Ed Gein was a wee bit coo coo for cocoa puffs. He murdered two women (though it’s likely the number is much higher) and robbed the graves of several oEd Gein was a wee bit coo coo for cocoa puffs. He murdered two women (though it’s likely the number is much higher) and robbed the graves of several other recently-deceased elderly women so that he could flay the corpses, turn the skin to turn into clothes and wear it so that he could “be” a woman/his mother. He also made furniture out of human remains, as well as other clothing items, like a belt made of nipples! He was eventually caught in 1957 and spent the rest of his life in a nuthouse.
True crime writer Harold Schechter teams up with true comics artist greatness Eric Powell to bring us “Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?”, a morbidly compelling account of the strange, sad life of Ed Gein.
Raised by a tyrannical, religious zealot and likely insane mother Augusta and drunken, violent father George, Schechter/Powell provide glimpses of scenes Ed would probably have seen in his youth which might explain his later behaviour, like seeing his mother butchering a pig and his father tanning leather. It’s a very grim life story and it’s not hard to see how damaging a life of paranoia and isolation could be to a person - Ed really had no chance right from the beginning.
I’ve seen documentaries on Gein before so I was familiar with most of the grisly details in this book, but there were some interesting new aspects that Schechter introduces for the reader to consider. Like whether Gein truly was insane given that his murders, particularly the last one, Bernice Worden, shows definite premeditation, and he got away with his crimes for many years before eventually being caught. He also comes across as very careful with his words in the interviews and not being declared insane at his trial would’ve meant going to the chair instead of being confined to a mental institution. He was certainly mentally ill but insane, as in not in control of his actions? Hmm…
I like that Schechter stuck to the facts of the case. There was a lot of sensationalism around the story at the time that Schechter points out and instead highlights only the proven facts. Gein’s confirmed murder victims were Mary Hogan and Bernice Worden, though it’s implied that Gein also probably murdered his brother Henry, and there were numerous other human remains found in Gein’s house and buried on his farm - some possibly murdered by Gein or as the result of his extensive grave-robbing.
That said, there is one scene that isn’t a confirmed fact: Ed’s childhood sexual assault at the hands of older boys, which was only ever a rumour, though he seemed to have been bullied throughout his life which could have fed into other behaviours. Also certain characters here - the journalist and the university professor - are composite characters; the journalist is a composite of several reporters who covered the story, and the professor is a mouthpiece for Schechter/Powell’s theory on Gein’s motivations that he acted as part of his warped religion where his mother was god.
I appreciated the insight into Gein’s motivations because Gein took that information to the grave (unmarked, following years of vandalism of his headstone, though he would’ve been pleased to know that he’s buried next to his beloved mother) and we’ll never know why he did what he did. Schechter/Powell’s theory is a believable explanation for someone so unhinged and it’s more satisfying to have this included from a reader’s perspective.
The only part of the book I didn’t think was that great was the look at how Gein’s community was affected in the immediate aftermath of his arrest. The numerous comments from the townsfolk of Plainfield, Wisconsin, who generally said the same thing: he was a quiet fellow, shocking to discover, etc. - I’m not sure what this angle adds to the story and seems kind of redundant to include. Wouldn’t atrocities like these bother any community?
Schechter also notes how impactful Ed Gein was on popular culture. Initially there was Robert Bloch’s bestselling novel Psycho followed by Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic movie adaptation which introduced the world to Norman Bates, and then later emerged other incarnations like Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. Carrie’s mother in Stephen King’s debut novel was also probably inspired by Augusta Gein. It’s quite a legacy. And then of course there are books like this that continue to be produced about him, 60+ years after his arrest, because it’s such a unique story.
I’ve been a fan of Eric Powell’s for years and he’s the reason I picked this one up. I wondered why he had stopped writing/drawing his recently relaunched Goon series after just the second book and now I see why - he was working on this one instead!
