January Reading Log

Having finally completed my voluminous to-read list in December, I entered January with a newfound freedom to tackle whatever struck my fancy. Here's where I got started in 2022!

2 Articles I Like This Month

"January 6 Was Practice" by Barton Gellman, The Atlantic. 56 minutes.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of rioters, inspired by then-President Donald Trump's refusal to concede the election, stormed the U.S. Capitol in hopes of overturning the will of the voters and keeping him in office. They failed. But efforts are already underway to undermine future elections, to make sure the "right" people win instead of the ones the voters choose. This chilling article details those efforts, which are playing out right before our eyes, but are not being taken nearly seriously enough by most voters.

"Is Old Music Killing New Music?" by Ted Gioia, The Atlantic. 11 minutes.

Recent trends on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming platforms reveal something troubling about the music industry—it's not putting out new music people want to listen to. By a sizable margin, listeners are streaming more old music than new music. Is this the fault of the musicians? Or is it time for the industry to get creative?

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #232-250

When I started reading comic books some 15 years ago, it wasn't new issues I grabbed off the shelf; I spent my days digging through back issue bins, finding myself particularly drawn to Marvel's offerings from the 1980s. It wasn't long before I fell in love with a specific run of my favorite title: writer-artist John Byrne's 61-issue stretch at the helm of Fantastic Four.

Issue #232 marks the beginning of that legendary run, the best to my mind of anyone except Lee and Kirby. And in these first 18 issues, Byrne gets right to work delving into what makes Marvel's First Family tick, leaning into what made the title so fun in the Silver Age while discarding what had become burdensome or outdated. Pitting the team against old favorites (from Doctor Doom and Galactus to Diablo and Nicholas Scratch), Byrne embraces the team as both band of superheroes AND as family, establishing a dynamic that had been hinted at for years but never so clearly defined.

The art is excellent (and inked by Byrne himself), featuring clean lines and a realistic style that made him arguably the definitive comics artist of the 1980s. If he lacks the dynamism of a Frank Miller or a Bill Sienkiewicz, he nevertheless makes up for it with superb storytelling and an eye for detail.

Overall, coming off of the fun but lackluster Bronze Age, one can't help but feel that Fantastic Four leveled up the moment Byrne picked up his pen. The stories carry new weight, new energy, and most of all, new ideas. Can't wait to continue through Byrne's run in February and March.

FIRST IN HIS CLASS: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILL CLINTON by David Maraniss

Irrespective of his politics, I find Bill Clinton endlessly fascinating. He's one of those figures who's almost Shakespearean in his complexity: a man of boundless gifts, inexhaustible appetites, and fatal flaws; the Comeback Kid who repeatedly found himself in a hole (often because of self-inflicted wounds) and managed to scratch his way back to the top; the paradoxical leader who could seem like a visionary president one minute and Slick Willie the next. William Jefferson Clinton contains multitudes.

So First in His Class, written by the acclaimed biographer David Maraniss, would have been interesting to me automatically. But its 1995 publishing date had me all the more fascinated because of what the book wouldn't include—no Monica Lewinsky, no 1996 "triangulation"...in fact, nothing about his presidency at all. For a book whose narrative concludes with Clinton's 1992 campaign kickoff, this would be all about Clinton the man instead of Clinton the president.

And with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it's remarkable how insightful Maraniss' biography turns out to be—his takes on Clinton in 1995 are pretty similar to what people thought when he left the White House in 2001. In Maraniss' telling, Clinton was seemingly destined for glory from an early age, doted on by his mother and recognized as gifted by virtually everyone he came in contact with. As a child, a teenager, and a Rhodes Scholar, person after person remembers commenting that he'd be president someday. With a journalist's writing style and an eye for detail, Maraniss does an excellent job showing Clinton's charisma, wonkish love for policy, and work ethic.

But even as he describes those gifts, Maraniss never neglects to highlight Clinton's flaws. Indeed, he seems almost baffled by his subject's never-ending ability to get in his own way. Detailing things like Clinton's draft dodging and the rumors of his infidelities, he doesn't shy away from the controversies that shrouded Clinton as a candidate and, ultimately, as a president.

What emerges is a portrait of three-dimensional, far too human man, one who you could imagine as being destined for greatness or for a spectacular fall. Which proved to be true is a matter for historians—and you—to decide.

HIP-HOP (AND OTHER THINGS) by Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres

I bought this book with the intention of learning more about hip-hop (it's one of my resolutions for 2022). And I did learn some things along the way. But that's not why I enjoyed it. The reason for that is more emotional than intellectual.

Hip-Hop (and Other Things) is the third (and reportedly final) part of a trilogy of "(and Other Things)" books—following previous offerings on basketball and movies—and it follows the same formula as those books. Each chapter is framed around one question, the kind you and a friend might make into a game over drinks. Author Shea Serrano uses each question as a springboard to talk about all manner of things before ultimately winding his way toward some kind of answer. With that being said, the digressions—not the question and its answer—are where the fun is had.

