Literary Mailbag, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #152

October 25, 2011 Arthur Tebbel 2 Comments

Fall is here in Los Angeles.  For the uninitiated that means it’s shorts weather during the day and shivering under blankets at night.  No leaves will actually leave any trees.  It’s a hoot and a half.  To celebrate this change in seasons, I’m going to dig into the Pop Art mailbag and answer two questions about literature.

Dear Art,

This has been an exciting month in comic books.  Not only has there been the line-wide revamp of the DC Universe that was The New 52 there was also news on the Marvel side.  Marvel ended two major crossover events, Fear Itself and Schism, both of which promise to change the status quo in major ways.  How have you reacted to these changes?  Do you think this will be the time that “Nothing will ever be the same” sticks?

-Name Withheld

Anonymous,

I’ve read comics my entire life and I think I can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that nothing is the same as when I started so, somewhere along the line, things must have changed and never been the same again.  I don’t think that change has really been driven by stunts like this.  Just as the DC Universe Post-Crisis slowly drifted back to the Pre-Crisis concepts that writers were fond of so will the new DC continuity drift back to the way things were.  I don’t understand what the new Action Comics will be like after Grant Morrison leaves.  Will they really have two Superman books where one is consistently several years behind the “present?”  I doubt it.  I would bet that in three years the only thing this stunt will be remembered for is forcing DC into digital distribution.

The Marvel changes are even less interesting.  On the X-Men side we have Cyclops and Wolverine not speaking to each other and having two teams on two coasts.  I think this will last about as long as it takes them to dream up a new big crossover.  In Fear Itself they killed off Thor.  I feel like we just got over them killing Thor last time.  Leave Thor alone!

 

Dear Art,

This week Knopf Publishing will release 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, translated into English for a North American audience.  The effort has taken the better part of two years and has necessitated two translators.  The book has accumulated a fair amount of hype, including calls for it to win Murakami a Nobel Prize.  How pumped are you for this book?

-Name Withheld

 

Anonymous,

So pumped.  I am a huge Murakami fan.  I have been for some time.  I’ve been using this week leading up to finish reading another of his epic novels.  Not content to simply read in this world I went out and bought a bottle of Cutty Sark scotch whiskey this weekend because it plays a small part in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  It is not a good whiskey but I thought it important that I try it so I understand the characters better.  I’m going on a trip this week where I won’t be easily able to bring a 900+ page hardcover book with me and I seriously considered buying a Kindle just to read this book on it.  The thing that stopped me wasn’t the insanity of that plan but the unavailability of the new Kindles.  There are no other writers that inspire this kind of lunacy in me.  If you have even the slightest inkling that you might enjoy 1Q84 I urge you to give it a try.