Review: Geek Girl Authority

Here's a nice little review from Geek Girl Authority of the new anthology for which I wrote and drew a story, Marvel Super Stories: Amazing Adventures. 

I was one of 15 contributors and am only mentioned in passing, but what I appreciate about this review is that writer Avery Kaplan captures the intent and heart of all the stories. I share Kaplan's view that the best types of superhero stories are low-stakes everyday tales, which is why I gave my heroes a quest to recover a stolen pizza.

"Whether in the library, classroom or at home, this title is sure to be a hit with your young readers."

A Gorgeous Love Letter

"A family-friendly adventure with a surprising amount of heart and timeless themes..."

A new review here from Sam Stone at Comic Book Resources, a leading online source for comics news. It's a very good one.

"After crafting numerous tales that ventured headfirst into considerably different subjects, Fies’ The Last Mechanical Monster is a refreshing read without coming off as overly lightweight. A gorgeous love letter to the Golden Age of superhero comics and animation, Fies uses the genre to touch on themes of friendship and legacy borne from a lifetime of cynicism and spurned ambition. A solid collection of the original webcomic in a gorgeous format, Abrams ComicArts continues its recent high-profile winning streak with its publication of Fies' Eisner-nominated graphic novel."

I'm especially happy to see that nod to my publisher, Abrams ComicArts, which I think has put out a tremendous body of work I'm proud to be a part of.

The cool-kid writers aren't supposed to care about reviews, but I guess I'm not that cool. One person's opinion doesn't carry a lot of weight with me, but one good or bad review can translate to a lot of people who do or don't buy your book, and that matters. It's also true that one bad review seems to outweigh a hundred good ones, and stick in your brain a lot longer. At the same time, not everything is for everyone, and you've got to be OK with that. I am.

Anyway. Here's a good review.

An Absolute Wonder

My day is made! "This one's an absolute wonder," says Publishers Weekly in its Starred Review of "The Last Mechanical Monster." A star from PW is a big deal: they're stingy with them, and bookstores and libraries make purchasing decisions based on PW's opinion. A star tells industry buyers it's worth a look.

"This touching, delight-filled fable . . .  tackles classic themes: the drive to be remembered, the battle against aging and failing, and friendship."

They got it. Couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I may steal that.

Book Review: Move to Fire

Mike Harkins is a friend whom I met years ago when we were both freelance writers for a regional magazine. I like and respect him, and though I carried that bias into my reading of his book Move to Fire, if I didn't think it was genuinely good I simply never would have mentioned it. It's good.

Move to Fire (322 pages) is an impressive work of investigative journalism that Harkins spent years pulling together. It's the story of Brandon Maxfield, a 7-year-old boy shot through the spine and paralyzed for life when a semiautomatic handgun accidentally discharged as a family friend tried to unload it. Brandon and his family sued the gunmaker for manufacturing a defective product, and, years later, tried to buy the company at a bankruptcy auction so they could melt down its inventory of 20,000 cheap junk guns.

The case made national news. I remember it, and I remember thinking the same thing many people did: How could you argue that a gun was defective because it fired a bullet when the trigger was pulled, even if accidentally? Isn't that what a gun is supposed to do? In fact, wouldn't a gun be defective if it didn't fire when you pulled the trigger?

Harkins patiently, methodically explains why I was wrong.

As originally designed, the Bryco Model 38 was intended to be unloaded with the safety in the "safe" position, so that someone couldn't possibly fire it while unloading it. However, when that procedure was followed, the gun jammed. Rather than make an inexpensive fix to prevent jamming, gunmaker Bruce Jennings rewrote the instruction manual so that someone unloading the gun would first have to move the safety to "fire." At the very moment a user was trying to disarm the weapon, it was most vulnerable to an accidental slip of a finger to the trigger.

It would be like Ford building a new car with the brake and gas pedals reversed, then saying it wasn't their fault that people were careless enough to drive over cliffs.

The hero of the book is attorney Richard Ruggieri, who began his career working for defendants in insurance cases, representing companies against plaintiffs stricken with asbestos-related cancer. After several successful years he switched sides, partly driven by his conscience after badgering too many witnesses on their deathbeds, and his intimate knowledge of the Dark Side made him an invaluable Jedi Knight to Brandon's family. He knew all the tricks Jennings and his lawyers would use to hide their assets and evade responsibility, and dogged them relentlessly.

Favorable laws make it tough enough to win cases against gunmakers. Ruggieri's job was made magnitudes harder when the handgun that shot Brandon couldn't be found, having been lost by an earlier attorney in the case. Now he had to prove not just that one particular weapon was defective, but that the entire model line was.

The book is structured like a legal thriller, so that by the time it reaches its climactic three-part trial we know the heroes and villains and understand the stakes. Harkins draws the later chapters directly from the trial transcript, selecting passages that build on and pay off the groundwork he laid earlier.

The suspense is compelling. Harkins plays fair. Ruggieri's case has holes--not least the missing weapon--and some of his opponents' arguments are convincing. Move to Fire isn't an anti-gun screed. I found it an engrossing, well-built narrative that pulled me through, page by page. It's naturally structured like a three-act drama and ought to be a movie (in fact I believe Harkins is developing a screenplay).

Published via an Indiegogo campaign I was happy to support, Move to Fire has some flaws characteristic of self-published works, including a few typos and inconsistent usage and style. I wish a good copy editor had given it a final scrubbing before it went to press. I know first-hand how a second set of eyes can catch mistakes that the people immersed in making a book have overlooked for months.

[EDITED TO ADD: Mike tells me my copy is a first edition, and that many errors were subsequently found and fixed. Since I haven't seen newer editions I'll let my point stand as a reflection of my reading experience, with the understanding that it may be moot.]

Harkins knows these deep woods so well, and is so eager to guide readers through them, that I sometimes felt he didn't look back as often as he should have to be sure everyone was still following. Which is to say, a couple of times I got lost.

The book has a lot of technical detail about handguns: firing pins, slides, triggers, dual magazines, safeties that move up and down instead of side to side. Those details are important; the gun is practically a character itself. I would have appreciated one clear photo or diagram of it to help me understand how it worked, as well as how it failed to work.

