{"id":2164,"date":"2013-08-12T16:24:25","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T23:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/?p=2164"},"modified":"2020-02-25T08:11:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-25T16:11:32","slug":"impulse-buy-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beatzo.net\/blog\/2013\/08\/impulse-buy-of-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Impulse Buy of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don’t do this often, but when a book<\/a> comes highly recommended by the Sage of Northampton<\/a>, bears a foreword written by him, and <\/em>is signed by both the author and the Foreword Writer, I do not argue with Fate. Bought immediately, and paid for international shipping too. The reviews on Amazon are glorious, and reminds me of pre-Jonathan Strange\/Mr Norrell buzz for Susanna Clarke. (And that reminds me that I should probably reread that book too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the foreword:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A genre that has been reduced by lazy stylisation to a narrow lexicon of signifiers … wizards, warriors, dwarves and dragons … is a genre with no room for Bunyan\u2019s Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em>, arguably the earliest picaresque questing fantasy; for David Lindsay\u2019s Voyage to Arcturus<\/em> with its constantly morphing vistas and transmogrifying characters; for Mervyn Peake\u2019s extraordinary Gormenghast <\/em>books or for Michael Moorcock\u2019s cut-silk Gloriana<\/em>. It is certainly a genre insufficient to contain the vegetable eternities of Catling\u2019s Vorrh<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here’s where you can buy a signed copy<\/a>. (No guarantees though, as the small print says.<\/del>) Apparently all of the signed copies are sold out, and I got one. The confirmation email came in today morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other than that, I have been rereading some old manga favorites. Among them is Crying Freeman. <\/em>I bought the complete Dark Horse set a while ago at the low low price of $1 per volume – I have the Viz comics and you will agree that reading them pamphlets gets a little annoying, even though some of the coloring adds to the eightiesness of the series. It’s over-the-top seinen action, with lots of photo-referenced art by Ryoichi Ikegami, and it is just as I remembered it – brimming with the kind of content that sets librarians and conscientious parents aflutter, the kind of salacious visuals that attracts giggling clusters of school-kids in Landmark, where the books stay misfiled in the children’s section. Crying Freeman <\/em>is the kind of thing Dr. Fredric Wertham warned the world about, people. Do not file it in the children’s section, not unless you want kids to wonder why women have white areas in their groin, whether Chinese assassins really strip to their underwear before jumping up on Russian wrestlers’ shoulders, and if it is possible for a man to cover himself in cement and not burn to a crisp when attacked by a janitor with a flame-thrower. And how a Japanese man can be a master artist, a master assassin, and the Greatest Lover Ever. This book is testament to the fact that manga writer Kazuo Koike is what Stan Lee would be without the Comics Code Authority to keep him in check. And Crying Freeman<\/em> is what an Amitabh Bachchan character would really be in the 70s, without the castration anxiety of the Indian Censor Board. Mull about the ocean of possibilities for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This reminds me that the high-point of Comicon this year was getting to meet Koike in the flesh. I queued to meet him three times, just because there was a 2-item cap on signatures; I probably would have gone a few more times had there not been other events to attend. Kazuo Koike, man. Never thought I would get to thank him in person. Insert a twenty-one gun salute moment for Dark Horse Comics here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n