2025 in Media

A brief look back at the best films, comics and books I encountered in 2025.

Films of 2025: I made it out to the theatre for just 3 new films in 2025: Captain America: Brave New World, Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning and Superman. I shared some thoughts about Superman here. For me, the latest Mission: Impossible was the best cinematic experience of the year, which would have surprised me years ago since I started out hating the franchise; I've really come around to it (it helps that the films have shown more respect for the TV series over time) and it's a great experience on a big screen. I also went to the theatre for a 100th anniversary re-release of the Phantom of the Opera which featured live organ music (especially composed for the event) and used an edit of the film assembled by the Calgary Cinematheque to more closely resemble the original theatrical release; it was a unique experience and the edit was the best version I've seen of the 1925 film. I also saw the 2025 films Sinners and Fantastic Four: First Steps at home; Sinners was a good time, I enjoyed its take on vampire mythos - though, frankly, the slaughter of the KKK at the climax of the film surpassed any of the previous action scenes.

Other films that I especially enjoyed were the horror film the Mist, the Holocaust drama Denial, the excellent retro action film Godzilla Minus One and the thriller the Falcon and the Snowman.

Comics of 2025: I continued following Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, which released the mini-series Ten Thousand Plums last year; I reviewed it here. I also reviewed the anthology comic Fantastic Four Fanfare. I'm still reading Larry Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and I'm really enjoy Al Ewing's take on Thor, which is heavy on continuity and cosmic horror. I also read Al Ewing and Steve Lieber's Metamorpho, which was good fun. I'm also reading (and yet to finish) the mini-series Death of the Silver Surfer by Greg Pak and Sumit Kumar and Marvel Knights: The World to Come by Christopher Priest and Joe Quesada.

The only other comic book of note that I read in 2025 was Patton Oswalt, Jordan Blum and Scott Hepburn's Minor Threats, which I reviewed here.

Books of 2025: The only 2025 book I read was Future Boy by Michael J. Fox, his personal account of the making of the original Back to the Future film. The most interesting part of Fox's story were his personal memories of what it was like to be a struggling young actor - it was especially striking to hear about when he owned only three shirts.

I read an awful lot of other books in 2025 - the best works of fiction were the Magic Skin by Honore de Balzac, about a man whose life is mystically bound to a piece of leather; the Secret History by Donna Tartt, which I sought out because I saw it favorably compared to Columbo - I wouldn't make the comparison myself but it was an excellent thriller; I read the science fiction novel Existence by David K. Brin; Cornell Woolrich's Waltz into Darkness was an interesting piece about a man who falls in love with a criminal and tries to make their relationship work; The Three Impostors by Arthur Machen was an engaging mystery read; I read A. P. Herbert's the House by the River, which I'd seen in film form and enjoyed; finally, I started reading Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle, starting with Taliesin and Merlin.

Early on, I read Banned Books by Elizabeth Blakemore and sought out many of the titles listed there; many of them were books about Black people's existence. Those I enjoyed the most were Black Boy, Richard Wright's autobiography about how Communists are intolerable people to be around, even when you're a fellow Communist; Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas; and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds.

Having become interested in Dr. Seuss' early cartooning work in publications like Judge, I read Brian Jay Jones' biography of Seuss, Becoming Dr. Seuss. I read Tim Roby's Box Office Poison about movie flops. i read Gideon Defoe's An Atlas of Extinct Countries, which focused on the various reasons why certain nations ceased to exist. And I read about the conservatism of science fiction in Jordan S. Carroll's Speculative Whiteness.

I also read a few books about the present state of Christianity in the US, including The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory by Tim Alberta and The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon.

I also read a great book about Angola - Jess Auerbach's From Water to Wine, her perspective of what Angola's emerging middle class are like. Although she lived in a different part of Angola than where I lived, I appreciated and understood many of her insights.

2024 Review: Books

I don't read as much fiction as I once did, but I was very pleasantly surprised by Focus (1945) by Arthur Miller, which was apparently the only novel Miller wrote. The story concerns a man who has just started wearing glasses and his old acquaintences all think he looks 'Jewish' but rather than say that to his face, simply discriminate against him. That the problem is one that every character is aware of but no one can bring themselves to say aloud makes for a very tense situation. It's not only a study of prejudice but also of the power of unspoken, unchallenged beliefs.

Another good work of fiction was the Disenchanted (1950) by Budd Schulberg, which I sought out after enjoying Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run the previous year. This one was a fictionalized version of Schulberg's relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald and how the two men tried to write a screenplay together, only for Fitzgerald's alcoholism to scuttle the entire assignment (I watched the resulting film - Winter Carnival - and it is lousy). It's a good novel, yet the Fitzgerald character's continued debasement over hundreds of pages gets to be one-note; I realize all the scenes are inspired by events that really happened to Schulberg but on some level it might have made a superior short story.

My interest in film lead me to Alfred Hitchcock Storyboards (2024) by Tony Lee Moral, a terrific coffee table book; the author's commentary wasn't that illuminating but the samples of production art from Hitchcock's films looked terrific. And Opposable Thumbs (2023) by Matt Singer was a great look at the Roger Ebert/Gene Siskel team and how they functioned, it even inspired me to check out a few of the films that were mentioned in passing!

I suppose it's because of events transpiring among my neighbours to the south that I've become interested in understanding fascism, because in the last year I read the fictional work It Can't Happen Here (1935) by Sinclair Lewis which imagined how fascism could come to the USA; then there's the non-fiction Prequel (2023) by Rachel Maddow which explores the various fascist movements that flourished in the USA in the 1930s, as well as They Thought They Were Free (1955) by Milton Mayer, which was a study of men from a German town who had all either willingly or reluctantly conspired with the Nazis.

Others: On Writing (2000) by Stephen King inspired me in my own writing efforts; The Early Worm (1927) by Robert Benchley was another funny collection of essays; The Day the Revolution Began (2016) by N. T. Wright was a great historical look at the time of Jesus' life; The Jesus I Never Knew (1995) by Philip Yancey was a very good series of meditations on Jesus (which also referenced the above book Focus); and Muito Favorecidos (2019) by Stuart Foster, was a Portuguese version of his book Highly Favoured, a good book on the basics of faith for a primarily African audience.

2024 was also the year in which we lost science fiction author Vernor Vinge.

And that's what I enjoyed the most in 2024; I hope you yourself found some diversions - fiction or non - to enjoy in the year past and wish you good reading, watching or listening in the year ahead.

2024 Review: Television

I don't include a rundown of which television shows I watch each year, but in 2024 I watched a lot more television programming than in recent years - no doubt due to my wife's influence. By far the highlight has been slowly going through the entire series of Columbo! I knew all about Columbo but had never watched a single episode until last year; now we're 6 seasons in with several more to go and it's been a lot of fun. It's also inspired me to introduce my wife to other detective films and TV shows that I've enjoyed that have a similar bend (that is, fiction where the criminal's identity is known but the means by which the detective will catch him is unclear).

We also quite enjoyed the sitcom series How I Met Your Mother, which impressed me by its earnestness - that amidst some very good sitcom jokes there was genuine emotion and romance. Frequently I enjoyed the series as much as a drama as I did as a comedy.

We also watched a few seasons of Wallander (British version), the Kenneth Branagh series about a Swedish police detective who's good at his job yet unable to make his personal life work.

And we went back to some older shows, watching a lot of the detective series Law and Order: Criminal Intent and the sitcom Cheers which were welcome to revisit. And we finished up viewing the entirety of Alias; I summarized my feelings about the series in this post.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed X-Men '97, the sequel to the 1990s animated series. I reviewed the series twice, my first impressions here and a follow-up post here.

I suppose the only sour note of 2024 was the Star Wars series The Acolyte, which was bad, although mostly bad in the same ways I found the Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka to be bad. I wrote a brief dismissal of the series in this post.

2024 was also the year we lost actorCarl Weathers, whom I enjoyed the most on the television series Arrested Development.

Tomorrow: wrapping up 2024 with books!

2024 Review: Movies

Although my wife and I had a few free movie passes, it took us a while to find reasons to visit the cinema - 2024 just wasn't a great year for titles that were good enough to draw us out. In fact, when we did go to see Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes I was extremely irritated that two people in the row in front of me repeatedly pulled out their phones throughout the entire running time of the movie; movies are expensive, yet viewers don't seem too engaged, I guess?

That makes the best cinema experience of 2024 Furiosa, directed by George Miller. I reviewed the movie here and while I enjoyed it, it does suffer in comparison to Mad Max: Fury Road and unfortunately constantly wants the audience to compare the two films.

