The fourth page! Hopefully the last one will go up tomorrow; it all depends on how much fun I have tonight. Happy Halloween, everybody!

above, by Paul Pope

Paul Pope sent me this amazing page he did just as a study, based on the Lady Jessica’s discovery of the hidden conservatory in the castle. I placed it with the other images in my Week 2 post, but goodness gracious I was worried no one would see it midweek like this, so I decided to give it its own post. I mean, jeez, right? Paul is maybe–MAYBE–the only person I know who can go toe-to-toe with me talking Dune, although I will say the participants in our discussion are ripping it up pretty good.

Speaking of which, if this is the first time you’ve heard of the Dune Book Club, here’s Week One and Week Two. Feel free to dive into the discussion or just watch from the wings.

FOR NEXT WEEK: Read up to the end of the chapter with the long dinner party description. It ends, “No person who’ll be sleeping far below ground level tonight as a precaution against lasguns has the right to boast.” Somewhere around page 150 or so, depending on your edition. Also: I love this chapter, it is chock full of good stuff, lots of interplay/info/exposition without being boring. This is the point where the book starts to really fire up for me, and the NEXT chapter is where it EXPLODES!!

I think this is the first time I’ve put my dad in a strip. Guys, seriously: if you have never tried to draw my dad before, try it out–he’s super fun to draw. I’m going to do a lot more strips with him in them, I think. We’ll see. I’ll surprise you.

Page 2 is large and in charge! I’d say more but I forgot to eat lunch, and I need to put some food inside my body before kung fu! New page tomorrow guys okay alright!

I say WITNESS! The first in a real HUMDINGER of autobiographical ZING! ZIP! ZABRISKIE! pitting YOURS TRULY against one of the GREAT CORPORATE JUGGERNAUTS of the TWENTIETH CENTURY! Yes, it’s a PERIOD PIECE!

I’d say more, but that took up all my CAPITAL LETTERS. Look for page two TOMORrow oops

Okay, Round Two! Crazy amount of discussion for Round One, and that was for what I think is the least awesome part of the book, so that bodes well. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

I chose to break our reading up between last week and this week because of the big event that happens BETWEEN chapters–the Atreides arrive on Arrakis (”Dune” if you’re nasty). Note that the arrival happens 100% “offscreen;” there’s no discussion of spaceports or ships landing, firing their retro-rockets or whatever space-age science was in vogue. I point this out less to poke at sci-fi tropes and more to comment again on how odd this is–the book was published in 1965, at the height of the space race–it seems enormously counterintuitive for that time period to NOT highlight all this stuff.

above, Thufir Hawat by Thomas “Smo” Smolenski

Which I love. BECAUSE the important thing here is NOT that the spaceship has set down, smoke and dust shooting in all directions as C-3PO and R2-D2 standby to secure moorings or something. The important thing is the shift in locale–we are now on Dune. We have moved from safety to menace immediately–now that we are on Dune, life is desperate and close to its end at all times, even for these wealthy people, the nominal ruling class of the planet.

Again, I just want to underline that I think of Dune as an ecological novel. Not so much as a cautionary tale, although there’s surely some of that in there; but again, SYSTEMS. Ecology is just a system of systems acting on a macro scale. And now we have entered Arrakis’ planetary ecology. I really cannot stress this enough–my glasses may be a little rose-tinted on this book, but as we get really into the big meaty ideas of the book, most of which will begin in Round 3, I will be returning to this idea again and again.

Okay, you guys OBVIOUSLY don’t need much help getting a conversation started, so I’ll keep my remarks brief. I would like to point out:

1) These chapters are some of the final expository chapters, so soon we won’t have to endure these conversations where characters remind each other of the political and governmental structures of this or that. I don’t mind it, but I know it can be dreary for some of you new readers.

2) I love love love the way the Shadout Mapes is introduced into the story, this is a primo introduction to the Fremen themselves–note the tension between her and Jessica. Within minutes there is nearly violence between them, and the entire time both are straining to discern clues in their conversation to indicate whether to attack or wait. It’s like Herbert has poked up one seemingly innocuous Fremen–we really don’t know anything about them yet, right?–a housekeeper, a servant, and then suddenly she is posing a real threat to one of the main characters. I love it.

