marlowe1 | Entries tagged with death

83. The Girl with the White Flag by Tomiko Higa - This is a short and a light book about one child's survival in Okinawa. It begins in relative peacetime (the war is happening but not there) until she's photographed with a white flag. So the main point of the book is that it's an iconic photo and the story behind the iconic photo. But there probably should be hundreds of books like this and there kind of are. The perspective is a seven year old girl but she's writing it as an adult (obviously) and how she goes from being in a peaceful place with an older brother that she plays with and older sisters who look after her to being a refugee. And then seeing death on a daily basis, either soldiers or civilians. Ending with her story of hiding in a cave with two old people who make that flag for her. She never finds the old people. She does find her sisters though (they got separated accidentally)

Key moment in the book is when she goes to sleep in her brother's arms and when she wakes up her 10 year old brother is dead from a stray bullet. It's a haunting image made all the more haunting by the fact that she is telling it matter of fact. It's very honest and blatant noting that no matter how justified a war, no matter how much propaganda tells us that we need to fight the war, there's always going to be a child waking up next to her dead brother. Dozens of children with that experience.

84. The Man Who Fell to Earth graphic novel by Dan Watters & Dev Pramanik - The cover says that it is based on the movie and I think it is based on the movie instead of the book even though the movie was probably pretty close to the book. But I can see how it is made as a movie tie-in (almost 50 years later) with the scenes of Rip Torn fucking a lot of college students and the "Hello Mary Lou" scene intact even though they really add nothing to the narrative. Like the movie, this is a strange failure where you can see the tragedy unfolding of the alien losing his way and ending up a hopeless alcoholic without anything to recommend him. It's kind of the David Bowie 1970s story where he was all interesting and weird at the beginning and pretty drugged out and non-descript by the end (of course, he then kept going and survived and made some great stuff) but it's also a story that eschews alien encounters and the dangers of giving into capitalism where there's always another asshole willing to use your inventions and suck the life out of you for a series of set pieces that don't make much sense overall. I don't even know why the old industrialist gets thrown out the window.

85.The Rocketeer: High Flying Adventures by various - these are short cartoons in the Rocketeer world as kind of a tribute to the dead writer/artist and most of them are hopelessly hokey with our hero and his girlfriend either getting into dumb fights or rescuing each other. There are Nazis because this is a WWII story but mostly it's about the hero and Betty who is based on Betty Page having problems in that "weren't gender roles silly back then". There's even a story where the rocketeer (I swear the book is a foot away and I can't be bothered to open it up to find out his name) takes Betty to a house next to Hollywood and proposes that they live as a farm couple so she never has to do any more photos or movie roles (that make him jealous) and she kind of rejects him.

It's fine but it's not really worth buying

64. The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman & artists - On the cover is "volume 2" and the other one afterwards is "The Dream Hunters" which is I think I read as well. I actually forgot I read this one mostly because there are two very memorable stories and some forgettable ones. Or more accurately, I read two of the stories and instantly recognized them as stories that I had read. I had forgotten the Desire story where she tells her entire life story as the lover of a Viking lord including the part where the enemy soldiers presented his head and she didn't flinch.

The two stories that I recognize are Death and Dream, which makes sense as the Death story about the party that never ends before the soldier kicks in a magic door and then everyone gets their fates read to them. They are merely in place repeating the day and how they decide to spend the day ranges from orgies to extreme repentance in the Catholic sense. It really is quite beautiful.

The Dream one is the one where we get introduced to the seven in their earlier forms. Despair is much more ambitious and a different version (did Neil ever write about how that original Despair died) with Desire and Dream as the two friendly siblings with Death scaring the fuck out of everyone (all the stars). It's a social comedy and a new way to see things. Dream isn't amused by Desire making his girlfriend fall in love with a star. It's one of the better Sandman stories.

Oh holy shit. Despair is telling the Kryptonian sun to blow up. Nice in-joke there.

65.The Sandman Overture by Neil Gaiman, J.H. Williams & Dave Stewart - This is a beautiful comic. Every page looks painted and absorbing. The story itself, well it moves along but it doesn't make a lot of sense. That's partially by design with Dream being part of a greater whole but every version of Dream should be the same. So Morpheus comes to investigate a death of another planet's Dream. And then there are the parents of the Endless who are Time and I forget. But also Dream has to return something to Time only Daniel returns it, with Morpheus kind of letting it go. Also I think the ending is about turning the universe off and on. With an ending that suggests that Desire pretended to be a giant cat version of Dream in order to help Dream out. So that's nice. Only Desire forgets about it and keeps on trying to get Dream killed.

