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Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon and The MacDowell Colony have revealed a new fellowship, funded by an anonymous donor, that will be given in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy.
The $200,000 endowment will fund an annual residency of up to two months at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. Inspired by Sheedy’s push to discover diverse voices, The Charlotte Sheedy Fellowship will be given to writers that write about people from across racial and cultural boundaries.
\"The MacDowell Colony commits itself, every day, to supporting, fostering, and nurturing diverse artists in their daily struggle to make art,” Chabon said at a ceremony where he revealed the new award. “That commitment is written into the Mission Statement. It’s been coded into MacDowell’s DNA from the day in 1954 that James Baldwin walked into Baetz Studio and got down to work.”
Michael McKenzie has been named executive director of publicity at Algonquin. His start date has been set for May 26th.
McKenzie will be based at the publishing house’s New York office. He will manage publicity projects for both the adult and children’s books list.
Prior to this development, McKenzie serve as the senior of director of publicity of the Ecco and Harper imprints at HarperCollins. In the past, he has worked on campaigns for authors Michael Chabon, Amy Tan, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Author Neil Gaiman had a huge amount of respect for how his friend, the late Terry Pratchett responded to a diagnosis with early onset rear brain alzheimer’s in 2007.
In a recent discussion about Pratchett with author Michael Chabon, Gaiman said: “He did something huge and noble, which was after his diagnosis, he went public and he went loud. He risked being trivialized.”
Here is an excerpt from the discussion:
Terry was someone who fought for years to get people to understand that funny and serious are not opposites. The opposite of funny is not funny. You can absolutely be funny and serious at the same time and Terry was.
So here is somebody who has fought to be taken seriously and to make people realize that you can write a serious novel set in a fantasy context on the back of elephants on the back a giant turtle floating through space and it can still be a real novel and he’s got there. He’s won the Carnegie Medal. He’s got serious critical attention and now he risks losing it, but he did. He announced it to the world and he used it to an opportunity to start the dialog.
Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon recently sat for a conversation at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. The two writers talked about their craft, stories, and beloved authorSir Terry Pratchett.
The video embedded above features the portion of their discussion where they talked about Pratchett and his influence on the literary community. Click here to watch a recording of the entire event. On the same day that Gaiman learned of Pratchett’s passing, he wrote a short blog post to express his feelings about his dear friend.
Here’s an excerpt: “Thirty years and a month ago, a beginning author met a young journalist in a Chinese Restaurant, and the two men became friends, and they wrote a book, and they managed to stay friends despite everything. Last night, the author died. There was nobody like him. I was fortunate to have written a book with him, when we were younger, which taught me so much.” (via The Huffington Post)
HARK! A new volume of Casanova has begun – the first since 2012 – and with it comes the promise of another harrowing adventure steeped in espionage, intrigue, and boobies from writer Matt Fraction and artist Fábio Moon.
Casanova Quinn (Quentin Cassiday) has been kicking around the comics world since 2006, when he hit the scene as a freelance jack-of-all-trades for any discerning client and/or worldwide spy organization. Since then he has been gainfully employed across timelines and dimensions, doing various jobs for his father’s E.M.P.I.R.E., as well as other things I’m not exactly equipped to explain because come on, this timeline is nuts.
At the beginning of this iteration, Cass is a man with no past and nothing to lose. A stroke of luck finds him employed with an older man in a similar position – acute amnesia. The rest of the story unfolds accordingly, as they hatch a plan to find out all they can about each other. For all of its separation from previous issues, this installment still finds itself planted firmly in the footing of its predecessors. The years since the last volume have apparently had no effect on the creative team, who continue to crank out work that blends seamlessly with the universe they’ve created, while also maintaining enough distance for the new story to grow.
In Acedia #1, the gorgeous pages by Moon come to the forefront of the story immediately. Cass is deranged, covered in blood and stumbling through the streets of Hollywood, California. Lit up in blues and oranges by colorist Cris Peter, this balance of warm and cool colors remains throughout the story, creating a surreal reading experience, and evoking a surprising breadth of moods.
Moon’s art is singular, blending thick and chunky linework into thin silhouettes and shapes that somehow remain elegant and defined, rather than bulky and dull. His style vacillates between great economy of line and incredible detail – always unafraid of using thick swathes of black ink wherever he deems appropriate, and to great success. The backgrounds are natural, replete with the imperfect lines that suggest the absence of a ruler, and perfectly matched to the figures in the foreground.
