
The ONLY lever I can hope to apply is to show a LARGE sell-through for that miserable first printing...and the next (dear God let there BE a next)...and the next...and hope that eventually one of those illiterate but NOT innumerate bean-counters way up on the corporate ladder of unknown strangers who tell the publishers what to do will see numbers he or she likes, and decide that there just might be room for me somewhere on one of the bottom rungs of the Star section. "Knock that cat a living wage..." rather than "Throw a statue where that cat blew..." as Lord Buckley might have it. THEN I'll be able to write you all the next Callahan book...
(And again, I'm not trying to put a knock on Tor. They've showed strong commitment to the Callahan series; this must be the best they can do for me, the way things are these days.) Christmas will be here all too soon. Why not get your shopping done early...down at the bookstore? They happen to have, or should have, THREE Spider Robinson paperbacks on the shelves at once, just now--another of those wizardly publisher decisions--containing a total of SIX complete Spider Robinson novels between their six covers. (See my website for details-- http://psg.com/~ted/spider) A Sixpack of Spider (and Jeanne)--for under US$22/CAN$30! And trust me: they won't be there long...
(The combined ad and promo for all three volumes, from two different publishers, has been far less than I'm used to seeing for a single novel in the past. I guess they now want to wait and see how the books sell, before deciding if it's worth advertising them...see what I mean? Typical Hollywood "thinking.")
As Homer and Jethro used to say at the end of every number, "Thanks for your sympathy." I appreciate your listening, and appreciate any help you may be able to throw my way. So--just like the last time I wrote to all you folks--I'm going to play you out with a song, to thank you for letting me jingle my cup.
I was sitting here in my office one night 'round midnight, last month, pecking away, and Jeanne was two open doors away, invisible to me, lying on the couch in the livingroom reading a Zen book...and all of a sudden for no particular reason I looked up and smiled and called out, softly, "I'm aware of you."
And she purred, and stretched on the couch, and called back, "That's a song title." So when I got dressed again and got back to the computer, I wrote it, and by the next day I had the tune right.
Slow ballad, attempted Ray Charles flavor, key of A. It goes:
I'm Aware of You, Jeanne (c) 1997 by Spider Robinson; all rights reserved I'm aware of you When I'm busy at my work and you are humming in the parlor I'm aware of you We don't have to say a word, I never need any reminder I'm aware of you And I care for you I will be there for you ('cause) You're aware of me You give me what I need most times before I know I need it You're aware of me I don't have to slay a dragon just to come to your attention You're aware of me And you care for me You've been there for me And this house is alive when you're home When you're gone, it's a pleasant hotel I don't ask if you're home as I come through the door I can tell I can tell... ('cause) I'm aware of you While my mind is chasing characters across the Galaxy I am aware of you When I'm rapt at my computer playing poker with myself I am aware of you And I care for you I know you know I do... You know I know you do... 'Cause I'm aware of you THANKS FOR LISTENING. PLEASE FORWARD. TELL YOUR FRIENDS. HAUNT YOUR BOOKSTORE REGULARLY, *ESPECIALLY* YOUR INDEPENDENT OR SPECIALTY BOOKSTORE. ASK THEM TO PHONE YOU WHEN A NEW BOOK BY YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR COMES OUT; THEY'LL BE *GLAD* TO TAKE A LIST. IF YOU DON'T HAVE SUCH A STORE NEARBY, GET AMAZON.COM TO AUTOMATICALLY SEND YOU YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS' NEW BOOKS ON RELEASE; THEY'RE SET UP TO LET YOU FILE A LIST.
"'PEOPLE WHO READ BOOKS'...NEXT ON GERALDO..." IT'S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.
Well, okay, it IS...but it's a funny DISASTER, for our whole species.
And certainly for--Spider Robinson Vancouver, BC
15 September 1997
[--Spider's text ends--]
Me again.
Now, the point of this isn't just to drum up some business for Spider Robinson, although I wouldn't mind if it did, but to point out to all of you who like to read (and if you don't, I don't know how you wound up here) that if you want to be able to keep on reading your favorite authors, then unless those authors are only the ones that top the best-seller lists, you're going to have to do something to help preserve their livelihoods. Midlist authors are an endangered species. What you do is up to you, but me, I'm going to set up a watch list with Amazon.com of some of my favorite authors. One thing that Spider didn't make clear is that if you put an author on a watch list on Amazon.com, they don't automatically send you the book--what they send you is an e-mail notification of the book's availability; there's no obligation to buy. And, yes, if you want to buy a copy of Callahan's Legacy, you can do so from the bookstore on this site.
Ranma 1/2, Part Six #14
by Rumiko Takahashi
English adaptation Gerard Jones
Viz Comics, b&w, $2.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
This issue concludes the "Ranma gets weak" story-line, in a (literally) explosive fashion. Happosai's moxibustion having made Ranma such a weakling that even a two-year-old child can knock him down, Ranma learns the secret of the "Dragon's Heaven Blast" from Cologne--but will even that be enough to recover the chart with the cure from Happosai? Basically, my favorite parts of Ranma aren't the wacky martial arts battles--though those certainly are a lot of fun--but the semi-romantic parts, where either Ranma or Akane slip and let a hint of their true feelings for each other show. What can I say? I'm just a sloppy sentimentalist. This issue has that in spades--and on both sides, which makes it easily one of my favorite issues. Well, of the past few months, anway. One thing about reading Ranma over and over (which I would do for fun, even if I wasn't trying to struggle through the Japanese editions) is that my favorite issues keep changing; generally the ones that I've read most recently are in the lead, but there are ones that continue to stand out for me (for instance, the skating-rink battle) no matter how long it's been since I've re-read them...I think this will be one of them. For more on Ranma, see my "favorite comics page" and the "bookstore page".
This was an expensive week for me, as far as comics go, with three relatively big-ticket items waiting for me at the local comic shop (the Wonder Woman Archives Vol. 1, The Life Story of the Flash, and Outlander Vol. 5) plus eleven comics and a new volume of What's Michael? I'm planning on reviewing all of them in the days ahead, as well as some of the books that have been piling up around here. That should see me through my vacation in Paris (ten days away and counting) at least.
The Life Story of the Flash
by Iris Allen
with Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, Gil Kane, Joe Staton, and Tom Palmer (which just goes to show that one woman is worth five men, or something like that).
