As often as I like to talk about being a writer here at Roads Lesser Traveled, I am and always have been a devout reader. It comes in the bloodline. I had no hope of being otherwise. No complaints, mind you. I’ve had a rich and rewarding life reading and I know there’s hundreds of book aficionado and review bloggers out there. We get each other. We love to escape from reality and sink into other authors’ microcosms until it’s time to face our responsibilities.

Reading is therapeutic and fundamental, though current social modes and mores have begun to dumb down and dismiss the fine art of holding a book in your hands for however long it takes to engage the material and hopefully come to the concluding paragraph or comic book panel (usually with a “To be continued”) prompt.

I devour new release comic books each week, even if I have to get stingy with myself at times, given the recent price hikes. I can tell you I spend most of my comic book budget on Image and Marvel releases, pecking at some of the offerings from Titan, Dynamite and Dark Horse. I used to be a heavy DC reader and they will get their mentions in this post, given two incredible books they’ve released.

That being said, I find myself delved into comics and graphic novels the most (I can’t devour enough of the 1950s EC Comics horror, sci-fi and suspense reprints like Tales From the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear and Shock SuspenStories Dark Horse has been shuttling out again), but at the root of my love of reading, I have to push the novels, the nonfiction projects and magazines into my queue. Both TJ and I have baskets on either side of our bed where we keep our reading stash and both are always filled. Often we pass each our reads when they’re just that good. I like to say we’re both blessed that way and many others.

Speaking of good, I’ve enjoyed some franchise-based sci-fi, Picard-era Star Trek novels from Michael Jan Friedman and Dayton Ward and Adam Christopher’s superb Star Wars novel, Shadow of the Sith, set between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Following FX’s outstanding Shogun miniseries redux, I have a return visit to James Clavell’s Tai-Pan and King Rat on deck.

Speaking of excellent, here’s a handful of way above-par reads I just had to share.

Current volume run of Wonder Woman. Tom King, to me, is the greatest comic book writer of this era. Must be something in that last name, I dunno, but I met the DC Comics mainstay at a comic convention and was bowled over how he greets every single visitor to his table, “Hi, I’m Tom.” He even humbly spoofed himself in this fashion in his game-changing resurrection of old school DC hero, Adam Strange, Strange Adventures. I became a fan of Tom not only for his ballsy work on the Batman books, but for rebranding Mister Miracle into one the hippest miniseries of all-time. Add Heroes in Crisis and the Watchman tie-in Rorschach to his teeming resume at DC.

I know not all readers are pleased with the direction King has taken Diana Prince, but I’m telling you, the man is a revolutionary. After an incident between an Amazonian exile and a crass, misogynistic barfly, Wonder Woman and her Themyscirian sisters have become Public Enemy # 1. The U.S. versus the Amazonian princess who’s devoted her life in protection of our very shores. You have to read King’s style on a consistent basis to see the depth of emotiveness he fuses into Diana’s breakdown (harder than taking Superman down without a rock of kryptonite) from a country which has betrayed her. The Sovereign is the engineer of her eventual surrender yet Wonder Woman will…not…break… Deep, dark, illuminating and at times, heartbreaking. My vote for the top three Wonder Woman arcs of all-time.

The Watson Chronicles, by Christopher D. Abbott. With certain vintage franchises reaching their lapse in copyright protection, it’s become a wild west frontier in the public domain. Yet, I really wish Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had lived to see British author Christopher D. Abbott do his consummate detective, Sherlock Holmes all the justice the character needs in a modern society. Those who burn a candle for the old ways, and I mean Robert Downey, Jr. no disrespect. His Holmes films are wildly entertaining, but at the end of the day, it’s Abbott who has masterminded an entire library of new Holmes adventures in DIY fashion.

The Watson Chronicles should be self-explanatory. Christopher Abbott’s Victorian mysteries are told from the point-of-view of Sherlock Holmes’ right-hand man, John Watson. Abbott has become an Amazon sales sensation with an entire slew of original Holmes cases and I’ve read seven of them so far. He’s even gone so far as to include other authors in his two Cases by Candlelight books featuring himself with guest writers Michael Jan Friedman, Aaron Rosenberg and Keith DeCandido. These Holmes revival books are as authentic to Doyle’s vision as it gets.

I get a lot out of Richard Chizmar’s writing, since he’s a fellow Marylander and we’ve run in the same neighborhoods and circles. I’ve enjoyed some casual chit-chat with the man who’s made a name for himself in the horror leagues, and not just for his collaborations with Stephen King (that other King brand of excellence). As decades-long editor of the illustrious Cemetery Dance magazine, Chizmar knows how to prick your nerves.

