Catching Up

321. Templar, AZ, Book 3: And a Stick to Beat the Devil With by Spike. As I think I mentioned when I read Book 1, I discovered Templar, AZ at this years Stumptown Comics Fest. I liked it, and was pleased to discover that the shop where I get my comics stocks the collections of this web-comic. However, it looks like Book 2 costs $18, and I wasn't quite willing to pay that much for it. So I read that one online. Book 3, on the other hand, was only $12, so I shelled out for it, and now I'm definitely hooked. I'm staying up to date online, and the next time I'm feeling rich, I'll be picking up Book 2.
     
322. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, vol. 4 by Tove & Lars Jansson. The latest (final?) volume of Jansson's sweet, gently humorous strip about the characters from her children's books.
     
323. The Boys, vol. 1: The Name of the Game by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson. Over the top and exceedingly violent. But I quite liked it anyway. (Checked out of the library.)
     
324. Usagi Yojimbo, vol. 23: Bridge of Tears by Stan Sakai. As excellent as always.
     
325. Scorpion: Poison Tomorrow by Fred van Lente & Leonard Kirk.
     
326. Captain Britain and MI13, vol. 2: Hell Comes to Britain by Paul Cornell & Leonard Kirk. The praise I've been reading online for this comic is well deserved. (Library.)
     
327. The Brave and the Bold, vol. 3: Demons & Dragons by Mark Waid, Scott Kolins, et al. Super-hero team-ups. (Library.)
     
328. Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? by Neil Gaiman, Andy Kubert, et al. Gaiman's Batman-related stories.
     
329. The Weasel Patrol by Ken Macklin & Lela Dowling. Silly stuff.
     
330. Hulk: WWH - Damage Control by Dwayne McDuffie, Salva Espin et al. (Library.)
     
331. Mouse Guard, vol. 2: Winter 1152 by David Peterson. I liked the first volume well enough, but it didn't really grab me. This volume did. Looking forward to the next book.
     
332. Beanworld, book 2: A Gift Comes! by Larry Marder. Collecting the rest of the previously published Beanworld stories. I can't wait for book 3 and new material.
     
333. Ignorance, Thy Name is Bucky by Darby Conley. The latest "Get Fuzzy" collection.
     
334. Star Wars Vector, vol. 2 by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, et al. Star Wars cross-over comics. But I really do like Ostrander's writing.
     
335. Spider-Man: Family Ties by various. (Library.)
     
336. Pluto, vol. 4 by Naoki Urasawa. I continue to be blown away by the emotional depth in this manga series. Wonderful stuff. And it's a retelling of an "Astro Boy" story.
     
337. Dan Dare Omnibus by Garth Ennis & Gary Erskine. Revamp of the old British comics character. (Library.)
     
338. Madame Xanadu, vol. 1: Disenchanted by Matt Wagner & Amy Reeder. Very good. I don't know what else to say.
     
339. Frankenstein's Womb by Warren Ellis & Marek Oleksicki. Comic about Mary Shelley, her creation, and the birth of modernity.
     
340. Elk's Run by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Noel Tuazon. Coming-of-age story set in what may be the worst-thought-out (by the characters, not the writer) Utopia I've ever encountered.
     
341. Tales of the Batman by Tim Sale, et al. I know DC put this out because Sale does (did? I've stopped watching) the comic artwork in Heroes, but I'll take it because there is some gorgeous artwork here. And the stories aren't bad, either. (Library.)
     
342. The Boys, vol. 2: Get Some by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson. More deconstruction of super-heroes. (Library.)

Only a couple of movies in the past two weeks:

• RiffTrax: Carnival of Souls. There's about 10 minutes worth of story in this 82 minute movie. The rest is padding. OMG, this movie moves slowly. The jokes make endurable, just.
  
• Ponyo. Very sweet. Not as much substance as Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle, but still gorgeous and touching. I wouldn't expect anything less from Miyazaki.

House Guest

No post this week.

Some More Books

313. Incognegro: A Graphic Mystery by Mat Johnson & Warren Pleece. Set during the Harlem Renaissance, this graphic novel tells the story of a black reporter who can pass as white & who does so to report on lynchings in the South. Very well done. (Library.)
     
314. The Goon, vol. 7: A Place of Heartache & Grief by Eric Powell. Still very silly in places, but becoming more serious. (Library.)
     
315. HeroQuest: Core Rules by Robin D. Laws. My gaming group has started role-playing in Glorantha again, and so I wanted to pick up the latest version of the rules to support what I view as the best fantasy setting I've ever seen for an RPG.
     
316. What If? Civil War by various. Nothing terribly good in this, but one of the stories is simply awful. The art was unsuited to "serious" superheroics, and the writing was just amateurish. (Library.)
     
317. Nexus: As It Happened, vol. 1 by Mike Baron & Steve Rude. I already have the stories collected here, but I would like to see the rest of Nexus collected in an affordable format. There's no way I'm paying $50 a pop for the Archive editions.
     
318. Uncanny X-Men: Lovelorn by Matt Fraction & Terry Dodson. (Library.)
     
319. The Huntress: Darknight Daughter by Paul Levitz & Joe Staton. Comics about Batman's & Catwoman's daughter. (Library.)
     
320. Sam & Twitch: The Brian Michael Bendis Collection, vol. 1 by Brian Michael Bendis & Angel Medina. (Library.)

No new movies this week, but I did forget something last week. (Which is ironic, because I forgot to blog about it when Teena & I first watched it.)

• Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, The Complete Fourth Season. More debunking & offensive commentary from Penn & Teller.

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.