Daily Thoughts 5/20/2009

Howard Pyle. Illustrator and writer of many books. I like his Book of Pirates.

Daily Thoughts 5/20/2009

A copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1910 by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill came in. This is one of my favorite graphic novel series. The main characters are Mina Harker and Alan Quatermain with other classic characters from early adventure, science fiction, and fantasy novels. The drawing is superb and the writing is very entertaining. It is also a graphic novel for adults. The story is quite violent and dark with occult elements in it.

I finished shifting the 700s. I created quite a bit of space for the library aides and other staff to move the 600s. They are relocating some of the shelving currently which is a very big project. I'm going to start working on weeding the 780s soon. I also have to work on the oversize 700s which will be a big project for weeding.

Today was also the collection development meeting. We sat around and discussed what we planned on ordering. I put my 300s, 800s, and fiction suggestions. The ordering process is starting to smooth out very nicely. Hopefully, we will soon have some better analysis for the purchase alerts and holds soon.

Tomorrow we are having the Baker and Taylor representative come to train us for Title Source 3. One of our staff said it was the best way to order video games from Baker and Taylor. We are also going to have some workflow training for ordering which I think will be very interesting.

Tides, Alan Moore

Tsunami by Hokusai

Tides

The tide rolls in
The tide rolls out

It never stops
That rolling about

Ebbing and flowing
Into day and night

Rising and sinking
With sun and moon

The tide comes in
The tide goes out

I did not go anywhere last night. No bookstores, no library. I took down and reread three works by the writer Alan Moore; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volumes 1 and 2, and Watchmen. The graphic novel Watchmen is being turned into a movie. It won the Hugo Award for its writing. Alan Moore also wrote V for Vendetta which I have read as a graphic novel but have not seen in film. I will probably get around to it sometime soon. He is one of my favorite comic book writers. He reminds me of a cross between an english country gentlemen and rather crazed cunning man.

Alan Moore, Morning Thoughts

Alan Moore, mad, mindbending genius of comics

I have not started reading that much this morning. Anyways, good morning. I am drinking my coffee now.

Evening Thoughts

Evening Thoughts

I was surprised with the latest bunch of grapic novels and manga which I took out. I did not expect the manga, Path of the Assassin to be basically X rated with lots of steamy sex in it. Because of this, I would not recommend it. It looked like it was the same kind of thing as Lone Wolf and Cub. Lots of samurai violence, but very little sex. Path of the Assassin is truly steamy. It includes everything from palace intrigue, sex, and ninja assassins. You would call it humanity laid bare at its most base level.

I also found League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Black Dossier, by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill to also have gone a little bit too far. The section called The New Adventures of Fanny Hill in the book was pretty extreme. It had a lot of erotic drawings done in a very similar style to Aubrey Beardsley. I like Aubrey Beardsley, but this goes pretty far. Also, the ending is done in 3D. There is even a pair of 3D Glasses included in the book.

Kevin O'Neill is drawing, "The Blazing World" or a kind of higher dimensional space in 3D. It is very strange looking. The actual pictures have a 3D quality, while the text bubbles appear flat. The effect is very mind bending, almost psychedelic in quality. There are all sorts of odd things in the pictures, whales, superheroes, buildings, and other things.

There is a lot of material that is truly over the top in this book. I could not begin to create what Alan Moore has written. Alan Qatermain and Mina are being chased through a 1950's style dystopia by the agents of a kind of big brother style government.

This is one of those books written with a singular purpose to confuse and blow your mind. It breaks pretty much every convention. My favorite part, and one of the few pieces that I found readable is "The Life of Orlando", a series of panels recounting the tale of an immortal person who changes sex every hundred years or so. It tells a story of a man consumed by warfare and intrigue traveling all of histories byways.

This book will not be for most peoples taste. If you want something very odd to read or something quite mind expanding, almost psychedelic read this book. Large portions of this graphic novel were very hard for me to read. Alan Moore wrote the comic book V for Vendetta. He also wrote one of the most famous comic books ever written, Watchmen. Watchmen is being made into a movie. I think at this point in his career he is free to write almost anything which he wants.

I did not read much that I wanted to review or write about so far this weekend. The Complete Guide to Manga by Jason Thompson is not bad. It covers all the basics. I am looking through it right now.

Graphic Novels and Opera, Random Thoughts

Brunnhilde The Valkyrie by Arthur Rackham

There is a relation between comic books and opera. This is not discussed that much. I hear it in passing at many comic book shops. The superhero dresses in a cape and tights, so does the opera hero. Opera heros and villains are larger than life and exaggerated. Batman and Superman couldn't be more exaggerated in presentation. Batman's parents die after a night watching Faust. The opera is as full of dramatic flourishes as the comic book.

P. Craig Russell is the comic artist who is best known for translating operas into comic books. His best known translation is the Ring of the Nibelungen. It is very beautiful full color work. He has also translated Bluebeard, Salome, the Magic Flute, Parsifal, and many other operas into comic book form. The illustrations are very beautiful to look at. He has a series of books called the P. Craig Russell Library of Opera Adapatations which is a multivolume set.

Another recent graphic novel which draws heavily from the opera is V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. There are many parallels between this graphic novel and The Phantom of the Opera. The costume of the hero includes a Guy Fawkes mask, cape, and hat. The hero is also prone to dramatic presentation.

This is just a thought for the moment to discuss. I am trying to find academic references to these parallels but they are not there. It should be looked at more closely. Please comment on this.