Hot & Muggy

Some ugly weather today. Didn't do a damn thing except lounge around the house.

249. The Mighty Avengers, vol. 1: The Ultron Initiative by Brian Michael Bendis and Frank Cho. While reading this, I couldn't decide whether Bendis was playing a joke on the people who complain about him not using thought balloons, or if he just doesn't get how to use them well. (Checked out of the library.)
     
250. Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan by Aimee Major Steinberger. We need more comics travel writing. (Library.)
     
251. The Punisher, vol. 9: Long Cold Dark by Garth Ennis, Goran Parlov, & Howard Chaykin. Brutal. (Library.)
     
252. Midnight Sun by Ben Towle. Fictionalized account of a mission to rescue the survivors of a 1928 attempt to reach the North Pole via airship. (Library.)
     
253. She-Hulk, vol. 3: Time Trials by Dan Slott, Juan Bobillo, & Scott Kolins. (Library.)
     
254. Wisdom: Rudiments of Wisdom by Paul Cornell, Trevor Hairsine, & Manuel Garcia. This was okay, but it didn't really gel for me. I didn't get much of a sense of who the main character was. I think part of the problem is that the writer assumed the reader already had that information. (Library.)
     
255. Emily the Strange by "Cosmic Debris." Feh. (Library.)
     
256. Micrographica by Renee French. Odd & disturbing, like most of French's work. (Library.)
     
257. MPD Psycho, vol. 2 bu Eiji Otsuka & Sho-u Tajima. More Japanese horror manga. (Library.)
     
258. Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, & Warren Pleece. When I was part-way through this book, I thought my review would consist of three words: Clerks with vampires. But as I read more, I realized there was more to it than that. Not a hell of a lot more, but more. (Library.)
     
259. The Starman Omnibus, vol. 1 by James Robinson & Tony Harris. Even though I own all the trade paperbacks collecting Starman, I am thrilled DC is publishing this series. Quite a few issues never got collected, plus there were text pieces, fragments from the Shade's journal, that appeared occasionally in the comic's letter page, and those pieces didn't show up in the trade paperbacks. And there's the Shade mini-series, and a few short pieces from here & there. It'll be wonderful to have the whole series & all the extra collected in six nice hardbacks. I'm looking forward to the next volume.
     
260. Y: The Last Man, vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.
     
261. Y: The Last Man, vol. 2: Cycles by Brian K. Vaughan & Pia Guerra. The online dealer where I get most of my graphic novels tells me that volume ten of this series is on its way, and so I'm rereading the whole series before I get to the final volume.

Light Week

245. 100 Bullets, vol. 1: First Shot, Last Call by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso. (Checked out of the library.)
     
246. 100 Bullets, vol. 2: Split Second Chance by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso. (Library.)
     
247. 100 Bullets, vol. 3: Hang Up on the Hang Low by Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso. The first time I tried to read this series, I ended up getting it from the library out of sequence, so it didn't make a lot of sense (even though each story is largely self-contained, there is an ongoing story arc that builds). This time I'm making sure to read everything in order. I like it, but I'm having some difficulty reconciling the noir-ish, gritty individual stories with Agent Graves seeming omniscience and the conspiracy-theory type plot that appears to be building in the background. (Library.)
     
248. Hellspark by Janet Kagan. Teena recommended this to me quite a while ago. It's her favorite book. I kept putting off reading it. No particular reason. Well, I might have been worried that I wouldn't like it. But the was no cause for concern. I will never love it as much as Teena does, but I really enjoyed this novel about different cultures and trying to establish communication with a species that may or may not be sentient. (Borrowed from Teena.)

Frustration

So we got ourselves a wi-fi hub so we would be able to download songs for Rock Band, but the online Sony store is incredibly picky about credit cards, and it keeps telling us our card aren't valid. Plus, the security settings on the hub are apparently incompatible with our Nintendo DSs. Thank goodness the online Wii stuff works.

