BOOK BY ITS COVER: VALIS & ASTRO BOY

On Thursday’s, The Werewolf participates in that time-honored tradition of judging a book by its cover – literally.  I mean, let’s admit it, we all do it.  And, as much as I’m in to audiobooks and eBooks, there’s nothing like having the real book in your hand, especially when it features particularly appealing artwork or design elements.  And, while the recent Chip Kidd school is all fine and good, I’m a much bigger fan of the older, outmoded styles.  I have to say that I fetishize book covers and so I present this feature where I cull Google images for the best cover art of whichever 3 or 4 books I happen to be reading that week.  (Yes, 3 or 4 a week!  Generally, a paperback at work for reading on the can, something from Audible on my iPod for when I’m doing mindless data entry or running, one CD book in the car from the library and usually even one more book for home.)   
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So, I’ve all done with “Ubik” and “Heart-Shaped Box” from last week and still cranking through “The Orphan” on the toilet at my office (Don’t say you weren’t warned when you ask to borrow my copy!) and “The Shining” as well.  But, I’ve added a couple more to the pile this week, so here goes…

VALIS by Philip K. Dick:

I have to apologize that last week, in presenting a couple of “Ubik” covers, I mistakenly identified that novel as coming after Dick’s Gnostic toothache nuttiness, but that was wrong.  I know that now because I looked at the dates again, but also because “Ubik,” though mind-alteringly amazing and full of truly high-grade mad science, still makes the reader comfortable that they’re in the hands of a storyteller in full command of his faculties.

Whereas “Valis,” is a car going a hundred miles an hour with the driver laughing at you from the back seat while you cling to your seatbelt trying not to piss yourself.  Not only does this book follow the spiritual revelations that Dick experienced in the mid to late 70’s, it is the ultimate expression of those revelations. 

I’m not up to the task of even attempting a synopsis, but I’ll gladly show you some amazing covers…

First off is the British cover.  Very similar to the original US paperback cover, this one differs in one major way, which is the addition of the actual Christ instead of a spacey looking surrogate…

Then we have the ever-batshit Japanese cover.  I’m nearly done with the book and I honestly can’t say where this one fits the story at all, but it was too arresting an image not to present…

 

The German cover gives us one of the greater motifs in Dick cover art and that is the inclusion of the author himself into the image.  This, more than any other instance of the technique, is the most obvious novel of his to do it with as he himself is the main character….

 

 

By the way, you can read a little more about the inclusion of Dick’s visage into his covers at the truly excellent blog entitled “Total Dick Head” (BEST – BLOG – NAME – EVER) which I’ll link to HERE.  But, make sure you’ve got some time on your hands.  I’ve spent way too much of my employers time at his blog and to the multitude of links it has sent me to. 

 

Now, for the best of the best.  This French cover for VALIS is beyond brilliant.  Not sure what it is that strikes me so, but I wish to hell I had a poster of this one…

 

 

The image instantly recalls for me this quote from Herman Hesse’s “Demian”…

“The bird struggles out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born, must first destroy a world.”

And now, for something completely different…

 

ASTRO BOY, Vol.1&2 by Osamu Tezuka:

 

My son and I have recently discovered a host of episodes of the 80’s “Astro Boy” cartoon on the watch now feature of my Netflix account.  And, while it certainly has its charms, I still have the same trouble I always have with the weird translation and the truly awful voice acting.  But, who cares about me?  My boy is obsessed.  So, when I saw Dark Horse was releasing the first two volumes of the original Manga in one edition, I knew it would make instantly good bedtime reading. 

 

That said, when it comes to covers, I actually like the cover for the Vol.3 Dark Horse edition much more than the volume I bought, so I thought I’d present that here…

 

And, now that I think about it, if you’ve read “Valis,” then I suppose there is a slightly oblique connection here to Sofia, the girl savior who is some sort of android mainframe….I think…I’m not really sure. 

