My Sister, the Serial Killer: Is this more or less troubling than My Mother the Car?

My Sister, the Serial Killer
By Oyinkan Braithwaite
Published by Doubleday



I remember reading an essay by Kurt Vonnegut in which he offered a piece of advice to aspiring writers: start a story as late in the action as possible. That's a strategy that Oyinkan Braithwaite follows in this, her debut novel, which begins with the eponymous murderer informing the book's narrator that she has killed her third victim. It's a great way to hook the reader, since when the title gives away what's going on, there's no need to explain a detailed origin story. Instead, we not only jump right into the action, but do so following a main character who goes about the morbid business of disposing of a body with resignation and frustration.

This approach also makes sense for the purposes of the book, which is less a tale of trying to cover up crimes (although that does factor into the plot quite a bit) than a character piece, with Korede, our narrator, struggling to balance a multitude of forces pulling her in opposing directions. She's the responsible one of the family, working as a nurse at a hospital in a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, while her sister Ayoola seems flighty, irresponsible, and, of course, prone to killing her boyfriends without showing much in the way of remorse. But things get even worse for Korede when her work and home lives collide after Ayoola shows up at the hospital and begins flirting with Tade, the handsome doctor that Korede has been pining for.

So, there's something of a thriller element here, with Korede trying to make sure her sister isn't caught, but also desperately attempting to keep Tade from being Ayoola's next victim. But there's a lot more going on here under the surface. As the book goes on, we see that Korede and Ayoola are still living in the shadow of their late father, and the more we learn about him, the more we see that they are recovering from some serious emotional trauma, not just from him, but from a society that systematically allows men to mistreat women.

While Korede and Ayoola have different ways of dealing with this trauma, they are both attempting to reckon with the way the world treats women. While Korede takes a more traditional approach, she doesn't get much satisfaction from it; working as a nurse doesn't seem to be the balance that it should be against the grim nature of her home life, since she spends most of her time dealing with administrative hassles rather than actually helping people, and she doesn't get much recognition for her efforts. So who's to say that Ayoola's me-first approach to life is any worse? While her claims that she killed her victims (a series of boyfriends) in self-defense don't seem very plausible, they were likely to do some sort of physical or emotional violence to her at some point, so she just beat them to the punch. It's a horrifying, sociopathic way to live one's life, but given the statistics about the harm that men do to women, as well as her own experiences, she might be the most prudent character in the book.

This dark philosophy is pretty universal; the dynamics between men and women play out in similar fashion all over the world. However, what makes the book especially interesting is the specificity of its setting. For a reader like me who knows very little about Nigeria, there's plenty of nice detail here, from the words people use and the meals they eat to cultural customs they follow and the concerns of their lives, such as the frustration of dealing with local government. It's not the stereotypical depiction of Africa, and even though it's a slim volume, it really places the reader into a different world, one that feels lived-in and vibrant.

This is a pretty excellent read, a fascinating character study that keeps its plot steadily moving forward while doling out bits of backstory at just the right pace and giving the reader plenty to think about. I'm definitely glad I got the opportunity to read it.

Bad Man: We're not talking about Shaft

Bad Man
By Dathan Auerbach
Published by Blumhouse Books



I don't read a lot of horror fiction, but I do occasionally check out the "creepypasta" stories that people publish online, some of which are very effective with the scares. So I was glad to get the chance to read this upcoming horror novel by an author who gained his fame through the online horror story Penpal.

However, I ended up being not especially satisfied with the actual book (I didn't like Penpal very much either, for that matter). Perhaps it's just my own tastes, but I felt like this one took much too long to get to where it was going, focusing more on the main character's turbulent emotions than on any spookiness that was going on around him.

The problem might be my own expectations; I thought this might be something of a supernatural story, but it turns out to be fairly grounded, although I wouldn't exactly call it realistic. The plot involves a young man named Ben whose three-year-old brother disappeared without a trace while the two of them were at a neighborhood grocery store. In the five years since the incident, he has been wracked with guilt and searched everywhere in town to find his brother, to no avail. After he graduates from high school, he looks for work to help his family make ends meet, but the only place in his small town that is hiring is the store where his brother disappeared.

So, he ends up working the night shift, and some strange stuff seems to be going on around the store, although less than one would expect in a book that's supposed to be scary. Instead, the focus is mostly on Ben's emotional state, including his continuing guilt, anger, and desperation, as well as his inability to trust anyone else. He's a complicated character, and not especially likable, prone to lashing out at people who care about him, obsessing about whether others are lying to him, and suspecting that nearly everyone around him is either involved in his brother's disappearance or just doesn't care enough to help find him.

I think that's the real focus of the book, and rather than going for scares, the kind of horror the author seems to be attempting is placing the reader in an unpleasant headspace. I wouldn't exactly call Ben an unreliable narrator, but you do get the idea that his internal sense of himself is different from what others see. He seems to think he's on a heroic crusade to find his lost brother, while he's actually causing a lot of pain to those around him and generally making things worse. And that makes what ultimately happens to him kind of fitting, if still pretty disturbing.

All in all, it's an interesting book that's fairly effective in placing the reader someplace they don't really want to be. It does take a long time for things to happen, but maybe that's by design too; Ben has been waiting for answers for five years, and he's stuck eking out a grim existence, with little hope for the future. Things are already sad enough at the start, and they just get worse, no matter how hard the characters try to make things better. In that way, it's kind of a fitting book for modern times. That doesn't make it especially satisfying or enjoyable to read though.

Jerusalem: When can I make a pilgrimage to this new holy land?

Jerusalem
By Alan Moore
Published by W.W. Norton



Alan Moore is a weird dude, but he's been writing compelling, fascinating stuff for decades now. Most of his body of work has been comics, but his first novel (or was it a collection of interlinked short stories?), Voice of the Fire, was pretty successful, so he apparently decided to go for broke and pour as many ideas as possible into his next work, and Jerusalem is the result, a 1,200-page doorstop of a book that is in turns mindbending, frustrating, and exciting in its sprawl of concepts and styles.

Like Voice of the Fire before it, Jerusalem centers on Moore's hometown of Northampton, England (specifically the working-class neighborhood known as The Boroughs), which he posits as centrally important in the history of Britain, a wellspring for much of Western culture, but a neglected and downtrodden place that is constantly being shat upon and systematically destroyed, possibly leading to the eventual downfall of civilization.

