Another Drawing and Reflections on A Mystery Novel That's Not Really a Mystery Novel At All. Or Is It?

Here is the other drawing I promised in the Knights Killing Monsters series I did for Fradley's short film. I stole the creature design from a cover of The Incredible Hulk comic book -- the shadowy face with just the teeth and eyes glowing white is totally implausible, but convincing somehow. All told, the drawing holds up all right, I think, but everytime I see it all I think of is what Heath said when he first saw it. The bastard. Just look to the comments section to see if he recollects.

What else? A new poll says that only 2% of African-Americans believe George W. Bush is doing a good job. That's the lowest approval rating for a President among American blacks since they started polling. HuffingtonPost.com ran the story with the headline: Unbelievable! Is it really? I don't think so. Especially after Katrina, it actually seems totally believable.


Ah yes, I finished The Colorado Kid by Stephen King a few days ago. I'm going to go ahead and not reccomend it -- not because it's not worthy of an afternoon's reading, but more because it's likely not to interest any but the most diehard King fans. I say it's worthy because it is the first work of fiction I've ever read that goes out of its way to reject the trappings of "story". The Colorado Kid is not a story. The setting, such as it is, is the upstairs office of a small-time newspaper. Inside are two old newspapermen telling their new reporter intern about the honest-to-God-mystery they happened to be directly involved in back in 1980. And though the "story" they tell does have a beginning, it does not have a middle or an end. Two teenagers discover a body on the beach without any identification, that's the beginning. Who is he? Where'd he come from? Could be a good story, (the kind with middles and ends) you're thinking, but any reader who might be suspecting a whodunit gets a good hard punch in the gut from King in short order. Turns out the mystery man choked on a piece of sandwich he'd been eating and died. Hardly foul play. One can't help, upon learning this, to take a closer look at how many unread pages sit clasped between thumb and fingers on your right hand. Quite a few, but story's over, right? Yes and no. There are a few, smaller mysteries wrapped up in the larger one, but the geezers don't have the answers because there aren't any hard answers to this story. The Colorado Kid is like an anti-mystery story, and if you're not really in the mood for an uneventful literary experiment from someone who doesn't exactly specialize in avant-garde experimental fiction, no reason to bother with this one.

One final thing about The Colorado Kid. On his website, Stephen King posted up a comment in response to an "error" a USA Today reviewer spotted in the book. Here is the comment:

"The review of The Colorado Kid in today's issue of today's [sic] USA Today mentions that there was no Starbuck's in Denver in 1980. Don't assume that's a mistake on my part. The constant readers of the Dark Tower series may realize that that is not necessarily a continuity error, but a clue."

Very interesting. It's a cheap way to make your boring story interesting, but at least he tried. That's all I got today. See ya tomorrow.