And of course, after that last entry, it ends up being 8 days before I update again.

Books

• The Gunwitch: Outskirts of Doom by Dan Brereton & Ted Naifeh. This is a retelling of the story from Yojimbo, Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing, etc. using one of the characters from Brereton's The Nocturnals. It's okay, but doesn't really bring much tothe story.
  
• Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi. This graphic novel depicts Satrapi's childhood in revolutionary Iran. Very moving. (Checked out of the library)
  
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I really enjoyed this, although the end fell a little flat. One of the things that I especially liked was how Maguire created an Oz that reflects Baum's books & not just the movie. (Library)
  
• Justice League Adventures: The Magnificent Seven by various. Another collection of the comics based on the cartoon series.
  
• Real Stuff by Dennis Eichhorn et al. Autobiographical stories by Eichhorn, illustrated by a variety of cartoonists.
  
• Maison Ikkoku, v.2 by Rumiko Takahashi. Romantic comedy manga. This is the second volume of a new edition, published without flipping the artwork (so the book reads right to left). Unfortunately, the number of chapters per volume has changed between editions, so unless I want to buy all the volumes in the new edition, I'll have some duplicated chapters.
  
• Hellboy: Conqueror Worm by Mike Mignola. I'm starting to get excited about the upcoming Hellboy movie.
  
• ad6 Degrees of Separation by John Kovalic. The latest collection of "Dork Tower" comics.
  
• Slow News Day by Andi Watson. Wonderful story about two people working for a newspaper in a small English town.
  
• Nextworld, v.1 by Osamu Tezuka. More manga from "the god of comics."
  
• Batman: Bruce Wayne: Fugitive, v.3 by various. (Library)
  
• X-Treme X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont, Ivan Kordey, & Brent Anderson. It's been a while since I read anything written by him, but this confirms it: I'm over Chris Claremont. (Library)
  
• Southpaw by Scott Morse. (Library)
  
• My Sassy Girl, v.1 by Ho Sik Kim & Dae Hong Min. Korean comics. Eh. (Library)
  
• Midnight Nation by J. Michael Straczynski & Gary Frank.
  
• Munchkin Monster Manual 2.5 by John W. Mangrum.
  
• Burning Shaolin by Robin D. Laws. This is a role-playing adventure designed for either Dungeons & Dragons or Feng Shui.* I really liked the attitude the author took to the differences between the two games. In the description of one area, there is a pile of debris. The D&D rules say "In the time-honored tradition of dungeon trash, this refuse pile contains a tiny amount of treasure and a bunch of nasty poisonous creatures." It then describes how the adventurers can find a miniscule amount of saleable junk if they search through it (but they run the risk of getting ill if they do). The Feng Shui rules simply say "Feng Shui characters are too busy looking cool to root through trash for spare change."
  
• Ethereal Player's Guide by Rebecca Sean Borgstrom & David Edelstem. The latest (last?) supplement for In Nomine, a role-playing game about angels & demons. This felt a lot like Borgstrom's Nobilis rpg: Many little snippets of fiction that do a lot to set mood but almost nothing else. Also, the sense that you're being shown a vast & detailed cosmology that bears almost no resemblance to anything that has gone before & therefore doesn't resonate. I'd love to play in a game run by Borgstrom or read fiction written by her, but for me her game-writing doesn't really work.

*Feng Shui is a role-playing game that tries to capture the feel of Hong Kong action movies. It has nothing to do with arranging furniture.

Man, I've really got to start updating this thing more frequently. Quite a few books to add since last time.

• The Redeemer by Pat Mills & Wayne Reynolds. (Checked out of the library) Graphic novel about the Warhammer universe (at least, that's what I gather; I don't actually know enough about Warhammer to say that definitively).
  
• The Streets of Ankh-Morpork by Stephen Briggs & Terry Pratchett. Another Discworld map. (Borrowed from Teena)
  
• Crisis on Multiple Earths by Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowsky. This is a collection of the first 4 team-ups of the Justice League and the Justice Society. Comics from the '60's feel very different from the way they do now. (Library)
  
• Isolation & Illusion: Collected Short Stories 1977-1997 by P. Craig Russell. Beautiful artwork.
  
• The Interman by Jeff Parker. (Library)
  
• Club 9 by Makoto Kobayashi. More manga. (Library)
  
• Sweater Weather by Sara Varon. (Library)
  
• A Tourist Guide to Lancre by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs, & Paul Kidby. (Teena)
  
• The Discworld Mapp (sic) by Terry Pratchett & Stephen Briggs. (Teena)
  
• The Avengers: Clear & Present Danger by Kurt Busiek & George Perez.
  
• Potlatch: Comics to Benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund by various
  
• Justice League Adventures, v.2: Friends & Foes by various. This is a collection of issues of the comic book based on the cartoon series on Cartoon Network.
  
• Star Wars: Rites of Passage by John Ostrander & Jan Duursema. Why is it that the best Star Wars stories are not coming from LucasFilm? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.) These comics & the 5-minute cartoon shorts that aired on Cartoon Network last November kick ass & are way better than anything Lucas has done for a long, long time.
  
• Pride & Joy by Garth Ennis & John Higgins.
  
• Dr. Radium Battles Phill, King of the Pill Bugs by Scott Saavedra. Silly stuff, but very fun.
  
• Daredevil: Love's Labors Lost by Dennis O'Neil & David Mazzucchelli.
  
• Shaman King, v.1 by Hiroyuki Takei.
  
• Shaman King, v.2 by Hiroyuki Takei.
  
• Art Adams' Creature Features
  
• Summer Blonde (stories) by Adrian Tomine. (Library)
  
• Lupin III, v.5 by Monkey Punch.

Movies

• MST3K: Operation Double 007 An amazingly bad film starring Neil Connery, Sean's brother. (Teena)
  
• The Kingdom Very creepy Danish mini-series about a haunted hospital. Written & directed by Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark). This series is being remade in English as Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital and will air in March. (Library)
  
• The Zero Effect I'd never even heard of this movie before Teena told me I should see it. We watched it together. It's very good.

It's been nearly a week, time to update.

Movies
Lots of Mystery Science Theater 3000 since last week (all borrowed from Teena or just watched at her place).

• Further Tales of the City (checked out of the library)
  
• MST3K: The Castle of Fu Manchu Bad, even by MST3K standards.
  
• MST3K: The Amazing Colossal Man
  
• MST3K: War of the Colossal Beast, which starts with the short "Mr. B Natural," one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
  
• MST3K: Outlaw Teena's favorite MST3K episode, and I can see why. Very funny. It's got Jack Palance, many silly hats, and an overabundance of shots focussing on people's crotches. Best Brains won a Peabody award for this episode.
  
• Roxanne I wish Steve Martin made more movies like this and fewer like Cheaper by the Dozen (which I haven't seen but assume to be terrible)
  
• MST3K: Cave Dwellers

Books

• Graphic Classics: Jack London Stories adapted to comics form by a variety of artists (checked out of the library)
  
• The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen (borrowed from Teena)
  
• Batman: Terror by Doug Moench & Paul Gulacy (library)
  
• Lucifer, v.3: A Dalliance with the Damned by Mike Carey et al. This is feeling less "Vertigo-y" than earlier volumes, and therefore I'm liking it more. In general, people who aren't Neil Gaiman shouldn't try to write like him.
  
• The Frank Book by Jim Woodring. Strange, dreamlike, wordless stories. Good but unsettling. (library)
  
• Alias, v.2: Come Home by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos. No connection to the TV series. This is the 2nd collection of a comic book about a private investigator, Jessica Jones, who used to be a superhero. Very good stuff.
  
• Naruto, v.1 by Masashi Kishimoto. More manga.
  