That's a pretty big idea to take in, but it's only one of the crazy concepts that Moore explicates here. While the story jumps around in time, with segments ranging from over 1,000 years ago all the way to the end of the universe (and also beyond time itself into higher dimensions), the story centers around a family native to the area, the Vernalls, and their fitful awakening to the role they play in the relationship between "our world" and the higher realms of the afterlife and the ghosts and spirits that inhabit it. It's an interesting multi-generational story, with everything leading to a climax of a sort, although now that I've finished, I'm still pondering exactly what to make of it all.

The journey from the beginning of the book to the end is definitely worth taking though. It starts with a prologue about Alma and Michael Warren, a brother and sister who grew up in the Boroughs in the 1950s and 60s. The defining incident around which much of the book is built has to do with a day in 1959 in which Michael, at three years old, choked on a cough drop and spent nearly ten minutes in which he was basically dead before being miraculously revived, with no memory of what happened during that time. But nearly 50 years later, in 2006, he has an accident and the memory of those 10 minutes comes flooding back, and it's so crazy that he thinks he might be going insane. He tells the story to his sister, who grew up to be a somewhat famous artist, and she decides to create an exhibition of works about his experiences, one that she says will make everything right that has gone wrong in their dying neighborhood.

But, having defined these two events that are of fundamental import to the story (Michael's near-death experience and Alma's exhibition), Moore proceeds to make us wait before he gets to them. Jerusalem is divided into three "books", and the first one skips around all over the place, focusing mostly (but definitely not exclusively) on members of Alma and Michael's family from earlier generations and their propensity for what seems like madness but turns out to be a knowledge of higher dimensions. This exhibits itself in different ways and to different effects, but it probably comes across most strikingly in a chapter told from the viewpoint of their great-grandfather Snowy Vernall, whose fourth-dimensional experience of his life means that he knows everything that will happen beforehand and simply follows predefined steps with his every action. Fascinatingly, Moore turns this into a beautiful examination of how this type of life would be experienced, describing how he still feels all of his emotions and lives every moment, even though he knows what's coming, and it ends up being a beautiful look at human life as lived without the illusion of free will.

There's plenty of other excellent drama and ideas in this first third of the book, with the perspective shifting in every chapter and jumping around in time to follow not only other members of the Vernall/Warren clan, but other characters as well, including a modern-day Boroughs prostitute, a former slave who emigrated from the United States, a medieval monk who hauled a stone cross from Jerusalem to mark Northampton as the center of England, and a ghost who roams the Boroughs living a strange sort of purgatorial existence.

That last one is one of the more interesting chapters, since it offers a hint at the weird cosmology that Moore has devised here, in which the departed can roam their former haunts and tunnel backward and forward in time, gaining sustenance from a sort of extradimensional fungus that looks like a bunch of conjoined fairies (you can see a depiction of these "Puck's Hats" right next to the title on the book's cover art, which was drawn by Moore). And when Moore finally comes back around to what happened during young Michael's near-death experience, you understand that he has been laying the groundwork for Book Two, which functions as an extended trip through the afterlife, a higher dimension known as Mansoul.

Book Two functions as one of the travelogues that Moore is famous for (think of William Gull's tour of London in From Hell, or, perhaps more analogous to this book, Promethea's journey through the Immateria), with Michael taking a premature trip through the afterlife, which sort of sits "above" our world and functions as a place where the dead can congregate, interact with angelic "Builders", and journey to any moment in history to witness what took place. This leads to plenty of adventures, many of which occur after Michael joins up with a group of apparent children (we learn that the dead tend to take the form at which they were happiest during their life) called the Dead Dead Gang, and they take him exploring through various moments in history, interesting areas of Mansoul, and sights that he needs to see to be able to later relate them to Alma so she can turn them into her art exhibition.

This second third of the book is probably where it works best, since it functions as a rollicking adventure through time and space, shifting perspectives each chapter so that we not only experience Mansoul through Michael's eyes, but also check in with each member of the Dead Dead Gang and learn about their lives and what led them to take part in these momentous events. There's an exciting scene in which they watch a fight between two Builders who come to blows over Michael's fate, an encounter with a demon whose nefarious schemes may or may not all be part of the grand plan, moments of profound sadness and joy, and a grand finale that's a fitting send-off to the kid before he rejoins his natural lifespan.

Following that tour de force exploration of the workings of the crazy afterlife that Moore has come up with, the last third of the book can't help but feel somewhat less satisfying, with much of it seeming like it's killing time before we can finally get to Alma's big exhibition and the culmination of all the book's plots. But there are still some fascinating ideas and continuing exploration of this world, including a trip to the end of the universe, a look at the world's monetary system (another thing that Moore claims has its origins in Northampton), and the payoff to some plots that had been simmering throughout the entire story.

Book Three also gives Moore a chance to experiment and push the limits of his format, sometimes in ways that test readers' patience. This is especially true in a chapter about James Joyce's daughter Lucia, who spent several decades in a Northampton mental hospital. Moore writes the chapter in what seems to be a pastiche of Joyce's style (I haven't actually read any Joyce, so I can't say how effective of an imitation it is), and it's a chore to get through. Everything is written phonetically and with lots of misspellings, rearranged words, and malapropisms, and reading it kind of drove me crazy, since it required constant decoding to determine what it was saying. I did get the hang of it after a while, but I was certainly glad when it was over, even though the content of the chapter lurking under the stylistic presentation was really interesting, with Lucia's fractured mental state allowing her to traverse multiple time periods and interact with lots of fantastical people and creatures.

Moore also throws in a few other semi-experimental bits, including a chapter that's presented as a sort of stage play (with Samuel Beckett, Thomas Becket, John Bunyan, and John Clare as characters), another that takes a stream-of-consciousness journey through one peripheral character's evening, and a third that takes the form of a poem (with an ABCCBA rhyme scheme that seems to reflect the book's structure itself). It's all rather playful, and by the time the book is over, it makes for a kaleidoscopic range of stories and ideas.

I'm still processing what exactly Moore is trying to say with all of this, but one thing I'm thinking is that Alma Warren is sort of a stand in for Moore himself (her name even sort of functions as a verbal anagram of Alan Moore), and this book is his version of her art exhibition, with the purpose of capturing the history and character of his beloved hometown and preserving its importance even as it (and, by extension, the rest of the world) decays into ruin.

But the book is really about so much more than just the importance of Northampton. It's full of fascinating ideas, and its extreme length lets Moore take side trips into whatever seems interesting, including Oliver Cromwell's psychological makeup; the struggle to come to terms with the fact that John Newton, writer of the song Amazing Grace, was also a slave trader; and even a look at cartoonist Ogden Whitney and his creation Herbie Popnecker. The book contains multitudes, and I'm sure it's full of additional secrets and symbols that I didn't catch. It's a pretty incredible experience, one that's like nothing else I've read, even among Moore's extensive, challenging body of work. It definitely requires an investment in time and mental energy, but it's totally worth it.

