The Adventures of a History Nerd: Candidates ’72

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1972! Now, that’s a presidential election that I’m sorry I wasn’t around to witness!

1972, of course, was the year that the Democrats nominated George McGovern and President Richard Nixon went on to win 49 states. McGovern was considered to be one of the most left-wing presidential candidates of all time. He started out as a dark horse but ultimately won the Democratic nomination after the more moderate Edmund Muskie’s campaign turned to be not as strong as people assumed and after Governor George Wallace’s campaign was ended by gunfire in Maryland. (Wallace survived being shot but spent the rest of his life in wheelchair.) McGovern’s campaign knew how to win a primary but had no idea how to win a general election. He ended up getting around 37% of the popular vote. He carried Massachusetts but he lost his home state of South Dakota.

Today, it’s usually assumed that Nixon’s victory was a foregone conclusion but that’s not true. The Republicans had a weak midterm in 1970. The Vietnam War was unpopular. Nixon, himself, had managed to upset both the conservative and the liberal wings of the Republican Party with some of his policies. Much as in 2020, a record number of candidates threw their hat into the ring to take on the incumbent President. 1972 is a great “What if” election. What if the Democrats had nominated Edmund Muskie or Hubert Humphrey? What if the Watergate burglars hadn’t been arrested? What if George McGovern hadn’t picked Thomas Eagleton for Vice President or later asked him to step down as his running mate? Would history be different today?

That’s why I’m glad that I have a copy of Candidates ’72.

Candidates ’72 was published, in 1971, by Congressional Quarterly. It featured profiles of the many men and women who ended up running for President in 1972. It not only detailed their backgrounds and their political stances but it also analyzed their chances of winning their party’s nomination. For a history nerd like me, this book is wonderful because it was written without the benefit of hindsight. It’s a chance to see what people were actually saying about the election of 1972 while it was going on. Often times, it’s quite different from the biased analysis that was written about the election after it had already happened.

The other reason why I like Candidates ’72 is because so many memorable people ran for the Presidency in that year. George McGovern, New York Mayor John Lindsay, U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Los Angles Mayor “Mad Sam” Yorty, George Wallace, Dr. Benjamin Spock, they are just some of the candidates profiled here. Reading the profiles really does reveal that America was at a crossroads in the early 70s. Much like today, a lot of people assumed that radicalism was ascendant while failing to consider just how serious the backlash would eventually become. Some of the other Democrats running actually made George McGovern look like a moderate. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Nixon was challenged by an anti-war congressman named Pete McCloskey. McCloskey eventually lost his house seat in the 80s but briefly reemerged in 2006 as an environmentalist and anti-war activist. He was also a Holocaust denier so let’s be happy that he never got anywhere near the White House.

(It’s probably a sign of just how chaotic the 1972 election was that a few candidates — John Ashbrook, Terry Sanford — did not get profiled in Candidates ’72, presumably because they jumped into the fray after the book went to the presses.)

Here are the candidates and potential candidates who are profiled in Candidates ’72.

Republicans:

Vice President Spiro Agnew of Maryland (elected Vice President in the General Election)
Treasury Secretary John Connally of Texas (declined to run)
Lobbyist John Gardner (declined to run)
U.S. Rep. Pete McCloskey of California (suspended campaign during the primaries)
President Richard M. Nixon of California (won the general election)

Democrats:

U.S. Rep. William Anderson of Tennessee (dropped out before the primaries)
Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana (dropped out before the primaries)
U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm of New York (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark of New York (declined to run)
Sen. Fred Harris of Oklahoma (dropped out before the primaries)
U.S. Sen. Vance Hartke of Indiana (withdrew during the primaries)
Sen. Howard Hughes of Iowa (dropped out before the primaries)
Sen. Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington (defeated at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts (declined to run)
New York Mayor John V. Lindsay (withdrew during the primaries)
Lt. Gov. Lester Maddox of Georgia (withdrew during the primaries)
Fmr. Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota (withdrew during the primaries)
Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota (defeated in the General Election)
U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills of Arkansas (withdrew during the primaries)
U.S. Rep. Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii (withdrew during the primaries)
U.S. Sen. Walter Mondale of Minnesota (declined to run)
Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine (suspended campaign during the primaries)
Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin (dropped out before the primaries)
R. Sargent Shriver of Maryland (nominated for vice president, lost the general election)
Gov. George Wallace of Alabama (suspended campaign after being shot in Maryland)
Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty (withdrew during the primaries)

Independents:

Ralph Nader (declined to run)
Dr. Benjamin Spock (lost the general election)

Ran, but not profiled:

U.S. Rep. John Ashbrook (R-OH)
U.S. Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-MO, nominated for Vice President but stepped down from the ticket and was replaced by Sargent Shriver)
State Rep. Sissy Farenthold (D-TX, ran for the Vice Presidency at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Rep. Walter Fauntroy (D-DC)
U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska (D-Alaska, run for the Vice Presidency at the Democratic Convention)
U.S. Rep. Wayne Hays (D-OH)
Former Governor Endicott Peabody (D-Massachusetts, ran in the nonbinding Vice Presidential primary)
Former Governor Terry Sanford (D-NC)
U.S. Rep. John G. Schmitz (R-CA, ran as the candidate of the American Party)
Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes (D-OH)

I ordered my copy of Candidates ’72 shortly after I ordered Candidates ’76. Sadly, my copy of Candidates ’72 is not in the best condition and I doubt I’ll ever find another copy. As a proud history nerd, though, I’m still happy to have it.

The Adventures of a History Nerd: Right From The Start by Gary Hart

Posted on July 1, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1972 presidential campaign was a strange one.

Today, it’s best-remembered for the fact that Richard Nixon carried 49 states and won 60.7% of the popular vote. Nixon’s victory came after the Democratic nominee, George McGovern, dropped his running mate, Thomas Eagleton, from the ticket after it was revealed that Eagleton had undergone electroshock treatment for depression. McGovern was also, at that point, one of the most liberal candidates to ever be nominated by a major political party. Much as with the earlier Barry Goldwater campaign, many of McGovern’s campaign volunteers and aides went on to have long careers in politics but their enthusiasm did not translate into votes for McGovern. Today, Nixon’s victory is seen as being such a foregone conclusion that people still wonder why a group of campaign operatives and White House aides even felt like they needed to break into the Watergate hotel to win.

