We jump back into pop culture by wrapping up our visit with Janet Varney including her cut on what makes her JV CLUB Podcast so unique. They we talk with Jason Schwartzman about his newest project, MOZART IN THE JUNGLE, streaming right now on Amazon Prime.
This week kicks off our 8th year – and we are back to our twice-a-week schedule in a few days. We start by talking AGENT CARTER with Hayley Atwell and a visit to the set of THE LIBRARIANS!
I realize that most of you probably don’t have a deerstalker cap. So go get a couple of baseball caps. Wear one brim facing forward and the other brim facing backwards. You need the right visual. Because it’s time to look for the clues and solve a crime by matching wits with Inspector Danger.
Inspector Danger’s Crime Quiz is a comic strip produced by Werner Wejp-Olsen. In it the good inspector is presented with a weekly mystery to solve. Inspector Danger and his witless assistant Alfie – a foil who is so unobservant and dim that he makes the Nigel Bruce Watson look a positive luminary – investigate the crime. The strip provides you with all the clues you need to solve the crime before the Inspector. The Inspector solves the crime and his solution is printed upside down at the bottom of the strip. Meanwhile, Alfie stands around, and might as well have cartoon question marks floating around his head.
Now let me present you with the mystery from the December 8th installment of Inspector Danger’s Crime Quiz. We’ll see how well you do in solving the mystery.
Herbert Hudson, CEO of the recently bankrupt company Hudson Tech, drowned when his car drove off the pier and into the harbor. It looked like suicide. Hudson’s widow confirmed that Herbert had been depressed and threatened to take his own life. She wondered why he bothered to drive the ten to fifteen miles from his house all the way to the harbor to kill himself. She also came across as less-than-sympathetic when her chief concern was that all the money was gone and she, who was “used to a certain life style,” would soon be “walking the streets.”
The lab tech who examined Hudson’s car said the crime wasn’t suicide. The brake cables had been cut so it was murder. Apparently, the police department’s budget had been cut too. If the lab tech was talking about brake cables, his police lab’s stocked with really old reference books. Automobile brakes don’t use cables anymore. They’re all hydraulic. Have been since around the 1940s. Yes, the emergency brake still uses a cable, but if that cable had been cut, the car’s regular brakes would still have worked. Hudson’s car could have stopped on a dime and spotted you a nickle.
Unless …
So Hubert Hudson drove his 1934 Hudson Eight into the drink after the brake cables had been cut. (Notice how skillfully I made a play on words and saved the story?) Now the good Inspector Danger was investigating Hudson’s murder.
Hudson’s attorney said Hudson’s widow had money as Hudson left a $5,000,000 insurance policy with her as the beneficiary. The attorney also said the contract had an anti-suicide clause http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/suicide-clause.html, so the death benefit wouldn’t be paid if the death was a suicide. But that clause wouldn’t apply here, as the death resulted from a murder.
Inspector Danger paced around in circles for a panel. He didn’t think the wife was mechanically inclined enough to have cut the brake cables. He wondered whether she had someone helping her. Then he came up with his solution. Now while you read, my spoiler warning, think about the clues and see if you can identify the criminal.
SPOILER WARNING!
I am about to reveal Inspector Danger’s solution. So, if you don’t want to know it before you figure out the solution yourself, stop reading. End of WARNING, here comes the solution.
Inspector Danger deduced that Herbert Hudson did commit suicide. If someone else had cut the brake cables before Hudson started on his trip, he wouldn’t have been able to stop his car during the ten to fifteen mile drive and would have crashed into something long before he ever reached the harbor. Inspector Danger figured that Hudson drove to the harbor, then cut the brake cables himself just before he drove his car into the water. Hudson wanted to make his suicide look like a murder so his wife could collect the $5,000,000 death benefit. The solution also told us that Inspector Danger left the case “unsolved,” so that Hudson’s wife could collect the death benefit. “Chivalry over duty.”
So did you spot the criminal? If you said Herbert Hudson, you’re right. Kind of. If you said his crime was suicide, you’re wrong. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not against the law to commit suicide. In the United States, the laws making suicide a crime were abolished long ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation. Moreover, even when those laws were in effect, it wasn’t really against the law to commit suicide. It was against the law to attempt suicide. But if you committed suicide, you’d be dead. The police wouldn’t be able to arrest or prosecute you even though they literally had the corpus delicti http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Corpus+delicti.
