Tag: comics

Stacking the Shelves

Posted January 30, 2016 by Nicky in General / 30 Comments

Wait, it’s Saturday again already? Well, I haven’t bought any books this week (despite some temptation), so once again I get to showcase what I’ve been reading. It isn’t a true “Unstacking” week, though, because I did get a review copy… although technically, I got it last week and forgot to include it in the stack.

Cover of The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Hellig Cover of The Collectors by Philip Pullman Cover of Queen of the Flowers by Kerry Greenwood Cover of The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers Cover of Signal to Noise by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia

 Cover of Time's Anvil by Richard Morris Cover of Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart Cover of Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip Cover of Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey

It was a very good reading week, despite the struggle I had with the maths assignment that just wouldn’t die.

And here’s a book I was sent by the author:

Cover of Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver

Aaaand the weekly round-up…

Reviews this week:

–City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Loved this one, really looking forward to City of Blades. 5/5 stars
–Unnatural Death, adapted from the book by Dorothy L. Sayers. I think in previous readings I rated it higher, but I got a bit tired of the convolutions in this one. Still, 3/5 stars
–Santa Olivia, Jacqueline Carey. Actually a reread for me, but it still had some surprises. Lots of fun! 4/5 stars
–Phonogram: Rue Britannia, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. I was toddling in the 90s, so a lot of the references were lost on me. The art’s great, though. 3/5 stars
–How Not to Summon Your True Love, by Sasha L. Miller. Cute story, kinda fun, but the asexual relationship wasn’t as big of a feature as I’d have liked. 3/5 stars
–The Girl from Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig. I read it in two sittings, so despite having some quibbles about characterisation later on, the setting and worldbuilding definitely worked for me. 4/5 stars
–Flashback Friday: Camelot’s Shadow, by Sarah Zettel. An old review of a series that’s turned into comfort reading for me, and this is the book that features Sir Gawain the most! 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Picked Up At Random and Loved. It was a freebie week, so it took me a while to think of a topic, but this one was fun.
–On reading kinks (that one trope). Is there something in a story that will always make you love it? I had a go at dissecting mine here.

How is everyone? Eating up books as much as you’d like? Tempted by anything in particular? Update me!

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Review – Phonogram: Rue Brittania

Posted January 26, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Phonogram: Rue Britannia by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelviePhonogram: Rue Brittania, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie

You can see in Phonogram the seeds of The Wicked + The Divine, I think, and an earlier stage of McKelvie’s art which isn’t quite the style he uses for The Wicked + The Divine or Young Avengers, but which is attractive and clean. The aesthetic is different, since it’s all black and white; it looks quite striking, but I think I do prefer comics in colour. It makes things easier to read, for me: I had a tendency to lose panels and not read in the right order, for some reason, with Phonogram.

The story itself, well… I know the glossary says that you don’t really need to know Britpop to get it, but I feel like you do need more knowledge than I have. I was toddling and learning to talk and think in the 90s, and even once I was at school and other kids were listening to music, I would still rather have been reading. So a lot of the references and the nostalgia stuff, the whole attitude, was just not in my frame of reference.

The magic system, the goddess and aspects of her, the links to music — it was a cool idea, but not elaborated enough. So lacking that, sympathetic characters or a nostalgic link, I felt like I didn’t really have a way into the comic. It was interesting, but not my thing. Worth a look, though, if you’re a fan of Gillen and McKelvie as a team, and especially The Wicked + The Divine.

Three stars from me mostly because: a) it involves a guy having periods as a punishment for being an asshole, and b) the art.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Young Avengers: Family Matters

Posted January 15, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Cover of Young Avengers: Family MattersYoung Avengers: Family Matters, Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung
Originally reviewed 25th August, 2013

I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first TPB somehow, but it is a lot of fun. I want more of Billy and Teddy, as a couple, at the same time as I want more of the team as a whole. I think I came out of this with half a dozen new ships. These novels make me fannish more than pretty much anything else I read, just as the Marvel movies make me ridiculously excited. I love the female characters, and I want more of them — heck, I want more of all of it. I’m enjoying the various revelations of how each Young Avenger came to have powers (or not, in Kate’s case).

