HAPPY 4TH

ALEX ROSS-WILL HE SAVE COMICS-OR RUIN THEM?

How does this picture look to you? If you are like most people, the answer is "Pretty darn good!" Believe it or not, there is a small but highly vocal group of people that don't care for Mr. Ross's artwork. That's okay, different strokes. Now it's reaching a fever pitch of absurdity.

Before I go any further, I must disclose that I had the pleasure to host Mr. Ross at my store some five times. He also created my store Logo. That would make me seem like a less than impartial observer in this comedy. I also want to state that I am a big fan, and was before I ever met the gentleman. I believe that I would still be a fan if I had never met him. Full disclosure over.

Here is a blog that makes the claim that "No one has done more harm to the form than Alex Ross." In the comments section, a gaggle of Ross-haters comes out of the woodwork. I posted a comment in defense of Ross, but I didn't want to linger too long to argue with the Kangaroo court calling for Ross's head for comic book art crimes.

It also seems silly to blame Ross for the sins of others. That's like blaming Jimi Henrix for all the bad guitar bands that came in his wake.

Ross has legions of fans. He is extremely successful. Any publisher would practically kill to get him to draw a book for them. That is because he takes comic art to a new level. He has never been equaled.

The detractors say "Comic Books should never be painted". Really? Why not? Who made these rules? I must have missed the meeting were everyone voted on what media comic artists were allowed to use. I would have voted to expand the pallet, rather than to diminish it.

This is a very simple point, but one that needs to be made: You don't need to be a fan of Ross's or even a comic book fan to see that his art is beautiful. All you need is a functioning set of eyes, a heart, and a mind. I don't mind the people that say that his art is not to their taste, but to call it ugly is absurd. All you have to do is look. It's about as plain as seeing a pretty girl, and knowing that she is beautiful. Let the light reach your eyes. Somehow the Ross-Hater's eyes are wide shut.

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A BLOG

Now and then, you just have a hankering to put a little of yourself out on the blogosphere. Lucky for me, there are a few poople out there scanning these little squibs now and then. I'm lucky to have any kind of audience at all.

I got interested in writing back in high school. During my senior year at Cubberly High School in Palo Alto, I was in a program called "Alternative School". I graduated in 1979, and they promptly shut Cubberly down. Alternative school had classes that met once a week. You were responsible for doing your own work. You figured out what grade you deserved. It was a real hippy-dippy notion, and mostly it was a colossal failure. It was mostly a magnet for stoners and slackers alike. There were a few bright people there, however; the two brightest guys that I ever met. One is now a professor, the other is an inventor.

I got interested in writing, and was composing a complete story or poem every day. The average length of my stories was 10 pages. Often I would lie in a hot bath composing on a legal pad. I felt inspired and wrote furiously. The words would come fast, and I would fill page after page. I was writing mostly adventure stories. I was inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I was inclined towards his complex action packed prose. Everyone in Alternative School thought that I would go on to become a writer. As far as I know, none of my old stores survive. It's a good thing, because they are probably quite dreadful.

Now when I write, I write much slower. I am inclined toward more straightforward language. I try to get my meaning across as concisely as possible. I don't steer clear of complex words, but I don't insert them just to be fancy. I find that the first word that comes to mind is usually the best, as long as it clearly expressed what you were trying to say. I tend to put down a book that is full of obscure and impenetrable text. I don't think that reading should be an unpleasant chore. The author has to meet me half way by keeping the book flowing, and keeping it interesting. Sue me if I'm a lowbrow book reader. I'm not reading to impress the elite. I'm reading for my own enrichment.

One thing that I am doing now, which probably cuts down on my enjoyment of writing, is to edit while I go. It would probably be more fun, and perhaps create a better flow in my writing if I just put my thoughts down, and then went back and edited later. The impulse to edit while writing is very strong. That impulse is corrupting the development of the skill of getting it right the first time. (You still have to go back and edit later.)

The smart friends from high school were reading a book a day, and I had the same habit. I was mostly reading Edgar Rice Borroughs, and as I mentioned, I completely absorbed his style. I had a little game that I liked to play. You would pick a book, by any author. You would compose a paragraph in their style. You read your paragraph, and the paragraph of the author, and the people try to guess which is which. It's great fun. If I remember correctly, I think that I usually fooled them.

