James Davidge -- Night Table Recommendations

After recently reading Julian by Gore Vidal which chronicles the life of the Roman emperor, I find myself exploring even earlier times with The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon. Telling the tale of Aristotle's tutoring of a young Alexander the Great, I am in constant awe of how she can communicate the feeling of a moment with concise sentences.

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Harvey Pekar Dead at 70

Influential comic creator Harvey Pekar passed away early in the morning of July 12th at his Cleveland, Ohio home. A Harvey Award winner in 1995 for his graphic novel Our Cancer Year, Pekar got his start in comics in 1976, collaborating with celebrated underground cartoonist R. Crumb to begin American Splendor. The title would continue over many years and at many publishers; 2003 saw an Academy Award nominated movie based on Pekar's life and work, in which actor Paul Giamatti assumed the role of Pekar. Harvey Pekar's recent work included the graphic novel The Quitter, illustrated by Dean Haspiel and an adaptation of Stud Terkel's Working.

Charlaine Harris Series Coming to Comics

 

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Charlaine Harris, best known for her Sookie Stackhouse novels which form the basis for HBO's True Blood series, will be venturing into another medium. Dynamite Entertainment will be adapting her Harper Connelly books, starting with Grave Sight, into a comic series.

From the back cover copy of Grave Sight:

Harper Connelly has what you might call a strange job: she finds dead people. She can sense the final location of a person who's passed, and share their very last moment. The way Harper sees it, she's providing a service to the dead while bringing some closure to the living - but she's used to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. Traveling with her step-brother Tolliver as manager and sometime-bodyguard, she's become an expert at getting in, getting paid, and getting out fast. Because for the living it's always urgent - even if the dead can wait forever.

A Review of Gravel, Volume 1: Bloody Liars by Warren Ellis and Mike Wolfer

Warren Ellis continues to cultivate his standing as one of the most talented and prolific graphic novelists in the world, and his latest book collects the first eight issues of the Mike Wolfer-illustrated Gravel. The series' main character, William Gravel, has appeared in previous Ellis miniseries Strange Kiss, Stranger Kisses and Strange Killings, all published by Avatar Press.

Bill Gravel is a combat magician. In the tradition of Vertigo's Hellblazer hero John Constantine, he is a crude, violent, grumpy soul. But, unlike Constantine, who can be charming when the right (or wrong) writer gets hold of him, Gravel appears to have no redeeming features as a character, murdering his magician colleagues to obtain a magical manuscript he's not even sure he wants. Fans of the aforementioned Hellblazer will love the nihilistic , world-weary hero, and Bloody Liars contains the ultra-detailed violence and explicit language that is a pre-requisite of Ellis's indie comics work. Get yourself a fistful of Gravel!