These are nits and quibbles that don't detract from my admiration of the book. Whatever polishing it might benefit from wouldn't change its fundamental quality and accomplishments. Move to Fire is a passion project by a writer who knows how to mine facts, build characters, and use them to tell a terrific story. The fact that this writer had to mount an Indiegogo campaign to publish the sort of long-form journalism that magazines used to be proud to print is an indictment of how the field has fallen. Still, without modern crowd-financing the story might never have been told at all. I'm grateful it was.

The recent recipient of a prestigious starred review from Publisher's Weekly, Move to Fire is available on Amazon.

Reviews and Criticism

Sarah Hunter, who writes a "Webcomics Wednesday" blog for The Booklist Reader, posted a very nice write-up of The Last Mechanical Monster yesterday. She calls it "playful, nostalgic and heartwarming," which are three words I like. Thanks to Sarah.

My webcomic got another review back in July that I think I mentioned elsewhere but not here. Larry Cruz of Comic Book Resources' "Robot 6" came up with a subtitle for his review I really liked: "No Country for Old Villains." Larry picked up on some things I was very happy to see somebody "get" but also missed a couple of details, which suggests I could make them clearer. That's one reason I'm publishing the story as a webcomic: to get readers' feedback on what works and what doesn't. Overall, a nicely positive review.

Also, while I'm on the topic, the immensely respected Cory Doctorow posted a review of Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow on the immensely popular BoingBoing.net back in August. This one's a keeper. In my favorite sentence, Doctorow writes that "Fies is going further and longer here, taking a core sample of the Gernsback Continuaa, the futures that shaped our past." (Hugo Gernsback was a writer, editor and publisher very influential in mid-Century science fiction. The Hugo Award is named for him.)

A few thoughts on reviews and being reviewed . . .

It's true what they say: you'll forget 100 good reviews but one bad one will haunt you for years. Whenever I sit down to draw, I still hear in the back of my mind the voice of one reviewer 10 years ago who thought Mom's Cancer was poorly drawn. I will try to prove him wrong forever.

Sometimes I know a review is coming but usually I don't. Sarah contacted me to ask permission to use images from The Last Mechanical Monster to illustrate her Booklist Reader review. My understanding of copyright law is that's not necessary--Fair Use allows the use of excerpts for the purposes of criticism--but I always appreciate being asked. It seems polite and professional. However, I'm not offended when I'm not asked.

Nobody gave me an author's handbook when I started out, but my sense is that it's not cool to ask whether the review is good before granting permission to reprint an excerpt. "You didn't like my story? Then tough noogies!" I think you need to be a good sport. Especially in comics, which is a pretty small industry with a tiny number of respectable reviewers.

I learned the hard way to never respond publicly to a review. "The hard way" means that a long time ago I tried to defend myself online and only came off sounding whiny, even to me. Once in a while I'll see an author show up in the comments thread of a review, and instantly know two things: they're young (or nuts), and it's not going to end well. I haven't been wrong yet. It's wince-inducing.

Best to pretend that you never saw it. However, I do sometimes privately contact writers of especially thoughtful reviews to let them know I appreciated it, and writers of tough-but-fair reviews to say "Sorry this one didn't work for you, hope I can catch you next time." And I mean it.

I tend to skim my reviews rather than read them closely. It's too emotionally taxing. All I want to know is "good" or "bad." It's always gratifying to discover that a reader related to a theme or got a point I was trying to make. Anything else just twists my knickers.

I think more creators see more reviews of their work than you'd expect. I know professional cartoonists who stalk the most obscure backwoods of the Internet hunting for comments, and everybody's got a "Google Alert" set up for their name and comic title. I also learned that the hard way, after making fun of a comic strip only to get an e-mail from its creator. Gulp. Luckily he was very gracious, but since then I've been careful to only post statements I can stand behind. If I wouldn't say something to somebody's face, I don't say it online.

I admit I'm ambivalent about the whole matter of criticism. It's necessary . . . I guess. A good critic can put a work in context, analyze it intelligently, and illuminate it in ways readers might otherwise miss. They can promote the worthy and rebuke the worthless. When I'm in a bad mood, critics are a low form of parasite who'd have nothing to do if creators weren't putting their heads on the chopping block every day, begging for their mercy or at least a quick sharp blade. Some appreciation would be nice.

The knee-jerk response to criticism is, "Yeah, if you think it's so easy, why don't you do it?" That's wrong. I don't have to be able to shoot a movie or play professional baseball to have an opinion on whether someone else is doing it well or poorly. Otherwise, nobody could ever criticize anything! My opinion may be more or less informed--most five-year-olds aren't equipped to critique a gourmet restaurant--but I have every right to express it. It's up to my consumers to figure out whether I know what I'm talking about.

Still. Still still still. It's so hard to create anything--even something terrible--and so easy to sit on the sidelines sniping. Nobody sets out to do bad work, and releasing it into the world is asking for a kick to the heart. I think too few critics understand the power they hold and the harm they can do.

You wouldn't know it from this blog or Facebook, but I have pretty strong private opinions about books, movies, comics, etc. There's a lot I don't like. Sticking to comics, there's work I think is artless, unskilled, amateurish, puerile, stupid, and corrosive to the mind and body. I could name a dozen comics creators whose careers I find completely inexplicable; I literally can't fathom why anybody likes their stuff.

But somebody does. That's why the worst I'll ever say about something is, "It's not for me." It may be for stupid people with no taste but . . .

It's not for me.

I also realize I'm probably off base about some art and artists. My judgment's not infallible. There's work that nearly everybody but me thinks is excellent. There's work that even I agree is excellent, but for some reason I just don't enjoy.

It's not for me.

That doesn't give me license to stick it to 'em.

My favorite take on criticism is from filmmaker Orson Welles who, when asked by a critic to explain his work, said "I'm the bird. You're the ornithologist."

Now, ornithology is a worthwhile scientific field in which smart people do important work. But what does a bird care about how an ornithologist observes it, classifies it, documents it? What would ornithology be without birds to study?

Nothing, and nothing.

I try to be the best bird I can be, and leave the ornithology to the ornithologists.

Something More Pleasant?

I just finished Roz Chast's graphic novel Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? There are words I don't like to use because they only appear in stuffy book reviews: "unflinching," "carefully observed," "towering achievement." But what a book.

Chast writes and draws about shepherding her neurotic, difficult parents through the end of their lives in a way that'll make you both love and hate them, and want to give Chast a hug. The highest compliment I can give Chast is that she's honest, particularly about herself. Her book is (I can't think of another way to say it) an unflinching, carefully observed, towering achievement.

