Showing posts tagged fiction
comicsispeople: “Compelling interplay between Red-Handed‘s crafty and credulous throws shine on the work’s more enduring moments, such as when Kindt lends unlikely tenderness to an exchange between an aging pickpocket and his mark on a crowded subway train, or to a heist man’s recounting of his convictions to a new lover, set against a Hawaiian sunset. Each encounter is framed in extremes, so that micro scenes drawn from on-the-ground perspectives of townspeople swiping a store marquee’s letters can render the cast comically pint-sized. Evocative closeups, on the other hand, signal for reader restraint. It’s practically hypnotizing when Kindt brings someone to the fore in this novel.” (via Comics Creator Matt Kindt’s ‘Fine Art’ | PopMatters) View high resolution

comicsispeople:

“Compelling interplay between Red-Handed‘s crafty and credulous throws shine on the work’s more enduring moments, such as when Kindt lends unlikely tenderness to an exchange between an aging pickpocket and his mark on a crowded subway train, or to a heist man’s recounting of his convictions to a new lover, set against a Hawaiian sunset. Each encounter is framed in extremes, so that micro scenes drawn from on-the-ground perspectives of townspeople swiping a store marquee’s letters can render the cast comically pint-sized. Evocative closeups, on the other hand, signal for reader restraint. It’s practically hypnotizing when Kindt brings someone to the fore in this novel.”

(via Comics Creator Matt Kindt’s ‘Fine Art’ | PopMatters)

(Reblogged from comicsispeople)

Poor Charles Dexter Ward

Action-packed comics don’t often owe to depictions of characters sifting through moldy correspondence, deciphering archaic language, and unlocking mantras typically reserved for cellars or graveyards. Read my piece on H.P. Lovecraft’s/Ian Culbard’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward for The Comics Journal.

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Reading Ray

When Ray Bradbury saw lions on the big screen during a 1924 Lon Chaney film, he envisioned them at the terrifying center of “The Veldt,” an early tale he authored about an automated home, complete with a room that virtually recreated an African veldt. I was assigned to read “The Veldt” in a grade school books discussion group, and it would stay very close to my heart in the years that followed. 

In 2010, PopMatters published “Ray Bradbury Wrote Me Back,” my essay about experiences I’ve had with Bradbury’s work, and the effect that his stories have had on me through adulthood. Not long after I filed that piece, I visited Italy and was compelled to write about him again, specifically about his love of open public space.

Bradbury’s short stories are rich with affecting characters, ideas, and what many have called his “lyrical” imagery. I hope that over the weekend, some readers here will take a Bradbury book to bed or on a long road trip. And who knows? You might find that Ray’s words stir in your heart for many years to come.

“There are two kinds of magic to a Cheever story. There is a superficial magic composed of light and weather, of trout streams, Martinis and beaches along the coast of Maine. And then there is a deeper, more disquieting thrill, which arises from the ways in which these radiant surfaces are undermined.” “Tricks of the Light,” Olivia Laing on American writer John Cheever, New Statesman Geoffrey Wolff wrote about Cheever for the New York Times in 2009. View high resolution

“There are two kinds of magic to a Cheever story. There is a superficial magic composed of light and weather, of trout streams, Martinis and beaches along the coast of Maine. And then there is a deeper, more disquieting thrill, which arises from the ways in which these radiant surfaces are undermined.”

“Tricks of the Light,” Olivia Laing on American writer John Cheever, New Statesman

Geoffrey Wolff wrote about Cheever for the New York Times in 2009.

Ray Bradbury and the Italian Piazza

I wrote about Italy’s wealth of open space for PopMatters, as well as what Ray Bradbury thinks of how sandwiches taste outside. READ NOW.

Whether he is cataloging oddities born at seedy, late-night carnivals or merely reflecting upon his boyhood summers in typically luminous prose, Ray Bradbury’s fiction offers a wealth of ideas both weird and heartbreaking. The award-winning author, screenwriter, playwright, and poet likely played a role in my decision to finish school as a literature major, during which I began seeking work as a writer and editor. For better or for worse, Bradbury’s stories helped steer me toward finishing my education and nudged me to write. View high resolution

Whether he is cataloging oddities born at seedy, late-night carnivals or merely reflecting upon his boyhood summers in typically luminous prose, Ray Bradbury’s fiction offers a wealth of ideas both weird and heartbreaking. The award-winning author, screenwriter, playwright, and poet likely played a role in my decision to finish school as a literature major, during which I began seeking work as a writer and editor. For better or for worse, Bradbury’s stories helped steer me toward finishing my education and nudged me to write.