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Favorite Books I read in 2020

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Everybody responded differently to 2020’s awfulness, and I know many couldn’t concentrate on reading. I found that I could, and got even more comfort (and yes, escape) than usual from it.

Not counting books I read as research, I clocked in at 13 graphic novels and 80 prose works (46 fiction, 34 non). Here are my favorites, in case you need some recommendations for the coming year.

Fiction

Circe by Madelaine Miller
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
In the Woods by Tana French
The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Nonfiction

Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
The Falcon Thief by Joshua Hammer
Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Lucky Dog Lessons by Brandon McMillan
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Gregory Hays (trans.)
Midnight in Chernobyl by Andrew Higginbotham
Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars by Kate Green
The Sirens of Mars by Sarah Stewart Johnson
Vesper Flights by Helen MacDonald
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Graphic Novels

Prince of Cats by Ron Wimberly
Rusty Brown by Chris Ware
Silver Surfer Black by Donny Cates and Tradd Moore
Slaughterhouse-Five by Ryan North, Albert Monteys, and Kurt Vonnegut

I also read a lot of old comic books (ostensibly because I’m weeding the collection, but in part just for fun) and, as mentioned, a bunch of books for future projects. Here’s hoping you found comfort in something this year as well, and that next year is a better one.

The bar for that is set low…

NATURALIST: Circumnavigating the uncanny valley

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My latest book isn’t mine, really.

The first name on the cover is E.O. Wilson’s, since Naturalist (on sale Nov. 10, but you can pre-order it now!), is an adaptation of his memoir of the same name. I’d never adapted a book before, and had no idea how to do such a thing when an editor at Island Press asked me to consider it. I think I came clean to Rebecca (hi Rebecca!) about this right away, but she sent me the book anyway. By the time it arrived I was having a hard time stopping myself from underlining passages in a copy I’d already borrowed from the library.

(Hi library! It’s 2020 and I miss visiting you!)

That copy she sent me is now beat up and marked up and I’ve underlined stuff on almost every page. Not surprisingly, the book is visually rich and verbally dense. It wasn’t quite a “choose your own adventure” experience, but there were many pathways through the book to explore in adapting it to comics. But to me, what happened between the lines was just as interesting, and to my mind it was this: Prof. Wilson was talking to us, sure, but he was also talking to himself.

So what does this mean for the comic? It meant, to me, that Wilson should talk to himself in the book. Obviously. But also literally. The present day Wilson — “PDW” in my script — should appear as a character during his early life, and vice versa.

Present Day Wilson walking (underwater!) with his younger self
PDW and Kid Wilson

I knew Chris (hi Chris!) was up to the artistic challenge of that, but I had no idea whether Rebecca would buy in, much less Prof. Wilson himself.

(Hi Prof. Wilson; I still can’t bring myself to call you Ed!)

To their credit, though they were skeptical (especially at the script stage, where the story is only words on the page, so it’s all theory…or maybe just hypothesis!) they let me proceed. And once it was reality, and they could see it in the art, they bought in completely. And that’s because comics is so good at keeping readers out of the uncanny valley.

Briefly, the uncanny valley is a phrase from the 1970s introduced by Masahiro Mori, at the time a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He used it to describe how as robots appear more human-like, they become more appealing — but only up to a point. When they get close to human-like, but not close enough, they start to look creepy. That’s when they’re in the valley. There are lots of reasons why 3D animators (think Pixar movies) don’t try to make their characters resemble real humans or animals too perfectly. One of the main ones is they don’t want to trap them, and then the audience, in the uncanny valley.

The comics medium has an advantage here, I think. A somewhat cartoony style, which I prefer over hyper-realistic ones, makes falling into the uncanny valley almost impossible. For one thing, the first image you see of a character fixes the look of that person in your mind, at least in the context of the book. It becomes the baseline for what you expect to see.

That’s not much different from movies, of course, so the real difference is that in comics you’re a reader, not a viewer. And as a reader, you fill in more details — and all the movement and humanity — that happens between the panels. The subtle failures in how light plays over real flesh, or wind moves hair, or the dissonance of hearing a famous actor’s voice coming out of someone else’s mouth? Those can’t happen in comics.

