After a two week hiatus, Newt and I returned to KandyLand with a two-part primer on the main characters and key locations, followed by a four week adventure.
Story by Rick Klaw Art by Newt Manwich
Click on image to enlarge
To learn more about the characters and events mentioned, check out the KandyLand/LemonHead story from the beginning.
Recently, I was lucky enough to interview Anne Dick, Philip K. Dick’s third wife, about their life together and the recent publication of her revised memoir Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982. The interview appears in this week’s Orlando Weekly.
| Quote: |
| The project itself grew out of a need for answers. “[It] was an attempt to understand what had happened to our relationship at the time of our divorce,” she says. “Actually, writing things down turned out to be therapeutic. In words I could go back and feel more in control during those chaotic times.” |
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| As explored in Search and later books, Philip Dick famously used aspects of his real life in his surreal and often outlandish stories. “He wrote Confessions of a Crap Artist [one of his earliest and perhaps most successful ‘autobiographical non-science fiction mainstream’ works] on our honeymoon! I was stunned and somewhat dismayed, but I didn’t say anything except that I thought it was a good book. Privately I thought to myself, ‘I guess this is what writers do.’ There were a number of other Point Reyes books in which the principal female character is more or less based on me.” |
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| Dick revealed several arguably unflattering aspects of her ex-husband. “Many people know now how eccentric Phil’s life was. Many great writers had strange and unsettling lives.” She explored several of his positive traits as well. “He always tried to help people throughout his life. His books are full of light. I think most people are different and strange way down in their psyches, and in some people their unusual characteristics are closer to the surface.” |
After the interview, my brief piece "The essential Philip K. Dick: a beginner’s guide" gives some reading tips for the PKD neophyte.
Over at SF Site, Mark London Williams and I began the annual countdown of our favorite graphic novels/comics/funny books of the year. We each picked the top ten titles that we encountered over the past year or so. Here’s a visual recap of 10-6.
Check out the column for what we said about each selection.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
(Ok.. technically, Vertigo and Wildstorm but they’re all part of DC Comics.)
Shade the Changing Man: The American Scream Written by Peter Milligan Art by Chris Bachalo & Mark Pennington
Promo copy:
Shade is back in this new printing of the groundbreaking Vertigo trade from writer Peter Milligan. Collecting the first six SHADE issues, beginning with Kathy George’s encounter with Shade’s arrival on Earth from his home dimension of Meta – in the body of her parents’ killer. From there, Shade and Kathy journey into America’s collective unconscious to find the evil known only as The American Scream.
These are the classic Vertigo stories written by Peter Milligan, so if you’ve been digging the acclaimed writer’s work on GREEK STREET and HELLBLAZER, be sure to pick up this new printing of Milligan’s earlier work!
Shade The Changing Man Vol. 2: Edge of Vision Written by Peter Milligan Art by Chris Bachalo & Mark Pennington
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This new, second volume collects SHADE THE CHANGING MAN #7-13 for the first time ever, as Shade and Kathy George continue their epic, mind-bending journey into the heartland of a nation on the trail of The American Scream.
The third and lesser known of the alternative-infused late 80’s, early 90’s DC superhero triumvirate (along with Gaiman’s Sandman and Morrison’s Animal Man) that lead directly to the Vertigo imprint, Shade the Changing Man launched the careers of Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo. I’m really looking forward to re-reading these bizarre comics. With 2010 being the 20th anniversary of the series, expect a forthcoming column focusing on the Nexus Graphica favorite.
Winter Men Written by Brett Lewis Art by John Paul Leon
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In the now-collapsed Soviet Union, the subjects of a Super Hero experiment must pick up the shattered pieces of their lives and carry on. But who – or what – is the deadly threat that’s stalking them all? Collecting THE WINTER MEN #1-5 and the WINTER MEN WINTER SPECIAL.
I’m thankful for a lot things. Here are a few.
In 2003, I included this dedication in my book Geek Confidential:
| Quote: |
| For Brandy
You are the sun, the moon, the stars, my everything. |
Still holds true some six years later. I’m thankful everyday that Brandy shares her life with me
I’m thankful for my friends and family (well except perhaps my sister, but don’t all big brothers say pretty much the same thing?)