Sword of Honor: I might be obsessed with Musashi Miyamoto now...

Sword of Honor
By David Kirk
Published by Doubleday



That Musashi Miyamoto was an interesting fellow, wasn't he? Reading even a basic account of his life gives a picture of a fascinating person, one who wandered Japan fighting dozens of duels, developing his own swordfighting style, formulating a philosophy, and ending up as a highly regarded author and artist. It's no surprise that he's a figure that has resonated across centuries and continents, inspiring retellings of his life in the form of prose biographies, films, and manga (to name just a few examples).

And here's another one to go on the pile, taking the approach of a historical novel with Miyamoto as the main character. This is actually the second in a series, with the first entry, Child of Vengeance, following Musashi's earlier days and climaxing with the battle of Sekigahara, in which, based on what we learn in this book, he would have fought on the losing side, but fled in order to avoid dying for a pointless cause. This book picks up almost immediately afterward, with Musashi having realized the unfairness of the system of samurai honor that would compel a man to die at the whim of his lord, whether that means being struck down in battle or ordered to commit seppuku for whatever reason a man's master deemed necessary.

At first, Musashi lives outside of society, subsisting as a hermit in the wilderness, but he is eventually forced to interact with society, and his rage at an injustice leads him to set out on a campaign of (fairly random) action against what he sees as a corrupt system. When he is targeted for assassination by the Yoshioka swordfighting school for some perceived slight against their honor that he can't even remember, he heads to their home base of Kyoto to confront them, leading to an escalating series of confrontations and duels that culminates in an incredible bloodbath of a battle.

Through all of this, we get a fascinating view of 17th-century Japan, not just from Musashi's perspective, but from other characters as well, including the Yoshioka swordsman sent to kill him, the de facto head of the Yoshioka school, and the captain of the Tokugawa clan who has been charged with keeping the peace in Kyoto and sees Musashi's battle against the Yoshioka as an opportunity to sway the populace toward supporting the new shogun. Musashi's battle against the impenetrable edifice of the feudal system makes sense to him, but getting other points of view provides a wider perspective of how people fit into this society, and why they might fight to uphold practices like seppuku that seem insane and brutal from a modern perspective.

What's more, while Musashi's cause may be righteous, he isn't let off the hook for his failings or given the unassailable position of a social savior. He gets a conscience of a sort in the form of a women he befriends, a blind immigrant from the Ryukyu islands who questions the meaning behind his actions and tries to dissuade him from proceeding down his ever-more-violent path. This relationship gives him a fascinating inner struggle along with his outer battles, leading to a classic dramatic conflict in which he almost gives up on his quest for justice/vengeance/recognition, only to be drawn back in to a fight that turns out to be almost apocalyptic.

David Kirk's writing style captures the era and the characters incredibly well, bringing the period to life without getting bogged down in overly descriptive explanations of things like honorific terms or the different ranks within clans. In fact, he mostly sticks to English, referring to people mostly by their given names rather than family names, and only using Japanese terms for specific cultural concepts like seppuku, substituting other terms where appropriate (like "the Way" for Bushido or "masterless" for ronin). It makes for an easily-understandable reading experience that doesn't require additional study into Japanese history to follow.

And then there are the fight scenes, which are pretty amazing. Kirk has a way of putting the reader right into the middle of the action, describing movements moment-by-moment while making the reader feel each motion and impact, conveying the way the body moves, the instinctual reactions that Musashi makes, the exhilaration of victory, and the exhaustion of lengthy battles. This works wonderfully, and as the book proceeds, the scale of the fights build and build, until the climactic battle that pushes the adrenaline into overdrive and delivers on the expectations that had been building for the entire book. It's an incredible experience, one that won't quickly be forgotten.

As someone with an interest in Japanese culture, I found this book fascinating, and I highly recommend it. I'll be watching for the next installment, which will hopefully get to Musashi's duel with Sasaki Kojiro. In the meantime, I've got plenty of other Miyamoto-related media to consume...

Superman: He really is super, man

Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero
By Larry Tye
Published by Random House

For those of us on the "inside" of comics fandom, who know all the details about all the superheroes, the on- and off-page origin stories, the first appearances and major in-continuity events, the reboots and revamps, the major creative teams, the issue numbers of the big stories, all the ups and downs of decades of comics stories, a book exploring the history of just one character might seem unnecessary. But when it's the original superhero, the one that started it all, and when the behind-the-scenes research is deep enough, it can be an illuminating read, especially if it has an all-encompassing scope that is full of fascinating historical details. That's the case with this book, in which writer Larry Tye manages to compile nearly a century of happenings into one thick prose volume, exploring the genesis of the Man of Steel from the first inklings in the minds of two young men from Cleveland, through his explosion in the blossoming comic book medium, and in nearly every other format conceivable throughout the ensuing decades, including prose, radio, television, film, and theater. It's an extensive overview, one that manages to cohere surprisingly well for such a sprawling tale that features dozens of contributions to the character's legacy, even occasionally pausing to ruminate on the lasting qualities of the character that manage to make him remain recognizable and at least somewhat relevant all these years later.


The best parts of the book are the pure, how-it-all-happened details of how the character began and was nurtured through the ages since. Tye describes the family history and adolescences of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, and examines how they met worked together to create their signature character, who sprang to life on the comics page, seeming like an overnight hit, even though he was actually several years in the making and went through a number of forms before the success of Action Comics #1. Tye also examines the background of publishers Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, looking at their underhanded business tactics and exploitation of the creators, but also their genius for taking a hit and making  it bigger and bigger through savvy decisions like keeping the hero from participating directly in World War II (lest he lose his luster once the war was over, like many other heroes who joined the battlefront) and retaining control of his depiction in other media, cementing their position at the top of their field for decades and ensuring that money kept pouring into their pockets. While Tye doesn't exactly take a side in the still-ongoing conflict between the Siegel and Shuster families and the corporate heirs of Donenfeld and Liebowitz, he does keep following the creators throughout the years, noting their various legal battles and attempts to regain ownership of the character (or at least enough money to live on), and making sure to note their struggles to survive while their creative progeny netted millions for others. 


