The Next Book

As I've been editing The Undressing of America I've been thinking about what to write next: there's my idea for the book about online communities and changing concepts of privacy, and the one about the pop-cultural history of romantic love, and the follow-up to Killing Monsters and media violence. But I can shelve the thinking for a while, because the next book has arrived like a gift.
       Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, granddaughter of the man who founded DC Comics and, at least to a great extent, created the American comic book and planted the seeds of the graphic novel, is writing a book about her grandfather and wants to collaborate with another writer, someone from outside the family. Specifically, she wants to write it with me, which I find awfully flattering.
       It will be a relief to be doing a collaboration, with someone else doing nearly all the heavy research, after this monumental Undressing job, where I had to acquaint myself with nearly seventy years of cultural history and dig into the lives of several people. It will also be a lot of fun, both because Nicky herself is a joy and because this grandpa of hers, this Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, lived such an extraordinary life: cavalry officer, chased Pancho Villa, fought in World War I, served at the Paris talks of 1919, married a Swedish countess, got court martialed, turned himself into a successful pulp writer, conceived the comic book, founded DC, discovered Superman, had the company stolen, and became a military historian. For starters.
       The story behind the story is meaningful to me, too, because the reason I started talking to Nicky in the first place is that I got a lot wrong when I wrote about her grandfather in Men of Tomorrow. Somehow, although I can't remember quite how, those conversations eventually led to her asking me to collaborate on the real story, giving me the chance to make amends for sloppy research. Life is generous.