December 2023 Books …

Eight books this month, not a record, but a big month for me. I made it to my GoodReads goal of 75 books in 2023, surpassing it by six for a total of 81, so I guess 2024’s goal will have to be 85!

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Calico by Lee Goldberg
I started reading Lee Goldberg’s books—well, some of them, anyway; he’s a very prolific writer—with the first Eve Ronin novel, Lost Hills, back in 2020 (Ronin is an Los Angeles County sheriff and she’s a bit … well, difficult, but nonetheless fascinating.) I’ve since read all four of the Ronin books (the fifth, Dream Time, debuts this month), and I’ve enjoyed them all. This past summer I read—and really enjoyed—the first novel in his new series, Malibu Burning, featuring LA County fire investigators Shape and Walker, so to say I’ve boarded the Goldberg bandwagon is kind of an understatement. But I wasn’t prepared for Calico.

The blurb from fellow author Harlan Coben on the cover says, “ A genre-bending, gripping read!” and boy, is he right. I don’t know what I expected from this latest Goldberg book, but it certainly wasn’t what I got. I had a hard time getting into it in the beginning, because of it’s “genre-bending” aspect. Once again, Goldberg creates a compelling, fascinating female cop character in Beth McDade, living a kind of purgatory in the California desert after being kicked off the LAPD. She is drawn into a case involving an accidental death: an old man is hit and killed by an RV driver. Sounds simple enough, but the old man’s autopsy reveals that he isn’t your typical old man. Meanwhile, food vlogger Owen Slader suddenly disappears off the face of the Earth during his drive back to L.A. from Las Vegas. Calico’s storyline splits in two with the introduction of Slader and takes place in two separate, but related, time periods. To say anything else would be to ruin the book, which is very surprising and very good. It grew on me more and more, especially into the final third of it, when Beth McDade has to put together all the pieces. And there’s room for a sequel … let’s hope there is one!

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Charlie Chaplin vs. America: When Art, Sex, and Politics Collided by Scott Eyman
I’ve read several of Scott Eyman’s movie books and enjoyed all of them. He certainly is prolific and this latest one, featuring Charlie Chaplin and his exile from America is one of his best. I am not a huge Chaplin fan; I find the man much more fascinating than his movies, which I feel are dated and maudlin (at least at times). I much prefer Buster Keaton (who has his own massive backstory) when it comes to silent film comedians). Eyman’s book is more of a biography that centers on the 1950s moment that Chaplin left the US to promote his film, Limelight, overseas and was denied re-entry. He had lived and worked in America for 40 years, but never became a citizen and that—especially in the 1950s—rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. A conspiracy (of dunces, one might say) locked him out of the country, essentially calling him a Communist (he wasn’t) and a pederast (he did have a thing for teenage girls; he married the love of his life, Oona, when he was 52 and she was 18, and he had dalliances with other young women, one of which—Joan Berry—resulted in a couple of headline-grabbing court cases). Certain Americans—official (J. Edgar Hoover) and not (the sob sister gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, a self-appointed guardian of Hollywood society)—viewed him as a menace to the American way of life and conspired to keep him out of the country. Eyman’s tale is one that has deep resonance in today’s polarized political America. You can argue that Chaplin was the greatest casualty of the Red Scare in Hollywood and the nation in the 1950s, even though he’s seldom mentioned in that particular context. He was certainly one of the earliest and most famous examples of cancel culture. Chaplin eventually had a triumphant return in 1972 to accept an honorary Academy Award (for which he received the ceremony’s longest standing ovation), but he lived the rest of his days—from around 1952 through his death in 1977—in Switzerland with his beloved wife, Oona and their eight (!) children.

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The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson
This short novella is the third book by Peter Swanson that I read this year. I had really enjoyed his two Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner novels, The Kind Worth Killing and The Kind Worth Saving, and I had heard a lot of good things about The Christmas Guest, so I gave it a whirl. I can’t say much about it without posting SPOILER ALERT!!! all over the place, but suffice it to say it begins with a woman cleaning out her closet and stumbling across a diary from 30 years earlier … and therein lies our tale. It’s an enjoyable, very quick read that twists and turns surprisingly between the first half and the second. But the holiday season is gone, and anything with the word “Christmas” in it seems out of sync with the world … so maybe put it on your TBR list for next Christmas (even though it’s not really about Christmas).

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The Super Hero’s Journey by Patrick McDonnell
This is the second in a series of MarvelArts original graphic novels produced by Abrams in conjunction with Marvel. The first was Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross (who continues to be a consultant on this line of books). This time it’s syndicated comic strip artist Patrick McDonnell, the creator of the much-loved daily and Sunday strip, Mutts, revealing his love for Marvel Comics of the 1960s, the era in which he and his brothers grew up. This book hits me hard, for I, too, grew up in that era and find it to be the best time for comic book reading. McDonnell’s tale incorporates art from the original Marvel comics, including by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, and Don Heck, in an all new, heart-warming story that has Mr. Fantastic trying to fend off Doctor Doom’s negativity ray, which has blanketed the world (something we can all relate to these days), and the looming threat of a once-again hungry Galactus heading towards Earth. His art is very much in the style of Mutts, but more importantly like his own childhood drawings of the comics characters he loved (make sure you take off the dust jacket on this book to see a wonderful representation of that art). This story is as much philosophical as it is nostalgic, and it’s an incredible mash-up that salutes the original comics, characters, and creators, while telling it’s own uplifting story.