So definitely worth reading. And of course it ends with the panel from issue 1 where Dream is stuck in a circle in Burgess' house.

66Dreaming Waking Hours by G. Willow Wilson and others - This one makes up for the "Kill Your Gays (actually trans)" trope adherence from A Game of You in a big way by having a transgender character being the most powerful character in many ways, not just magic strength but also in rejecting her family's bullshit and then at the very end when Puck shows up to read her "real name". Of course, since her "real name" is her dead name and not really going to be part of any spell. Now the rest of it is really G. Willow Wilson's show with Ruin, a nightmare, falling in love with a mortal and learning his place in the world. Daniel shows up as a possible source of failure but not really. There is also an angel and a ton of stuff about Nuala taking over Faery but not necessarily doing a good job of it (she owes way too much to some very unfriendly Seelies)

It's a great series and I hope to see more from G. Willow Wilson in the Sandman universe. she did great things with Ms. Marvel.

59.Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert - Neil Gaiman has always been a smart writer. That isn't always a good thing as his short stories can feel more clever than good. Like he comes up with a clever idea but doesn't know what to do with it. But at his best, Gaiman's intelligence shines through in a way that stays with you long after the story or novel is over.

He also has the Chutzpah to think that he can do the "final" Batman story decades after Frank Miller gave us The Dark Knight Returns (of course, Miller's hubris in making sequels to that story is also a source of amusement). Directly referencing Alan Moore's "final" Superman story where Superman gets rid of his powers and lives in happy retirement, Neil Gaiman had to approach Batman as a final story where the reboot made sense. Like Superman, this is the end of the long running series and even though the character would come back next issue, this was the way that things end.

So Gaiman does the end of Batman in a Gaiman way where everyone at Batman's funeral (Joe Chill is at the bar) is telling stories of Batman. Only their story of how Batman dies differ immensely. Catwoman tells the story of a thwarted romance where she doesn't talk to Batman for years until he shows up at her cat store with a wound from a mugger. Others tell their stories of Batman from their perspectives.

My favorite one was Alfred trying to take care of Bruce as he was Batman, including Bruce's depression from fighting muggers and kidnappers, by hiring actors to play the whackier villains. With Alfred as the Joker. It's a fun twist on the stories, at least until the actor hired to play Riddler goes nuts and kills Batman.

So after a ton of stories about Batman dying, Batman and his mother talk and then he gets born again. Because he's Batman. The ending is nonsense, but the rest of it is fun.

The book also includes some of Neil's Batman stories. His Black and White Batman has the same energy as the funeral one where Batman and Joker are waiting backstage running lines. Joker complains about his lines not being funny enough and then points out that "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" as a tedious joke that wasn't even that funny when Mark Twain made it. Then they do the scene and after its over Joker compliments Batman for the really cool splash page when he jumps through the window.

Then there is the story from Secret Origins where Riddler is left sad and lost because he is the tv show Riddler and it really doesn't seem fair that everyone else had to start killing people to make it in modern Gotham. He misses all the silly villains and can't stand it that Joker is killing people now. It's a fun story and I just read it twice this month.

58.Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman, Mike Zulli, etc. - So now Morpheus is dead and we have six issues to wrap up the saga. The first three issues look like water colors as details throughout the dreaming are shown and then pushed aside for more. There is even the one character created by the Deathless who cannot dream or destroy (I think that's how it goes) and these will ultimately undo him. And then he's never seen again. Daniel protects his mother and all the characters who were affected get an ending. Burgess wakes up from his curse and we move on to the last three epilogues.

When I read the Renaissance Festival story I fucking hated it. I had worked at the Renaissance Festival for five years and I was sick of the Renfest, but I also hated people who needed to point out that the Renfest was historically inaccurate all the more. And that's all Hob Gadling does. Then a friend pointed out that this was the MINNESOTA Renaissance Festival and it was kind of cool to see things that I knew. Hell, the condemned building where Hob meets Death wasn't condemned when I first started working at the RenFest (but it really fell apart in the next few years).

And reading the story now - I fucking hate it. Watching Steve Brust walk past in a panel is cool, but Hob is just the worst. Granted he's supposed to be grieving and acting like a shitty dude because of his grief but he's still a shitty dude who walks around being ill-tempered about the RenFest (like more than I would be if I had to go to one against my wishes. Eventually I'd shut up about how much I hate it because whomever I was with liked it) and then goes and gets drunk. The talk with Death and the dream of Dream and Destruction are nice moments, but Hob sucks. Seriously fuck Hob.

