A. Heathen

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/24/bigger-dreams-how-neil-gaiman-sandman-universe-expanding-comics?CMP=share_btn_tw

It's still listed as Vertigo on the DC website news.

I did see the writer is a target for those gamergate/comicsgate types. So maybe DC are confounding buffoons?

Depends on our definition of fiction.

Running Man and other Bachman books (other than Thinner ironically) are not quite what I'd call "standard" Stephen King. So the rebellion in Running Man is led by less of a middle class everyman. As I recall.

I think these lists sometimes trend to "most popular" of a type, so guess that's why King trumps Straub, but Streiber is a good call.

But he'd have been Wheatley or Von Daniken in the past, I guess.

Interesting to extract the non-American authors, you might get Shirley Jackson in there too.

If they'd put Dead Zone instead of The Stand, there might be Hope for America.

I thought it was a suitably scaryforkids thing and I might be wrong but thought The Lady Doctor* did the usual thing in the modern era of channelling previous Doctors during the early stages. There was gurning like Tennant, enthusing like Smith, being authoritative like Capaldi, and Northernness.

I don't think I will like Bradley Walsh in this as The New Bernard Cribbins. He's better in The Chase.

(* incidentally that's me doing a joke, and I will be henceforth refer to The Doctor as a Time Lord, just as I ever did.)

For what it's worth, I think Stephen King writes best about the american everyman that Governments would like us to believe they are seeking to protect.
I'd question the agendas of anyone who has read Dead Zone and doesn't read it as a warning about corruption of politicians rather than left or right,  and The Stand is nicely set for inclusion and community-ism rather than fascism. But all of this is easy to overlook if you're following a story rather than microscopic analysis subtext.

Simple test: did you enjoy it?
I've enjoyed three or four Koontz books I read but not enough to delve further.
I've read about 20% of the books on the list, ie 18 in full plus parts of another four or five. 

Regarding the initial post, I doubt a list of anything "Best-loved by Americans" (of all nations) would ever be based on excellence of the product (in this case novels or authors), since the criteria needed for such would be too wide.  We could probably take a dozen or so off the list on the basis they weren't on similar lists ten years ago and won't be in ten years time. That's what happens with "popular" vote.

6 hours ago, JasonT said:

Jeez, Dom and Christian. If you two have a falling out, the forum's activity will halve.

But also if they start agreeing it will drop to 33.3%

In Christian's defence here, "agree to disagree" oughtn't mean "so stop posting your opinions".
I find reading reasoned opinions (even the wrong ones both have) much more satisfying.

I don't know when the Free Comics Day was, but yesterday I picked up I Hate Image which is an amusing trek through the Image books as if they were all in the same universe, by the I Hate Fairyland people. 

There is a grayscale (sic) Walking Dead town, and our heroine cries The Nineties Sucked in the middle of Wic+Div Nightclub.

Top amusement: "Eventually you'll come upon a tree. Not like an Oak tree... like an Ellis Tree" "What the FLUFF is an Ellis Tree?" "I feel like I need to be smarter to answer that"

Then it's basically as many Image books referenced as possible.

So.

The Good Place,
Marvellous  Mrs Maisel,
Lodge 49,
LA to Las Vegas.

Not a bad batch. What else?

Oh the final series of The Bridge, and a thing called The Dark and one called The Forest.

Well done Europe.

I reckon that the People In Charge of the left (or the Not-So-Right to be more specific) have really lost the challenge to set up a society where people share a community that supports each other. Mainly because they choose to be led by the RIght (aka the Pretend Centre) rather than the people.

This latest show trial in America highlights that the UK Government are better at hiding their obvious corruption, Johnson and Mogg being like a magician's prancer, distracting from the real shites, rather than full on electing Zaphod Beeblebrox's unlikable inbred cousin. Trump's arrogance is just the living manifestation of how people of my generation used to view America(ns). "Yeah, right, USA won WW2, America is great, Land of the Free". (Land of the Free White People. Land of the Me.).

I know that's not what Americans are like, even many Republicans, but fucking hell the jingoistic, me-me-me, people are on top.

Thus the US President can get away with his vile lampooning of women who are speaking out about abuse.
And anyone who needs a hand, is going to be trod on.

It's more in style and setting, but it made me think of that and Teenagers From Mars.

It's been a while, so might be nothing like them.

Oh and I have Seeds but not read it yet.

Turns out I am enjoying one of the Berger Books.

She Could Fly

Written by Christopher Cantwell who you might know from Halt and Catch Fire. 

His spot on family dynamics are at play here. It's a nice take of a young woman bordering on psychosis but probably just imaginative. She investigates the death of a woman who could fly.

I've just realised that its style reminds me of Sean McKeever's The Waiting Place.

Final issue in two weeks.

The double page spread of "new" Vertigo does not inspire me at all.

Two Messiahs, Three What If Vertigo Golden Age happened IN THE FUTURE (supernatural dimensions,  witches, AI Goddesses - didn't we have all these already?), white supremacy and prostitutes. 

"-Magic"

I like Dreaming and House of Whispers because at least they are in familiar territory for the imprint that won't die(t).

"My Liver Function Tests are Rhesus Positive! Yuh Bastid"

"Heart rate: 120 over 86."

I'm out.

Also: tsk 

http://www.insanerantings.com/hell/comics/annotations/hb181ann.html

Oh gosh.

Finally caught up.

Among other things, because "Lenny", I just wished for Noah Hawley to be given the keys to Shade The Changing Man.

"He wore his madness like a coat"

Lovely album of cover versions, and the incidental music too.

Shame this "season" started with too much weirdforthesakeofit because after episode 3 it's Marvelous

11 hours ago, JasonT said:

"Always the worst words could be spoke at me"? Fuck off Dick van Dyke.

Wasn't that a Garth Ennis tale?

It actually read, "Azza - no worst words could be wrote for me".

Wow.

Matt Kindt is good.

Black Badge is for all your young friends.

And you.

Mind MGMT for Young Adults

Catwoman is quite lovely. 

Superb art and such a well layered story.

Reminds me of The Beauty which I will read next.

I've got this one
https://savagedragonwiki.wikispaces.com/Savage+Dragon+vs.+the+Savage+Megaton+Man+1?responseToken=0244651e691c5f0c2447f0deb3567380c

It looks like Captain Marvel to me. Proper "Shazam" was goofy as a cartoon dog with buck teeth, who works for people who HATE liberals and paedophiles equally.
But like to pretend they just hate paedophiles.

They should say fuck continuity.

Or tell it to fuck off.