In fact, now I’m envisioning a Young Avengers movie. It’d be too obvious to have Jennifer Lawrence for Kate, right?

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Young Avengers: Sidekicks

Posted January 8, 2016 by Nicky in Reviews / 10 Comments

Cover of Young Avengers: SidekicksYoung Avengers: Sidekicks, Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung
Originally reviewed 25th August, 2013

This series promises to be a lot of fun. You don’t need to know a lot about the main Marvel canon to understand this one: it’s mostly new characters, with some cameos from classics like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers (being very much ‘Superhusbands’: I mean, really, they swoop in with iron Man holding Steve by the waist, it’s practically Superman and Lois Lane). I liked the emotions flying around here: they’re teenagers dealing with superpowers, not superheroes who happen to be teenagers. They mess up and fight and they need to get to school in the morning.

I actually forgot about the gay couple in this series, but that’s one more reason to love it. You can talk all you like about the Cap/Iron Man subtext, but this is the real thing.

The adult Avengers’ roles here make sense, too. I like that they’re an obstacle to the Young Avengers that no one could call evil, in addition to the issue of super villains. I think having read some other Marvel comics would help here to understand just why the Avengers are no more, but a general knowledge is enough.

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Bitch Planet: Extraordinary Machine

Posted November 2, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Bitch Planet vol 1Bitch Planet: Extraordinary Machine, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine DeLandro

I originally received this to review, but because it’s very much designed to have double spreads and to be read across two pages, it just wasn’t readable that way. Fortunately, I’d preordered the TPB anyway. The problem is, I really don’t know what to think of it. I love the diversity of the characters, but I found myself only really knowing two or three of them for sure, each time they appeared. Part of that was the art and part of that is, hey, this is a women’s prison with a lot of inmates, and this is only five issues of the comic. There’s not really enough space to be properly introduced to everybody.

Despite the fact that I love the idea, and I love the trend of people getting the NC tattoos and how much it has spoken to many women, I don’t know if I actually like the product. But maybe it isn’t about liking — I do value the book. I like that it’s in your face and violent and, well, non-compliant. I like that it features a really overweight woman as a heroine who isn’t prepared to change to be somebody else’s ideal. I like that it offends and concerns ‘men’s rights activists’.

So maybe not my thing, but that doesn’t make it a bad comic.

Rating: 4/5

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Stacking the Shelves

Posted October 24, 2015 by Nicky in General / 13 Comments

Hello, everyone! Thanks for the good wishes last week — my grandmother’s operation went okay, and she seems quite well, all things considered. Hope you’ve all had good weeks too!

Bought

Cover of Murder Past Due by Miranda James Bitch Planet vol 1

Cover of Miss Phryne Fisher Investigates by Kerry Greenwood Cover of Flying Too High by Kerry Greenwood Cover of Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood

Cover of Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews Cover of Magic Breaks by Ilona Andrews

Suddenly, I’m mad about Phryne Fisher. Even considering watching the series, if it’s on the UK Netflix! I’ve read a bunch of these already.

Library

Cover of Death at Victoria Dock by Kerry Greenwood Cover of Green Mill Murder by Kerry Greenwood

Yes. Uh. As I said.

Comics

Shield #1

I’ve been looking forward to this one since I first heard about it!

What’s everyone else been getting?

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Review – The Wicked + The Divine: Fandemonium

Posted October 15, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Cover of The Wicked + The Divine vol 2The Wicked + The Divine: Fandemonium, Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie, Matthew Wilson

I wish I had the first volume here, so I could have flipped through it again and got myself quickly back on board for this one. Not that it took too much to get sucked back into it, but in terms of the mystery, I couldn’t remember who I suspected of doing what and why! The characters stuck in my head, too, at least their roles, but their names didn’t. Partly my fault, because I’m not a visual person at all and I can’t ever connect names to faces, let alone in the second volume of a comic I’ve read once before. It doesn’t help that McKelvie’s style is much the same as it was for Young Avengers — I think, “Hey, that character looks familiar… no, I’m thinking of America Chavez.” Sigh.

