26 February 2008

The Glorious Pulps

Best of the Spirit
Will Eisner

This entry will be brief, because at the moment I'm rather busy writing a paper, but since it's been a week I figured I should check in.

This week in class we are reading Best of the Spirit, a collection of particularly remarkable stories from Will Eisner's rather remarkable comic. Reading them through the first time, I found them enjoyable, if not terribly surprising. Reading them through again, I found them interesting and well-written. And of course I have a weakness for this sort of thing.

I will make a confession. I love me some pulp fiction.

Now, my pulp fiction interests mainly run to sci-fi, but I like The Spirit because of my deep and abiding love of crime fiction a la Raymond Chandler and film noir. The Spirit and the police are nearly as cynical as Philip Marlowe, but they seem cheerier about it; that they take it for granted that eighteen-year-olds might take to crime is sad, but they run with it. Nothing they can do about it, hey?

I think I'd like to read some more of the Raymond Chandler novels lying around my house and compare them to the Spirit. It'd be fun. But for now I've got a paper to write.

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