Sneaking in a bit of reading

For the first time in a really long time I'm having to travel to work (and re-appreciating who lovely it is to normal have a 10 minute walk to work), which is a drag as it's really eating into my drawing and being with my family time. Luckily it's only for a few more weeks.
One good thing is time on the train is good reading time (when it's not napping and drooling on my shoulder time that is)
I finally got round to reading a book I bought five years ago, I knew I'd like it, so it's was just a matter of time. Turned out I was right, 'The Deadly Percheron' by John Frankin Bardin is an excellent 'lost classic', the plot should be surreal, but it unfolds with a nightmarish logic. Best description I can give it is 'psychiatric noir', I reckon John Frankenheimer should have directed an adaptation of it round about 'Manchurian Candidate'/'Seconds' time, it would've been a perfect thematic fit. The edition I got is already out of print, but I believe a new edition recently came out. Bardin wrote several other books, I have a copy of 'Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly' whic is supposed to be his best, and I've jumped it close to the top of my reading pile. You can read more about Franklin at wiki or at this fan site.
Another book that had waited for me to dig it off the shelf was Kim Newman's (I used to get on the same bus as him back when I lived in London y'know, he really does look like a dandy Lemmy - that's a good thing BTW) 'The Quorum', which turned out to be a lot of fun, appealing to my need for pop culture and nostalgia. It wasn't particular scary, but it was fairly disturbing in places. Didn't knock 'Orgy of the Blood Parasites' (written as Jack Yeovil) off it's high spot, but good enough to bide Newman time until I finally decide to read his Anno Dracula stuff.
At the moment I've just started 'Bust', a Hard Case Crime book by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, a couple of writers who've earned respect from some authors I rate, so I've got high hopes for it.

Books, comics and a film

I've enthused about Richard Sala before, so getting hold of the two issues of Delphine was a real treat for me. As with Sala's other long form works there's a grotesue supporting cast, leisurely twists and turns and a genuine sense of carefully structured mystery, but what I particularly enjoyed was what seems like a return to the almost poetic tone of his shorter pieces. The wash tones are lovely too. I can't wait for the rest of the issues.
Shattered Glass stars the always excellent Peter Sarsgaard, but what was surprising was not just how good it was, but how good Hayden Christensen was. Once again George Lucas drags a duff performance out of a most talented actor.
'Little Girl Lost' by Richard Aleas is part of the Hard Case Crime series, and so far it's one of my favourites. The fact that it has a cover by the great Robert McGinnis is icing on a very lovely cake. The story it self it not terribly original but it's so nicely done I didn't really care. In the same series 'Home is the Sailor' by Day Keene was let down by an overenthusiastic quote claiming the book to be better than Jim Thompson (a similarly silly quote foolishly compares Aleas to Chandler). It's a mugs game comparing something to genius. The itself was actually pretty enjoyable, and yes, Thompson-esque, but rather than out doing the great man, it was Thompson-lite.
Gilbert Adair's loving parody/homage to Agatha Christie and English crime authors of her type, 'The Act of Roger Murgatroyd' is a wonderful frothy and witty read. Splendid you might say. It works as a genuine book of it's type as well as funny play on them, rather like my beloved 'Dungeon' series. Read this one with a pot of tea and some scones.
I'm still working on 'MY robot', it's not going as fast as I'd like but not as slow as it would appear. Posting is suffering from my drawing panels and pages out of sequence. At the moment pages 3 and 4 only need one panel each and they're done, so they'll probably both go up together. In the meantime I've recently finished rejigging an old piece of work, I'll post that later, maybe tomorrow.

Booky book

Nearly got page 2 of My robot finished, and my Christopher Lee pic is nearly done too, will post them soon.
The slight delay has been down to -
1. Going back to work - I'm saying very little about it, read into that what you will :)
2. Been reading -
At the moment I'm reading my first Douglas Coupland book. I had a copy of 'Generation X' for years but never got round to reading it..... which seems appropriate really. I should probably have started with 'Girlfriend in a Coma', it's been recommended to me a few times, but I went with 'Jpod'. I'm about two thirds through it, and it's fun, but I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I think it's about something, but I'm not really sure what, and I feel like doing a google search to find out..... which seems appropriate really.