 

Anyway, there ya go folks!

I, QUEUE: Cylons, Werewolves and The Wire

On Wednesday’s I bring you the latest to arrive in my mail box courtesy of the glorious, life-giving Netflix queue.  Going forward I’ll provide mini-reviews of the previous weeks arrivals as well, provided I’m not covering them in the podcast. 

 

 

 

 

1)  BATTLESTAR GALACTICA:  RAZOR:

 

“I’ll take ‘Women I’d Like To Punch’ for five hundred, Alex.”

 

So, this was the summer that I got on board one of the few nerd bandwagons that I had yet to jump on.  (Sorry Doctor Who, it’s never gonna happen, man.  You either Stargate Atlantis.  Jesus.  Leave me alone.) 

 

Ah, and what a bandwagon it’s been!  I’ve had a great time watching the original mini and the first three seasons and I’m chomping at the bit for that Season 4.0 DVD set to come out.  For the time being, I’ll have to bide my time with this prequel mini from last year.  Frankly, if the only thing good about it is watching Lee Adama pork up (I believe this takes place in the year before Season 3 which began with Chubby Apollo) then it’ll be worth a watch.  I always take pleasure in watching extremely fit people go to seed. 

 

It’ll make it so much easier for me to eat that bacon burger as I watch this one. 

 

2)  THE COMPANY OF WOLVES (1984):

 

“I want these motherfucking werewolves off my motherfucking estate!”

 

The name of the blog probably attests to the fact that I’m neck deep in werewolfery of all kinds lately.  (Psst, not only is my podcast going to be called “The Werewolf,” but I’m writing a werewolf script right now as well.  Definitely more on that later.) 

 

So, I’ve been plowing through a lot of lycanthropic cinema recently — Werewolf of London, The Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London — and this is one film that I just never got around to.  While I’m not the biggest Neil Jordan fan in the world, I am excited about this take on the Red Riding Hood story but am mostly looking forward to seeing David Warner (so great as the heavy in Tron and Time Bandits) and the sublime Angela Lansbery (no amount of Murder She Wrote could ever detract from her Manchurian Candidate greatness). 

 

As long as it doesn’t end with Jaye Davidson whipping out his junk at the end, it should be fine. By the way, why do folks consider that scene from “The Crying Game” so earth-shattering?  “Sleepaway Camp” had the exact same shocking reveal, I mean EXACTLY the same (only freeze-framed as the entire end credits rolled over top of it) nearly ten years earlier!  Sure, “Sleepaway Camp” didn’t really have the “Oscar buzz” or “quality filmmaking” behind it, but still.  That shit freaked me out as a kid.  By the time “Crying Game” came around I could only shrug and say, “Been done before.” 

 

3)  THE WIRE, SEASON 5, DISC ONE:

 

 

Oh yes, another bandwagon I joined this year.  And, I almost had the first four seasons watched before season 5 debuted, but was about three episodes too late.  But, I’m learning more and more that my HBO subscription is completely useless unless I find myself with an insatiable need to watch “Garfield 2” five times in a week because I generally watch their original shows on DVD anyway.  Of course, it figures that when I finally did decide to watch an HBO show as it aired with this past weeks “True Blood” it kicked me in the nuts with a steel-toed work-boot made of awful! 

 

Anyway, back to the good.  “The Wire,” while not the greatest show ever created since the invention of the vacuum tube as many have asserted, is still really, really amazing.  I’ve heard it called Dickensian and I can’t disagree.  What it is is like a five season autopsy of a dead city; a post-mortem assessment in grizzly detail of an industrial urban wasteland.  Each season is a dissection and diagnosis of a different part of crime-plagued Baltimore (the corners, the cops, the docks, city hall, the schools) and each one has been harrowing.

 

And, each one has required me to watch with subtitles.  I don’t have a hearing impairment, but I’ll be damned if I can understand a word anyone is saying without it.