STRANGE FRUIT, VOLUME II: MORE UNCELEBRATED NARRATIVES from BLACK HISTORY (graphic novel) by Joel Christian Gill

Published in 2018 by Fulcrum Publishing.

In a little more than 100 pages this graphic novel tells the story of eight little-known African Americans who lived trailblazing lives. I had heard of three of them, which made me feel a little more pretty good - a little more informed than the average reader might be.

As Gill tells these stories he confronts racial issues head on. However, he does have a clever way of dealing with the word n*****. Whenever that word is used, a stylized caricature of a man in "blackface" is inserted instead. It makes the point and it shows how out of bounds the word is when a picture is used instead of a word.

The art is simple and interesting and the stories move at a quick pace. This book would be a great addition to a classroom library.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: STRANGE FRUIT, VOLUME II: MORE UNCELEBRATED NARRATIVES from BLACK HISTORY.

THE LONG CON by Dylan Meconis, Ben Coleman, E.A. Denich, M. Victoria Robado, Aditya Bidikar

Published by Oni Press in February of 2019.

The phrase The Long Con has a double meaning this story. Traditionally, a "long con" is a long-term swindle that is being pulled on someone, like a long-term investment fraud.

Meaning #1: In this graphic novel, The Long Con is the biggest Pop Culture Convention in the world. It has been an annual event for 50 years and it lasts a long time. Five years ago, it was location of ground zero of a horrible (unspecified) "cataclysmic event" that destroyed everything in a 50 mile radius. Everyone assumed that the convention hall was destroyed.

Meaning #2: Reporter Victor Lai was sent to cover The Long Con before the disaster - a duty that he considered a punishment. Now, the outside world has noticed signs of life in the convention center and Victor Lai is sent back into the convention center to see what's going on. 

Surprise! The convention hall survived! The people inside it survived! And...the attendees are still having the convention - 5 years later! (thus making this a really longconvention). They believe that the rest of the world was destroyed because if you head out for 50 miles in any direction it's all obliterated.

Well, to be fair, they are not really having a traditional convention any longer. They are living in a pop culture little world because they are, well, cosplayers, fanboys and supergeeks (I mean that as gently as possible).  Their world is broken up into fan bases - and they are literally fighting for control of what they think is the only bit of livable real estate on the planet - the convention center.

No real-life TV shows, movies or comics are actually mentioned but there are stand-ins that any comics or sci-fi fan would immediately recognize. There's a Star Trek-type show, gritty comics, cosplayers everywhere, commentary on pointless "boob window" outfits (like D.C. Comic's Power Girl), a guy with a t-shirt about how someone "shot first", creepy comic book guys and D-list celebrities.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The art was easy to follow, the characters were likable and the world of The Long Con was interesting to explore. This graphic novel would be an interesting basis for a video game or a board game. I am going to keep an eye out for more books in this series.

I rate this graphic novel 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Long Con. 

DAREDEVIL: GUARDIAN DEVIL (audiobook) by Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada

Published by GraphicAudio in 2015.

Written by Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada.
Adaptation by Richard Rohan.
Duration: Approximately 3 hours.

Performed by multiple voice actors.

GraphicAudio specializes in multicast voice performances of audiobooks - they are like old-fashioned radio plays, but heavy on the action. In this story, there are 26 different voice actors and a lot of special effects.

Daredevil is a superhero by night and a lawyer named Matt Murdock by day. As a child, Murdock was blinded by an accident, but exposed to some sort of radiation in the same accident that radically enhanced his other four senses to the extreme. These enhancements allow him to fight crime, which he primarily does in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City.

Murdock is having a crisis of faith after a rough romantic breakup. Despite his devil personae, Murdock is a faithful Catholic of sorts. When he encounters a young woman with her baby on the run he immediately steps in to help her. Through a series of conversations and visits from mysterious strangers Murdock is told that the baby is either the return of the Messiah or the Anti-Christ.

Daredevil sets off to investigate and it only gets weirder...

***********

This is a very busy 3 hour audiobook adaptation. There are times when it moves a little too fast. In two separate scenes there is active dialogue going on in the foreground while a TV or radio news report is going on in the background - and both of the items are important to the story.

But, it was an interesting story - in many ways the action was secondary to the morality play and the psychological aspects. Also, fellow Marvel Comics characters Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and Black Widow make appearances.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. 

THE DEADER the BETTER (Leo Waterman #6) by G.M. Ford

Originally published in 2000.

The Deader the Better features Private Investigator Leo Waterman - a well-connected man in Seattle. His dad was a mover and shaker in the best and worst uses of the term. He knew all of the "beautiful people" at the top and he knew all of underworld people as well. Leo has not chosen to go into politics. But, he uses those family connections to help people who come to him, including a group of homeless drunks that Leo watches after because they all worked for his father in one capacity or another. Leo also hires them to do surveillance because no one really wants to notice the homeless guy shambling down the street.

This book starts out with a missing persons case - a thirteen year old girl has run away from a sexually abusive home and is now on the streets. Leo tracks her down to a certain pimp and swings into action.

After that case, Leo and his serious girlfriend head out of town to meet some friends - a couple and their children who are trying to start a fishing camp for high rollers. But, he is having trouble. He claims the local government officials are after him and are trying to force him out of business. Leo dismisses the whole idea. But, when they visit a few months later, they find the house has been shot up, is partially burned, the husband is dead and the wife and kids have disappeared.

So, Leo swings into action with a whole crew of from Seattle...

According to my blog, I haven't read a Leo Waterman book for 15 years. That really surprised me. But, it felt like I hadn't skipped a beat. These are not amazing mysteries, but they are certainly unique and entertaining.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Deader the Better (Leo Waterman #6) by G.M. Ford.

BESSIE STRINGFIELD: TALES of the TALENTED TENTH, no. 2 (graphic novel) by Joel Christian Gill

Published in 2016 by Fulcrum Publishing.

Artist and author Joel Christian Gill is writing and illustrating a series of graphic novels that look into the lives of lesser known, exceptional African Americans. His inspiration is this quote from W.E.B. DuBois: "The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth saving up to their vantage ground." In other words, some will rise up and inspire/lead the rest. This is Gill's way of providing inspiration.

Bessie Stringfield (1911 or 1912 to 1993) was a remarkable woman by anyone's standard. Throw in the tough Jim Crow laws of the day and she is more than worthy of the accolades she has received from various motorcycle-based organizations.

The motorcycle was her true passion. At the age of 19 she received a motorcycle as a gift and hit the road for the better part of twenty years. She traveled, she raced and she performed in carnivals. Sometimes, she spread out the map of the country, tossed a penny up in the air and then headed off to the location where the penny landed.

It was a tough time for African Americans so she hit the road with a copy of the "Green Book" - a guide to restaurants, hotels and gas stations that welcomed African Americans. The book addresses racial issues in a couple of clever ways. Whenever the word n***** is used, a stylized caricature of a man in "blackface" is inserted. Secondly, whenever Stringfield is confronted by racists, they are partially or completely illustrated as crows with angry red eyes. There are crows driving trucks, crows telling her to go other places, crows wearing KKK outfits.

The author, Joel Christian Gill

Stringfield ends up using her motorcycle skills as a courier for the military during World War II.  After the war, she rides outside of the United States as well, but eventually settles down in Miami, Florida. She was called the Motorcycle Queen of Miami.

As a teacher, I love alternate ways to tell history. Breaking away from the little biographies with grainy black and white photos is a nice change of pace. This little "comic book" introduces a lot of heavy topics - gender stereotypes, adoption, racism and the responsibility of people in places of leadership to confront the big issues of the day (Stringfield sat on the sidelines during the civil rights struggles of the 1950's and 1960's). All of that in a comic book. You could trick students into talking about all sorts of big concepts without them even knowing what was going on...

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Bessie Stringfield: Tales of the Talented Tenth, no. 2. 

To see my review of another book in this series click HERE.

RADIO FREE VERMONT: A FABLE of RESISTANCE (audiobook) by Bill McKibben

Published by Penguin Audio in 2017.
Read by Danny  Campbell.
Duration: 5 hours, 53 minutes.
Unabridged.

The premise:

In Radio Free Vermont, Vern Barclay feels that something about the modern global economy just isn't right. His beloved home state of Vermont is losing its unique character. Starbucks, Wal-Mart and Coors beer are moving in. Small farms are fading away and the local radio stations are now corporate radio stations with national programming taking a priority over local news.

This last bit was especially tough for Vern Barclay. For decades he was THE voice on a statewide radio station - the guy who did the local sports, interviewed everyone with someone to say and just talked about the events of the day.  He loved Vermont and Vermont loved him. Generations of listeners sat around the breakfast table drinking coffee and learning about their own state and the people that lived in it. Now, his station has cut back his time on the air, began playing out-of-state shock jocks from a satellite feed.

