Walking on the Moon

I wrote a short review of The Great Gatsby, which deserves a long one. Fortunately, many others have handled that for me. Mine is up in Bell, Book, and Candle.

And I noticed that for the last 8 years my pages have had Jane Austen’s name spelled wrong. That’s the way to critical credibility.

I was feeling kind of crappy this weekend and spent most of Saturday just vegging out. To help with that, I picked up Volume 2 of The Essential Marvel Two In One, and really a better time is tough to imagine.

Two in One was one of those great 70’s titles that was hanging out there on the edge of the Marvel Universe, but that didn’t have to be The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine every month. It wasn’t exactly the Marvel flagship. It had two important things going for it – the creators didn’t take it more seriously than a comic book, and lots of great creators were thrown an issue or two as a chance to prove themselves. It also starred the Thing, one of Marvel’s most over-the-top heroes.

The result is a charming set of fun stories and general tour around the characters and situations in the Marvel Universe. Several series had their loose ends tied up in MTIO and a few actual important Marvel Universe events happened in there, too. Mostly, though, they’re fun single-issue or two-issue stories with a charismatic and visually appealing star that make it a great way to waste an afternoon.

A pleasurable guilty pleasure. (To get a feel for the series, I recommend Mark O’English’s amazingly complete and remarkably entertaining Ever-Lovin’ Blue-Eyed Home Page.)

My review of the 2007 O. Henry award winners is up a on Bell, Book, and Candle.

My review of W. Somerset Maugham’s Collected Short Stories, Volume 3 is up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

John Heidemann was kind enough to provide a Fedora 7 grap binary RPM.  It’s also available from the grap page.

I finally read Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, and put up a short review on Bell, Book, and Candle.

• Will Eisner’s The Spirit #4 and #6
  • Still good to the last drop.  And it is Eisner’s Spirit, not really Cook, Bone, and Stewart’s.  They’re doing a remarkable job channeling Eisner and delivering all the ingredients in a singular genre – Spirit stories.  Even the visual tropes are Eisner, updated for the 21st century – #4 is really sharp in this regard, both the Spirit and Ebony and the Spirit and Dolan have a scenes where the dialog works because of the visual.  A great book; if you found the Spirit reprints off-putting because of the 40’s trappings and stereotypes, give this a try.
  • Sig Fodder: “I mean we have to draw the line.  No dairy, peanut free, donuts make you fat … fine.  But the coffee – all I’m asking is that my coffee taste like coffee, not some new age banana split for fitness freaks.” — Dolan with his finger on the pulse of the key to police work, #6
• Captain America #26
  • Brubaker seems to be trying to hold his story together with the storm of Civil War boiling all around him.  It’s heavy going at places, but though the deck’s pitching some, it remains enjoyable.  Bucky’s resolve at the end of the issue is the first wrong note for that character, and that worries me.  I’ll stick around a while yet.
  • Sig Fodder: “… some of his science is not science if you get my meaning” — Arnim Zola on Victor Von Doom (the attribution alone makes me a little tingly.)
• Batman and the Mad Monk
  • This is the second of Matt Wagner’s excellent retellings of Golden Age Batman storylines in the framework of Miller’s Batman: Year One.  If you’re a comics fan from the 80’s (like me) that’s an irresistable package.  Even if you’re not, this is great stuff.  Wagner’s plotting is clear and strong, and he’s got a really good feel for Batman.  He communicates Batman’s obsession without making him inhuman and builds up a vary plausible world about him.  It’s an joy for long underwear fans everywhere.

A few words about The Johnstown Flood are up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

I just finished The Penelopiad over in Bell, Book and Candle.

My reviews of At Canaan’s Edge and If the River Was Whiskey are up on Bell, Book and Candle.