We also went to see Gladiator II directed by Ridley Scott, which was kind of trashy and dumb but we did have a good time with it (also, no one was checking their phones!).

From older films, I watched It's in the Bag (1945) directed by Richard Wallace, a Fred Allen movie. I've never been that interested in Allen's comedy but this was a very witty film with terrific dialogue and fun interactions between Allen and a multitude of guest stars (including Jack Benny himself!).

Another older one I checked out was No Man of Her Own (1950) directed by Mitchell Leisen, an adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's terrific crime novel I Married a Dead Man, with Barbara Stanwyck in the lead role as a woman who allows a grieving family to believe she's a dead man's fiancee.

In more recent films, I enjoyed the courtroom drama The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (2023) directed by William Friedkin. I reviewed the film (with some other movies) in this post.

My wife and I also checked out Les Miserables (2012) directed by Tom Hooper, which is the first time I've ever actually experienced the musical version of Victor Hugo's novel, having previously read the book and watched two non-musical film adaptations.

And I checked out some very good documentaries too - Helvetica (2007) directed by Gary Hustwit is easily the best documentary I've seen about design (a subject dear to my wife). The Line King (1996) directed by Susan W. Dryfoos is a documentary about artist Al Hirschfeld and was a very good biographical picture. I also enjoyed the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind (2019) directed by Ira Steven Behr and the biography film Jim Henson: Idea Man (2024) directed by Ron Howard.

2024 was also the year that directorNorman Jewison passed away.

Tomorrow: 2024 in television.

2024 Review: Comics

Although I no longer read as many comic books as I once did, 2024 saw a slight increase as I found a number of new titles to follow, along with quite a few trade paperbacks and graphic novels.

It takes something pretty impressive for me to pay attention to my one-time employers at Marvel, but Al Ewing has consistently proved worthy of my attention. I read the first year of his new series Immortal Thor with artists Martin Coccolo, Ibraim Roberson, Greg Land and Carlos Magno and it's a brilliant examination of Thor and his nature as a walking myth. As in Immortal Hulk, Ewing has an amazing knack for wielding continuity in unexpected ways, such as his reinterpretation of Thor's mother Gaea and her motivations. There's also plenty of satire as Ewing's use of Roxxon mocks not only Marvel themselves but a certain thin-skinned billionaire too.

I also read Avengers, Inc. by Al Ewing and Leonard Kirk which was, strangely, a continuation of stories Ewing had begun in previous mini-series starring Ant-Man and the Wasp. This one was basically a science fiction mystery series.

The first big new series for me is Public Domain by Chip Zdarsky, a fascinating dramatic series about the tug-of-war between a comic book creator, the publisher who own his creation, his family and all the messiness of dealing with the comic book marketplace. I reviewed the first trade paperback here.

I tried the new Image series Free Agents by Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza and Stephen Mooney on the strength of the Busiek/Nicieza writing team whom I've enjoyed in the past. I read through several issues of this series and it just didn't click for me; I hope to write a blog post about it in the future so that I can puzzle out why it feels cold to me.

Superman: Lost by Priest and Carlo Pagulayan was an excellent Superman mini-series by Priest, exploring how Superman might cope with the trauma of being lost in space for years, only to return to Earth shortly after he'd departed. Priest always used complain that no one would let him write Superman so it's a small triumph that this series existed at all!

I also read Le Horla by Guillaume Sorel, a fine adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's short story. I reviewed the graphic novel here.

And finally, there are the series that I continued with in 2024, including the mini-seriesSilver Surfer: Rebirth - Legacy by Ron Marz and Ron Lim; I reviewed the series here. And Image continued the new run of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Larry Hama, Chris Mooneyham and Paul Pelletier, which continues Hama's sprawling storylines from IDW. Finally, Usagi Yojimbo: The Crow by Stan Sakai is the latest Usagi Yojimbo series and it was up to Sakai's usual quality of excellence.

2024 was also a year in which several of my favourite comic book creators passed away, including Peter B. Gillis, Tom Luth, Paul Neary, Don Perlin and Trina Robbins.

Tomorrow: 2024 in film.

2021 in Review!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The big change for me in 2021 was, naturally, moving to Lubango, Angola to serve as a missionary. It's an unusual time to be overseas, what with the coronovirus still a major concern. But with all the spare time I've wound up with, it's given me great opportunities to read and watch films. Here's what really stood out in 2021:

BOOKS

I read a few great books about Angola, with David Birmingham's A Short History of Modern Angola being the most succinct history of Angola I've read yet. I also enjoyed Daniel Metcalfe's travel book, Blue Dahlia, Black Gold.

I read more books by Adam Hochschild, including a terrific set of essays in Lessons from a Dark Time which proved to include some nice supplements to his great book King Leopold's Ghost. I was also very surprised at how much I enjoyed The Mirror at Midnight, his 1990 book about South Africa at the time apartheid was coming apart. He really had a knack for finding interesting people and perspectives on South Afria, it is one of the better books about South Africa I've read!

Some other interesting non-fiction topics were Ruth Ben-Ghiat's Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present and Isabel Wilkerson's Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The former is concerned with authoritarian leaders and the common traits between them; the latter book argues that the USA has a caste system but is largely unaware of it and explores how the social problems of the country could be better understood if the principles of caste were applied. Both books made very compelling arguments and gave me a lot to consider.

I read a few great Christian books during the year. N. T. Wright's God and the Pandemic is the best christian response to the pandemic that I've seen. His most compelling teaching point with a larger application is that post-resurrection, God comes to us in the shape of Jesus, which I certainly agree with. I also enjoyed Joshua Butler Ryan's The Pursuing God, which makes a great point about how we often speak of seeking God when, in reality, it's God who is seeking after us. Finally, the podcast series The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill led me to the book When Narcissism Comes to Church by Chuck DeGroat. That book does a great job of simply explaining narcissism and the different ways in which it appears in human behaviour.

The best books about comics that I read were Mark D. White's The Virtues of Captain America (which has its own blog that is a lot of fun), and Abraham Riesman's True Believer. The latter book is the first critical biography of Stan Lee and it's a very strong read - not something many fans want to read, but it is a terrific bit of scholarship about Lee that, I think, is even-handed in covering what he did well and what made him difficult to appreciate.

MOVIES

I saw a number of great movies about Angola. The most enjoyable was Jeremy Xido's Death Metal Angola, a documentary about a rock concert being organized in Huambo. It's easily the best slice-of-life story I've seen told about Angola. Another great documentary was Independencia by Mario Bastos, which is focused on having Angolans tell the story of the war of independence. It's best enjoyed in DVD format because the bonus features telling how the film was made are as fascinating as the finished product. Finally, there's the odd live action/animation hybrid film of Another Day of Life which I wrote about elsewhere on the blog.

I watched two great films by Aaron Sorkin - Molly's Game and The Trial of the Chicago 7. I enjoyed the former film the most as it was stylish but unlike Sorkin's usual body of work (especially lacking in his usual authorial tics). The latter film is a much more conventionally centirst work by Sorkin but it had great performances.

I saw two great pictures starring Richard Widmark - one the terrific Cold War thriller The Bedford Incident by James B. Harris - it's a terrific picture and I'm amazed I hadn't heard of it before. I also really enjoyed Night and the City, a noir picture set in England which was one of the better noirs I've seen.

Dipping into the past, I watched the 1951 Argentinian adaptation of Native Son, which I enjoyed and I intend to read the novel soon. I watched Spike Lee's BlackKklansman which is first Lee joint I've really genuinely liked. Finally, I watched David Fincher's Mank which was an interesting biographical portrait of Herman J. Mankiewicz.

TELEVISION

I don't watch much television programming but a few series caught my eye: Ted Lasso is everything I heard it was - funny and enveloping. I'm cautiously enjoying For All Mankind, being all-too aware that as a Ronald D. Moore production it could go off the rails at any time. And the Netflix series Gloria was an interesting Cold War spy thriller, though the dark climax wasn't entirely to my liking.

COMIC BOOKS

In comics, I'm continuing to follow Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, which has never dipped in quality. I liked Evan Dorkin's new Beasts of Burden mini-series, "Occupied Territory," although the series is at its best when set in Burden Hill - outside that it becomes just another fantasy-adventure series. And I continue to enjoy Larry Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, which spent most of 2021 telling done-in-one stories which was a very nice change from the usual ongoing plots.

I haven't had too much to do with Marvel since I quit working for them but I'm gradually giving them another chance. It helps that they brought back Christopher Priest for a U.S. Agent series which was everything I hoped for from Priest. I tried Kieron Gillen's Eternals series thanks to my lingering love of the Eternals; it's not really what I want from the Eternals, but I do like that Gillen (unlike Gaiman) knows his Eternals lore. Al Ewing's Immortal Hulk has wrapped up - I could have easily seen it going for a few more years; it's hard to imagine how the Hulk can continue without dealing with the cosmic horror elements Ewing brought in. Kurt Busiek's new series The Marvels is basically Astro City in the Marvel Universe and I'm here for that. And I tried the first two stories in X-Men Legends, really just to enjoy seeing new super hero work from Fabian Nicieza and the Simonsons.

The best graphic novels I read included the Out of the Blue books by Garth Ennis and Keith Burns, which were typically great war comics from Ennis. The Department of Mind-Blowing Theories is Tom Gauld's latest humour book and it was as amusing as his other collections. Paying the Land by Joe Sacco is another great piece of comics journalism, this time referencing the First Nations of Canada, which is especially timely for us Canadians as we're intentionally seeking to heal the wounds we made. The Girl Who Married a Skull was a fun anthology of African myths rendered by a variety of artists. The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm was an interesting imagining of what Jesus' descent into Hell was like. Poochytown was another weird and wonderful Jim Woodring book starring Frank. And Showtime at the Apollo by Ted Fox told the history of the Apollo Theater, all of whih was new information to me and very informative.

2020 Review 4/4: Television

I don't often have much to say about television on this blog. I think in the last decade or more I haven't taken much interest in television series. It's especially hard to sustain interest in programs when, as is often the case now, entire seasons drop on a single day, leaving no room for anticipation or speculation about the future. With that in mind, here are a few shows I genuinely enjoyed:

The Mandalorian seems to be most people's reason for subscribing to Disney+ and, indeed, it's a fine program. I do find it could use a lot more variety in the sort of stories it tells, but it sustains my interest. The casting on the show is neat, as they keep casting actors who haven't been big names for years but are very welcome to see again. It's the only thing Star Wars seems to be doing well.

I had heard Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was about the worst super-hero television program on the air, so it was a surprise to discover it was actually very good - easily the best live action Marvel series I've seen. It was uneven, especially at the start and during its 6th year, but overall I'm glad I finally watched it - it's nowhere near as numbing as trying to watch the latter-day Netflix shows.

At the same time I tried Agent Carter which was good; I found the second season instantly forgettable but the first year was pretty strong.

Finally, I dug into all the Ken Burns documentaries I hadn't seen, the biggest of which was Jazz. Being mostly unaware of the history of jazz music I really learned a lot from the film and came away with a number of songs and short films I looked up on my own.

In all, I found plenty of entertainment in 2020 despite circumstances and I'm sure I'll find a lot to enjoy in 2021.

2020 Review 3/4: Comics

Since leaving Marvel Comics I haven't been as devoted to following comics as I once was, but I certainly still read quite a few books.

My interest in Christopher Priest's work has of late brought to (of all things) Vampirella and Sacred Six. They're both interesting because of the style Priest uses to tell a story. He's certainly still very much wedded to non-linear storytelling!

Usagi Yojimbo continues to be a fine book, as expected. This last year included a storyline where Usagi returned to his home village which led to some fine reunions with long-absent characters and revisiting much of the series' lore.

I got into Garth Ennis' war comics in a bit way during 2020. I read his recent graphic novel Stringbags which motivated me to go back and read all of his Battlefields, Sara and World of Tanks comics. I appreciate how his stories depict the best and the worst aspects of human nature.

Although I don't read much from super hero comics these days, I did finally read Immortal Hulk by Al Ewing and instantly recognized why that series is being talked up as one of Marvel's finest, and why Ewing has won so much praise in the last few years. It's frequently a disgusting horror comic but Ewing's ability to ground his ideas in established continuity while coming up with new takes on Hulk lore is very impressive, as is Joe Bennett's art, which goes to places I didn't know he could handle. I also enjoyed Mark Waid's Black Widow, whose espionage focus was a little different from his usual hangouts; and Waid's Dr. Strange, which brought back my old favourite Dr. Druid!

I spent a lot of time in 2020 going over the works of Rick Geary, particularly his Treasury of Victorian Murder and other historical books. His ability to dispassionately recount the events of famous crimes is very engrossing. I hope there are more works like these from him to come.

Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics by Tom Scioli was a terrific biography of Kirby and long-since due. I read Angola Janga primarily out of interest in Angola - which the story doesn't really relate to, but I'll cover it in an upcoming review. And I read the first volume of the Lady Snowblood manga, which is a stylish crime series.

Other great books I read included Walter Simonson's Ragnarok, the continued work of Larry Hama on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and an excellent biography of Rod Serling titled Twilight Man.

Tomorrow: television!

2020 Review 2/4: Books

I read very heavily throughout 2020; the pandemic caused various libraries to expand their digital offerings, so access to interesting books has never been easier! Of all that I read, I can divide into four basic categories: fiction, Africa, Christian, and everything else.

FICTION: I read two interesting thrillers by Eric Ambler: The Light of Day and Dark Frontier. Dark Frontier was an earlier book and something of a satire which made it a bit of fun, while The Light of Day was a neat crime story where a driver gets blackmailed into working with criminals, then blackmailed by the other side to spy on his comrades. Deadline at Dawn by Cornell Woolrich is a great suspense novel about a man who committed a robbery but repented, only to return to the crime scene and find the victim has been murdered during the interval; his only hope is to find the killer before the body is found. The Bride Wore Black is another great Woolrich novel, this one concerning a woman with a carefully-plotted scheme to murder the men who wronged her and get away with it. The Princess Bride by William Goldman had long been a film I loved but I finally delved into the novel and enjoyed it a lot, it's very warm and funny much like the film. The pandemic inspired me to read Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, which is an extremely well-crafted thriller. I read up on a number of Halo novels, the best of which were Halo: First Strike & Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric S. Nylund and Halo: Contact Harvest and Shadow of Intent by Joseph Staten; I've been a Halo fan for so long, I'm amazed that the books keep bringing up new ideas I hadn't considered and offer information which casts the events of the games in a different light. I read The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle despite my general disinterest in H. P. Lovecraft, but as LaValle had crafted a meta-commentary on Lovecraft in this book it was a welcome and (I think) long-since necessary examination of how he wrote about black people.

AFRICA: No One Can Stop the Rain by Karin Moorhouse was a memoir by two doctors who served in Angola during the civil war; obviously, with my own interest in Angola, I found a lot of familiar moments in the book and I appreciated their particular outsiders' perspective on the nation and its people. African Perspectives on Colonialism by A. Adu Boahen had a great look at colonialism from the perspective of African authors, a perspective the other books I read on colonialism had lacked. Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire by Roger Crowley was concerned mostly with Portugal's activities in India but it also relates their early history in Africa and explains why their empire had the oddly uneven distribution that it did. The Fear by Peter Godwin was a memoir about the author's view of Mugabe's Zimbabwe in what ultimately has proven to be the decline of Mugabe's reign. The Lost Cities of Africa by Basil Davidson is a pretty forward-looking book for 1959 as the author attempted to vouch for Africa's rich pre-colonial history. An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World by Mariana Candido is a history of the slaving industry in Angola's port Benguela. Despite my interest in Angola I frequently found it to be dry and heavy on statistics, but there were interesting historical snippets explaining how deep the slave trade ran in Angola. The Looting Machine by Tom Burgis is a tough look at how capitalism is depleting Africa's resources with little in return; it's one I'm going to recommend. I read The Lion of Judah in the New World by Theodore M. Vestal for a grounding on US attitudes towards Ethiopia's Haile Selassie to help me with an essay I'm planning - as I'd hoped, the book made good points on Selassie's appeal in the USA. The Decolonization of Africa by David Birmingham was a strong book on the end of colonialism, although it spoke more in generalities than specifics.

CHRISTIAN: Letters Never Sent by Ruth van Reken was a series of letters written by a missionary woman across her life - lettters expressing all the things she felt growing up but couldn't express. As I'm going into missions I felt it was important to hear about the kinds of challenges she faced. Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill is a memoir of the author's experiences as a celibate Christian gay man; homosexuality is a thorny issue in the church but this book takes a sort of centrist view which is definitely different. The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer is a fine meditative book on awareness of God in day-to-day living.

EVERYTHING ELSE: Reinventing Hollywood by David Bordwell had an interesting perspective on the challenging storytelling methods used in 1940s Hollywood films. The Phantom Unmasked by Kevin Patrick made a strong case for the Phantom as the first true super hero and had a strong case for why he's been denied that honour. Writing with Hitchcock by Steven DeRosa looked at Hitchcock's relationship with screenwriter John Michael Hayes. It was a strong examination of Hitchcock's strengths and failings and what made Hayes such a good collaborator for him. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury is a series of short essays on writing which Bradbury composed across decades of his life. At his best, Bradbury is very inspirational and his guidelines have helped inspire me for years. Inside Benchley was the last of Robert Benchley's humour books which I had to read and I had a lot of laughs getting through the book. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow is the book the musical Hamilton is based on and as I've never really been taught much about US history it was particularly good to get a grounding in events I only vaguely understood. Recent current events led me to Umberto Eco's Five Moral Pieces, mostly to read his essay on fascism which explained the concept more fulsomely than anything else I've read. The Complete War of the Worlds by Alex Lubertozzi is primarily a history of Orson Welles' radio adapation of H. G. Wells' story, but it contained a terrific history of both works. Erich Maria Remarque: The Last Romantic by Hilton Tims is a fine biography of the author, a little light on what made him a great author but shed a lot of light to me on how his life inspired his works.

Tomorrow: Comics!

2020 Review 1/4: Films

As usual I'm going to look back on the films, books, comics and television programs I most enjoyed in the last year. In the midst of all the terrible things in the world today a little bit of positive thought can't hurt. I let my streaming video apps lapse in 2019, thinking I'd be overseas for most of 2020. Still, thanks to streaming video at my work, through my public library's Kanopy account and a friend's gift of Disney+ I still saw quite a lot of movies.

1917 was the only movie I watched in the cinema during 2020. The attempt to create a 'single take' film is artificial, but adds to the film's suspense and sense of unease. It's in the Hitchcock tradition (ala Rope) and I quite enjoyed it.

Kanopy has a heavy emphasis on world cinema; some great international films I saw were Beauty and the Beast, the great French adaptation of the fairy tale; O Heroi, an Angolan film about a one-legged veteran and an orphan boy both trying to find a place in post-war Angola; The Loyal 47 Ronin, a great version of the Japanese historical incident; and A Separation, an Iranian film with a surprisingly compelling interpersonal conflict that kept me enthralled.

As a fan of classic cinema there aren't many great films left for me to see, but in 2020 I found a few notable ones: Intruder in the Dust, a surprisingly frank look at racism for 1949; Pygmalion, the fine 1938 adaptation of the play; and True Confession, a great screwball comedy which did a lot to help me glean why Carole Lombard was such a great comedienne.

I saw a number of great documentaries during 2020: I Am Not Your Negro on the life of James Baldwin; The Great Buster on the life of Buster Keaton; Hearts and Minds about the USA's pull out of Vietnam; A Time for Burning, a phenomenal picture about racial tension in Nebraska and the church's inability to confront the problem; Music for the Movies: Bernard Herrmann on the life of the great film composer; and Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles.

Some other strong films I saw were To Build a Fire, an adaptation of Jack London's story; the Disney sequels Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2; Mr. Holland's Opus; Reginald Hudlin's bio-pic Marshall, which I sought out after Chadwick Boseman's death; the political film Game Change; and Hamilton (which I'll review on its own soon).

Tomorrow: Books

2019 Review: My pre-2019 Discoveries

As always, I read a ton of books every year. Probably the highlight in all the fiction I read was I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich. Trashy as it sounds, that book was surprisingly engaging. I've also been reading a lot of Eric Ambler lately, such as Judgment on Deltchev, Passage of Arms, The Levanter and The Schrimer Inheritance. Espionage fiction isn't usually an interest of mine, but Ambler's books stand out because of the unusual characters he writes and the off-kilter problems they encounter.

Another book worth noting is The Night Comes On by Steve Duffy, a collection of short fiction deliberately written to be evocative of M. R. James. As a James fan, I enjoyed the book, but it couldn't help but be a little too predictable owing to its inspiration.

My interest in Africa took me to a variety of books; I was thoroughly fascinated by Naulila 1914 by Jakob Zollmann and I'm sure I'm the only person to ever make that claim! It's an entire book on World War I in Angola - that's pretty well targeted to my interests. I was also deeply engrossed by Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941 by Jeff Pearce, which did a tremendous job of explaining how the Ethiopian War with Italy came about. Another interesting book was A Labyrinth of Kingdoms by Steve Kemper about Heinrich Barth's journeys through Africa in the 1840s.

Having enjoyed the rest of Adam Hochchild's writing, I sought out Spain in Our Hearts, his account of the Spanish Civil War. I hadn't read anything about that conflict before, so it was informative to get Hochchild's perspective. I also read The End of the Spear by Steve Saint, Erebus by Michael Palin, This Gulf of Fire by Mark Molesky, Pre-Code Hollywood by Thomas Doherty (which was much more thorough on the subject than I'd first assumed, a nice surprise), Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and The Second Coming of the KKK by Linda Gordon.

Having enjoyed the motion picture adaptation, I sought out the comic version of The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury & Thierry Robin. Although I liked it, I was surprised to find it hewed closer to the historical record and was much less humorous than the film.

The best older films I sought out included Three Days of the Condor, one of the few recommendations from a book on thrillers which actually panned out; Black Dynamite, which I had learned of thanks to Move Sign with the Mads; The Girl on the Train was a competant thriller which I enjoyed mainly because I figured out the twist before the film explained it to me; I didn't find Creed II to be anywhere near as good as its predecessor, but it was all right; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was fun and loaded with neat Easter eggs; and Darkest Hour was a well-acted Winston Churchill film.

Tomorrow I'm going to begin a retrospective on the 2010s!

My Favorite Media of 2019

I'm beginning to think my tastes are more conservative than they used to be. More and more I seem to only seek out films, books or comics by people I have a history of enjoying. I seem to put less effort into seeking out new material.

Despite that, in 2019 I actually read a novel which was brand-new that year! Owing to my interest in all things African, I read the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah. It's a fictionalized account of the effort to transport David Livingstone's remains undertaken by his servants. This book has some of the sharpest character writing I've encountered in a long time - with a modicum of words, Gappah makes her characters feel very fleshed-out.

I suppose it's in comics that I'm the most conservative - I checked out Vampirella & Deathstroke because of my long affection for Christopher Priest's work, and I still follow Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Walt Simonson's Ragnarok and Larry Hama's G.I. Joe. It was especially notable to see Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo now produced in full colour on a regular basis; I was perfectly happy with his black & white format, but Tom Luth's colours are a nice bonus. Although I'm mostly done with Marvel Comics, I appreciated Jim Starlin & Alan Davis' Thanos: The Infinity Ending and the gracious farewell Starlin wrote in that book. I'm still following Copra by Michael Fiffe, which is now published by Image Comics; it's a bit hard to describe what that comic is even about - it's essentially an homage to 1980s comics but it's more about creative design than plot. There was a new Beasts of Burden limited series, the second one to be drawn by Benjamin Dewey rather than Jill Thompson. I don't know if Thompson is gone for good, but I have no problem with Dewey's art, having previously enjoyed his work on Autumnlands. I also delved into a few translations of European titles, the best of which was Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future, which I'm now caught up on and eagerly awaiting the conclusion to. I suppose even in Arab of the Future there is a tinge of nostalgia as it's all about childhood; despite the very-different adolescence the author had from mine, there are a lot of aspects I could relate to.

In motion pictures, although I found Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far from Home to be just fine, I really got into Avengers: Endgame on a level which I seldom have at Marvel super hero films. The only other new film I went out to the theatre for was Yesterday, which was a charming picture. And although I gave up on all of my streaming services in 2019, I did get to see the new Dolemite Is My Name, which was a very fun biographical picture; I haven't seen any of Rudy Ray Moore's films, but the talent involved in the production made it a must-see for me.

Tomorrow I'll blog about older materials I sought out in 2019!

Cops on the moon, super hero cops and various non-cop-related titles (2017 review, finale)

My connection to the world of comic books has felt a bit off ever since I quit working for Marvel in 2012. Perhaps I miss the shared universe concept, the excitement of seeing different creators and their characters playing off of each other. Maybe. Still, I got into a few titles this last year.

What was the best new comic I read last year? I dunno. Let's say Mooncop or Baking with Kafka by Tom Gauld. The latter book is a collection of cartoons, while the former is a graphic novel about a police officer on the moon - unfortunately, people are steadily leaving the moon so his job seems to be a pointless one. It's funny and heartfelt.

I read a lot of other books from Canada's Drawn & Quarterly including Hostage by Guy Delisle and both of his Bad Parenting books, plus Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden, which I reviewed here.

