Books

• TokyoPop Sneaks, 2004 vol. 2 by various. This is a freebie given out to attract new buyers to the manga books that TokyoPop publishes. Unfortunately, almost none of the stories appealed to me. I don't know if it was the small size of the samples, translation problems, or simply bad storytelling from the artists, but most of the time, I couldn't tell what was going on.
  
• Grendel: Past Prime by Greg Rucka with illustrations by Matt Wagner. The Grendel graphic novel I read last week is a prelude to this novel, which is pretty much a samurai tale with different trappings.
  
• The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo by Joe Sacco. More non-fiction comics from Sacco. (Checked out of the library.)
  
• Elektra: Introspect by Greg Rucka & Carlo Pagulayan. (Library.)
  
• Elektra: Everything Old Is New Again by Greg Rucka, Joe Bennett, Carlo Pagulayan & Carlos Meglia. (Library.)
  
• Dicks & Deedees by Jaime Hernandez. I've fallen behind in reading the various Love & Rockets collections, perhaps because I'm not enjoying the stories as much as I used to. They're still great, though.
  
• Four Women by Sam Kieth. This is Kieth's first work not to include some element of the fantastic, but he does it well. This story is much more powerful when read in a single sitting rather than spread out as the individual issues were published. (Another argument to stop buying so many regular comics.)
  
• The Coffin by Phil Hester & Mike Huddleston.
  
• Gon on Safari by Masashi Tanaka. More silent stories about a two-foot T-rex. (Library.)
  
• Gon Underground by Masashi Tanaka. (Library.)
  
• Typewriter by various. This comics anthology is rather interesting. The final line of one creator's section becomes the first line of the next. (Library.)
  
• Bone, vol. 1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith. Bone will be finishing up shortly, with the publication of the 9th volume, so I have decided to re-read the series in preparation for that. (I stopped buying individual issues a while ago and have just been buying the collections.) But my copies of the early volumes are all in storage, so I'm checking them out of the library. The trouble is, the Multnomah County Library system only has one record for all the volumes. So if you just put a hold on Bone without specifying a particular copy, you'll get whichever volume becomes available first. It's doable, but a pain in the ass. Plus, for some reason, not a single branch of the library has volume 2, so I'm just going to have to skip it. (Library.)
  
• Liberty Meadows, book 1: Eden by Frank Cho. (Library.)

Movies & DVDs

• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Monster A-Go-Go. (Borrowed from Teena.)
  
• Drunken Master. This isn't the movie that was released in the US not too long ago. That's The Legend of Drunken Master, and it's a sequel to this movie. This is the movie that made Jackie Chan a star. Some amazing fight scenes here.
  
• Muppet Treasure Island. This is the only version of Treasure Island I've ever seen. I haven't even read the book. Tim Curry is great as Long John Silver.
  
• Sunset Boulevard. I'd never seen this before, although I knew something about it. Excellent movie. Somewhere along the way (possibly from the parody of it done on the Carrol Burnett Show) I picked up the idea that the Norma Desmond character was ancient. But this movie was made in 1950, not all that long after the silent era. Desmond is middle-aged, not elderly.
  
• Castle in the Sky. Every time I see a Miyazaki film, I'm blown away again at how beautiful & well-crafted they are. Man, I want to see more of his work translated into English.
  
• Kill Bill, vol. 2. I think this is a better movie than Vol. 1, but not as much fun. There's more story & character development here & not as much revenge-story action. And I don't understand why Tarantino made a big deal about hiding Uma Thurman's character's name.
  
• Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I watched this with the commentary by Tim Burton & Paul Reubens, which was interesting, but at times seemed to consist of Reubens pointing out props from the movie that he still owns. Ooh, a bit of trivia: The woman who plays Pee-Wee's girlfriend inethe movie now does the voice of Buttercup on The Powerpuff Girls