Tag: comics

Top Ten Tuesday

Posted May 20, 2014 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

I haven’t done the Top Ten Tuesday thing for a while, a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, but I like this topic — top ten books about friendship.

  1. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin. The friendship between Ged and Vetch, the quiet solid thereness of it… you know for sure that Vetch would never let you down if he could help it.
  2. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. I actually thought of this because they’ve got it in their list, but it’s still true. Frodo and Sam, Legolas and Gimli… even, in a way, Frodo and Gollum, because Frodo manages to reach out with pity and sympathy to Smeagol.
  3. The Prize in the Game,Jo Walton. Ferdia and Darag. “Your name in my heart,” indeed. (Okay, there’s romantic aspects to that, but I think first and foremost they’re friends.)
  4. The Grey King, Susan Cooper. Bran and Will. The way they fit together, understand each other better than anyone else, and the way they still hurt each other because neither of them is perfect.
  5. Captain Marvel, Kelly Sue DeConnick. Carol and Steve! Carol and Jessica! Carol and Monica!
  6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ed Brubaker. Steve and Bucky. Just, Steve and Bucky. I know this is a movie quote but, “I’m with you till the end of the line.”
  7. The Summer Tree, Guy Gavriel Kay. Paul and Kevin, primarily, although all the bonds between the group are great. Kim and Jennifer, particularly. Just the way there are these deep loves that come entirely out of friendship. Guy Gavriel Kay is also pretty good at this in other books, too, like Tigana.
  8. The Universe Versus Alex Woods, Gavin Extence. Alex and Mr. Peterson. So unlikely, and yet Extence made me believe in it.
  9. Sword at Sunset, Rosemary Sutcliff. Arthur and Bedwyr. Ouch, ouch. “I could have cried out to him, as Jonathan to David, by the forbidden love names that are not used between men; I could have flung my arms around his shoulders.”
  10. Good Omens, Neil Gaiman. Crowley and Aziraphale. Because of course.

I am a little bothered by the fact that almost all of those are male friendships. It’s partly a function of the books I’ve loved since I was a kid, before I was really choosy in any way about what I read, but still. Rec me your books with female friendship!

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted May 17, 2014 by Nicky in General / 28 Comments

Time for the Stacking the Shelves meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews. Busy week! These actually came in an assortment of omnibuses, but seeing the individual books with their old covers seems more fun to me.

Cover of Taltos by Steven Brust Cover of Phoenix by Steven Brust Cover of Athyra by Steven Brust Cover of Orca by Steven Brust Cover of Dragon by Steven Brust Cover of Issola by Steven Brust Cover of Dzur by Steven Brust Cover of Jhegaala by Steven Brust

Also received my print ARC of Carrie Patel’s The Buried Life! <3

Oh, and some comics…

Cover of Marvel's Captain Marvel, issue three

Oh, and one final review copy…

Cover of Pretty Deadly by Kelly Sue DeConnick

I’m not a big fan of Emma Rios’ style, but I do enjoy Kelly Sue DeConnick’s work, so I’m excited. And yes, this post is pretty much the Steven Brust and Kelly Sue DeConnick show.

What’s everyone else been up to?

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Review – Astonishing X-Men: Torn

Posted May 9, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Astonishing X-men: Torn by Joss WhedonAstonishing X-Men: Torn, Joss Whedon, John Cassaday

The copy of this I picked up has no indication of where it might come in a series. I was sure it was probably in the middle of something anyway, but I thought I’d give it a go, see if X-men is something I’m interested in following (’cause you know, it’s not like I’m following enough already).

If you’re already invested in the characters and know what’s going on the story, then I think this would be a gut punch of a volume. There’s some amazing stuff going on with Kitty Pryde, and all of the X-men are affected in one way or another by what happens here. Unfortunately, for me, I just don’t know enough of the background — everything I know about Kitty I know from Ultimate Spider-man, everything I know about Scott I remember from a cartoon when I was little, and a lot of them I don’t know at all. It looks like an interesting storyline, and the art is good, but I just can’t say I enjoyed it when I was so at sea for most of it.

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Review – Uncanny X-Force: Let It Bleed

Posted May 7, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Uncanny X-force: Let It BleedUncanny X-Force: Let It Bleed, Sam Humphries, Ron Garney, Adrian Alphona, Dexter Soy

I liked the art of this TPB, liked what little I gleaned about the characters and the line-up, but… I finished the book wondering what the heck happened here, whether it has any relevance to any other Marvel plotline I can think of, and whether I would have understood what was going on better with more X-force context. I agree with people who say it was a really fast read, etc, but that’s because little is happening. Maybe with some more emotional hooks, like knowing in advance what Fantomex and Psylocke’s relationship was, or more about Bishop, or… just about anything.

It’s a lovely looking book, but it doesn’t seem to be a good starting point. Which is odd, because I thought that was somewhat the point of Marvel Now. Alternately, it’s just not a very good comic anyway.

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Review – Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome

Posted May 2, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Green Lantern Corps: FearsomeGreen Lantern Corps: Fearsome, Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin, Scott Hanna

On the one hand, this is a heck of an introduction to the Green Lanterns. There’s so many characters and concepts packed in, and I had to play a fair amount of catchup. I was never sure what was a New 52 innovation and what was established canon, how I should be judging the storyline. So I couldn’t tell you if someone was suddenly overpowered or turned into an enormous asshole.

