#also we had the big far side book that had the cartoon and then background/commentary from the writer next to it which was also useful

[normiewizard]

if i am in fact autistic the reason it has flown under the radar and i have been relatively successful at communication is because my mom read me sunday morning cartoons as bedtime stories and i got to hear one million observational jokes and go "why did they say that." "yes i understood your turn of phrase. I vividly remember reading it in the Far Side when i was six because it made no fucking sense. and then my mom looked up the origin for me so now i can go backwards and translate it." or maybe this is totally typical processing. so curious is this world

[ducktracy]

177. dog daze (1937)

release date: september 18th, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: mel blanc (police dog, spitz, russian wolf hounds), billy bletcher (st. bernard), berneice hansell (puppy)

around this time, friz freleng left warner bros. to reconnect with his former co-workers and friends, hugh harman and rudolf ising, over at MGM. he’d serve a relatively short stint as director there, coming back to WB as soon as april 1939. the backlog of friz cartoons would trickle out until early 1938, where he would then be replaced by ben hardaway and cal dalton. friz has seniority at the studio, going as far back as animating for the 1929 pilot bosko, the talk-ink kid. while this isn’t his last cartoon, it remains an intriguing talking point! he’d make his biggest splash upon his return, directing a number of great black and white porky cartoons and making other little-known characters such as yosemite sam and sylvester, to name a select few. let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, now: here, we’re treated to a number of spot-gags involving dogs—including a drunken st. bernard.

patrons stream into a theater advertising the local dog show. it’s not a ‘30′s cartoon without a celebrity caricature of some sort--a lumbering caricature of humorist/author irvin s. cobb moseys along down the street with his identical looking bulldog. he’s followed by william powell and his pooch asta, both featured relatively prominently in speaking of the weather just 2 shorts ago. and, furthering the connection to the aforementioned cartoon, we get another gag implying that the dog took a leak on a nearby pole: powell marches past a spare pole, when suddenly his leash is yanked from behind, leaving the audience to read between the lines.

another gag that is more reminiscent of the early days of animation: your stereotypical “fat lady” gag, underscored by a rather sardonic rendition of “oh, you beautiful doll”. the woman, in an attempt to fit into the seats, ends up shoving the entire row out of the way. not much to add here: fatphobia funny, right? (eyeroll)

cue the dog puns as we get a look at the line-up for the dog show. a bird dog (as in, dogs who hunt birds) is taken to its literal meaning, perched in a cage and whistling like a bird. the next pen over is an irish setter (sitter, get it?) perched on top of a nest. mama crawls out of the nest to reveal a line of eggs. one by one, they all hatch to reveal a trio of energetic, yappy puppies. points for surrealism. 

next up, a disembodied voice cries “RAIN BLOW THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN!”, curtains withdrawing to reveal a police dog donning a mountie uniform, howling (its howls, of course, provided by mel blanc). this is a reference to the ever popular renfrew of the mounted, a ‘30′s book and radio series about a singing mountie--frank tashlin’s porky in the north woods even served as an ode to it. after that features a spitz hound, chewing on a glob of tobacco and lobbing it at a spitoon. amusing at first, this gag quickly wears its welcome as its featured in a number of other cartoons. spitting gags themselves were more along the lines of the earlier ‘30′s cartoons, right at home in the cruder days of the early harman and ising films.

 a st. bernard booze hound is next to be revealed, drunkenly singing a wordless rendition of “how dry i am”. billy bletcher’s deep bellow is a perfect match for such a big dog: the dog, rather pluto-esque as we’ll come to recognize, will return throughout the picture. the animation of it is rather nice--the physics on the floppy jowls are great. after a fit of hiccups, the dog giggles bashfully.

so, to counteract that high of the dog, our next pooch?

oh, sweet hilarity!

time to make room for more puns, this time plastered on the curtain. the curtain advertises groaners such as “come see our itchings -- canine art galleries”, “are you in the dog house? get a new leash on life supply co.”, and so forth. the spotlight takes its sweet time to roam around each pun, allowing it to really sink in. complete with close-ups! i’m watching the newly restored version on hbomax (which looks gorgeous, by the way), and so i don’t know if it’s the fault of the restoration or if the original print had this issue, but the close-ups are a bit blurry, as if they were having some problems with the double-exposure effects. 

