Somewhere outside the mundane reality you know lies the Akashic Library, its sturdy shelves stretching endlessly out of sight. What mysterious miscellany will we uncover there today? Read on, friend, and find out . . .

Last month I was stressed that I didn’t know where I would be working this Fall, and then, as I said last time, I got a position at my dream school. Hurray! So while that was encouraging, this month I had to say goodbye to the school where I’ve worked for the last 18 years.

Eighteen years! I’m from a small town so there are people that I went to school with from grades K-12. That seemed like we were together forever, but I’ve been at this place for five years longer than that. I’ll miss the community we built.

Another way to put that into perspective is that this year's seniors were born in 2008; I've been at this school for their entire lives. Also my oldest child’s entire life.

These last couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning out my classroom, digging through the stuff you accumulate over the course of nearly two decades. I found some of the transparent sheets you use with an overhead projector with notes about Shakespeare written on them—kids, ask your parents what an overhead projector is! I threw out a lot of stuff, gave away a lot, and brought a lot home, though most of that will soon go to my new classroom. There’s been plenty to keep me busy, so it wasn’t until the last couple of days that it really hit me, that I won’t be coming back.

On Thursday I took the last of my things out of the classroom, said good-bye, and turned in my key. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I won’t be back. And if I do go back to visit, that old familiar room won’t be my classroom anymore.

Dang. I’ll really miss my friends I’ve worked with forever. Now I grieve, and prepare to slough off the trappings of my old life so that I may enter a chrysalis and be reborn. We’ll see how that goes.

In the meantime, let’s talk about a book that you may not know about . . .

FLASHBACK: RAW 111
Six years ago I self-published a poem I wrote and illustrated called RAW 111. I did the design and layout, too. It’s still available—you could order one right now, if you wanted.

But what is it? According to the blurb on Amazon:

Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” by way of Jack Kirby’s New Gods, RAW 111 is a cosmological and liturgical odyssey. RAW 111 is an interconnected series of pieces structured like a church service, beginning with an Opening Acclamation and ending with a Dismissal. The text incorporates free verse, prose, haiku, rhyming verse, song lyrics, quotes from comic books, lines from fortune cookies, science fiction, astronomy facts, and more, a mosaic of found text fragments and scraps of meaning that, taken together, form a quasi-coherent whole which ultimately reaches a transcendent crescendo. The text is illustrated throughout by the author.

Look at this glowing five-star review:

Writing this was, honestly, something of a mystical experience. I wrote it at a delirious transitional time in my life, when I was just starting grad school to become a teacher and wasn't sure what I was doing. I had to take Intro to Poetry because of a technicality, even though I already had an English degree, and when we read “The Wasteland” my professor described it as “a paratactic mass.” “Mass” as in church service, “paratactic” as in “a technique in poetry in which two images or fragments, usually starkly dissimilar images or fragments, are juxtaposed without a clear connection.”

That made me want to write my own paratactic mass, so I kept a copy of the bulletin from that year’s Christmas service at church and used it as a template. My wife is a priest and I was between semesters so I spent a lot of time at the church that winter, roaming around, filling out my liturgical outline. I included random scraps of things—the fortune from a fortune cookie, information about a star from an astronomy book in the church library, fragments of old poems I’d written in college. I had just finished the first draft on January 11 when I learned that Robert Anton Wilson had died. I named it in his honor.

I revised the text a few times over the years, and even got helpful feedback from some real poets. It then gathered dust for years until the Pandemic Times, when I had tons of time for creative projects. I made it into a book, filling it with drawings I made while sitting in Google Meets. The finished product is seemingly random but deeply personal.

Here’s the link.

MILLION-COLORED SALE
I want to encourage people to check out Million-Colored Sun, the pulp sword & sorcery RPG that Steve Johnson, Josh Burnett, and I made, so I put it on sale. For a limited time, you can get a copy for 40% off! Crazy savings! I also put the two adventures I wrote, Beowulf Vs. Grendel and The Prison Pits of Larubia, on sale, also for 40% off. Less than a cheeseburger at Wendy’s! Well, depending on which cheeseburger you get, I usually try out their new limited-time specialty burger, even though it frequently disappoints. What was I saying? Oh yes, buy the Million-Colored Sun games, they’re a lot of fun.

SNEAK PEEK
This illustration’s a sneak peek at a comic I’m working on about my old pal Ricky Imes. I’m making good progress on it, and I’ll definitely have some solid information next month.

MAN WITHOUT FEAR
I recently finished the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, which I enjoyed. But in the comic book creator acknowledgements in the end credits, it's wild that Frank Miller's name is the same font size as everyone else's, right? I mean, he didn't create Daredevil, or Kingpin, or Bullseye, but come on, the whole show is based on his work.