Before that I read 'Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror' by Chris Priestley, which was absolutely fantastic. I do like creepy stories, and I do like kid's books, but I'm not sure I've seen the two work so well together. The two main characters are named after M.R. James and Edgar Allan Poe, which gives some idea of where Priestley is coming from. Although the book is an anthology of short stories, it's all tied together beautifully by them being told by an Uncle to his nephew, very much in the best manner of creepy tales such as 'Dead of Night'. Special mention goes to David Robert's artwork, he's a touch Gorey-esque at the best of times, but he really goes for it here, and the result is very lovely indeed.





And before that was 'Black Swan Green' by David Mitchell. I felt like reading something nostalgic, I hadn't realised that I was reading an actual time machine. A friend warned me off this slightly by claiming Mitchell tried to hard to set the book in time by referencing songs, etc. I didn't really feel this was that intrusive, and seeing as the protagonist is a 12-13 year old boy, nor did I think it was inappropriate. There's nothing terribly earth shattering about the plot, and it seems far less experimental than his other books (which I've not read), but it does feel like an unseen 4 part episode of Grange Hill directed by Stephen Frears, and that's good enough for me.

British horror

So, you know how I found some interesting stuff in an Oxfam book shop a while ago? Well, I had the same success in a Barnardo's bookshop. I'd not read anything by R. Chetwynd-Hayes before, but was familiar with his name due to Jeremy Dyson talking about him on a documentary about the old BBC Ghost Story For Christmas (genius) series and because his work was adapted into 'The Monster Club' and 'From Beyond the Grave' films, which, coincidentally, were the two books I found. So far I've read a few stories in FBTG, and they're great, a lovely mix of cosy British quirks and horror, one making the other stand out nicely.
In the meantime I've started 'Obsession' by Ramsey Campbell, it's very good so far. I've only read short stories by Campbell before, they're very good indeed, he has a nice prose style, it's occasionally wanders a bit, but he seems to know where he's going.

Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire

The first Mr Gum book was a rare old treat, and so is the 2nd book, quite frankly it's genius on toast. Stop reading this right now, go buy the book, read it, come back.....
Brilliant isn't it. It sort of reminds me of Vivian Stanshall with it's lyrical nonsense, don't you agree? I bet you loved the opening "It all started late one afternoon in the peaceful town of Lamonic Bibber. Summer was at an end and the day stretched out long and lazy like a huge glossy panther made of time." Oh and the fab description of Mr Gum, who after drawing some extra scowls on his head with a felt tip "scruffed up his big red beard to make it as wild and frightening as possible. It wasn't quite terrifying enough so he stuck a couple of beetles in it and a photo of a shark." Or maybe.... hang on, we'd better stop talking about it, don't want to spoil if for those too foolish to have already bought it.
Here's the Mr Gum website to get you into the mood.

Polo

Those with long memories and nothing else to think about might remember me mentioned the book 'The Adventures of Polo' by Regis Faller a while ago. It's a beautiful book, smart, inventive and lovely to just look at, and there's another out now (I'm waiting patiently by the letter box for it) In the meantime have a look at the Polo website here, it's gorgeous.

Progress

Eek, the zombie deadline looms ever closer like a, um, hungry zombie. Three pages are completely penciled, another two thirds penciled and one sort of over half way penciled but I'm unsure about the layout so want to mess a little. I've also started inking, but as I jump from panel to panel it's hard to say how much I've done. Anyway, the deadline's end of the month and I should manage that okay, in fact if I wasn't at work this weekend I might have done it by Sunday. It'll now be appearing in a more graphic novel-y format as AccentUK have had enough submissions to go that route. The next anthology will be robots and I had a nice idea for a story today so I'll try and contribute to that, early planning I know, but probably a smart move.
Not much else going on workwise, writing's ground to a halt as I struggle with plot and an overall lack of faith in the book industry. I put myself under a lot of pressure by dreaming how wonderful it would be to be published and paid to do something I love that frankly I lost track of the fact that I could care less about being published and would still try and make things up if I was paid or not. That and a growing dislike of the state of books makes me think I should put those dreams aside and just enjoy doing whatever I get round to doing.

More to life than reading... apparently

Took me a while but I finally finished reading 'Heart Shaped Box' by Joe Hill and very enjoyable it was too. The main character, Jude (a mix between Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson Alice Cooper I guess.... he's a rock star btw), is sort of a bit unlikeable, but I liked him anyway as as well as having a bit of charm he's also a redeemable character, important in horror. There's not much in the way of plot, it's more of a ramble, but that work's fine. It's more of a ghost story than a horror one if the distinction matters and whilst it won't be worrying M.R. James coffin it's a fine yarn and I hope it does well.
Next on the reading list is G.W. Dahlquist's The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters which I have high hopes for. I was very lucky to get hold of an advance copy of this (although it's been out in the US for a while now) as the proof is a lovely looking thing it's own right presented as 10 seperate volumes with Victorian stylings.
Drop by in a day or two and I should have a page of pencils for Zombie of the Great Unwashed posted.

Good for you sir!

It's the kind of bold, moral and possibly mad move that impresses the hell out of me (it's why I love Bill Watterson), an independant children's author has asked amazon to remove his book from their site as he would rather support indie bookstores. Read a bit more about it here.

Up up and Away!

If you read my geek splurge on Wazzock’s Lantern a while ago you’ll already know I’m a bit of a Superman fan, sort of. I love the 70’s movie (the sequel is great but as any fellow nerd will already know it’s sadly flawed - be interesting to see what the ‘directors cut’ atempt will look like), the Bruce Timm cartoon and the early Fleisher ones as well as some of the old comics and I’m incredibly excited at the prospect of the new movie. But Superman isn’t always handled that well, I’ve not read many Superman comics in the last ten years or so. He’s a great concept and a great character but time and over used has tarnished.
One of the sad things about loving books but working in a bookshop is that you rarely get suprised, advance proof, trade press, info passed down from head office etc means you’re forewarned about new releases. So imagine my surprise when I pick up a stack of books to shelve and see a beautiful Chris Ware cover adorning a copy of a book I’d never heard of, and it’s called ‘It’s Superman!’ Being a small shop we only had one copy come in so I quickly put it aside for myself and ordered a bunch more.
I wasn’t sure if I’d actually buy the book when I first saw it until I read the back and found out that the author (Tom De Haven, a writer I’m vaguely familiar with but have never actually read - a quick check on amazon is making me think I’ll be reading more) had done something I always wanted to see happen. No dumb updating of Superman, this is Superman in the time he made sense, ‘It’s Superman!’ starts in the 30’s, everything is right with the world!
And so here I am ‘reviewing’ a book I’ve yet to read. I’ve flicked throught and it looks interesting, De Haven’s reputation as being a bit of an arty post modernist but his obvious love of comics are solid signs and the fact the chapter three’s entitle ‘The Saucer-Man From Tinsletown’ all adds up to a fun read. There’s a couple books on my to read list first (see, I can rein in my enthusiasm), but as soon as I read it I’ll let you all know how it was.

What Happen's Now by Jeremy Dyson

I’d been waiting for this for a while being a League Of Gentleman fan, but also because Dyson’s collection of short stories was fantastic. The pained expression I wore whilst reading it was not because it was bad, it was a sign of it's brilliance.
What Happens Now is the story of two sensitive emotionally unstable people and what happened to them to make them that way. Some books you can’t put down even when you know they’re going somewhere you don’t want to be, What Happens Now is one of those, it's painful reading, but so beautifully written that you have to keep going. Alistair Black is a fantastically realised character, nervous, shy with a imagination that opens him up to occassional brilliance but his naivety is a flaw that will have grave consequences for himself and Alice Zealand.
I can't recommend this book highly enough, every one should wear the frown I had to wear when reading it!

