ANYBODY WHO CARES about the American short story, and how to market same, should look at the (probably unauthorized) online scanning and posting of A Cotton Candy Autopsy. It was the first episode of Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman’s illustrated-story series, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children.

Published between 1989 and 1992 by DC Comics’ short-lived Piranha Press division, Beautiful Stories wasn’t a comic book (not even a “grownup” comic book). Rather, Louapre wrote a different (usually darkly humorous) text story for each issue, to which Sweetman added large illustrations (in a different, appropriate style each time).

The various book and magazine incarnations of Beautiful Stories have all been out of print for years. I’ve no idea what Louapre or Sweetman have done since. But the series remains one of the last examples of a big media company packaging and selling an individual short story as a stand-alone, un-anthologized entity unto itself.

(via Josh Okrent):

“Hey Clark,”Thanks for the Kodak story. I was born and raised in Rochester and have a long and tangled history with the area’s #1 employer. Most of my parents’ friends worked for Kodak, and too many of their kids died young from cancers caused by Kodak’s shitty waste disposal practices.

“Allow me to recommend a great, and little read, novel about Kodak’s prescence in Rochester. It’s called The Lost Scrapbook, by Evan Dara, published in 1995 by FC2. It features a barely fictionalized Rochester called Springfield, but the strangenesses and horrors it discusses are all
too real. It made the rounds of all the literate-punk bookshelves in Rochester before being named by William Vollman as “winning manuscript” in the Normal, Illinois fiction contest. Anyhoo, look for it.”

I indeed have read The Lost Scrapbook, and heartily second Mr. Okrent’s recommendation.

SOMEONE NAMED ONLY ‘MICHAEL’ has a lot of profound things to say about the differences between “movie people” and book people.” I read books, and even write them, but I’ve never considered myself comfortable among the proponents of what I’ve called “the writerly lifestyle.” This essay tells me why, at long last.

BRITAIN’S BOOK PUBLISHERS are reportedly slashing the number of new books they’ll put out, so they can concentrate on (1) established bestseller names and (2) “‘good-looking’ first-time novelists who are more marketable.”

I’m immediately reminded of the bleak Brit movie Morvern Callar. Its heroine, a sexy young party babe stuck in a small town, wakes up to find her struggling-author boyfriend has deliberately OD’d. She sells his novel manuscript, under her byline, for big bucks. The movie never directly says, but clearly implies, the boyfriend’s book would never have sold if publishers didn’t get the chance to stick Ms. Morvern’s cute face on the back cover.

IT’S TRUE: Books can be dangerous.

AS YOU MIGHT TELL from the top left side of this page, we now have a fancy intro page to our hilarious new novel The Myrtle of Venus. It tells you all you need to know before you read the online first draft.

So now you’ve no excuse not to start reading it already!

FIFTY-ONE DAYS since I began, I’m truly, fully, completely done with the first draft of my humorous modern novel The Myrtle of Venus. An epilog chapter to the story is now online, having been completed at exactly 10 p.m. Sunday night.

As usual, the whole thing starts at this link.

IT’S BEEN ALMOST A WEEK since I first promised it, and almost three weeks since I first “roughed it out,” but here, at long last, is the thrilling, multi-orgasmic conclusion to my humorous modern novel The Myrtle of Venus.

As usual, the whole thing starts at this link.

Over the next few days, I’ll add a splashy intro-blurb page and special graphics. Then it will all disappear from the site once I have a print version out, most likely in April. So, all you cheapskates out there: Read it online whilst you still can.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE bad sex scenes in literature? Almost nobody, that’s who.

WE’VE NOT HERETOFORE discussed the Lord of the Rings movies, except to bemoan that their merchandising rights are controlled (and have been humongously exploited) by John Fogerty’s least-favorite record mogul Saul Zaentz. But the current New Yorker has a fond but not fawning essay comparing the films, not unfavorably, both to Tolkien’s original books and to Richard Wagner’s Ring cycle operas. Along the way, the essay gives particular praise to the one member of the films’ creative team with the closest New York connection, composer (and original Saturday Night Live bandleader) Howard Shore.

AS OF TWO MINUTES AGO, I finally finished the last chapter of my novel The Myrtle of Venus that I hadn’t finished in November. (Because I wrote it out of sequence, that last piece I wrote isn’t the last part of the book.)

Anyway, here’s the first of four previously un-uploaded chapters. And, as usual, the whole thing starts at this link.

The thrilling conclusion will be up on the site in the next day or two. Look for it.

MY RAPID WRITING PACE has slowed this week, but I’ve still got two more new chapters of my beautiful new novel The Myrtle of Venus. As usual, you can catch up to the onset of the story at this link.

IT’S BEEN FOUR WHOLE DAYS, but we’ve got a hot and hilarious spankin’ new chapter of my beautiful new novel The Myrtle of Venus. As usual, you can catch up to the onset of the story at this link.

EVEN THOUGH NOBODY’S yet told me they’ve read any of it, I’m goin’ ahead and posting seven five more chapters to my comedy adventure novel The Myrtle of Venus to this site. As usual, the story commences at this point. The new stuff starts at this link.

Eight more chapters remain to be cleaned up and posted. They should be up within a week.

After that, the whole ruff draft will remain up until I have a revised version ready. That one will be a sales item.

THOSE OF YOU who live in easy proximity to downtown Seattle may read the newest incarnation of the print MISC, a column in the monthly Belltown Messenger tabloid. It’s free to pick up at the Two Bells bar, BBC Studio/Ola Wyola Boutique, and several other dropoff points. That column was compiled from items that appeared on this site in the past month or so; any future installments with original material will be posted here.

WITH ONE DAY TO GO in National Novel Writing Month, I’ve posted five more chapters to my successful entry The Myrtle of Venus to this site. As usual, the story starts at this link. The just-posted scenes start at this link.

The final sixteen chapters will be available here sometime within the next week.