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paragonrobits · 3 years

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A friend asked me to give a stab at a Tierlist Maker for Video Games Not Yet In the Video Game Hall of Fame Tier List Maker, so here's my list for it!

This is based primarily on what I considered to be overall value to gaming history as a whole, with games with greater influence or impact ranking higher than those that had less impact on those to follow, or on culture. All the entries are those that have been nominated to the Hall of Fame, but not actually inducted as of this post's writing. Games that I personally like are generally rated higher, though mostly because I'm more familiar with them and thus can judge their impact from a personal POV.

(Tier List explainations, below!)

SHOULD BE IN ALREADY

Final Fantasy: I mean seriously. How is this one not already in yet?? It is not, as my research suggests, the first true RPG; that likely goes to games like Ultima. It is certainly an incredibly influential one; FF is a name closely associated with JRPGs in general, and its diverse class system is one of the strongest things to do with it, as noted by challenges like beating the game with a party of Black Belts. FF is THE name of RPGs in general and I'm startled it hasn't made it in, though I suppose that's owing to more notable entries (Hard as that is to imagine). It doesn't hurt that the majority of my favorite FF titles are those most similar to this one, such as FF6 and FF9, in terms of approaching the general world setting and class systems. Most significantly is that this game popularized RPGs and made them accessible, in ways that previous games such as Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest did not; the field of gaming would be VERY different without it; RPGs became VERY popular, to the extent of RPG elements being almost universal among other games in the modern day. (I am also pleased and amused to see 8-Bit Theater mentioned on the actual Wikipedia page. Now THAT'S notability!)

Sid Meir's Civilization: HEY NOW HALL OF FAME JUDGES, DON'T YOU BE MOCKING CIV, ALRIGHT. CIV IS FUCKING AWESOME. Okay, jokes aside, I'm genuinely astonished as the Civ series is considered the first true main game of the 4x series, and it shows; the entire genre centers around expansion, resource usage and diplomacying or conquering your enemies, and considering the impact of this game and its sheer popularity, to the extent of the meme of the game getting people to play for Just One More Turn, I'm a bit disappointed that it's not already in the hall of fame. I also note that I am personally more familiar with the spin off Alpha Centauri, a sci fi variant, which is still one of my all time favorite games.

Half-Life: Given this game's popularity, to the point of its release alone consigning the likes of Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines to cult classic status and its engine spawning a whole THING with GMod and the usage of physics mechanics in FPS games, one thing of note is its use of scripted sequences; at the time, an unknown in most games of the time. There may be something to be said for how the entire game is spent as Gordon Freeman, behind his eyes, possibly engendering a lack of separation between self and character that would be later emphasized in games like Bioshock. It's influence on games cannot be denied, with publications using it as a bookend between eras of gaming. One consistent element of what seems to make this game so distinctive is its approach to storytelling, without simply imitating film techniques which don't always work well with gameplay.

Candy Crush: This is an example of something I don't personally play myself, or even like very much, but I'd be remiss to dismiss it out of hand. There's no denial that phone games are one of, if not THE biggest market of games in the here in now; if now in scale, certainly in quantity. You might call it the TF2 Hat Economy theory; people aren't spending BIG bucks, but they are spending a LOT of little bucks all the time. It proves that highly accessible games that are generally free to play, with optional purchases, are a legitimate means of game business, and this certainly revolutionized how games were seen by the money-makers.

Super Smash Bros Melee: I loved this game as a kid, but truth be told i have a bit of a love-hate relationship; i REALLY dislike the competitive community that has fixated hard on this game, so any thoughts on it will have a slight element of pause beforehand. Even so, I can't forget the thrilled delight I felt watching the trailer for this game in supermarkets for the first time as a kid. at a time when getting any new games at all was a HUGE deal in my family. So, there is a lot of feeling behind this one! Ultimately, I have to concede that while i have complicated feelings about this game, its worth noting that the vast majority of things that made Smash iconic, and influenced the competitive scene AND the games inspired by Smash AND shaped the course of the series going forwards, largely owe themselves to Melee in particular. 64 was far more slow paced, while Melee began the trend towards much more fast paced action (and while I doubt it's SPECIFIC to melee as a whole, it may have been a trend for the genre from then). Melee is STILL widely played, especially on the competitive scene, and this sort of longevity always bears evidence of notability.