DC, hardback, $19.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
On the one hand, this came as somewhat of a surprise to me: I was actually expecting a novel--something along the lines of John Byrne's recent Wonder Woman thingamajig. When this weighed in at barely more than ninety pages, I was somewhat disappointed. On the other hand, when a comics project about one of my two-or-three favorite heroes of all time is crafted as carefully and lovingly as this one, only a Grinch could complain. Not only does this manage to distill the career of Barry Allen into one coherent story (while deftly working in the threads of what passes for continuity in the DC Universe these days--something that the authors may well come to regret after the next revamp), but it manages to do what no comic about the Flash has yet managed to do (not even Mark Waid's exemplary run on the title recently): give Iris Allen a voice.
If it weren't for the way that Iris Allen's narration is used to carefully delineate her character, as well as her subject's, this would amount to little more than a giant-sized issue of Secret Origins (which, come to think of it, Mark Waid edited once upon a time). As it is, it was one of the most touching super-hero comics I've read (along with Astro City 1/2, also released this week), and easily my Pick of the Week despite the price-tag.
The art, by veterans Gil Kane and Joe Staton, fit the book perfectly, meshing a traditional approach, right out of the classic Silver Age issues, with...a traditional approach, right out of the classic Silver Age issues. No concessions are made to modern comics stylistically save for a rather nice painted cover.
I heartily recommend The Life Story of the Flash, even if you would have to give up some other comics this week to fit it in your budget.
Outlanders Volume 5
by Johji Manabe
Dark Horse comics, b&w, $14.95
Rating: Neat-O.
It seems like it's been a while since Dark Horse released Volume 4 of this series, although that may be my failing memory rather than their sporadic production. At any rate, it's good to see Tetsuya and Princess Kahm again, and to read more of their story...although this volume (compsrising issues 17 through 22 of the series) still fails to wrap up, well,
What's Michael?: Michael's Mambo
by Makoto Kobayashi
Dark Horse Comics, b&w TPB, $5.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a comic; my cat, Machiavelli, who usually dozes on my chest as I read the week's stack of comics stared at me like I was nuts, but every time I started to calm down I glanced at the page that set me off and started howling again. Usually I regard What's Michael? as a cute, whimsical, and well-observed book about cats and cat-owners (not necessarily cat-lovers, although there are plenty of those), but for some reason the story "What's Nyazilla?" just hit my funny-bone; I was helpless with laughter for minutes. Machiavelli chose to ride the storm out, until I was once again calm enough to make a good bed; then he put is head down and went back to sleep.
Groo #1
by Aragon駸 and Evanier
Dark Horse Comics, color, $2.95
Rating: Neat-O.
Everybody's favorite bone-headed barbarian is back, in his fifth incarnation (not counting specials and collections), which just goes to show that you can't keep a good barbarian down...or Groo, either.
But wait! All is not normal in Groo-land: instead of Groo doing what Groo does best, he's "not enjoy[ing] participating in a fray--but it is sometimes necessary with such villainy in the world!" Why, wonders Rufferto, the Minstrel, and the reader, is Groo saying things like that? Actually, this reader thinks there's a clue, hidden in Aragon駸 dazzlingly detailed artwork, but we'll have to wait until next issue to find out, when Groo meets some old enemies in "The Return of Arba and Dacarba."
It is good to have Groo back.
Gold Digger #38
by Fred Perry
Antarctic Press, b&w, $2.95
rating: Keen.
This issue is rather heavy on combat and light on everything else, as Gina and crew go up against the Dynasty as they try to reach the planet that the spaceship/city El Dorado (home of Strype, Cheetah's intended) vanished to what seems like a whole bunch of issues ago now, but probably wasn't. Whew. It's not quite "Wake me when it's over" time, yet, but it's definitely "All right, let's get a move on" time.
On the other hand, I'm very excited about the announcement of a color Gold Digger series called Gold Digger Beta, since that might finally get some of the people like my friend Lou Perez, who only read color comics, to give it a look-see.
For more on Gold Digger, see my favorite comics page.
One of the chief reasons that I do this is to evangelize comics that I particularly admire...that's one of the reasons that you'll see comparatively few reviews by me that totally trash a comic. It's not that I'm all that easy to please, but that if I buy a comic I hate (and I buy all the comics I review) it will be by accident--i.e. because I thought I would like it, not because I thought I would like to review it for the dubious pleasure of tearing it apart, and as often as not I won't bother to review it. I think that what I like is a better yardstick than what I dislike, and even comics that I dislike (e.g. Starman or Supergirl) are often well-liked by people whose opinions I respect. As my dear old dad told me, one man's Mede is another man's Persian.
The biggest thrill for me of all, then, is when I succeed in turning somebody on to one of my pets, and I count it as one of prouder reviewing moments that I persuaded Tony Isabella to give Akiko (which he had dismissed as amusing, but a bit too light-weight and fast a read) a second chance...the second time he tried reading it with his kids, who were the ones who really turned him around. Now he is one of us. You can be one of us, too. Come, don't be afraid....
Akiko #22
by Mark Crilley
Sirius, b&w, $2.50
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
The exciting conclusion of Spuckler's tale of his escape from the prison-moon Grumborg and his rescue of Morbilus Grendy (grand-father of Muna, the girl who rescued Spuckler from his crash-landing in the first half of this story). The tale is pure Spuckler, through and through (not just starring Spuckler, but completely permeated by Spuckler's sensibilities as a narrator), and the whole issue--from front cover to back, including the back-up stories and other goodies--is, as ever, a delight. I think we're all with Beeba when we want to know if Spuckler kissed the girl. If I can't claim that each issue is better than the last, it's only because each issue is so lovingly crafted that it's really hard to see room for improvement--but I'm sure that Mark Crilley will find a way.
Akiko now has a website at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/6912. Pretty ritzy neighborhood...
Little White Mouse #1 and #2 of 4
by Paul Sizer
Caliber, b&w, $2.95
Rating: Neat-O and Neat-O.
There seems to be something of a renaissance lately in comics featuring plucky young girl heroines (or maybe it's something of a naissance, since I'm not sure that I can recall this ever being in vogue before, at least in English-language comics). To the ranks of Chance Falconer and Akiko, we can now add Loo, the Little White Mouse of this title.
