June Newsletter

The big news, I suppose, is that on June 5, the high school academic year concluded and I officially retired.

There were many factors that came into play, but I have to admit that watching my wife embrace the retired life was a major draw. I initially thought I would teach until I turned 70 but scaled it back to 68 after people close to our age began to suffer health issues or pass away. That gave me pause, because there is a lot of the world left to visit and I was feeling the press of time. We’re healthy today, who say about tomorrow?

I want to work on my craft. Yes, I am about to turn 68 and still want to become a better writer, but that requires time. Now I have it.

There are challenges and rewards with any job, but as I weighed these regarding high school, I decided the challenges were become too burdensom so it was time.

That said, I am not going to just put up my feet. I will continue to teach my Making Graphic Novels course at Maryland Institute College of Art. Nor am I stopping my volunteer work with SFWA or the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. I just go reelected to serve as president of my HOA (no jokes please).

I am, though, adjusting my schedule so I can write in the mornings then read and catch up on video in the afternoons. I doubt I will complete the voluminous To Be Read pile or see every TV show and movie I’ve missed, but I will certainly be trying.

After completing my steampunk story for the forthcoming Southwatch Chronicles, due in November, I’ve been doing shorter works.

I’ve written several pieces for RetroFan and more recently completed another essay for Urban Comics’ line of Batman Chronicles. These French releases are doing chronological reprintings of Batman and Detective Comics, and since I began writing with 1987, we’re up to 1990. The third volume begins to include Legends of the Dark Knight, along with Digital Justice and Gotham by Gaslight. I compose an overview introduction then write interstitial text pieces that spotlight an event or creator. It’s fun rereading the works and doing the research.

Additionally, I’ve written another essay for DC Comics, this one for their recently announced Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters. Back in the late 1980s, I was frequenrly asked to step in and backstop many of Mike Gold’s projects since he was a big picture/idea man, and less about the details. Until he was assigned a permanent assistant first I, and then Barbara Kesel, stepped in to help.

Interestingly, I have also spent the last few weeks revising an outline for a book project that popped up out of the blue. It’s for a nonfiction work and as I have done revisions, I’ve gotten excited about this. Right now, it sits with an agent for consideration and we’ll see what happens.

Also, two different people have reached out for my project management skills. So far, we’ve had conversations only, but we’ll see where these go.

At my blog, I have been looking back at some of the television shows celebrating their 50th anniversary, beginning with Batman in January and coming June 27 is a salute to Dark Shadows.

May was bookended with two concerts that couldn’t be more different. We started the month with the Nitty Gritty DIrt Band, which is concluding its farewell tour any minute now.

I’ve enjoyed their music through the years and have managed to see them four times, the first at the legendary My Father’s Place in Roslyn, Long Island back in the 1970s. Their rendition of “Mr. Bojangles” continues to make me tear up.

As one would expect, the farewell tour isn’t introducing new material but the set list was more of a greatest hits and fan favorites. No doubt, playing the same songs for decades can be wearing. It’s incredible for me to imagine that two of the founding members have continued performing with the band since 1966.

Their musicianship was sharp and joyful. The opener was Kathleen Edwards, whose work I was familiar with. She joined them for a few songs, adding a nice quality.

Then, on May 27, we caught the penultimate stop of the Land of Hopes and Dreams Tour. As you know, Bruce Springsteen has been very outspoken about the current administration and wanted to rally people around song and common goals. It was a pretty tight set list on the 20 dates, with little variation because the songs chosen formed a message, a theme that the common man can still stand tall, come together, and fight for what’s right.

I attended with my daughter Kate and her husband Mike and I was amused to note we were a mere four rows behind where we sat exactly a week before as the Nationals beat the Mets.

Despite the rain, we sat or stood and sang along, sometimes lustily, sometime sreverently. The speeches he delivered were heartfelt and, to be honest, hard to argue against unless you have lost your reasoning. The E Street Band was tight and it was a great experience.

That said, this may also have been my final time seeing the Boss, something I have been doing since December 1975. The last few times I’ve seen him live, I noticed they are more regimented, less free-flowing, the commentary almost rote. I long for the more spontaneous shows from the 1980s and 1990s, where you never knew which songs would be played, which stories he’d tell, or where on the stage you would find him. I suspect some of that is a result of needing to televise the performance on huge screens at the staidfums, but I can’t help but feeling that something has been lost along the way.

As usual, we are grinding our way though various streaming series, enjoying most, engrossed by several. Of the latest handful, the major standout has to be The Madison, a family drama from Taylor Sheridan, unrelated to the Yellowstone franchise. It is about love and family and there’s tons of scenery porn to make you whistful for days long gone despite it being a contemporary story. I am glad there are at least two more seasons coming up.

I really enjoyed reading Rufi Thorpe’s novel Margo’s Got Money Troubles and thought David E. Kelly did a wonderful job adapting it to the 8-part Apple+ series. The casting was strong and he really opened up the story to strengthen the relationships Margo (Elle Fanning) has with her mother, an ex-Hooters waitress (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her ex-wrestler father (Nick Offerman). The novel was completely covered in the show, but they’ve commissioned a second season so we’ll be in unfamiliar territory.

Margo supports herself and her infant son by staying home and operating an OnlyFans account, which is not “porn” necessarily, depending on who you follow on the site. But the amount of judgement heaped on her is interesting to see.

What’s also interesting is seeing OnlyFans from two very different perspectives at the same time. While Margo was on Apple+, we also had the third and final season of Euphoria. There, Sydney Sweeney’s character, Cassie, uses her body to seek validation and popularity, thinking nothing about it. Over the course of the season, her desparately broke Nate goes from puritanically against it, to encouraging her, exploiting her to save himself. How her friends react and how her conection to the site gains and costs her, is an interesting arc, but a narcissistic one.

Euphoria was probably better served without the third season which didn’t really teach us anything other than these now adult characters were horribly prepared for independence as we watch each and everyone struggle, with the exception of Lexi (Maud Apatow), the one who never indulged in the casual sex and drugs, preferring to pursue her muse and becomes a Hollywood screenwriter. I found the final episode unsatisfying as the climax at the strip club veered into action film terrirtory rather than the dense character-driven work leading up to this moment.

I was iffy about Coco Mellors after her Cleopatra and Frankenstein failed to thrill me, but a friend raved about her more recent Blue SIsters, so I gave it a try. It is certainly a better book but also the resolution is somewhat contrived.

I was far more fascinated by The Girl on the Velvet Swing, Simon Baatz’s account of the Evelyn Nesbitt/Sanford White tragedy during the Gilded Age.

For a new book club, I read The Road to Tender Hearts which is billed as a comedy, but I found it more absurdist. Annie Hartnett does a nice job piling on the complications, but after a while the absurdity wears thin. I was far more entertained by John Scalzi’s light and fun The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Frank Miller’s forthcoming memoir Pushing the Wall is an interesting blend of memoir and treatise on stroytelling with some how to added oin. If you expect a true history of his career and insights into his life, this barely scratches that surface.

Among the graphic novels I’ve read, I can reocmmedn Peter J. Yomasi’s Hornsby & Halo series, with two volumes now out. I also enjoyed Olivie Blake and Little Chmura’s Clara & the Devil Vol. 1.

www.bobgreenberger.com for all my books and appearances.

My next appearance will be at Shore Leave 46 in Lancaster, PA, July 10-12.

Coming out next month: