Posted November 4, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments
Pretty Deadly, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios
I’m having a bit of a hard time with this book. I didn’t find it as confusing as many other people seemed to, but I do feel that there wasn’t much to grab hold of. It felt like set-up, something that might’ve been better as a flashback in an established comic, because you get the feeling that the important stuff is yet to come. And worse, you don’t get much of a grasp on character — it’s like a myth in that sense, but there’s also the Wild West vibe and other stuff going on that makes me feel like it should be more than something pretty and mythic. I mean, we know what Deathface Ginny is by the end of this, but we have no freaking idea who she is. Allegiances and relationships and characters are all unclear.
Visually, it’s a stunning comic. I’m not a great fan of Emma Rios, usually; I really didn’t like the work she did on Captain Marvel. This worked better for me, though, and there’s some amazing pages here. They can be a bit crowded, though — full of panels, and very little script and explanation.
Overall I think it’s a cool idea and a cool team — I am a fan of Kelly Sue, and Rios’ style does look good here! — but I think it needed to be tightened up, pruned, written differently. I don’t know if I’ll read more of Pretty Deadly; I think I might look for like-minded reviews and see what they’re saying when there’s another TPB out. Deathface Ginny could be really, really cool, but there’s so little of substance here.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick
Posted November 1, 2014 by in General / 12 Comments
Aaand it’s Saturday again, already! Where does the time go? Here’s my Stacking the Shelves post for this week…
Comics TPBs
Sooo happy to have these TPBs. It’s awesome that Fraction has focused on Kate Bishop as well as Clint Barton; and of course I’m excited about Captain Marvel. Ms Marvel I’ve been intending to read for ages — I’ve actually been putting the comics covers in my STS posts as each individual issue released on Comixology, but now I own them in proper collected edition! Easier to read. The She-Hulk and Black Widow comics were impulse buys, but I love that I’ve had six superhero comics focusing on women hit my doormat this week. And hey, Captain Marvel film with Carol Danvers announced!
Just please don’t talk to me about the (probable? rumoured? I don’t even know anymore) casting of Dr Strange, because I’m not over the disappointment yet.
Dead tree books
I came home from visiting my partner last Saturday, and there was a “small” spree. Oops? But I’d never bought anything from the new bookshop in St Pancras before (Hatchard’s), so I had to have a look. And I’ve been meaning to try more Borges and Calvino, and I like Shirley Jackson already, and…
Contributor copies
Nah, I don’t have a story in here (though if you know my name, you can find it somewhere in Lightspeed) — I’m a slush reader for Lightspeed, and Wendy Wagner was kind enough to make sure I got my contributor copies despite not getting my original email response about it. I don’t actually think anything in either volume came through me first, but I did read/rate ~30 submissions for the two collections, so I have done my bit. (I’m on ~50 submissions read/rated for regular Lightspeed!)
Tags: books, comics, Kate Mosse, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marvel, Shirley Jackson, Stacking the Shelves
Posted October 31, 2014 by in Reviews / 2 Comments
Avengers Assemble: The Forgeries of Jealousy, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Warren Ellis, Matteo Buffagni
The Forgeries of Jealousy is pretty fun. Unlike Science Bros, it does follow through one story arc, based on a recent event involving the Inhumans. I don’t know much about that, but I don’t think you need to. The closest POV character is Anya Corazon, Spider-girl, and she doesn’t seem to have been involved much in the event up to the point where this starts, though she does know what about the situation. Still, the volume follows Spider-girl as she works with the Avengers to rescue her social studies teacher.
There’s a lot of fun banter and some good team-ups — the best being Spider-girl, Spider-woman and Black Widow, though her team-up with Wolverine is kinda fun, and her interactions with Tony Stark and Captain America are sweet. Gotta love the end, with Steve sending her the Avengers Assemble theme song for a ringtone, and asking her not to tell anyone he can use a smartphone (and of course his texts are spelt out properly with punctuation and all).