The sequel to his runaway success novel Chasing the Boogeyman, Becoming is for sure deeper, scarier and more personal, since Richard fused his real life, home and family into this scary as hell narrative. It helps (for me, especially) Chizmar drops a score of photos in both books to make each ring like a true crime novel. I knew many of the locations he and his contributors shot. You may see who’s coming in Chasing, but not Becoming, that’s for sure. I blasted through Becoming in three days, I was that riveted.

Batman will always reign as my favorite comic book hero, with Spiderman, Storm and Daredevil pulling in right behind. I was as faithful to Batman and DC as my wallet could afford. I see it out there on the chat boards. DC has saturated the market with Batbooks, which includes all of the heroic and villainous tie-ins and spinoffs they can shove. We’re talking Birds of Prey, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Nightwing, Batwing, Penguin and as of this week’s releases, fishnet-clad magician extraordinaire, Zatanna. If you look at my monstrous boxes of back issues, five are devoted to Batman and his affiliates. My Catwoman section alone is considerable and whoever thought her own solo series would have such a long-lasting affair?

DC has a side brand, and I’m not talking Vertigo, wish ushered some of the greatest comics of all-time like Sandman, Preacher, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol and V is for Vendetta. In prestige format (which means larger size comics with cardstock covers and elite art even the big guns in the normal press kowtow to) is Black Label. No, not the beer which generations before mine (I’m fragging 54, for crying out loud) favored, but a darker side imprint offshoot which expands themes of violence, foul language and occasional nudity – calling to mind the infamous Bat-dick in Batman: Damned.

Yes, that’s a long preamble to get to The Bat-Man: First Knight, by the legendary Dan Jurgens and Mike Perkins. Note the hyphenated version of Bat-Man, as in when Bob Kane and Bill Finger first brought the Dark Knight to life. If you’re fortunate enough, you’ve read the early Post World War II and waning moments of The Great Depression arcs, but more so if you got to watch the Batman movie serials from the 1940s starring Lewis Wilson.

Keep all of it in mind as Jurgens writes a near-masterpiece with his three-issue First Knight miniseries set in 1939 when Bruce Wayne was just getting started and nobody, not even a green, pre-commissioner Gordon, put two and two together. Jurgens is just aces as a rube in capturing the lingo of the period in telling a tale of the Bat-Man’s early years, fighting a gory anomaly making Two-Face seem pussy by comparison. I got more out of the language Jurgens fused and the fact Bruce gets laid with a Hollywood starlet posing as love interest to a gay actor (this is how “woke” is done, people, FYI) we haven’t seen in his entire canon, plus the pro-Jewish stance the series takes. In the midst of The Holocaust perpetrated by those bastard Nazis, both Bruce Wayne and The Bat-Man find a fleeting sense of spirituality in protection of a Rabbi and his flock. Rabbi Cohen is the FIRST character to dig deep enough to sense the ennui that Batman (okay, Bat-man in this series) has a sense of gravitas to not only avenge his family, but the Yiddish culture facing extermination by Adolf Hitler in this story.

“I fear peace will forever elude me,” The Bat-Man with Bruce Wayne’s conscience, says to Rabbi Cohen. I frigging wept reading that. Thank you, Mr. Jurgens. I’m not Jewish, but I work for orthodox. I am a polytheist, but your insight hit me in the same way my Egyptian pantheon hit me. Congratulations. Whatever accolades or detriment you face, I have been with you since the early 1990s. I bought this series on a whim because it carried your name, my friend. Mazel Tov. You brought me out of a dollars-fused denunciation.

I felt so compelled by Rick Remender and Hollywood darling Brian Posehn I wrote a long-winded letter to them and the full creative team. If you were a skater, especially back in the day, Grommets is your effing jam.

To summarize a section of my long-winded letter:

“I’m tailspun by this book and I have so much to say (like I haven’t already) but I covered metal, punk and horror for 16 years in numerous magazines and websites and I lived my life as a metalhead all those years, even if punk is a far better genre in many ways.  I saw myself in Grommets and my punker friends, my skate rat friends.  I saw the title Grommets done up in the Thrasher magazine logo, I knew this was a mandatory read.

I laughed my ass off, guys.  “Douche canoe dipshits.”  “Choad lickers.” BWAHAHAHAHAHA!  So fucking rad!   I would consider myself Brian in this story and remember full well how Rush was accused of Satanism because of the 2112 cover.  I was also “too metal” for everything back then, until crossover happened and it wasn’t just Suicidal Tendencies and D.R.I. turning thrash. 

Crossover went down in my high school, a much-needed bridging between the metal and punk sanctions that I fostered.  I’m really damn proud of that, because I saw we needed to fortify our forces as countercultural people, if you get me.  Of course you do.  Grommets wouldn’t be a thing if you didn’t.
Four of my closest bros are metalheads and punks from those days of crossover. 