Let’s try another crime. Remember, Hudson committed suicide but made it look like a murder so that his wife would be able to collect a $5,000,000 death despite his policy’s anti-suicide clause. Voila, another crime; insurance fraud.
Now, I don’t know in what state the good Inspector operates, other than a general state of confusion, so, I’ll use the general definition of insurance fraud. Insurance fraud occurs when someone does a “duplicitous act” so that he or she can obtain an improper payment from an insurance company. Usually, the person collecting the proceeds of the insurance policy is the person committing the duplicitous act, but it can be someone else. If a doctor helps a patient fake an injury, so that the patient can swindle an insurance company, then the doctor is an aider and abettor and equally guilty of insurance fraud, even if only the patient collected the proceeds. In our story, Hudson committed insurance fraud by making a suicide look like a murder, so that his wife could collect an improper death benefit to which she was not entitled.
Of course, Hudson’s dead. He can’t be arrested or prosecuted. So, calling him the criminal is a little unsatisfying. Where’s the justice in the story, if the criminal can’t be prosecuted? Sure Logan and Brisco would be kept busy, but what would Jack McCoy get to do?
How about Mrs. Hudson? Was she guilty of insurance fraud for filing a claim for a death benefit to which she was not really entitled? No. There’s no indication that Mrs. Hudson knew her husband had faked a murder. She honestly thought he was murdered. So when she filed a claim for the death benefit – not if but when, because you know someone as mercenary as her wouldn’t leave seven figures uncollected – when she filed a claim, she wouldn’t know it was fraudulent. She wouldn’t be guilty of insurance fraud. If the insurance company learned the truth, it could deny her the benefit, but it couldn’t have her prosecuted for insurance fraud, because she did not knowingly commit a duplicitous act.
Which leads us to question that still hasn’t been answered: A crime was committed so who was the real criminal in the story? There’s got to be one someone somewhere who can take the fall.
If you said Inspector Danger, you win the prize.
Inspector Danger knew Hudson committed suicide. He knew Mrs. Hudson had no legal claim to the death benefit on her husband’s policy. But he kept this information secret so that Mrs. Hudson could collect the $5,000,000, anyway. He aided and abetted Mr. Hudson in committing insurance fraud by letting Mrs. Hudson collect proceeds which he knew she was not entitled to collect.
So, let’s haul the not-so-good Inspector off to jail and put Alfie in charge of the investigations. I can see the strip now. A crime is committed. Alfie stumbles around for several panels without the slightest idea who the criminal is. Then he stands on his head to reads the week’s solution at the bottom of the page, but still has no idea who to arrest.
And we could say that Alfie never meta criminal that he could catch.
If you are still hungover, you have my sympathies. If you have never been hungover, you get an evolving mixture of envy and pity. No matter. The new year is upon us.
This is the time of year when some of us, nagged by memories of elementary school homework assignments, make resolutions to improve ourselves in the year ahead. In general, my resolutions involve drinking more water and tossing more cat-toys (Selina likes to play âfetchâ), but one change I made last year was awesome and Iâd like to recommend it to you.
Every week, when I go for my weekly comics fix, I try to find at least one new book to try. I donât manage to do it every week, but I bet I sampled 40 new titles last year. Some I didnât like, but spending 15 or 20 minutes reading something different is not a horrible fate.
Itâs easy for me to try something new because Iâve been reading the same (more or less) superhero comics for nearly six decades. Lots of titles that has been accepted by cooler people than me for decades is new to me. Still, there are books that were new in 2014 that Iâll be sticking with.
As you may recall, my budget can stand this experimentation because Iâm no longer buying books that arenât fun anymore. For me, fun books have different perspectives. Anything can happen.
It may be that this is the year that the industry is taking the same message to heart. I mean, there has been a part of the comic book business that published unconventional stories by unconventional creators since at least the counter-culture of the 1960s. And itâs not unusual for writers and artists associated with the underground to get a gig above, and vice versa.
What is unusual is for these writers and artists not to be straight white men. After years and years (and decades) of talk, there is finally a significant segment of the creative community that can get pregnant, or not, depending on circumstances and choice. Along with more women who write and draw, there seems to my (perhaps inaccurate) eye also be an increase in the number of female editors, assistant editors and associates.
It doesnât seem to me that there has been a parallel increase in visible participation by people of color, but the subject isnât going to meekly go away anytime soon. I think that now, more than ever, we need creators who can bring a non-white perspective to the âgood guys/bad guysâ dynamic of so much comic book plots.