The art is, as in the first volume, absolutely gorgeous. I don’t think I could imagine The Wicked + The Divine in any other style — it’s perfect this way. In many ways, this volume complicates the plot more, introducing more characters, more background, more twists. There’s still a lot more to discover, and despite the relative thickness of the book, I wanted more, right away, right now.

Please?

Rating: 5/5

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Review – Hawkeye: L.A. Woman

Posted October 11, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 8 Comments

Cover of Hawkeye: LA Woman by Matt FractionHawkeye: L.A. Woman, Matt Fraction, Annie Wu, Javier Pulido

This volume of Hawkeye collects a bunch of issues about the younger, cuter Hawkeye, Kate Bishop. What I kinda don’t get is how much like Clint she acts — she’s not the serious, dedicated leader of the Young Avengers here at all (and she doesn’t once that I can think of contact any of her team). The volume is mostly made up of new characters, aside from Kate and the antagonist, Madame Masque.

It’s fun, and the art is okay — I don’t like it as much as Aja’s — but I like Kate Bishop self-assured and telling Noh-Varr he’s a jerk, or helping Billy and Teddy save the world with love. We don’t get to see the Young Avengers off-duty like this much, which I guess is the format of these Hawkeye comics, but… I don’t know. And I half-expected her to come out with lines from Fraction’s Sex Criminals series: “This fucking guy”, etc.

She does still kick ass, but she also gets her ass kicked a lot, and often due to naivety and inexperience. Which is great, but, uh, the Young Avengers have taken down some pretty big threats, actually. Girl knows what she’s doing — and she has a support network other than Clint and her dad. A phone call to Billy or Teddy would’ve gone down well, Tommy could have been at her side in literally seconds, and America Chavez would gleefully have stomped Madame Masque’s faces. David could probably have set her up with a database, never mind files, if she’s gonna be a PI. Like, with Clint you can get him not asking for backup, because he’s a dummy. Kate isn’t. I’d at least have liked to see her think about calling her team, especially when she believes people are dying.

I don’t know, I guess one superhero being a dummy is kind of funny. Two is apparently overkill for me. Did like the gay couple who help her, though.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – Hawkeye: Little Hits

Posted October 6, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Cover of Hawkeye vol 2 by Fraction and AjaHawkeye: Little Hits, Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, Chris Eliopoulous

Clint Barton continues to be a trainwreck in everyday life. And Kate Bishop continues to care about him even though he’s really kind of a loser in many ways. And Clint has a really great dog. That pretty much sums up book two. And the whole run could probably summed up with, “Clint Barton makes poor life choices.”

I’m not 100% into this comic, but I do enjoy it, and Fraction and Aja are certainly very creative, funny, and willing to take risks. Sometimes I find that their style of storytelling doesn’t work for me — I’m not a visual person, so the 95% visuals issue “Pizza Is My Business” was difficult for me, and that’s not the only time they rely on very visual storytelling. So I think my reaction is a pretty idiosyncratic one; it’s a bit weird that I’m even into comics, since visual storytelling is hard for me, and the best comics really make use of that in combination with the words, instead of illustrating the words.

Still, reading it again helped somewhat with comprehension, and I’ll keep that in mind as I get onto LA Woman and Rio Bravo.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Captain Marvel: Alis Volat Propriis

Posted October 3, 2015 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Captain Marvel vol 3Captain Marvel: Alis Volat Propriis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Warren Ellis, David Lopez

There’s still some great banter in this book, and it’s a lot less silly than the previous volume felt. Unfortunately, the Black Vortex issue is pretty disconnected and random — I would’ve been interested to see more of Carol’s involvement in that storyline, and it is interesting to see her choosing not to go cosmic — but as it is, it feels clumsy, especially with all the exposition explaining what the Black Vortex even is.

The final issue is the most important, probably the most emotionally hard-hitting of this run. I love the people who support Carol in it — even if it took me a minute to realise that Steve was Steve — and the story is sweet (though I still don’t actually know much about Carol even knows Tracy). It’s a fitting return to Earth for Carol, in many ways.

I do wish Marvel wouldn’t run so many events, though. I’m not actually interested in the majority, definitely not as single issues, and it really disrupts ongoing stories with individual characters. The crossover events are going to stop being special if they keep happening all the time, and we’ve had so many lately, it seems.

Rating: 4/5

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