The premise is as follows: Loo and her sister Ph'eng were aboard a star-ship on their way to attend the Galactic Science Academy when disaster struck. Loo's and Ph'eng's escape pod crash-landed on an deep-space mining station, killing Ph'eng. Loo is now the only living inhabitant of the mining station, the crew of the station having all mysteriously died many years previously, their skeletons being kept clean and polished by the station's automated systems...or at least she thinks she is alone, at first. Although her sister is dead, there's a chance that her sister's consciousness is still present in the computers of the life-pod, and so Loo spends much of her day trying to build a robotic body to house her sister if she ever figures out how to recover that consciousness. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for the distraction it provides, since Loo is not recognized by the station's central computer, in order to get the parts she needs she has to pilfer them from the station's systems, which puts her in active conflict with the station's security sub-systems.
The series is pretty strong at conjuring Loo's loneliness and the emptiness of the station, and Loo is a really engaging character. Where it seems weak, to me, is that when other people, who may or may not be real, show up, Loo's reaction to them seems to me to be entirely too blasé, unless she's dreaming. For instance, there's a character named Pascal, who Loo seems to think is a ghost--but if she has any curiosity about his ghostly status, or about what he could tell her about what happened to the crew, she isn't shown displaying it. Instead she argues with him about whether the station is out to get her. This gives the proceedings an hallucinatory quality that isn't helped by the fact that the chapters seem to skip back and forth in time without much rhyme or reason (for instance, we first see Pascal in issue #1, where it seems Loo already knows him, but she meets Pascal for the first time in the second chapter of issue #2, and the only clue that we have that this takes place prior to the events in the first issue is the fact that this is her first meeting with Pascal). I'm not dead-set on linear story-telling, but I like to have the feeling that if the story is non-linear, there's a reason for that. In this case it seems more like the chapters were printed out of order.
The art is decent--expressive and well-suited to the story, if a trifle awkward in parts. Some panels are great, just dead-on; in others, something about the proportions seems slightly skewed. It reminds me quite a bit of Randy Reynaldo's Adventure Strip Digest, actually.
Overall, and all quibbles aside, I liked this very much, and I'm looking forward to the concluding two issues of the series.
The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln
by Scott McCloud
Homage Comics, color, $19.95
Rating: Neat-O.
To be honest, I was a trifle disappointed in this--perhaps because my expectations of Scott McCloud's work are so high following Zot! and Understanding Comics. On the one hand, basically I liked the book, and it made me laugh out loud at least twice, which is usually enough for a book to garnish top honors with me, but somehow I was expecting something more.
The premise is fairly simple: One day in the near future, Abraham Lincoln shows up, speechifying and promising to lead the country to a new greatness. He doesn't seem to have all his facts about history straight, but aside from the twelve-year-old history buff to whom he first appeared (and the occassional stray history professor), nobody much cares because he's so good at invoking the mythic symbols of America. Then the real Abraham Lincoln, the non-sanitized, warts-and-all version shows up, and it becomes a battle between the shallow, superficial master-media manipulator and the less prepossessing real deal (aided by the plucky kids) for the hearts and minds of the American people.
The art is dazzling--in fact that's one of my problems with the book: the art is too dazzling. The computer-generated background glitz overshadows the cartoony figure art in the foreground, and in my opinion interferes with rather than enhances the story. Too much of the art feels like it was done because it could be done, and not because it helped tell the story.
Then there were the problems that I had with the plot. There are spoilers ahead, so you might want to skip this next paragraph if you haven't already read The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln. It bugged me that the fake Lincoln was explained as part of an alien invasion scheme--but the presence of the real Lincoln was never explained at all. Was he called forth mystically by his country's need or something? And why was it necessary for the aliens' scheme that their version of Lincoln be so fake? The demogoguery that he performs seems superfluous when what the aliens are really relying on is a bunch of mind-control devices. Why did the aliens bother bringing Benedict Arnold into it at all? The usefulness for the author's didactic purposes is clear, but the point if the aliens are more than a plot device is not. It also bothered me a bit that in a work that was seemingly about the need to look past the superficial and the symbolic, many of the minor roles are treated in a superficial and symbolic way. I'm thinking particularly of the school-teachers, here. I understand that it's supposed to be humorous when the gym teacher drags Marcie in by her hair, and yells "No reading in detention!" at Byron, but I think it undercuts the moral of the story--and The New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln is a morality play through-and-through.
I don't usually speculate about what was going on in the creators' minds, preferring to look at what they actually put on paper, but I have to wonder whether Scott McCloud became so wrapped up in the technology he was using to produce the tale that he skimped on the effort of actually putting it together into a seamless, coherent whole. As a complete package, this feels like a step backward from the previous (and stratospheric) high points in his career. That's not to say that it's not enjoyable--it is compulsively readable (to borrow a phrase from my friend Jeff Lang), and the characters of Byron and Marcie, and even of the authentic Abraham Lincoln are all well-drawn and engaging, and as I said before I got at least two laugh-out-loud moments out of it, which is pretty dang good. The frustration comes in believing that this could have been, should have been, better than it is without really changing much in it at all.
Quiz Time:
Review Time:
Grease Monkey #1
by Tim Eldred
Image, b&w, $2.95
Rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
Let's hope that the third (or is it the fourth?) time is the charm for this splendid science-fiction story for all ages. The intro goes like this: "Early in the 21st Century (2:55 AM, in fact), the history of the Planet Earth took a left turn into oncoming traffic. ALIEN traffic. A million, zillion hostile spaceships decended on humanity and blasted civilization into chili powder. Then they left."
After most of the human race is wiped out, the remainder are approached by other civilized races in the galaxy, who explain the nature of their attackers (who are at war with the entire rest of the galaxy), and help the humans back on their collective feet. Unfortunately, there aren't enough humans left to sustain a technological civilization, much less one that will be of help to the galactic war effort, so the galactics look for volunteers on the road to sentience among the Earth's more intelligent animal population. (If this sounds a bit like David Brin's "Uplift" books, that's because it is.) The dolphins turn them down flat, but the Gorillas agree.
Grease Monkey is the tale of Cadet Robin J. Plotnik, assigned to the flag-ship of the human fleet, the G.A.A.A.H.
Grease Monkey is part adventure, part coming-of-age, and all fun. Highly recommended.
* Galactic Alliance Against the Alien Horde, what else?
