GeekReads

No thanks to the hosting issue that saw my blogs effectively offline for the most part of last month, I’ve got heaps of reviews to catch up on, so here’s a quick round up of a two non-fiction books that I got through last month.

Words Words Words, by David Crystal

What's it about again?

David Crystal is a man passionate about words. He is to linguistics what Richard Feynman was to quantum physics, or Carl Sagan to Cosmology although sadly the study of words and language doesn’t elicit the same emotional tug as the inner workings of reality or the imagination-filling possibilities of space.

Off the back of How Language Works, Crystal zooms in from the macro to the micro, looking at the atomic parts of communication. Like the othe book, he takes the reader on a whirlwind tour in each chapter, showing the enormity of the subject but keeping things light and entertaining, not overwhelming the reader, through the use of amusing anecdotes and interesting trivia.

A much more readable book that the title or topic suggests. Recommended to anybody with even a passing interest in language.

How To Draw Manga Style, by Ilya-San & Yahya El-Droubie

Does anybody else find this picture anatomically disturbing (and I don't just mean her pneumatic chest)?

I picked this up cheaply at the Borders closing down sale and read it in dribs and drabs over last last few months. The text is amiable but dry, and seems to be the efforts of a few passionate amateurs who thought they might be able to make a buck putting something together as cheaply as possible. It shows mostly in the quality of the artwork, which, while competently rendered, seems to have all been sourced from cheap Chinese artists – there’s barely a Japanese name to be found in the book (the odd nom-de-plume of one of the authors – “Ilya-san” – notwithstanding).

It’s one of those books that sits in the awkward “in between” category: too lacking in soul and energy to attract beginners beyond the initial premise, and too simplistic and preachy to be of any use to veterans.

Suffice to say, you won’t be seeing manga-style drawings in my blogs any time soon. I’ll stick to my crude pencil drawings.

"I'm gonna Kick-Ass!"

What if all it took to be a super-hero was not special powers, but the courage and the balls to put on a fancy suit and stick it to the bad guys? That’s the question Kick-Ass, from British director Matthew Vaughn, asks us to consider. After all, in this day and age, Social Media helps regular folks like Susan Boyle and Guyslain Raza (the Star Wars Kid) become overnight celebrities, so why couldn’t it help create super-heroes? Starting with this premise, the movie takes us on the wild ride of self-confessed nobody Dave Lizewski (played by Aaron Johnson) and his super-hero alter-ego, Kick-Ass, as he gains fame and fortune through a couple of instances of being in the right place at the right time.

He gets in way over his head when he takes on a crime gang to impress love interest Katie Deauxma (Lyndsy Fonseca), and encounters the father-daughter team of “real” super-heros Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). Their secretive and violent efforts in fighting crime and corruption result in Kick-Ass’s growing celebrity, which attracts the attention of New York crime boss Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong).

The movie contains many genuinely funny moments, such as when we are first introduced to Big Daddy and Hit-Girl, Dave’s fantasy “flashback” showing the possible origins of his super-hero persona, and another when he deadpans in a narration how “with no power comes no responsibility”. Johnson is just the right amount of gangly geek and dorky charm, Moretz is the epitome of “cool” as Hit-Girl, and Cage is a warm and endearing psychopath, bent on violent revenge after being framed by corrupt cops leading to the death of his wife.

The sexy, underaged school-girl assassin, staple of Japanese Manga

While I liked Kick-Ass, a few things made me fall short of loving it. The movie’s conceit depends on the fact that super-hero stories thrive on a deep moral conservatism: the epic fight between good and evil, whereas the hypocrisy is that Kick-Ass is presented through the lens of liberal American Hollywood culture, with its foul-mouthed script, lax attitude to drug use, and (IMO) almost-but-not-quite gratuitous sex scenes. In another bold move, the writers took a big step into the realm of Japanese Manga with the sexy under-aged schoolgirl assassin, and graphic and explicit portrayals of violence. This causes mixed emotions, because while I like both Western comics and Manga, this is the first time that I’ve seen the two combined like this and it doesn’t quite sit well – not fitting the “vibe” of either category, it is a new beast altogether. You can also sense this from the reactions and expressions of shock from reviewers who were expecting it to be more like other super-hero satire movies such as Mystery Men, than the more serious “graphic novels” such as Watchmen and its ilk.

Kick-Ass certainly doesn’t pull its punches.