Comic Book Resources

Before the jump, I thought the title was referring to one work (i.e., a Neal Adams Elseworlds story about Batman as an MI6 agent).

@RL, that’s exactly what I thought too (and an interesting concept to say the least). That said, the book sounds right up my alley and I’ll be sure to give it a look next time I’m in the library.

Thirded. Also, that’s a definite nominee for any “nonexistent books I really want to read” list.

Yotsuba& vol. 3, The Book of Genesis by Crumb, Beanworld vol. 1, Mad Bear by Doug Boyd, Stitches, Ex Machina: Dirty Tricks

“HER MAJESTY’S SPYMASTER, BATMAN” — somewhere, Neil Gaiman is cursing the missed opportunity.

(And then he compares how much he earns with one short story versus how much he gets paid for a Batman comic and decides he can live with the lost opportunity.)

Fourthed…or fifthed, I can’t count.

I thought the same thing as everyone else. Make it happen, World.

It’s like 14 degrees here. I’ll trade you. Heck, I’ll write “Her Majesty’s Spymaster, Batman” if you trade me for a month. I’m thinking 96 page graphic novel, drawn by– your choice. I’d probably pick Norm Breyfogle if you let me, because, c’mon, it’s been too long since he drew Batman.

As for what I’m reading, I just finished Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut (it’s middlin’ K-Vo) and The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (it was alright). Up next, I’m feelin’ Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick, kindly donated by CSBG reader Dan Bailey.

As for comics, I have several trades and GNs piling up, so I should get on those. I just finished the first Chew trade, and it was fun. My box of comics for this month was pretty anemic, though; I am looking forward to Rugg and Maruca’s Afrodisiac this month.

Just a heads up on Neal Adams Batman vol 1, half the book is re-inked/colored in the style in vol. 2 and 3, the rest of vol. 1 is like DC Archive editions, just a direct copy of the source material.

Now I’m heartbroken that there isn’t a Neal Adams-drawn “Her Majesty’s Spymaster, Batman.”

I’ve finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (for which I can’t wait for the movie adaptation–if there’s one), and Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith’s Cal McDonald: Criminal Macabre tpb.

Finished The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster, which was a decent read, but problematic in places and, ultimately, not as satisfying as his other works. I’m just waiting for a Chapters order to arrive so I can read the latest Chuck Klosterman book before starting in on Vineland by Thomas Pynchon.

Mary Roach’s Bonk. Mary Roach RULES!

Just finished Showcase Presents DC Comics Presents Superman Team-Ups — I swear, that’s the real title — the Chuck graphic novel, Kull, volume one, The Mona Intercept by Donald Hamilton, and a couple of Doc Savage novels, The Polar Treasure and Pirate of the Pacific.

On deck is more Doc, since I got a bunch of those double pulp-replica volumes from Nostalgia Ventures really cheap last week, and more Essentials and Showcases. Also a nice Andre Norton omnibus arrived day before yesterday, and also a couple of John Burke’s gothic occult books starring Dr. Caspian. And Ashenden by Somerset Maugham.

They’re piling up on me again, yes. When I was a bus commuter I could stay up with the pile, but lately I’m taking the car more and well, I can’t read and drive at the same time.

In prose–
I thought Deadeye Dick was very good, Bill! Why didn’t you care for it? (Although I recognize that “middlin’ K-Vo” might be fairly substantial praise.) I just finished Bluebeard and Hocus Pocus–I actually have Timequake open to page 1 on my lap right now. I’m a little sad that it’ll be the last Vonnegut novel I get to read. Boy, was I happy when I heard about Look at the Birdie!

I’m in the middle of Twinkie, Deconstructed, a look at the industrial processes that go into making packaged food. It’s not particularly appetizing, but it should help me make better choices.

I picked up Inhuman Bondage, a history of the slave trade in the new world. I realized that why I may have picked up a fair amount of knowledge about slavery, aside from a few slave narratives/oral histories and asides in other works, I haven’t really read a book about slavery! I’m chagrined.

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman–I had American Gods recommended to me by several folks and enjoyed it; this had been sitting on the shelf for a year because I heard it was a sort of ‘spiritual sequel’. Good stuff. I have a tendency to think of all of Gaiman’s work as being part of Sandman; these felt like, basically, Sandman prose novels with Morpheus missing.

