FT
12 March 2009
To read the story, click here; to read about our ‘hauntography’ project, click here.
“See that space between the panels? That’s what comics aficionados have named “The Gutter!” And despite its unceremonious title, the gutter plays host to much of the magic and mystery that are at the very heart of comics! Here in the limbo of the gutter, human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them into a single idea.”
– Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics
A ghost story about a picture that comes to life might or might not be frightening. “The Mezzotint” isn’t one. It’s a ghost story about a picture that turns into a comic strip, and as McCloud says, it draws its fear from what’s happening – or what might be happening – from one frame to the next. more »
Tom in FT /The Brown Wedge • 8 Comments
9 March 2009
I happened to just now read one of his, The Cosmic Rape, which prompted me to write about him next. This short 1958 novel is about a hivemind entity making first contact with humanity. It has taken over two galaxies and is working its way through its third, and all of the intelligences it has encountered are collective. It concludes that humanity has split apart as a defensive measure at first contact with this alien mind, so its first task, before taking it over, is to put it back together.
There are two points to make about this. Firstly, unlike almost any other writer before the New wave, Sturgeon’s interest is in mind, in how we think, rather than in futuristic tech and aliens and so on – this is what made him a key figure to the New Wave, why we get a blurb on the back cover by Samuel Delany saying his work “is the single most important body of science fiction by an American to date”.
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Martin Skidmore in The Brown Wedge • 1 Comment
6 March 2009
McBain, writing under that name and Evan Hunter (which he changed his name to in 1952, from Salvatore Lombino), is the only writer by whom I have read over a hundred books, and that is likely to remain true for a long time, maybe permanently. And I’ve not read any by five of his other pseudonyms, nor any of his poetry, plays, autobiographies, children’s books or screenplays (I have seen a few, notably The Birds). He was crazily productive: 25 books and some stories from 1956-1959 was his peak.
He’s best known for his 87th Precinct stories, 57 books spanning almost 50 years, though Detective Steve Carella and his fellow detectives in an analogue of NYC don’t age at that pace. These defined the police procedural, and are the model for most modern police TV shows, to one degree or another. They are short on heroics and car chases and genius detectives, long on professional cops doing their jobs, interviewing and following up leads. They are elevated well above the routine by his superb use of and descriptions of weather, and crackling and convincing dialogue, vital in the long interviews. He also reproduces documentation regularly. more »
Martin Skidmore in The Brown Wedge • 3 Comments
5 March 2009
An extraordinary passage in Huizinga’s The Waning Of The Middle Ages comes to our attention:
The taste for unbridled luxury culminated in the court fetes….Nothing could be more insipid or ugly than the ‘entremets’, consisting of gigantic pies enclosing complete orchestras, full-rigged vessels, castles, monkeys and whales, giants and dwarfs, and all the boring absurdities of allegory. We find it difficult to regard these entertainments as something more than exhibitions of almost incredible bad taste.
Speak for yrself mate! Further discussion of these remarkable pies, and the events surrounding them, will feature in Saturday’s Lollards of Pop show.
Tom in FT /Pumpkin Publog /The Brown Wedge • 1 Comment
18 February 2009
To read the story, click here; to read about our ‘hauntography’ project, click here.
An elderly man takes in his orphaned young cousin. It is surprising, given that the man is known as something of a recluse, a retiring academic type – specialist in the later pagans and their mystical beliefs – seemingly more comfortable with books than persons. Or maybe it is not surprising for a man to take an interest in the welfare of a young relative, if interest of a distant kind. He asks the boy’s age, and such, and sends him off to be looked after by the housekeeper; and the housekeeper tells him, one day, of her master’s kindness, that he has taken in children before, a little gipsyish girl and a little foreign boy, although being gipsyish the little girl ran off after a few weeks, and being a foreign ragamuffin and naturally unruly so too did the boy.
Strange dreams this young cousin has, of a thin thin body lying moaning, hands pressed to its heart; and he sleepwalks at night at times; and there are rats in the house too, huge ones they must be, for there are scorings on the young boy’s door and even scratches on his nightgown, all down the left side of his chest, after he has spent another night in a dream he cannot quite remember; and it might be rats or the wind in the cellars at night but the butler will not go down to fetch the wine once dark has fallen, for in that dark such scuttlings and sighings have a sound uncommonly like speech.