1972 was a bit before my time but, if you look at the number of candidates who ran for the Democratic nomination, it’s obvious that, despite how thing ultimately turned out, quite a few people originally thought Nixon was vulnerable in 1972. Over 20 Democratic office holders competed for the right to run against Nixon. Sen. Edmund Muskie was the early favorite but, in the end, George McGovern won the nomination as the result of a largely grassroots effort. McGovern became the first Democrat to win the nomination through the primary system as opposed to making deals with political and labor bosses. McGovern’s campaign was fueled by opposition to the Vietnam War and an earnest idealism that got on the nerves of just about everyone outside of the campaign. One of McGovern’s rivals, Sen. Henry Jackson, said that McGovern was the candidate of “abortion, amnesty, and acid.”

McGovern’s campaign manager was a Colorado lawyer named Gary Hart. Hart would later be elected to the U.S. Senate and would twice run for president himself. (Hugh Jackman played Hart in the rather forgettable film, The Front Runner.) However, before Hart first ran for the Senate, he took the time to write a book about the McGovern campaign. That book was called Right From The Start. I ordered a used copy off of Amazon about ten years ago. It cost me about twenty dollars. If I ordered the book today, it would only cost me $16.00.

The book is an interesting historical document. Hart writes about the day-to-day operations of the McGovern campaign. He does a very good job of showing how McGovern came from behind to win the Democratic nomination. Hart writes about how the campaign recruited people who were new to politics but who were passionate about the issues. He writes about how Morris Dees (yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center guy) spearheaded the campaign’s fundraising. He writes about the day that Governor George Wallace was shot in Maryland. He shows how a group of committed activists were able to bypass the party bosses and win their candidate the nomination. Where Hart struggles is with explaining why McGovern lost the general election. Hart puts a lot of the blame on Thomas Eagleton and perhaps that’s justified. But McGovern still lost 49 states. To me, that would indicate there were even bigger problems then picking a bad running mate. But, because Hart was on the same side of McGovern, it’s perhaps understandable that he would struggle to admit that the electorate simply didn’t respond to what McGovern was selling.

(Ironically, in 1984, Hart and McGovern would both run for the Democratic presidential nomination.)

The chapter where Hart discusses the process that led to Thomas Eagleton becoming, albeit temporarily, McGovern’s running mate is the book’s highlight. As Hart explains it, he and the rest of McGovern’s aides had been so busy winning McGovern the nomination that none of them had really bothered to consider who McGovern should run with. McGovern had his own preferences but they all declined to join the ticket. A bunch of exhausted men ended up sitting around and tossing out names like CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and Boston Mayor Kevin White. Someone suggested that, since the convention was being held in Miami, the second spot should go to New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu just so the next day’s paper would read “MOON OVER MIAMI.” In the end, Thomas Eagleton was picked not because anyone feels strongly about him but instead because he was the only one that nobody felt any passion about whatsoever. He was serviceable and inoffensive and, when he was asked if there was anything in his past that might embarrass the campaign, he replied that they’re wasn’t. A few weeks later, Eagleton’s psychiatric history was leaked to the press and the McGovern campaign imploded. Maybe they should have just asked Cronkite.

Right From The Start is an compulsively readable and interesting campaign memoir, perfect for history nerds like you and me.

Hero of the Day: Samwise Gamgee (The Lord of the Rings)

Posted on June 30, 2026 by Arleigh

“Don’t you leave him, Samwise Gamgee. And I don’t mean to.” — Samwise Gamgee

Samwise Gamgee stands as one of the most compelling and deeply human characters in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a figure whose quiet strength and unwavering loyalty redefine the very notion of heroism. Unlike the noble Aragorn or the wise Gandalf, Sam is an ordinary hobbit—grounded, humble, and devoid of grand ambitions. His heroism does not stem from swordplay or sorcery, but from his steadfast devotion to Frodo Baggins and the simple, unshakable belief that even the smallest person can change the course of the future. Tolkien uses Sam to illustrate that true courage is not the absence of fear, but the resolve to act despite it, a theme that resonates throughout the epic narrative of The Lord of the Rings.

Traditional fantasy heroes are often defined by their extraordinary abilities or grand destinies, but Sam’s greatness is rooted entirely in his profound normalcy. He is not driven by a prophetic calling or a desire for glory; rather, his initial motivation is simply the fear of losing his master and friend, Frodo Baggins. Tolkien uses Sam to demonstrate that heroism is not the absence of fear, but the choice to push forward in spite of it. When Sam is forced to temporarily take up the burden of the One Ring in The Return of the King, his inherent simplicity becomes his greatest weapon. Unlike the great lords of Men, Sam lacks the ambition and desire for power that the Ring exploits, allowing him to willingly surrender it back to Frodo—a testament to the incorruptible nature of the common folk.

At the heart of Samwise’s character is an unparalleled loyalty that elevates him from a mere sidekick to the true savior of the quest. As Frodo is progressively broken down by the physical and psychological toll of the journey to Mordor, it is Sam who serves as the emotional anchor preventing his total collapse. Sam’s devotion reaches its zenith on the slopes of Mount Doom, where his refusal to let Frodo fail results in one of literature’s most iconic declarations: “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” In this moment, Sam embodies the purest form of love and sacrifice. He does not save Middle-earth by striking down a dark lord, but by literally carrying the weight of his friend’s despair when Frodo can no longer stand.

Furthermore, Sam provides a vital, grounded perspective that prevents the narrative from becoming lost in its own high-fantasy majesty. His deep connection to the Shire, to the soil, and to the simple joys of life—like a good meal or a smoke—acts as a tether to goodness in a world being consumed by shadow. This “salt of the earth” wisdom allows Sam to perceive the true horror of Mordor and the Ring not in abstract, philosophical terms, but as a direct threat to the innocent, everyday life he holds dear. By viewing the apocalyptic conflict through the eyes of a gardener, Tolkien makes the stakes feel remarkably intimate, reminding the reader that the ultimate goal of the quest is not to establish a new empire, but to preserve the quiet beauty of the natural world.