Overall, I can see why people think it’s a bit of wish fulfilment, but it’s also fun and features a lot of the female Avengers. Kelly Sue always does a great job, and I love the line-up she gives us here.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marvel
Posted October 30, 2014 by in Reviews / 4 Comments
Avengers Assemble: Science Bros, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christos Gage, Pete Woods, Stefano Caselli, Tomm Coker
Although it feels a little disconnected — the TPB is a collection of disparate Avengers stories, rather than any kind of continuous story arc — this is a great book. It’s funny till it’s not, serious in the right places, with some great character moments and a great team. Spider-woman and Hulk make a fun pair-up, while I will never get over Captains America and Marvel being friends and drinking kale smoothies for breakfast, or Tony’s sweet pep talk for Bruce while he’s eating caramel and walnut ice cream. The final story involves the Vision, and it surprised me by linking with Young Avengers and having Vision go to meet one of his sons at the end. Also, I thrilled a little to the scene-setting line: “Outside Wiccan and Hulkling’s House”. I hope Vision likes his son’s boyfriend…
I was a little bemused by Clint apparently dating Jessica Drew, but okay. The story with those two and Natasha was pretty cool, though strongly reminiscent of Amazing Spider-man, with the lizard people and all…
The art is really good, too; I don’t actually remember any of the artists’ names from anything else, but the drawings are really clean and clear, the action looks great, the colours are bright and eye-catching without being garish, etc.
This volume is worth it for “Hulllllk, make me a sandwich”, “hippy peanut butter” and the naked walk to the Baxter Building alone. The rest is extra caramel for Bruce’s depressed ice cream breakfast.
Rating: 5/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Marvel
Posted October 28, 2014 by in Reviews / 2 Comments
Winter Soldier: The Bitter March, Rick Remender, Roland Boschi
I haven’t heard good things about Rick Remender’s work, but I kind of like this run on Winter Soldier. It begins by following Fury and another SHIELD agent during the Cold War, as they begin to go up against the Winter Soldier. But slowly, Bucky’s memories surface in the Winter Soldier, changing the whole course of the story.
Ultimately, it doesn’t change anything about the Marvel universe — Bucky might as well never have resurfaced, really. In a way, that makes this a bit of a cheat: we see a little of Bucky’s struggles against the Soviets who control him, but it doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t show us anything about Bucky we didn’t already know. It doesn’t pick up on where we left him in the last Winter Soldier comic, with the love of his life unable to remember who he is. With everything he’s come to care about destroyed.
It’s a fun spy/action story, but nothing more.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted October 28, 2014 by in General / 2 Comments
Aaand time for another Top Ten Tuesday! This week it’s a Halloween theme — not my favourite holiday, really; I’m a scaredy-cat at heart. Anyway, here’s the theme: “Top Ten Books/Movies To Read Or Watch To Get In The Halloween Spirit OR Top Ten Characters Who I Would Totally Want To Be For Halloween”. Aaand I’m gonna do the latter. Most of them are comics characters, because actually I’m really bad at visualising characters.
- Any Avenger. Comics/movies whatever. Especially one like female!Bucky or the Lady Avengers manips. Not that short red hair really suits me for anyone. Gimme a blond wig and I’ll do Carol Danvers? Scarlet Witch maybe?
- Batgirl. From Gail Simone’s run. I’d just need longer hair… lots longer. Like it used to be, in fact.
- Storm. Even mohawk!Storm. Maybe especially mohawk!Storm.
- A female assassin. Shush, Assassin’s Creed counts for this — there’re Assassin’s Creed books too.
- Kate Bishop. Young Avengers! We don’t need to imagine a female Hawkeye; we’ve got one. And I’d have a badass bow.
- Lara Croft. She has comics! It counts! Badass bow, again.
- Eowyn. Shield-maiden style, of course.
- Nazca. From The Lies of Locke Lamora. She’s badass and she should be celebrated.
- Zamira Drakasha. Scott Lynch again. Ditto!
- Sabriel. Or maybe Lirael. From Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy!
Lots of kick-butt ladies. I didn’t deliberately pick them to be mostly the ladies who fight; it’s just those are the ones I can see myself doing better. Not such a fan of the long dresses and so on.
