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.

I was just reading a press-release about Viz launching their upcoming SIGIKKI website, which is going to serialize all sorts of comics from Japan. The pre-launch series running right now, Children of the Sea, is fairly fantastic, with strange things going on with the ocean and teenagers. The official launch for SIGIKKI rolls out over the next two weeks.

Of all the new series that will show up at the site, it’s this one that starts showing up on July 23rd that I’m really excited about.

Saturn Apartments By Hisae Iwaoka

A touching, character-rich vision of an intriguing new world.

Far in the future, humankind has evacuated the Earth in order to preserve it. Humans now reside in a gigantic structure that forms a ring around the Earth, thirty-five kilometers up in the sky. The society of the ring is highly stratified: the higher the floor, the greater the status. Mitsu, the lowly son of a window washer, has just graduated junior high. When his father disappears and is assumed dead, Mitsu must take on his father’s occupation. As he struggles with the transition to working life, Mitsu’s job treats him to an outsider’s view into the various living-room dioramas of the Saturn Apartments.

To me it’s got everything—an interesting setting, and what sounds like a combination of a mystery (the vanishing father), drama (having to inherit something unwanted), and sociological examination (the observing of other people’s lives). It sounds like there’s an almost infinite number of potential stories to be told here. Hopefully it’s as good as it sounds!

(Any books in particular that you’re dying to read based on the description alone?)