Ultimately, Samwise Gamgee endures as one of literature’s greatest heroes because he represents the best of what ordinary people can achieve under extraordinary circumstances. He begins the story as a timid, provincial hobbit terrified of leaving his hometown, yet he ends it as a resilient warrior, a loving husband, and a civic leader. Tolkien, a veteran of the brutal trenches of World War I, understood that the world is often saved not by brilliant generals or chosen ones, but by the quiet courage of everyday people doing their duty. Through Sam, The Lord of the Rings delivers a timeless and deeply moving message: that in the face of insurmountable darkness, the most powerful force in the world is a stubborn, unassuming love.

Hero of the Day

Villain of the Day: Judge Holden (Blood Meridian)

Posted on June 27, 2026 by Arleigh

“War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.” — Judge Holden

In Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece Blood Meridian, Judge Holden stands as one of the most terrifying, yet utterly magnetic figures in American literature. He is not a conventional villain driven by simple greed or revenge; instead, he operates on a cosmic, almost mythological scale. McCarthy crafts the Judge as an massive, albino entity who is completely devoid of hair, yet possesses an uncanny, childlike smoothness. This striking physical presence combines with an immense intellect, making him instantly unforgettable. He dominates every scene he enters, holding both the Glanton gang and the reader captive under his dark, philosophical spell.

At the core of Holden’s hypnotic presence is his utterly arresting physicality. Described as a massive, hairless, albino giant, he possesses an otherworldly appearance that immediately commands both reverence and dread. Yet, this grotesque physical power is contrasted with a startling, almost delicate grace. McCarthy frequently depicts the judge dancing, his enormous frame moving with an effortless, ethereal fluidity that borders on the supernatural. This juxtaposition—a gargantuan, impossibly strong killer who moves like a dancer and possesses the pale, unmarked skin of a newborn—creates a profound cognitive dissonance. He is simultaneously repulsive and fascinating, a living paradox that draws the eye and refuses to let it go.

The Judge also remains mesmerizing because McCarthy refuses to explain him. We never receive a tragic backstory or psychological diagnosis that neatly explains why he is the way he is. In fact, the mystery is the point. Throughout Blood Meridian, Holden often feels less like a man and more like a supernatural force wearing human skin. Different readers have interpreted him as the Devil, a gnostic archon, the embodiment of Manifest Destiny, the spirit of war itself, or simply humanity stripped of every moral restraint. McCarthy never confirms any of those theories, allowing the character to exist in a space between realism and myth. That ambiguity makes Holden endlessly discussable because every rereading invites another interpretation without ever exhausting the possibilities.

Another reason Judge Holden has endured as one of literature’s greatest villains is that he represents ideas rather than merely serving as an obstacle for the protagonist. The Kid spends much of the novel drifting through a world consumed by brutality, but the Judge continually tests him, almost as though he is trying to prove that compassion has no place in existence. Holden’s obsession with domination extends beyond physical violence. He wants mastery over knowledge, nature, history, and ultimately other people’s souls. His habit of sketching artifacts before destroying them reflects this desire for absolute ownership; if something exists outside his understanding or control, he cannot tolerate it. That makes him terrifying in a way that extends beyond the novel’s bloodshed. He embodies the frightening notion that intelligence, eloquence, and culture offer no protection against evil when they become tools for domination instead of wisdom.

Ultimately, Judge Holden’s charisma lies in the fact that he forces readers to confront a deeply uncomfortable idea: that there may be a coherent, even seductive logic to nihilism and destruction. He is not a cartoon villain driven by petty grievance; he is a fully realized intelligence that has looked at the human condition and arrived at monstrous conclusions. Blood Meridian is not an easy novel, and the Judge is not an easy villain — he does not allow readers the comfort of simple condemnation. His eloquence, his energy, and his terrifying completeness as a character make him linger in the mind long after the final page. In a landscape already saturated with literary darkness, Judge Holden stands apart as one of the most profound and deeply disturbing figures ever committed to the page.

Villain of the Day

The Adventures Of A History Nerd: Candidates ’76

Posted on June 23, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

President Milton Shapp.

That sounds strange, doesn’t it? There’s never been a President named Milton Shapp. The name itself doesn’t exactly sound all the Presidential. A president named Milton? At one time, Milton brought to mind Paradise Lost. Today, for many people, Milton might bring to mind Stephen Root protectively holding his red stapler in Office Space. It’s not a name that we associate with presidents.

And yet, in 1976, Milton Shapp was one of the many people who ran an at least semi-serious campaign for presidency. He was the governor of Pennsylvania, having first been elected in 1970 and narrowly re-elected in 1974. He was the owner of an electronics company, a self-made millionaire. He played the violin. He wrote poetry. He was the author of several musicals that had never actually been produced. He ran for the Democratic Presidential nomination and, as you can probably guess, he didn’t get far. If he had been elected, he would have been the country’s first Jewish President.

Of course, he wasn’t elected President. If he had been elected, it’s doubtful that he would have been any better than Jimmy Carter. But he would be remembered. Milton Shapp would be the one with the books written about his life and Jimmy Carter would be the one reduced to being an obscure footnote in someone else’s story.

Unfortunately for Milton Shapp and the majority of the other people who ran for President in 1976, people don’t remember the also-rans. They remember the candidates who won their party’s nominations. To me, that’s a shame. Sometimes, the also-rans are far more intriguing than the people who won. In 1976, the first election after America’s only presidential resignation, over 20 candidates either ran or considered running for the White House. Arizona’s Mo Udall was a one-eyed Mormon who was also a former basketball player. North Carolina’s Terry Sanford was the President of Duke University. Oklahoma’s Fred Harris traveled across the country in a RV and stayed in the homes of his supporters. Indiana’s Birch Bayh and Idaho’s Frank Church were respected technocrats. Maryland’s Sargent Shriver was a Kennedy brother-in-law. Texas’s Lloyd Bentsen was a protegee of Lyndon B. Johnson and once called for nuking North Korea. Washington’s Henry “Scoop” Jackson was the original front runner who was still referred to be his childhood nickname despite being in his 50s. Alabama’s George Wallace campaigned from his wheelchair. At one point, every candidate had a shot at breaking through but only a few made it to the Convention. How different would America be if Mo Udall or Lloyd Bentsen or Milton Shapp had won in 1976?