I followed Deathstroke by Christopher Priest, Joe Bennett, Carlo Pagulayan & others for most of the year until the book shifted from bi-monthly to monthly status and increased its cover price. Priest seemed to be having the time of his life playing on the fringes of the DC Universe while crafting a complex series loaded with conflicted characters. It's very much like his Black Panther, only with an amoral unstoppable protagonist. You can read one of my reviews from the past year here.

I'm also following G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Larry Hama & S. L. Gallant, which spent most of the last year creating a new Snake Eyes for the series (Hama killed off the most popular Joe recently). I'm reading Cerebus in Hell? by Dave Sim which has been published in various different parody title formats (ie, Strange Cerebus) and while it sure ain't Cerebus proper, it makes me chuckle. Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai published a number of issues last year and it's as consistent and strong as ever. I also dipped into the past for Top Ten by Alan Moore & Gene Ha, which I missed back in its heyday; it was as complex as I expected from Moore, but I had difficulty sorting out my feelings about the large cast.

For a time I followed the controversial The Divided States of Hysteria by Howard Chaykin, right up until my comic shop stopped putting it on the shelves! It was easily the second-most reviled book of 2017 (after Marvel's Secret Empire) and isn't that enough reason to check it out? I wrote up my thoughts here.

As I had thoroughly enjoyed the film Edge of Tomorrow I decide to give the earlier manga version a try and read All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka & Takeshi Obata. It has many differences compared to the film and definitely opts for less-optimistic ending. I'm still following Astro City by Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson, which had a few noteworthy issues last year, particularly a two-parter about a man who learns to be a hero from the example of his dog.

Some more recent reads of mine include the Charles Dickens adaptation Marley's Ghost by Gideon Kendall, which I reviewed here; Captain Kronos by Dan Abnett & Tom Mandrake, reviewed here; The Sworn Sword by Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller which is set in the world of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones world but is a shade more optimistic; the M. R. James adaptations found in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Vol.2 by Leah Moore, John Reppion & others, reviewed by me here; and the European book Alter Ego: Camille by Pierre-Paul Renders, Denis Lapiere & Mathieu Reynes, which I hope to review soon as it has elements worth talking about... and people don't seem to be talking about it online.

Happy 2018!

Moving images (2017 review, part 2)

The film genre is something I approach with just a little ennui. Having made deep dives into film history and seen all the acclaimed masterpieces of the past, I seldom seem to find something new to speak about. There wasn't a single film I saw in 2017 which I would call 'perfect,' but there were many great films. That will suffice.

I didn't discover many older films of note, but I finally went through The Fly (director: David Cronenberg), a horror film I had avoided because I sensed it was too gruesome for me. As it turns out, it is as gruesome as claimed, but the performances and storytelling kept me compelled. On the small screen I also saw: Get Out (director: Jordan Peele), which I liked although it was neither as scary nor as funny as online chatter made it appear - just a very tense thriller; Race (director: Stephen Hopkins), which was a fine bio-pic about Jesse Owens which felt a bit confined at having to adapt his life into a traditional three-act structure; and there was Arrival (director: Denis Villeneuve), which I enjoyed as a compassionate science fiction film (although the only aspect I shared on this blog was a musing on artificial gravity).

Theatrical Films

I went to the cinema eight times in 2017; each time I had at least one person who went with me. Without company, I wouldn't have gone to see any of these films. Which is not to say they're bad, just that I don't enjoy being alone in the theater unless the film is as unusual as Shin Godzilla was the year before. In particular, I would definitely not have bothered with Kong: Skull Island (director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts) or Dunkirk (director: Christopher Nolan) but for friends who wanted to see them (the former because my friend lost a bet on the Oscars with another friend and had to see a non-Oscar-worthy film with him as punishment). Kong wasn't bad, certainly better than I expected given my feelings about Gareth Edwards' Godzilla. Dunkirk became more engaging to me as it went on and presented some well-crafted tension through its gimmicky non-linear storytelling.

My friends wanted to see most of the big super hero films so who was I to refuse them? I dug Logan (director: James Mangold) with its somber tone, although the climax didn't quite sit right with me given all which had come before; I laughed a lot at Thor: Ragnarok (director: Waika Waititi), although as a huge fan of Planet Hulk and the last stand of Skurge the Executioner I wasn't particularly enthused at the truncated versions the film employed; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 (director: James Gunn) felt very thin to me - way too pleased with itself and far too glib, but had a few great emotional beats when not trying to undercut its own drama; Wonder Woman (director: Patty Jenkins) was the super hero triumph of the year, despite having a pretty same-ol-same-ol climax - I wrote my initial thoughts here.

I also went to see Hacksaw Ridge (director: Mel Gibson) at the cheap theater and I was impressed to see a Hollywood film endorse pacifism, given that usually Hollywood war films which touch on the subject are crafted to speak against it (ie, Sergeant York). And there was Star Wars: The Last Jedi (director: Rian Johnson) recently, which I'm not certain how I feel about. It had various decisions I enjoyed, namely establishing Rey as a person who came from nothing instead of yet another member of the space-elite, but the questions the film raises about whether people should sacrifice themselves to achieve a greater good seem way too introspective for the Star Wars franchise and totally against what every film - particularly the last one, Rogue One - believe in. In Star Wars, you always play the odds even if you lose.

Television

Being that I don't have a television subscriber, my only source of television programming is on Netflix. This past year they brought in my old favourite Mystery Science Theater 3000 with brand-new episodes, a series I had backed on Kickstarter. Although I enjoyed the new programs I found the production a little too mechanical, not quite organic enough - the riffing was near-constant and I actually didn't find that a plus - I wanted more time to appreciate the jokes, to let them land before the next one started. It's good enough.

Fortunately, Netflix also brought me the event of the year: Five Came Back, the documentary series based on the book I finished earlier in the year. I adored this series. Although it had less information than the book, the manner of presentation with the film clips makes it indispensable and the ways in which the five famous director-commentators reflected on each of the book's five directors brought up interesting parallels and insights into those men. I showed this series to one of my friends; my friend had an interest in World War 2, but not classic film. After the series was done he wanted to see films by each of the directors, so I showed him at least one my each director from my library.

About two months later my friend and I were meeting another guy for dinner before watching Dunkirk. The second friend asked, "What's the best movie you've seen this year?" I considered and chose Logan. My first friend? The Grapes of Wrath by John Ford, from our Five Came Back-related sessions. Now he's into the classics!

Tomorrow: Comics!

Books Worth Going Back for (2017 review, part 1)

2017 was very good to me and to this blog. Blog readership has climbed significantly this last year. The most-read post was my list of 10 Great Princess Leia Moments from the Comics, but I was personally most fond of The Quality of Mercy, the first time I seriously attempt to discuss my spiritual beliefs on the blog.

But you're not here to watch a victory lap; let's get to the recap!

Best in Fiction

I delved into many novels this last year, particularly in the science fiction genre. I read Citizen of the Galaxy and The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein and enjoyed both books. Heinlein is not an author I've consistently enjoyed but he's certainly one I want to enjoy. Citizen of the Galaxy is easily the novel of his I've most enjoyed, thanks to his comprehensible world-building and strong lead protagonist. The Puppet Masters was simply good fun.

Although a Halo video game fan I hadn't reach much of the Halo fiction but finally sat down with Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund, the novel which was released to fill in the backstory behind the original game. It's a very strong novel, especially from my perspective as a fan of the games, but I think it stands well on its own as it tells from the beginning where the Spartans came from and how their war with the Covenant began.

I began watching Game of Thrones in the last 2 years and of late found myself introduced in the literature, beginning with A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin. I'm sure I'll read the rest of the existing material by the end of 2018. I'm most impressed by how carefully Martin builds his fantasy world and the various considerations given to making it feel lived-in. At this point the books are much like their television adaptations but I know that will change - and even then, I have noticed how the book's events are much better at developing mysteries.

From my friend Olav I took up recommendations for The Goblin Emperor by Sarah Monette and Old Man's War by John Scalzi, the first a fantasy political book in the vein of Martin, the latter a sci-fi adventure in the spirit of Starship Troopers. Both were very enjoyable reads with well-developed central characters.

I read Lay Down Your Arms! by Bertha von Suttner, an anti-war novel written before that field of fiction was famous. The book tells the story of a woman whose loved ones are repeatedly, throughout her life, destroyed by war. The book's diary format certainly shows its age, but the anti-war message remains timeless.

I picked up Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse from a book sale and I clearly need to read more Wodehouse; I had previously read some Jeeves/Wooster stories, but now I see how fine Wodehouse's other works were. Leave It to Psmith is a fine farce, especially for people who know their mystery novel tropes and enjoy seeing Wodehouse dismantle it. In a much more ridiculous fashion, The Pyrates by George MacDonald Fraser was an extremely funny send-up of pirate film tropes. I've had a look at Fraser's other works, hoping I would find more cut from this cloth, but this seems to be an exception in his career.

