strange and random happenstance

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Reckoning by Joss Whedon
Published by: Dark Horse Books
Publication Date: December 24th, 2018
Format: Paperback, 112 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Joss Whedon's Buffy and crew are confronted by a future Big Bad who has traveled to the present, intent on stealing the power of the Slayers, becoming all-powerful, and destroying the world as we know it!

The lives of Buffy and the Scoobies haven't been too eventful for a while - at least as far as fighting demons and the forces of darkness are concerned. But that all changes when Angel brings news of an amassing a force that must be reckoned with: Wolfram and Hart, a legion of demons, and Harth, vampire from the future. Buffy knows Harth and his twin sister - the Slayer, Fray - from her meeting with them and Dark Willow in the future. But this army that has been gathered is more than she and her crew were expecting...Narrowly escaping an initial encounter, the gang travels to the future to recruit Fray and learn of their dismal fate should they fail to defeat this legion that has invaded the present. Harth is after the power of the Slayers, and being in possession of all their memories, he knows how to rewrite the outcome of this ultimate battle before it occurs. This is the reckoning...and it could be the end of Buffy, Fray, and all the Slayers, forever."

Not many books are released on Christmas Eve... but here's some Buffy. I'm not saying it's good. It's the end of the comics though. Clunky, just like the rest of the run. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christmas Eve, Comics, Fray, Joss Whedon, Tuesday Tomorrow

Oh, Lucifer, you devil. Or should I say, oh, Tom Ellis, you devil. Because the number one reason I first turned into Lucifer three seasons ago was because of Tom Ellis. As Gary on Miranda Hart's TV Series Miranda, he was the loveable yet romantically inept cook who won Miranda's heart and hand. Yes I enjoyed him on Merlin as well, but as for The Secret of Crickley Hall, a miniseries with so many of my favorite actors that I thought I would love it, well, it's best avoided, as I realized once again late one night recently catching part of an episode on PBS. But surely, you're thinking, that I MUST have really turned into the show because it's based on Neil Gaiman's interpretation of Lucifer Morningstar in his Sandman comics? Honestly? No. And to now shock you further, while I love Neil Gaiman, and I adored his voicing of God in the season three bonus episode set in an alternate timeline, "Once Upon a Time," I can't stand the Sandman comics. I've tried people, I've really tried. But I just couldn't take anymore after the sixth collection and now it's been six years since I read those six volumes and I'd have to re-read them before finishing the final four volumes, and I'm sorry, there are just too many other books I want to read. Some of them even by Neil! Back to the show. Lucifer is a wonderfully almost wacky reinterpretation of what a procedural show can be, what with Lucifer's brother trying to get him to go back to hell, Lucifer's therapist who after thinking for a very long time that Lucifer was delusional, now gets that this is all too real. There are demons and love interests, and an ex who really loves his pudding. I mean, seriously, Dan loves his pudding. When Netlfix saved the Satan, I don't think my heart could have been happier.      

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Alternate History, And the Emmy Goes To, Comics, Lucifer, Merlin, Miranda, Miranda Hart, Neil Gaiman, Netflix, PBS, Procedural, Pudding, Salvation, Sandman, The Secret of Crickley Hall, Tom Ellis

Bookstore: Westfield Comics

Location: West Side Madison, Wisconsin

Why I Love Them: I have been a fan of Westfield Comics long before I was a fan of comics or even books for that matter... Yes, it seems like an odd thing to frequent a comic store and not be there for the comics, but I went through a hard core trading card addiction in my late teens and early twenties and their old location on South Whitney Way sure supplied me with the goods. That little island in the center of the store was four sides of trading card heaven, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Farscape to The Avengers (Emma Peel obviously), if there was a show or movie I loved I HAD to have the trading cards and there was always that elusive chance of finding a signed one or even better a pieceworks one (AKA a bit of fabric from a costume)! This addiction was helped along by the fact that Westfield Comics was right next to Marshalls and my mom went there literally every day, so I'd tag along and see what was happening next door. Eventually my interest started to shift into British Science Fiction magazines that you could only get there and which I desperately needed to feed my Red Dwarf addiction. But when Joss Whedon started writing comics, that was the beginning of my shift to full on Westfield Comics addict. For a short while their new location was right next to Frugal Muse and I was living the dream. Sadly Frugal Muse moved but by this point I was a goner. I now even have a pull list. Reserved. In fact Giant Days issue number thirty-seven is out this coming Wednesday! Can't wait to see what else they've gotten in!

Best Buy: Now because this blog and these posts are all about books, ostensibly, I'm going to talk about my favorite book I've gotten at Westfield Comics. And yes, this could include a trade paperback or hardcover release of comics, but in this case it doesn't. Because my spending habits in regards to graphic novels got kind of out of control I instated a rule for myself, I wasn't allowed to buy a graphic novel unless I had previously read it. This is where my local library and their amazing graphic novel selection comes in. Under the advice of my friend Janice I started to read the Fables comics by Bill Willingham back in 2012. The modern take on Fairy Tales was right up my alley. Over the course of the next three years I devoured all of them, even the offshoots from the atrocious Jack of Fables to the hit or miss Fairest. During my first initial binge catching up on all the back issues I'd missed over the years I noticed that there was one prose volume, Peter and Max: A Fables Novel. I was expecting pretty much more of the same, but I was in for a surprise. I didn't check the book out from the library, I am literally only there for the graphic novels, so off I went to Westfield Comics and there it was on the shelf under "F" and up to the counter I went and when I got home I just fell completely in love with this book. The complex story of the two brothers Peter and Max became my third most favorite book I read that year and by best buy that might never be top from Westfield Comics.   

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bill Willingham, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Comics, Emma Peel, Fables, Fairest, Farscape, Jack of Fables, Joss Whedon, Library, Peter and Max, Red Dwarf, Support Your Brick and Mortar, The Avengers, Westfield Comics

Lovers' Lane: The Hall-Mills Mystery by Rick Geary
Published by: NBM Publishing
Publication Date: July 17th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 80 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

On September 14th, 1922, shots rang out near an old abandoned farm used by the New Brunswick locals as lovers' lane. No one went to investigate and it wasn't until two days later that the bodies of Edward Hall, an Episcopal priest, and Eleanor Mills, a member of the church choir, were found. They were staged side-by-side with their feet facing a crab apple tree. A hat obscured Edward Hall's face so only his calling card propped against his shoe gave a hint as to who the male victim was at first. While both victims were shot, the female multiple times, besides having her hand placed on Edward Hall's thigh her throat was also slit from ear to ear, it was later discovered that her tongue and surrounding organs had been removed as well. Around them their love letters were scattered, an apparent judgment from the killer on this adulterous couple. Edward Hall was a pillar of the community and a favorite with his lady parishioners, though he ended up marrying spinster Frances Noel Stevens, an older woman who happened to be an heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune and lived with a mentally handicapped brother. Yet most of the community knew of his affair with the talented chorister, who herself was trapped in a loveless marriage. The case soon became a media circus, yet almost everything was badly handled, like Edward Hall's calling card which was handed through the gathering crowd for scrutiny. The crab apple tree was even denuded of branches by souvenir hunters. But the crime baffled the police, who didn't even know who should investigate, the bodies being found in the next county from where the victims lived. But again and again the investigation lead back to Mrs. Hall. Could she, with the help of her wealthy family, have killed her husband just as he was ready to elope with his mistress? For now, the case remains unsolved.

