“During a lot of my research for other projects, particularly the crime projects, I ended up with quite a few anecdotes or stories that I was quite taken with but really had no use for in the books I was writing. Stories I thought were unique in voice and perspective, or just pretty creepy or funny.

At the same time, I was working through a lot of visual storytelling theories and some ideas on producing film noir-loooking artwork on the computer.

So, originally, just for me, I ended up using these little stories to experiment with writing different tuypes of voices and drawing in different styles. The ones that didn’t work…you will never see; the ones that did work are presented here and are still among some of the most satisfying bits of comics that I have ever done.

I tip my hat to the people who were decent enough to share themselves with me like this…and let me borrow their stories.”

Brian Michael Bendis

I continue my look into older BMB stuff. This one, a collection of comic strips, some shorter than other, from his days at the newspaper and beyond is another peak behind the curtain of the mind of one of the modern comic greats.

Rough around the edges? Sure. But like I said with my talk on FIRE, it’s all there, and that’s the most fascinating part. To see what he kept and what he tossed out.

Total Sell Out by Brian Michael Bendis (Amazon)

“That is what Leon convinced me of…you don’t fight him. You don’t attack or threaten him.

When the alien, when all of them, see that what we are building is what they have been fighting and dying for all their lives…the will join us.”

LEVIATHAN

I miss this era of DC. It was the last era of DC I was reading before the twins were born. Before the pandemic shut everything down (including my local comic book store). I haven’t been back to a comic store since.

An evil organization has simultaneously wiped out all the secret government agencies of the DC Universe. Who are they? What do they want?

And probably most important: Can you ever get enough David Mack artwork? Answer: NO. It’s all gorgeous and the book flies by at a brisk pace, setting up the next phase of a DC I’m not sure we ever really got.

Event Leviathan by Brian Michael Bendis and David Mack (Barnes & Noble)

process the writing lives of great authors

“Joan Didion wakes up and spends the breakfast hour dreading writing. She ultimately forces herself to enter her study, where most often, after an hour or so, the words find her. She begins by rewriting her own work from previous days, capturing the rhythm of her own prose and eventually breaking new ground, progressing further into the book. At some point in the morning, she takes a walk. And at the end of the day, just before dinner, she retreats with a single drink to review her day’s work, marking it up for the next day’s revisions. Finally, for most of her adult life, she’d then dine with her husband, maybe see friends. And always, she is looking for the next picture to present herself.”

Sarah Stodola

This was an amazing read, and one that I’ll be coming back to again and again.

And again. And again. And again? And again.

Sarah Stodola writes each individual entry, focusing on the writing lives of authors from the retro to the contemporary, detailing what went into each of their processes and what might have been going through their minds at any particular point of their creative journeys. Filled with hundreds of citations, as well as a perfect summary at the end of every chapter that shows what a typical day in their writing life might have been like, this one book could change how you approach your own writing life.

Process: The Writing Lives of Great Authors by Sarah Stodola (Amazon)

“Maybe this won’t be so bad after all…

It’s a Monday in Rome. With the time change and the jet lag, I’m not even sure which Monday it is…

…and it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, all a Monday means is that you’ve got to get started on something…”

CATWOMAN

Take what I said about the David Mack art from up above and apply it here. This, I think more than THE LONG HALLOWEEN or DARK VICTORY is Tim Sale at his finest. You feel the atmosphere of Rome deep in your bones on every page, and his Catwoman is attractive, deadly, and playful, all in one page.

Jeph Loeb does his best when he’s given out of continuity characters, and though it might be hard for more modern readers to understand, but for a long time he was the quintessential DC writer. What I mean is he was the guy who could see to the core of a character, write the story about them, and then make it so accessible you could give it to any of your friends or loved ones and say, ‘Here. Read this.’

This is another one of those, though technically it does fit in-between two issues of another of his and Sale’s accessible stories, and a lovely look at the glorious hardship that is the life of Catwoman, structured over the course of a week.

Catwoman: When in Rome by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale (Barnes & Noble)

Thanks for reading,

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