Rob Delaney: No Filler (Reading the Book by the Comic)

I only know of Rob Delaney because of Twitter.  He is one of the funniest people I have come across.  He is able to pack a lot into those 140 characters. He’s a little raunchy on there, so don’t let your kids follow him.

On that site, he has been promoting his book.  Heavily.  I figured, since I like what he does with the short form, I’d read what he has to do with the long form.

He does pretty well, but I have to warn you.  The book is funny.  But that’s not all it is.  It is deep and thoughtful and poignant.  Delaney writes with the best of the comic memoirists of the past couple of years: Oswalt, Silverman, Brand, and Fey.  What makes these people tick, to generalize is often more interesting than the short things that you see that make you laugh.  Their lives have created the angle in which they see the world and explain it to their audience.

This book is more than funny because Delaney opens up his life to the reader.  He is honest about his faults: the bed wetting; the substance abuse; the hooking up with and falling in love with random Dutch women. And through this, he is able to bring light to his humor.

It is, broadly, a narrative about addiction and recovery, but it isn’t heavy-handed or cloying.  Delany’s smart, and funny, and you should read his book.  You might just see some of yourself in it.  Or you might not.  Either way, you will laugh.

Some notes.  It is relatively short, so if you’re like me and you start reading and you can’t put it down, you won’t stay up all night.  Finally, the subtitle is misleading.  I found no references Delaney being a Cabbage, and unfortunately there is no index to verify my misgivings. 

Jeff Smith's "RASL": No Bones About It

RASL means “Romance at the speed of light”.

That’s not shown until the end, so maybe me telling you that now is a spoiler.  If that is true, I apologize.  I don’t think so, because for me, that was just a throw-away line, but Smith uses it as the title of the book.  I’m not sure what to make of RASL the concept, nor RASL the book.

I liked it, but that’s incredibly subjective.  I read the whole thing pretty much in one sitting, so the story pulls you along.

There’s just that thing.

It’s not Bone.

I loved Bone.  I wouldn’t have read this if it were not for the author’s previous work, but had I read it in a universe where Bone did not exist I might be judging it differently.  Fortunately, I don’t live in that universe. I made all my friends read Bone.  I don’t think I’ll do that with RASL.

And that’s a shame for Smith, because that is going to be the point of comparison for this book, until he tops it.  I’m glad that this is so different in a way.  It shows that Smith is a powerful creative artist who can switch genres easily, even if that switch is from fantasy to science fiction.   He’s awesome, he created Bone.  And RASL.

So here’s the bottom line.  Read this book if you like science fiction, with a heavy dose of Tesla thrown in.  There is a good melding of the actual past with the possibilities that we search for in the lab and in our imaginations.  The characters are interesting and the work is nicely self-contained. If you were hoping for Bone II, this is not it.

There’s no rat creatures.  Stupid, stupid, rat creatures. 

On Brian Vaughn's "Saga", so far

A couple of weeks ago, I heard that Neil Gaiman had a new Sandman book out.  I don't fancy myself a comic fan, but I have read a lot of comics for someone that doesn't claim to be a comic fan.

Basically, I'm telling you this because I didn't go into the store with the intention of buying this book.  The Gaiman book was sold out, and I left my first visit to a comic store in maybe ever empty-handed.  I was walking away, trying to think if there was a place to buy the newest Harvard Business Review and lamenting that the local chain book shop closed two years ago.  Needing something to read while I ate lunch, I went back to the shop.

Talking to the comic book guy, I asked him for a recommendation of a book to read, specifying that I wasn't into superheroes.  There was a display up front, where some issues were being sold for a dollar. The first issue of this Saga was what he grabbed, telling me that this is a book enjoyed even by people who don't read comics.

I saw the name Brian Vaughn on the cover and I asked the guy what else he had done.  I knew the name from somewhere.  It turned out that he was the guy behind Y: The Last Man.  Because even though I don't read comics, I had read the whole run of that particular series.

So I bought that issue.  Then I got the collected volume one and two from my library, and read through them.

I like the series so far.  It is star-crossed lovers, in space with magic.  The problem is that I don't really know where it's going.  The main characters are objectors who come from races that have been at war a long time, and it is narrated by their daughter who is born in the first issue.  It is a nice set-up, but there is so much that can go wrong that I am wary of too soon proclaiming this genius.  I'll hedge, and say it is pretty good, so far.