[Greg has some fun with his reading habits from 21 March 2015, and you can check it out here to read the comments. I don’t read as much prose as comics, but that’s just because comics are easier! Still, I get through about 20-25 prose books a year, which I don’t think is that bad. Apparently, people don’t read long-form stuff as much as they used to. People still read, but it’s quick articles on the internet, which is fine, but still a bit depressing. I love a good 500-page book. I mean, who doesn’t?!?!? Anyway, enjoy!]
This is just another one of those things that arrive in my In Box once in a while. It amuses me to take these earnest market-survey questionnaires about books and reading that I get sent every so often and apply them to comics.
This one is something that showed up at school, clearly aimed at students who are reluctant readers, but I decided to answer it myself anyway, just for the hell of it.
How many books do you read in a year?
A great many. Hundreds. Even limiting it to JUST comics it’s still quite a lot.
Have you ever lied about reading a book?
Hm. Interesting question. No, not even when I was in school. Certainly not with comics, not even things I was sent to review. I have, very occasionally, lied about the degree to which I ENJOYED something, just to spare a creator’s feelings … but never in print. If someone sends me something and I hate it, I usually just don’t review it at all. Using our platform on CBR to beat up on indie creators feels too much like punching down.
Have you ever pretended to be reading?
Ha! There were many times in school, back in the day, when I pretended to be reading slowly. It’s not quite the same thing — I did do the assigned reading — but to save arguments I’d pretend to still be reading something for class I’d finished days ago, to conceal the fact that I had moved on to a comic book instead.
For example, when we were assigned A Separate Peace in high school English, Mrs. Wellons gave us a week. I blew through it in an afternoon and spent the rest of the week’s reading time getting caught up on Marvel events like Power Man’s tenure with the Fantastic Four.
Then there were Iron Fist’s adventures in London, the introduction of the Liberty Legion, Dr. Strange vs. Dracula …
… damn, that was a fun month. Against all that, John Knowles and his prep school mawkishness never had a chance.
When you pick out books of your own what do you like best?
It varies, though I always seem to land on two-fisted adventure. Recently, I’m trying to get caught up on trade collections we’ve acquired over the last few months — between our recent budget troubles and most of my favorite titles getting canceled, the book-buying allowance is down to almost nothing. So most of the recent comics acquisitions are older stuff, remaindered collections we see at Goodwill, stuff like that.
Recently I found a whole bunch of trade paperbacks reprinting the old Gold Key Star Trek books for a dollar each and I have been having a lot of fun with those. They’re not really great comics but they’re nostalgic fun … and some of them are just so odd.
How much time do you spend reading?
Oh, at least an hour a day. Usually before bed. Split pretty evenly between prose and comics. Currently I’m still on kind of a Star Trek binge, and also the Legion from the Levitz-Giffen days.
How much time do you spend on the internet?
Way too much. A couple of hours a day, probably, though to be fair a lot of that is professional — writing, research, and so on. I mean, I’m on the internet right now, while writing this column, getting cover illustrations and so on.
Do you read stories on the internet?
Comics, hardly ever. I do keep up with Dick Tracy. Joe Staton’s been tearing it up over there for a while now.
I approve of a Dick Tracy story where there’s gunfire and mayhem.
Do you use the library?
I live in a library. Running out of books will never, ever be a problem here.
Where do you read?
Used to be on the bus and in bed … now it’s just bed. And audiobooks on the commute.
What was the title of the last entire book that you read?
In comics? The Key Collection volume two. And something so awesomely over-the-top cartoony it SHOULD be a comic, the car’s audiobook was Mack Bolan: Deep Treachery.
Do you read books more than once?
Yes, absolutely. Just revisited a bunch of old Batman favorites from Len Wein, and also the aforementioned Legion collections.
No point in having a home library if you don’t reread stuff.
Did a book disappoint you recently?
Showcase Presents The Unknown Soldier volume two wasn’t as good as volume one but it was still okay.
That’s about as recent as it gets around here the last couple of months.
What would make you read more?
More money for frivolities like comic books, coupled with not having to work for a living. Since I do have to work and we’re currently on a bit of an austerity campaign, I think the leisure reading already has as big a piece of the schedule as it’s going to get.
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So there you go. Feel free to chime in yourself below in the comments, and me, I’ll see you next week.
