Fame, Fortune and Writer's block in Unfinished Tales by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

 Unfinished Tales by Ed Brubaker; artwork by Sean Phillips

Unfinished Tales book cover

Author Ed Brubaker

Artist Sean Phillips

Many thanks to Image Comics and NetGalley for the advanced copy of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ latest collaboration Unfinished Tales. I haven’t read too much by Ed Brubaker and I’m still relatively new to non-horror comics, but I was absolutely blown away by this tale of fame, fortune, and severe writer’s block (or procrastination). Unfinished Tales might be one of the best books I’ve read about the challenges of creativity and creating art in a market that values commercial success. The story focuses on Finnegan Blake, whose Knights of the Sun series is widely considered one of the most popular and best-selling fantasy series of the 21^st century. The series, which generated a multi-season television show, has fans that follow Blake to various conventions and talks, despite (or maybe in spite of) the fact that Blake hasn’t completed the final book in the series. The last book was published many years ago, leaving fans eagerly anticipating the final entry. While many fans are hopefully anticipating Blake’s last entry, others are growing restless, with one fan even confronting Blake at a talk, with his public rebuke of Blake’s delay in completing the book going viral.

One of the great aspects of this book is how Brubaker’s writing and Phillips’ excellent artwork allow for a slow reveal where we begin to see how Finnegan Blake’s success and popularity are not exactly what they seem, and have created a kind of prison or weight that he carries around with him, continually reminded about the impending deadline that continuously pushed further and further back. Anyone whose struggled with writer’s block or procrastination should be able to relate to Blake’s struggles of just being unable to produce. Even Blake’s longtime editor, who tries some different approaches to get Blake to finish, never sees the book, as he passes away prior to retirement and years after having a stroke that was probably hastened by Blake’s failure to finish. On the way back from the funeral, Blake encounters a friend (or possibly a writer rival) from college, and they catch up over drinks. Although he experienced some success in college and after, Pierre never had the same kind of success and acclaim that Finn experienced. Nevertheless, Pierre ends up staying with Finn, offering him the possibility of finishing his series, although it comes with a catch. Will Finn agree to Pierre’s plan? Or will his ego get in the way? I won’t ruin the ending, but I really enjoyed this book. It’s a fun and surprising ending, and despite being a book about writer’s block and procrastination, the plot continually moves forward, occasionally revisiting Blake’s past to better understand how he got stuck and was unable to move ahead with his story. Furthermore,  Phillips’ classic, realistic artwork provide a sense of gravitas to the story, elevating it to something more literary. I highly recommend this book, and I’ll be looking for more great stories from Brubaker and Phillips.

 

Forging an Identity Through Literature and Art: Early Deane

 Early Deane: Essays on Irish Literature, Culture, and Politics by Seamus Deane; edited by Maurice Fitzpatrick

Early Deane book cover

Author, poet, and director Seamus Deane

Go raibh maith agat (an Irish Thank You) to Cambridge University Press and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Early Deane: Essays on Irish Literature, Culture and Politics by Seamus Deane, edited by Maurice Fitzpatrick. This was an exciting collection to find and read. I was lucky enough to take a few Irish Literature classes in college and actually read Deane’s book Reading in the Dark. For whatever reason, I don’t remember reading any of his criticism. Nevertheless, this collection of his writings from the 1960s through the early 1980s is well organized thematically, focusing on topics and issues like Irish intellectuals and politics, Irish imagination, Irish drama, and important, but sometimes overlooked Irish writers who helped to forge the idea of an Irish nationality and identity. Although I was not familiar with all of the writers that Deane discusses throughout the book, I was familiar with a number of the authors, poets, plays, and novels, and many of the themes and ideas about Irish identity, politics, art, creativity, and the struggle against colonialism were themes and issues explored in the courses I took. This book is definitely an academic text, and not one for casual readers. Deane was not only a poet and writer, but a serious student of Irish history and literature, using his knowledge and learning, as well as his spirit and desire for a true Irish identity, to synthesize the great history of Irish art and literature, often to refute notions and stereotypes that sought to justify the colonization of Ireland.