Powell’s a master draftsman and the whole book is drawn beautifully - the characters’ expressions are especially evocative. He’s been drawing macabre comics for years and that experience shows here. Particularly striking is the comic-book style of Gein as priest of his religion, as he might have thought of himself in his head, juxtaposed instantly on the next page with the gruesome reality of what he likely looked like. The art absolutely sells the horror of Gein’s life and crimes.
“Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?” is an excellent, informative and enthralling summary of the case of Ed Gein - definitely worth a look if you’re a fan of true crime comics. ...more
Anthony Horowitz and the subject of his book The Word is Murder, Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne, are invited to a literary festival on the ChanAnthony Horowitz and the subject of his book The Word is Murder, Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne, are invited to a literary festival on the Channel Island of Alderney, in preparation for their upcoming follow-up, The Sentence is Death. But what the pair don’t expect to find is an island divided by conflict and become embroiled in a nefarious country house homicide…
Anthony Horowitz is one of those names I often came across when browsing shelves but for whatever reason I never actually picked up any of his books. All I can say is that I’m glad I finally did because A Line to Kill is an outstanding murder mystery novel!
I didn’t realise this is the third book in a series but it’s very accessible as a standalone read. I was also unprepared for the meta angle of the story with the author inserting himself as the narrator of the novel - Watson to Hawthorne’s Holmes (Horowitz has also written two new Sherlock Holmes books, officially chosen by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate - and I can see why!). It’s a refreshingly unique and charming angle and instantly drew me in.
That said, Horowitz populates his literary festival with fictional authors, rather than drag any real contemporaries through the mud, and they’re an interesting and distinctive cast - a necessary must for what turns out to be a classic Agatha Christie country house murder mystery, and conceived and executed as superbly as anything by Dame Aggie.
I especially liked the setting of Alderney, a Channel Island three square miles big, and a mere eight miles off the coast of France - how it’s considered part of the UK, I don’t know! Having the story contained within a compact, isolated area was a masterstroke, ensuring the murderer couldn’t leave and lending the story a claustrophobic and tense atmosphere. It also sounds like a quaint place to visit.
Hawthorne is the star of the show and Horowitz writes both him and himself quite exceptionally - their relationship in particular is very amusing - but numerous other characters stood out as well like Judith Matheson, the festival organiser, the deliciously evil Charles le Mesurier, and the bumbling local constable from Guernsey, Torode.
The story is plotted perfectly with constant reveals about the various characters and twists coming at you left and right to ensure the story is consistently entertaining, and there are lots of little clues and red herrings sprinkled throughout to keep you guessing. It’s a smoothly written and confidently told tale - I breezed through it in a weekend, totally impressed with the assured and seemingly effortless storytelling.
A Line to Kill was a very clever, suspenseful and compelling murder mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed - needless to say this was my first but definitely not my last Anthony Horowitz book! Any Agatha Christie fans or fans of the genre will love this novel - A Line to Kill is a masterclass in crime fiction and an easy frontrunner for book of the year. ...more
The Magician tells the life story of Thomas Mann, an early-to-mid 20th century German writer, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel TheThe Magician tells the life story of Thomas Mann, an early-to-mid 20th century German writer, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel The Magic Mountain, and who was later revealed to be gay (or at least bisexual), following the unsealing of his diaries in the late 1990s, several decades after his death.
Colm Toibin (himself a gay novelist, which might have informed/drawn him to this project?) has clearly done his research for this novel, and covers the periods of Mann’s major works: Buddenbrooks, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus, and Felix Krull. We see Mann discover his sexuality as a teenager and become involved with several men, before meeting his wife Katia, and then his homosexuality seems to be confined to his diaries, though it does feature in his work (most notably in Death in Venice).
Together they had six children: Erika, Klaus (both of whom were also gay but out and not closeted like their dad), Golo, Monika, Elizabeth, and Michael, and lived through both world wars. The Manns did better than most through the post-WW1 inflation years in Germany, thanks to Thomas’ books selling well abroad, but the family fled the country once Hitler rose to power, eventually settling in America until returning to Europe after the war.
