The Monuments Men and the importance of art

My first reaction to The Monuments Men was how sad it is when art about the importance of art largely fails to communicate the importance of art. That’s what I tweeted right after I saw it, but I’d like to unpack that complaint a little more.

The Monuments Men spends a lot of time telling its viewers that art is important. George Clooney’s character assures the people around him (multiple times) that art is what the Allies are really defending against the Nazis. Art, he claims, is the memories of a civilization. An entire generation can be wiped out, but the culture will endure as long as its artifacts do.

His character arc is to discover just how much he thinks this is true. As his team lands in Europe he cautions them to be careful, saying that no piece of art is worth their lives. By the end of the film, he’s changed his mind about that. In a hammy scene, he debriefs FDR who pointedly asks if the mission was worth the loss of life. Clooney’s character proudly declares that yes it was. He’s clearly taken a journey in the film. The trouble is that I didn’t get to take it with him.

31 Werewolves | The Wolf's Hour

Michael Gallatin from Robert R. McCammon's The Wolf's Hour isn't one of the best-known werewolves of all time. He isn't even one of my favorites, since I've never read the book. But one of my roommates from back in the day sure had and it was his all-time favorite book. We agreed about enough other stuff - and the premise of a Nazi-fighting werewolf is intriguing enough - that I bought myself a copy.

I've never gotten around to reading it, but I will one of these days and the subject of werewolves never comes up without my thinking about this novel and how I need to check it out.

From the back cover:

He is Michael Gallatin, master spy, lover - and werewolf. Able to change shape with lightning speed, to kill silently or with savage, snarling fury, he proved his talents against Rommel in Africa. Now he faces his most delicate, dangerous mission: to unravel the secret Nazi plan known as Iron Fist. From a parachute jump into occupied France to the lush corruption of Berlin, from the arms of a beautiful spy to the cold embrace of a madman's death machine, Gallatin draws ever closer to the ghastly truth about Iron Fist. But with only hours to D-Day, he is trapped in the Nazi's web of destruction...

Robert R. McCammon breaks the mold of the werewolf novel with The Wolf's Hour, combining a remarkable tale of pulse-pounding excitement with a uniquely sympathetic, fascinating portrait of the werewolf as noble warrior - and conflicted being. Complex, compelling and utterly real, Michael Gallatin deserves a place of honor in the pantheon of great fictional heroes.

McCammon also wrote a prequel, The Hunter from the Woods, which is actually a collection of novellas and short stories about Gallatin's life and adventures prior to The Wolf's Hour.

Daily Panel | 'Two gifts, in fact'

Stephen Mooney's Half Past Danger (colored by Jordie Bellaire) is quietly becoming the most awesome comic on the shelves. Sort of Captain America: First Avenger meets Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Jurassic Park with a ninja for good measure. What's amazing is that it's not just a bunch of random, awesome stuff thrown into a big pot, but also holds together as a great story. Hoping there's more where this came from once the mini-series is finished.

Tarzan 101 | Tarzan and the Foreign Legion

Celebrating Tarzan's 101st anniversary by walking through Scott Tracy Griffin's Tarzan: The Centennial Celebration.

Two other Tarzan novels were published after Tarzan and the Foreign Legion, but this was the last one that Burroughs wrote. It was also the only one he wrote after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Burroughs was living in Hawaii at the time and actually witnessed the bombing. His six-year marriage to young Florence Dearholt had ended earlier that year and he was already deeply depressed, but he channelled those emotions into writing morale columns for a couple of Honolulu newspapers. A year later, he was attached as a war correspondent with the U.S. Army in the South Pacific.

When he finished that tour in 1944, Burroughs got a letter suggesting he write a Tarzan story in which the ape man fought the Japanese. It had never worked out great when Burroughs had included real-world villains in his novels before, so he resisted at first, but eventually decided to do it. It was Burroughs' first and only Tarzan story to be published as a novel without initially being serialized in a magazine. [Correction: Though intended for magazine publication, Tarzan and the Madman was also unpublished before becoming a novel]

Tarzan doesn't join the actual French Foreign Legion in the book, but enlists in the RAF and gets attached to the U.S. Army Air Force in a recon mission over Sumatra. When the plane is shot down, Tarzan leads his diverse unit (nicknamed "The Foreign Legion" by one of its members) through the Japanese-occupied jungle in an attempt to reach the coast, build a raft, and sail for Australia. They of course have to fight Asian jungle wildlife along the way and end up discovering a lost race of pygmies.

Griffin's supplemental chapter for this one is called "Implacable Foes" and details the various types of villains Tarzan encounters in his adventures from sentient animals to spies to slavers to holy men to treasure hunters. Griffin also lists some of the great actors who played Tarzan bad guys in the movies, including Sean Connery, John Carradine, Raymond Burr, Boris Karloff, Jack Elam, George Zucco, and a few fellas who would go on to play the ape man himself. (Sadly, he doesn't mention one of my favorites: Neil Hamilton, who's best known as Commissioner Gordon on the '60s Batman TV show.)

Is this racist? | Airboy hates cephalopods

I debated using this cover for an Everyone Hates Cephalopods post. My first reaction was that it's a racist caricature and that I shouldn't. Not that I never feature racist imagery on this blog, but when I do it's always in the context of trying to learn from it. The cephalopods posts are just for fun, so I don't want to just throw out an offensive image in that context without commenting on it.

The more I look at it though, the more I wonder if this is racist. The human head on the octopus is relatively realistic and doesn't have the exaggerations that usually appear in World War II depictions of Japanese people. Also, the Rising Sun symbol on the octopus' back implies that it represents an entire political entity; not a stereotyped individual. In other words, it's depicting Japan as a dangerous, frightening enemy with a long reach, but one that Airboy (and, by association, the Allies) is prevailing against.

I understand that my own race can get in the way of my interpreting these things though, so that's why I throw the question out to you. Is this a racist image, an accurate depiction of WWII events, or both?

[Image from Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Have a meaningful Memorial Day

If you live in the US, I hope you find time to eat some bratwurst and remember our fallen soldiers. Maybe not in that order.

Pass the Comics: Eve among the chimps

Monsters from the Sea



A short essay by Tony Isabella and Ernie Chan. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

Come Back to Tlakluk



An American WWII pilot returns to the island where he was once stranded with a Japanese pilot. It's not exactly Hell in the Pacific. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

Korak, Son of Tarzan visits The Hidden World



An uncomplicated, but sweet story with absolutely gorgeous art. [Gold Key Comics!]