Tiger Lung [Reading Challenge 2017]

Tiger Lung by Simon Roy, Jason Wordie

Tiger Lung

by Simon Roy and Jason Wordie
Dark Horse Originals, 2014

(Note that I am not doing this challenge in numerical order!)

The Seattle Public Library is among the finest for a metropolitan area in the US. Each branch specializes in a different genre, and for my branch, it’s graphic novels. By browsing in this row and pulling out books at random you are sure to find great reading material.

I chose Tiger Lung because, by the name, I thought it had to do with Chinese history, as lung is the traditional name for the Chinese dragon. But it turned out to be something better, three tales set in Paleolithic times, 30,000 years ago in what is now the modern-day Ukraine. Glaciers were still extant and ice age conditions, with conifer forests, steppes, and mammoths, and survival was harsh and not guaranteed.

The book was actually a collection of three stories plus some bonus material, less a graphic novel and more of an anthology. The three were thematically similar, dealing with the ways the spiritual world intersected the world of the living. The artistic style was loose and sketchy, full of life and movement, as if the artist had actually lived amongst these people and had sketched them on the fly. It actually did a lot to humanize them for me. They evince apprehension, puzzlement, even irony — they carry their children on their shoulders and even want to sleep late. The warmth of them comes through, but also the grittiness — guts, dirt, frayed leather, and broken teeth.

The stories were not only interesting in an anthropological sense — the creators really seem to have done their research — but also in a horror one, which is of interest to me, as a horror writer. Terrifying encounters with the supernatural take place in the forest, under the glacial ice, and in the Realm of the Undead. The spirits are part human, part animal, depicted in pale, sickly pinks and blues, with transparent skin through which their internal organs glow eerily. Simon says in the afterword that these organs are glowing with power; but they also recall, to me, Aboriginal Australian art in which the animals’ interiors are depicted in X-ray style, perhaps in the same principle.

paleolithic kangaroo

I was also reminded of the famed “Sorcerer” dancing figure from the caves at Lascaux, itself a human-animal hybrid.

paleoithic Lascaux sorceror

These spirits are not wispy and ethereal ones though. They can rend and tear, throwing guts and gore everywhere.

The stories themselves are about the adventures of the nominal character, a shaman named Tiger Lung, the last of a hereditary line of shamans. Each tale is stand alone. In the first, a young Tiger Lung undertakes a journey under a glacier to retrieve the skull of his father, who had disappeared there months earlier. In the second, while traveling with a friend, he encounters a massacre, a strange girl, and a tribe of brutal were-hyenas. This one is my personal favorite. The black-and-white artwork is in pen overlaid with watercolor, loose yet fraught with tension. There’s also dark humor, and irony: the traveling companion has a Neanderthal wife who does the literal heavy lifting in the relationship. I was also fond of the hand-drawn, scribbled lettering, which added to the intimate tone for me.

The final story concerns a journey into the actual spirit world and again I liked the starkness of it. The coloration here was particularly fine, with the real world depicted in gold and sepia, the spirit one in ghostly pinks and blues, while the night scenes were in blueish-gray.

The sketches at the back were also a fine addition. I hope the rest of the creators’ work of this series is published together.

Cobalt Jade’s Tax Tips: Lifetime Learning Credit

I am starting a series today dealing with federal tax tips for freelance writers and artists. Many times those working independently aren’t aware of the deductions and tax breaks they may be able to receive in a complicated and overwhelming, but surprisingly fair, system.

In this post I will look at the Lifetime Learning Credit, a straightforward and easy credit the taxpayer can take for any accredited course(s) taken at any accredited university or school. How easy is that?

First off, let’s see where it goes.

1040-where-ed-credit-goes

Form 8863, Education Credits, is where you would do the math to figure this entry (or your tax program will do it for you.) It has three parts.

Part I of the form is for the American Opportunity Credit, which I might go into in a later post. You may happily ignore it for now.

Part II is for the Lifetime Learning Credit. Part III is where you enter your personal and school information. If you realize it’s beneficial to fill out Part III of the 8868 first, you’re right.

You don’t have to fill in the other areas in Part III to take this credit.

The final figure, circled in green, is carried over to Section II of the 8863 form.

Who can take this credit? Anyone paying for higher education for themselves, their spouse (if filing jointly) or a dependent, such as a child. For purposes of this post, I will assume only the freelancer themselves will be claiming the credit.

