Youtube Channels/Podcasts and Authors

I was asked if I was ever going to do a podcast related to my writing career.  The answer to that is no for me as a podcaster, but perhaps limitedly as guest. But I do think there are fine writers and artists to follow.

MARK FELTON

An Historian's Channel

One of the problems on youtube and podcasts is that most people doing podcasts and channels aren't trained in the area they consider.  Now, I am not an elitist, and I celebrate the internet for allowing journalism and research for everyone who is able to read and watch.  But in the case of history, you rarely find someone who knows the facts and can present the same, in ways that are accurate in areas of statistics and historical fact, and still make them interesting for a general audience and for those who are fans or deeply interested readers of such information.  (The term history "buff" comes to mind.)

Mark Felton doesn't appeal to the viewer who wants a quick silly or weird take on the information in question.  However, I am a historian, and read others, and it is generally agreed upon, Mark Felton makes no mistakes, informs and entertains, and has a tone of interest that feels adult, apt, and learned.

I've also been a fan of the books by Mark Felton.  My field areas of study are relatively different than Mark Felton, but my avocation and interest are military history. Where history is concerned I am greatly interested in the greatest conflict of human kind, in areas of diplomacy, strategy, and the day to day facts of conflagrations such as the war of the Eastern Front or the war in China before the beginning of the war in the Pacific.

This author is well worth investing yourself in.

Youtube Channel
Youtube Audio Channel

FALL OF CIVILIZATION

This is a detailed, intelligent, worthwhile podcast with numerous ways to access it.  I confess, when I first listened to it, I was expecting something else, but, it is extreme in factual use, voice actors, overall paradigms considered, and worth your time if you have an hour to invest in a single subject from ancient history.  It adds slowly, so I am aware it might be a long wait between new editions.

Podcast

Review City: Beginning, Introducing and Stray

Introducing/For Beginners
By various writers and artists
Published by numerous publishers

I've been in academia, briefly, and I made a couple attempts to get the course I taught to feature intelligently written new kinds of media to share with students.  The written word is great, films are great, but comics break ideas down to a level that learning can be had, without it feeling, as it usually does, as being taught by someone in person.  I had no success getting those works into the courses I taught. (For those curious: Intro to Humanities 101, Intro to Political Science, American History after 1876, and European History after the Franco Prussian War). However much that was true, and I was disappointed for that, I did have book reports as part of the curriculum and for those, I was absolutely accepting graphic novels of serious subjects.  Not many people took advantage of those, but, those who did absolutely gained understandings of some rather deep subject matters.

For my part, if someone is looking for a way to perceive a concept, or a basic subject matter, finding one of these books is a good way to begin the journey. As I have a few degrees people have asked me where to go for the best works about _____ and often I'll suggest, if you are wanting to get a quick understanding of a concept, go for these to get it, without getting the slowed down prose didactic instruction that can drag its ass for so long.  The best of the books is Food For Beginner's because it is easily illustrates certain issues that are likely not those considered by the reader before reading the book.  Susan George writes a very quick moving and illustrative account, where the basic themes are clear and concise. Now, of course these aren't about superheroes or vigilantes.  They don't use much fiction to explain what they are aimed upon doing.  But, for a person trying to gain a level of understanding, if not mastery, these are a wonderful source.

What might derail enjoyment of these works or give pause, isn't the quality, or the depth, but the tendency for these works to come from the solid left side of the political equation.  I always think bias is important to note, but once noting it the information remains important to understand, but, I am aware some people think facts and analysis become polluted by bias.  I disagree.  As an instructor and to a slightly lesser extent as a reader, simply, I think it is by far better to know it is there and move around it, if that needs doing, than to perceive no bias, and be persuaded by a work that simply better at integrating the creative artist's bias.

Stray Toasters
By Bill Sienkiewicz
Published by Epic Marvel

Stray Toasters has an imaginative story, using art that is both beautiful and disturbing.  It tells of a violent criminal and the criminal psychologist trying to first understand the crimes, and then presumably, trying to stop the crimes.  However, there is a narrative from a dark force, perhaps a demonic being, the family of a man, who might be the devil, and people who come into their lives. I try to avoid spoilers in the descriptions of considered works, but here what I've written doesn't tell you anything you wouldn't know but, there are people who read the series, back when, and told me, they had no clue what it was about.  So if the little I wrote helps, good.

There is a degree of symbolism found in the series Stray Toasters that might be dangerous to certain minds. With a story told, directly, but with symbols and less than photo representative work, you can interpret such stories less precisely than straight forward works. I've been told that you can't read Stray Toasters like a person reads most comics, that people who love comics might think this is a pretentious work, or just confusing. But I disagree.  However, layers in comics sometimes work against each additional or previous layer.  It is certainly a work that isn't easily dissected.

