Crime

Last night I attended a very entertaining Writersbloc event featuring the hot new Scandinavian Crime writer, Jo Nesbø, interviewed by the incomparable James Ellroy. Nesbø has been something like the literary flavor of the month around my house, thanks to my in-laws, who have hooked my wife on Nesbø's crime novels, and my son on his little-known children's books. Actually, I have not read Nesbø's work yet, but his novel Redbreast is officially on my massive "To Read" pile, and the description of his work sounds right up my alley.


Furthermore, this article from CNN last Sunday lists some of Nesbø's influences as Jim Thompson, Knut Hamsun, Henrik Ibsen, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski, and Frank Miller. Sounds good to me!

Of course, I'm a huge James Ellroy fan, so this event was something of a surprising treat for me (for some reason, I didn't realize that Ellroy was part of the program). As a public speaker, Ellroy is larger than life; his speech is deliberate, eloquent, unapologetic, and peppered with "colorful" expletives (they don't call him "Demon Dog" for nothing!). He asked Nesbø about 8 (excellent) questions about his background, writing process, the recent spotlight on Scandinavian Crime Fiction, and the genre in general. Both men were impressive in their thoughtfulness and candor.


Nesbø did not approach writing as a serious pursuit until he was 38, after successful careers as a musician, stock broker and economist. But his family life was always rooted in storytelling, and understands that there is something intrinsically human about the act; storytelling is in our blood.

Some highlights:

Ellroy proclaimed that the entire genre of crime fiction is complete bullshit, and nothing like any of the typical investigations we read about has EVER happened in real life. Yet, it's an agreement between the writer & reader. We're all in on it; everyone knows it's bullshit--but it's OUR bullshit. And we love it, with all the trappings.

He also disparaged all other types of fiction, saying that crime fiction is "The Real Shit."

Love that.

Nesbø admitted he was not an expert at any of the many disciplines that he evidently writes so eloquently about, but writes how he believes things could or should be, in those worlds. Afterwards, he turns to experts in those fields tell him if he's way off. Imagination is more important than accuracy.

He said that his writing is a "reaction to reading," humbly stating that he stands on the shoulders of tradition. That is, all he has read, by many masters of this and other genres.

"The punch line is NOT the story."

Regarding research, and extrapolating from it: "You lie better if you know you are lying."

All in all, a very entertaining, lively and enlightening conversation between two master storytellers. I'm looking forward to getting sucked in to Jo Nesbø's stories, and Ellroy's new memoir, The Hilliker Curse. His earlier autobiographical work, My Dark Places is among the very best books I've ever read.

New York Times

This weekend the New York Times published a review of Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography, by Douglas Wolk (the review is by Wolk, the book was written by Andrew Helfer, with art by Joe Staton and myself).

I usually don't respond to reviews, because there really isn't much point, but in this case I have something to say. I don't actually disagree with anything Wolk writes. In fact, he hardly writes anything in regards to the quality of the book. However, he makes a distinction between how Reagan's story is told in the text versus how he is portrayed in the art, and that is worth commenting on.

Here's a quote:

"If you were to read only Andrew Helfer’s text for Ronald Reagan... it would seem to be a straightforward chronological trot through Reagan’s life story...Most of the book’s spin, though, is actually in its artwork, by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton. After an opening montage of notable moments from Reagan’s public life...(the book) becomes a catalog of the sorts of visual rhetoric cartoonists can pull off: nearly every panel incorporates some kind of broad caricature or symbolic distortion, usually at Reagan’s expense."

He then gives a few specific examples where the text of the story is "factual," and the accompanying art is biased or distorted. Wolk may not be wrong, but he seems to lay the responsibility for the images entirely with the artists--as though we came up with the images on our own! Where does he think they came from, if not from a script written by the same person who wrote the dialogue? Isn't that obvious?

One of the many strengths of the comic book art form that the words and pictures combine to create something different than the separate parts. A well-written comic does not simply state in the text what the reader can already see in the art. Comics are a visual medium. The comic book writer uses the art to show the reader as much as possible, while using the text to provide information that can't be shown in an interesting way.

In the case of this "Graphic Biography," it was a real challenge for Andy to cram in as much information as possible about Reagan's long life without covering up all of the art with narrative captions. It was a difficult editing process and the result is the sparse, "factual" text that Wolk writes about. Probably more than half of Andy's original script ended up being distilled for space. However, the story Andy wanted to tell is right there in the art. If there are political biases (there are), broad satire (you bet), and "images that pass judgement" evident in the book, they were almost all in the original script and from the writer's point of view.

In case you don't know, a comic book script is a lot like a screenplay; writers provide descriptions of what they want the artists to draw in each panel, as well as penning the dialogue and narration. While the process is a collaboration, unless the artist flatly ignores the writing on the page, the story is the work of the writer. I understand that most people may not know how comics are created, but I'm just a little disappointed that the author of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean doesn't seem to understand the process a little better.

In any case, it's nice to be mentioned in the New York Times, and it's always good to see comics get more attention in the media!