I also just picked up a few books on music theory from the library. I need to both remember what I’ve forgotten and learn what I always should’ve but never did.

In comics–
Just finished:

Moresukine, a compilation of comics posted on the blog of a German ex-pat who invited readers to give him assignments to do while living in Tokyo. OK.

Abandon the Old in Tokyo, a collection of short stories from 1970 written by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Fairly dour, and an odd mixture of understated and over-the-top. I’m going to check out his autobio A Drifting Life.

One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry. For some reason, this clicked with me in a way the Marlys strips haven’t. I’m going to give them another chance.

Stitches by David Small. Good, but seemed almost old hat. I don’t share the opinion that’s it’s the best of the year, but I did read it awfully fast.

The Plot–this was actually really disappointing Will Eisner! It looked great, of course, but he did a very poor job of forming a narrative out of historical facts. E. G., there’s a lot of dialogue along the lines of ‘Did you know that the Protocols were written to convince the czar that Jews were a threat?’ ‘That’s interesting!’ It’s a shame it’s got such problems, considering Eisner’s goal of revealing and combating anti-Semitism. It’s a goal he very much reaches in his fiction, but I think, lamentably, he fails here.

Currently reading:

American Splendor (the re-release of the first two collections that came out around the movie)–great stuff, incisive and often charming, despite the curmudgeonly outlook.

V for Vendetta–I gave my copy away last Christmas, so I picked up a used one I found.

MW by Osamu Tezuka–The Robot 6 comic college on Tezuka recommended this as his least fantastical, so I thought I’d try it out. I loved Buddha, didn’t care for Blackjack, and thought Metropolis was fluff. So far it’s quite good. I got a (admittedly ethnocentric) kick out of seeing it was initially serialized in Biggu Komikku magazine.

Wednesday Comics–I just picked up the whole shebang online. Sure is pretty!

Ah, seasonal lay-offs, what a great opportunity to get some reading done!

Just about to finish The Invisibles. Not quite sure what to read next.

I’m 1/3 of the way through Tales Designed to Thrizzle, vol. 1. It’s one of the funniest comics I’ve ever read. I just finished Noir, the recent Dark Horse short story anthology. It was okay, the highlight being a Stray Bullets story. If there’s one comic I would like to see return to the stands on a regular basis, it’s Stray Bullets.

I borrowed the most recent Dennis Lahane book (name escapes me), and will start it this week.

I just finished Killer in the Rain, which is a collection of the early stories that Raymond Chandler cannibalised for his novel. The stories were all great but as a writer I was even more fascinated with how the stories had been mashed up seamlessly later on.

Finally got around to reading Maus, which was great, but I’m slightly ashamed that I enjoyed the Punisher Max stories I read directly afterwards way more. I really hadn’t expected to like them so much, as I dislike Ennis on everything else, but these stories just blew me away. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

…oh yeah and Neal Adams – best comic artist of all time. You could publish his Batman pages unchanged today and they’d still be the most exciting thing out there. One of the many tragedies of All Star Batman is that its lateness has made the rumoured Adams run less and less likely.

I, too, thought that this was a single book, some sort of Elseworlds by Neal Adams.

I blame the italics in the heading. They cover both titles’ names but stop before Neal Adams’, therefore leading me to believe that Adams is responsible for both and hinting that it is in fact a single book.

Hey Greg,

If you liked “Her Majesty’s Spymaster,” check out “God’s Secret Agents” Alice Hogge for the other side of the story — how Catholic priests continued to operate in England during the period. It’s full of fascinating details, like the relative merits and drawbacks of lemon and orange juice as invisible ink…

Just picked up a few volumes of The Early Works of “Winsor McCay” by Checker Publishing for $2 each at a local bookstore. Missing the first three volumes (and anything above volume eight if such a creature exists). Stuff is AMAZING. Rougher than his Little Nemo work but still amazing and bizarrely ahead of it’s time. I’m continually amazed that this stuff was printed a century ago.

Sorry about the confusion with the titles, everyone! I too would love an Elseworlds book about Batman being a spy for England. In any time period, really. My bad for getting everyone’s hopes up. But how cool would that have been if I’d been the only person to know about this project????

Thanks for the suggestion, Matthew. That’s just what I need – more books to check out!!!!

Hi Greg – although I haven’t seen the contents of the Neal Adams Batman volumes, Vol 1 would be concentrating on his Brave & Bold work (including 2 Deadman team-ups) — & anything else I’ve missed?

Neal was working on these 1968-69 so the dates tally. Other team-ups off the top of my head included Flash, Aquaman, Creeper, & the new-look ‘whiskers’ Ollie Green Arrow.

Well, at least by the word “spymaster” I knew before the jump the implied Elseworlds by Adams would be Elizabethan. The author downplays Cecil? Good to know — I’ve read more about Cecil than Walsingham, as it happens.

What am I reading? After seeing it on most of the year’s best lists, I got Asterios Polyp today. And I’m reading Final Crisis in trade to see if it makes more sense (I didn’t read all the comics it contains as they came out).

I am reading Matt Kindt’s Super Spy (about halfway through), a book on how to coach youth basketball (volunteered to coach my 9 year olds team), just picked up first five issued of Batgirl and Greg Rucka’s run on Detective and am going to dive into them after I finish Doctor Tomorrow (yes, the Acclaim book by Bob Layton and various artists–found the entire run at a used book store in my town and it’s not that bad, definitely worth what I paid, especially since it was trade-in credit, although I understand it falls apart at the end), and am have just started “The Razor’s Edge” by Sommerset Maughm. Whew! Got a lot going on plus College Football Bowl games and the NFL playoffs, which is why I haven’t finished more of the above stuff.

Oh, man, the sheer possbilities of it….the reveal that “M” was chosen as both an inverted “W” for Wayne and as an emblem of the bat-ears; Robin taking his codename from Robin Goodfellow; the Penguin turning up as a corrupt Anglican bishop; the Scottish roots of the names “Wayne” and “Kyle” being played up in tune to Mary,. Queen of Scots’s aborted coup attempt; a version of the Joker that really is an evil version of the Renaissance-era hero of the old Man Who Laughs book and film; a Riddler who plays off of the tradition of actual English riddle-rhymes and may be prophesying what shall come; and Ra’s Al Ghul as a strange foreign prince out to marry the Virgin Queen.

It really does write itself, dunnit?

I’m 1/3 of the way through Tales Designed to Thrizzle, vol. 1. It’s one of the funniest comics I’ve ever read.

Excellent…the Gospel of Thrizzle is spreading!!!

I hope that somewhere, Grant Morrison is reading this. Issue #5 of Return of Bruce Wayne: Batman as an Elizabethan spy — it really is too good to pass up!

BTW, The Book of Illusions is, I feel, one of Auster’s best “later” (i.e. post-New York Trilogy) works. It’s much more satisfying than Oracle Night and is more substantial than Travels in the Scriptorium. Not as good as the Brooklyn Follies, though.

Bought some trades on sale for the cover price in AU$ (not much of a steal considering the current exchange rates). Still some good stuff – a book on Peter Milligan’s work, 4 volumes of Tangled Web and an odd Avengers trade – two annuals & issues 161-162 and 201

Deadeye Dick was fine, Dan, but I wouldn’t put it near Vonnegut’s best. There were good bits within, but it never quite gelled for me.

I think Galapagos is an overlooked Vonnegut classic.

A KILLNG IN COMICS by Max Alan Collins is sort of started on. Eventually I’ll read the first Rick Castle novel (the book they spun off the CASTLE TV show), the name of which escapes me. I still have the entire TITANS run that Greg sent me to read, plus a bunch of other comics from Christmas, plus about 30-35 SF magazines to read from the past year…

But what I’m delving into is writing my own stuff again. I haven’t written fiction for the past few years as I was editing and drawing, and had some serious upheaval in my life. Hopefully 2010 will see some of my own stuff back into print.

Which means back to work for me.

I’ve actually had a lot of people hold up Galapagos as one of his best books, but I felt the same way about it that you did towards Deadeye Dick!

Roman–hey, I randomly picked up The Brooklyn Follies as my first introduction to Auster; that’s some good luck! Can I dive right in, or should I read his earlier works first?

Roman — I’ve been slow in getting Auster novels, but The Book of Illusions had been my least favourite of his works yet. I think it suffers from its length, which seems to demand more whereas Travels in the Scriptorium and Man in the Dark were more concise…

Dan — Just dive in. It’s completely self-contained.