My friends in Graphic Medicine should pay attention, it's a big contribution to the field.

Comics Art

Comics Art is a magnificent new book by British writer and critic Paul Gravett. Published by Tate Publishing in the UK and available in February from Yale University Press in the United States, Comics Art is as comprehensive and thoughtful an examination of the history, properties, and artistry of comics as I've seen.

I find it easiest to describe what the book is not:

It is not a straightforward chronology of comics that starts with the Yellow Kid and marches through the 20th Century to XKCD.com, although it does some of that and mentions them both.

It is not a Scott McCloud-style dissection of how comics work and their unique characteristics as a narrative form, although it does some of that, too.

It is not an argument on behalf of comics as capital-A Art that traces a path from Krazy Kat to Lichtenstein and Warhol, although it also does that.

Comics Art is part of Tate Publishing's (associated with London's Tate Gallery) "Contemporary Art" series, which includes titles such as Street Art, Design Art, and Installation Art. That context helps explain it: I'd call it a comprehensive, generously illustrated, expertly curated introduction to comics for a curious but uninformed reader. Although there are tales and examples here that will be familiar to anyone who already knows the medium, Gravett offers new and interesting insights with an international perspective. He makes connections between past and future, paper and pixels, and comics and pop culture. Gravett, whom cartoonist Eddie Campbell called "The Man at the Crossroads," has seen it all and pulls whatever he needs from his encyclopedic mind to illustrate his broad cultural and artistic analysis. In addition, the book's design and print quality are first rate.

A two-page spread chosen totally at random illustrates Gravett's broad gaze and excellent taste.

Disclosure Time: I know Paul and, mea culpa, I'm in the book (in addition to its other fine qualities, the book is well-indexed; I had no trouble finding myself). I admit my ego is stroked but my opinion is sincere. If I thought Comics Art stunk, I just wouldn't mention it.

Paul knew Mom's Cancer long before we met at the Graphic Medicine conferences I attended and, for a while, helped organize. He was invited to give keynote addresses at each, placing comics and medicine within the broader scope of comics history. 'Round about the third conference, I was astonished to realize that Paul prepared a different full-length, extensively researched lecture every time! We hadn't asked him to do that; there wasn't enough overlap in attendees for anyone to mind some repetition. Any other speaker would've phoned in an off-the-shelf talk and left the audience happy, but Paul had so much more information to share than he could pack into any one lecture that he spread it out over years.

My favorite memory of Paul is going to the Chicago comics shop Quimby's with him. Quimby's is known for stocking any homemade micro-press zine anybody brings in. If you're a kid who just stapled together eight photocopied pages of comics, Quimby's will put it on the shelf. Paul was giddy. I watched him flit from one rack to the next like a hummingbird in a garden, discovering one unknown talent after another. He has a curiosity and love for comics unmatched by anyone I've met. He's kind, polite, and self-effacing. I think the world of him.

Comics Art is getting very good reviews from very smart people (Paul has compiled some at his website). They're deserved. I've read a lot of books about comics, and Comics Art strikes both new and familiar notes in fresh ways to produce something unique and worthwhile.

Very Recommended (especially pp. 98 and 124).

A Spoonful of Sugar

Karen and I saw "Saving Mr. Banks" before Christmas. While I enjoyed it at the time and thought some of the performances were terrific, it's been gnawing at me since. My opinion's faded from "That was pretty good!" to "That wasn't really very good at all," and I think I've figured out why.

It isn't entirely the film's historical inaccuracy. Grown-ups know that movies about actual people and events are interpretations. Stories need character arcs, crises and resolutions that real life seldom provides. Writer Harlan Ellison worked up a 10-minute dudgeon about the film; while I love Mr. Ellison's writing and raging, I can save you 10 minutes and sum up: "It's bullshit."



In particular, Ellison's offended by the movie's invented emotional catharsis as author P.L. Travers watches "Mary Poppins" on the big screen and weeps. In reality, she wept because she thought Disney had realized her worst fears and ruined her book. Mrs. Travers hated the movie the rest of her life.

Exactly what she was afraid of. By the way, "Saving Mr. Banks" makes much of Mrs. Travers's unreasonable demand that the movie not use the color red. Look, there's red!

It isn't entirely that a Disney movie about Walt Disney is the worst sort of self-serving hagiography, which asks us to sympathize with a giant corporation browbeating an independent writer to surrender her prized creation and literary legacy. As an independent writer type myself, losing control of my stories and characters is a nightmarish possibility that I've seen happen to people I know. My sympathies are with Travers. On the other hand, Travers signed the papers after tough negotiations won her more concessions than most writers would have gotten. Millions more copies of her original Poppins books were printed and sold. Disney made her rich and Travers wept all the way to the bank. In the long history of ripped-off creators (including Siegel and Shuster, who sold Superman for $130), Travers did all right for herself.

I think what's eaten away at me is the movie's defamation of Travers as a writer. Flashbacks to her Australian childhood show us that every detail of "Mary Poppins," from the nanny's parrot-handled umbrella and bottomless carpet bag to great swaths of dialog--came verbatim from her experience as a girl. Now, I don't know. I wasn't there. Maybe Travers's alcoholic father really did sniff the air sagely and intone, "Winds from the east, mist comin' in, like something's a-brewin', about to begin," just as Bert the chimney sweep does at the start of "Mary Poppins."

I doubt it.

Maybe--just maybe--Travers actually had the intelligence and imagination to make stuff up. Because that's what writers do.

In building its superficial psychological profile of Travers, "Saving Mr. Banks" shows her as little more than a stenographer, transcribing events she witnessed as faithfully as a court reporter. That's the lie that galls me. It's too glib and reductive. Too cute. That's not how writing works--not even journalism and certainly not good fiction writing. The movie gives Travers a prickly personality with some sympathetic softness and essentially seems to like her, but at its core, portraying her process and identity as a writer, it grievously insults her. Travers and her Poppins books were better than that.

I think that's why I've turned on "Saving Mr. Banks." Bad enough that it lied about Travers, but it also lied about writing and disrespected her as a writer.

Julie Andrews, Walt Disney, and P.L. Travers at the "Mary Poppins" premiere, which Travers really did crash.

