Fantasy

My love for comics is due in large part to a bunk-bed in my family’s summer cabin.  When my uncles were kids, they stashed 1960s Mad magazines between the bed frame and wall, and I fumbled upon them one night as I kicked off the covers in the summer heat.  The gags and parodies were great, if not a bit over my head, but I remember reading the letter columns in every issue.  Not only did the readers have a sense of humor, but so did the editors of Mad in their responses.

EC Comics published Mad Magazine as well as classic Horror and Suspense titles like Tales from the Crypt and Two-Fisted Tales, but in the 1950s, EC was nearly run out of business by the Comics Authority Code [for more details, see David Hajdu’s The Ten-Cent Plague. –ed.] and forced to halt production on all publications save Mad.

Yet, horror comics would not bump gently into the night, and in the 1960s, Creepy magazine crept from the grave of EC Comics.  Given that they published in black & white and in an oversized format, Creepy did not have to conform to the Comics Authority Code.  The publication gave artists like Al Williamson, Alex Toth, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, and fantasy art legend Frank Frazetta an outlet for their fang-toothed imaginations.  By skirting the rules, Creepy could pick up where Tales from the Crypt left off, employing a mascot named Uncle Creepy as their substitute Crypt Keeper.  Stories usually involved werewolves, vampires, and zombies and typically relied on twist endings, revealing the monster to be the very character the reader least expected (i.e. the narrator or narrator’s wife/boss/best friend/butler, etc.).

Just in time for Halloween, Dark Horse Comics has collected the first five issues in Creepy Archives Vol. 1, and the storytelling is still infectious.  As I flipped through the huge pages, there were reprints of not only classic ads from the magazine (“Human skeleton…$1 [plus twenty-five cents shipping]”) but also letter columns for each issue.  Sample exchange between fans and Uncle Creepy:

“No offense, but didn’t you kind of goof up in issue #4…?  Doctor Habeas said that monsters have eternal life.  Well, the way I hear it, the werewolf can be killed with a silver bullet and the vampire with a stake….” --Mike Terry, Aurora, MS

“Face it—He was a lousy doctor!” --Uncle Creepy

“[In issue #4]…When the townspeople burned up the mad doctor’s castle, how come the werewolf died when he can only be killed by something made of silver?” --Kerry Hotchkiss, St. Ann, MS

“Face it—he was a lousy werewolf!” --Uncle Creepy

Creepy Volume 1 also contains an adoring letter from one “Bernie A. Wrightson,” who would later go on to be the celebrated Horror comics illustrator (see his pen and ink artwork in the recently reprinted Frankenstein) and Stephen King’s artistic choice for The Dark Tower V .

Creepy Volumes 2 and 3 are forthcoming and will hopefully continue their faithful reproductions of the magazine in its entirety, because, thanks to shrinking page counts and the advent of email, exchanges like this are a rarity in today's comics.  Luckily, I know the perfect bunk-bed where I can stash my copies of Creepy.

This month, David Wellington's third vampire novel, Vampire Zero, will be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world. In this installment, reluctant vampire hunter Laura Caxton is faced with the unenviable task of hunting down her former mentor: U.S. Marshall Jameson Arkeley, now a bloodsucker himself. If you've read the first two volumes, 13 Bullets and 99 Coffins, you know how ruthless Arkeley was when he was living and breathing. Now that he's undead, Caxton is going to have her hands full if she wants to stop him from fathering a new generation of vampires.

I recently asked Wellington for ten reasons why readers should pick up Vampire Zero...

1. You will not be able to put this book down. You'll be unable to bear not knowing what happens next.

2. It's a great standalone novel, and a good introduction to a continuing series, though--

3. Anyone who enjoyed 99 Coffins NEEDS to read this book, because the ending of 99 Coffins is played out here in graphic detail.

