Kristian Williams

In the last few months, I’ve posted a couple reviews at The Comics Journal of books that are simply (or at least, mostly) humorous.

One, “The Success of Failure,” takes a look at Shannon Wheeler’s latest collection, I Thought You Would Be Funnier. Some people (like me) think of Wheeler mainly in connection to his strip Too Much Coffee Man. But now he’s also doing cartoons for The New Yorker — or trying to: this book collects the ones they rejected.

The other review is of the latest Lio collection, There’s Corpses Everywhere. I compare it to the Calvin and Hobbes book, There’s Treasure Everywhere. This isn’t doing Lio‘s creator, Mark Tatulli any favors — but, hey, he started it.

Attentive readers may recall that in January I also beat up on Nevin Martell for his biography of Calvin creator Bill Watterson.

So I both began and ended 2010 with attacks on people trying to follow in the steps of Calvin and Hobbes. There’s probably a moral here somewhere, if we look for it.

Saturday, December 11, 2010: I’ll be speaking at the Humboldt Anarchist Book Fair, giving a lecture titled “Cop Killers and Killer Cops.”

The bookfair is Dec. 11, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the Manila Community Center (1611 Peninsula Drive, Arcata, California).

My talk is scheduled from 4 to 5 p.m.

I’m not talking about the elections. I’m talking about literal disasters like fires, floods, earthquakes, wars.

Or rather — other people are talking about those things, and I’ve written the reviews.

Rebecca Solnit has written a remarkable book about the creative and sometimes inspiring ways people have responded to disasters over the last hundred or so years. The book is called A Paradise Built in Hell, and I reviewed it for Socialism and Democracy back in July. (It’s not on the web, I’m afraid.)

Around the same time, I wrote a review of Garth Ennis’ Crossed, Volume One — a comic about a plague that eliminates inhibitions and amplifies cruelty. It appeared on The Comics Journal site in August.

At popculturebomb.com, you can also read a review of my review of Crossed. (Spoiler: They didn’t like it.)

I’ll be on KBOO radio’s “Old Mole Variety Hour” on Monday, October 25th. Bill Resnick will be interviewing me about the culture of police impunity, and in particular the new evidence of cover-ups in the James Chasse and Captain Mark Kruger cases. People in the Portland area can listen on 90.7 fm. Those out of town can find it archived on the KBOO website, though it may take a few days to show up there.

Update: We didn’t actually have time to talk about Kruger, but the interview about the Chasse case is on the KBOO web site.

I’ll also be giving a talk in Portland, on Thursday, November 4, from 7-9pm, at Sisters of the Road Cafe (133 NW 6th Avenue). Local historian Michael Munk will discuss the history of Portland’s “Red Squad,” and I will talk more broadly about the cops’ role in preserving inequality. The event is sponsored by Oregon Jericho.

Humboldt Grassroots issue 3 includes an article titled “Not An Isolated Event,” which draws heavily from an interview I gave with Street Roots years and years ago.

And, I’ll be speaking at the Humboldt Anarchist Book Fair on December 11. (More details to come.)