• Alias, v.3: The Underneath by Bendis & Gaydos
  
• Naruto, v.2 by Kishimoto
  
• Project: Telstar by various. This is a collection of short comics stories about robots or space or both. (library)
  
• Animal Man, v.3: Deus Ex Machina by Grant Morrison & Chas Truog. This book collects the final issues of Morrison's run on Animal Man. Now if only DC would start collecting more of his run on Doom Patrol
  
• Death's Domain by Terry Pratchett & Paul Kidby. (borrowed from Teena)

New DVD acquisitions
Last weekend Fred Meyer had a sale on DVDs that cost over $25, so I picked up a couple things.

• The Simpsons season 2
  
• Futurama season 2
  
• Jeremiah season 1. I don't know much of anything about this series. (It aired on some cable channel I don't get or don't watch.) But it was created by J. Michael Straczinski, the man behind Babylon 5, so I feel confident it's pretty good.
  
• The Ben Stiller Show (Thanks, Teena!)

Long weekend (didn't come into the PSU library for computer access on Friday, and MLK day yesterday), but time for the final catch-up post:

Movies watched

• Tampopo watched this with Teena at Pix Patisserie. Rather strange but good (other than one scene involving a turtle).
  
• The Return of the King again, this time with my mother & aunt
  
• Zelig (checked out of the library)
  
• Madadayo, Akira Kurosawa's final film. Excellent. (library)
  
• The Ring Watching this again, I have realized that it differs from the original Japanese film (Ringu) more than I thought at first, still pretty close, though. (library)
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Crawling Hand I didn't think I'd seen this one before, since it's from the first season (Tom Servo has a different voice, & Dr. Forrester has a different assistant), but it seemed very familiar, and at the end, there is an unforgettable image that made me positive I must have seen it some Thanksgiving as part of "Turkey Day."
  
• MST3K: Shorts (borrowed from Teena)
  
• MST3K: Last of the Wild Horses (Teena)
  
• MST3K: Eegah (Teena)
  
• MST3K: The Brain that Wouldn't Die (Teena)
  
• "Weird Al" Yankovic, the Ultimate Video Collection
  
• Princess Mononoke watched with Teena at Pix Patisserie
  
• Indie DVD Fusion 1, this is a collection of short, independent films; it appears to be the first of a series. Nothing great, but there were a couple that were interesting. (library)
  
• Wonder Boys, and adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel. I started reading the book at the end of last year, but just didn't feel like it at the time & didn't get very far at all. I really liked the movie and will be trying the book again at some point. (library)
  
• Moulin Rouge watched at Teena's place. People have 2 reactions to this film. Either they love it or they hate it. Fortunately, Teena's one of the former.
  
• Meet John Doe (library)
  
• Intolerable Cruelty
  
• Big Fish Amazing, a Tim Burton film with more substance than style. Teena liked it too.
  
• MST3K: Being from Another Planet (borrowed from Teena)
  
• Also, I watched the entire Firefly series. Damn Fox for cancelling such an excellent show.
  
• And Teena & I went over to Harmony & Topher's place, where we all watched the first 1/3 of the 2nd season of Sports Night, another show cancelled much too soon.

And now for the books I've read since I last updated:

• Starman: The Stars My Desination by James Robinson et al. I really enjoyed Robinson's Starman series, and I'm very glad that DC seems committed to reprinting the entire thing in book form.
  
• Global Frequency: Planet Ablaze by Warren Ellis et al. Ellis really seems to like the concept of an organization of people that handles unusual threats. It shows up here as well as in Stormwatch/Authority and Planetary, but still, he handles it well.
  
• JSA: Stealing Thunder by Geoff Johns, David Goyer, et al. (library)
  
• When I'm Old & other stories by Gabrielle Bell (library)
  
• Judgement Day by Alan Moore, Rob Liefeld, et al. Much as I love Moore's writing, I have difficulty recommending this, because Liefeld's art is so terrible. But there are segments by good artists, most notably Gil Kane & Rick Veitch.
  
• The Authority, bk. 2: Under New Management by Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, et al.

Now for books read in 2004.

• The Sandman: King of Dreams by Alisa Kwitney. This is a coffee-table book overview of Gaiman's series.
  
• Pocket Universe: The Dream Art of Rick Veitch: The Collected Rare Bit Fiends, vol. 2
  
• Hellblazer: Rake at the Gates of Hell by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon
  
• Road to Perdition by Max Allan Collins & Richard Piers Rayner. This is the graphic novel that the Tom Hanks movie is based on.
  
• Graphic Classics: H.G. Wells
  
• The Nodwick Chronicles III: Songs in the Key of Aiiieeee!
  
• Nanny Ogg's Cookbook by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Briggs, et al.
  
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess
  
• JLA: World War III by Grant Morrison et al.
  
• America's Best Comics by Alan Moore et al.
  
• One Bad Day by Steve Rolston
  
• Captain Marvel: Nothing to Lose by Peter David & ChrisCross
  
• Cowboy Bebop: Shooting Star by Cain Kuga
  
• One Piece 2: Buggy the Clown by Eiichiro Oda
  
• Dragon Ball Z, v.14 by Akira Toriyama
  
• Captain Marvel: Coven by Peter David & Kyle Hotz
  
• More Fund Comics by various. Proceeds from sales of this graphic novel go towards the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
  
• Miss Remarkable & her Career by Joanna Rubin Dranger
  
• Tank Girl 2 by Alan Martin & Jamie Hewlett
  
• In Nomine: Revelations II: The Marches by various. More fodder for the game I'm thinking about running.
  
• Sturm and Drang: Great Moments in Rock & Roll History by Joel Orff
  
• Sgt. Rock: Between Hell & a Hard Place by Brian Azzarello & Joe Kubert.

Today, it's the rest of the books I read in 2003. (Still no Amazon links.)

• Munchkin Master's Screen This is a parody of a role-playing game item. Very funny.
  
• Icaro, v.1 by Moebius and Jiro Taniguchi
  
• Spark Generators II by various. Cartoonists tell about their influences.
  
• BOP! (More Box Office Poison) by Alex Robinson
  
• Autobiographix by various. Autobiographical comics.
  
• Stray Toasters by Bill Sienkiewicz. This didn't seem quite as strange as it did when it first came out in the 80's. Still pretty strange, though.
  
• In Nomine: Revelations I: Night Music by Derek Pearcy et al. A role playing book; I'm considering running an In Nomine game for some of my friends, and this helped me clarify some of the ideas I have for it.
  
• Swashbuckling Adventures: Heroes, Villains, and Monsters More role playing stuff. Way too many monsters for what's supposed to be a swashbuckling game.
  
• The Ring, v.1 Manga version of the story told in the Japanese movie Ringu and the American movie The Ring (and a Japanese novel).
  
• Superman & Batman: Generations II by John Byrne
  
• Transmetropolitan, v.9: The Cure by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson
  
• Phoenix: A Tale of the Future by Osamu Tezuka
  
• Dicks by Garth Ennis & John McCrea

In 2003, I finished 400 books. Of course, the vast majority of them were graphic novels, but still...

Been a while since I posted. Damn weather (also, there's the lack of a job [and also easy web access] situation). Anyway, here's a list of recent DVD acquisitions. Some of these are gifts, others were on sale, and some were just me splurging with money from my severance package. Right now I'm too lazy to deal with the Amazon links.

• The Adventures of Indiana Jones (thanks, Teena!)
  
• The Two Towers, extended edition
  
• Benny & Cecil
  
• Casino Royale
  
• Get Shorty
  
• Four Weddings and a Funeral
  
• Y Tu Mama Tambien
  
• Tenacious D: The Complete Master Works
  
• Grave of the Fireflies
  
• Lou Reed: Transformer
  
• Firefly, the complete series This was a wonderful show. Damn Fox anyway for cancelling it.
  
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 5
  
• Angel, season 2
  
• "Weird Al" Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection
  
• Pee-Wee's Big Adventure