Anhedonia

Anhedonia
Written by Alan David Doane. e-book

Before we go any further, it should be said that if it is true that we all have one book in us, then Alan David Doane's Strange Whine, from 2007, is his book. There are a few reviews, including at least one controversial one (the others just good, insightful, blah blah blah), an interview with probably the greatest comics writer in the medium's history, Alan Moore, several autobiographical pieces covering young Alan's history with comic books, his health, and departed friends, and several essays about what he demands from, hopes for, and despairs he is losing, from comics. It's a heavy, uncompromising, wise-yet-reckless, passionate mother of a book.

So what's left?

Well, when you're a writer with as distinct and commanding a voice as Alan's, there needn't be that much more. That is, what one finds in his latest collection of reviews and essays, Anhedonia, is Doane without the sturm und drang, for the most part. As he puts it in his Introduction, he thought that enough time had passed that it "might be fun to put together a second collection." And why not? Creative people change in various ways as they continue to work at their art or craft, but a common trajectory is to do more with less. Artists find they can achieve the same, perhaps better effect, with fewer strokes of the brush, while musicians may find the notes left out are as important as those played. In this somewhat slimmer collection, Doane plays variations on familiar themes that matter to him. And again, why not? As brilliant as he is, cartoonist Chris Ware essentially has one story to tell. As it's a good story, he can keep finding variations on it for the next fifty years if he so desires.

The first essay is indicative of a somewhat calmer, measured tone, as Doane writes drolly of his futile attempts to winnow his graphic novel collection down to "just the essentials." Any avid book reader will know the feeling: how does one fully represent the heights of one's tastes and passions within a limited room space? How does one keep only the most brilliant works within reach when there are always brand new classics or luxe new collections of old classics vying for that space, or maybe one just has a sudden yearning to read something that didn't make the cut and was packed away, or (horrors!) sold off or given away?

There follows a perfectly good review of the recent JLA Vol 1 by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter, one of a handful of near-genius works battling their way through editorial hurdles towards sublime, influential territory.

After this, Doane covers more recent Morrison writing in Batman: The Black Glove, a collection of serial comics stories, with the ones drawn by J.H. Williams III wondrous and the ones drawn by Tony G. Daniels mediocre, Morrison either rising to the occasion with Williams or saving an admitted dud for Daniels. Doane makes the ludicrous assertion that the book would be a better value with just the Williams-drawn issues. At worst, the Daniels issues are like the dvd bonus features for a great film: one watches them once and never again, with no real harm done to the movie itself.

Next are excellent reviews of Alison Bechdel's Essential Dykes To Watch Out For, Pascal Girard's Nicolas and Inio Asano's Solanin, the third significant in that Doane only rarely reviews manga, but Doane shows a knack for finding the small, human moments in each book.

After his fiery, profane sermon on the Mount for Daniel Clowes' Eightball #23, as featured in Strange Whine, Doane returns to Clowes with a review of the 2008 Special Edition of his first great work, Ghost World. This time, he has nothing but love for Clowes, his characters Rebecca and Enid, and the good memories the work evokes. Nostalgia isn't all bad.

Doane goes on to find a peak oil perspective in his review of Tim Lane's Abandoned Cars I couldn't see myself, but he really nails Christopher Nolan's film, The Dark Knight, in a review rivaling any of those well-paid newspaper or magazine critics. One has to feel Nolan dodged a bullet by presenting a brilliant but slightly flawed film--if Doane thought it was perfect, Nolan was in for trouble whenever he delivered the inevitably disappointing follow-up.

On the other hand, maybe Doane has mellowed somewhat, because he seems to have come to a less extreme opinion on writer Warren Ellis' work. Once he was brilliant, then a sellout spewing forth half-baked and reheated concepts, and now in Doane's review of New Thunderbolts Vol. 1 he can find pleasures in the solid craft and mean-spirited fun of this second tier Ellis corporate comics effort.

Doane finds parallel aims between a story in Yoshihiro Tatsumi's Good-Bye and Will Eisner's A Contract with God I wish I'd recognized, dammit. The guy's good. Also good is his essay on Charles Schulz' immensely popular '60s Pop Art book, Happiness Is A Warm Puppy, but better yet is his take on Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko. It's a thankfully rare feeling--that sort of guilt that the art one loves so much caused great pain to its creator. Most of us don't think much about it, or choose not to, but that bittersweet twinge one might feel upon reading classic but personally devastating work like Amazing Spider-Man is a small price to pay for having it.

Lewis Black's Me of Little Faith sounds like it was created especially for Doane, but although I'm not really a fan, the review made me interested in checking it out. The next essay, "I Admit It: I Still Love Star Trek," is another Doane love letter, though perhaps the most commercial one. I've never cared much for Star Trek beyond the first series, but at least Doane has given me a reliable cosmic map if I ever want to more boldly go and all that.

"Bending the Comics" is another terrific tale of Young Alan's and his comics purchasing experiences, while "Forgotten Foods" was so fun, and revelatory, I believe I had to take part with my own list when this was first posted online. It's both nostalgic and curmudgeonly at the same time. Actually, reading it again raises all kinds of questions. The Doanes dined on filet mignon on a weekly basis, yet also resorted to budget-conscious meals like chipped beef on toast, Spam. Interesting to see that the vast majority of these forgotten foods are meat.

If I was a brighter guy, I'd have noticed how much more reflective this book is than the first. Aside from a few shots at the oil crisis and G.W. Bush, as one can see in the previous essays, Doane is often looking back here at favorite comics creators and their works, and this is continued in his review of Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics as well as his memoriam for the late writer Steve Gerber. What I liked about that one is that, unlike so many critics and commentators, Doane doesn't just trot out the man's resume and toss out insincere hosannas for his work. He admits he didn't really "get" Gerber but wishes he had. To this writer, honesty is always the best policy, and critics are human and fallible. Sometimes we just don't get what everyone else thinks is great. Sometimes a respected artist dies and the opportunity to write an obituary is almost like a pop quiz for which we didn't study. Better to just admit your failings and engage the subject in whatever honest way one can.

"Two Beautiful Women and My Birthday" is a terrific autobiographical piece about a great evening out for Doane. As so many of his days seem filled with "disappointment and conflict," it's a pleasure to see the rare good one recounted, but even with no knowledge of Doane it's a fun piece. That description doesn't apply to "Like Every Other Night," which details a typical night for a Type 2 diabetic like Doane. Very well-written, although perhaps it should have preceded "Two Beautiful Women" so that the good vibes from that might last a little longer and carry on through the charming "Me and Tom Snyder," which is about exactly that.

After a charming "10 Things I Love About Comics," a kind of restorative treatment Doane undergoes every now and then, like Ra's al Ghul, he finds his old thunder in an indictment of this current era he dubs "The Fan Fiction Age of Superhero Comics." Although I had enough of the phrase, "narrative ass-rape," after the very first time he used it, it's hard to argue that many of the plotting decisions of several popular superhero writers reek of sordid, juvenile games kids play with action figures, or the kinds of fantasies they create around wholesome comics characters when they get a bit of the real world on their shoes and want to soil innocent entertainments with it. Or to put it yet another way, only mature people can really write mature comics, and they're in short supply.

"Remembering Bernard Krigstein" is a good enough piece for a day's blogging, but Doane has written more eloquently on Krigstein before. As the capper to a book it falls short enough that it should have come before the "Fan Fiction" piece--a rousing closer and reminder that no matter how much Doane may be looking back, he's still got one eye on what's good and bad in comics today.

Read more of Alan David Doane's writings on comics, movies, politics and life at his blog. One hopes the e-book collections continue every year or two.