On why Star Trek's United Federation of Planets is the successor state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:
Answers to yesterday's quiz:
1. Time Enough for Love
2. Time Bandits
3. Time After Time
4. Twice Upon a Time
5. Once Upon a Time in the West
As you read this, I will be winging my way towards Paris, the city of lights, for a much needed (and I hope well-earned) vacation.. Amused in Revew columns will continue to appear as scheduled, but any correspondence will be delayed until I return next week. Wish me Bon Voyage!
Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale #11
by Rumiko Takahashi
Viz Comics, b&w, $3.25
Rating: Neat-O.
Inu-Yasha finishes his duel with his half-brother Lord Shessho-Maru, and the final secret of Inu-Yasha's legacy from his father is revealed--but if he's not nicer to Kagome, she's not going to tell him what it is.
This is rapidly becoming one of the comics that I look forward to most eagerly each month, although I'm not completely sure that I can articulate why. While it's true that I'm basically a sucker for Rumiko Takahashi's work, there are a number of her projects that don't satisfy me nearly as well as this one does. Usually I can chalk it up to the romance factor--but in the case of Inu-Yasha it's nearly non-existant (although there are glimmerings that indicate that's the direction that it's heading in, particularly in the current issue); on the other hand, romance is at the forefront of One Pound Gospel, but I've never quite managed to warm up to that. At any rate, I know that when I go to the comics store and there's a new issue of Inu-Yasha out, I count it as a good week.
If all went as scheduled, we arrived at Orly airport this afternoon (Well, this afternoon to those of you reading this column at the earliest moment that it posts, yesterday afternoon to the rest of you), and by the time you read this should be safely ensconced in our hotel in Montparnasse. I'll be taking notes, since I plan to tell you all about it when I get back. (Among other things I'll be visiting a French comic-book store that was recommended to me by some of my pals on Compuserve, to compare it to the American version.)
Since my friend Mary McCool liked them so much, I thought I would share with you a couple of poems I wrote recently (in response to one of her "word of the day" quizzes in Mary's Stuff). After all, what good is a soap-box like this one if you don't occassionally use it to inflict art upon the unwary? Consider this my offering to Polyhymnia, who's been sadly neglected upon my pages so far.
The Wyvern The wyvern is a heraldic beast, of dragon-kind he is the least, Hunt if you like, he can't be caught, because, you see, a wyvern is not.
The Unicorn The unicorn, whose pearly horn, doth his equine head adorn, all but virgins affects to scorn, and so nowadays is oft forlorn.
There's been a lot of debate on the Net recently about the priopriety of some of the comics that are done as "homages" to comics of the past, and particularly to Supreme as written by Alan Moore, so before I review the latest Supreme, I figured I'd share my thoughts on the matter. Remember that as you read this, I'm in Paris, so don't expect any response to comments for a week or so.
First of all, a lot of the talk on this topic is, I think, a little over-heated. Whatever Supreme or Big Bang comics are, they are not examples of plagiarism. Plagiarism is, plain and simple, the passing off of another's thoughts and writings as one's own. An artist tracing another artist's work at a light-board may be plagiarism; writing a brand-new story, even with characters who are obvious and close analogs of another's characters, is not.
Trade-mark infringement is also charged, and again I think is wide of the mark (note that I'm not a lawyer, so this is just a layperson's opinion--but it's an informed opinion on Ray Feist's scale of opinion, since I have read a lot of the relevant law while helping my wife, who is a lawyer, research trade-mark cases). A trade-mark is a mark of authenticity, that shows a product to have come from a particular source. If customers aren't going to be confused about the origins of the product, and think that Supreme actually is Superman, and is being published by DC then it's not what's at issue here. (Another issue is that trade-mark infringement must be pursued agressively by the holder, or the protection of the trade-mark lapses.)
Finally, copyright infringement is alleged, but again, I don't think that this holds water: you can copyright particular instantiations of ideas, but not the ideas themselves. Superman you can trademark, and a particular Superman story you can copyright, but the idea of a man who is super-strong, invulnerable and can fly--no. Not even if you throw in a super-strong invulnerable dog, or a pal who gets into all kinds of wacky trouble. In fact, no matter how many ideas you throw in the pot, as long as you don't end up actually reproducing one of the copyrighted works, and steer clear of making your work appear to be the product of your competitor, legally you should be in the clear.
Okay, you ask, but what about morally? What is legal and what is moral aren't always the same, as I'd be the first to grant. I think, however, that in this one particular area of law, they are pretty close together. The basic principal of copyright law is that nobody can have sole ownership of an idea: not only would that be impractical, it would be a bad thing for society, stifling advancement and building up huge and unbreakable concentrations of power. Not only that, but since reproducing an idea doesn't destroy the original, and doesn't even cost the holder of the original anything (except in potential, if he _could_ assert ownership, and exert his power to extract rent on the idea), it doesn't parallel other forms of property at all. On the other hand, if there is no such thing as property rights in regard to ideas, economic theory would suggest that you would get fewer ideas than would be optimal for society, since idea makers would be reluctant to invest time and effort into something for which they get no monetary benefit (you wouldn't get _no_ ideas, both because people would still come up with ideas for their own use although they might try to keep them secret to enjoy the sole benefit, and because some people just gotta create).
The law, therefor, compromises: it strikes a balance between the desire of the creators of ideas to be fairly compensated for their ideas, and the desire of society to enjoy the fruits of those ideas in return for using its power to create and defend the property rights in those ideas. In general the way the trade-off works is that the protection is of limited duration (shortest for patents, which have the strongest property rights, middling for copyrights, and longest--potentially indefinite--for trademarks), and it's up to the holder of the rights to notice and pursue the violations in court--society isn't going to police them if the rights-holder doesn't care to. I tend to think that the whole thing is pretty reasonable, and fair.
Is what Alan Moore is doing with Supreme morally dubious, then? I don't think so. He is clearly and cheerfully using ideas that were originally created by others, but that's essentially the way that civilization works. I don't see any way that his doing so is depriving the original creators of the benefits of their work, or even depriving the corporation that acquired those rights from them of the benefit of its bargain (particularly since that corporation has in the past decade or so bent all of the creative energies of its current writing staff to distancing itself from the ideas in which Moore is revelling).
A somewhat different argument goes that by re-using the ideas (even if with a new twist) of the past, the creators of these "homage" works are depriving us and themselves of entirely original works that they could be creating. There may be some truth in that. On the other hand, I'm not the first to observe that Alan Moore, at least, always seems to do his best work when he's using someone else's ideas as a springboard. As Newton once said, "If I see farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Supreme #56
by Alan Moore, and Chris Sprouse
Awesome Comics, color, $2.99
rating: Keen.