If you’re wondering how I know about all of these folks, it’s because I recently ordered a copy of Candidates ’76, a collection of candidate profiles that was put together by Congressional Quarterly. Along with taking a look at their positions on the issues of the day, it also details their individual backgrounds and assesses their prospects. Because Candidates ’76 was written in 1976, there’s no benefit of hindsight here. Instead, it’s an honest historical document, one that was written at a time when no one was sure what the post-Watergate political scene would eventually look like. For a history nerd like me, it’s the type of thing that is fascinating to read.

For the record, the following candidates and potential candidates are profiled in Candidates ’76. Candidates with an asterisk by their name actually ended up on the primary ballot in 1976.

Republicans:

Gerald Ford*
Ronald Reagan*
Nelson Rockefeller
John B. Connally
Howard Baker
Charles Percy
Charles Mathias
Elliot Richardson
Donald Rumsfeld
George H.W. Bush

Democrats:

Birch Bayh*
Lloyd Bentsen*
James “Jimmy” Carter*
Frank Church*
Fred Harris*
Hubert Humphrey
Henry Jackson*
Edward M. Kennedy
Edmund Muskie
Terry Sanford*
Milton Shapp*
R. Sargent Shriver*
Morris L. “Mo” Udall*
George C. Wallace*
George McGovern
Jerry Brown*
Hugh Carey

Independent;

Eugene McCarthy*

(As far as I can tell, the only candidate that CQ missed was Robert Byrd, who ran as a favorite son in West Virginia. Future Vice President Walter Mondale also ran briefly for President but ended his campaign before Candidates ’76 was put together.)

One of the great things about being a history nerd is that I can find a lot of happiness in reading something like Candidates ’76 and playing the “What If?” game. At a time when misinformation is everywhere and when historical revisionism has been normalized, it’s nice to be able to go back and look at an original document. It’s the next best thing to having a time machine.

Review: Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad)

Posted on May 16, 2026 by Arleigh

“The mind of man is capable of anything.” — Charles Marlow

There’s a strange, magnetic pull to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness that keeps readers coming back, even when the book itself seems determined to repel you. Published in 1899, this novella is often taught as a classic of colonial critique, but spending time with it feels less like a lecture and more like a slow, feverish drift up a murky river. The plot is deceptively simple: a British sailor named Marlow takes a job piloting a steamboat for an ivory trading company in the Belgian Congo. His real mission, however, is to find Kurtz, a charismatic, brilliant agent who has supposedly gone mad and set himself up as a god among the natives. What Marlow finds instead is a hollow man whose final whisper—“The horror! The horror!”—becomes one of literature’s most chilling epitaphs.

Conrad’s prose is dense and atmospheric, almost claustrophobic. He writes in long, looping sentences that circle back on themselves, mimicking the tangled jungle and Marlow’s own spiraling psyche. You don’t read this novella so much as wade through it, feeling the heat, the flies, and the creeping sense of moral decay. The frame narrative—Marlow telling his story to a group of sailors on the Thames—adds a layer of ironic distance. London, the heart of empire, is presented as another kind of darkness, a civilized wilderness that has simply learned to hide its savagery behind suits and ledgers. This structural choice is brilliant because it forces you to ask: is the “darkness” really in Africa, or is it something Europe shipped downriver?

That said, any honest review has to address the elephant in the room: the book’s treatment of race. For decades, the Nigerian writer and critic Chinua Achebe has mounted the most devastating case against Heart of Darkness. In his landmark 1975 lecture “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” Achebe argues that Conrad, despite ostensibly critiquing Belgian colonialism, produced a work that is fundamentally racist—a piece of literature born directly from the imperial colonial era and its dehumanizing ideologies. Achebe’s point is sharp and uncomfortable: the novella seeks to expose the dangers and horrors of imperialism, yet it simultaneously perpetuates the very racist ideas it should be dismantling. Conrad denies nearly every African character a name, a voice, or an interior life. They appear as limbs, grunts, or “savages” performing ominous rituals on the shore. Africa itself is reduced to “a place of darkness,” “the prehistoric earth,” and a blank space on the map waiting for European meaning. The sole exception is a well-dressed native man who works as a cook—and even he is reduced to a clumsy, almost comic figure. Marlow is more disturbed by the sight of “improper” cannibals restraining themselves than he is by the company’s brutal exploitation.

Achebe’s critique cuts to the bone: Conrad may have hated the cruelty of colonialism, but he couldn’t imagine Africans as fully human. He traded one set of stereotypes for another, offering a critique of empire that remains trapped inside empire’s own racial logic. You can argue that Conrad is exposing racism by showing Marlow’s limited perspective, but the text gives us no alternative viewpoint. The Congolese remain scenery for a white man’s existential crisis. That’s not just dated; it’s a structural flaw that makes the book feel less like a universal tragedy and more like a monologue delivered in a vacuum—and, as Achebe famously wrote, “a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities should not be called a great work of art.” So while the novella wants to critique colonial violence, it cannot see the violence of its own representational strategies. The very language Conrad uses to evoke horror—the “savage” drums, the “prehistoric” shores—ends up reinforcing the racist hierarchies he pretends to question. Overt insults mix with subtle, almost unconscious dehumanization, creating a text that is as morally compromised as the ivory traders it condemns.

Where Heart of Darkness still stings is in its psychological precision, even as Achebe’s critique complicates any easy admiration. Kurtz is a masterpiece of ambiguity: a poet, a painter, a journalist who wrote a report on “civilizing” the natives, only to scribble at the bottom, “Exterminate all the brutes!” He represents the lie at the core of imperialism—the idea that Europe brings light to darkness, when in fact it brings greed, violence, and an insatiable hunger for ivory. The novella’s real horror isn’t the jungle or the cannibals; it’s how easily a man with noble ideals can become a skull-decorating tyrant. Conrad, who himself worked in the Congo, understood that the heart of darkness is not a place but a capacity we all carry. Yet Achebe would counter that this “we” is tellingly selective—the capacity for darkness is explored in Kurtz and Marlow, while actual African people are merely the backdrop against which that darkness is measured.