And this is just one of the fascinating stories Tye digs up. He also describes the activist mission of producer Bob Maxwell in creating the Superman radio show of the 1940s, which culminated with a battle between the hero and the KKK; the mystery behind the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on TV in the 1950s; the larger-than-life shenanigans of Alex and Ilya Salkind, who produced the first few Superman movies; the goofy stylings of editor Mort Weisinger, who was in charge of the Superman comics in the 1960s; the circumstances that led to the infamous "Death of Superman" story in the 1990s; and much, much more. The purview of the book is as wide-ranging as possible, taking information from sources like Jerry Siegel's unpublished memoir, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, and interviews with surviving writers, artists, actors, and family members. Tye discusses Superman's various merchandising and marketing tie-ins, the way he has inspired people throughout the years, and the various permutations his stories have taken in terms of powers, subjects, and scale.


It's in less-concrete subjects like these where Tye stumbles a bit, often devoting more space than necessary to such nebulous ideas as Superman's inspiring spirit (including mentions of people who are obsessed with the character to the point of having Superman-themed weddings), and an entire chapter which discusses Superman and spirituality. Even if it didn't interrupt the ongoing history of Superman's early years, the religious discussion is a bit of a reach anyway, with Tye trying to read aspects of Judaism into the character's mythology due to the fact the Siegel and Shuster were (secular) Jews, then discussing how various religions (and the non-religious) claim him as a symbol. It's a bit tiresome, and based mostly on speculation, as is the even more ridiculous notion floated elsewhere that Superman is some sort of living spirit that gets channeled by his various creators, rather than the product of specific people's imagination, a lucky combination of ideas that hit at just the right time to strike a chord with the populace and grow into something larger than life. Given the amount of space he dedicates to the travails of Superman's creators, Tye doesn't seem to subscribe to this idea, but any discussion of it at all is an insult to creative types anywhere.


On a more superficial front, Tye has some quirks to his writing style that take some getting used to, including referring to people by their first name (there are many mentions of Jerry, Joe, Jack, and Harry in the discussion of Superman's early history, for example) and starting chapters off with sentences like "His mission was to scrape off the barnacles," and then taking a paragraph or more to get around to revealing who he is talking about. He'll discuss events out of order at times (John Byrne's revamp of Superman in the 1980s is described before going back to discuss Crisis on Infinite Earths and the stories that led to it), and he repeatedly follows descriptions of money-making merchandise or other tie-ins with the phrase "Ka-ching". But these are just stylistic elements to get used to, and are far from dealbreakers.

No, the value of the information contained in the book is obvious for those interested in the stories behind the comics they enjoy, and the amount of research work that has gone into putting it all together is impressive. Tye apparently found a subject that fascinated him, and the effort he put into teasing out the relevant details in a story spanning so much time and so many players makes for a reward to all who read the story. There's a lot to take in in the volume, but if you've got a fraction of Tye's patience, there's plenty to entertain and instruct, both on the comics page or movie screen and in the scaffolding that built the whole enterprise itself.

Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent?: To repel sharks, of course

Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? and Other Amazing Comic Book Trivia
By Brian Cronin
Published by Plume Books

The title of this book is somewhat misleading, making it seem as if it's a detail-obsessed explanation of real-world reasons for superhero comics nonsense, the kind of tiresome nerdiness that has tainted comics fandom for decades. However, it's actually a much more enjoyable collection of lists, similar in format to the AV Club's Inventory book. Brian Cronin, the leader of the Comics Should Be Good blog, replicates that site's style here, offering a multitude of lists of trivia, with categories like "Fifteen Alliterative Comic Book Names Created by Stan Lee", "Eight Weird Transformations Superman Underwent Due to Red Kryptonite", and "Three Unusual Ways that a Creator Has Broken into Comics". The lists are divided up into intuitive categories, including comic book characters, creators, storylines, and movies and TV shows related to comics. Cronin's "Isn't this weird?" writing style, which works well for short blog pieces, does suffer a bit when being stretched to book length, but the lists are pretty much all interesting and informative, full of the kind of off-the-wall oddness that has populated comics history from the beginning. Luckily, to keep things from getting too repetitive, Cronin's lists are broken up with rankings of things like "The Top Twenty-five DC Comic Book Characters" or "The Five Most Iconic Panels In Marvel Comics History" as voted on by the readers of Comic Book Resources, as well as a number of lists contributed by various comics creators.

These guest lists are probably the highlight of the book, with popular writers and artists offering insight into their work by talking about creators that inspired them (Frazier Irving's "Three Awesome and Unusual Uses of Color by an Artist" and Skottie Young's "Four Artists with Bizarrely Unique Styles" are especially interesting), or noting less-known aspects of comics history (Fred Van Lente talks about pre-Eisner graphic novels, and Kieron Gillen lists some goofy British comics characters). There are some bits of humor, like Peter David's "Top Six Characters Known for Sitting Around" or Zeb Wells' "Five Best Stories Featuring Peter David's Very Badass Gray Hulk". And then there are the really informative pieces that make one want to seek out the work being discussed, like Jason Aaron's "Five Comic Book Depictions of the Vietnam War" or Dave Gibbons' "Six Great Silver Age Comic Book Covers". The quality of these forgives the few clunkers, like Geoff Johns' list of great Green Lantern covers that includes two comics that he wrote and Mark Millar celebrating the hilarity of childhood sexual abuse in an infamous Spider-Man story.

Overall, this is a pretty fun book for the comics fan, a good source of quick reads for the bathroom or coffee table. If there's any complaint, it's that the book is too focused on the mainstream, superhero segment of comics, although this is probably a side effect of approaching things from the standpoint of famous characters and storylines. The guest lists do get in a few mentions of subjects like Love and Rockets or Harvey Pekar, and the "Comics and Culture" section goes into some more historical subjects like newspaper comic strips and educational comics produced by the military, but as so often happens with the discussion of comics, the emphasis is pretty solidly on guys in brightly colored tights. Of course, that just means Cronin can address more non-superhero material in another volume, which would almost certainly be as interesting and compulsively readable as this one.

Rip-Off Theatre presents: Perusing the Post

I'm stealing this idea from Andrew Wheeler, since I like how he acknowledges the various items he receives, whether he ends up reviewing them or not. So here are some things I've received in the mail recently, that I might or might not ever get around to reviewing:

Tsubasa Character Guide 2

The Official xxxHolic Guide

Having never read either of these manga series, I don't think I'll have much to say about the fan-targeted guides, although they do seem to feature some nice artwork and plenty of information that surely means something to somebody. Actually, I would like to read some CLAMP manga at some point, but probably not Tsubasa, since it seems like a big crossover series that involves other CLAMP characters and whatnot. Whenever I get around to it, it'll probably be Cardcaptor Sakura, although xxxHolic is supposed to be good as well. Someday, I suppose.

