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Slowly I’m getting there… like a fat woman walking to an aerobics class

The Night Mayor

Kim Newman

The City, a hellish place dominated by perpetual night and a slew of clichés. The City isn’t real, it’s a dream. Truro Daine a notorious criminal has managed to escape his prison by creating the City, in this virtual landscape he reigns supreme. Daine has the Talent, but he’s not the only one capable of shaping dreams. Enter Susan Bishopric and Tom Tunney, two professional dreamers. They have been called in to put an end to Truro’s reign as Night Mayor, and to stop his dream world from spilling over into the most sophisticated Artificial Intelligence this side of the Grand Canyon. Once inside Truro’s dream the Susan and Tunney realize that this isn’t going to be an easy task.

The Night Mayor is a fun little book. Kim Newman’s style has a certain flair to it. He knows how to set a mood using vivid descriptions and iconic imagery. The City is a place based on the old Noir-movies from the thirties and forties. Using those movies as a backdrop, Newman creates a black-and-white world that has all the stylistic conventions of the genre, and then proceeds to mercilessly poke fun at them. Newman isn’t playing it all for laughs, as he takes his time to work in the various details and drops a multitude of names in the process, it becomes clear that this book is very much an ode to the old genre. It becomes clear early on that Newman really does have a heart for this sort of thing.

That also brings up the weakest point of the novel. At times it felt as if I was ploughing through a lengthy field of references I didn’t quite get. This is something that has popped up in Newman’s other novels, most notably his Anno Dracula series.

The difference here is that in Anno Dracula the references are part of the story and they don’t hinder the plot or the main characters. The Night Mayor actually manages to suffer under the weight of the references. Bogart is there, Rooney, Flynn, and countless others, not just the names of the actors, but also the names of the characters they played. They’re brought up as characters in the background, characters that are only there to hammer home the fact that the setting iss based on old movies. The City is a cliché and all the characters in it suffer the same fate of being clichés. It’s intentional, but it’s not quite working out the way they’re intended. Instead of adding to the scenery, they end up distracting, they break the flow of the story.

Other than that, the novel itself is pretty light reading. The pace is decent, the language flows from one page to the other, and there’s enough action and mystery to urge the reader to continue reading. There’s not a whole lot of depth to the characters or the story, but it’s not pretending that there is. The novel is aware of what it is, and it simply runs with that premise. No deeper meaning, no hidden message, just an enjoyable story with a very clear background and a couple of clever twists throughout the various action-scenes.

It’s a passionate love letter to the greats of a nearly dead cinematic genre, but with a definite wink and a subtle nudge. It’s a dynamic little book that isn’t ashamed of itself.

Recommended if you love Film Noir and Science Fiction.

7 out of 10

My apologies for the lack of updates. I just started a new job, it managed to keep me occupied for days on end. But now that I’m starting to get into the groove of things I’m having more spare time to work on the comic. Expect updates within the week.

Finally I’m crawling out of a depressing black hole… took me long enough. For the first time since forever things are starting to look manageable again… I’m back to writing reviews for a reasonably large website, I’m picking up my career as a freelance artist, and my job isn’t nearly as stressful as it used to be.

I reckon this is the fabled silver lining… the hallowed light at the end of the tunnel.

I have to say that I’m really lucky to be able to review the Dutch version of “The Umbrella Academy” as well as the first part of Alan Moore’s ”From Hell“. There are also a couple of novels on my list of items to review, but they’re not nearly as exciting… although Cory Doctorow is a pretty decent writer and I thoroughly enjoyed his “Down and Out in the Magical Kingdom“, who knows maybe “Makers” will be just as fun… somewhere in the back of my mind I’m thinking Doctorow might turn out to be the next Douglas Coupland.

 Which reminds me… I need to pick up “Generation A“… which is the sort-of-but-not-quite sequel to “Generation X”

I’m unemployed… 

Sort of sucks big time… I mean, things were going great, my coworkers were fun to hang out with, and I even made some friends. They say all good things come to an end, but that doesn’t make those good things any less fun.  Sure I saw it coming a mile away, after all, my contract was only for a year, but it still feels like I’m leaving something behind.

Here’s to the glorious hunt for a new job!

So I’m slaving away over the latest Sally Saturn page, and it’s taking me forever to get it done. I’m fiddling around with colours, adding little effects that turn out practically invisible on the screen, I’m trying to work in clear sharp shadows and it’s just so very timeconsuming. But I get the job done, and I post my page, and I keep noticing little things that I could have done differently, and perhaps little things that I should have done differently, and things that I will do differently… after all, I’m learning as I go.

So get this… I’m sort of involved in a little tiff. A fight of sorts. Nothing serious, nothing remotely vicious, a whole lot of mock-outrage and a bunch of one-liners that aren’t nearly as sharp and witty as hoped. So I decide to do a little drawing, just to stretch the old creative muscle. I grab my tools and start doodling away… and yes I know… it’s a tired old joke… but sometimes even the long dead ponies  need some of that succulent fresh air.

So in fifteen minutes I create something that looks better, looks easier, and more alive than something that takes me hours to draw. What’s up with that? One fifteen-minute-sketch gets my creative juices flowing just right. Sure it’s a sketch, but I’m sort of using techniques that I don’t normally use, and I’m pretty pleased with the end-result.

So I’m asking myself, why? Is it the time constraint… is it the fact that it’s all very loose and very quick, and I don’t overthing the basic stuff? Is it because it’s a pin up and not a sequence? I don’t know. I do know however that this frustrates me. I’m now qondering if I should look at the comic and change my method again. I’m constantly changing my style, constantly changing techniques, so this is just another learning thing that I can use in the future.

I’m not saying I’m going to change everything overnight, but I’m guessing I’m going to be incorporating a couple of new things along the way…