I’ve been devouring graphic novels and comics these days (since around the time of my last post about comics, really). It’s to the extent that I’ve got 3 wrapped (make that 2, I just unwrapped one) ones on my shelf. I’m still very caught up in Fables which is tragically printed on crappy paper - it makes me feel almost guilty for paying the same price for it as for say, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Speaking of Alan Moore, I’m very amused by his parodies of traditionally comic material. I’m not fond, however, by the wordy nature of his books although I’d have to admit that that, together with his sardonic wit is possibly what sells his books.

What I want to talk about in this post though, isn’t Alan Moore or Fables or any current favorites of mine but rather, an intriguing series that grabbed my attention with its premise.

From what I gather, the story takes place in some alternate dimension where all the Marvel characters have become flesh-eating zombies. It’s so utterly ridiculous that anyone should have known better than to expect any more from it. I’m not very bright apparently.

The first thing that is wrong with the series is repetitiveness. Each issue talks about the heroes’ struggle with their hunger for flesh. And every now and then, the same lines are told and retold (”I can’t believe I’m eating my friend!”, “I’m going out with this girl and all I think about is eating her!”, etc). What’s worse is that there is a liberal showing of the Fantastic Four.

The Fantastic Four has got to be the most boring superheroes ever. They’ve got zero personality, have little or no talent and their stories are yawn-inducing. Actually, I wouldn’t really know because I’ve never felt compelled to actually read any of their comics. Until unfortunately now that is.

Even writing about how boring the story is is making me sleepy. I’m off to bed.

Tags: comics, graphic novels, marvel, fantastic four

I’m happy to announce that I’ve *finally* finished reading American Gods. The story’s pretty interesting though the ending’s a little too glib in my opinion. I’m not going to spoil the book for anyone who hasn’t read it because it’s definitely worth a read. That leaves me with 312467 more books to read before I clear out my shelf of unread stuff.

And that brings me to my topic of choice: Graphic Novels. As some of you might know, I went on a comic buying spree recently and have a couple of them in my possession now including Gaiman’s Sandman Book 9 (book 1 was unavailable). I’ve not read that yet but I HAVE read the first few issues of Fables and also Book 1 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

These few days, I’ve also the luxury of reading Alan Moore’s Lost Girls and some issues of Y- The Last Man. Lost Girls is essentially an attempt at porno literature but apparently, it’s unfinished because of publisher problems (or so I read from Wiki). I’m not sure if it’s great but it’s interesting to me because it’s novel. It’s not like hentai where there’s porn for the sake of having porn but it’s not unlike hentai either because well, it’s porn in comic form. I’m intrigued by the concept of having popular characters like Alice (i.e. Alice Through the Looking Glass), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) and Wendy (Peter Pan) front the story. It’s almost like Moore’s enjoying a dig at the more controversial characters from Children’s fiction.

I’m not sure if I enjoy Lost Girls though, because the art’s not exactly fantastic to me. It takes on a typical classical, oil-painting look but it doesn’t seem like the most apt of styles to use given the characters involved although I understand what sort of feel he was trying to create.

Y-The Last Man was a more engaging read. The story tells of how all the men on Earth have died off except for this one guy who later finds himself very sought after for all imaginable reasons. In the meantime, all sorts of what-ifs come into play - supermodels end up clearing rubbish because there aren’t men around to appreciate them anymore; lesbians have a field day; America’s no longer a superpower and so on and so forth. I’m appreciative, especially of the humor and sly digs at current affairs and pop culture that’s prevalent in much of the conversations.

Next Up: Watchmen, Sin City,  The Spirit and more of Y-The Last Man.

Tags: graphic novels

There I was, feeling all excited and browsing the graphic novels - let’s be honest here, they’re really comics - section at the bookstore when this girl walks by with her boyfriend in tow and continues their conversation with a “Well, girls don’t read books like these.” I turned and our eyes connected for that brief second where she looked slightly apologetic and me, slightly sheepish.

I love comics and I don’t see why it has to (always) be a gender issue. I’ll be the first to admit that having pictures in a book (preferably in color) is very enticing - why the hell do you think people read magazines for? It’s absurd to even suggest that you need to be male to be able to enjoy pretty pictures unless of course you’re talking about Playboy or other porno lad mags in which case, yea I don’t really know how to enjoy the sights. Also, I don’t see why comic readers would need to justify their reading habits by using the more mature-sounding term, ‘graphic novel’. So what if the characters sound childish and stupid (think Marvel and DC comics)? What’s the difference between them and characters in sci-fi/fantasy novels? I wouldn’t think anyone would consider Lord of the Rings a children’s book despite having similarly ridiculous characters. A good story’s really the selling point in books - comics or otherwise.

The last english comic I bought was a copy of X-Men Unlimited from almost 5 years back. I haven’t been at all keen on buying new books the last few years, not lest because I’ve acquired a whole shelf of novels that are, to date, unread. My enthusiasm towards comics was resurrected some time back after watching 300 and later, Sin City. The shows were great and reminded me of exactly why comics were so wonderful - they told stories too effortlessly.

I’m personally a huge fan of fiction where popular/familiar characters are being transplanted in an alternative setting. I’ve been trying to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for the last half a year (distractions! I blame distractions!) and am down to the last 30 pages. One of my favorite mini-series on TV was The 10th Kingdom, a reinterpretation and mashing up of popular fairy tales. Then I came across this comic series called Fables which reminded me a lot of The 10th Kingdom. Like the show, the blurb tells of a story where characters from popular fables are living in Manhattan because they’re being chased out of their former homes by evil forces. I bought volume 1 of the series which consists of the first 5 issues of comics and I just finished the book. The story’s clever, the art’s brilliant and I’m looking forward to buying the rest of the collection. At a sale at another bookstore (which unfortunately didn’t have Fables), I bought one of the Sandman books and vol 1 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I haven’t watched the movie so the story so far (I’m at pg 10 or so) is rather amusing to me.

The next few books I’m likely to get (over the year since I’m so bloody poor) would probably be the complete Sin City collection,  more Fables, The Curious Incident of a Dog at Nightime, The Anansi Boys and perhaps the Da Vinci Code. I’ll probably get to reading the rest of my Stephen King novels that are collecting dust on my shelf soon enough. And Michael Crichton’s Prey - I love his books.

Anyone cares to recommend other books?

Tags: graphic novels