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davidmann95 · 4 years

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Thoughts (if any) on DC's April 2021 solicitations?

Let’s take ‘em in order! I should be able to muster up a comment on just about everything one way or another.

Green Lantern #1: Oh this is gonna be bad. Heard only the worst about Thorne’s Future State: Green Lantern, and I assume Jo Mullein’s DCU debut will be wasted here to either function as some kind of ridiculous ‘popularity contest’ with Teen Lantern for who gets the bigger push, or as a way to put TL over with a few “good work kid, you got a future” comments. Also, and granted I don’t know how Morrison will end or this will begin, is the New Guardians angle being immediately dropped?

Robin #1: Dope suit, art, and premise, but it’s Williamson so I don’t care.

Batman: The Dark Knight #1: I’ll read this and I expect to like it, but between this being Kubert’s first big Batman project since Master Race, the ‘old but not quite retirement age yet’ angle, and the title, I’m concerned the shock ending here is that it’s actually a stealth DKR prequel.

The Next Batman: Second Son #1: So they really are committing here, though weird that this kinda makes Ridley’s Future State book basically a longform teaser for this. And I’ll get it as it comes out since it turns out this won’t be in that John Ridley’s Batman collection after all - sorry Dustin Nguyen, I love your stuff but I won’t buy an entire trade of material I otherwise already own just for one new story by you.

The Batman & Scooby Doo Mysteries #1: I got that whole great-looking Scooby Doo Team-Up run by Fisch for free on Comixology, I should read that sometime and see if this’ll be worth getting too as well, because it sounds like a hoot.

Challenge of the Super Sons #1: Glad people who want it are getting it, I do not care.

RWBY/Justice League #1: WILL BE GETTING A POST ALL ITS OWN

Action Comics #1030: His powers waning definitely won’t help the standard pre-run fuming by a lot of Superman fandom, but it’s an interesting pairing with PKJ apparently doing mainly cosmic Superman adventures so I’m curious where he’ll go with it. That it’s particularly cited as being tied to Death Metal might validate my suspicion that the new ‘everyone remembers their entire mainstream publishing histories’ thing will play into Johnson’s description of Clark really feeling his age at the start of the run. And Janin on covers even before he gets in on the book proper! And that Midnighter description!

Superman #30: This sounds like where Johnson’s gonna start with that worldbuilding he touted, and I’m curious; definitely reads in this instance like him shoving Clark and Jon into some swords-and-sorcery-esque territory he’s familiar with.

American Vampire 1976 #7: Not reading, don’t care.

Batman #107: I assume ‘the events at Arkham Asylum’ are the ‘A-Day’ ominously brought up in Future State solicits. Tynion Batman, Jimenez as the regular artist now, whatever the Unsanity Collective is, all entirely my shit. More importantly than any of that though, GHOSTMAKER BACKUPS. And drawn by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz, artist on Steve Orlando’s excellent The Pull! Dope!

Batman: Black & White #5: Any other issue and ‘Jamal Campbell doing a life story of Nightwing’ would probably be the highlight, but in case you somehow hadn’t heard Gillen/McKelvie are making their DC debut on a Batman vs. Riddler story here, absolutely wild.

Batman: Urban Legends #2: Even more excited for this now that I’m onboard for the Grifter and Outsiders stuff given how much those features pleasantly surprised me in Future State.

Batman/Superman #17: Injecting it isn’t enough anymore, I need to be on some kind of constant IV drip with this book. I was wondering whether it’d take the premise to further generational riffs or follow a history of mass-media Supermen and Batmen, but instead it’s veering off in a direction I never could have guessed and I couldn’t be more excited.

Batman vs. Ra’s Al Ghul #6: NOTHING CAN STOP THE ADAMSVERSE. NONE MAY DARE TRY.

Batman/Catwoman #5: Wondering how this Harley involvement plays in - I don’t imagine it’s quite what it seems given how King’s written her before. And love that Joker by Mann on the cover, major Clown at Midnight vibes.

