New Arrivals - mid December '07

Another trip to the post office at the weekend, and another personal selection of titles of note from those in the the P.O. Box this time around:

Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie

The third and final part of Mr Abercrombie's The First Law, one of the most refreshingly lo-fi fantasy series I've read for years; a wonderful blend of down-and-dirty action, skullduggery, treachery, intrigue and a very dark, witty humour throughout.

I can honestly say that I've enjoyed every word of the saga so far, and can't wait to get stuck into the denouement, which I know has already garnered very positive mentions from some of my genre-blogging compadres.

Just the small Matter of the new Iain M. Banks to finish first, and then I'll be on with this one over the Yuletide break. Will report back anon, and I'll be gutted if this one doesn't make my Books of the Year for 2007 (but hey, no pressure..!)

The Escapement by K.J. Parker

Another trilogy-concluder and another prime example of exactly the sort of character-driven, plot-rich, trope-twisting, wit-infused, magic-free fantasy writing that I find myself enjoying more and more as time goes by; from another of my very favourite authors, too.

I do have to admit though, that on reading the second part of the Engineer saga, Evil for Evil, earlier in the year, I did experience a momentary worry that Parker may have gone off the boil, just a little. Evil for Evil was very long (600+ pages, iirc) and although it was intriguingly convoluted, many of the twists and turns seemed to lead in circles around one or two developmental loci; as a result I didn't feel that the characters or plot developed quite as much as they could have over the course of so large a book.

But The Escapement is reassuringly shorter, weighing in at 407 pages, and I'm hoping that it will be much pithier, and sharper, than its predecessor; everything is now set up for the trigger to be sprung, the fully-formed mechanism to leap into life and the final twist-action to be engaged. Hopefully I'll find time for this one shortly after finishing Last Argument of Kings (although I'll probably try to read a couple of issues of Postscripts in-between, as a palate-refresher...)

Classical Comics: Henry V (Original Text) adapted from William Shakespeare

The folks at Classical Comics very kindly sent me a copy of the full-text version of their debut publication: a graphic adaptation of Bill Shakespeare's Henry V.

If you're not familiar with the Classical Comics project, check out this item on UKSFBN, which explains how they're working to bring classic works of literature to a wider audience by means of publishing two - or in Shakespeare's case, three - editions of a particular title; the idea being that reluctant readers, or those uncomfortable with tackling no-modern English from a standing start - can begin with a simplified, 'Plain Text' edition and then work their way up to the 'Full Text' at their own pace.

And I do love a bit of Shakespeare, me, having studied Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet at school and found it surprisingly accessible, once you get your head around the archaic - yet in places utterly enchanting - linguistic gymnastics required for full appreciation. So I'm looking forward to tucking into Agincourt etc. next time I have a bit of free head-space...

Honourable Mentions:

I'd absolutely love to find the time to read the latest issues of Interzone, Black Static and Murky Depths - all of which have turned up this month - but alas, I'm still working my way through the latest issue of Uncut (I'm a subscriber, so I have to read that one...) so they'll just have to wait a bit longer, I'm afraid.

Hey, I know, I'll sneak 'em into the suitcase for the trip to the in-laws' over Xmas, see what can be done... I'm sure nobody will mind if I read a bit at the dinner table next Tuesday, eh? :)

December 17, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment

Take a look: KrazyDad.com's Graphic Novel Explorer

Via When Gravity Fails, a link to a rather fun (but, by the sounds of things incredibly intricate and difficult to write) Flash application by Jim Bumgardner of KrazyDad.com, the graphic novel explorer.

Cover images are collated from Amazon.com, organized by price and dominant colour and then arranged on-screen in a random field of mini-images, each of which expands into a larger image when you mouse-over, and that you can then click on to get more info on at Amazon.com.

So far, Jim has also put together something similar for the covers of assorted science fiction magazines and the cover history of MAD Magazine.