What kind of classes are eligible? Any, as long as they carry credits. Doesn’t matter if it’s related to your work as a freelancer or not. You don’t need to be enrolled in a higher education program either.

Where must those classes have been taken? Any college, university or vocational school eligible to participate in a student aid program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Most do; if in doubt, ask the school upfront with a quick call to the admin office. The taxpayer must have been enrolled for at least one academic period during the tax year. Prepaid courses count for the same year they were paid for. For example, if you paid for a course in December 2015 for the quarter that begins in January 2016, those payments are deductible for 2015.

What payments are deductible? Tuition!  Plus any books, supplies, or equipment required to be paid to the institution as a condition of enrollment or attendance. For example, textbooks, lab fees, and safety goggles would count in order to take a biochemistry course, because the student would not be permitted to take the course without them. A medical dictionary, however, though useful, would not count, because it is optional on the part of the student.

What kinds of payments are deductible? Only those you made, even if the payments were made with through a loan or with a gift. Scholarships and financial aid do not count.

How will you know what you’ve paid for the year? Your education institution may mail you a Form 1098-T after the end of the year. It looks like this and has all the information you need to know.

If you have not received one, don’t sweat. Assuming there is no financial aid involved, all that matters are the tuition and required fees, and if you have a record or receipt of them, that is OK.

Limit: Up to $2,000 per return, depending on the calculations.

Restrictions: You cannot claim the credit if you are married filing separately, or are claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return. You cannot count the classes as a business expense, American Opportunity Credit, or any other type of deduction. Once they are claimed for Lifetime Learning they cannot be claimed or deducted anywhere else on the return.

 

 

 

Stardust [Reading Challenge 2017]

Neil Gaiman Stardust

Stardust

by Neil Gaiman
HarperCollins; Reprint edition

[Challenge # 1: Coming to theater near you]

I had never read Neil Gaiman before, so I was pleasantly surprised by his “Fairy tale for Grown-ups” Stardust. (A movie was made of it in 2007 starring Clare Danes and Charlie Cox, but I haven’t seen it, so can’t compare.) It was not a long book, nor a quest one in the Tolkien mode, or an urban fantasy. The closest analog I can find to describe it would be Lord Dunsany crossed with hedge fantasy, that typically English genre where fairies and hobgoblins lurk yet in country villages or secret worlds in wardrobes. The basic plot did remind me, in fact, of Clive Barker’s Imagica — a sensual (read: there’s sex) parallel world with its own fantastic characters based on English tropes, and the hero who enters it — but without being detailed to death, or having Barker’s sense of claustrophobia.

Tristran — I kept reading it as Tristan — Thorn, the young hero, lives in one of those quaint villages that just happens to have a gate connecting it to the realms of Faerie. This isn’t made a big deal of in the story, just accepted by the inhabitants in a low-key, matter-of-fact way. Guards are posted at the gate to ensure no one enters, for their own safety. But once a year, Faerie denizens come to the meadow that is just beyond the gate, and a big fair takes place for them and the Victorian-era villagers alike. During one of these Tristan is conceived on a Faerie mother and left on his father’s doorstep after he is born. Again, not a lot of fuss is made about this. When he becomes a young man, he sees a shooting star fall beyond the Faerie gate and promises to retrieve it for the young woman he has a crush on, and thus starts the story. The star turns out to be a girl who was knocked out of the sky by a talisman thrown by a dying lord whose dastardly sons are out to retrieve it. At the same time, a witch is out to also capture the star for her youth-giving blood. Complications ensue between these four parties, their friends, and their enemies.

All this sounds chaotic, but it really wasn’t, again presented in a low-key, turn of the century way by an omniscient narrator who is calm and in control. The book read more epic and longer than it actually was, in a good way, which was refreshing to me. It kept my attention and I looked forward to the time I could read it, something that does not always happen with my recreational reading. The story did not have the rising-action-big climax-tiny denouement structure of a typical fantasy novel, which again was refreshing, and different. There were, in fact, several endings: the escape of the couple from Faerie, the revelation of the Tristran’s true heritage, his discovery that his crush was not who he thought she was and had a life of her own; and at least three more. These soft endings were refreshing after the big Hollywood climaxes of modern SF/fantasy, where it’s often heroes vs. bad guys in a titanic battle that goes on freaking forever, at the end of which the good guys escape by the slimmest of margins. Think of the climactic escape from the movie Chicken Run and you will understand what I mean, where the freedom of the heroes hinges on a string of Christmas tree lights and a blunt-nosed child’s pair of scissors. (This is amusingly spoofed in the slow-mo escape sequence at the end of the animated French movie The Triplets of Belleville, where it’s apparent the old ladies have the upper hand.)