Catwoman #30: No reason to assume this run won’t continue to rule.

Crime Syndicate #2: Dammit, I don’t think this book is going to be good, but I’m kinda tempted.

Detective Comics #1035: Wouldn’t be psyched, but Dark Detective was another pleasant surprise so I’ll give this a chance.

The Dreaming: Waking Hours #9: Again, not reading.

Far Sector #11: Sucks a little knowing we’ll never see that little ‘Young Animal’ label in the corner again after this wraps. At least it’s going out on its highest note.

The Flash #769: In a vacuum this would sound dope but I have less than no faith in this, and goddamn that’s a terrible cover.

Harley Quinn #2: I’m sure it’ll be fine, no interest.

The Joker #2: I wanna believe Tynion will be able to make this work, he keeps talking like he has more freedom on this than he has some other books, but everything about this reads like the price he has to pay for relative post-Joker War freedom on Batman.

Justice League #60: It’s Bendis/Marquez on Justice League, lots of people will complain but I’ll mostly dig it. More interested in Ram V briefly getting to write the main crew in the JLD backup.

Man-Bat #3: I’d ask why this exists - and as a matter of fact I still do - but checking out some of DC’s digital-first output recently I see Dave Wielgosz has something on the ball, so maybe he’ll be able to make this work? Perhaps I’ll check it out in trade someday if worth-of-mouth is on its side.

Nightwing #79: I maintain, this is gonna be huge. And clever move to make for how to justify Nightwing keeping up his standard way of business after Bruce loses most of his money.

Rorschach #7: A comic I will purchase and let’s continue leaving it at that.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? #109: DC’s highest-numbered comic (that hasn’t gone through an interim renumbering), astonishing. Not getting it myself, but respect.

Sensational Wonder Woman #2: Can’t say this sounds like my thing.

Suicide Squad #2: I’ve been swayed into checking out the Future State debut, but that’d have to really blow me away for me to follow into the main book.

Superman: Red & Blue #2: Sadly if unsurprisingly DC’s clearly not stacking this with AAA attention-grabbing names in the same way as this latest version of Batman: Black & White, but there do seem to be some interesting names from outside the usual big two roster here. And the main and Bolland cover may disappoint but holy cow that David Choe variant.

The Swamp Thing #2: I have no doubt it’ll be incredible but time and again I learn I simply don’t have it in me to care about Swamp Thing regardless of the objective quality of the effort put into him.

Sweet Tooth: The Return #6: Another one I’m not interested in.

Titans Academy #2: Oh lord so this is where they stuck Billy Batson.

Truth & Justice #3: I continue to have no idea what if anything the unifying idea of this anthology is supposed to be.

Wonder Woman #771: Wonder Woman as troubleshooter for mythological mishaps isn’t a permanently sustainable or desirable status quo but I’m down for it for as long as it lasts if it’s any good (though that Immortal Wonder Woman preview...concerned me, in spite of Jen Bartel’s jaw-dropping art).

So that’s 19-23 out of 37 I’ll be getting - if DC’s standard for success with Infinite Frontier is the proportion of their line people will be checking out, I guess it’s winning with me.

#DC Comics #DC: Infinite Frontier #Opinion

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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How Wonder Twins Became the Funniest DC Superhero Book

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Mark Russell and Stephen Byrne have made the Wonder Twins the most unlikely superhero reboot success story of our time.

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For all of the high profile storm clouds gathering on the horizon of the DC Universe between Year of the Villain, some decidedly Crisis-y vibes in Justice League, and the fact that the Batman Who Laughs gets his jollies by turning the heroes of the DC Universe into evil versions of themselves, you might think that it's all bad vibes in the DCU. Ah, but you would be wrong. Each month, Wonder Twins (yes, those Wonder Twins) delivers a blast of hilarity and social commentary, all set right under the noses of the Justice League at the Hall of Justice. Imagine a DC superhero comic as steeped in deep superhero and animation knowledge as a show like Venture Bros., packed with the same irreverent and manic energy, and with a similarly sympathetic eye towards the failings of its heroes and villains. That's Wonder Twins.

