Destroying the Planet As Quickly As Possible

Looks like something out of a bad 80s Marvel comic, right? Unfortunatly, it's real.

According the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, this "bucket-wheel excavator" is able to dig a trench 25 meters (~82 feet) deep in a single day!!! And it's wider than 2 football fields. It's hard not to be an environmentalist when you think of this monstrosity carving up the earth, stripping every last ounce of coal and minerals.

Baggage Check

For a while I’ve been on cruise control with this blog. I know the updates have not been at a level of quality or frequency that I would like them to be. I can only say that my time is spread so thinly across so many different projects, that I’m not sure how much better things will get. I will say, however, that I have set myself a goal to do at least one review a week. This includes my Love & Rockets columns, which take considerably longer to complete than a standard review. Will I hit this goal every single week? I don’t know, but I do want to try.

I’m also not sure what’s going on with Comic Book Galaxy. As I’m sure most people know, the site has been dormant for a while, and from the limited e-mails I’ve seen, that may not change in the near term. I would like to say more on the subject, but it’s not really my place to comment on the future of the site, or the reasons behind the stagnation. I will only say that it has been fun writing for them, that I have the utmost respect for Alan David Doane and Chris Allen, as well as the many other contributors who have come and gone, and that if ever the site returns to the vibrant think tank on the comics artform that it was for much of the two years that I wrote for it, I will gladly return.

In the meantime, I hope you will check back often, link to this blog, and help me spread the word about Unattended Baggage. Thanks!

The Ballad of Yorick Brown

I just caught up on about two years worth of Y: the Last Mans. The last time I checked in with Yorick, he, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann were just beginning their international voyage to recover Yorick's stolen monkey (in issue #31). I read the eighteen issues since that cliffhanger in surprisingly little time, a testament to writer Brian K. Vaughan's quick pace and generally sparse scripting. The stories in this run ranged from excellent to average, with the four part "Kimono Dragons" storyline being the weakest and the three part "Paper Dolls" the strongest.

The familiar rotation of artists Pia Guerra and Goran Sudzuka's styles are so similar, it is often difficult to distinguish who drew the issue without checking the credits. This may also be to the credit of inker Jose Marzan Jr who brings a much needed consistency to the artwork. That consistency benefits this type of comic in particular, with its continually evolving quest storyline. Both artists are capable storytellers, with clean, varied compositions, a good sense of panel to panel progression and good backgrounds and scenery (no doubt the result of considerable research, given the many international settings Vaughan's scripts call for). The art's greatest strength, however, is that, as a whole, it tells the story without ever becoming a distraction. Like Grant Morrison's Animal Man, this is a book that will be remembered for its story rather than its art, and both artists understand this, composing their art in a style that is aesthetically pleasing, without being too flashy or calling attention to itself.

Vaughan's dialogue, and particularly the neverending sarcasm of the lead character, is also generally well done. Vaughan has a gift for capturing speaking voices, adding just enough of that "writer's touch," the clever banter and back and forth between the characters which make their interactions humorous, despite the massive holocaust they are essentially trying to overcome. But the real key to this book's continued success is Vaughan's ability to setup and maintain an interesting premise with which to compel the characters, and the readers forward. That the male half the world's population has mysteriously died is as unique and fresh a hook today, fifty issues into the series, as it was when the book began nearly five years ago, and that there is a dinstinct end to that story (the series concludes with issue #60) rather than run on forever, eventually trading creative teams and devolving into recycled plotlines and pathetic guest stars, only further elevates this book into the prototypical modern comic. Like Gaiman's Sandman, this master plan with its overriding traditional story arc, is the kind of series that leaves faithful readers satisfied in the end. I like everything about Y: The Last Man, and even when certain individual issues feel weaker than others, or certain lines of dialogue ring false, what lingers in the memory is the very satisfying and entertaining story as a whole, and the entertaining journey which all of us took with Yorick half way around the world.

My J.D. Salinger Obsession

I haven’t really obsessed about a writer like this since I first read Steven Millhauser’s Little Kingdoms a few years ago, but after finishing off Salinger’s entire non-Catcher in the Rye work in under two months, which includes Nine Stories, Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenter and Seymour: An Introduction, and Franny and Zooey (which I read in that order), I found myself still hungry for more. Unfortunately, as most people know, Salinger famously decided to stop publishing in 1965 after a spate of negative critical reviews of his ongoing Glass family saga (which all three novels above focus on to varying degrees) and withdrew from public life, refusing to allow any of his out of print short stories to be reprinted.

Yesterday, in an errant, hurried lunch break spent Googling Salinger and reading various bios and critical reviews of the Glass family stories, I discovered this gold mine of a website, which has all of Salinger’s uncollected works available for free! The site includes not only every single Salinger story ever published, in chronological order with full bibliographic references, but it also contains the somewhat legendary and long out-of-print “Hapworth 16, 1924,” Salinger's final published story (though there is much speculation that the author has withheld many novels and stories) which is, essentially, a long-winded, rambling, deeply eloquent letter from Seymour Glass, age 7, troubled genius and poet, while away at summer camp in Maine.

Incidentally, Salinger’s first published story, “The Young Folks,” a seven-page snippet of an Ivy League party and a failed one night stand, which first appeared in a rare magazine called Story (XVI) in March 1940, is absolutely horrible. There is little evidence of the genius that would eventually follow, nor is the writing particularly crisp or substantial. Stylistically, one can see Salinger’s love of dialogue, and his subtle, academic sarcasm, but these are so buried, they are virtually non-existant. Rather, the story feels clumsy, the dialogue labored, and the interaction between the two characters, whose attempts at flirting are painfully awkward, fails to inspire any real emotion or culminate in any lasting point. Were this any other writer than Salinger, this story would be immediately forgotten, and perhaps it is better that it remains mired in obscurity. It’s fascinating to read, and, as a writer myself, inspires some little hope in the fact that even the most celebrated authors come from humble beginnings, but is otherwise little more than a curious starting point for one of our greatest living authors.