Character designs remain on point, especially those of the “Grey Men.” A garish pairing of geometric head-pieces and pinstripe suits, the pages with these figures stand out as some of the best in the issue. The fight between Cass and these characters is fast-paced, dynamic, and unforgiving. Rounding out the story is the final panel – an amalgamation of everything listed above. Copious black, varied line widths, and dry brush work together to create an ominous display of what’s to come.
As far as the writing goes, Fraction uses the bulk of the pages to set up the story between Cass and his employer. There are still all the trappings of a Casanova comic – dry humor, sexy encounters, ill-advised “plays on words,” etc. -and they work as well as ever. A quote by French poet Guillame Apollinaire adds some literary levity to an otherwise straight-forward scene. So, you know, classic Fraction.
Making Acedia even more of a winner, though, is the back-up story featured at the end of the issue. Written by Michael Chabon and drawn by Gabriel Bá, The Metanauts promises to be the perfect accompaniment to its sister-story. Using the same outline as the main storyline, this short features characters both new and old, including a delightfully cynical rock journalist to whom every band is “a bunch of trumped-up corporate bullshit.”
Casanova continues to carve out its path in the comics world, holding steady to the formula that the creative team has been employing for years. “The rules are simple. The gun is always loaded. The safety is always off. The fucker always fires.”
1 Comments on Review: Casanova Acedia #1 Mo’ Memories Mo’ Problems, last added: 1/29/2015
BBC Culture conducted a critics’ poll to select the “21st Century’s 12 greatest novels.” Junot Díaz’sThe Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao captured the top spot.
The participating critics reviewed 156 books for this venture. Most of them named Díaz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book as their number one pick.
The other eleven titles that made it include Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Atonement by Ian McEwan, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Did one of your favorites make it onto the list? (via The Guardian)
Oyster has added Book Lists to its eBook streaming service. This new feature will allow for greater discoverability.
Readers can build and share lists of their favorite titles. As a subscriber scans a list from the app on their mobile device, they can click on a title that interests them and instantly start reading.
According to the Oyster blog, the company has reached out to different groups and authors to kick off the launch. Organizations such as Warby Parker, Blue Bottle, and the Rhode Island School of Design have curated their own special lists. The group of writers who joined in include The Glass Castle memoirist Jeanette Walls, The Devil Wears Prada novelist Lauren Weisenberger, and Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon.
Oyster, the eBook subscription service that has been referred to as "the Netflix of eBooks," now has 500,000 eBooks in its lending library.
New titles include: How Music Works by David Byrne, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon, The Cider House Rules byJohn Irving and It Chooses You by Miranda July.
This is huge growth for the company's catalog which counted only about 100,000 titles a few months back. The company raised $14 million in funding back in January and has since been expanding its publisher partnerships. The service launched kids books in February.
The service allows users access to its entire collection of books for a $9.95 a month subscription fee.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
0 Comments on Ask a Book Buyer: The Answer Is Robin Hobb (and More) as of 5/2/2014 4:29:00 PM
Jerry Puryear has done just this. He has created a Tumblr page called Misguided Paeans, which is dedicated to children’s book adaptations of serious adult novels. ”A poorly advised amalgam of literary fiction and children’s books,” explains Puryear on the website.
The regularly updated collection is very entertaining and worth checking out. (Via Slate).
The American Heritage Dictionary has added a number of writers to its usage panel, including Katherine Boo, Michael Chabon and Amy Tan. See all the 2012 and 2013 additions to the panel below…
The panel is a collection of about 200 novelists, linguists, editors, journalists, poets, and other wordsmiths who guide ”hundreds of supplementary notes inform the reader about usages that are contentious.” They guide readers with extra context for words like “irregardless“ ”affect“ or “impact.” Here’s more from the release:
Since 1964, five years before the publication of the first edition, the editorial staff has turned to the Usage Panel for feedback and guidance. Because we have collected five decades’ worth of information, we can show the change in opinion over time (as at ). Of course the makeup of the Panel has changed over the years. Only one member from the original panel, William Zinsser, remains. Usually panelists stay on until their deaths. We received James Michener’s final ballot, for example, very soon after his death; the ballot is quite likely one of the last items he worked on. Occasionally, a member will ask to retire. As a result, each year we invite a handful of people to join the ranks of the Usage Panel.