A few random thoughts on "Saving Mr. Banks":

I've joked elsewhere that I'm angry at the movie because it co-opts my own analysis of "Mary Poppins" that it's not about the children, it's about their father. Mr. Banks was the one Mary Poppins came to help. He's the only character who grew and changed. I always considered this a nice example of how the movie works on two levels: children identify with Jane and Michael, while anyone old enough to feel the weight of responsibility and regret identifies with Mr. Banks.

One of these characters survived a crisis during the course of the story. Hint: it's the one with the messed up collar and a hole punched through his hat.

I was always proud of this insight and now resent that it's become the main plot point of a major motion picture. Because that makes me less special.

As a Disneylandphile, I paid close attention to the scenes set in the original Magic Kingdom. The movie obviously shot at the actual location, but efforts to rewind the clock to show Disneyland as it was 50 years ago were mixed.

The movie smartly kept most of the action at the front gate and Main Street, which have changed the least. No set dressing could cover the brick entrance plaza that replaced the original bare concrete, but the filmmakers chose camera angles that hid recent radical renovations outside the park gates. The architecture of Main Street is basically unchanged, and a few vintage signs convincingly took us back in time.

In one long shot down Main Street I'm pretty sure I spied the "Partners" statue, a memorial to Walt Disney that wasn't installed until 1993. How odd to see Tom Hanks portraying the dead guy down at the end of the block. It's a split-second glimpse, but one that could've/should've been erased with a bit of post-production magic.

Shouldn't have been there.

Fantasyland, where the movie shows Disney and Travers taking a merry-go-round ride, presented a real problem. The entire area was completely renovated in 1983. Except for the back of the castle, none of it looks like it did in the 1960s. The filmmakers wisely focused on Hanks and Emma Thompson on the King Arthur Carrousel while shooting the background as an unfocused blur. Given what they had to work with, I thought that was a good, unobtrusive solution.

As a child, I loved the "Mary Poppins" movie. In fact, it may have been the first movie I ever saw. We had the soundtrack record (pretty sure I still have it out in the garage) and played it again and again. "Saving Mr. Banks" does provide a sense of its behind-the-scenes creation, vetted and vouched for by songwriter Richard Sherman, who was portrayed in the movie by Jason Schwartzman and spent many days on the set (here's a nice interview with Schwartzman in which he talks about working with Sherman and taking great pains to learn his piano-playing style).

That's seductive, seeing how something you love got made, particularly in an era you have tremendous nostalgia for. I left the theater feeling as warm and fuzzy as if I'd just spent a couple of hours with TV's Uncle Walt. But Tom Hanks isn't TV Walt, and TV Walt wasn't real-life Walt. The more I mull on it, the more I think "Saving Mr. Banks" overreached, and its shortcomings outweighed its considerable charms.

Review: Air & Space Smithsonian

It's evidently Unexpected Review Week here at The Fies Files.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow just got a terrific review in the Air & Space Smithsonian magazine! I can't find the review online (let me know if you do) but reviewer Phil Scott says the book is "at times charming, at times sad and foreboding, and always thought-provoking."

The image below is a screen cap from a scan e-mailed to me by Publicist Amy, so the colors are off and its legibility may be dodgy. But it's a long review with lots of illustrations, so SCORE!

It goes without saying that folks who read a mag called Air & Space Smithsonian (circulation 192,000) are exactly the right audience for WHTTWOT. I couldn't have asked for a better review in a better place (well, maybe glowing praise from the Sunday New York Times, but that ain't happening). Phil Scott and the Smithsonian made my week.

Better Late Than Never!

Here's a thoughtful review of Mom's Cancer at the blog "Kingbeast's Lair" by John Taber, whom I met at my recent signing at Illusive Comics & Games in Santa Clara, Calif. John's a nice guy and we had a good conversation, which in no way obligated him to say nice things about my book but he did anyway. John gives Mom's Cancer his highest recommendation and a rare 10 out of 10. Thanks a lot, John! Much appreciated.

Semi-on-topic, I mentioned on Facebook but not here that for about another day and a half the website Fab.com is offering a "Brian Fies Two-Pack": both my books for $20. I don't know what Fab.com is or how this happened, but it's kind of cool and a pretty good deal. I'm sure you already own my books, but this could be a good opportunity to pick up gift or emergency back-up copies.

Books Books & Books

In the past few weeks I've read three books that have nothing in common except they were all produced by friends of mine, they all have drawings in them, and their cover dimensions are similar. Oddly, it's that last quality--"Hey, the top three books on my stack are all about the same size!"--that inspired me to think about combining them in a blog post--proving, I guess, that I can judge a book by its cover. You won't find any of these books at your local bookstore, but if their subjects appeal to you I think they're worth seeking out.

Disrepute (100 pages) is a collection of comics by Thom Ferrier, the nom de plume of Ian Williams (I always wonder if it's all right to rat out his secret identity like that but he's not shy about revealing it himself). Ian is a physician, artist and cartoonist in the U.K. who invited me to speak at the first International Graphic Medicine Conference in London in 2010. We've since worked together organizing the 2011 conference in Chicago and next July's in Toronto. He also has the prettiest penmanship of anyone I've ever known. It's like getting a letter from Hogwarts.

Me and Ian in 2010.

The comics in Disrepute include fiction, nonfiction and cartoon fantasy drawn in a variety of styles, but all informed by his hands-on medical practice (with great pains taken to preserve patient confidentiality). Consequently, they deliver insights that no one but a doctor could--sometimes stark and startling, but always honest. His most affecting stories capture very human moments that laymen may not realize their physicians experience: a doctor called upon to dispassionately treat his hated boyhood bully decades later, or his own admission that he's squeamish at the sight of blood, which he hopefully regards as a residue of empathy. My favorite piece of his is a single panel that captures the anguish and self-doubt that anyone in a life-or-death job must confront from time to time:

Much of Ian's work, including some pieces collected in Disrepute, may be read at his website (under the tabs "Strips" and "More Strips"); the book is available at that site or Amazon.co.uk. Ian has a unique, wide-ranging, restless creative voice offering a perspective I've never seen before. Disrepute is very smart, often darkly funny storytelling.

