The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation

The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation by Michael Lommen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would have been a librarian in another life. A little tweak in the timestream wherein I felt the strength of my interests a bit earlier, while I could still afford a switch in my education (or while I was still ignorant of the fiscal consequences) would have nudged me in an entirely different direction. Alas, it’s a bit too late to change all that. Yes, I’ve volunteered at libraries and participated in a couple of “friends of XYZ library” groups, and I’ll likely put in significantly more time once the kids are all grown up and out of the house, but as far as vocation goes, it’s probably too late (unless some generous donor wants to pay off my student loans and pay for me to go back to school).

That doesn’t, of course, preclude me from loving books. And I do. I love the feel of books, the heft, the smell, the sound of pages scraping against each other. Not that I have anything against e-books, obviously. But there’s something enchanting about the artifact itself. This is especially true of old books – not the moldy National Geographics in your grandmother’s basement, but really old, solid books. Maybe this is part of the reason I love Tartarus Press so much – they’re like old books, but they’re new. Strange. But I digress.

If I could go back in time and rearrange the timing of my interests in relation to my available cash, I would study Archival Science and Preservation. That’s one thing I miss the most about not having access to a university library – I don’t get to just hang around those musty old volumes and browse the stacks (while I should have been studying). Other friends partied, hung out at the pizza place, exercised . . . I wandered the labyrinth of books.

The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation, therefore, makes me drool. Not because of the commentary, which is pedestrian (though the parts about the dissemination of type throughout Europe were interesting), but because of the plates therein, especially those facsimiles of really old books.

Mathieu Lommen is careful to point out that, throughout the book, “Special attention is devoted to printers' manuals, illuminating the printing process, and also to type specimens and writing masters' copybooks, placing letterforms in a broader context”. In other words, this is really a book about book printing and the design and evolution of fonts, not about the books themselves. In fact, he points out that “Although the particular copy illustrated may have an interesting or even an important history of its own – its provenance, binding or manuscript annotations – that is not discussed here.” And, again, the style in which the commentary is written is fairly dry and academic. But the presentation of the graphics in chronological order effectively exhibits the love and care with which the old books (and some newer books) were created.

For example, Die Geuerlichkeiten und eins teils der geschichten des loblichen streitbaren und hochberümbten helds und Ritters Tewrdannckhs, commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I, took over five years to produce. The type is beautiful, a gothic font with flourishing “whip-tails” coming off of some of the letters, giving the whole a touch of antiquated elegance that compliments the detailed Dürer-esque illustrations that show various events surrounding a knight (presumably a stand-in for Maximilian himself).

But, as beautiful as Maximilian's book is, if I had to pick a calligrapher to hand-write my own books, I would pick Ludovico degli Arrighi, also known as Vicentino, because he was born near Vicenza. The work illustrated here is Arrighi's La operina di Ludovico Vicentino de imparare di scrivere littera cancellarescha (you can download your own free copy of the original manuscript here). His chancery italic font combines the best of gothic script with the swooping loops of what came to be, 400 years later, Art Nouveau. While the arabesques here are more restrained than in the German work, there is a certain playfulness to the capital letters, an almost carefree whimsy that evokes the romanticized ideal of the Latin temperament, hardly able to control itself, yet holding its chin up high. I, for one, am in love with Arrighi's writing. Or maybe I just have a bad case of Penmanship Envy.

Now, while I’m not likely to be a professional librarian in this life, and it may be some time before I can access the local university’s libraries (I’m hoping they’ll take pity on a crazy old man after I retire), through Lommen’s book, I can have a taste of what was and what is to come. In the meantime, it will tide me over until I can get my manuscript-corrupting fingerprints back on the real deal.

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Meetings with Remarkable Trees

<Meetings with Remarkable Trees by Thomas Pakenham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I consider myself a semi-outdoorsman. I’m not as hardcore as many of my friends. I’ve had friends who have kayaked the Aleutian Islands looking for (and finding) mummies. I’ve had others who have hiked the Appalachian Trail in its entirety. Still others friends have spent a Winter (well, their Summer) in Antarctica.

Me? I’ve been on a few week-long canoeing trips. I love to hike the hills and walk up mountains. I’ve done more than my share of camping, whether in the true wilds or in State Parks.

But, in all honesty, while I love to be outdoors, I’m not hardcore. About the most hardcore thing I’ve done is winter paddling in Wisconsin (which can kill you rather easily, I must note), but I just don’t have the time or money for a bunch of wild adventures into the hinterlands.

