Hmmmm. Actually getting to the end of the TPBs.
Review code format (ranked 1-5, blah to faboo): [writing / art / new reader? / non-comics reader?]
The Walking Dead : Safety Behind Bars (Vol. 3) (Image) [5/4/3/4] (collects #13-18)
w. Robert Kirkman; a. Charlie Adelard
Doing a zombie horror book is easy. Doing a horror book that only incidentally includes zombies, and is really scary and disturbing without any excess gore — that’s gifted. Kirkman not only wisely focuses on the true threat — not the zombies, but other humans under stress — and has an uncanny ability to set up a situation where you’re sure you know what’s safe and what’s hazardous … so that you get completely blindsided when things get suddenly worse from an unexpected direction. In this case, our band of refugees finds a prison. Hey, solid walls, big fences, and plenty of stored food. Should be nice and safe from the zombies, right? Then how come people keep dying? And why are their deaths revealing something even more horrifying and unexpected? Not a pretty book, but a very well done one.
Wapsi Square (Vol. 1) (Keenspot) [3/3/3/4]
w/a. Paul Taylor
I keep wanting to like this series — online or in this collection better. I like the art. I like individual strips. But … it just doesn’t mesh together. It’s like a series of random photos from someone’s day without a strong story line to hold it together. Sometimes very realistic, other times randomly fantastic, there’s no rhyme or reason to it, nothing I can get a narrative handle on. A shame, because there’s a lot there to work with. I’ll keep trying.
Wildguard: Casting Call (Vol. 1) (Image) [3/4/5/3] (collects #1-6)
w/a. Todd Nauck
The Teen Titans meets Reality TV, as a new super-hero team is going to be formed via auditions covered by the cameras for a weekly TV show. It’s funny, it’s inventive (you try making up that many heroes and their names), and it works very well. As an added twist, the readers got to actually vote for one of the positions on the team. Nothing profound here, just good entertainment (and, frankly, a lot better than you get with Reality TV).
(listening to: Cranberries, “Copycat” from Bury The Hatchet)
(listening to: Tyler, Bonnie, “Faster Then The Speed of Night” from Bonnie Tyler – Super Hits)
(listening to: Yuletide Lounge Band, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from Martinis & Mistletoe: Cool Tunes for Your Christmas Cocktail Party)
(listening to: Oingo Boingo, “Weird Science” from The ’80s Hit(s) Back)
(listening to: Pomona College Mens Blue & Whites, “Torchbearers” from Silence Profound)
(listening to: “Bach – Air in D, BWV 1068,2” from A Treasury of Baroque)
(listening to: Costello, Elvis, “A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing)” from Blood & Chocolate)
Judging from the “listening to” parts of your posts, your musical tastes are far more eclectic than I thought they were. I mean, if Oingo Boingo is followed by the Pomona Glee Club, you don’t get much more eclectic than that!
I think when you’re done with BOOK reviews, you should do BLOG reviews!!
David: Well, part of it is Margie’s fault — the OB is her stuff. I just ripped it all in and have it running on random.
That said, anything too objectionable, I’m not recording, just skipping over.
Mom: God forbid. That’d mean actually critiquing people who could critique back! Yikes!
Agh. I composed a paragraph about how I didn’t think Oingo Boingo fit your musical tastes (ditto for Elvis Costello), and somhow it got lost in the ether.
Anyway, it didn’t have much to do with comics except for this: Danny Elfman was the lead guitarist and songwriter for Oingo Boingo, and he’s written the score for the movie adaptations of several comics including Batman (the first one with Michael Keaton) and Spiderman. I think he’s cool.
Actually, there’s a topic for your above-the-fold comments: what do you think of the current slew of comic book adaptations?
Knew that Elfman was lead something or another for one of those groups. And, yeah, I like his stuff in movie scores a lot.
As to the topic suggestion — it’s on my pad o’ paper … 🙂