Another Fist Bites the Dust

The Immortal Iron Fist #18 hits comic shops everywhere today. It's the second chapter in my four-part arc, "The Mortal Iron Fist," in which Kung Fu billionaire Danny Rand meets the creepy guy (with a monster in his neck) who claims that he's killed every previous Iron Fist. You can check out some truly grisly preview pages at Comic Book Resources. Pick up multiple copies for your Labor Day Weekend party!

Opening Shots: Somebody's Done For

There was no land in sight.

Some seventy feet above the water a famished seagull circled slowly, somewhat warily. It had spotted this thing that seemed to be bobbing listlessly on the surface and was evidently too weary to resist assault. The thing looked like meat, and the bird's empty belly sent an urgent directive to the white wings, something along the lines of let's go down there and grab a fast bite. But the gull's brain counseled in terms of caution. The only feasible move was to take a closer look.

Somebody's Done For
by David Goodis
(Banner, 1967)

This book, available for 60 cents, was on the racks right around the time my dad was preparing to go to Vietnam. Goodis would be dead a few months later.

David Goodis Goes to the Beach

Aaron Finestone emailed to tell me that he's posted this photo album of ultra-rare David Goodis photos, provided by Lou "NoirCon" Boxer. Goodis, of course, is Philadelphia's king of noir fiction, and above, he's seen goofing off on the beach at Atlantic City. I've seen some of these photos before (Lou showed 'em to me a while back), but some are completely new... and mesmerizing. You definitely need to check them out.

And in honor of the end of summer, and Goodis, and the Jersey Shore, I think I'll post the opening to Somebody's Done For, Goodis's last novel, and as far as I knew, one of his few Jersey Shore-based noirs.

Swierczy, Live, at the Keene Forum

Labor Day is almost upon us, and many of you are probably folding up the beach towels and headed to the shore for one last sunny, sand-flecked hurrah. (Unless you live in Australia, where it's winter.) I'm packing up the family truckster, too, but I'm not headed to the shore. I'm going over to my buddy Brian Keene's place... and you're all invited!

Keene's been one of my favorite writers ever since I picked up his zombie noir debut, The Rising. Thanks to last summer's Dark Hollow, I'll never be able to look at a goat the same way again. (Thanks, Brian.) Keene's latest is Ghost Walk, and next month he's debuting his Marvel Comics mini-series, Devil Slayer (preview sketches above). The man is ridiculously talented, and crazy prolific.

And now, for some strange reason, he's opening up the doors to his place for me. All week I'll be hanging out in Keene's "One on One" forum, answering questions and just shooting the crap. And while you're there, make sure you check out the rest of Keene's joint. That's right, go snooping through his missives, manifestos, communiques, comics, books, and maybe even his cigar collection. Okay, maybe not that. We don't want to overstay our welcome...

Smiling Back at You

There's a great piece in today's New York Times Magazine by Dexter Filkins (shown at left, filing a story while rockets explode around him in Falluja) who reported from Iraq from 2003 to 2006. When I worked as a reporter, I could never shake that awful feeling that I was intruding on people's lives. And in this passage, Filkins takes that feeling to a horrific extreme:

You go into these places, and you think they’re overrated, they are not nearly as dangerous as people say. Keep your head; keep the gunfire in front of you. You get close and come out unscathed every time, your face as youthful and as untroubled as before. The life of the reporter: always someone else’s pain. A woman in an Iraqi hospital cradles her son newly blinded, and a single tear rolls down her cheek. The cheek is so dry, and the tear moves so slowly that you focus on it for a while, the tear traveling across the wide desert plain. You need a corpse for the newspaper, so you take a bunch of marines to get one. Then suddenly it’s there, the warm liquid on your face, the death you have always avoided, smiling back at you as if it knew all along. Your fault.

You can read the whole story right here, which is also a preview of Filkins's forthcoming book, The Forever War.

The Tri-State Boys Come to Clinton

About 30 minutes from now I'll be headed north for a book signing with Jason Pinter and Dave White (shown at left) at the Clinton Book Shop (33 Main Street, Clinton, NJ, 908-735-8811). The fun starts at 6:30, but the three of us are meeting up at some nearby Irish joint. I've been through Clinton hundreds of times (I used to commute from Allentown to NYC, and Clinton's on the way) but I've never actually set foot in Clinton, so I'm looking forward to the experience. Stop by if you've got nothing else going on tonight. And, of course, you live near Clinton.

Cruel to Be Kindle

Okay, maybe it's a little strange that this is the post immediately following the one about the glories of my new, yet old-fashioned ink-on-paper library. But a few people have asked me about this, so it is my duty to report: Severance Package is now available in an Amazon Kindle edition. You can download it right this very second, if you were so inclined.

Do I have a Kindle? No. Do I plan on buying one? Oh... I don't know. While I love the idea of having 200 books in one little device at all times, it seems devoid of all of all the little things I love about ink-on-paper books. The cheesy die-cut covers. The smell of aging pages. Over-the-top and/or ridiculous back cover copy. The feel of a nicely-assembled tome in my hands.

And let's not forget the sublime joy I've been enjoying this week: running my eyes over the spines of my collection. Don't think you have quite the same experience scrolling down a screen, no matter how sharp the "electronic paper."

But what the hell do I know. I think I was born 30 years too late. I had my way, every paperback would be designed like a God Medal. What do you guys think? Any of you have a Kindle?