I'm not entirely pleased with this issue, which suddenly becomes much more grim than I would wish. On the one hand, I suppose there's a certain amount of freedom in being able to do thing to these characters that would never get approved if they were the real deal, and not just Awesome Universe analogs; on the other hand, why does that freedom always seem (and not just in Alan Moore's case--DC does it to themselves with most of the Elseworlds, and Marvel does it to themselves with What If?) to lead to more blood and death? While that's an obvious no-no when dealing with the actual long-running series characters, is that the only thing worth addressing when given free rein? Gee-whiz, I hope not.
I'm still in Paris. Having a marvelous time. Wish you were here.
Blind Justice
by Bruce Alexander
Berkeley Mystery, 314 pages, $5.99
Rating: Neat-O.
Blind Justice promises to be the first of a series (aren't they all, nowadays?) of historical mysteries, casting Sir John Fielding in the role of the sleuth. Among all the other historical personages who've been promoted to detectives by recent mystery writers--including, but not limited to: Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and even, heaven help us, Queen Elizabeth the First--perhaps none is so suited to the task as Sir John Fielding, magistrate, justice of the peace for Middlesex and Westminster, and founder (along with his brother, the author Henry Fielding) of the the detective force known as the Bow Street Runners. That he did all this while having been blind from the age of nineteen makes him an interesting character indeed.
The novel doesn't disappoint in this regard. John Fielding is a very interesting character, without being the slightest bit a caricature. The story's narrator, thirteen-year-old orphan Jeremy Proctor, rescued from an unjust accusation of theft by Sir John's good sense and keen senses, is delightful: a mixture of hero-worshipper, adolescent aching to be treated as an adult, an sensible and keen observer of his surroundings. Alexander contrives to make the reader feel clever for drawing the conclusions that Jeremy does not have the experience to see, while making it perfectly plausible that Jeremy has the perspicacity to note the telling details in the first place. If one happens to disagree with Jeremy and Sir John, for instance on just how clever a man James Boswell actually was, that only heightens the illusion of realism. The plot, while slightly contrived (as are most mysteries, unless they're a dreary police procedural or true crime story), is logically enough constructed that I could deduce the identity and the method of the murder well ahead of Jeremy (although perhaps not ahead of Sir John), without resorting to meta-textual evidence (e.g. so-and-so must be the murderer, because otherwise there's no place for him in the story). This is definitely a series in which I'm looking forward to more entries.
Speaking of mystery series (well, we were yesterday, or don't you remember?), I've just finished reading a splendid Sherlockian pastiche, the first of a series--which I enjoyed so much that I plan on taking two of the next three to while away the hours on the plane. I'm still in Paris as you read this, although not for much longer, and this is being written the day before I depart. Actually, I have to hurry, since I'm picking my sister up at the airport in two hours, and it's a forty-five minute drive, so let's get on with it, shall we?
Good Night, Mr. Holmes
by Carole Nelson Douglas
Tor Suspense, 402 pages, $4.99
Rating: Gosh-a-rooty!
The conceit of this series, and an excellent one it is, too, is that Irene Adler (the woman who got the better of Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia, and who will always be the woman to Holmes) has also turned her hand to detection. Good Night, Mr. Holmes is the story leading up to, and through, the events in A Scandal in Bohemia, told from Irene's point of view. Or, more precisely, from the point of view of her Watson, Miss Penelope Huxleigh--a poor parson's daughter who falls in with Adler when Adler rescues her: from a purse snatching of her last possessions, and ultimately, from what an indifferent Victorian London would have had in store for a penniless orphan girl of good breeding but no skills or street-smarts.
If that makes it sound like Good Night, Mr. Holmes deals with so-called women's issues, that's because it does, and at fair length. Much of Irene Adler's character, whether you rely on Watson's description of her as an adventuress or not, is shaped by her having to rebel against the strictures of Victorian society and its treatment of women, in pursuit of her chosen career (as an opera singer--the detecting is incidental) and simply as a women of an independent turn of mind. That doesn't mean that Good Night, Mr. Holmes reads like a suffragist propaganda pamphlet, or is preachy, far from it: it definitely falls into the category of what are called "cracking-good reads." But it is to point out that many of the things that Holmes and Watson, for instance, take for granted, represent an effort, or at least a flouting of society's rules, when done by Irene Adler and Penelope Huxleigh. One of the more interesting and amusing things is Huxleigh's serving as the scolding voice of society, and the way that Adler gradually "corrupts" her charge; she never becomes as free-spirited as her mentor, but there is a delicious contrast between her at the very end of the book and as she first presents herself in the opening pages.
I'll have a good bit of time tomorrow evening to get aquainted with the next books in the series. I'm looking forward to it.
Well, I should be arriving back in the good old U.S. of A. today, and if my reactions are typical then however much fun I will have had in Paris, I'll be happy to be back home. Of course, as I write this, I haven't left yet, so I am guessing. I don't have a lot of time left before I have to get going to the airport, so let's see if I can get by on the cheap by reaching into my mail-bag. (If it's good enough for Tony Isabella, it's good enough for me.)
Tony Isabella (now, where have I heard that name before?) writes in response to my review of Little White Mouse:
"Great minds...I reviewed this book for a "Tony's Tips" column, written last Sunday, that will appear in the CBG that ships this week."
Which means, lesse, you can't take three from two, two is less than three, so you look at the one in the ten's place....that by the time you've seen this, you should already have seen Tony's review of Little White Mouse, so you can compare and contrast. I know I'll be looking for it when I get back.
Mark Crilley, of Akiko fame writes:
"I checked out your page and was very flattered to see your positive comments regarding Akiko. Have you seen my web site? It's at: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/6912
Feel free to link to my site from yours if you haven't already. Thanks again for the feedback, Joshua. I really appreciate it!"
Hey, I wouldn't write it if it wasn't true. BTW, I've checked out Mark's page and it's ga-roovy. Go take a look--I'll still be here when you get back.
Well, that's about all she wrote for now. Wish me a Bon voyage, and I'll see you all when I get back tomorrow!
I just flew in from Paris, and boy, are my arms tired...and my legs, back, neck, head, eyes....Since I have to get up in a few hours, first to take my sister back to the airport, and then to go to work (where it will probably take all day just to go through my phone-mail and e-mail), I don't have time or energy to do much of a column today. Sorry.
