Word: comicality
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...probably the most erudite of American literary critics in this century. The question "Have you read . . .?" recurs often in his letters, and he seems to have read nearly everything: psychology, anthropology, quantum mechanics, most of English and American literature, German folklore, sports-car magazines, science-fiction pulp, the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. He was also quirky and instinctive, peppering his letters with slang like "gee" and "do-vey" (meaning good) and bursts of imagination: "I felt quite funny when Freud died, it was like having a continent disappear." Or, after a nosebleed: "I've noticed that the blood...
...structure are various objects useful in carnage (a chain saw, a huge mallet, a viciously shaped sword of superhuman dimensions). The gladiators are placed in slings that are in turn attached to industrial-strength rubber bands. Boiing! They bounce off the walls and fly at each other with comic, alarming force. Piing! They are catapulted into the dome's upper reaches, grabbing frantically for whatever weapon comes to flailing hand. Spriing! They're back on the ground, whaling away at each other. As their ever encouraging ringmaster says, "You know the rules: there are no rules...
...even when he controls his impulse to wail, Hannah remains a distinctive, disturbing voice. Longtime fans continue to wonder when he will again reach the comic breadth and scope of Geronimo Rex (1972), his dazzling first novel. Certainly not this time. Captain Maximus is almost aggressively fragmentary. But Hannah's brand of disorderly conduct, even in bits and pieces, remains a welcome reminder that art can be just as wild and unpredictable as daily life. --By Paul Gray
...1960s the indirect approach to the Bomb seemed to be changing. In 1963 Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds was produced, and in 1964 Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. One was a standard something-is-wrong-with-nature film that made monsters of benignities, the other a headlong black-comic attack on the nuclear threat. Dr. Strangelove even incorporated the subtheme of nature out of control in the Bomb-crazy Dr. Strangelove's right arm, which goes its own way, fondly recalls the doctor's Nazi days and at one point attempts to strangle its "master." Commercially, if not critically...
...disapproval of the cartoon regarding the death of Pope John Paul II that was in the April 4 issue of The Crimson. As a Catholic myself, I found it disrespectful and tactless. All Catholics are currently in a period of mourning and trying to lighten the mood with a comic was not appropriate as the subject of a satirical comic. I highly encourage the staff to reconsider publishing comics along those lines in the future...