Having watched all three presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate, I’m in the kind of stupor that is recognizable to other political junkies. With about ten days to go, I am chewing on my fingernails, tensely watching the polls as if it is only my focused attention that will allow things to go my way.

The last debate, about foreign policy, made me think about war, and entertainment inspired by war, and my response to it.

There are brilliant war comics, written by people like Archie Goodwin, Larry Hama, Garth Ennis and, especially, Harvey Kurtzman. I admire them. And yet, I don’t particularly enjoy them.

I think the problem is that I am so repulsed by the reality of battle. I don’t find it dramatic nor exciting. It may reveal character, but I don’t want to see it. I don’t entirely believe that war reveals nobility, and even if it does, I think there are better ways to get to the same place.

And yet. And yet. I do like action movies, and I like cartoonish action movies that include war. I love The Dirty Dozen. I can get a good laugh out of 300.

I can admire more realistic war movies, like The Hurt Locker, but I don’t enjoy them. I don’t want to go see them. I avoid them as carefully as I avoid actual battle. I go only when it is necessary to be part of the cultural conversation. Oh, and Apocalypse Now.

It’s possible that I don’t like war movies because they are so stereotypically masculine. Even modern war movies, the ones that acknowledge that women serve and sacrifice, are models of machismo. A movie like Since You Went Away, which shows life on the home front, is just as much inspired by war as my other examples, but is considered a “women’s picture,” or a soap opera because it is about women.

I can think of two exceptions in comics where I actually enjoyed a war comic I was reading. The first is Blackhawk when Howard Chaykin was doing it. I think this had less to do with the military aspects, and more to do with Chaykin’s sense of humor, which is very close to my own.

The other is George Pratt’s Enemy Ace: War Idyll, which is, sadly, out of print. It’s beautiful and moving, as all entertainment should be.

When you vote, don’t just consider the impact of this election on the economy. Think about the wars that can happen as a result of your vote. And then think about the schlock comics those wars will inspire. Personally, I don’t want to see Dan Didio get his hands on Iran.

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

David Wood, author of the best seller Cibola, a Dane Maddock adventure, joins hosts Ric Croxton and Dr. Art Sippo in The Book Cave this week. Listen to the conversation now at http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/webpage

Learn more about Author David Wood at his website, ThrillerCast podcast:, and Gryphonwood Press.

Visit The Book Cave at http://thebookcave.libsyn.com/webpage.

Dane Maddock Adventures

The latest Fight Card has been released and it looks to be a knockout. You can find Fight Card: Golden Gate Gloves at Amazon.

PRESS RELEASE:

GOLDEN GATE GLOVES (FIGHT CARD)

San Francisco 1951

Conall O’Quinn grew up at St. Vincent’s Asylum For Boys, a Chicago orphanage where he learned the sweet science of boxing from Father Tim, the battling priest. After a stint in the Army, Conall finds work on the docks of San Francisco – a place where his fists make him the dock champion. Soon, however, he gets on the bad side of a union boss and is set up for a dock side brawl designed to knockout his fighting career. When Conall comes out on top, things go from bad to worse when he is framed for the docks going up in flames.

Along with Benson, his best friend and trainer, Conall heads for the hills in search of a lost treasure in the vicinity of a mine controlled by the union boss. However, where Conall goes trouble follows and he is quickly embroiled in a heated grudge match between fist-happy miners and lumberjacks.

Championing the miners in an all out slugfest, Conall is about to find out there is more to fighting than just swinging fists… giant, hammer-fisted lumberjacks, the mine owner’s beautiful daughter, union flunkies, and mob thugs all want a piece of him… and when the opening bell rings, the entire world appears to be against him…

You can learn more about The Fight Card series at www.fightcardbooks.com.

Be prepared

And be careful not to do

Your good deeds when there’s no one watching you…

Tom Lehrer, Be Prepared

Back about a half-century past, when the streets of New York were grimy and enchanted and I first tiptoed into the supply side of popular culture, I would occasionally ride the subway to alien parts of the city to socialize with science fiction fans. Nice folk, these were. Sometimes they’d ask me about the science fiction books I was reading – and I read a lot of them in those days – and we’d chat. But, I eventually wondered, why weren’t they reading the stuff that I was? Didn’t they identify themselves as science fiction fans?

My memory is, as always, hazy, but I think I finally decided that what they called fanac had become more important than the fiction that had originally inspired it. The clubs, the meetings, and amateur publications – fanzines, of course – and the conventions occupied their leisure minds and the genre that was identified with the fanac – fan activity, as you have by now guessed – had a lesser place in their concerns. It was useful – it provided a reason for the gatherings and magazines – but the fanac was the thing. Fandom took on a life of its own and there was nothing wrong with that.

Much, much later, when I was seeing socially a lovely young woman who was part of that world (and whom I should have treated way better, and if she’s reading this, I apologize) I realized that fanac served noble purposes: it gave the participants private mythologies to share and elaborate; it gave them a social sphere in which to meet and sometimes mate like-minded others; it gave them places to go and things to do. In short: it gave them a tribe.

I remembered my fanacking friends and their tribal rites when, a couple of days ago, I read that over a thousand Boy Scout leaders were accused of sexual misconduct and their supervisors very seldom blew the whistle on them. Getting to be an old song, isn’t it? Clergymen and educators, make room on the bus for the BSA, and it’s off to hell we’ll go…

Evolution wants us to have tribes and most of us need them. The problems arise when the tribe becomes, to its leaders, more important than the reasons for which the tribe was formed: the football program is a vital part of the university and any young athletes who are harmed are collateral damage, and that is too bad; the church is God’s earthly avatar and its well-being, including its reputation, must be protected at all costs; and don’t the Scouts teach our youth proper values and skills and surely a bit of psychological damage here and there is justified by all the good…

Yeah.

Let us agree: we need tribes. But now, let us ask most earnestly: what do the tribes need?

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: The Meaning of Life – Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions, presented by Jay Garfield and available from The Great Courses. If you take only one philosophy course…

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases’ Wartalk