Last night, actor Elliott Gould joined cartoonist Jules Feiffer at a Los Angeles screening of "Little Murders," the 1971 film produced by and starring the former and written by the latter. If this were a film blog, I'd tell you all about the movie, which was funny, dark, anti-violence and strikingly uncomfortable in parts. I'd tell you about how Gould had, at one point, wanted Jean-Luc Godard to direct it, and his conversations with the French master (Alan Arkin directed, instead). I'd have asked Feiffer a question about another movie he wrote, "Carnal Knowledge." But it isn't a film blog; it's a book blog.
After the screening -- at the modest Cinefamily, which has recently been doing phenomenal programming -- Feiffer signed his books on a back patio. Fantagraphics has reissued several, including the comic collections "The Explainers" and "Passionella" and the novel "Harry, the Rat With Women." During the Q&A, Feiffer -- a successful cartoonist, screenwriter and playwright had claimed not to have been able to master the novel form "because I couldn't describe anything," he said. "That's why my cartoons have no backgrounds."
Novels aside, Feiffer, who has won an Obies for his playwrighting, an Oscar for an animated short, a Pulitzer Prize for his cartooning and accolades for his childrens books, has certainly mastered many other forms. He seems decades younger than his 80 years and probably would have answered questions longer if they'd let him.
So what is Feiffer reading? "Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920," by Jackson Lears.
As for Gould, he's just finished "City of Thieves" by David Benioff. "I loved it. I think the guy's great," he said. Gould likes to keep up with the books his daughter reads -- she studied literature at the University of Vermont. He particularly liked "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," because, he said, he recognized in one of its characters "my inability -- unwillingness -- to compromise."
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: Elliott Gould and Jules Feiffer. Credit: paperhaus via Flickr
Our blog Hero Complex talks to Dean Hanspiel about Next Door Neighbor, the Web comics series he's editing for Smith Magazine. "We are celebrating humanity, from the kid next door to the raging alcoholic upstairs with the night terrors," he says. Tara Seibel's "The Vestibule" is the 29th in the series.
American Michael Thomas has won the Impac Dublin Prize for his first novel "Man Gone Down," beating out serious competition from the likes of Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates. The 100,000 euro (about $141,000) prize is one of the largest literary awards in the world. The Guardian reports that Thomas, in Dublin for the announcement, admitted to being stunned. "I had a hard time believing I'd made the shortlist -- or the longlist, for that matter -- so I'm still waiting for the punch line." The book was rejected by more than one publisher before finding a home at Grove Atlantic-- and in the hearts of the Impac Dublin prize committee.
Matt Bucher, an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and publisher of the critical anthology "Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace's 'Infinite Jest,' " admits to the Infinite Summer blog that he first picked up Wallace's iconic work because it had been marked down to $8.99: "They were stacked in a large square, three or four feet high, each book a brick in tower, near the cash registers. How could I resist?"
And in case you missed it, the New Yorker Book Bench blog talked to Aleksander Hemon last week. When asked how autobiographical the stories are in his new collection, "Love and Obstacles," he's got an awfully good explanation.
Here’s how it works: Last night, on my way to give a reading, I hurt a ligament in my right hand while putting my shoe on. As I was driving this morning and talking on the phone with my sister in London, I lost my grip and sideswept my neighbor’s car. Being honest, I went to their house to tell them what I had done. When I rang the bell nobody answered. I knocked and went in anyway, thinking they might be in the backyard. The house was empty, and as I walked through I noticed a vase in the shape of a monkey head. The light angle made it somehow seem that the monkey was winking at me, so I picked the head up to examine it, but then, dropped it, what with the weak hand ligament, and it shattered in a thousand pieces. For a moment, I considered cleaning up or waiting for my neighbors to show up, but then decided to sneak out. Now I dread hearing the door bell.
I could go on and turn this into a story. I did hurt my hand last night and I did get into the car this morning, but I did not cause any damage, nor did I trespass. I did not talk to my sister yesterday, but she does live in London. And I’ve never seen a monkey head like that. So, how much of this putative story is autobiographical?
