Michael Fleisher
My grandfather amazed me one day, after asking about my enjoyment of comic books, by saying that he knew the artist of Spider-Man. Turns out he was friends with the parents of Rick Leonardi, who — by my reckoning — was the most dynamic and interesting Spidey artist, particularly in the way he would draw splash pages capturing his speed and agility by having multiple images without panel breaks. My stepfather, however, was able to do my grandfather one better. In his profession as weird wood artist, he has met a whole host of comparable borderline personalities that have glommed on to him, and one of them was Michael Fleisher, writer of Jonah Hex.
Fleisher was even a sufficient fan of my stepfather’s that he drove out to New Hampshire to visit him, and brought his monthly box of DC comp titles for us kids to enjoy. We read and re-read them all, despite being titles we didn’t remotely care about, and despite that they were all in the midst of storylines of which we wouldn’t buy the next issues. He was a real comics writer, and this complete catalogue of every DC book from September 1987 was proof. Long before comics at large temporarily transitioned into their “auteur theory” period of considering writer uber alles, the fact that a comics writer had stayed in my house had already elevated their collective status in my eyes.
My stepfather would keep vaguely in touch with him. I heard about the announcement of the transition from Jonah Hex to Hex before I read about it in Direct Currents or the like. I heard about his weird, failed sex novel, and his move to England to work on 2000AD for a time (when I visited England myself, I asked about his “prog”s, and was told in no uncertain terms that they didn’t pass the smell test). And a couple of years ago, I was told that he was living in hospice and not doing very well. Read the rest of this entry »
OSCARS: Seven of Nine
Well, it’s been ten years since I weighed in on the Oscars Best Picture race, and nine years before that since I went back to my alma mater to hammer out a post-grad defense in the student newspaper of Shakespeare in Love having taken home the old Golden Boy. In general, I find the exercise of handicapping the proceedings to be less revelatory than the amount of weight of commentary might otherwise indicate. I feel that my prior comment on the nature of What Is Best lends itself to no particular new insight, so I’ll let my early ham-handed postings remain for anyone who couldn’t deduce my point of view with their own fifteen seconds of introspection. The only thing I’ll add is that wiser word-processors than mine have already looked at the fact that the victors are often less Best picture and more Trendiest Picture, representing a particular cultural windsock more than any larger zeitgeist.
In 2008, I really did feel that any of the winners would have been worthy. That it was a banner year for taste amongst the selection, and that even the slightest entry of the five still had yards of appeal. And in the post-The Dark Knight explosion of Best Picture nominees, allowing up to ten possible candidates, that the entries have never been as lean and incisive again.
This year is a particular exception. Read the rest of this entry »
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