And, now the boy is eleven and a half, something dreadfully exciting is to happen: for his uncle has asked him to sit up until quite eleven o’clock, and to come and visit in his study. more »
cis in FT /The Brown Wedge • 10 Comments
5 February 2009
Like all new Freaky Trigger series, the idea for this one came in the pub. I had been re-reading MR James’ Collected Ghost Stories and started talking about them with Mark and Rick: within moments I thought, “let’s blog it”. Hence Hauntography: a collaborative reading of the James stories, by whoever wants to be part of it.
It’ll work in a kind of “book club” style – we all read the next story, one of us blogs about it (along whatever lines they see fit) and we all pile in in the comments box. You do too, since even if you’ve never read James before most of his stories are available online. (Or you could pick up the Wordsworth Books edition for a couple of quid.)
What do we hope to achieve? Diversion and entertainment, as usual, but also I expect we’ll think about ghosts, history, academia, dialect, what makes stories frightening, what makes them funny… we will approach the stories like Jamesian antiquaries ourselves, pottering around and following our noses – hopefully not awakening any restless spirits, but I guess there’s always a risk.
Join us next week to read Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook.
Tom in FT /The Brown Wedge • 9 Comments
26 January 2009
Vachss is a unique writer. Most of his novels centre on a man named Burke, someone far enough beyond the underworld that they don’t know he exists. He makes a living ripping off child porn fans and wannabe mercenaries, and will take a PIish case if it grabs his interest: basically this means if it involves abuse of children. Vachss himself is a lawyer specialising in such cases, a recognised expert on the subject, and his all-encompassing hatred and understanding of abusers makes for often heavy going. He also understands the victims, the effects it has one them. He’s not remotely part of the legal establishment, with no interest in convicting people – he wouldn’t consider getting someone arrested instead of killing them. Obviously many crime writers hate their villains, but none of them despise them like Vachss does. more »
Martin Skidmore in The Brown Wedge • 8 Comments
18 January 2009
(Introductory notes: my series Comics: A Beginner’s Guide seemed to go over quite well, as far as I can tell. It occurred to me that there were two other areas where I have sometimes been asked for guidance and recommendations – the other is SF writing, coming soon. My tastes are very much for tough American crime, and my interest is that of someone who mostly reads literary fiction, so I’m looking for the same sort of interest and stimulation and entertainment I get there, rather than clever mysteries – though some of the writers I’ll mention do provide that.)
If I were looking to recommend one contemporary crime writer to someone who was only interested in mainstream literary values, I’d go for James Lee Burke. His descriptive prose is of the highest order – especially on the swamplands around New Orleans, the plants and water and animals and weather. He leans rather towards the pathetic fallacy at times, but that’s fine with me. He’s also one of the most serious crime writers ever in thematic terms: lots of unflinching and honest examination of good and evil, race, sex, money, power, politics, crime, law and so on. His sense of evil is particularly powerful, virtually Biblical in conception at times – he reminds me more of Cormac McCarthy than any other writer. Indeed, McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men has much in common with Burke’s novels, not least for the scariness of the central villain. more »
Martin Skidmore in The Brown Wedge • 2 Comments
12 January 2009
Obviously I have an attraction to crazy quixotic blogging projects*, but I have to take my hat off to Laura Hudson and Leigh Walton, who are planning to blog EVERY ISSUE OF CEREBUS. On the one hand, there are ‘only’ 300 of ‘em. On the other…. well, NO SPOILAZ, but there are sections of the story I’ll be interested to see how they handle. Currently, of course, they’re still on the early funny stuff (except before it was funny).
*By the way, I recently found a blog taking up where Mike Daddino’s US-equivalent-of-Popular project left off, but I’ve completely lost the URL. It was called “No Tape Errors” or something similar. If this is your thing (or if you know whose it is!) get in touch so I can link it!
Tom in FT /The Brown Wedge • 9 Comments
8 January 2009
I’ve not even opened it yet (it’s a collection of 1950s DC SF comics) – I just wanted to show everyone the cover.
Martin Skidmore in The Brown Wedge • 8 Comments
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