Deane’s writing is informative and imaginative, as he looks backward to imagine a future Ireland that is not necessarily nostalgic, but rather awakening to understand the true legacy of its language and history that was nearly erased through colonization. Furthermore, Deane was from Northern Ireland, so his experience under British rule and the kind of discrimination and inequality he experienced only heightened his calls for a true Irish identity and nation. In fact, the idea of tension and conflict, not just violence, but a kind of dichotomy and opposition, are found throughout his essays, offering insight into what he sometimes refers to as the psychology of the Irish under British rule, where their history, language, and culture were systematically erased only to have English and British history imposed on them. As Deane notes throughout analyses of Irish writers like Yeats, Synge, Beckett, and O’Casey, that kind of experience creates a divided psyche and identity that is never completely assured of who it is, and may be best represented in the character of Owen in Translations, who needs a job, but ultimately ends up aiding in the destruction of his own culture, history, language, and community through his work with the British. Deane became close with Friel, becoming a director in his Field Day Theater Company in Derry, along with the actor Stephen Rea, who also wrote a wonderful introduction for this collection. The last few essays are actually introductions by Deane about Friel’s work, which plays an important part in helping to provide examples of both the conflicts and the artistry that Deane emphasizes are so integral to understanding the Irish. I also appreciated Deane’s writing about Yeats and other contemporaries like Lady Gregory who sought to excavate Irish mythology and folklore, not necessarily to romanticize the past, but rather to reinvigorate an Irish identity and imagine a new future for Ireland as it forged a new nation after the revolution. Deane’s analysis and evaluation of these important Irish artists and writers also acknowledged his call to the necessity of art, myth, and literature in shaping a unique national identity free from the cultural imperialism that colonialism imposes on its subjects. Also important throughout the early part of this collection is Deane’s call for an Irish intelligentsia, which he deems as what I would imagine Du Bois imagined as like the talented tenth, a group of highly educated and skilled writers, artists, and theorists who guide the culture towards a brighter future. As Deane notes, Irish offered little for its artists, writers, and thinkers to remain while England and continental Europe provided more opportunities and praise. Nevertheless, Deane may not have realized how he and his peers were able to contribute to this kind of Irish intelligentsia that helped to re-imagine Ireland through art, poetry, drama, and literature.    

Although this is a book about much more than Irish literature, it was a little surprising to not see a whole lot about James Joyce in this book. Many of the conflicts, oppositions and themes that Joyce addressed in his works, especially the paralysis and spiritual death that Ireland offered, appear throughout Deane’s criticism, noting how prevalent these ideas were in other writers’ works. Furthermore, Deane’s focus on the imposed history and the loss of authentic Irish history seems to echo Stephen Deadalus’s famous lines “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” However, with Deane’s writing, we see glimmers of hope and a sliver of morning sunlight slipping through the shades, offering readers and thinkers ideas about how Ireland was seeking its own identity throughout the periods of colonialism (and in some ways, it still is). Deane’s commitment to art and literature as a means of upliftment and cultural identity are important reminders as well. As I was reading this collection, I was struck by its relevance to current issues in the US but also reassured by the power of great art to challenge injustice, inequality, and violence. This is a great collection for those who are interested in Irish literature or for those who are teaching courses on Irish literature. I wish that I had a collection like this when I was in college because it would have provided me with some different insights into the Irish imagination and its role in forging an Irish identity. Highly recommended! 

 Return to Sleepy Hollow by Casey Gilly with artwork by Savanna Mayer

Return to Sleepy Hollow book cover

Author Casey Gilly

Artist Savanna Mayer

Many thanks to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Return to Sleepy Hollow by Casey Gilly with artwork by Savanna Mayer. This story is based on Tim Burton’s film version of the classic American tale of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. While the original story investigated the power of folklore and the power of reason to counter superstition, Burton’s vision seemed more steeped in goth and horror. Gilly and Mayer employ these darker visions to create a moody and atmospheric iteration of Ichabod Crane’s return to the village he helped save by solving the mystery of the Headless Horseman. Nearly 15 years later, the town experiences a resurgence in strange deaths occurring in the woods. Many of the bodies are found with roots, branches, and leaves in their bodies, which are completely drained of blood. The town is at a loss to explain these deaths, and call upon Ichabod to investigate these strange, ritualistic deaths. To further complicate Ichabod’s return, his former lover, Katrina Van Tassel, is Sleepy Hollow’s undertaker, and is raising her daughter, Lotte, who receives sudden, ghostly visions that may provide some insight into the victims of these murders.