Another excellent resolution for the new year is to commit yourself to the growth of our industry, both at a retail level (including libraries) and a personal, helping level . Our industry is not alone in the commercial arts in treating talent like so many disposable widgets, but that doesnât mean that we have to stand for it.
Hoping your 2015 gives you better stories.
The Interview is a movie doomed to collapse under the weight of all the external nonsense forced upon it. It is not a movie worth being called an act of war. It is not a movie worthy of being the standard bearer for free speech against real or imagined tyranny. It’s not a movie worth the total public embarrassment of Sony Pictures. It’s just a stupid comedy. I don’t even mean “stupid” pejoratively here, it is in the same grand tradition of stupid comedies that has brought us movies like There’s Something About Mary and Caddyshack. Both movies I like a great deal, neither of them worth an international incident.
When it’s on, The Interview is quite funny. The bit with Eminem that I saw all over Facebook this weekend is my favorite so it’s a shame that that’s in the first ten minutes of the film. Otherwise the film hits on more joke attempts than it misses. Seth Rogen and James Franco have an undeniable comedic chemistry and it’s just fun to watch them bounce of each other. Randall Park is outstanding playing Kim Jong-Un, as is his Veep co-star Timothy Simons in a terribly small part. It’s also important to recognize Diana Bang who is fantastically funny as the leading lady in this film, a part that often doesn’t get a ton of space under the Apatow-Rogen film umbrella but Bang is electric and hopefully gets to do bigger and better things in comedy going forward.
The entire movie is dragged down to mediocre by a poor second act. After the first round of North Korean hijinks, the movie grinds to a halt as the characters slowly get in to their positions or the finale. This leads to a seemingly endless number of scenes of conversations that move the plot along at a glacial pace while not being particularly funny. It’s inexcusable. Add this to the frequent book-report-esque need to put in North Korea facts and statistics and there’s a lot of drag pulling down what might have been a better movie set in a fictional country.
I appreciate that Rogen, along with his directing partner Evan Goldberg, are continuing to be ambitious with their visuals. It would be very easy (and probably profoundly more profitable) for them to continue making Superbad knockoffs until they all died when their houses collapsed from carrying too much money, but much like This is the End there’s a lot going on here. Sure, they’re taking advantage of the fact that no one has any idea if North Korea looks like the outskirts of Vancouver but there are some real sets here and an honest-to-goodness war at the end. When you compare it to the costless dreck that you get from Adam Sandler or the Twilight movies and it’s just so nice to see people take a simple guaranteed paycheck and make a movie that’s actually interesting to look at on a screen. This sounds like an incredibly backhanded compliment but it’s becoming less and less common.
We seemed to watch a lot of “Draw My Life” videos this past year, so we felt it was appropriate to recap our 2014 with a white board and some dry erase markers. In under 3 minutes, we quickly doodle this year’s top movies, tv shows, books & comics. We also draw our favorite Con experiences, the pop culture headlines that stuck with us, and the best hair of the year (belonging to Blythe from IDW’s Littlest Pet Shop Comics)! Lots of wishes for a fabulous 2015, everyone!
Just because it’s that time of year – and you know what I’m talking about and don’t pretend you don’t – don’t for one second think that I’ve become some sentimental goo brain and if you do think that come over here and I’ll make you a damp spot on the rug. Or at least give you a stern look. (Or at least consider giving you a stern look at some future date, maybe in an alternate universe.)
But despite my loud and proud misanthropy, there are a few things, as we creep past the solstice, that make me believe that there’s really no reason to be ashamed of my species. Leading the list this week, if there were a list, would be the comic book community’s response to Norm Breyfogle’s misfortune. Norm, who I’ve long considered a storytelling artist, suffered what seems to have been a bad stroke that left his drawing hand disabled. I wondered how his colleagues would respond. Splendidly, is how. Within 24 hours, the comics folk had raised over $20,000 and flooded the emails with offers of help and messages of support. Norm has a long way to go – months of therapy and sundry other problems to be solved – but at least his fellow storytellers have given him a start.
Then there was the movie brouhaha. As most of you surely know, cyberterrorists threatened nine-eleven type action against any exhibitor who showed The Interview, a comedy about an assassination plot directed at North Korea’s national big cheese, Kim Jung Un. At first, all parties caved, including the flick’s producer, Sony. Ah, but now the happy ending. At virtually the last minute, over 200 smallish, independent theaters got exhibition rights and showed the picture over the weekend. And it was made available for streaming on three Internet venues.
