Invasion of Privacy: The Cross Creek Trial of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings by Patricia Nassif Acton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very good account of the trial that Vera Cason presented and upsetting Rawlings Life.

As this is a Florida book, my review is, again, in my podcast here:
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis…

Forgot to add the Bottom Line to the podcast again!

Bottom line: I recommend this book. 8 out of ten points.

View all my reviews

My warm up drawing from Wednesday celebrating World Elephant and Vinyl Day!

Drawn with no plan, pencils, live here on Facebook last Wednesday.

Next live is today at 1pm.
Let’s see what we celebrate! 

Monday was National Lazy Day. So a lazy bear I drew! 🙂

Batman: Odyssey (2011-2012) #3 by Neal Adams
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

AS bad as this series is. In this installment, there is evidence of something being wrong with Neal Adams.

How can such an arrogant presentation of wrong science be littered with such bad dialogue and poor storytelling. The writing of these views comes across to me as very condescending to the reader. Instead of an effort to create wonder and solid scientific theory. This is an effort to indoctrinate the readers with Adams science views. He doesn’t want to write a serious science book. He can’t and demonstrates his lack of real scientific knowledge in this issue alone. The worse of all of this is that those of us who know much about geology and science studies of the earth, see the glaring errors in Adams’ thinking.

Adams has the entire story underground this time. That would be fine if he kept it all with silly science fiction, like the Batman tales of the ’50 and ’60s. Instead, Adams cakes the story with overt science explanations of the underground appearance of dinosaurs and mutant people. Also above ground humans and some effort of one group taking over another and then above ground.

Adams then writes more of his science ideas as Batman runs around in his typical costume, which makes no sense. Who is he keeping his identity from underground??? He doesn’t shed his cape until there is a ridiculous one-on-one fight with an Asian character Adams pulled from his early Batman work more than 45 years ago. There’s an explanation for that, too. All woven into Adams’ science views. Then the Asian does some magic to stop some attacks right after the Batman fight. Why didn’t the Asian use the magic to defeat Batman in the fight. Better question: Why doesn’t the Asian use his powers to simply accomplish take over and end the story.
What? And stop Adams’ from seriously pouring out more ridiculous geological and scientific views?
I suspect the worse is yet to come.

The artwork is very good. I do wonder what co-inker Bill Sienkiewicz thought of participating in this mess. I’m guessing it was just a gig to him, which is fine. The art in this issue appears more rushed.

Bottom line: Do not buy this! 1 or 0 out of 10 points.

View all my reviews

Here’s the Warm-Up Drawing I did Friday.

Gar wrote of earthworms
and hiker Daryl popped by.
As did Cheryl who was a water ski champ
and i’d just heard from Trisha, cat fancier.

Adventure Down Under by Tome
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of the best comic-type stories I’ve read in a few decades. A great cast of characters, an involved multi-level story and a very good grip of location, all while presenting indigenous history. Though all couched in a fun way. All of this drawn with great skill and outstanding story telling.

This is my first reading a tale with these characters. The writing deftly reveals who the characters as the story unfolds. Many novelists can’t adequately accomplish the effort, especially these days. The writer also has a large cast of many other characters. These are also distinct in writing. Even better in how all are drawn distinctly.

The story has the main characters doing one thing. Another set doing something else. Still another set doing something even different. Then there are the characters the main characters are meeting. I marvel how all of this is handled and then all comes together. All in 52 pages.

The ending also has layers as there seems to be one…and then another…and then another. I love how this is done!

This is an outstanding effort and I look forward to reading more.

Bottom line: i recommend this book. 10 out of 10 points.

View all my reviews

When the Whippoorwill by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A compact volume of a handful of short stories by Florida writer, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
Rawlings’ tales tell of the average Joe in Florida before all of the concrete and asphalt.

As I started writing this, I started thinking how I had more to say than I am really capable to type.
That’s when my new podcast came to mind.

So, Swampy’s Florida podcast #8 is my first book review podcast!
In it i had to also add background information and the like.
Hope the podcast might get more to read Rawlings.
I’ll probably do podcasts for all of the Florida based books I review.

Here is it.
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis…

I did forget to give the book a rating in the podcast. Oops!
Here it is here:

Bottom line:
I recommend this book. 9 out of ten points.

View all my reviews

This shy bear is what I doodled during my live Warm Up video earlier today.