4. The main character, Laura Caxton, isn't a helpless damsel in distress, nor is she some inhuman killing machine. She's not some gorgeous but dumb ingenue in deepest darkest Louisiana. She's not an immortal vampire who nobody understands. She's a woman doing a job she didn't want but she has no choice. She's in way over her head, but she doesn't panic. She does the best she can to stop the horror, and then some. But is that going to be enough?

5. The vampires are scary! They don't want to read poetry to you. They don't want to call on you sometime if that's convenient. They want to rip your head off and suck blood out of your stump. You have never seen vampires like this before, I promise. These vampires are scarier.

6. The action! This isn't the kind of book where deeply conflicted monsters lie around on fainting couches talking for fifty pages about how desperately alone and forsaken they are. The cops in this book have a plan. They're out there every night trying to make it happen. And the vampires are always one step ahead of them. When they meet--it's fireworks, every time.

7. The research!  This is a work of fiction. Vampires aren't real. But the world they inhabit is as exhaustively realistic as the author could make it--every street is a real street, every gun is a real gun, every location is a place you can find on a map--and go to in real life. The realism grounds the story and keeps it from getting too over-the-top into fantasy land. And it makes the vampires that much scarier.

8. The drama! Laura Caxton learned everything she ever knew about vampires from her old mentor, Jameson Arkeley. Now he's a vampire, and she has to bring him in. She's learned her lessons well--but what if there are some secrets he didn't have time to teach her? What if he knows something, something that could get her killed, and he didn't share?

9. The mystery! Why would a vampire hunt down the members of his own family? What is his secret plan? There's only one way to find out.

10. The twist ending! See, Laura Caxton has gone a little too far this time, and--but no. I won't spoil it for you. You have to read this book to believe what happens at the end. I promise only that it's a surprise!

As a person really excited for the upcoming Twilight film, I'm highly disappointed in the new movie poster released today (right). This does nothing to evoke the themes of the film, plus Robert Pattinson looks like Jason Priestley if he were carved out of limestone somewhere far, far away from Beverly Hills and the beach.

Needless to say, it does not improve upon the first poster (left), which had a dreamier Edward (Pattinson) hovering/protecting over Bella (Kristen Stewart) instead of looking like they were Photoshop-ed together. What do you think, Twilight fans?

Stay tuned: the new trailer debuts on Friday. -- Ellen

Yes!  Moonlight is going to be on DVD after all, and you can pre-order it now!  For all you fans who watched the vampire series starring Alex O'Loughlin and have been waiting patiently (or not so patiently) to own it on DVD, January 20, 2009 is your day.  And for those of you who have participated in our First To Know system, this is a big win.  We told Warner Home Video about how many of you had signed up to be notified about DVD release.  We told them about your customer reviews and discussion boards.  We told them that you want Moonlight on DVD!  And now it's finally coming.  Of course, the next question is: what about Blu-ray?  No news yet, but just like before, you can sign up to be notified and we'll pass that on too!  --David

Readers may already remember Margo Lanagan from the beer-and-book posts I did several months back. She gave one of the best answers with regard to her novel Tender Morsels, now out in hardcover:

“[It] goes perfectly with a schooner of Toohey’s Old Black Ale, ‘a great Australian dark ale’ to go with a great Australian dark tale. Not knock-you-over in the alcohol stakes (4.4% alc/vol), this is probably a good thing, because there’s a lot to keep track of in this book: bears, babes, treasure, dwarves, giant eagles and a spot of time slippage. The story is lightly hopped, giving the reader/drinker a few underhand laughs during the smooth transition from malty, dead-sexy beginning to bitter, none-too-clean finish. The black malt enhances the forested gloom of much of the book, as well as its nicknames, ‘Black Juice revisited’ and the Doylesque Tender Morsels Bwa-Ha-Ha. Many readers/drinkers are timid when it comes to dark (t)ales. If you are curious about the dark side of beer/bears, Toohey’s Old/Tender Morsels is a great place to begin your exploration. Broad-hipped childbearing flavour gives way to the berry nice esters, which blend well with hoppiness and a hint of raw ptarmigan to finish with a bitter blend crescendo that will leave you wondering WTF? Why haven’t you been a dark ale drinker all your life? Do you dare to turn off your bedside lamp tonight? Try Tender Morsels and Tooheys Old Black Ale with a juicy, still-slightly-bloody roast, with game pies and slow cooked meats. Old is also a great flavour to go with strong cheeses such as gorgonzola, blue vein and Wensleydale. But pretty much anything fart-producing will do. Just don’t expect a comfy night’s sleep after you’ve stomached this lot.”

Now that I've got Tender Morsels in hand, I am happy to report that the book does not disappoint--and, indeed, supports her description above. And it's brilliantly written, full of fascinating characters, dangerous, moving--deeply strange in the best possible way.

Recently, I asked Lanagan if she would add anything to her description above. Her reply? "I would add a salad of spinach, mushrooms and honey-marinated underbark to go with the roast, and probably a flourish of Armagnac and a lot of wood-smoke, rosy cheeks and golden candlelight at the end of the meal."

My first thought on reading that answer was, anyone who can describe food and drink this wonderfully has my attention as a fiction writer. Which seemed to lead naturally into a question about fiction: What gets to you most about the fiction you love?

"As a reader, I want to feel that if I skip even a single sentence, I will miss out on some neat or vivid wordsmithery and on some crucial piece of information. What gets to me more than anything is the impression some books give me that the author is completely unaware of me, that she or he is so deeply engaged in the journey through the story that it’s a privilege to be allowed to just quietly sit in a corner of her/his brain."

Tender Morsels is a great example of the good things that happen when a writer takes this approach to fiction. It's a novel I expect to be on many, many year's best lists.

(You can also read my interview with Lanagan at Clarkesworld.)

The Vertigo Encyclopedia by Alex Irvine is one of the sharpest-looking books to appear on my doorstep recently. A copiously illustrated full-color coffee table extravaganza, the encyclopedia covers the famous Vertigo comics line from 100 Bullets to Young Liars. Modestly priced for the value, the book includes an introduction by Neil Gaiman, multi-page spreads on the most popular series (including Constantine, The Sandman, and Fables), and features an original cover by one of my favorite artists, Dave McKean.

Readers may be familiar with Alex Irvine as the author of several excellent novels, including A Scattering of Jade, The Narrows, and One King, One Soldier (all of which you should pick up if you haven't already). I interviewed him recently about The Vertigo Encyclopedia to get his behind-the-scenes take on both the book and Vertigo's importance to the comics field.

Amazon.com: How did you get involved in this project?
Alex Irvine: It was a surprise, but the story is pretty simple. I'd done some other work for DC (Batman: Inferno and a couple of Supernatural-related books), so when they decided to do the Vertigopedia, they asked me to write it, and I jumped at the chance.

Amazon.com: What's your attachment or involvement in the world of comics prior to this book?
Alex Irvine: I think my story isn't uncommon. I was a hugely devoted fan of comics when I was a kid--especially the out-of-the-way titles like Devil Dinosaur or ROM--and then girls intruded into my worldview and I didn't get back to comics until I was almost out of college. It wasn't until I started working on the Vertigopedia that I fell completely back into the kind of love for comics I had when I was a kid, and even if the rest of the experience had been awful (which it wasn't) I would have been happy about doing it just because it put me back in touch with that feeling.

Also, before I started work on this book, I'd written a couple of short series for Marvel (Hellstorm, Son of Satan: Equinox and Daredevil Noir). That's whetted my appetite to dive all the way into comics again, and rereading all of those classic Vertigo titles...I'm dying to do more with comics. My hard drive is littered with bits of scripts and outlines, both for new stuff and stories involving some of my favorite characters from when I was a kid. I would still give just about anything to write (for example) a Batman comic. Also Dr. Strange. And Devil Dinosaur!

