A preview of what we'll be doing next year

Following in the success of our wish list for the boys in the LA County jails, Guys Lit Wire will be building and hosting wishlists for two tribal schools. Here's hoping our readers are as generous this time as they were last year. Stay tuned for more info in early 2010.

Onward to victory!

What lad doesn't dream of joining the British Colonial Expeditionary Forces?

There's simply no life for a man like exploring the solar system, trusty aetheric oscillator (or "ray gun" in the youngsters' parlance) is hand, bringing peace and proper table manners to the jibber-jabbering natives of the moon, Venus, and beyond. (And must I even mention that the uniforms are bang-and-crackers with the ladies?) Why, maybe he'll even meet every boy's hero, Lord Cockswain, that famed naturalist who's responsible for discovering and blasting away more unknown species than anyone else.

But even before he's ready to sign up, a young man can still learn about the solar system and his place in charge of it with Dr. Grordbort Presents: Victory.

This almanac, illustrated by Greg Broadmore, is full up to its snodgers with thrilling scientific niblets. Pursue the handy guide for spotting the early warning signs of a robot uprising. Wonder at the bestiary of Venusian wildlife (including information on which of the majestic creatures make the best pair of boots.) There's even compartmentalized picture essays--some common types refer to them as "comics"--about Lord Cockswain and his many triumphs over the possibly dangerous and certainly gross-looking Moon Men.

Victory is printed specifically for our young men and literate ladies by the good people at Doctor Grordbort's Infallible Aetheric Oscillators, Inc. This of course puts one in mind of that other paper-and-ink treasure of childhood, Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory. I can't tell you how many rainy days me and my little compatriots spent pouring over the directory, marveling at the wonders our gadget-tastic age had to offer. Need a portable massmotron? An Automaitre D' robo-servant? Or maybe a Victorious Mongoose concealable ray pistol? Doctor Grordbort has every necessary item for home or moonbase.

Like Victory, this year's directory was fully illustrated by Greg Broadmore, and includes helpful information about each quality item. For instance, did you know the Goliathon infinity beam projector can dissolve 7/9ths of an African Elephant in ten Earth seconds? Put a rush on my order, Doctor Grordbort!

Ours is a vast and miraculous solar system, filled with sights mankind has yet to even dream of. But don't worry. With luck, pluck, and the good Doctor Grordbort on our side, we'll crush all that tosh under our collective boot as we march ONWARD TO VICTORY!



Cross-posted on Kristopher's blog.

Destroy All Cars

James Hoff thinks there needs to be big change in the world. Not just using reusable shopping bags or building bike paths. To save the environment, he thinks that cars just need to go. All of them. Preferably now. Of course, life isn’t that simple for James or for anyone. Sometimes you just can’t avoid using cars or being part of the consumer culture. Just like you can’t avoid your ex forever. Sadie wants to work within the system to change the world (getting petitions signed and such), and James just can’t deal with that. Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson takes James through 6 months of expressing his opinions on the environment, consumerism, and girls.

James mostly expresses his opinions through essays he turns in as English assignments, often getting them returned with the feedback that he needs to focus, stop ranting, and back up his points. He also tries to get over Sadie. While he hangs out at the library, James scopes out other girls (who will never compare to Sadie), and reads classic political and environmental writings by the likes of Black Elk. Over time, James refines his writing and learns that there are many ways to work to change things both within and outside of the system. He learns that obsessing over someone and getting over them are not the same thing. He learns to deal with his dad, who wants him to go to college -he knows James so little that he offers him a car if he goes! But James has other ideas about how he wants to live his life and try to make a difference. Join James as he spends some time figuring things out, writing about it, and (maybe) finally getting over Sadie. Check out Blake Nelson's web site, too. Cross posted at Dwelling in Possibility.

2009 and Then Some

As we near the end of 2009, it seems the appropriate time to reflect on some favorite graphic reads over the last year. This is my top five for 2009, with the caveat that they're all books I read over the last year, not that they were necessarily published in the last year (though, actually, only number three was published in 2008).

1. The Storm in the Barn (by Phelan). An absolute masterpiece, a true work of graphic literature that is not only the best of the year, but among my top five graphic novels EVER. I’m not going to labor the point, as two Guys Lit wordsmiths have already gushed about it (here and here), but this story of a boy growing up in the Dust Bowl during the 1930s and the dark mystery he uncovers in a nearby barn, is a grand adventure, an eerie weird tale, an archetypal coming of age story and a powerful homage to the art of storytelling itself.

