An excerpt from Howe’s new book on how internal arguments, drugs, failed feminism, and the exploitation of minority characters in comic books and the freelance writers and artists who drew them, changed Marvel Comics during the late ’60s and early ’70s:
‘I was just as crazy as everybody else post-Watergate, post-Vietnam,’ said Starlin, whose hobbies included motorcycles, chess, and lysergic acid diethylamide–25. ‘Each one of those stories was me taking that stuff that had gone before and trying to put my personal slant on it. Mar-Vell was a warrior who decided he was going to become a god, and that’s where his trip was.’ In the pages of Captain Marvel, existence itself might be altered several times in the course of an issue. ‘There is a moment of change, then reality becomes a thing of the past!’ howls the evil ruler Thanos, before everything morphs into funhouse-mirror images. His sworn enemy Drax responds: ‘My mind and my soul are one — my soul — an immortal intangible, nothing and everything! That which cannot die cannot be enslaved, for only with fear is servitude rendered!’ On the following page, Drax’s shifting realities are represented by thirty-five panels of warped faces, skulls, eyes, stars, and lizards. Captain Marvel had practically become a black-light poster with dialogue. Its sales kept increasing. Soon Starlin was opening his fan mail and finding complimentary joints sent by grateful, mind-blown readers.
“First Serial: Marvel Comics, The Untold Story.” — Sean Howe, Grantland
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An excerpt from Howe’s new book on how internal arguments, drugs, failed feminism, and the exploitation of minority characters in comic books and the freelance writers and artists who drew them, changed Marvel Comics during the late ’60s and early ’70s:
“‘I was just as crazy as everybody else post-Watergate, post-Vietnam,’ said Starlin, whose hobbies included motorcycles, chess, and lysergic acid diethylamide–25. ‘Each one of those stories was me taking that stuff that had gone before and trying to put my personal slant on it. Mar-Vell was a warrior who decided he was going to become a god, and that’s where his trip was.’ In the pages of Captain Marvel, existence itself might be altered several times in the course of an issue. ‘There is a moment of change, then reality becomes a thing of the past!’ howls the evil ruler Thanos, before everything morphs into funhouse-mirror images. His sworn enemy Drax responds: ‘My mind and my soul are one — my soul — an immortal intangible, nothing and everything! That which cannot die cannot be enslaved, for only with fear is servitude rendered!’ On the following page, Drax’s shifting realities are represented by thirty-five panels of warped faces, skulls, eyes, stars, and lizards. Captain Marvel had practically become a black-light poster with dialogue. Its sales kept increasing. Soon Starlin was opening his fan mail and finding complimentary joints sent by grateful, mind-blown readers.”
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Published: Oct 3, 2012
Length: 34 minutes (8,747 words)
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How a second-generation Chinese daughter of two doctors in Birmingham, Mich., became one of New York City’s finest chefs:
Wanting to expand her culinary outlook to include more Eastern flavors, Lo moved to a French-Vietnamese restaurant, Can, where she met Scism, who was working as a grill cook. But it was when Lo took the helm of a Korean restaurant called Mirezi that she caught the attention of the New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, who praised her inventive dishes and ‘beautifully arranged food’ in a glowing review. After Mirezi closed in 1998, Lo and Scism spent a year traveling the world.
‘Anita will eat anything,’ says Scism, recalling a day in Bangkok when a vendor challenged Lo to eat a cockroach. ‘At one point, I told her she had a wing stuck in her two front teeth,’ says Scism with a laugh. ‘The thing about Anita is, she didn’t try the bug because she was challenged; she tried it because she really was curious about how it would taste.’
“Thought for Food.” — Adeena Sussman, Columbia Magazine
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How a second-generation Chinese daughter of two doctors in Birmingham, Mich., became one of New York City’s finest chefs:
“Wanting to expand her culinary outlook to include more Eastern flavors, Lo moved to a French-Vietnamese restaurant, Can, where she met Scism, who was working as a grill cook. But it was when Lo took the helm of a Korean restaurant called Mirezi that she caught the attention of the New York Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, who praised her inventive dishes and ‘beautifully arranged food’ in a glowing review. After Mirezi closed in 1998, Lo and Scism spent a year traveling the world.
“‘Anita will eat anything,’ says Scism, recalling a day in Bangkok when a vendor challenged Lo to eat a cockroach. ‘At one point, I told her she had a wing stuck in her two front teeth,’ says Scism with a laugh. ‘The thing about Anita is, she didn’t try the bug because she was challenged; she tried it because she really was curious about how it would taste.'”
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Published: Aug 1, 2012
Length: 11 minutes (2,901 words)
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A look at the work of Craig Venter, one of the first scientists to map the human genome. Venter’s work in synthetic biology could one day change the world by producing clean fuels and biochemicals:
Right now, Venter is thinking of a bug. He is thinking of a bug that could swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel. He is thinking of a bug that could live in a factory and gobble exhaust and fart fresh air. He may not appear to be thinking about these things. He may not appear to be thinking at all. He may appear to be riding his German motorcycle through the California mountains, cutting the inside corners so close that his kneepads skim the pavement. This is how Venter thinks. He also enjoys thinking on the deck of his 95-foot sailboat, halfway across the Pacific Ocean in a gale, and while snorkeling naked in the Sargasso Sea surrounded by Portuguese men-of-war. When Venter was growing up in San Francisco, he would ride his bicycle to the airport and race passenger jets down the runway. As a Navy corpsman in Vietnam, he spent leisurely afternoons tootling up the coast in a dinghy, under a hail of enemy fire.