I will point out, however, that if you haven't ever gone to the page labelled "This Way to the Giant Egress" and clicked through to either Mary's Stuff or Tony's Online Tips you're cheating yourself of some great stuff--and they're both updated daily, too; essentially, they're what this column wants to be when it grows up.. Why don't you give me a breather and check them both out today. And if you check out Tony's Online Tips today, you'll see a mention of my column. If there's a more worthy goal than killing some time when you should be working, I can't think of it at the moment.
Good night, wherever you are.
When you're jet-lagged, you're jet lagged all the way, from the time you get in until you hit the hay When you're jet-lagged, you're entitled to groan You ache head to foot and in every bone You stagger on home, with the luggage you've collected, You fall in bed like a stone When a call on the phone wants to know what long distance company you've selected! You pull out the plug and you throw it away Whoever should call you've got nothing to say You pull out the plug and you throw it away You won't open your eyes until it's a new day When you're jet-lagged You... stay... Jet... Lagged!
with apologies to Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim.
In case you're wondering how come he can do this kind of crap, but can't even slap together a few words about his trip, or even a single review--when I've been up almost forty hours and I'm facing a two-hour commute home alone in the car in the pouring rain I've got to do something to keep awake. As it happens, I can do this sort of thing in my head (I almost said in my sleep); reviews I actually have to sit there in front of the computer and think about, and at the moment I'm just not up to it. The Lord willin' and the crick don't rise (which actually isn't a good bet, looking out my window at the moment), I'll be with you tomorrow with the first installment of my Paris travelogue and a review (of what I read on the plane, natch). See you soon!
Amused in Paris, Day One:
I had picked up my step-sister, Elizabeth, who was flying in from her home in Austin, Texas, at LAX the previous afternoon, and we finished packing this afternoon. I say "we", because when she discovered that I was planning on taking a bag big enough to require check-in, she immediately transferred some of her clothes from her overstuffed back-pack into my bag. I had debated trying to pack lightly enough to avoid the whole issue of baggage claim, but I wanted to take a suit, in case we went to a restaurant that required one--they're pretty rare on the ground in LA, but I suspected the French were different. (As it turned out, I never ended up using the suit, but since the airline only allowed you to carry on a single item, it was moot, and we both had to check a bag). I had originally hoped to be travelling with my wife, but scheduling conflicts at her law-firm ruled that out; she suggested that instead of canceling the vacation, I invite one of my siblings along.
The airline we were travelling on was AOM, a French airline of which I had never heard, but it was part of the great package deal we got through France Vacations (http://www.francevacations.com/) and it was non-stop flight from LAX to Paris-Orly. Not only did that mean that we could avoid some interminable layover in New York or Chicago, but Orly is much closer to Paris than the major airport, the Charles DeGaulle (where I had landed on the only previous visit I had made to Paris, six years ago). Because of the shuttle-van schedule, we arrived at the airport with time to kill, although less time than it might have been after the van stopped to pick up a passenger from another van that had broken down on the way to the airport. I spent the time flipping through the French phrase-book we were taking--I had spent the past month or so trying to learn at least some French using the Pimsleur language tapes while commuting in my car. I happen to have two Francophone co-workers (one Parisian, one Canadian), who graciously allowed me to inflict my French on them; they told me that my accent was very good, but naturally with only about a month of study, my vocabulary was pretty limited. My ambition was to be able to at least start any conversation that I got into in French--I might get hopelessly bogged down, but I thought it was important to seen to be making the attempt, as a matter of politeness. Elizabeth studied her guide-book, planning out what she wanted to see.
She had traveled to Paris once before, too, but at the time she was a starving student--almost literally. She was at an exchange program in England, and went travelling alone via Eurail during one of the holiday periods; after buying the Eurail pass she had so little money that she had to ration herself to one baguette a day. She was fizzing with excitement at being able to go back with enough money not only to eat, but to gain admission to things like the museums. Me, I figured that I would just hang loose and see what happened. I wanted to visit the comic shop that my friends on CompuServe had told me about, and one of my coworker's had given me the address of a restaurant owned by friend of her parent's, but that was about it as far as planning.
The flight was a bit turbulent (dang that El Ni, anyway), but uneventful. The flight originated in Papeete, New Guinea, and the plane was nearly empty, from which I conclude that most people travelling from Papeete want to take a day or two to look around Los Angeles before going on to Paris--or maybe just to stretch their legs. There were some interesting engineering differences between the French-built aircraft that we were flying in and the typical McDonnell-Douglas or Boeing plane that American airline companies usually use (such as the absence of any of those little directional air-jets), but the most obvious one was an almost complete lack of leg-room. I've read that the French have a much smaller boundary of what they consider their personal space than do Americans or Northern Europeans, and I wonder if that relates; at any rate, if you weren't in an aisle seat and you wanted to get up, you had better be ready to get friendly with your neighbors. It was obvious that AOM was a French airline in at least one other respect: dinner included a complimentary mini-bottle of Bordeaux with every serving.
The movie was a French costume-drama, with a lot of running around and fencing, but since it wasn't sub-titled and I can't stand dubbed movies, I didn't even bother, instead turning to the books I had brought with me.
Good Morning, Irene
by Carole Nelson Douglas
Tor, paperback, $4.99
rating: Neat-O.
This is first of several sequels to Good Night, Mr. Holmes, which I reviewed last week, and except for the virtually inevitable slight loss of freshness to the concept it was quite as good as the original. Irene Norton, nee Adler, is presumed by the world to be dead in the train crash described briefly in the d駭ouement of "A Scandal in Bohemia", but of course, like Holmes before her, it will take more than that to get rid of such a good character. As comics fans know, if there's no body....Irene and her husband Godfrey, as well as her faithful companion and our narrator Penelope Huxleigh, have decided that with one thing and another (including the enmity of the King of Bohemia) it's more convenient for them to stay dead, and have settled in France, where Godfrey is putting his training in English law to use for companies with business interests in both countries. They are rich off the proceeds of her last caper, but Irene is chafing at the curtailment of her operatic vocation necessitated by their deceased status, so she welcomes a chance to pursue her avocation as a detective ("meddling in other people's business," Holmes opines at one point--Oh, yes, Holmes is not out of the story, not by a long shot) when a mystery that had begun with Bram Stoker's futile attempt to keep a strangely-tattooed man from drowning himself years before in London crops up again in Paris.
