I arrived, and departed, confused by the term graphic novel, relieved only by the fact that, according to Wikipedia, author Daniel Raeburn wrote “I snicker at the neologism first for its insecure pretension—the literary equivalent of calling a garbage man a ‘sanitation engineer’—and second because a ‘graphic novel’ is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine.”

This program had two distinct aspects to it, the discussion of the process of putting together the graphic novel (written by Carlson and illustrated by Blair), and the substance of the story (about Rizzo’s father). Listening to the discussion of the process was not quite as interesting as watching cheese age, which I had occasion to do in 2007 on cheddarvision.tv.

Carlson was overly fond of referencing John Keats’s concept of truth of imagination, as stated by Keats, in an 1817 letter to Benjamin Bailey (whoever he was), as “What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth – whether it existed before or not.”

According to Carlson, he used this philosophy when taking liberties to fill in the story of Rizzo’s father. I always thought we just called that poetic license. Thinking about poetic license led me to a short item on Druid Life comparing it to fake news.

In any event, poetic license would have been a more appropriate reference in this case since the story is about a man who became a poet after being blinded while committing a robbery, and being taught braille by his cellmate, the infamous Nathan Leopold (whom, although long dead, you can friend on Facebook), at Stateville Prison, which the book compares to Dante’s nine circles of hell. Now doesn’t that grab you more than cheese aging?