"There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."

Happy Towel Day 2010!


"A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

"Walk back to an empty house, sit around all by yourself..."

Still my favorite R.E.M. song. It just fits for tonight.

Must I Paint You A Picture?

Remember that pile of books I recently scored from various library book sales? Since things were so cheap, I picked up some books that just "looked interesting", including a few memoirs from "regular" (i.e., not "famous" or "established") people.

Last week I tried to read two of these memoirs, and had to restrain myself from tossing them out the train door.

These two books were so navel-gazingly self-indulgent, I now hesitate to pick up any memoir (or even worse "momoir") from anyone who isn't already well known. Yes, memoirs are autobiographical in nature, and so, yes, they focus on the subject. I knew there would be self-centeredness involved in books like these. However, what was so nauseating and infuriating was, in the end, both authors basically blamed all their problems on not getting enough love from their parents, and not taking responsibility for the conditions they put themselves in.

In Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, author Kerry Cohen blames her slutty behavior from age twelve forward on the fact that her parents got divorced when she was hitting puberty and sexually "coming of age", and didn't get enough love from either of them. Therefore, she had to find affection elsewhere. So she started sleeping with anything that moved. In Fat Girl: A True Story, Judith Moore attributes her body image problems to an absent father and mean mother.

And it's not only in memoirs that people are blaming their parents for their problems. Naomi Campbell recently went on Oprah and intimated that she throws phones and abuses clerks, her staff, service personal, etc. because her mother left her to try to become a ballerina. No, I shit you not. Naomi Campbell has an anger problem because she didn't have mommy's full attention.

Horrible parents do inflict permanent damage on their kids (physically and emotionally), and when they do serious harm, yes, it can be tragic. This happens and it is terrible. However, blaming your lifelong sluttiness or anger on your parents for not giving you all the love you thought you deserved is self-indulgent whining.

The advent of blogs and Twitter has just made memoir writing worse. Most of the time, it's not the people who survived serious problems who get to publish memoirs about it, or even blog about it. The most interesting stories probably are never heard, because the whiny little wannabe fame whores are crying too loudly.

It's enough to turn me away from any sort of memoir or autobiography for a long time, and instead return to science fiction, design books (architecture, packaging, furniture), and all types of sequential art, which leads to the question:

Why are so many autobiographical comics excellent, non-annoying, non-whiny, compelling reads, when "words-only" memoirs are absolute masturbatory crap?

Is it because the creator has to spend so much more time creating the pages that make up the finished project than just simply vomiting it out as blog posts? Does having to plot out every panel - script and art - lead to a more thoughtful story? The hours spent at the drawing board, first penciling, then inking, then lettering a story leave much more time for contemplating exactly what that story is going to say, and how it is going to be presented. The creators actually have to spend a significant amount of time drawing, be it daily journal comics or an entire book. That is so different from vomiting out a blog post or a 140-character tweet. It takes time, it takes talent. I can honestly say that I've never been completely, utterly disappointed with a journal comic or autobiographical comic as I have with a "words-only" memoir. At least I've never wanted to toss a collection of journal comics out of a moving train.

I used to believe, in the spirit of This American Life, that "everyone has a story". Now that we can read and hear "everyone"s story so easily, I'm not so sure about that. Even This American Life is extremely selective about whose stories get told to the public, and many of those stories feature something that's missing in so many current memoirs: a damn sense of humor with a bit of gentle self-deprecation.

Maybe every wannabe memoir author should illustrate a chapter of their manuscript, or develop a detailed panel-by-panel script, just to get them to slow down, think about what they are saying, and consider if anyone else really needs to hear it.

Oh, and Naomi? Shut. UP.

MoCCA 2010: Star Wars Fanbooks

Need an interesting gift for someone who has built their lives around Star Wars (Chapters IV, V, VI only, of course), and they don't need another tie-in novel, Lego set, or replica lightsaber? How about three volumes of Star Wars fan comics from indie comic artists interpreting their favorite elements? Three square-shaped, completely unauthorized, full-color volumes: Harvest is When I Need You the Most, Only What You Take With You, And Don't Forget the Droids are available individually or as a trilogy. (And you really do need to buy them as a trilogy.) Lovely physical design, layout, and covers, too. I was so thrilled to be able to get all three at MoCCA Fest, as I'd been wanting them for a while.


Here's a few selections from the collection:

Obi the Lonely (Page 1, Page 2) by Box Brown from Harvest is When I Need You Most

Hair of the Dog (Page 1, Page 2, Page 3) by Rosemary Travale from Only What You Take With You

Emo Luke Skywalker (Page 1, Page 2) by Matthew Reidsma from And Don't Forget the Droids