There are times when I read something that just makes me nod a lot and think, “Yes, that is so perfect I wish I’d written it myself.” Case in point, Lucy Knisley’s latest webcomic, “Being Awkward vs. Awkward Situations.”
There’s lots, lots more—those are just the first three panels—so check it out. (And then while you’re at it, if you love travel stories or descriptions of food—or if you’re like me, both—buy a copy of her graphic novel French Milk. It is awesome.)
A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori
I utterly missed out on Japanese comics creator’s last series to be translated into English, Emma (the story of a Victorian era maid) but it’s nice to not be too far behind the times with her new series A Bride’s Story. It’s set in the 19th century and details a woman in the Silk Road area (near the Caspian Sea) who is the new bride to a young man in a neighboring tribe. It’s half relationship drama (and in a good, non-melodramatic way) and half anthropological study of that time and place. I just finished the first volume and was completely and utterly sucked into it. Also, it’s gorgeously drawn, an immense amount of detail packed into each page and on even what might otherwise feel like small, trivial details. I’m dying to pick up the next two that’ve been published in English to see what happens next. Absolutely charming.
Fra’ Mani Salametto
I picked up this dry salame for when guests were coming over, at Arrowine in Arlington, and I am so glad that I’ve had some leftover because it is divine. Soft, delicious flavor that just explodes in my mouth with each bite. Right now I’m slowly rationing out what I have left, but it’s good enough that I will definitely buy more. One of those slightly expensive foods that’s worth every penny you pay for it.
Home Improvements
In the past month or so, we’ve bought new blinds for the bedrooms (that better block light, a job the old ones did not quite handle properly), ordered new carpet for the stairs, and today a magnetic knife rack arrived. They’re all little changes, but it’s a real pleasure to get these things taken care of and have our home feel that much more… well… homey.
Back to Exercise
After a month off of exercising post-marathon (thanks to the delightful stress fracture in my right tibia), last week I finally got back to the gym… for five days in a row, no less. 
The things I’m limited to are a little boring, but I have caught up a great deal on my podcasts. And I keep vowing I’ll make it to the pool (for both lap swimming and pool running!) soon, honest, no really. It has felt good to do so. This week might be a little less energetic but there will be more exercise on the horizon, too. Time to use the non-busted parts and have them earn their keep. And speaking of stress fractures…
Being Halfway Done With My Air Cast
As of today it’s been three full weeks in the air cast! I find that hard to believe myself. I’d mentioned it already on Facebook and the like, but in short I developed a stress fracture in my right leg sometime in February, didn’t realize I had one, ran a marathon on it, then realized that the pain I was having was not a pulled muscle and went to a specialist to figure out the problem. I’ve been told that I’ll be in “das boot” (as I’ve named it) for six weeks. So, halfway done! Once I’m out of it I’ll get to go to PT to slowly ramp up returning to running, but that’ll be a slow process (in more ways than one) for a while. But it’s nice to be about to tip into the realm of over 50% complete with the truly annoying part of this little adventure.
Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 31 movies, 21 books, 1 fiction magazine, and 124 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 24 books, 13 fiction magazines, and 110 graphic novels. Two increases, one decrease, and one exactly the same. Not bad overall… And now, let the counting start all over again!
Movies:
Books:
Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:
I don’t even want to admit how true this is, at times, in regard to myself.
(P.S. Will someone please reissue Dave Louapre and Dan Sweetman’s The Wasteland? I would buy several dozen copies of it as gifts. Instead I treasure my lone copy, and while I’m at it also wish for collections of their other big collaboration, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children. Seriously people, it’s a license to print money.)
If I was the sort of person to come up with a New Year’s Resolution, I like to think it would be this:
I’m sure it would do me a wealth of good on multiple levels, and be immensely satisfying to achieve at that.
As I vowed to do so a few months ago, 2011 is the year that I’m going to sit down and read… well, if not all of the Tintin albums, most of them. (The jury is still out on if I’m going to tackle the two early/problematic volumes of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo, and the never-completed Tintin and Alph-Art. But the other 21 are all on the to-read list.)
While I don’t see myself writing full reviews of them, I did think it would be fun to write down somewhere my impressions of the books as I make my way through them.
So, Tintin in America. First published in 1932 as a black and white edition, redrawn (and shortened) in 1945, and then slightly edited in 1973 when published in the United States. It’s…
…well, it’s a good thing Tintin has such a high pedigree or I doubt I’d be planning on reading Cigars of the Pharaoh next. It’s not actively bad, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to tell people to read it either. Tintin taking on gangster-era Chicago sounds like a potentially fun story, but there’s so much of it that just strikes me as slightly inept. Tintin seems to be someone who benefits by good luck more than smarts half of the time (the number of near-death experiences inadvertently stopped by a third party is rather high), and it’s got such a rushed conclusion that I wonder if when the book was shortened to just 62 pages if Herge did so by throwing out everything beyond a certain point.
I found myself unsure if Tintin’s dog Snowy is supposed to actually talk or if we’re just hearing his thought processes. I’d assumed it was the latter for most of the book, but at one point he tells Tintin where he’s been for the previous few pages, and Tintin seems to understand him. Odd. And Snowy is also slightly irritating.
The depiction of the Indians is rather painful to read. It’s a big pile of stereotypes, and to top it off they’re either stupid or inept the entire time. “Make it stop,” was the thought I had during that entire sequence. Of course, when it does, it’s the one time the tone shifts with them as the Indians are abused by the US Government in order to perform a land grab. After bad slapstick and jokes centering around them up until that moment, the tonal shift is rather startling.
