Stumptown Weekend

Teena & I went to the 7th Annual Stumptown Comics Fest yesterday. She has written a report on our experience. I found it lots of fun (as always) and am looking forward to next year.

124. Prime Baby by Gene Luan Yang. Cute little book about sibling rivalry.
     
125. Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian by Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, & Bernard Chang. I enjoyed the individual issues of this, but they do read better all at once.
     
126. Bob Dylan Revisited by various. Comic adaptations of Dylan songs. (Borrowed from the library.)
     
127. West Coast Blues by Patrick Manchette, adapted by Jacques Tardi. Adaptation of a French noir novel. (Library.)
     
128. My Life as a Cartoonist by Harvey Kurtzman, with Howard Zimmerman. Aimed at kids, but still interesting.
     
129. Mysterius the Unfathomable by Jeff Parker & Tom Fowler. Great story about a magician who is a complete jerk. Lots of fun.
     
130. Hardware: The Man in the Machine by Dwayne McDuffie & Denys Cowan. I really wish DC would put out more collections of Milestone comics. But given the way they've been treating McDuffie in the past couple of years, it seems unlikely.
     
131. Swamp Thing, vol. 9: Infernal Machines by Rick Veitch, et al. It's a shame that Veitch's time-travel storyline (which came after the comics collected here) was never completed, because I would love to see it in book form.
     
132. The Unwritten, vol. 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity by Mike Carey & Peter Gross. This is a great comic about fiction and how stories affect the world. I look forward to each issue, and can't wait for further collections.
     
133. Black Jack, vol. 10 by Osamu Tezuka. Still enjoying this.
     
134. Captain America: Road to Reborn by Ed Brubaker, et al. Building the storyline up to the return of Steve Rogers.
     
135. Welcome to Tranquility, vol. 1 by Gail Simone & Neil Googe. I checked this out from the library a while ago and really enjoyed it. Glad to have my own copy now.

A couple of movies since last week:

• The Best of the Kids in the Hall, vol. 2.
  
• Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Before you judge me, we watched this with the RiffTrax commentary. Very funny. I especially like how they heaped abuse on Jar Jar just about every time he opened his mouth.

Definitely Not a Thin Week

Staying home sick two days this week means that I got quite a bit read & watched. Here we go.

110. Ghost Rider: The Last Stand by Jason Aaron & Tan Eng Huat. I liked the story (somewhat In Nomine-ish), but I have to say the art was some of the ugliest I've ever seen. (Checked out of the library.)
     
111. Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 10 by Eiji Otsuka & Hosui Yamazaki. Don't know what to say other than that I am still really enjoying this. (Library.)
     
112. Almost Silent by Jason. Four of Jason's books collected into one volume. I believe I had already read two of these before. (Library.)
     
113. Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America by Mike Tauber & Pamela Singh. While I am technically mixed-race, I don't look stereotypically Mexican, and my father wasn't enough of a presence when I was growing up that culturally I'm simply American. So I've never had to face the issues that the people portrayed here do. A fascinating book. (Library.)
     
114. Heavy Liquid by Paul Pope. I forget how good Pope is. I have noticed that when I am simply looking at the pictures, his art doesn't do much for me. But when I actually read his stuff, it flows wonderfully. Looking forward to seeing him at Stumptown this weekend. (Library.)
     
115. Doctor Who: The Forgotten by Tony Lee, Pia Guerra, et al. I've really been on a Doctor Who kick lately. (Library.)
     
116. Detroit Metal City, vol. 4 by Kiminori Wakasugi. Absurd but funny. (Library.)
     
117. Wonder Woman: Ends of the Earth by Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, & Bernard Chang. The more of Gail Simone's work I read, the more I like her.
     