Goldeneye 007: I have to admit that despite being a kid in the 90s, despite someone who put most of their time into gaming, and despite being someone whose favorite system at the time was the Nintendo 64, I mostly missed out on the trend of history by honestly not being that much into this game. I have to say that I DID play it, however; I just never managed to get past the first level or so. I have strong memories of triyng and failing to sneak around a snowy lair of some description; it wouldn't be until the mid-2000s, playing Deus Ex Human Revolution, that I got the hang of stealth. All the same, personal indifference really doesn't matter much because HOLY SHIT THIS GAME HAS SOME STAYING POWER. IT HAS INFLUENCE, FRIENDORITOS. Perhaps chiefly, at the time it was made, consoles were not considered viable platforms for first person shooters; Goldeneye revised that notion, and created a whole revolution in multiplayer and shooter games. We would later see the ultimate consequence of this in games like Halo, which further revolutionized the whole genre. Ironically, the stealth attributes I was so bad at were part of what made the game so unique! It's one of those games that may not have aged well, by modern standards, but its import to gaming as a whole goes a long, long way.

Guitar Hero: I expect this one might be a bit hard to justify, but on its own, this game is INCREDIBLY innovative, though its not entirely the first of its kind, having mechanics based on earlier games. The very first entry has a respectable library of 30 songs, which is impressive considered at the time it was made, its not likely people expected it to get as far as it did; bear in mind that the massive libraries of later games were the result of years of this game series being a massive steamroller of a franchise! At the time, this one was an unknown. It has an interesting history as being a successor of sorts to an arcade exclusive, and inspiring a genre of imitators and spiritual successors on its own; of great note is the sheer impact this game had. With so many of those successors, the increased value of liscened soundtracks, and the way the game's concept became so influential, its astounding this one isn't already on the hall of fame. (It's also very fun, but fun alone doesn't make for memorability, sad to say.)

DESERVES IT AT SOME POINT

Myst - an iconic and incredibly atmospheric puzzle game, I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't heard talk about this one in some respect; it bears note as a rare game with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. I actually rank this one on par with the 7th Guest in terms of atmospheric games, though their tones could not be more different. So why do I think this game deserves it at some point? It was an incredibly immersive and beautiful game, lacking in genuine danger or threat, encouraging the player to explore and tackle the puzzles of the game. This sort of open-ended lack of peril makes it an interesting precursor towards certain flavors of sandbox games around now. It's worth noting that it was a tremendous achievement, given technical limitations of things such as the CD-Rom it was stored on, maintaining a consistent experience, as well as tying narrative reasons into those very constraints. It has been compared to an art film; if so, it certainly is the sort that invited imitators and proved to be a great technical achievement.

Portal: PORTAL! What can I honestly say that hasn't already been said by other people? The amazing integration of a physics engine into innovative puzzle solving, combined with a slow burn sort of minimalist plot reveal concerning the AI proving itself to be a kind of reverse HAL 9000? This game got a HUGE number of memes back in the day, and I expect anyone reading this can probably reference a few. The cake thing, certainly, and its relevance to matters of deception. There is much discussion over the game's utility in academic circles, which is certainly quite notable, and for my part, I'm interested by the point that at first the game gives you a lot of hints towards what you're supposed to do, gradually making it less obvious for the player you're on your own entirely, using your experience with the game to get past the puzzles from there, and its excellent game design. Ultimately though, I place this below Half Life in hall of fame urgency, because while I probably like this one more, it doesn't have the same impact on other games, per say. (That's a lot of awards for it, though. Wowza.)

