Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli, “DMZ: on the ground”

Incredible comic about a rookie photographer who crash lands in Manhattan, a demilitarized zone in America’s second civil war.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2006, 128 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 1.30.08
Date finished: 1.30.08
What I liked: I love dystopian fiction, and this drew me in instantly. I love the dorky journalism aspect, but the story’s great, too.
What I didn’t like: The blood and brains make me squeamish, but that’s minor.
What I learned: Great new comic to follow. This is the first collection of five issues of DMZ; two more paperback collections are out now, with two more to follow this year.

Joshua Ferris, “Then we came to the end”

“Then we came to the end” takes place in an advertising firm whose staffers are slowly losing it as the company tanks in the dot-com crash. There are so many story lines among the many employees that I can’t really tell you what it was about.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2007, 390 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 1.20.08
Date finished: 1.28.08
What I liked: I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book with first-person-plural narration. It was really the ideal way to convey the herd mentality that comes with working in an office. Ferris really captured the minutiae and the mundane things about working in an office.
What I didn’t like: I thought the early on ethnic descriptions of the employees was kind of clumsy. So and so is black, so and so is Jewish… so by default everyone else is anglo?
What I learned: “We” narration has its uses. Don’t take your job so seriously.

Adrian Tomine, “Summer Blonde”

These are stories originally from Tomine’s Optic Nerve series, issues 5 through 8. This book is seriously depressing. Just how I like it.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2002, 132 pp.
Obtained via: Half Price Books
Date started: 1.18.08
Date finished: 1.19.08
What I liked: It’s excruciating because the situations are so real. The drawing is stellar, but the stories are incredible in their own right.
What I didn’t like: Well, I guess reading depressing comics on a Friday night isn’t that cool.
What I learned: Tomine’s a master on par with Chris Ware when it comes to depressing comics. Just kidding about the second part. You can imagine a period after Ware.

Steve Martin, “Born Standing Up”

I’m back to my old habit of having four or five books on my nightstand at all times now. My mom asked me how I keep them straight, but I think it’s because I’m never reading, say, five contemporary novels at once or five histories of beet farming at once. This past week I was reading a graphic novel, a self-help book, a comics anthology and this, an autobiography of comedian Steve Martin.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2007, 212 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 1.4.07
Date finished: 1.12.07
What I liked: Martin’s got incredible attention to detail—he mentions in the acknowledgments that he got many letters and pictures from friends to help recreate his memories of his life as a stand-up comic. He began performing magic as a youngster and chronicles his ascension into public adoration and his abrupt stop in 1981. I’ve heard from many people what a great writer Martin is (and I’m a fan of his movies), but I have to say that the one line that got an out-loud laugh from me was this: Once, in Texas, a woman came up to me and said, with some humor and a lot of drawl, “Are you that Steve Martin thang?” (Page 184)
What I didn’t like: No complaints.
What I learned: Martin endured panic attacks for years and bore heavily his father’s consistent criticism.

“I Shall Destroy all the Civilized Planets,” edited by Paul Karasik

A friend alerted me to the awesomeness of this book, a collection of work by an underappreciated master of pulp comics, Fletcher Hanks. They’re essentially superhero tales, but they are completely unlike your standard Marvel fare. The stories of superheroes like Stardust the Super Wizard, Fantomah Mystery Woman of the Jungle, and Buzz Crandall of the Space Patrol follow a quick narrative arc and always end with the hero doling out a very complicated punishment to the nogoodniks and racketeers (like turning him into a caveman and leaving him to be eaten by panthers, or sending him into space to “the floating prison of eternal ice”). I also love the faux science—dozens of “rays” allow villains to commit bizarre crimes and let the heroes foil their plots. (Examples: radiophonic thought-recording ray, anti-solar ray, analytic ray, destructive thought rays, transforming ray.)

The drawings are crude but super-stylized. The collection of comics are followed by another comic, by the editor, of his tracking down Fletcher Hanks’ son. Totally awesome story.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2007, 124 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 1.8.08
Date finished: 1.12.08
What I liked: I love the way all the faces are nearly the same, frame-to-frame.
What I didn’t like: n/a
What I learned: Probably everything there is to know about Fletcher Hanks.

Ariel Gore, “How to become a famous writer before you’re dead”

The indefatigable Ariel Gore serves up exactly 78 tips on how to become a literary superstar.

THE LOWDOWN
Published: 2007, 265 pp.
Obtained via: Library
Date started: 12.31.07
Date finished: 1.7.08
What I liked: Girl knows how to write. She definitely follows her own advice—I especially appreciated tip #26: Don’t say plethora.
What I didn’t like: This is a little quibble—too many different distressed fonts scattered throughout the book. Also, I got a little defensive in the parts where she talks about dealing with the press. I know she is also the press, but I feel like I have to stand up for journalists when she says “Some journalists are frustrated novelists and zinesters who would like nothing more than to ridicule your novel or zine because they wish they’d written it themselves.” I know there’s the some qualifier there. But reporters have to call it like they see it, and sometimes the call is that the book sucks.
What I learned: Good ideas for self-promotion; cheerleading tactics for self-imposed deadlines!