Harlan Ellison & Robot 13

Sometimes, I like to give you a blurb out of a review that captures the feel of what a person said. In this case, I don't want to misquote or misinform....

Harlan Ellison, from his website:

"R 13

and at first you'll think the art is more than a bit hommage to Mike Mignola--and it is, because the artist on R13 is a gent named Daniel Bradford, himself a great MignolaHead--and that it is deceptively simple. Yeah, right. The way Astaire could tickle a foot...a little. You'll find yourself going back after inadvertently skim-reading (a very accesible storyline) and realizing you'd missed a dozen tasties per page.

No sense my revealing any part of the story but I think you will come to love me for recommending author Thomas Hall's literary conceit in R13. I was blindsided, enriched, captivated. The writing, in three issues, has only made one (1) scratch-the-noggin "gaffe," that may only be me not being smart enough to understand why Hall did it. Not a major point, a small thing.

There are three issues so far, published by Blacklist Comics, at the usual modern-day price, like a sock in the stomach. (I actually bought most of my early comics in the '30s and '40s for 5 or 10 cents, NICKEL COMICS with Bulletman...and when they were WORLD'S FAIR COMICS, 15 cents. And still have most of them.)

But a good read is nonetheless a good read.

If you would talk this up here'n'there, get the 3 issues for yourself somehow, and enjoy them, it would likely save the ass of Hall, Bradford and Blacklist. As with so many of you naifs, they put it up on the internet, hoping an audience would find its way to them, and the dealers would order&stock the book. Well, naive and innocent, what happened was, of course, inevitable. Anyone who came to R13 dowloaded it, stole it, sent it out to friends and strangers, and so WHO, one asks, will pay the writer? Who will pay the artist? Printers don't work for free. And these guys are getting their artful asses handed to them.

I don't know where to send you online to find R13, but I know you will not let a good deed go undone. They are swell books!

Yr. Pal, Harlan"