by Scott McLemee on April 15, 2007
My friend Scott Kaufman asked me to point you to the book event The Valve is hosting on Amanda Claybaugh’s The Novel of Purpose. He was even considerate enough to write this post for me — links and all! [Though, truth to tell, I did edit it a little bit. And the fact that I am saying as much in brackets shows that there are limits to how much control of the author function I will give up.– sm]
Miriam Burstein has already thrown her hat into the ring. And Scott [SEK, that is, not me-sm]* has written a briefer on the context in which Claybaugh’s book is, as we say in the [academico-litcrit] biz, “intervening.”
So if you find the 19th century, social reform, literary realism or the works of Dickens, Bronte, and Twain at all interesting, I [or we? something like that-sm] suggest you check it out.
* [this is kind of like “Temptation Inside Your Heart” on the “lost” Velvet Underground album which has a couple of tracks of Lou Reed commenting on the song and arguing with his own commentary: “I can talk to myself if I want to….”-sm]
by John Holbo on April 15, 2007
Obviously the reason why old comics provoke a certain sort of joke is the underwear on the outside, plus dialogue that, apparently, dare not speak the name of whatever the hell it is the characters are trying to discuss. But sometimes this can really be taken to extremes:
What are we supposed to think? Johnny Thunder is a gay robot? But this isn’t really what I wanted to talk about tonight.
[click to continue…]
by John Holbo on April 15, 2007
For I was not an aging, racist shock-jock.
Then they came for the ones who had ‘lost’ all that email, and I said nothing. For I had not ‘lost’ all that email.
It seems to me this has been a weak week for Republican push-back.
And now, back to your previously scheduled comics blogging.
by John Holbo on April 15, 2007
Betwixt these weekend comics posts, I might as well make a plug for Top Shelf Productions, a (mostly) comics small press, which is having a 10th B-Day sale. The long and the short is, a bunch of titles are marked down to $3, even $1, until Weds, April 18, so long as you buy $30. I just bought several titles, including some for the kids. (If I didn’t already own all the “Owly” titles, I would have snagged those, at a slight discount. Plus there’s some marginally marked down Alan Moore, but I’ve got that already.) Most of the titles have previews so you can browse with a modicum of informed efficiency. I bought: [click to continue…]
by John Holbo on April 15, 2007
I’m working up a longer post on this important subject. But, in the face of a certain natural skepticism, expressed in comments to my previous post, I have decided to seed discussion with a pair of frames from All Star Comics #24 (Spring, 1945):
If you happen to be at a scholarly institution with access to All Star Comics archives, vol. 6
[amazon], you can consult the original. Otherwise, you can wait for my update.
TONIGHT: Wildcat explains five fifteen centuries of German perfidy.