Resident Evil: Is it fair to call this one the major survival horror game of its era? No, because it's apparently the FIRST, or at least the first to be called such. It's certainly up there with shaping the genre as a whole, both its immediate predecessors and modern games. The flavor of a survival horror can even be judged about whether its close to Resident Evil's style of defending yourself with limited resources vs controlled helplessness. It's also worth pointing out that I quite like the restricted, cramped setting of the mansion, rather than an expansive city; Biohazard was a real return to form, even if its something I mostly watched through funny lets plays because OH NO ITS TOO SCARY I CANT WATCH.

Asteroids: It's called the first major hit of the golden age of the arcade. I'm forced to say... yeah, it absolutely deserves it. The actual implementation and hardware of the game makes for interesting reading, and so its innovative nature ought to be noted: it lacked a soundchip at all, making use of handmade circuits wired to the board. It's reception was great, beating out Space Invaders and needing larger boxes just to hold all the money people spent on it. It also invented the notion of tracking initials on the top ten score, which has implications for arcade challenges.

Ms. Pac Man: This one consistently ranks HIGH in gaming records of its time, though there is admittedly some confusion to whether it or Donkey Kong was a better seller. Interestingly it appears to shape most of the gameplay mechanics people remember most for Pac-Man, such as the improved AI of the ghosts. It's more highly regarded than the original game, and on a personal note, I remember being a kid and seeing this arcade machine at ALL the laundry places my family usually wound up going to.

Frogger: It's placing on this list is not solely because CUTE FROG. The accessibility and wide appeal of the game bears a great deal of consideration, the flexibility of its formula, and just how many dang times it's been ported in one form or another. (And also, cute frog.) It also gets points for the creator being inspired for the game when he saw a frog trying to cross a road, hampered by the vehicles in the way, and he got out of his car and carried the frog across the street. The game is also evident of broad appeal, and some money-makers resisting it, goes back a long way; it was apparently dismissed as a kid's game by some, which just goes to show that some problems are older than quite a lot of gamers alive today.

Uncharted 2: this is one of those games where I cannot honestly say I have personal experience to draw from. Of the playstation's big games, I remember the Jak and Daxter series; I remember Kingdom Hearts, and I remember Ratchet and Clank, and I remember Infamous, but the Uncharted series remains

something of a 'I don't go here?' obscurity in my personal playbook. It does look memorable and charming from what I've seen, and one consistent element I've seen in comments about it is the cinematic nature of the game; it feels very much like a fun heist movie, based on what I have seen of it, and the notable thing is how the game FEELS cinematic.. in a literal way. As in, it combined elements of cinematography with game design, and that's no mean feat: what works for movies are unlikely to translate well to the interactive side, and it shows how that can be done for other games. The extensive praise does the game a LOT of credit!

WORTH NOMINATION AT LEAST

Angry Birds: As noted before, I'm not the biggest fan of most phone games, given that i prefer a more passive experience than most provide. As such, Angry Birds isn't something I've played as of this writing, but I have to appreciate the straightforward and simple gameplay; it reminds me a bit of the Burrito Bison game series, which I HAVE played, and I'm going to go out on a limb and assume it's because Angry Birds is probably the innovation that coined that particular style of gameplay. It's an example of what made phone games profitable and worth the time of developers to work at them; its easy for casual players to get into, and there's a fun sort of impact involved. Given the popularity of phone games, this one has a LOT of influence in getting that rolling, similar to candy crush, if not as much.

FIFA International Soccer: Simulation games are a tricky business; it can be really difficult to get them right, and this game provides an example of it being done in a way that a lot of people REALLY loved, set up an entire game series, and revived the 3DO system after a very bad year. Of note, apparently it was commented that it was more of a simulator than a console game, and this is rather funny considering how simulator is its own genre nowadays! Such do things change. It seems to have been a revolutionary game and simulation; setting the shape for modern sport games of its type, and tending more towards realism (accounting for acceptable breaks in reality) than was typical of the time. This one's position is thus picked for its impact as a whole; while it may not necessarily be a household name now, the series continues on, and is popular enough that even after 20 years, it's still been going.

