These Dames Mean Business

Prohibition era San Francisco. Gin joints, speakeasies, bootleggers and mobsters. Welcome to Frankie's world.

I can't claim to be an authority on comics or graphic novels, although I did purchase quite a few of the latter for my stores back in the Tower days. So I have a pretty good sense of when a particular title is going to do well. And I'll make a prediction right now that one such title is, "The Tommy Gun Dolls," by Daniel Cooney.

Full disclosure: I know Dan. He was a graphic designer and scan tech in the advertising department at Tower when I was the book ad manager. And he's a great guy with a wonderful sense of humor, a keen eye and plenty of talent. He's also an inspiration. He has a job, a family, and responsibilities like most of us. And yet, he finds time to pursue his art. I want to be like Dan. Create. Put your art out there. Be like Dan.

Volume 1 of the Tommy Gun Dolls, "The Big Knockover," introduces us to Frankie, a tough-as-nails grifter who finds herself heading a troupe of burlesque girls as they try to avenge the death of their friend. Cooney's fast-paced story line and incredibly detailed drawings are worthy of film noir narration. Frankie and her pals are no Dumb Doras, as the men who get in their way find out. You might be tempted to fly through the story to see what happens, but you'll want to slow down and appreciate the historically accurate depictions in each panel.

Dan is currently hard at work on volume 2 of The Tommy Gun Dolls, which is good news considering the cliff-hanger ending of volume 1. Frankie and the other dolls will be back to roam San Francisco, from the Tenderloin to Nob Hill. Everything's jake.

Word Crimes

The fact that language is living and ever-evolving is a good thing, or we'd still be speaking the King's English and sound like extras in a community theater production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Words fall out of use and are replaced by new ones, and language adapts to the needs of its users.

Evolution aside, I need to rant about the word crimes that are currently raising my hackles at my day gig. Going to work for the state, I was prepared for a certain amount of business-speak, and of course, the non-stop acronym parade, but the following is just. Too. Much.

Report out. When did this little gem come into popular use? Can't we simply report results? Why must we report them "out"? Out where? We report for duty or report to a particular location; did someone just pick "out" for the hell of it? I'm aware of the trouble many people have with those pesky prepositions, but come on...

Change champions. How anyone can use this term with a straight face is beyond me. "Change agent" was bad enough, but this? The only upside is Queen popping into my head.

Listicle. This one has been around for quite a while apparently, yet I'd remained blissfully unaware. Dictionary.com defines it as "a published article structured in the form of a list, typically having some additional content relating to each item." That sounds like what it is, and given our shrinking collective attention span, I get it, but it just sounds wrong.

Agreeance. What on earth was wrong with "agreement"? I'm just going to stubbornly refuse to accept this one, no matter what Merriam-Webster has to say.

A colleague saw me roll my eyes at listicle and when I said it was a silly made-up word, his response was that all words are made up. That may be true, but I have my doubts that anything on this list will stand the test of time. If only I could actually cite people for word crimes...