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- Le Maître des Limbes (2)
- By Tarek
- Finished on Mar 18, 2012
  
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Le Maître des Limbes

Bill said this wasn't that great a comic but I really liked it. It was quite easy to understand. There was a lot of fighting. But I'm afraid very little has stayed with me since then.

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— Apr 18, 2012 | Add your feedback
西街少年
- 西街少年 (3)
- (2)
- Finished on Mar 18, 2012
  
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西街少年

I'm so happy I got to read this comic book series. It's really helping me practice my traditional characters. It starts with the big skateboarding hero of the first comic book working in a cafe. Which everyone finds very amusing. The story lines are mostly just focused on romances, with some mystery ... (continue)

I'm so happy I got to read this comic book series. It's really helping me practice my traditional characters. It starts with the big skateboarding hero of the first comic book working in a cafe. Which everyone finds very amusing. The story lines are mostly just focused on romances, with some mysterys about who is related to who but the characters are enjoyable. I just about managed to follow along this time. I think I will definitely go back and re-read these as they are lots of fun.

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— Mar 22, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Black Magic (1)
- By Masamune Shirow
- Finished on Mar 18, 2012
  
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Black Magic

As a teenager I dabbled in Manga and when I saw these comics for sale in the Oxfam I recognised the covers immediately. I had no memory of the story but they were very striking visually. I have to say given the choice beween anime worlds and the superhero worlds of American comics I much prefer anim ... (continue)

As a teenager I dabbled in Manga and when I saw these comics for sale in the Oxfam I recognised the covers immediately. I had no memory of the story but they were very striking visually. I have to say given the choice beween anime worlds and the superhero worlds of American comics I much prefer anime worlds. This story took place many many milennia ago on Venus and transforms Greek myth into computer governments, robots and clones. It's a lovely setting and an interesting premise. Unfortunately, it's execution is a little rough. The four comics are mostly a series of short stories about different events in the world. There's kinda too much action and exposition and not enough of exploring the world through the events as they unfold. It's clumsy and awkward but still enjoyable. It made me think I should go back and try more manga again.

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— Mar 22, 2012 | Add your feedback
- A Sickness in the Family (3)
- By Denise Mina
- Finished on Mar 12, 2012
  
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A Sickness in the Family

I have to say I was pretty ambivalent about this comic. It's another of the vertigo crime series. I was expecting a more macabre tale but despite the name of Usher it was a fairly typical tale of a family filled with hatred. I think the biggest problem I had with this was that everyone was so unli ... (continue)

I have to say I was pretty ambivalent about this comic. It's another of the vertigo crime series. I was expecting a more macabre tale but despite the name of Usher it was a fairly typical tale of a family filled with hatred. I think the biggest problem I had with this was that everyone was so unlikable. It made me just not interested in who was being murdered or why. The revelation at the end was almost a relief. I must also admit I didn't much care for the artwork either. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to bother with more of this series. I think I prefer my crime more hard boiled and pulpy.

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— Mar 17, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Rising Stars (8)
- Born In Fire (Vol. 1)
- By J. Michael Straczynski
- Finished on Mar 11, 2012
  
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Rising Stars

Babylon 5 which was written by JMS remains my favourite tv show of all time. I find his writing their incredible. So when I discovered he'd written his own comic book series I wanted to try it. It was (again) about superheros but I thought it'd be worth investigating anyway. I have to say I was quit ... (continue)

Babylon 5 which was written by JMS remains my favourite tv show of all time. I find his writing their incredible. So when I discovered he'd written his own comic book series I wanted to try it. It was (again) about superheros but I thought it'd be worth investigating anyway. I have to say I was quite disappointed. The storyline is quite mediocure. Kids are born with superhero powers, raised together, then at some point when they grow up start killing each other off as their powers start to fade and the other ones dying brings them back. The story was told in a very expository fashion. There were lots of repeated flashbacks. Each flashback focusing on one character, where it seems like it would have been better to have done all the childhood stories together as one coherant comic.
The thing that surprised me the most about the comic though was the lack of women characters. While there were supposed to be over 100 people with these powers the stories all focused on the men. The few women that did get mentioned had incredibly gendered superpowers, most beautiful woman alive, most incredible singing voice. When it was revealed that the woman without powers did have them, it was also revealed that'd she'd been abused and had MPD and was the "victim" fighting back. (Whereas the guys were just allowed to fly, be strong, be superheros and cops and super criminals). It was not at all what I expected from the man who wrote Lyta, Delenn and Ivonava.
Rather than buy the next in the series i have requested a copy from the library. I'm hoping it gets more interesting in the second and third instalments. But I'm thinking this just isn't for me. Some of the exposition is lovely and the characters monologues are very good. But apart from these flashes of brilliance there is very little here that I found drew me in.

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— Mar 22, 2012 | Add your feedback

- Shadoweyes, Volume 1 (1)
- By Ross Campbell
- Finished on Mar 8, 2012
  
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Shadoweyes, Volume 1

I started reading shadoweyes online at www.shadoweyes.net. But found myself too impatient for the story so went and bought a copy of the graphic novel. It was the most expensive graphic novel I've bought in awhile but totally worth it. I do NOT like superhero comics but I loved this mostly cause it ... (continue)

I started reading shadoweyes online at www.shadoweyes.net. But found myself too impatient for the story so went and bought a copy of the graphic novel. It was the most expensive graphic novel I've bought in awhile but totally worth it. I do NOT like superhero comics but I loved this mostly cause it really wasn't a superhero comic. The first scene is Scout and her best friend Kyeesha discussing a potential superhero name. It's just such a wonderful totally realistic scene. Campbell really does a wonderful job of capturing the girls and bringing them to life and making them fun and believable and flawed. He also plays with perceptions not revealing everything at once. I think the greatest development is with Sparkle who starts as a totally girly girl obsessed with sparkle ponies and their card game, but who ends up having a very grim few days and afterwards you get to see underneath her facade and she becomes totally sympathetic. Likewise Scout and her own transformation into a blue bug monster is done really well. I loved all the scenes with her and her mom, and how it affected her friendships. All her angst about what a "superhero" should and shouldn't do was so much more interesting than Peter Parker's with great power comes great responsibility. I absoultely adored this and am very much looking forward to reading Shadoweyes in love.

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— Mar 10, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Big Numbers n.1 (7)
- By Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz
- Finished on Mar 2, 2012
  
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Big Numbers n.1

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This is an absouletly gorgeous comic. It's about the lives of ordinary people living in [north]Hampton. A woman returning home after 10 years, various members of her family and then a couple in America who have plans to build a new shopping mall in the city.
The art work is stunning, beautifully re ... (continue)

This is an absouletly gorgeous comic. It's about the lives of ordinary people living in [north]Hampton. A woman returning home after 10 years, various members of her family and then a couple in America who have plans to build a new shopping mall in the city.
The art work is stunning, beautifully rendered highly realistic pencil sketches. A lot of the panels have no dialogue and so the art work gets over the emotions within the story. It's depressing and real and so much better and more interesting than any superhero adventure could be. It's a shame only two issues were ever released but I'll definitely be getting the second one (and then reading everyone's plot developments in the Storyteller book).

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— Mar 10, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Swamp Thing (18)
- The Curse
- By Alan Moore, John Totleben, Steve Bissette
- Finished on Mar 3, 2012
  
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Swamp Thing

I bought this last weekend I'd not read any Swamp thing in a couple months, having finished book 2 and then deciding not to buy anymore books for the rest of the year. It was totally amazing. Without a doubt my favourite of the swamp things so far and just as good as Alan Moore's best work. The book ... (continue)

I bought this last weekend I'd not read any Swamp thing in a couple months, having finished book 2 and then deciding not to buy anymore books for the rest of the year. It was totally amazing. Without a doubt my favourite of the swamp things so far and just as good as Alan Moore's best work. The book saw the swamp thing start to understand his role as a plant elemental a bit better. How to grow himself a new body and how to travel. Normally I prefer graphic novels that are one big story rather than individual ones but I liked it here. I thought the nuclear waste guy disappearing was a bit of a cop out. But apart from that I really liked it. There were ghosts, vampires, werewolves, voodoo. But more importantly it was just so beautifully written. The lines were lovely, particularly the swamp things. Considering how articulate monsters are one of my favourite things it's really no wonder I love this series so much. But there are also really great issues discussed environmental concerns, women's rage, sexism, racism. While there are magical and mystical beings it's really just using them as an excuse to talk about real world issues in disguise. I have to say the woman's rage, the story of the curse, was totally brilliant. (Even if I don't believe a native American tribe could be that horrid and she had a hopeless ending). As soon as I finished I bought book 4. I hope it's as good.