I did enjoy it, though. It’s a bit thin on character because there are so many Green Lanterns in the story, but it gives us an introduction to the Corps and who they are, what they believe in. There are some interesting character moments for John Stewart, which I found intriguing: he makes some rough decisions and has to live with them, and does so honorably, to my mind.

I actually enjoyed this enough that I will pick up other Green Lantern comics in the future, at least to try.

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Review – Superman: What Price Tomorrow?

Posted April 23, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of DC's Superman: What Price Tomorrow?Superman: What Price Tomorrow?, George Pérez, Jesus Merino, Nicola Scott

This wasn’t as bad as I expected from the general trend of reviews on Goodreads. I don’t think I’m really a fan of DC’s stuff in general, though. I mean, I remember Superman in bright colours, as wholesome as Marvel’s Captain America, but here it’s all dark and broody. Maybe part of the problem is that I never read the comics before, but was a devotee of the tv series. No, not Smallville — Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman!

Anyway, this was… okay. I liked the redesign of Superman’s costume which keeps the important aspects of his iconic image and tweaks things we could do without (the underwear on the outside of his costume thing). I didn’t feel strongly about the art either way, though I did feel that the criticisms of the number of panels and cluttered pages are pretty valid.

The story is okay, but like I said, there’s a lot of dark and broody here, which I thought was more Batman’s line. There’s some stuff intended to make it relevant and modern, like the Daily Planet’s way of dealing with the move to digital media, but all in all, I don’t know how that works. In my head, the Daily Planet smells of paper and ink, and Metropolis never really joins the digital age.

So the only New 52 titles I’ve really been interested in following are Batgirl and Batwoman. Hmm.

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Review – House of M

Posted April 21, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of House of M by Brian Michael Bendis.House of M, Brian Michael Bendis

House of M actually seems a bit old hat, coming to it after I’ve already read other crossover events and the aftermath of House of M, The Children’s Crusade. I’m trying to fit it together with some of the other comics I’ve read, and I’m a little unsure — Wanda’s children, how do they end up being Billy and Tommy from Young Avengers? When does that happen? That’s not really explained to my satisfaction anywhere in the story.

Did like the cast here, though it feels a little crowded. Spider-man gets some good lines, and I love that Ms. Marvel’s pretty important in this world. I’m not a big fan of Wolverine, and I don’t know much about Emma Frost, so their prominence wasn’t especially helpful for me.

All in all, it felt frenetic, more than a little crowded. I didn’t need background from other comics for it, but it felt like I would’ve liked it: so many people were referred to glancingly, and I know so little about them, or what I know is from Ultimates, or…

Anyway, it’s fun, but not an essential, I think.

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Review – Maus

Posted April 16, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of Maus, by Art SpiegelmanMaus, Art Spiegelman

It’s hard to figure out how to rate or review this. I mean, do you rate it as art? As a story? Or as non-fiction? As something in between, that nonetheless tries to express the truth? I quite liked Spiegelman’s style: the panels were maybe a little too busy at times, but the drawings had character and life.

More importantly, I think in writing his father’s story, Art Spiegelman managed to capture something we can be prone to forget: the Jews were not necessarily all nice people, all innocent victims and young girls like Anne Frank. There were greedy Jews, Jews who survived because they were quick-thinking and put themselves first, Jews with horrible opinions and so on. Art Spiegelman’s father Vladek isn’t a pleasant character in many ways, but what he goes through and the finer aspects of him show us that it doesn’t matter what kind of people the Jews who suffered and died were, they didn’t deserve Auschwitz and Dachau and all the other concentration camps. We don’t need an idealised innocent young girl to know what happened for the horror it was — that might make it easier on us, but to me it’s equally important to remember collaborators and cowards, the everyman and the rich banker and even the ones who stole each others’ food or lorded it over them to survive. Half of those horrors were created by the conditions anyway.

Which is to say… there were no perfect people. It’s a mistake to forget that, to forget that we’re still talking about humans all their messy glory. Maus reminds us pretty firmly that horrific things can happen to people who aren’t that nice themselves, and remain horrific.

So all in all, I don’t know that I like it much, but it’s one of those things where I have to consider the work that went into it and what it says, what it does, more than my personal enjoyment or not.

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Review – Wonder Woman: Guts

Posted April 13, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Wonder Woman vol. 2, GutsWonder Woman: Guts, Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang, Tony Akins

I’m not really a fan of Wonder Woman, I think, at least not in this incarnation. I’m not fond of the character designs, except maybe for Strife (but she reminded me of someone else; maybe a Neil Gaiman character?) and Wonder Woman herself, and the plot just… Nah.

I can take some tweaks to my mythology (hello Thor), but this was strangely closer to the actual mythology and further from the spirit of the mythology. Or something. The bickering among the gods, Hera’s jealousy, etc — it all makes sense within Greek myth, but they seemed cardboard cutouty, which Thor and Loki do not.

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Review – The Eternals

Posted April 13, 2014 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of The Eternals by Neil GaimanThe Eternals, Neil Gaiman

I knew nothing about Eternals before reading this, and pretty much just got it because it’s by Neil Gaiman. So I didn’t know about the original series (and still don’t know much about it). Some of the character designs and ideas are kinda cool, and the art works well enough, but I don’t think Gaiman managed to rescue this from the wtfery of its apparent origins.

The longer he drew out the mystery, the better it was; all the explanation was kinda… this is what you were setting up for? Really?

I don’t think this works well in a world with registration and Civil War and Tony Stark, either.

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