What I Read: April 2019

Another eclectic month of reading for me, lighter on comics/graphic novels than typical, heavier on non-fiction.

I finished reading James Ellroy's "Hollywood Quartet":

1. The Big Nowhere
2. L.A. Confidential
3. White Jazz

Ellroy is a very interesting cat to me as a writer. In the "quartet" books, and some of the others, he employs a three "protagonist" structure--"protagonist" in quotes because some of these protagonists are as scuzzy as the more conventional bad guys they are up against--and in some of the books each of those protagonists has a foil or enemy, with all six of the threads weaving in and out. It is a pattern he's kept with the next book and linked quartet I started in May, American Tabloid. His energy and cadence is unique, and he does some very experimental stylistic things as the series progresses, especially in White Jazz, where I think he's trying to reinvent the form of the traditional Hollywood detective novel.

The dark journey continues

As subgenres go, Hollywood Detective is one of my favorites.

4. James Warren: Empire of Monsters, Bill Schelly

Pure joy reading this one, although per usual with books combining biography, business, and beloved artforms I'm left wanting more of all three. I've have in my own vault of horror most of the early issues of Creepy  and Eerie, and was really looking forward to any information on how those were started and how they grew, and also anything on the great artists and writers featured within. Spoiler Alert: Schelly reveals that Warren himself is working on autobiography, so without his direct input one wonders if choice anecdotes, stories, and details are held in reserve. Though he clearly loves his subject and the things he created, Schelly's work isn't hagiography and my guess any students/fans/practitioners of the genres Warren worked in would benefit from reading both this book and the one Warren is working on.

I was inspired enough after reading the book to buy the newest issue of The Creeps, a Warren-style magazine on newsstands today. I loved it!

5. Top Secret Non-Fiction Book, Top Secret

Research for a novel I'm working on; fantastic book and perfect for what I needed out of it.

6. Animal Man Vol. 5: The Meaning of Flesh, Tom Veitch, Steve Dillon, et al.

I have to confess I'm not connecting with this run as much as I did with Morrison's run, but that is probably my fault.

7. Spirit of Hawkwind, Nik Turner and Dave Thompson

My love of Hawkwind is well-documented, and readers of my earlier blog entry this week  What I Heard: April 2019 know the main score of the month was the RSD Hawkwind release of the month. Listening to the concert made me curious to read more about the band, whose evolution of sound and membership has continued over a fifty year span. This documents the earlier years when Nik was a member, from the band's inception up through 1976's Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music. Clearly only one viewpoint among dozens essential to the Hawkwind story, but a singular and very entertaining one at that. While reading I started listening to the Hawkwind studio releases in oder and I'm up to PXR5.

8. Dare to Lead, Brene Brown

An average year will see me reading six to ten business books. this one was more interesting and entertaining than most.

Like reading? Read one of these and support my efforts at the DANIEL WATERS SUPERSTORE:

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What I Read: March

I read this. What a cover

My reading in March was mostly comic books and the continuance of my chronological stroll through the entire works of James Ellroy, with a couple random nonfiction titles, one of which made a deep impression, thrown in.

I finished up Ellroy's early works and his Lloyd Hopkins novels and am now into his "L.A. Quartet" series. One of the things I love about reading an author's works in the order they produced them is that periodically there is a point when the writing feels as though the author makes a significant leap forward in the mastery of their craft. The leaps could be in style, voice, plot, tension, prose, or any of a number of different literary criteria. I'm not sure I would be able to discern those leaps/improvements if I wasn't "binging" on an author and only reading one of their works once a year or so. In this months' reading of Ellroy, I see two such leaps, one of them profound, the veritable quantum leap forward, and it is exciting to me both as a reader and a writer to be carried along in the momentum of that leap. I always try to imagine what was going on in the writer's life and writing process that enabled/caused such a leap: a change in habits, a change in the time spent writing, a change in personal energy, an editorial change? Will the writer be able to sustain the new level of mastery, or will it fade--and will it fade because of external changes? Did the writer know they were hitting this groove when they were writing it? I, like most novelists, have had stretches where I lean back and say "Where did that come from? I totally nailed it!"; half the time my delusions are exposed in the editorial process, but every so often I'm right--I really did "nail it". Those moments are like magic, like being on an incredibly euphoric out-of-body experience. I wonder if it is the same for other.

I won't say specifically, where I saw these two leaps, but here are the Ellroy titles I read in March:
1. Killer on the Road
2. Blood on the Moon
3. Because the Night 
4. Suicide Hill
5. The Black Dahlia

I wrote earlier how a number of the books I snagged at the Book Barn turned out to be signed--turns out this one was too:

I wonder who the "Slash" was for?