I reckon it's a great way of making random discoveries and something that could have come in very handy back when I was a bookseller, given the number of "I can't remember the title, but the cover was green..." enquiries I used to get.

I also think it would make be great as the visual equivalent of a Tag Cloud if it was released as a blog widget, although judging by a quick read of Jim's methodology, that might not be do-able. But still, you could load up a database field with ISBNs and have the information pulled from your Amazon of choice into a personalised cover-cloud on your own site. It would be a great way of letting your readers know what sort of books you were most interested in.

April 16, 2007 | Filed Under Art, Comics & GNs | 2 Comments

Recommended Manga Reading: Buddha and Basilisk

I don't really read a whole lot of manga. I think it's just too great a culture gap for me to bridge; I have no interest in the teenage-audience targeted section of the market, which does seem to account for a large proportion of the material currently on offer, in the UK at least, and even the fantasy-themed stories seem just a bit too impenetrable.

Every so often Sarah Ash, who is a really big manga-fan, drops me a line to let me know which of the series currently in distribution are less... um... fixated on the pre-pubescent... and as a result, there are two series that I have actually been tempted to try, and I've enjoyed them both, in their own way (so maybe there's hope for me yet).

Buddha by Osama Tezuka

The eight volume Buddha series is, in essence, a re-telling of the entire life story of the holy man himself, from birth to death. Born a Prince of a small kingdom of the Indian sub-continent some time around the 5th century BCE, history tells us that Siddhartha turned his back on his royal heritage and became an itinerant monk, later achieving Enlightenment (Buddha means 'enlightened') and going on to bring his teachings of peaceful co-existence with all nature to a sect that eventually spread his words throughout the world. It's educational, interesting, based on stories that are over 2,500 years old that lie at the heart of one of the most widely respected and admired religions in the world.

Frankly, it's quite mad. In places it reads like a cross between Asterix and a Pokémon cartoon; all 'pow', 'blam' and 'AAARGH!' one minute, and a National Geographic documentary; complete with lessons on the ancient history and culture of the Indian sub-continent, the next.

If I remember the details aright, the series was originally written in the '60s, but it has been re-translated and brought bang up to date with a whole series of contextually rather bizarre cultural references. Which means that halfway through a particular chapter in the 2,500 year old life story of the Enlightened One, one of the minor characters might accuse another of watching too many sci-fi movies, or of eating too many burgers, or there's the bit where one peasant working in the fields pulls out a transistor radio and another one turns to them and calls him an "anachronist"... you get the idea, I'm sure; it's all very odd.

But oddly compelling at the same time. I had no trouble reading through all eight volumes, even if they did start to get a bit repetitive towards the sixth or seventh installment. So if you do fancy something a bit different - and definitely educational; I now know a lot more about the story of the Buddha than I did before I started - then it's worth giving this one a go. UK editions are distributed by HarperCollins and all eight are available from Amazon.co.uk and all good bookstores, etc.

Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls by Masaki Segawa (trans. David Ury)

Ninjas! What's more: Ninjas with superpowers! Yeah, that's more like it, eh?

In Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, two clans of ninja warriors go to war on the orders of the Shogun of Japan; the winning clan will decide which of two potential heirs gets to be the next Shogun, and so everything is at stake. Both clans - the Iga and the Kouga - have recently been forced into a truce, but this war offers the opportunity to resume four hundred years of hostilities, and so of course they go at it with a will.

The plot is fairly straightforward; ten Ninjas on either side, each with a particular special ability ('Ninja Technique') ranging from the ability to recover from any wound, to the ability to rob another Ninja of their power by gazing into their eyes, or even to force them to turn their own power upon themselves...

It's generally a cracking read, and so far (vols. #1 - #4) I only have one or two niggles: the first is that it's all just a bit predictable in places - for instance, at the start of the story the heirs-apparent to each clan are in love and due to marry; guess which two are going to be standing at the end for the final confrontation? And volume four was very slow. Mind you, the author had already killed off seven Ninjas on either side by that point; maybe he was worried he was going to run out before he filled his page-quota?