with eye-rolling puns out of the way (and i say this as a shameless pun lover), the audience is treated to a variety of k-9 vaudeville acts, starting with a pair of scottie dogs, who perform the highland fling. personally, i like the camel’s version better in porky in egypt. the spacing of the animation isn’t well distributed here--the movement feels too mechanical. 

the scotties are replaced by a pair of russian wolf hounds, who look like sticks when viewed from the front--a common place gag. animation of the hounds doing the hopak fares better than the scotties, and the barks at the end of the musical phrases are at least passably amusing. as the performance wraps up, the ushankas worn by the hounds turn out to be little black dogs curled up in a ball--once more, a tried and true gag that calls back to the days of the harman and ising era. 

just when we think we’ve had enough groaners: the next act, titled “dog eat dog” features a... wait for it! a dog eating a hotdog. at least the ironic commentary by the sarcastic, pitchy, violin rendition of “where oh where has my little dog gone” alerts us to some self-awareness regarding how lame the gag is. thankfully, the next gag at least got a polite chuckle out of me: the act titled “little man you’ve had a busy day” (in reference to the popular song of the same name) showcases a dog panting and flashing a guilty smile, a line of poles in the backgrounds. two piss jokes in one short! that must be a record! 

what could be considered the song portion of the short follows next, a group of prarie dogs singing “my little buckaroo” with alternate, dog-inclusive lyrics (mentioning pedigrees and the like). the drunken st. bernard from before cringes at the act, howling and carrying on. a hand off-screen shoves a muzzle on him to shut him up (don’t tell PETA!), prompting the dog to force it free. 

instead, the dog accidentally ricochets himself into an open trunk (labeled johnson skating act, a reference to background artist johnny johnson, most commonly associated with tex avery). and, as to be expected, the dog emerges from the trunk slipping and sliding on a pair of roller skates. the animation of the dog on the roller skates is certainly the high point of the short--even the dog’s emergence just slides like butter. definitely worthy of a frame-by-frame watch. 

the prarie dogs finish up the remainder of their song (once more bitten by the double-exposure bug, still wondering if that’s the restoration or the original print?), just in time to allow a shanghaied skating pup to slide across the stage. more great animation of the dog struggling on his skates as he slides into the other wing, his struggle animated on ones (you’ll also note the sign in the background advertising a gross of anvils). he eventually topples over, the barrel on his chest keeping him going until he crashes into a wall. the few smear frames leads me to believe that this is ken harris at work, though i’m far from confident on that claim.

even more great animation as the dog, pluto-esque in his struggle and frustration, struggles to get back onto his feet, his drunken hiccups sending him falling each time. i love when he resorts to grabbing his ass by his teeth to lift himself up, giving a self-satisfied grin at the camera before falling right back down again. frustrated, the dog grovels in his humility, a welcome burst of comedic timing as he shoves the lower half of his body down in frustration, free to mope and ponder in peace. 

next up serves as a rather deliberate callback to one of friz’s most monumental pictures (in notoriety, not quite in quality)--his 1935 entry i haven’t got a hat, that most famously marks the debut of everyone’s (okay, MY) favorite porcine. a shy little puppy timidly pokes her head out from a cardboard standee, clearly in no rush to get out on stage. ken harris’ animation of her resisting the push of the disembodied arm is full of character: her facial expression creased with worry is relatively scribner-esque, another bonus. 

finally, she’s thrown out on stage... facing the wrong way. a whistle summons her to turn around, where she recites “mary had a little lamb”, her squeaky vocals provided by none other than berneice hansell. she starts off... and, in an avery-esque break of character, growls to stage left “awww... this is SILLY!” a book is thrown at her in response. 

in the midst of the puppy’s recital (which is cleverly underscored by “puppchen”), the drunken dog from before still engages in his battle to get up. once more, the animation is more than a treat to look at: the dog, fueled with fury, scrambles to his feet with a running start. the animation glides as effortlessly as the dog, but something off-screen catches his attention: a trunk containing a flea circus.

as you can surely guess, dog crashes, and the fleas miraculously fly (suspension of disbelief!) out of the trunk, ready to cause trouble. in another ode to i haven’t got a hat, where porky was the one mixing up two poems in a recital, the reciting puppy mixes up her nursery rhymes (”mary had a little lamb, the mouse ran up the clock. and anywhere the lamb would go, hickory dickory dock!”) while watching a flea buzz dangerously close to her vicinity, eyes rotating 360 degrees and all.