There are valleys and mountains and amazing vistas and wonderful animals of all kinds in our book, of course. It’s about Nature-with-a-capital-N, after all. But I can say that if you agree to accept that first image of E.O. Wilson as The Naturalist, you can trust him, and us, to move you through both space and time and never even approach the uncanny. What you’ll get instead is the wonder and joy of discovery.

More virtual events: July 16 and July 22

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If you can read this, you can join me for a couple of online events! Check the “Upcoming Events” link on my site for more info, but briefly:

July 16: In conversation with Kate Greene about her new book Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars.

July 22: A Comic-con panel with Maris Wicks, Gene Yang, and Chad Sell about “The Power of Teamwork in Kids Comics.”

I hope to see** you there.

**Even though, thanks to the magic of how online meetings sometimes disable audience audio+video, I might not actually get to see you, I’m sure you look fabulous!

Virtual Astronauts Events: May 20 and June 6

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If you can read this, you can join us for a couple of online events!

May 20 (Wednesday), 1pm EDT
Live Chat: Pioneering Women in Aerospace
https://airandspace.si.edu/events/live-chat-pioneering-women-aerospace

Mary Cleave, Maris Wicks, and I will talk about our graphic novel ASTRONAUTS and the first women in space…Mary was one of those astronauts! Could it be cooler? Yes: it’s sponsored and hosted by the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum!

June 6 (Saturday), 12pm EDT
Comics Relief: “Space Comics”

Alison Wilgus (@aliwilgus), Maris Wicks (@mariswicks), and I will talk about space comics as part of a cool event sponsored by our pals (and publishers) at First Second!

More details in the events link when they’re available.

Astronauts Events!

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Update, March 10: It looks like the March 14th event is not going to happen. Yes, it’s because of the coronavirus, and yes, Maris and I are very sad. As much as we love all events to promote the books,  this one was special! But…we also understand; we will contain this disease by making good individual and group decisions, and cancelling this is both. We’re already talking about rescheduling, so please stay tuned. And please do what you can to protect your own health and the health of others. We’re all in this together. “Together” means a little further away from each other than we’d like right now, but closer again in the future!

We’re adding more as we go, so please check the events calendar here, or take a peek at our respective Twitter feeds (@gtlabsrats, @mariswicks) to figure out where we are, and when!

The Michigan Author’s Workshop

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I had a great time at the Michigan Author’s Workshop last week, and got a chance to look around Midland — a place I’ve never been — the next morning before heading home. So, some photos!

Midland Center for the Arts
The Venue

The talk took place at the Midland Center for the Arts, a lovely place. My hosts (Helen and Chris) and co-presenter — poet David (D.R.) James — were excellent too.

Seven Saints and Sinners
Watching over me, not helpfully

We had some tech difficulties (“Oh, about that HDMI port we said you could use. It doesn’t actually work!” “Um. Okay?”), but in the end we got a big ol’ TV in there and watched episodes of “The Good Place” instead of my talk.

A saint
Do good sales mean a good presentation? (Maybe? Probably? I hope?)

Not really, but it was a close thing. In the end, I was able to show images — important when talking about comics — and people seemed happy with my discussion of comics storytelling, its tools, and the research process for Hawking. That is, if “book sales > than number of attendees” is a valid measure of happiness, anyway.

It ran late, so I stayed over night and the next morning, before returning home, I visited the Dow Gardens and the Alden B. Dow Home & Studio.

Alden B. Dow exterior
The chimney is built for climbing. (In a less risk-averse age, anyway.)

You can’t take photos inside, so you’ll just have to go see it for yourself. I’d heard about the home for years, so was grateful to get a chance to finally visit. Definitely worth it!

A fine event in a fine mid-Michigan town. Thanks again to Saginaw Valley State University. I’d go again!

 

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Recent News

  • Favorite Books I read in 2020 December 31, 2020
  • NATURALIST: How many endings? Only one. October 26, 2020
  • NATURALIST: How much is a picture worth? October 19, 2020
  • E.O. Wilson reads from NATURALIST October 16, 2020
  • NATURALIST: Circumnavigating the uncanny valley October 12, 2020
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