THE YEAR IN MEDIA
I'm always thinking I should blog more--it is after all, what, like 1996? What? 2019? Jesus God Almighty, blogs were 23 years ago. Anyway, I have worked hard over the last couple of months to rebuild my old habit of reading, something I did constantly as a kid and through my twenties, and--as a high school dropout--still the source of whatever small amount of self-education I retain. But social media and the various click-clacking distractions of having a smartphone just utterly destroyed it. So, for 2019, a resolution to do more reading and less clickety-clacking, other than good ol' blogging.
THE OLD DEVILS by Kingsley Amis
I actually finished this book right around the end of 2018, but it took me so long and informed some later reading choices enough that I feel like I need to include it.A couple of years ago I lettered a book for New York Review Comics, an imprint of New York Review Books, who published this. My editor offered to send me some of their backlist, and I picked this one, among others, mostly due to the reputation of Amis (I'd never read him before) and these fantastic drawings on the cover by Eric Hanson--I was nearly done with the book by the time I finally found his credit, on the back cover, in what looks like 3pt type.
I can't say that I enjoyed this book, but I guess I'm glad to have read it. Which is my least favorite way to read a book: as feat of endurance. The story is about a bunch of aging, mostly unpleasant people in a small Welsh town, and how turdish they all get when a bigger turd, an old semi-famous friend and his beautiful wife they all are horny for, move back to town in their 60s. Amis is a fantastic writer, very acidic and cutting, with a wonderful command of the small subtleties of language. But my progress through the book was impeded by its introduction, where his politics late in life are discussed. He sounds like he'd be quite comfortable in today's world of xenophobia and distrust of anyone who needs help with... anything. So--and I know this isn't the right way to absorb art--I started out already not liking the writer, which didn't help me sail through this book about a bunch of grumpy old conservative turds who are all looking the other way while their wives are getting laid by their friend. It took me so long to read that I promised myself afterwards to read a few pure-pleasure books in a row to wash the taste out of my mouth with and start the new year enjoying something.
SUPER LATE BLOOMER by Julia Kaye
So next I jumped into Super Late Bloomer. Julia was nominated for an Ignatz Award at SPX and a friend told me to grab her book, so I went and introduced myself and bought a copy. The book covers the first year or so of Julia's transition--including coming out to her family, her work, and especially her struggles with gender dysphoria and the effects of her changing body. I couldn't help comparing the insecure Julia of the book with the confident, gorgeous Julia I met two years later at SPX. Not that anyone needs my permission to be insecure about anything they like--more that I was reading about a face that doesn't exist anymore. It was an oddly out of phase feeling, and maybe the teensiest bit meta. I feel guilty even saying that, what a silly thing to compare my "huh!" moment with the intensity of dysphoria. Anyway, a great and very human book, presumably the first of many.
Julia's Patreon is here and her Instagram is here and you can buy her book at all good bookshops OR through the publisher's site.
COYOTE DOGGIRL
by Lisa Hanawalt
I love Lisa Hanawalt so was looking forward to reading this,especially after the malaisey slog of The Old Devils. I think this is Lisa's first longform work? I loved every second of it, which was unsurprising. Lisa has always been an amazing artist, and her humor comics are so perfectly timed and executed, but I feel like the thing that got me the most about this book was the relaxed subtlety of the writing. It's not a long book, but there are so many little quiet moments that are just effortlessly laid out as the story progresses. Instead of a progression of questions, the story is more like a progression of answers to questions you haven't asked yet. The characters aren't described, you just come to know them over time through these small moments. It's a book I'm already looking forward to re-reading. The only thing I don't understand is how she had the time to paint an entire book while designing 5 seasons of Bojack Horseman and now her new show Tuca & Bertie. I can barely poop twice in a day without complaining about being overworked.
You can buy Coyote Doggirl by walking right into a quality comics shop and yelling your head off until they stock it, if they don't already. Or if not, there are links to it and her other great books on her website. And of course Bojack Horseman is all over Netflix, as will be Tuca & Bertie later this year, I think.
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
by John Le Carré
I had a teacher in middle school who got me reading spy novels, most of which were insanely macho, violent, and chock full of sex scenes. All of which were pluses when I was 12. Then I tried a John Le Carré one (A Perfect Spy), and a lady stuck her finger in a guy's butthole while standing in a doorway and I decided this one was too adult for me. So I cruised through all the Robert Ludlums and Tom Clancys and all that stuff throughout high school, but left Le Carré alone, even when I got old enough to figure out that buttholes get touched more than I had imagined when I was 12. Last year I picked up his first two novels used, and while they were intensely British, they were also readable without being boring, dark without being dreary, and much more urbane than I ever would have guessed.
So now I'm reading the others in order, and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold deserves its reputation. Its characters are just impeccably drawn, but with a minimum of fuss and description, and the story zips right along until suddenly you realize it's ending and you're SO tense. Just a dark darrrrk book, no shining heroes, no glorification of either side, just men trying to trick or kill each other because they work for a government on one side or another of some ideology, or more likely, just because it's their job.
FRONTIER #17, "Mother's Walk"
by Lauren Weinstein
All of Youth In Decline's Frontier issues have been great, but this one really sent me. I read it late at night, unable to sleep, grabbed it from the massive quivering tower of unread books and minicomics next to my bed. And it seems appropriate to have read it in that mindstate: the story is about Lauren's second pregnancy, her thoughts before and during delivery, and is especially concerned with liminal spaces. Her narration drifts unselfconsciously between a conversational tone and dreamy lyricism. On the inside front cover, she describes "What is a baby?" and ends with the line "a path into a future you will never see. I've been thinking about that line all week, not to mention this one: "Dr. Buddy began to die on the blue couch he loved. We sat with him." Bodies in limbo, between states, both beginning one thing and ending another. Really a beautiful book. You can buy it here from Youth In Decline, and read Lauren's excellent comic Normel Person here.