In the best tradition of "Hey gang, let's put on a show in the barn," my cartooning pal Mike Lynch and three of his friends have self-published Raconteur (16 pages), billed as "true stories from cartoonists who don't usually do this type of thing." This mini-comic (i.e., 8.5 x 11-inch sheets folded over and stapled) gathers four four-page pieces by Lynch, David Jacobson, John Klossner and Jeff Pert, all successful single-panel magazine cartoonists. They created Raconteur to stretch their narrative muscles, as Mike actually describes in his tale:

It's an eclectic collection. David Jacobson's "The Perfect Game" tells a story about childhood, the National Pastime, and the fate of a baseball autographed by the 1961 Yankees that broke my heart. John Klossner's untitled story about his son, who is so hyperstimulated by visual and auditory media that he finds it impossible to sit through a movie, broke my heart in a deeper way, as an expression of unconditional parental love. Mike Lynch's "The Petty Indignities That Run My Life" is an observantly witty overview of his days as an artist, including a great anecdote about being rejected by The New Yorker. And Jeff Pert's "When I Was a Kid" captures the joys and terrors of childhood so specifically they achieve universality.

It's a nice little collection that I think anyone interested in supporting independent creative efforts would appreciate, especially if they'd like to see an Issue #2 someday. Preview and ordering information are available here.

Mike Lynch and I at the Overlook Lounge in NYC, where Mike arranged for me to draw on the wall in 2006 (geez, I need some newer photos). Photo stolen from Mike's blog.

Mike Peterson is a journalist, editor and freelance writer based in New England who was one of the first and strongest supporters of Mom's Cancer. Although we've never met in person, he's a friend whose opinions about writing and comics I value very highly, so much so that he was one of a very few people I asked for early feedback on a rough draft of Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? (and I probably should have taken more of his advice).

One of Mike's vocations and avocations is using newspapers to educate via published serials accompanied by teacher's guides. Students read the stories and teachers offer depth and context that Mike also provides. He's produced several, on topics ranging from pioneering journalist Nellie Bly to Native American legends to the Greek myths and constellations (for which I provided some early feedback to him). His latest, Freehand (38 pages), illustrated by cartoonist Christopher Baldwin, is the story of young Caleb MacCrimmons, for whom the War of 1812 offers escape from a harsh home life and a unique outlet for his drawing talents.

Freehand illustration by Christopher Baldwin (this one cribbed from the web; illustrations in the book are black and white)

Freehand is a story for upper-elementary readers that packs a remarkable amount of plot and information into a brisk 10 chapters. Built around the real-life Battle of Sackets Harbor, which Mike researched exhaustively, the book creates a sympathetic hero in Caleb and gives him lively relatives, mentors, antagonists, and a satisfying character arc. I thought it achieved a tone similar to the classic Johnny Tremain, drawing kids into history via a character who thinks and reacts very much like they would. Freehand accomplishes a lot for its size.

A summary and some samples from the book are available here, and a look at Mike's interaction with his young readers and some of the teaching resources he provides (see especially the links in the left column) is available here. Finally, a catalog of all of Mike's serialized educational stories can be found here.

I don't reflect on it as much as I should, but I really like knowing creative people who are doing interesting things, even if they're a bit obscure. Maybe especially because they're a bit obscure.

An Appreciation of the Women of Tomorrow

Suzette Chan of Sequential Tart, a website that has been very good to me over the years, has written a really nice review that touches on the women of Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow: Officer Mooney from Cap Crater's "Space Age Adventures," and the nameless little girl at the end who's eager to carry on the next generation's adventures. I had no idea this piece was coming and it was a nice surprise to find it this morning.

Suzette launches from a 2009 interview I did with MK Czerwiec (Part One, Part Two), also for Sequential Tart, in which I said I felt a little guilty that the main characters of WHTTWOT were all male (as I recall, I also said that since almost everyone in Mom's Cancer except me was female, I didn't feel too bad about it). Suzette looks at some of my book's themes with an eye on the women of the World of Tomorrow, an angle I don't think anyone else has considered.

Rather than recap Suzette's short piece, I'll just add a few thoughts about my intentions when I created those characters. Officer Mooney is the voice of reason, as well as the voice of the reader who might wonder why the police need a guy who commutes from the Moon to help them solve every little problem. I think she's the smartest character in the book--Dr. Xandra has greater raw evil-genius brainpower, but Mooney has more street smarts and common sense than all the rest of them put together (for example, when the gang goes out to investigate Dr. Xandra's uranium mine, she's the only one who remembers to bring a gun). And, as Suzette notes, the gag is that through the years Mooney is gradually promoted until she becomes the ineffectual Chief's boss, a nod to women's progress in the real world through the same decades.

The blonde girl came about because I wanted a kid in the final chapter to suggest a new generation with a new vision of its own World of Tomorrow, building on the successes and failures of its predecessors' vision (which is to say, mine). The idea of making the kid a boy had some appeal--generations of men passing a legacy of optimistic futurism down from father to son, etc.--but pointing out that a girl could also be part of such a legacy appealed to me. But mostly the girl is my daughters, who used to look just like her and to whom I dedicated the book. Do whatever you want, be the best you can be, shape your own destiny, yadda yadda.

Dads. Sheesh. Go figure.

Thanks to Suzette and strong, smart women everywhere. I love them so much I married one.
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A Fresh Sense of Wonder

Space Times, the magazine of the American Astronautical Society (AAS), which awarded WHTTWOT the 2009 Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award (Young Adult), has published a review that I thought was so terrific I'm reprinting the entire thing here. Continued thanks to the AAS for its support, this review, and
the cool plaque hanging on the wall over my left shoulder. Earning such nice recognition from a group like this is the best.

Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? answers the
question--if it still needs to be asked--of whether a graphic novel can be as educational and entertaining as a standard book. Yes it can--perhaps it can do even more.

This is a book that can be enjoyed on a number of levels. There are some wonderfully sly and ironic asides that only a careful reader will spot. But mostly the book takes us on an enjoyable ride through the imagination of a young child from the 1930s onward. The personal tales show how America's love of space sciences and the promise of the future rose on lofty national dreams of a bright future where science cured all problems, only to be slowed by a mixture of cynicism and reality. Its examination of futures past is fascinating, especially to comapre them so closely side-by-side.

It would be a pessimistic finale, to look at how many of the dreams of prior decades did not happen, if not for the book's ending, which says something very important that few books for adults or youth ever capture--and certainly not as well as this book. In short, it shows how not reaching the dreams of the past is not always a bad thing, as long as they are replaced by newer, smarter, better dreams, based on new ideas, new experience, and a fresh sense of wonder.