I also read a number of comic books--or graphic novels, if you prefer--especially the week I was sick and just wanted to lie in bed reading with a cup of tea on the night table. I blame/thank Tom King and Neil Gaiman for re-sparking my interest.

6. Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus vol. 1 Wow. Just...wow. I have a massive comic book collection from the 60's, 70's, and 80's, and somehow managed to miss out on nearly all the 4th World stuff despite being a big Kirby fan (I have a complete run of Kamandi, to this day one of my favorite titles). Great reading when feverish.
7. Ice Cream Man vol 1. Rainbow Sprinkles by W. Maxwell Prince, Martin Mozarro and others. A sort of horror anthology comic with the Ice Cream Man at the center of the weirdness. I get Warren Ellis's newsletter and he recommended the second volume but I try to begin at the beginning
8. Animal Man Omnibus Grant Morrison, Chas Truog, and others
9. Animal Man Born To Be Wild Peter Milligan, Tom Veitch, Steve Dillon, and others
From my massive birthday haul. The mammoth omnibus, some of which I've read before, is among my favorite runs on any comic anywhere. I'd never read any of the Born to be Wild stories, which did not hit me as much, but maybe I should not have read them so close together.
10. Doom Patrol vol. 1 Grant Morrison and others
Thrilled by my Omnibus reading, I stocked up on some other Morrison titles on my kindle for my road trips, and also I've heard good things about the Doom Patrol TV show so I thought refamiliarizing myself with the characters prior to watching might be a good idea. Delightfully weird, but one thing is clear: I hate reading comic books on my kindle. Yeah, the panel by panel thing is cool, but I just don't enjoy the experience as much as with the analog versions/

Some nonfiction:
11. Traveler's Tales: Japan Donald W. George and Amy Griemann Carson, ed.
Love this series; an anthology of articles of varying lengths about culture, travel, history, etc. The Japan one I particularly enjoyed (though I think Italy is still my favorite
12. Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women who Created Her Melanie Rehak
My other kindle read; my hatred of reading comics on kindle is eclipsed only by my love of reading nonfiction on kindle due to the superior notetaking abilities. I, who have never read a single Nancy Drew novel (but read dozens of Hardy Boys and as many of the Three Investigators as I could) loved this book. I found the business and production aspects of one of the most successful "fiction factories" of all time utterly fascinating, and also inspiring. Books that make me want to drop them and start writing fiction are the best, and I had those moments several times while reading this on the flights to and from Seattle.

While my books did not sell in the numbers of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, they did pretty well. You can contribute to the cause by buying them HERE

Synchronicity

(This post is a both a present to myself and an early one for K., who shares with me certain beliefs Happy Birthdays!)

I wasn't certain what I wanted to do with my days off, though I knew I still wanted to take them even though we cancelled the overnight trip to Boston we booked months ago. Kim bought me exceptional seats for a bucket-list concert for my birthday, but the concert was postponed due to an illness in the band, and so I was left with a four-day weekend with no concrete plan. Earlier in the week I'd felt feverish and sick, so at the very least I could lounge around the house hydrating, writing, and maybe watch a movie or two. I'd been in bed by nine the last three nights after short spans of reading followed by some brief hunts on eBay. What better way to turn fifty?

Restlessness crept in, however, and I prefer my head to swelling with ideas instead of sinus pressure when I write, so I took a drive. First to the post office to initiate the process of renewing my passport--although I no longer have hair and a beard, I look younger in my new photo than in the one I took ten years and fifty pounds ago. Then to the bank and the dry cleaner; driving the short distance up a gray stretch of 395 I notice a very large owl sitting in one of the barren oak trees on a snow-covered slope rising up from the river a quarter mile from my exit. Afterwards I'll think it looked almost exactly like  Owl from the Disney Winnie-the-Pooh films, except with more spots, with the browns of his feathers more muted, and not smiling. Later still I'll realize it looked nothing at all like Owl from Winnie-the-Pooh but will remain convinced I actually saw it. After my errands, I drive south for an exit, get off the highway, and then return north in a big circle hoping to catch a second glimpse but no such luck. I head home, debating on going to the Book Barn to visit their Downtown location to check out the graphic novels, but decide against it because I was just there a week or so ago.

Whooo is that behind me?