And really, it shouldn't work. The titular Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna, were alien sidekicks from the planet Exxor who hung around on episodes of the Super Friends in the late 1970s and early '80s. Both are shape shifters, although their respective power sets are somewhat limited in this regard. Jan can take on the "form of" anything related to water, while Jan takes on the "shape of" various animals. Of course they can only activate these powers when they're together, and really, there's only so many times a giant purple eagle can carry a bucket of water with a face on it to put out a fire or whatever, so their powers aren't exactly their most compelling aspect. Nor are there purple uniforms, snazzy as they are, or weirdly uncool-cool-for-like-5-minutes-in-the-late-90s-then-uncool-again haircuts really the thing that makes Wonder Twins such a great book.

No, that would be the jokes. So many of them. All of the jokes allowed by the Comics Code were that still a thing (which it thankfully is not). Jokes from the minds, pens, and brushes of Mark Russell (of the similarly hilarious and shockingly poignant The Flintstones and The Snagglepuss Chronicles) and Stephen Byrne (lots of cool things but especially a bunch of gorgeously animated genre-fan friendly viral videos that you have almost certainly seen...and if you haven't you should fix that right now). Jokes that are packed into the backgrounds of panels and arrive at such a pace you sometimes have moved on to another page before they've all fully landed. Hell, even jokes at the expense of Superman and that notorious buzzkill Batman.

But threaded through the humor is a genuine understanding of the human condition, a sympathetic eye given to all who deserve it (even the book's villains), and a genuine understanding of and even respect for how the DC Universe should work, even when we're all laughing with (or at) the sheer ridiculousness of it all. It's that balance that probably helped Wonder Twins, originally planned as a six part mini-series get expanded to 12. And with the first volume out now collecting those initial six issues, there's no better time to get to know Zan and Jayna...or the creators behind them. So...activate!

Den of Geek: The thing that really strikes me about this book is how animated it feels even on the page. What’s your process is like working together? Are you acting these scripts out? Are you hearing the script in your head when you start doing it?

Mark Russell: Well it starts with the process of trying to think of what I would tell myself if I had the ability to go back in time and talk to myself as a 16 or 17-year-old kid and think about what that means in the modern context. If I can tell them one thing today, what would it be? I try to tell it in as visual way as possible. I know that Stephen's going to take the ball and run with that in ways I can't even foresee. Our process is mainly me just telling him what I have to say and just waiting for him to come up with visual ways to make that happen.

read more - The Secret Origin of Green Lantern: Far Sector

Stephen Byrne: I guess from an art perspective, I have a background in animation and the main place where people know the characters from originally was the Super Friends cartoon. So I'm sort of trying to bring a little touch of that vibe into it with the bright colors and the simple line work, but then to inject it with more darkness and deepness and emotion. You can be more creative with the types of compositions and shots you're doing that they wouldn't have had the budget for in the old Wonder Twins cartoon. I want it to feel artistically familiar to how people know the characters, but also make it a much more emotional and meaningful.

Mark: I feel like Wonder Twins is ultimately sort of a dystopian book, but I feel like a dystopian America will be colorful.

Stephen: Doesn't dystopia imply futuristic? Isn't it just present day dystopia?

Mark: Right. It's a dystopia that will take place in the next 18 months. I feel like dystopias you see in literature are all gray and dark like George Orwell's 1984. They all kind of look like East Germany in 1976. I feel like in dystopian America, we might not even recognize the dystopia because it will look like a Taco Bell. It'll be like, purple and orange and stuff. That's why Steven is so good because he represents these dystopian topics, but in a way that's very sort of colorful and almost attractive.

read more: The Secret Origin of Superman Smashes the Klan

Stephen: I like that because I think of the book as dealing with some of the unresolvable tragedies of our time. That's overall in the themes, but then moment to moment on every single page, there's something that'll make you laugh or some funny joke. I try and keep it light and brief in the moment to moment because the story carries that extra satirical social commentary.

