Wred Fright's Blog

Changes in Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 12

2013-05-16T19:27:00.000-04:00

Chapter 26 gets majorly expanded. In the 1978 paperback, it's 4 pages. In the 1990 hardback, it's 20. So far, no other chapter has gotten this much expansion, and I want to say that no other one coming up does either, but we'll deal with that question as we progress further in the novel. Chapter 26 is mainly atmospheric and has that 1970s paranoia about the country falling apart in such full effect that one wonders if Mr. King was getting high by smoking a potent mixture of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate Tapes. This aspect of King surfing the zeitgeist is one of my favorite aspects of the novel anyhow, so I quite enjoyed this expanded chapter. Let's see. We have campus radicals; newscasters having a shootout with the army and taking over the airwaves; samizdat editions of newspapers; a talk radio host getting executed on air; a massacre at Kent State University that makes the one on May 4, 1970 look like a minor incident; black nationalists taking revenge on white supremacy one white person at a time live on tv; some last lies from a dying president of the USA; and much much more. Basically, this chapter shows the lengths the government goes to in an attempt to cover up the superflu, and the utter evil and futility of those efforts as the truth comes out and most of the population dies.

One notable change is the shift of the talk radio show's telephone numbers from 656-8600 and 656-8601 to 555-8600 and 555-8601 (too many King fans annoyed people with the original numbers perhaps?).

Chapter 27 isn't quite as exciting, but it starts a new phase in the novel. After Chapter 26, civilization as the characters knew it is over; it's postapocalypse time now! We'll pick up there next.

Changes in Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 11

2013-05-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

Chapter 23 has the usual minor expansion and fiddling, for the most part. For example, Kings adds a bit to the sentence "He would read as his supper cooked over a small, smokeless campfire, it didn't matter what; words from some battered and coverless paperback novel" making it "He would read as his supper cooked over a small, smokeless campfire, it didn't matter what; words from some battered and coverless paperback porno novel, or maybe Mein Kampf, or an R. Crumb comic book, or one of the baying reactionary position papers from the American Firsters or the Sons of the Patriots. When it came to the printed word, Flagg was an equal opportunity reader."

Chapter 24 has more expansion. The scene with Lloyd Henreid and his lawyer is quite longer, and Lloyd finds out that, due to a recent Supreme Court case, he may be executed within the month. One odd thing is that later in the chapter, a prisoner who attacks Lloyd gets a pack of cigarettes, but King changes the brand from Pall Malls to Tareytons. Both brands were seemingly still made in both time periods, so why the switch? Maybe King switched brands himself. I doubt he researched the preferences of prisoners, but it's King, so perhaps he did.

Chapter 25 has two similar expansions, first when Nick Andros rides a bicycle to leave town to find help and then later when Jane Baker dies.

Chapter 26 gets expanded even more, and I will pick up there next.

Changes in Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 10

2013-04-17T22:04:00.000-04:00

Most of the additional chapters in the revised version of The Stand occur early in the novel, and Chapter 20 is one of them (and, yes, when a novel has 78 chapters, Chapter 20 is still early). The chapter focuses on Fran Goldsmith figuring out what to do with her life now that she is pregnant. It's essentially a characterization chapter, which is why it probably got cut from the earlier, shorter version of the novel. Fran hangs about in a hotel, King makes an AC/DC joke, and Fran's mother gets the flu, as Captain Trips starts hitting Maine hard.

The next chapter featuring Stu Redman only has some minor revisions, but the following chapter is quite expanded. One minor revision in it though is quite fun. In Chapter 22, King updates the reference from Jimmy Carter to George Bush. So, instead of a description of the President of the USA as the "Georgia Giant" and a "clod-hopper"; he gets called "The dirty alderman." Despite their shared Maine background, it appears King might have liked Bush less than he did Carter. Then again, he also deletes the line, "The night that man had been elected had been a night of horror for him, and for all thinking men", but since the thought is attached to Len Creighton, who is one of the men responsible for the flu, it's probably just a reflection of the fact that Carter was not perceived as militaristic as his predecessors Nixon and Ford were, and thus might have been viewed as a threat by men such as Creighton to the military's development of biological weapons, and perhaps to Creighton's livelihood of war in general.

The expansion of the chapter involves Billy Starkey's suicide in the Project Blue laboratory where the superflu escaped from. Before he goes though, Starkey pulls Frank D. Bruce's head out of the bowl of soup he had died in, a fact that had bothered Starkey when he observed it over the surveillance cameras. As Creighton, who had taken over the command post from Starkey, notices though, Starkey was unsuccessful in clearing all the soup out of the man's eyebrows, which now becomes a fixation for Creighton, perhaps a suggestion by King that though the individuals change, the role remains about the same.

I'll pick up next with Chapter 23, which focuses on Randall Flagg, the novel's major villain (assuming you forgive Starkey, Creighton, and the rest of the military for messing with the superflu in the first place).

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 9

2013-03-07T22:36:00.000-05:00

The first thing that stands out about Chapter 19 of The Stand is that it has a picture in it. The 1990 edition has several illustrations by Bernie Wrightson (or Berni; the spelling of his first name seems to vary), perhaps best known as the co-creator of the comics character Swamp Thing. Wrightson had collaborated with King before on Creepshow and Cycle of the Werewolf. Strangely, these illustrations are dated 1984 and 1985, suggesting that the revised Stand had a long gestation period. The first one is of Larry taking care of his dying mother. In general, the illustrations don't add much to the novel, but they're a nice touch and a nod to the old tradition of novels with illustrations which had mostly died out in the 20th Century.

Beyond the inclusion of the illustration, other changes in this chapter are minor. One interesting one is that King dropped a complaint from Larry's mother about the hospital emergency room being "full of Puerto Ricans". One might suspect that the more politically correct times of 1990 made that 1970s ethnic complaint a bit taboo, but since he leaves in some of Alice Underwood's other ethnic and racist slurs in the text, it's probably just a result of his fiddling with the text. The man is a thorough reviser.

I'll pick up next with Chapter 20, which appears to be a new chapter.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 8

2013-01-14T21:18:00.000-05:00

Chapter 17 in the 1990 edition is an all new chapter, which features Billy Starkey observing the carnage in the military compound that unleashed the superflu and deciding the government should cover up the flu's existence and origin by killing anyone who stumbles upon the truth. The chapter cuts to another scene where a Houston reporter and photographer get murdered by undercover military personnel. In addition to fleshing out Starkey a bit, the chapter makes the handwringing about government and authority in the later Boulder Free Zone scenes more thematically powerful.

Chapter 18 picks up the storyline from the earlier edition again and features Nick Andros becoming the new sheriff by default in Shoyo, Arkansas. Oddly enough, the expanded chapter seems to be missing a paragraph from the earlier edition where Nick lowers his head to avoid lip-reading insults from the prisoners. Otherwise, it seems to have the usual fiddling and minor expansions until the end of the older chapter, to which King adds a few more pages in which the sheriff and most of the town dies, saddling Nick with taking care of the men who assaulted him. The doctor who treats Nick also notes that the town appears to be blockaded by the army and all the phones are dead, which continues the storyline from the previous chapter about the government trying to cover up the superflu, or barring that, its victims.

Chapter 19 moves to Larry Underwood and New York, and I'll pick up there next.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 7

2013-01-13T21:19:00.000-05:00

The new Chapter 13 gets expanded a bit where Stu Redman banters/duels with Dick Deitz, and, of course, also has the usual minor fiddling such as removing the italics from "The man with no face" when Stu dreams of Randall Flagg. The big change is a major expansion in the middle of the old chapter. King adds a chapter where Deitz tape records an account of the research on Stu and then takes the material from the end of the old chapter involving the nurse Patty Greer and makes it into a short chapter of its own. Chapter 16 is essentially the same as the old chapter 12 with some minor fiddling (for example, Nehi becomes Jolt in the gas station shootout scene).