2. Tales From Outer Suburbia (by Tan). Not actually a graphic novel, but a collection of illustrated short stories by the author of The Arrival (another one for the top five graphic novels of all time list). This is a collection of strange stories with a startling emotional depth. I’ve never come by a story-teller in any medium who could weave a sense of melancholy with the playful and the downright weird the way Tan does. The highlight: a tale of unfathomable stick figures that pop up in a small town, waiting behind bus stops, in doorways, at the tops of hills, feared and despised, but never understood. Shelf Elf discussed it at length here.

3. Captain America: The Chosen (by Morrell and Breitweiser). Something of a post-modern super-hero tale, a dying Captain America bequeaths a most unusual legacy of courage and heroism to a young solider fighting in Iraq. Would you expect a certain perspective on war, knowing this was written by the man who created Rambo? Well, this is a complex consideration of what it takes to be a hero and how, maybe, all of us are capable of it sometimes. That Mitch Breitweiser's art is dynamic, hyper-detailed, realistic and gritty doesn’t hurt either.

4. Wonder Woman: The Circle (by Simone and Dodson). I’ve already talked about this one here. An action-packed Wonder Woman story built on elements of mythology and family, thoughtfully considering the complex and self-destructive motivation of revenge. And it’s a story that finally lives up to the potential of the character, portraying her as an actual Wonder Woman, rather than a standard super-hero who happens to be female.

5. Adventures in Cartooning (by Sturm, Arnold and Frederick-Frost). A bit younger than we usually go on Guys Lit Wire, but a hell of a lot of fun. A classic fairy tale adventure of a young knight, a sweet-toothed horse and a magical elf on the trail of a bubble gum-chewing dragon intertwined with lessons on the language of sequential art. It covers all the major areas of the form, elucidating its structures and codes within the adventure and in bonus features, and the story itself has some great surprises as well.

It’s actually been a fantastic year for the graphic novel. I’ve seen some of what’s coming in 2010, too, and I’m happy to say things aren't going to slow down. Top of the list has got to be Zeus: King of the Gods (by O’Connor), the first of the new Olympians series, telling scrupulously researched mythological tales with art that makes the Gods look like the most dynamic super-heroes ever. And that’s only in January!

Interspecies Communication

Sometimes, for my reviews, I pick a book I've read some time ago. And I'll go through it, looking for a good section to quote, so you get a taste of the book.

With Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl, however, which I just read a few months ago, I read it all again!

It IS a remarkable story. The author, Stacey O'Brien, got involved with owl research at the California Institute of Technology. She adopted an injured 4-day old barn owl, and lived with Wesley for 19 years. In telling her story, she tells us a lot about barn owls: "Unlike human ears, which are in the same place on each side of the head, owls' ears are irregularly placed. One ear is high up on the head and the other is lower, so that the owl can triangulate the location of a sound much more accurately than a human can. The owl brain's large cortex is dedicated to auditory processing in much the way that ours has evolved for visual mapping, so it creates an auditory map of his world. As a result, a barn owl can accurately locate a mouse under three feet of snow by homing in on only the heartbeat, and can hear its footsteps from extremely far away."

"At two years of age, Wesley began to adapt his natural owl vocalizations to make new sounds to mean a variety of things. He adapted his begging sound, for example, to have slight variations in pitch, length, and intensity. Each new vocalization meant he was begging for a specific item. One variation meant 'I want you to open the door.' Another meant 'I want water.' Yet another one meant 'Let me off my perch.' Just the begging sound alone had about twenty new variations."

The author also has insights into human behavior:

"I wandered down the halls to check on some of the animals. Suddenly a closet door opened right in front of me, and a furry man walked out. He was what we called a 'troll.' Unshaven, his beard and hair both reached his belt. He didn't appear to notice me at all. He shuffled down the hall and disappeared into one of the bathrooms.

Theoretical mathematicians and physicists, trolls are ubiquitous at Caltech and go as far back into its history as anyone can remember. Caltech was built in the 1800s and was heated with steam that ran through a labyrinth of tunnels with all kinds of twists and turns. The steam and hot water pipes still run through the tunnels, making them warm in winter and comfortable in the summer. The trolls live deep in the labyrinth, rarely coming aboveground. That is their home and it's okay with everyone. They receive grants and their meager style of living doesn't cost much.