Despite its flaws—or perhaps because of their uncomfortable rawness—Heart of Darkness has proven enormously influential since its publication. Its DNA can be found in everything from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (which originally quoted Kurtz’s “horror” as an epigraph) to Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God. But the best and most famous example is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which transplants the story from colonial Congo to the Vietnam War. Captain Willard stands in for Marlow, and the rogue Colonel Kurtz (famously played by Marlon Brando) becomes the ivory trader’s spiritual twin—a decorated American operative who has set up his own brutal kingdom in the Cambodian jungle. Coppola keeps Conrad’s core structure: a river journey into madness, a whispered report on “unsound methods,” and a final, intimate confrontation with a man who has seen too much. What makes Apocalypse Now such a brilliant adaptation is that it doesn’t just copy the plot; it captures the feverish, hallucinatory tone. The film’s famous line—“I love the smell of napalm in the morning”—echoes Kurtz’s seductive, terrifying embrace of violence. By updating the setting, Coppola proved that Heart of Darkness was never really about the Congo. It was about the darkness any empire carries inside itself. Yet even here, Achebe’s shadow lingers: the film, like the novella, largely sidelines the Vietnamese and Cambodian people, turning them into anonymous threats or scenery for an American psychodrama.

So, is this a book you should read? Yes, but with caution and critical awareness. It’s short—under 40,000 words—but it’s not an easy afternoon’s entertainment. Read it alongside Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa” or a historical account of Leopold II’s atrocities. Treat Marlow as an unreliable narrator, not a prophet, and recognize that Conrad’s attempt to critique empire is fatally compromised by the very racial imagination he never managed to escape. The prose can be maddeningly vague, and the pacing sometimes stalls under the weight of its own symbolism. Yet for all its flaws, Heart of Darkness refuses to fade away, in part because artists from Conrad to Coppola keep finding new horrors to pour into its shape, and in part because critics like Achebe force us to read it honestly—as both a searing study of evil and an uncomfortable document of that same evil’s persistence. It’s a mirror held up to the worst of us, and whether you see a portrait of colonialism, a study of madness, a racist artifact, or all three at once, you won’t forget what stares back.

Guilty Pleasure No. 107: Ironwood (by Bill Willingham)

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Arleigh

Bill Willingham’s Ironwood is the sort of graphic novel that lives in the uneasy space between bawdy escapism and unexpectedly thoughtful worldbuilding, making it a quintessential guilty pleasure that some readers insist on treating as near–high art. It is at once shamelessly pornographic and surprisingly committed to telling a coherent sword‑and‑sorcery story, which means your mileage will depend heavily on whether you can accept explicit sex as an integral—often dominant—part of the narrative rather than a tacked‑on indulgence.

Published by Eros Comix in the early 1990s, Ironwood ran for eleven issues and was later collected into two trade paperbacks that have acquired a minor cult status among fans of erotic fantasy comics. The premise follows Dave Dragovon, a juvenile dragon who appears entirely human because he has not yet matured into his full draconic form, as he is hired by the beautiful and cursed Pandora Breedlswight to seek out the wizard Gnaric and break the spell on her. It is a familiar quest hook—hero, sorcerer, cursed damsel—but Willingham uses it as a loose scaffold on which to hang an almost nonstop parade of sexual encounters, bawdy gags, and bursts of fantastical incident.

As a narrative, Ironwood is better than its reputation as “porn with plot” might suggest, though that label is not entirely unfair. The story is consciously serialized in the classic fantasy‑adventure mode: Dave and Pandora move from one locale to another, encountering wizards, monsters, political schemes, and rival factions, all while the central quest to undo Pandora’s curse gives a sense of forward momentum. Various readers have pointed out that there is genuine political intrigue and thought given to motivations, and you can see Willingham testing out the sort of layered plotting and character dynamics he would later refine in Fables, even if here they are wrapped around mandatory explicit scenes. There are moments when the story is engaging enough that the sex almost feels like an interruption, a dynamic Willingham himself has reportedly acknowledged when noting that fitting in each issue’s required sex scene could break the flow.

Tonally, the book leans heavily into adult humor, but it is not mean‑spirited. The jokes range from clever wordplay and situational comedy to unabashedly adolescent gags, the sort that make you groan even as you recognize they fit this world of oversexed dragons, lecherous wizards, and magically enhanced perversions. In this regard, Ironwood is very much a product of its era: a 1990s underground/alt sensibility that treats fantasy tropes and sexual taboos with the same irreverent shrug. When the humor lands, it gives the book a disarming charm, but when it doesn’t, the dialogue can feel like an overlong dirty joke that mistakes sheer explicitness for wit. Still, there is a lightness here—especially in Dave’s reactions and the deadpan absurdity of certain magical mishaps—that keeps the series from tipping into grim or exploitative darkness, despite its plentiful kinks.

Visually, Willingham’s art is the most persuasive argument for why some readers champion Ironwood as something more than disposable smut. His linework is clean and expressive, with a confident sense of anatomy, staging, and page composition that gives both the action and the erotic scenes a fluid, readable rhythm. The fantasy settings are detailed without being cluttered; taverns, towers, and mystical landscapes all feel like lived‑in spaces rather than generic backdrops for sex scenes. The character designs, especially Pandora and the various magical oddballs, show a cartoonist relishing the chance to exaggerate physicality and personality in equal measure, which goes a long way toward making these figures feel like characters rather than mere bodies.

That said, the erotic content is not merely frequent—it is foundational, and that is where Ironwood becomes a textbook guilty pleasure. This is an unabashedly hardcore series: explicit sex acts, imaginative uses of magic for sexual purposes, and sequences that leave nothing to implication. Devices like a hydra‑head spell repurposed so a character can pleasure multiple partners at once are emblematic of the book’s gleeful “power perversion potential,” embracing the logic of a sex‑obsessed Dungeons & Dragons campaign. For readers comfortable with that premise, there is an undeniable energy in the way Willingham integrates erotic spectacle into battles, spells, and negotiations; for others, the same material will read as juvenile, repetitive, or simply exhausting.