Return to Sleepy Hollow is a great horror mystery with elements of supernatural possessions and witchcraft that I initially didn’t anticipate occurring in this story. The story moves from traditional folklore to something more like folk horror as we learn more about the sacrifices Sleepy Hollow’s founders made in order to help the village grow and prosper. Mayer’s creepy and sometimes gory artwork adds to the sense of dread and doom within this book.  I enjoyed this mystery, although keeping track of some of the characters in the beginning of the book was a little difficult. Nevertheless, sticking with the story to see how the mystery is solved is worth the read. Recommended!

 

Smoking Toad for Higher Consciousness: The Ego Trip by Kimon de Greef

 The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence by Kimon de Greef

The Ego Trip book cover

Author Kimon de Greef

Many thanks to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Kimon de Greef’s wild and mind expanding book The Ego Trip: Psychedelic Toads, a Trail of Deaths, and the Guru Who Peddled Transcendence. Following in similar investigative books that explore the recent explosion in psychedelic therapy and tourism, de Greef takes readers down a less traveled path to enlightenment and psychedelic knowledge through the Sonoran Desert Toads, also known as Incilius Alvarius or previously known as Budo Alvarius, a species of toad that exudes a toxin that has psychedelic properties that are similar to those found in plants like ayahuasca. De Greef’s book not only takes readers on a trip to learn more about the history and misrepresentation of smoking toads (or sometimes licking them), but also about the self-appointed toad gurus who have swept in to the Sonoran Desert area and received the “blessings” of the Seri people, the supposed indigenous guardians of the toad medicine. Much like Ernesto Londoño’s Trippy: The Peril and Promise of Medicinal Psychedelics and John O’Connor’s A Short, Strange Trip, de Greef’s book not only examines the promises of enlightenment and new insights to be gained from these psychedelic substances found in nature, but also examines the psychedelic gurus and facilitators who lead these new therapeutic sessions, and the implications and consequences of taking plant medicine and traditions to those with psychological problems and mental illness. It leaves readers to question whether these individuals are really helping or exploiting others and their needs. De Greef’s reporting leaves us uncertain as to an exact answer, but it is clear that there are power and economic inequalities that still persist as a result of the recent book in psychedelic tourism and the emerging industry that supports it. Furthermore, I found de Greef’s questions and analyses important in examining the ways in which some of these facilitators take advantage of the increasing desire for personal insight, growth and knowledge, and how psychedelic substances have largely filled a void for these psychonauts.

At the center of this tale of toads is a charismatic but troubling physician named Octavio Rettig, whose own struggles with substance abuse were relieved through toad medicine. De Greef’s narrative is divided into two parts, with the first part exploring Octavio’s addiction battle and eventual rise to become a trusted purveyor of toad medicine to others who are sick and suffering with the approval of the Seri, a nomadic desert people who occupy land in and around the Sonoran Desert. I found this part of the book to be fascinating not only because of Octavio’s unique rise to psychedelic supremacy, but also because de Greef details the long, strange trip of 5-MeO DMT, the supposed God Molecule, that is found in not only toad venom, but also in plants and the molecule’s synthesis in labs. Unlike other long-lasting psychedelics, 5-MeO DMT is a much shorter trip with users experiencing an intense ego dissolution, often viewed as providing new insights and connections. In some of the latter half of the book, which details the attempts of pharmaceutical companies to patent and produce 5-MeO DMT for therapeutic purposes, researchers liken its powerful experiences and effects on the brain as a kind of system reset that possibly can be a powerful agent in helping individuals with significant depressive symptoms, especially those with treatment resistant depression. We not only learn more about the history of this intense psychedelic, but also about the Seri people, who were the supposed guardians of toad medicine and whose council granted Octavio special rights as a kind of shaman who can distribute toad medicine. De Greef’s research also takes us into the history of toad smoking and licking, which explores some of the misconceptions and fear mongering about the attempts to seek out this new, psychedelic experience, as well as some of the cultural and anthropological studies related to psychedelics and toad medicine. This was among some of the most interesting aspects of the book, and de Greef’s clear summary and analysis of the history and concepts helps readers understand the possibility and questions around the use of toad venom in ancient or pre-Columbian spiritual experiences from people like the Mayans and Olmecs. De Greef consults with well-known experts in the field like Andrew Weil and Wade Davis, as well as other well-known researchers whose work in Central and South America helped establish much of the scientific study of plant medicines of indigenous people. What is most fascinating, though, is through de Greef’s examination of the Seri people is that we find that there is not much evidence to support their use of toad venom in any kind of spiritual or religious experiences. The Seri people, who have inhabited the Sonoran Desert area for centuries, revered many other animals in their traditional ways, but there is no evidence that the toad was one of them. De Greef’s reporting indicates that Octavio likely brought toad medicine to the Seri people in order to help with the high rates of alcohol and drug addiction and used their traditional songs and imagery in his toad ceremonies, providing a kind of credibility to the idea that toad medicine is an ancient, indigenous practice. In fact, Octavio received letters from the tribal council indicating his skills as a practitioner of toad medicine, a credential he would use to travel the world and facilitate toad ceremonies for others who were interested in or in need of some kind of mystical experience to bring about change.