This has very little to do with The Interview. Might be a good flick, might not, might be somewhere in between. But what’s important here is that those who championed the movie refused to be bullied. Anyone who’s had extensive dealings with bullies – teachers, let’s have a show of hands – will probably testify that bullies can’t be appeased. You can’t get rid of them by simply meeting their demands. They don’t really what they’re asking for, they want the power that got it for them. Give it to them and they’ll just want more. Under the threats, they’re probably scared and that’s sad and pitiable, but irrelevant. You can feel sorry for a rabid dog, but you still have to stop his attack.
A final note and then I’m gone for the rest of the year: Norm Breyfogle still needs help. There’s a link on the ComicMix home page. Please give him some. Oh, and if any of you even dare to accuse me of being a nice guy…
This time around the honor of writing the last ComicMix column of 2014 falls to me, and I am grateful for the opportunity to taunt the gods and goddesses of irony once more before the Cherub of the New Year arrives, gets a good look around, and shits his diaper.
Many, if not all of my friends seem to be happy that this year is coming to an end. String theory tells us that such optimism is silly, but since I’m starting 2015 with a left arm different from the one I had last January – and the anesthesia almost killed me – well, sayonara old bastard and take your scythe with you. (more…)
As everyone knows, it’s a time-honored New Year’s tradition to not only make resolutions about all of the things you are really going to do better in the coming year, but also to share them with friends so they can encourage you to not be a bum and totally forget about all of your well-meaning promises. So naturally, my bestie Deadpool sent me a draft of his list and, just as naturally, I figured all of you would want to see it so you can be inspired towards your own lofty New Year’s goals. Therefore:
Deadpool’s List of Stuff I’m Definitely Going To Do Sometime In 2015… Probably:
Hope that helped you to figure out all the amazing things you want to resolve to do in 2015! Good luck with that.
And until next time, Happy New Year and Servo Lectio!
So here we are at the end of 2014, which is the time for media folk to opine about the best and the worst of the year in all the different areas of our overcrowded, put-upon lives. So though I rarely think of myself as part of the media folk crowd, I’ll include me in that description for this column, since all of you have so kindly considered my words, thoughts, judgments, attitudes, and so forth important enough to peruse over the last twelve months.
So here we go, in no particular order, and not divided into “best” and “worst”…
I applaud Marvel Comics’ writer G. Willow Wilson (great name, by the way, so alliterative!) and artist Adrian Alphona for introducing the comics world to Kamala Khan, an American Muslim teenager from Jersey City, New Jersey. Kamala’s parents and family are traditional, observant Muslims (for the most part), but Kamala just wants to be what every teenage girl wants to be – not different from her peers. But she is. Not just because she’s Muslim. It’s because she’s also Ms. Marvel.
In a time when bigotry is rampant in these United States – our President is a Muslim Kenyan socialist dictator terrorist determined to destroy America, and, oh, by the way, he’s *gasp* B-L-A-C-K – I just absolutely love that the House of Ideas has embraced the opposite of the disease named xenophobia. There is no better cure.
Just a few weeks ago at my daughter’s birthday dinner, we got into a discussion of the state of music these days. I said that I think there is nothing out there that can compare to the music produced during the ‘60s, certainly nothing like the great concept albums of the Beatles, the Stones, and so forth. Not for the mass public, anyway. It’s all manufactured pop crap. Certainly nothing that is going to hold up to the test of time. Said brother Glenn, “So where do you think great popular art is being produced?”
“Television,” I said instantly. “We in a new ‘Golden Age.”
“When she’s right, she’s right,” said Glenn.
There’s been a lot of really fantastic television these days. Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, Transparent, Outlander, and certainly comics are rocking our personal screens with The Flash, Arrow, Gotham, and Marvel’s Agents of Shield. But my vote for the best TV show of 2014 – as if regular readers can’t guess before I type out the letters – is Homeland.
Homeland not only made everyone forget – well, sort of – Brody (for more see my earlier column on the series here), but it amped up the tension to equal the heyday of 24 – and beat Jack Bauer at his own game by never forgetting that it is also a study of the emotional, and psychological scars borne by those who serve their patriotism in the coldest of wars.