Reception among those who have sought out the collected volumes tends to be surprisingly positive, with many praising Ironwood as one of the rare “sex comics” where the story can stand on its own, even if stripped of the explicit content. Fans often note the balance between story, humor, and eroticism, arguing that the plot is engaging enough that the sex becomes a bonus rather than the sole reason to read. This is where the “high art” argument creeps in: within certain circles of fantasy and underground comics readers, Ironwood is celebrated as an early sign of Willingham’s strengths as a writer and artist, and as an example of how erotic comics can pursue worldbuilding and character arcs rather than simple vignettes. Yet that enthusiasm coexists with acknowledgment that, without the sex, this would largely be a light, sometimes flimsy adventure—a fun romp, but not a lost masterpiece of the medium.

In a broader context, Ironwood sits at an interesting crossroads in Willingham’s career and in the evolution of adult comics. Knowing his later mainstream success, you can see how this early project let him experiment with long‑form storytelling, recurring cast chemistry, and a blend of mythic and mundane concerns, all while operating in a corner of the market that gave him almost total creative freedom. That creative freedom is both the book’s greatest strength and its biggest barrier to entry: it delivers exactly the kind of unfiltered fantasy‑erotica hybrid it promises, but that same purity of purpose locks it firmly into the realm of niche appetite.

Ultimately, Ironwood is best approached with clear expectations and a sense of humor. As a graphic novel, it is technically accomplished, often funny, and occasionally more narratively ambitious than its reputation suggests, which explains why some fans will defend it as a minor classic of erotic fantasy comics. At the same time, its relentless explicitness, adolescent impulses, and lightweight core plot mark it firmly as a guilty pleasure—one that knows exactly what it is and never pretends otherwise, even as a devoted subset of readers insists on elevating it to the status of “high art.”

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Guilty Pleasure No. 106: The Troubles of Janice (by Erich von Götha)

Posted on February 19, 2026 by Arleigh

The Troubles of Janice by Erich von Götha remains one of the most infamous works in erotic comics, a multi-volume series spanning 1987 to 1996 that draws readers into a vivid world of sadomasochistic intrigue amid the lavish decay of 18th-century England. Janice McCormick, a curvaceous young woman released from Newgate Prison, soon finds herself ensnared by the sadistic Duke Viscount Vauxhall of Nether Wallop, whose experiments in female discipline propel her through a cascade of blackmail, assassinations, and sensual escapades—from the clandestine Hellfire Club to the shimmering waterways of Venice. Serialized initially in French magazines and later compiled into albums such as Parts 1 through 4, the narrative echoes the spirit of the Marquis de Sade’s Philosophy in the Bedroom, pitting innocence against unbridled authority in panels brimming with exaggerated forms and explicit encounters that straddle the edge of terror and desire.

This series thrives squarely in guilty pleasure territory, offering a procession of BDSM scenarios tailored for indulgent, after-hours reading—Janice bound and enduring floggings, group violations, and ceremonial degradations at the hands of depraved aristocrats, clergy, and a imposing black servant named Horace, whose prominence marks the early chapters. The artwork begins with a raw, straightforward style, its stark lines accentuating phallic prominence and voluptuous contours, but evolves across the run into more refined techniques, incorporating nuanced shading, occasional full-color pages, and fluid compositions that convey genuine motion. Under the pseudonym of British artist Robin Ray, von Götha refined his craft from earlier projects like the sporadic Torrid comic of the 1980s, achieving here a theatrical intensity that elevates rote erotica into something akin to a decadent opera. Janice’s subjugation under Vauxhall builds to extravagant bacchanals, her figure a stage for boundless transgression, sustained by slender plotlines: a doomed union with Lord Mitchcombe, clerical extortion of her fortune, and a desperate flight to Venice. It delivers unvarnished pornographic fantasy, where non-consent heightens the illicit allure, interwoven with dated racism, sexism, and brutality that clash with contemporary standards.

Nevertheless, amid its sensationalism, The Troubles of Janice carries a sly undercurrent that resonates as guilty pleasure, while dedicated admirers in specialized erotica and Sadean circles regard it as elevated art for its bold dissection of dominance and moral corruption. Enthusiasts praise von Götha’s fidelity to historical particulars—powdered periwigs, flickering chambers, and rigid social strata—which grounds the excess in authenticity, recasting Janice’s sufferings as a pictorial meditation on control and yielding. The work’s longevity, evidenced by deluxe reprints into 2008 via publishers like Dynamite and Priaprism/Last Gasp, underscores this devoted following, as initial stark visuals mature into polished depictions of perspiration, anguish, and rapture rendered with technical finesse. Partnership with writer Bernard Joubert lends philosophical weight reminiscent of Sade’s justifications for indulgence, complemented by von Götha’s advertising and design heritage, which infuses each frame with compelling, voyeuristic magnetism.

The episodic structure fosters escalating drama without pause: Janice’s journey from captive to bereaved inheritor to elusive temptress parallels gothic archetypes, her physique weathering not only corporal trials but subtle emotional fissures that suggest deeper psyche amid the torment. Venetian interludes in subsequent volumes add worldly elegance, with Janice alluring period luminaries amid carnivalesque revels and canal rendezvous, a momentary reprieve prior to recapture. Visually, the shift from monochrome austerity to vivid palettes enlivens flesh tones and intensifies ominous depths. Fair assessment reveals shortcomings, however: proportions veer toward the grotesque, recurring motifs dull the initial impact, and pervasive misogyny, though fitting the fantastical milieu, borders on excess even for 1980s sensibilities. Stereotypes such as Horace’s portrayal jar in modern light, affirming its roots in London’s pre-PC erotic underbelly.

