Broken Frontier

It’s a quiet, thick evening here in the Library of Babble. The triple-digit summer temperatures have fried my brain. My synapses are plugged with a viscous, snotty substance that only occasionally admits a neurotransmitter. The clock ticks, the seconds drag, my fingers drum on the desk, and I want a cigarette. Oh, God, do I want a cigarette. I imagine the sensation of nicotine rushing to my brain, the cavalry to the rescue, heating up the wires and making the words flow. Remember that movie, Constantine? The one with Keanu Reeves? I pop that in the player, and watch every sweet, deep drag, and pretend.

My lungs and brain are inflamed with the craving, and my column deadline hangs over me like a demon, taunting me with a fresh pack of Marlboros. I won’t do it. I quit three years ago. Too much time has passed to reset the clock now. But how to ignore the demon, when it’s the only thing I can see?

No way are you going to get the usual column this week. I can’t track an argument from one paragraph to the next. I’m going to win this round by writing a few short capsules covering some items that crossed my desk this week.

Sundays With Walt and Skeezix

Sunday Press Books has announced the upcoming release of Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, a full size, 96 page, hardbound beauty that contains the best of Frank King’s Gasoline Alley Sundays, from 1921-1925. Following on the heels of his spectacular So Many Splendid Sundays: Little Nemo in Slumberland, publisher Peter Maresca has again produced a beautiful art book that will feed the curiosity of historians and comics scholars, and inspire comics artists. I remember when I was a little kid, I was bored by King’s stories – put that down to childish incomprehension – but his use of color and shape held me spellbound. You can check out pages of this fabulous new volume here.

Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

It’s only August, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and claim that this will be one of the most staggering works of comics scholarship to be published in 2007. Dr. Ulrich Merkl has produced a complete, you read it right, complete collection of Dream of the Rarebit  Fiend (1904 – 1913), by Silas, aka Winsor McCay. The decidedly adult episodes of this comic strip always began with some poor soul eating Welsh rarebit (cheese on toast) before bedtime, and then having a weird dream. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend reproduces every episode known to exist, 369 reprinted in the book at original size, the rest on a DVD. The book also comes annotated, with scholarly articles, and even a little dream interpretation. The DVD includes high resolution scans of the episodes not included in the book, and a searchable 600-page catalogue raisonné of all the episodes. Hardbound, 464 pages + DVD, and weighing in at 9.5 pounds, this is another must-have for artists, fans, historians, and scholars alike. You can explore the book here.

Tintin in the Congo

The UK government’s Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) called for Tintin in the Congo to be removed from sale in UK bookstores. Originally published in book form in 1931, Hergé apparently wrote it in order to instruct children on the virtues of colonialism. According to the website Tintinologist,

Publisher Egmont issued a color version of the book in Britain in 2005, including a foreword which tried to explain the colonial attitudes prevalent at the time it was written. A human rights lawyer came across the book in Borders last month, and complained to the CRE, which condemned the book’s "imagery and words of hideous racial prejudice, where the ‘savage natives’ look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles . . . It beggars belief that in this day and age Borders would think it acceptable to sell and display it."

There has been quite a bit of hostile reaction to the CRE on internet discussion boards. See, for example, the comments on the story at the website of the Telegraph.

I don’t think people like the idea of books being banned. In fact, Times Online columnist India Knight reported that the main effect of the CRE’s call to remove Tintin in the Congo from bookshelves resulted in a 3,800% jump in sales on Amazon.

This is an interesting story. The images are really awful. I felt like I’d been slapped in the face when I saw them. But at the same time, it’s nice to see that so many of my fellow world citizens are just not going to put up with governments banning books. I just hope I can see them speak out against racism with as much vehemence.

End

And now, I’m about an inch from running to the corner store, slapping down all my spare cash, and squatting on the pavement outside, awash with fluorescent lights, to at last, sweet smoke, spare myself any further suffering. Good night, and good luck!