(Photo by Linda Waters I never saw this owl)

I've been on a graphic novel kick lately, which probably has something to do with...turning fifty. The whole not-wanting-to-lose-touch-with-your-youth thing, the idea of wanting to stay in touch with that kid even though every last vestige of him has slid from the mirror even before I've picked up my razor. I don't imply that graphic novels or comic books are purely the providence of childhood or anything equally ignorant--if you are hoping for a rant against the newest Avengers trailer or Captain Marvel just move along--but from a personal perspective my love of comics came at a very early age, and I bought them all the way through high school and college, then quit for a few years when money was tight, and then used the birth of my kids as a great excuse to start buying them again, which we did until they lost interest in them. I never quit entirely, though, and there are times--the stressful times, the lost times, the times I feel like crap and want to stay in bed, where I want to read them even more. I finished reading the first volume of Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus when the sickness first started--talk about a gateway drug!

So I arrive home, play with the dogs, make some lunch, do the dishes, get the mail, play with the dogs some more. I decide I'll go downstairs and watch a movie, but before I do I check social media.

The very first thing in my feed is a tweet from the Book Barn (yes, I follow used book stores on Twitter. Other people follow Kardashians or Tucker Carlson. Sue me.) that says "We have a really nice lot of comics and graphic novels on the way Downtown"


What the hell, I think, and get in the car, and drive south. The weird thing is, I looked for three things on eBay the night before: the 2nd volume of Kirby's 4th World Omnibus, the 2nd volume of the Kamandi Omnibus, and the second Animal Man collection. None of those are exactly household names; comic book readers my age would be familiar with all of them, but I have no idea what the comic book readers who started in the nineties would know of them. So I was kind of surprised when I got to the Book Barn Downtown just as there were shelving the "nice lot" of graphic novels and the first thing I see on the table is the complete run of Animal Man graphic novels, beginning with the hardcover edition of the Animal Man Omnibus. I'd expected a bunch of X-Men and Batman stuff (and was not disappointed; see above) and probably some of the more well-known Marvel titles (again, see above) but not the primo HC  editions and off-beat titles (Xenozoic? Three volumes of the Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan Tomb of Dracula?,  so it was well-worth the trip.

So, synchronicity. Why was it I'd picked last night, after probably a decade of not thinking about Animal Man, to research Animal Man? And why is it that I put in "Make an Offer" bids on both the 4th World and Kamandi omnibuses last night (one shot down, one I'm still awaiting a reply on) but not on the much more affordable Animal Man volume two? Clearly, the universe wants me to read Animal Man (and The Uncanny Avengers, and that Fantastic Four stuff is that White Tiger oh yeah I heard the Human Torch flamed out), but why? Why did all of those tiny, butterfly wing-flap events occur in just that precise order to conspire to bring me to the Book Barn, part with some money, and depart with the above haul of books--books that had literally just been brought in, almost as though the universe had summoned them for me today, the ides of the ides of March, pie day, the fiftieth anniversary of my birth?

And why, upon returning home, do I see that a gift bag has been left on the front steps, a kind present from my mother-in-law, and that the gift bag contains four items...a card (with an owl on it), a bottle of wine, a gift certificate to a restaurant and a second gift certificate....
                                                        …..to the Book Barn?

Not so strange, you might say, if you are of a skeptical nature, as I usually am. It was a "nice lot" of graphic novels, after all, and the work of Grant Morrison is bound to show up somewhere in such a lot. His run on Animal Man was legendary (Brian Bolland covers!) and helped boost Vertigo's growing reputation and increasingly solid line; just because you've never seen it at the Book Barn doesn't mean there aren't thousands of copies sitting on the shelves of once passionate collectors in need of a serious downsizing. And the one thing you request from your mother-in-law for a gift is a Book Barn gift certificate. Although you protest otherwise, you are always checking social media, and so it was only a matter of time before you'd see some X tweet that eventually yielded a Y result. There's no magic here, there's no mystery. It's just some random stuff that happened on a Thursday you decided to keep as a vacation day even though the concert of a lifetime was cancelled. Turning fifty is just another day no matter how hard you try and inject some magic realism into the rather mundane proceedings. Sure, renewing the passport is a nice touch (the literal passport to adventure!), but dropping off the dry cleaning? For this you burned a precious vacation day?

Yes, for this. For this, and for the other pages I wrote earlier today, and those I will write tonight. And also for this large box of beautiful pictures and thrilling stories. I will end my "vacation day" with one of those books, propped up in bed, a glass of diet root beer on the nightstand beside me, and somehow I will feel not only a direct link with the eight year old boy who engaged in a similar way with different stories (albeit without the thick reading glasses I'll be peering through) and with the even older man who I will some day be who, if the universe continues to conspire, will still engage. in that way with even more stories. And in engaging, continue to create his own.

And in creating, will feel a direct link not only to those past, present, and future selves, but in all selves, in all things.

I can't wait.

Only $2.99 for kindle! Find it and my other stuff HERE