Goodbye to a Texas legend

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The extraordinary Neal Barrett Jr. has died.

Sadly, there’s a good chance that many of you have never heard of this literary wunderkind. Neal wrote damn near everything from science fiction to fantasy to mysteries to romance to westerns and young adult. He worked in a variety of media, producing traditional books, screenplays, comics, and even Texas historical markers (Neal use to joke that they were damn heavy to carry around and show people).

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Lost Review: Despicable Me

Beginning in December 2005 with my history of apes in film essay “Gorilla of Your Dreams” (the substantially update and revised version appears in The Apes of Wrath), I regularly contributed to Moving Pictures Magazine. First in the print incarnation and then for primarily the website. I contributed reviews and essays for the last three years of the publications existence. Following the June 2011 demise of both the print and website editions, all of the digital work for MPM disappeared into the ether. In the coming months (years?), I plan on reposting many of my reviews and articles.

Another geeky review. This time of the surprisingly clever Despicable Me.

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Revisiting the Uncanny Un-Collectibles 2014

In Fall 2010, twenty-eight of my friends and I compiled the Uncanny Un-Collectibles: Missing Comic Book Trades, a list of 52 comic series that deserved to be collected. In April 2012, I revisited the six part bitchfest to see if any of our wishes had been granted. I reported that six of the titles had been collected: Sugar and Spike, the Murphy Anderson and Neal Adams Earth-2 1960s Spectre stories, All-Star Squadron, Levitz/Giffen Legion of Super-HeroesFlex Mentallo, and Chase. Last year, only two meager additions came out: Rip Hunter and Sea Devils.

How did things fare in 2013?

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Phantom Lady – The Complete Fox Collection

Collects Phantom Lady #13-23

Published February, 2013

Scott Cupp wrote:

Sandra Knight, a Senator’s daughter, masquerades as Phantom Lady, a skimpily clad heroine who defined the term “headlight comics.” Wearing little more than lingerie, she attacked crooks with abandon. Her skills were suspect at times as she frequently found herself in bondage situation. Primary artist Matt Baker was an expert at bondage art and brought Phantom Lady into the libidos of teenage boys everywhere. Dr. Wertham cited several issues of Phantom Lady in Seduction of the Innocent. There have been a couple of issues reprinted in Golden Age Greats from Paragon Press, but these were reduced in size and in black and white. There needs to be a good size reprint of all the Phantom Lady stories beginning with Police Comics #1. While Joe Kubert did several Phantom Lady pieces in Police, the truly memorable issues are the Fox issues. Continue reading

Books received 12/28/13

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Leaving the Sea

by Ben Marcus
Cover by Peter Mendelsund

Promo copy:

From one of the most innovative and vital writers of his generation, an extraordinary collection of stories that showcases his gifts—and his range—as never before.

In the hilarious, lacerating “I Can Say Many Nice Things,” a washed-up writer toying with infidelity leads a creative writing workshop on board a cruise ship. In the dystopian “Rollingwood,” a divorced father struggles to take care of his ill infant, as his ex-wife and colleagues try to render him irrelevant. In “Watching Mysteries with My Mother,” a son meditates on his mother’s mortality, hoping to stave off her death for as long as he sits by her side. And in the title story, told in a single breathtaking sentence, we watch as the narrator’s marriage and his sanity unravel, drawing him to the brink of suicide.

As the collection progresses, we move from more traditional narratives into the experimental work that has made Ben Marcus a groundbreaking master of the short form. In these otherworldly landscapes, characters resort to extreme survival strategies to navigate the terrors of adulthood, one opting to live in a lightless cave and another methodically setting out to recover total childhood innocence; an automaton discovers love and has to reinvent language to accommodate it; filial loyalty is seen as a dangerous weakness that must be drilled away; and the distance from a cubicle to the office coffee cart is refigured as an existential wasteland, requiring heroic effort.

In these piercing, brilliantly observed investigations into human vulnerability and failure, it is often the most absurd and alien predicaments that capture the deepest truths. Surreal and tender, terrifying and life-affirming, Leaving the Sea is the work of an utterly unique writer at the height of his powers.

Gorgeous book! Continue reading

Books received 12/28/13 Pyr edition

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Lost Covenant
A Widdershins Adventure

by Ari  Maxwell
Cover by Jason Chan

 Promo copy:

This third YA novel starring the young thief Widdershins combines the angst and vulnerability of any teenage girl with the high action of the best fantasy adventures.

It’s been six months since Widdershins and her own “personal god” Olgun fled the city of Davillon. During their travels, Widdershins unwittingly discovers that a noble house is preparing to move against the last surviving bastion of the Delacroix family. Determined to help the distant relatives of her deceased adopted father, Alexandre Delacroix, she travels to a small town at the edge of the nation. There, she works at unraveling a plot involving this rival house and a local criminal organization, all while under intense suspicion from the very people she’s trying to rescue. Along the way she’ll have to deal with a traitor inside the Delacroix family, a mad alchemist, and an infatuated young nobleman who won’t take no for an answer. Continue reading

Stuff received 12/2/13 – The Simian edition

Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.

Actually the following all arrived on Saturday, November 30. The first via USPS from my pal Jacob Weisman, the publisher of my anthology The Apes of Wrath. Somehow, he just knew I’d find it cool!

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Robotic Gorilla

by Paul Beck

Promo copy:

Moving from biology to technology, readers explore the worlds of gorillas and robots. For decades, scientists have looked to gorillas and other creatures for inspiration. The book teaches about gorilla behavior and anatomy, the design and development of robots, and what happens when scientists combine gorillas and robots. This complete kit to build a walking gorilla is sure to inspire young animal and robot enthusiasts. The robotic gorilla comes with a plastic case, an internal motor, moving arms and legs, illuminated eyes, and a snapping jaw. Also included are a 32-page book, 24 fact cards, and a 15″ x 20″ poster.

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