And a quick caveat emptor: it is a bit heavy on the gratuitous titillation in places, too. The (<ahem> quite well-endowed) lady Ninjas have a habit of losing most of their clothes; one instance involves a lady Ninja being captured, tied to a post and half-stripped (the whole Japanese cultural predilection for bondage thing there, obviously). So it's lucky for her that her Ninja Technique involves the use of flesh-contact... I won't spoil the effect, but suffice to say she doesn't turn out to be quite as helpless as you might have thought.

I'll leave you to decide for yourself whether the t&a element is generally a good thing or not; the cover of Basilisk does point that the series is suggested for mature readers, so just bear it in mind if you're thinking of picking this one up for your kids...

Again though, it's a series that's well worth checking out if you're tempted to try something manga, but the idea of catching up on the ins and outs of the Japanese teenage dating scene doesn't really float your boat. UK editions are being distributed and US import Del Rey editions are generally available as well.

February 27, 2007 | Filed Under Comics & GNs | 4 Comments

Quick link-o-rama…

Just a few links of potential interest today, because I've got my head deep in an e-commerce implementation for PS Publishing and haven't got time to get into anything too serious right now...

They sent around my favourite Calvin and Hobbes strip in the gocomics.com daily email on Saturday... which was nice.
Posted on Locus Online a couple of weeks ago, but still well worth checking over: Jeff Vandermeer's Twelve Overlooked Books of 2006.

And it's definitely Award Season again:

Something a bit more substantial when my head's not quite so full of currency conversions and template layout amendments...

January 22, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment

New Arrivals - mid Jan '07

A couple of items of particular interest turned up this week, which I reckon are well worth bringing to your attention:

Albion by Moore, Moore, Reppion, Oakley and Freeman

Ever wondered what happened to all those classic British comics characters when their publications went under, merged, or just gradually faded away? Well, this is your chance to find out. A real cornucopia for the Brit-comics fan-boy and fan-girl, and a good, old-fashioned jailbreak romp for anyone else.

And I do rather have to admit that I was stuck firmly in the second camp; my childhood comics reading was pretty much limited to The Beano, a dash of Whizzer and Chips and a smattering of The Dandy, with a foray into the re-launched version of Eagle in the '80s, then Battle / Action Force and finally 2000AD (I'm still a subscriber to the latter, as it happens). As a result, I can't count myself amongst the lucky few who will be able to pick up on the majority of the character references and cameo appearances in Albion. And I'm sure there must have been dozens here.

Still, it was an enjoyable read and one I'm glad I made time for. I just wish I'd spent more of my childhood leisure time with my nose stuck in a comic book...

Bone Song by John Meaney

Now this is an intriguing little number, and no mistake. Simon Spanton of UK publishing house Gollancz has sent me this 'ere proof in a quite deliberate, pre-meditated attempt to disrupt my 'to-be read' list... and I do believe he may have succeeded, too.

With Bone Song John Meaney takes a tangent away from his previous space-opera-esque outings to present a crime / horror cross-over... or a baroque future-fantasy... or maybe a space-grand-guignol (I'm not sure quite which it is yet, but I'm itching to find out...) set in Tristopolis, a city powered by its own dead, who lies neatly stacked in necroflux generators in vast catacombs below ground.

It seems to be a mystery tale, anyhow; possibly even a police procedural. Not too much given away in the blurb (which makes a change...) so I think the only way to discover more will be to give it a go. I'll report back when I know what's what...

January 19, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | 2 Comments

Daft Personality Quiz: Which Supervillain am I?

Always fancied myself as a bit of a supervillain. I used to practice my "Mwahahahahaaaa!"s until my throat bled. Even bought a Super Doomsday Device once, but when I got it home I found it needed batteries and the 24 hour supermarket was shut. So I guess I'll just have to live my dreams vicariously, through the medium of a handy DPQ (via Ramblings in Space and Time) instead.

This week, it turns out I am mostly being this guy:

[Take the Supervillain Personality Quiz]

'Apocalypse'. Nope, never heard of him. Anyone?

And to think, I missed out on being Lex Luthor by a lousy 2%...

January 18, 2007 | Filed Under Comics & GNs, Odd | 7 Comments

Preacher series due from HBO?

Good ol' boy Joe Gordon over at the FP Blog has big news via the Hollywood Reporter: HBO are developing a one-hour series based on the Preacher [Amazon] comics by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, about the Texan minister, who becomes possessed by a heaven-born creature so awesomely, terrifyingly powerful that even God does a runner from it.

Colourful dialogue from Preacher, 'Gone to Texas', copyright DC Comics No word as to potential casting just yet, but the HR tells us: "Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations Daredevil and the upcoming Ghost Rider, is writing the pilot, while Howard Deutch is attached to direct."

And apparently both messrs. Ennis and Dillon are attached to the project as executive producers, which means that it might retain at least some semblance of the original spirit of the comics series, which can only be a good thing. And, as Joe G points out, with HBO's track-record there's a good chance that the original spirit of mayhem, violence and seething sexual tension (not to mention the colourfil dialogue) will also be kept intact. Although given Howard Deutch's apparent track record to-date, anything could happen with it...

Still, one to keep an eye on, definitely. And go read the graphic novels in the meantime, you won't regret it.

December 1, 2006 | Filed Under Comics & GNs, TV | 1 Comment

Happy birthday Dark Horse!

Dark Horse Comics - publishers and purveyors of many a fine sequential illustrated fiction title - are 20 years old, round about now-ish. And to celebrate they've sent out presents to everyone on their press list (which, happily, includes yours-truly) like these:

'Dark Horse 20 Years' is a gallery of artwork by some of the many fine artists who have worked with DH down the years; there's a fantastic Mike Mignola cover for starters, a rather superb Adam Hughes portrait of Hellboy, Conan the Barbarian gets the Sergio Aragonés treatment, whilst Groo the Wanderer is drawn by Paul Chadwick, and Stan Sakai provides his own unique take on Sin City, along with many more.

And they sent other stuff as well: a commemorative coin, a window sticker, birthday postcard, some sort of candy-coated cookie or biscuit, and a rather snazzy (is that still a word?) Dark Horse keyring, which I'll be using henceforth.

So thank you very much, Dark Horse, and a very happy birthday to you!

November 29, 2006 | Filed Under Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment

The Hellblazer marathon: Part I - From Swamp Thing to Soho

Hellblazer is one of my all-time favourite comics series, bar none. It's provided an expressive outlet for some of the very best writers, cover artists and interior artists in the industry, and if I'm right, is the DC Vertigo imprint's longest-running title.

I first started buying and reading Hellblazer back when I was at school (aged about 17 or so), along with the original run of Sandman, Doom Patrol, Black Orchid, the four issue mini-series that was the original Books of Magic and a whole bunch of the early Vertigo titles. Then pretty much all comic buying activity stopped in my second or third year at University when I started to run up the overdraft. But I've picked up the occasional graphic novel in the series since then, and I've always promised myself that one day I'd sit down and re-read the whole run, from the very beginning.

I started doing just that a couple of months ago. First I had to fill in a few gaps in the collection, which involved some scrabbling around on eBay and I still haven't gotten hold of a copy of issue #27 - Neil Gaiman's guest writing slot; the incredibly moving ghost story 'Hold Me' - but luckily it was reprinted in a 'best of' anthology GN when the movie came out a couple of years ago. And I decided to forego John Constantine's very earliest appearances in the pages of Alan Moore's early Swamp Thing tales, because he only plays a peripheral role, and I can pretty much remember most of it (turn up, act mysterious, smoke fags, disappear...)

'Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits' by Jamie Delano & William Simpson I have to admit that the series does take a little while to get going properly. In fact - although this is going to sound horribly disrespectful to Jamie Delano, a writer whose work I generally admire very much - it wasn't really until Garth Ennis began writing the classic Dangerous Habits [Amazon] storyline that, for me at least, John Constantine really got going as a lead character in his own right.

The earliest Delano episodes start out as a pretty straight Brit-horror comic, with demon yuppies and neo-nazi golems and all sorts of fun. It was all heavily informed by the state of Britain at the time; languishing under Thatcherism's yoke and slowly crumbling into a state of abject moral terpitude, if Delano's themes and plotlines are to be taken at face value. Plus the occasional segue to tie up some loose ends from the Swamp Thing series and generally play ball with some other stuff happening in the DC Universe at the time.

Then, round about episode #14, a rich, mystical vein kicks in, as Constantine finds himself swept along by the events of the 'Fear Machine' storyline, tangles with the Family Man and then gets involved with some serious heavy-duty magic towards the end of the run as the Pagan nation attempts to restore the balance of the world set awry by some of the earlier events, and Constantine takes numerous trips into his own twisted psyche.

All good stuff; far more intriguing, dark and mature than most folks would probably expect from a comic book, but to be honest, you do have to be interested in that sort of thing to get the most out of it. And to be honest, except for the revelation of What Happened in Newcastle in issue #13, there's probably not an awful lot in there that constitutes required reading for the rest of the series, at least, judging by how inferequently the material is referenced in the next few dozen issues. There are a couple of interesting guest writer slots though; the aforementioned Neil Gaiman, Dick Foreman's one-off about a possessed bulldog, and a typically off-the-wall and hallucinatory two-issue slot from Grant Morrison.

'Hellblazer, Vol.1' by Jamie Delano, various artists But that whole mystical, slightly inaccessible air is probably the main reason why relatively little material from Delano's run has been released in GN form to-date. The first fourteen issues were collected, in four volumes, by Titan Books in the UK; they were printed in black & white, which I think actually enhanced the original artwork. And DC have published the first nine issues in their Original Sins [Amazon]
volume, with the original (not so great) colourisation. Personally, I'd recommend skipping that and tracking down the Titan volumes on eBay; but there you go.

All of which brings us - rather neatly - onto the first Garth Ennis storyline: Dangerous Habits, illustrated throughout by the wonderfully scratchy and smudgy ink pen of William Simpson. This six-issue segment is probably the comics equivalent of that classic first album; the one that bands spend years honing their craft for, but then never quite manage to come all the way close to with their subsequent efforts. For me, at least, it's the distilled essence of everything that Constantine is and represents. Forget your Mother Goddes, your Arthurian heritage, your yin-yang duality, your hanged man magus hang-ups; here's a guy who 's basically a bit of a bastard, who knows a lot more than you or me about the way the other side of the supernatural fence operates, and who is faced with a fatal problem: he's just been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Hellblazer, issue 41, page 8, copyright DC Comics

How Constantine brings his unique perspective and knowledge to bear on the matter, how we decides to deal with his mortal problem, is the stuff that story-telling legends are made of. I won't commit heinous spolierage here and tell you what actually happens, but suffice to say, if you only read one John Constantine, Hellblazer storyline in your life, make it Dangerous Habits. This segment also neatly sets up a number of sub-plots that will come to fruition in the next few issues (and, incidentally, spawns the basis for the whole Preacher series, which Ennis went on to write after his Hellblazer run came to an end).

Absolutely classic stuff, the sort of thing I could read over and over, and most probably will. Yes, it really is that good...

Not that it's all downhill from there, though, by any means. There's more good material on the way, and I'll check back in another 30 or 40 issues and let you know how I'm getting on. Actually, I must admit that I only ever read up to the end of the Garth Ennis run, first time around, so from issue #83 or so I'll be heading off into new territory myself. I'm looking forward to that immensely.

November 26, 2006 | Filed Under Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment