May 8, 2024

SHELFDIVER: DIVE 1 - May 8, 2024

DIVE 1 - May 8, 2024

Hi, I’m Seth. There’s nothing I love more than sharing the things I love. But modern social media frowns on fruit growing in other walled gardens, and seems to be actively fighting my attempts to make posts about the things that excite me.

So welcome to SHELFDIVER, where I’m going to point you toward some of the things I’ve loved during a lifelong journey of omnivorous curiosity. I’ll also be taking advantage of your attention to share some links to things where my excitement is still hot and fresh.

Thanks to my small pool of test subscribers, who gave me some feedback based on last week’s issue. Newcomers—thanks for joining us!—can find Dive 0 in the archive. I recommended some good travel books, and a lot of fun music and videos. And comics. And games. Because that’s what I do around here.

This week, let’s start with some comics.

GREAT COMICS

If you love reading comics but need a break from superheroes, here are some terrific titles to check out:

• Bandette: Bandette is the world’s greatest thief, and her exuberance in using her skills on both sides of the law explodes off every page of her family-friendly adventures. Whether for the writing or the art, few comics make me happier to read and reread than Bandette. Seriously: I went looking for a few panels to show you, and ended up reading the first two books before I could stop. (You can find the first collection and more sample pages here.)

• Reckless: It’s the early 1980s in a gritty, sun-baked California. When the cops can’t or won’t help, the desperate hear about a phone number. On the other end is Ethan Reckless, a man who can and will go to any bloody length necessary to drag shadows into the sun and see justice done. Each graphic novel in the series (five so far) is a perfect standalone pulp potboiler, an absolutely satisfying read like a beat-up paperback found on a beach vacation.

• DIE: A group of teenagers playing a role-playing game of their own creation vanish. Two years later all but one of them return, refusing to explain where they’ve been for twenty years until they reluctantly reunite to play the game one last time in search of answers and resolution to the dark mysteries that haunt them. If love the story and its metaexplorations of games and players as much as I did, you’ll definitely want to check out the role-playing game—and play it… if you dare.

• The Complete Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Don Rosa is the heir to master Duck artist Carl Barks, and both have wonderful full collections of their work that have just come out in recent years. But Life and Times is Rosa’s tour de force—taking all the elements of Uncle Scrooge’s history that have been revealed over the decades and weaving them together into one epic, comic journey around the world and through history. It won the Eisner Award for Best Story the year it came out, and if you need background while you read, there’s an unofficial score for the story.

  

• Klaus: A magical fantasy adventure exploring how a hunter from the wilds rose in a time of need to become the hero people needed—Santa Claus. The first tale is terrific on its own, but Grant Morrison and Dan Mora have returned to tell a number of stories bringing Santa into modern and more decidedly superheroic times while still keeping him true to the spirit of the holidays and his own legend.

• Lazarus: In a bleak future America, Forever Carlyle is the warrior-protector of the Carlyle Family, one of the ultra-rich ruling Familes overseeing a new global feudalism. Forever is super-fast, super-strong, and nearly immortal thanks to her Family’s advanced medical technology, but a new struggle risks proving that nobody and nothing lives forever. The comics might focus on the world’s powerful Families as they wrestle for power, but it also keeps an eye on what it’s like for the powerless. My friends at Green Ronin worked with the creators to release an RPG that reveals more of the world and sets it up for players to explore.

• Bea Wolf: The ancient epic Beowulf, recast by SMBC’s Zach Weinersmith into a pack of wild suburban children protecting a treehouse holdfast from their nefarious neighbor Grindle and his attempts to make them grow up. Still in the form of an epic poem, it’s wonderfully illustrated and ready to draw in kids and adults alike.

• Spy x Family: I’ve really fallen in love with this manga starring an undercover spy who builds a ‘family’ to help him complete a mission, never suspecting that the young girl he adopts is psychic, while the shy woman he recruits to play the part of his wife hides her secret life as a deadly assassin. Oh, and their dog can see the future. Heartfelt action, terrific characters, and a lot of fun. (A film is now in theaters, but I haven’t seen it yet.)