Akira, volume 1

The Ghost in the Shell

I've never read either of these series, although I've seen the anime adaptations of both of them. Now that Kodansha is publishing them in the U.S., and they've sent me their new versions of them (which are pretty much the same as the old versions, I think, depending on what edition you're looking at; they're both flipped to read left-to-right), I'll get my chance. Not sure when, but soon, I expect.

Yu-Gi-Oh! R, volume 1

Viz sends me a good deal of manga, but I usually only end up reading and writing about the releases that interest me, so series like this fall by the wayside. But I figure they're worth mentioning, since I'm sure somebody will be buying them. Although, I did kinda-sorta enjoy the chapters of the Yu-Gi-Oh series that I read in the couple issues of Shonen Jump that finished out my Shojo Beat subscription after that magazine got cancelled, so maybe I shouldn't be so hasty to dismiss this. Maybe I'll end up reading it, who knows.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation

I'll get to this one soon, I hope, but flipping through it, it doesn't look like something that I'll be exclaiming the wonders of. The art is kind of amateurish (if nicely colored), and it's very text-heavy, which is probably to be expected. But maybe that opinion will change whenever I get around to actually reading it.

Stephen Colbert's Tek Jansen

I reviewed an issue of this series here (I thought I had another one somewhere, but I couldn't find it), and I don't know if I have anything else to say about it. It's an okay adaptation of the animated shorts that occasionally play on The Colbert Report, but it falls short of the comedy standard set by the show, often unsure of what tack to take with the material (sometimes it's kind of serious, other times it tries too hard to be funny). Probably for Colbert fans only.

Festering Romance

This graphic novel from Oni looks interesting, although I'm not especially thrilled about the angularly cartoony art style. I liked Greg McElhatton's recent review though, so hopefully I'll get to it soon and see what I think.

You Have Killed Me

Here's another one that I've heard good things about ever since it came out, a noir graphic novel by Jamie Rich and Joelle Jones. Looking forward to reading it.

Wet Moon, volume 5

I've never read any of this series about goth girls and supernatural happenings (I think?), but I sure do like Ross Campbell's art. It's probably not the best idea to start with the fifth volume, but if that's what happens, that's what happens.

Legacy

Not a comic! This is a science fiction novel by Tom Sniegoski, although I suspect it was sent to me because it's about superheroes, since that's what people who read comics like, of course. I'm still interested though, because I've read some good stuff by Sniegoski, like the Bone prequel Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails, and I think he's also written at least one Hellboy-related novel. And that cover design is really cool, apparently by the same guy who did the Dororo covers. Maybe my prose coverage will continue to expand.

Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading and Supporting Characters of Today's Comics

And speaking of superheroes, here's one of those instructional books that will probably only get covered in a blurb like this, since I just don't have a hell of a lot to say about it. I've seen at least two other bloggers decry this one, as if it's promoting bad art or something, but it seems like a decent enough book to me, if this is the sort of thing you want to draw. Just flipping through, it looks like it has a good emphasis on anatomy, dynamic poses, motion, lighting, and maybe even laying out a page. Sure, it's still over-muscled spandex-wearers punching each other, but since those aren't going away anytime soon, it would be best if people learned some tips on how to draw them well.

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There are others, as always, but these are the ones I figured I wanted to mention. Maybe I'll do this again sometime. And more reviews and such content soon, hopefully.

All You Need Is Kill: I guess I'm reviewing novels now?

Wizard Chicago Comicon goers: I will be at the show this weekend, on Friday and Saturday, so if you're going to be there and want to meet up, or at least flash me a gang sign as you stroll past, let me know by leaving a comment, emailing, twittering, facebooking, or, I dunno, smoke signals. Suggested con activities: knocking people in top-heavy costumes to the floor and running away, asking to pose nude for Greg Horn, carrying an attache case around outside Brian Azzarello's panel while keeping one hand inside a jacket, getting drunk and sobbing uncontrollably in DC's booth about the death of Hawkman. Any other ideas?

All You Need Is Kill

By Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Hey, what if Groundhog Day was, like, totally badass, with aliens, robots, explosions, blood, gore, and all that shit? Wouldn't that be awesome? That's a terrible way to describe this book, but it's actually kind of apt. It takes place in the future after aliens called Mimics have invaded the earth and humanity is engaged in a decades-long war with them, with soldiers suiting up in mecha-style armor called Jackets to die in mass quantities. Our hero, Keiji Kariya is a green recruit who gets slaughtered in his first battle, but then he wakes up back in his bunk two days earlier and keeps reliving the battle over and over again. He's not sure why it happened, but he decides that since he's stuck in a time loop that always ends with his death, he'll take every available moment he has on each trip through death and back to train himself until he eventually makes it out the other side. And he seems to be succeeding until he makes contact with somebody else who has experienced a similar effect, a U.S. Special Forces soldier named Rita Vrataski, better known as the Full Metal Bitch.

It's a pretty compelling and fast-moving conceit, with Keiji narrating and putting us right in his head in the heat of battle. Exciting stuff, full of science-fictional descriptions and lots of military movie swearing and violence. For the first half of the book, anyway. At the point when Rita makes contact with Keiji, the narrative suddenly shifts to her, spending a good deal of time revealing her backstory, the origin and intent of the aliens, and the sci-fi reason for the time loops (it involves tachyons). It's a decent bit of exposition, but it brings the breakneck forward momentum of the story to a complete stop. One can see why Sakurazaka found it necessary, but I wish he would have spent less time on Rita's history and more on Keiji's battles.

But eventually the narrative works its way back to the present, and everything comes to a satisfying conclusion, although there's a somewhat nonsensical twist at the end that's obviously designed to up the drama. It accomplishes its task though; the final battle seems like something out of a flashy anime. And the author's afterword reveals another, non-Bill-Murray-related source of inspiration: video games. It makes sense (especially in the Japanese society where the book originated, in which games are even more commonplace than in the U.S.); how many gamers have replayed a level over and over until navigating its obstacles and defeating the boss became a matter of instinct? Yeah, it's a fun read, and the translation by Alexander O. Smith is especially good, making every phrase and description flow naturally, even though much of it is slang-ridden and almost stream-of-consciousness. Anime and manga buffs rejoice: the medium of prose has also become a source of techy Japanese action and adventure.

Tales from Outer Suburbia: I guess I haven't migrated far enough from the city

Elsewhere: I wrote about the season premiere of I Survived a Japanese Game Show at The Factual Opinion.