I thought of this work as deep when I'd first read it.  30 years since, what do I think?  Well I think of it less as deep now, and more as an attempt to be deep. What I confused as being a layer was a more clumsy application of more story.  I understand that some love it, some hate it, it is exactly as people perceive as far as if it is rewarding or not.  I am not saying I think it isn't a good work, just one with less magic and depth as when I first read it.  It might be that I've gotten older and less interested in the story being told, I certainly didn't remember the story when rereading it. And, while I admire the art work, the story telling is less than concise, and less rewarding upon taking a deeper look at it all. I vastly admire the artist's hand, as Bill Sienkiewicz is a great artist, but as a writer he is not as gifted.

If I gave this work a B+ in the past I'd say I'd now give it a B-.  But I avoid grades unless I have to, been there and done that.

ABOUT GETTING REVIEWS FROM ME

First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com. I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll follow through by telling you my street address. I no longer have post box, although I regret that.  It was a crushing defeat to no longer have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email, I will review these at my discretion. I don't share my pdf/ebooks, so you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.

Review City Superhero Novels

The Life of a Semi Professional Writer

Since I am going to keep reviewing or offering creative works for the reader's consideration, I think it might behoove us to be on the same page.

First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com. I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll follow through by telling you my street address. I no longer have post box, although I regret that.  It was a crushing defeat to no longer have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email, I will review these at my discretion. I don't share my pdf/ebooks, so you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.

My heart isn't into tearing things apart out of a desire to show my mastery over the creative person, or the work they've created. In fact, most of the time, if not all, it will seem that I appreciate all the works but that is far from true. In many cases when doing a review/offering it is positive because I know that I couldn't do anything nearly as well.  Someone writing me wondered the point of doing this if I always like things. Well I don't like everything. I collect very little now and that might be argued that I have even more narrow tastes than when I started reviewing 20 years ago.  I just chose to focus on the good works, since the world is flooded with stuff that just isn't interesting to me.

I almost never sell the works sent for review, I often give them to people, but if I do either, it is only after I've reviewed it.  In the past I received so many items I had to not review all or it'd meant I'd go batshit crazy.  Two works come to mind with regrets.  One was a richly produced work, it was beautiful as products go, but it had absolutely nothing but pretty pictures inside, with nothing like a story.  When I wrote to the publisher they were pissed but understood my options were post a negative review or post a mention without details, saying it was available.  Another case happened when a person sent a really badly produced work without a story and so many typos and misspellings it was worse than a 3rd grader's art project that received a 5/10, and a C for effort.  I wrote to that person too, thanked them for the chance to read it, but I didn't want to review it.  They sent, actually sent me a letter with a death threat.  In retrospect guess I should have known.

Comments from the Crowd

Some emails received have had the writer of such asking these questions.  Their words are in bold.

Why bother doing reviews of old works or those that no one gives a sh!t about?

I received works to consider and reviewed them. If you refer to the "Books you might have missed" Review City entry, I've wanted to create a weekly place to review, and having old works allows me to bring up and discuss works that might have slipped passed the buyers when they came out, or, introduce them to a new generation of readers.

I don't see why anyone would send you things for review.  I can do it, why not have them send me free stuff?  What makes you so god damned special?

I am someone who has, in some fashion or another, written reviews since 2000.  As such I am a known commodity, and outside of one review that was written and I'd missed a notice that it should have come with a content warning, I think I am fair and worthwhile paying attention toward.  As a person who writes, in many capacities it might be I have skills some publishers appreciate.  (The book in question had lots of nudity, some violence and other mature themes, and I couldn't believe it hadn't a label.  Turns out that the publisher sent every comic news source a notice of that being a mistake, but I'd missed it.)

Aren't your reviews just a giant blow job for the creator or publisher?  Get down on your knees and start blowing!

The idea presented by the emailer here is exactly why I remind readers that I am knowingly offering a work that I like, or in direct review, that I want to give the book more attention.  In the cynical days of the present, people often prefer attacks or commentary describing how horrible the work in question was.  I am not that kind of reviewer.  I've never blown anyone, not even my self.  And I think by being honest where I come from, that you as an unhappy reader should either find a reviewer you like, or write your own.  I actually dislike the vast amounts of negativity that are found in the world of comic reviews.  I realize I am in the minority or at least that it seems to me to be the case.

When I read your interviews I sense you don't think of yourself as being better than the creators interviewed.  That is great.  When I read your reviews I have found that you and I have very different sets of taste.  How do you think we, the reader, should read your reviews? Are they for a critical minded person, or a general minded someone who needs to know what you think we need to know? (No offense intended, I am someone who has read your reviews for a decade and a half and while you've guided me to gems I missed or would never have found, I think we are really different people.)