3) What does the Shadout Mapes mean when she calls Jessica “the One?” No spoilers here guys–I’m asking you to read this with a certain amount of naivete. What does it mean that Mapes–and by extension the unseen Fremen society–has ascribed this quasi-religious significance to Jessica, who as far as we know is just some royal guy’s hot concubine? If you’ve read the book before try to pretend you have ONLY the info we’ve gotten up to this point.

4) Dr. Yueh. I’m not a fan of this character, and that’s probably the most boring chapter in the book, where he and Jessica talk and he spends the whole time thinking nervously. BUT note that this chapter gives us more insight into Jessica’s world: we see her using some of these vaunted “Sisterhood” practices that allow her to examine minutiae to make judgments about a person’s motives or plans or whatever. Not mystical: science. Ditto for Yueh’s description of “his” Wanna; he’s picked up enough of this skill to be able to defend himself from Jessica’s apparently razor-sharp senses.

above, the Lady Jessica by Thomas “Smo” Smolenski

5) This is repeated in the chapter with the conservatory–we see the Bene Gesserit system in action, in the person of the Lady Margot Fenring, sending her coded message in a form designed to bring Jessica to it. When we talk about “feminine” magic in the book, this is it–the Bene Gesserit are (to me) by far the most powerful groups in the book, or at least the most INFORMED. This idea of Bene Gesserit teaching soaks the book from cover to cover, so pay attention to it wherever you see it!

above, by Peter Lazarski

6) What does the assassination attempt on Paul show us (again) about the science of the Dune world? Note again how this idea of shield technology exists (as Todd pointed out last week) as a “singularity” that shapes everything technologically from that point forward. In a world where projectiles are useless, all martial technology must work around this idea, thereby shifting the focus of the entire society from open warfare to secret, from snipers and bombs and missiles to poisons and slow knives.

7) Also regarding Paul–his interaction with the Shadout Mapes also is an intro to the Fremen. “You’ve put a water burden on me.” I love that wherever Fremen enter the story, that place is dangerous; whether they are drawn to the violence or it is created by them is rarely clear, but already the Fremen are tinged with danger–just the word is code for “danger” in the story now.

above, by Patrick Keck

Okay that’s enough, I talked too much. You guys pick it up. What did YOU notice in these chapters? Next week’s reading–I’ll pick a place to stop later today–is really going to step things up; this is the last of the purely introductory parts this week.

FOR NEXT WEEK: Read up to the end of the chapter with the long dinner party description. It ends, “No person who’ll be sleeping far below ground level tonight as a precaution against lasguns has the right to boast.” Somewhere around page 150 or so, depending on your edition. Also: I love this chapter, it is chock full of good stuff, lots of interplay/info/exposition without being boring. This is the point where the book starts to really fire up for me, and the NEXT chapter is where it EXPLODES!!

below, by Paul Pope

A true story, done originally back in 2005 as a Mother’s Day gift. My mother 1) really did drive like a crazy person, it is insane that of all the traffic accidents we were in when I was a kid, I don’t think any of them were her fault. Each and every time we drove to church (the only place we drove really), it was a mind-bending terror ride, for sure. I’m convinced that this is the reason why, to this day, I’m a super safe, conservative driver. By the time I hit 50, I’ll be maxing out at 35 mph everywhere I go.

2) My mother is also pretty amazing, she would often do little things like this without any explanation. She would have strange rules for things too–when we were kids she wouldn’t give us a new piece of paper to color on until we’d FILLED the old one, which she said was how HER mother had done things, and so there you go. Do you know how hard it is to fill a piece of paper up with ANYthing?

3) My mother’s father was a magician, and though we never heard a lot about him, I definitely think that my sister and I got our appreciation for the strange and mystifying ways of the world from my mother, down from her dad. His name was “Smiley,” no lie.

This strip is more than four years old now, and looks a lot different from how I’d do it now, but I’m still kind of proud of the storytelling in it, the panel-to-panel works good here; I’m glad it’s held up! Okay enjoy!

It seems like the more time I have to work on comics, the longer those comics take me. This started out as a simple idea, suggested via Twitter by Ms. Kate Beaton, whose own historical comics make mine look silly–she’s kind of amazing. But the layout the story suggested seemed simple, and I figured I could knock it out in a day easy. Why am I so dumb?