Elite: I nominate this game in this position for being a startlingly early entry into what we would now consider open-ended games, even with an element of exploration and trading; if one stretches definitions a bit, a precursor towards gameplay of the like scene in 4X players who strive to avoid conflict, if possible. Its technical breakthroughs are some very interesting reading and make for good game history; a vast and complex game (not just by the standards of the era, either), and opening the door for persistent world games such as World of Warcraft.

Wii Sports: A significant game, and much as how other titles mentioned above were famed for gateway entries into gaming for an unfamiliar audience, or those that would want o play on a more casual basis. It seems notable to me for being most suited as a family game, or a more casual experience of multiplayer than usually associated with games like this; this has greatly influenced Nintendo's design philosophy, and one can see elements of this all the way through the Wii U onwards. It's essentially a fliparound from Mario Party; less competitiveness, but definitely meant as a group thing. Controversy is evident, because like with Mario Party, injuries did result from it.

Call of Duty: I place this one here because, while it DOES hold a very significant role in gaming history, with countless imitators, spiritual successors, being a game-changer in ways that its modern reputation might surprise you with, ultimately it is less so than other games such as Goldeneye, Halo or Half-Life. It's development in AI pathfinding and tactics is incredibly noteworthy from a mechanical perpsective, and the sheer level of awards it won is notable. In the end this game's popularity and continuing influence means that it shouldn't be overlooked.

Metroid: You can't spell 'Metroidvania' without this game! A relatively open ended exploration-based game with further options opening as new tools were found give it an interesting vibe, and the oppressive atmosphere distinctive to the game says great things about its sound and level designs. It wasn't the first open world game, or explorer, or even the first to open new aereas based on equipment, but it had ALL of these elements in a very memorable package. (Samus Aran as a female protagonist is something I'm a bit reluctant to give it credit for, as her identity was obfuscated for most of the game, and only revealed in a fanservicey way in a secret ending. All the same, credit where it is due, I suppose!) It's music seems to endure as a mood setter, too!

Pole Position: Perhaps not the FIRST racing game, but still considered one of the most important from the golden age of gaming, and the one to codify many of the firm rules of the game series. It's three dimensional gameplay is incredibly innovative for its time, and having played it and games like it in the past, I'm struck by how smooth the whole thing feels. No wonder it was popular! It is notable for having been designed specifically as a 3d Experience, meant to execute techniques like real drivers might attempt, which makes it a different sort of beast in that it tried to do more realistic actions; in some ways, a precursor to modern trends of realism in many games, for ill or best. Ultimately I think this one is worth a nomination because of its influence towards racing games (a popular and long lived genre, to say the least) as a whole.

OUTSIDE CHANCE

Nurburgring 1: On the one hand, I feel a bit guilty putting this one so low; it is recognized as likely being the earliest racing game in history, and given that I just finished noting Pole Position's influence, it feels a bit mean to rate this one as relatively insignificant all the same. However, in terms of notability, I never even heard of this one, and it was tricky finding information about it. Accordingly, that may say something about its influence, though this position DOES make it noteworthy as the first of its kind, albeit with Pole Position refining and introducing elements that shaped the genre.

Dance Dance Revolution: It feels a bit strange, putting this one fairly low. This thing was a MONSTER back in the day; entire arcades were built around the dancing control peripherals it required, rhythm based games or mechanics specifically invoked it by name, and it was an absolute cultural touchstone for years and years. So, why place it low? Partly, its because I can't just shove EVERYTHING into the 'deserves a nomination' folder; I do think it's fairly reasonable for this one to at some point get a nomination in the future, though ultimately there's games more noteworthy on the whole. It's specific rhythm qualities continue outside of its genre, and are quite influential to gaming as a whole, though unfortunately the series seems to have lost something in notability over time; popularity is a factor, but so is the impact on other games.

NBA 2K and NBA Jam: I put these two together because they touch on similar touchstones for me, and they really did popularize basketball games back in the day. Jam in particular seems to be invoking the Big Head mode that were a big thing in games at the time, at least going from the screenshot. They were very popular and highly beloved games back in the day, though I don't know if they have much influence on later games. I note that interestingly, they take opposite approaches; 2k focuses on AI and realistic experiences, while Jam was deliberately less realistic and more actiony in its over the top gameplay.

