Random Sunday Thoughts

*It's snowing. I guess winter really is going to happen again this year. Every year, I hope that winter just forgets to show up. It'll be fine once it starts but the transition is a challenge.

*There is little distinction between "work" and "life" in some professions. I notice this, for example, when I am reading a book for work on a Saturday afternoon or blogging for work on a Sunday morning. But more than this, I have many events to attend for work which almost always figure into my weekend at some point: readings, launches, performances, openings, cocktails. Not complaining, but a good reason why I need so much time off during the summer.

*Reading Nancy Richler's The Imposter Bride. Only just 30-40 pages into it but it's highly readable at this point (beyond that initial confusion when one has to sort out all the different characters' names). Nominated for the Giller, it's a book that landed on my desk almost a year ago (before it was published) but, as is often the case, it got a bit lost in the sea of books. When I read about the nomination, I recalled having it and rounded it up.

*It's odd how few novels there are about elections when we are all so gripped by them a regular intervals. I know about a few, of course: The Manchurian Candidate (which I read a long time ago, great movie, too, though I mean the old one with Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury), Primary Colors (which I've never read), and a few others. When I search for "novels about elections" a list pops up of 10 or so. I've almost no interest in reading any of them, particularly at this time of year when I am so sick of election noise. I've absolutely given up watching the US news at this point but it's even a big part of the Canadian news cycle now.

*Still working my way through Jason Lutes' Berlin, on the second book, City of Smoke. Reading it slowly because I try hard to only read one chapter every few days so I can revel in it. That's the problem with most good graphic novels: I race through them in 45 minutes, but I'm trying to train my brain to enjoy this one slowly, pay close attention to the illustrations and, more importantly, the interaction between the illustrations and the text. Book three has not been anthologized yet (the author is still writing the series) so now the question is do I wait or do I start buying single issues/chapters once I am done with Book 2?

* The last few days I have been doing lots of research: on German novelists, on Chinese poets, on Italian journalists, on African cartoonists. This is one part of my job that I like a lot.

*My first day of winter tradition (which means the first day it feels like winter): make a big pot of chilli and watch an old movie on DVD.

Graphic Novels: some of my favorite titles

I developed a taste for comics (or graphic novels) later in life. As a young person, I didn't really read comics. Not sure why: no one that I can recall did as a matter of fact, not my brothers or cousins or classmates. It just wasn't part of our lives growing up.

But in my early 30s I started reading books by writers like Alan Moore, Frank Miller and others. I started reading the classics but soon branched out into personal favorites. I still read comics frequently though I try to just read for 30 minutes or an hour each day because 1) they go so fast and 2) I am too interested in too many other kinds of writing.

Jason Lutes' Berlin

Lately, coming back from Berlin, I've been reading non-stop about the city and that has led to other kinds of connections: Christopher Isherwood, Joseph Roth, Käthe Kollwitz, Robert Walser, and others. I was up at Drawn and Quarterly recently and discovered Jason Lutes' Berlin which is fascinating. Set in the years between the end of WWI and the start of WWII, his book explores the political turmoil in the city through the eyes of a cast of characters from all walks of life.

The work is beautifully drawn, compelling, tragic and funny. Apparently Lutes is only halfway through his story though he hasn't published a new one in a number of years. For some reason, this makes it even more appealing to me (nothing's worse than starting a series that's already over).

The End of Men?

A couple of years back, I was really into the work of Brian K. Vaughan. His series Y: The Last Man took inspiration from a nearly forgotten Mary Shelley novel, The Last Man. In Vaughan's version, a deadly virus hits in the Earth and every male mammal on the planet dies suddenly. All except one man, Yorick, and his pet monkey. The series traces the end of the world as we know it as Yorick crosses the US in search of the cause or a cure for the disease in order to start life again. Along the way, he encounters lesbian terrorists, Israeli spies, Russian agents, and every woman wants him for various reasons. Unfortunately, as they are want to do, Hollywood is now adapting this for film which I'm sure will make the series popular but also ruin it slightly.

Brian K Vaughan's other work (later than Y: The Last Man) is a more traditional super-hero tale: Ex-Machina, about a NYC politician who is a retired superhero but has been called back into active duty reluctantly. This series is an interesting exploration of the media, what it means to be "good" or moral, and what power actually means.

I tend to prefer graphic novels that are set in the "real" world. I don't like science fiction series or alternative universes (that's true of fiction, too, for the most part). The only exception to this is The Walking Dead which is great though I haven't seen any new issues in a long time.

Some other series I like include Matz's The Killer, and Jay Faerber's Near Death (set in the noirish streets of modern Seattle).

As I write this, I have to say that though I never liked comics growing up, I did love graphic illustrators and early graphic novelists like Frans Masereel were some of my favorite artists. I had (and still have) several of his "novels in woodcuts" that tell a story with only images. Frans Masereel himself was a fascinating figure and deserves an entire post himself.

Frans Masereel