Category: literature

literature

King and Marvel Join Forces To Launch Dark Tower Comic

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Stephen King breaks new ground at Marvel with original comic series based on his epic “The Dark Tower.” Marvel Comics to launch first issue in April 2006. Premium hard cover collection of the first six issues to be released in Holiday 2006.

The following copy is a combination from Marvel.com’s release:

New Comic Series Exploring the Origin of the Notorious Gunslinger Character Marks First Time Stephen King Has Produced Original Content for the Comic Book Format.

NEW YORK: World Fantasy Award-winning writer Stephen King, long acknowledged as the master of modern horror, and Marvel Comics join forces this spring to launch a ground-breaking new comic book series adapted from King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower.

The comic series will mark the first time Stephen King has produced original content for an ongoing comic book project. The series will expand the saga of King’s epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven best-selling novels published over the course of twenty-five years. King’s unparalleled storytelling power will inform new stories that delve into the life and times of the young Roland, revealing the trials and conflicts that lead to the burden of destiny he must assume as a man, the last Gunslinger from a world that has moved on. The comics will work in conjunction with the novels, further supplementing and defining the saga’s mythology under the direction of the acclaimed author himself.

“As a lifelong fan of Marvel comic books, and as an adult reader who’s seen comics “come of age” and take their rightful place in the world of fantasy and science fiction, I’m excited to be a part of Roland’s new incarnation,” said Stephen King.

The series will be illustrated by Eisner-award winning artist Jae Lee.

King continued, “I love Jae Lee’s work, and I think this is going to be a dynamite partnership. Frankly, I can’t wait.”

The first issue is scheduled to debut in April, 2006 with a hard cover collection of the first 6 issues released Holiday, 2006. Fans will start seeing promotional items, which feature more info in the series, beginning this December. Watch for more info as it becomes available at www.marvel.com/king.
Um, is it April 2006 yet?! I can’t wait!

literature

Liberality For All

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A new comic titled “Liberality For All” is launching in October. Its premise is slightly more original than the usual “I was bitten by a radioactive spider” deal:

It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists which have yielded governing authority to the United Nations. It is up to an underground conservative group (known as F.O.I.L.) led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden’s plans to nuke New York City.

The big idea behind the series is what if today’s anti-war liberals were in charge of the American government and had been since 9/11? What would be the results of fighting “a more sensitive war on terror” and looking to the corrupt United Nations to solve all of America ‘s problems? I can think of only two words – “Oy vey.” My favorite part is how “Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North are each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed ‘Oscar’.” Gotta love that First Amendment thang.

Thanks go to Mr. Neu for making my day. I’m going to have to get this book and just laugh my liberal ass off…

literature

Greek Tragedy In The Times

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If you haven’t gone to my friend and co-worker Stephanie Klein’s blog (see the left nav as well) yet, you might be one of the few people left that hasn’t. She has gotten so popular that the NY Times wrote a feature article about Stephanie, her blog and her life, that can be found on the cover of today’s NY Times Sunday Styles section. I was happy to see that there was even a picture of Chris together with Stephanie that snuck into the paper somehow (its nice to know that he can get some press for something other an Altoids iPod battery charger). Nothing that she does surprises me anymore, though it always makes me smile. All I can say is “keep it up!” and that I can’t wait for the book, actual both books, to be published.

literature

Mythic Rome

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I am currently making my way through Edith Hamilton’s seminal collection of Greek, Roman and Norse myths titled simply Mythology. I started re-reading it last year on my honeymoon which coincided with the Athens Olympics (a perfect time to be reading Greek mythos) and am still at it after many stops and starts. In finishing the section on Virgil’s Aeneid I came across this quote about “the Roman race” by Virgil (whose Wikipedia entry calls him “Vergil”):

“They were destined to bring under their empire the peoples of earth, to impose the rule of submissive nonresistance, to spare the humbled and to crush the proud.”

Interesting to think about, especially as a citizen of the world’s only “empire” today.

literature

Quotes Meant To Inspire

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I received an email at work yesterday stating that “the tragic events in London late last week require a disruption of the ordinary” which included the 3 quotes below. If you can, take 5 minutes to read and reflect on what those men are really saying:

This is the duty of our generation as we enter the twenty-first century — solidarity with the weak, the persecuted, the lonely, the sick, and those in despair. It is expressed by the desire to give a noble and humanizing meaning to a community in which all members will define themselves not by their own identity but by that of others.
-Elie Weisel

Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us.
– HH The Dali Lama

God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, “This is my Country.”
– Ben Franklin

literature

Literary Map of NYC

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Ever read a book that takes place in NY and later walk by the real world house/building that you read about? To me, the Met as it was featured in both From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and in Don’t Eat the Pictures: Sesame Street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is always in the background of my thoughts while I’m there. The same holds true for both Turtle Bay and the “vacant” lot on 46th and 2nd. Since they have such special status in the Dark Tower Universe, they have special status with me. This handy dandy literary map of NYC from the New York Times will show you places that matter to other people out there in our fair city. #38 is about the Dark Tower.

Thanks Phyl

literature

In Memory of Saul Bellow

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Saul Bellow passed away recently and it saddened me greatly. Although I have not read many of his books, his existence, along with Eli Weisel, acted as Jewish Titans. At one point in his novel Herzog, Mr. Bellow seems to set out a kind of manifesto, a ringing checklist of the challenges the novelist must confront, or the reality he must contain or describe:

“Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs…”

The only word I can think of is “powerful”. Mankind has lost another great thinker.

literature

Orson Scott Card To Write “Ultimate Iron Man”

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One of my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card, is going to write the first few issues of Ultimate Iron Man, a new Marvel title that is launching early next month. How will the author who wrote the classic Ender’s Game (which is actually recommended reading now in a number of high school English classes believe it or not), who has never written for this type of medium before, hold up? I’ll let you know next week after it comes out.

literature

Learning To Love The Creative Mind

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“A writer should be in a cold room because the chill quickens the brain, should be hungry as an incentive to earn, and should dress only in underwear so as to place an obstacle in the way of chucking the job at hand in favor of heading for the neighborhood bar.” – Bill Jayme

literature

Bob Dylan Quotes from his memoir

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“Folk songs are evasive.” They offer “the truth about life, and life is more or less a lie, but then again that’s exactly the way we ant it to be.” Their lesson? “If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that’s still well and good. Folk songs taught me that.”

“The sociologist were saying that TV had deadly intentions and was destroying the minds and imaginations of the young – that their attention spans were being dragged down. Maybe that’s true but the three minute song also did the same thing.”

The Civil War was when “America was put on the cross, died and was resurrected…would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write.”