A Few Words about Some Books

452. Showcase Presents Legion of Super-Heroes, vol. 2 by various. This volume contains the debut comics work by Jim Shooter. Stories written when he was 13. Which might explain how, in one of them, he tried make the reader believe that the Legionnaire who would betray Earth was NOT the newly-introduced Nemesis Kid.
     
453. Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight by Chris Onstad. I had heard about the web strip Achewood, but the art style put me off, and I never got into it. Then this collection came out, and I kept reading how good this storyline was, so I decided to take a look. I have to admit, it's pretty damn good. I still think the art is incredibly ugly, though. (Checked out of the library.)
     
454. Gimmick, vol. 1 by Youzaburou Kanari & Kuroko Yabusuchi. Manga about a make-up artist. (Library.)
     
455. Where the Deep Ones Are by Kenneth Hite & Andy Hopp. Mixing Maurice Sendak & H.P. Lovecraft.
     
456. Essential Man Thing, vol. 2 by various. More adventures of the muck-encrusted mockery of a man.
     
457. Owly, vol. 5: Tiny Tales by Andy Runton. More cute, wordless stories. (Borrowed from Teena's classroom.)
     
458. Marvel Adventures Avengers, vol. 7: Weirder and Wilder by Jeff Parker & Ig Guara. I say this every time I read a Marvel Adventures collection, but some of the best super-hero comics being written today are aimed at children.
     
459. Ex Machina, vol. 7: Ex Cathedra by Brian K. Vaughan & Tony Harris. Still enjoying this.
     
460. Crossing Midnight, vol. 3: The Sword in the Soul by Mike Carey & Jim Fern. The final volume of this series involving Japanese yokai. I liked the concept, and I guess I should have bought the issues as they came out. If more people had, this might not be the final volume. But I'd rather have collections than individual issues.
     
461. Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home by Robin Furth, Peter David, & Jae Lee. And now, a Dark Tower comic that isn't an adaptation of pre-existing stories.
     
462. The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle by Jim Butcher & Ardian Syaf. I've never read the novels, and I only saw a couple of episodes of the TV show, but I thought I'd give this graphic novel a try. The story is pretty good. Not the best art, but at least the characters look the same from panel to panel, and the artist can tell a story using pictures.

Back Up to Speed

Got a few more books read this past week.

440. The Savage Sword of Conan, vol. 1 by Roy Thomas, John Buscema, Barry Windsor Smith, et al. Reprints from the magazine Marvel published in the 70s. The stories can get somewhat repetitive, but they're still entertaining.
     
441. Super Spy by Matt Kindt. Very impressive. An assortment of related spy stories set in WWII. Extremely well done. (Checked out of the library.)
     
442. MySpace Dark Horse Presents, vol. 1 by various. As with any anthology, the quality of the stories varies, but there is more good here than not. (Library.)
     
443. Aetheric Mechanics by Warren Ellis & Gianluca Pagliarani. This is steampunkish, and therefore I bought it. I liked it, but there is a revelation that comes near the end that I don't quite buy. On the other hand, I do like how the characters react to that revelation.
     
444. Miki Falls, vol. 2: Summer by Mark Crilley. Manga-ish & very well done. (Library.)
     
445. Miki Falls, vol. 3: Autumn by Mark Crilley. (Library.)
     
446. Miki Falls, vol. 4: Winter by Mark Crilley. (Library.)
     
447. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, vol. 3. More sweet, funny comic strips.
     
448. The Goon: Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker by Eric Powell. A serious story about the Goon's past. (Library.)
     
449. Cthulhu Tales, vol. 1 by various. Another anthology. I especially liked the story about a grade-school production of The King In Yellow, but I think it needed more room to develop. (Library.)
     
450. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Another enjoyable book from Gaiman. This one made me want to read The Jungle Book, since I only know the stories from the Disney movie (and I haven't seen that since I was a child) and a handful of comic book adaptations. As it is, I was only able to see the broadest of parallels (although I don't know that the correspondences go beyond the most basic of levels).
     
451. Meow, Baby! by Jason. Largely silent comics involving a variety of monsters. (Library.)

Another Light Week

434. Dororo, vol. 1 by Osamu Tezuka.
     
435. Dororo, vol. 2 by Osamu Tezuka.
     
436. Dororo, vol. 3 by Osamu Tezuka. I am so happy more & more of the god of manga's work is being translated. Admittedly, I'm not sure any of it surpasses Buddha or Phoenix, but I want to read all I can.
     
437. Boneyard, vol. 6 by Richard Moore. (Checked out of the library.)
     
438. The Education of Hopey Glass by Jaime Hernandez. The Hernandez Brothers' work doesn't grab me nearly as much as it used to (during the heyday of Love & Rockets), but it's still damn good. (Library.)
     
439. The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vol. 7 by Eiji Otsuka & Housui Yamazaki. Yet another volume in this horror manga series. (Library.)

Awful and Brilliant at the Same Time

Your challenge is to write crossover fanfiction combining Siegfried & Roy and Metalocalypse. The story should use furries as a plot device!

Learn more at The Terrible Crossover Fanfiction Idea Generator.

(found via)

Light Week

429. Punisher War Journal, vol. 3: Hunter/Hunted by Matt Fraction, et al. (Checked out of the library.)
     
430. The Immortal Iron Fist, vol. 2: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven by Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, David Aja, et al. Kick-ass kung fu action. Loads of fun. This book is a blast.
     
431. Apocalypse Nerd by Peter Bagge. (Library.)
     
432. The Eternals, vol. 2 by Jack Kirby. The comics collected here don't hold up quite as well as those in volume 1, but it's still Kirby.
     
433. The Goon, vol. 5: Wicked Inclinations by Eric Powell. (Library.)

See, I told you right up front it was a light week.

A Few More Titles Read

I've got what feels like a nasty headache coming on, so I'll keep this short.

421. Emma, vol. 4 by Kaoru Mori.
     
422. Emma, vol. 5 by Kaoru Mori. Stupid Amazon doesn't have a listing for this volume.
     
423. Pantheon, vol. 1: Welcome to the Machine by Bill Willingham & Mike Leeke. No listing for this book either, but as it's from a small press, it's a bit more understandable.
     
424. Emma, vol. 6 by Kaoru Mori.
     
425. Emma, vol. 7 by Kaoru Mori. The final volume.
     
426. Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, vol. 1: Birds, Bees, Blood & Beer by Ben Templesmith. If you like Templesmith's art style (which isn't for everybody), this is great. (Checked out of the library.)
     
427. Invasion! by Keith Giffen, Bill Mantlo, Todd McFarlane, & Bart Sears. Big, loud, superhero cross-over. Not high art, but entertaining.
     
428. Harvey Comics Classics, vol. 1: Casper the Friendly Ghost by various.

Recovered

The 2008 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival finished up Sunday night, and I have caught up on my sleep, so here's the update for this week, just a couple of days late.

393. John Constantine, Hellblazer: Reasons to Be Cheerful by Mike Carey & Leonardo Manco. I'm slowly acquiring all of Carey's run on Hellblazer. I should pick up the next volume soon, since this one ends on a cliffhanger.
     
394. M Is for Magic by Neil Gaiman. This collection had more stories that I had already read than I originally thought. I didn't recognize all the titles.
     
395. Dungeon Monstres, v. 1: The Crying Giant by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Mazan, & Jean-Christophe Menu. (Checked out of the library.)
     
396. The Collected Hutch Owen by Tom Hart.
     
397. Godland, vol. 3: Proto-Plastic Party by Joe Casey & Tom Scioli. The best Kirby pastiche I've seen, because the creators use their own characters, rather than Kirby's. (Library.)
     
398. Hutch Owen: Unmarketable by Tom Hart.
     
399. Black Panther: The Client by Christopher Priest, Mark Texiera, & Vince Evans. (Library.)
     
400. The Onion Presents Embedded in America: Complete News Archives, vol. 16 by various. Reading this went a lot quicker once I realized reading the articles didn't make it any funnier than just reading the headlines.
     
401. Essex County, vol. 2: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire. Wonderful, touching book. (Library.)
     
402. Banks/Eubanks by Tom Hart.
     
403. Axis of Troubleby Lloyd Dangle. The political cartoons collected here are pretty good, but they're also past their shelf-life.
     
404. Cat Eyed Boy, vol. 1 by Kazuo Umezu. More insanity from the creator of The Drifting Classroom. (Library.)
     
405. Monster, vol. 16: Welcome Home by Naoki Urasawa. Events in this thriller are coming to a head. I can't wait for the conclusion in the next volume. (Library.)
     
406. Emma, vol. 1 by Kaoru Mori. Back when I first read this, I thought it was okay, but it didn't grab me enough to buy any further volumes. Then I checked volume 2 out of the library and liked it a lot more. So I decided to pick up the whole series. It's taken me a little while.
     
407. Fall of Cthulhu, vol. 1: The Fugue by Michael Alen Nelson, Jean Dzialowski, & Andrew Ritchie. I wasn't sure at first, but as this graphic novel went on, I liked it more. (Library.)
     
408. The Goon: Noir by various. (Library.)
     
409. Emma, vol. 2 by Kaoru Mori.
     
410. Chance in Hell by Gilbert Hernandez. (Library.)
     
411. Emma, vol. 3 by Kaoru Mori.
     
412. Monster Attack Network by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman, & Nima Sorat. (Library.)
     
413. The Death of Captain America, vol. 2: The Burden of Dreams by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, & Butch Guice. I've never thought he would stay dead. Whatever Brubaker intends, he won't write the book forever, and Steve Rogers will be back sooner or later. But I'm enjoying the ride until we get there. Great stuff.
     
414. Power Pack: Day One by Fred Van Lente & GuriHiru. I like Van Lente's writing, so I bought this for myself rather than for Teena's classroom.
     
415. Dr. Fate: Countdown to Mystery by Steve Gerber & Justiano. Gerber's last work. I wish he could have completed it, but the tributes from other comics writers are touching.
     
416. Korgi, bk. 2 by Christian Slade. This book I did get for Teena's classroom.
     
417. Bleach, vol. 24: Immanent God Blues by Tite Kubo.
     
418. Wolverine: First Class: The Rookie by Fred Van Lente, Andrea Di Vito, & Salva Espin.
     
419. Black Summer by Warren Ellis & Juan Jose Ryp. I love the concept behind this book. If you're a superhero, you're taking the law into your hands. Where do you draw the line? Which criminals do you go after? This book opens with a superhero deciding that the president lied to get us into an illegal war. The book deals with the fallout of what he does after having made that decision.
     
420. Abe Sapien: The Drowning by Mike Mignola & Jason Shawn Alexander. The story of Abe's first solo mission for the B.P.R.D.