Chapter 17 is brand new though, and I'll pick up there next.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 6

2013-01-12T16:25:00.000-05:00

In the 1990 edition of The Stand, Chapter 8 gets expanded at the end and the reader gets a few more paragraphs detailing how the flu spreads across the country. Chapter 9 gets a few more details about Larry Underwood's one night stand with the oral hygienist, and Larry's mom buys him a Sara Lee cheesecake with strawberries in addition to all the things she bought him in the earlier edition. That last addition is odd, but I haven't heard that Stephen King received any sort of product placement money for the novel, so it's probably just a minor detail meant to add to the realistic feel of the novel (well, as realistic as an apocalyptic novel gets anyway) that got cut when the original manuscript got edited.

More major changes happen in Chapters 11 and 12, which aren't the 11 and 12 in the earlier edition. The 1990 edition has 78 chapters whereas the earlier version has only 68, so, in addition to the various other changes, King adds ten new chapters to the book.

Chapter 11, the first of those new chapters, involves Larry visiting his mother at her workplace, where she lectures him about how selfish he is and then gives him money to go see a movie until she's done working. He goes and sees one of the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. Chapter 12 involves Frannie Goldsmith fighting with her mother over Frannie's pregnancy. Both chapters certainly aren't essential for the plot, but are nice ways for King to develop the characters a bit more, especially for Larry's guilt complex and Frannie's concerns about motherhood. Interestingly enough, both chapters involve the protagonists having conflicts with their mothers.

Chapter 13 returns to one of the chapters in the earlier edition, where Stu Redman gets some answers about his quarantine. I'll pick up there tomorrow.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 5

2013-01-11T18:17:00.000-05:00

Many of the early chapters introducing the cast of characters aren't much changed beyond some fiddling, some expanded characterization, and some updated cultural references. Some of the times, King leaves some things unchanged that are puzzling. For instance, the twentysomething rock singer Larry Underwood daydreams of having sex with Raquel Welch. No offense to Ms. Welch, but not many male heterosexuals who were infants in the mid-1960s probably were fantasizing about her in 1990. A then-contemporary sex symbol such as Cindy Crawford would have been more likely. Perhaps, King really had a thing for Welch so he left that reference unchanged, or Larry just likes MILFs (given the later Rita Blakemoor plotline, that's certainly possible).

But I'm discussing changes, not the things King didn't change. And Chapter 7 has a major change. In the 1980 paperback, it begins with the nurse telling Stu to roll up his sleeve, whereas in 1990 it begins with an entire scene featuring the character Vic Palfrey trying to figure out how he ended up in the hospital, before it cuts over to the scene with Stu. The addition is a nice one, though not for Vic since he dies in it, but it fleshes out a minor character and adds a bit more suspense to the threat of the superflu.

Some readers have complained that the earlier version of The Stand is superior to the expanded one since the storyline is more streamlined and the writing more taut, but, in general, if you liked The Stand before, then there's a good chance that changes such as addition of the Vic scene will make you like it more.

They make the novel even Standier.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 4

2013-01-10T23:34:00.002-05:00

In his preface, King describes the 1990 Stand as an "expansion of the original novel" and that indeed is what most of the new material is. Scenes get extended and characters get characterized more. For example, in the first chapter of the 1990 Stand, the reader learns a bit more about Stu Redmond's background, including that his youngest brother died of pneumonia, for which Stu felt guilty, a bit of foreshadowing on a couple of levels.

Of course, King fiddles as well as expands. He even fiddles at such tiny levels, it's fairly mind-boggling. For instant, Stu's description by his drinking buddies changes from "Old-time tough" to "Old Time Tough." That's right; he deletes a hyphen, adds a space, and changes the ts to capitals.

When I went to Kent State, I worked for a year in The Institute For Bibliography And Editing (IBE), where at that point they were working on crafting critical editions of the novels of Joseph Conrad. To create a critical edition, they would gather all the editions possible of the novels, including manuscripts, publishers proofs, and related material such as letters commenting on the novels. Then they would work on figuring what Conrad's intent was for the work and go from there to craft the ideal version of the novel including noting variants in the footnotes. It was a tough job, not so much mine individually (I mainly scanned in Conrad's letters where he mainly complained to his agent about money and gout), but putting together an ideal version of a text because so many little changes existed among editions (many of them typos and screwups; others, changes of the minds of writer, editor, or publisher).

