Quentin's Weeknotes 8/18/18-8/24/18
This week:
- I read a History of Horror Comics on NPR’s books website. I have a deep love for horror in general, and horror comics in particular (I wrote a rather lengthy review of a book about them on my old blog), especially the legendary E.C. books of the 1950s. Note that the author of the NPR piece is none other than Stephen Graham Jones, an excellent modern horror writer in his own right. Jones is a member of the Blackfeet nation and weaves Blackfoot and Indigenous life and culture into his wonderfully creepy and evocative fiction.
My son, playing on the beaches of Lake Ontario, with the Toronto skyline in the distance. - I went to Toronto. My wife is from there, and we got in a visit to family and her friends before the furor of the fall semester. I also took a jaunt out to the Reservation of The Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, where I used to work, to visit friends and colleagues.
- I watched this crazy video on Boingboing explaining the 1990 art heist from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, to this day the largest single Museum heist in history. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTpfjCABdk&w=560&h=315]
- I finished reading Volume 8 of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples' massive and enchanting graphic novel Saga.
Alana and Marko and their baby at the start of the seriesYou should be reading this series, if you’re not. The summary is that there are two planets at war with each other, and they’ve roped in most of the rest of the planets in their galaxy to fight with (or for) them. A guard from one planet falls in love with a captured soldier from the other, and they have a baby together. The story is what happens as they try to make a thriving family in the face of the chaos and destruction around them. The storytelling is brilliant and gripping and the art is absolutely breathtaking. I haven’t been as emotionally invested in a comic book series since I read The Sandman when I was a teenager. - The Museum hosted Hartwick’s Matriculation Ceremony for new students. Over 800 people consisting of incoming Freshman and their families came through the Museum and signed the Matriculation register with the college President. It was a long but enjoyable day. Congrats, class of 2022!