Amazon.com: In researching and writing the book, did you discover anything that surprised you?
Alex Irvine: All kinds of things. There are so many one-shots and short series--Moonshadow comes to mind, Enigma, WE3, Orbiter, newer stuff like Cairo--that don't always get the same kind of notice as Vertigo's tentpole series, but they're great. And they're optimistic, maybe, or even if they're not optimistic they depart from the tragic dark-fantasy mode of Sandman or Fables or Hellblazer, which people tend to think of as Vertigo's default mode. That's a facet of Vertigo's history that is often overlooked, I think, because of the enormous success of its supernatural/horror/dark fantasy titles. It was also funny to note how many of the comics include visual cameos of Alan Moore...or maybe I just started seeing them everywhere because I was looking for them.

Amazon.com: With a project of this nature, what're the best and worst parts of doing it?
Alex Irvine: The best part, other than getting reacquainted with so many great comics and getting introduced to others, was the feeling that this book is going to be the first draft of a history of one of the most influential imprints in the history of comics. Writing that first draft was an honor, really. I was proud to have a shot at it. The worst parts were aspects of the best parts, really. I didn't feel comfortable writing about anything unless I had just read (or reread) it, so I ended up with a really overwhelming amount of reading. Something like 20 to 25 linear feet of comics. Every entry was written with the comics open on my desk next to the computer. (Which didn't prevent some errors from creeping in; John Morgan at DC and I are already compiling an errata list.) And one of the things about writing a book of this nature is that there's a huge body of devoted fans who are going to have their own opinions about what should have been in it, how I should have treated certain series, and so forth. That was on my mind while I worked.

Amazon.com: What kind of influence do you think Vertigo has had on the comics field? Any concrete manifestations you can think of?
Alex Irvine: Well, influence is tough to trace with any degree of certainty, but I think it's probably safe to say that the success of Vertigo had a lot to do with DC and Marvel being willing to take their regular universe books in more mature directions. Also, the Sandman phenomenon brought so much attention to comics in general that it created a huge new appetite for comics with a certain kind of attitude. This in turn meant that people who had worked primarily in indie and underground comics--David Lapham comes to mind, or Paul Pope--had a chance to put their work in front of new audiences. Then that becomes a feedback loop, and because Paul Pope has done 100% and Heavy Liquid (in addition to his previous success in manga), the possibility for him to do a regular DC book comes along, and you get Batman: Year 100. I don't know that it all happened that way, but if it did, you can see how the prominence of Vertigo becomes an opportunity and then creates opportunities for creators in all parts of the industry. Vertigo has also been ahead of the curve in providing opportunities for women creators, and that's had an obvious positive effect throughout the industry.

Amazon.com: What do you want readers to come away from the book with, besides an encyclopedic knowledge of the Vertigo line?
Alex Irvine: First, of course, I want to give a sense of how much fun the books are. And they are fun--also sad, and angry, and everything else that stories should be. The sheer extravagance of invention and ingenuity, on both the visual and narrative levels, is a blast. I also tried to give a sense in each entry of the literary nature of the stories. One of the things about Vertigo books is that they're smart, and saturated with a particular kind of cultural awareness. I'm thinking of things like the visual quote of the Zapruder film in DMZ, or more generally the profusion of allusions in series like Transmetropolitan or The Invisibles or Preacher...the list could go on. Comics have always been full of winks and nods to other comics, but I came away from writing this book with a clearer understanding of how many Vertigo titles are actively engaged in a kind of conversation with the broader literary and philosophical tradition. Maybe that sentence gives me away as an academic nerd, but it jumped out at me over and over again, and I hope the reader of the Vertigopedia starts thinking about comics not in isloation, or just in conversation with each other, but as part of the 'literary' conversation that happens in any culture.

