T.G.I.F.: July 28, 2006

"... he writes like a honkytonk angel."

As previously mentioned, I've had better weeks.

So it was with much joy that I went to my mailbox this week to find a book I pre-ordered almost a year ago: Howard Waldrop's Howard Who?. It's a collection of madness, stories of magical pop-culture fantasies: jazz superstar Dwight Eisenhower playing for Senator Presley, a robotic dog, duck and mouse (named GUF, DUN, and MIK) making their way in a world they don't understand, and the Marx Brothers team up with Stan and Ollie and Abbott and Costello to try and avert The Day The Music Died. One of my favorite books as a teen, and one that irrevocably shaped my own short story writing, it's been out of print for quite some time. In idle moments I would sometimes search around the Great Intarwub in hopes of finding an inexpensive copy, to no avail.

Then came Small Beer Press. This small publishing house has just released a new edition of Howard Who?, and its arrival is one of the high points of this week.

Oh? You want comics content? Yes - that postcard for Howard Who? features Kevin Huizenga's cover artwork. He contributes covers for the entire line of Peapod Classics.