Within insular communities, such elements paradoxically enhance its stature—collectors and forums acclaim von Götha as a virtuoso of restraint, his standalone prints and mythic illustrations perpetuating the legacy, bolstered by exhibitions in Bologna and Paris that confer artistic validity. To the broader audience, it embodies quintessential guilty pleasure—discreetly concealed material that fulfills taboo yearnings sans apology. The Troubles of Janice persists by unflinchingly engaging the subconscious, compelling confrontation with shadowed impulses through line and shade. Whether approached for its carnality or its Sadean resonances, The Troubles of Janice endures as a divisive masterpiece, ideally encountered with caution.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 104: The Parker Series (by Richard Stark)

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Arleigh

Richard Stark’s Parker novels are the kind of crime fiction that feel like they’re bad for you in all the right ways: lean, mean, amoral heist stories that work as both clinical studies of professional thieves and utterly shameless page‑turners. Taken across the 24-book run, from The Hunter in 1962 through Dirty Money in 2008, the series is remarkably consistent, yet also strange and jagged enough that you never quite relax into it. Reading Parker is like chain‑smoking noir paperbacks—self‑aware guilty pleasure with just enough bite and bleakness that you can pretend it’s good for you.

The basic premise barely changes, and that’s part of the appeal. Parker is a professional robber who prefers big, high‑yield scores: armored cars, payrolls, entire towns temporarily cut off from the world. He’s not an antihero in the modern prestige‑TV sense so much as a working stiff whose job happens to be violent crime, a man who approaches robbery with the same cold professionalism most people reserve for accounting. In The Hunter, the novel that kicks everything off, he’s double‑crossed by his wife and partner, shot, and left for dead, and the story is essentially one long act of payback as he claws his way back to New York and into the orbit of the Outfit, the crime syndicate that ultimately ends up with his money. That mix of stripped‑down revenge and procedural detail sets the tone for almost everything that follows, even when the later books drift away from personal vendetta into cleaner, job‑of‑the‑week capers.

What makes the series work—what makes it weirdly addictive—is how mercilessly Donald Westlake (under the Stark pseudonym) commits to Parker as an almost inhuman constant in a chaotic world. He’s often described by fans as a kind of force of nature, and that tracks with how he moves through these books: stoic, unadorned, perpetually assessing angles, crew members, and exit routes. Traditional redeeming qualities—sentimentality, guilt, even much curiosity about other people—just aren’t there; what you get instead is a kind of brutal efficiency that, perversely, becomes its own charisma. The guilty‑pleasure element kicks in because the novels quietly invite you to enjoy watching a ruthless pro outthink and outmuscle everyone in his path, even though the moral framework is closer to nihilism than romantic outlaw fantasy. There’s pleasure in the competence and in the clean lines of the plotting, even as you’re aware you’re rooting for someone who treats human beings like moving parts in a job.

Formally, the books have a recognizable skeleton that Stark keeps returning to and subtly bending. Most of the novels are divided into four sections: first, Parker’s point of view as he’s planning or executing a job; second, a continuation that usually ends with a betrayal or reversal; third, a shift into the perspective of whoever is double‑crossing or hunting him; and finally, a return to Parker as he fixes what’s gone wrong and settles accounts. This architecture does a couple things. It gives the series a strong procedural rhythm that fans can relax into—you know there will be a job, a screw‑up, and a payback—but it also keeps the tension high by delaying gratification until that fourth‑quarter rampage. You get both the chess match and the inevitable explosion. It’s formulaic in the same way a great blues progression is formulaic: you come for the structure, you stay for the particular variations each time.

The prose is another major part of the series’ guilty‑pleasure charge. Westlake pares the language down to something close to bare steel; the description is sparse, the sentences short, the dialogue practical and unfussy. Reviewers frequently point to how there’s “not a wasted word,” and that seems right: you feel like every line is there to move money, people, or bullets into position. In an age where a lot of thriller writing leans on verbosity and constant internal monologue, Parker’s tight focus can feel almost cleansing. At the same time, that same spareness means the violence can land with an extra jolt—there’s no cushioning around it, no moral throat‑clearing, just the fact of what Parker decides to do when someone gets in his way.

Across the series, the quality is not perfectly even, and that’s where a fair, balanced take has to admit some dips. The early stretch—The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, The Outfit, The Score, and The Jugger—has a raw momentum and a sense of discovery as Westlake works out how far he can push a protagonist this cold. Later titles, especially in the first run up to Butcher’s Moon, often expand the canvas, giving more time to side characters and to elaborate, multi‑phase heists. Some readers and critics consider The Score, with its audacious robbery of an entire mining town, a high‑water mark; others see it as simply a particularly well‑executed entry in a series where the baseline is already high. Then, after the long break between the 1970s and the 1990s revival with Comeback and Backflash, you can feel Westlake adjusting the formula to a slightly different era, with Parker still fundamentally the same but the world around him updated. Those later books are often solid and occasionally excellent, but the sheer shock of the early ones is hard to recapture.

From a modern perspective, one of the more interesting tensions in reading Parker is the question of identification. The books are not satire, and they aren’t quite celebrations; they’re closer to case files written with a strong sense of style. The theme that emerges most strongly is the amoral logic of criminal enterprise: loyalty is provisional, greed is constant, and institutions—whether the Outfit or banks or small‑town cops—are just different power systems to be exploited. There’s no sentimental criminal code here, only practical rules about not talking, not freelancing, and not getting sloppy. That worldview can be bracing and, frankly, kind of fun to inhabit for a few hundred pages at a time, particularly because Westlake doesn’t ask you to endorse it; he just drops you in and lets you watch how it operates.

At the same time, that detachment and hardboiled minimalism can turn some readers off. If you need emotional growth, redemptive arcs, or a sense that the universe punishes the wicked, Parker is going to feel either empty or actively hostile to your expectations. The closest the series comes to sentiment is in Parker’s occasional, grudging respect for other professionals who do their job well—safecrackers, drivers, heist planners—and even that is strictly bounded by the demands of survival and profit. Women, in particular, can feel underwritten or instrumental in some entries, especially the earlier books, reflecting both the genre conventions of the time and the series’ focus on Parker’s narrow, self‑interested worldview. It’s possible to argue that this is part of the point—these are Parker’s stories, and he does not care about anybody’s inner life—but it does mean the books can feel airless if you’re reading a bunch in a row.