I didn’t know much about Thomas Mann before this so everything in The Magician was new to me, and I thought it was all really interesting stuff. Toibin picks the most compelling times in Mann’s life to write about so the narrative is consistently engaging throughout. He’s also wonderfully adept at characterisation, bringing Mann’s family and the times they were alive in convincingly to life, so that you get a strong idea of who they were like as people, as well as what life was like during late 19th century Germany, the Weimar Republic, the war years in America, and Europe in the aftermath of WW2.
The only real criticism I would give the novel is that, ironically, Thomas Mann himself, despite being the subject of the novel, remains somewhat inscrutable even after all of it. As well as Toibin does in writing all of the characters in this novel, I left the novel not really knowing what to make of Thomas. When his son Michael speaks to him as an adult, there’s palpable bitterness and hatred from the son to his father, which was surprising because Toibin didn’t really show us any scenes where Thomas was a bad father that would explain Michael’s animosity towards his dad.
Yes, it is mentioned in passing by Katia that Thomas is a distant father who doesn’t really play with his children (though he does do magic tricks at the dinner table for them when they’re young - hence the title), so I guess that explains why Michael (really all of Thomas’ children) didn’t like their dad? It’s odd because you don’t get the sense, until the scenes when the children are grown up, that Thomas failed them in any serious way, and I think that’s due to Toibin not writing anything to indicate that.
So why omit scenes that would let us know Thomas better? Perhaps Toibin thought that by making Mann distant, he would be true to the person and that this was the best representation of his character. It’s not to say that there is no insight into his inner life - there is, particularly with his enduring fascination with young men - but I was expecting Toibin to delve deeper into Mann than stay more or less surface level. You expect to come away from a novel about a person having a fuller understanding of who they were than not, and he could’ve done that with fiction, rather than stay so steadfastly within the boundaries of nonfiction. It feels like a wasted opportunity.
The overall effect is a bit like Toibin almost wrote a nonfiction biography here. The novel aspects make it seem like those documentaries which include occasional dramatised scenes featuring actors because no footage exists. It’s not a huge complaint but it’s worth mentioning anyway.
Overall, I really enjoyed the novel. Thomas Mann led an interesting life during tumultuous times and Toibin takes us through it with smooth prose and engaging storytelling, full of illuminating details. Colm Toibin’s The Magician is well worth checking out for anyone interested in the writer and/or well-written and accessible historical/biographical novels. ...more
It’s 1969, Hollywood, and Rick Dalton, an aging, washed-up, alcoholic actor, is looking for work - and finds it, playing the villain (he used to play It’s 1969, Hollywood, and Rick Dalton, an aging, washed-up, alcoholic actor, is looking for work - and finds it, playing the villain (he used to play heroes when he was younger), on a new cowboy TV show. Joining Rick on his slide down from the top is his best friend and stuntman stand-in (when Rick needed it), Cliff Booth. Together they navigate a strange path through a changing film industry and encounter up-and-coming actors, uppity agents, and hippies - hippies are everywhere. And some of them, like spurned wannabe rock star Charlie Manson, are gonna take out their frustrations on the unwitting residents of the Hollywood Hills…
Quentin Tarantino’s debut novel, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is, like his films, a banger! It’s such a fun read. The dialogue is sparkling and the characters are so memorable - aside from child actor Trudi’s surname (it’s Frazer), I didn’t need to look up any of the characters’ full names; they’re so well realised and seared into my mind that I could easily recall all of them. And that’s rare in most books, even for the good ones. Tarantino is a consummate storyteller and he excels at this regardless of the medium.
Rick in particular is such an amazing character. He’s dopey but lovable, and surprisingly smart at times, like when he shines on camera. He’s vulnerable - an alcoholic as a result of being undiagnosed bipolar - but also very arrogant and proud. Still, I was rooting for him every step of the way.
