2018: My Year in Books

It's time for my annual look back at the words that paraded in front of my eyes over the previous 12 months.

It was a good year for books, although as always I wish I could have spent a lot more time reading -- and especially more time reading in-depth novels and nonfiction books. Still, I did read 111 books last year, slightly higher 2017's total of 96.

I'm not going to try to pick my absolute favorite, but I will note some exceptional reads.

First was the excellent graphic novel UPGRADE SOUL by Ezra Clayton Daniels. It's a marvelous science fiction story about race and identify. Powerful doesn't even begin to describe it.

I loved the three-book graphic novel series ROYAL CITY, an inter-generational tragedy written and painted by Jeff Lemire. I have so much to say about this series, but adding anything more here would give too much away.

Lemire is also writing a new horror series called GIDEON FALLS, illustrated by Andrea Sorrentino. The first volume came out this year; it starts off slow but ultimately blew my mind.

EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES was the weirdest and most perfect book of the year. Writer Mark Russell and artist Mike Feehan turn the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon to an examination of the politics and culture of the 1950s -- and today. Highly, highly recommended.

I rounded out the year by reading a few nonfiction books about environmental issues. The one that resonated the most with me was ECODHARMA, David Loy's new look at how Buddhism can save the planet. This was an early review copy, and I think the book is officially released this coming week. I say it's worth your time.

On top of the "new books," five of 2018's books were re-reads as I returned to series that weren't fresh in my brain -- the excellent, paranoid, horrific INJECTION series by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Joride Bellaire; and the quite wonderful RESIDENT ALIEN cozy mystery series by Peter Hogan and Steve Parkhouse. Those series both get high recommendations.

There were plenty of other good books (and one or two stinkers) in 2019. You can see my full list here.

What's up for my reading in 2019? Well, I have a massive stack of environmental books to be read and reviewed, so that's a start. I'll also be trying to read more books by women and people of color through the year. And I'll probably read a graphic novel or two (or 20, or 50).

So what are you reading? I'd love to hear your recommendations at any time.

2017: My Year in Books

Well, well, well... another year gone by, another few dozen books consumed. This was both a really good and really bad year for me and books. I read quite a few -- 96 books, by my count -- but didn't come anywhere close to my totals for previous years.

Of course, there were a few reasons for that. Most importantly, my new job launching and editing The Revelator dominated my time this year. This required me to read a ton of material -- mostly articles -- which didn't leave much time for reading. I'm quite happy with that trade-off.

We also moved again this year, something I would have been happy to skip. Our landlord wanted to move his family back into the house we were renting, so the first half of the year was dominated by searching for a new place to live, packing and moving (and, to a lesser degree, unpacking). Oh well.

All of this meant some of my reading time found itself devoted to shorter material -- graphic novels, comics and short stories. Honestly, sometimes that's all the energy that I had. (But it added up. Last month, in a rare period of binging, I read something close to 250 Spider-Man comics written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by a variety of artists. If I had counted those as their trade paperback collections, my total number of books read for the year would have been much, much higher.)

So anyway, how did the books that I actually got to read pan out? The best -- by far -- was Borne, the excellent post-apocalyptic novel by Jeff VanderMeer. That's an incredible book -- so good I may just re-read it in 2018.

The worst book? Again, by far, it was Frank Miller's latest Dark Knight opus, The Master Race. Holy abomination, Batman, that was truly awful on just about every level.

Other highlights: Critical Critters by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy; the Rachel Rising series by Terry Moore (which I finally got to finish this past year); and the most recent Walking Dead volume (book 28), which I thought was the best of the series so far.

So that's my brief look at my book list for this year. Check out past entries in this rarely updated blog for my lists from previous years. There's some good stuff.

What will this coming year hold? Well, The Revelator is going to dominate my year again -- as well it should, because I'm enjoying the hell out of this job (the hardest and best I've ever had) -- but I'll make sure to carve out some time for a few good books along the way.

216: My Year in Books

My name is John and I like to read.

A lot.

As in, I really like to read and I really read a lot. Last year, according to my tally, I read a surprising 132 books. That's up from 123 in 2015 and the highest number I have read in a given year, at least as an adult. And that doesn't even count the thousands of articles, comic books, comic strips, short stories and related ephemera that I consumed over the year.

How the hell do I read so much? Easy -- I have a tendency to pick very short books, like graphic novels, which comprised the bulk of my reading once again this year. I would love to take more deep dives into novels or whatever, but I don't always have time for that. That means that I have (no exaggeration) hundreds and hundreds of novels on my bookshelves and in my Kindle waiting to be read.

I'll get to them all one of these days.

(Cue me in another decade or two, looking like Burgess Meredith in "The Twilight Zone"...)

Anyway, here a a few recommendations (and one non-recommendation) from this year's list.

Best novels: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill and JOYLAND by Joe Hill's dad, Stephen King. That's one talented family.

Best nonfiction book: THE MADHOUSE EFFECT by Michael E. Mann and Tom Toles. An essential examination of the science of climate change and the industry devoted to denying it.

Best graphic novel: MURDER BY REMOTE CONTROL by Janwillem van de Wetering & Paul Kirchner. Boy, that's a truly weird book, luckily rescued from obscurity and brought back into print this year.

Best art book: EYE TO EYE,  collection of photographs by the mysterious Vivian Maier (subject of the great documentary, "Finding Vivian Maier"). I think this is already out of print due to fights over Maier's copyrights and estate, but it's worth trying to track down a copy.

Worst book of the year: Amazing Fantastic Incredible: A Marvelous Memoir by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran. I'll admit that I love Stan Lee, but this was biography by way of publicist. Sublimely awful.

It's January 1 as I post this blog, so if you'll excuse me, I think I'll stop writing and start making some headway on this year's list of books.

The Funny-Book Maker (a poem from the archives)

BAD ENDING # 10: THE FUNNY-BOOK MAKER

By John R. Platt

The comic-book artist

Got lost in his work

Black lines

Inked on white paper

Over and over and over

Two pages of art a day

Then three

Then five

Then ten

He no longer slept

He called his editor:

"Send more scripts!"

He neglected his health

His friends stopped calling

His wife left him

He didn't care

Only the stories mattered

Then, one day,

He ran out of ink

"No time to get supplies,"

He thought,

And reached for his Xacto knife

The found him two weeks later

Drained and dry

Sad and alone

But surrounded

By the best work of his career

It never saw print.

(One of a series of "Bad Endings" poems I have written over the years. This was originally published in January 2006 in BARE BONE 8, Raw Dog Screaming Press. Copyright 2006, 2016 John R. Platt) 

First sketchbook of 2016

I keep a tiny little sketchbook by my desk. Every day I try to fill up a page. These aren't intended to be finished drawings, but they sure are fun, and a nice break from the type type type that normally takes place at my desk.

Anyway, I just finished the latest sketchbook. Here are some of my favorite pages.

Hopefully I'll get back to completing some fully inked drawings at some point this year!

2015: My Year in Books

Good lord, I read a lot of books in 2015.

How many? Try 123. That's the highest number that I've read in years and a full 23 books more than I read in 2014. Wow.

Of course, the majority of this year's books (once again) were graphic novels. There are a few pretty good reasons for that. First off is the incredible Portland library system: they stock so many graphic novels that I have wanted to read for a long time -- along with quite a few books that I never even knew existed. Second, I spend most of my days reading and writing articles, so turning to a visual medium is a nice change of pace for my evenings. Finally, even though I read a lot, my reading schedule is a bit unpredictable. I'd rather get in and out of a book (or comic, or article, or poem, or short story, or whatever) when I know I can finish it than start a book and not know when I'm going to be able to pick it up again.

Looking back, I'm actually a bit disappointed in this number. I wanted to read even more books this year -- especially novels -- but that wasn't in the cards. Too much work, too much stress, too many responsibilities.... but oh well, I still knocked quite a few volumes off the "to be read" pile.

Even though I didn't get to every book that I wanted to, I managed to read some amazing books this year. Here are a few of the standouts:

Best Fiction Book: North American Lake Monsters, a stunning short-story collection by Nathan Ballingrud

Best Non-Fiction Book: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, a wonderful memoir/history book/cultural study by Jennifer 8. Lee

Best Graphic Novel: The Sculptor, Scott McCloud's amazing opus is a work of rare genius (runner-up: March: Book Two, an important piece of first-person history by John Lewis and his artistic collaborators)

Best Art Book: Nextinction by Ralph Steadman and Ceri Levy, a true feast for the eyes and a blow to the soul

Well, that's that. On to 2016. I have a few days off from work (a rarity, let me tell you), so maybe I'll get a head-start on this year's list. I have a few shelves of unread books staring at me from the bookshelf next to my computer, so I have plenty of options to choose from.

