Comic Book Resources

Shoot, I thought you meant the version of Tale of Two Cities with ninjas.

I kind of wondered if I missed the ninjas for a few seconds also.

I've never read any Dickens either, but I picked it up, along with Great Expectations, at Barnes and Noble a few months ago. It has been interesting, and I like the imagery, but holy cows, I need to start taking notes to keep everyone straight. It doesn't help that I get distracted by new books every Wednesday. Not something I'd try reading to my six-year-old, but we are going to get her Harry Potter this Christmas and see how that goes over.

Just finished reading the entirety of Grant Morrison's New X-Men run. I'd like to get around to writing a long essay about it at some point, as there is a lot in there to unpack. I'm not sure how well I'd do at writing critically about it, though, as it is hard for me to separate the work from the things going on in my life at the time it was released. Its a book that means something to me on a level of pure quality and goodness, but really means even more on an idiosyncratic and personal level.

Next up is the new Umbrella Academy: Dallas trade. Can't wait to get into that one.

Keep in mind, that "Tale of Two Cities", like most of Dickens work, was published a chapter at a time (Think of it as being closer to comics than a fully formed novel!) Most of Dickens is lock solid, but I still think there's some characterisation points for Carton that Dickens laid out in the early chapters but didn't return to in later ones. It's been a while, but let me see if I can dig up an example.

Finished Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon this weekend and began rereading The Crying of Lot 49. Although, today, in the mail, a Hard Case Crime advance review copy of Quarry in the Middle by Max Allan Collins arrived, so I may drop everything to read that (I won the book in a contest the publisher had -- I'm not 'big enough' to warrant free copies of cool crime books... yet... heh).

In comics, reread Empire by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson last night and the first volume of New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke yesterday. Both for reread reviews possibly. We'll have to see.

Project Read The Damn Books That Are Piling Up is underway again. Trying not to purchase anything until the pile gets smaller. Just finished the fourth Young Bond, Hurricane Gold, and am in the middle of Burn Factor by Kyle Mills. On deck are a pair of Jack the Ripper books, one a history by Patricia Cornwell and one a novel that I can't remember the name of.... then either the last Young Bond, By Royal Command, or the last two VI Warshawski books by Sara Paretsky.

For comics it's all Essentials and Showcases -- Sub-Mariner, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, and Batman. Also the two-volume set of The Eternals by Jack Kirby arrived yesterday.

Yesterday I read a Walt Disneys Lustiges Taschenbuch (Walt Disney's Funny Pocketbook), a german edition of Duck and Mouse Comics mostly by italian artists. Today I will read Agatha Christie's "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe" .

I just read The Crying of Lot 49, my first Pynchon. It was very enjoyable, but I had to hold on not to get lost.

In comics, I just finished:
Elektra Lives Again--a good book, and it fits in nicely with the rest of Miller's Daredevil. A little over-the-top, but, well, of course.
Concrete: The Complete Short Stories 1986-1989--I had already read this but it was well worth a second run-through. Pensive, fun, beautiful, Concrete is definitely an essential comic.
Matt Groening's How to Go to Hell--funny, biting, and insightful, but not my favorite Life in Hell book. These strips were from 1989-1991, so I imagine Simpsoning was taking up a huge chunk of his time and creative energies.
Doonesbury: Still a Few Bugs in the System--very early ('70-'72, including some Yale strips)--funny, but very rough. I never quite got into the strip, but it's proving fun and insightful.

Still reading:
Jules Feiffer's Explainers--Man, what a great comic! I hope the next volume is out soon
Bacchus/Deadface: Immortality isn't Forever--the first Bacchus book. Uneven, but quite a good book. Eddie Campbell has risen near the top of my favorite creators, and it's good to see where he started.

In books,
Dave Eggers, You Shall Know our Velocity--a good look at adults acting like kids when the first have to get over something hard. I was worried it would end up too treacly, but the paperback version has a neat twist, turning the sub-text into text, that really made the book.
Gore Vidal, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace--essays, which quite rightly say that our government should live up to its standards, but do so in a sometimes perplexing way. The first Vidal I've read, and based on it, he doesn't seem to think everything through all the time.
Bertolt Brecht, Edward the Second and The Catch--good plays, Brecht is the man. I had the privilege of seeing Galileo performed this week, as well.
William Kennedy, Ironweed--so far a good look at regret and lost opportunity. Quite well-written.

(it should be obvious I'm stuck in a hotel room and have been sick!)

I'm reading Peter Straub's Ghost Story with the AVClub book club--the Turn of the Screw homage was so terrifying I was afraid to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, and the central mystery is intriguing, but some bits are dragging already and I'm only half way through it.

Also very slowly working my way through DF Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, and despite the many many claims I've heard of its brilliance, it hasn't yet won me over (though the report on the Caribbean cruise is a hoot).

And Cooke's Parker adaptation.