The movie has this over the book: Leo’s performance is far better than the novel Rick’s was. Rick going to town in a fit of self-loathing in the safety of his trailer, and the scene on the set of the western where he pulls off that stellar performance as Caleb the villain, are so good because of DiCaprio’s acting talent - we only get a whiff of that brilliance in the novel.
Cliff in the novel is a much darker person, especially as Tarantino sheds more light on the character’s murders, post-military. And yet we still like the guy and never see him as anything less than a good dude. It’s amazing how Tarantino creates such fully-developed characters. The child actor Trudi and the agent Marvin are also standouts for me.
The likeability of such flawed characters is due in large part to the playful tone of the story (“Once upon a time…”). A lot of dark things happen in this book but there’s plenty of upbeat, amusing episodes woven in amidst them too, so I found myself laughing a bunch throughout.
There are also knowing nods to Tarantino’s movies, like the appearance of Red Apple Cigarettes, and Cliff being dubbed “Mr Blond” by one of the Manson girls. And a specific namecheck by the author regarding future movies young Trudi grows up to feature in, which is a fun easter egg.
Tarantino does tend to be overly descriptive though. He can’t ever just tell you characters go to a bar - he has to describe every single detail of the bar. Like in the Drinker’s Hall of Fame chapter, where he tells you every photo on the wall and whether they’re signed or not. Numerous passages, and a fair number of chapters, are like this - giving you too much information that doesn’t really make a difference, one way or the other to the story, which can be annoying at times.
And then there’s the story itself which is murky at best. Tarantino rarely gets out of third gear and ambles his way through the novel from beginning to end. It’s very slow going at times - if you’re a story-driven reader. If you’re all about the characters, then you’re not going to mind. And since this is about the characters, and they’re written so damn perfectly, then it didn’t bother me much. Still, a tighter, more focused, more driven narrative would’ve made this a much better novel, I think.
I’m gonna pause here and bid adieu to those of you who haven’t read this yet and are going to - even those who’ve seen the movie before and intend to read this - so this is the end of my non-spoilery review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is my favourite novel I’ve read this year, it’s really entertaining and I recommend it. If you saw the movie and wanted to know more about the characters, this novel provides that. It’s also, surprisingly, not a straight retelling of the movie, which, in a way, makes it somewhat new - novel, even - and more intriguing for Tarantino fans.
Here on out: SPOILERS! You’ll see why when you read the book.
Okey dokey artichokey?
Right.
One of the fantastic, and unexpected, aspects of the novel is that it mimics the movie’s subversion of audience expectations - in a completely new way. To those of us who knew about the Tate/LaBianca murders, we thought we knew what to expect once Charlie Manson and the Family were introduced and a pregnant Sharon Tate showed up. Uh oh. Poor Sharon. That bastard Charlie. And then the ending of the movie flipped those expectations as the Family wound up at Sharon’s fictional neighbour’s house instead, where Rick, Cliff, and Cliff’s dog Brandy, brutally thwarted their murderous plans, thus giving the movie a surprising and upbeat (albeit extremely violent) ending.
Tarantino’s novel of his movie’s story is different in a number of ways, the most surprising being that, about a quarter of the way into the novel, the movie’s conclusion gets tossed off in a page or so; the book’s conclusion is instead a much more lo-fi scene where Rick and Trudi go over the following day’s scenes on the phone.
And I think that’s not just brilliant but also a strong selling point of this book: even if you’ve seen the movie, this novel isn’t that. It’s not a straightforward retelling of the movie - it’s a similar story but told differently, which, in a way, makes it a new kind of beast.
There’s a lot more on the characters in general. We get the story of how Cliff got his dog Brandy; the story of Cliff murdering his wife; there’s a lot more on Charlie Manson, who basically had a walk-on in the movie, but figures more prominently here; there’s more background on actors “tagging” stuntmen (where an actor accidentally - or not - hits a stuntman) which explains why Cliff came to fight Bruce Lee in a studio backlot; and a great deal more on the story of the TV show Lancer, which Rick is shooting.
