DWD's Reviews

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 havi

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

G.M. Ford Originally published in 2000. Private Investigator Leo Waterman is 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

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 he

Bill McKibben Published by Penguin Audio in 2017. Read by Danny  Campbell. Duration: 5 hours, 53 minutes. Unabridged. The premise: 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 j

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.