I have always said, in order to find reviews that you think reflect your outlook, find someone who is similar in intellect or education, and read them with that in mind. I have had lots more education than many, for good or bad.  I don't see myself as here to write a list of books that suck or should be added to the hall of greatness.  Comics are fun, if you like a subject matter maybe my reviews will give a clue if you'll like it or not.  I don't believe, however much I work and try my best writing, that comics are a higher art form than movies or books, or music or any other means of expression.  I write about them because I love the medium.

Books for Review

NEXUS: A NOVEL
By Mike Baron
Cover Art Steve Rude
Copy provided by the Publisher/Talent

500 years from now there is a man, Horatio Hellpop, who has been allowed to grow up in a setting that preserves a certain innocence or understanding of moral clarity.  His father, however, was a mass murderer.  Horatio has been given a power, that is immense, through contact with an alien species, on the moon Ylum.  The power, however, comes with an immense consequence to him.  He is given the power so that he might be an executioner of the guilty, those who have killed many, and with malice, and he learns his great responsibility of such work, through dreams that torment him until he completes his task.  His first execution is of his murderous father. And the devastation of knowing his duty, versus being seen by others as a murderer, causes him to become both more than any other human, and to some extent, losing some of his humanity in the process.

This story in particle features an event that should be transformative in the career of Nexus.  While he is off his moon Ylum hunting down mass murderers, a godlike being, called Gourmando has chosen to destroy and consume Ylum. Nexus is being who acts in response to his dreams, in order to escape the emotional and mental pain of the quest, as well as an obvious sense of moral outrage towards the subjects he hunts. For him, while Ylum is his home, and it has occupants other than him and friends, he is forced to make a decision, rid himself of the torment and finish his hunt, or return to Ylum, where he would try to defeat the godlike being and save his home.

This isn't a rehash of other Nexus stories, found in comics, it has a power of word that goes far beyond the comic stories of Nexus, because you get different kinds of insights into the character and nature of Nexus.  I've heard from people who have read both Baron's Nexus and Badger, that they love Badger, because he is easy to understand, but that Nexus seems distant and aloof from our understanding.  With this book, without depending upon image to move the story forward, Baron gives ample reasons to wish to follow the hero, gives a context for the struggle between his need to complete his quest, versus his human desires, in this case, the salvation of his home.

I think this book would work for anyone interested in a powerful tale of a flawed but brilliant character.  The writing is superb.  The characters are wonderfully imagined.  And the pace is so quick, you feel like you are reading a movie.

THE SHADOW
The Living Shadow
The Black Master
The Mobsmen on the Spot
By Maxwell Grant (pen name for Walter Gibson)
Cover art by Jim Steranko

I have included the first three volumes of the series The Shadow because compared to almost any other substantive work, of similar quality, these have a reading speed that is like lightning striking.  I became interested in the character of the Shadow around the age of 8 years old.  His use of violence to punish wrong doers along with some mystic abilities to see into the heart of men/women/foe, he is a very direct, powerful, active agent for forces of law, and if somewhat less for actual justice.

In all of the Shadow stories I've read, the criminals and evil doers come from a swath of stereotypical groups, commonly known enemies of the police, and exotic masters of evil networks.  In themselves they are frightening in their interests and their crimes.  Eventually, to the modern eye, they fail to be more than the stereotype.  I still liked the stories, but, I could see where someone in the present would read these stories and find them, dated.

These works are very well written and construct a dark world that only a hero of the sort of The Shadow is, can destroy that enemy. Somewhat due to his unwillingness to compromise, and somewhat due to how he acts from a moral certainty, it is an electric sort of action.  However, ... the story of the day was written with a shorthanded sort of expression.  I didn't find it sexist or racist, but someone younger and with less desire to be challenged by a story, I think some would find this to be less satisfying due to those sort of terms and characters.  As much as I loved it, I doubt others would in the present world.

DICK TRACY
Goes to War
Meets his Match
The Secret Files (An anthology)
By Max Allan Collins, also as editor in Secret Files, and others

This is a very quick take on these three books.  Not because they weren't good, they were quite excellent. But, they came out in celebration of the movie Dick Tracy, by Warren Beatty.  I have to say, I loved them, but I don't know many other people who love Dick Tracy, and more, those who liked the movie enough to read more, or to enjoy the really fine writing by Max Allan Collins. I say this because you need to love the era of Dick Tracy to appreciate the novels of his life. And you have to think more broadly in terms of asking yourself is this a comic book novelization or is Dick Tracy a character who works primarily in the colorful world of comics.  Having said that, I loved the Dick Tracy comic strips I read, I loved the movie, and especially with Dick Tracy Goes to War I found a character in a master's hands that returned the reader back to the age of World War Two, and the home front world's issues with thieves, cheaters, counterfeiters, enemy agents/saboteurs and kidnappers.  As a historian by degree, I found it truly unique. Sadly, I've come to realize others wouldn't care nearly so much as I do, and so I offer a recommendation of these, but to a crime fiction and newspaper comics characters fan.