odds and ends

I have to admit, this “light week” has been good for my soul. I’ve been doing a lot more goofing around in my sketchbook and started to get a headway on some summer comics. Teaching comics will resume next week, but I’m fairly certain it will be the last run of them for the 2011-2012 school year. God willing, I’ll use the summer to recharge and start them back up again in September.

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From the library last week, I picked up The Wind through the Keyhole, Stephen King’s latest foray into his Dark Tower series of novels.

Although the seven book series ended in 2004, King decided to go back and insert this short story between the fourth and fifth entries. I’m not finished with the book yet; I usually wait until I’ve completely read a book before I go on the Internet and comment about it. I’m still not going to comment much on the story, which is slight but enjoyable, an untold tale of Roland when he was a young man which wraps around a fairytale like story.

I just wanted to mention how distinctly weird this book makes me feel. It’s so strange to be revisiting these characters again, especially Roland’s ka-tet (consisting of Jake, Eddie, Susannah, and Oy). The Dark Tower series ends those characters’ stories on a pretty definitive note and I had made my peace with not seeing them appear again. To have some new material where I get to spend a little more time in Mid-World is brilliant… but like I said, it makes feel sort of… strange.

Luckily “strange” is probably an emotion King would welcome.

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As a fan of the first series, I’m completely happy that PBS is currently airing Season Two of BBC’s Sherlock, the modern updating of the classic detective series.

The three episodes PBS is airing this month have long since premiered over in Britain and most people I know with interest in the show torrented and watched these episodes months ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode, a riff on A Scandal in Bohemia which (like the original text) features Irene Adler, the only woman to ever best Sherlock Holmes. I expect I will enjoy the next two episodes as well… however, I wanted to bring up Sherlock for an entirely different reason.

I mentioned how much I liked the first season of Sherlock in February of 2011. For some reason or another, that post generates a TREMENDOUS amount of traffic for this blog. There are no revelatory experiences related, it’s not an amazing piece of writing… but still, people are CONSTANTLY stumbling on the blog by doing a search for “BBC Sherlock” or “Benedict Cumberbatch” or whatever.

It’s an anomaly I’ve always been curious about. Perhaps it will be replicated here?

odds & ends

It’s not really a priority for me, but I’d love it if my sons were as interested in comics and cartoons as I am. Elliot in particular is at an age where he’s developing his own stable of likes and dislikes and more power to him. I’m not very mindful of forcing my own interests on the lad… but I won’t lie: I have been pleased as punch over Elliot’s newly-born fascination with Nancy and Tubby comics.

I never read either when I was growing up, although I do remember occasionally looking at the Nancy newspaper strip and finding it to be a little… boring for my tastes. Elliot begs to differ about the character and has recently taken to pouring over Drawn and Quarterly’s YOW!- The John Stanley Library, a giveaway comic from last year’s Free Comic Book Day.

I’m not a great study of John Stanley but his comics are really fun. In particular, Elliot’s completely into Nancy’s somewhat-supernatural friend Oona Goosepimple.

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My great TV discovery this past week has been the BBC’s Sherlock. A modern update of the Holmes mythos, the show aired on PBS a few months ago and is newly available on DVD.

I’ve been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid, although my starting point was not the Arthur Conan Doyle stories- rather, it was the 1985 movie Young Sherlock Holmes that got me excited about the art of deduction, Dr. Watson, and all that. A re-imagining of the first meeting of Holmes and Watson as teenagers, some of the most ardent fans of Holmes actively dislike the movie for how it monkeys around with already-established continuity. I could have cared less as a kid… and I think my enjoyment of that flick sets me up as exactly the audience for this new Sherlock series- I like the character and the trappings, but I am not hung up with the minutia that so annoys the super-fan.

Anyhow, if you get the chance, check out Sherlock. The actors portraying Watson and Holmes, Martin Freeman and the excellently named Benedict Cumberbatch, have an easygoing chemistry and are fun to watch. Freeman’s Watson is grounded in realism, which is a beautiful counterpoint to Cumberbatch’s crazed, sometimes manic Sherlock. I found the three episodes of Sherlock (ONLY THREE? Damn, Great Britain…) to be far more fun and enjoyable than that Robert Downey Jr. movie from a few year’s back.

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I’m always wary when revisiting a novel I loved when I was a teenager. Many times I find that my love for a book has become tempered with newfound knowledge or understanding, and I won’t get the same enjoyment I got, lo those many moons ago. It’s a fact of life that some books aren’t designed to stand the test of time. I mention this because recently I picked up a copy of Rosemary’s Baby out of my classroom lending library and half-heartedly started re-reading the book. I remember enjoying the book when I was in high school.

Man, Rosemary’s Baby holds up like CRAZY. I’ve been glued to the paperback all week and I am shocked at how good it remains. I remember it being a slightly scary little tale as a teenager, but this was during my heavy Stephen King phase, so “scary” to me often meant re-animated pets or killer cars. The terror in Rosemary’s Baby is more insidious than obvious… at least, until the last fourth of the book, when implication becomes literal.

Feel free to argue with me, but I seriously think Rosemary’s Baby is as good a novel as The Great Gatsby.

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Finally, speaking of Gatsby (as I have for the past two Fridays), it looks like the Baz Luhrmann adaptation has been given a green light (ha!). The big news for many was Luhrmann’s announcement of filming his version of Tom, Daisy, Nick, and the rest in 3-D.  Like, those boats being born back ceaselessly into the past are going to be ALL UP IN YOUR FACE! BAM! GATSBY!

Honestly, I do not have a problem with this AT ALL. When you think about the excesses of society that Fitzgerald portrayed in The Great Gatsby, it makes a kind of sense. I’ve seen three movies in 3-D since the fad/trend began (Coraline/Avatar/Toy Story 3) and I enjoyed all of them. I didn’t feel that 3-D added much to any of those flicks besides Avatar, but it was a fun conceit and a nice novelty. Plus, I think some of Luhrmann’s previous movies show the director to be someone who could adapt 3-D to an interesting effect. Imagine Moulin Rouge in 3-D!

I will also admit, I’m willing to give Luhrmann a tremendous amount of credit. Besides having assembled a top-notch cast (Leo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Toby Maguire as Nick, Carey Mulligan as Daisy), I’m also a tremendous fan of his modernized take on Romeo & Juliet. I use it in my class every year, and for as many warts that version of R&J has, it’s a wonderful tool to get kids interested and understanding the Bard. I look forward to seeing what Luhrmann does with The Great Gatsby.