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Illustration credit: Tara Seibel's "The Vestibule" / Next Door Neighbor
Joe Shuster drew Superman in the 1930s, which should have made him invincible. But after he and writer Jerry Siegel got into a legal tie-up with DC Comics over rights to the character in the 1940s (DC won), he moved on to other things.
One of those things, which he kept quiet, was a magazine called Nights of Horror. The salacious fictional crime booklet launched in 1954 and ran for 16 issues -- with illustrations by Joe Shuster. These are now collected in the book "Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster" by Craig Yoe.
Nights of Horror was a plain-wrap kind of a periodical, one destined to run afoul of 1950s censors. Yoe details a Brooklyn crime spree by teens that was allegedly inspired by the magazine and that helped lead to its demise.
But enough copies have survived to put together this marvelous, adults-only coffee-table book. There are buxom ladies -- with whips and in leg irons, holding daggers and cigarettes. Men with chiseled jaws fondle them, embrace them, peep on them, kiss their feet. As Yoe points out, some of these men look a bit like Clark Kent (or Superman, take your pick). Others evoke Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor and Lois Lane.
At a party for the book in New York on Sunday, some of the scenes that Shuster drew were staged (above). But although real people standing in for the tableaux might be cool, it isn't the same thing as his drawings (you can see the book's cover, if you look closely, in the photo).
That's because Shuster drew beautiful women who were impossibly stacked and handsome men with impossibly broad shoulders. Once he drew them as heroes; later, he drew them stripped, vulnerable and twisted off into another world.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: istolethetv via Flickr
 After a historic, precedent-setting election, there's usually a rush to press to see who can get out the first book or documentary about the event. For the Obama election, the first books out with a major publisher are: a serious analysis by NBC correspondent Chuck Todd (Jan. 5) and a graphic novel by journalist Michael Crowley and artist Dan Goldman (Jan. 25).
That’s right — the No. 2 slot for book-length journalism about the presidential campaign has been taken by a comic book.
So how did Crowley (a senior editor from the New Republic) pair up with Goldman (who drew the indie Web comic-turned-book "Shooting War") to create "’08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail" (Three Rivers: $17.95 paper)? Well, in July of 2007, Sean Desmond, an editor at Crown Books, was sitting in the Lucky Strike, a cozy little Parisian-style bistro in SoHo, musing over his scotch to literary agent Bob Mecoy that he wanted to create a print version of Pennebaker’s documentary "The War Room" for the 2008 election. Desmond was grumbling that the public wouldn’t go for the sort of in-depth book he wanted to do.
Mecoy, who’s known to be down with graphic novels (he represents a number of graphic novelists), said the best way to capture the feel of the election would be a journalistic comic book.
“We never could have dreamed that we'd picked the election of the century,” says Mecoy. “If we'd known then ... we probably would have ordered steaks instead of beer [Mecoy’s drink] and French fries.”
So Desmond put Dan Goldman, who’s webcomic "Shooting War" had recently been made into a successful book, together with Crowley, who was following candidates during the primaries. The co-collaborators met for the first time in Desmond’s office, then while on the campaign trail, Crowley fired off comic book scripts about what he saw to Goldman. "Writing in medias res was kind of a high-wire act," says Crowley.
[More after the jump]
Read on »
At an appearance in England, Art Spiegelman publicly chafed against the term "graphic novel," saying, "I'm called the father of the modern graphic novel. If that’s true, I want a blood test," the Economist reports. " 'Graphic novel' sounds more respectable, but I prefer 'comics' because it credits the medium. ['Comics'] is a dumb word, but that’s what they are."
In news from another groundbreaking contrarian, Iggy Pop is releasing a CD inspired by "The Possibility of an Island" by Michel Houellebecq. "It's a quieter album with some jazz overtones," Pop says in a video on his site, "because at one point I just got sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music." He calls Houellebecq's book "a great novel, a funny novel ... about sex, death, the end of the human race and some other pretty funny stuff."