In this book, as in the previous volumes, the questions range from the basic—Biggie or 2Pac? By year, who is the greatest living rapper?—to the outright silly, such as an entire chapter spent wondering what joke DMX was referring to in a single line from one of his songs. But again, the questions are really not the point—in fact, in one chapter, Serrano memorably abandons the central question altogether and spends the rest of the chapter ruminating on the career of the late Mac Miller. Each chapter is also accompanied by illustrations from artist Arturo Torres, some dealing with the contents of the chapter and other simply flights of fancy (one double page spread of MF Doom as Marvel Comics' Doctor Doom is a poster I'm tempted to have blown up and hung on the wall.)

What makes the book excellent is not the information imparted; this would honestly make a poor reference book. Neither is it the cogency of Serrano's arguments, since he rarely sticks to the topic at hand. What makes it so fun is one word: enthusiasm. Serrano loves rap, and that love for the music comes through in every paragraph and is utterly contagious. Paired with his natural humor (he's arguably the funniest Internet writer out there, a true legend on Twitter), this is the kind of book even the most casual of hip-hop fans could enjoy.

It's fun to listen to people earnestly and unselfconsciously talk about the things they love, and this book is 250 pages of exactly that. For anyone with even a fraction of knowledge about or interest in hip-hop, this book makes for a good time.

COMMUNICATING FOR A CHANGE by Andy Stanley and Lane Jones

For decades now, Andy Stanley has been regarded as one of the best preachers in the world (a reputation affirmed by the 2018 update of Baylor University's "12 Most Effective Preachers Survey," where he was listed alongside luminaries like Alistair Begg, Ralph West, Barbara Brown Taylor, and John Piper.) Bringing a modern sensibility to an ancient genre, Stanley has always presented sermons that felt more like TED Talks than like the 3-point alliterative presentations made famous by men like his father (famed expositor Charles Stanley) and Billy Graham. In Communicating for a Change, he seeks to lay out the approach he takes in preparing sermons, hoping it will benefit preachers who feel stuck in a rut.

The book begins, strangely enough, with an extended parable—90 pages in fact, nearly half the book—about a preacher who goes on an unexpected road trip with a long haul trucker who breaks down the preacher's preconceived notions about communication and lays out what he sees as the real goals and methods of preaching to a crowd. The parable has the desired effect of getting and keeping your attention, but once its purpose becomes apparent, it goes on a little too long, not unlike many preachers.

From there, Stanley gets into the meat of the book, the how-to section. Stanley would be the first to tell you that his approach is irreverent and postmodern—he is not interested in sticking to tradition unless he believes it works. When it comes to his core point, he is quite helpful: Stanley wants the reader to remember that the purpose of a sermon is not to impart information, but to trigger life change. In Stanley's mind, any preaching that loses sight of that purpose is just a waste of time; he has no interest in abiding by preaching practices of yore simply out of respect for tradition, not if they don't work.

Where the book fails, however, is when it reduces preaching to mere public speaking, when it fails to remember or acknowledge the weight of God's Word and the work of the Holy Spirit. In certain chapters on delivery, Stanley's book could just as easily be a Toastmaster's manual as a preaching textbook. Stanley has occasionally been accused of eisegesis (where you read your topic into the biblical text instead of the other way around), and indeed, his preaching advice seems more concerned with conveying your point than expositing the text.

There's good stuff in here, especially at the practical level concerning sermon construction and delivery, but ultimately Communicating for a Change falls short as a preaching handbook due to a lack of depth. A handy resource for a preacher, but beware of making it the only preaching guide on your shelf.

RORSCHACH by Tom King and Jorge Fornés

When you put Watchmen, the most famous and critically acclaimed graphic novel of all time, and writer Tom King together, you're bound to get something interesting. What surprised me in reading the Rorschach hardcover, which collects the 12-issue maxiseries King did with artist Jorge Fornés, was just how far off the beaten path King chose to travel. Because what you get in this story, ostensibly a Watchmen sequel, is a Rorschach story in which Rorschach never actually appears, a story which lives in the Watchmen universe while having virtually nothing to do with that story. And it's fantastic.

Let me try to explain. The series begins with a failed assassination attempt of a presidential candidate and the killing of his two would-be assassins, one of whom is dressed as the infamous Rorschach. The presidential campaign hires a private investigator, who is never named in the series, to figure out who was behind the failed assassination and what their motive was. From there the series becomes a mixture of old-fashioned noir and Three Days of the Condor-esque conspiracy intrigue, looping in everything from militiamen in Wyoming to a comic book artist who looks and sounds suspiciously like Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko. By the end, the various characters are so entangled in real and imagined conspiracies that the investigator himself gets wrapped up into the plot, leading to an explosive ending that manages to somehow feel inevitable and shocking at the same time.