When the station sends him to cover the opening of the first Wal-Mart in Vermont, a store that was delayed by lawsuits and protests for years, Vern decides to act. He stages a series of fake interviews with "employees" of the store that point out that the goods come from China and local stores will likely go out of business and then arranges (with the help of a computer-savvy youngster named Perry) for the sewage to reverse its flow and flood the Wal-Mart.

Perry and Vern go on the run and start pushing for Vermont to secede from the union through a website and a podcast. Perry has to use all of his tricks to keep the site alive because the government of Vermont is starting to take this very seriously...

The review:

I get why Vern Barclay is irritated. My own local radio station, a station that won all kinds of awards for news, covered all of the sports, and made everyone feel part of a community that talked to one another has primarily become a giant very angry political talk station - a station that is way more concerned about something silly that Bill Maher or Elizabeth Warren said than in interviewing the mayor. I hear more about former Congressman Beto O'Rourke than I do from any representative or Senator from my own state.

On the other hand, farms have been consolidating since the beginning of the country. What were plantations but giant corporate farms? The small stores in Vermont sell the same Chinese goods that Wal-Mart does. And, that corporate radio station knows what draws in the ratings - they wouldn't play the shock jocks unless they were a bigger ratings draw than Vern.

Vern is also really irritated about global warming (the author has written several books full of essays on the topic) and I don't really see how an independent Vermont would do anything about that. As noted in the book, there are less than 650,000 people in the whole state with almost no manufacturing base. They are not really a big factor in global warming anyway.

The author, McKibben

A great deal of the book is a series of speeches given by one character or the other. This makes sense because, as I noted above, the author is an essayist. Everyone speaks in long monologues (or short essays). This style gets the point across but it can get a little monotonous.

In the end, this is an entertaining but disjointed book. I like Vern Barclay and I found myself agreeing with a great deal of his sentiments, even if they don't quite make a coherent philosophy. It's a little bit political thought and a little bit of an old man yelling "get off of my lawn" at the modern world, but it's fun.

Danny Campbell's reading of the book was excellent. He sounded exactly like the old school radio personality when he voiced Vern.

I rate this audiobook 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance by Bill McKibben.

KINDRED by Octavia E. Butler

Originally Published in 1979.

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006) was a science fiction author who won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, both for novelettes. Kindred, though, is not a novelette - it is a full length novel and one of the best novels that I have read in a long time. This book could easily end up being the best book I will read this year.

Dana is a 26 year old African American woman. The year is 1976, she and her husband are celebrating her 26th birthday at their home. Suddenly, she feels faint. When her mind clears, she is in the woods by a river. She sees a young boy drowning in the water. She dives in, pulls him out, revives him with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and is rewarded by having a gun put to her face.
...and she disappears and ends up back in her house and soaking wet. Her husband tells her that she's only been gone a few seconds.

A few hours later, she disappears again. The same boy is in danger and she saves him again - but he is a few years older now. She determines that she is in the early 1800's in Maryland on a slave plantation. She has saved the white son of the plantation owner twice but, unlike the last time she doesn't return to 1976 right away and now has to accommodate her 1976 ways of thinking to the ways of a slave plantation.

1976 wasn't the most inclusive of times, but it certainly was a damn sight better than living on a slave plantation in the early 1800's.

Dana eventually returns to 1976 after she is nearly killed. However, she is only starting a cycle of ever-lengthening stays in the past...

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)

It is interesting to me that this piece of science fiction has the most detailed description of the day-to-day dangers and hardships of American slavery - much more than anything that I have read in a history book. Really, the only thing that came close was a personal tour that my family took of a slave plantation that was owned by a university. The university was studying the financial, personal and genealogical records of that plantation and their neighboring plantations in an effort to understand how they worked day to day and how they worked over the generation.  This tour was completely "off of the books" and was not subject to the sanitizing process that most public tours undergo.

I think this novel is so effective because it is a modern woman with a modern way of looking at things that has to figure out the rules of a slave plantation. She can't let on that she can read, she can't speak her mind, she can't look white people in the face (in 1976 she is married to a white man and he ends up accidentally getting brought back in time with her at one point), she has to follow the "rules" that the slaves have among themselves.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Kindred by Octavia E. Butler.