For those in and around New York City, this week is New York Comic Con. I wish all con-goers very comfortable footwear, and I offer one piece of unasked-for advice: Don’t touch anything you’re going to put in your mouth. Sounds like a joke! But in reality, it’s my one rule for con-going: No touching food! Not even gum! Get those weird “car cups” of gum so you can shake it straight into your mouth! Do not pass go; do not let consumables touch fingers that have been pawing through old comics and random swag. I hate con crud. This is rule #1 for avoiding it.
Those of us remaining far from the Javits Center have a very weird lineup of new movies, none of which really stood out to me, though you can go see Pan’s Labyrinth for its—gulp—20th anniversary, should you so desire. Those made of sterner stuff than me might go see Jessica Chastain smile terrifyingly in Other Mommy. I will be at home, thinking of hobbits.
In a Hole In the Ground There Lived a Very Different Hobbit
At long last, Tove Jansson’s Hobbit illustrations are available on our shores! Finns and Swedes have had access to this particular tome for decades, but it has never been available in the U.S. Finally, that’s changed: this week, William Morrow published The Hobbit: Illustrated by Tove Jansson.
Jansson’s website has a fascinating article about how this book came to exist in the first place, and it involves another famous children’s book author: Pippi Longstocking creator Astrid Lindgren. In her role as a publisher, Lindgren wrote to Jansson to ask if she would illustrate The Hobbit. Lindgren understood the prominence the book would come to have, writing, “… this will be the children’s book of the century, and will live long after we are dead and buried.”
Jansson’s illustrations are not at all typical for Tolkien’s work, and are as idiosyncratic as her Moomin work, though in a very different way. I love her Smaug. I love her dwarves. I cannot wait to see the rest of her art.
Another Treasure Island? In This Economy?
Have you heard anything about MGM+’s Treasure Island? Like, at all? It’s weird to me that a show that stars David Oyelowo and Hayley Atwell can fly this far under the radar. But it’s also weird to me that Black Sails remains underseen and yet now we have two new Treasure Islands incoming (this series and a 2027 Ridley Scott movie). Yes, I know, Black Sails is sort of a Treasure Island prequel, not exactly the same thing, but still: It’s brilliant. Every time I hear about a new take on the original source material, I think two things: “Time to watch Black Sails again” and “Why isn’t everyone who was on Black Sails a major star now?” Where is Hannah New, who played the complicated Eleanor Guthrie (on a Bridgerton arc, apparently)? Doesn’t Jessica Parker Kennedy deserve way more than a brief role as Medusa on Percy Jackson and that somehow-35-episode-long Flash arc where she was Barry and Iris’s kid from the future? She’s astonishing on Black Sails! Give her something to chew on! Honestly, this is true of everyone on that show, which I will be rewatching just as soon as I have four seasons worth of brilliant, difficult TV of free time.
And also maybe I’ll give Treasure Island a try. For Atwell and Oyelowo. Maybe. It premieres Sunday, October 11th, on MGM+.
We Radiant Things: The Kind of Book You Want to Make Last
I’m only one chapter into Franny Choi’s We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg, and I can already tell this is going to be one of my favorite books of the year. I loved Choi’s 2019 poetry collection Soft Science, so I absolutely leapt with joy at the news that she had an essay collection coming out. The first piece in We Radiant Things tackles Ex Machina, a movie I find infuriating. But it’s about more than the movie, of course; it’s about racism and growing up and robots and anger and beauty. Choi’s thoughts are fluid and rich in a way that makes me want to follow her to any topic. Anything. “This is the only way I want to do what someone might call criticism: tenderly, from stabbing range,” they write. The next chapter is about Ghost in the Shell—and a million other things, too, I’m sure. I can’t wait.
Are We Watching? The Josh Hartnett Sea Monster Show?
Every week, it seems like, there’s something I’m curious about but just not sure about. (Okay, technically this week there are two of those things, given that I just used Treasure Island mostly to talk about Black Sails.) This week’s question mark goes to Below, the Josh-Hartnett-starring sea-monster-in-Newfoundland show that is definitely not Widow’s Bay, even though it has a certain damp similarity. Reviews range from calling it “exhilarating” (Variety) to “one of the year’s best” (RogerEbert.com) to “enjoyable enough” (the Sydney Morning Herald). I’m also pretty sure I saw the words “killer snot-berg” somewhere. What most interests me about this show is the presence of Mackenzie Davis—and Hartnett, who has been reliable for a very long time. (Sorry not sorry, I enjoyed Lucky Number Slevin.) But I’m a little baffled by the casting of Charlie Heaton as Hartnett’s son (I guess he got started early?) and I am, as ever, kind of a baby about things. Still. Killer snot-berg? A series that kind of sounds like an extended X-Files episode? Seems worth a try! It’s on Netflix now.