Seeing something like the switch from "Old-time tough" to "Old Time Tough" would make the IBE staff weep with despair, especially since the 1990 Stand, in addition to the expansion by hundreds of pages, also seems to be filled with tiny little changes such as that.

King once called the writing of the novel his own personal Vietnam. Editing a critical edition would be like fighting the whole damn Cold War.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 3

2013-01-09T22:28:00.000-05:00

The date changes are what stand out most noticeably in the 1990 version of The Stand. The novel is so steeped in 1970s paranoia that switching the setting to 1990 just makes things odd. Even 1980 was pushing things a bit. In truth, this novel seems set a few days after Jonestown, with Watergate, stagflation, the Kent State shootings, the Charles Manson trial, and the Vietnam War all fairly fresh memories as well. Actually, the novel was published before the Jonestown tragedy, but it captures the 1970s horror zeitgeist so well it seems prophetic. But 1990?

No, that doesn't work. This novel doesn't feel set in Ronald Reagan's America and certainly not George Bush's. Not that those weren't horrific times as well, but the horror was of a different type, more like that of a Yuppie vampire sucking the blood out of a lazy steelworker. The Stand's horror is the shock of 1960s peace and love hippies giving up on flower power and going underground and robbing banks and setting bombs. It's Patty Hearstville all the way, no matter how many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get sprinkled in. Randall Flagg would have been working on Wall Street in the 1980s, not wandering the backroads of America.

I wish King had set the novel in the 1970s, but I can live with 1980.

Personally, I just consider all the date changes typos. Tsk, tsk, such sloppy copyediting. It mars an otherwise fine novel.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part 2

2013-01-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

One of the major changes to the 1990 edition of The Stand is that Stephen King added a preface explaining why a new edition of the novel has been released. According to King (and he should know, eh?), four hundred pages of the manuscript were cut from the published version of the novel in 1978 mainly due to financial concerns. The publisher was worried that the extra pages would have pushed the price too high for the book, as it was a long novel already, so King reluctantly made the cuts. For the 1990 edition, he restored many but not all of those pages, and he also tinkered with some more things such as updating the cultural references and the dates. He did something similar for the paperback edition in 1980, mainly with the dates, moving the date of the flu outbreak from 1980 to 1985. For the 1990 edition, the date is moved to 1990.

In addition to the preface, King made minor updates to the dedication (from "For my wife Tabitha: This dark chest of wonders." to "For Tabby/this dark chest of wonders.") and the author's note. The excerpts from songs that serve as invocations and mood music to begin the book change from songs by Bruce Springsteen, Blue Oyster Cult, and Bob Dylan to songs by Bruce Springsteen, Blue Oyster Cult, and Country Joe And The Fish. Why Dylan gets dropped is beyond me. I haven't finished reading the 1990 edition yet, so my suspicion is that he gets used later since his song, "Shelter From The Storm", is still listed in the copyright acknowledgements at the beginning of the novel. But, the song by Country Joe And The Fish isn't listed there, so perhaps someone slipped up and didn't replace Dylan with Country Joe there. Then again, the Country Joe lyrics are just the "What's that spell?" portions of the "Fish" chants (or "Fuck" when they were feeling particularly rowdy), so maybe they didn't need the legalese.

After the song lyrics, we get a page that states "The circle opens" along with an Ed Dorn quote ("We need help, the Poet reckoned."). As an aside, the one time I was in the same room as King was in Maine in 1996 at an Ed Dorn poetry reading during a "Poetry in the 1950s" conference. Despite the brickbats snooty literati sometime toss his way (for example, when he got a medal from the National Book Foundation, some critics and publishing types had a hissyfit), King has been very supportive of literature in general, even stuff far more avant garde than his own work. If I remember correctly, he even paid for Dorn's appearance at the conference.

Then we get the first actual bit of the novel, a brief scene with Charlie Campion, the plague carrier, waking up his wife so they can flee from California, where he has been working at a military base developing biological weapons, one of which, the superflu or Captain Trips, has now escaped the lab and started killing everyone at the base.