I did, however, like Herge’s beautiful and clean art. It’s the high point of the book, and for that alone I’m glad to have finally dipped into the Tintin library. I’ll admit I had some second thoughts on if I’m going to continue reading the books in order (especially after reading an announcement today about Fantagraphics publishing the entire Carl Barks “Ducks” library, but doing so slightly out of order in order to jump into some of the best books and storylines first), but for now I’m planning on pushing on.
Hmm. I suspect more write-ups down the line won’t be quite so long. Anyway, I’ll try and read Cigars of the Pharaoh later this month!
Once again, I went and tracked how many movies, books, and graphic novels I saw/read over the course of the year. Last year’s tally had me at at 20 movies, 20 books, and 123 graphic novels. This year? 31 movies, 21 books, and 124 graphic novels. The “just one higher” for the last two categories was a happy accident, really…
Movies:
Books:
Fiction Magazines, Chapbooks, and Zines:
Every year, Comic Book Resources runs a “Top 100” of the year, where all the writers and editors of the site send in their top ten lists (with a two or three sentence blurb about them) and then one of the editors (this year, the tireless Kiel Phegley) tallies the votes and organizes a huge, multi-part feature on what made the list.
Now, like all lists, my votes are subjective. There are a few books I plain forgot about. And there are others that I haven’t read, or only read part of, so I couldn’t include them in my line-up. (For instance, of the top ten books, even though I only voted for two, seven of the others are either on my “to be read/finished” list, or barely missed getting onto my own list of votes.)
But anyway, to make a long story… well, less long… for those interested, here are ten great comics from 2010 that you might find also worth reading (plus various longer reviews from me about these books over the past year, so you can get a better idea). Check em out.
The Sixth Gun
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Brian Hurtt
Publisher: Oni Press
What happens when you mix horror, dark fantasy, and the wild west? If you’re especially lucky, The Sixth Gun where every month Cullen Bunn comes up with new and fantastical creations for Brian Hurtt to beautifully draw. It’s almost criminal the first issue was given away for free at Free Comic Book Day, because there’s no way to keep from getting hooked after just one issue.
Review @ CBR (#1)
Review @ CBR (#2)
Review @ Read About Comics (#6)
Review @ CBR (#7)
I suspect non-comic readers will not find this at all shameful, for those of you who are, this is one of those confessions that will make some of you gasp in shame: I have never read any of Herge’s The Adventures of Tintin books.
Obviously I know who Tintin is, and when that stupid hair flip was in style a few years ago I referred to those who had it as Tintins. But while my good friend Marc introduced me to Asterix back in 1980, for some reason I never raided his Tintin books while I was at it.
The sad thing is that about six or seven years ago, I ended up with an almost complete collection of the Tintin books (everything from Tintin in America through Flight 714) for just a few dollars. I picked them up then and figured I would finally get around to reading them, but a recent article about Tintin reminded me that they’re still sitting on my bookshelf, untouched.
My goal for next year is to finally sit down and read them all. I went ahead and bought a copy of Tintin and the Picaros in anticipation of reading the others. But for Tintin fans out there, here’s a question: should I bother tracking down copies of the first two volumes, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Tintin in the Congo? I know the first one is of a much cruder style, and the second one has a lot of racist depictions of people that has made it rather verboten. My instinct is to just start with Tintin in America and if, upon reading the others, I’ve enjoyed them enough I can always backtrack to those other two. (Or for that matter, pick up the never-completed Tintin and Alph-Art.) But I figured for those of you who are Tintin knowledgeable, it couldn’t hurt to double-check. (Also, read them in order, or try one of the later ones first and then jump back to the beginning? I’m leaning toward the latter but once again, can’t hurt to ask.)
It’s not quite some of the classic literature that I’ve been telling myself I’ll read soon (although I did finally tackle a few key novels over the past couple of years), but it should be a fun diversion.
There’s always a lot of talk about how comics (or more specifically, superhero comics) aren’t being aimed at children so much these days as they are adults. How true or not is a completely different debate, but I do have to say that one thing that is definitely true? There are a lot of superhero comic toys that are totally being aimed at adults.
I saw DC Comics’s Blammoids! toys a couple of weeks ago and I was entranced, utterly entranced. The ones from the first set are innocent enough, I guess, although really, what little kids want superhero figures where all you can move are their arms and heads? Totally aimed at adults, with their strange proportions and deformed bodies, meant to be perched on a desk or bookshelf.
But then I saw some of the more recent figures, and…
…all I could think was that this was how a toy line envisioned by Kevin O’Neill would appear. (For those unfamiliar with Kevin O’Neill—best known for his work on comics like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Marshall Law—he has a harsh, angular line that disturbed the Comics Code Authority enough that they refuse to approve anything he’s drawn. Which is a plus in my book, but there you go.)
Seriously, look at those three figures. They’re a little twisted and messed up. This is totally not for kids. I cannot stop laughing at these toys.
Fortunately, as my big goal for the next year or so is to wipe out debt, plus having to replace my main computer due to its painful death over the past year, it was easy to justify not buying any of these. Because I don’t need another toy addiction, after all. But I totally had to share the “wow” factor.
(Many, many more pictures of the line are available at DC’s website, for those truly interested.)