Reading Comics: Bradley Sands on Superheroes & Superhero Comics
Welcome to the third installment of my new series: Reading Comics. I’m excited to report that I’ve got a bunch of great contributors lined up, and am myself working on a few entries. If you haven’t contacted me yet, but would like to participate, email me and let me know! Without further ado….here’s Bradley Sands…
Why I Like to Read Superhero Comics but Don’t Really Like Superheroes
I am 32-years-old and I have been reading comics since I was in elementary school. Although I enjoy “alternative comics,” the kinds of comics that intrigue me the most are the mainstream superhero comics published by Marvel and DC Comics that I’ve read off and on since childhood. Although the idea of superheroes excited me when I was young, they no longer have this effect on me. But what intrigues me about the comics being published by these two companies are qualities that no other narratives share (except for perhaps soap operas to a small degree, although I find them unwatchable).
Cliché as Necessity (Birthing Innovation)
Not entirely an unexpected situation.
Every time I’ve said something nice about Drive, someone has responded by calling the film “clichéd.” Well, I intend to keep saying nice things about Drive (as well as other artistic genre films), so let’s take some time here and now to address that criticism, demonstrating how even when certain material or situations might be clichéd, the artist can still find occasions for artistic expression. Indeed, I want to go so far as to suggest that clichéd situations often provide artists with some of the best opportunities for innovation.
Matthew Simmons—
“My rap name’s Director’s Commentary”: A Mixed Ape by Giant friends NewVillager here. (Songs ranted over by some sort of maybe crazy person. First person to guess the ranter gets a couple of random galleys from my desk.)
8
How to End a Mystery
“Oh,” said the warden. “I see.” Then through the phone. “Let the fifth man go. He’s all right.”
LOOK AT WHAT USED TO BE YOUR ROSES. –Shirley Jackson
Blue Murder had never been shod. –Wilbur Daniel Steele
I often wish I had. Maybe she left me a note. –James M. Cain
And in the south, always. –Dennis Lehane
They made little splashes and the seagulls rose off the water and swooped at the splashes. –Raymond Chandler
“Well,” said the inspector, “if you are so sure, I’m inclined to agree. You’ve never made a mistake.”
But why kill him, Warren? What for? –Henry Slesar
“Gave her a good look at my face. My face is important to me.” –Joyce Carol Oates
The sheriff threw it open, and upon the floor, sprawling in a smear of blood, lay Simon Kilrail, with a dueling pistol in his hand. –Melville Davidson Post
Mr. Osterweil had gone up to the hundred-and-second floor and jumped from the observation deck. –Jerome Weidman
Comb it wet or dry? –Ring Lardner
Ellery grinned and began to chop down the cherry tree. -Ellery Queen
“You ought to have known I’d do it!” My voice sounded harsh and savage and like a stranger’s in my ears. “Didn’t I steal a crutch from a cripple?”
In the In
Last week, I had this awesome conversation with a grad student about theory. And he was like, Have you read this guy?, and I was like, Who?!
And so I come to my problem: What is going on in theory these days?
When you’re in school – in school like a student – you get this fab readings lists, from professors, from friends, from other students. You’re always in conversation, whether in the classroom or out of it. Either way, ideas are just around you. All you have to do is listen.
DAVID MITCHELL’S SOUL, AND OTHER VERBS
March of this year we were in the desert and, like Stephen Crane’s famous creature, we were bestial and squatting; maybe we were naked as well. It’s possible—we were on one drug or another, and memory is strange. I did not hold my heart in my hands but a shotgun. We had bought a box of old records from a flea market on the way down and were taking turns tossing them up in the air and making it rain black diamonds, fragments of song titles and run times. We had liquor, and music, and all five of David Mitchell’s novels—Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I brought along the audiobook versions as well, as we were staying the night and planned on being too insensate before long to do any actual reading.
The Orange Bears by Kenneth Patchen
Just a good day for some Kenneth Patchen…
The Orange Bears
by Kenneth Patchen
The Orange bears with soft friendly eyes
Who played with me when I was ten,
Christ, before I’d left home they’d had
Their paws smashed in the rolls, their backs
Seared by hot slag, their soft trusting
Bellies kicked in, their tongues ripped
Out, and I went down through the woods
To the smelly crick with Whitman
In the Haldeman-Julius edition,
And I just sat there worrying my thumbnail
Into the cover—What did he know about
Orange bears with their coats all stunk up with soft coal
And the National Guard coming over
From Wheeling to stand in front of the millgates
With drawn bayonets jeering at the strikers?
I remember you would put daisies
On the windowsill at night and in
The morning they’d be so covered with soot
You couldn’t tell what they were anymore.
A hell of a fat chance my orange bears had!
Barrelhouse Online Workshops
Can writing be taught? Can writing be taught online? Is the Internet a valid place to workshop poetry?
After hours and hours of editorial GChats with Melissa Broder, I’ve come to think that it’s not just possible, but that the Internet is a great place for this kind of work. There is something about the detachment of not being present, combined with the fluidity of the format. It makes people more concise, more practical, and more willing to hear differing perspectives.
So I’m really interested to hear how Barrelhouse’s online workshops go. Our own beloved Mike Young is facilitating one now. Don’t nobody know no poetry like Mike, neither — so if you want more than THIS AMAZING LIST of “moves in contemporary poetry”, you should consider giving his online class a look. The 8-week sessions starts on October 24.
Has anyone done an online class before and was it good?
Nick Antosca—
Some of you know Innocente Fontana, so I thought this might be of interest: I wrote a piece for the Paris Review‘s website about my relationship with him, who he really is, and his extraordinary novel that was just republished.