And after that we reach the point where the 1978/1980 Stand starts.

Changes In Stephen King's The Stand 1978-1990 Part I

2013-01-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

As a kid, I read a lot of Stephen King. He's a good writer, and his imaginative horror novels definitely caught my adolescent attention. I even interviewed him once through the mail for my high school newspaper, so he's a nice guy as well to have taken the time to do that. My favorite King novel is The Stand, a very gripping apocalyptic novel. In 1990, King came out with an unabridged edition of the already long novel which had been first published in 1978. I always meant to read it, but never got around to it. A few weeks ago, I picked up a copy, figuring 23 years was long enough of a wait. I still like the book and still find King to be an excellent storyteller. I prefer the horror of civilization collapse parts more than I do the neoTolkien/Christian Revelations quest parts, but the novel is still a good read overall. What I found most interesting however were the many changes King made to the novel. I looked around online for a good list of the changes but didn't find one; most people intending to do so seemed to get overwhelmed by the sheer sprawl of the novel and gave up. In the 1990 edition, King restored and added a few hundred pages to the already long novel. I won't track the minor changes; he even tinkers at the word and sentence level, but I'll focus on what I consider to be the major changes to the novel. I only have the 1980 paperback to make comparisons with, which itself has some minor revisions from the first hardcover edition, but that's enough to deal with.

This might be a long series of posts.

The Return Of Paseo . . . Tigers Beware!

2013-01-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

If Fiora paper products look familiar, then you know about Paseo, the paper towel and toilet paper brand that got its paper from the forests inhabited by endangered tigers in Indonesia. Basically, the company, Oasis Brands, just replaced the word "PASEO" with the word "fiora" (perhaps the new all lowercase word represents their chastisement for endangering animals) on the same packaging design. Let's hope Oasis has really changed the source of its paper and are no longer endangering tigers as well! That's what the company is claiming anyway. They're even trying to do some good for people in need now.

If the World Wildlife Fund or another independent source such as the Forest Stewardship Council verifies Oasis's claims, I could see buying its products again.

I just don't want to buy paper towels soaked in tiger blood.

Does This Look Familiar?

2013-01-05T17:29:00.002-05:00

I was perusing the coupons in the direct mail advertising bundle when I came across this ad for a new toilet paper and paper towel brand. Alas, I don't think it's actually new, just an old brand with a new name. Do you recognize it? If so, please comment. Hint: I've written about it before.

More tomorrow.

O Christmas Tree! On The Treelawn You Go!

2013-01-04T18:17:00.000-05:00

Today, while going to work, I noticed many a Christmas tree on many a treelawn. What looks so wonderful in December apparently is only fit for the garbage collectors in January. As I've noted before, Christmas trees are a strange tradition. I still don't understand how killing a tree celebrates life. Furthermore, the whole tradition seems like a lot of work for little gain. People go out and buy a tree, drag it into the house, and then, a couple of weeks later, throw it out. Why not spend time doing something else?

In any case, the tree I didn't kill continues to live happily outside (well, as happy as trees get anyway--it's bloody cold out at the moment).

Contrary to how we more typically personify Christmas trees in advertisements, stories, and so forth as being happy for the holidays, I bet they really hate Christmas.

File Under Ironic

2013-01-03T21:07:00.002-05:00

I fully expect to read about this in News Of The Weird soon.

New Poem!

2013-01-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Once before, with "Ironic Occupations", I had a poem published in one of Mark Sonnenfeld's Marymark Press Giveout Sheet Series. I make a return appearance in the last bit of the 2012 series with "Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen?" It's paired with one of Mark's poems, "Bleecker Street". The sheet is available directly from Mark. If you want one, just send a self-addressed stamped envelope along with your request to 45-08 Old Millstone Drive, East Windsor, NJ 08520 USA.