I don’t think Gaiman is the quite the master of  prose a lot of readers think he is, but his language fits the story, it’s succinct yet robust, and though he often approaches twee territory, he never really goes there. On the whole, an enjoyable read, and I would recommend it.

 

Reading Challenge 2017

Inspired by the fine folks at the Writers Water Cooler forums, I have taken on a reading challenge for this year, my first ever. As a writer, I tend to not read a lot of fiction when I’m working, but of course as writers we must read, just to see how other writers do things, and keep up with what’s current. And it’s enjoyable, a joy I admit I’ve forgotten.

So here is my list, 12 topics chosen from a suggested list of 40, with each book I have chosen.

 

  1. Coming to a theater near you: A book made into a major motion picture. (Stardust by Neil Gaimon)
  2. East meets West: A book taking place in Asia (anywhere in Asia; Turkey to Japan, Siberia to Indonesia) (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See) 
  3. What you read: A book you loved as a child. (The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling)
  4. Loose ends: A book you started last year and haven’t yet finished. (Cinder by Marissa Meyer)
  5. No hablo: A translation. (The King of the Fields, Isaac Bashevis Singer)
  6. Out of the park on first at bat: A debut. (Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer, by Laini Taylor) 
  7. Huh, I never knew that: A book in a new-to-you genre. (The Aviary Gate, by Katie Hickman. It’s Historical Romance.)
  8. Rainbow warrior: A book with a color in the title. (Yellowtail, Crow Medicine Man and Sun Dance Chief, an Autobiography told to Michael Oren Fitzgerald)
  9. Who was that, again?: A book about a person you know little about. (The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, by Jack Weatherford)
  10. God’s mansion has many rooms: A book based in a religion not your own. (Harm, by Brian W. Aldiss)
  11. Ye olde booke shoppe: A book written before 1700. (Gilgamesh.)
  12. Three-color mythology: A graphic novel or comic book. (Tiger Lung, by Roy Simon) 

 

 

 

Twilight’s Two Apples

On October 6th Little, Brown Books released the 10th Anniversary edition of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, which included a special bonus: the novel rewritten and gender-reversed, with Edward now Edyth, and Bella now Beau. The bonus was born of the author’s desire to show the story as truly universal and that the gender of the protagonists did not matter, in response to crticism of the original narrator’s tendency to be a moon-eyed damsel in distress.

I have not read either one, Twilight being in fact on my to-read list; but let’s examine the covers the Little, Brown chose for each one and see what they code.

twilight cover and life and death cover, by stephenie meyer

Red apple, green apple; on the surface both are pretty sweet (sorry for the pun) and a great example of series branding.In the first one, note that the female offers the apple, symbolic of temptation and loss of innocence, somewhat tentatively. The use of both hands cupping it implies it weighs heavily on her, that it requires more than the usual effort to hold.  Alternatively, she might be cupping it to protect it, like it’s her virginity. We can’t see the rest of her body, but she is holding it with arms lowered at the level of where her genitals might be. For someone to take it, the recipient must come close and bend low — an intimate position.

The male hand, in contrast, boldly holds the apple as if he were freely offering it to someone. There is almost a dare in it. He holds it away from his body. If it was given to him and he accepted it, he might be holding it at arm’s length, weighing and appraising. He might pitch it away in a second, or  take a bite. He might also be boasting of his possession of it. In any case, his ownership, offer, or acceptance are all active and decisive.

The typeface of Twilight is curving, slightly baroque, while the typeface used for Life and Death — a far more florid and ambitious title — is more modern and techno. The red apple implies sweetness and juiciness; the green, tartness and zest.

Not too hard to guess that the stories inside do indeed differ according to gender’s protagonist, and how, right?

Erotica vs. Romance: The Covers

The romance covers post got me thinking. How do plain old erotica book covers stack up to the waxed and buff male torso that signifies a hot read? Let’s see. I’m going to start with A. N. Roquelaure’s Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, which is the porniest mainstream book I know, chockablock with kink, and one that would be stocked widely.

