C.O.U.S.: Reflections from Rick's Collection #27

While "researching" a recent Nexus Graphica, I had reason to look through my collection of Comics Of Unusual Size. This set of the big and small and odd of comicdom offers many gems. Deciding that I really should share some of these largely forgotten and sometime rare pieces, I'm taking you through a tour of the more interesting selections.

In the 80s and 90s, it was not unusual to be handed Chick tracts at rock concerts. Published by Chick Publications, these rectangular palm sized pamphlets contained comic book stories that proselytized against great evils such as greed, gluttony, Catholism (and other "false" religions), Satanism, rock music, reincarnation, and Dungeons & Dragons.


Reputedly all written and drawn by company founder, Independent Baptist Jack T. Chick, there are over 200 tracts. Many of the Chick publications, which include traditional comics and prose books, are available in many languages and online.




The company's official statement of faith begins:

We hold that the Bible, the Holy Word of a Holy God, was not only free from error in the originals (which have been lost for centuries) but also we believe God in His Singular providential care has KEPT HIS WORD all through the ages, right down to the present day as found in the King James Version. We consider this version our final and absolute authority, above and beyond all other authorities on earth.

The short, laughingly heavy-handed, and often well drawn stories have achieved a cult-like status among non-believers. Currently, I own seven different volumes: The Pilgrims, Somebody Goofed, Holy Joe, The Trap, How To Get Rich, Ivan the Terrible, Bad Bob!, and Angels? Like many, I acquired several of these at concerts but some of them have been found in bookstore bathrooms and even hidden within books that were for sale!

Diplomacy

On the weekend Terminator: Salvation opens, check out this article in New Scientist on "Nine Games Computers are Ruining For Humanity." We're basically looking at the usual suspects--chess, checkers, tic-tac-toe, and more recently poker. My thought on this has always been: Wake me up when the machines start kicking ass at Diplomacy. 

For those who didn't waste their early years under the thumb of The Avalon Hill Game Company, Diplomacy, first published in 1959, is a social experiment in the guise of a World War I era wargame. Each player is one of the Great Powers, from Britain in the West to Turkey in the east.  Each turn represents a season of the year in which the player may move his armies and navies a limited distance on the board. Warfare is a simple matter: the country with the most armies or navies in support of its move wins. The genius of the game is that the Powers' strengths are calibrated to the point that it is impossible to win or even survive without alliances. As the rules politely state, "Diplomacy is a game of promises kept, and promises broken."

The game builds in a period between each turn for players to negotiate: 30 minutes before the first turn and 15 minutes between subsequent turns. This makes Diplomacy interminable face to face, but with adjustments it has proven perfect for playing by mail (and nowadays by e-mail). Anyway, after the negotiation period, players submit their orders in a specific language developed for the game. If an order is not expressed correctly, it does not occur. A simple example would be that if Turkey wanted to move an army to Constantinople to Bulgaria, the order would have to read A Con-Bul. If the army moving from Constantinople was moving to support an attack of another army, it would add an S and then list the army it was moving to support (A Con-Bul S A Rum-Bul). Orders are open and read and carried out if possible. Needless to say, this required specificity means that one of the most effective ways to stab someone in the back and retain some plausible deniability has always been to screw up the order on purpose. Head to Boardgame Geek for examples of Diplomacy perfidity. (My favorite is probably the father who taught his son how the world really works by solemnly sealing an alliance, showing him his written orders, and then through slight of hand, replacing the order with a blank piece of paper). 

Programming the computer in the Dip "language" would be easy enough. Additionally, there has to be an optimal play for each Power in each turn, and no doubt that could also be determined. I would think that the problem might be, as I said above, that you are almost never in a position to make the optimal move on your own. Establishing what should be done is the easy part; convincing another player or a group of players to assist is the difficulty. So assuming you played by e-mail, the computer would have to be programmed to propose alliances, analyze proposed alliances from other players, decide when to abandon a partnership, determine when a partner is about to deliver a well timed stab in the back (how do you express "untrustworthy son of a bitch" in binary?) and how to respond to that action. 

It could also create an interesting Turing situation--should the human players even be made aware that one or more of the countries in the game would be played by software? They probably shouldn't. Honestly, one of the things you have to deal with in Diplomacy is the meta-game--the emotional effect, i.e. simmering rage, your action will have on your opponent. If you know what you do will have no such effect on one of the players, and also no impact on her later dealings with you, you would probably feel freer to backstab her versus another player. (To be fair, if you know that one of your opponents will never renege on an agreement once made, that is temporarily a point in favor of that player, but to win the game, eventually you will have to abandon an agreement, or at least be able to entertain the possibility.) 

So bumbling through this, the key here isn't so much the number crunching because that part of the game is simplified enough (there are not that many pieces in the game and the situation on the game board is open) that it can be easily grasped by the human mind; the machine doesn't have its usual advantage in that area. What a computer would need to compete in Diplomacy is the ability to read human beings' intentions (which is no doubt coming) and the ability to mimic human behavior by convincingly lying its ass off, which one hopes is a little further down the road. 