"Hokie Low" by The Artist Formerly Known As Crazycarl

2013-01-01T22:35:00.000-05:00

let me preface what I’m about to say with 2 disclosures: 1) i have a good job now and don’t have the freedom to write the way I did back in 2002 and 2) on my worst day, I wouldn’t claim to be a republican or a democrat……more on the latter: I am against all forms of violence……I don’t respect you if you kill your baby (which makes me a republican), if you go to someone else’s country to kill them because you don’t have the skills to get a regular civilian job (which makes me a democrat) or if you need to prove your masculinity by shooting little animals (again, democrat)……and if these views make me seem more like a democrat to you, let me try to balance the scales by reflecting on my appalachian heritage…….why do poor hillbillies consistently vote republican?----npr would condescend that we’re ignorant, but the truth is that republicans want to steal our money whereas democrats want to pat themselves on the back for explaining it to us…..i don’t know about you, but I have more respect for the person who wants to steal my money than I do for the one who condescends……anyway, that’s 2-2 and my political leanings aren’t the subject of this piece anyway…….i want to talk about gun control and I don’t need to quote bill o’reilly or superimpose charlton heston’s face on a goat on my facebook page to make my point----it’s just common sense……I’m visiting my parents in virginia for the holidays and I’m fortunate enough to be able to walk a trail from their house down to the local river (the trail is part of my high school’s property)……..anyway, it’s hunting season and during my walk last tuesday, I had a creepy feeling that I was being watched…..a few minutes later, the faculty advisor for the school skeet club rolled up in his $4000 golf cart and “warned me” to stay off the hiking trail because hunting season was in full effect and I might get shot……my mom still works at my high school and even though I wanted to tell him that he “could fill his quota in 15 seconds at the local elementary school,” I was obliged to be polite/philosophical and say something along the lines of “you gotta be free”…….and as I walked back home that day, I started thinking about the shootings in connecticut----like what kind of person walks into an elementary school and shoots twenty first graders v. what kind of person’s life revolves around killing an animal for fun…….i promise you I hate the government as much as you do (they burned my great aunt’s house down in 1933 to give flatlanders jobs and a national park), but no one is free in 2012 anyway……we no longer need to defend ourselves against foreign invaders or our own government-----there’s a camera at every intersection and each and every one of us is already chained to the tracking number on our walmart charge card…..you’re not free and i’m not free and none of us will ever be free again…..with that being said, it’s time to stop the killing……I know y’all are “smart” and have read many magazine articles, but this isn’t about sitting on a porch in kentucky sipping mint julips and discussing politics/bragging about what you’ve read……it’s about common sense>political lines……it’s about 20 dead children> the obama/romney sign in your yard……you say that there are millions of guns in america?----I say: STOP PRODUCING THE BULLETS……you say the bad guys will import the bullets from overseas?----I say: DON’T LET THEM MAKE BULLETS EITHER (they’re on camera, plus our missiles are bigger)……you say you don’t trust the police?----TAKE THEIR BULLETS AWAY TOO----it’ll be just like “reno 911,” but without the bullets…..it may take awhile and there might be more short-term violence, but if you take away all the bullets, I think it might work….it’s fucking 2012, ya know?.....one last thing: if you think there’s a potential school shooter in your class, you should facebook “like” every picture he posts of his cat sleeping and what he had for lunch

TAFKAC graduated from Virginia Tech and wishes you a Happy New Year. If you want more, head on over to the local bookstore and pick up Bloodreal.

Give Us This Day, Our Daily Blog

2012-12-31T23:16:00.000-05:00

Looking back on 2012, I cranked out over 200 posts, including posting every day since the middle of June or so.

Yikes! I've got to get outside more!

Dear reader, I do have a few surprises for you in 2013, but don't be surprised if you find a less frequent blog. I have some other projects that I need to turn my attention to now.

Happy New Year!