The action moves crisply along, from Paris to Monaco, deftly interweaving our heroes, and Conan Doyle's, with actually historical figures (Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde have bit parts, as they did in the previous, while in this one Sarah Bernhard and the future Princess Alice of Monaco figure largely).
Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor
by Stephanie Barron
Bantam Books, paperback, $5.99
Rating: Neat-O.
Chutzpah has often been described as that quality possessed by the man who kills his parents and then pleads for clemency on the grounds that he's an orphan; I think that in the chutzpah sweepstakes, setting out to write a mystery novel not only starring, but as written by, one of the most widely read and admired novelists who ever wrote certainly deserves honorable mention. The amazing thing is that Stephanie Barron actually carries it off. The imitation of Austen's writing isn't perfect (although it may be better than I suppose, since practically the only Austen I haven't read his her letters and juvenalia), but it's good enough to get this rabid Austen fan to suspend his disbelief. That such an extended excercise in pastiche should also turn out to be a good mystery is little short of astonishing. It's not Emma or Pride and Prejudice, but it will certainly do, and I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, Jane and the Man of the Cloth, which I think just came out in paperback.
The Gracie Allen Murder Case
by S.S. Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright)
Otto Pensler Books, paperback, $6.95
Rating: Keen.
Although I've certainly heard of S.S. Van Dine's series of Philo Vance mysteries, for some reason I've never actually read one, which probably shows a gap in my education in classic American mysteries; having read this, I reckon I've closed the gap sufficiently that I won't have to bother with another one. Except for Vance's slightly irritating erudition, and his extremely irritatin' accent, there was nothing particularly notable or interesting about this mystery, except for S.S. Van Dine's ability to capture the flavor the breathless speech patterns and whirligig thoughts of Gracie Allen's public persona. Apparently Gracie Allen was a real-life friend of Wright's, and she appears as herself, or rather appears as if she were cast in a role in the mystery: a secretary at the In-O-Sense perfume factory named Gracie Allen. (If she were actually herself, she'd appear as the comedienne Gracie Allen, if you see what I mean. But of course she's actually herself, it's the character in the book who's not. Hmm, maybe Gracie-ism isn't that hard after all.) George Burns also has a part, as a perfume developer who's in love with Gracie and becomes a murder suspect, but he's given nothing to do, and almost no lines--maybe he wasn't friends with Wright.
So, after I read all those, and they gave us a snack, we landed at Orly. Customs was a breeze, and we were finally in Paris. Stay tuned tomorrow.....
Amused in Paris: Day One (Part Deux)
As I said yesterday, French customs was a breeze: I didn't even get to use my carefully rehearsed "Je n'ai rien à déclarer." In fact, once past Passport Control, there wasn't anyone to say that to--you just followed the signs outside to the taxis. We stopped at the first taxi-looking object, and started to clamber aboard when, belatedly I mentally translated the fare quoted by the driver into dollars. Four hundred fifty francs came out to something over eighty dollars. Gulp. We got out. "C'est trop cher," I tried to explain to the driver, who gave a Gallic shrug and explained that the taxis were over there ("là-bas"); what we had inadvertently almost hired was a limousine. Making our way to the taxi stand (not that I saw much difference between them and the limo: some were painted with a two-color scheme and the logo of a company, but others just looked like cars). This time I made sure that I understood in advance what the fare was. "Nous voudrions aller a l'Hôtel Daguerre, Rue Daguerre, Montparnasse." The driver, a wiry little guy in tweed who looked about one hundred and sixty years old, give or take a century, nodded his understanding. "C'est combien pour aller a l'Hôtel Daguerre?" He told me it would take about twenty minutes (I'm not going to attempt to reproduce any of the idiomatic French I heard--I generally could get the gist of it, but not word for word.) I tried again, "Combien de Franc?" This time I connected. He climbed into the cab and grabbed some paper and did a quick calculation, then presented me with the result. One hundred twenty Francs, about 18 dollars. Much better. (As it turned out, the fare only came to one hundred Francs.) "D'accord." We got in, settled back, and were on our way.
The thing that struck me as we were whizzing along the highway, was how light the traffic was. Here it was about five o'clock on a Tuesday, what would be the height of rush hour in LA, with every road that went anywhere near LAX bumper-to-bumper, but here it was like an early Sunday morning: a sprinkling of cars dotting the road. "Where were all the cars?" I wondered. Almost immediately I had my answer: they were all in Paris itself, swerving around each other, swinging around on the roundabouts, playing chicken on the merges, and otherwise giving ample evidence that the French "bubble" of personal space was equally miniscule when it came to their cars. Tailgating close enough to make even an Angelino nervous seems to be the normal mode of driving and while I didn't actually see anyone pass another car by driving up onto the sidewalk, that may be because of all the cars already parked there. I never was able to figure out whether parking halfway up on the curb, or even entirely on the sidewalk, was perfectly legal, perhaps necessitated by the narrowness of some of the streets laid out in medieval times, or was it like parking right under a Stationnement interdit sign, which the Parisians didn't seem inclined to take personally.
In no time at all, we arrived at our hotel: a small, two-star hotel on a side street in the Montparnasse area of Paris. I'll be talking more about Montparnasse tomorrow, which is when we had a chance to look around some--at the time, we just wanted to get settled into our hotel room, have some dinner, and go to bed. Somewhat surprisingly, to those used to the photographic tricks of hotel brochures, the lobby of the Hôtel Daguerre, visible through the plate-glass windows as street level, looked pretty much exactly as advertised: clean, bright, and inviting. The clerk at the desk was efficient, and spoke quite good English (I was almost disappointed, but I was getting tired, so I wasn't too disappointed). All we had to do was hand over the voucher that had been included in our travel packet by France Vacations, and our stay at the hotel was covered (except for mini-bar and phone, naturally). He handed us the key to Room 101 (on the second floor of the hotel, which is the first floor as the French and other Europeans reckon it), explained that the breakfast buffet was served between 7 AM and 10 AM every day, and asked if we wanted a wake up call. He also asked if it was our first time in Paris, and we allowed that while it wasn't, it had been a while, so he pulled out a brochure and showed us some of the tours we could take and offered to make the arrangements for us if we wished. He particularly recommended one that included dinner and a show at the Moulin Rouge. Cynically, I supposed that he probably got a commission (that one in particular was rather expensive, in the neighborhood of a thousand Francs if I recall correctly), but he didn't push it when we didn't seem that interested.