It's hard to think of a comics creator who took over an existing character and permanently changed it to the extent that Miller did, and he did it twice. His influence on Daredevil, though, is even more profound than his influence on Batman. Miller took over drawing Daredevil with issue #158 in 1979 and took over writing with issue #168 in 1981.

When he started writing Daredevil had been around for SEVENTEEN YEARS—a lifetime!—and over 150 issues. We're used to people tinkering with characters and making fundamental changes early on, when they're just starting out, but this far in . . . Jack and Stan figured out Fantastic Four by, what, issue 12, and ever since then people have just been riffing on what they did. Daredevil had multiple eras, different creative teams, and changes in supporting cast just like every other Marvel series. But after Miller took over you look back at those first hundred-and-fifty-something issues and they seem wrong, like they're not REALLY Daredevil. Miller killed the classic version of the character and no one can ever bring him back.

(Which is kind of a shame, I know there are people older than me who fondly remember the Gene Colan era. Alas, I can never really appreciate it.)

Everything you know about Matt Murdock--He's a tortured Catholic who tries to do the right thing but screws up and hurts everyone around him--comes from Miller. Bullseye had been a villain previously in the series, but Miller elevated him. Kingpin had been a Spider-Man villain but Miller stole him and situated him as Daredevil's archenemy. Now when you make a Daredevil TV show, the Kingpin is the co-lead.

Miller's big change was in the tone. Daredevil stopped being a superhero comic like Spider-Man and became a crime comic. Crime comics were basically impossible in the 60s, due to the Comics Code. There's a reason that 60s superhero comics are largely about science-fiction menaces; they had serious restrictions in what they could depict. Authorities could not be shown as corrupt, politicians and law enforcement were always to be shown in a positive light, criminals had to be caught and locked up by the end of the story.

So Miller never could've done what he did if the Comics Code's grip on the industry hadn't loosened. By the late 70s, you could finally do a proper crime comic, with dirty cops and corrupt politicians. In Miller's comics, Daredevil can never really defeat the Kingpin; the system is broken and the rich and powerful will never be punished. All he can do are thwart Kingpin's specific operations. In Miller's world a hero doesn't fight because he can fix things—he can't—he fights because it's the right thing to do.

And every Daredevil creator since has riffed on what Miller did.

JUST TO BE CLEAR
I can’t write a loving ode to the work of Frank Miller without mentioning that Frank is deeply problematic as a creator, and his Holy Terror is the most Islamophobic work of fiction I’ve ever read. It’s gross!

Islamophobia is a pervasive problem, and it’s why so many folks who otherwise seem like moral individuals are shockingly indifferent to the suffering of Palestinian people.

American money—my tax dollars!—goes toward bombing civilians in Gaza, so I feel I have a responsibility to help in some way. That’s why I am raising money to help Palestinian children by selling art. Check out my Etsy shop and maybe find something you like. It’s for a good cause!

BOOKS I'VE READ SINCE LAST TIME
Uri Tupka and the Gods, Mike Mignola
Breathtaker, Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel

I have a print of a painting by Mark Wheatley hanging above the stairs in my house, and a print of a painting by Marc Hempel hanging in my bedroom. It’s strange that I’m just now reading Breathtaker, their collaboration from 1990, but I’m glad I got around to it. I love Marc Hempel’s art; when most fans complained about Hempel taking over drawing Sandman for the climactic storyline, I was like, “Finally, my kind of art!” As for the book itself it’s quite good except that the ending didn’t really satisfy me. I wasn’t surprised to read that there was a sequel planned and it fell through.

Uri Tupka and the Gods is the second volume of Mike Mignola’s stories from Lands Unknown and it is solid comics gold, exactly what I’m looking to read, five stars, two thumbs up, buy a copy today.

WHAT A DEAL!
If you act now, you can subscribe to this newsletter ABSOLUTELY FREE, and get an update from me every month. There’s no set-up fee, no additional charges. You can’t afford to pass up a deal like this! Act now!

TV SHOWS I’VE WATCHED SINCE LAST TIME
Star Trek: Deep Space 9 season 5
Star Trek: Deep Space 9 season 6
Daredevil: Born Again season 2
Arcane: League of Legends season 2
Widow’s Bay
Margo’s Got Money Trouble

Blu and I are barreling through Deep Space 9, and I recently learned the meaning behind another meme (see above).

I started watching Widow’s Bay and, oh boy, it’s so good! Spooky and funny.

MOVIES I’VE WATCHED SINCE LAST TIME
The Mandalorian and Grogu

I saw Return of the Jedi in the theater when it came out in 1983. I hadn’t yet seen The Empire Strikes Back, so I wasn’t clear on all the plot details, but when we left the theater I told my father, “That was the best movie ever!” The latest Star Wars movie lifts from Return of the Jedi but does not inspire anywhere near that same feeling. That’s okay, though, I’m old. My son liked it.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Happy summer, see you in June!

Your Pal,
Leighton