The Silent Executioner (a Fantomas story) by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

It's hard to explain this book, and I don't think it would make any difference anyway. Certainly the plot is the reason for a lot of the book's charm, and it has loads, but it's not because of what happens. I can't really tell you much about Fantomas either, at least no more than the back of the book would tell you. Fantomas is an arch villain and master of disguise, he likes money and enjoys setting elaborate traps the kill in fairly gruesome ways, but really I think he just enjoys spreading terror.. Uh, that's it for Fantomas, I mean he doesn't even appear in the book until at least half way, they really go to town with the whole disguise thing, we don't even get to know who he's pretending to be and it's not exactly obvious, well, it might be if it wasn't for the fact that it could 'obviously' be a few people. Apparently later in the series it's entirely possible that Juve, the smart, but not smart enough, police detective trying to bring him to justice, is Fantomas.
If you're getting the impression that the authors were just making it up as they went along you'd be amazed how right you are. To get the Fantomas stories out regular and often enough Allain and Souvestre worked out a basic plot and then went off and wrote a alternate chapters with very little contact. This is probably the reason for the strange dreamlike atmosphere that makes Fantomas so enjoyable not just to the general public loved the stories but to the surrealists of the time.
It's easy to see why the Fantomas series became such a cult hit, I loved it, I just couldn't honestly tell you why!

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

It took me way too long to read this book, and that’s a shame, because it’s an excellent read, obvious and misleading, creepy and odd, all quite appropriate considering it’s about magicians. It’s fun reading a book the lovingly presents an attractive rug, invites you to step onto it and then yanks it away from you... and then shows you another pretty rug.
Christopher 'Momento' Nolan is directing the film adaptation and I've got high hopes for it.
One word of warning, if you check the Wiki link careful if you look at their info on the book, it gives away all the plot and it really would spoil it.

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

This book took me no time to read. It may 400 pages but each chapter is only 2-5 pages and there’s a gap of a couple of pages between chapters (there’s chapter headings that have sheet music accompanying them), but it’s not the length that had me finishing this book sharpish, I just didn’t want to put it down.
The only other book I’ve read by Thompson was the first part of her Switchers trilogy which was pretty good but a little old fashioned, oddly her latest book is about fairy folk in Ireland yet seems a lot less old fashioned.
Thankfully even though the subject matter is about a young lad stumbling into the land of the fairies (he’s trying to find where all the time goes and his hoping to get some more) it’s written in quite a straighforward manner. There’s a few mysteries to be solved on the way but not everything is resolved, this seems less to keep it open for a sequel and more because life doesn’t always work that way.
The New Policman is a fun, fresh read that put a nice big smile on my face.

The Tooth Fairy

This is a book I remember coming out in hardback and flicking through a few times before putting it back on the shelf. There was something about it that fascinated me and yet almost as soon as I picked it up I was putting it back as if slightly repulsed. My best guess is it was because of what I'll call Gaimanitis. Something about it made me think of Neil Gaiman, and I’m very very undecided about Gaiman’s work - at the very least I lean towards thinking it might be a load of pretentious nancy wank, but then sometimes I think I quite like it.
After finally reading a different Graham Joyce book altogether (‘TWOC’, if you don’t know what that means you’re either an honest law abiding citizen, or you’ve never had your car nicked) and enjoying it, I decided I’d read ‘Tooth Fairy’. It’s supposed to be about a boy who is regularly visited by a, surprise, tooth fairy, but rather than being a lovely little pixy of this fairy is foul and sinister, well, sometimes. I say supposed to be about, because it’s really a book about growing up and Joyce wisely uses the fairy sparingly, instead treating us to the growing pains of a group of 3 boys and the various people who play a part in their lives. Joyce evokes a lovely bittersweet childhood nostalgia with ease and I wonder how much is autobiographical.
‘Tooth Fairy’ is a very easy read due to familiarity (I doubt I’m the only one who cringes with recognition at some of the boys antics) but still has nice challenging prose which only occasionally gets a bit to fancy for it’s own good. The Gaiman comparison wasn’t far off it seems, but I got a lot more out of Joyce and next time I look at one of his books I’ll know to just buy it.