There’s also scenes here that were filmed but got cut out of the movie and, as far as I know, haven’t been released yet as extras, or possibly incorporated into a future director’s cut of the movie. Like the amusing scene with Raymond, Jay Sebring’s English butler, which was filmed with Mr Orange himself, Tim Roth, as the butler, and the final scene of this book, with Rick and Trudi on the phone. If you’re interested in seeing how those scenes played out, then they’re all here in this book. That’s the beauty of the novel: Tarantino doesn’t have to cut anything to fit a 2.5 hour playing time - he can include them all. But, as I said above, that also does make for a sometimes plodding read (there’s a reason they were cut to begin with).
Which remains my main criticism of this book: there’s a wee bit too much here. And this is why I called spoilers above. In the movie, it makes sense to have scenes with Sharon Tate and the Manson Family. We’re expecting this to culminate in the real life tragedy of Sharon’s bloody death and Tarantino happily leads us to that supposed conclusion only to hoodwink us at the end.
In this book, because that conclusion is dealt with so briskly and so early in the narrative, never to be revisited, it makes all of the scenes featuring Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, and the Manson Family, completely pointless. This book has nothing to do with the Manson Family Murders and doesn’t even pretend to be - so why have anything related to that here?
I suppose the Manson Family stuff is mostly interesting - and Cliff going to the spooky Spahn Ranch to visit the blind George Spahn, in thrall to the Family, remains a great scene - but the Sharon and Roman parts really weren’t. And could’ve been an easy cut.
Because, instead of the Manson Family’s would-be murderousness, the novel is really about the celebration of actors - particularly lesser known actors - and the even less well-known people behind the camera, like stuntmen. Hence the main characters being a washed up TV star and his dubious stuntman, and why seemingly irrelevant chapters like the one about tragic real life actor Aldo Ray, who became a full blown alcoholic and fell from making studio features to appearing in smaller and sleazier movies over the course of his life, are included.
It’s why Cliff fights Bruce Lee - and wipes the floor with him. Cliff represents the little guy - the guy who helps make the movies happen but doesn’t get the adulation that international movie stars like Bruce Lee do. To Tarantino, the unknown stuntman is cooler than the movie star, famous to millions, and this fight symbolises that succinctly. It’s also why he included so many lesser known actors to modern audiences in his movies like David Carradine and Pam Grier, and, later on, stunt people like Zoe Bell.
This story is also a poignant love letter to filmmaking and filmmakers. The sheer mass of film detail Tarantino rattles off effortlessly throughout speaks to the author’s passion for the medium. And it’s poignant too given that Tarantino is one movie away from retirement (he says he’ll only make ten movies and then quit - he counts Kill Bill as one movie, by the by) and will soon be walking away from this business that’s been so good to him, and he’s done so much good for.
I say “retirement” - he’s really transitioning careers from movies to books; he’ll continue telling his stories but this is going to be his chosen medium going forward. And, if this novel is an indication, he’ll be equally as successful in the world of books as he was in the movies. Regardless of my criticisms, this is a great book, I had a lot of fun reading it, and I look forward to many more in the years to come. And we’ll still get Tarantino movies too in a way - I’m sure the film rights to the books will be bought and adapted by other directors.
“Once Upon a Time…” stories tend to close with “The End” but this one is a beginning - and a very promising one it is too.
(And yes, I’m aware that my criticism of verbosity is ironic given that this review turned out to be my longest in quite some time!) ...more
Sophie is the new dog in a house full of dogs, kept by a single owner. She doesn’t remember much about how she got there - until the scent of her formSophie is the new dog in a house full of dogs, kept by a single owner. She doesn’t remember much about how she got there - until the scent of her former owner from an item of clothing triggers a memory. Her former owner was murdered and Sophie was stolen - is her new owner a serial killer? And if so, how can she and her fellow dogs escape and stop him from killing again?