I linked to a cool Scott Morse comic the other day, and here's another awesome-looking one, called "Dawn of the Gearheads". I'm loving his Kirby style on these.

Speaking of Kirby, check out Tim Hensley's attempt to replicate the style of his photo-collages. Neat.

Here's a really interesting post about comics from North Korea. That's not something you see every day.

Finally, I talked about a Shawn Cheng minicomic last week and mentioned that I would like to read his "The Would-Be Bridegrooms", and now it's available to read online. How's that for service?

Tales from Outer Suburbia

By Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan blew a lot of people's minds (mine included) with his 2007 book The Arrival, a beautifully-illustrated wordless graphic novel that told a metaphorical story of immigration using a torrent of surreal imagery. And with this book, he's back in the land of the strange, although it's an illustrated book of prose stories rather than comics, and the metaphors are much less concrete. In fact, it's quite open to interpretation what exactly this book is about, which makes it about life and the human condition, one would suppose.

But it's still pretty fascinating nonetheless. Tan's skill at creating enchanting symbols extends from his art to his prose, as his short tales of odd goings-on (which don't seem odd at all to characters experiencing them) are full of weird but compelling ideas, like a foreign exchange student that looks like a six-inch-tall shadow, a guy in a deep-sea-diver suit wandering through a neighborhood, or a whale-like sea mammal called a dugong suddenly appearing on a bickering couple's lawn. And the pictures supporting these tales add an eerie air to everything, emphasizing the otherworldly nature of the setting while juxtaposing it with a sense of normality:

The best stories evoke familiar feelings that might be just beyond your grasp, like "Stick Figures" with its descriptions of odd, semi-natural beings composed of branches and sod that are omnipresent and accepted, or "No Other Country", in which a family discovers a magical "inner courtyard" in their house that seemingly opens into another dimension. Both of those might touch on the issues of immigration that Tan has raised before, but that's only one possible interpretation.

On the other hand, at least one story seems pretty obvious; "Grandpa's Story" is a wonderful allegory for relationships, with a patriarch telling his family about the journey he had to go on in order to get married; it's a touching, beautiful description of the obstacles a couple must face in order to build a life together, and it's supplemented by some of the prettiest imagery in the book:

A few other stories use some interesting methods of delivery, including "Distant Rain", which sees the words assembled from scraps of paper, an appropriate delivery method for a story about disposed, unread poems accumulating into a huge ball that eventually grows too large to stay together and breaks up, raining small bits of phraseology on everything. Or "The Amnesia Machine", which presents its tale of people being coerced into ignoring the important things in life through a barrage of Orwellian doublespeak as a newspaper article surrounded by bits of exactly that sort of jargon.

Yes, it's a gorgeous volume, and Tan's skill as both a writer and an illustrator are given a wonderful showcase here. I would like to see more comics from Tan in the future, but this will certainly do in a pinch. His complexly layered vignettes are very thought-provoking; even though this book will probably get shelved among younger-readers material, it's a great read for all ages.

The Boy Who Made Silence: I don't fit that description

Hey, look at this!  I'm blogging!  It's been a while, but that's what happens when I stop reading comics for a couple weeks to plow through a long novel.  I was thinking of trying to write a review, but if I never get around to it, the short version is: Anathem is really good, especially if you like Neal Stephenson, science, and trying to comprehend made-up language.  Also, I feel like I should say something about David Foster Wallace, because he was one of my favorite writers, and I'm really sad about what happened to him, but I haven't taken the time to do some sort of post about him.  So if I never get to it, I'll just say that he was amazing, I loved reading his books, and he will be sorely missed.

But I was going to talk about comics today, so here:

The Boy Who Made Silence #6

By Joshua Hagler

This is the last issue of the first volume of The Boy Who Made Silence; it might be some time before the second half of the story comes out, so there will be some time to reflect on the story and try to decipher all of Joshua Hagler's beautifully bizarre imagery.  It's a strange series, full of amazingly realistic character moments that swirl to the fore through a haze of surreality and near-abstract artwork.  And, as Hagler reveals here in an afterword, it's a deeply personal tale, with many moments taken straight from his childhood memories and interpreted into this weird story of a deaf boy who has some sort of people-connecting powers.

This issue sees all the townspeople who have featured in previous issues gathered together to witness the baptism of Nestor, the titular deaf boy, in hopes that he will once again create the "silence" that enabled them to experience each others' lives in such an intimate manner.  The preacher gives a stirring speech about faith and then performs the ceremony, which leads to a crazy remembered scene from Nestor's childhood and some disorienting storytelling that involves turning the comic upside down and sideways.  

Is that a dull-sounding summary?  Maybe so; this series really has to be seen to understand what makes it so special.  Hagler's artwork is just gorgeous, with a combination of realistic and distorted imagery, evocative brushwork that fluidly matches the emotional intensity of the scenes, and colors that enhance the feel of the scene, from greens and browns to set the landscape, to the deep blues of the water during the baptism, to the near lack of color in Nestor's childhood flashback.  The character work is especially good, bringing out the bruised humanity in Pastor Buddy:

Or the distorted memories of how adults can look to a young child:

But the thing is, these all seem so real.  The pastor's crisis of faith in the face of terminal illness is exactly the sort of thing that happens every day, and it's made all the more fascinating with Hagler's revelation in the afterword that he grew up in a religious family but has since renounced his faith.  And the childhood memories of a father leaving his family (along with an imagined moment in which Nestor connects with his mom, who, as we've seen in previous issues, is not exactly a tender woman) are so incredibly raw, I found tears in my eyes while reading them.

I'm having trouble articulating what exactly it is that reaches out and grabs me by the throat, but I think it's Hagler's raw, unfiltered emotion, which pours off the page and refuses to be ignored.  As fascinating as it is to read Hagler's explanations of where some of the individual moments came from, they're not necessary to get the full effect of the story.  And even if it is sometimes difficult to understand how everything fits together or where Hagler is going, he still grounds everything in his down-to-earth characters, making you feel like you're experiencing these moments right along with them.

I'm probably not doing this book any justice, but it's such a fascinating, beautiful work, full of real emotion and humanity, that I can't keep quiet about it.  I urge everyone who has the chance to give it a try, since Hagler is a talent that shouldn't be wasted.  I hope to continue to read his amazingly heartbreaking comics for years to come.

Rex: Yes, he's like a tyrannosaurus

In case anybody didn't see it, I wrote a review of Radical Comics' Freedom Formula #1 over at IndiePulp, so you can read all about that one.

Also, I promised a while back that I would link to the trade version of Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now when it was available, and I figured out where it can be found today. So go here to (legally) download it, in CBR or PDF versions. Having read most of the stories contained within, the only one I can really recommend is "Craphound", but I guess the others are worth a look if you haven't read any of Doctorow's fiction. Otherwise, I would stick to his original short stories or novels, most of which are available for free download online. For instance, his new young adult novel, Little Brother, is available here. I've got to read that one when I get the chance.

And now, I'm about to get caught up, just in time to start reading comics again:

Rex
By Danijel Zezelj



While Croatian artist Danijel Zezelj might be a fairly minor figure in the U.S., known mostly for his work on some Vertigo titles like Loveless and El Diablo (or the still-unfinished Desolation Jones; who knows if Warren Ellis will ever get around to finishing that one), he has been working steadily in Europe for the last fifteen years. Upstart publisher Optimum Wound definitely sees some promise in these earlier works, because they've snapped them up for publication, starting with the 1995 book Rex. It certainly seems like a good move; Zezelj has a cool style that definitely deserves more attention.

It's interesting to compare this early work to Zezelj's current output; you can definitely see how he has refined his heavily-shadowed style over the years. At this point, he seemed a bit more frenetic, filling pages with splatters of ink to create pools of shadow (and lots of blood). Or maybe he was just amping up the grotesquerie to fit the ultra-noir trappings of his tale.

You see, this book is a tale of revenge, and not much else. The titular character used to be a heroic, virtuous, crime-busting cop named Bill Orlowski, but we only get to see those days in flashback. That era ended when he was framed for drug trafficking and sent to prison, where he transformed himself into a hugely-muscled animal of a man, renaming himself Rex and focusing only on murdering those who wronged him, preferably in the goriest fashion possible. Noir isn't really the right description here, since the morally-murky twists of the genre are pretty superfluous; the point of the story is bloody vengeance.

Maybe "grindhouse" or "exploitation" would be better terms, since it's a book aimed at satisfying the most bloodthirsty urges of its audience. And it certainly does that, with a series of gritty, nasty scenes of Rex being grievously injured in prison and waging his personal campaign of terror on his antagonists. This could be a pointless exercise in nihilism, but it becomes readable (depending on your aptitude for this sort of thing) simply due to Zezelj's style, which gets splattered all over the pages like it's flowing straight from his veins. He renders characters in a baroquely high-contrast style, showing every rippling muscle, wrinkle, wound, and scar in a criss-cross of black lines that cover their bodies and faces:



Action scenes are full of visceral intensity, with bodies crashing into each other violently in a jumble of brush strokes:



And there's plenty of other violence as well, with gunshots, car crashes, the works. It's all so over the top that you can't possibly take it seriously, but it definitely makes for an enjoyable, if somewhat stomach-churning read.

The translation isn't perfect, but it's serviceable, and its choppiness might even enhance the noir-ish nature of the story. I do like the sound effects, which remind me of those in Richard Corben's comics, and the occasional bits of mood-setting poetry that are delivered via caption are pretty amusing. Here's a sample:

I never learned chemistry
Elements went loose
I burned it all solid
With the poison of my curse
I chased my dreams like a dog
And they chased me back like cats
At the end we are all just passengers
On the ocean liner Rex

Overall, it's not an essential, unmissable read or anything, but it's a pretty interesting diversion, especially if you're interested in Zezelj's work. Optimum Wound has plans to publish more of his European comics, so it should be fascinating to see the further evolution of his style. And who knows, maybe he'll include a weightier story along with it.

If you're interested in reading the book, it can be purchased from Amazon, and it has also been serialized online, starting here.

COWA!: there are no cows in this book

Man, I am way behind on writing about books I've read recently, so I'm actually reading a novel for once, in hopes of catching up. It's Catch-22, one of my favorites, but I have to read it again because my wife doesn't believe it's actually as good as I remember it. She gave it a try a couple years ago, but gave up after twenty pages or so, which seems crazy to me. So she says if I read it again and still think it's good, she'll try again. I think she's destined to lose this challenge, because I'm loving it so far, and I haven't even gotten to any of my favorite parts. I'll keep reading. Take that, illiteracy!

In addition to the review below, I've also got a look at Fantastic Four: True Story #1 up at Comics Bulletin. Dig it.

COWA!
By Akira Toriyama



I still haven't read hardly any of Akira Toriyama's more famous works, but after checking out this kids' book, I'll definitely want to read more of his stuff. In this one-volume work, he tells the story of some monster kids who end up going on a quest to save their village when everybody gets the "monster flu", necessitating the need to travel far away and buy some medicine from a witch. Leading the group is Paifu, a half-vampire, half-werekoala who has personality to spare. He's a headstrong kid who barrels into every situation without thinking, dragging his friends along with him. The one who gets included most often (and with the most reservations) is Jose, a ghost kid who always gets wrapped up in Paifu's schemes, but Paifu's rival Arpon, a Japanese-style yokai monster (he probably fits a familiar type, but I don't know what it is) who is always in competition with Paifu, whether the latter cares or not:



Rounding out the main cast is Mr. Maruyama, a human and former sumo wrestler who moved to Paifu's secluded village after accidentally killing an opponent. He's actually the most interesting character in the book, coming off as irritable and stand-offish, but revealing himself as lonely, friendly, and loyal through his actions, a testament to Toriyama's storytelling skill. In a string of jokes that probably read better in Japanese, the kids mispronounce his name as "Marumaya", badger him to learn his first name (it's Mako, which he is embarrassed about, because it sounds like a girl's name), and then call him "Makoleen", because it's easier to say. He gets mad at them about this at first, but eventually gives up and just accepts it, as adults usually end up doing with kids' annoying behavior.

It's incredibly fun to watch these goofy characters as they go on their journey. The kids often react with astonishment at the crazy human world they've never seen, getting excited about simple pleasures:



Most of their interactions with humans end up in fights, which is highly enjoyable, since if there's anything Toriyama can draw the hell out of, it's fighting. Paifu is especially fun to watch, since he always leads with his head:



He also has the ability to turn into a giant, ferocious koala, leading to some really funny gags involving the others trying to get him to turn normal again. And Makoleen, being a champion sumo wrestler, is a force to be reckoned with:



It makes for a rousing story, with some exciting action, hilarious jokes, and just an all-around good time. I love Toriyama's art here, which seems kind of different than his usual style at first (at least, from my limited experience), with simple, rounded characters that have dots for eyes (but pointy ears still reign supreme). When the more human-looking characters debut, they feature the more familiar, triangular-shaped eyes and hairstyles (or bald heads) that mark them as Toriyama cast members, but he still throws in plenty of unique creatures and locales. The settings are beautifully-realized as well, with a colored opening chapter that gives the monster village a dark, spooky feel, full of bizarre creatures and weird-looking houses:



This contrasts nicely with the normal-looking human cities, and also with the creepy forest and tall mountain where the medicine-making witch lives.

