The Incredible Falc's meme now swunked

[fpb]

(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie:
2. a book:
3. a musical artist, song, or album:

(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want.

(C) Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Methinks I scarred you for life with that exchange about Philip Pullman. I really am sorry. I still think he is a bastard and writes like one, but, as we say in Italy, "Time is a gentleman" and has a way of letting dross die out and get masterpieces to live for ever. We'll leave it to its judgement.

Not only do I love comics, I am a writer-artist myself, and was involved in comics fandom and publishing for about twenty years. I met Neil Gaiman before he got into prose writing. He may not remember me, but he might remember one or two of my reviews, especially the one for SPAWN #9, which he wrote, and which I graded, I believe, 2 out of 10. Even though he is a brilliant writer, I do not change my mind about that particular performance, and (though it is hard to get any such admission from him) I am willing to bet he wishes he had never written it.

Your numbered questions:

1) I started hearing stories about this young woman who had written this great children's book in the back of coffee shops while unemployed, and I was curious, so when I was able to buy the first three books on an offer I did. Needless to say, I did not regret it. I started writing HP stories as a more-or-less conscious outlet for my writing energies, once I had made up my mind to get out of comics. (That was because I had realized that I would never get anywhere unless I started publishing my own, I did not have the capital, and someone who promised me £5,000 failed to deliver after I had got half a dozen other artists involved and written an intricate five-part graphic novel... not only painfully disappointing to me, but shameful to have to explain to all the good people who had offered their help, who included some major talents.)

2) I do not know whether I would calle them hobbies, but I am a research historian, a poet in English, and, as I said, a comic-book writer-artist.

3) Lots. Let's see... In my research field, Georges Dumezil and Alf Hiltebeitel. Much of the Bible. The Iliad, the Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid. Aeschylus' Oresteia in Robert Fagles' unsurpassable translation. Sappho of Lesbos. Herodotus. Some Plato. Horace. Juvenal. Martial. Kalidasa's SAKUNTALA RECOGNIZED. Rabindranath Tagore (in his own English translations). Gildas. The Mabinogion. All the more famous Irish myths. A lot of Arthurian legend, especially Geoffrey of Monmouth, PERSLEVAUS, and parts of the Vulgate cycle. Dante. A lot of Shakespeare, begining with HAMLET (on the other hand, some Shakespeare I have not read yet - pleasure to look forward to). Cesare Beccaria. Goethe, especially his FAUST. Thomas Mann. Gilbert K. Chesterton (whom Gaiman also admires, oddly enough). Milton. A lot of English poetry, beginning with Keats, whom I regard as the third giant of English writing after Shakespeare and Dickens and ahead of Milton. The comics of Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Charles M. Schulz, sixties Marvel in general, Hayao Miyazaki (yes, the movie director - he is even greater as a comics artist), Yukinobu Hoshino, Hugo Pratt, Dino Battaglia, Benito Iacovitti, Goscinny & Uderzo, Carl Barks, Sergio Toppi, George Herriman, E.C.Segar, Floyd Gottfredson and Winsor McCay. Agatha Christie. Classic crime fiction in general, especially the British country house tradition.

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

Wow. See why I was worried about reccing you books? (And it's not because I'm afraid you'll flame me - you've turned out to be much less flammable than I thought.) If I ever get through half the stuff on that list, I'll be proud of myself. (It's even harder now that I'm out of school and no one's forcing me to read classics.)

Is any of your art up on the web? Can I see it? I'm curious. I can't offer my opinion on SPAWN, but you didn't say whether you've read The Sandman. I'm very fond of it. I don't like all of Gaiman's stuff, though I do think he's a great writer. Then again, I also think Pullman is a great writer. :)

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

And by the way, if you really are going to follow up any of those recs, the one I'm strongest on is The Whitlams. A band which really doesn't get the recognition they deserve even here in Australia. I raved about them a couple of posts ago - it never ceases to amaze me how much talent can be found in a tiny hole of a pub, while the radio spurts mediocrity.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed. I'll see if I can find anything of them here in Europe.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Something is going on. Yesterday I found Lantana, the movie, on a discount, in the local WHSmith's (books and stationery store); today I got a record of Rufus Wainwright songs from Jennilee (who, whatever she may think, is one of the ten sweetest people on the face of the planet, and thank you so much). Wanna bet that tomorrow I'll just stumble over a Whitlams record somewhere?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

By the way, don't feel too bad about your limited reading. You are 20, I am 42. I had a bit more time. Besides, you can do one thing I envy you enormously - read the Russian classics in the original.