Grumpy Can Pick a Winner!
By Ryan Oakley. Filed in Reviews |
I’m surrounded by some talented fuckers. And I’m always happy when other people agree. Otherwise things look a bit suspicious and that bothers me.
For example, I wrote some nice shit about Jeff Lemire, who drew my header and the pic to the right, and he wrote some nice shit about me. So people could reasonably think that it’s tit for tat.
But these are people who have never met someone, seen their art or read their novel and promptly lost all respect for them. I can’t even speak to people whose art I dislike. It embarrasses me.
I hardly show my work to anyone because I don’t want them to hate me for it. My ex-girlfriend, who I went out with for years, never read a page that wasn’t publicly available. That’s how weird I am about it and how strongly I feel. I expect, perhaps wrongly, other people to be like me.
All of that aside, I was happy to learn that Jeff’s new book was picked by G4 TV as the best Indy Comic of the year. So, you see, I’m not totally insane. He’s really good.
And Minister Faust, who is a long time Grumpy friend, wrote some nice shit about me and I wrote some nice shit about him. Once again it looks funny.
Well, his book about dysfunctional superheroes has been nominated for the Phillip K. Dick Award. (His second nomination.) And it deserves to win. A loss could only be explained by all of the judges going insane at the same time.
“From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain” was the best book of last year. SF or not. When people catch up and realize what he accomplished, we’ll see a new genre of writing born. He should take the Hugo and Nebula as well. This book, like “Neuromancer”, deserves the triple crown.
Now, all of you other people whom I’ve publicly complimented and who have publicly complimented me: Hurry the fuck up and win something! My taste is excellent. If I like you, it means you’re good. I’d go win something too but I don’t trust any of you lying bastards.
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (bad science fiction), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap. He's a bit of a dick.