It's a wonderful thing to discover a new author and realize you have their entire back catalog to work through. I was lucky enough to stumble onto Rick Geary one dreary day at the library. I wasn't feeling the best and I wasn't at my local branch, but they had such a lovely display in their graphic novel section featuring several books I'd been wanting to read, from Alison Bechdel to the history of the Carter Family. And there, in between Fun Home and The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song was Adventures of Blanche by Rick Geary. Needless to say I actually took the whole display home with me. Geary's style seemed vaguely familiar but I was soon lost to the narrative, Geary had taken his grandmother's old letters as a starting off point and then lovingly embellished them to be more dramatic and more of their time, with murderers running rampant and famous painters walking in and out of frame. I quickly finished this slender volume and went to look up Geary online. Having worked for both National Lampoon and MAD during my childhood back when I devoured those tomes it's no wonder his style was familiar to me with his people that all look like they have cat whiskers for jawbone definition. He was a part of my past and very soon he was to become a part of my present when I realized that he had written oodles of true crime graphic novels! Nine of which I devoured last year and I can't wait to finish the remaining few.

Here's the thing about me. I LOVE true crime. I went through a period where all I watched was police procedural shows from Homicide: Life on the Street to all the iterations of Law and Order and I especially worshiped Unsolved Mysteries. Because I realized I don't really like true crime that happens now, I like true crime that happened then. I am not joking when I say that if I had a time machine I'd just go back and see who all the famous killers and kidnappers were. Who was Jack the Ripper? What really happened to James Ellroy's mother that turned him into the writer he is today? I don't just want, I NEED to know! When I was in undergrad I saw a very interesting one man play about the kidnapping of the Lindbergh Baby. With all the new speculation about what really happened and Lindbergh's Nazi leanings I decided that the first book I'd check out in Geary's Treasury of XXth Century Murder would be The Lindbergh Child. I couldn't have been happier. This book, this series, combined two things I love, true crime and art. While many people might take issue with how simple his drawing style is, nothing more than line work, there is a place for ALL kinds of graphic novels in the world and this style suits the pared down, spare, clean way he lays out the crime and methodically analyzes it. Maps and cross sections of buildings make Geary the David Maccaulay of True Crime! In each of Geary's books I've read he has told and shown the crime more succinctly than any other author I've ever read. He has a gift for distillation and visualization that is remarkable.

But all this could apply to any one of his books I picked up from The Borden Tragedy: A Memoir of the Infamous Double Murder at Fall River, Mass., 1892 to The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. Here I want to talk about his handling of the Hall-Mills double murder that happened in the fall of 1922. This book just struck me so forcibly I can't quite understand why. It's almost as if I have a weird connection to the crime. It felt familiar somehow and yet, I'm sure I'd never heard of this crime before. While it lead to a media circus what I was drawn to was the more personal nature of this story. So many of the great unsolved crimes are serial killers who were never caught, yet here it's just an adulterous couple at the center of the media firestorm. Plus, the way the crime was committed, the removal of the organs that allowed Eleanor Mills to sing, plus having her favorite song removed from every copy of every hymnal in the church, I agree with the victim's daughter, it sounds like a crime committed by a woman. In fact, that's one thing I really like about this series by Geary, he shows that despite public opinion, women are just as capable of committing really heinous crimes. While this case was never solved, and was very much muddied by an attention seeker known as "the pig lady," Edward Hall's wealthy wife and family were tried and found not guilty. And yet the tale does have a sense of closure. Because a woman had to have committed the crime, and whether it was Frances Noel Stevens or another female parishioner whose advances were spurned by the priest, you have a handle on the probability of who the culprit was. Yes, Frances could have used her money to walk away from a crime she committed, she did act very oddly over the days following her husband's disappearance. But unlike Jack the Ripper, you can clearly see the motive if not the culprit.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adultery, Adventures of Blanche, Charles Lindbergh, Comics, Homicide, Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden, Lovers' Lane, Murder, Rick Geary, The Hall-Mills Mystery, Treasury of XXth Century Murder, Unsolved Mysteries

Misfit City by Kiwi Smith
Published by: BOOM! Box
Publication Date: December 19th, 2017
Format: Paperback, 112 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Nothing’s happened in Wilder’s hometown since they filmed that cult kids’ adventure movie there in the 80s...Until one day, she and her friends come upon a centuries-old pirate map!

Smothered by her backwater hometown and frustrated by its 1980s cult-movie fame (The Gloomies...have you seen it? It’s a real classic, y’know.), Wilder is pretty sure she’s seen everything Cannon Cove has to offer. She’s desperate to get away from home as soon as she can, and move on to bigger, better, and less annoying things…even if that might mean leaving her best friends behind.

But when Wilder discovers a centuries-old pirate map, she may find out that REAL adventure was in their tiny town all along...and they need each other to get to the bottom of it! It’s a rip-roaring adventure written by award-winning screenwriter Kiwi Smith (10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde) and Kurt Lustgarten, and illustrated by Naomi Franquiz."

This week brought to you by comics and 80s nostalgia... 

Grumpy Cat and Garfield by Mark Evanier
Published by: Dynamite Entertainment
Publication Date: December 19th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 100 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"It's the inevitable meeting of the sourpusses! Garfield, the reigning cynical cat of newspapers and TV crosses paths with Grumpy Cat, the internet sensation whose scowl endeared herself to the world. Who's the most sarcastic? Well, he likes lasagna and not much else...and she doesn't even like lasagna. Can these two inhabit the same comic book mini-series, let alone the same planet? You'll find out in a trio of issues written by Mark Evanier and illustrated by Steve Uy. We'd say it's the cat's meow but neither of these cats meows."

Um, why didn't Jim Davis do this?

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 10 Things I Hate About You, 80s, Comics, Garfield, Goonies, Grumpy Cat, Grumpy Cat and Garfield, Jim Davis, Kiwi Smith, Legally Blonde, Misfit City, Tuesday Tomorrow

Right about now you're probably thinking that she can't be serious including the dark reinterpretation of the Archie comics on her "must watch" list from the last year's television viewing? Oh yes I am. Deadly serious! Like when Jason Blossom's body washed ashore serious. Firstly, as a kid I loved reading the Archie comics, and yes, when I heard they were making Riverdale I was skeptical. In fact I didn't even watch it when it aired on the CW, instead, during a dark and trying weekend I really needed an escape and Riverdale was on Netflix and I binged it. I binged it hard and I loved every minute of it. It quite literally got me through each day knowing that at the end of it I could watch it. From eighties teen icons being the parents to me finally actually feeling something other than loathing for Veronica, I was shocked how much I enjoyed it. The show had a very specific target it was aiming for, trying to make Riverdale land somewhere between Veronica Mars and Twin Peaks and it hit the mark. It also didn't hurt that Betty's mom was played by Twin Peaks alum Mädchen Amick. There's a murder to be solved, there are shady dealings, gangs, and Jughead Jones becomes a Holden Caulfield for a new generation. Though once you realize that yes, that IS Skeet Ulrich as Jughead's dad you may start to feel a little old. I can't wait until it returns and I can tune into even more deadly teen drama with secret pregnancies, liaisons with teachers, and some kick ass music by Josie and the Pussycats. Just leave your high school hangups at the door of Pop's and grab a shake, just watch out for Archie's dad bleeding to death on the floor.  