Stray Dogs is an excellent new title from writer Tony Fleecs and artist Trish Forstner. It’s basically Stephen King’s Misery but with dogs held hostage instead of an author!
The story is well-paced with the surprises coming at a good rate so it’s never boring. The owner leaving the house leads to some really exciting and tense moments as the dogs take these opportunities to search the house, namely the room they’re not allowed into, as well as the dreaded punishment shed in the yard. And what’s buried in the crawl space under the porch… ?
Fleecs also cleverly weaves in the real fact of dogs’ poor memory as a plot device to great effect. Like most cartoon dogs, they can talk to each other but can’t be understood by humans. And Fleecs really tugs at your heartstrings too with some of the characters like poor Victor, the dog with three legs, and his fate. I absolutely loved Earl’s character arc as well - I guarantee you’ll be weeping by the end of this one.
Trish Forstner uses her talents from drawing My Little Pony over at IDW (Fleecs is also a writer on that comic) to good use here, drawing the comic in a beautiful style reminiscent of Don Bluth and classic 2D Disney animation (think 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp, etc.). It’s an interesting juxtaposition: the comic couldn’t look more family friendly but tells a very dark story.
I only really have one criticism which is that the premise never develops. Sophie figures it out at the same time we do right at the start and that’s it, basically. No surprises follow that rapid conclusion and you can pretty much easily guess how it’ll broadly play out.
Mostly though, Stray Dogs is fantastic. Fleecs and Forstner nailed it and I really enjoyed reading this comic. It’s fun, compelling, tragic, and, while the dogs in the book won’t remember their escapades, readers certainly will. Definitely one of the highlights of the year so far, Stray Dogs is highly recommended - and I’m glad to hear it got picked up for another run, coming soon. ...more
Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, the creative team behind similarly edumacational comics Action Philosophers and The Comic Book History of Comics, arFred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, the creative team behind similarly edumacational comics Action Philosophers and The Comic Book History of Comics, are back with a new chin stroker: The Comic Book History of Animation - and it’s a cracking read!
The book starts in the late 19th century and takes readers through the 20th century with the rise of animation thanks to the likes of the Fleischer brothers, Walt Disney, Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki and John Lasseter, ending on 3D animation and the widespread popularity of anime.
The early days of animation were the most compelling for me. I’d heard of Winsor McCay before, the creator of Little Nemo, but didn’t realise that, in addition to his influential comics, he was also an animator and that, when he animated his creation, he literally hand drew each animation frame from scratch each time - no photocopies or assistants to help him! It’s amazing how he achieved such consistent fluidity of motion too - here’s the 96 second Little Nemo short that’s the end result of his efforts. It still looks fantastic to this day.
Then seeing Max Fleischer and his brothers improve on the technique was still more impressive. Dave Fleischer was a Coney Island clown and the brothers decided to film Dave in costume doing his act, then trace the individual frames to produce a smoother look. It took them 9 hours a day for a year (that’s in addition to working full time jobs!) but The Clown’s Pup remains an outstanding work.
The Fleischers were a remarkable bunch. Among many notable achievements, Charles went on to invent the arcade claw machine and it was their suggestion that Popeye got his strength from eating spinach.
Van Lente highlights many other figures from animation history too. Besides the most famous like Disney, we also learn about Ub (pronounced “oob”) Iwerks, who helped Disney set up his company but got treated horrendously by Walt (Van Lente thoroughly shows why Walt Disney was a colossal prick, and not just through his treatment of Ub), to Mary Blair, the designer of the Baby Mine sequence from Dumbo, who used her very real life pain of numerous miscarriages to lend the scene the power it has as Dumbo’s mother caresses Dumbo through the bars of her cage.
It’s also a very informative read, explaining the myriad animation processes. From “chalk-talking” (lightning sketches transforming images with lines from one thing to another in front of a live audience), to the tediously slow early days of animating, to the invention of xerox transforming the process (which directly led to 101 Dalmations), and eventually to where we are today with 3D animation.
There’s a helluva lot more besides - the story behind the triumph that was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (and the disaster that was Disney’s follow-up, Fantasia), where the name Pixar comes from and why the lamp is the mascot, the origin stories behind the various Looney Tunes characters, among others - but suffice it to say that anything most readers with a casual interest in the subject will want to know about animation is all here.
I liked how Dunlavey coloured the early pages in black and white, to reflect the animations at the time, and then slowly introduced colour as time went on when colour started appearing in the cartoons themselves. And I thought it was a clever idea to depict the various figures as famous cartoon characters (Mickey, Yosemite Sam, Woody, etc.) to add some playful variety to the visuals.
It’s a very text-heavy comic so it’s not the most relaxing read and I didn’t find the studio bickering back and forths with the animators all that interesting - it felt a bit repetitive as it kept happening through the years. Overall though, The Comic Book History of Animation is a great book full of compelling facts and stories on this remarkable medium told well with wit and enthusiasm by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey. ...more
He’s called The Russian Doll Killer: a serial killer who stalks single women, murders them in their homes, and leaves behind his calling card, a RussiHe’s called The Russian Doll Killer: a serial killer who stalks single women, murders them in their homes, and leaves behind his calling card, a Russian nesting doll. The vics are stacking up and Detective Ernest Neville’s under pressure to catch RDK before he strikes again - and that’s when he hatches an ingenious plan. But when a Russian nesting doll shows up on his doorstep, will he be the cat or the mouse?
I’ve never read any Jeffery Deaver before but I’m definitely going to pick up more after this - Turning Point is an excellent crime short story! Looking back at it, the story itself isn’t that original an idea but the brilliance is in the execution of how Deaver tells it so that you never really have a strong grip on where the story’s going or how it’ll play out.
The bulk of the story is pretty good - we see Michael, this obnoxious man, go through his days, putting everyone he comes across down and behaving like a shitweasel, interspersed with scenes of Neville trying to figure out who the killer is - then we get the finale which was totally unpredictable; a reveal worthy of Agatha Christie!
Deaver spends maybe too long on Michael being a dickhead. I wouldn’t expect there to be much fat on a short story so I’m not sure what the point of the date night scene was given that all it did was underline what we already knew about Michael’s personality. That unnecessary padding is the only part of the story that I could’ve done without.
The rest of it though is really great. A tense, exciting, gripping, and cleverly constructed crime story from a writer who’s clearly a master. Turning Point is a highly entertaining, twisty read. ...more
Despite Ambrose County, Texas being a small town, it has more than its fair share of violence! And it seems violence only begets more violence, as a mDespite Ambrose County, Texas being a small town, it has more than its fair share of violence! And it seems violence only begets more violence, as a man returns to identify his estranged brother’s death, likely at the hands of some local mobsters, That Texas Blood stirs, and suddenly vengeance is on the cards!
“Well…”
… which is a phrase oft repeated in this book - that was surprising. Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips’ That Texas Blood, Volume 1 is one helluva debut! Like father, like son, Jacob Phillips, like his dad Sean, has found a great Ed Brubaker-esque partner in Chris Condon to produce what could easily be a new addition to the Criminal library.
Except I don’t remember Brubaker being this good so early in his career. This doesn’t read like a newcomer comic at all - Condon’s storytelling is so damned confident and polished, from the fast-moving, exciting story, to the sharp characterisation and effortless dialogue, this reads like a veteran comics writer at the helm. It’s really impressive.
Ditto Jacob Phillips. Prior to this I’ve only seen his colouring on Brubaker/Phillips’ books but damn this kid can draw every bit as good as his dad - and, again, still so young! The comic is well laid out with engaging and imaginative shots and expressive characters. Like the writing, it doesn’t seem possible that this is a first-timer’s effort but it looks like both Condon and Phillips are natural comics creators - or, more likely, have worked really hard at their craft to start this strong.