At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]
0 Comments on Ask a Book Buyer: Moving On from David Foster Wallace, YA with Fierce Female Leads, and More as of 1/1/1900
The finalists for the 33rd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all their books below–some of the best books released in 2012. Here’s more about the awards:
“The winners of the L.A. Times book prizes will be announced at an awards ceremony April 19, the evening before the L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 20-21. Held on USC’s campus in Bovard Auditorium, the awards are open to the public; tickets will be made available in late March.”
Since winning the Pulitzer Prize for his spectacular 2000 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon has gone on to write a diverse array of books restrained by neither style nor genre. Of the distinctive qualities to be found within whatever form his versatile storytelling may take is a prose marked by [...]
0 Comments on Telegraph Avenue (staff pick) as of 10/4/2012 2:50:00 PM
I spent more than 20 years in book publishing, mostly as an editor, and one of the most vexing issues my colleagues and I always faced was the jacket — what image (if any) and what type to put on the outside of a book. During my career, I had the privilege of meeting and [...]
0 Comments on Can You Judge a Book by Its Cover? as of 10/4/2012 2:50:00 PM
Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon's eighth novel, is the most low-concept thing he's written since the last century. For a little over a decade, Chabon has been the standard-bearer for the intermingling of genre tropes and literary fiction (and the writer to whom genre fans would frequently point to as an example of an outsider who "gets it" and values genre's contributions to our culture). The
The abstract: "Short story about the attempts of a female rabbi at an assisted-living facility to reconcile two estranged comic-book artists."
From the first sentence of the story, I thought it was an analogue for Bill Finger and Bob Kane. The name of the artist who was wronged is Morton Feather (sounds like Finger?) and the name of the writer who did the wronging is Artie Conn (Kane?).
In the Finger-Kane dynamic, Kane was the artist (at the beginning, anyway) and Finger was the writer (though he also designed Batman's costume). Job-reversal aside, however, Chabon's story read like an alternate history had Finger not died in 1974 at age 59 but instead lived till old age, as Kane did.
However, Chabon's camp confirmed that the story was actually influenced by the relationship between fellow comics creators Stan Lee (Conn) and Jack Kirby (Feather).
Funny—rather tragic—how such a misinterpretation was possible. In the Golden (and Silver) Age, too many four-color greats were got.
1 Comments on 'Citizen Conn' by Michael Chabon, last added: 3/13/2012
I thought "Cavalier & Klay" was good until the whole gay thing pulled me completely out of the story.
Also, having read almost all the historic accounts from actual creators, I easily recognize when Chabon is swiping someone's real-life anecdote for a subplot. I get a little pissed that Chabon recycles THEIR stories into HIS stories.
With villain names like Professor Von Evil and the Flaming Eyeball, how can you not be dying to read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon’s debut picture book THE ASTONISHING SECRET OF AWESOME MAN, illustrated by Jake Parker? With short text and plenty of derring-do action (take a peek inside), this picture book will be a favorite of kids who love comics, as well as kids in your storytime programs.
In its starred review, School Library Journal said “the depiction of a showdown between Awesome Man and his nemesis-the Flaming Eyeball-is priceless. Readers may notice that there’s a moral peeking out from Awesome Man’s cape, but they’ll still grab this story in their ‘ginormous Awesome Power Grip’ and not let go.”
Monica Edinger (of Educating Alice and Huffington Post fame) recently had the chance to interview Michael Chabon himself! Here’s how the conversation went:
Photo by Jennifer Chaney
From reading your Pulitzer Prize-winning adult novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, fans probably know you have a long-term relationship with superhero comics. Can you give us a taste of your own childhood introduction to them and how that might have inspired this story of Awesome Man?
Well, of course I remember seeing Batman and the first animated Spider-Man show on television when I was very small… but my first true plunge into the world of superheroes came through the comic books that my father began to bring home for me, as soon as I could read. He had grown up reading them himself, and felt they were an important part of a kid’s education.
You clearly revel in language and names — Professor Von Evil, Moskowitz the Awesome Dog, positrons, and…pooped (and what kid doesn’t like saying “pooped!”). As an adult author known for reveling in words and language, how did you manage to balance that with the need to keep things relatively simple for a picture book audience?
