I'm Feeling Stymied

So, the issue of the non-arriving comics has been resolved. Not in the sense of the comics having arrived, but I now know why they hadn't arrived, and they're on their way, so hopefully early next week. Fingers crossed.

Unfortunately, I find myself at a loss as to what to talk about in the interim. I actually have a few different ideas, but they're half-formed (even by my standards), and I can't muster much enthusiasm for any of them at this moment. Maybe they'll seem more appealing tomorrow. So here's what I'll try tonight. Along with the handful of survivors from my dad's collection that I grabbed last weekend, I also picked up a few paperbacks that were there as well. Most of them are MAD Magazine related stuff*, but there were a couple of collections of short stories listed under Alfred Hitchcock's name. Not that he wrote them, there are several different authors, but the books are titled things like Alfred Hitchcock's Death Bag, or Alfred Hitchcock's Happiness is a Warm Corpse. Cheerful stuff.

All the stories revolve around death. Big surprise there. Some are as short as five pages, others as long as thirty. I'm fond of Hospitality Most Serene by Jack Ritchie, where a man who lives alone in a cabin has three bank robbers barge, and must evict the unwanted guests. I think the story is suggesting patience is its own virtue, or that it leads to greater rewards.

There's also Horse Collar Homicide (Arthur Porges), which is not so much a "whodunit" as a "howdunit". So it's a bit like Monk, or House, and it teaches you a little something about electricity and conductive metals.

I wouldn't say they're all winners. Talmage Powell writes To Avoid A Scandal and goes to great lengths to demonstrate just how concerned the main character is with appearances and properness. I believe he may have taken it too far, because I ended up feeling too great of a disconnect for the story to have much of an impact. I couldn't get into Never Come Back (Robert Colby), maybe because I couldn't shake the feeling the main character was simply being very stupid by not heeding the title's advice.

Some of the stories have a sort of grim twist, the harsh irony that I'd expect from The Twilight Zone (Successor, Murder and Lonely Hearts being two examples**). Others are about killing for money, or about the trouble that killing for money can get you into.

There's one story in there I enjoy, but which seems out of place. It's called Every Night He Pulled the Trigger (Robert Edmund Alter). It deals with two soldiers in the French Foreign Legion, one of whom is starting to buckle under the pressure, and does not respond to added pressure in a healthy manner. I suppose what allows it to fit is the decision made by the other character, our stand-in, since it's a dishonest decision, but one made with decent enough intentions. Still, this story sticks out, set amongst people killing each other of an inheritence, or even how a fat, lazy sheriff solves a crime with minimal effort. Perhaps because the characters involved in Every Night are generally honorable, even if they're in opposition to each other.

* Such as The MAD Book of Magic and Other Dirty Tricks.

** Perhaps stories about failed relationships lend themselves to grim twists?