Eddie's Monthly

Continuing my exploration of visual media (BDs) and of GRRM universe. Also threw a curveball in there.

Sun and Steel – Yukio Mishima

What the hell can I write about this? I gotta be honest, I don't know if I'm stupid but I didn't understand most of the first part of the book. I don't really think it is meant to be understood, what Mishima describes there is inherently indescribable. It's only in the second part when he grounds himself more in the physical that some things make sense. My man has a deeply unhealthy relationship with the human body. I think he also has a very unhealthy relationship with other human being. I think he needs to touch grass. I like the form though, that it was entirely weird and abstract and deeply and utterly personal. It was definitely just Mishima expressing himself, and he doesn't care if he is pissing in a violin.

Le Grand Pouvoir du Chninkel – Jean Van Hamme, Grzegorz Rosiński

Upon the world of Daar, three factions are fighting senselessly since anyone can remember. The three immortal are at the head of each faction, and there is no hope to ever bury the hatchet. Day and night they fight with humans, apes, dinosaurs, monsters and Chninkel. Chninkel are a slave race of this world, a mix of hobbits and rodents. By some sort of miracle J'on, achninkel, manages to survive one of those battles and flees. As soon as he does, the Great Creator appears before him, tasking him to end the wars, as he has had enough. J'on has three days, he says, after which if he fails the world will be destroyed. Before leaving, the Great Creator bestows upon J'on the Great Power. This task is impossible for an immortal, how can a chninkel hope to prevail?

Another BD, this time a classic of french fantasy. The drawings are awesome, and while originally it came out in black and white, what I read was a colorised re-edition (with the blessing and supervision of the original authors). The story is original, and the setting is nice change from the usual high fantasy setting. The premise really hooked me but it does take a direction I didn't expect. J'on is a bit more passive here, where I would have wished he'd be a bit more in command, really trying to extirpate himself from prickly situations. I did like the religious subplot though and the ending is really good. There's a couple of issues with it though. Being published in 1986 by two white men, we do stumble into the usual pitfalls of fantasy, namely sexism and racism. On the sexism front, the main supporting character G'wen spends half of the BD in various states of undress. That's pretty much all she's there for, apart from also being constantly sexually harassed by J'on. In general, if there is a lady in the BD that's not a background character, you will see their titties. On racism, it is very brief, but it's basically just fetishisation of the black male body. There is a scene with a white blond woman being 'taken' by J'on, who was transformed for this purpose (and also no apparent legitimate reason) into a black human male.

Fire and Blood – GRR Martin

The History of the Targaryen Kings of Westeros, from Aegon I to the regency of Aegon III by Archmaester Gyldayn of Oldtown.

GRR Martin is back at it again, and he managed to trick me into reading a history book, which is my least favourite type of book to read. And I enjoyed every second of it. My man can write and world build. It is also a very interesting concept to have the history of your world be retold in an in-universe history book by an in-universe historian. Completely worth having spoiled myself the end of House of the Dragon, which is adapted from this book. The way everything unfolds naturally, and just makes so much sense without being predictable. GRRM is just the goat and I'm almost looking forward to Blood and Fire (sequel to Fire and Blood) more than Winds of Winter (both will never come out).

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – GRRM

Dunk is a squire whose master just died. Thankfully before passing, he made Dunk a knight. So Ser Duncan the Tall is a knight whose master just died. He is sworn to no lord or land and therefore is of the hedge, an itinerant knight always looking for work. With how little he knows of the world, how will he manage to get by?

I am a fiend for anything substantial that GRRM wrote about the ASOIAF universe and have therefore read A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. There's also gona be an HBO show about it next year, because I guess they have to milk everything out of George before he passes. Anyway, it's not the same calibre as the ASOIAF novels, or even Fire and Blood, but this collection of novellas is still good. There's no intricate plot in the foreground, and the story is a bit more simplistic, but I really appreciated it for the glimpse of lore that it allowed us to see between the events of the Dance of Dragons and A Game of Thrones. It also has a ton of drawings if is great for someone like me who can't visualise anything. It did make my ereader freeze a couple of times though. We also finally have the POV of someone that is a bit more akin to a common man of the Seven Kingdoms (he's still a knight though so very privileged).

Métal Hurlant – third edition – Many authors

Métal Hurlant is a 250 pages french adult trimestral magazine. It's only short forms BDs. Many authors participate in it, and the themes are either horror or SF. The first edition, published between 1975 and 1987, was the ground breaker, really going in hard against the goody two shoes culture at the time. There is gore, there are penises, there's titties and there's themes that aren't talked about at the time. The second edition was shortlived from 2002-2004 and this third edition has been going since 2021. This last one mixes reeditions from the old editions of métal hurlant with some new stuff. I came to learn about Métal Hurlant through interviews of different artists, be it directors, writers, drawers (people that draw) none of them french. And yet each of them claimed to have been really inspired by that french magazine just with the drawings, despite not speaking a lick of french. I thought it would be cool to a get one volume of the new edition for some of the artists on the printhouse. I'll be very brief in my reviews, not to spoil anything as only Vivian got hers as of now.

Volume 2, 7 and 'Cat' Special Edition

Volume 2 is for Andrew. It is so based and is a collection of the best from the first edition. It is very horny.

Volume 7 is for Nick. It's only new stuff, and there are some very interesting modern things in there. It is a bit weird.

The 'Cat' special edition is obviously for Vivian. Every story is related to cats.

That's it for this month. There is some more based stuff waiting for you next month, I'll probably get back to reading word books more too.

Thank you for reading my logorrhea Eddie – Award winning author