Joe’s Book Club: Chapter 51: See You in the Funny Papers

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” – Carl Sagan

I’m pretty sure the first book I ever read was The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff that was originally published in France in 1933. The book’s first English translation was published in the USA during1933, I didn’t read until my second grade class from St Catherine of Siena school visited the Clifton Park branch of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library. One look at all those books and I was hooked. I had the same feeling later in life when I saw Hearst’s San Simeon’s library that contains 4,000 books.

The latest book I’ve read was The Race to the Future (see below) and is the 23’rd book I’ve read this year. Up next in my TBR list is Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz and the Underworld by T.J. English, a non-fiction book recommended to me by my friend Barry Staver. Right now, I’m kind of on a roll with non-fiction books but to tell the truth, I’m missing reading mystery novels, especially those written by Rex Stout. After finishing the Jazz book, I’ve got nothing on the TBR horizon; I’m hoping that changes soon.

Mini-Maxi Reviews

I’ve been a comic book fan since I bought the first issue of Mad (for ten cents) from one of those twirly magazine racks in 1952. Yet, I have mixed feelings about American Comics by Jeremy Dauber. Let me explain:

The first half of the book is spectacular and Dauber is a heck of a writer who has done his homework. With an introduction that looks at the origins of “comic-style” art tracing it’s roots back to political cartoons from colonial times up to Thomas Nast, a German-born American and editorial cartoonist who many consider the “Father of the American Cartoon” The book then jumps into the beginnings of what we would consider modern comic books and is full of interesting facts and maybe just a little bit of gossip.

Then we come to the chapter on “underground comix” of the 1970’s that had their origin on the West Coast and this is where, in my opinion, the book comes off the rails and never quite gets back. This chapter is full of descriptions of comix that are chockablock with all kinds of sexual behavior that might offend some people. Heck, I’m a broad minded guy and some of it made me feel uneasy. If I thought that chapter would be the end of that feeling, I was wrong. After another chapter or two the author delves into the racial and gender stereotypes that comics helped perpetuate—I get it, it’s true—and, like his look at underground comix, he beats you over the head with these discussions until you want to give up. If this was a library book I would have but Mary gave it to me, so like Chief Dan Gorge urged Clint Eastwood in The Outlaw Jose Wales, I “endeavored to persevere.”

Somewhere towards the end of the book, it becomes political and repeatedly mentions a former US president within the context of what was going on in comics at the time. This, it seems to me, adds little to the discussion of the comics at hand. The chronologically organized book ends around 2015 but the author attempts to bring it up-to-date with an Epilogue that brings another former US president into the discussion. If you liked either of these presidents, you won’t like these sections; if you didn’t like either of them, you will hate these sections.

Did I enjoy the book? Sort of but I am definitely in the minority here. Critics of all stripes have raved about the book and the author’s’ encyclopedia take on such a broad-based subject. Me? Every time he mentions a specific comic book, I didn’t like it, with maybe two exceptions. I give it five bookmarks out of ten.

One the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed The Race to the Future: 8,000 Miles to Paris by Kassia St. Clair. What the subtitle doesn’t mention but the cover hints at is this was an automobile race (actually more like a rally) from Peking (Beijing) to Paris—in 1907!

As thoroughly researched as American Comics, this non-fiction book reads more like a novel that could have been a page turner, except the author breaks the flow with chapters that place particular events in the book, automotive and otherwise, into historical context, many parts of which, will be an eye opener. History buffs will love these extra chapters; automobile aficionados might skip them, in fact this is something the author herself suggests in the Introduction.

Just five cars took part in the race: The Italians were represented by an Itala driven by a Prince, the French had two state-of-the-art (for 1907) De Dion-Boutons. The Dutch were represented by Spyker—not related to the modern company—driven by a con man and wearing French flag colors, and finally a French three-wheeled Contal Motori that was little more than a motorcycle and not surprisingly, was the first vehicle to drop out of the race,

Keep in mind that in 1886 Gottlieb Benz produced what might be considered the first automobile but was literally a”horseless carriage.” And 21 years later. these intrepid adventurers set out on an 8,000-mile journey armed only with maps and maybe a compass for a trip where there were few roads, few hotels with only occasional depots stocked with fuel, yet one entry ran out of gas miles from a depot. Spares? The Itala didn’t even have a spare wheel or tire—which turned out not to be a smart move for the Italians, as they would discover—and, heck even by the 1960’s, when I started driving, tire technology was abysmal.

All but the Contal Motori finished the race, but not without some controversy about the Spyker entry that lingered for many years. The winner? NO Spoilers. The book is a testament to the kind of physical and mental strength off the participants—even the con man and fearless motorcyclists— that is the essence of motorsports. The author makes all of these people and their exploits come alive and seem like the race is happening right now and Is wonderfully written with style and aplomb. I loved this book and give it nine bookmarks out of ten, one bookmark off only because of the poor quality of the photographs.