We can't imagine a better time for young people to hear this inspiring message, and this book delivers it with grace and style.

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Star Trek 365

When I shill, I do it honestly. If I didn't genuinely love the new book Star Trek 365 by Paula M. Block with Terry J. Erdmann, I wouldn't mention it--notwithstanding the fact that it's being released by my publisher Abrams and my name is listed in the Acknowledgments.

Ahem.

That's right! All my teenage hours wasted on the adventures of Captain Kirk and crew finally paid off! There's a lesson for you kiddies out there, though I'll be darned if I know what it is.

The book is the latest in Abrams's "365" series. There are "365" books on golf, punk, astronomy, wisdom, Africa, Chihuly, baseball, gardens, the Grateful Dead. I think the concept is you leave it open on your desk and turn one page per day, getting a great photo and some interesting nugget of information on your favorite topic every day of the year. I wonder if anyone actually does that. I'd read it straight through.

Star Trek 365 focuses only on The Original Series (TOS, also known as "The ONLY Series" to some--all right, me). Each day is a two-page spread about a character, actor, episode, alien, planet, prop, or behind-the-scenes tidbit. It's a thick, hardcover brick of a book, nicely conceived and assembled. What I particularly appreciated was that Block and Erdmann came up with some stories and pictures I'd never seen--which is saying a lot after 40 years as an attentive Trekkie. Even many of the familiar photos are freshened up, and the reproduction quality is as good as I've seen.

The book's editor is Eric Klopfer and its project manager is Charlie Kochman, my editor, who has long known of my Trek proclivities and likes me anyway. I don't remember if Charlie asked me to review a proof or if I begged him to let me. One way or another, I wound up with an early draft and spent several happy hours combing through my DVDs, references, and memories to return five pages of single-spaced notes on locations of planets, names of starships, and a very serious discussion of whether Mr. Spock's groovy Vulcan harp is a "lute" or "lyre" (sources vary; I argued for lyre). I also had some editorial suggestions apart from content, such as layout and subject-verb agreement. My contributions were minor--I found just one factual error that I considered serious--but the task was a heck of a lot of fun.

If you're an old-school Trek fan, I think you'll find much to appreciate in Star Trek 365. Put it on your birthday or Christmas list. My copy is going on the bookshelf with my other Star Trek references, and I can't tell you how much it blows my mind to have my name (in teeny tiny print) in one of them. Thanks to Eric and Charlie for letting me play in the sandbox.
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Don't Stop Believing

By and large, for a slew of reasons, I've stopped citing reviews of my books on this blog and left them to my Facebook pages when appropriate. But Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow just got such a nice response from Bob Duggan at BigThink.com that I wanted to mention it here. In a review titled "Don't Stop Believing," Mr. Duggan concludes:

As Robert Browning once wrote, “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?” Fies echoes Browning in extolling the value of the reach, for heaven awaits those who dare to believe. Fies’ comic is a book to share with your children and your children’s children, for it is a document of faith lost and faith restored—something that we need more of every day.

That right there is what my book is about. He got it. That feels great. Big thanks to Big Think.
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Review: Grammy Awards v. Iron Chef America

The Grammy Awards and Iron Chef America were on at the same time last night. We flipped back and forth.

Lady Gaga and Elton John open the Grammys singing in some sort of industrial hellscape from which both emerged covered in soot. My wife Karen thought they looked ridiculous. I said I thought that was the point. They sounded a'ight, dawg. B+.

Alton Brown intros that tonight's Iron Chef battle is coming from Kitchen Stadium #3 floating somewhere in the Maldives and announces that the Chairman's yacht has just docked. I like it when Iron Chef nods to its own ridiculous mythos. A.

Stephen Colbert kicks off the Grammys' first award by inducting his teenage daughter into the insincerely earnest (or earnestly insincere) comedy business. Jokes touch on the iPad, and Dad not being cool. She seems like a nice kid and it's funny instead of cringeworthy. A.

Today's challenger is chef Michael Smith, author of many cookbooks and star of Food Network Canada. There's a Food Network Canada? Smith looks like a big fella, towering over the Chairman (who could still kill him in two seconds if he wanted), and gets into the histrionic spirit of Kitchen Stadium by announcing his challenge of Iron Chef Bobby Flay with the same passion Patton brought to battling Rommel. A.

Green Day performs "21 Guns" with the Broadway cast of the upcoming play "American Idiot." I like Green Day and am a sucker for big choruses that raise goosebumps. A highlight of the Grammys for me. A.

The secret ingredient: Avocado! Karen groans--avocado's a gimme for the southwestern-style Flay. Do they even have avocados in Canada? I don't like avocado or guacamole at all, making me something of a heretic here in California. I find it flavorless and phlegmy. I keep trying it, hoping that someday I'll finally get what everyone else raves about. No luck so far. Points off for both throwing Flay a softball and using an ingredient I wouldn't enjoy. C.


Taylor Swift wins for Best Country Album. She sings country? For confusing me, that award earns a C.

Tonight I learned that the entire California avocado industry is descended from a single Haas avocado tree. I did not know that. When Mom and my sisters moved to Hollywood, their neighbor had a giant avocado tree whose branches hung over into their yard. It was a beautiful tree that produced year-round, but Mom was afraid that one of those plummeting shotputs would kill her dog Hero. All they did was make him fat; Hero loved to eat avocados. For teaching me something I didn't know and reviving a happy memory, A.

Pink sings "Glitter in the Air" rotating from a cloth sling dangling from the ceiling while spraying water on everyone below like a lawn sprinkler. Karen imagined all the enraged audience members getting their stylin' tuxes and spangly gowns soaking wet. I liked it, and not just for the single-ply gauze bandage Pink was wearing. At the very least, you've gotta admire her work ethic, plus points for potentially annoying spoiled rich people. A-.


Chef Smith pulls out a slab of Canadian bacon, maple syrup, moose loin, a six-pack of Molsons, and a box of Tim Hortons donuts, and politely gets to work. Nah, just kidding. For setting back international relations 50 years, B+ for me.

Black-Eyed Peas perform "Imma Be" and the ubiquitous "I Got a Feeling." That was . . . energetic. The legion of back-up dancers costumed in balloon-animal burkas and silver stereo speakers really made me miss grunge. And I didn't even like grunge. B-.