PLAYLIST

• MUSIC: Monkeytape 2404: My monthly mix for April 2024 has wrapped, and is ready for your listening pleasure. It’s a sign of how much The Warning is still in my brain that their “Que Mas Quieres” is on there among what otherwise turned out to be a pretty mellow mix.

  

• MUSIC: I Know What I Like - A Jazz Sampler: A playlist I made for my friend Jason who wanted to hear some good jazz. The title exemplifies the kind of thing you’ll see shared here on Shelfdiver—I’m not looking to argue whether or not something is the best, I only know what I like and want to share that with you, like some good jazz.

• VIDEO: “Prince’s Work Ethic”: Lessons in creativity and process from the people (mostly women) who worked with the music legend over the years and aided in his legendary creative output. (Related: I can’t not share great Prince performances for you to watch, like his classic solo among superstars on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, rocking the Super Bowl in an absolute downpour, a young Prince ruling the stage at First Avenue in Minneapolis, and a 1979 acoustic demo for “I Feel For You” that I love--pulled from the depths of the vault you saw in that first video up above!)

  

• VIDEO: How to Date an Artifact: A curator at the British Museum walks us through how they narrow down the age of an artifact found buried in an English field. (Related: Jacob Geller’s recounting of a strange theft from the Museum—and the Museum’s own thefts.)

• VIDEO: The Magic of Orchestration: I’m a creative-process junkie, so I enjoyed watching the Making of Frozen 2 series on Disney+, and one of my favorite bits was watching Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez work on the music. This is the moment where everything finally comes together for “Into the Unknown”, and it legitimately is magical. (Related: Panic! at the Disco’s banger cover of the song, and Taylor Swift grinding away in the studio.)

• COMEDY: James Acaster: Repetoire: This series of four interconnected Netflix specials is where I first came across Acaster, now one of my favorite comedians. (Related: the epic tale of Acaster being “cabbaged” by a child (just one of his many scrapes), and his disaster of an appearance on the Great British Bake Off, which he relives in his latest special.)

  

• VIDEO: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow”: Ian McKellan dissects Shakespeare for a group of actors and discusses how he brings Macbeth to life for the Royal Shakespeare Company. (Related: Four actors (Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, and John Simm) take on the same scene from Hamlet.)

• TV: Poker Face (Trailer; Paramount+) and Russian Doll (Trailer; Netflix—NSFW language): Two terrific shows, both starring Natasha Lyonne. Poker Face, from Knives Out creator Rian Johnson, harkens back to classic guest star-studded detective television like Columbo (you’ve watched Columbo, right? It’s still streaming on Amazon), with Lyonne as someone who always knows when someone is lying—now on the run for knowing too much. Russian Doll is its own dark, twisty puzzle box, but it sticks the landing by the end of the season. (Related: If you like peeking behind the scenes, Rian Johnson has shared a lot of his writing online, including the script for the pilot of Poker Face.)

  

• PODCAST: Off-Menu: We’re not done with James Acaster yet. He hosts this fun food podcast with friend and fellow comedian Ed Gamble, inviting guests to a ‘dream restaurant’ where they can devise the menu of their dreams. Most guests are insightful, delightful, or at least entertaining; I recommend the episode with David Cross as a good (ahem) appetizer. (Related: Acaster’s other podcasts: Springleaf, inspired by a bit in the comedy specials I pointed you to above, and Perfect Sounds where one album at a time Acaster and his guests are dissecting what they argue is the best year in music ever: 2016.)

