Salvatore Pane’s Post-Apocalyptic Nixon Story for the Ancient City Project, Up at Necessary Fiction

Salvatore Pane is awesome. And partially, yes, because his writing is amazing and because wears many hats, including comic book/graphic novel writer and reviewer extraordinaire.

But I have to admit that my first impression when visiting his blog for the first time wasn’t “Oh, wow, look at all the great places he’s published,” or even “look at these clever and thoughtful and interesting posts,” which they by the way always are.  No, the first thing I thought was, “This guy is clearly awesome, because he likes the Angry Video Game Nerd.”

And this is maybe the reason I feel like Sal’s writing is so oddly familiar, in a completely original way. I feel like he comes from a place where I’ve always felt very comfortable (and where many of us have), where pop culture and writing are completely intermingled but also elevated and deservedly so. A place where it’s not nerdy or lowbrow to be way, way into 8bit games or G.I. Joe or Muscle Men or giant monsters or whatever you like, and not infantile to want to examine your childhood through the adult prism of art.

While a lot of writers pay lip service to this concept, I feel like few get it really right.  And Sal understands how pop culture is really deadly serious, in a hilarious kind of way, better than most. That’s why, no doubt he writes about it and in it and around it so often.  And nails it most of the time. I aspire to someday achieve the literary greatness and absolute trueness of this sentence alone:

Today, even as I’m beginning to forget the voices of dead relatives or friends, I can still hear the laughing dog in Duck Hunt.

So with that all said, when you read this story you’ll start to understand exactly what I mean. And why Salvatore Pane is a writer to watch. Go! Read!