inevitably, the flea strikes, and the puppy gives a strained remainder of her recital, itching all the way. the main ode to i haven’t got a hat stems here--the puppy’s voice grows exceedingly higher in pitch, the animation of her pacing from side-to-side and eventually off stage directly reused fom the short. it should be noted that, in the original scene, another hansell-voiced animal (little kitty) was giving the same recital of mary had a little lamb. this scene has the benefit of better animation and a little bit more humor, but it’s an interesting callback to such an important cartoon.

fade out and back in to the remainder of the fleas, who are having a hell of a time sopping up the spilled alcohol from the st. bernard’s barrel. one flea fishes in the liquor, another swimming, one more even licking it up straight from the source. the short comes to an end on a quartet of drunken fleas, singing a shrill, obnoxious, hiccup-ridden rendition of “how dry i am”. iris out.

i will admit that, as i reviewed this, the cartoon slowly warmed up to me. i wasn’t at all charmed by the first half: the puns are rather lame, the timing is bloated and slow, and it lacks direction, even for a spot-gag cartoon. it feels overwhelmingly half-hearted: when a director or its crew lacks enthusiasm, that absence is certainly felt. yet, the second half of the short definitely thawed my otherwise cold review. the animation of the st. bernard on roller skates is some absolutely gorgeous stuff. it’s very smooth, very funny, and very tactile. moreover, the puppy’s recital of “mary had a little lamb” was very fun and amusing--berneice hansell never fails to win me over with her vocals. with that said, however, i wouldn’t really recommend this cartoon: there are too many other good friz cartoons to check out. it lacks enthusiasm and conviction, and feels more like a relic of the past, from the prevalence of billy bletcher and berneice hansell (who dominated the pre-blanc cartoons) to the harman and ising-esque gags to the deliberate callbacks to i haven’t got a hat. mainly, i would persuade you to check out the second half for the animation of the roller-skating dog, and maybe add the recital sequence as an extra incentive. but, for now, this is a largely unremarkable cartoon that you can skip without feeling too slighted.

yet, with that said: the short is available on hbomax if you have it, where i got the screenshots from! if not, you can check out a lower-quality version here. better than nothing! 

[metalandmagi]

April Media Madness!

Hello, and welcome to what is most likely the last list of all the media I consumed this month! Because it’s been a whole year since I started doing this, and I’m starting to repeat myself a lot. But it’s been interesting, and I hope maybe someone found something to watch or read or whatever along the way.

And this doesn’t include all the new seasonal anime I started watching...because otherwise this would be 10 pages long.

March Media

Movies!

Avengers Endgame: *No Spoilers* The final act in this stage of the Avengers as we know it is finally here. And man they stuck the landing. I have so many emotions. Of course there are things I have issues with, but I really don’t care that much. I’m just trying not to cry like a baby just thinking about it. 100000/10

Aquaman: It’s Aquaman guys. It’s a bunch of fish, people, and fish people going to war in a brightly colored mess of explosions and underwater politics. This movie is ridiculous, but I like it a lot. Sometimes you just need a movie where people ride giant seahorses and an octopus plays the drums. Who cares about plot holes? Jason Mamoa just lifted up a submarine! 8/10

The Princess Bride: You all know The Princess Bride. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it after season 2 of The Tick so...8/10

Loving Vincent: An animated feature telling the story of a man trying to deliver a letter written by Vincent Van Gogh right before his death.  Oh yeah, and every frame is hand painted! It has the basic feel of an old timey detective story because the plot is literally a guy going around talking to people who knew Vincent who all have different accounts of his personality and the events leading up to his suicide. It starts out a little slow, but I ended up getting into it. The overall moral is that you never really know anyone; we are survived by what others think about us. Even if you have no interest in the story, if you love animation or any visually creative movies, this is a must watch. Every frame of this movie is a literal work of art, and it doesn’t get nearly the recognition it deserves. 8/10

Books!