Jamie Byng -- the young, dashing, visionary and foul-mouthed head of Canongate -- may be the closest thing the publishing world has to a rock star. And now, with the help of his staff, he's hoping the bookish in Edinburgh will get up and get down at a quarterly nightclub called Irregular, "a smorgasbord of unexpected sounds that will include bands, readings, stand-up, video installations and DJs." Sounds good -- is it ready for export?
Just what you were waiting for: another prize. The Orange Prize for Fiction -- which is only for women authors, and is judged by women -- has announced its shortlist. The prize is based in England but includes writers from all over; this year, Americans among the contenders include Toni Morrison for "A Mercy," Curtis Sittenfeld for "An American Wife" and Marilynne Robinson for "Home." Last year's winner was "The Road Home" by Rose Tremain.
And from home to away: The upcoming film "Away We Go" was scripted by (married) authors Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie, about thirtysomething parents-to-be trying to find a place to call home, is directed by Sam Mendes and stars Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski (chalking up his second literary film of 2009). How's it look? Check out the new trailer, after the jump.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Image: Art Spiegelman's "Maus" / Random House
Read on »
Publisher Tokyo Pop is hiring: They need a manga editor to "guide the selection, creation, development, and marketing of licensed manga products." Sounds like somebody's dream job.
The New York Times new graphic books bestseller list has three sections: hardcover, softcover and manga. Right now, Naruto from VIZ Media has a lock on the manga list, holding seven out of its 10 slots.
In other New York Times news, the paper has gathered all of its literary audio into one place. The impressive list includes the recently departed (John Updike), the long gone (E.B. White, 1952; James Baldwin, 1987) and many authors who still walk among us. Too bad they can't be downloaded as MP3s.
What can be downloaded: The New Yorker's "Out Loud" pocast, if you subscribe with iTunes. This week, Joan Acocella talks vampires: Bram Stoker's "Dracula," vampire movies, what makes vampires sexy and telling horror stories with Lord Byron.
In what may be truly terrifying literature, the blog Largehearted Boy gets first-time novelist Will Elliott ("The Pilo Family Circus") to create a playlist to go along with his book. The tone is set by Tom Waits, Acid Bath, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Mr. Bungle; in case you can't guess, Elliott's book is about sinister clowns.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Image: geishaboy500 via Flickr
I'm no comics expert. For years I used to tell people that my knowledge dated back to the Watchmen — but then the Watchmen stopped being outdated. Now I try to keep up with the help of friends who go to Comic-Con and our fellow blog Hero Complex.
That's where I learned about "The Unwritten," an upcoming series from Vertigo (part of DC Comics). Written by Mike Carey and drawn by Peter Gross, "The Unwritten" is decidedly literary, as you can doubtlessly see from the illustration above (all those words, and the man is connected to the page). I haven't read the comic, but this is why I'm telling you about it: In "The Unwritten," which hits stores in May ... is about a somewhat mysterious author who writes a massively popular series of books about the boy wizard Tommy, a character based on the writer's own real-life son, Tom. The author disappears after writing the last installment of the series and leaves nothing to his only child except the unwanted legacy of being constantly confused with a fictional character. As he ages, Tom struggles with his printed-page namesake ... and then, eerily, the line separating fiction and reality begins to fade and bend.
The Harry Potter connection is obvious, but Hero Complex tells us that the fictional boy who must grow up as a real man references A.A. Milne's son Christopher, immortalized as Christopher Robin in the Winnie the Pooh books.
"We had this experience of — wherever we looked — the world was throwing bits of our story back to us," Carey told our reporter. Which sounds a lot like what Alan Moore wrote in the 1988 Graphitti Designs edition of "The Watchmen": "There was the weird delight of stumbling across some previously unheard quotation or fragment of obscure information that would fit with supernatural precision into what we were attempting to construct."
A preview of three pages from "The Unwritten" is available now on Hero Complex.
— Carolyn Kellogg
Granta, for its fathers issue, has asked writers to riff on photos of their dads. More will be trickling online in the near future, but for now take a look at Jonathan Lethem on his father, Richard, and Jim Shepard on his dad, who he calls Shep.