We swapped our albums across the lines:  Black Sabbath for Black Flag.  Saint Vitus for The Crumbsuckers (who also turned thrash, of course).  Every panel showing a punk band logo in Grommets all morphed into my massive collection of vinyl and cassettes.  They remain today in my massive multi-genre music catalog.  “World Up My Ass” by the Circle Jerks is a cut I still scream inside my car with the windows down.  

I did a little bit of skating in my time and I sucked at it.  I pulled off more “folllies” than “ollies.”  I dabbled in BMX and nailed bunny hops, that’s about it.  Instead, the local skaters and BMX tricksters roped me in as their music man.  I was positioned atop a quarterpipe blasting music from my Emerson boombox, the treads of bike tires and trucks of boards whizzing within inches of my nose.

In other words, Grommets made me feel at home, even though I’m from the suburban east coast and that is the climate I lived in at the same timeframe of your story.  We used to lament the west coast seemed to be so much cooler, so much more happening than our side of the U.S.  We had a glorious time in the 80s, but California was “it,” and I know it every time I listen to the grit rawk band Fu Manchu and early days Kyuss or I go old school Cali punk with Redd Kross, Circle Jerks or Agent Orange.  This comic book makes me feel every lick of it.”

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

From the Let’s Get Real Department, Father’s Day Files. If there was one thing we got right in my former marriage, it was adopting the boyo. Good times and bad, my ex pushed me to become a dad and I’ll always be grateful for that. We took foster parent classes, but there’s no real manual on how to do this job, whether the children come via birth or through other means. It was my stepfather, the shining knight example of manhood, who taught me how to love another person’s kid, and I have had a deep 16-year bond with my son because of it.

At least through his tweens, there wasn’t a day he and I weren’t at each other’s sides doing everything together. It was instant love between us and no matter the turmoil we’ve been through later in our lives, I never question his loyalty to me and I can see the dawning inside of him just who has had his back all these years. We all have, as his family, but at the core, it’s been me and him, BOND.

Fatherhood hasn’t been easy. It’s been downright painful and thankless at times. Dads aren’t perfect. Dads blow their lids. Dads screw up. Dads can only keep their armor polished and dent-free for so long until they learn to keep the tarnish and the dings as badges of honor. If dads take the job seriously, they love their kids more than themselves. They want the happiness of their kids more than their own. No matter the pushbacks, no matter the backtalk, the fights against ill-founded superiority complexes shot at them from their charges. Fathers see the endgame and if they’re worth anything, they want their children to win it faster than themselves.

I love my kids, including my new adult stepchildren who’ve only known me a short time in whatever capacity they need me to be. I know this is a day they miss their dad as much as I miss my blood father, flawed and occasionally abusive as he could be. Their dad would be as proud of them as I am.

My dad loved me more than anyone on this planet and his good deeds superseded his faults, which I was able to philosophically put together down the road. My stepfather, Pop, and I have had nothing short of a “My main man” kind of father-son relationship, and I can think of no finer dude I’ve ever known. He and I once had a man-to-man sit-down at the same age my son is now, and that remains one of my happiest memories with Pop. We toasted as men do (I’ll leave you to make your inferences on what that entailed) and b.s.’d for hours that day.

I needed that chat with a father who showed me he understood me, accepted me as a man and wanted to see me rise above the things that were dragging me down. One week ago, I re-enacted the entire thing for my own son. Man-to-man, at the kitchen table (again, leaving you to infer as you will) since my son has known great pain of his own as much as he’s made terrible mistakes. That was a day to put it all on the table with minimal lecturing and an open-door policy to speak our minds. Above all, it was to acknowledge the kid’s manhood as Pop did for me. Thus far, it’s been a game changer. For us both.

To all my brothers of the cause out there, a Happy Father’s Day to you. I still have an unexplainable shakiness to being celebrated every June as a dad, but I’ve done nothing less than take the role I was handed with full commitment. TJ has been an amazing partner to me in all things, inclusive of passing her knowledge and having the courage not only to be his stepmom, but to keep me on track with him. I get exhausted, I get burned-out. Sometimes my aspirations cloud my day-to-day. Eye on the prize, getting this young man to reach his destiny, whatever he chooses that to be. A good father needs a good mother to keep him strong and sane, and I have that.

At the end of our man-to-man, my son challenged me to a future Spartan race once he gets himself entrenched in the military. He joked how he would probably wipe me out once he has his training, since the primary reason of my fitness crusade has ALWAYS been to inspire him before others. I think the plot worked over time, and I told him, “I accept your challenge and when that day comes, we’ll start the heat together and don’t you worry about getting a lead on me. In fact, go hard, go fast. Dust me and don’t look back. I’ll find you at the finish line.”

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.