Best in Non-Fiction

The book event of the year for me was Five Came Back by Mark Harris, the story of the five top Hollywood directors who became involved in World War II. It was a facet of the war and of the directors' careers which I hadn't paid attention to before and the tale became unexpectedly moving in many places. I was also very impressed at the thoroughness of the research. This was a Christmas gift to me in 2016 and got me excited for the Netflix adaptation (more on that tomorrow).

Also in film, I read Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello and The Dark Side of Genius by Donald Spoto. Both helped me better realize Hitchcock's great filming instincts and his particular shortcomings. I had known of The Dark Side of Genius for decades but avoided it, fearing it might be salacious. It's not, and as both books made me want to rewatch my Hitchcock films, I think it didn't hurt his standing in my eyes. Finally, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker's Journey by Harlan Lebo must surely be the most authoritative look at the film Citizen Kane ever written. It's particularly good reading for those people who are aware of the controversies surrounding which screenwriter was responsible for which elements of the final film.

I read Unquiet Ghosts by Adam Hochschild because Hochschild's books have all been engaging so far; the subject of investing Russia post-Stalin isn't one I had interest in, but Hochschild dug up some interesting people, finding folks who had been imprisoned by Stalin, yet wept when he died. It points to how easily people allow themselves to be led by authoritarians.

More directed to my faith, I read Devotions on Emergent Conditions by John Donne, a series of reflections Donne made while suffering a lingering death. It's a neatly philosophical book and many of Donne's ruminations were affecting to me. I used the book as a devotional during my last trip to Angola. A friend loaned me Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Quershi, the story of a Muslim man who converted to Christianity and how it was a very gradual process for him. It's unfortunate that Quershi died last year as he was gifted at sharing his story of faith.

Always being interested in Africa, I read The Colour Bar by Susan Williams, which tells about the marriage of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams and the many ridiculous political steps taken to try and break them up. There's a movie of their story as well, but this real life account has much more drama and plenty of ruthless villains. Finally, In the Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a collection of memoirs from Kapuscinski's various journeys to Africa across several decades and he expressed his feelings about the continent in a way which I felt akin to, given my own recently-discovered love of Africa.

Tomorrow: Film!

The Only Thing New Under the Sun Are the Old Books People Haven't Read. (2016 review, part 3)

Looking back at what I read in 2016, I found only one title which was actually published that year: Frank Coniff's 25 Mystery Science Theater 3000 Episodes That Changed My Life in No Way Whatsoever, an amusing series of essays where Frank recalled his time with MST3K. Other recent publications I read were The Sinister Shadow by Kenneth Robeson, a fantastic Doc Savage novel featuring the Shadow which worked better than the similar efforts I had seen comics attempt. I also read Klang! by Christopher Priest in which he delved into the making of his recent comic Q2: The Return of Quantum & Woody and why it wasn't as fulfilling an experience as he'd hoped; I've long appreciated Priest's willingness to pull back the curtain and describe the inner workings of his career.

I particularly like reading short stories and so deliberately went after a few authors' collections. I read quite a bit of Richard Matheson last year, not only his novel I Am Legend but his anthologies Duel and Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Likewise, I read the compilation of work by his protegee Charles Beaumont, The Howling Man. Having recently read some Shirley Jackson, I also tried her anthology Just an Ordinary Day and found she wrote a number of very good and gently warm tales. An online recommendation led me to Nights of the Round Table by Margery Lawrence, which proved to be a great selection of little-known ghost stories linked together in that grand old "men at a club swapping stories" format.

As a Ray Bradbury fan I delved into quite a few collections of his which I hadn't read before: I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye and Long After Midnight, plus his tale about the magical history of Halloween The Halloween Tree and his first two detective mystery novels, Death Is a Lonely Business and A Graveyard for Lunatics.

As an old-time radio fan, there are many authors whose work I was first exposed to on the radio and last year I made an effort to try out the original versions for many of those works. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household was an excellent novel about a hunter who stalks Hitler (though I still prefer Fritz Lang's film version, Man Hunt). Donovan's Brain by Curt Siodmak was told as a great Suspense story with Orson Welles; I found the original tale not quite as compelling as the radio version gave the lead character a son to great dramatic effect. I haven't often found Joseph Conrad easy to get into, but the original text of Typhoon proved almost exactly like the Escape radio version I had enjoyed so the experience was great. I read Gouverneur Morris' The Footprint and Other Stories primarily for that lead story, but he turned out to be a neat little author who reminded me of W.W. Jacobs' work and I thoroughly enjoyed the collection. Marie Belloc Lowndes' The Story of Ivy was a great crime novel with convincing characters.

Some films I had enjoyed and sought out in book version were Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana (which was almost exactly like the fine film version); Invasion of the Body Snatcheres by Jack Finney (a lot more downbeat than the film!); Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train (much more messed up than Hitchcock's film with developments which would clearly have not worked in a 1950s film); Dorothy B. Hughes' In a Lonely Place was so different from the film version they were practically different stories, yet still worked; by contrast, B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre turned out to be almost exactly like the film; I enjoyed Laura by Vera Caspary, a good mystery story which I thinked worked better in film; John D. MacDonald's Cape Fear was similar, a good novel but not a gripping thriller in the way the film was; I also read a lot of Cornell Woolrich's books after having seen them adapted in many places, including The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Black Curtain, The Black Angel and Phantom Lady, each one convincing me to keep going further and I certainly hope to read even more Woolrich in 2017.

I got through a few more novels by Erich Maria Remarque, the best being A Time to Love and a Time to Die, The Night in Lisbon and Flotsam; at this point, I've probably read all of Remarque's best work. I finally read Jack London's White Fang and The Call of the Wild which I somehow avoided in my teen years for no good reason. I attempted to read E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr having enjoyed Hoffmann's other tales but Tomcat Murr is only barely comprehensible as a story to me. I read the only major Vernor Vinge novel I hadn't covered before, Marooned in Realtime and read another great spy book by Eric Ambler, Epitaph for a Spy. The most pleasant discovery I had was the Star Trek novel A Stitch in Time by Andrew Robinson which told the life story of the Deep Space Nine character Garak yet managed to work despite the allure of mystery being part of the character's appeal.

In non-fiction I delved into a number of Christian books such as the biographies Wars Are Never Enough about an Angolan missionary, Joao Mawawana and God's Smuggler about the Bible smuggler Brother Andrew. I also read the last major C.S. Lewis book I hadn't previously covered, Of Other Worlds. I read Errol Morris' A Wilderness of Error about the case of Jeffrey MacDonald, an Army officer convincted of killing his wife, but in a case with a lot of unusual baggage; the topic certainly plays into Morris' hobby horse, the exploration of how memory and history are subjective. I also visited Tim Butcher's great book The Trigger, wherein he retraced the movements of Gavrilo Princip in the same manner as his other historical travel books. I learned of With the Old Breed by Eugene Sledge via Ken Burns' documentary The War and was instantly captivated by the frankness Sledge leant in discussing combat and atrocities. By comparison, Ernie Pyle's Here Is Your War may have been fairly truthful for its time, but reads as propaganda by comparison.

Adam Hochschild's works have each been enthralling to me, bringing to life historical humanitarian concerns and his World War I book To End All Wars did the same to that conflict, looking at the impact the war had on various social concerns of the day. My interest in Africa led me to A Savage War of Peace by Alistair Horne, a very thorough look at the Algerian War. I also read a pair of similarly-focused slave narratives, the well-known 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, a work I learned of through Adam Hochschild's Bury the Chains. In film, I read two great books about the silent era: The Speed of Sound by Scott Eyman about the impact talking pictures had on all aspects of movies; and King Vidor's the Crowd: The Making of a Silent Classic by Jordan Young, which looked at the details behind one of my favourite silent movies.

Finally, for fun, I read some more of Robert Benchley: My Ten Years in a Qundry and How They Grew and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or, David Copperfield being my two favourites. Shall we close with a quotation from Benchley? Yes, we shall: "There is a great satisfaction to us clumsy humans when we see an animal that is supposed to surpass us in skill making a monkey of itself. I am still gloating over a blackbird that I saw, with my own eyes, in as disgraceful a bit of flying as any novice ever put on."

How was your 2016?

Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again, Again! (2016 review, part 2)

via Birth Death Movies

I am not precisely one to make a big deal out of going to see movies, yet I wound up at the cinema quite a few times in 2016. The most fun I had in 2016 was seeing Captain America: Civil War, but there were other highlights; Doctor Strange was good, albeit familiar; Star Trek: Beyond proved to the best of the Star Trek reboot films while my favourite, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was re-released to celebrate the franchise's 50th anniversary; I checked out Jason Bourne and found it unfortunately inferior to Matt Damon's earlier films; Shin Godzilla took the notorious Godzilla back to his roots in a very welcome piece about bureaucracy and Japan's complicated history with nuclear energy; finally, Rogue One was a decent but very problematic Star Wars film which I felt worked in spite of all its plotting problems.

Thanks to Netflix, I delved into quite a lot of other pictures which were brand-new last year; highlights of those included Zootopia, which proved to contain a very effective message about proving oneself and combatting personal prejudices; For the Love of Spock, Adam Nimoy's documentary tribute to his father, centered on Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock; Green Room, an extremely intense thriller about a punk band trapped inside a Neo-Nazi bar; The Legend of Tarzan was surprisingly good, delving into a chapter of real African history which I was already interested in; I watched the horror mockumentary They're Watching primarily because its creator was Micah Ian Wright, a controversial comic book creator; I saw Deadpool and concluded "I can see how someone else would find this funny." Deadpool had the potential to be something different but its claim to be something other than a typical super hero movie was an exaggeration - it's just another super hero, only with nasty language.

Netflix also led me to some fine documentaries, with Hot Coffee discussing the infamous coffee lawsuit at McDonald's and how it was perceived as a frivolous lawsuit when, in actuality, it was a legitimate case; Winter on Fire told of the toppling of the Ukraine government and was very informative. Some other good films included the Disney movie Inside Out and the excellent horror adaptation Kwaidan. But the best film I saw for the first time in 2016 was Creed, the new sequel to Rocky, which I found captivating in part because it paid its dues to the Rocky franchise while simultaneously working hard to develop its own identity.

Tomorrow: Books!

Look What the Cat Dragged in! (2016 review, part 1)

Why do so many "best of" lists appear before the year in question is done? Why do we begin memorializing all the dead famous people of the year when more might die in the last few days of the year (ie, Carrie Fisher)?

Me, I don't have to make deadlines or earn ad revenue based on how many clicks my blogging gets; the two dozen of you reading are sufficient for me. And yet, this was a pretty good year for the blog as my list of Creator credits for Luke Cage season 1 was the most-read Section 244 post of 2016. Obviously, the creator credits will continue to be a feature of this blog in 2017. A tip of the hat again to my friend Kevin Garcia and his site MonoMythic for promoting my efforts.

To begin my look back on 2016, let's start with comic books, the foundation of this site and my so-called sideline career. My recurring feature Unearthed returned in 2016 to revisit Atlas Comics with The Destructor #4, Tigerman #1 and Tigerman #2. There will be more from Unearthed and Atlas in 2017!

In honour of Captain America: Civil War I looked back at how the relationship between Captain America and Iron Man had been portrayed in the comics; it ran 5 installments: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five.

Looking again at comics history I looked over the publication life of The Atomic Knights and found it a mixed bag with some clever, charming or dynamic stories interspersed with dull material trying too hard to be "important." I also found the long-ignored Mysterious Traveler comics by Trevor Von Eeden, which turned out to be fairly effective weird horror stories.

I delved into a few early creator-owned characters, examining Wally Wood's Cannon and Gil Kane's Savage. Further, their descendant Cerebus came back in 2016 via Cerebus in Hell?. This was also the year where I finally tried Michael Fiffe's Copra and have enjoyed the experience most thoroughly.

I still have much to learn about the field of comic strips but I sampled a few more books such as the vast book The Comics Before 1945 and found a few things to like in the adventure strip compilations Buz Sawyer: The War in the Pacific, Milt Caniff's Dickie Dare and The Phantom vs. the Sky Maidens. I also gave the Phantom another chance with his most recent tale, The Phantom: Danger in the Forbidden City.

In contemporary comics I found Margaret Atwood's Angel Catbird to be an amusing tale. I was pleased to have a new Beasts of Burden story to enjoy and the recent Fox mini-series by Dean Haspiel and tried out a graphic novel adaptation of Lafcadio Hearn's Japanese ghost stories, The Faceless Ghost and of M. R. James' Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

Through Kickstarter I've continued to support a few projects from beloved creators; I spotlighted two of Steve Ditko's recent publications this year with Out of This World, Tales of the Mysterious Traveler and Mr. A. I also supported Batton Lash's latest Supernatural Law collection, A Vampire in Hollywood.

I was very nicely surprised by Twilight Zone: The Shadow, which was certainly the most ambitious Dynamite-published Shadow comic I had read. I gave a few Aftershock comics a try and while nothing stuck with me, Garth Ennis' Dreaming Eagles was all right.

Mark Waid's Empire returned with little fanfare via Empire: Uprising which I still hope will find a sequel as it took a concept which could have been left complete as it was and (once again!) left its story incomplete.

In more popular fronts I was surprised to find myself buying a DC comic again - Deathstroke, no less, but the presence of Christopher Priest drew me in with his ever-vital and ever-complex plotting and the steady hands of Carlo Pagulayan and Joe Bennett on art duties. I'm still following Larry Hama's G. I. Joe: A Real American Hero, which produced a notable issue featuring only female characters which I highlighted on the blog. I tried out the new Black Panther #1 and didn't particularly connect with it but I certainly have a great deal of affection for the character and wish it the best. Further, I continued to follow Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Walter Simonson's Ragnarok and Kurt Busiek's Astro City & Autumnlands (also read Busiek's graphic novel Redhand).

But there were so many other comics I read which I didn't bring up on the blog! 2016 was the year I finally delved into Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's From Hell, tried the first volume of Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the Universe, read some Chester Brown such as The Little Man, Evan Dorkin's Eltingville Club, Jason Lutes' Berlin, Dean Motter's The Return of Mister X, Ben Edlund's The Tick, and finished reading Grant Morrison's Animal Man.

I audited a university class on comics this year and while most of the reading material comprised books I was already familiar with, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home was one new-to-me book which stood out.

Other new material I tried included J. Torres' entertaining martial arts epic The Mighty Zodiac, Mike Baron's revived Badger series. Dan Abnett's The Wild's End wrapped up in 2016 but I keep forgetting to revisit that series for the blog; I also recently went through Corinna Bechko's Miss Fury and hope to blog about it soon. I tried the beginning of Roger Langridge's Betty Boop, but despite my great affection for Langridge's humour it unfortunately didn't connect with me. I read a fantasy epic about boxing called Kings and Canvas on Comixology, but the series is incomplete.

Other notable comics: Tom Gauld's great humour book You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack; the World War I book Above the Dreamless Dead; Regis Loisel's The Quest for the Time Bird has a great premise but an unsatisfying final quarter; Ron Miller's Velda was an amusing parody of Matt Baker adventure comics; the early graphic novel Four Frightened Women turned out to be well-rendered but not exactly special; I read the mangas Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki and Black Blizzard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi and I located the always-great Michael Kupperman's Snake 'n' Bacon Cartoon Cabaret.

As it stands, I'm cautiously optimistic about comics. It helps, I think, that I've untangled myself from much of the noise surrounding the industry and instead focus squarely on the concepts, characters and creators who I enjoy. So long as people such as Stan Sakai, Christopher Priest, Kurt Busiek, Walter Simonson, Roger Langridge and Dave Sim have a platform to work through, I remain a comic book fan.

Tomorrow: Films!

That Went Well: 2015

When I stop to think about the media I enjoy - prose, comics, film, video game - I can't quite escape a sense of ennui. Have I read every word worth reading? Seen every film worth watching? So much of what I find - old or new - is too familiar and I'm far too detached from the experience. I want to be entertained, but perhaps I've experienced too much?

But of course, then something comes along which I truly, unabashedly, enjoy. Sometimes it's not only good entertainment but even touches me personally. For that reason, I'm here to share my favourite discoveries of 2015.

PROSE BOOKS

I had once heard the book Hell on Ice by Edward Ellsberg dramatized by Orson Welles on the Mercury Theatre radio program. That was enough to convince me to read the book when a copy came past me for disposal. I wouldn't have otherwise glanced twice at it; it's the story of an expedition to the North Pole which goes horribly awry; it's a very long, slow burn, but when the explorers' ship is finally lost the tension of wondering how any of them could have survived sustains a heightened interest to the grim finale.

The graphic novel Unflattening led me to the work which (partially) inspired it, Edwin Abbott's Flatland, an engaging blend of drama, humour, philosophy and mathematics.

