thomas Pynchon's new novel is out. Sean Rogers in The Walrus looks at references to comics in Pynchon and references to Pynchon in comics.

In his new novel, Inherent Vice, released last week, there’s a part where Thomas Pynchon has a character say, “I am aware of the Freak Brothers’ dictum that dope will get you through times of no money better than vice versa….” Later, another says, “Listen, I came up in Temecula, which is Krazy Kat Kountry, where you always root for Ignatz and not Offisa Pup.” Now, I haven’t finished the book just yet, but still I got to thinking about Pynchon and comics.
Ever attuned to the lower frequencies of American culture, the wavelengths where rock and roll and monster movies and The Tube all play out, Pynchon is an author who can ably salt away a few references to comics, too, throughout his works.

Rogers even uses my drawing of Alan Moore intoning Pynchon's name, from How to be an Artist

Speaking of sea-dwelling creatures, John Coulthart is reading Moby Dick and has reached chapter 55 wherein Melville looks back at ancient depictions of the whale and describes their grotesque inaccuracies. "Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephants, in India..." John attempts to find some of them in old engravings and illustrations. Here is my own favourite old whale. It's from Punch, either 1849 or 1850 (i have the books but today i don't have the time), and almost exactly contemporary with Moby Dick, drawn by Richard Doyle. A whale had beached at Margate and the Duke of Wellington was arguing with the locals over ownership of the carcass. The noble custom of putting the beast back in the water had not yet been invented.


Speaking of Wellington, in a town named after him:

WELLINGTON (Reuters) – An extremely drunk, naked man lost his way at a New Zealand hotel and ended up sleeping in the wrong room, forcing its female occupant to hide in the bathroom, local media reported.
The 29 year-old Australian man had gone back to the hotel with a woman, but got up in the night and wandered into a bedroom where a couple were sleeping.
"He was a bit surprised that there were two people in his room and he was butt naked," Sergeant Steve told the Southland Times...