118. King of RPGs by Jason Thompson & Victor Hao. Manga-like. Completely over the top in places. Funny.
     
119. Ultimate Fantastic Four, vol. 11: Salem's Seven by Mike Carey & Tyler Kirkham. (Library.)
     
120. Grendel: Behold the Devil by Matt Wagner. I don't seem to have anything to say about this. I liked it.
     
121. George Herriman's Krazy & Ignatz in "Tiger Tea". Daily strips from the legendary comic.
     
122. Dark Reign: Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman & Sean Chen. (Library.)
     
123. Fables, vol. 13: The Great Fables Crossover by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Mark Buckingham, Tony Akins, et al. Still plenty entertaining.

And here are the movies & DVDs I've watched since last week:

• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Bloodwaters of Doctor Z. A mad scientist turns himself into a fish-man in an attempt to rule the world. Don't ask me. It doesn't make any more sense to me than it does to you.
  
• Spooky Spooky Scary Scary. I picked this up at the 2009 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival but hadn't gotten around to watching it until now. Funny, but I could have done without the the hackneyed plot of "two buddies fall out when one of them gets a girlfriend, but they get back together when she turns out to be a shrew."
  
• Doctor Who: The Leisure Hive. I did say that I've been on a Doctor Who kick.
  
• The Best of the Kids in the Hall, vol. 1. Great sketch comedy.
  
• Them! After years of watching MST3K and its progeny, it is so strange to see a giant monster movie with a decent budget and actors.
  
• Lilo and Stich. Man, I love this movie, but I hadn't seen it in years. This is my family. I found it, all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. "
  
• Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks. Not the best Doctor Who story.

And We're Back

Time to catch up on the past couple of weeks.

100. Ultimate Fantastic Four, vol. 8: Devils by Mike Carey, et al. Enjoyable. (Checked out of the library.)
     
101. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. A sequel to Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Air. As always, very good. Reading this made me want to re-watch the movie version of Howl's Moving Castle (even though the movie is very different from the book.)
     
102. Ultimate Fantastic Four, vol. 9: Silver Surfer by Mike Carey & Pasqual Ferry. I have found that Carey's Ultimate FF is quite good. (Library.)
     
103. Batman: The Black Casebook by various. I would love to see more reprints of the wacky sci-fi Batman from the 50s.
     
104. Studs Terkel's Working: A Graphic Adaptation by Harvey Pekar, et al. Comics adaptation of Terkel's classic book. (Library.)
     
105. Fall of Cthulhu, vol 4: Godwar by Michael Alan Nelson, Markus Santolouco, & Mark Dos Santos. As I think I have mentioned with previous volumes, not terribly Lovecraftian, but good as standard horror. (Library.)
     
106. Ultimate Fantastic Four, vol. 10: Ghosts by Mike Carey, Mark Brooks, & Tyler Kirkham. (Library.)
     
107. Doctor Who: Through Time and Space by various. A collection of one-shot Doctor Who comics. Pretty good. (Library.)
     
108. Superman: The Man of Steel, vol.6 by John Byrne, et al. Superman comics from the late 80s.
     
109. Showcase Presents Sgt. Rock, vol. 1 by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert, et al. I had heard great things about these comics, but this was still better than I expected. I think my attitude was colored by Kanigher's superhero work, which is completely insane. While these stories aren't any more realistic, they are more down to earth.

Several movies since my last real update:

• Sherlock Holmes. Guy Ritchie's movie may offend purists, but it's a lot of fun, and I don't think it runs counter to the essence of the character.
  
• The Faux Film Festival. A collection of fake commercials, faux TV shows, and mockumentaries. Unfortunately, the shorts we saw were almost universally awful. Except for a couple of the movies, nobody knew when to end a joke. And the jokes were terrible.
  
• Doctor Who: The Robots of Death. I am very glad that Teena has been enjoying the Doctor Who DVDs I've been checking out of the library.
  
• Cinematic Titanic Live: The Alien Factor. The best Cinematic Titanic yet. The fact that it's live, and we can see the riffers' reactions to the jokes helps. Very funny.
  
• Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars. A great story. One of my favorite adventures.

House Guest

Teena's father is staying with us right now, so I will not be updating this week.