The next chapter is a sequel of sorts to the Marco Polo lost in the soft spots. I spent the entire chapter hoping to recognize the main character (a court advisor being exiled because his son joined the White Lotus) as a major historical figure, but apparently he's no one. He's just a fictional character created to be in the same type of world as Marco Polo and to encounter Dream in several incarnations.

Finally we have The Tempest chapter and that's poor Shakespeare feeling out of sorts in his 40s (?) and trying to write the last play, the one where the wizard breaks his staff. Gaiman writes the story of the play as if it's a response to Dr. Faustus. Like how does the man who made deals with devils survive? He breaks his staff, certain that he won't need it. It is rather the perfect ending to the series, even though it's strange reading it now when at very least Neil Gaiman is in his 60s and showing no signs of stopping.

51. Komi Can't Communicate 19 by Tomohito Oda - Old story. I had a friend that became such a close friend that we acted like a couple. So much that when I finally said "hey let's be a couple" (not in that way) I was completely blindsided when she said no and that she had a boyfriend. I think she was lying about the boyfriend, honestly, but that doesn't mean that we would really work as a couple since of the two major commonalities - ADHD and childhood trauma - only one is a good basis for a relationship (it's not childhood trauma. Oh man, it's so not childhood trauma. I learned that one the hard way) and after we gave each other space we ended up carrying on with the same "officially just friends but acting like a couple" way for a couple months. Only neither one of us wanted to admit that was what we were doing until she started pulling away and I didn't know what was going on. So yeah, we haven't talked for almost a year now.

My life is better because she was in it. I would love for her to know that. But I also want to stay away until 1. we can be friends without one of us wanting more (or we can be a couple because we both want it - damn tzares is a great metaphor) and 2. she actually wants me in her life again (she probably does to a certain extent but not enough to reach out)

So this is a manga series that she recommended. Or she mentioned it and I put a reserve at the library and it was so good. Her favorite character is the psychotic obsessed one who kidnaps Tadano (the protagonist besides Komi). And it's an incredibly sweet story about a teenage girl who is scared of people, but also very beautiful so everyone just assumes that she's too good for them, until Tadano starts talking to her. The artwork for Komi veers between the very beautiful image that everyone has of her and the very scared version with the big eyes that she sees herself.

So where are we now? Manga can be like a Showtime Original series where the major changes are subsumed into a repetitive story telling. Komi and another girl are rivals for Tadano even as they are actively maintaining a friendship and then there's a great deal about who should date whom. The last part where everyone who doesn't have Komi's contact information schemes to get it is cute, mostly because Komi truly wants to stay in contact with them. Because she's Komi and she's lonely.

I think with this manga my expectations are going to be lower than other mangas which tend to be pushing forward. Komi Can't Communicate reminds of the description of Friends as a "hang out show" where there's really no overarching plot so much as an excuse to keep in touch with characters that the audience liked. That's a better description for this particular manga than Showtime original series which always got extremely tedious after season 3, especially when there was always this narrative drive that pushed the illusion of change hard. Like who the fuck cared what happened on Weeds?

52. The Sinner by Terri Gerritsen - I was originally going to title this post something about Love and include a third book about a 19th century criminal who stole a painting and wouldn't let it go. This is one of the Rizzoli & Isles books and damn, they always get me. I don't think it's the plot since the plot is a lot of running around with the killer usually not someone that anyone really knows. Sometimes the killer has maybe a page or two (like in this book) and other times the killer just shows up and it makes sense. A lot of the mysteries in this one seemed obvious like who was the father of the young nun's stillborn baby? It's pretty obvious when almost every time anyone talks about her she's scrubbing and cleaning her space and being obsessed with purity. Of course, it's an incest baby from a deeply traumatic experience.

The only particularly shocking part is when Maureen Isles' ex-husband has something to do with an industrial accident in India that turns out to be the key to the case of the dead nuns (and dead leprosy victim and dead guy in a trunk).

So the cool part about Rizzoli and Isles books (and I suspect the tv show) is not so much the mystery (which is actually pretty intriguing even as the ultimate answer is disappointment) as the personalities of Rizzoli and Isles and this one seems like an early one in the series so Isles is getting a lot more time as she goes about her job, deals with her ex-husband (who she still loves) and deals with her Catholic fate.

I think that The Apprentice was the other book that I read and that might come before this one and that one is mostly Rizzoli. Oh wait, there had to be at least one in between since I don't remember Rizzoli getting laid in The Apprentice. And that's a major plot point as Rizzoli is pregnant in this one.

But the part of this book that really made me miss my friend was the grisly autopsy stuff. She would have loved that stuff.