But, self-pity aside, here’s the basic story, culled from Kate, numerous online sources (accounts vary wildly, actually), and my own fractured imagination:

Ernest Hemingway was snockered one night, and hanging out with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Canadian writer Morley Callaghan, with whom Hemingway had worked briefly as a reporter at the Kansas City Star. There was maybe some static between the two, who were being compared to each other in the press. While it seems friendly on the surface, it’s easy to imagine bristly Ernest Hemingway, in his cups, challenging anyone to a fight, especially one disguised as a gentleman’s sport.

While Hemingway was a sort of boxing dilettante, Callaghan was an actual trained boxer, though he probably looked less like it, short and a little dumpy by all accounts. Which makes it all the more funny to me, since ol’ Morley decimated blustery Hemingway. But supposedly (and according to Hemingway), the fault lies with foppish old F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was supposed to be timing one minute rounds with two minute rests in between. One account I read put the offending round time at 13 minutes, but like I said, the times were all over the place.

Okay, so anyway, here’s my stab at it here. For really amazing historical comics, I suggest you check out Kate’s strips yourself, which are far superior to my own. I’ll leave you with this video I found containing a poorly made reenactment. I like mine better, between you and me:

DUNE is ostensibly a science fiction novel. But like most good genre fiction, the trappings of its genre are little more than a container large enough to hold the story. Dune is not about spaceships or lasers, though both of those make brief appearances from time to time. Dune is not about aliens, though there are some of those too, later on.

Dune is about systems and forces. The most obvious are the systems of peoples within the book: political systems, sociological systems, religious systems. But underlying all of these are ecological systems–remember that the book itself is named “Dune,” the ersatz name of the planet the story takes place on, and from which a bizarredly convoluted epic spins out over the successive books in the series. Don’t worry, we can ignore those for the purposes of our might DUNE BOOK CLUB, but it’s important to point out.

Dune deals mainly with systems and the introduction of forces into those systems. Throughout the novel, the phrase “plans within plans,” and different permutations thereof, is repeated over and over. All things are interconnected, and force exerted on one thing will necessarily impact all other things within that system. If you look at the book in this way, it takes on a whole new life as a rich treatise on politics and ecology, wrapped up inside an epic adventure story. Ooh I’m getting excited just talking about it!\

above, by Pen Ward

I’m not really good at this sort of writing/thinking/discussion-leading, so I’m just going to wing it. I’ll point out a couple of interesting things I noticed and ask a couple of questions–but I’d love to hear what YOU noticed, what YOU are thinking. This is a book with a near-bottomless subtext, so there is plenty to pull out for examination. I just talk a lot, so I don’t want to be all like blah-blah-blah, y’know.

OKAY, I NOTICED:

1) In the first little chapterish thing, Frank Herbert introduces his protagonist (SPOILER ALERT, PAUL IS THE PROTAGONIST, SORRY) and immediately throws him into a seemingly life-or-death struggle. The book begins with a double-dose of mortality and mysticism, a strange beginning for a sci-fi novel written in the 60’s. It makes me think of this excerpt, just after Paul removes his non-charred hand from the black box:

“Ever sift sand through a screen?” she asked.
The tangential slash of her question shocked his mind into a higher awareness: Sand through a screen. He nodded.”

There’s a lot of this verbal/philosophical play in the book, especially in the later, more philosophical sequels. Sometimes it can get kind of cloying, everyone talking to each other with four meanings in their mouths, but it makes dissecting the dialogue more interesting.

above, by Peter Lazarski

2) The second chapter is all politics, another of the important systems in the book. Jeez, it’s super boring too, isn’t it?–after all that secret black box and shadowy Bene Gesserit hoodoo of the first chapter? I don’t mind all the politics stuff, but I think Herbert tried to cram a bunch of exposition in these early chapters, which sometimes works (I love the conversations between Paul and Thufir Hawat and Gurney Halleck in the fourth chapter), but sometimes is just a bunch of jerks giggling to each other about their Important Secret Plan.