Anyway, on to books:

233. Zoot Suite by Andrew & Roger Langridge.
     
234. Sidescrollers by Matthew Loux. (Checked out of the library.)
     
235. JLA Presents: Aztek - The Ultimate Man by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, & N. Steven Harris. Pretty good, but the artist wasn't that great with story-telling. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on or just who was in a particular scene.
     
236. Nothing Better, vol. 1: No Place Like Home by Tyler Page. I quite liked this comic about a pair of college roommates. (Library.)
     
237. Little White Mouse Perfect Collection, no. 1 by Paul Sizer. This is an enjoyable science fiction comic about a young woman stranded on a mining satellite. I'm not sure there are any more "Perfect Collections", but it looks like there is a collection that has the entire series. I'll need to look for that.
     
238. Rocketo: Journey to the Hidden Sea, vol. 2 by Frank Espinosa & Marie Taylor. Gorgeous art, and a great, pulpy adventure story. I really liked this. (Library.)
     
239. Iron Man & Power Pack: Armored & Dangerous by Marc Sumerak & Marcel Dichiara. Yet another book bought to pass on to Teena's classroom library.
     
240. Monster, vol. 14: That Night by Naoki Urasawa. (Library.)
     
241. The Question, vol. 2: Poisoned Ground by Dennis O'Neil & Denys Cowan. These comics aren't quite as cool as I remember them being from when I read them in the 80s, but they're still pretty damn good.
     
242. MPD Psycho, vol. 1 by Eiji Otsuka & Sho-u Tajima. Another horror manga. (Library.)
     
243. Atomic City Tales, vol. 2: Doc Phantom by Jay Stephens.
     
244. Superman: The World of Krypton by John Byrne, Mike Mignola, Rick Bryant, et al.

Two Posts in Two Days!

224. Showcase Presents Booster Gold by Dan Jurgens. I'd love to see more cheap reprints of 80s comics from DC. This is pretty good, but I have to say that the depiction of a mercenary super hero seems pretty tame compared to later works in the same vein, such as Milligan & Allred's X-Force.
     
225. The Drifting Classroom, v.11 by Kazuo Umezu. The final volume of this series. The ending is just as weird & messed up as the rest of the series. (Checked out of the library.)
     
226. The Thing: Idol of Millions by Dan Slott, Andrea Divito, & Kieron Dwyer. (Library.)
     
227. Hikaru no Go, vol. 11: A Fierce Battle by Yumi Hotta & Takeshi Obata. I've said this before, but I never thought I'd enjoy a comic series about a board game.
     
228. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus vol. 2 by various.
     
229. Heartburst and Other Pleasures by Rick Veitch. It's nice that Veitch is putting his early works back into print.
     
230. Johnny Boo: The Best Little Ghost in the World by James Kochalka. Adorably sweet story aimed at kids. (Borrowed from Teena's classroom.)
     
231. Checkmate: Fall of the Wall by Greg Rucka, et al. Espionage & superheroes.
     
232. Hulk Visionaries: John Byrne. Gee, I wonder if the reason Marvel decided to release this has anything to do with an upcoming movie.

Long Overdue Movie Post

It's been more than four months since I listed the movies & DVDs I've watched. Past time I did something about that.

• The West Wing - The Complete Second Season. I have heard the complaint that people don't actually talk the way that the characters in an Aaron Sorkin show do. My response to that is, "So what?"
  
• The Office - Season Two. I wish we'd discovered this show earlier.
  
• Persepolis. I think this works better as a movie than it does as a graphic novel, but in any case, this is a powerful story.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Secret Agent Double Dragon.
  
• The Bat.
  
• Invasion of the Bee Girls. Steve bought a set of 100 horror movies on DVD and had a bunch of us over to watch a couple of them. The Bat was surprisingly good. We joked all through it at the absurdities, but in the end it is a well-told story. Invasion of the Bee Girls was just cheesy 70s sexploitation.
  
• All That Jazz.
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1: Water, vol. 2.
  
• No Country for Old Men. The Coen brothers are back in form.
  
