Skip Week

I have family here to visit today, so no real update this week.

Time to Catch Up

265. The Boys, vol. 8: Highland Laddie by Garth Ennis & John McCrea. This volume really goes a long way to humanizing this series. (Checked out of the library.)
     
266. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill.
     
     I finally got around to re-reading this so I could read the following book:
     
267. Impossible Territories: The Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Jess Nevins. Annotation to the references in the above book, plus an interview with Alan Moore. I admire the effort Nevins puts into researching these annotations.
     
268. PunisherMax: Bullseye by Jason Aaron & Steve Dillon. (Library.)
     
269. Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson.
     
     A great, new newspaper comic strip. Very funny, and covering different territory than the many other strips about suburban kids. Highly recommended.
     
270. Fables, vol. 15: Rose Red by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, et al. Moving things along. (Library.)
     
271. Dracula: The Company of Monsters, vol. 1 by Kurt Busiek, Daryl Gregory, Scott Godlewski & Damian Couceiro. (Library)
     
272. Dracula: The Company of Monsters, vol. 2 by Kurt Busiek, Daryl Gregory, Scott Godlewski & Damian Couciero. The best vampire story I've read in a long, long time. Can't wait for volume 3 to come out. (Library.)
     
273. Captain America: The Fighting Avenger by Brian Clevinger, Gurihiru. Tie-in with the movie (which I haven't seen.) (Library.)
     
274. DC Comics Presents: The Metal Men by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, & Kevin Maguire. Light-hearted treatment of one of DC's more absurd super-hero groups.
     
275. Captain America: American Nightmare by Mark Waid, Andy Kubert, et al. Comics from the 90s. (Library.)
     
276. Northlanders vol. 4: The Plague Widow by Brian Wood & Leandro Fernandez. Another story of vikings. (Library.)
     
277. Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger: The Little Sisters of Eluria by Robin Furth, Peter David & Luke Ross. Looks like these sell well enough that they will end up adapting the entire Dark Tower series.(Borrowed from Teena.)
     
278. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, vol. 2: 1969 by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill.
     
     What we have seen of Century so far has been darker than previous LoEG stories. I'm hoping volume 3 ends on an up note.
     
279. Conan, vol. 3: Black Colossus by Timothy Truman & Tomas Giorello. (Library.)

A fair number of movies since I last posted a real update:

• Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead. Turlough's introduction. Interesting to see a companion who isn't as altruistic as usual.
  
• Doctor Who: Terminus. I hadn't been getting Doctor Who discs in sequence from NetFlix, but because these two stories and the following one have a character arc for Turlough, I broke with tradition.
  
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Gamera. Yay for Japanese monster movies and Americans poking fun at them.
  
• MST3K: Gamera vs. Barugon.
  
• MST3K: Gamera vs. Gaos.
  
• MST3K: Gamera vs. Guiron. Of the 5 Gamera movies in the latest MST3K box set, Teena and I had seen only 2. We've got one movie to go, and it is one of the ones we had not previously seen.
  

Vacation Post

I did not get many books read during my week off, so this is the only post this week. I will catch up next time.

I'm Back

Here is the promised post.

255. Marvel Adventures Spider-Man & the Avengers by Paul Tobin, et al. More great all-ages comics.
     
256. S.H.I.E.L.D.: Architects of Forever by Jonathan Hickman & Dustin Weaver. A secret history of the Marvel Universe. Revealing that S.H.I.E.L.D., the super-spy organization has been defending Earth for centuries. (Checked out of the library.)
     
257. Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four: Doomed If You Don't by Paul Tobin & David Hahn.
     
258. War of Kings: Road to War of Kings by Christover Yost, Dustin Weaver, et al. Preliminaries to Marvel's cosmic cross-over. (Library.)
     
259. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 4: Realm of Kings by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Brad Walker, & Wesley Craig. The more Abnett & Lanning I read, the more I enjoy their work. (Library.)
     
260. Legion Lost by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Olivier Copiel, & Pascal Alixe. Collection of a series that came out at a time when I wasn't reading Legion of Super-Heroes comics. So I knew almost nothing about this. It's very good. (Library.)
     
261. Richard Stark's Parker, Book 2: The Outfit adapted by Darwyn Cooke.
     
     I enjoyed the first book, but this one blew me away, especially the section in the middle of the book where a bunch of heists are described, each in a different art style. I'm definitely on board for the next book.
     
262. Citizen Rex by Mario & Gilbert Hernandez. Science fiction weirdness. (Library.)
     
263. The Nobody by Jeff Lemire.
     
     The Invisible Man set in small-town America. (Library.)
     
264. Batman: The Bat and the Beast by Peter Milligan and Andy Clarke. Milligan can be hit or miss for me, especially when writing corporate characters. Fortunately, this is one of the hits. Batman in Moscow.

