Subjects Comics The Classics Modern Fiction Technical Issues

kelper@talk21.com Because I Say So Essays in Literary Criticism by Fiona Clements I read, I watch, I rant. There are sometimes tangible (or legible) side-effects. Comics and Drawn Books Writing Good Horror Comics Do You Need to Know Your Myths? From Comics Forum 12, 1996 (graphics under construction) A discussion of selected issues from four horror and fantasy comics: Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, and Shade the Changing Man. Soon: Is Alan Moore Having a Crisis of Confidence in Male Sexuality? From Comics Forum 16, 1997 Quick answer, from Mister Moore himself: “No, I’m not, but that was a fascinating article.” Less Soon: other, shorter articles from CF that still have some fire in them (I think), even if the comics are long gone e.g. I enthuse about The Tick and Replacement God, and fall out of my chair laughing at Voyage to the Deep, a submarine story more stupid even than The Core. The Classics Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park The novel as an exercise in imaginative sympathy, and the 1999 film adaptation as a wilful failure to either imagine or sympathise The moral: don’t attempt to film a novel if you believe that the author didn’t know what she was doing and should have written a different novel entirely. Eventually: some minor quibbles with the 2000 film adaptation of The House of Mirth The film made me cry which the book has never done, but there are some additional points that I would have wanted to get across if I had been making the film (and of course I’m assuming that I would have had an unlimited budget). Modern Fiction Eventually: common themes in The Child in Time and Black Dogs by Ian McEwan Mainly: on why it may be rare for well-adjusted, self-aware people to feel comfortable in politics Probably never: Hannibal as a brave experiment, and how the film systematically excised all of the interesting and challenging aspects of the novel I think that’s my rant done, right there, so this is now very low priority. Technical Issues How to Keep the Reader’s Attention (format under construction) Or: how to reduce the risk of alienating the reader by accident. The Physics of Road Collisions involving Moose You what? Well, I wrote this essay because of some articles in a company newsletter, which makes it “a response to the written word”, which makes it “literary criticism”. I don’t have a separate “Science Essays” page because this is the only one so far, so it’ll have to make itself at home here. It’s more interesting than it sounds. Honest it is.