In the first half of the book, de Greef also details the complications that have arisen in trying to extract the toad venom, since it requires “milking” the toads by squeezing them. The toads are nocturnal and only come out during the rainy season, spending much of the year underground in the Sonoran Desert. Further complicating the issue is the fact that the Sonoran Desert has become an area used by cartels and coyotes to facilitate border crossings, and toad hunters have, at times, been abducted or experienced conflicts with both groups, making toad medicine a difficult and sometimes dangerous substance to obtain. As Octavio’s prominence rises in the world of toad medicine, de Greef describes how his ceremonies gradually take on a kind of rote-like practice, where he sometimes tries to take on as many customers as possible, many times ignoring or failing to watch over individuals in the throes of an intense, psychedelic experience. Furthermore, he incorporates other plant medicines in the process, which may have other effects on his participants. What was even more troubling was that as a physician, he seemed to do no intake or prior history to understand any possible physical or mental conditions that may impact the treatment. In fact, Octavio and some of the other practitioners seem to view toad medicine as a kind of panacea that can treat all conditions from addiction to diabetes and ADHD. As readers will learn, this cavalier approach to a powerful psychedelic has dangerous and tragic consequences.

The second half of the book was also interesting, but I enjoyed it less than the first half. While Octavio is still featured in the second half of the book, this section moves away from the Sonoran Desert and into the business world, where we learn more about the attempts of start-up pharmaceutical companies to bank on the growing trend of psychedelic therapies, and how new attempts to synthesize 5-MeO DMT has led to an increase in trials for this medicine. Among the strands in this story is the growing attempts to legitimize psychedelic medicine, and how the psychedelic toad community struggles with reigning in Octavio’s messianic behavior, which has resulted in injuries and deaths. It is interesting to learn more about how some of the pharmaceutical companies have attempted to take 5-MeO DMT to trials and to read about the outcomes of these experimental trials, but I found this aspect of the story a little more clinical and not as exciting as the first half of the story, where de Greef examines the history, rituals, and cult of toad medicine. In some ways, there are parallels between Octavio and these companies, who seemingly both seek to exploit the growing interest in psychedelic therapies and their role in self-exploration and actualization. As de Greef’s reporting and analysis demonstrate, there seems to be a fine line between the beneficial and the profitable approaches of both facilitator and companies. That is, while they both seem to want to improve outcomes and contribute to wellness of individuals, there’s also a need to make money, and when readers look beyond the visions and trails, we’re left wondering who benefits the most from toad medicine.

The Ego Trip is a fascinating book that incorporates scientific and true-crime reporting to explore the complications arising not only from a controversial and misunderstood approach to mental health and wellness, but also the rise of a complicated, guru-like man who has twisted traditional ways to create his own narrative and practices for toad medicine. De Greef’s reporting not only provides more insight into this misunderstood practice, but also provides readers with more clarity about the origins of toad medicine, and how practitioners like Octavio Rettig have twisted ambiguities and uncertainties about indigenous practices to carve out a new age practice that meets the needs of a growing crowd of psychonauts. De Greef presents compelling evidence to allow readers to draw conclusions about these practices as well as the kind of cult that Octavio has built over the past 15 years. It’s a fascinating look at this obscure, but growing community. Highly recommended! 