Reading Review: Batman Incorporated Volume 2 Number 5

2012-12-30T23:33:00.000-05:00

I've been fairly disappointed with the New 52, the DC Comics reboot. The one exception is Batman Incorporated, perhaps because it is a title that essentially was left alone storywise. Publicationwise, it was abruptly ended and then in hiatus for almost a year, so the New 52 was a pain where this comic was concerned, but it could have been worse. Writer Grant Morrison has been creating a massive Batman story since 2006 across such titles as Batman, Batman And Robin, Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne, and Batman Incorporated, and I have found it very enjoyable. Sure, it's embarrassing to be a fortysomething reading Batman comics, but if they write them like this, then I'll read them when I'm an eightysomething. Basically, the overarching storyline is that Batman has formed an organization called Batman Incorporated that internationalizes Batman and creates a Batman army so he can confront a terrorist organization called Leviathan that's run by Talia Al Ghul, his ex-girlfriend from Hell and mother of his child, Damian. From what I can gather, Talia is mad Batman broke up with her so she is getting his attention by sending Man-Bat ninjas to attack him and Gotham City. Also, she's decided that her son has spent enough time with his father, and she wants him back as well.

Yes, it's a superhero custody battle. This comic is totally ridiculous, but it's also totally fun. In this issue, Batman has a vision of the future wherein the current Robin, Damian, is Batman and Gotham City falls under the assault of a virus that seems to turn people into Joker zombies. As a result, Batman decides to send Damian back to live with his mother, but Damian is having none of it. Some of the pages could use a few more panels on them, but overall it's a satisfying comic. Even when Morrison's panel per page count is light, enough daffy but thoughtprovoking ideas are floating around in his stories that the comic must be read carefully to get the full impact.

I noticed in this issue that the future Commissioner Gordon is Barbara Gordon, and Morrison has her back in her wheelchair, which disappeared controversially in the New 52 reboot of the character. Some of the story parallels The Dark Knight Rises movie's plot with Gotham under threat by a nuclear bomb from the federal government. This time, Batman doesn't save Gotham, and that isn't even the cliffhanger ending.

Morrison's reportedly leaving this title and Batman in general with the 12th issue. If so, I will miss him. This comic isn't high art, but it's a good time!

Reading Review: Ghosts #1

2012-12-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

Since I have enjoyed the past adventures of The Dead Boy Detectives, characters created by Neil Gaiman, I picked up this Vertigo comics anthology containing a new adventure of theirs.

What a disappointment!

The new Dead Boy Detectives tale is all of 8 none too great pages before one hits the phrase "to be continued in the next Vertigo anthology", which apparently will be Time Warp #1, coming in March 2013.

Time Warp is a science fiction anthology, so I'm not quite sure why the Dead Boy Detectives, who fit perfectly in a horror anthology called Ghosts since they're, um, dead, will be in a sci-fi comic. Maybe they're blasting off into space or something. I could see them appearing in a mystery anthology since they're, um, detectives, but why a sci-fi anthology? It just looks like the story is something that's been in the files for some time, and Vertigo is dumping it out in drips across various anthologies just to get rid of it.

Since the rest of Ghosts was underwhelming as well (Hey, wasn't that creepy, vaguely misogynistic cover great? Let's run it twice more on the inside to waste pages!), I won't be there to do the Time Warp. When Vertigo debuted in 1993, I read most of its titles, which were very good. Over the years, the quality seemed to drop and I read less and less of their output. I continued to read Hellblazer, but few of the newer titles seemed interesting. With Hellblazer ending, I suppose I won't read any Vertigo titles, but, if Ghosts is any indication, it doesn't look like I'll be missing much.

Presidents Vs. Veterans

2012-12-28T21:16:00.000-05:00

In the latest issue of the city newsletter that came in the garbage (see yesterday's post), a list of federal holidays is printed. I found it interesting that "Presidents' Day" was listed with an apostrophe and "Veterans Day" was not.

Yes, I like language. Those of you who don't should probably stop reading now. It's just going to be more of the type of stuff that people who find apostrophes interesting will find, um, interesting.

Indeed, the line between an adjective modifying a noun making up a proper name and a noun containing a possessive making up a proper noun is pretty thin, and I'm not sure there is a good guide to distinguishing between the two. It doesn't help that in spoken language, both "Presidents Day" and "Presidents' Day" would sound exactly the same.