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 80s, Adaptation, And the Emmy Goes To, Archie Comics, Comics, CW, High School, Holden Caulfield, Jason Blossom, Josie and the Pussycats, Madchen Amick, Murder, Netflix, Riverdale, Twin Peaks, Veronica Mars

A Death in the Dales by Frances Brody
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: February 14th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A murder most foul.

When the landlord of a Yorkshire tavern is killed in plain sight, Freda Simonson, the only witness to the crime, becomes plagued with guilt, believing the wrong man has been convicted. Following her death, it seems that the truth will never be uncovered in the peaceful village of Langcliffe...

A village of secrets.

But it just so happens that Freda’s nephew is courting the renowned amateur sleuth Kate Shackleton, who decides to holiday in Langcliffe with her indomitable teenage niece, Harriet. When Harriet strikes up a friendship with a local girl whose young brother is missing, the search leads Kate to uncover another suspicious death, not to mention an illicit affair.

The case of a lifetime.

As the present mysteries merge with the past’s mistakes, Kate is thrust into the secrets that Freda left behind and realizes that this courageous woman has entrusted her with solving a murder from beyond the grave. It soon becomes clear to her that nothing in Langcliffe is quite as it appears, and with a murderer on the loose and an ever-growing roster of suspects, this isn’t the holiday Kate was expecting..."

Good cozy goodness for a bleak February day. 

In Calabria by Peter S. Beagle
Published by: Tachyon Publications
Publication Date: February 14th, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 176 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the acclaimed author of The Last Unicorn comes a new, exquisitely-told unicorn fable for the modern age.

Claudio Bianchi has lived alone for many years on a hillside in Southern Italy’s scenic Calabria. Set in his ways and suspicious of outsiders, Claudio has always resisted change, preferring farming and writing poetry. But one chilly morning, as though from a dream, an impossible visitor appears at the farm. When Claudio comes to her aid, an act of kindness throws his world into chaos. Suddenly he must stave off inquisitive onlookers, invasive media, and even more sinister influences.

Lyrical, gripping, and wise, In Calabria confirms Peter S. Beagle's continuing legacy as one of fantasy's most legendary authors."

It's Peter S. Beagle and there's a unicorn. Sold. 

Giant Days Volume Four by John Allison
Published by: BOOM! Box
Publication Date: February 14th, 2017
Format: Paperback, 112 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"It's springtime at Sheffield University. Will Susan, Esther, and Daisy make it to summer?

It's springtime at Sheffield University—the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and fast-pals Susan, Esther and Daisy continue to survive their freshman year of college. Susan is barely dealing with her recent breakup with McGraw, Esther is considering dropping out of school, and Daisy is trying to keep everyone and everyTHING from falling apart! Combined with house-hunting, indie film festivals, and online dating, can the girls make it to second year?"

Not my favorite series, but still enjoyable, as in, I have to keep reading for some reason... Also the cover is very V-Day appropriate.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Death in the Dales, Comics, Frances Brody, Giant Days, In Calabria, John Allison, Kate Shackleton, Peter S. Beagle, Tuesday Tomorrow, Unicorns

Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer
Published by: Feiwel and Friends
Publication Date: January 31st, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The first graphic novel from #1 New York Times and USA Today bestseller Marissa Meyer!

In her first graphic novel, bestselling author Marissa Meyer extends the world of the Lunar Chronicles with a brand-new,action-packed story about Iko, the android with a heart of (mechanized) gold. When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder, Cress, Scarlet, Winter, and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the bestselling series."

I just have my fingers crossed that the art lives up to Meyer's storytelling.

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: January 31st, 2017
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Where the Marble Arch stands today in London was once the Tyburn gallows—also known as The Hanging Tree. The walk toward those gallows along Oxford Street and past the Mayfair mansions has a bloody and haunted history as the last trip of the condemned. Some things never change. For both blood and ghosts have returned to those mansions of the super-rich. And it’s up to Peter Grant—England’s last wizard and the Metropolitan Police’s reluctant investigator of all things supernatural—to get to the bottom of the sinister doings."

I so want to lock myself away for a week and read this whole series.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ben Aaronovitch, Comics, Iko, Marissa Meyer, Rivers of London, The Hanging Tree, The Lunar Chronicles, Tuesday Tomorrow, Wires and Nerve

Penny Dreadful by Krysty Wilson-Cairns and Andrew Hindraker
Published by: Titan Comics
Publication Date: December 27th, 2016
Format: Paperback, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The hit Showtime TV series is presented in comics for the first time! Featuring Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) and Sembene (Danny Sapani) the story recounts the events that led up to the explosive first season of the show.

This prequel reveals the terrifying events that led Vanessa to try and find her missing childhood firend, Mina Harker, and exposes the true nature of the vampiric monsters infesting Victorian London. Beautifully realized by Louie De Martinis, and written by the show scriptwriters, this collected edition takes the reader on a heart-stopping journey into the supernatural realm."

Yeah, I might read this. But probably while still seething that the show is over. Seriously Vanessa Ives isn't the be all end all of this show! MORE! I WANT MORE!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Comics, Dracula, Eva Green, London, Mina Harker, Penny Dreadful, Sembene, Sir Malcolm Murray, Timothy Dalton, Tuesday Tomorrow, Vanessa Ives, Victorian

 
"I would like to toast the author that brought something magical and fantastic to the comic book industry! I remember the first time I picked up a Sandman comic. It was the early 90’s, I was a teen in high school, with a growing obsession with comic books and comic book artists. Sandman was like nothing I had ever read before. Instead of panels of beefed up heroes duking it out, it was filled with stories of fantasy, and magic. There were also these beautiful insights into the character’s relationships with each other, their own personal discoveries and trials. I was hooked! Neil Gaiman, thank you for bringing that to the world." - Janice

You'd think meeting two of my favorite authors at a reading at TeslaCon would have been the highlight of that weekend, but really it was meeting Janice. Since we met all those years ago Janice continually astounds me by being quite literally the sweetest, kindest, and most generous person I have ever met and I am lucky to call her my friend. A consummate host who welcomes you into her home with open arms. As if that weren't enough she is also one of the most talented and creative people I know. From creating costumes to doing faceups to making the most amazing monsters for her company Sew Sweet Monsters. A true artist working with felt and fur.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Artist, Comics, Fantasy, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Toast, Magic, Neil Gaiman, Sandman, Sew Sweet Monsters, Superhero, Teslacon

