> > Firearm was a comic about a PI in Pasadena, CA.
He has the typical "super
> > secret agent" background. He's a former British
Special Boat Service member
> > and also was in a fictional British spy agency
called the Lodge. However,
> > what led him to be a PI was his love for
Chandler, Hammett, etc. He's a
> > voracious reader, and Robinson obviously has a
love for the hard-boiled
> > genre as well...he quotes the books regularly
and Firearm often waxes
> > nostalgic about how the Los Angeles of Chandler
is not the Los Angeles he
> > knows. But he still catches little glimpses of
it here and there.
> >
> I'm a big Chandler fan....some years ago after
reading my first
> Chandler, (I believe it was the Long Goodbye) I read
everything of
> his I could get my hands on. To this day I think he
is the best at
> descriptive writing of anyone I have ever
read.
> I grew up in Pasadena. Do these stories feature areas
of
> Pasadena the same way that Chandler used locales of
LA and So
> Cal?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Bill Holmes
>
Bill,
Robinson's use of Pasadena is one of the greatest parts of
the book. There's one issue that
contains a shoot-out in the Rose Parade Float barn, and
includes a monologue where Swan is
reminiscing on what drew him to LA in the first place, and
Pasadena in particular. He's
walking along, musing about how much he loved Chandler and
how he wishes that the LA he had
was the one Chandler had...well, I'll just quote for
you:
"The first time I passed through Pasadena, I did not feel a
whole lot for it.
"It was beaten up back then. Boy, was it beaten up. Homeless
people everywhere. (Not that
being homeless is a crime, but the sight of them en masse
does not make for an aesthetic
street scene.)
"Everything was falling down. Old Town was a dump.
"And people, when they shopped here, went to the mall like in
every other soulless, gutless,
bland suburb of Southern Cal.
"Me, I'm this close to moving to Orleans.
"And then I turned the corner on Raymond, and saw the Green
Hotel. And I just knew I had to
to live there.
"On top of which, I began to think to myself that any area
where a building as stylish as the
Green Hotel is left to remain standing, 'stead of being torn
down for a mini-mall or a
parking lot deserves a second look.
"So I took a second look."
"At Pasadena."
He also travels to San Francisco, for some musings about
Hammett, and New York, etc.
It's really a great book!
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