Tags: books, comics, Gail Simone, J.R.R. Tolkien, Marvel, Scott Lynch, Top Tuesday
Posted October 20, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments
Loki: Agent of Asgard, Al Ewing, Lee Garbett
I think I needed more of Journey into Mystery and general Thor comics to really understand what’s going on here, but it’s a fun ride anyway. It continues the kid!Loki storyline — except he’s all grown up now, thanks to Billy Kaplan of the Young Avengers. So we get to see Loki living in Midgard, with a fancy apartment and an unfortunate resemblance to Harry Styles. We get to see a bit more of the “new” Loki interacting with Thor, and the continuing saga of many Lokis that is the whole plot with Loki dying and then kid!Loki but it’s not really kid!Loki and —
Yeah, it’s confusing. But Loki’s capers are fun, and no doubt it’s going somewhere brain-twisty and fun. I like young!Loki a lot, and along with all the Hiddleston fangirls, just want to see that he’s been misunderstood and twisted into his role. And more than that, I hope Loki’s still playing with my head. I don’t really think we ever can or should get some kind of solid answer about where Loki stands on the moral continuum. He’s wildfire, unpredictable; the comics do take that aspect of the trickster Loki from Norse myth and play with it most excellently.
Oh, and the scenes with the Avengers in the tower are perfect.
Rating: 3/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, Marvel
Posted October 17, 2014 by in General / 6 Comments
Readathon time! It doesn’t seem like it’s been long since the last readathon, but here we are again with the event coming up on Saturday-Sunday of this weekend. Naturally I’ve been working on my stack and trying to decide what to read. For once, I’m actually at my partner’s flat in Belgium for the readathon, which means a) I’ll probably be up for the whole thing because I have chronic insomnia here, and b) I only brought my ereader with me, no dead tree books. On the other hand, I have comics to borrow and a whole stack of library books too, so it’s not as though I’m short of reading material.
To reread:
-Robin McKinley, Rose Daughter.
–Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honour.
-Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne.
–Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave.
New:
–Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park.
–Keri Hulme, The Bone People.
-Robert MacFarlane, The Old Ways.
–Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos.
To finish:
-James Morrow, This is the Way The World Ends.
Comics:
-Loki: Agent of Asgard.
-Thor.
-Winter Soldier.
Anyone else I know doing it?
Tags: books, comics, Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold, readathon, Robin McKinley
Posted October 15, 2014 by in General / 0 Comments
What have you recently finished reading?
Beauty and Chalice by Robin McKinley, both rereads. I love those books so much. It’s funny to think that I didn’t like Chalice thaaaat much the first time I read it, but it stayed on my mind and now I think it’s probably earned the title of “Comfort Read.”
What are you currently reading?
A huge mess, as usual, but mainly at the moment I’m reading Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley’s other Beauty and the Beast retelling, and Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park — I can’t believe I’ve never read Jurassic Park before. It’s actually better than I was led to believe? And the science is none too bad considering when it was written.
What will you read next?
The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, probably, and then The Bone People, by Keri Hulme. I’ve got both of them out of the library here, so I need to get on with it. I need to read some of my partner’s comics, too — Thor, Winter Soldier, Loki: Agent of Asgard.
Tags: books, comics, Marvel, reading meme, Robin McKinley
Posted October 12, 2014 by in Reviews / 0 Comments
Death, Disability and the Superhero, José Alaniz
I haven’t completely finished reading this, as I’m not familiar with all the superheroes, etc, mentioned, and I kind of want to look at the source before I really engage with this. It’s not really something for a casual fan of comics — or rather, even a major fan of comics just for a bit of fun and goofiness. It actually looks deeply at some of the tropes and potential underlying meanings: in other words, it treats comics seriously as literature. Some people won’t like that just on principle: to me, it’s good. The stuff lurking behind what we read for fun is just as important to recognise and critique — maybe more so — than “serious” literature that’s written to have layers and layers of meaning.
José Alaniz has written a very thorough work here. I really don’t know enough to critique it, but I enjoyed reading it even where I thought I might disagree if I knew the material better (or had been reading it with more of a critical eye). It was really nice to engage with something intellectual like this that took a genre I’m coming to love seriously.
Rating: 4/5
Tags: book reviews, books, comics, non-fiction
Pretty Deadly, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios
