Wednesday, December 23, 2009

#49 and #50



The ladies who, as children, inspired Dorothy of Oz, Alice of Wonderland, and Wendy of Neverland meet up by chance at a decadent Austrian hotel run by a libertine. Turns out these three one-time muses are rather randy, and as they continue their sexually adventuresome awakenings each tells her story. The stories are recognizable, though I must say I never imagined Captain Hook or the Straw Man or the Jabberwock in quite these scenarios.

Such a book could easily descend to purely tawdry depths and end up on a par with straight-to-DVD pornographic parody (akin to the recent titles "Not the Bradys XXX" or "Nailin' Palin'"), but Moore knows his literature and keeps things refreshingly high-brow. The production of stories, the construction of personae, and the role of sexual fantasy and repression in each is the theme, and the art work and lay-out is clever and titillating by turn. It's a serious book worth re-visiting and re-considering.

That's not to see that an imaginative soul couldn't find fap-worthy material here. I'm just saying...

#50



Kerth Gersen is on a missin to find and kill the five Demon Princes who wrecked his home world. He's dispatched one, and is hot on the trail of another when his plan back-fires and he ends up serving time in an isolated holding-cell for kidnap victims awaiting ransom. Another gorgeously entertaining short sci-fi novel.

[thanks to EC for answering my call for graphic works which are other than doom and gloom]

1 comment:

ec/KP said...

not avoiding doom and gloom, but still freakin' great is Joe Sacco. I started reading him in the 90s, but his best is "Safe Area Gorazde." "The Fixer" is also good. Let me know if you want to borrow!! (Glad you liked Lost Girls. I need to read it again. Maybe an xmas present to myself, ha!)