I was really thinking about the parents here–how much it meant to me, when I was reading a book aloud to my children for the 33832nd time, if there was a little verve or snap to the language. Probably the all time champ, in that regard–to me, at least–is William Steig. Nobody used English, in kids’ books, the way he did.
You have children of your own — were they helpful in the creation of this book?
I wrote this book for my younger son (I have two, and two daughters), Abe. He was the direct inspiration, in every way, for the main character of AWESOME MAN.
Are you a reader of children’s books yourself and if so, what are some of your favorites?
One of the greatest, and most lasting, pleasures of having children, for me, has been the excuse and the opportunity that bedtime reading has given me to revisit, and re-relish (usually), so many of the books I loved a
In a series of tweets last night, novelist Ayelet Waldman bashed author Katie Roiphe–defending her husband, Michael Chabonin the Twittersphere.
Here is the complete set of tweets: “I am so BORED with Katie Roiphe’s ‘I like the sexist drunk writers’ bull****. She happily trashes my husband, but guess what b****? … He not only writes rings and rings and rings around you, but the same rings around your drunken literary love objects … Really Roiphe? You seek ‘slightly greater obsession w/ the sublime sentence.’ My husband’s sentences are INFINITELY more sublime than yours.”
She ended the Twitter tirade with this note: “I do not like it when people insult those I love.”
Michael Chabon (pictured, via) and Ayelet Waldman will collaborate on an HBO drama called Hobgoblin.
Here’s more from Variety: “[It is] an offbeat drama project at HBO that revolves around a motley group of conmen and magicians who use their skills at deception to battle Hitler and his forces during WWII.”
The married couple will write the script and act as executive producers together. This endeavor marks the first time the two have worked together as professionals.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon is the new chairman of the MacDowell Colony’s board of directors.
The nine-time MacDowell Colony fellow had this statement: “MacDowell is a miracle that has come through for me many times over the years. Serving as board chair gives me the opportunity to repay my indebtedness just a tiny bit.”
Chabon (pictured, via Stephanie Rausser) will succeed Robert MacNeil. Chabon will tackle MacDowell’s $13 million Campaign for the Second Century, a project to fortify the Colony’s endowment and fund a new library and media center.
Not, by any means, a bad week. Just strange. Still behind on work, and shuttling between Boston and New York.
I went to New York on Friday, got there in time to catch Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith reading at the New Yorker Festival, which had brought me in. I nearly disgraced myself by fainting during Michael's reading but managed not to (it was a close thing, and a long story). Here's a too-dark photo of Michael and Zadie afterwards.
The hotel that the New Yorker was putting me up in had the best view in the world, even if you were in the bath:
On Saturday, I went and had free ice cream with Daniel Handler (as announced on this blog). I would have liked to meet author Lemony Snicket, but unfortunately he was mysteriously detained and Mr Handler showed up as his representative.
This photograph commemorates the event. I am on the left. Mr Handler is holding the ice cream.
Since this photograph was taken I have had a haircut.
Then Holly and I went off with the lovely Claudia Gonson and her beautiful new baby Eve. We had sushi, except for Eve, and then went to the Evolution shop where I bought a replica Dodo Skull.
The dodo skull was a present for Countess Cynthia Von Buhler, whose birthday it was. She's an illustrator and artist who also throws parties, and that night was her birthday party, and she had also decided to celebrate Amanda's and my engagement.
There were dead mermaids, and there was a carousel on the roof.
I have never been to a party like it, nor do I ever expect to go to such a party again. If you can win at parties, Cynthia (who was a mermaid, first in a bathtub, and later carried around on a bed) won.
The next morning Dana Goodyear interviewed me for the New Yorker Festival, which was hugely enjoyable. (
On Saturday, Joan Acocella (author of the vampire essay, “In the Blood”) moderated the Vampires Revival panel. On board to speak were philosophy professor Noel Carroll, horror novelist Stephen King, vampire film director Matt Reeves, and Twilight screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg. A video preview of the panel discussion is embedded above.
Several dozen King fans waited outside the venue only to be disappointed by King’s unwillingness to sign books. As he walked away with his arms in the air, he told the crowd: “I can’t sign guys, I got to get something to eat.” Alas, just because he’s a “king” doesn’t mean he isn’t human.
