Hey folks! I’ve been making sure to take the time to read lately, even if that reading is mostly done at night before falling asleep---and after waking up three hours later and not being able to go back to sleep. Regardless, I actually had more than seven books to review this time, but I’m tabling one until next episode, so that I can keep my “seven per post” format! (Games just aren’t fun if you don’t stick to the rules!)
Here we go!
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“Purple Bananas” (2020)
This book is an interesting artifact! It’s about half auto-bio and half DEEP examination of the works of The PURPLE ONE. I consider myself a Prince fan, and I have been since the early 1980s, but I barely scratch the surface when it comes to FANDOM, apparently. Jason Webber, the author of this adventure, was OBSESSED with Prince---but in such a way that the artist’s works gave STRUCTURE and MEANING to Webber’s life! It’s an engaging, often funny, sometimes nearly heartbreaking read, AND the book really makes me want to dig out all of my Prince records (YES, most of my Prince collection is on vinyl), and give them suckaz another spin! It’s a fantastic book!
[Full disclosure: I am mentioned on one page of this story---being my usual bad influence, of course. Webber spent a portion of his younger years in my hometown, and as I wasted nearly a decade working at the two main record stores in town, anyone who was as engrossed in music as Webber was would have had to run into me, eventually. Still, I appreciate the name drop!!! Ha!]
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Airboy #24 (1987)
Here’s another 50 cent bin find! I’m a sucker for a good monster story, and The Heap counts as one of the COOLEST monsters. (He actually predates both Man-Thing AND Swamp Thing by a full decade!) There are two stories in this book, (both written by Chuck Dixon), and although only the first has The Heap, the book was still a fun read. I will definitely grab more issues of this if I find them (for cheap…)
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Paradise X: Xen Vol. 1, No. 1 (2002)
Despite a neat Alex Ross cover, and inks by one of my favorite artists of all time (Bill Sienkiewicz), this book just didn’t do it for me. It felt like an alternate universe book (I’m fine with those), but one that started in the middle of a long story that might or might not be going somewhere… I really wanted to like this, but it was just dull.
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Defenders Vol. 1, No. 136 (1984)
I am a LONG-TIME Defenders junkie. I found a bunch of issues of this book in a quarter bin back in the late 1980s, including THIS VERY BOOK (who could forget that cover?), and was instantly hooked! As I’ve mentioned far too many times, I have since lost my original comic collection (I had about ten or twelve long boxes at my mightiest, but two or three moves ago, the boxes didn’t make it into any of the moving vehicles…so I’m starting over!) I loved this comic. The story is sinister and interesting and well paced. There are some problems that new readers would have to deal with (lots of characters, and virtually NONE of them are re-introduced in this chapter), but the main story, dealing with the character on the cover (“Gargoyle”) is excellent. The book ends on a semi-cliffhanger, and I will ABSOLUTELY be looking for the next issue, maybe even in the “more than 50 cents” bins!!!
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Marvel Masterworks Ghost Rider Vol. 1 (2019)
As a kid---we’re talking seven or eight years old---I paid 25 cents for an issue of Ghost Rider from a guy across the street who sold comics out of his house! I loved that book SO MUCH that I cut the cover off and taped it to the wall by my bed! The main character has a SKULL that is ON FIRE! (What else do you need?) I’m a bit older now (four decades or so), but I thought I’d reread old skull head and see if it still appealed to me. The stories are quite a bit cheesier now, (the books collected here are from the early 1970s), and rather nonsensical, but in a fun way. (The “RULES” of Satanic interaction with humans don’t make much sense, like NOT AT ALL, but it is a bit surprising that such blatantly EVIL stories were allowed on the comic racks in the ‘70s!!!) I wouldn’t say this collection was the best thing in the universe (I actually think the Ghost Rider revival in the early ‘90s produced some better STORIES), but it was a decent read. I might get the next volume someday, if I find it on sale…
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Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There (originally published in 1758)
Why in the HELL would I read something like this? (One might ask…) Swedenborg was a Christian mystic who had this whole astral projection conceit to his belief system, and being a fan of WEIRDO THOUGHT, I feel that it’s important to go back to the original sources, sometimes, and see where freaky ideas come from and develop. Essentially, this book is Christian ethics disguised as a psychic travel narrative, and it’s full of bonkers nonsense. Unfortunately, it’s also incredibly dull. It took me months to get through it (even though it’s less than a hundred pages), but I DID IT! I can now say that I’ve read fucking Swedenborg, so none of those “UNHOLIER THAN THOU” astral projection cultists can make fun of me anymore in the PSYCHIC CHAT CHANNELS… (For normal folks, unless you really need something to help you sleep, I would avoid this book…although you probably would have done that anyway, so… I guess I wasn’t very helpful there, was I?)
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Wizzywig (2012)
This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. Written and drawn by Ed Piskor, I get the impression that this is a fictionalized account of the experiences of a few different “real life” hackers. The art is great, in the “underground cartoonist” style, but not as weird or stylized as someone like Peter Bagge; Piskor's is a solid, scaled down style, which is remarkably readable. (Think newspaper cartoons meets punk in the 1980s…) And this ain’t no KIDS’ comic, either, with both adult language (realistic) and some nasty violence in the mix. I bought the digital version of this title (Top Shelf is listed as publisher) through Comixology, but while researching this I discovered that this book was originally SELF PUBLISHED! (Unbelievable…) This is the first book I’ve read by Piskor, and it will certainly not be the last!!! Wizzywig is excellent!
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That’s it for this batch!!! Thanks for stopping by!!!
---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)
[P.S. – All of the images for this post are either photographs or screen shots taken by me of the actual books that I read. These images are included for review purposes only!!!]
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