ONLY THREE PAGES LEFT UNTIL THE END OF CHAPTER 2.
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TWO — THREE SENTENCE BOOK REVIEWS
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell from Back Bay Books: An interesting read dealing with (as the cover states) “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking”. Some of the chapters are boring, but the book is worth reading for the chapter on the musician Kenna and the lameness of Top-4o radio alone.
Horns by Joe Hill from William Morrow: I liked Heart Shaped Box, and I LOVED 20th Century Ghosts, but Horns left me disappointed. I just couldn’t come to care for ANY of the characters, and some of their motivations seemed either thin or nonexistent. Big bummer for me, as I was looking forward to reading Horns for some time.
The Walking Dead Compendium Volume 1 & The Walking Dead Book 5 by Robert Kirkman & Charlie Adlard from Image Comics: First off, Adlard is a Hell of an Artist; and as the chapters progress he simply gets better and better. As for the story, Kirkman has real guts. He proves quickly that NO ONE is safe in this book and does things to his lead characters that you would never expect from an ongoing series. My only complaint would be the use of splash or double-page spreads for scenes that would work better broken down into smaller panels.
Rock Bottom by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard from AiT/PlanetLar: Well, look here— Charlie Adlard again! Adlard uses a ligne claire style for this story of a man turning to stone and it works perfectly. Casey’s story however falls flat from the number of cliches involved.
Paris by Andi Watson & Simon Gane from SLG Publishing: This one has a number of cliches in it as well, and they prevent this graphic novel from really shining. It’s shame, because Watson is REALLY good and Gane’s art is ridiculously fun to pore over. I’m interested to see if these two work together again and what the result will be.
A Drifting Life by Yoshihiro Tatsumi from Drawn & Quarterly: Tatsumi is an absolute MASTER of storytelling, but….A Drifting Life…well, it drifts. Basically an autobiographical work examining Tatsumi’s early years of creating Manga, the book spends more time focused on the shifting sands of post-war Japan’s Manga industry than it does on the intricacies of Tatsumi’s homelife and transition into adulthood that informed his mastery of the art form.
I’m currently reading Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down and The Comics Journal Library Vol. 7: Harvey Kurtzman.