We went up to the room, which restored my faith in the expertise of hotel brochure photographers by managing to look quite like the picture, while being too small to swing a cat in. Even a good-sized kitten looked dubious. We dumped our bags on either side of the beds (twin by virtue of being separate components, rather than because there was any space at all between them) for lack of anywhere else to put them. There weren't any bureaus, but there was an open wardrobe to hang up our coats (and my suit), a pair of night-stands, a table and the mini-bar, with a small TV on it. The room also had a private bath, which was a relief, since I wasn't sure that was standard in European hotels. As it turns out, that was a very good thing.
We settled in, and planned what to do for the next day. I wanted to go to the Musée D'Orsay, and Elizabeth wanted to see the Tomb of Napoleon, so that's what we decided to do. After plotting our route, we decided to get cleaned up and head out to find some dinner. We asked the clerk for a recommendation on a restaurant in the area, and he asked if we liked Italian food. We did, but thought it would be nice to eat something French, seeing as how we were in Paris and all. He said that there was a good place down the street, but that it was Creole. That sounded good to us. He expressed surprise that we knew what Creole was, which puzzled me a little, but we insisted that Creole was fine, we liked Creole. At this point I was wondering whether he meant something different than we did, but even if he did, it didn't seem to me that we'd be that disappointed. He gave us an ad for the Restaurant Aux Petits Chandeliers, and we set off down the street.
It was easy enough to find, and looked cozy, so we went on in. It was still a little early for French diners (not quite 8 o'clock, I suppose), so there was only one other party in the restaurant, which had about 12 tables. We sat down, and looked over the menus. Oops, time to break out the phrase-book. I knew that le poulet was chicken, le boeuf was beef, l'agneau was lamb, and le jambon was ham. Unfortunately, none of those was on the menu, except the lamb, and Elizabeth wouldn't eat that. After some research, she found what she thought were shrimp, which were acceptable. The waiter, who had no English, came over, and she pointed out what she wanted from the menu. He and she went back and forth, with him trying to make sure that she understood that they were large, and she indicating that's fine, that's what she wanted. Satisfied, he took her order, and turned to me. I finessed the issue by asking him what he would recommend. He pointed out something that was one of the few things on the menu that was referred to simply by its method of preparation, and I agreed that was fine. We ordered some wine, and sat back to see what would turn up.
My dish turned out to be some form of mutton, in a spicy brown sauce, which was delicious, although seeing some other diners later get the same thing with a side dish of rice made me wish that I had known to do that. Elizabeth's shrimp were indeed large--they were crawfish. She says that she enjoyed them, but they turned out not to be very much food. Fortunately, that left her room for dessert. We both elected ice-cream, coconut for her, banana for me. Back at the hotel she told me that it had been the best coconut ice-cream she'd ever had, and wondered if we could go back there some time before we left. I suggested that we wait and see, suspecting that as far as desserts go, Paris would have other equally exciting things to offer. We got ready for bed, and turned in--we had a lot to do the next day.
Tomorrow: Day Two. See you then.
Amused in Paris: Day Two
Well, today's my birthday. Well, not as I write this, but you know what I mean. Actually, I didn't realise that until the day was well underway--losing the day travelling threw me off, I guess. Or maybe I just didn't want to think about how old I was getting; I hadn't quite reached the point at which Tom Lehrer had noted that when Mozart was his age he had been dead for three years, but it was closing in.
Anyway, as I was saying yesterday, we were staying in the Montparnasse area of Paris. Montparnasse is the former Bohemian/working-class area of the city, and still has its share of night-clubs, cabarets, sex-shops, peep-shows, and so on....most of them it seems on the Rue de la Gaîté, just around the corner from our hotel. Unlike, say, Boston's Combat Zone, Rue de la Gaîté doesn't seem particularly sleazy or forbidding--ordinary-looking Parisians wander up and down it at any hour of the day or night (at least when we went by); one evening I passed a gaggle of senior citizens of both sexes who were apparently waiting outside one of the theaters. (At least I think it was a theater.) Recently Montparnasse has been the target of a huge urban development project, one of the legacies of which is the Tour Maine Montparnasse, an enormous sky-scraper (52 stories or so) that's easily visible throughout the quarter. If nothing else, it makes a great landmark on which strangers can orient themselves.
Our first stop was the basement of the hotel for breakfast brunch: a selection of baguettes with butter, jam, or honey, croissants, danishes, some other sorts of breakfast pastries, Corn Flakes, orange juice, coffee. Except for a tendency to run out of coffee, there was always plenty of food, although I stuck to the Corn Flakes and a baguette myself. Plus a ton of orange juice--particularly that first morning when I was feeling dehydrated from the flight.
As we had decided the night before, our first stop that day would be the Musée d'Orsay. Musée d'Orsay is a converted railway station, on the banks of the Seine diagonally opposite the Louvre, and in my opinion is one of the most beautiful museums in the world. Actually, it started its life as a palace, was used by the Auditor's Office, and then burned during the Commune in 1871; it was turned into a railway station in the 19th century, with the work being completed in 1900. It became the terminus for the southwest region; eventually, the trains became too long to be conveniently handled and it was reduced in status to a suburban station, and then abandoned altogether in the late 1930's. It was on the brink of demolition in the late 1970's when it was decided to turn it into a museum of 19th century art, and renovation was completed in 1986.
Musée d'Orsay official page
The interior space is basically one long gallery, with smaller side alcoves, with natural light provided by a skylight that pretty much is the roof, at least of the main gallery area. The main gallery is almost all large pieces statuary, with paintings and decorative arts pieces in the side galleries. I'd be hard-pressed to pick a single favorite piece--mostly it's the museum space itself that I like. Elizabeth's is, without a doubt, the enormous statue near the far end of the main gallery depicting four women (Asian, African, Caucasian, and American Indian) holding up the world.
Oops. I'm out of time tonight, so I'll continue talking about the Orsay tomorrow. See you then!
Since I know (from the daily activity logs) that a number of people only read the column on the week-days, I've decided not to force them to search out the continuation of yesterday's column in the back-issues when they look again on Monday by postponing the rest of my travelogue until then. Besides, I'm still feeling a bit run-down. So, to fill in the gap t