 Milk & Mocha Comics Collection: Our Little Moments by Melani Sie

Milk & Mocha Comics Collection book cover

Author and artists Melani Sie

Many thanks to Andrews McMeel Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of Milk & Mocha Comics Collection: Our Little Moments by Melani Sie. While I read this collection, I initially requested it for my daughter, who has read nearly all of the Milk & Mocha books. Milk & Mocha are two bears who are in a relationship. There stories are simple and primarily revolve around their bonds over food and fun despite their opposite personalities. Milk is the more outgoing and energetic bear, and Mocha is usually content with sleeping in and staying around their home. The bears have a small green pet dinosaur named Matcha, and they discover a yellow frog they named Mustard that also becomes their pet. The bears are round and cute, designed in the kawaii style, and feature simple stories that demonstrate their devotion and care for one another. This collection features several brief episodes that are mainly visual without much dialogue or words. Sie’s artwork and character designs convey the love and appreciation Milk & Mocha have for one another. The collection culminates with the bears planning a trip to Indonesia to visit Bali, stopping to visit the beach and temples while also watching a traditional Indonesian dance and also enjoying delicious Indonesian street food and restaurants. It’s a sweet collection that will leave readers feeling warm inside. My daughter loved reading this collection, paging through it several times, enjoying Sie’s warm and colorful panels and laughing at the silly and sweet displays of love and affection from Milk & Mocha. Although I’m not as big a fan as her, I also enjoyed paging through this collection. Sie’s artwork is cute, and the brief stories are fun and relevant to anyone who has had to share time and space with someone else. I smiled and giggled as I read through this collection, identifying more with Mocha but appreciating Milk’s insistence in getting out and exploring the world. Sie’s introduction mentions that this book is filled with ordinary moments in life, where nothing seems to happen but small, simple experiences of daily life. If anything, this book will make readers appreciate these simple moments and the ones we share these moments with.

Milk & Mocha has become more well known over the past few years, and Milk & Mocha Comics Collection is a nice entry to their loving, sweet relationship. This book is a cute collection that is easy to read and will appeal to a variety of readers. It’s a great book to read with kids, but also one that will bring some warmth and joy to older readers. Recommended!

 

The Cure's Disintegration- 33 1/3 by Andi Harriman

 The Cure's Disintegration 33 1/3 

by Andi Harriman

The Cure's Disintegration cover

Author Andi Harriman

Big thanks to Bloomsbury Academic and NetGalley for sharing one of the latest in their 33 1/3 series of great albums. This one is on one of my favorite albums, which was also one of the albums that was instrumental in shaping my later musical tastes, The Cure’s Disintegration by Andi Harriman. I’m so glad that there is a 33 1/3 book about The Cure, and especially about what many believe to be their best album, 1989’s Disintegration. Herriman’s approach to documenting the album is excellent as she explores the band’s prior discography and how their sounds was influenced both by the changing nature of punk and post-punk in late 70s and early 80s Britain, as well as pressure to record pop singles while also maintaining a sense of artistic integrity and individual voice in their music. Herriman frames Disintegration as the pinnacle of The Cure’s oppositional battle between these forces that ended up confounding reviewers and record execs at first, but has, over time, resulted in what many consider to be the band’s most lauded album. However, what also sets this book apart from other 33 1/3 entries is Harriman’s analysis of The Cure’s work with 19^th century French poet Charles Baudelaire. Harriman cites examples of Baudelaire’s poetry and life to explore similarities to The Cure’s music and lyrical content, as well as how the author of Fleur du Mal’s dark and decadent life mirrored some of the gothic intonations of Disintegration.

