When Harlan recommends something, it stays recommended (Thumbs up for The Helm)

HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, September 2 2008 16:26:47
LAGNIAPPE

It is my hope, vainglorious at best, that if I am remembered not for my already-widely-misquoted "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity," it will, pleezgawd, be my equally pithy "Yeah, sure, 'Life is Hard,' but if it weren't, EVERYbody would be doing it."

I don't think it was Edna St. Vincent Millay who said this, but she's handy, so I'll thus attribute: "Life isn't one damn thing after another; it's the same damn thing, over and over."

Life throws us very few good chomps in a day. Every once inna, however, the universe slips up and something delicious, a fine ort of lagniappe, edges through the rift sidewise:

F'rinstance:

Eddie Izzard. Burn Notice. Hydrox. Akira Kurosawa. Madras mango corn soup. Keds Hi-Tops. Blossom Dearie. Any page of Gerald Kersh.

The Republicans tossing us Sarah Palin to masticate. (Having been unable, one presumes, to find either a bus to toss her under, or a rabid pack of seven-headed dogs to toss her TO.}

The Magna Carta. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. The Iliad. The Odyssey. Krema Natural Chunky peanut butter.

Really nifty stuff is the lagniappe I trumpet.

And so...at last...drifting on an ambient breeze...I come to the point...me to you...a solid, kids, a solid I do you. Not a BIG DEAL, just a small delight that might bring a crease of joy to your lips.

A comic book.

Don't start with me. If I'd said it was a grand mystery thriller by a French auteur, you'd cock your little walnuts with alertitude, and hmmm with expectation. Snobbish arses!
A comic book.

A GOOD little comic book. I think it is peaches!

Only the first issue has appeared, but it's out there, at your nearest comic shop. The author is a new guy, first time in the batting cage, and a little encouragement to his publisher would not hurt. His name is Jim Hardison, and his mini-series comic from Dark Horse is called

THE HELM.

Bart Sears is the artist, that toe-tapping favorite Dave Land is the editor, as I said--a Dark Horse Comic--and its existence will not change the course of mighty rivers, nor will it alleviate starvation in parched and piteous nations. But in this world of more dark than light, most of the time, this li'l item made me happy. I laughed, I cried, I winced, I waltzed, it became a part of me!

Go thee, and do likewise. Further, deponent sayeth not.

Yr. Pal, Harlan