Dorothy Parker Factfile

So, if you haven't figured it out by now, yours truly has a longstanding affiinity for all things Dorothy Parker. For the reason behind the name, trawl the Parkbench website for RHJ writing small and purple.

Everyone has their special subject for Mastermind, and mine is Dorothy Parker –– or so I thought. I now hang my head in SHAME, and know that I am not the true blue Parkerite I once thought.*

I now can't remember how I came upon this link yesterday, but it stopped me in my tracks. Rarely do I learn something entirely new about Mrs Parker, but keeping in mind that I rarely get to the end of a biography that I'm reading for pleasure (sure, we know how it ends), I suppose this one passed me by.

From Bal'more's own City Paper, sniffs the errant Washingtonian, I bring you this sad tale with a happy ending.

No, go read it.

In the category of 'I didn't think there were any more reasons to admire the work of the NAACP', this is surely top of the list.



*That said, I was once mighty impressed with myself for catching a misattributed Parkerism in the pages of the latest hot book by one of this country's leading media lights. *pushes glasses up nose and snorts* Many thanks to Kevin Fitzpatrick of the Dorothy Parker Society for his back-up on that one.

Parkbench's First Full Translation an Entertainment Weekly 'Must'

Achtung Johnny Cash fans!

Parkbench translator Michael Waaler has brought German graphic artist Reinhard Kleist's prize-winning biography of Johnny Cash to new heights with the success of its English translation. Published by indie SelfMadeHero, the translation of Cash: I See A Darkness was launched in style with a party in the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, sponsored by Chivas Regal.

Michael Waaler, a British translator living in Hamburg, specialises in translating graphic novels for publishers like Carlsen Verlag, Yen Press and TOKYOPOP. (Watch this space for news of his first German-language comic from Carlsen, A Kiss from the Dark from Carlsen, due out early next year.)

Predictably enough, coverage of Cash in the US has been great. It hit Entertainment Weekly's 'Must' list, and was included in the San Francisco Chronicle's comics gift guide. In the UK, Michael Faber called it

'a tour de force'

in the Guardian with a big ole Kleist drawing of the MIB himself, and Stephen M. Deusner in the Express Night Out called the graphic novel

'the ideal medium for Cash's biography ... Cash may be six years dead, but the Man in Black is alive and still kicking.'

But the Parkbench prize for press coverage goes to the Financial Times, the only paper to mention the translator. Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, a man with the enviable title of 'the FT’s pop critic', calls the book 'seductive'.

'Enough with the blurbs,' you say. 'It's a graphic biography, so what does it look like already?' Want visuals? Have a peek at Esquire for some choice spreads and check out a video interview with author Reinhard Kleist:

The Man in Black and White from SelfMadeHero on Vimeo.

Christmas is coming, folks. Just saying. Too lazy to buy it in your local indie? Order a signed copy from Forbidden Planet, or in Ireland from Books Unlimited.