  

• VIDEO: Patrick Willems: A channel of Patrick’s terrific video essays mixing cogent film criticism with entertaining takes on movies. Start with Patrick Explains Paddington (and Why It’s So Great) (to his wonderful parents!), the video where Patrick watches and drinks his way through the Turner Classic Movies wine club, his guide to musical needle drops in film, or his epic journey to India to learn more about Bollywood. You can skip past the bookends about the dimension-hopping coconut if you want, but eventually you might be invested enough to watch the coconut’s feature-length film. (Related: Patrick’s long but extremely solid online class teaching you how to analyze movies.)

GAMEPLAY

• GAME: Beat Cop [Steam; also iOS and Switch] Sometimes all you need for a great game is a couple blocks of the city, simple pixelated graphics, and a framed cop trying to do the best they can. That cop is you, and whether you try to clear your name, catch the bad guys, or go full-on corrupt while walking your new beat is up to you. I’ve played the game at least a half-dozen times, and I love peeking into new corners of the neighborhood and trying new twists.

  

• STORYGAME: Koriko: A Magical Year [itch.io] Another great journaling game, highly inspired by the anime classic Kiki’s Delivery Service, where you play a young witch raised in the country and moving to the city, using a deck of tarot cards and a stack of dice (sometimes literally) to guide the story you write about your first year in a new world.

• RPG: Neverland: A sandbox fantasy setting based on Peter Pan, skillfully written and beautifully illustrated by Andrew Kolb. It’s most closely aligned with D&D 5E, but it would be easy enough to use almost any fantasy RPG to run this as a great campaign. His followup OZ is already out, and Wonderland is coming later this year.

• GAME: Pentiment [website]: A brilliant game of medieval history and mystery that draws you in with a deft hand as you play an artist trying to find a murderer and untangle the threads of the church and community that surrounds him. It’s the kind of game I would recommend to people who usually dismiss games: when dialogue is delivered, they way it’s displayed reveals much about the character’s history, language, culture, and even their level of literacy, yet it never falls into being overly preachy or teachey. You can check out the gameplay here to get a sense of its wonderful tone (but warning: that’s a full playthrough video, so be careful of spoilers.)

  

• BOARD GAME: Freelancers: We finished our first game of Freelancers last week, so my excitement for the game is both new and fresh. It’s an app-driven co-op fantasy adventure board game, but a) the value add for the app—providing not just the story for the game but a fully voice-acted story—is real, and b) the publisher has made the app available for download so you can run it locally to help futureproof the game. It’s not the heaviest game, but the writing is sharp and funny, and we can’t wait to break it out again soon for our next adventure. (Related: Watch it Played has a tutorial video for a more thorough overview, and Dice Tower has a playthrough video, if you’re not afraid of story spoilers.)

  

• RPG MAGAZINE: KNOCK!: There’s a lot of people online having great conversations about fantasy role-playing games and creating great tools and toys for players and gamemasters. KNOCK!—a self-proclaimed “old-school gaming bric-a-brac”—brings those together to pack its pages with insightful articles, terrific layout, and fantastic art. And when I say jam-packed, I mean it—if you get the print version of the magazine, you’ll find content for your game inside the magazine’s dustjacket, on the cover, tucked away into the margins… Every time I set an issue down I’m excited and inspired to play RPGs, and I can’t give higher praise.

QUICKDIVE

A list of things I’m diving into this week:

• GAMES: Thronefall, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, Tin Can

• RPGS: Deathmatch Island, Inevitable, No-Tell Motel

• COMICS: Spider-Boy, Danger and Other Unknowable Risks

• MOVIES: The Beekeeper, RRR (thanks to rewatching Patrick Willems’ video about it.)