Nokia Snake: This one really impresses me for the sheer number of releases, in various forms, it's had! Interestingly, there seems to be little consensus on the name of this game; most just call it Snake or something on that theme. I went with Nokia Snake because... mostly, it sounds funny, and that's how its done on the list. This one is fairly low, but I Have to give it credit for having hundreds of releases!

Farmville: My mom liked Facebook games, a lot. And I am certain this one was one of her main ones! I rate it fairly low, and no doubt her spirit is yelling imprecations at me across the void of time, space, and abandoned socks; all the same, this one is ranked low because of the sheer number of displeasure aimed this one's way. (And to be fair, she complained about it. A LOT.) It is thus notable for unusually negative reasons; an example of exploitation, pressuring players to pester their friends to play it in an equivalent to electronic chain mail, and microtranscations.

Tron: I'm inclined to give any game that takes place in a computer land and uses programming or mechanical terminology a free pass! Interestingly, this has some association with the Snake game, as they have similar gameplay and Snake games are sometimes called Light Cylce games, after this one. It has an interesting history; the graphical system was chosen largely because it was believed it was more likely to be achieved before the deadline.

NO BUSINESS IN THE HALL OF FAME

Mattel Football: I do feel a little mean putting anything in this category; firstly because I don't want to make actual fans of something sad, and secondly because I believe you can probably find notability anywhere you look, if you are inclined. And here is the chief difficulty with this one: I could not find any real information in this one. It has no Wikipedia page, a google search only led to undescriptive links of SALES for the game, but not any information on the game itself. Notability is my main resource for sorting these entries, and honestly? If google has nothing on you, that's a pretty poor sign. Sorry, Mattel Football, but you look like a poor man's Game And Watch. You're no Portal, Myst or Pole Position.

#tier lists #tiermaker lists

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aion-rsa · 7 years

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Bio Comic Shows the Inventor of the Zombie Did a Lot More Than That

The cartoonist of seven books, including “Mid-Life,” “Happy Stories About Well-Adjusted People,” and “This Will All End in Tears,” Joe Ollmann has not only received a Doug Wright Award, CBC Radio called him “a master of the short story” and compared him to Alice Munro. His new book, “The Abominable Mr. Seabrook,” looks to continue the accolades for the accomplished creator.

The book details the life of William Seabrook, a writer best remembered for introducing the term “zombie” into the English language, though as Ollmann makes clear, Seabrook wrote about and did far, far more than most might think. Seabrook wrote about Haiti, Arabia and Africa, early plane travel, alcoholism and bondage; he was friends with Gertrude Stein, Aleister Crowley, Sinclair Lewis and Man Ray. He was the forerunner of the model of adventurer and writer that has been carried on by the likes of Hunter S. Thompson.

CBR: William Seabrook was a real character — I don’t know how else to describe him! How did you first encounter him?

Joe Ollmann: I discovered him in a zombie anthology called “Zombie.” There was a short piece by Seabrook in there, which was very good. It’s a true story of zombies in Haiti from his book “The Magic Island.” It was a good story, and I really liked his writing, but what interested me more was the short biographical blurb before the story. The people that he’d known, the places that he traveled, and other salacious facts, like his bondage fetish, and cannibalism, and alcoholism. I’d never heard of the guy, and I felt like I should have because he had a pretty interesting, storied life. That sent me searching for more info. I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more info on him. None of his eleven books were in print at the time; Dover has started to bring some of them back into print, but he was a bestselling author in his day. It seemed like people should have known about him because he had a pretty interesting life.

One person you quote in the book makes the observation that what Seabrook would have liked was to be misunderstood. He wasn’t, however, and instead was a huge success.

That was Alexander King, the illustrator, who was an editor at “Life Magazine.” He said that Seabrook wanted to be a misunderstood author who was deep and artistic and inscrutable, but he was this populist writer who wrote about lurid subjects, mostly. But he wrote about them very intelligently and very well. Seabrook was always torn; he wanted to be a Gertrude Stein or a James Joyce or someone like that, but he came from a trashy Randolph Hearst newspaper background, writing stories like ‘Caught in the Death Grip of a Giant Clam.’ He wanted to do art, and he did very good populist stuff.