I’m thankful for my constant companions and co-workers, Bettie and Kali. They make it easier to get through the day.
I’m particularly thankful for all you that read my occasional natterings on here and other places. Keep on keeping on…
Happy Thanksgiving to those that are celebrating out there!
Previously in KandyLand:
After being doused by Mr. Smartie Pink in a vat of boiling lemon juice, John Pierre Stanley emerged as the gang enforcer LemonHead. Unbeknownst to Lemonhead, his childhood pal Snickers betrayed him to the M&M Boys and their goon Pink. Now LemonHead confronts Pink in an attempt to uncover the truth.
Story by Rick Klaw Art by Newt Manwich
Click on image to enlarge
Considering that neither of us really had any experience with this format (writing comic strips is quite a bit different than comic books), I was fairly pleased with the results. Especially with the continuing development of Newt Manwich’s work. The art of the last two strips were among my KandyLand favorites.
Remarkably, the strip proved popular enough that Newt and I were invited back to craft another six week installment.
So much like the strip states, I’ll begin reprinting that storyline in two weeks.
For those just joining us:
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge
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While the sun blisters a dying world, a mutant spider battles a squad of toy soldiers and a plastic cowboy on his last ride…
A gangster, a sheriff, and a mysterious traveler face an army of mechanical vampires burrowing up from hell itself during a wild Montana storm…
In a desert poisoned by atomic radiation, an abused boy stands between a rampaging giant and the hunter who would make him a grisly trophy…
Beneath a full Arizona moon, a drifter faces a pack of merciless human animals and the werewolf who butchered his sister…
In the American West, a legendary gunslinger delivers a cursed bounty to the one-horse town where his partner’s ghost awaits.
Tales of hardboiled horror and Twilight Zone noir. Cross-genre blowtorches with bad guys and worse guys. Love stories both dark and bittersweet. A brand new novella and extensive story notes. You ll find this and more in the fifth collection from three-time Bram Stoker award-winner Norman Partridge, an author Locus calls ‘one of the most dependable, exciting, and entertaining practitioners of dark suspense and dark fantasy… emphasis on the dark.’
In Lesser Demons, Partridge explores the kind of fiction that made him both a horror fan and a writer. Using the shotgun prose of a crime novel, the title story draws a deadly bead on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. ‘The Iron Dead’ introduces Chaney, a monster-hunting pulp hero with a mechanical hand built in hell. ‘Carrion’ cuts a mean swath through Robert E. Howard territory, while ‘The Big Man’ explores dark shadows of American life never imagined in the atom-age horror movies of the fifties.
Part celebration, part reinvention, Lesser Demons only serves to underscore RevolutionSF‘s verdict: "Norman Partridge is the finest writer of short horror fiction going."
A new Partridge book always creates a reason for celebration. I interviewed him back in ’07 for the paperback release of his latest novel Dark Harvest.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty by Raymond Benson
Promo copy:
METAL GEAR SOLID: THE BEAST IS BACK.
WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?
In a torrential downpour, former FOXHOUND agent Solid Snake stands on the George Washington Bridge–ready to launch himself onto the deck of the U.S.S. Discovery as it passes below. Inside Discovery is a new generation of Metal Gear. But in the next hour, Snake’s world explodes.
Two years later, a young, unproven agent code-named Raiden must penetrate the mystery of what went so insanely wrong that night.
In a labyrinthine superstructure in New York Harbor known as the Big Shell, enemies, allies, secret agents, and double-dealers converge: Russian commandos, a cyber Vamp, a long-legged, leather-clad, rifle-bearing beauty named Fortune, a deformed, finely manicured bomber called Fatman, and a mysterious Mister X. Somewhere in the maze, as well, is the president himself–his biometrics coded to a bomb that can take out Manhattan, his loyalties unknown. Now the rookie Raiden is fighting his way to one discovery after another, including the rebirth of Solid Snake himself and a nightmare organization with a history, a plan, and a terrifying superweapon hidden in plain sight.