I was supposed to attend the Scottsdale Society of Women Writers meeting last night at the Marriott Suites, featuring Laura Tohe, published poet. However, in my ignorance, I decided to get a physical Tuesday, which entailed a tetanus shot and three tubes of blood stolen from my body. Since then, I’ve fallen victim to what I’m calling “The Black Plague”—sinus congestion, body aches, headaches, and general extreme exhaustion. What I’m trying to say, is that I was too sick to attend last night’s writers’ meeting.
Now, if that last paragraph had been attacked by a writers’ group, they would have said I went off on a tangent. I took too long to get to my point. I lost my focus. Which brings me to my real point of discussion: writers’ groups.
For me, it started in college. The opening scene of the film adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys ought to give you a good feel for a college writing workshop—a bunch of kids, reading each others’ work, and tearing each other new ones. It’s not always a massacre (“I hate it. His stories make me want to kill myself.”), but there can be grudges that last the entire semester, based on the critique of a single sentence.
I’ve matured since those days, but not by much. I joined a writers’ group as soon as I moved here, to Phoenix, and I still tend to have a big mouth and perhaps say things I shouldn’t. I didn’t used to be like this. I was at least semi-concerned for the well-being of others, during my college days. I’ve found the older I get, the less my internal filter seems to do its job. Life is too short to be nice when being mean might help another artist grow, I suppose.
Wonder Boys' Grady Tripp
But this all got me to thinking: why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we, writers, have a need to hang out and talk about our work? Is it because we believe, as Wonder Boys’ Grady Tripp, that “most people don’t think. And if they do, it’s not about writing. Books—they don’t mean anything. Not anymore.” I know it feels that way sometimes, as a writer. Some days, I wake up and know I’m supposed to work on my novel that afternoon, and I think, “Why? What does it matter? If it even gets published, it’ll just end up on some dusty, library shelf, forgotten and ignored.”
I do my best to shake these demons, but hey, I’m a writer. I’m insecure. I’m terrible at accepting criticism. I’m like a child throwing a tantrum, and sometimes the child in me just doesn’t want to be a writer anymore. Why couldn’t I have been born a banker? A scientist? Sure, I probably would have been miserable, but I would have had a job. I would have had a steady paycheck. I would have had quantifiable ways to measure my success.
This is why we do it. This is why we writer people stick together and talk about stuff, because we need to know that someone cares—someone out there is listening, someone is championing us, saying “Keep writing! You’re gonna do it! Keep on going, you writer, you!” We ultimately measure our success via the opinions of other writers, so we have to stick together or tempt the eventuality of getting “a real job.”
At its simplest, a writers’ group is just a friendship forum—a way to meet new people with interests a lot like yours. Because, when it comes down to it, I’m a believer in Wonder Boys: “Nobody teaches a writer anything. You tell them what you know. You tell them to find their voice and stay with it. You tell the ones that have it to keep at it; you tell the ones that don’t have it to keep at it, too, because that’s the only way they’re going to get where they’re
3 Comments on Wonder Boys OR Why Writers Stick Together, last added: 8/29/2010
Too true!! I think we meet up because writing is such a lonely gig to choose. As someone who has a million great ideas that often fail to land on a page because…well…I get distracted on the computer by the option of surfing the internet instead of writing. And as a fairly extroverted person, it’s hard for me to sit in solitude and write about something I don’t even know that anyone cares to read. Will they hear my sarcasm? Will they laugh at musings that I think are hilarious? Will they ‘get it’?
And another reason for joining a writers group is to keep the momentum going – you have this group of people to answer to, and that is motivational. Even if you keep staring at a blank page every day, waiting for the perfect novel to form itself in front of your very eyes.
Plus, like you mentioned, what better way to meet like-minded people, all going through the same conflicts, questions, and desires as yourself. It keeps you going through the bleakness of being alone with your trusty laptop day after day. One of the reasons I need a regular job on top of writing.
saradobie said, on 8/27/2010 9:57:00 AM
I, too, worry about the reader “getting it.” I think that’s normal writer concern. I do love how writers’ groups keep us accountable. After hearing “I want to read more” over and over, you tend to WRITE more so that the group can READ more. It’s a total momentum thing!