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— Mar 4, 2012 | Add your feedback
- The Abandoned (2)
- (Abandoned (Tokyo Pop))
- By Ross Campbell
- Finished on Feb 26, 2012
  
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The Abandoned

I'm a huge fan of Ross Campbell's Wet Moon series. I think it's one of the top five comic book series ever! The abandoned is a zombie comic he did while writing some of the early books of Wet moon. In a recent interview I read with him he said that he was trying to get across the idea of the fetishi ... (continue)

I'm a huge fan of Ross Campbell's Wet Moon series. I think it's one of the top five comic book series ever! The abandoned is a zombie comic he did while writing some of the early books of Wet moon. In a recent interview I read with him he said that he was trying to get across the idea of the fetishisation of youth in today's society but he thought he'd failed and just produced a mediocure zombie comic. I have to say that I thought it was very good. What made this different from most zombie films/books etc was that here I actually really liked the characters and so felt sad when they were eaten. I really wanted them to survive. The main character was a black lesbian with a red mohawk who volunteered at an old people's home and helped out with her friend's ice-cream shop. What was nice about the story was there were already established characters and relationships. There was a sense of reality to it that got violated in horrible ways. The zombie attacks and the fight scenes were quite gruesome. For some reason it's almost more disturbing to see it in comics than it is on film. Unlike Wet Moon the pacing was very fast with lots of attacks and action but there were still nice scenes with the characters so that the violence became more disturbing. I really enjoyed this one and would definitely recommend it.

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— Feb 28, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Monkey Subdues the White-Bone Demon (2)
- Finished on Feb 25, 2012
  
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Monkey Subdues the White-Bone Demon

I've had the Chinese lian huan hua for this story for a couple years. Last week I found an English translation that contained much bigger woodcuts and decided to read them together. The English version was missing about 15-20 pages from the Chinese. The translation also missed out on a lot of things ... (continue)

I've had the Chinese lian huan hua for this story for a couple years. Last week I found an English translation that contained much bigger woodcuts and decided to read them together. The English version was missing about 15-20 pages from the Chinese. The translation also missed out on a lot of things that were covered in the Chinese version, like how Monkey was always able to tell it was the "demon" in disguise and not in fact a helpless human. But having the English version definitely helped me with some of the more obscure words, names, etc. I definitely wouldn't really recommend the English version on its own as a story, it is too simplified and not as interesting, though the larger woodcuts are very nice. I'm really glad I finally got around to reading this. I have some other Monkey stories in the same format that now I think I will also attempt to read. After reading the last comic in traditional characters it was nice to be able to go back to simplified again. It encouraged me to read more of my Monkey books.

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— Mar 4, 2012 | Add your feedback

- Rex Libris Volume One (6)
- I, Librarian (Rex Libris) (Rex Libris)
- By James Turner
- Finished on Feb 26, 2012
  
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Rex Libris Volume One

This was quite a fun graphic novel. An invincible librarian from the library of Alexandria with superhero powers he uses in defending library and collecting overdue books. It has some wonderful jokes about libraries and librarians that I really appreciated. The comic got a little less interesting wh ... (continue)

This was quite a fun graphic novel. An invincible librarian from the library of Alexandria with superhero powers he uses in defending library and collecting overdue books. It has some wonderful jokes about libraries and librarians that I really appreciated. The comic got a little less interesting when Rex went off on his quests to obtain overdue books. It seemed kinda odd to me that the most entertaining thing they could think of the librarian to do was collect lost books and not actually anything that librarians did do. These parts, particularly the long drawn out scene with the snowmen weren't as good. I just wanted to return to Circe and Hypatia in the library. But overall it was very fun and more than a little silly and I will definitely be reading volume two.