These are the versions I have. Subtle, but you have to wonder what the hell is going on in those pics. They have a coloring book feel, as if repeatedly xeroxed artwork has been filled in with colored pencils. I know that sounds like a criticism, but it isn’t. They’re subtle and suggestive, the blurriness implying naughty stuff is going on in the parts of the picture we can’t see, and the naughtiness has a classic, old-fashioned feel, fairy-tale feel, as the actual novels do. They create a mood, in short, and subtly inform the reader what to expect.

the claiming of sleeping beauty trilogy, by anne rice

A similar principal is at work here, though the sleeping woman is older and more worldly looking than Beauty as presented in the books. She is flushed, suggesting she is having an erotic dream. The nightdress looks Victorian, but has fallen, exposing her breasts. This suggests she will be losing her repressions in the book. She is not model-perfect or “sexy” by today’s porn standards — think blow-up doll — or movie-star sensual (think Monica Bellucci in her heyday) but still it is a sensual picture.

Here, a single flower represents the main character’s… pureness? Virginity? It has a Georgia O’Keefe feel, but without the genitalia suggestions. It’s elegant, but the book might be about wedding planning as far as we know. I would guess this version was released recently, when it is more commonly known Anne Rice wrote explicit erotica that it is available in major bookstores for everyone to read. As such, neither the book nor she need much help from a cover to inform readers what the book is and what it does.

the claiming of sleeping beauty erotica book
These editions (the combined erotica trilogy is on the right) forestall puritan criticism by being simply text. but notice also the similarity to the Andrew Lang fairy tale book at the bottom, published by Dover Publications. Every book in the Lang series had the name of color in the title and all got this treatment. The books are copyright free now so perhaps there will be other versions from different publishers.

the claiming of sleeping beauty by anne rice

 

I’ll be continuing this series later.

Outlander Coloring Book

Combining two red-hot publishing trends of the moment, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series has been adapted into an adult coloring book. Which tickles my funnybone to no end because of its marketing savvy.

Outlander coloring book
Outlander coloring book

Adult users of coloring books are referred to as colorists, according to Dover Publications, which has been publishing wonderful, high-quality coloring books for decades now. There are also tons and tons of individual coloring pages available throughout the net; a simple search will net you hours of coloring frenzy. The published books, however, have the advantage of being printed on thicker, toothier paper than what the average computer user feeds into their laser printer. Thick paper is essential if you want to get into using wet media or pastels. If you then want to display your masterpiece, you can excise the page with a single-edge razor blade.

On the other hand, coloring pages have the advantage of being able to be imported into Photoshop or other illustration programs. Using layers, they can be colored with fills, patterns, brushes, and other effects. Useful if you don’t like the mess of a bunch of crayons or watercolors everywhere.

Adult — as in erotic — coloring books are tougher to come by (sorry for the pun.) Here’s one I found on Amazon: The Adult Coloring Book Paperback, by Dan Ginsberg. The sample pic given is sort of tame, but perhaps the more explicit ones could not be shown.

Erotic coloring bookIs anyone else reminded of The Beatles’Yellow Submarine? That the Blue Meanies might come crashing through that picture window any second?

For Ipad users, there are dozens of coloring apps available, most of them designed to keep children entertained, but I have used them happily during lulls in  conversation at the dinner table when the nieces are otherwise occupied.  I prefer variation in the sizes of areas to color. I don’t like the Zentangle like illustrations with a million spaces to fill in. Too OCD.

Want to zen out and get your color on? The Coloring Books for Adults website can tell you everything you need to know.

 

The Anti-Romance Sneer

Again I am a little late on the bandwagon here, but this article by Justin Moyer of the Washington Post exemplifies an attitude common to genre Romance readers and writers in the mainstream. The Sneer.

I am neither a writer or reader of the genre — at least at this point in time — but it does steam me that the tone is, offhandedly, dismissive of women, of which I am one, and the emotional needs and sexual fantasies of some, though not all, women.

What causes the sneer?

Well, the stereotype. I really doubt the sneerers have read enough of the current crop to realize the diversity, breadth, and robustness of the Romance market today. (I think of it as a dancing multi-armed Indian fertility deity.) In fact, I doubt they’re read more than one or two of the books, period. So where does the contempt, and often the contempt of women, come from? I believe it’s the visual representation, what’s on the covers of the books on display in the bookstore, the trade show, the author websites. It’s the more florid representations, specifically, the ones that shout the loudest and overwhelm the rest. You know the kind I mean.