As for you, here's to a year of great books, no matter how many you read!

New blogs: Bicentennial Comics!

Oh man, I get obsessed sometimes.

Remember a few months ago when I posted my initial research into comic books published around the time of the Bicentennial?

Well, that post proved popular enough -- and it inspired enough thought from me -- that it has now spun off into its own blog.

Appropriately enough, I'm calling it Bicentennial Comics.

Each week I'll take a look at a different comic book related (in one way or another) to the Bicentennial. The first few posts are already up and I'll be posting new ones every week or so. My list of Bicentennial-themed comics has already almost doubled in size, and I've started looking into comic strips as well, so this could go on for quite a while.

Give it a look-see. I'm not only about wildlife, after all.

Bicentennial Comics [Updated!]

Every once in a while I like to look forward by looking back.

I was seven years old in July 1976, when the entire country colorfully celebrated the American Bicentennial. I remember school art projects, fireworks, parties, parades, all kinds of pins and other mementos, TV specials, and magazine covers.

Oh yeah, and comic books.

I honestly can't recall ever reading a Captain America comic book before Jack Kirby's Captain America's Bicentennial Battles, but that massive ("treasury"-sized) book quickly burned its way into my brain. I became a life-long fan of Steve Rogers, Jack Kirby, and, of course, history.

I still have my battered copy of Bicentennial Battles. I re-read it every few years. Of course in many ways it doesn't hold up, but in others it remains a high point of comics from that era.

But Bicentennial Battles is very lonely in my collection. Even though I fondly remember two other Bicentennial-themed comics from that year, they have long since left my possession. I want them back, and I want the rest.

Over the past few years, I have trimmed and slashed my comic-book collection over and over again. Now it's time to build it back up again, only in a more focused way. I'm going to pick a few kinds of comics that I want to collect and slowly seek them out.

Bicentennial comics shall come first.

It shouldn't be too hard. I've done some research. From what I can tell, there weren't all that many Bicentennial comics. Some of their connections to 1776/1976 were pretty tenuous. Quite a few were kids' comics. But I'm still going to try to track them down.

Here are the covers for most of the titles that I have identified so far. Some of them should be easy to find. Others may take a while. No worries, I'm not in a rush. I'll just try to finish my collection before the tricentennial.

This Adventure Comics issue is only Bicentennial-themed on its cover, but I still like it. (Similarly, almost every DC Comics title for July 1976 featured a cover banner proclaiming "DC Celebrates the Bicentennial!" As far as I'm concerned, those don't count as Bicentennial comics.)

The first of several underground comix on this list.

This was the only Batman comic to show it on the cover, but all of the above issues had Bicentennial-themed stories.

Not exactly patriotic, but I think my collection would be lacking if I didn't include this.

A restaurant freebie? I'm not sure if this will be worth tracking down, but I'll give it a shot.

This was actually the final issue in a 10-part storyline, starting in issue 193, all building up to the Bicentennial. Collect 'em all!

Okay, this one is a stretch. The only Bicentennial theme is a pun in the story title. But as a product of the time, it counts.

I don't think this issue contains any Bicentennial content aside from the cover, but apparently issue 15 does.

Who knew Dennis the Menace was so patriotic?

I had this one as a kid. Vague memories of it are what sent me down this trail.

Neither of these Jughead issues show any Spirit of 76 on the covers, but they each apparently contain Bicentennial-themed stories.

Another restaurant freebie.

Okay, so it's a calendar, not a comic book. Close enough.

A book, but it's about comics, so it counts. 

I don't think the date on this one is quite correct, but the story is set in 1776.

You can't tell from the cover art, but the text tells us there's a Bicentennial story inside.

Another restaurant freebie. Hmm.

Shazam issue 25 also seems to have had a Bicentennial story.

I had this one, too. Hmm. Maybe giant-sized "treasuries" should be the next category that I collect!

Probably more in the comic strip column than comic books, but I'm intrigued.

Did I miss any? Let me know. I'll add 'em to the list! (Update: I've already added a few -- thanks to everyone's contributions!)