Mark: I think the central theme of the story is that the world is terrible, but we find things worth saving in it, that our lives are still good despite the fact the world is terrible.

Stephen: Sometimes.

Mark: We find ways to make life worth living and I think that's what the Wonder Twins do. They make the life they have worth living, even though they’re exiled on a planet they know nothing about, living in a sort of screwed up culture that they had no role in creating, but they find a way to make it work for them.

There's so many background gags in there ... are these all written by Mark or is Stephen sneaking stuff in the background too?

Mark: I think it's both..

Stephen: But I'd say it's mostly you and you started doing it and then once in a while I will take the lead and put it in something because I know that's kind of the tone of what you're going for.

Mark: That's kind of how I get to know an artist. I say, "Here's some background gags I want you to sneak in at some point." Then I think that they get me after that point. They get the sensibility and they feel more comfortable including their own thing. I think the worst thing you can do is just have every scene in what looks like a CSI set. There needs to be things that give you your character and your perspective in the background that set it apart from other sorts of things. I'm very adamant about writing in background gags or details that will give it this air of not being like the set of a primetime TV show.

read more: New DC Universe Timeline Explained

Stephen: That's funny because I used to do satirical newspaper cartoons and I would do the main joke or whatever in the strip, but if possible, I would always sneak a little something in the background for people. I think people like that if they notice something that they know not everyone noticed. You get a little extra satisfaction out of it.

Mark: It makes the world feel more fully populated. Oh, this isn't just somebody making it up as they go along. They've created this whole world for me to live in.

Any of those jokes not make it into the final book?

Stephen: I probably didn't know about it. By the time it got to me, they were already gone.

Mark: There's some that were just a little too dark to make it into the Wonder Twins comic. It's like ‘we don't really need these jokes in a comic about a guy who turns into water’ was one of the comments I got from one of the editors.

Anything that you're allowed to talk about or not?

Mark: I'll leave it there.

Okay, that's fair. Stephen, have there ever been any that you had to get on Skype and say, "Mark, I'm not doing this. I'm not drawing this."

Stephen: No, I don't think so. I think by the time...

Mark: The editors get to do that. Then by the time Steven sees it, it's a little sanitized.

Stephen: When it gets to me, it's all very above board.

What kind of voices do you envision for these characters because obviously we all remember the Super Friends voices, but possibly my favorite panel in this whole series is still from the date story when Zan is like, "I'll have the scared tuna," with this look on his face. The only voice I can ever hear when I read that panel is Hank Venture's. How do you guys envision their voices?

Mark: Well I kind of approached the Wonder Twins like they’re one really well adjusted person tragically split in half. Jayna's the one with the deeper intelligence and the wittiness and Zan's the guy who's optimistic and ready for any adventure, but he's kind of dopey and clueless about the world at the same time. That's the way I tried to have that. He's ultimately just optimistic and ready to venture opinions about things he knows nothing about. Jayna's more shy and sort of a quiet genius, but not ready to talk about the things that she knows very well.

read more: Inside the Return of the Justice Society of America to the DC Universe

Stephen: I hadn't specifically thought about their voices, but I think their characters come through in the words really strongly. When I'm drawing Zan, he's always over-excited and making a fool of himself and being sort of zany and weird, living in the moment. He's like a puppy. Whatever's going on, he's just excited about. Then I think of Jayna as much more introspective, contemplative, thoughtful...

Mark: She sees the deeper tragedy in everything around her.

Stephen: Yeah, very self serious. Zan is usually bouncing off the walls and smiling and she's usually sitting, thinking about everything that's terrible all the time. I have thought about it in the way that I do their body language and stuff like that, but not specifically their voices.

Mark: Jayna's probably more of the person I am and Zan's probably more of the person I wish I was.

