Are you ready, Eddie?

[alexsarll]

Isn't today meant to bring the worst storm in 20 years? I'm looking out the window and seeing gently waving branches, non-storm-clouds and patches of blue sky. Meteorology: it's like astrology except that you get taken seriously by people who don't read the red-tops.

Last night I saw The Vessel, Eddie Argos and company go glam. Well, I say that - it was actually one of the more subdued outfits I've seen Vessel wear, but Eddie's jumpsuit was quite something. Paranoid Dog Bark: top fun.

Checking out the week's TV schedules, there are only two things I want to see on terrestrial - and they both start at 9pm on Thursday. Nice work there, BBC. OK, most of the other stuff turns up on terrestrial within a week of its Freeview airing, but others never will; I'm not even sure I want to watch Tin Sandwich, Anyone? - A History Of The Harmonica, but bless BBC4 for making and showing it. I definitely do want to watch the final part of their Worlds of Fantasy, though I had definite issues with the second episode, about Tolkien and Mervyn Peake. The timeline the programme suggested, particularly coming after the previous episode about the child hero, has Tolkien applying his academic mind and singlehandedly crafting the fairytales and children's stories into modern fantasy. I overemphasise slightly - but still, where was the acknowledgment of Lord Dunsany or James Brance Cabell, cultish figures now but pretty big back in the (pre-Tolkien) day? What about the pulp authors? Sure, Clark Ashton Smith is all too easy a figure to overlook, but everybody's heard of Conan so some brief nod to Robert E Howard, please. Perhaps most important of all - isn't it worth mentioning that Tolkien was a key figure in making fantasy a genre, and that before him someone like Hope Mirrlees or Sylvia Townsend Warner could write the odd book we would now class that way in a career we wouldn't? What frustrates me is not even leaving these writers out of history; I'm used to that. It's that even if you do know about them, Tolkien still achieved something unique and remarkable, and I'd have loved to see the opinions of some of these talking heads - China Mieville, say, or Dianna Wynne Jones (Toyah Wilcox less so) on what exactly that something was. The closest I can come is to say that there's a solidity to Middle Earth, as against the more fabulist fantasy of Tolkien's predecessors and peers. It's not a fairyland; its rules are not so very different from our world's.
And that brings us to the real elephant in the room - Tolkien's influence. The talking heads were all happy to claim a Gormenghast influence, but Tolkien was discussed more as shaping the whole form than as a personal guiding light. Understandably, because Tolkien's a bit like The Doors: great, but anything taking him as a direct influence, sucks. Good fantasy draws on that earlier tradition, or Peake's phantasmagoria; the crappy sagas clogging up the shelves owe Tolkien. The only way anything good ever comes from that road is in opposition, turning on the debased tropes of Fantasyland with the wit of a Terry Pratchett or the savagery of George RR Martin. the solidity of Tolkien's subcreation inspired mere stolidity; he was a genius whose great work unwittingly turned a whole field into mush for decades.

Great Grant Morrison news: Seaguy 2: Slaves of Mickey Eye is go! The interview (containing links to previous parts) also contains indications of a possible reconciliation with Millar, and news that there's still no progress on reprinting my favourite comic ever, Flex Mentallo. Remember that next time you wait for the trade.
In other comics news, I just tried to read the first issue of Pax Romana. The set-up sounded good (Vatican vs islam Time Wars), the art style's interesting, and I think the script's probably OK - but I couldn't get in to it through the lettering. I've never held with the idea that the letterer's doing his job if you don't notice the lettering - not noticing Todd Klein or Dave Sim's lettering would be a terrible waste - but I think this is the first time lettering has killed my interest in a book. Though maybe it doesn't help that I've just finished the best papal comic going, Kirkman's Battle Pope.

Comments

[darkship.livejournal.com]

Torchwood beat the Tolkein/Peake show in my household's 'debate' over what to watch; as Gormenghast is one of my very favourite books, what was said about it?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Click the link above and you can watch it now! Or for the next couple of days. It's basically 30 minutes on Tolkien and then 30 on Peake, if you want to skip forward. I was particularly interested to note that he used Arundel Castle as a sort of reminder while writing, since it's pretty much my dream home.

[darkship.livejournal.com]

I think the major problem with the Peake part, having watched it just, is that, while it mentioned his nervous breakdown, it incomprehensibly ignored his struggle with Parkinsons' Disease that crippled the writing of Titus Alone. Not only that, the programme didn't even mention that, partially because of that but also because of the change in setting, the third book is almost completely different. Surely the recurring theme of escape should have been mentioned, since Titus wants to escape, does, then finds himself in a world more horrible, incoherent and surreal than Gormenghast?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that even a very well-done documentary - and I would say that for all their flaws, these shows are better than the vast majority of TV books coverage now or in the past - is going to struggle to fit everything important into 30 minute chunks, or to handle the full complexities of any real life.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

(I should also note that I went with Torchwood as first priority too, the documentary being less time-sensitive because my friendslist were unlikely to spoiler it)