Best American Comics 2009 (edited by Charles Burns)

"The Best American Comics" series has been producing annual
volumes since 2006 for the "Best of" in the comics field for each
year. It's an excellent series that highlights predominantly Indy
and alternative/small press comics, as selected by the rotating
editor and series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, and gives
readers the opportunity to sample a wide array of lesser-known
(or less-widely-distributed) talents.

Included in this stellar volume are hundreds of pages of various
styles, insights, and viewpoints, including;

*Tim Hensley's oddly disjointed cross-generational Sixties-send ups,
(featuring 'Gropius',) placing sharply-colored cartoonish Archies/Bingo/
Scooter style kids comics with politically incorrect/incoherent asides.

*Daniel Clowes brilliant as always with a scathing review of a
fictional film critic (Justin M. Damiano.)

*A riveting tale of tape dispensers by R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-
Crumb. (below)

*Michael Kupperman contributes a hilarious and retro copper buddy
story with beautifully muted colors and crazy 'ads' running alongside the
feature, Twain and Einstein!

*Dan Zettwoch gives flashbacks to some intricate and bizarre old
church bulletins he drew!

*Matt Broersma's "The Company" is a mysterious tale with a noir
quality and a great eye for simplified layouts (think Rizzo from "100
Bullets" or Sale.)

*Adrian Tomine provides one of my favorite (and linear) lengthy
stories about obsession, real life, friends, and reminiscence. (below)

*Mimi Pond details an artist's search for a place to draw from in
 'Over Easy.' (below)

*Art Spiegelman does a brilliant job showcasing the abilities of the
comic as a morphing, living creation, in short order.

*Gabrielle Bell gives a fantastic autobiographical aside with a nice piece
called "When I was Eleven" (Think 'Alison Bechdel.')

*Gary Panter's "Daltokyo" gave my mind a workout!

*Jerry Moriarty's grotesques laid over 1950s imagery (no words) were
extremely powerful and evocative

*Dash Shaw's "The Galactic Funnels" tells a weird story of Dan Dak and
Stan Smart with romance, competition, intellectual property theft,
and science fiction as a few of the cool themes employed.

*Jason Lutes' Berlin is excerpted with its devastatingly realistic slice
of domestic violence in the midst of war-torn Germany. Survival isn't pretty.

*Tony Millionare's quirky monkeys and birds never fail to satisfy.

*Chapter Two of Sammy Harkham's "Black Death" is a two-tone treat
of whimsical art that belies a darker story nature. Some gorgeous work
(think Herve', Peyo, and other masters.)

*Chris Ware's "Jordan W. Lint" is a massive (seemingly) autobio-
graphical journey through some key points of the man's life, with
extraordinary layouts and structure as we have come to expect from Ware.

*A warm and nicely developed story of some latchkey kids, "Freaks" by
Laura Park is a great piece. (below)

*An excerpt from the awesome graphic novel "Skim" (previewed by me
here:"Skim" ) by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki is also included.

*Appropriately titled (har har!) 'Antoinette' by Koren Shadmi is a hoot.

*Al Columbia gives a shocking and subtle insight into a dark side of the
American dream, with a scant few panels and no words, merely intricate,
spookily-detailed art that paints a picture that draws you in.

*A disturbing journey from Gilbert Hernandez called 'Papa' details a
man's difficult trip filled with hardships and maladies surreal and scary.

*Anders Nilsen does a beautiful job of creating a macabre and mysterious
scene with a style reminiscent of Moebius.

*"Glenn Ganges in 'Pulverize'" by Kevin Huizenga is a wonderful tale of
the appeal of video games to grown men, a sliver of the dot com bubble's
impact, an indictment of bosses who want to be your friends, and other
joys of auto-biographical comics. (below)

Best to read one at a time, so the taste savors. Reading through causes the
bleed and every tale has such a distinctly different feel it's not as satisfying.

I do love crazy and discombobulated flotsam and jetsam, and art for
art's sake, but I'm still predominantly a fan of actual stories, points of
views, tales. This has plenty...but it also has anthropomorphic hi jinks
and acid-tripping wing nuts depicting chaos-filled minds, too!

A splendid collection showcasing the diversity of sequential art story-tellers
and a great introduction for someone who still doesn't realize the depth that
'mere comics' can have.

Order "Best American Comics 2009" online

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Veteran's Day for All

How We Won

Conduct Unbecoming: Gays and Lesbians in the U.S. Military

Ask and Tell

Secret Service: Untold Stories of Lesbians in the Military

Unfriendly Fire

Our Time

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Books About Mittens

Two Books Reveal Romney's Truth

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"Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia" by Edward Humes

Mississippi Mud is a true story revolving around the mysterious murders
of two  prominent Biloxi, Mississippi residents in the late 1980s. The book
painstakingly and dramatically reenacts the goings on in the underbelly
of this Southern Strip of corruption and crime (run by the 'Dixie Mafia')
and the murky interactions of a handful of southern undesirables that led
up to the deaths of husband and wife, Vincent and Margaret Sherry.

Through the eyes of police detectives, con artists, lifers, hired killers, and, most poignantly--the tireless avenger of the Sherrys, their eldest
daughter, Lynne--a storyline is set up that will keep readers rapt. (At
one point, the information presented seemed to indicate rather an
extensive selection of potential suspects.)

Humes beautifully orchestrates the manipulation of timeline and massive
amounts of information. Taken from interviews, transcripts, testimony,
public records, newspaper articles, police reports, news reports, and a good
bit of detective work, the voluminous information is presented in a pot-boiler
manner so that you are unable to predict what will happen next.