The Secret History of Science Fiction Edited by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel
Promo copy:
This ingeniously conceived anthology raises the intriguing question, If Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow had won the Nebula award in 1973, would the future distinction between literary fiction and science fiction have been erased? Exploring the possibility of an alternate history of speculative fiction, this literary collection reveals that the lines between genres have already been obscured. Don DeLillo’s “Human Moments in World War III” follows the strange detachment of two astronauts who are orbiting in a skylab while a third world war rages on earth. “The Ziggurat” by Gene Wolfe traverses a dissolving marriage, a custody dispute, and the visit of time travelers from the future. T. C. Boyle’s “Descent of Man” is the subversively funny tale of a man who suspects that his primatologist lover is having an affair with one of her charges. In “Schwarzschild Radius,” Connie Willis draws an allegorical parallel between the horrors of trench warfare and the speculative physics of black holes. Artfully crafted and offering a wealth of esteemed authors—from writers within the genre to those normally associated with mainstream fiction, as well as those with a crossover reputation—this volume aptly demonstrates that great science fiction appears in many guises.
Fascinating collection of tales. Will make for some excellent holiday reading.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Sleepless by Charlie Huston
Promo copy:
From bestselling author Charlie Huston comes a novel about the fears that find us all during dark times and the courage and sacrifice that can save us in the face of unimaginable odds. Gripping, unnerving, exhilarating, and haunting, Sleepless is well worth staying up for.
What former philosophy student Parker Hass wanted was a better world. A world both just and safe for his wife and infant daughter. So he joined the LAPD and tried to make it that way. But the world changed. Struck by waves of chaos carried in on a tide of insomnia. A plague of sleeplessness.
Park can sleep, but he is wide awake. And as much as he wishes he was dreaming, his eyes are open. He has no choice but to see it all. That’s his job. Working undercover as a drug dealer in a Los Angeles ruled in equal parts by martial law and insurgency, he’s tasked with cutting off illegal trade in Dreamer, the only drug that can give the infected what they most crave: sleep.
After a year of lost leads and false trails, Park stumbles into the perilous shadows cast by the pharmaceuticals giant behind Dreamer. Somewhere in those shadows, at the nexus of disease and drugs and money, a secret is hiding. Drawn into the inner circle of a tech guru with a warped agenda and a special use for the sleepless themselves, Park thinks he knows what that secret might be.
To know for certain, he will have to go deeper into the restless world. His wife has become sleepless, and their daughter may soon share the same fate. For them, he will risk what they need most from him: his belief that justice
must be served. Unknown to him, his choice ties all of their futures to the singularly deadly nature of an aging mercenary who stalks Park.
The deeper Park stumbles through the dark, the more he is convinced that it is obscuring the real world. Bring enough light and the shadows will retreat. Bring enough light and everyone will see themselves again. Bring enough light and he will find his way to the safe corner, the harbor he’s promised his family. Whatever the cost to himself.
It is July 2010.
The future is coming.
Open your eyes.
Star Wars: Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil by Drew Karpyshyn
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Twenty years have passed since Darth Bane, reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, demolished the ancient order devoted to the dark side and reinvented it as a circle of two: one Master to wield the power and pass on the wisdom, and one apprentice to learn, challenge, and ultimately usurp the Dark Lord in a duel to the death. But Bane’s acolyte, Zannah, has yet to engage her Master in mortal combat and prove herself a worthy successor. Determined that the Sith dream of galactic domination will not die with him, Bane vows to learn the secret of a forgotten Dark Lord that will assure the Sith’s immortality–and his own.
A perfect opportunity arises when a Jedi emissary is assassinated on the troubled mining planet Doan, giving Bane an excuse to dispatch his apprentice on a fact-finding mission–while he himself sets out in secret to capture the ancient holocron of Darth Andeddu and its precious knowledge. But Zannah is no fool. She knows that her ruthless Master has begun to doubt her, and she senses that he is hiding something crucial to her future. If she is going to claim the power she craves, she must take action now.