In terms of pure storytelling, this may be King's finest work in comics. The story is intricate without ever being too complex to follow, he leaves you guessing at every turn, and he maintains a consistent voice throughout. While the characters are more cardboard cutouts than fully realized people, they work fine in this plot-driven detective story. And I cannot say enough about the art of Jorge Fornés, whom King had to fight DC editorial to get on this book. Their reluctance boggles the mind the longer you spend with his drawings, which are a perfect match for this moody but methodical thriller.

In the end, fans of the Rorschach character were probably furious the longer they read this story and came to realize the character himself was never going to show up. But for those who just want a great story, one that draws upon the world and the morality of Watchmen without once leaning on fan service, Rorschach is a winner.

SUPERMAN: UP IN THE SKY by Tom King and Andy Kubert

Superman, in the wrong hands, is a really hard character to write, because so few people understand what makes him compelling. Some look to his powers, and they think the key to telling an interesting Superman tale is to have him face off against another invulnerable demigod. Others look to his alien heritage, to the ultimate immigrant story of a stranger in a strange land trying to help his adopted home. Still others lean on his status as a god among men, a Christlike figure who sees it as his responsibility to save everyone.

But, while all of these facets of the character have yielded good stories over the years, none of them are what make me love the character more than any other superhero. What I love about Superman is that, in a complicated, cynical world, Superman is unambiguously good. He is earnestly, unselfconsciously trying to do the right thing all the time. And because he is blessed with powers beyond those of mortal men, he refuses to believe he can't help everyone.

Superman: Up in the Sky is a narrative, told in 12 short stories, that explores this fundamental aspect of the hero's character, taking Krypton's last son across the galaxy and through a barrage of trials in order to save the life of one kidnapped girl. Each individual story, from a boxing match between Superman and an alien champion to a Twilight Zone-esque story in which Superman and Clark Kent become two physically separated beings, highlights a different element of the hero's character and mythos, and each one brings him ultimately closer to his goal.

But what binds these stories together is not really the plot, which is secondary. What makes this volume worth reading is King's implicit understanding of the character, his read on Superman as the person we all wish we were, the person willing to work and sacrifice and try for the sake of other people, even strangers. What King understands is that the first superhero is defined less as super than as a hero. Superman isn't just an invulnerable do-gooder, he's an inspiration.

Aided by Andy Kubert's splashy, dramatic art, Tom King here presents what may not be the best Superman story (that honor goes to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman), but is probably my favorite. Especially these days, we can all use a little hope. Superman: Up in the Sky unashamedly offers it.

STRANGE ADVENTURES by Tom King, Mitch Gerds, and Evan "Doc" Shaner

My third and final Tom King book of the month finds him in the groove that made him famous: a 12-issue maxiseries with art by friend and frequent partner Mitch Gerads about a C-list superhero who loves his wife and is trying to overcome the trauma of war. For King, an ex-CIA operative who served in Iraq, this is called "writing what you know." But where 2017's Mister Miracle soars (it's my all-time favorite limited series), Strange Adventures fell flat for me at the end, undermined by a twist that somehow felt both forced and predictable at the same time.

Strange Adventures is about Adam Strange, a Silver Age Flash Gordon knockoff complete with finned helmet and ray gun. "The Man of Two Worlds," Strange is an earthling who was teleported to the planet Rann, where he had all kinds of adventures and fell in love with the beautiful princess Alanna. Over the years he has frequently joined forces with the Justice League of America and other DC A-listers to take on alien threats.

But in Strange Adventures, he is reimagined as "the hero of Rann," a war veteran who is something of a cross between Dwight Eisenhower and Chris Kyle. Throughout the course of the series, we witness his acts of bravery on Rann as he fights off the merciless Pict invaders, but on Earth, life is more complicated—he is credibly accused of murder, then eventually of war crimes. He enlists Mister Terrific to investigate the murder and clear his name, but the deeper Mister Terrific delves into the case, the more apparent it becomes that there is more to Adam Strange than meets the eye.

Easily the best part of this complex, intricately told mystery is the structure. All scenes on present day Earth are drawn by King's familiar collaborator Mitch Gerads, whose realistic style fits the tone perfectly. All flashbacks to Rann are drawn by Evan "Doc" Shaner, whose retro aesthetic reminds readers of the character's inherent silliness and makes for a jarring contrast with the direction of King's story. Throughout the series, King flips back and forth between Gerads and Shaner, Earth and Rann, and it is incredibly effective as a storytelling device.

My issue, ultimately, is the twist ending, which (without spoiling anything) shows the fullness and complexity of Strange's trauma and ensures the story will not have a happy conclusion. I don't mind the story ending in tragedy by any means, but I simply didn't buy the twist for plot reasons. At a character level it feels true, but not at a story level. It's hard to explain, but after spending hours in this world, this forced resolution left a bad taste in my mouth.

Strange Adventures, like Mister Miracle, is superhero comics for grownups, and despite my misgivings, I'd certainly encourage you to read it. King-Gerads is the best in comics by a mile in my estimation, and Shaner's contributions here are equally excellent. Strange Adventures isn't a series I'm likely to revisit the way I do Mister Miracle, but rest assured, it's still better than 95% of what's on the shelves.