Each building has secret doors in certain closets that lead into the labyrinths so the trolls can go from building to building and use the locker rooms. People say Caltech is as close to Hogwarts as one can get in the real world, and I'd have to agree. I've been down in those tunnels, and as I walked through the darkness, I'd occasionally come upon a bluish glow, the computer screen of a troll. Next to the computer screen, in a small alcove, would be a twin bed, some blankets, piles of books and papers, and the computer. That was it. Productive genius theoreticians, they tend to keep to themselves and publish their work. Some of them clearly have what is now referred to as Asperger syndrome, a mild form of functional autism, but they are happy in their secret cubbyholes, doing calculations and making discoveries. After all, theoretical scientists do not require a lab -- only a piece of paper, a pencil, and a fantastic brain."

Most of the book is about Wesley and his human, Stacey, though, with several photos. He was a beautiful, intelligent bird, and Ms. O'Brien wrote a beautiful, intelligent book.

Nice, Nice, Very Nice

Listen: Kurt Vonnegut saved me.

When I started seventh grade I somehow found myself in an English class full of really smart kids. I couldn't figure out what I was doing there because, clearly, these kids were all brilliant and I was just, you know, average. It was my first real introduction to classic literature, to the lives of great literary writers, and we had to memorize and recite before the class a new poem every other week or so.

And so began my hatred of reading.

But one day I was nosing around in the garage and I found a box of things belonging to my dad. Inside were a few books, small paperbacks, and I wondered why they weren't in the house with the other meager selection we had on our family bookcase. Among the books was one with a tantalizing title – Welcome to the Monkey House – a collection of short stories. I secreted the book into the house and locked myself in the bathroom to check it out. Two stories in and I was hooked. That following Saturday I went to public library and sought out everything else I could find by the book's author, Kurt Vonnegut.

Through trial and error I discovered which books were better than others and, if I could go back in time and give myself some kindly advice, would have suggested I start with Cat's Cradle. With its blend of science fiction and social comedy, skewering politicians, religious cults, science gone out of hand, and plain human folly, Cat's Cradle presented to me for the first time a world that proved what my teen self had always suspected: adults could be, and often were, wrong.

In researching a book on what Americans did the day Hiroshima was bombed, John discovers that Felix Hoenikker, one of the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb, had also created a substance called ice-nice. A solid at room temperature, ice-nine rearranged the molecules of water and would instantly set off a chain reaction when it came in contact with other water molecules. Essentially, it would turn all the planet's water to ice if it were ever released.

In chasing down Hoenikker's surviving children to learn more, John discovers that one has become a high-ranking member of a dictatorship on the island of San Lorenzo in exchange for a piece of ice-nine. San Lorenzo is also the home of a semi-religious cult created by the island's former ruler and an American naval officer as a way of controlling the population through a sort of utopia. And when the current dictator of San Lorenzo commits suicide by consuming ice-nine he sets of a chain reaction of events that could destroy the planet.

This book is everything a teen boy could hope for. Ridicule of all sorts authority figures, world-wide dystopian destruction, religion as gobbledegook philosophy, and all told at a nice breezy pace with that voice that is uniquely Vonnegut.

Since I was a lad, Vonnegut has slipped in the back door of the cannon and is now widely taught (and widely banned) in high school through his anti-war classic Slaughterhouse-Five. While that book brought him fame (and out of the genre ghetto of being strictly a "Sci-Fi writer") and is one of his better books, I think there are aspects (the aliens messing with one character's linear time) that seem too much like a device. With Cat's Cradle the science fiction is real and not the unseen hand of outsiders; the mess that gets made is purely human. And for a modern audience I think it might be healthy to read a dystopia that has some humor blended with it. The end of the world can be funny, too, you know!

I love that on the cover of an early paperback edition of the book the Saturday Review is quoted as saying "...Like getting socked in the nose." And that's a good thing!

Had I not discovered that book in the garage that one day there's a good chance I would have viewed reading as one of those things only associated with a school, a static and passive activity that held no interest for me. I would have continued to assume that books had nothing to offer me and would be just another statistic, a non-reading adult male who had the joy of reading beaten out of him. I was a teen boy anxious and hungry to learn about the real world, and to learn that adults were far from the perfection. I thank the Fates that Vonnegut was there for me.

Cat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut
1963

also:

Welcome to the Monkey House
1968

Slaughterhouse-Five
1969

MANGA CLAUS by Nathaniel Marunas

'Twas the night before Christmas . . . Oh. Wait. I posted about that last year. But what if Santa wasn't a "right jolly old elf", but was instead wise in the ways of the Samurai?