Still, I’m a nature lover. And one thing I really, truly love is a good tree. Yeah, I’ve hugged a tree or two in my day. But not nearly as many as Thomas Pakenham.

Meetings with Remarkable Trees is a remarkable book. In it, Pakenham explores Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and England searching for the largest, oldest, and most storied trees in the UK. The book is illustrated throughout with Pakenham's outstanding photographs, each accompanied by anecdotes about the trees themselves, those who loved and cared for them, and those for whom a certain tree stood as a significant landmark or a marker of historical significance. Within the book's pages, you'll meet the Fredville and Bowthorpe oaks (the largest common oaks in Britain and Ireland), the strawberry tree at Kew Gardens, The Martyrs' sycamore at Tolpuddle (under which The Tolpuddle Affair commenced). Here also, one can see The Dead Walk of yews at Murthly, where tradition dictates that the laird of Murthly can only pass from the chapel to the house, never traveling from the house to the chapel . . . in this life. Even murder plots find their way into the book, through a 16th-Century plot to assassinate the husband of Mary Queen of Scots, which was hatched under The Whittinghame Yew.

These are only a few of the 65 trees or groups of trees that Pakenham so lovingly documents. This is the ultimate tree-lover's book. And if you're not a tree lover before you open its (ironically) glossy pages, you will be by the end of the book.

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Dark Property

Dark Property by Brian Evenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even those brave readers familiar with Brian Evenson's often-macabre work will discover new depths of shadow in the pages of Dark Property. This may well be his most chilling book to date - not in the sense of stock horror, but as a more sophisticated frisson, an existential mix of confusion, anticipation, and stark cruelty.

The narrative follows a cadre of ruthless loners across a post-apocalyptic wasteland as they seek to possess and dominate one another's most cherished properties: their bodies. Evenson takes his notoriously clinical approach to brutality one step further into the experimental realm by employing a Lewis Carroll-esque mutation of the English tongue. He twists adjectives into verbs (and vice-versa), for example, injecting layers of meaning into single, loaded words. The result evokes a Dr. Seuss caught in the grip of some penumbral nightmare.

Not only is Dark Property a carefully stirred stew of language, but the plot also churns, boiling back in on itself as a series of rough characters chase, capture, abuse, kill, and sometimes resurrect one another in a seemingly endless factory line of violence. the main character, Kline, is an unemotional brute of a man who kills with as much passion as one might feel when doing the laundry or taking out the trash. Only Eckels, who refuses to stay dead for any length of time, effectively acts as Kline's foil. Eckels is a peaceful antagonist (one might argue that he is actually the protagonist, but this would be a moral decision, not a literary edict) whose purpose is to come back from the dead and question the murderer on his lack of conscience. The many deaths and returns of Eckels make the tale a clockwork of brutality, forgiving, fall, and redemption - wheels of words within wheels of character within wheels of plot. Indeed, Evenson may have been influenced by James Joyce in writing this novel; one might, in the tradition of Finnegans Wake, open Dark Property to any page and begin reading until the story loops back in on itself.

Simultaneously confusing, vivid, surreal, and clear, Dark Property is a challenging work - but one that, for readers who can lose themselves in its world and then pay careful attention to the surroundings once therein, yields a melange of beautifully stark, never-ending terror.

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Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah

Jenny Finn: Doom Messiah by Mike Mignola
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is definitely not up to par with Mignola's best work. Though Jenny Finn exhibits the usual fascination with Victoriana and lovecraftian strangeness (I can relate), and the illustration is excellent, the story feels rushed and shallow. The characters could have been much deeper - there was ample opportunity to slip in bits of dialogue that would have contributed to the backstory - and the wry social commentary on which the story ends should have had more of a buildup in the beginning. I suspect that Mignola was trying to pull a darkly humorous twist ending, but, if so, the joke fell flat. Though I will say that this graphic novel has put me off seafood for a time. A long time.

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The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus From the Quarto of 1604 by Christopher Marlowe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I tease my daughter incessantly about the true identity of Shakespeare, I have to admit that while a lot of evidence points towards Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare being the same person, I can't, in all honesty, hold up the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus as a Shakespeare-worthy text. Yes, the magical element present in so much of Shakespeare's work is here, yes, there is a good dose of humor, and, yes, the writing itself is, well, Shakespearean. But Doctor Faustus' humor is less bawdy than that of Shakespeare's plays, by and large, and the melodrama is overwrought. Also, Doctor Faustus is, by the end, downright pedantic, and while Shakespeare had no fear of moralizing, his sermons were quite a bit more restrained than the typical medieval (or Renaissance) "Everyman" dramas.

Still, if one can recognize the religiously-condescending tone as a product of its age, there is a lot to like here. I'm particularly enamored of Doctor Faustus' dark sense of humor that demeans, rather than destroys, his enemies. With the power granted him through the devil, Mephistopheles, one might expect Faustus to simply run rampant over the earth laying waste to all those who find themselves in his path. Instead, Faustus shows a (twisted) humor by planting stag horns on those that have tried to kill him in order to shame them in front of their fellow man. He could have just snuffed them out of existence, with Mephistopheles' help, but loves to use magic to taunt his enemies rather than eliminate them.

And this may be why Faustus is simultaneously so darned likeable and abhorrent. He has access to infinite power, yet squanders it on such things as making the Pope and his cardinals play the fool. He's like a child with far more power than he knows what to do with. And, like an indecisive child who can hardly help his own bad behavior, he figures out, in the end, through the good grace of Helen of Troy, that he has gone too far for his regret to save him from the price he has agreed to pay for his fun. Rather than feeling that Faustus gets his just desserts, I'm inclined to feel a bit of sympathy for the guy whose blasphemy and denial of God seemed more like a joke than a true refutation of divinity. Then again, I would likely have been burned at the stake for saying so back in Marlowe's, or is it Shakespeare's day?

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The Grand Original Map Contest entry: Torvek's Tower

Here is my entry for The Grand Original Map Contest being put on by master map-makers Dyson's Dodecahedron, Mithril and Mages, and Tenkar's Tavern. I must say I am pretty pleased to be able to squeeze this much insidiousness into such a small map. The idea here is to give a high-level party a challenge with a minimum of monsters and man-made traps. Yes, there are some big nasties, but the real baddies are tiny. After this, you'll either never want to scrub the shower again or you'll take a flamethrower to your bathroom. Maybe both. I loosely use an AD&D 1st edition rubric with a liberal sprinkling of house rules involving saves versus stats (I rather like that method - suddenly, those stats mean something). Below is the map and the key. Now, I must apologize right away for not being very good at working with graphics - I'm not sure if the numbers are going to be all that visible, honestly. If it helps, encounters 1-4 are on the outside of the hill and ruins that comprise Torvek's Tower, while room 5 is the inside of the tower, 6 is the stairway going down to the cavern beneath, and 7-13 go from extreme left to right on the cavern level.

  

Torvek’s Tower carries the great lich’s name not because he dwelt there (that dubious honor belongs to his keep, Zellendeharr), but because it is the place where the legend met his demise in a suicidal gambit to destroy the temporal form of the Planetar Fenbarruk. The approach to the tower is treacherous, requiring a 12,000 foot climb up the face of a mountain that is part of the narrow range of jagged peaks known as the Dragon’s Spine, followed by a 12 mile long traverse of the spine itself. Of course, wise adventurers will utilize their best means possible to shorten the journey whether by mount or magic, but travel through the air is made difficult by hot gusts of wind that thrust up from the desert valley below, only to slam into the cold air of the mountain top, causing randomly swirling winds that sometimes exceed 70 knots (characters flying on a mount or carpet must save versus Dexterity every 1000 feet of ascension or be thrown from their mount, those flying by spell, ring, potion, or similar self-contained means travel at half speed or, if they fail their save versus Dexterity, ¼ speed for 1-10 turns. Once on the spine, there is a 10% chance per hour that a gust will hit the party, requiring a save versus the average between Dexterity and Strength to remain on one’s feet. Of course, these gusts always seem to come at the most inconvenient times . . .).