Amazon.com: What are you currently working on?
Alex Irvine: Daredevil Noir starts coming out in January, and in March, Del Rey comes out with my next novel, Buyout. After that, I have all kinds of plans: an alternate-history comic with William Blake as leader of an underground cell of literary terrorists, a novel about a famous 18th-century hoax perpetrated by a guy calling himself George Psalmanazar, another novel about a group of refugees from a nuclear war between India and Pakistan who travel back in time to assassinate HG Wells and thus change the history of the 20th century...on and on.

In this week's roundup, we contemplate parties in our tummies, visit a new Newbery blog, and get tips on writing:

Yo Gabba Gabba board books. Thanks to some of our Amazon toy bloggers, I found out that Yo Gabba Gabba just started its second season this week! You don't need to have kids in your life to love Yo Gabba Gabba. There hasn't been a cooler kids show since the Morgan Freeman era of The Electric Company--and the second season features everyone from Biz Markie to Amy Sedaris to Hot Hot Heat. If you've never heard of it, watch this now:

So what does that all have to do with kids' books? I was wondering if there had been any YGG titles yet, and apparently there's a whole slew of sticker and coloring books and--more importantly, for our 17-month-old Silas--board books coming out in a few months, including Party in My Tummy and Welcome to Gabba Land! We'll keep you posted....

New blog: Heavy Medal. Nina Lindsay, the chair of the last Newbery commitee, and Oakland children's librarian Sharon Senser McKellar have started a new blog called Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog. They'll talk about Newbery contenders and follow this year's real--and mock--Newbery process:

The actual Newbery Committee is bound to secrecy. But their criteria and procedures are open. Using these, Sharon and I coordinate each year a Mock Newbery Discussion in Oakland CA, where adult participants who've read our posted shortlist discuss some of the best contenders of the year and vote for a medal and honor books. (This year's discussion will be Sunday, January 11, more details to come!).

In previous years, Sharon and I each had blogs to drum up suggestions for titles and discuss issues brought up by the Newbery criteria in relation to some favorites. Must a sequel stand alone? And what about the text of a "graphic" novel?

The Knife of Never Letting Go wins Guardian prize. Patrick Ness' inventive SF tale The Knife of Never Letting Go won this year's Guardian children's fiction prize:

The chair of the judges, Guardian children's books editor Julia Eccleshare, said the panel, made up of children's authors Mary Hoffman, Mal Peet and last year's winner, Jenny Valentine, had been blown away by the "breathtaking quality" of Ness's writing. "It's challenging but not bleak--an excitingly different book," she added.

Ness, 36, said he was "genuinely astonished" to win. "I think it was a super-strong shortlist," he said. "Before I Die is a huge hit, Frank is a great writer, and I'm reading Siobhan Dowd now--it's really great and I kind of thought she would win."

Don't miss some kids' takes on the award shortlist. (Found via Achockablog.)

How to write children's books. Speaking of the Guardian, they recently ran a fun How to Write series, spanning multiple genres, from the hilarious Catherine Tate on comedy to Wendy Cope talking about poetry. Children's Laureate Michael Rosen gives his thoughts on writing for kids and teens, along with some interesting meta-commentary about the genre in general:

It may sometimes seem to you that editors can only think inside specific boxes, whereas a book you liked, The Little Prince, say, defied such boxes. So you'll hear from editors, comments like: "There's no point in writing a picture book text that's longer than a couple of hundred words", "That story is too 'old' for a picture book audience", "Your story is too short" and so on. Bafflingly, if you go to the library and pick up a pile of books, you may well find some that seem to defy such boundaries. Nearly always, that's because it's a famous author who's been granted leeway to write what they want - Roald Dahl's The Minpins is an example of that. Or you've got in your hand a book produced by an independent company, a firm like Tamarind, Frances Lincoln or Barefoot Books.

(Found via Bookninja.)

Ain't no party like a Brisingr party. Readers are still debating the merits of the third and latest installment in Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series (following