books, science, & rude behavior
“Yoshi & Gon” is my first and only piece of fanfiction. It blends aspects from Super Mario Bros., Gon (obvs.), the Toho Godzilla series, Sonic the Hedgehog, Flipper, and two ’90s PC games: Quake and Diablo.
It’s pretty darn wild. See if you can spot all the references!
Continue reading “Yoshi & Gon — a picture book by me, age 8”
Nothing to Do (1964) is essentially a forgotten volume of Hoban’s famous Frances Badger series. The only differences are that the hero is a possum instead of a badger, and then-spouse Lilian Hoban’s artwork never got the same color treatment here as with the Frances series.
Walter Possum is bored out of his mind, and typical of kids, he’s taking that boredom out on everyone around him in benign, annoying ways. His pops passes on a method to combat boredom whenever it rears its ugly head in Walter’s life. Walter gets a something-to-do stone to keep in his pocket, always. Whenever he finds himself with nothing to do, all he needs to do is rub the smoothed stone he carries, and ~something to do~ will soon come to him from his environment.
Even the best Tintin stories are, to me, speeding towards irrelevance. Hergé’s writing is confusing — despite being geared primarily towards children, his plots are propelled forward by excessive expository dialogue describing everything happening in the artwork, with overly-political plotlines and a vocabulary far beyond the target grade level. I liked following the art when I was a youngster, but most of the stories bored me and still bore me.
Tintin in the Congo is as ridiculous as its reputation. After his earliest exploits in the Soviet Union circa 1929, Tintin lands on Africa’s shores to unanimous acclaim from every 1930s racist caricature imaginable. His adventures there follow the attitude of this uncomfortable encounter:
scurrilous rag. 