Category: Books

Last Night’s Reading, Yesterday’s Writing

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

Last night, I read:

“The Woman Who Rode Away” by DH Lawrence

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Chapters 1 – 3.

If anyone would like to talk about either of those selections, please do comment below. 

Yesterday, I revised (tried to re-see) a poem I’ve been working on and got to what I think is a good place with it.  The middle section still needs attention, but I did what I could with the energy I had.  

It was one of those days where I knew in my head (I don’t mean my mind…I mean I had one of those headaches where you just feel tired all day) I wasn’t going to get much new writing done, but I’m happy with what I was able to do in revision.  That’s not to say that revision isn’t new writing, but it’s not from scratch or the ether or wherever else these things in their mirror images form before you make them stick.

If you’re writing today, good writing!




Will DC’s Relaunch Mean More Sales? (And He-Man Comics from the 80s).

~ Chris Cocca ~ 5 Comments

Sadly, no, DC’s relaunch does NOT include a new line of He-Man books in the classic continuity.  DC did do a He-Man miniseries in 1983, which I now proudly own in its entirely thanks to my LCS (local comic store) and one Alexander Hamilton.

Dropped in on the LCS yesterday to ask if they were anticipating an increase in sales with the re-launch.  Was told that many regular customers are adding many of the new books to their lists. And then I did something I’ve never done in all my years of comic-book-nerdiness and narrative obsession.

I set up my own list.

JLA, Batman, Superman, Flash.  I’m hook, line, and sinkered on the idea that this is a really cool time to start collecting or, in my case, to start collecting again.  Comic sales live and die by big events (The Death of Superman is what got me collecting seriously in the first place.  It did not have the same effect on my 13-year-old love life, but whatevs.), and companies succeed when initial interest from casual fans can be sustained.  So I hope the relaunch isn’t something that gets undone in 18 months.

Did I mention that I got a DC He-Man mini-series from the 80s?  You have no idea how pumped I am about this (is what I also said to the cashier).

Will the relaunch mean more sales in the short term?  I think so.  We’ll see if that can be sustained, and let’s not forget that people adding the titles to already established lists are not casual fans crossing over into collecting.  They’re a captive audience already.  The degree to which DC gets more people like me excited remains to be seen, but I expect them to lead in sales at least through Christmas.

You want to see pictures from the He-Man books, don’t you?  I know, I know. But they’re in the car and it’s pouring.  I’ll do better next time, I promise.

Great Gatsby Video Game Lets You Party Like It’s 1929

~ Chris Cocca ~ 3 Comments

Cover of
Hello, reason I started writing.

Every now and then, the highly esteemed Shawn Rosler drops something on my Facebook wall that amazes, confounds, and renders me generally useless with fanboy delight. Maybe it’s something about Noel Gallagher or Ken Burns. And maybe, just maybe, it’s a link to an old-school-NES-style game based on The Great Gatsby.

Earlier today, I Facebook-officially liked this text art Gatsby poster, mostly because of the sublime touch of the famous green light in an otherwise black-and-and-white homage.  Major points there in my book. Like Tom Buchanan at a West Egg tennis tournament, Shawn countered with this.