• TV: Tales of the Empire

• MUSIC: Below the Branches, Sentimental Fool

• BOOKS: The Puppets of Spellhorst, The Bezzle, Novelist as a Vocation, Comedy Book

• VIDEOS: “Doctor Who: Take on Me”, “Recreating Antonio Canova’s ‘Venus’”, “Lightning in a Bottle: A M*A*S*H* Video Essay”, “Confutatis Amadeus”, “4/24/24 Lincoln NE Tornado”,”The Speedrunning History of IRL Bake 12 Cookies”

• PODCASTS: Lonely Island and Seth Meyers, Sleep With Me

GUESTDIVE

I’m lucky to have an in-house mystery lover, and we’ve traded a lot of recommendations over the years. So for our first guestdive, I invited Melissa to suggest some great mystery series:

• The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle: This is a standalone book, but it’s so good that it goes at the top of the list. I can’t say much about it without spoiling it, but it’s terrific, and so is the author’s second book, The Devil and the Dark Water. His third mystery comes out this summer, and I can’t wait.

• Greenglass House: There’s so much wonderful worldbuilding in this book, and then as the mystery gets set up it also weaves in a Dungeons & Dragons-like game that gets played as the kid detectives begin investigating, and it became the kind of world you don’t just want to read about but live in for a bit. I got to the end and was disappointed I couldn’t spend more time in the world—and then I found out there are four more—which I immediately read, and you should too. (I don’t think the RPG is out yet, though—Seth, you need to get on that!)

  

• Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: Technically Seth found this series first, when for bedtime reading I overheard him reading our kid this (fictional) story of a young Agatha Christie playing detective with a boy who (fictionally) would inspire her (fictional) detective Hercule Poirot. But when they got distracted by other books, I couldn’t resist reading more Aggie Morton. The first is the best, but the whole series (four books so far) is lovely, accessible to a kid but built around mysteries that play fair to readers of any age.

• The Bookseller’s Tale: The first in a series of wonderful mysteries set in medieval Oxford (six books so far) featuring bookseller Nicholas Elyot undertaking investigations in the time of the Black Death. Terrific, smart storytelling, featuring the kinds of cultures and people that don’t get to be protagonists in that setting.

BACK TO THE SURFACE

The format of Shelfdiver is still in flux, so email me at seth@shelfdiver.com or leave a comment below on the web version if you have thoughts or feedback!

• Am I being too wordy? Would you prefer less text? (I’m still dialing in how much time and energy I can devote to this each week!)

• Should the Quickdive section be up front so that you have a bunch of links to have fun with before I give you denser recommendations?

• More images? Fewer?

I’m also open to people who have a set of recommendations to share with me and everyone for a Guestdive—again, the email to use is seth@shelfdiver.com.

I’ve been pretty print heavy up front these first few weeks, so next week I think I’m going to dive into the big backlog of videos I’d love to share with you.

Until then!

— Seth

QUOTEBOOK

"There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size."

— Susan Orlean

I don’t just collect things on shelves. The text file with my personal collection of quotes runs over a hundred pages, so I’ll close each of these emails by sharing a few of those quotes with you. Like I’ve done over the years, you can sift, save, and jettison as your mind and heart feel fit. See you next week!

“The whole world is a circus if you look at it the right way: Every time you pick up a handful of dust and see not the dust but a mystery–a marvel–there in your hand; every time you stop and think, 'I'm alive, and being alive is fantastic!'... every time such a thing happens, you are part of the Circus of Dr. Lao.”

– from The Circus of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney

Rule 1: Where there is value, there is crime.

Rule 2: A fine is a price.

Rule 3: Nothing ever stops until a Rich White Guy goes to jail.

Rule 4: There are no Moriartys

Rule 5: Everyone can be conned.”

– John Rogers

“My daily objective is less about goal achievement and more about regret management.”

– Anna Kendrick

“What matters is that these things matter to you. You’re going to fail over and over again, and you’re going to encounter decisions that have no answer. Anything you do is problematic and causes someone somewhere some amount of pain or sadness or suffering. And because you’re doomed to fail, what matters isn’t that you do everything right. What matters is that you try. When you make a mistake, you apologize and then you try something else. (“The Good Place”) is suggesting that the real victory of being alive is just putting these things in the front of your brain and attempting all the time to be a better person than you were yesterday.”

– Michael Schur

“Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson