Hi!

(In case you hadn't noticed, I really don't know how to title posts.)

307. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 9 by Eiji Otsuka & Housui Yamazuki. More Japanese horror. (Library.)
     
308. Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, & Luke Ross. More prep work for "Blackest Night", which is just starting now. (Library.)
     
309. Zorro Year One: Trail of the Fox by Matt Wagner & Francesco Francavilla. I quite enjoyed this, but was rather bother by the fact that the biggest words on the front cover (even larger than "Zorro") are "Isabelle Allende" when she didn't have anything to do with this graphic novel. There are much smaller words that say "Inspired by the novel by" but come on.
     
310. Justice League International, vol. 2 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, & Kevin Maguire. Fun superheroics. (Library.)
     
311. Astro Boy, vol. 22 by Osamu Tezuka. With this volume, I filled in the last gap in my Astro Boy collection.
     
312. Empowered, vol. 5 by Adam Warren. The serious plot elements are growing more prominent in each volume, but there's still plenty of light-hearted stuff here. (Library.)

And a couple of movies:

• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Girl in Lover's Lane. Dark, awful ending that's not really supported by the rest of the movie. But the jokes are funny.
  
• Ink. If you see this described as "It's a Wonderful Life" crossed with "Sin City," don't believe it. It's "It's a Wonderful Life" crossed with "Dark City." The former wouldn't work at all, but the latter works quite well. I felt the beginning was a little too oblique for the story that was being told, but I came around & quite enjoyed this. Teena loved it.

The Lure of the New

Dragged myself away from my new toy (a Blackberry Storm) long enough to update. I've got two weeks to get through.

291. Mystery in Space, vol. 1 by Jim Starlin & Shane Davis. (Checked out of the library.)
     
292. Mystery in Space, vol. 2 by Jim Starlin, Shane Davis, & Bernie Wrightson. Okay sci fi adventure. Not Starlin's best, though. (Library.)
     
293. Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, especially the interview at the end of the book, but a lot of the book is plot summaries of Gaiman's works, and I've read the vast majority of the things discussed.
     
294. Black Jack, vol. 5 by Osamu Tezuka. More medical drama. I don't know how many volumes this will run, but I'm in for the long haul.
     
295. Showcase Presents: The Doom Patrol, vol. 1 by Arnold Drake & Bruno Premiani. These comics are as strange as anything that Grant Morrison came up with when he wrote the title 25 years later. Wonderfully bizarre stories.
     
296. Hulk: World War Hulk: The Incredible Hercules by Greg Pak, Gary Frank, et al. I've really enjoyed the Hercules stories that Marvel has published recently, even though I read them all out of sequence, since the books aren't numbered consistently. This book is the first in the sequence, but I'm just reading it now. Oh well. (Library.)
     
297. Astro Boy, vol. 3 by Osamu Tezuka. I've been enjoying Pluto so much, that I decided to go back & reread the Astro Boy story that served as its inspiration, "The Greatest Robot on Earth." It's in this volume.
     
298. Justice Society, vol. 2 by Paul Levitz & Joe Staton. (Library.)
     
299. Legend of the Five Rings: Death at Koten by Shawn Carman & YJL of Imaginary FS. I played the L5R collectible card game for years & picked up the role playing books that followed. It's been ages since I played, but I knew I had to get this graphic novel. It's okay and serves as an introduction to the world, but I don't know that anybody who doesn't already know the setting would enjoy it.
     
300. The Adventures of Blanche by Rick Geary. Geary's comics are quirky, but I enjoy them. (Library.)
     
301. Starman Omnibus, vol. 3 by James Robinson, Tony Harris, et al. I am so happy to have this series of collections. The paperback Starman collections don't have all the issues from the main comic, much less things like the Shade mini-series. And it looks like the next volume will have the Starman/Hellboy crossover. Yay!
     
302. Wolverine: First Class: Wolverine-By-Night by Fred Van Lente, et al. (Library.)
     
303. Astro Boy, vol. 20 by Osamu Tezuka. Pluto also inspired me to fill in the gaps in my Astro Boy run.
     
304. New X-Men - Academy X, vol. 3: X-Posed by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, et al. (Library.)
     
305. House of M: X-Men - Academy X by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, & Aaron Lopestri. (Library.)
     
306. Power Girl by Geoff Johns, Amanda Connor, et al. (Library.)

Several movies in the past couple of weeks.

• RiffTrax: Night of the Living Dead.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Robot Versus the Aztec Mummy. This movie has about 20 minutes of plot spread out over an hour & a half. That, combined with the fact that the MST3K crew are still honing their craft, means that this is painful to watch.
  
• Moon. Great science fiction movie with Sam Rockwell, and an excellently-cast Kevin Spacey as the voice of the creepy computer.
  
• MST3K: Racket Girls. Gangsters & female wrestlers.
  
• RiffTrax: The Little Shop of Horrors.

A Slight Delay (Yes, Again)

Spend most of the day out & about. Will try to update tomorrow.

Here I Am Again

276. Yotsuba & !, vol. 1 by Kiyohiko Azuma. Found a cheap copy of this deeply cute manga.
     
277. The New Avengers, vol. 9: Secret Wars, bk. 2 by Brian Michael Bendis, Billy Tan, et al. Some pretty good stories, but not much in the way of the Avengers. (Checked out of the library.)
     
278. Enigma Cipher by Andrew Crosby, Michael Alan Nelson, & Greg Scott. Like a lot of things from this publisher, this reads as a pitch for a movie. In this case, a thriller. (Library.)
     
279. Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess. Beautifully illustrated version of the poem Gaiman wrote for Tori Amos when she was pregnant with her daughter. (Borrowed from Teena.)
     
280. Legion of Super-Heroes: Enemy Manifest by Jim Shooter, Francis Manapul, et al. (Library.)
     
281. Tokyo Days, Bangkok Nights by Jonathan Vankin, Seth Fisher, & Giuseppe Comuncoli. (Library.)
     
282. Magic Trixie, vol. 3: Magic Trixie & Her Dragon by Jill Thompson. Another delightful kid's book from Thompson.
     
283. She-Hulk, vol. 9: Lady Liberators by Peter David, Vincenzo Cucca, & Steve Scott. The last volume in this series.
     
284. Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Treachery by Robin Furth, Peter David, & Jae Lee. More backstory for Roland.
     
285. Jumper: Jumpscars by Nunzio DeFilippis, Christina Weir, & Brian Hurtt. Prequel to the movie, Jumper, which I never saw. (Library.)
     
286. Special Forces, vol. 1: Hot to Death by Kyle Baker. Satirical look at the Iraq war.
     
287. GalaxyQuest: Global Warning by Scott Lobdell & Ilias Kyriazis. Eh. (Library.)
     
288. The Age of the Sentry by Jeff Parker, Paul Tobin, Nick Dragotta, et al. Pastiche of Silver-Age Superman. Loads of fun.
     
289. Captain Britain and MI13, vol. 1: Secret Invasion by Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk. Pretty good. (Library.)
     
290. 20th Century Boys, vol. 3: Hero with a Guitar by Naoki Urasawa. Some clues about the mystery, & the tension builds. I'm really enjoying this series and its exploration of adults looking back at their childhoods.

Three movies this week:

• Creature from the Black Lagoon. Saw this in 3D. Sometimes the 3D effects were fantastic, sometimes not.
  
• RiffTrax: House on Haunted Hill.
  
• RiffTrax: Reefer Madness. Just laughable, even without the commentary.