Stephen: Yeah, I'm a Jayna for sure.

How much of this book is an actual critique of superheroes and how much of this is you trying to relate to superheroes in terms of this world?

Mark: Well, I think a lot of it is my critique of society in general, which is that our institutions no longer serve us. The institutions were created to serve us, but then at some point it changes. And so we then begin serving the institutions, and we forget why they exist except for that we know that we must serve them. And I feel at some point the superheroes themselves become an institution, and they forget why they're superheroes. They forget why they're doing this. They just know that this is what they've always done. And so I try to question that. I try to force them into these circumstances where they have to wonder why am I doing this or is this the best way to serve society, five superheroes converging on a purse snatcher? Is this really what society needs more than anything? I couldn't be doing anything else more valuable with my powers than this? I try to ask these questions in my scripts.

Stephen: I think of it as a commentary on superheroes but also a celebration at the same time. Like the best self-referential work, it can poke fun at the thing it's about also being a great version of what it's about.

What about body language? The body language that you give Superman is not the body language you often associate with the character.

Stephen: We're seeing him in a different context than we usually would. And so he's dealing with interns which isn't his usual thing. And so you're just getting to see a slightly different side of him.

Mark: He's more of a father figure in this one because he's got these two foundlings that he brought over from Exxor to Earth. He's their father figure now. It's his super power not being so much his speed or his strength, but his wisdom, and it's a side of Superman you don't see a lot, but just him understanding what it is as an outsider the human race needs. And then explaining that to Zan and Jayna I think sort of defined Superman for this series in a different way than he is sometimes presented in other series.

You're often writing characters who are the smartest people in the room. You have a Filo Math and Polly Math and you just did that great Riddler special as well. That's not the easiest thing to do, especially in the superhero world. So how do you put yourself in that head space and then how do you distinguish them from the characters that are less visible?

Mark: I just think smart people are more interesting. I also think that we are all sort of the geniuses of ourselves. We all understand our own perspective better than anybody else. So what I try to do is just give the character room to explore right or wrong. This is why I feel the way I do and make a stand for why they are the way they are. And I feel like that's what allows people to connect with these characters to make them feel relevant. It's like we all have that moment where the world does not understand us, but if we only had this moment where we could talk to somebody through the pages of a comic book and explain ourselves, then we would be the heroes of our own story.

read more: Frank Miller's Return to the Dark Knight Universe

Stephen: My answer is much less sophisticated. I draw the intelligent people wearing suits and ties and glasses. There's some body language and expression stuff too, but that's definitely part of it is just sort of the way they present themselves. They're smart people.

Since that was way too straightforward and serious an answer, let's go back to the funny stuff. And what do you feel is the most ridiculous thing you've gotten to draw in the book so far? Whether it was the funniest or whether it was a thing that you were just like, how the hell am I going to make this work in this comic?

Stephen: First thing that came to mind, although there's so many, right? It's like there's something every issue that's insane. But the first thing that comes to mind was a giant gorilla punching an alcoholic vampire through the air, which I was just like, this is so weird and funny and comedic in tone and yet in like three pages time, you're going to get an emotional punch in the gut for the conclusion of that story, which was so tragic. So I love drawing the funny stuff and I love drawing the emotional stuff and I love that you can kind of oscillate between them in such a short space of time. I think a lot of that is down to Mr. Russell.

Mark: And I think one of the things I try to bring out in the scripts is that these are two dimensional, funny comic book characters where there's always a third dimension lurking somewhere in the background. There is a backstory or a tragic shadow to this person that makes what they're doing makes sense and Stephen does a very good job of bringing that out in the artwork.

Mike Cecchini is the Editor in Chief of Den of Geek. You can read more of his work here. Follow him on Twitter @wayoutstuff.

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

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Interview Mike Cecchini

Nov 13, 2019

DC Entertainment

from Books https://ift.tt/2q9th2q

#aion-rsa #Books

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lamanie-litera · 7 years

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Zeus and Hera and Lucinella and William

Hera is drinking her coffee upstairs on the veranda.

