{"id":15381,"date":"2009-07-25T22:55:23","date_gmt":"2009-07-26T04:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=15381"},"modified":"2009-07-25T22:55:40","modified_gmt":"2009-07-26T04:55:40","slug":"bt09-s-is-for-sensational-blogathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-s-is-for-sensational-blogathon.html","title":{"rendered":"BT09 – S is for Sensational (#Blogathon)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/i>(DC) [collects #21-39]
w. Neil Gaiman; a. Various<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I tend to by paperback\/softcover collections of most of my graphic novels and TPBs. But for some things I find it worth spending the money on hardcover (which, to be honest, has gotten not all that much more incrementally expensive vs. paperback). And for a very few things … volumes like DC’s Absolute editions — oversized (to show off the art), slip-covered, extra thick (19 issues here), plus supplementary materials.<\/p>\n

This volume includes the Seasons in the Mist story, which not only introduced the Endless more fully, but gave us Lucifer leaving Hell (and Morpheus having to decide what to do with the place). It is, to my mind, the place where Sandman really hit its stride. Elsewhere we get Joanna Constantine, the Emperor Norton, Werewolves, Marco Polo, and the creepy-scary Game of You.<\/p>\n

Triffic stuff. Worth the price, and high on my list of rereads.<\/p>\n

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Sandman Mystery Theatre, Vol. 6, “The Hourman and The Python”<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/i>(Vertigo) [collects #29-36]
Sandman Mystery Theatre, Vol. 7, “The Mist and The Phantom of the Fair”<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Vertigo) [collects #37-44]
w. Matt Wagner, Steven Seagle; a. Guy Davis<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 The continue dark-underbelly-of-society adventures of Wesley Dodd, the gas mask-garbed crime-fighter of the 30s known as the Sandman. He encounters spies and sabateurs, mass murderers, science heroes and villains, prejudice, corruption, and a shadowy truckload of noir elements — all the while driven by Dreams, and trying to reconsile his secrets with his love for Dian Belmont.<\/p>\n

Good stuff — if brutal as the era was. The whole series has been excellent, and I’m glad they have resumed collecting them.<\/p>\n

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Serenity, Vol. 2, “Better Days”<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/i>(Dark Horse) [collects #1-3]
w. Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews; a. Will Conrad<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
Writing<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n New reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Art<\/strong><\/td>\n <\/td>\n Non-comics reader?<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

An example of a TV tie-in done well, “Better Days” gives us the Serenity’s crew coming, unexpectedly, into a huge pay-off, with much (amusing) fantasizing ensuing. Until, that is, someone comes gunning for Mal, and the crew has to band together to save him.<\/p>\n

A decent plot, reasonable art, and a true ear for the characters. Shiny!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Listening to: Shore, Howard, “The Prophecy” (LOTR1: The Fellowship of the Ring))<\/i><\/small> <\/p>\n

<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Absolute Sandman, Vol. 2 (DC) [collects #21-39] w. Neil Gaiman; a. Various  Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? I tend to by paperback\/softcover collections of most of my graphic novels and TPBs. But for some things I find it worth spending the money on hardcover (which, to be honest, has gotten not all that much more … Continue reading “BT09 – S is for Sensational (#Blogathon)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogathon","category-media-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15395,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-fortune-and-glory-kid-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":0},"title":"BT09 – Fortune and glory, kid! (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 1:35am","format":false,"excerpt":"Cool -- I'm featured on the main Blogathon page: Dave has been posting fantastic comic book reviews. He\u2019s covered everything from Star Trek to Buffy to The New Avengers and then some. The rating system is separated into four categories: Writing, Art, New Reader, and Non-Comics Reader, which makes it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15308,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-and-so-it-begins-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":1},"title":"BT09 – And so it begins … (#blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 7:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything's ready to rock. Showered, coifed in 2006's Blogathon shirt (they didn't release one this year until this week, alas), coffee made and poured, materials sorted, everything's a go, go, go. The plan is to have my little timer set on the 5-minutes-of mark, to finish up posts before they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15393,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-t-is-for-tots-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":2},"title":"BT09 – T is for Tots (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 1:24am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Blogathon is down to 151 blogs from drop-outs and no-shows -- but our total pledged is just $9 short of $40K. Woot! If it stays there too long, I may have to donate the difference myself! \u00a0 New Teen Titans Archives, Vol. 4\u00a0(DC) [collects #21-27, Annual #1] w. Marv\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15310,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-a-is-for-aberration-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":3},"title":"BT09 – A is for Aberration (#blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 7:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmmm. My iTunes installation is showing Trojan Horses? What the --? No time to work on it right now, but I may need to later on. Gotta have my tunes sooner or later. UPDATE: Hrm. It's my AV program, dammit. Fixed. Abe Sapien: The Drowning\u00a0(Dark Horse) [collects #1-5] w. Mike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15391,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-s-is-for-special-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":4},"title":"BT09 – S is for Special (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 12:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey, as of this post (at 1 a.m my time), the Blogathon is three-fourths over. It's just a short coast of 6 hours to the end. Woot! Having both the following come up this interval is pretty cool, because they are both fantastic books that have nothing to do with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars5.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15397,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/26\/bt09-t-is-for-thunder-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":15381,"position":5},"title":"BT09 – T is for Thunder (#Blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 26-Jul-09 1:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, Vol. 4\u00a0(Marvel) [collects #371-373, Balder the Brave #1-4] Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, Vol. 5\u00a0(Marvel) [collects #375-382] w. Dave Gibbons; a.\u00a0Ivan Reis, Marc Campos\u00a0 Writing New reader? Art Non-comics reader? The mid-80s were the golden age of Thor comics. Walt Simonson invested the Norse Gods with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}