Akron Beacon Journal Reviews Fred Tribuzzo’s Pulse of the Goddess
By Liberty Island Links & Excerpts
Barbara McIntyre writes, “‘The world’s temporarily over,’ says Cricket Hastings, the main character in Ravenna author Fred Tribuzzo’s American Blackout series. In the first book, ‘Pulse of the Goddess,’ there has been a solar storm followed by a nuclear explosion over Kansas, and an electromagnetic pulse has wiped out all modern technology.”
Making Gotham Great Again, Part 2: Law and Order
Considering Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns as a Mirror to Today’s Politics
By Shant Eghian
In an interview with Comic Book Confidential in 1988, Frank Miller remarked that 1980s America was a “very frightening, silly place… it’s often silly and frightening at the same time and [he] hope[d] [The Dark Knight Returns] is silly and frightening at the same time.”
Editor’s Note: Click here for Part 1 of this ongoing series. Warning: spoilers in this and the previous installment.
You do not have to read very far in The Dark Knight Returns to realize that Miller can indeed illicit horror and laughs on the same page, if not in the same panel. Miller’s genius at combining these two seemingly contradictory responses lead to some intriguing commentary on criminality and society’s response to it. And like Miller’s satirical attacks on the media, his observations on modern America’s inability to seriously deal with crime make interesting parallels with the Trump era.
Check Out Daniel J. Flynn on ‘Custer’s Next-to-Last Stand’ at City Journal
By David M. Swindle
Many thanks to Daniel J. Flynn for his kind mention of Liberty Island in his review of the new historical novel Armstrong, by H.W. Crocker, III.
The Harsh Truths of ‘Essex County’
Deconstructing Canadian Culture, Part 3: Graphic Novel Nihilism
By Josh Lieblein
Down the aimless streets of Toronto in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and through the idyllic back country of Letterkenny, lies the way to understanding the way Canadians see themselves, or at least would like to be seen. Both these works are about keeping up a carefully crafted image: the studied apathy and hipsterdom of the big city, and the carefully cultivated simplicity of the country.
But beneath these polished exteriors (that do their best to not appear polished) lies the haunted world of Jeff Lemire’s Essex County. This is the Canada that we don’t talk about, rendered in stark black and white inks.
Check out the New Kirkus Review of Jonah: A Novel of Men and the Sea
Don’t miss Howard Butcher’s thrilling debut novel!
By Liberty Island Links & Excerpts
“Butcher’s measured prose deftly captures the grit and violence of Jonah’s world, both on deck and beneath the waves… the world of offshore oil rigs is indeed a rugged one, and Butcher’s handling of it here will attract readers who might not have had any interest in the milieu before.”
Deplora Boule brings the Savage, Swiftian Satire to the “News”
Narrating the Narrative
By Roy Griffis
On one level, it’s the story of a fairly nice young girl, largely ignored by her mother and estranged from her father, who goes off to college, falls into the clutches of a cult, and proceeds to wreck her life, along with the lives of the few people who really cared for her.
On another level, it’s the bitterly funny story of the way the deeply-deluded and stultifyingly self-important people who should be “reporting” the news take it upon themselves to “make” the news. Or, as the title of the novel suggests, they craft “The Narrative.” Google Dan Rather and “JournoList” for some of the egregious examples that are known to the discerning citizens, to say nothing of the DNC email dump that revealed allegedly objective journalists coordinating and clearing their stories with the campaign of the presumptive next President of the Vagina States of America.
With such a wealth of deserving targets, in less-skilled (or courageous) hands such a novel might be a thunderingly dull polemic –– and Lord knows, there are enough of those around –– but this is both outrageous and wickedly funny. I say again, The Narrative is wickedly funny, teeing up the self-deceptions of the Woke Warriors of Journalism.
