Our next Summer Reading Survey comes from Jeet Heer. Please send us yours.
1. Name and occupation.
Jeet Heer, www.jeetheer.com, http://sanseverything.wordpress.com/
2. What is your latest project (ie, what are you hyping)?
I’ve written the introduction to the first volume of the Complete Little Orphan Annie (published by IDW).
3. Please provide a list of books you have recently read or are planning to read. They don’t have to be comic books. (In fact, we would almost prefer they weren’t.) Any number of books is fine. Please feel free to comment (ie, Why are you reading these books? What did you think?).
Fredric Jameson’s Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature (A very dense and rewarding study of Western Marxist thinkers like Marcuse, Adorno, etc. There is a discussion of nostalgia which is highly relevant for understanding Seth, Chris Ware and Robert Crumb).
Various short story collections like John Updike’s Trust Me and K.D. Miller’s A Litany in a Time of Plague.
Various comic strips from the early 20th century (Little Nemo, Clare Brigg�s panels, Little Orphan Annie, Gasoline Alley).
4. Please list any upcoming events/upcoming publications. Your next project?
I’ve co-edited (with Kent Worcester) A Comics Studies Reader (to be published later this year by University Press of Mississippi).