I read two more books by Paul Brickhill, best-known for The Great Escape. In Reach for the Sky, he told the story of aviator Douglas Bader, a man who is kept rather emotionally distant in the narrative, but his determination to resume flying planes after losing his legs is remarkable enough on its own. I also read Escape to Danger, a collection of stories about pilots who escaped from the Germans during World War II, many of them very unusual in terms of the near-deaths the pilots would survive and the oft-surprising ease with which they would escape.

After initially quite enjoying Fyodor Dostoevsky through Crime and Punishment, I'd begun to grow disenchanted with everything else of his I read, but his romance story White Nights helped bring me back - it's a brief read, but with palpable emotions.

My interest in Africa continues to lead me through various tomes on the subject, including two by Thomas Pakenham: The Scramble for Africa and The Mountains of Rasselas. The former explained the divvying up of the continent to me in a way I finally grasped (that it was told so that what each country was doing in relation to each other at each given time was most helpful) and the latter told of Pakenham's journey to Ethiopia in the 1950s with many beautiful photos; Ethiopia remains the African nation I most hope to visit one day.

As I've frequently remarked on this blog, I continue to enjoy the works of author Sax Rohmer, despite the frequent racism found therein. I read the biography Master of Villainy by Cay Van Ash but found the author far too willing to praise Rohmer to the heavens and wanted something less opinionated about him. The book The Yellow Peril: Dr. Fu Manchu & the Rise of Chinaphobia by Christopher Frayling was much more to my liking; it's meticulously researched to help explain the climate in England when the Fu Manchu stories first appeared and more interested in setting the facts straight than protecting Rohmer's reputation (which was Van Ash's problem).

I'm continuing to work my way through the original novels which inspired some of my favourite movies; in 2015 that included Deliverance by James Dickey, Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb, The Bridge on the River Kwai by Pierre Boulle, Hell House by Richard Matheson, The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins. I also delved into some good books about film and film people: Cagney by James Cagney and This Is Orson Welles by Orson Welles.

COMIC BOOKS

At last, Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo resumed regular publication (following his work on the 47 Ronin and Usagi Yojimbo: Senso mini-series) and, predictably, the quality is as high as before. Sakai continues to craft interesting tales about feudal Japan and the slow-yet-ever-changing cast of characters continue to progress. Usagi Yojimbo is the most dependable book on the market.

The Wild's End wrapped up, only to be followed by another mini-series, The Enemy Within. I need to post a review of this series as it isn't receiving a lot of notice, but Dan Abnett & I.N.J. Culbard are delivering a notably weird mash-up of two great institutions of British fiction: The Wind in the Willows and The War of the Worlds. The present series even includes a character who is vaguely analogous to H. G. Wells!

The Autumnlands by Kurt Busiek & Benjamin Dewey is taking a measured pace (much about the human protagonist remains unexplained) but I trust in Busiek to make the journey worthwhile; in the meantime, Dewey is delivering dynamic art and distinctive animal-people. I'm still following Busiek's Astro City (in trades) as well, and between the two they remind me of why I first became so excited by his writing back in '97.

Q2: The Return of Quantum & Woody reunited Priest & Mark Bright in a coda to their series. I gather Priest wasn't satisfied by the experience at all, but I enjoyed revisiting the characters and seeing Priest almost aggressively reject nostalgia in favour of continuing to move his cast forward.

The Complete Little Nemo was easily the best trade collection I picked up in 2015; I had eyed it for quite some time, but only moved on it when publisher Taschen ran a sale on their site. It is precisely what it claims to be - all of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo between two covers. What a delight!

Some other graphic novels I delved into were Deogratias by Jean-Philippe Stassen, Notes for a War Story by Gipi, Burma Chronicles by Guy DeLisle, Rose by Jeff Smith, On the Ropes and Kings in Disguise by James Vance, Unflattening by Nick Sousanis, Laika by Nick Abadzis and War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay, while I continue to follow Winterworld by Chuck Dixon, G.I. Joe by Larry Hama and Ragnarok by Walter Simonson.

MOTION PICTURES

Mad Max: Fury Road My brief thoughts on this picture were ultimately the most-viewed blog entry of 2015, which certainly speaks to how gigantic this film's reception was. I've rewatched it a few times since then and continue to be impressed by the ease at which the story is told and the subtle character development which unfolds. This is cinema that brings to mind Hitchcock, Ford, Murnau... hands-down my favourite theatre-going experience of 2015.

I caught up on The Edge of Tomorrow on DVD, having been intrigued by it's advertising. The marketing really did not sell this film - it's quite funny (particularly in terms of black comedy) and uses star Tom Cruise in a role which is quite different from his usual fare. In fact, I came to realize this is now my favourite Tom Cruise movie; previously, I would have asserted I didn't have a favourite. I like Cruise's development from craven coward to hero; I like Emily Blunt's far more capable secondary character who has to train him; and I laughed at a lot of Cruise's darkly funny death scenes.

Life Itself is the documentary on Roger Ebert filmed at the end of his life and intentionally designed to show what his life was like at the time; it is at first startling to see Ebert missing his lower jaw and I appreciate that he didn't want to hide it from the camera. The biography of Ebert's life is also engaging, particularly to hear how wounded Ebert was when Siskel didn't inform him of his impending death.

Diagram for Delinquents is a terrific documentary from Sequart about the oft-despised Fredric Wertham, the psychologist who opposed comic books. Amazingly, this film offers a perspective on Wertham than that which comic book culture has absorbed; it actually brought me around to his side on some of his thinking. For that reason, this is easily the best comic book documentary I've ever seen - I actually learned something important!

There are other movies I quite enjoyed: The Citadel (1938), which touched on notions of the struggle to attain one's ideal life as in other King Vidor pictures; Johnny Got His Gun (1971), which I watched after having read the book; Ender's Game (2013) which I have not read in prose but I found it to be a good picture; 42 (2013) which interested me despite my lack of interest in baseball and led me to The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014), Knuckleball (2012), Moneyball (2011) and even Ken Burns' Baseball mini-series; Harold & Maude (1971), a picture I'd heard a lot about but didn't understand the appeal 'til I saw it; Romero (1989), with Raul Julia dramatizing the life of a murdered priest; A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) an adaptation of an Erich Maria Remarque novel which I haven't read (yet) but had an interesting look at Germany near the end of WW2; The Talented Mr. Ripley, which I had no idea had been adapted from a series of novels by the same woman who authored the stories adapted into Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train; Beasts of No Nation (2015) which examined African child soldiers and held up to everything I'd previously read on the subject; Nightcrawler (2014) I had heard praised in a few places and it turned out to be an extremely involving film with turns I couldn't quite predict and that's always a pleasure; finally, Bridge of Spies (2015) which is not what I'd have expected from a Spielberg/Coen Bros. mash-up, but told an interesting Cold War story in a very uncomplicated way.

VIDEO GAMES

In 2015, I upgraded to the Xbox One (or Xbone). I didn't plan to - I didn't want to shell out the money for what was (and is) still an expensive console when my Xbox 360 remained useful. Unfortunately, my 360 began to develop trouble reading discs and as it doubled as my DVD player, it crippled two modes of entertainment. Suddenly, the One seemed to make sense - it would mean upgrading to a blu-ray and, as my 360 friends had all abandoned that console for the One, it would mean having people to play games with again.

My mistake (and regret) was buying Destiny for the One. I already had it on 360 (Destiny was part of how I rationalized staying with the 360), but I wanted to play it with my friends as there were parts of the game you couldn't play without friends in your party. Unfortunately, by the time I got on the One my friends had given up on Destiny. I continued to play, but over time the game has actually become worse; the last update (The Taken King), which I avoided, actually barred me from accessing features I'd been able to use previously. That, coupled with the many behind-the-scenes troubles being reported on convinced me to stay away; if my friends went back to Destiny I'd consider giving it another go, but as it is I feel I've wasted enough money. It was good for what it was - that is, it kept me occupied until the release of...

Halo 5: Guardians. As I didn't plan on owning the One, I thought I'd played my last Halo game, but here I am. This game has a campaign story which is just okay; it turns a beloved character into a villain, which is unfortunate, yet never hits the emotions of the previous series entry (and I didn't think Halo 4's campaign matched the Bungie game entries). The campaign has some interesting fights, but the story's not as involving as it should be. Meanwhile, the matchmaking modes are pretty good; my favourite Halo mode, Firefight, remains MIA (was I the only one who liked it?) but the new Warzone mode finally perfects what some of the previous games were trying to accomplish; on the basis of Warzone mode alone, I'm very pleased with this game - I can happily play Warzone for hours. I still have hope there are other game types coming in future updates as this game is significantly smaller than Halo 4 was.

And those are my 2015 highlights!