Reign the Earth by A.C. Gaughen: The teenage daughter of a desert clan becomes a queen when she is forced to marry the king of a rival country to bring peace to the land. News flash, the king is an asshole, and no one brings peace to the land. Also there are elemental powers like in Avatar the Last Airbender. This is a good book, with a solid main character, strong world building, and an intriguing plot. It can be heavy handed in its messages, but they’re messages that need to exist. I’d also give it some major trigger warnings for abuse, torture, and gas-lighting. Our main villain is a very well written abuser because his actions are so accurate to real life, but the last one hundred pages were pretty much just suffer porn. Also the most interesting character in this book gets majorly sidelined, and I need her to have her own book. But if you like culture rich world building, interesting characters, Avatar-like bending powers, and a plot with lots of twists and turns, this is the book for you. 8/10

Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat: Prince Damen, local disaster bisexual and the rightful heir to the throne of his country, is captured in a coup by his brother and is sent to live as a slave to the prince of an enemy country...whose brother Damen just happens to have murdered. It’s basically a 250 page discount version of Game of Thrones where a precious cinnamon roll must navigate a dangerous political landscape without anyone finding out his real identity. This an amazing series, but the first book is so intentionally horrifying that it scares some people off. It is meant to make the reader as uncomfortable as possible in the beginning so we can spend the other two books trying to fix the problems in both countries and watching the main characters have adventures and fall in love. The writing is fine but not quite up to par with the other two books. But hey, it’s a hard R, high stakes political drama with one of the best couples I’ve ever seen, and my number one most hated villain of all time. If you’re into Game of Thrones, you’ll probably love this series too...even if there are no dragons. 9/10

Prince’s Gambit by C.S. Pacat: The second book in the Captive Prince trilogy in which our princes basically perform Mulan’s I’ll Man Out of You while training a bunch of terrible soldiers and riding across the country in the slowest slow burn romance to ever burn slowly. The whole book is our main characters trying to figure out what they are to each other, going on adventures, and playing mind games with their enemies. Personally, I think it has the best plot, the best side adventures, the most tension, and the best representation of going from enemies to reluctant allies to confused friends to lovers ever. This is the book where people who weren’t into the first one go “oh I get the hype” because we’re finally out of the castle and don’t have to be creeped out every five minutes. 10/10

King’s Rising by C.S. Pacat: The final book in the Captive Prince trilogy, where Damen and Laurent must sneak across enemy territory make their final stand and gain back both of their kingdoms. There are a lot of great things about this finale, but pretty much everyone agrees that the big climactic take down moment of the entire series is based around some extremely convenient coincidences and should have had more...build up. Oh well, it gives us a happy ending one way or another so I can’t be too mad. 9/10

The Promised Neverland: Another manga, and technically I didn’t start from the beginning, but I’m counting it anyway. A horror/thriller story focusing on the children of Grace Field House, an orphanage where everyone is a happy family and there are definitely no deep dark secrets about what happens to the children who leave the house...right? It was made into an anime that premiered in January, and it was so good that I picked up the manga where the anime finished because I just couldn’t wait for the next season. And yes, the manga is also awesome. Please read it, or watch the anime. It is my contender for anime of the year, and it’s the most consistently well written mysterious manga I have read in a long time. 10000/10

TV Shows!

The Tick (2016 season 2): The Amazon Prime original series based on the comic wherein an awkward accountant becomes a superhero with the help of a big blue suited man going only by the name “The Tick.” AND I’M SO HAPPY THIS GOT A SECOND SEASON! This season is a lot more about The Tick and Arthur being recognized as actual superheroes and goes through a very...One Punch Man style plot of hero bureaucracy. This is a prime example of how a superhero comic adaption should feel. It takes itself just seriously enough to get by, but it laughs at itself a lot too. I’ve seen the 2001 live action series and a few episodes of the cartoon, but every adaptation is special in its own way, with different side characters and overarching plots. If nothing else, watch it for Dangerboat, the sentient gay AI played by Alan Tudyk who is in love with the main character. It has all the background absurdity of Umbrella Academy with its own quiet commentary on mental illness and government corruption…There is so much material to work with and no one else knows about this show! Now, if only we’d get a live action version of Chairface... 10/10

Kim’s Convenience (season 3): I talked about this show in my November media. It’s the sitcom about a Korean-Canadian family who runs a convenience store, and I love it so much. It’s a bit predictable in its plots, but it has fun, diverse characters, accurate family dynamics, and my favorite thing about it is the fact that it promotes strong male-female friendships with no romantic intentions at all. If you want something light and fluffy, please give it a chance! 9/10

Honorable Mentions

I finally started reading Always and Forever, Lara Jean, the final book in the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy, and it’s adorable. 

Crazy Ex Girlfriend has ended with a perfect finale, and I’m sad. This was hands down the best show on the CW, and it doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves.

Shadowhunters only has one episode left, and now I’m VERY SAD. This show was a mess, but it was our mess. It may be far from perfect, but it included so many important topics that deserve a spot on television. It has evolved so much from season one into the point where each episode is actually emotionally impactful, and I’m going to miss it so much.

[aion-rsa]

With Far Sector, N.K. Jemisin Gets a Turn in the Green Lantern Sandbox

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We talked to author N.K. Jemisin about diving into the world of Green Lantern, her favorite comic books, and why fanfiction matters.

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A three-time Hugo Award winner for her Broken Earth series, N.K. Jemisin is one of the most exciting and celebrated authors working in speculative fiction today. For the first time ever, Jemisin is working in the comic book medium, collaborating with artist Jamal Campbell on a new Green Lantern story that's part of Gerard Way's revived Young Animal imprint for DC.

The new series is called Far Sector, and it follows Sojourner "Jo" Mullen, a member of the Green Lantern Corps who is the sole protector of the City Enduring, a massive metropolis of 20 billion people countless lightyears from Earth.

read more: N.K. Jemisin's Fifth Season TV Series in Development at TNT

The City Enduring has maintained peace for over 500 years by stripping its citizens of of their ability to feel emotion. Therefore, murder and other forms of violent crime are virtually non-existent... until now.

We had the chance to catch up with Jemisin earlier this month at New York Comic Con. Here's what she had to tell us about diving into the world of Green Lantern...

Den of Geek: What your familiarity with Green Lantern before taking on the project?

Jemisin: Almost none. I watched the Justice League cartoon back in the day that had John Stewart as the main Green Lantern. And I mean I knew that Green Lantern was a popular superhero, but beyond that I really didn't understand very much about it. I knew there had been a movie; I didn't see the movie. I rode the Green Lantern ride at Six Flags. That's about all I knew.

That was the limit of it. So when Gerard Way asked me if I would be willing to write the Green Lantern comic, I said, "Look, I need to do some boning up on the lore and the literature," and so the first thing that they did was send me the big Geoff Johns compilations. I don't know if you've seen them, but it's like this big. All hard cover, and the first few years of the original Green Lantern storylines. Not the original, but of some of the most iconic Green Lantern storylines.

And so I was able to read through those. Of course I was able to jump on the various Wikis that exist out there, and then I began to realize that I was drowning in information, because Green Lantern continuity is like any other comic book continuity: there had been retcons, there are contradictions, and I had to try and find ways to resolve that. So, fortunately, with the the Far Sector comic, because it takes place outside of the normal Lantern system, so far away from Earth and all the other Lanterns. In some ways, I was in an isolated space where I can make things happen.

What kind of freedom did you have? Were there things that you did that they were like, "No, actually this contradicts something that already exists in canon," or did you really have pretty much free range to tell your story?

I mean, yeah, I had free range, but I wanted to fit within canon. I mean, there's no value for me in taking these stories so far away from its fanbase.

So the challenge is to make it fit into the continuity, even if it's not directly related. So,at some point, if this character proves popular, if the book proves popular, at some point, she may want to come back and meet the other Guardians ... the other Lanterns. She may move back to Earth, so I need that to be able to work if I do.

I'm curious if your background and presence as a fanfic author helped you in that process of diving into an already-existing narrative universe?

Yeah, effectively, I was writing fanfic—I love it!—except that I wasn't already a fan of this. So I mean it's professional fanfic, but we've seen that out there before. There's a long history of, effectively, fan works insisting within the literary fiction sphere.

Sherlock Holmes story, for example, or the Cthulhu Mythos, all of that is effectively fanfic. The challenge of it is you read the history, you make sure that you've got the canon down pat, and then once you've got that down pat, then you can riff on it.

So that was the idea.

Tell me about working with Jamal Campbell. What did it look like logistically, in terms of your process?

Well, logistically what it means is I gave him a phone call at the beginning of it and I haven't met him in person. So we're doing everything electronically. I write the scripts, we send the scripts to Jamal, Jamal sends us pages.

That's how it's been working, and then we talk back and forth about ... For example, I wanted to convey in this one particular scene that she feels like she's being disrespected. Can we add a little panel where she looks at a thing and gives it a side eye? Something like that.

Cool, and I don't know how much experience you have collaborating in that way while writing a story.

None. This is my first collaboration.

What's that been like?

I'm loving it, I really am. This is the first time, outside of fan art, this is the first time I've ever seen anyone put my stories or characters or anything that I've created to a visual form. I'm used to being able to see it in my head, but I've never had other people try and see it for me.