And yet there is a comprehensible, easily-absorbed sense as he makes
the torrent of information seem effortless. There is such a rich, vast story
here, painting the humanity of the Sherrys and connecting the readers to
them as if they were our own family...as though we are the ones gnawing
and climbing the walls over the frustrating lack of justice and the far reaches
of the city's corruption.

This is the exhaustive study of how two lives of essentially regular
people can become trivialized by a system filled with corruption,
incompetence, and intimidation. The Southern mafia, perhaps seemingly
a joke at first, becomes a very real and frightening wall of power that,
as anyone who has lived in the south for five minutes can attest, is a
very real and frightening thing.

Kirksey Nix with all his swagger and charm and homilies and smarts
doesn't have anything on Stalin or Mussolini in the sociopath depart-
ment, and he's an all-too common face of the new criminal. The 
devastation of all the harm done by his schemes--from the comfort
of a prison cell--is staggering.

The heroine of the book, Lynne Sposito (daughter of the murder victims) pushes on well past the point most would have dissolved into
tears or fallen to pieces; facing death threats, the concerns for family
safety, stress and grief, and a burden that seemed as though it might
never end...her parents possibly never receiving closure on their lives.

(Note of warning: DON'T look at the photos included in the book
until you've read it! Even though placed in the middle, the captions
accompanying the photos for the central characters gave away
results not found until the end of the book, destroying much of
the suspense!)

Banned Books Week

Do yourself, your mind, your family,

and your community a favor and help

support "Banned Books Week."

Order yourself a banned or challenged

book you've never read, or pass on

a copy of a banned book to a new reader.

Get informed about the extensive history

of censorship and the fight against

intellectual freedom that has gone on

for so long.

Recommend a banned or controversial

book for a book club, or start up

a book club!

Here are a few of my favorite books which have

been censored, banned, or challenged

at one time or another:

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"A Separate Peace" by John Knowles

"Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

"In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

Order from your library, local bookseller, or online resource

today and support these great works;

Celebrate your right and ability to read!

Be intellectually free and uninhibited--

don't let anyone tell you what to think,

how to feel, or what your interests 'should' be!

ALA.ORG : Banned Books Week Info

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"The City and the Pillar" by Gore Vidal

I read the 1965, revised edition, including an afterword and

an essay by Vidal, "Sex and the Law," taken from the 1964

Partisan Review. (The essay is, in itself, worth picking up

the book for; like the novel, it is fascinating, and still highly

relevant as it discloses how religion and 'morality' colors

the law of sex--and why that is inappropriate!)

The novel is of historical significance as it is lauded as the first

fiction book to deal directly and even explicitly with homosexuality

as a matter-of-fact condition, gay relations, and gay sex.

One consistent thought while reading this prose was how aptly

the humanity was portrayed, and how timeless the human experience

is; the book was written by Vidal in 1946 and published in 1948,

yet remains relatable today..

I should point out that the depiction of gay life is not only

'no picnic,' but there is an unsettling and vile edge to much

of the book. The ending in particular is quite unpleasant--

to say the least--and this was the revised edition. The original's

'resolution' was far more damning.

(I don't say this to prevent anyone from reading it; I actually

feel it's a poignant and truthful view of what growing up

as an outsider in one's own body--and own country--does

to us. But it is stark, and not for the feint of heart.)

The story centers on a young man from Virginia who

becomes obsessed about a relationship with a childhood friend

in the 1930s/1940s. As the primary youngster (Jim Willard)

leaves home and begins to live his life and explore his

feelings, his path alters from expectation...but the idealistic

notion of reuniting with his first love is never far from mind.

Throughout the course of several years and several

dissatisfying relationships, Jim grows up and becomes

fairly hardened by the nature of 'the gay life.' (However,

as in real life, he is hyper-critical of others while always failing

to see his culpability in these matters! I imagine there's quite

a bit of Vidal's hubris inherent there.)

I don't want to give away the plot turns, so I'll say no

more as to the details. But this is a rich, provocative,

simply--yet elegantly--written work that captures

your attention and keeps you attuned to the developments

in this troubled young man's life, and the lives of those

whose path he crosses.

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"The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain" by Tali Sharot

"The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain"

Tali Sharot is a neuroscientist grad from New York University

who for years has studied the effect on neural biology and

emotional landscapes and how other factors influence

and determine people's sense of optimism and hopefulness

(or lack thereof.)

This book deals with the scientific through studies, surveys,

animal research, and other methods including analogy and case

studies, but never becomes tedious. The way she develops

her theories and layers her insights is interesting, and the facts

and findings are of use to anyone who has dealt with

negativity, hopelessness, depression, or passiveness.

Some of the findings might seem banal (as well as obvious) on the

surface, but then the way the information is applied and connected to other

findings is what stands out. For example, one section tells how those with

privilege have hope and optimism, more so than those without, and how

those without comforts have a realistic view of the world. But despite

the insightfulness of a realistic view, is it preferable?

This is more than sociology and psychology; this is delving into the

workings of the brain, and how it is designed to safeguard us from being

whelmed by our human ability to anticipate and expect and plan.

What happens when the understood threat of death, disease, frailty, loss, and

more become too loud in our heads, no longer distracted by the brain's

fail safe of hope and optimism?

Depression.

Sharot delineates one of the most masterful explanations of how

depression develops and how it can be combated that I have

read in the last 25 years.

One area of particular note; Expectations. A person's

expectations weigh heavily on outcomes--their own and other

people's. Expectation of a positive result breeds more positive

mood, despite the actual eventual result. Thus who are falsely positive

benefit from reduced anxieties, depressive moods, worry, and other

problems that assault someone who tends to picture the worst

case scenarios--no matter that it may be more likely!

If you've ever wondered why your mindset of worry can't

seem to be changed, or just how and why  'Ignorance is bliss,'

check out this fascinating read.

Sample Reading

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