Of course I'd heard of The Sandman. Anyone with a passing interest in comics or who had visited a comic book shop knew what he looked like from comic covers to posters to statues. So I was obviously familiar with the iconography if not the story. Because, strange as it seems, at the time my story takes place I wasn't really into graphic novels. Nowadays I read a lot of them but am very particular as to what makes it into my permanent collection. But thanks to a well stocked public library I'm able to have a wide range of options, The Sandman included. At the time being fairly recently introduced to Neil's writing I hadn't yet made the leap from his prose when this story takes place. The year was 2005 and I had beyond all logic secured four tickets to a special sneak peek of Serenity in Chicago. The movie wasn't even done! Just a temporary score lifted straight off The Fifth Element. But that didn't matter, because Firefly lived again! The question was, which of my friends to take? Matt was my best friend and fellow Joss Whedon aficionado, so one ticket went to him. Another went to my friend Ann who tried to get one for her husband Bill but the show was already sold out.

The final ticket was obvious. My friend Orelia was shipping off to Africa to join the Peace Corps in a few short months and wouldn't get a chance to see the movie when it was released in the fall. After all those years spent in Rivendell co-op watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and later Angel I had my posse back for one last glorious adventure. Matt gets extremely car sick so for once I was ensconced in the back seat with Orelia, driving duties handed over to Ann. Orelia was in the process of re-reading all The Sandman comics before Africa and spent the afternoon while Ann drove us to Chicago telling me all about the series and in particular the volume she had brought along, The Sandman: The Doll's House. Even if I hadn't been familiar with Neil's work his sense of humor of having a Serial Killer Convention disguised as a "Cereal" Convention made me know that he was my kind of writer. I always look back on that day not as the day Joss callously killed off Wash, but of those quite moments in the backseat with Orelia talking about comics, or the amazing lightning storm we witnessed on the return journey. It was one of those days that I will always remember.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Chicago, Comics, Firefly, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Reminiscence, Graphic Novels, Joss Whedon, Lightning, Neil Gaiman, Peace Corps, Sandman, Serenity, The Sandman: The Doll's House, Wash

It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi
Published by: Fantagraphics
Publication Date: 1993
Format: Hardcover, 120 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

With three horizontal panels per page we are given graphic snapshots, little glimpses into the lives and deaths of the French soldiers in the trenches during World War I. Some are given names, some die unremarked. Their bodies strewn across no man's land effecting morale. Their poignant struggles to survive sometimes highlighted by the words of greater authors. Binet sees his comrade in arms Faucheux go into no man's land and not return. During his few days leave away from the front he can't help but think of what happened to Faucheux. When Binet returns to the front he foolishly goes in search of Faucheux and meets his same fate, death at the hands of the Bosches. But at least dying at the hands of the enemy isn't as ignominious as being executed by your own men. Killed because you were scared or just didn't understand or they assumed you were colluding with the enemy. Or even shelled by your own country as a reprisal for cowardice, to stop a mass retreat. In that instance instead of the entire division being killed three random men were singled out to die for the greater good. Survival is the only thing that matters, as rats become a delicacy, only to later have the rats feast on the flesh after a shell takes out the trench and all its men. Some, like Bouvreuil, think of his wife and the future, but the truth is you have to have the will to survive, to not run into no man's land and get the fate you think you deserve. Gas, death, injury, all the peoples of the world dying in those trenches.

Years ago because of my burgeoning interest in Steampunk someone recommended that I read Jacques Tardi's Adele Blanc-Sec books. Seeing as only the first four adventures, released in two volumes, have been translated into English and published, this was a near futile endeavour. Yet I still picked up those available stories and what's odd is the lasting image I have isn't anything to do with the plot but when the author would break the fourth wall to comment to the audience. In one of these comments he very angrily states that you, the reader, probably don't know what's going on because no one read his other book, The Arctic Marauder, and that was integral to the plot. I'm sorry, but breaking the forth wall to lecture me on a book I did eventually read to see if it shown any light on the previously read book isn't kosher. Maybe people didn't like the book and that's why it didn't sell? It's just not cool to lecture and berate your readers. Ever. Sometimes when reading an author's writing you get this instinct that you would not like them in real life and they are quite possibly really jerks. I get this feeling from Tardi, much like I did from Orson Scott Card. I was hoping that in going to a book so outside the themes of his books I have read that I might see another side to him. Nope. He's still angry and bitter and his books just ooze rage.

The thing is, you'd think that the rage would work in his favor in a comic that is basically a diatribe against war. The whole "rage, rage against the dying of the light." The senselessness of war. The unnecessary death. Instead it works against the comic. It Was the War of the Trenches is just so pessimistic and outwardly hostile. The conscripted solider is an outlet for the rage so that you come to hate any character introduced. Tardi has written many books on World War I and while he is obsessed with this topic I might also put forward that he is a little jaded by it as well. Everyone, even the innocent soldier in the trenches is a target for him. But the truth is he actually doesn't show many "innocent" soldiers. Most of the characters he concentrates on seem to underscore the fact that man is a hateful being who is willing to kill and connive to survive. He will kill his own, he will kill police that piss him off. He will use the war as a great equalizer, a way to settle scores, and all the while he will inexplicably hate the countryside. And I'm not sure if Tardi was trying to say that war made them into this or they were this way to begin with. Because it's a pretty bleak outlook on life to think that man's nature is to kill and war, despite all it's horrors, allows him to revel while suffering. But perhaps this is just another reason why Tardi and I would never get along.

One problem with graphic novels is that there needs to be a strong visual with a connection to the text. I feel like It Was the War of the Trenches failed on both fronts. One reason the visuals might have been flat to me is that given the age of this comic, written over the eighties, the bounds of what could be done visually had not really been stretched yet. So this story is told in a very traditional way. Other issues I have are that the complete black and white nature of the book lacks visual interest, how about a spot color every now and then? Also, a complaint I've made about his books before, all the men look the same! So how can I tell who is who if he doesn't bother to show that? Though it was the writing that really let down this book. I don't know if it was the translation that effected it so or Tardi's writing style evolving over time, but it was oddly written, almost stilted. Skipping from the first to the third person randomly was annoying, but the writing itself was simplistic. It wasn't like it was purposefully being written for child, but more like the writer was talking down to you, something that I think is unforgivable. The prose starts to gel about half-way through the book, my guess is that it's at exactly the part where it's the newer text. It becomes more concise, more clear, and I have a feeling that the first person narrator might just be Tardi's grandfather, or someone that is representing Tardi's grandfather, like an avatar. So at least that solved the first person mystery.