The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer (plus the triumphant 2008 campaign he spearheaded to renovate Jerry Siegel's former Cleveland home).
Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman by golly.
To name only five.
A friend asked me why I think the last few years have seen a surge in interest in Siegel and Shuster. Good question, and it also begs a more specific one: is this increased interest only within the comics community or also among the general public?
Either way, I don't think it has as much to do with Michael Chabon as some might say. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which came out in 2000) wonderfully helped bring a certain mainstream validation to comics, but I don't think the book inspired the average reader to then pick up, say, Men of Tomorrow. And despite its popularity, it didn't make Siegel and Shuster household names (not that it was necessarily trying to). To comics people, Kavalier & Clay was an engaging new lens through which to consider the Siegel and Shuster story. To non-comics people, it was just another good book.
My friend wondered if the surge in interest might relate to the litigation between the Siegel family and DC Comics. But that is not on the radar of most people beyond the industry, at least not those I talk to.
I think the interest is at least in part because of a suddenly urgent sense of posterity—the last of the Golden Agers are dying now, so people are scrambling to document them while those original creators (or people they knew) are still around to speak for themselves.
I think it also has to do with the timing of the formative years of our generation. Many of the people researching Siegel and Shuster today grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. The superhero culture of that period has had a distinct influence in what has been happening recently at DC:
the acclaimed mini-series Justice written by Jim Krueger and Alex Ross paid tribute to the Legion of Doom from the cartoon Super Friends (which debuted in 1973)
the Hall of Justice and Wendy and Marvin, also from Super Friends, have been brought into print "continuity"
other characters created for that cartoon (the Wonder Twins, Black Vulcan, Samurai, Apache Chief) are getting the action figure treatment (strange, when you think about it, that it took as long as it did)
artists are drawing Superman to resemble Christopher Reeve (the first Reeve Superman movie came out in 1978)
the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold is based on a comic whose glory days were the 1970s
The 1970s were also the period in which Siegel and Shuster became known to a wider public. In 1975, they won the settlement from Warner Communications, which made the New York Times and the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. In 1976, their names were restored to all Superman stories in all media, starting with Superman #302 and culminating majestically with Superman: The Movie (see at 2:45). They (especially Jerry) began to attend comics conventions and at least one movie premiere.
In terms of comics, we are the first generation fueled less by the clinical nature of precedent and more by the emotional nature of nostalgia. We are creating superhero content by deepening the superhero content of our youth, and I think at a certain point, it's natural for that interest to extend from the fictional history to the real life history of these characters.
Though I loved Super Friends and Superman: The Movie and Superman comics, I wrote my book on Jerry and Joe without reflecting consciously on any of the thoughts above. (And at the time, none of the Siegel and Shuster projects listed at the start of this post were out.)
I simply found a surprising gap in the market and wanted to try to fill it with a book for both kids and adults that could do its small part to spread the word about two visionary guys (long gone) and their grand achievement (here to stay). It has been so gratifying that so many others have simultaneously helped bring the men behind the Man out from behind their glasses.
2 Comments on Why so much Siegel and Shuster these days?, last added: 8/6/2009
Very interesting. I hadn't thought of it like this. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news but they recently got rid of Marvin in Teen Titans in a particularly disturbing way. Nostalgia hurts.
Thanks, Marc! Some great thoughts here. I always like the "history of history"--not just what happened back when but how our retellings of what happened back when reflect where we are now.
I do think Kavalier & Clay deserves a bit more credit in the big picture. I don't know that I could have sold Men of Tomorrow to a mainstream publisher (or at least gotten an advance enabling me to do the work) had Michael not demonstrated a larger interest in comics history. At least that made a good argument for a book proposal. The curiosity of comics insiders about Jerry and Joe might have been the same, but I do think the success of K&C contributed significantly to the explosion of books on the subject and increased the interest of the "larger world."
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon and The MacDowell Colony have revealed a new fellowship, funded by an anonymous donor, that will be given in honor of literary agent Charlotte Sheedy.
Oyster has added Book Lists to its eBook streaming service. This new feature will allow for greater discoverability.
The finalists for the 33rd annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize have been revealed, and we’ve collected free samples of all their books below–some of the best books released in 2012. Here’s more about 
Pulitzer Prize-winning author 
[…] You can read my full review over at Comics Beat here. […]