Because time isn’t always kind: economic reviews in a world full of waste!
As George Davies – the narrator of Justin Evans’ A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD – tells his therapist, he didn’t exactly have the happiest of childhoods. After all, he was a bullied fat kid. His father was dead. And one day in the shower, he saw a demon face staring back at him. Much of this novel is comprised of George’s journals of his early years as a child of the ’70s, growing up with an academic mother who refuses to see all the increasing signs that suggest her son is possessed by the devil. George, meanwhile, becomes obsessed with the theory that demons had something to do with his father’s premature death. Part EXORCIST and part POLTERGEIST, Evans’ work of literary horror toys with you purposely, raising multiple explanations – is he really under Satan’s influence or just mentally ill? – yet choosing not to show its hand until damn well near the final page. I enjoyed being strung along, having my psyche tweaked, and being unnerved as the tension escalates and at the actions that result. Even with such a strong start, CHILD just gets better as it goes along.
Combining my love for naked women, kitschy Atomic Age art and coffee-table books about naked women and kitschy Atomic Age art is the ne’er-more-aptly titled STACKED DECKS: THE ART AND HISTORY OF EROTIC PLAYING CARDS. Culled from the Rotenberg Collection – and what a collection! – the book is packed with full-color, full-size, full-figured reproductions of playing cards with photos and paintings of nude females, from early tame shots and more raw, war-era efforts to Playboy-style and the slightly more explicit sets of the 1970s. There are even R-rated cartoon ones and homemade amateur numbers. Like just about everything from Quirk Books, the design is eye-catchingly – and eye-poppingly – perfect. Hit me!
Don’t be fooled: The massive hardcover bearing the name STEPHEN KING: THE NON-FICTION is not – repeat , not – a collection of the horror master’s work. Rather, as assembled by Rocky Wood and Justin Brooks, it is a meticulously documented overview of such. If King wrote it and it wasn’t fiction, it’s covered here. High school newspaper articles? Check. Entertainment Weekly columns and reviews? Check. Two-sentence thank-you to Amazon customers who bought the electronic version of his short story “The Plant”? Check. From book-length works like the essential DANSE MACABRE to miscellanea so obscure, you didn’t even know it existed, this exhaustive – and exhausting, if you’re not careful – reference work has it all. Meant to be consulted rather than read cover to cover, the Cemetery Dance release takes its subject seriously, as the 150-ish pages of footnotes attest. Hardcore King fans will be delighted; casual ones, amused.
Based on the DC Comics series, Greg Cox’s novelization of 52 is every bit as ambitious, if a different experience. With Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman out of commission – along with a smattering of other top-tier heroes – who will step forward to save the day(s)? Whereas DC’s issue-a-week project packed in a number of subplots to keep the concept alive, Cox boils it down to a core few (later, Elongated Man; sayonara, Adam Strange) in order to compress the narrative down into a workable novel that doesn’t intimidate Leo Tolstoy. What’s left actually seems more cohesive and weaves all the threads tighter, but you still lose a lot of great stuff from the comics version, which does the storytelling so well visually and verbally. Cox has the benefit of only the latter, but he’s up to the challenge and makes the book an effective, exciting superhero epic bereft of the usual suspects. They’re meant to be different experiences, anyway.
LIFE AFTER BLACK: JOURNAL #45 looks like the work of a mentally ill patient in desperate need of stronger meds. That means lucidity is out the window, but interesting art is in plentiful supply. The work of renowned illustrator Barron Storey, these pages from his numerous journals are colorful nightmares: raw, disturbing and captioned – perhaps pretentiously – with excerpts from Shakespeare. Storey is a terrible speller, but rife with imagination, and his mind goes places I’m glad mine doesn’t have to. Intricate, complex, these drawings aren’t disposable doodles, but works that demand attention to reveal all their layers. Still, this handsome hardback falls squarely into “eye of the beholder” territory, as it will find an equal number of lovers as it will detractors. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• GHOST RIDER by Greg Cox
• INFINITE CRISIS by Greg Cox
{ 1 trackback }
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Best way to get access to Barron’s Journal is via the editor http://www.graphicnovelart.com as Amazon is already sold out (and the one book currently on offer overpriced) and overall distribution is limited.
Regards
Carl editor of Graphic Novel Art
I picked up Stacked Decks this weekend and really liked it. It was a fun book with some interesting commentary.
A GOOD AND HAPPY CHILD looks particularly interesting, as does Stacked Deck but for entirely different reasons.
btw, Laymon’s The Stake was a cool read
I really want to get the Stacked Decks book. I always loved cards like that. I remember back in school that guys would pass those around in the locker room for us to look at.