I haven’t been writing very fast lately, but here are some links I saved in recent months, since the last time I did a links post:
- First, at his site David Bordwell has a massive critical appraisal of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries, including some close reading of Stout’s prose that demonstrates how skillful it really is. It’s a great example of how even pulp fiction can benefit from close attention and real critical interest.
- Some links relating to the cartoonist Peter Blegvad, creator of the amazing strip Leviathan: the strip’s official website (which ill-advisedly chops up its sample strips, stranding the panels on a single lonely page each), a Believer interview, and a site archiving an intriguing miscellany of things including a description of his “Imagined, Observed, Remembered” project and a blog that ran 2011–2015.
- On Pseudopodium, some musings on the underrated cartoonist M. K. Brown. I wish more people knew about her; maybe then we’d get more of her work collected.
- A Tumblr blog called Altcomics which collects weird comics, or things that are arguably comics, or images recontextualized as comics. A good way to expand your notions of what comics can be.
- I’ve been enjoying A Podcast to the Curious, a podcast covering the stories of M. R. James and authors he influenced and was influenced by, for years, and their recent episode on Eleanor Scott’s “Randall’s Round” was particularly good.
- Lastly, I’ve also been enjoying a new podcast called Starboard Vineyard Tours discussing works of SFF criticism. Three episodes so far.