May I suggest MANGA CLAUS: Honor*Loyalty*Tinsel: The Blade of Kringle by Nathaniel Marunas, artwork by Erik Craddock?

That's right, folks, Santa has some seriously ripped abs under the fuzzy red suit. And with his training as a samurai more than a century and a half ago and the Miuaguchi Daisho, two swords given to him from a knowledgeable sensei, well, Santa's ready to respond when things go wrong.

Our story begins on the night before Christmas, when Fritz, a disgruntled elf, decides to use some magic to turn a robot-like nutcracker into a ninja. His goal? To cause a bit of fuss that will allow him to showcase his mad magic skillz and save the day. His plan might have worked, too, if things hadn't gone horribly wrong. When the botched-magic nutcracker-robot-ninja falls into a furnace and coals spew into the nearby teddy bears . . . well, let's just say it's not pretty, and an army of ninja bears results.

After Santa is alerted that there's a problem, he decides to find out "what in the name of the Big Benevolent Buddha is going on around here." The comedy doesn't stop there, as Santa guesses that the ninja bears are on their way to the power plant, saying "that's where I'd go if I were a deranged ninja teddy bear." Will Fritz arrive in a bin full of elf knickers in time to deliver the samurai weapons to Santa? Will Santa be able to deliver the toys in time for Christmas, leaving from the Clement C. Moore Sleighport? I'll never tell. Er, unless you've already sorted it out.

The humor in this one is genius, from the map of the North Pole facilities inside the front cover to the black-and-white-and-red all over illustrations to the really funny text and asides, this is one bit of manga that you've gotta see. It's got a hard cover, and reads in the way of a usual book in English, making it an easy entrée into manga for the uninitiated.

I leave you with a shortened version of the copy from the back cover:

A disgruntled elf, dark magic, and a horde of possessed ninja teddy bears threaten to put an end to the holidays . . . To battle the evil teddies, Santa himself must break out his ancient samurai swords, imbued with the spirit of the season, and become MANGA CLAUS, guardian of giving and protector of presents! Santa's blades are swift and his bujitsu unmatched, but will they be enough to save Christmas?

Julius Caesar, fair and balanced

One of my favorite books to pick up and read random sections from is Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom. He means the title literally: "Our ideas as to what makes the self authentically human owe more to Shakespeare than ought to be possible." I don't know if I'd go that far, but no writer can deny the primacy of Shakespeare, and you ignore it at your peril.



In high school, everyone has to read Julius Caesar. It's a perfect introduction to Shakespeare: narratively it's a simple play, it has a speech second only to "To be or not to be..." in the public consciousness, and it features gang murder and ghosts. I remember reading it aloud in English class, and marveling at how the archaic-looking speech came to life when spoken. Then I got beat up for being a dweeb.

But Julius Caesar has a surprising timelessness. Consider the speeches of Brutus and Antony following the assassination of Caesar. Both face a crowd of panicky, easily-swayed citizens (described earlier as "you blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things," almost as if they sat home every night watching The Hills and Dancing with the Stars) who demand an explanation.

Brutus speaks first. He is calm, rational, and he lays out the reasons for killing Caesar in a logical fashion. He appeals to the citizenry to judge his actions for themselves ("...censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge."). And then, in one of the dumbest moves ever (right up there with "Put on those gloves, O.J."), he lets Caesar's friend and acolyte Mark Antony address the crowd.



(Marlon Brando as Mark Antony in 1953's Julius Caesar)

Antony, in observing the chaos when Caesar's death is leaked, makes a key observation: "Passion, I see, is catching." In his famous speech, he turns the crowd entirely against Brutus by appealing to their emotions, by producing bogus documents ("But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar; I found it in his closet, 'tis his will.") and of course by claiming he isn't trying to do exactly what he's doing ("Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny."). The result is civil war.

Not to belabor the point, but Antony would fit right in with the calculating, maniacal voices on the Right screaming about socialism and Gomorrah with virtually no interest in actual facts; Brutus, while he does have the courage to get his own hands bloody, is as effective a public speaker as Al Gore on the campaign trail. And the Roman citizens, as already noted, are just as content to have their opinions handed to them as many of us are.

So what truths, ultimately, does the 400-year-old Julius Caesar have for teenage boys?

About their society: that in the war between passion and intellect, passion always wins, because most people would rather feel than think.

About Shakespeare: that Harold Bloom just might be right.