Still, that’s the strange magic of Parker: for all the limitations and repetitions, you finish one and almost immediately think about the next job, the next crew, the next betrayal. The series taps into a very specific pleasure center: watching a ruthlessly competent person navigate systems stacked with corruption and stupidity, using only planning, discipline, and a willingness to hit back harder than anyone expects. It’s not aspirational, and it’s not comforting, but it is undeniably gripping. If you can accept an unapologetically amoral center and you have a taste for stripped‑down crime fiction with a strong procedural spine, Parker is easy to devour and just as easy to feel a little guilty about enjoying as much as you do.

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Guilty Pleasure No. 102: The Destroyer Series (by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir)

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Arleigh

The Destroyer series, launched in 1971 by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir and later chiefly associated with Murphy, is the kind of long‑running action franchise that practically defines “guilty pleasure.” Spanning more than 150 paperback entries and various continuations, it rarely pretends to be anything other than what it is: fast, frequently outrageous pulp about a government assassin and his irascible Korean mentor saving the world by killing people who, in the moral logic of the series, really need killing.

At the center is Remo Williams, a former Newark cop framed for murder, executed on death row, and then quietly “resurrected” to become the enforcement arm for a secret U.S. organization called CURE. The first novel, Created, The Destroyer, uses this grim premise almost as a prologue; the series is far less interested in legal nuance than in setting up a clean break from Remo’s past so he can be remade as a weapon. His new life is one of deniability and isolation, and the books lean into that fantasy of the invisible man behind the headlines, quietly eliminating threats that conventional systems can’t touch. It’s not realistic, and it isn’t trying to be; the appeal lies in how cheerfully the series weaponizes that premise for brisk, punchy adventure.

The real hook, though, is Remo’s training in the Korean assassination art of Sinanju, and his relationship with its current master, Chiun. Chiun, drawn from a secretive village of assassins who have supposedly served emperors and leaders for millennia, turns the usual mentor trope into a running act of ethnic, generational, and cultural clash. He’s vain, mercenary, and spectacularly contemptuous of Americans, and a lot of the series’ humor comes from his withering commentary on U.S. culture, politics, and Remo’s stubbornly ordinary tastes. Remo calls him “Little Father,” and as the books go on, the bickering most often reads like a truly dysfunctional but oddly affectionate family argument played against a backdrop of exploding supervillain lairs. That dynamic is where the series unexpectedly finds a core of warmth amid all the cartoon violence.

On the action front, The Destroyer exists squarely in the men’s adventure boom of the 1970s, alongside series like Don Pendleton’s The Executioner, but evolves into something stranger and more openly satirical. Early on, Remo’s feats are at least vaguely grounded in martial arts exaggeration, but as the volumes pile up, Sinanju becomes almost superheroic: running up walls, shredding steel, and dispatching opponents with fingertips and casual nose‑ripping brutality. The series’ foes range from mobsters to mad scientists, corrupt officials, rogue militaries, and outright parodies of real‑world figures, and the books gleefully mix crime fiction with borderline science fiction and spy‑thriller gadgets. A lot of the fun is in watching Murphy escalate the stakes from book to book, then resolving everything with hands‑on mayhem because Sinanju doctrine disdains guns as spiritually unclean. When it clicks, it has the energy of a comic book written in pure pulp prose.

What keeps The Destroyer from feeling like just another relic of that boom is its tonal tightrope walk between earnest action and broad satire. CURE itself, the secret agency that “does not exist,” is a kind of bureaucratic joke: a tiny office, a frail director, and a mandate to do the dirtiest jobs in the name of national security. The series frequently aims its sharpest barbs at American government, media, and corporate greed, using Remo and Chiun as caustic outsiders who see through the patriotic rhetoric. Later installments lean even harder into political and cultural satire, lampooning televangelists, tech capitalism, and global politics in ways that are sometimes genuinely clever and sometimes just loud. Even when the targets feel dated or obvious, there’s a sense that Murphy is using the form of a disposable action paperback to smuggle in a surprisingly crabby worldview.

That said, this is also where the “guilty” part of the guilty pleasure label comes roaring in. By modern standards, The Destroyer is extremely non‑PC; race, gender, and nationality are all fodder for jokes that range from sharp‑edged caricature to material that many readers will reasonably find offensive. Chiun’s constant stereotyping of Americans and others is sometimes framed as a way of turning prejudice back on the majority culture, but the books often indulge in broad ethnic humor far beyond him. Women in many entries are treated primarily as scenery, sexual opportunities, or victims, though there are exceptions where they’re more capable players in the plot. If you’re reading with a contemporary lens, you’re likely to hit passages that stop you cold, and the series doesn’t apologize for any of it. Enjoyment here often requires compartmentalizing, acknowledging that the books reflect their era’s blind spots and biases while deciding whether the action and satire still outweigh that discomfort.

In terms of prose and pacing, the series is better crafted than its garish covers suggest but still rooted in the rhythms of fast‑turnaround paperbacks. The dialogue between Remo and Chiun has a crackling, insult‑laced snap that does a lot of heavy lifting in keeping you turning pages. Scenes of action are clear, efficient, and often imaginative in how Sinanju is used, even as the body count mounts to cartoonish levels. The humor, when it lands, blends deadpan absurdity with savage put‑downs, and the books occasionally deliver a line or a situational gag that feels sharper than their reputation would indicate. At the same time, the sheer volume of entries means unevenness is inevitable; some later volumes feel like they are coasting on formula, recycling set pieces and political targets with less bite. As with many long series, the high points are scattered, and part of the experience is learning which eras and authors click with you.

For readers who love action fiction, The Destroyer remains oddly addictive precisely because it refuses to be respectable. It revels in outlandish violence, outsize personalities, and unapologetic satire, while occasionally brushing up against genuine character moments in the Remo–Chiun relationship. The mythology of Sinanju, with its ancient lineage and mercenary code, gives the series a mythic backbone that most of its peers never bothered to build. At the same time, the dated politics, crude humor, and casual cruelty mean it’s not a series you recommend without caveats; it’s something you confess to loving, then immediately start explaining. If you can navigate those contradictions, The Destroyer offers exactly what its best covers promise: a relentless, often ridiculous, sometimes sharp pulp ride that you may not be proud of finishing, but will probably reach for again anyway.

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