No movies since last time, but Teena and I did go to

• Trek in the Park: Mirror, Mirror on Saturday. This is getting more & more popular. We were there 2 hours early, but we still ended up having to sit behind the "stage." Fortunately, we were still able to see most of the action. Also, while we were in the sun when we arrived, the shadows moved over us by the time the show started. Lots of fun. Looking forward to the show next year (even if we have to show up 3 or 4 hours early).

Delay

Don't feel like updating today. I'll update tomorrow, since I'm on vacation and will have the time.

Once Again, a Light Week

(I realize just how skewed a perspective it is that I consider a week in which I finished reading 8 book to be light.)

247. Fullmetal Alchemist, vol. 25 by Hiromu Arakwa.
     
     I keep expecting this series to wrap up with each new volume, but it looks like there are 2 to go after this one. (I have noticed a tendency for manga series to run a few volumes too long. The dangers of serial publication, I suppose.) (Checked out of the library.)
     
248. Echo, vol. 6: The Last Day by Terry Moore. The final volume of this series brought in connections to his previous series, Strangers in Paradise, which I never finished. Fortunately, you don't need to know anything about that series to enjoy the climax to this one. Apparently his next series is set in the same world. Looking forward to that one.
     
249. Batman: Haunted Gotham by Doug Moench & Kelley Jones. Batman vs. demons. Well-suited to Jones's art style. (Library.)
     
250. Red Hulk: Scorched Earth by Jeff Parker & Gabriel Hardman. Basically, this is Marvel Team-Up: Starring the Red Hulk. Lots of guest-stars, lots of fun. (Library.)
     
251. Dungeons & Dragons, vol. 1: Shadowplague by John Rogers & Andrea DiVoto.
     
     I've been buying the individual issues of the new D&D; comic, and had been going to pass up on the collection, but was won over when I saw that the book was packaged to look like a source-book for the role-playing game. It looks fantastic and even comes with an appendix with the story from the comic converted into a 4th edition D&D; adventure.
     
252. Secret Warriors, vol. 5: Night by Jonathan Hickman, Alessandro Vitti, et al. More spy action. (Library.)
     
253. Essential Captain America, vol. 4 by Steve Englehart, Sal Buscema, et al. Captain America stories from the early to mid-70's, when Cap undergoes a crisis of conscience brought on by Watergate (and by seeing the Marvel Universe version of Richard Nixon commit suicide after his attempt to become dictator of the US was thwarted*).
     
254. Shadowland by Kim Deitch. Sordid & trippy stories about carnival life and the early days of Hollywood.

*Long story.

Once again, only one movie:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I. Once the books finished, both Teena and I pretty much lost interest in the movies, which is why it has taken us this long to get around to this movie. When we see the final one soon will depend on whether or not we can find a decent theater showing it in 2D. We may just wait for it to show up on NetFlix (as we did this one).

That's More Like It

237. Essential Tomb of Dracula, vol. 4 by various. Collecting stories from Marvel's 70s horror magazines. Interestingly, the stories are arranged chronologically by when they occur in Dracula's un-life, rather than when they were published.
     
238. Jack of Fables, vol. 8: The Fulminate Blade by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, & Jim Fern. (Checked out of the library.)
     
239. Atomic Robo, vol. 4: Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. I am finding this series more and more enjoyable. It keeps getting better. (Library.)
     
240. Batman: Knight and Squire by Paul Cornell & Jimmy Broxton.
     
     I wish the realities of the comic book market didn't dictate that this book be labeled "Batman". It's a fantastic, light-hearted comic that still has some substance to it. But most comics fans don't want that, so, because it's features characters that first appeared in a Batman comic, they don't get top billing in their own book. I loved this and would be thrilled if Cornell were to write more adventures of the Knight & Squire.
     
241. DC Comics Presents: Batman: Gotham Noir by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips. I really enjoy stories that take familiar characters and re-imagine them in different circumstances (although I do find it tiresome when the creators cram in too much of the "real" continuity). This is a great version of Gotham City as the setting for a noir story starring private eye James Gordon.
     
242. Punisher: In the Blood by Rick Remender & Roland Boschi. (Library.)
     
243. Captain America: No Escape by Ed Brubaker & Butch Guice. Still enjoying Brubaker's run on Cap.
     
244. Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 3: War of Kings, bk. 2 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Brad Walker & Wesley Craig. Abnett & Lanning have a great handle on Marvel's cosmic characters. (Library.)
     
245. Bat Boy: The Complete Weekly World News Comic Strips by Peter Bagge.
     
     I think this may be the best thing I've read by Bagge in years. Lots of fun, full of tabloid madness. (Library.)
     
246. The Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives, vol. 2 by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith.
     
     Beautiful art on these stories. Windsor-Smith was growing into his talent when he worked on the comics collected here.

Just one movie:

• Transformers, with the RiffTrax commentary. The commentary made the action sequences very funny, but nothing on earth could salvage the attempts at a story. I have never seen such a collection of plot holes, lazy jokes and just plain stupidity. (And I hope to never suffer such again.) Both Teena & I were rooting for the Decepticons. "Kill all humans!"