What I've been reading part II

Finally got round to adding some book reviews. Of course I only did it as a way to get out of doing something proper on my day off, but as all I could think of doing was wandering round town sighing and drinking coffeen this seems a little more productive and less pathetic.
There's’ zero information available on L.S. Matthew's ‘A Dog is For Life’ so I’ve just linked to the amazon page telling you it’s not out for a couple months. You’ll have probably forgotten about it my the time it comes out, that’d be a shame though as it’s warm smart and shocked me by making me cry at the end (although I’m a sucker for stories with dog’s in them, ‘Last Family in England’‘Last Family in England’ by Matt Haig being a recent one of note)
Finding something decent about ‘A Brief History of the Dead’ by Kevin Brockmeier was a bit easier. I’m still reading it but the prose is beautiful and it’s a compelling story. It’s famous for having it’s first chapter published in the New Yorker and then being snapped up by Hollywood, must of the info on the net mentioned this more than the actual book, but as the director attached is the hack Chris Columbus I’m not particularly excited by the prospect. On the other hand you can read that impressive first chapter, which is what I’ve decided to link to.
The proof of ‘Firecracker’ by Sean Stewart came my way a while ago and it took me a while to get round to reading it, so long in fact that it’s been out for about a month. It’s an easy enough read and nothing to rave about but some of it made me smile and some of it gave me pause for thought and you can’t say fairer than that.
Hideshi Hino is a creator of gruesome personal manga, I first read ‘Hell Baby’ and was freaked out and enthralled, he’s most famous for doing a film that Charlie Sheen believed to be a genuine snuff movie so he contacted the police. Needless to say Sheen is a drug addled loser who pissed away whatever talent he had, Hino is brilliant and ‘Living Corpse; is a fine addition to his catalogue.
David Almond is in the unenviable position of having an written ‘Skellig’ early on in his career. ‘Skellig’ is an amazing book and therefore everything he’s written since has been compared to it. ‘Clay’ is excellent, it’s beautifully written and personally I loved it just for evoking memories of the North East of England. Almond is a fantastic writer and when ‘Clay’ comes out it’s going to win him another award - or at the very least be nominated for a few.

Booksbooksbooks

Paradise Kiss is a shojo manga title and quite a sweet one, following the trials and tribulations of a group of fashion designers and the square (but pretty) girl who falls in with them. Any comic that quotes Velevet Goldmine is tops in my book.
A while ago I talked about my love of creepy stuff and mentioned Charles Burns, well, the collection of Black Hole is out and I finally get to read the full story. Burns work is disturbing, but in a good way.
Secret of the Crocodiles is the first in a series of books starring Lady Violet Winters written by the excellent Karen Wallace, I reckon Danny would like this one.
The Little Gentleman is by Philippa ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ Pearce and I only bought it yesterday after reading a right up as part of The Guardian children’s book awards. It’s about life and death and a talking mole, so I just had to buy it. The winner of the Guardian award was The New Policeman by Kate Thompson but I couldn’t get hold of it, I’ll get it in in a week or so and add it properly.
The story of Action is as fascinating as the comic itself, the best place to find out about it on the net is as Sevenpenny Nightmare Sevenpenny takes a lot of it’s information from the Martin Barker book I’ve linked to (nice to find out it's worth so much! Not that I'll be parting with my copy) and is a great resource to a comic with an important history. Action was brilliant and much missed.

King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak

There'll be a new edition of this book out in August and I urge everyone who glances at this blog to buy it. Korczak wrote this book because he understood how important it was to listen to children, to be a child, to nurture children. His belief was such that in 1942 he died in a concentration camp after refusing to abandon the jewish orphanage he ran and that belief runs all the way through King Matt. At least I'm guessing it does, I've only read 40 pages. 40 pages and I'm hooked, but then the back cover hooked me - "....Matt who becomes a king when just a child and decides to reform his country according to his own priorities. Ignoring his grown up ministers, he builds the best zoo in the world, fights in battles, braves the jungle and crosses the desert, but perhaps most life altering of all is that the lonely boy king finds true friends." Now this is a great concept, it might sound a little dated (maybe in did back in 1923 when it was written), but in the right hands it has serious potential, Korczak taps into that potential beautifully with elegant insightful prose that captures the direct simple honesty that children are capable of.