For some reason, I’m attached to Smoke and Mirrors. It’s not one of Barbara Michaels’s most elaborately plotted books, and there don’t turn out to be any ghosts, which is one of the things I tend to like about her books. I think I like it because it’s all set in a political campaign, and I think that that is interesting. Every time I read this book, I’m all I should work on a political campaign! before I remember that the two politicians I really like, my mayor and the President, have already been elected.
2 CommentsReading the End Posts
I don’t know what I can really say about Persepolis that hasn’t been said already. What I love about the first volume of Persepolis is that it’s always about how Marjane interprets the events around her, much more than it is about the events themselves. As she and her family live through the Islamic Revolution, watching its agenda shift and their country change around them, little Marjane acts on what she thinks she understands. There’s a lovely bit where she insists on spending all her time with an uncle who’s a political dissident. Although she is initially interested in him…
3 CommentsSome smart kids take a test to see how they smart they are, and it turns out they’re smart enough and nice enough to win the prize of infiltrating an Ominous Institute and finding out what the super evil scary man is plotting! That’ll teach you to be smart and nice, kids! Anyway, they meet a nice, nice man with narcolepsy, and he tells them how there is an evil, evil man (who also has narcolepsy, as it turns out) trying to control everyone’s minds, and they have to go infiltrate his school and foil his plans. They all agree…
6 CommentsI got this at the library because I am always on the hunt for good graphic novels, and it said THE BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF ALL TIME EVER or something like that on the front. I believed this because I’m easily taken in by the printed word. Fortunately for me, this may actually be one of the best graphic novels of all time ever. I loved it. I really, really loved it. It’s translated – I didn’t even care! Hooray for Joe Johnson, the stalwart translator! Mr. Johnson, you have done an excellent job in translating, and thanks for that,…
9 Comments*wipes away tears* *throws tissue into trash can* *puts sad book back inside purse* So I won Starseeker in a giveaway from Bart’s Bookshelf (thank you, I really liked it!), and I got it in the mail the other day and I read it today in between being scared shitless by “Hush” (why are the Gentlemen so scary? why do they do that with their hands and their faces?) and trying to figure out what the hell happens in “Doomed” (hell happens. They have to go back to high school to fix the stupid Hellmouth; such a subpar episode, plus…
6 CommentsSo my thoughts on the film version of Children of Men sort of went like this: Mmmm, Clive Owen. And then, Ah yes, apocalypse, issues being dealt with – I feel like this is a perfect time for Clive Owen to strangle someone with his bare hands. This is shallow, I know, but I just have this reaction to Clive Owen every time I see him. Even in Gosford Park when there was absolutely no chance of his strangling someone with his bare hands, because it was all proper and British up in that movie. My thoughts on the book…
6 CommentsSo I have been reading Iran Awakening on and off ever since the Iranian election took over the news. This has been quite a while. I wanted to read it because I felt like I didn’t know enough about Iran and the United States, and the revolution and everything. I thought it was fascinating, how she told about the changes in political power throughout her life. She talks about helping in the revolution, and how afterwards she was asked to wear a headscarf, how people told her Just wait! We want to deal with women’s rights but there are so…
5 CommentsSo Shan said that she found it difficult to read Understanding Comics because it was lots of information coming at her all it once – and I thought that was ratcheted up a few notches in Reinventing Comics. It was still full of interesting things to consider. Scott McCloud talks about the directions comics are taking, the revolutions that have to take place for comics to Take Their Rightful Place, including limited representation by anyone who isn’t white and male. He handles these delicate subjects quite well, without being a jerk at all or failing to recognize his position of…
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