Wonder/Super

     The new Wonder Woman movie is worthwhile in many, many ways.  I was particularly delighted by how it jettisons the contemporary (and badly overused) device of a snarky, irreverent tone and instead embraces an earnest (though not sappy) forthrightness that engenders a sense of hope and inspiration.
     The scene where Diana makes her first dramatic appearance in full costume, emerging from a World War I trench to carve a path to freedom through the enemy line, is spectacular indeed, and as heroic as anyone could want.  It did, however, make me think of something.  In every superhero movie, the character's first heroic appearance always comes in the midst of battle, the hero leaping purposefully into a fight, dispatching enemies with skill and strength.  Every superhero movie, that is, except the original Superman.  In that movie, the character's heroic reveal is not in battle, but in the act of saving someone.
     No further comment.

New York's Angels and Gargoyles

     A recent article in the New York Times covers an obscure but fascinating element of the city's history, one that my family has been closely involved with, as the story elucidates.  Those ancient, stony faces looking down on the city in judgment were, without a doubt, rumbling in my subconscious as I imagined the tone of the future New York for Those That Wake and What We Become.  Give the story a read right here.

Checking In

     While it probably doesn't pay to become obsessed by it, it's nice to check back in with the Internet every once in a while on the subject of books you've written.  This last time around, I found two interesting sites relating to Those That Wake.  The first, All the Tropes, is similar to another site I posted about a while back, in that it applies classic themes and concepts of storytelling to the book and offers the connections in a list that captures ideas about Those That Wake in a fun and interesting way.  The other one, Prezi, is a website on presentations that offers a review of Those That Wake in the form of an unusual and kind of spooky slideshow.  

NSA Today

     For their honors project, four students at LREI produced two interlocking webcomics.  One puts into comic form excerpts from actual National Security Agency documents, the other tells a story based on those excerpts.  Both feature sharp scripts and striking art, all supported by a polished and professional looking website (completely coded by one of the students).  Hopefully, the project will continue as an independent endeavor, but you can see the beginning of it at nsa-today.com.  Congratulations to Erika, Harry, Luke and Nicole on a superlative job. 

March

     A slightly belated congratulations to March: Book Three, the final book in Senator John Lewis's autobiographical March trilogy.  In addition to the Coretta Scott King Award, March: Book Three also won the Printz Award, continuing the graphic novel format's strong history with this award (last year, This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki took a Printz Honor and American Born Chinese by Gene Yang won the award in 2007).
     This is on the heels of being the first graphic novel to win the National Book Award.  It maybe worth thinking about why a book with this particular political outlook should be accruing so much acclaim during this period of the country's political life.