Best taking on of a role already inhabited by fan favorites: Peter Capaldi as the Time Lord in Doctor Who. David Tennant and Matt Smith made indelible marks on the saga of the Gallifreyan, between them raising the Doctor into the realms of a worldwide phenomenon shared by only two modern myths – Star Trek and Star Wars. I can well imagine the trepidation with which Mr. Capaldi must have felt when he was given the keys to the TARDIS, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t slept the night before the his debut premiered. But he made it his own; an original interpretation in which, im-not-so-ho, the Doctor had to figure out if, of if not, he’s a good man. “I don’t know,” said Clara. And I’m still not sure if the Doctor can accept that maybe he is, even if he did, at long last, salute Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Politics and World Affairs 101. (Hey, you know me – I wasn’t going to let this topic slip away.) This year was definitely one that went way beyond any introductory college course. The most “do-nothing” Congress in the history of this country, all based – again, im-not-so-ho, on the biases held against our President. (Reference first sentence in fourth paragraph of this column, please.) ISIS, jihadist Crusaders determined to raise the Ottoman Empire from the dust of history using beheadings with modern-day scimitars and social media propaganda, is the biggest threat to any type of peace in the Middle East – and the world – since Adolph Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party. And yes, that is really how I feel.
Meanwhile Vladimir Putin seems determined to lead a new Soviet Union – and for those who may point out that the Russian economy is in freefall…well, countries have gone to war because of failed domestic policies. And homosexuals in Russia are the new scapegoat, replacing Jews.
Best (and worst) on the domestic front this year. It seems to me that the American people have finally woken up and are marching in protest again against our own “black boots” (not to reference Nazis again, but…) who – shades of the pre-Civil Rights Act era – seem to feel they have a right to kill black men and anyone else who doesn’t “salute” them fast enough. I only hope the protests continue to the level of the social activism in which I grew up during the ‘60’s, and now dwindle away like the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Worst “Oh, God, I knew this was going to happen” moment: “The Mystery of Malaysian Flight 370” was televised on CNN. Just waiting for it to show up as an episode of “Ancient Aliens” sometime in 2015.
Dumbest comics controversy of 2014 (though I can understand the uproar) was that cover. Yeah, you know the one I mean. Jessica Jones as Spider-Woman with her ass up in the air.
The other dumb comics controversy – the stupidest, I mean – was DC’s decision not to allow Batwoman to marry her long-time love, civil rights lawyer Maggie Sawyer. Not only does it reek of bigotry and ignorance, not only does it go against the biggest non-issue in recent American history, i.e., gay marriage, but it’s based on an edict that “no DC superhero is allowed to be married” as “heroes shouldn’t have happy personal lives” because it would make for “less dramatic stories.” As if marriage is always a state of bliss. Um…no. And kudos to J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman for walking away from such ignoramity.
Most exposed comic character: Starfire. Once upon a time, back in the Wolfman-Pérez days of New Teen Titans, she was a nuanced character. Now she’s just…exposed.
Speaking of DC and stupidest. How about their contest concerning Harley Quinn? the company asked for tyro artists to draw a scene from Harley Quinn #0 which specifically asked for: “Harley sitting in a bathtub with toasters, blow dryers, blenders, appliances, all dangling above the bathtub and she has a cord that will release them all. We are watching the moment before her inevitable death. Her expression is one of, ‘Oh, well, I guess that’s it for me,’ and she has resigned herself to the moment is going to happen.”
Announced just before National Suicide Prevention Week.
Oh, wait, a lot of that happened in 2013.
Well, it’s still “worst of” bad news.
So what kind of stupidest stuff has DC done in 2014?
Turned Wonder Woman into a caricature of a feminist icon – whiney, spoiled, and bitchy.
Batgirl featured a literal “cartoon” of transgender characterization in the imposter Batgirl, who was actually a dangerous, deranged man. Um, btw, that’s not transgender. That’s cross-dressing. Either way, it was incredibly insulting to too many individuals. (The creative team of Brendan Fletcher, Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr apologized…and meant it.).
Merchandizing sexualized and insulting t-shirts with Superman “scoring” with Wonder Woman, and mottos like “Training To Be Batman’s Wife.”
Releasing a book for toddlers and early readers called “Superheroes Opposites” in which “Wonder Woman pushes a swing” with a little girl on it, while Superman, on the opposing page, “pulls the machine,” which looks like some combination of a Deere tractor and deep-sea oilrig. Anyway, it’s enormous and definitely very heavy. Yeah, I’ll be buying that book for my 15-month-old grandson soon.