3) I think it’s important to point out the quasi-feudal structure of the world of Dune, as laid out in the fourth chapter. Not so much that the politics itself is important, but more what CREATED that structure: something called The Holtzmann Effect. Which, basically, means that you can’t shoot lasers at people or their little shield-thingies will create a quasi-atomic explosion incinerating shooter and shootee and a few miles in all directions. That sounds pretty sci-fi, right? But in one of the few blatant sci-fi moments in the book–remember, it was published in 1965–Herbert effectively removes a lot of that super-science from the rest of his story. Because these shield protect from projectile weapons (guns, et al), and lasers are no good, everyone has to revert to fencing if they want to kill each other. In some ways, Dune is almost a “steampunk” story, anachronisms like swords next to science bits like spaceships.

Ditto the lack of computers in the story, which is just nuts for 60’s sci-fi. Not only are there no “thinking machines” in the story, but there are religious proscriptions against them! They have been replaced by highly trained “Mentats”, basically computer people. Super crazy, making a sci-fi story about a bunch of people who mainly depend on their own wits and abilities.

Who can say what the real purpose of this is, but to me it creates a framework that makes the story somewhat more believable than if people were raygunning each other all the time. It’s interesting to see how Herbert juggles this stuff throughout the book, because it’s not like there isn’t a ton of weird stuff later.

above, by Pat Keck

4) In the first few chapters, we’re introduced to three of the major forces at work in the book: the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood and the Atreides and Harkonnen clans. I was struck at how archetypical these descriptions were; while the Baron Harkonnen is “grossly and immensely fat,” the Duke is “hawk-faced”. Similarly, the Reverend Mother, one of the Bene Gesserit, is described as an old crone, wizened and wrinkled. I’m not sure what my point is, but I guess I’m thinking more on rereading on the tension in the story between how things appear and how they actually are.

5) The idea of eugenics in the book is huge, and Herbert immediately casts a dim eye on it through his main character Paul–”..he felt an offense against… his instinct for rightness.” But having said that, we know from the first chapter that Paul is part of a long chain of breeding for a specific purpose, and at the end of the first chapter he’s revealed to also have “Mentat potential,” meaning he has other advanced abilities at his disposal.

Is Paul supposed to be like a Superman? I don’t necessarily mean OUR idea of Superman, but more Nietzsche’s superman, the ubermensch. Just an idea.

Okay dudes, that’s enough from me, sorry I tend to run on. What did YOU guys think? I’m especially interested in hearing from people who are reading it for the first time–remember, if you’ve already read the whole thing, try not to spill any beans for these guys. It’s not like the book hinges on suspense, but I think it will be interesting to look at things with new eyes and old eyes at the same time.

AND ALSO: remember no swearing or jerkery in the comments please. It’s just how I like things.

AND ALSO ALSO: you artists who have mentioned sketches and stuff, send me those badboys or post links! I’d love to include the images in the actual blog post as we go through the week! My email should be in the sidebar at right.

EXTRA ALSO UPDATE ALSO: For this Monday’s discussion, read up to (roughly, depending on your edition) around page 88-90, to the end of the chapter that ends with “They have tried to take the life of my son!”

At last! Beginning this Monday, October 19, I’ll convene the DUNE BOOK CLUB, right here on your friendly neighborhood Dharblog.

SUPER SIMPLE RUNDOWN:

1) We’ll read a certain prescribed amount of the book during the week, then on Mondays I’ll get the discussionizing started with a little post, and we can all join in by commenting on the post in the appropriately-named COMMENTS section.

2) The rules are a) Don’t Be A Jerk, and b) Don’t Be A Pottymouth. My mom looks at my blog sometimes, I don’t want her reading all your tee-tee/ca-ca language. Also, c) Don’t Spoil The Plot. Some of us might be reading it for the first time, so let’s try to respect that if so. If YOU’RE reading it for the first time, just speak up so no one ruins anything.

3) We’ll be confining the discussion to just the first book in the series, which is self-contained. It’s by far the best one anyway, and it’ll keep things simple, rather than looking at the larger (bizarrer!) story of the whole 6-book unfinished series.

4) We won’t be talking much about the movie, which I’m not a big fan of. You guys can if you like, but I’ll be keeping my posts on the book itself.

All are welcome! This is probably my favorite novel ever, and definitely the book I’ve learned the MOST from over the years. Whether or not you like science fiction, this book is CHOCK FULL of nuggets of wisdom, it’s pretty amazing.

FOR MONDAY’S MEETING, let’s read the first 40-something pages, depending on the edition you have access to. Read to the end of the chapter that begins “Paul watched his father enter the training room..” and ends with “..his new awareness denied it.”