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have -- Allen Zadoff

15-year-old Andrew Zansky is the second-fattest guy in the sophomore class. Tenth grade begins pretty much the same way as ninth: ten minutes in, he's already been harassed by Ugo the Bully and cheated on his diet. It looks like this year will involve lots of hanging out with his best friend, Eytan, and the other kids in the Model UN. Just like last year.

This year, at least he has April -- the gorgeous girl he met at a function his mother was catering -- to fantasize about. Why not, right? It's not like he's ever going to see her again.

Wrong.

Not that it really matters -- it isn't like Andy has a chance, or that he will ever make a move.

But. O. Douglas, star quarterback, golden boy and dreamboat, has suddenly shown some serious interest in Andy Zansky. And Andy finds himself pulled into a world where getting the girl just might be possible.

I really enjoyed Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have. I loved Andy's voice, which was funny and confessional (And after noting that the author has the same initials, I wondered just how confessional it was!), self-deprecating and genuine, fresh-to-the-ear but familiar-to-the-psyche:

There's a lot of fat in our family, but there's some thin, too. Dad is thin and athletic, and my sister Jessica is super skinny. She's also a super bitch, so there's clearly no correlation between being skinny and being nice, at least in her case.

That's my family. Some of us are fat, some are thin.

It may be true that we have a glandular problem, but if so, it's extremely selective.

The storyline kept me wondering -- with so many people suddenly being so nice to Andy, I kept waiting for the situation to change, for the Big Reveal, for the twist. Because, after all, it's hard to imagine a world in which a Big (literally) Nobody gets scooped up by the most popular group in school, no strings attached. Don't get me wrong: it's always refreshing to read about football players and cheerleaders who AREN'T Satan's Spawn. But I reserved judgement for quite a long time -- because I cared about Andy, and I didn't want him to get hurt. Emotionally OR physically.

I'll let you find out for yourself about whether or not there is a twist. Just know that this is a good one. It's about friendship, trust, branching out, finding out who you are and what you enjoy, about learning to see. In a lot of ways, sure, it's a story that's been told before. But the characters are real, right down to the minor ones, and Andy's voice -- and the emotions under his voice -- ring true. Thumbs up.

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Crossposted at Bookshelves of Doom.

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Book source: Review copy from the publisher; Cybils nominee.

Struts and Frets by Jon Skovron

Struts and Frets by Jon Skovron
"Music is in Sammy’s blood. His grandfather was a jazz musician, and Sammy’s indie rock band could be huge one day—if they don’t self-destruct first. Winning the upcoming Battle of the Bands would justify all the band’s compromises and reassure Sammy that his life’s dream could become a reality. But practices are hard to schedule when Sammy’s grandfather is sick and getting worse, his mother is too busy to help either of them, and his best friend may want to be his girlfriend.

When everything in Sammy’s life seems to be headed for major catastrophe, will his music be enough to keep him together?"- summary from Amazon

This was a fantastically written debut novel. Skovron's voice and style are perfect for this novel, which is filled with humor, introspection, first love, and figuring out what it takes to believe in yourself and going after your dreams.

Sammy is a relatable character who has flaws and is multi-dimensional, as are the secondary characters, who are also fully fleshed out and seem real. One of my favorite characters to read about was Rick (you can find out why in the excerpt vlog posted a few days ago) because he was funny and sarcastic, but also had issues keeping him back from making himself happy in the romance department. My problem with him though is that I felt like there was much more to him and I didn't really get to know about it. I know the story is about Sammy, but at the same time, if you introduce a subplot involving another character, I want to be fully satisfied by the end of it and I feel like that wasn't the case; it was a very small, simple arc when there was clearly much more to it. Alright, I'll stop harping on this complaint and move on, lol.

I loved the romance between Sammy and Jen5. The realization of it, their conversations about it, and how they interacted during the beginning stages of their relationship all felt very real to me and it's great to see this honest portrayal of best friends becoming romantically involved and all the obstacles and questions that come along with it.

The music aspect was very interesting and I loved the inclusion of Sammy's lyrics throughout the book while he was working on them. It gave this new perspective to him that I think readers will enjoy. Also, a tiny little aside, every time Joe (the lead singer) was in a scene, I kept picturing Nathan Explosion from the band Dethklok on the show Metalocalypse on Cartoon Network. Did anyone else have that connection or am I just weird?

Anyway, this is a highly recommended book, so go get a copy as soon as you can!