Readers and publishers from mainstream to indie might say these covers sell (even though they may be in no way representative of what’s going on in the book, save there’s a man, and a woman, and there’s passion between them). But do they sell because it’s what readers expect, even if said reader doesn’t like them or is insulted by them? I’d certainly be insulted by them (not the least by their artistic merit) because they imply that a publisher thinks so little of a book, or an entire genre, that it slaps a cookie-cutter illustration on it that might fit on at least fifty or more other books as part of a mass production line. It is in fact contemptuous of the reader, to think they don’t deserve something more intelligent and sophisticated.

For example, here are Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series books, which are shelved alongside the “general best selling authors” in most grab-and-go book sections, like you’d see in a Rite-Aid or an airport concourse newstand.

Diana Gabalan romance novel cover

Classy, no? Name recognition, a discrete Celtic design element, and title. You’d have to read the blurb to tell it’s a meaty, historic time-traveling romance with fantastic elements.

Here’s John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars.”

the fault in our stars, a YA romance

Again you have to read the blurb to see what the story is about, assuming you haven’t heard the hype. Design is young and lively in feel, but not too teenish. An adult could buy it, carry it around without feeling awkward.

Some books by Stephanie Perkins, a female YA writer, in case one would think John Green has more respectability in the genre because he is male. all of which are boy-girl romances:

Stephanie Perkins books, all romances

Aside from the choice of title, they don’t exactly scream ROMANCE! either. The Isla book looks like it’s about a girl’s adventures in NYC, for example. Actually, all of them imply adventures in glamorous locations in addition to the romance.

Now here’s a Highland romance I picked at random:

waxed buff male body on highland romance cover

This book makes no bones about what it is, by its title, the florid typeface of the title, and the uncanny waxed perfection of the male model. It’s published by Macmillan as part of their mass market romance line. Being a large publisher, I would say they had total say over the packaging. The book (I haven’t read it, so am neither criticizing the author or the story) and by extension the series, might be aslucrative and intriguing as Outlander, but the general public, or a TV producer, is not gonna pick it up to find out because it just screams all the cliches of the genre. This kind of  is what people sneer at when you mention “romance.” If I could give it a name, I’d call it, “The Torso.” What they used to call Beefcake in the 1960s, and Fabio in the 1980s.

I know this is only one type of cover the big publishers favor. Other houses — the Harlequin Silhouettes, for example, have their own standards. But all are clear about what they depict and what the reader can expect. Which is good for both publishers and readers — the former make money, the latter are telegraphed visually with what kind of story they’re getting. But it also means a lack of crossover.

Batman Knows What You’re Doing

batman

A Ponygirl Project

I’m currently doing rewrites/edits on some earlier stuff of mine from way back that I intend to publish in a volume of ponygirl stories. There will be one or two new ones included. One is promising to be Romantic Erotica, the incestuous cousin, I suppose, of Erotic Romance, and I am quite tickled at the thought of writing it because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ponygirl story treated that way. Or a ponygirl element in any romantic tale, anyway.

Here’s a short snippet of what will be the mildest story in the collection, which is pony more by association (it has to do with shenanigans on a carousel) than character.

 

She put one foot into the cold stirrup of the saddle and hoisted herself onto the horse’s back. The quilts helped deter the cold. As a child, this horse had seemed huge to her. Now she knew it was nowhere near the size of an actual stallion, even though it was large enough still to accommodate an adult…or two.

She sat in saddle but faced backwards, resting her back against the pole.

“Comfy?”

She nodded as he came back with the harness. It was something he had crafted just for this. He buckled one long piece of leather around her waist, then down and around to secure her to the horse’s barrel, then crossed a second one over her breasts to secure her to the pole. “Sorry for the kink, darlin’. But we don’t want you falling off now, do we?”

“Oh no, of course not.” Another strip secured her wrists at the small of her back. She was helpless. The feeling was delicious.

He kissed her, his mouth was the promise of pleasure to come. He kissed her breasts. She felt her flesh suffuse with sensation like ripples on a pond. Then, a blindfold, a length of dark silk that knotted easily behind her head.

“Don’t be long,” she whispered.

“I don’t intend to.”