I really appreciated the way this book is structured, as Harriman provides a useful analysis of The Cure’s work up to Disintegration, which helped me to understand how the same band that wrote poppy punk songs like “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” followed them up with albums like Faith, Seventeen Seconds, and Pornography. She also takes a close look at some of the poppier albums that followed, including The Head on the Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. It was interesting to see how such an iconic band were constantly evolving their sound and the various sources (and substances) that influenced their changing sounds. The Cure is not only known for their unique sound but also their unique look which many attribute to the Goth style. Harriman also explores some of the genesis of Robert Smith and band members’ style, which at times seems to result from comfort as well as a kind of insecurity of being on stage and singing. Harriman also explores the origins and influences of some of The Cure’s songs, which again was interesting to learn more about. However, I loved reading Harriman’s connections between Baudelaire’s work and aspects of The Cure’s songs and style. Baudelaire is such an interesting writer, influenced by Poe, but also uniquely French, he wrote poems and short vignettes that straddled the era of Romanticism and Modernism, yet managed to also create a kind of decadent style that celebrated the fleeting feelings of passion and emotion while also acknowledging the impending decay and rot that frequently follows these pleasures. It’s been a while since I last read Fleur du Mal, so I appreciated Harriman’s inclusion of some of the texts, particularly the poems titled “Spleen”. Harriman not only examines the earlier beliefs in humors, and how the spleen was thought to hold some of the darker humors that influenced feelings like melancholy, but also how Baudelaire’s work shifted the notion of the grotesque and ugliness from evil to something beautiful and sublime. She includes the opening lines, translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay, as “if I lived a thousand years I could not be more crammed with dubious souvenirs. There’s no old chest of drawers bulging with deeds and bills, Love-letters, locks of hair, novels, bad verses, wills, That hides so many secrets as my wretched head;- It’s like a mausoleum, like a pyramid, Holding more heaped unpleasant bones than a Potter’s Field;”. These lines resonate so much with me, as well as the title that is sometimes applied to this “Spleen” poem, “The Sphinx.” Even before delving into the analysis of Disintegration, I could see the relevance of Baudelaire’s lines to songs like “Lullaby” and “Pictures of You”, which are both haunting and romantic in their own dark way. Additionally, noting “The Sphinx” title adds to the mysterious and ominous nature of the music and lyrics of The Cure, where the ambiguity points to both love and loss, remembrance and fading, pleasure and pain.

Harriman includes other references to Baudelaire’s work throughout her book, but it’s the last two chapters (before the outro) that detail the creation of Disintegration, which is fascinating to learn more about as well. As the band gradually shifted from original member Lol Tollhurst due to his waning influence, alcoholism, and inability to learn new synthesizer technology, Smith brought in other musicians, who added to and helped shape the evolving sound of the band, bringing it back to darker more melancholic sounds found on earlier albums. Yet, there is something different to the sound of Disintegration, possibly shaped by Smith’s turning 30 and his marriage that filled the album with a sense of fleeting pleasure and the darker side of romanticism. As Harriman notes with Baudelaire, his poetry “rejected the empty gestures of romanticism without losing the heroic energy.” The Cure’s sound feels similar to this notion in that there’s such emotion and feeling in their music, but it doesn’t traffic in the traditional romantic tropes. The pain is not just loss, but the kind of ennui that longs for a time passed that will never return. Even analyzing the cover, which features a faded, almost underwater looking image of Robert Smith surrounded by flowers and other obscured images, suggests something uncanny, familiar, yet distant and fantom-like, observable, but out of reach. Harriman examines how songs like “Pictures of You”, “Love Song”, and Lullaby”- some of the singles from the album, represent this kind of fleeting feeling. Furthermore, she notes how videos helped the band add to the goth imagery of love and loss. I loved reading about the “Lullaby” song and video, since that was always one of my favorites, despite being haunted and frightened by the video when I was younger. It was interesting to learn that Smith’s own childhood and his fascination with mouths added to the creation of this song. I also found it interesting that the band thought that “Fascination Street” was the one song that didn’t quite fit on the album and presented as the US single. I think “Fascination Street” might have been my first exposure to The Cure, and I loved the bass line and guitar feedback and reverb in that song. Beyond the analysis of the album’s contents, Harriman also details how the album was created, with the band moving into a rented old home in the British countryside, and how a fire nearly destroyed the lyrics for the album. I really enjoyed learning more about the creative process, and how the band all ended up bringing demos and ideas for each other to listen to and vote on for inclusion on the album. It was fascinating to learn more about the creative process that was involved in developing and producing this amazing album.