1. The Battlements – It is atop the tower where Torvek and Fenbarruk met their doom. The blast outlines of their shapes, one a large human shape with wings, the other, that of a crowned skeleton wearing a cloak, are burnt into the stone floor of the tower’s upper level. A heavy aura of residual magic saturates the battlements. The forces unleashed in that ancient battle cause wild fluctuations in the effectiveness of magic (whenever a spell is cast and the spell caster is touching the tower, whether on the outside or inside and, yes, standing on the floor counts, a d4 is rolled, randomly determining whether the magic is more or less effective: 1-2 magic is less effective, 3-4 magic is more effective. Range, duration, damage, etc. are either dampened by 1-100% or strengthened by 1-100%. A 0% effective spell fizzles and the caster loses that spell for the day). Rubble is strewn all along the edges of the decaying battlements. Beneath a pile of stones in the southeast corner is hidden a molten lump of gold worth 200 gp. Inside the lump (though not fused to it) is a large black pearl worth 1,000 gp. It will appear as a worthless rock, (though a dwarf or gnome has a 1 in 6 chance of recognizing that something is wrong with the rock, if they pass within 10’ of it. Others may find it by searching and will notice that something is wrong if they pass a Wisdom check).
2. Along the base of the east side of the tower is a large accumulation of green moss some 50’ wide, which thrusts out about 5’ from the wall itself, then climbs the wall to a height of 5’. This makes for convenient egress to the tower’s battlements, which are about 10’ from ground level. Thieves need make no roll to climb, and others of human size or larger must make a save vs half their dexterity or slip harmlessly to the moss below (Did we say “harmlessly”? Oops. Those who are not wearing gloves of some type will feel sharp pains in their palms and fingers resulting from an aggressive parasitic mold that has grown to cover the entire east face of the tower. Those wearing gloves will feel the stinging in their face as they brush the wall on the way down unless they are covered by a great helm. The bulbous piles of moss are the moss-covered and infiltrated remains of those who succumbed to the parasites. Those injected with the mold must save versus constitution every 10 minutes for four hours. For each failed roll, the character temporarily loses 1-3 points of constitution – thus affecting further rolls – and 1d6 hit points. Characters reduced to 0 constitution irrevocably die and can only be brought back by Resurrection or Reincarnation spells or a wish. This effect can be stopped by a Cure Disease spell, limited wish, or consumption of a Sweetwater potion. If the character survives the four hour ordeal, constitution and HP return at a rate of 1-3 constitution per hour and 1d6 hp per hour, though the character cannot gain more constitution or hps than he or she had at the beginning of the parasitic infection.).
3. This low depression is filled with knee-deep stagnating water and dead leaves. There is a distinct smell of urine here, also. The top of the water is almost perfectly still, except for the occasional ripple of water as a gust of wind passes through. (Unless characters drink the water without boiling or treating it, there is no danger in just walking right through. It is rather entertaining to see how paranoid players can get around an innocent puddle of water, though).
4. This corridor smells dank and the floor is riddled with slime. (a 10 HP green slime will drop down on the second character to pass into the tunnel, unless the lead character is carrying a lit torch, in which case the slime will be loosened from the ceiling and drop on the first in line. Note that if characters aren’t explicitly looking up, they won’t see it.).
5. Two mummified human corpses dressed in rags lie in this room, one in the northeast corner of the room, the other in the southwest corner of the room. As the characters enter the room, the tower rumbles, sending stone blocks tumbling over the west entrance. While not impassable, it will take some time to dig out. A set of stairs leads down on the south side of the room. (The rumbling is caused by a naturally-occurring earthquake shaking the mountains. Close examination of the corpses reveals puncture wounds to the throat of each. The body in the northeast corner is female, the other is male. There is nothing of value on either body. Characters wishing to dig the rubble out of the doorway to allow free egress may do so, but it will take 30 minutes to clear an area big enough for one human-sized body to squeeze through. While digging or simply while exploring the room, there is a 2% cumulative chance per turn that the stirges in the stairwell below are awakened and attack the party.).
6. This is a high-ceilinged stairway leading down below the foundation of the tower. The whistling of wind can be heard in the distance far below. (17 stirges of 6 hp each hang from the ceiling of the stairway. If they have not already been roused by the party’s activities in room 5, they will awaken and attack the party. Fighting while on the stairs requires a dexterity check with each attack to avoid falling down and sliding down a number of stairs, possibly knocking over other party members).
7. The corpses of two armored dwarves lay here against a wall, the picks laying by their side and the scored walls witnessing that they were trying to dig a tunnel here before they succumbed to their fate. Both wear dwarven plate mail and have backpacks and pouches hanging from various leather harnesses. Strangely, all leather goods on them, from their straps to their boots, are covered in a half-inch-thick hot pink mold. One of the corpses holds a burned out bullseye lantern. On its belt is a scabbarded short sword and dagger. The other corpse has a large battle axe slung across its back and a dagger at its side. (Characters touching either corpse will immediately be swarmed by a proportion of the 30 rot grubs that inhabit each body, divided up equally among those who touch the corpses. They are hidden under the armor and thus, won’t be seen until they spring out, attracted by the character’s body heat. Survivors of the rot grubs are well-rewarded. The sword-laden dwarf carries 50 PP in his pouch, along with a sweetwater potion in one iron flask and a half-liter of fine whiskey in another. The dagger is magical, +2. The axe laden dwarf carries a small cylindrical rod of lapis lazuli, 6” long and 1” in diameter, worth 500 gp. The axe is also magical, +1. He also wears a Ring of Free Action. The pick axes are of Svirfneblin make, crafted of adamantium and, while not magical, they do get +1 to hit and to damage. Players should not be discouraged from trying to dig to find what it was the dwarves were after, though there really is nothing hidden in the rock.)
8. The tunnel narrows here and adventurers will immediately note that the floor, walls, and ceiling are covered with a dazzlingly bright hot pink substance that almost seems to glow. Those who touch the mold seem to suffer no ill effects. (But their leather goods, that is another matter entirely! Airborne mold spores in this section will invisibly attach to any exposed leather the characters may be wearing. Within two minutes, all non-magical leather goods will grow a half-inch-thick carpet of hot pink mold. This will affect any leather clothing, straps, wineskins, leather backpacks, pouches, etc. It can be scraped off but grows back within a minute. It cannot be removed from the leather with anything short of a Cure Disease or Remove Curse. Of course, the leather can be abandoned, but must be altogether removed to be of lasting effect. Any leather piece remaining, no matter how small, will contaminate new leather within two minutes.)
9. A few strange, tall bumps dot the floor here on the already-uneven ground. (A pair of shriekers and four violet fungi of 18 HP each clog this area of the passageway. If the shriekers are approached, whether cautiously or by characters falling down the stairs, they start their noise, alerting the shambling mound at area 10 to the presence of intruders. The shamble will then approach the area, coming up the slopes from its pit to feed).
10. (If approached from the east) This area is more warm and damp than the surrounding cavern. Some steaming fumaroles release vapor into the chamber from a lava-heated underground river, far below. A great deal of vegetation has grown in this area, with vines hanging from the ceiling and a thick carpet of mixed moss, grass, and small plants on the floor. (The carpet is actually a shambling mound that will wait until stepped on or prodded to attack, *unless* the party approaches from the west, in which case the shrieker alarms will entice the creature to climb the stairs to area 9 and attack directly. The creature has no treasure.)
11. A curious buzzing can be heard overhead. The black ceiling seems to undulate, drip, then reform in the darkness. (A group of 6 bluebottle flies of 18 HP each crawls along the ceiling here, waiting for the shambling mound or the shriekers to wound a victim. Once they smell blood, they will attack, though they will flee out of the cavern mouth if brought to below 6 HPs. If the party appears unhurt and rested, they will mull about on the ceiling, waiting for an opportunity to attack a wounded party member. If harassed by a healthy party, they will flee out the cavern mouth.)
12. Adventurers who step into the shadows here will hear voices of warning call out to them. There are two voices, similar, though not exactly the same: “Remove yourselves, mortals, from the unholy monument of Torvek. Turn. Go. Now. You have your warning.” (If characters do not immediately leave, they are attacked by Gruzzek and Cargizzin, twin wraiths and followers, in their mortal life, of the Wizard Torvek, who did them the favor of turning them into wraiths of 33 HP each. They now jealously guard the way into the cavern beneath this unholy memorial. If characters turn away and leave immediately, the wraiths will not follow them. They are, after all, lawful, if evil. Any hesitation at all will result in the wraiths attacking.)
13. This alcove seems unoccupied. (Careful examination will reveal that there are two patches of earth that are discolored. Dwarves or gnomes will spot this on a 4 in 6 chance. If the party digs into the discolored patches, they discover two coffins with desiccated carcasses therein. Each has a latched with a woodblock print of two brothers, identical twins, richly dressed, smiling at the artist. Each skeletal hand has a gold ring on it – for a total of four rings – each worth 100 GP).

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Cinema Panopticum

Cinema Panopticum by Thomas Ott
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From the framing story of The Girl wandering the carnival to the vignettes she discovers in the Cinema Panopticum, this wordless graphic novel is a complete "artifact" with no loose ends. The stories are surreal and horrific with a touch of dark humor. Cinema Panopticum reminds me, in many ways, of my favorite TV show of all time, The Twilight Zone. This work might be considered the flip side to the cute, surreal Ojingogo, with one side of the coin (Panopticum) having a drop of humor in a bucket of surreal horror, and the other (Ojingogo) having a drop of darkness to its bucket of lighthearted, surreal humor. But readers need not compare Cinema Panopticum to other works in order to see the work's brilliance. It stands quite well on its own as a book in which the weight of the artwork is commensurate with the gravity of the stories it portrays. The scratchboard technique used throughout is, by its very nature, a little rough-edged, though this grittiness is foiled by the elegance of expression that Ott imparts to his characters. His faces exude the underlying thoughts and feelings of each character: curiosity, laughter, disgust, and, most of all, terror; all in a wonderfully clever and even moving series of wordless stories that one will not soon forget.

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