My work life has stabilized since then, so I have more time for reading, during my lunch hour. I just finished Anthony Beevor’s history of the Battle of Crete, during WW2, and the subsequent resistance fighting, before its liberation, which gets into all kinds of things, like the political forces in Greece and Crete, when the Germans and Italians invaded, British high command treating it like a sideshow, because they were too focused on North Africa, characters like future novelist and satirist Evelyn Waugh, Ian Fleming’s brother Peter, a one-eyed SOE agent who would leave his glass eye behind to tell contacts he was in the hills, and various forms of institutional stupidity, while people suffered and died. Currently reading his history of the Soviet offensive, in 1945, crossing the Vistula River into Poland and East Prussia and on to Berlin, with the violence, horror and retribution. I’m up to the discovery of Auschwitz, with details about how Stalin suppressed the information from the Allies, until May of 1945 and only reported the Russian casualties. Beevor is ex-military and is good about conveying military strategy, but he also focuses greatly on civilian suffering, political maneuvering and all kinds of overlooked details of the fighting in Europe.
Last fiction I read was Kim Newman’s The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, the second book to feature that school. It is set at an English girls boarding school, for young girls with special talents. Some are gifted in their studies, while others have paranormal abilities and will grow up to be adventure heroes and even super-villains. Kind of a mix of English school stories (which greatly predate Harry Potter), the X-Men, The Avengers (John Steed and his colleagues), Doctor Who and other influences. The main character, as an adult, featured in one of his Diogenes Club stories, as the adult costumed adventurer Kentish Glory (a species of moth…she can fly, telekinetically and manipulate objects, mentally). There are also references to other characters in his other stories. Between these, his Diogenes Club stories and his Anno Dracula series, plus his Angels of Musik, he has sort of cornered the market for British weird mystery/adventure. They seriously need to get him to write a Doctor Who script, or let him concoct a modern Avengers series or film (wash away the taste of the last effort).
I read tons of comics, as I have about 4 or 5 review series going, at the Classic Comics Forum, though I have slowed down a bit, of late, with some back issues and the loss of an on-line sight for reading comics, where I pulled images, necessitating pulling them from my own digital files, which is a little more complicated and time consuming. Currently reviewing the entire run of GI JOE, at Marvel (plus the Special Missions spin-off) and various elements pulled from then-current events and the differences with the real military of the period, when I was in training and on active duty. Then, a running review of Dark Horse Presents, one of the ABC line of books, from Alan Moore, which I am about to finish, the Atlas/Seaboard line of comics, from 1975-76, and an occasional look at assorted mini-series, single issues or storylines, from various comics.
Still, I look at the pictures of Greg’s library and lament the loss of the bulk of my accumulated library, before culling the collection to ease a couple of moves. If space and money hadn’t have been an issue, I would be surrounded by similar levels of shelving and stacks of books, going back to childhood. Ah, the curse of being taught to be responsible and make the hard decisions, by my parents and the military.
Beevor knows what he’s talking about, but I don’t love his actual writing style. It’s kind of frustrating to read his books (and I’ve only read two of them), because the information is nice and dense, but they are a bit tough to get through. Maybe he’s gotten better!
I haven’t had any issues like that, myself. I’ve read his overall history of WW2, his Normandy book, the Arnhem one, Crete and the Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge) and now the Berlin one. Have not read the Stalingrad one, though. I find his stuff engaging and fast paced and a better read than someone like Stephen Ambrose.. The only other military history author I felt had a similar engagement was Robert Leckie (Helmet for My Pillow), who was a Marine, and added a grunt’s eye view of history, but also some great general histories (read his WW2 history, Revolutionary War and a couple of others).
I’m also currently re-reading Ben McIntyre’s book about the SAS, Rogue Warriors, which is the basis for the BBC tv series, Rogue Heroes, about the SAS in North Africa, Italy, and Europe. The tv series plays a little loose with things; but, mostly follows the details, as reported by McIntyre, who had access to their War Diary and other records. I originally read it while sitting in the hospital, watching my wife die, so I didn’t exactly absorb all the details, then.
I read his Spanish Civil War book and … one other one (it’s in the garage, so I can’t remember which one it is, but I know I read it!). But, you know, everyone gets different stuff from different authors!
I’ve only read Leckie’s history of the first half of the 19th century and America’s expansion, and I really liked that one!