Black and White and Read All Over

I just finished reading Writing for Comics with Peter David, by Peter David of course. A friend got this book for a project, and thought I might like reading it. I must say that was a good assumption.

I’ve read quite a bit of David’s novel work, seen some of his TV work, but not so much of his comics work. The man is a prolific writer and story teller. I mean he has Hulk, Spiderman, and Wolverine under his comic writing belt, besides others. Safe to say he has enough experience to write a book like this. That experience and David’s engaging writing style come through.

There are tons of books and courses out there for people that want to write novels. There are even resources for writing plays or screenplays, but few cater to the media of comics or graphic novels. David takes a pretty good, broad approach to the subject. He provides easy to understand examples of the current trend of comics to present more like film on paper, and how the media is more visual and less language than it was 30 years ago. He shows differences between comics and novels or screenplays. He breaks down basic plot and conflict styles into their simplest forms. It’s just an excellent resource for anyone who has good stories to tell and feels drawn to the medium. Pardon the pun. Though I wouldn’t dream of starting out in an endeavor like this myself, it gives me a better understanding of the peculiar difficulties of the art style. I think it’s a worthwhile read for anyone that enjoys comics or good literature in general. And it’s a definite tool an aspiring comic writer should consider for their reference library.

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Literary Consolidation 41 -50

Or the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition 5^nd Ed. Well it’s time to reduce the page length again by creating a post of ten books. I’ll give the picture as a link to where it can be purchased, in exchange for using the picture, a little bit about each book, and a link to my original take on the book.

50.

This is the second Jared Diamond book I've read, and this one seems approachable by more people. Although some might not like what is alluded to.



My Take

49.

This installation of The New Frontier sereis will upset some fans. Life is a bitch and then you die.



My Take


48.

The next in The New Frontiers series. This one jumps three years into the future showing what has happened to the characters you love.



My Take


47.

This is the final book of the series. Lewis closes the series with a lot of heavy imagery that should spark discussion.



My Take

46.

This sixth of the series jumps back in time all the way to the creation of Naria and how it all began.



My Take


45.

This is the fifth of the series. It jumps back in time in the series and follows characters from Narnia itself and does a lot of lesson teaching



My Take

44.

The award winning biography of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis. A good exploration of his often times contradictory character.


My Take


43.

I got this book for an industrial Engineering class, but many of the stories in it do a good job of showing what kinds of minutia designers have to consider when making decisions.


My Take


42.

The next in The New Frontier series by Peter David. The gods of old appear to have returned offering their wonderful ambrosia, but at what price.


My Take

41.

This is the fourth book of the series. It sees Eustace and a new character Jill tying to rescue the lost son of King Caspian.


My Take

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Out of the Frying Pan

Well I finally got to and finished the fourth in the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Here’s my sparing comments about the first, second, and third books.

I said the last book was a decent leap in size by going up 100 pages. Well this one makes a leap from that one of around 300 pages. And you can tell it. I don’t just mean the physical size of the book either. The characters, descriptions, plot development, and critical thinking have all improved greatly in this one step. Although I will say the book didn’t have to be this long, the additional environmental development was enjoyable. There is still weakness in the storytelling, but taken as a series it is working out well.

I want to read the rest, but I only have one more book before I am caught up with the movies. I hoped they might finish the movies before I finished the books, but that doesn’t seem likely. I don’t usually hold books and movies to the same light of scrutiny. They are different media and require different handling. The first three movies weren’t too far a departure from the books, but this one, with its length, you really start to see where they had to compromise when they translated it to movie form. There is far more obviousness in the movie, but that again is a limitation of the media. When an author wants to call your attention to something it can be accomplished by merely including it in the text. Then the author can fill in other details to hide, but not completely obscure the important data. Movies are filled with so much visual information not included in books that the pertinent visual information can be lost in the low signal to noise ratio. So maybe I’ll get the next one around the time of the movie. Then I probably won’t be able to wait for Deathly Hallows.

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Birds in a China Shop

This is over a week late as well. What can I say? Busy busy busy. So I finished the 3^rd in David Brin’s Uplift Series, The Uplift War. You can see my review of the second book here.

This book kind of takes place around the second book. As stated in this one nothing happens at the same time over the vast distances of space, so the exact timing is of some question. What is not is that the events of this book happen primarily as fallout of the discovery the Streaker’s crew made before the beginning of the second book.

The book takes place on and around Garth. Garth is a troubled planet that was given to the wolfling humans because no one else wanted it. Apparently it is similar on all the worlds leased to humans See the previous caretakers caused a huge ecological disaster that threatens to cause the planet to decline into barrenness. Lo and behold the humans are making a name for themselves as ecological wizards on all the galaxies, and Garth is no different. That was until Streaker found their burden. Now the Gubru have shown up at the backwater outpost of Earth with the hope they can take it hostage in order to force the surrender of Streaker or it’s information. So now the few free humans and their even fewer galactic allies must survive and fight against a much stronger enemy.

This was a worthy third entry in the series from Brin. It quickly becomes a page turner that doesn’t want you to put it down. Brin also manages to work in some good subtle subplots and intrigue into the mix to keep you interested and prevent dullness. Brin puts in the standard plugs for making Humanity seem to be better than we or anyone expected of a wolfling race. I always appreciate a book with short chapters and sections that allows you to read in spurts when you get small bits of time. Yet again this is a recommendation to all Science Fiction fans.

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Good, A Hard Look

Well I’m finally getting around to doing some reviews. I actually finished reading Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons several weeks ago. I originally bought it on an impulse at the book store. I tend to do that in book stores, which is why I have to avoid them many times. At the time I didn’t realize that there was a movie of it coming out. It was either luck or the subconscious that came through on that one.

So what can I say about one of the most acclaimed graphic novels ever produced? Well I feel ill equipped to take it on. Simply it’s remarkably good. It’s different from purely text novels you read, because your eyes are drawn to the imagery. You have to explore it in depth if you expect to understand what is going on. Sometimes you have to flip back and look over it again. You soon realize that even though there is far less text on these pages it takes you longer to get through each one than a normal novel.

The presentation is great. I enjoyed many of the small details, the humor, the comic within the comic, but mostly it’s the characterization. It’s a comic about a world similar to our own that happened to develop heroes, adventurers, vigilantes, or whatever you call them. You soon realize that these people, like we would expect of someone who started doing stuff like this today, are seriously disturbed and/or are nowhere near normal.

I recommend it to just about anyone. In fact a friend already borrowed it to read. I wonder how far he has gotten.

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