At the same time — and I couldn’t help but think of this in terms of his alcoholism and self-loathing — he sought out the company of people like Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, people who were in that Left Bank or Greenwich Village crowds.

He was very well connected. They sought him out, too, it seems, because they remembered him well enough to write about him in their autobiographies. Gertrude Stein, Sinclair Lewis, Man Ray, Aleister Crowley wrote about him. He obviously made an impression on these people. I would imagine he was quite a character, a guy who was fun to go to parties with, but not so fun to live with.

So when did you go from being curious about this writer to making a book about him?

At the beginning, I was just interested and I started to read. There was a little bit on the Internet. There were Seabrook fans on LiveJournal that had a lot of information, and that steered me towards certain books, which was quite helpful. I started buying his books and reading them. As I was reading them, I started keeping notes. I first started taking notes around 2006, so it’s been more than ten years now that I’ve been unofficially researching. I traveled to North Carolina with my wife — she was at an academic conference and I went with her because a collector there had a trunk of Seabrook stuff. I went to the University of Oregon for almost a week, and went through the archives of Marjorie Worthington, who was Seabrook’s second wife. She was an author, and her archives were there. I was going through boxes of her stuff — journals, letters, photos.

At that point, I’m wearing white gloves at a university archive and taking notes and I was like, “I guess you’re making a book of this guy, because what else are you going do?” [Laughs] I had already invested a lot of time and travel and money, so it became apparent that I had to do something with it. It was more than just a hobby. I talked about it a lot for years with people and everybody was very intrigued by the elevator pitch of this guy’s life and they never heard of him so they said, you should make a book about him. I could have just written a proper biography – a “book book” as we call real books in the comics world – but I’m a cartoonist, so I did it as a comic book biography.

I can imagine you spent part of that decade digging up visual reference and focusing on depicting those details.

I don’t usually use a lot of visual reference, but I really tried to get the details as correct as possible with this book. I felt it deserved the extra time. It’s set in many different time periods on different continents with many different cultures and with historical characters. I did a lot of research — I have folders of reference material for each section. I’ve never really done that much research visually before, so hopefully it improved the book.

I’ve read other books of yours, and it’s clearly your style, but it also felt very different than anything you’ve done before.

I think so. In a way, it’s not proper nonfiction. I see any biography with dialogue in it is out of the realm of nonfiction and into “speculative nonfiction,” where it’s well researched but I extrapolated and made up dialogue to fill in the story. It is different, but I feel like readers of my normal depressing comics that I do which are slice of life kitchen sink dramas of normal people who are troubled and they’re sad but they have humor in them, I think the Seabrook book probably has a similar feel because you know we put our stamp on everything as an artist or a writer so even though it’s his story it definitely has my fingerprints all over it I would think.

Drawing things like bondage — I’ve never done anything like that. I talked to cartoonist Pascal Girard years ago when I was living in Montreal, and his advice was draw the bondage stuff really frankly. Don’t not show it, but don’t make it sexy. I drew it very openly, not trying to make it salacious or sexed up. Hopefully that worked.

What made Seabrook fascinating wasn’t that he practiced bondage, but he wrote about it and he collaborated with Man Ray on series of photographs depicting bondage.

He and Man Ray were friends for a long time. Man Ray took a lot of photos of Seabrook, like when he was arriving back from Africa on a plane. Then he did the photos of Seabrook and Lee Miller where she’s wearing a collar and he’s holding the collar. There’s a whole other series of photos that they did, The Fantasies of Mr. Seabrook, which are pretty hardcore bondage. I think that was Seabrook trying to legitimize his kinky side by turning it into art. It could be perceived as legitimate because Man Ray was this established, respected artist at the time and collaborating with him would bring a legitimacy to it.

Seabrook is also fascinating because for his time, he was very progressive when writing about Haiti and Arabia and the people he meets.