“Tell me a story,” I beg her. “How did you and Zeus meet?”

“We’re closely related, you remember,” says Hera. “For eons he chased me, and I ran, until he turned himself into a cuckoo, so wet and bedraggled I nestled him between my breasts. The wedding night,” says Hera, “lasted three hundred years.”

“William and young Lucinella come out on the front porch below us. I lean over the railing and watch William crush a leaf of lilac and hold his finger under young Lucinella’s nose. She draws her head back. They saunter together and disappear around the left corner of the house. “How does one handle jealousy?” I cry.

“Badly,” says Hera. “You know the story of Zeus and Semele, how I went to her disguised as a neighbor and whispered, ‘Next time tell him to show himself in his true nature or deny him your bed!’ Zeus, of course, came in thunder and lightning. That was the end of her. Poor Io! They thought it was Zeus who turned her into a cow and sent a gadfly after her, but it was me! And it wasn’t only jealousy,” says Hera. “Nobody knows that all the time I was watching my husband chasing every skirt and saw the skirts running, and knew he wasn’t going to make them except in some fool disguise, though everybody thinks it was to fool me.”

“Why did they run? I mean, I really like Zeus,” I say, and blush.

“I know you do,” says Hera and gives me that look I don’t understand. “Maybe,” she says, “he wasn’t all the prize you think.”

“Because of the skirts? All those nymphs and princesses?”

“All those princesses, and not only that,” says Hera. “It was the brutality, the cowardice.”

“Zeus’s cowardice?” I don’t like that. “Cowardice, yes,” she says. “You remember how his mother—Earth, you know—prophesied the child that Metis bore was going to dethrone him. Damned if Zeus, like his father and grandfather before him, doesn’t open up his mouth and with one gulp … and not the child only! Mother and all. So now he had to birth the baby. Have you ever been around a man who’s got a cold in the head? Imagine Zeus with Pallas Athene ready to spring from his brow! Then there was the time Typhon stormed Olympus when Zeus didn’t happen to have his thunder on him. What does he do but turn himself into a ram and skidaddle to save his own skin! When the monster made a pass at me, don’t you think Zeus strung me from the rafters of heavens with an anvil tied to each ankle—though he said it was in punishment for my rebellion. Ares had to come and get me down.” Hera sits very straight, chin high, still smoldering. She has forgotten not a tittle of her husband’s ancient offenses.

We are silent. “So why do we stick with them!” I say.

“Oh,” Hera says, “because one’s tied to them by one’s own possessiveness, by sex, I suppose. Not so much now any more, but I used, once in a while, to borrow Aphrodite’s girdle … And by pity.”

“Pity for Zeus?”

“Oh yes,” Hera says. “It’s watching the erosion of their powers that breaks the heart and grapples you to them even when they no longer want you. You’ve read your Aeschylus?”

“Well …” I say.

“Read it,” says Hera. “Read where the buccaneer god and philanderer has a stature second hardly to Jehovah, before Euripides began to psychologize and Plato turned us into literature. The Romans carved two frown lines between Zeus’s eyes, set his heads on prefabricated torsos, and disseminated him through the known world. In the Christian era, he had to go underground, and when he turns up again, he’s gone baroque, going rococo. By the eighteenth century what is he except a self-conscious grace note of erudition? Yesterday I saw him in company with Thor and Green Lantern, if you please—not all badly drawn—in a kiddie comic. Tomorrow he will find himself a minor character in some Tom, Dick, or Harry’s comical new novel. Desecrated, deposed, exiled, but incapable of dying, no longer god and unwilling—or is it unable?—to be human, what can he do but turn into an intellectual, write a book, research his own descent—heaven forgive me, maybe it’s an ascent—from a bearded snake to what? A refugee college professor!”

“Lucinella!”

It’s William calling me. “I’m coming!” I cry.

