Lots of comic books this month…
Scott Pilgrim. Vol. 1, Scott Pilgrim’s precious little life, O’Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the world. Vol. 2, O’Malley
I read these after reading a glowing review of the upcoming vol. 3. They are fun and read quite quickly– enough so that I wish there was more in each book as I tend to finish them in less than an hour. Three stars.
Fired! : tales of the canned, canceled, downsized and dismissed, Gurwitch.
Entertaining and compelling stories of being fired from an assortment of very talented writers (mostly in entertainment, as is Gurwitch). If you feel terribly misunderstood at work, this is a good pick. Three stars.
Brokeback Mountain, Proulx
I am one of the few people who hasn’t yet seen the movie, but now I have read the book (story, really). I pretty much knew how it would end, though. Two stars.
Astronauts of the future, Trondheim and Larcenet
Two kids suspect that not all is as it seems: one thinks everyone else is alien, the other thinks robots. Very fun graphic novel. Four stars.
Mister O, Trondheim
The wordless slapstick adventures of a little O-shaped guy. Laugh out loud funny. Four stars.
Anansi boys, Gaiman
Again Gaiman hits it out of the park. Much more like Good Omens than like American Gods– fun and mythic more than epic. Four stars.
Born to rock, Korman (Y)
Light and fluffy more than well written. Two stars.
A.L.I.E.E.E.N, Trondheim
Premise: alien comic book with no translation. Outcome: well formatted, interesting, but a bit disturbing– much death and feces. One star.
Yotsuba&! 2, Azuma
Sequel to Yotsuba&!, and just as charming. Three stars.
Mismatch, Namioka (Y)
A Japanese-American boy and Chinese-American girl fall in love but are afraid of the reactions of their family members who hold some combination of grudge and racist hatred against the other heritage. Then the youths go on an orchestra field trip to Tokyo and learn stuff. It’s a one note (and that one note is repeated endlessly) message book (not all Asians are alike, some even hate eachother!) and the writing (setting, character development, etc) is about one inch deep and plays like a remedial reading textbook. I expected a lot more from Namioka. No stars.
Is it cheating to list books I didn’t finish? Freshman by Gerber: got partway through when it lost track of what genre it was and I lost hope that it would continue to have a plot. Freaks, Alive on the Inside by Klause: it takes pretty uninspired writing to make me not finish a book with circus freaks. Wisconsin Death Trip by Lesey: not really all that freakish if you regularly read Fortean Times and proofread old periodicals for Distributed Proofreaders. He done her wrong: the great American novel by Gross: wordless but not timeless comic novel from the 1930s. Billy Hazelnuts by Millionaire: honestly a bit too creepy for me. Apocalypse Chow by Robertson: I was hoping for how to cook a casserole on a candle, but it’s food snobbery during blackouts. Feh.