Stuff I’ve Read, Watched, Done #5 – Mar 22, 2020

Well, as everyone knows, we’re living in some crazy times, full of lots of challenge and  and pain and sadness.  For me, nothing has gone really bad, it’s just highly inconvenient.  But like many of us suffering in the more removed version of these trials, I’m actually pretty comfortable and certainly not suffering in any meaningful way.

So things like television viewing has remained pretty consistent, or even increased a bit.

100 Years, 100 Creators – Part 7

Over a few posts, I’m choosing different creators or creative teams–novelist, composer, scriptwriter, comic book artist, etc–who have influenced or inspired me, and in most cases brought me a lot of enjoyment.

Weekly Geeky Question #12: Influential Comic Book Creators

Every week in 2018, the plan is that my friend Rod is going to ask me some geeky question that will answer in a post. This week is Week #12, and this week’s questions is…

Who are the comic book writers and artists who have had the greatest influence upon me?

Gene Luen Yang: Animal Crackers

Boy, I am grateful for the library:  a wonderful place where one can acquire books to read without the bother of having to pay for them or find a place to store them when you are done.  The handy-dandy local libraries here in Perth are generally stocked with a small but random selection of comic books and graphic novels.  This has given me the chance to sample all sorts of interesting wares.  Some of have been duds, but others have been enjoyable like Jonathan Hickman’s FF, or Brian Wood’s The New York Four, or even real treasures like Jeff Smith’s Bone.

Another winner that I have discovered is the works of Gene Luen Yang.  I already wrote about The Eternal Smile some time ago, and I’m not familiar with Yang’s most well-known creation, American Born Chinese, but on this occasion I was fortunate enough to pick up a little all-ages  collection called Animal Crackers.

The Eternal Smile

The Eternal Smile is a collection of three tales by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim (two creators that I am not familiar with, though I’ve heard of Yang’s work American Born Chinese), and published by First Second.  Each is told and illustrated in very different styles, but they are thematically connected – all have to do with the uncomfortable clash between fantasy and reality.  It’s a compelling little collection of work.