Since those days, my reading has diminished quite a bit. I find that I am reading mostly non-fiction, and I am writing nothing but non-fiction. I would like to try my hand at fiction again. I would like to create stories agiain, so I am trying to limber up my mind for that pursuit. I just finished reading "On Writing' by Steven King. It's a great book, and his #1 tip for a would-be writer is to read a lot. He writes for 4 hours a day, and reads for 4 hours a day. Would-be writers would do well to turn off that TV, and steer toward that easy chair, book in hand.

I have a small library at my house. I must have a hundred or so books. I don't really collect books. I mostly trade them back to the used book store when I am done with them. I have a lot of reference books because I tend to hold on to them. It seems strange to me if I visit someone's house, and they don't have any books there. It's like not having any windows. I always like to go over and look at the books that people have in their homes. It's invariably the thing that I do when I am passing time waiting for someone in their home. The books that people read tell a lot about a person.

- Lee

HELPFUL SUGGESTION

If you are riding a roller coaster and your cap blows off, I suggest that you spend $10 to buy a new cap, rather than climbing over the fence in an attempt to retrieve it.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

MIX TAPES

I was relaxing in bed this morning with my wife Connie. We were both enjoying a lazy Sunday morning reading the San Francisco Chronicle. I got to my favorite section, the entertainment section, the Datebook or "Pink Section". I read a letter from the letter column with great interest, because it was about mix tapes, a subject dear to my heart. At the end, it stopped me dead in my tracks when I realized who had written the letter. It was from my friend Joe Field, the owner of Flying Colors Comics in Concord. I read it aloud to my wife. She loved the letter too, and pointed out that I had made her a mix tape when we fist started dating, and that the tape had make her fall in love with me. Here's the letter from today's San Francisco Chronicle Datebook:

Readers share More memories of making, receiving mix tapes

Editor -

Regarding the April 27 article by Peter Hartlaub ("Mix-tape memories"):
In the summer of 1976, I had the nerve to ask Libby, a lovely girl way out of my league, to a, gulp, Barry Manilow concert at Concord Pavilion. Surprisingly, she agreed, and it was our one date that summer before she headed off for a semester abroad in Vienna and I went off to San Francisco State. But something wonderful started that rainy night in Concord, and I wasn't about to let half a world get in between us.

Over the next few months, we wrote a number of noncommittal, how-ya-doin' letters back and forth, and in one of her letters she asked if I'd send a tape of songs I was into. Being a broadcast communication arts major, I had to do better than just slapping a bunch of tunes on a tape.

My friend Randy and I fashioned a mix tape featuring me as Libby's personal DJ: stories between songs, the worst jokes of the day, stretching tune titles into new meanings (Tower of Power's "So Very Hard to Go" was "the Ex-Lax theme song"), but trying my best to say something meaningful to her. I tried to let Boz Scaggs, Nilsson, the Moody Blues, James Taylor and even Manilow ("When will our eyes meet ...") be my voice.
Libby listened to the tape repeatedly, enjoying the music but not being swayed until her roommate asked if she was "really listening to what he's saying. The guy is crazy about you." Getting the message, Libby sent a mix tape in reply. She also spoke between tracks, and her voice and laugh melted me like butter in the sun. Two years later, we were married. And 29 years later, we still have those tapes.

I now hear my 20-year-old voice on the old mix tape and know, yet again, why I went into the sales and marketing end of radio (before moving into comic-book retailing 20 years ago). When I hear Libby's voice on that old tape, my heart still skips a beat, just as it has every day I've heard her voice for 32 years.

Joe Field
Concord

DIRTY FRANKIE

Frank Sinatra was originally slated to play Dirty Harry. He had to drop out due to hand problems, so the role went instead to Clint Eastwood. Here is an ad from Dec 1970 Box Office magazine when the film was in pre-production with Sinatra to star. I love Sinatra, but I have to admit that he was a bit past his prime by this time. I can't imagine that the film would have been as good with him as star as it was with Clint Eastwood. The ad looks pretty neat, though.