Buying books makes Rick happy

Every two years or so Brandy and I visit her hometown Tulsa. Since the trip centers around her old friends and family, Brandy appeases me with a visit to Gardner's.

A cross-pollination of a Mexican restaurant, coffee shop, a tax accounting business, and a bookstore, the large shop inhabits all of what once must have been a strip mall. In my five stops during the previous ten years, the coffee shop has never been open, I've never eaten in the restaurant, and I've never availed myself of their tax services, but I have bought countless books.





The bookstore, which takes up most of the space, sells mostly used books with a smattering of comics, dvds, and cds thrown in. Oddly, they promote themselves as comic shop as well. The meager graphic novel selections, three spinner racks of new comics, handful of superhero toys, and the mediocre sampling of used comics makes it one of the worst comic book specialty shops ever.

My first two Gardner's trips spoiled me. All books were half cover and if there was a minimum, it was so low to not be of consequence. On my third visit, some of the books were priced as collectibles (ie not half price and often far more than the original cover price), but the minimum remained low. For my most recent visit, a $2.95 minimum was instituted, but with far fewer collectibles. Also, for an unfathomable reason, the gave me a 20% discount on my purchases.

Even with the high minimum, Gardner's remains a must see whenever I get to Tulsa. They have a large and varied book collection. Every time I go, it seems I focus on a different subject. This time I found nothing but crime fiction.

The fine selection included Victor Gischler's first three crime novels: Gun Monkeys, The Pistol Poets, and Suicide Squeeze. Between my enjoyment of Go-Go Girls of Apocalypse and the Stark-like opening line of Gun Monkeys (“I turned the Chrysler onto the Florida Turnpike with Rollo Kramer's headless body in the trunk, and all the time I'm thinking I should've put some plastic down.”) lead me to buying them all.






In a similar vein, I picked up the Hard Case Crime reprint of the prolific Robert Terrall's long out of print thriller Kill Now, Pay Later. As a fan of hard-boiled crime fiction, the Hard Case line is required reading and finding one I don't have is always a thrill.





Responsible for one of the better books from Hard Case Crime (A Touch of Death), the extraordinary Charles Williams remains one of the most respected and best practitioners of hard edged fiction. So as you can guess, acquiring a new-to-me Charles Williams makes for a great day at the bookstore. I got the Perennial Library edition of The Wrong Venus. The back cover copy ends with “Together they create a story of romance, larceny, and very blunt romance.” What's not to like?






Crime fiction in a completely different vein, the 1966 Signet edition of P. G. Wodehouse's Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves was picked up for Brandy, who is very curious about the series (mostly thanks to her brother's fascination). Interestingly, the back cover advertises “FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PAPERBACK THE LAST JAMES BOND NOVEL—IAN FLEMING'S THE MAN WITH GOLDEN GUN.”
















Throughout the forties, Dell published some 500 paperbacks with maps on the back covers. Known as mapbacks, the series covered a wide range of genres but is perhaps best-remembered for their mysteries. I picked up a beautiful copy of Too Many Bones by Ruth Sawtell Wallis (Dell 123). It is very unusual to find mapbacks in this excellent condition.

My final four books were titles that I pick up fairly frequently: John Dunning's Booked To Die, Carl Hiaasen's Double Whammy, Patrick Süskind's Perfume, and Joe R. Lansdale's Cold in July. I purchased all four with the intent of giving them to others. The Hiaassen and Lansdale stayed in Tulsa with my father-in-law and Süskind with a friend. I'm sure the Dunning will find a home soon.

Forthcoming selections

At our previous meeting (and shame on you for not being there), we determined our selections through August.

• May 13 The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
• June 10 Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler
• July 8 A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
• August 12 On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers

We meet at Flight Path at 7 PM and we'd love to see ya there. Check out our home page for more details about the Dark Forces Book Group.

War on Two Fronts

My latest Nexus Graphica, where I discuss Blazing Combat and Jack Kirby's The Losers, is now available for your reading pleasure.

Following the success of their EC-inspired horror anthology Creepy, publisher James Warren and editor Archie Goodwin began Blazing Combat in 1965. The new magazine employed a similar format, using many of the same artists of the previous Warren publication -- Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall, John Severin, Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, Russ Heath, Alex Toth, and Wally Wood. Like Creepy, Blazing Combat also featured Frank Frazetta covers, and Goodwin scripts in a magazine format. But unlike its predecessor, Blazing Combat died an ignoble death after just four issues. Fantagraphics collects the complete run and outlines the whole sordid history via interviews with Warren and Goodwin in the handsome hardback Blazing Combat.

Following the 1973 cancellation of his Fourth World titles (New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen), Jack Kirby created several new titles for DC (Kamandi, The Demon, and OMAC). In 1974, he also assumed the mantle on one existing title: Our Fighting Forces. Beginning with issue #151, Kirby rendered the chronicles of a dysfunctional WWII fighting troop, code-named the Losers.

I also review Jan's Atomic Heart, Chicken with Plums, and Showcase Presents Ambush Bug.