In the end you can see glimpses of the jumbled narrative almost working. Like the avatar of his grandfather bringing a more through line to the comic, there are instances where the book works. Where Tardi is able to take complex concepts and hone them to just one page. Succinct ideas that could be expanded on to make the book have a more sure footing. There is this undercurrent of war being the decision of the many, of the countries, not of the individuals who given a chance, one-on-one, could work it out. This is highlighted by the military industrial complex shown in the first few panels of the book. War is there to breed innovation and profit with humans being nothing more than coal to fuel this progress. In all Tardi's jumbled asides about war being used for vengeance, for death, for destruction, underneath is the real purpose of war, progress through death. The world changed because of this war, and in a jumbled way Tardi gets this across. The world changed not just because of the amount of death and destruction but from what emerged from the war. Much like how the nuclear bomb would forever change warfare in World War II, World War I changed the world. Therefore there's a part of me that thinks this book has merit in that behind the curtain it gets to the nub. But then I think, what if you were teaching this book to students? At first I thought, yes, it would be a good introduction, but the more I thought on how steeped in anger and rage this book is that the historical horror would be lost among the overriding emotions of the author, no matter how justified they are.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Fall of Poppies, Adele Blac-Sec, Anger, Comics, France, Graphic Novel, It Was the War of the Trenches, Jacques Tardi, Jaded, Military, Orson Scott Card, Steampunk, The Arctic Marauder, WWI, WWII

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: September 9th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

The famous actor Arthur Leander died on the last night of the old world. He wasn't one to suffer like those in the ER on that snowy night in Toronto hailing the arrival of the Georgian Flu which would kill all but one in two hundred people. Arthur had a fatal heart attack onstage during his star performance in King Lear. He'd never know of the horrors that came after or of how he was a tenuous link between some of the survivors. He was blissfully ignorant of what was to come. Twenty years later Kirsten Raymonde is touring around what used to be Michigan with the Traveling Symphony. When she was a young girl she was in a production of King Lear with the great Arthur Leander. Now she is in a troupe that specializes in bringing Shakespeare to the various outposts of remaining civilization. The troupe tried other playwrights, but people seem to want what was best of the old world, and Shakespeare and classical music remind them of that. While Kirsten herself was too young to remember what was lost from the world before or even the first year after the collapse, she scours abandoned houses for mentions of the great actor who was kind to her and who gave her her most prized possessions, two issues of the comic Station Eleven.

To understand how lives have played out in this new world, we must go back to the previous world. The world where Arthur's first wife was working on a comic, a world where his second wife was conspiciously present at a vapid dinner party celebrating Arthur's wedding anniversary to his first wife. The birth of Arthur's son while Arthur was already moving on to wife number three. Arthur's oldest friend betraying him while his dearest friend Clark will live long past Arthur's death. Each and every step and decision plays a role in a world that Arthur could never imagine and which he will never live to see. A world where an airport is a sanctuary, where survival is insufficient, and where Shakespeare brings people hope. A world that is at one and the same time embracing the past while trying to forge a future. A world that is dangerous to live in. A world where a prophet could spell destruction and ruin for people who only wish to live as they choose. Every moment could be these people's last, yet their survived the end of the world so they must try to rebuild it. To move forward, no matter the cost.

The irony isn't lost on me that a book that touts the credo from Star Trek that "survival is insufficient" is literally only about survival, and I really hope it wasn't lost on the author. There are many ways in which Station Eleven differs from your typical post-apocalyptic story, but the lofty ideals of the book might be the biggest difference. It wants so much to be different, to show that art is needed for sanity and survival, yet in the end all the Traveling Symphony's journey boils down to is surviving to the next day, the next outpost of civilization. If it wasn't for this dichotomy between the book's ideals and what the book actually represents I think it would have worked better. Station Eleven is an intriguing mood piece that embraces different ways of storytelling, from lists to dialogue to interviews, slipping through time and the character's timelines to create a vibrant world which in no way embraces the ideals of that Star Trek quote. It just feels so shoehorned in. Like Emily St. John Mandel heard that line of dialogue and jumped off from there, forgetting that the story and this motto should actually connect. And it's not that I don't fully embrace the idea that we need more to survive, it's just that Station Eleven, boiled down to it's essence, is only about surviving, nothing more. The book might have lofty ideals, but in the end it's a post-apocalyptic story, and those are all about survival.

Aside from this quibble I liked that the narrative wasn't your typical post-apocalyptic story. Post-apocalyptic stories tend to fall into two categories, one is that the apocalypse has just happened and our hero or heroine has to survive the initial destruction of the world to help rebuild it in some nebulous future. The second is that the apocalypse happened generations ago and our hero or heroine is living under a not ideal future regime, in other words, think The Hunger Games. Here we see the initial outbreak, but then we flash forward. Not to some "Hunger Games" world but to a more pioneer world, where the old world isn't long gone, but the new world hasn't fully been formed yet. It's not just about getting from day to day, but also trying to come to terms with the life they now have while still clinging to memories of the past. This, coupled with the flashbacks to the world before the flu, makes this a more intimate and personal story. It's not so much what happened to the world but what happened to these people. What happened to these characters who were connected to Arthur and how they survived in this new world. I can't help thinking about when asked what she most missed of the old world Kirsten won't answer, because it's too personal, and that, right there is why this book works. It's about these people.

Yet by spending so much time with these people and with their pasts we don't get any sense of what the future holds. Perhaps we could say that "survival is insufficient" should be the outlook going forward. All we see is them coping, surviving day to day, year to year, without any real forward momentum. The Traveling Symphony and how they are continually stuck touring one route, year in, year out, kind of symbolizes humanity at it's current stage. They have found a comfortable routine and now don't deviate from it. Yes, their might be risk venturing off the accustomed path, but humanity is stagnating. They aren't trying to fix the world, they're just living in it. My mind kept getting stuck on questions like why don't people try to do this that or the other. Why can't they have electricity? Get some smart people together, congregate in a large community, and FIGURE IT OUT! Twenty years and they have grown lazy. Sure, the author tries to romanticize the situation a bit with the Traveling Symphony harking back to days gone by when troupes traveled the countryside bringing culture to the masses and how Shakespeare himself lived in a plague ridden time. Yes, these are interesting comparisons, but also remember people in Shakespeare's time were trying to better themselves, to move forward, not live in the past and not move on. The only flicker of hope happens in the last few pages; while personally I could have done with the hope a little earlier.

And, of course, because this is a post-apocalyptic story the Big Bad has to be a Prophet who has multiple wives and runs off anyone who doesn't play by his rules. This is Stephen King 101 people. Think of The Stand. This Prophet is the main reason this book is problematic to me. Yes, I can look beyond the lack of hope, I can look beyond the disconnect between the message and what really happens, but I can't look beyond cliched characters that bog down the narrative. This character should have been spooky, terrifying, someone to run from. Instead he's meh. It's not just that his beliefs are bog standard for any post-apocalyptic Prophet, it's that he's predictable. The least you can do with going with a cliche is embrace it. Go all out! Make him over the top, someone so big for their britches that the megalomania carries the character on a wave of crazy through his predictability. Instead I just hoped for him to have as little time on the page as possible. As for his back story... well, if you didn't figure out who he was about two seconds into his first mysterious reveal, aka what he named his dog, there might not be any hope for you. Now I'm not going to spoil this reveal for you, because that is truly cruel, but the predictability of who he is and how he got this way, well, it quite literally smacked this book down a few stars. In fact it made the whole back end of the book slide from a pretty original story into predictable meh.