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Danger Street Vol. 1 by Tom King and Jorge Fornés
I had placed myself on a Tom King exile after the debacle known as the Batman/Catwoman wedding. I’m sure no one at DC Comics had any inclination of letting those two characters actually get married, so it’s probably not King’s fault that the whole storyline seemed like a gigantic bait-and-switch. But in addition to that, I pretty much hated his previous collaboration with artist Jorge Fornés, Rorschach, which was a six-issue mini-series stretched out to 12, and Strange Adventures (with art by Evan Shaner and Mitch Gerads), which was … well, ditto.

But I was fascinated by the premise of Danger Street, so I picked up a copy of volume 1 (luckily at a half-off sale), which collects the first six issues of—again—yet another 12-issue mini-series (or is that a maxi-series?). That premise is to take all the characters that appeared in DC’s 1970s-era tryout series, 1st Issue Special, and combine them into one story. That includes Jack Kirby’s final work for DC—Atlas, Manhunter, and the Dingbats of Danger Street (hence the title)—Joe Simon’s Green Team, Lady Cop, the “blue” version of Starman, Mike Grell’s Warlord (the only real hit from this series), an early version of The Outsiders, Doctor Fate (made memorable by the early art of Walter Simonson), the Creeper, and a continuation of Kirby’s New Gods, sans Kirby. None of those books were great. And the conceit of combining all of these characters into one story—no matter how brilliant that story is—relies on someone, ANYONE, remembering this all-but-forgotten title from almost 50 years ago. But hey … that’s comics today. At least comics from the Big Two. 50-year old continuity is king.

Having said all that, I did enjoy this first volume and will definitely pick up the concluding second volume when it comes out. King tells the story in an entertaining fable-like fashion, with princes and princesses, knights and ogres, monsters and gods. Essentially it’s the tale of Warlord and blue Starman trying to get into the Justice League. They fail miserably and cause the death of one young character. I admit, I have not read any of the 1st Issue Special books since they first appeared, so I kind of—at times—got my Green Team mixed up with my Dingbats, but a cooler head persevered and an enjoyable tale ensued. So, Tom … you’re okay again in my book. For now.

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The Human Target, Volume 1, by Tom King and Greg Smallwood
Since I enjoyed Danger Street so much, I thought I’d give Tom King’s other 2022/2023 mini-series a tumble. Like DS, it deals with a lesser, almost forgotten DC hero, Christopher Chance, The Human Target. Chance is a master of disguise who will assume your identity to protect you from a threat on your life; in this case, he becomes Lex Luthor, but unfortunately he gets poisoned (by coffee meant for Luthor) and has 12 days to live. He sets out to find his killer, which brings him into contact with members of the super-group once known as Justice League International: Blue Beetle, Fire, Ice, Guy Gardner, etc. I’ve only read the first six issues of this (Volume 1), so it may perk up a bit, but again, it already seems to me that it would be better as a shorter, one-volume book. Still it won two big Eisner Awards: Best Limited Series for 2022, and Best Penciller/Inker for Greg Smallwood, and that latter one is definitely well-deserved. Smallwood illustrates a series with art that’s rarely seen in serial comics, one that’s evocative of 1950s magazine and advertising illustration. His use of color and shadow are extraordinary. King’s story would be better suited (for me at least) as a week-long (seven-issue) mystery, but hey … I could look at Smallwood’s art all day. I look forward to what he does next.

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Hulk: Gray by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
This is the third in Loeb and Sales series of Marvel “Color” books, which includes Daredevil: Yellow, and Spider-Man: Blue. Unfortunately it’s not as good as the other two (the Spidey one is the best, with Sale’s quirky artwork coming close to both Steve Ditko and John Romita’s style, especially the latter with his versions of Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson). All three of these books take place in the beginning of the Marvel Age of Comics and try their best to ape that era’s style and events. They’re also all about relationships: Matt Murdock and Karen Page, Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, and Bruce Banner and Betty Ross. The Hulk book colors the most outside the lines, introducing another Marvel character to the storyline, one who was not previously there in the classic Marvel tales (but makes sense). This is still an enjoyable (and very quick!) read … all of the Loeb/Sale mini-series, both DC and Marvel are worth a look. All of these books were produced in the early 2000s; a fourth book, Captain America: White, was published almost 15 years later.

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Captain America: White by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale
Loeb and Sale revisited their Marvel “color” series in 2015 with this five-issue mini-series, but it’s not quite up to the level of the previous three volumes (Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray). The relationship story in this book is all about the friendship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. To be honest, this is the weakest volume, with Sale’s art sliding a bit. I believe work on this book was started in 2005, continued in 2008, but it wasn’t actually published—for a variety of reasons—until 2015. Sale leans heavily into gray tones on this book and the art is more cartoony in spots and a bit slapdash. It’s still an enjoyable read, and I regret that we won’t get anymore Loeb/Sale collaborations—either at Marvel or DC, since Sale died in 2022. They were a great team.

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