• MST3K: The Rebel Set.
  
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The movie. Pretty cheesy.
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1: Water, vol. 3.
  
• The Office - Season Three.
  
• It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Nearly every comedian working in Hollywood in the early 60s appears in this movie. The ending doesn't really work, but the ride there is a lot of fun.
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1: Water, vol. 4.
  
• MST3K: The Giant Gila Monster.
  
• Enchanted. Better than I expected.
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, Book 1: Water, vol. 5. The last volume of the first season. We need to start getting season two from the library one of these days.
  
• Juno. We both liked this quite a bit, and I really liked the soundtrack, especially the cover of "Sea of Love."
  
• MST3K: Parts: The Clonus Horror. I am terribly amused by the fact that the producers of this movie successfully sued the producers of The Island for stealing the plot of their film.
  
• MST3K: Eegah. Watch out for snakes!
  
• Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. When Raiders first came out, three twelve year old kids loved it and decided to recreate the film. It took them seven years, but they did it. This was a blast to watch, to see the creative solutions they came up with (substituting a motor boat for a bi-plane, replacing the monkey with a dog). If you love the original and get a chance to see this, I highly recommend that you do so.
  
• Shortbus. This was...interesting. John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) made a movie featuring explicit sex that is not pornography. The thing is, I don't think the sex was absolutely necessary to the film. But the plot was created through improv workshops with the actors, who knew what they were getting into. So the sex isn't gratuitous, but I'm not sure it was essential.
  
• Treasure of the Sierra Madre.
  
• Twin Peaks. Man, this show was good, but it really did lose it in the second season.
  
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Not much in the way of answers here.
  
• The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo. This is a film that deserves MST3K-like treatment. It is supposedly about two tribes of people: one with good looking women & ugly men and another with good looking men and ugly women. These tribes have no contact with each other until a tribe of bestial ape men begin invading. The trouble is, it's not really possible to tell which tribe a person belongs to (including the ape men) by looking at them. With a couple of exceptions, everybody looks pretty normal.
  
• Dark Water. Another American remake of a Japanese horror movie. I saw most of the original on cable a while back, and it was better than this version. Much creepier.
  
• Topper. Cary Grant as a ghost.
  
• Modern Times.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Much as I love MST3K, I have to admit that this doesn't work all that well, possibly because the movie they make fun of, This Island Earth, is actually pretty good.

Whew, that's quite a list. I really should do movie posts more frequently.

Lots of Borrowed Books This Week

213. Avengers and Power Pack: Assemble! by Marc Sumerak & Gurihiru. Another book purchased to read and then pass on to Teena's classroom.
     
214. Cairo: A Graphic Novel by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker. I found myself really enjoying this urban fantasy story set in contemporary Cairo. I think I may pick up the paperback edition when it is published. (Checked out of the library.)
     
215. The Living and the Dead by Jason. A love and zombies story. (Library.)
     
216. X Isle by Andrew Cosby, Michael Alan Nelson, & Greg Scott. A sci-fi action thriller of a movie done as a comic book.
     
217. Flight Explorer, vol. 1 by various. Teena picked up this kid-oriented anthology for her classroom & then decided she liked it enough to get a copy for herself. (Borrowed from Teena.)
     
218. What It Is by Lynda Barry. Barry's exploration of creativity and the ways that it changes as we grow up.
     
219. What Were They Thinking?! by various. Old comic book stories with re-written dialog. Silly stuff.
     
220. Betsy and Me by Jack Cole. Cole's comic strip. (Library.)
     
221. Planetary Brigade by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, et al. Silly superheroes.
     
222. Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell. Silent comic that uses foxes & rabbits as metaphors for weightier subjects. (Library.)
     
223. The New Avengers: Illuminati by Brian Michael Bendis, Brian, Reed, & Jim Cheung. Some neat ideas, but I'm not sure about the execution. Also, Bendis only seems able to write in one voice, and that voice doesn't always suit the speaker (see the recent controversy about his version of Doctor Doom).