…without labouring the point, [Doctor Sleep] has good allegorical bones: the sick buzz one gets from consuming the grisliest news stories. It also captures the reality of a recovering alcoholic, a state with which King is intimately familiar. “The hungover eye,” he writes, “had a weird ability to find the ugliest things in any given landscape.” Danny turns his life around and starts going to AA meetings, where, King writes, he discovers that memories are the “real ghosts”. It is a book as extravagantly inventive as any in King’s pantheon, and a careful study of self-haunting: “You take yourself with you, wherever you go.”

In those days in Munich I lived in the Thiersh Strasse, and I frequently noticed in the street a man who vaguely reminded me of a militant edition of Charles Chaplin, owing to his characteristic moustache and his bouncing way of walking. He always carried a riding whip in his hand with which he used incessantly to chop off imaginary heads as he walked. He was so funny that I inquired from neighbours who he might be: most of them, owing to his Slav type, took him to be one of these Russian émigrés who abounded in Germany at that time, and they freely talked of his being probably a trifle mentally deranged. But my grocer told me it was a Herr Adolf Hitler from Braunau in Austria, and that he was leader of a tiny political group which called itself the “German National Socialist Workers Party”. He lived as a boarder in the apartment of a small artisan, wrote articles for an obscure paper called the Völkischer Beobachter, and orated in hole-and-corner meetings before audiences of a dozen or two. Out of curiosity I bought the paper once or twice, and found it a scatter-brained collection of wild anti-Jewish stories and articles interlarded with panegyrics on the Germanic race. My obliging grocer closed his information on Hitler by remarking that he frequently purchased things in his shop and was, despite his eccentric appearance, quite a pleasant fellow, though inclined to talk sixteen to the dozen about anything and everything.

My moral philosophy is founded on the idea that there is an objective reality, and that man’s senses can perceive this objective reality. This faculty, which is man’s reason, is paramount above all else. He takes for evidence only his own experience, his own judgment, and that is why I do not hesitate to say, objectively, definitively, that “Caddyshack” is the year’s best movie.

Rodney Dangerfield plays a self-made man who is not ashamed of his ambition, who does not apologize for his success, and who gets excitement from the joyful reality that we are all going to get laid if we are willing to be productively selfish and to stop coddling the weak. In other movie news, I did not like how easily the boy escaped Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” I have solved all the hedge mazes in the United States and Europe, and I can tell you they are not that complicated.

…one particular title from the late 1980s made headlines earlier this year. Rebellion, the publisher of 2000AD, announced it was planning to reprint Zenith, Morrison’s subversive superhero strip. Shallow, sarcastic and frequently used as a way for Morrison to criticise the Conservative party, the hero’s five-year run in 2000AD ended in 1992. Zenith has been out of print ever since, due to a legal dispute over who owns the rights. So Rebellion’s announcement of a £100 preorder-only hardback complete collection raised rather a lot of eyebrows, with Morrison unable to comment. But, choosing his words carefully, the writer is now able to talk a little about what’s happening.

“Well, it’s very simple,” he begins with a wince. “We, uh, we spent five grand on lawyers’ fees. They sent [Rebellion] letters. We were very keen to discuss it and we’ve never heard back from them. All I can say is that we tried to get into a discussion with them and they just didn’t reply. I don’t know what to do at this stage.”

Q: Did you base Jimmy Corrigan’s looks on Piers Morgan? Come on, you can tell us.

Chris Ware: Honestly, I don’t know Piers Morgan, though I suppose I could google-image-search him. Jimmy Corrigan has my grandfather’s hair, Charlie Brown’s eyes, Tintin’s pants and my self-doubt and that’s about it, I’m afraid.