Authors Electric

If you've been following my posts for the last few months, you know that I am now embarked on  another countdown . This time we're counting down the five best metafictional comics. These are comics that in some way deal directly with the art of writing. Before we move on with the countdown, though, I thought I'd like to take a minute to explain the highly scientific method I employed to arrive at this list. First, I approached a trained team of comic book scholars . . . Well not exactly like this group... yeah, that's more like it. . . . and asked them for recommendations. From this list, I eliminated the titles that were not applicable to my purpose (or that I had not read and were too long to skim over). I then chose the five titles that best fit my description of metafictional (in other words, the ones that I liked best). Finally, I presented my team of experts with my list and asked their opinions, eliminating any opinion contrary to mine. ...

As I was driving home recently it occurred to me just how rich the beautiful neck of the country I am lucky enough to dwell in is in writers and writerly stuff: Enid Blyton used to live just down the road from here, while in the opposite direction Milton laid low from the plague whilst scribbling the end of Paradise Lost. And close by, a walk I enjoy with my whippets takes us over Whiteleaf Hill, the inspiration for Kevin Crossley-Holland's Tumber Hill in his Arthurian trilogy, and of course ex-Bucks resident Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising is stuffed to bursting with local landmarks. I love it when a book I'm reading is written by a local, and even more when it refers to an area I know, and which I can visit: it creates an additional special link for me. Another fabulous writer who grew up around here was of course, the brilliant Terry Pratchett ... and very close to where I live is the bookshop which is credited as having been the inspiration for his creation of L-space* ...