Tonight's Iron Chef judges are Donatella Arpaia and Anya Fernald, who have something to do with food, and actor Antonio Sabato Jr., who doesn't. That's OK. One of the charms of the original Japanese Iron Chef was the old-bat judge whose occupation was always listed as "fortune teller." I miss the old Iron Chef. B. (When Jeffrey Steingarten is judging, it's an automatic A.)

Stephen Colbert wins a Grammy for Best Comedy Album. He asks his daughter in the audience if she thinks he's cool now. She gives him a very sweet, teary-eyed nod that tugged at my Daddy heartstrings. Oh, would that I could ever make my daughters that proud of me. A.

Bobby Flay breaks out some chipotle and ancho chiles. Really thinking outside the box tonight, Bobby. C.

Several old and some dead people win Grammy lifetime achievement awards. One dude wins a Grammy Award for helping produce Grammy Award shows, which seems pretty incestuous to me (speaking of nodding to your own ridiculous mythos). It strikes me, not for the first or last time, how little people in the same line of work can have in common. For example, Katy Perry and Alice Cooper, or Placido Domingo and Mos Def, or Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige, to name three actual pairings from last night. C for inappropriate combos and over-self-congratulation + A for weirdness = B average.

Chef Smith's trying some interesting, playful things. Fried avocado balls, avocado pearls nestled in raw oysters. No idea how any of it would taste and I still don't like avocados, but you can see a creative culinary mind at work. B+.

Taylor Swift sings with Stevie Nicks, first Stevie's "Rhiannon" and then Taylor's "You Belong With Me." The performance was a revelation--that revelation being that Taylor looked and sounded like a thin, flat, callow, boring, insubstantial wisp next to Stevie's rich, deep, seasoned, compelling bleat. "Rhiannon" is also a much better song than Ms. Swift's ode to being the head cheerleader in love with the team captain. Taylor seems like a very nice young woman, but the contrast was striking and not in her favor. C for Swift + A for Nicks = B average.

Bobby Flay chunks up a big beef shoulder into 2-inch cubes. Karen says, "That meat looks awfully fatty." I predict that he's going to put it into a pressure cooker to render out the fat and get a good braise on it. Seconds later, Flay tosses it into a pressure cooker. For making me look smart, an A.

Ah, the Michael Jackson tribute, in 3-D. Karen and I pull out our red-blue anaglyphic specs. The 3-D effect is pretty good, although I'm disappointed there's no footage of Jackson himself. That would've been fun (even a clip from Captain Eo could've been repurposed). Good performances, though again some memory-jolting bits of classic MJ songs would've been welcome. Jackson's son Prince Michael and daughter Paris speak at the end, and my how they've grown! Seems like just yesterday they were being dangled out of windows. Prince is a poised young man whose affect could have been Stepford-creepy if he hadn't made a couple of endearing mistakes reading the teleprompter. Paris seems sweet. And ain't genetics funny? B.

Chef Michael Smith takes a live blue softshell crab, coats it with some seasoned flour, drops it into a fryer, and lays it atop a sandwich. I'm West Coast--I don't know softshell crab, it's all Dungeness around here. Can you do that? Fry 'em up and eat 'em without cleaning or shelling them? Are they good? That just seems totally bizarre to me. A if edible, C if not.


The Grammys offer a nice tribute to Les Paul, whom I'm a big admirer of. I really liked that Jeff Beck and Imelda May went on to perform Paul's "How High the Moon." Great artists, great music, another highlight of the evening for me. A.

For one course, Chef Smith offers the judges three guacamoles prepared differently. When plating, he simply leaves the guac in the three food processor bowls in which they were made and fills them to the top with three varieties of chips. It's either a very gutsy move or a very lazy one. I like it. Five full points for plating design from me = A.

Rappers Lil Wayne, Eminem, and Drake get together for a song backed by the drummer from Blink 182, who's really wailing away on his kit. Whenever I see rappers on these award shows backed by bands or orchestras, I imagine that there's some kid in there who picked up an instrument at age 8, practiced every day, joined his or her small-town junior symphony, spent four hard years mastering their skills at Julliard, studied overseas, entered brutal competitions, scraped hard to land every gig they could get, and is now earning a couple hundred bucks playing backup for a multimillionaire whose musical talent consists of rhythmically reciting bad poetry. D for the bleepin' rappers + B for the drummer = C.

Judging is underway. Smith may be in trouble. The judges don't seem taken with his avocado-white chocolate mousse. C.

Taylor Swift's "Fearless" wins the Grammy for Album of the Year. I'm nonplussed, but good for her. B-.

Two champions met tonight in Battle Avocado here in Kitchen Stadium. The judges have spoken. And the winner is . . . Iron Chef Flay. B-. (If Smith had won, it'd be a B+ because Flay just seemed to coast tonight.)

Final grades: Iron Chef America = B. Grammy Awards = B+.

That's Cancertainment

Both my blog and original "Mom's Cancer" webcomic site are getting a big boost in hits today due to an article at The Onion's "A.V. Club" titled "That's Cancertainment: 25 Great Songs, Books, Films,
Albums, and TV Shows in Which Cancer Plays a Major Role." Mine is Number 14:

"Using simple language, classically cartoony images, and not a hint of sugarcoating, Brian Fies’ 2006 graphic novel—first published as a webcomic—chronicles his colorful mother’s long struggle with lung cancer. It’s both an involving look at one woman’s battle with disease and a useful guide for what someone undergoing treatment for cancer can expect, both physically and mentally."

Unfortunately, as longtime readers know, while the momscancer.com site is still there, the webcomic isn't. My publisher asked me to take it down when the book was published, on the reasonable assumption that people wouldn't bother paying for a story in print (especially a relatively short story) when they could read it free online. That made sense to me and I was happy to do it.

The good news is that my publisher and I have been talking about putting "Mom's Cancer" back online as a free webcomic. The rationale now is that the book has been out a few years, it's pretty much sold all it's going to sell on its own, and reading the story online might prompt a few folks to seek out the print version. That also makes sense to me and I'm eager to do it. For various good reasons, we haven't followed through yet; if I'd known this article was coming, I would've pushed harder.