It's just tons of fun (sorry if I'm overusing that word) throughout, and there are tons of other details that I could point out, such as the Donkey Kong-like sound effect that results when Paifu runs:



Or Paifu and Arpon totally kancho-ing a mean guy:



It's an excellent book, fun for all ages and a hell of a good read. I've really got to read more of Toriyama's manga. He's definitely one of the best there is at what he does.

This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

Here's some more in the way of new comics

But first! I've got a review of Fell #9 up on Comics Bulletin as part of the Sunday Slugfest. Good comics. Also, I want to point out that my favorite film critic, who goes by the name of Vern (you can read plenty of his writing on his site), has escaped from the print-on-demand ghetto, and now has his book Seagalogy up for sale on Amazon! It comes out on May 20, with a snazzy new cover. I was an early adopter, even though I'm not a fan of Steven Seagal (the book is an examination of each of his films, among other works), but I love Vern's writing, so if you like the reviews he has up on his site, the book has more of the same. Check it out! Okay, on with:

New comics this week (Wednesday, 1/23/08):

Afterburn #1

I reviewed an early copy of this a while back, and it's an interesting concept, but not that great a book. Too bad; I have high hopes for Red 5 as a publisher. At least I've got Atomic Robo...

Astonishing X-Men #24

Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's final issue of the series! Except for a "giant-size" finale that's coming next month (yeah, right). I still dig the series, even with the lateness, so I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Don't let me down, fellas!

Castle Waiting Vol 3 #10

Man, I really need to get that hardcover collection of the first volume of this series. I keep hearing that it's really good, but I haven't picked it up. Another one for the "to acquire someday" list...

Clockwork Girl #2

I've been interested in this series, but my shop has failed to get any issues in. Too bad, maybe I can pick it up when it's collected or something.

Dan Dare #3

Garth Ennis! I liked the first two issues well enough, and I'm enough of an Ennis fan to keep buying this. I'm sure I kind of miss out on some cultural references, but it's still a pretty good book. There's also a second print of the first issue coming out, so you can try to catch up if you missed out at first. It's like War Story in space! Or something.

Faker #6

So this is the last issue of the Mike Carey/Jock miniseries. I haven't heard much about it lately; has it been any good? I'm considering picking up the trade, but I dunno if I should bother. Help me out, people!

Jack Staff #1

I believe this is the special issue that is supposed to kick of the "monthly" schedule on the book. I still haven't decided if I should pick it up or try to find the earlier trades, but it's almost here, so I guess I'll have to come down off the fence.

Johnny Hiro #3

Man, I never got the second issue of this. Too bad, the first one was pretty cool. I'll still get this if I see it though.

Mice Templar #3

Man, I'm undecided on this series. I read the first two issues, and thought they were all right, but not so great that I'm clamoring for more. I'll have to decide whether I want to keep reading or not when I'm in the store. Mike Oeming is lucky this is a light week (since I'm sure he's sweating as to whether I'll buy it or not).

Order #7

So, seven issues. That means a trade should be coming out soon, right? It better; I wanna get caught up on this book that I've heard is pretty good. Matt Fraction is a good writer; he better not let me down. Or else! (I'll frown or something. Take that!)

Snaked #2

Another second issue of a series whose first installment underwhelmed me. This one had a bit more promise than Afterburn though. But I probably still won't get it. Maybe I'll consider a collection if it turns out to be a classic.

Testament #22

I dropped this series almost a year ago, and I've heard very little about it since. If anybody out there has been reading it, has it gotten any better? I was pretty disappointed with it, since for a while it was a book I really liked. And now it's ending; I'm not sure if this is the final issue or not, but it'll be gone soon. It won't exactly be missed, I don't think, but I do wonder what might have been.

Therefore Repent TP

This one isn't on my shop's shipping list, but it's supposed to show up at Midtown Comics. It's a post-apocalyptic/post-rapture story from science fiction writer Jim Munroe and artist Salgood Sam. Here's the book's webpage, where I find another bit of interesting info: it's set in the Chicago suburbs (which I refuse to refer to as "Chicagoland"), which is where I live. Cool! I can't wait to read it.

JLA The Hypothetical Woman

This was one of the earlier stories in the JLA Classified series, written by Gail Simone, I believe. I dunno, there was a time when I would have checked it out, but superhero comics are pretty boring to me these days. So I'll skip it, but don't let that stop you from your enjoyment.

Left on Mission TPB

This was a spy series from Boom! that I liked quite a bit, so I recommend checking it out if you missed the individual issues. Here are my thoughts on various parts of the series.

Madman Vol 3 TP Image Edition

I haven't looked to see what exactly is collected in this volume, but it's Mike Allred and it's Madman, so I know it's good. If you haven't read all the various Madman comics, I highly recommend them. Go Frank Einstein!

Complete Terry & The Pirates Vol 2 HC

Man, I doubt I'll be reading this anytime soon, but I wanted to point it out. Milton Caniff is pretty cool. Maybe I'll get to it someday.

Gon vol. 3

This week's manga that I should try to acquire. Gon is so much fun, and these editions are pretty cheap. I should try to get them sometime. In the meantime, I recommend John Jakala's daughter's thoughts on the books.

Guin Saga Manga Vol 2 Seven Magi TP

This weird-looking series from Vertical continues. I doubt I'll be getting it, but it's an interesting offering. Another addition to the "to consider reading" list.

Vagabond Vol 26 TP

And here's this week's manga series that I'm (way!) behind on. I have the first three volumes, so I'm thinking I might try to get caught up when the series starts coming out in three-in-one omnibus editions. It's a pretty sweet manga, so I definitely do want to keep reading. Agh, what an age we live in, with a unattainable wealth of comics out there to consume. Life is good.
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So that's it for this week. I expect to get out of the shop with minimal expenditures. Whew! As for content, I hope to have a review of something or other up tonight, and we've got solicitations to peruse as well. I've been doing my monthly look at those for a year now, but I wonder if I should keep bothering. I doubt I'll get much response, but how about some reader consensus? Should I keep looking at the company solicitations each month? Or is that a waste of time and energy? Let me know what you think!