David Maybury | Blog

Tis Sunday so it must be about time for the ‘what they said in the papers this week’ post… And here it is -

Tony Hart - legendary TV presenter and animator - was remembered outside the Tate Modern when a flash mob delivered more than 200 Morph replicas outside the gallery in honour of the man himself. Click over to the BBC for plenty more.

In the Times UK Nicollette Jones reviews Don Quixote, as told by Martin Jenkins and beautifully illustrated by Chris Riddell.

Jenkins’s version is ingeniously true to the spirit of the original. And Riddell’s illustrations do something clever, too: they depict what Quixote imagines, as well as what is there. They show, for instance, the giant that he believes a windmill to be - not just the windmill. The comic, fantastical images, with their cornucopia of characters, from grotesque monsters to sweet-faced girls, are executed with Riddell’s idiosyncratically decorative exactness, while also suggesting the medievalism of Quixote’s dreams. This is a handsome, lively, appealing volume. Welcome back, Señor Knight

While in the Guardian Lucy Mangan continues her Book Corner quest to build a brilliant children’s library - this weeks addition is The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. (This is a new one on me - though I’ve read Dickens’ Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curosity Shop, Hard Times and Mr Copperfield which should make amends.)

Sticking with the Guardian Patrick Ness, the creator of everyones favourite dog  - Manchee, reviews Frances Hardinge’s Gullstruck Island.

There are wonderful creations here, in characters such as Jimboly, a “crowdwitch” whose speciality is stirring terrifying mobs into action. If the “blissing beetles” - which make a sound so beautiful everyone who hears it dies of pleasure - are a little too Hogwartian, then there is more than enough else to engulf young readers, holding them captive for the long haul. Which, allegedly, is all any of us want from a book, isn’t it? Blame JK if there just happens to be more of it than there used to be.

It’s the last weekend ahead of Watchmen on general release and the papers are packed-full of goodies, reviews, competitions and interviews. Highlights from the Times UK, Guadian, Observer, and in the Independent.

Philip Pullman gets into the nitty gritty of life in his address to the Convention on Modern Liberty -

So: what are the virtues that a nation need to be a state fit for human beings to live in? First of all, it needs courage. Courage is a foundational virtue: it’s what we need in order to act kindly even when we’re afraid, in order to exercise good judgment even in the midst of confusion at panic, in order to deal with long-term necessity even when short-term expediency would be easier. A courageous nation would not be afraid of its own newspapers; it would continue to do what was right even when loud voices were urging it to do what was wrong.

The Independent UK runs with a list 5 of the best Graphic Novels - including Maus, Persepolis and Dark Knight Returns.

And in the Irish Examiner has the story about the online auction of Action Comics issue 1 - famous for the first appearence of Superman. “bidding for the comic book would begin at $1 but the bids were sure to go up, up and away.”