(...)

In the curl of the banister stands Zeus having a quiet smoke. The party has got too hot and noisy for him, he says.

“Me too,” I say. “I’m going up to bed.” I lift my cheek for a good-night kiss. His tongue thrusts straight and deep between my lips and the world suspends its rotation. His hand inside my blouse touches, his mouth lifts out of mine, pronounces my name as if it were a foreign language: “Lucinella.”

I’m looking into the same astonished roundness of eye that Europa saw the instant of her rape. Whether disguised as bull, or swan, or golden shower activity (as they call it on television—and which requires a great imaginative effort), or as my aging intellectual, your true lover has the grace to be dazzled by each new passion. His veteran confidence needs no double-entendre to make loopholes for a misunderstanding. He says, “Let’s make love.”

Now that I know Zeus and I are going to be lovers (and know it’s him I would have wanted all along if it had occurred to me), I freeze. I want my mother! “Let’s not!” I say.

“Let’s,” he says, waits. No rape, no suasion. There’s no need.

I say, “All right,” and his immense arms take me up and lift me through the front door down the steps.

“But you’re married,” I say, ashamed to be so vulgar, but I have been jealous. It is Hera who’s my sister. What does Zeus know!

“We won’t tell her,” he says, on the faintest rising pitch of irritation. “Hera and I’ve been married these eons and have eternity to go.” He carries me over the midnight fields, tree and stone, into his bed. And when the earth resumes its motion, the direction has been radically altered; I’ve slipped away and run back to New York. I’m not ready yet to meet him with my morning face.

At home his letter awaits me: a quick page of astonished jubilation, and what admirable prose! Happiness is its keynote.

Mine is bewilderment. I’d wanted to be virtuous—that’s the prettiest dream of all!—but now elation must learn to co-exist with my guilty treachery and it’s not hard—oh, shabby guilt. As for happiness, there’s a word! I smile and smile, but how shall I recognize what I can’t exactly remember ever meeting face to face before? And I don’t know the rules. Is it all right to dispatch my prickly perplexity into Arcadia? If I could only talk with him for half an hour, I’d understand everything, and so I write him what I never meant to say: Come!

He writes back to say he will be here at 8:15 but must leave by 7:20 the next morning. He arrives on the dot.

I doubt if I’d have given Zeus a second look in his heyday, when he was gaudy with health, his dark-blue locks, his bristling beard, eyes like oxidized copper sparking pink and gold and purple lights, and his enormous size. I prefer my gods in their twilight. I lean into the voluptuous laxness of elderly flesh. Under my hands, great Zeus lies patiently; he knows how to suffer pleasure. His divine cock has lost none of its potence and his hand is omniscient.

I used to laugh at gods and kings. I’d imagined Zeus muscle-bound, stupid with power, rattling his enormous thunder, unable to control the whims and spectacular tempers of his oversized relations, but in my bed his mind moves feelingly. It’s just that mine, being Jewish and from New York, leaps more nimbly, which he enjoys. I sense his smiling in the darkness. When I get silly he reaches out laughingly to fetch me home to good sense and we make love again, sleep awhile, and more love and more talking.

I ask Zeus to visit inside my head. (You are invited, too. In here he and I, and you, will get to know one another, though like every hostess I’m a little nervous. Notice how I elide my sentences and keep my book short. I’m watching for signs of a yawn burgeoning behind your compressed lips. You don’t want to hurt my feelings, I know, but feel free to leave any time. Though your departing back will make a permanent dent in my confidence, one survives. I prefer it to your sufferance behind my back.)

Morning. I am chilled by the expanse of air that separates me from Zeus. He’s sitting on the edge of my bed. Once he’s put his socks back on, there’s no seduction of mine that can keep him one minute after 7:20.

Lore Segal, Lucinella, 1976.

#Lore Segal #Lucinella #książka #książki #czytam #cytat #fragment #literatura #literatura amerykańska #zeus #hera #mitologia

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