DC sure isn’t Jenette Khan’s company anymore!
But DC didn’t just become the leading anti-feminist comics company in 2014. I found this at www.Whatculture.com:
“2014 also saw DC leaning on some wonderfully old-school gimmicks to try and boost sales, including falling back into the nineties speculator boom trope of providing shiny covers to try and entice people into buying flagging books. They planned to provide 3D variant covers for climactic final issues of their year-long crossover event Future’s End, a process which apparently requires certain special chemicals.
“One of which is called microcystin, and is highly toxic. Exactly the sort of thing you wouldn’t want to, say, get into a municipal water supply.” Woops, that’s exactly what happened though! Some sort of spill at the printing plant where the books were being published caused the deadly toxin to end up in Lake Eerie, which provides the water supply of eleven million coastal inhabitants in Northwestern Ohio.
Yes, DC poisoned the water supply of eleven million people. Lex Luthor would be proud.”
Okay, I’m sure DC comics weren’t the only books being published at the printing plant. But I just have three things to say:
How come stuff like this doesn’t happen at Marvel?
And, at least based on this list of “worsts,” I don’t think I’ll be working for DC anytime soon.
And, based on this list of “worsts,” I’m not sure I would want to.
This week I’ve got a bunch of different topics and themes but none of them seem to be developing into a coherent column. So I think I’ll take parts of all of them and just stitch together into a hodgepodge column. It’s the end of the year so maybe I can get away with it.
If you’re doing a SF tent pole movie, you want to hire Zoe Saldana and use her prominently. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Uhura in the two latest Star Trek films, and Gamora in Guardians Of The Galaxy and she’s going to be in the next installments of all these films. They all made what is technically called a shitload of money. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be cast as Amanda Waller. (Sorry, Oprah.) I really want the upcoming Suicide Squad movie to sell like hotcakes and spawn sequels and Amanda Waller related merchandise. Okay, I’m crass. Still, think about it. . .
Peter Capaldi has finished his first season as the new Doctor and I like his Doctor McCrankypants. It’s a nice variation of the past few Doctors. Not as crazy about all the writing, tho, and I really am beginning to feel it’s time for showrunner Steven Moffat to move on. When Moffat is good, he’s really good and he’s rarely outright bad but he’s often becoming mediocre. He seems, to me, to not always think things through. Or he gets clever for the sake of being clever.
Best Animated Film I Saw This Year – How To Train Your Dragon 2. The animation was better than the original and the story wasn’t a re-hash of the first but actually advanced the characters. It was fun but also had real emotional depth and impact. In fact, it was a better film than many live action serious movies I saw. It took chances.
Best Marvel Film I Saw This Year – a lot of people would say Guardians Of The Galaxy and I loved it too. It was just wonderfully entertaining. However, I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more. Chris Evans is to Steve Rogers/Captain America what Christopher Reeve was to Superman. Why doesn’t Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow have her own movie? How the hell did they get Robert Redford go play the main villain? (Oh, right – money.) And Samuel L. Jackson just has deep reserves of cool to call on. The movie also had a major impact on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was an added bonus.
Just finished reading Alexander Mcall Smith’s latest installment (number 15!) in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, titled The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The series is set in Botswana, Africa, and features Precious Ramotswe, her partner Grace Makutsi, and their friends, co-workers, and clients in and around the city of Gabrone. The characters are all African and the author is white, born in Rhodesia, now living in Scotland. He writes the characters with great love and understanding, along with a great love for Africa in general and Botswana in particular. Reading each new book is like visiting old friends. The mysteries are mostly small matters and not really the focus of the series. It is the people. I recommend the series and, while I suggest starting at he beginning, each book is admirably written to be accessible even if you haven’t read the others. I will warn you that they are quiet books, slow paced, but wonderful reads.
Final note: just an update since so many of you expressed concern following my recent triple bypass. I’m healing nicely and recovering well. My general practitioner, on my last visit, pronounced me “medically boring.” I’ve never been so glad to be called boring.
Well, that’s 2014. Drive carefully, drink responsibly, party carefully, and we’ll all reconvene in 2015.
Happy New Year, y’all!
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
Stephen Colbert, we have your writer for “The Chronicles of Amber”!
January 20, 2023
The Law Is A Ass #460: Those “For Life” Sentences Are Nonsense
February 24, 2022