But in the end what did I expect from a story where the lynchpin is a dislikable actor? Yes, we could go on one of those endless debates about how there are antiheroes and antiheroines, and that characters don't need to be likable, yeah yeah, the Vanity Fair of it all; but I'll always come to the same conclusion, sure, they don't need to be likable, but they at least have to be fascinating. For some people, aka, the people who love to watch Entertainment Tonight and read People and think TMZ is the best news out there might take glee in having an actor, even a fictitious one, be the lynchpin to a story. Because they like celebrity gossip and dishing dirt. But for me celebrity in and of itself doesn't make a character interesting. In fact all Arthur's cheating and his storytelling about his home island made me just want to smack him for his pretensions. The more I learned about him the more I disliked him. I honestly can not see the draw to him. Telling us over and over what a great actor he is doesn't make it so. Making him your lynchpin in a story without fully investing the time to make him fascinating makes your narrative weak. Station Eleven started out so strong, with memorable visuals and interesting developments, like the comic book, but it kept falling off in quality till it ended with a whimper. Much like what the dog Luli would do if reprimanded.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Apocalypse, Backlog Bonanza, Big Bad, Celebrities, Comics, Emily St. John Mandel, King Lear, Post-Apocalyptic, Prophet, Shakespeare, Star Trek, Station Eleven, Stephen King, The Hunger Games, The Stand, Vanity Fair

Night Shift by Charlaine Harris
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels - “the Mark Twain of things that live under your bed” - comes a new novel of Midnight, Texas, the town where some secrets will never see the light of day...

At Midnight’s local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves - only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town.

Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is. There’s a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place.

And now they must come together to stop the bloodshed in the heart of Midnight. For if all hell breaks loose - which just might happen - it will put the secretive town on the map, where no one wants it to be..."

I have kind of fallen for Midnight, Texas and don't want this to be the last volume! 

Doctor Who: A Matter of Life and Death by George Mann
Published by: Titan Comics
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 128 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Collects the complete Eighth Doctor Mini-Series.

Eerie Victorian magic shows, living paintings, mysterious lost books, crystalline life-forms, space-barges crammed with the undead... Embrace all the Gothic Romance and interstellar terror of the Eighth Doctor in this new series starring the most-requested past incarnation!"

Of course I've been buying the individual issues of my friend George's foray into Doctor Who Comics, but now I can have them all in a pretty book too!

The Crown by Kiera Cass
Published by: HarperTeen
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 288 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Kiera Cass’s #1 New York Times bestselling Selection series has captured the hearts of readers from its very first page. Now the end of the journey is here. Prepare to be swept off your feet by The Crown—the eagerly awaited, wonderfully romantic fifth and final book in the Selection series.

In The Heir, a new era dawned in the world of The Selection. Twenty years have passed since America Singer and Prince Maxon fell in love, and their daughter is the first princess to hold a Selection of her own.

Eadlyn didn’t think she would find a real partner among the Selection’s thirty-five suitors, let alone true love. But sometimes the heart has a way of surprising you…and now Eadlyn must make a choice that feels more difficult—and more important—than she ever expected."

Yeah, another year and I still haven't started this series. Shame on me.

A Fine Imitation by Amber Brock
Published by: Crown
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2016
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Set in the glamorous 1920s, A Fine Imitation is an intoxicating debut that sweeps readers into a privileged Manhattan socialite's restless life and the affair with a mysterious painter that upends her world, flashing back to her years at Vassar and the friendship that brought her to the brink of ruin.

Vera Bellington has beauty, pedigree, and a penthouse at The Angelus--the most coveted address on Park Avenue. But behind the sparkling social whirl, Vera is living a life of quiet desperation. Her days are an unbroken loop of empty, champagne-soaked socializing, while her nights are silent and cold, spent waiting alone in her cavernous apartment for a husband who seldom comes home.

Then Emil Hallan arrives at The Angelus to paint a mural above its glittering subterranean pool. The handsome French artist moves into the building, shrouds his work in secrecy, and piques Vera's curiosity, especially when the painter keeps dodging questions about his past. Is he the man he claims to be? Even as she finds herself increasingly drawn to Hallan's warmth and passion, Vera can't suppress her suspicions. After all, she has plenty of secrets, too--and some of them involve art forgers like her bold, artistically talented former friend, Bea, who years ago, at Vassar, brought Vera to the brink of catastrophe and social exile.

When the dangerous mysteries of Emil's past are revealed, Vera faces an impossible choice--whether to cling to her familiar world of privilege and propriety or to risk her future with the enigmatic man who has taken her heart. A Fine Imitation explores what happens when we realize that the life we've always led is not the life we want to have."

Not only did this intrigue me, but a friend I trust read an ARC and recommends it as well! Also 1920s!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1920s, A Fine Imitation, Amber Brock, ARCs, Charlaine Harris, Comics, Doctor Who, George Mann, Kiera Cass, Midnight Texas, Night Shift, The 8th Doctor, The Crown, The Selection, Tuesday Tomorrow

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Unmapped Sea by Maryrose Wood
Published by: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: April 21st, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events and Trenton Lee Stewart's Mysterious Benedict Society, here comes the fifth book in the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, the acclaimed and hilarious Victorian mystery series by Maryrose Wood.

Lord Fredrick Ashton may not feel ready to be a father, but with a little Ashton on the way, he's sure about one thing: The wolfish curse on his family must end soon, before the child is born. Penelope willingly takes on the challenge; when Lady Constance's doctor prescribes a seaside holiday, Penelope jumps at the chance to take the three Incorrigible children to Brighton, where she hopes to persuade the old sailor Pudge to reveal what he knows about the Ashton curse.

But the Ashtons are not the only ones at the beach in January. The passionately temperamental Babushkinov family is also taking the winter waters. The Incorrigible children may have been raised by wolves, but the Babushkinov children are the wildest creatures they've ever seen. Is it more than mere coincidence that these untamed children have turned up in Brighton just as Penelope and the Incorrigibles arrive?"

The new cover art, it burns, it burns. I HATES IT! I HATES IT!

The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
Published by: Pantheon
Publication Date: April 21st, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF LOVELACE AND BABBAGE . . . in which Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures.

Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines.

But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible."