And he's got a good eye. He's been able to capture what I've been thinking, for the most part.

This story takes place in a city where people no longer have the ability to feel emotion. There are a lot of mainstream, especially female-centric superhero stories that have been commenting on emotion as power, or trying to do that in ways that I feel haven't been super nuanced or complex. I'm curious about that setting and what, if anything, you wanted to say about the strengths or limitations of emotionality or emotional intelligence.

Well, remember that Jo is a black woman, so there is a different nuance or a different variation on that problem that I feel like black women often have to deal with, which is them being treated as too angry, as if anger is dangerous or problematic in some way.

Even when we aren't angry, we're perceived as angry sometimes, and it gets to be a problem, and so Jo is in some cases going to have to deal with being the only emotional person in the room, and she can't get too emotional in her reactions to what she's seeing and what she's having to deal with.

When she starts working through bureaucracy and she expresses frustration with it, she's not going to be perceived as just an emotional woman. She's going to be perceived as a primitive human being. She's going to be perceived as a poor representation of her species, a poor representation of the Lanterns.

She can't get too emotional, so she's got to be able to solve these problems as the lone person in the room that's allowed to be this way, but also judged for being this way. And there's definitely commentary in it.

You're telling a frontier science fiction story of sorts...

A super high tech space society with near omniscient power. I don't know if that qualifies.

It is a high tech story, but Jo is the only Lantern there. She is the only person, as I said, who has emotions. She has to work with the local cops. She's got to form alliances and relationships with her local community and earn their respect in order to have any real power, cause even one person, no matter how powerful, is not going to be able to solve the problems of 20 billion people unless she gets some buy in from them.

Where there other graphic novels or comics that you looked to during this process?

Well, learning how to write, yes. I read The 2000 A.D. Script Book, which has art rendered pages alongside the script agents so you can see how the writer communicated with the artist or how the writer framed the scene and the artist chose to interpret that scene. So that helped me figure out comic writing format and how to do it.

Of course, I read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, which was really helpful for helping me understand how storytelling changes in this medium. I've been a comics fan for quite some time, ranging across different media. I did superhero comics a lot when I was back in college, but it got super expensive and I was a poor college student, so I quit around that time.

I read a lot of Japanese manga for awhile. Lately, I have read more indie comics, like Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, Monstress by a Sana Takeda and Marjorie Liu. I'm a big fan of Kelly Sue DeConnick's work, so I've read a lot of comics more recently ... I mean I enjoy the format, I enjoy good storytelling in all of its forms, but lately I've been reading more superhero stuff.

I did already bring up fanfiction, but I have been asking the authors I'm talking to, especially after Archive of Our Own's Hugo win this summer, that fanfic has meant to them, if anything, both professionally and personally.

I mean, I'm not going to say I started out as a fanfic writer, cause I didn't, but fanfic helped me, I think, develop in a lot of ways, my storytelling. I've been writing fanfic basically since grad school, when I started writing it for stress relief, and really when I got access to the internet. That was back in the AOL days. I'm dating myself, and I continue to write it to this day.

It's a place, like a playground, where I can go and sort of write things that I feel like writing without having to worry about my professional fiction readers coming to scrutinize what I do, and I'm not going to tell anybody what fanfic write or what pseudonyms I use or any of that.

Yeah. What else are you working on that you can talk about?

Oh, well I've got a new novel coming out next year. It's called The City We Became. It is based on a short summary of mine in which the city of New York comes to life and develops an avatar, a human being, one single person who represents the spirit of the city.

Well, in the book, all of the boroughs come to life too, and so there's an avatar in Brooklyn, an avatar in Manhattan, and they all have basically magic powers that grant them the ability to protect the city, and they're protecting the city from basically Cthulhu.

It's not really Lovecraftian, and it's not really a Lovecraftian story, although I'd say it's in conversation with Lovecraft, but yes, there is a giant eldritch abomination that is not happy with New York right now and is trying its damndest to destroy the city, and that comes out in March.

Green Lantern: Far Sector comes out on November 13th. Find out more about N.K. Jemisin's work here.

Kayti Burt is a staff editor covering books, TV, movies, and fan culture at Den of Geek. Read more of her work here or follow her on Twitter @kaytiburt.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Interview Kayti Burt

Oct 21, 2019

Green Lantern

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