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— Mar 4, 2012 | Add your feedback
- 西街少年 (4)
- (1)
- By 三立電視台
- Finished on Feb 19, 2012
  
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西街少年

I'm on a chinese pop music community on LJ and one of the members was giving away cds and dvds as well as these comics. I find comics really good for practicing Chinese and so I asked her to send me the 3 West side story 西街少年 comics. I just finished the first one. I read the whole thing in one go an ... (continue)

I'm on a chinese pop music community on LJ and one of the members was giving away cds and dvds as well as these comics. I find comics really good for practicing Chinese and so I asked her to send me the 3 West side story 西街少年 comics. I just finished the first one. I read the whole thing in one go and I really liked it!!! It was in traditional characters which made it a bit harder for me, I had to add a new imput method to my iphone so I could look up words in the dictionary! But overall it wasn't too difficult to follow, I just got a little lost towards the end and had to go back and re-read parts to figure out what had happened.
The book was pretty great. It was all about teen skaters in high school who hung out on West side street. There were four characters who were the main gang. I have to say that one of the most lovely things about this was one of the four guys was actually transgender! She was a "tomboy" whose secret was revealed when she was hitting on the main girl character at the begining of the novel, when the main girl grabbed her chest and found out she had boobs! But she's totally accepted by the guys and they don't treat her/him any differently which was just brilliant!
The main character girl was also pretty fantastic. In her first scene she had a huge rant about the way that men and boys treat women and how they need to respect them and not see them as just sex objects. She's always conflicting with the main guy character as they try and find her missing schoolmate.
The story is a bit more than you'd expect to find in a teen comic about skaters, there's hints of prositution and lots of involvement of the police. I have two more books in the series to read and I'm really looking forward to them. I think I will end up reading them quite a few times just to make sure I understand everything. But I'm very happy I was sent them.

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— Feb 21, 2012 | Add your feedback
- SMAX (19)
- By Alan Moore, Zander Cannon
- Finished on Feb 1, 2012
  
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SMAX

I think this was my least favourite of the Top Ten books. It was a fantasty spoof and while there were some quite funny moments I just don't think I read enough fantasy to get all the references. I did spot Cutter with a beer belly but it kinda reinforced the idea that it's just a genre that doesn't ... (continue)

I think this was my least favourite of the Top Ten books. It was a fantasty spoof and while there were some quite funny moments I just don't think I read enough fantasy to get all the references. I did spot Cutter with a beer belly but it kinda reinforced the idea that it's just a genre that doesn't do much for me anymore.
It was amusing to see the police officers from the superhero worlds back in the fantasy setting. To see it all messed up. But it was a very light story without any depth. Just a little comedy and not the funniest comedy I've read by Moore.

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— Feb 1, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Judgment Day (7)
- By Alan Moore
- Finished on Jan 21, 2012
  
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Judgment Day

This collection of superhero comics on the other hand I did not care for much at all. The only thing I found amusing was that the women superheros were complaining about the outfits of the new superheros, and quite rightly so! I thought it was supposed to be a court version of superheros like top te ... (continue)

This collection of superhero comics on the other hand I did not care for much at all. The only thing I found amusing was that the women superheros were complaining about the outfits of the new superheros, and quite rightly so! I thought it was supposed to be a court version of superheros like top ten was a police version. But instead the court plot took up only three fifths of the book and the rest was mostly filler. The characters seemed to be mostly copied from other superhero books, with a fake superman, womderwoman etc. The story itself about a magical artifact book that could change peoples lives was ok but not very original either. Definitely not one of Moore's best. I'm glad I just borrowed a copy from the library!

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— Jan 22, 2012 | Add your feedback
- Top Ten (37)
- The Forty-Niners (Top Ten)
- By Alan Moore
- Finished on Jan 17, 2012
  
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Top Ten

Forty-niners was basically a big gay romance. It featured the guy who'd end up the chief of the precinct and his partner of 50 or so years and looked at how they got together. There was also a sub plot of how the city of superheros got built and how the police started. But for me the most important ... (continue)

Forty-niners was basically a big gay romance. It featured the guy who'd end up the chief of the precinct and his partner of 50 or so years and looked at how they got together. There was also a sub plot of how the city of superheros got built and how the police started. But for me the most important thing was the relationship between the characters. The art style was also much more to my liking. It was much more muted colours and had a much more realistic feel. While I missed a lot of the cast from the rest of Top Ten it was very sweet and I liked it a great deal.

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— Jan 22, 2012 | Add your feedback