“Craig Venter’s Bugs Might Save the World.” — Wil S. Hylton, New York Times Magazine
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A look at the work of Craig Venter, one of the first scientists to map the human genome. Venter’s work in synthetic biology could one day change the world by producing clean fuels and biochemicals:
“Right now, Venter is thinking of a bug. He is thinking of a bug that could swim in a pond and soak up sunlight and urinate automotive fuel. He is thinking of a bug that could live in a factory and gobble exhaust and fart fresh air. He may not appear to be thinking about these things. He may not appear to be thinking at all. He may appear to be riding his German motorcycle through the California mountains, cutting the inside corners so close that his kneepads skim the pavement. This is how Venter thinks. He also enjoys thinking on the deck of his 95-foot sailboat, halfway across the Pacific Ocean in a gale, and while snorkeling naked in the Sargasso Sea surrounded by Portuguese men-of-war. When Venter was growing up in San Francisco, he would ride his bicycle to the airport and race passenger jets down the runway. As a Navy corpsman in Vietnam, he spent leisurely afternoons tootling up the coast in a dinghy, under a hail of enemy fire.”
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Published: May 30, 2012
Length: 24 minutes (6,158 words)
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Once an enemy of the U.S., Vietnam is growing as a country, and has become a key ally “as a counter to China’s rising power”:
Nothing better illustrates the Vietnamese desire to be a major player in the region than the country’s recent purchase of six state-of-the-art Kilo-class submarines from Russia. A Western defense expert in Hanoi tells me that the sale makes no logical sense: ‘There is going to be real sticker shock for the Vietnamese when they find out just how much it costs merely to maintain these subs.’ More important, the expert says, the Vietnamese will have to train crews to use them—a generational undertaking. ‘To counter Chinese subs,’ the expert says, ‘they would have been better off concentrating on anti-submarine warfare and littoral defense.’ Clearly, the Vietnamese bought these submarines as prestige items, to say We’re serious.
“The Vietnam Solution.” — Robert D. Kaplan, The Atlantic
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The story of a 21-year-old who was the first American woman to die in the Vietnam War. For years the CIA refused to acknowledge that she worked for the agency:
It is Warren who inherited from his dead parents the one thing that most illuminates his sister’s time in Vietnam: a trove of 30 letters she wrote home, dating from her arrival in Saigon to the week before her death.
The letters offer a glimpse into the life of a young woman supposedly working for the State Department as she launched her career and looked for love amid Vietnam’s escalating violence.
‘Reading these letters,’ said Warren, 65, a retired airline mechanic, who hadn’t looked at them since he was a kid, ‘it’s like I got to know her all over again.’
August 6 1964: Dear Mother, Dad & Warren , I think I’m going to really enjoy working for the State Dept. Security-wise we do have to be careful — but you’d never feel that way right here in Saigon if it weren’t for the Vietnamese Police all over the city.
“Barbara Robbins: A Slain CIA Secretary’s Life and Death.” — Ian Shapira, Washington Post
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The story of a 21-year-old who was the first American woman to die in the Vietnam War. For years the CIA refused to acknowledge that she worked for the agency:
“It is Warren who inherited from his dead parents the one thing that most illuminates his sister’s time in Vietnam: a trove of 30 letters she wrote home, dating from her arrival in Saigon to the week before her death.
“The letters offer a glimpse into the life of a young woman supposedly working for the State Department as she launched her career and looked for love amid Vietnam’s escalating violence.
“‘Reading these letters,’ said Warren, 65, a retired airline mechanic, who hadn’t looked at them since he was a kid, ‘it’s like I got to know her all over again.’
“August 6 1964: Dear Mother, Dad & Warren , I think I’m going to really enjoy working for the State Dept. Security-wise we do have to be careful — but you’d never feel that way right here in Saigon if it weren’t for the Vietnamese Police all over the city.“
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Published: May 7, 2012
Length: 8 minutes (2,223 words)
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Retracing the steps of a Marine who went missing in the Montana wilderness. Family, friends and fellow Iraq veterans struggle to understand what happened to 30-year-old Noah Pippin:
Pierce remembers the stranger as none too friendly. Pippin kept his back turned when Pierce started asking questions and said curtly that he’d hiked in from Hungry Horse. Seeing the fatigues, Pierce asked if he was military, and Noah told him he was a vet.
‘You been over in Iraq?’
‘Got back a little while ago.’
‘I was in Vietnam,’ said Pierce, hoping to break the ice. ‘Navy.’
Noah didn’t answer.
‘If you’re going hiking in these parts, you need a gun,’ said Pierce. ‘Do you have one?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Just a .38.’
‘That ain’t much to stuff in the face of a grizzly when he’s chewing on your foot.’
‘It’s all I got.’
“Why Noah Went to the Woods.” — Mark Sundeen, Outside
See also: “The Waiting.” — Ashley Halsey III, Lonnae O’Neal Parker, Washington Post, Nov. 23, 2010
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