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Tag: graphic novels

Taller Tales, Bill Willingham

A graphic novel experiment here.  I have an incredibly hard time reading graphic novel series that are not all of a piece; i.e., that are not written by one writer all the way through.  They feel fragmented.  I don’t read superhero comics for this reason.  I loved Sandman and Fables, and there are many good graphic novels in this world, but I generally find that the people who created the characters tend to be the ones who are able to capture their voices.  So I thought, hey, you know, this doesn’t have to be the case.  I thought, I will…

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All the rest of the volumes of Fables, except the seventh which wasn’t anywhere, Bill Willingham et. al.

So, okay, admittedly I am having trouble facing the idea of human interaction these days on account of being totally down in the dumps, but still it seems excessive for me to have read all the rest of the Fables volumes since Tuesday night.  It went like this: I got the fourth volume from the library near work on Wednesday, read that; went to two different libraries on Thursday to get one and three and read those; then on Saturday I went to Bongs & Noodles and read two, and that evening I went to the main branch of the…

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Fables: The Mean Season, Bill Willingham

My sister has talked so much about Fables for months (I mean, not ceaselessly, just when it came up), and yes, I mostly ignored her; and I also mostly ignored Nymeth, who has been saying how good Fables is (are?) for a while too.  So now I am sorry that I ignored y’all, because I grabbed a volume the last time I was at the library – I really wanted Goodbye, Chunky Rice but they didn’t have it – and I read it last night. It was the fifth volume, which isn’t a genius way to start out a series. …

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9 of 1: A Window to the World, Oliver Chin

Meh.  I saw this mentioned on Amazon when I was hunting for something else, so I got it out of the library and read it last night.  I wish I had read my book about Edward Murrow instead when I was falling asleep.  It wasn’t bad at all, I just never connected with it.  There’s nine high school students talking about their backgrounds, and then each of them interviewed someone from a different background about 9/11.  I wasn’t as much in the mood for it as I thought I would be, although it did remind me that I want to…

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Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman

Aw, Season of Mists is great.  I like it so much.  It makes me nostalgic for Past Jenny, who was young and dumb and had yet to discover most of her now-favorite films and music and TV shows (including, of course, the other six volumes of Sandman).  Oh, wow, that’s really, really true.  I hadn’t discovered Joss Whedon yet, or The Office, or Doctor Who; I hadn’t yet seen any of my current five desert island DVDs (fifth series of Buffy, MirrorMask, Empire Records, Angels in America, and Before Sunrise); I didn’t know the Decembrists, the Shins, Neko Case –…

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The Doll’s House, Neil Gaiman

Ooh, this volume is spookier than I remember.  It’s a bit hard to explain the plot, which is intricately linked to other storylines, but in short, it’s about a girl called Rose, who is looking for her little brother.  A number of other people are milling around: G.K. Chesterton, a woman who’s been pregnant for several years, a serial killer with teeth in his eyes, women with enormous spider collections, and that makes it interesting.  Still, essentially it’s all about Rose.  She has multicolored hair and numerous connections to the previous volume.  She is also a vortex, which means that…

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Preludes and Nocturnes, Neil Gaiman

Riot’s blog, Burning Leaves, reminded me yesterday of how much I love the Sandman.  I went into the hallway and gazed admiringly at my very nice Sandman poster.  I just now went to find a small picture of it on the internet, so I could link to it, and I couldn’t find one anywhere.  I couldn’t even find one for sale on eBay.  So I’m glad I have this one, and if I had batteries in my camera I would take a picture of it and post it here.  It reminds me of when my love for Sandman was new.…

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Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine

I got this out of the library on a whim, as I was passing, because I liked the cover and I haven’t read any new graphic novels recently.  Shortcomings is about a guy called Ben Tanaka and the breakdown of (primarily) his relationship with his community activist girlfriend Miko.  I found it hard to like for two reasons: 1. I do not like alienated protagonists.  I just don’t.  I wanted to take Holden Caulfield and feed him to hungry lions.  So I didn’t like Ben, and I didn’t want to read about him, because he was completely unpleasant. 2. And…

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Blankets, Craig Thompson

On reflection, I believe I am glad I didn’t buy this in my recent spate of bookbuying, because I have still not decided whether I want to own it forever.  It’s very good – a graphic novel memoir about first love and losing faith – and I enjoyed it both times I read it, and I am looking forward to Craig Thompson’s next, whenever that may be.  I don’t have anything bad to say about it, actually.  The drawings are black and white, line drawings, and Mr. Thompson makes excellent use of the whole graphic novel form to do things…

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