Whereas this looks just delightfully fun and I have no cover issues at all. I might have interior art issues, but the book isn't out yet so I won't prejudge.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Comics, Maryrose Wood, Sydney Padua, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, The Unmapped Sea, Tuesday Tomorrow

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 15th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Four years ago Katie started a restaurant with her friends. Since then they have all moved on. Seconds feels like Katie's past now. Her future is a new restaurant, Katie's (she can live without the snarky commentary on the vanity of this name), that she will actually be part owner in versus just their culinary genius. Yet as the new restaurant is taking longer and longer to become a reality and she's still a presence at Seconds she feels frustrated being trapped between the life she's outgrown and the life she has yet to live. Then one night there's an accident at Seconds and one of the waitresses, Hazel, gets injured. Katie feels guilty and that night in a dreamlike state she finds a box with a mushroom, a notebook, and a card saying "A SECOND CHANCE AWAITS. 1. Write your mistake 2. Ingest one mushroom 3. Go to sleep 4. Wake anew."

Katie follows the instructions and awakes in the morning to find that Hazel's accident never happened. Confused Katie befriends Hazel and learns that perhaps Seconds has a House Spirit, a being protecting their restaurant and willing to help Katie fix Hazel's accident. This is well and good, as long as the house spirit is happy then Seconds is happy. Only Katie happens to find more mushrooms... what was to be a one time gift of the House Spirit is used by Katie to start fixing all the problems she feels are plaguing her life. The House Spirit tries to stop her, but things start to spiral out of control the more Katie tries to fix her life. Perhaps it would have been better if she had never started on this path, but it's too late to stop now.

Bryan Lee O'Malley has this surreal dreamlike quality to his stories that make you feel that you might be inhabiting the world of a video game or some other leftover hiding place from your childhood. He connects with my generation so well because he taps into our cultural zeitgeist of angst and nostalgia, where a heroine with the hair of Sonic the Hedgehog isn't just cool, but that we embrace her.  The meta narrative technique of having Katie snarkily comment on what the omniscient narrator is saying feeds into the my sarcastic and disillusioned generation that isn't quite generation X or Y, being forgotten by the roadside when they started having a need to generationally label us.

But what I connected to so much is this idea of seconds, of a do-over. People of my age are still in a time of flux, they are on a path but they aren't sure it's the right one, they don't know if this will be their life. They keep waiting for their life to start not realizing that while you're waiting it's actually happening, you are missing your life because of the illusory belief that someone will tell you when it's actually begun. I know I keep hoping that instead of being forced to grow up that there will miraculously appear an easy way out, a way to pave the path in front of me and save me blood, sweat, and tears. Their might be some truth in the thought that my generation feels entitled to a life of ease, a life that helps and doesn't hider your path, that we would be willing to take whatever might ease our journey, but I think this is more rooted in the fear we all have of growing up.

And isn't the childlike dream that still lives in us the idea that whatever goes wrong it will be fixed for us? Here it might be a magic mushroom, but in our past it was our parents. Who wouldn't want a chance at a do-over? A chance to tweak one thing in our lives? A chance to take a different path? It's not surprising that Katie falls into the bad habit of re-writing what she didn't want to happen. If you had a bucket full of mushrooms and no apparent consequences, wouldn't you jump at a second chance? It's the final realization that their is no easy way out, their is no shortcut, no warps, no way to get through life then by living it that is the final step in growing up. Katie might have needed a little more of a push to learn this, but haven't we all at some time?

What I feel elevates this book beyond the angst and eighties nostalgia of Bryan Lee O'Malley's previous works is the, not mystical, but the folkloric side to the story. The House Spirit, or Household Deity of Lis, grounds the story in the realm of fairy tales versus 8-bit console entertainment. This makes Seconds feel more of a fable, a coming of age tale then Bryan's previous ventures. Even the Brothers Grimm wrote about these family guardians, these protectors of home and hearth.

In fact, the more I think about it, growing up is not just about leaving childish ideas behind and knowing that their is no easy answer, but in finding your place in the word, finding where you belong, finding your home. While some might just write off a graphic novel as cartoons, which is the biggest mistake I think anyone could make, I at least implore you to look beyond the girl with the Sonic the Hedgehog hair on the cover and read between the covers to find a magical coming of age story full of wit, wonder, and life lessons that all of us could be reminded of.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 8-bit, Byran Lee O'Malley, Comics, Generation X, Generation Y, Graphic Novel, House Spirit, Scott Pilgrim, Second Chance, Seconds, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Brothers Grimm

The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Viking Adult
Publication Date: July 15th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 576 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness’s enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency. In the trilogy’s final volume, Harkness deepens her themes of power and passion, family and caring, past deeds and their present consequences. In ancestral homes and university laboratories, using ancient knowledge and modern science, from the hills of the Auvergne to the palaces of Venice and beyond, the couple at last learn what the witches discovered so many centuries ago.

With more than one million copies sold in the United States and appearing in thirty-eight foreign editions, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night have landed on all of the major bestseller lists and garnered rave reviews from countless publications. Eagerly awaited by Harkness’s legion of fans, The Book of Life brings this superbly written series to a deeply satisfying close."

Not very surprising to me that no other books are coming out this week. No one wants to compete with the juggernaut that is Deborah Harkness...

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 15th, 2014
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Katie’s got it pretty good. She’s a talented young chef, she runs a successful restaurant, and she has big plans to open an even better one. Then, all at once, progress on the new location bogs down, her charming ex-boyfriend pops up, her fling with another chef goes sour, and her best waitress gets badly hurt. And just like that, Katie’s life goes from pretty good to not so much. What she needs is a second chance. Everybody deserves one, after all—but they don’t come easy. Luckily for Katie, a mysterious girl appears in the middle of the night with simple instructions for a do-it-yourself do-over:

1. Write your mistake
2. Ingest one mushroom
3. Go to sleep
4. Wake anew

And just like that, all the bad stuff never happened, and Katie is given another chance to get things right. She’s also got a dresser drawer full of magical mushrooms—and an irresistible urge to make her life not just good, but perfect. Too bad it’s against the rules. But Katie doesn’t care about the rules—and she’s about to discover the unintended consequences of the best intentions.

From the mind and pen behind the acclaimed Scott Pilgrim series comes a madcap new tale of existential angst, everyday obstacles, young love, and ancient spirits that’s sharp-witted and tenderhearted, whimsical and wise."

I'm of two minds with regard to the new Bryan Lee O'Malley book (BTW, this is exempt from Harkness conflict, because they are so different). One mind is going, OMG, finally, something new since the final Scott Pilgrim, other mind, but his other standalone, Lost at Sea, sucked... see, two minds.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: A Discovery of Witches, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Comics, Deborah Harkness, Scott Pilgrim, Seconds, Shadow of Night, The Book of Life

Peter and Max: A Fables Novel by Bill Willingham
Published by: Vertigo
Publication Date: November 6th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 400 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Peter and Max lived an idyllic life, traveling the countryside of their mythic world as wandering minstrels. Their little caravan with their talking mule wandered from town to town, playing at festivals and giving the Pipers a rather glorious life. The highlight of the year was when they arrived at their good friend Squire Peep's house and had a glorious party before continuing on together to the towns local festival. Though this year is different. Max is growing into a young man and his sullen moods have started to surface, whereas young Peter keeps thinking of Squire Peep's daughter Bo.