My bottom line has always been to get my family's story to as many people as possible, in whatever medium. Seeing "Mom's Cancer" return to its free webcomic roots would make me very happy--even though I still think the print version is well worth $14.95 (or a bargain $10.17 on Amazon right now).
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Mas Tapas

A few more bite-sized morsels:

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My previous post touching on how most author's lose control of their stories the moment they sell them to Hollywood was vividly brought to life last night when my wife and I watched "Confessions of a Shopaholic." Karen Netflixed (look, a 21st-century verb!) it because she'd read and liked the book. Throughout the movie she kept apologizing, "This isn't how the book went."

I can't speak for the book but the movie was a real stinker, asking us to root for a completely unsympathetic heroine who, as far as I was concerned, deserved every bad thing that happened to her and more. I wouldn't want her as a friend, family member or coworker. Her nemesis was a debt collector who hounded her throughout the film, whom she avoided in supposedly cute and charming ways and had her revenge upon in the end. I was rooting for the collector.

Anyway, just another data point in the battle between art and commerce. I just wonder why so many filmmakers buy the rights to good source material and then gut it of everything that made people love it in the first place.

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On the last night of his short run as host of "The Tonight Show," Conan O'Brien said, "All I ask of you, especially young people, is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism--it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen."

I agree completely and have said similar things in a couple of interviews. It's a perspective that kind of snuck up on me; I might have even called myself a cynic when I was younger. But like Conan, I find it the personality trait I like least. Cynicism is easy and lazy. While cynics pose as courageous iconoclasts, sincerity is much braver, riskier, and more constructive. No one ever accomplished something great if they didn't think it was worth doing, and I guarantee they were surrounded by a hundred snide, sarcastic cynics eager to explain how it wasn't worth the effort and they were doomed to fail. Tearing down is easy; creating is hard.

Watch me tie everything together: although I didn't read the book Confessions of a Shopaholic, I'll bet it was written by a sincere author and made into a movie by cynical filmmakers. How 'bout that?

Note that cynicism isn't skepticism. I'm deeply skeptical, especially in a scientific double-blind-study kind of way. But I like to think I've grown increasingly uncynical, and learned to recognize and value sincerity in the work of others. It's a work in progress.

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I bought and read a new old book yesterday, America's Great Comic-Strip Artists by Richard Marschall. Although it was published in 1989 I found it in an antique store, which I thought was odd. In any case, it's a neat collection of biographies and critical analyses of 16 great cartoonists dating back to the late 1800s, including several that are on my personal Top Twenty List including McCay, Herriman, Sterrett, Raymond, Caniff, Kelly and Schulz. It's well illustrated and very informative, puncturing some myths I'd heard repeated often enough to believe and telling me much I didn't know. Highly recommended if you can find it. Try your local antique store (?).
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Tapas

Just a few odds and ends, none of which offers more than a bite-sized morsel:

* * *

Over the weekend I read The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner, who roamed the world to find the happiest people and figure out what made them that way. One of my daughters recommended it and I admit I was wary, afraid it'd be a doe-eyed New Age polemic about the evils of Western Civilization, finding peace within, blah blah.

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Instead, I found Weiner to be a skeptical, observant, witty, and slightly crabby guide who doesn't pretend to do real research but delivers genuine insights nonetheless. He's an engaging travel writer who reminded me of Calvin Trillin, one of my favorites, and I was especially captivated by his chilling account of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, home of the unhappiest people on the planet. It was easy to see why. Thought-provoking and recommended. I should know to trust my girls.

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* * *

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I'm lining up a few exciting speaking engagements for 2010 that I'll write about as they get nearer and firmer. The first will be at the Bookbinders' Guild meeting in New York City on Tuesday, February 9. Here's how dumb I am: my first thought upon getting the invitation was, "I don't know anything about bookbinding!" But the Guild is in fact composed of high-powered big-time professionals in book publishing, manufacturing, and sales, and I'll be there (I gather) mostly to talk about how Mom's Cancer evolved from web content to book. Editor Charlie will be on the panel with me, so I expect that to be fun. Unfortunately, I don't think it's open to the public. But I'll blog all about it here!

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* * *

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Speaking of Mom's Cancer, I just received a draft of an article titled "Graphic Medicine: Comics as a New Tool in Medical Education and Patient Care," which will be published in the British Medical Journal in February. The paper, by Michael Green and Kimberly Myers at Penn State College of Medicine, looks at Mom's Cancer and Marissa Acocella Marchetto's Cancer Vixen as "novel and creative ways to learn and teach about illness." Thousands of physicians are going to read this paper, which also ties into another speaking engagement that looks like it's going to happen in the summer.

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How cool is that? Wish Mom could've seen it.

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The Bestish of 2009

I've gradually stopped citing book reviews here on my blog, instead using my WHTTWOT Facebook Fan Page to point them out when I find them. Someday I'll write a blog post about how my perspective on reviews has evolved over time to where I've pretty much resolved not to pay them much mind or respond to them, good or bad. Basically, I needed to grow a thicker skin.

But WHTTWOT did get nice mentions on two critics' year-end "Best of 2009" lists that I didn't want to pass unnoticed. Many terrific graphic novels and comics were published last year, and just to be considered in their company is a nice achievement and honor.

On Comic Book Resource's "Robot 6" blog, Brigid Alverson called WHTTWOT one of her ten favorite books of 2009: "This is a flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless. Fies looks at changing attitudes toward science through the eyes of a boy and his father as they live through World War II, the Cold War, and the space age, and he intersperses this narrative with a fictional comic reflecting each era. A bit talky but interesting and beautifully produced."

My book also earned an Honorable Mention on a 2009 Top Ten list put together by Marc Sobel of Comic Book Galaxy's "Trouble With Comics" column. He wrote: "I've seen a few negative or lukewarm reviews of this book, which I think are pretty unfair. The story is a little light, I'll admit, but Fies is a cartoonist with tremendous range. I love the way he varies his style in this book to reflect the maturity of his lead character, and his use of digital tools, from embedded photos to digital coloring and effects, is impressive. There's also a sweetness to this book that I found refreshing. So many graphic novels these days focus on human tragedy and violence. It was a pleasant change of pace to read about a boy who loved and idealized his father, even if the end result was a little sappy. Not quite a top 10 book, but far better than the criticism it’s received."

There's no need for well-meaning friends to race to my defense in the comments, protesting the "flawed" or "talky" or "sappy" criticisms. They're fair--heck, I'll even cop to them. In the big picture, at the end of a year overflowing with great books by very talented people, these critics thought enough of mine to include it on their lists. I appreciate that a lot.
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