There are some criticisms to be had, but no dealbreakers to stop this being a cracking comic. As skillful as Condon’s writing is, his clipped style can lead to some underwriting - Ray’s motivations in the opening story are unclear, as are the traumas of Randy’s childhood that haunt him so. The flipside is Joe Bob’s rambling dream story which is overlong, predictable and goes nowhere.
Randy descends into his old self pretty darned quickly and decides to throw his new life away on nothing more than a hunch, which makes his revenge plan seem a little astoopid. I didn’t really understand his motivations either - if he hated his brother Travis so much, why go to such lengths to avenge him, particularly as it means his own future’s certain destruction? And the direction everything goes in this book is grim and gratuitously grimmer, which is the de facto direction of crime stories, and, while fine for the most part, still make the stories here less memorable because they’re such obvious choices.
Well. Anyway. That Texas Blood, Volume 1 is still a terrific read and I enjoyed the hell out of it, blitzing through it in one sitting. Thank jeebus there’s more than one great creative team at Image capable of churning out quality crime comics! If you enjoy Brubaker/Phillips’ comics and/or Cormac McCarthy’s novels, you’ll definitely want to check this bad boy out.
21 year old Akira gets his dream job at a production office - only to find that his company is one of Tokyo’s notorious black corporations. Black corp21 year old Akira gets his dream job at a production office - only to find that his company is one of Tokyo’s notorious black corporations. Black corporations make you work way, way beyond your contracted hours, insisting you pull all-nighters and rack up thousands of hours of unpaid overtime. But it’s his dream job - he’s gotta stick it out!
3 years later…
Exhausted to the point of burnout, Akira has recently begun dreaming of suicide as a way out of going to work. Thank god the zombie apocalypse has just happened! Now he can do all the things he always wanted in his (previously nonexistent) spare time - and he’s gonna write them down so he gets to do them all in a Bucket List of the Dead.
Haro Aso and Kotaro Takata’s Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Volume 1 is such a fun book. It’s a refreshingly upbeat take on the stale zombie genre with a vibe akin to Zombieland rather than the more sombre Living Dead movies.
I love that Akira just accepts that the zombie apocalypse has just happened and gets on with life. Aso doesn’t write any backstory explaining it either. It’s like when Tom Holland became Spider-Man and Marvel ignored retelling his origin for the umpteenth time - it doesn’t really matter because we already know.
Instead, the zombies are just an inconvenience to be avoided while Akira sets out to have fun for a change. Like finally telling the girl he’s been crushing on at work that he loves her, has a joyride on a cool motorbike, stocks up on beer, and reunites with an old friend he’s lost touch with.
The metaphor of office workers as zombies isn’t an original one though it does highlight a genuine problem in Japan and black corporations are unfortunately real. There’s even a word for death by overwork: karoshi.
It’s an older boy’s manga so there’s a few too many gratuitous bewb and butt pics. Shizuka, the mysterious girl Akira meets on his beer run, looks like a fun addition to the cast though she seems to be the archetypical competent hot girl to Akira’s grinning bumbling doofus.
The first part of the title is a bit crap - just call it Bucket List of the Dead rather than add Zom 100 (a pun on “Top 100”?) - and Akira comes off too cartoony at times in the way he takes the new world order in his stride. I get that zombies are ubiquitous in our culture now but still, you’d think he’d be a little bit unnerved at its sudden intrusion in his reality!
These are just very minor critiques though - overall, I really enjoyed this one. The story was well-developed and characters - all of them likeable - were added at just the right moment to keep things interesting. I was entertained the whole time and wanted more as soon as I finished this first volume - a great sign!
Like the best genre stories, this one isn’t really about the monsters - they’re just the background and/or plot catalyst. This is about young people turning their back on traditional society (the subtle criticism being it should be torn down because it’s rotten) and instead doing what they really want like pursuing happiness in life, and it’s a really uplifting read as a result.
This is a great start to a very promising new series - Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Volume 1 is the best manga I’ve read in a while. ...more
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