That night their world will change forever. It's not just that Peter and Max's father gives the family's one item of value, the flute Frost, to Peter, when Max is the oldest, it's that the rumor's of a great invading army come to pass. The Peep's estate is seized and everyone is locked away. The heads of the two families devise a plan. They will escape through the haunted and dangerous woods and make for Hamlin, a fortified town nearby that has to have withstood the forces of their Adversary.

Breaking into two parties, they go forth into the gloom, little knowing that it is not the advancing army that is their true threat, but that Max is. Overlooked by his family, his rightful inheritance taken away, the dark forest awakens something even darken within him. If he has anything to say about it, the people whom he entered the forest with won't make it out alive. Hundreds of years later and in a different world, similar to theirs, Peter and Max's final confrontation will happen.

Fairy Tales are the stories told to make us behave as children. To make us learn that not doing as you're told and going into the woods at night are the most dangerous things in the world. Because the woods are where the nightmares live. As we grow older, this fear lessens, but underneath the knowledge we have gained with age and wisdom, there is still that underlying fear. The woods is dangerous. Peter and Max bring these childhood fears back to life. Don't venture into the woods, not because there's witches and creatures to prey on you, but because Max is there. A man driven insane by his desire for what he believes is his right. Living his life between indolence and sheer rage, he haunts to woods in his quest to find Peter. This book is like Silence of the Lambs goes feudal. A sibling rivalry of fire and ice that will leave as many people dead in it's wake as possible.

Max is the kind of sociopathic antihero you just can't get enough of. This is a killer, who at the height of his power, has witches and other powerful creatures scared. His love of gaudy clothes combined with his desire for servitude, make crossing his path one very dangerous prospect. And into this man is weaved the basis for the Piped Piper of Hamlin. What kind of sick and twisted person, when they don't get what they want, would steal all your children? Max is the answer. Max legitimizes and makes sense of a rather odd Fairy Tale. He is the Brothers Grimm's very own Hannibal Lecter.

There is one thing though that needs to be addressed, how this fits into the Fables Oeuvre. For those who don't know (which you should by now given that my ninth best read of last year was in this series), Fables is a comic series created by Bill Willingham about storybook characters being real and living in seclusion without the rest of the world knowing. They were forced out of their homelands and into our world. Parts of our world mimic parts of theirs, the Hamlin of Peter and Max's world is similar to ours, and our world's reverence of Max entertains him to no end.

Your main question at this point is probably, will I understand this book without following the series. Simply, yes. They explain enough that you get the Fables "Universe" but it isn't essential to the plot. There are a few jokes you won't get here or there, but overall the Fables world doesn't drive the story. Which leads me to an important question. Why even make this a Fables novel? It would have been perfectly fine, perhaps even better, standing on it's own. Strip it down of any previously needed knowledge and then expand it. Because really, this book could have held my attention even longer, which is rare, usually I'm the one bemoaning the lack of editors in this day and age. This was just an amazing book, which makes me realize one important thing... if Bill Willingham can write this good, why is he wasting his time on a hit or miss comic series when he could be writing novels, novels that could rival some of the best fantasy writers out there? Really, that's the only thing that made me sad about this, knowing that Willingham is this awesome and usually performing below his abilities... well, that and the fact that I hated the one drawing in the book that was in the 20s I think... it looked like Leialoha was imitating Leyendecker, when all his drawings previously had a very Arthur Rackham, traditional storybook vibe... pick a style and stick to it, duh.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Arthur Rackham, Bill Willingham, Bo Peep, Brothers Grimm, Comics, Fables, Hamlin, Hannibal Lecter, Leyendecker, Peter and Max, Peter Piper, Pied Piper of Hamlin, Silence of the Lambs

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 Volume 2: On Your Own by Joss Whedon
Published by: Dark Horse
Publication Date: December 18th, 2012
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"With the Scooby gang on the skids, Buffy finds herself increasingly alone. When faced with some tough decisions grounded in "real world" problems (i.e., not the slaying of pesky demons), Buffy is determined to make her own choices, but that doesn't mean she won't need a little handholding along the way. Cue Spike, compelled to stand by his best friend in her moment of need. Together they'll tackle the increasing zompire population and a rogue Slayer out for blood. The smash hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 continues with Andrew Chambliss, Scott Allie, Georges Jeanty, and Cliff Richards!"

Ok, so apparently the week before Christmas is NOT the week that people buy books so there are no new releases. The publishers must assume that all the people who where buying books as presents had already done their shopping and that after Christmas would be the people who got gift cards, so this is limbo book week... except for geeks, who live alone and will venture forth in the cold and the snow for Buffy. Not sure where in the arc this set lies, it might be where it started to go a little too weird for me, less human problems, more bugs in space problems... but still, Buffy is Buffy, and I will read it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Buffy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christmas, Comics, Dark Horse Comics, San Francisco, Spike

The Leopard by Jo Nesbo
Published by: Knopf
Publication Date: December 13th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
" “With Henning Mankell having written his last Wallander novel and Stieg Larsson no longer with us, I have had to make the decision on whom to confer the title of best current Nordic writer of crime fiction . . . Jo Nesbø wins.”
Two young women are found murdered in Oslo, both drowned in their own blood. Media coverage quickly reaches fever pitch: Could this be the work of a serial killer?

The crime scenes offer no coherent clues, the police investigation is stalled, and the one man who might be able to help doesn’t want to be found. Traumatized by his last case, Inspector Harry Hole has lost himself in the squalor of Hong Kong’s opium dens. Yet when he is compelled, at last, to return to Norway—his father is dying—Harry’s buried instincts begin to take over. After a female MP is discovered brutally murdered, nothing can keep him from the investigation.

There is little to go on: a piece of rope, a scrap of wool, a bit of gravel, an unexpected connection between the victims. And Harry will soon come to understand that he is dealing with a psychopath for whom “insanity is a vital retreat,” someone who will put him to the test—in both his professional and personal lives—as never before.

Ruthlessly intelligent and suspenseful, The Leopard is Jo Nesbø’s most electrifying novel yet—absolutely gripping from first to last."

Need for some Scandinavian mystery? Look no further. My mom loves these, and she's a mystery guru.

Angel The End
Published by: IDW
Publication Date: December 13th, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"This is the end, beautiful friend! After years of fighting to protect his friends and the citizens of Los Angeles from the demonic hordes which populate this and other dimensions, Angel must say goodbye. Elaborate plans and selfless acts have come and gone, and now IDW presents the hardcover collection of Angel''s final three volumes: Immortality for Dummies, The Crown Prince Syndrom, and The Wolf, The Ram, and The Heart into one glorious collection, including the never-before-collected Angel Yearbook."

Kind of sad that this is the end of IDW's Angel. Yeah, I know Angel is going over to Dark Horse, but IDW did such a wonderful job with Angel season 6, while Dark Horse did such a shit job with Buffy season 8... at least the new Faith and Angel series is off to a good start, I don't want them destroying any more of my favorite shows!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angel, Comics, Jo Nesbo, The Leopard