I absolutely loved this book, not just because Disintegration is one of the formative albums of my youth that I still listen to today, but also because of Harriman’s fresh approach to analyzing music and literature, noting the similarities between Baudelaire’s own trailblazing style that pushed past the “hollow frills of Romanticism in order to inject its emptiness with the bulbous, uncomfortable tragedies of his damned existence” noting hos “His words are struggles between the virtuous and the immoral, a bouquet of calamitous cavorts with the devil himself.” She goes on to note the oppositions at play in Disintegration, and how “anxiety and pleasure converge in heaps within an immense fortress of sound. A love, an obsession, for the grotesque and the horrible.” It’s a beautiful synthesis that helps to unlock some of the bulging drawers filled with haunting “Memories, nightmares. Messy, shattered dreams.” Both this book and Disintegration the album are a trip down a melancholy lane, reveling in the oddities and sadness we feel along the way. Highly recommended! 

Journeying to Another Dimension of Sound, Sight, and Mind in The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension

 The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension by Dan Watters, Morgan Beem, Tom Scioli, James Stokoe, L. Marlow Francavilla, Francesco Francavilla, and Nate Powell

The Twilight Zone book cover

Many thanks to IDW Publishers and NetGalley for allowing me to journey to through a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind, with their entertaining new collection of stories from The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension by Dan Watters, Morgan Beem, Tom Scioli, James Stokoe, L. Marlow Francavilla, Francesco Francavilla, and Nate Powell. I’m a fan of the original show The Twilight Zone, as well as many of the other iterations. I loved the ironic twists of the episodes and how many of the episodes encourage viewers to think deeply about their own behavior and actions. The stories in this collection feature many of the same kinds of selfish, greedy, and thoughtless characters who experience a kind of cosmic irony, and the authors are able to make the stories unique and different from the episodes. Not all of the stories were great or land with the same kind of impact of the dramatic irony, yet they still managed to resonate with me. The artwork is also good, rendered in black and white, which harkens back to the classic episodes from the 1960s. Furthermore, each story is framed by unique artwork with faceless people, creating a kind of connective transition among the different stories that replaces Rod Serling’s iconic introduction to each episode.

The first story is “Blanks”, is the kind of story that reminds me a little of “Time Enough At Last” and Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”, where a rich man who is dying is seeking a scientific path to immortality on an exclusive and secluded island. “The World of Your Wildest Dreams” is a story about a group of astronaut explorers who discover a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere populated by creatures who seem to have an interest in Freudian psychoanalysis and are able to manifest the crew’s deepest, repressed memories. This story also featured a great surprise at the end, and the artwork is creative, especially the creatures that inhabit the land. “The Relic” has some of the best artwork in the book, although the story was a little hard to follow. It features two warring groups in a seemingly ancient world that are battling for control and dominance over one another. There are some surprising images that crop up that lead readers to question the setting. The ending was very surprising and also a little humorous. Nevertheless, the story does raise some questions about our own values, beliefs, and practices. “False Bottom” is a story with an unlikeable character whose vacation with his sister and brother-in-law is disrupted when they travel through their houseboat’s false bottom to another world. I liked the modern relevance of this story, and as a story where we see an unlikeable character receive some karma. “False Bottom” is an eerie and unsettling story that can appeal to those who question the bros and those partaking in the maxxing culture. “Silent Warning” is a kind of monster story about a group of scientists who discover a meteor at the bottom of the ocean. It’s emitting sounds, which is odd for a space rock. As a result, they enlist the expertise of Dr. Emily Sorenson, a scientist who studies sonic frequencies underwater. The group of male scientists and crew members seem to discount Dr. Sorenson’s ideas and suggestions, while she grows more attuned to the strange and haunting frequencies emitting from the meteor. I really liked the setting, artwork, and mutant fish that threaten the scientists as they explore the mysterious meteor.

The Twilight Zone: Stories from the Fifth Dimension collection is a nice addition to the Twilight Zone series. The stories are entertaining and contain ironic twists, with some hitting harder than others. The artwork, rendered in black and white, is good and adds to the classic, Twilight Zone feel of these stories. Recommended!