John Updike died this week at the age of 76; book editor David Ulin's remembrance is here. Deceased or not, the prolific Updike has one more book on the way: "My Father's Tears and Other Stories," due in June from Knopf. Wait, maybe that should be "at least one more book ..."
A fight between a father and daughter is being played out in the papers in France. Gaul Albert Uderzo, who illustrated the Asterix series, was accused by his daughter, in a letter to Le Monde, of selling out by handing control of the comic to a French publisher. The elder Uderzo, now 81, responded in part, "To be accused by my own daughter, in the pages of the newspaper of reference, of being an old man, manipulated and deluded in his insatiable greed by the gnomes of finance, is already quite undignified ..."
Author Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose debut short story collection "In Other Rooms, Other Wonders" hits shelves next month, talks to the litblog Beatrice about Turgenev. Turgenev is not the greatest of the Russian writers of prose fiction -- Nabokov ranks him fourth, after Tolstoy, Gogol, and Chekhov -- and “The Singers” is not my favorite short story. The ending, however, has always intrigued and troubled me, and often lodges in my mind when I’m considering the endings of my own stories.
The ending has a kind of a father's promise, and, as Mueenuddin explains, it rattles awkwardly against the story and the reader's expectations for it. Awkwardly in a good way.
(Note: none of the fathers mentioned are the surfer in the photo above.)
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo by Mike Baird via Flickr
Today is Jules Feiffer's
80th birthday. He's been winning prizes for his work since, at age 5,
he received a gold medal in a children's art contest. In 1986 he was
awarded the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning; his 1961 animated
short "Munro" won an Oscar. His storytelling skill was evident in his
screenplay for the film "Carnal Knowledge," which was nominated, in
1972, for the Writers Guild award for best comedy written for the screen. His 1968 play "Little Murders" won London Theater Critics and
Obie Awards. And generations grew up with his illustrations in the 1961
book "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster.
Perhaps the thing about Jules Feiffer's work that's so appealing
that while his style is loose and seemingly carefree, it often has a
satiric bite. In Feiffer's hands, dark comedy came alive in comics;
perhaps that's what prompted the Village Voice to begin running his
strip in 1956, where it continued to appear for 41 years.
Jules Feiffer got his start working for comic legend Will Eisner; he
left when he was drafted by the Army (conscription, he's joked, meant a
slight increase in play). He's taught at Columbia and Yale and is a member
of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He's written four novels,
twice as many children's books and has published several collections of
his comics, including, most recently, "Explainers: The Complete Village
Voice Strips 1956-1966." And today is his birthday. Many happy returns.
-- Carolyn Kellogg
Illustration: Jules Feiffer
A month or so ago, a friend of my son's made him a CD mix of songs by the band Fountains of Wayne; it's been living in the car ever since. The music is terrific, and also somewhat unexpected: Among other things, there's a cover of Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time," which, stripped of her cloying voice and studio overproduction, reveals itself to be (dare I say it) a pretty rocking little song.
Listening to it this morning, I was reminded of one of my enduring frustrations with writing — that you can't cover a book or story by someone else. You can quote, you can review, you can translate, you can pay homage, but to create a literal cover version? Literature has no mechanism for such an act.
Or does it? As I think about it, I can come up with two possible exceptions: Philip Roth's 1972 novella "The Breast," which spins off Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" to tell the story of a man who awoke one morning from troubled dreams to find himself changed into a monstrous breast in his bed, and Peter Kuper's "The Metamorphosis," a graphic novel version of the same Kafka story that, in its own odd way, is so faithful to the original that to call it an adaptation is to entirely miss the point.
Is it telling that both have their origins in the same piece of writing? Is it something about Kafka, or about "The Metamorphosis" itself? Are there other literary covers that I'm missing? Maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg, a subgenre waiting to be found.
— David L. Ulin
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Book Editor, Los Angeles Times
Deputy Book Editor, Los Angeles Times
Lead blogger, Jacket Copy
email: jacketcopyla [at] gmail.com
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