While Bane storms the remote stronghold of a fanatical Sith cult, Zannah prepares for her Master’s downfall by choosing an apprentice of her own: a rogue Jedi cunning and cold-blooded enough to embrace the Sith way and to stand beside her when she at last wrests from Bane the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith.
But Zannah is not the only one with the desire and power to destroy Darth Bane. Princess Serra of the Doan royal family is haunted by memories of the monstrous Sith soldier who murdered her father and tortured her when she was a child. Bent on retribution, she hires a merciless assassin to find her tormentor–and bring him back alive to taste her wrath.
Only a Sith who has taken down her own Master can become Dark Lord of the Sith. So when Bane suddenly vanishes, Zannah must find him–possibly even rescue him–before she can kill him. And so she pursues her quarry from the grim depths of a ravaged world on the brink of catastrophe to the barren reaches of a desert outpost, where the future of the dark side’s most powerful disciples will be decided, once and for all, by the final, fatal stroke of a lightsaber.
Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton
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You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin’s treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir—all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world—and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness.
While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles.
But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me.
I thought I’d left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever—even if they’re magical.
And what I really, really want is the original articulated model of King Kong!
Christie’s is offering this beauty as part of a pop culture sale. It’s estimated to go for between $168,000 and $252,000 when it is auctioned off today!
Better hurry up and get those bids in!
Thanks to Bill Crider for the heads up.
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Dodgem Logic edited by Alan Moore
Promo copy:
this new underground magazine has a comic strip drawn by Alan Moore, his first for 20 years! Plus his written history of ‘underground’ publishing from the 13th century to now. Also contains comics by Kevin O’Neill and Savage Pencil along with the musings of Farher Ted creator Graham Lineham and stand-up Josie Long. Articles on guerilla gardening, making clothes, living on no money, women’s pages and a CD of 50 years of music from Northampton.
I’m about 1/3 of the way through this odd ‘zine. While I’ve enjoyed everything so far, Moore’s lengthy exploration of underground publishing is more than worth the price of the magazine. Full review to come.
The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa
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First love is never easy.
Ehwa grows up helping her widowed mother run the local tavern, watching as their customers – both neighbors and strangers – look down on her mother for her single lifestyle. Their social status isolates Ehwa and her mother from the rest of the people in their quiet country village. But as she gets older and sees her mother fall in love again, Ehwa slowly begins to open up to the possibility of love in her life.
In the tradition of My Antonia and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, from the pen of the renowned Korean manwha creator Kim Dong Hwa, comes a trilogy about a girl coming of age, set in the vibrant, beautiful landscape of pastoral Korea.
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Charlyne Yi does not believe in love. Or so she says. Well, at the very least, she doesn’t believe in fairy-tale love or the Hollywood mythology of love, and her own experiences have turned her into yet another modern-day skeptic.
Follow Charlyne across America as she and her good friend (and director) Nicholas Jasenovec search for answers and advice about love, by talking with friends and strangers, scientists, bikers, romance novelists, and children. They each offer diverse views on modern romance, as well as various answers to the age-old question: does true love really exist? Charlyne’s pursuit to discover the nature of love takes on a fresh new urgency when she meets a boy after her own heart: Michael Cera. As their relationship develops on camera, her pursuit risks losing the person she finds closest to her heart.
Combining elements of documentary and traditional storytelling, reality and fantasy, Paper Heart brings a fresh perspective to the modern romance and redefines the classic love story.
The Eternal Smile: Three Stories by Gene Luen Yang & Derek Kirk Kim
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A fantastical adventure through the worlds we live in and the worlds we create.
From two masters of the graphic novel — Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese) and Derek Kirk Kim (Same Difference and Other Stories) come three magical tales –
The story of a prince who defeats his greatest enemy only to discover that maybe his world is not what it had seemed.
The story of a frog who finds that just being a frog might be the way to go.
The story of a women who receives an e-mail from Prince Henry of Nigeria asking for a loan to help save his family – and gives it to him.
With vivid artwork and moving writing, Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang test the boundaries between fantasy and reality, exploring the ways that the world of the imagination can affect real life.