For his time he was very progressive in writing about race and his interaction with other cultures. That what I find fascinating. He is very respectful of the cultures. He’s not a detached observer like an anthropologist would be. He’s living as equals with them and I think he’s accepted by the Bedouins when he’s living in the Middle East and again in Haiti by the Haitian people there. In Africa as well, although in Africa he’s acting more like a “great white hunter” in that book. I think he was more famous, and his alcoholism had progressed to the point where he wasn’t making good decisions about anything. But I agree, for his time, he was very progressive on matters of race, and very respectful of the Arab and Muslim culture.

One reason I don’t think that Seabrook isn’t one of the great travel writers like Thesiger or Stark is because, as you point out, Seabrook had a tendency to embellish and make things up.

He did a bit of that. Maybe I make too much of a deal about it. The famous thing he lied about — that in Africa he ate human flesh — which he doesn’t but he does eat human flesh when he returns to Paris to make it “true.” There was also people that criticized his details of the facts of the voodoo religion in “The Magic Island.” Seabrook cited Zora Neale Hurston, who in her book “Tell My Horse” writes about very similar things. Hurston is a respected anthropologist and she’s a black woman who has less to gain from maligning the people of Haiti, and she supported his facts, basically, in her book. As a guy that was a reporter, I think he took the facts seriously. I think he exaggerated. I think he’s a typical raconteur who will exaggerate and be hyperbolic to make a better story. I hesitate to say that he was constantly lying about things in his books, although he may have — it’s hard to know.

You make an interesting observation at the end, which is that it might be best to think of him as a precursor to gonzo journalism.

I think so. The act of throwing yourself into the middle of the story and making the story about you. I couldn’t find out in Hunter S. Thompson or any of that school read Seabrook, but I suspect that Thompson probably would have. They shared a lot — the wild man, hard-drinking lifestyle, but also being a very serious writer. For all of his drinking, Seabrook was a real work horse. Even at the height of his alcoholism, he would get up in the morning at five, make coffee, work ’til noon and waste the rest of the day. I think he was a hard working reporter at heart.

Having spent all these years working on this book, what do you hope people take away from it?

My intent, really, was to serve as an introduction to the guy’s life. I don’t mean it to be a cautionary tale at all. If people read it, they’ll come away and say, obviously, it’s not a good thing to drink excessively your whole life because it will catch up with you. I just think it’s an interesting story. I wanted to introduce people to his work and maybe they’ll seek it out and read it. I think a lot of his stuff is still worth reading.

You mentioned that when you started, all of his books were out of print but now “Asylum” and “The Magic Island” are back in print.

Dover did those two, and I did the covers and introductions in comic form for them. “The Magic Island” is great, because they have an intro by George Romero. Seabrook is credited with bringing the word “zombie” into the English language, and “Magic Island” was the basis for the Bela Lugosi film “White Zombie,” so Romero writes about how he owes a debt of gratitude to Seabrook for starting the whole genre of the zombie. Then there’s an afterword by the ethnobotanist Wade Davis who wrote “The Serprent and The Rainbow.” Davis confirmed a lot of the aspects of the zombie being a genuinely chemical phenomenon instead of supernatural that Seabrook posited. It’s a travelogue, and it’s very detailed. He’s writing about the cultural history and the geopolitical history of the island and about the situation at the time in the 1920s where they were under occupation by the US. It’s just good, meandering travel writing. Those first three books of Seabrook’s are excellent.

Having spent a decade on this book, does it make you want to make another book along similar lines, or go back to making a slice of life story like you’ve done in the past?

I’m of two minds. I have a bunch of longish short story pieces that I’m ready to start on. I also have a nonfiction project about Canadian history that I’m working on. That would take a little more time. When I finished this, I was like, I don’t want to do nonfiction anymore. The research is too hard. I just want to do fiction, where you can make your characters do what you want and you’re not limited by what actually happened. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to do both of them. As you get older, you start to think, how many books do I have left? Comics take so long that you want to be sure what you’re doing before you commit two or three — or five or ten — years to a book.

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