Before we get into a discussion based on social hierarchy with "Presidents'" being possessive because presidents are considered more important than veterans, it's probably helpful to point out that the actual name of "Presidents' Day" or "Presidents Day" or "President Day" or "We Don't Have A Bloody King But We'll Act Like The President Is One And Have A Day Named After The President Day" or whatever you call it isn't actually any of those.

It's "Washington's Birthday."

That's probably where the apostrophe comes from.

This Newsletter Is Garbage!

2012-12-27T20:57:00.000-05:00

My city likes to send out a monthly newsletter, but they don't use the mail.

They use the garbage.

When the garbage collectors pick up the garbage, they leave the newsletter behind wedged between the can and the lid.

I don't think the garbage collectors mean this to be an editorial comment on the quality of the newsletter, as in "Dear resident, this newsletter is garbage, so don't bother reading it and just let it fall in the can" (though I suspect that probably is what happens to the majority of the copies of the newsletters); they just want to make sure it doesn't blow away in the wind.

Although it's a bit icky to read a newsletter that came in the garbage, I do applaud the city's innovative way to avoid using tax dollars on postage.

Perhaps in the future the city can find other ways to use the garbage collectors as a distribution method. Maybe someday I will be able to just throw my tax money in the garbage.

And cut out the middleman.

Nyuck, nyuck!

And if that joke isn't funny now, just wait until April 15 or so and you'll find it hilarious, I'm sure.

Anyway, back to the newsletter that comes in the garbage. Actually, I rather like it.

And, when I do dispose of it, I make sure to recycle it.

Presidential Elections As Fertility Myths

2012-12-26T17:22:00.000-05:00

I've been reading some mythology lately, and, whenever I do, I find it interesting how similar our society is to those of the societies that created the mythologies. Even though we like to think that we are much more sophisticated than those primitive societies, one can find many parallels between the societies. For example, they often have endtime myths such as Ragnorok in the Norse mythos. Well, we have Revelations in Christianity and we just had the silly 2012 thing in secular culture. Less easy to parody are worries over nuclear apocalypse or global warming catastrophes. Endtime myths usually serve as guidelines for us to modify or control our behavior so as not to bring about the end, though in some cultures the end comes no matter what the people do--see our own ideas in science of entropy or the heat death of the universe.

Looking back on the year, despite the 2012 Mayan nonsense, I think the myth that struck us Americans the most was that of the fertility ritual. Even though we don't dance for rain or sacrifice virgins or have to perform a quest to heal the fisher king, we do elect a president. And what do we believe the president can do?

Stimulate the economy.

We might not be harvesting corn, but the basic concept is the same. Of course, the president can have some effect on the economy, but probably not as much as we believe he will have (if he could fix everything, then do you think the current economic malaise would have hung around since 2008?). Nevertheless, I bet people often vote in a mythological sense. We certainly know that people don't vote rationally much of the time. If people did vote rationally, then one wouldn't find so many working class people voting Republican. Instead, most people seem to vote more for emotional reasons such as which candidate can tell the most compelling narrative.

Which brings us back to mythology. Both of the major political party candidates had sexual stereotypes working for them in a fertility sense. Obama had the stereotype of African sexual prowess whereas Romney had the Mormon polygamy thing going for him. In reality, both men were family types, but mythology and reality don't always cohere. Mythologically, perhaps voters wanted to see which one was most virile, and they decided on Obama.

Of course, mythology is one of those attractive lens similar to economics and psychology through which one is tempted to explain all of human society, when the truth is likely a bit more complex. Still, it's hard not to look at a clip such as the one below and not think that voters in 1992 might have thought Clinton was probably a bit better than the other two in bed and voted for him accordingly (in contrast to handsome Willie, Grandpa Bush is looking at his watch, wondering when he can just get this over with and go to sleep):

Which brings us to 2016. It will be interesting to see how a female candidate fares if the presidential election is basically a fertility ritual. With two females, would a premenopausal candidate fare better than a postmenopausal candidate? How would a female candidate face off against a male candidate?

Stuff like this does sound crazy, but it's amazing how much a mythological approach can explain about our culture.

I Hope That You Have A Cool Yule!

2012-12-25T20:06:00.000-05:00