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Wine-Book Wednesdays: Joel Priddy

The (unknown to me at the time) 50th drawing in my wine book was also the first one I got at San Diego Comic-Con in 2003, courtesy Joel Priddy. His first graphic novel had recently out at the time, Pulpatoon Pilgrimage, which is just like your average road trip if the three characters are a minotaur, a robot piloted by a goldfish, and a walking plant.

It’s the last character that Priddy used to tweak just a bit for the wine theme, and it’s his soft, delicate lines that still stand out some 7 1/2 years later. These days I see Priddy show up on occasion at Project: Rooftop where people submit their redesigns of classic characters. Every time I find myself hoping that Priddy’s working on a new book that we can see soon. He’s too good a talent to be gone for too long.

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Wine-Book Wednesdays: Farel Dalrymple

Farel Dalrymple‘s comic book series Pop Gun War was one of those series that is hard to describe but instantly grabs your attention. Think magic realism in an urban jungle, and a sweet main character who happens to have wings, and… yeah, I’m not doing it justice, but it’s great.

Since those initial five issues (which are collected into a book courtesy Dark Horse) he’s worked on other projects like drawing the first story arc on Caper (about the Jewish mafia in San Francisco), and most notably illustrating Jonathan Lethem’s revamp of Omega the Unknown. I hear he’s working on a new Pop Gun War series now. I hope so. His unique brand of strangeness is much missed.

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When to Consolidate (or Not)

One thing I’ve mentioned time and time again is my need for additional space for my books, and the need to (very sadly) get rid of some due to said limitations.

Just over a year ago, I was lucky enough to get a Kindle for an amazingly low price (only the new WiFi-only editions are lower priced) and I’ve loved it. And in the past year or so, it’s meant that I’ve been able to swap out some print edition books with electronic copies.

The easiest ones to replace were books that’ve fallen out of copyright, of course. So my copies of books like Alice in Wonderland, Dubliners, Howards End, and Jane Eyre (to name just a few examples) were donated to the library, and free ebooks from Project Gutenburg took their place. But it’s everything else, of course, that’s a bit harder to simply replace. Although some times I’ve been lucky, like the time that (and to this day I’m not sure if it was a pricing error or an unannounced great deal) that a whole slew of Iain M. Banks books were knocked down to 99 cents. That sort of thing. So that’s helped thin the herd a great deal. (I do wish there was a program where if you sent back mint editions of books, or pledged to give them to your library, that you could exchange them for some ebooks, though.) But still, there are a lot of books that I’m just not willing to buy an additional copy of in the name of saving space. So that’s a little frustrating.

And of course, there are some books that even if I could swap out, I wouldn’t. Some first editions and signed limited editions, for instance, that sort of thing. And some sets of books that (even though I should) I just can’t bear to start breaking up. There’s something asthetically pleasing about them that makes me want them to keep sticking around.

On the other hand, I did make one important leap recently. One of my favorite publishers, Small Beer Press, is a company that I buy just about all of their books. It’s fun to walk by the shelf that has just about all of their titles on display. But in December and January, I picked up two books from them in ebook edition. It was a tough call at first, but at the end of the day I’m still getting the great publishing choices from them that I like, but my overly full bookshelves don’t have to strain that much more. And my copies of Under the Poppy and Redemption in Indigo were slightly cheaper than the print editions, so that’s an added bonus.

(I’m also careful to back up my ebooks in case of catastrophic computer failure, not only onto an external hard drive but also automatically onto an online backup service, lest the house itself burn down. So I’m in some ways more protected than with my actual books.)

Will I ever get rid of all my physical books? Of course not. The majority of them? Also probably not. But a sizable chunk? Eventually. And more and more, the new ones coming in won’t be physical ones. (Well, prose books anyway. Those pesky graphic novels are another story entirely, of course.) I’m sure whenever I move next, there will some very happy movers that there aren’t even more books to get carried into and out of the truck…

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Wine-Book Wednesdays: John Gallagher

I’ve known John Gallagher for years, thanks to working on the Small Press Expo together. His main comic is Buzzboy, about a superhero sidekick that steps up to the big leagues, although these days I’ve noticed he’s done a lot of other all-ages comic projects for a variety of publishers and packagers. It’s always nice to see John and his sketch of Buzzboy below amuses me to no end.

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Wine-Book Wednesdays: Roger Langridge

Roger Langridge is one of those comic creators that I always wonder, “Why isn’t he a superstar?” He writes, he draws, he letters. He tackles comedy, satire, superheroes, science-fiction, or any other genre needed. And he’s always a class act (talking with him at conventions is a joy) and turning out beautiful work no matter what.

When I got this sketch from Roger, he was best known for Fred the Clown, a comedy/satire that looks deceptively simple but is anything but. He’s worked on a lot of comics since then, most recently a Muppet Show comic that managed to actually be as funny and inventive as the original show (a real feat!), and is wrapping up an unfortunately short run on Thor: The Mighty Avenger with Chris Samnee.

Whatever he does next, I’ll buy it. That’s a given.

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Wine-Book Wednesdays: Ted Naifeh

Ted Naifeh‘s an artist whom I remember first encountering in the early ’90s drawing an issue of Dark Horse’s Comics Greatest World, although I suspect he might be a little shocked I still remember that book. He’s done a huge amount of work since then, from Gloomcookie to Teen Titans, but my favorite comic of his is, easily, Courtney Crumrin.

If you’ve never read Courtney Crumrin, it’s about a sarcastic girl who (along with her useless parents) go to live with her great-uncle that turns out to also be a warlock, and Courtney gets into all sorts of trouble and adventure. My description isn’t doing it justice, but trust me, it’s fantastic.

When I got this gorgeous sketch from him, he was a guest at SPX and I thought he was putting in all the extra effort with a second color and such because I ran the show. Then I found out a few hours later, nope, he had no idea who I was, he just put in all the extra effort because that’s what he does for everyone. Which, to me, says it all about what a great guy he is. Naifeh’s the bomb.

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Wine-Book Wednesdays: Sean Bieri

A Sean Bieri sighting is always exciting to me, in part because half the time it’s utterly unexpected. Sometimes he’s just wandering around a convention with no table, mini-comics in hand. Other times I’m surfing the web and suddenly I come across a new Bieri project. You get the idea.

He’s consistently funny and clever, though, and his Jape mini-comics are always worth buying if you get the chance. Trust me. I haven’t seen Sean in a few years though, but I hope we cross paths in person sometime soon.

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Brush Up On Your Shakespeare

A while ago, I told myself I was going to start filling the gaps in my Shakespeare, and that was something which went absolutely nowhere (aside from buying three of the Arden Shakespeare editions of some of the plays). These days, I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions (although in 2012 I think I’ll give an Uberlist another go), but if I was going to try some resolutions, I think one would be to try and move some of the second and third-tier plays up one or two positions.

In my head, there are three tiers for Shakespeare plays and my experience with them. First tier is seen them performed; second tier is never seen them performed but I have read the play; third tier is never even read them (or at least have no memory of doing so — I came down with the flu during one of my Shakespeare classes and I have a sneaking suspicion there’s at least one on that list which we read/studied that has been wiped from my brain in a haze of medicine). There’s a huge hole in my historical play list (never seen a single one performed, only studied the Hal plays), something which is rather regrettable.

(I suppose I could also add in an even higher tier of ones I’ve been in performances of, although that’s limited to As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and Romeo and Juliet. Since that list is unlikely to ever expand, though, probably not.)

Anyway, I’ve noticed that the Shakespeare Theatre here in DC is performing Cymbeline starting later this month, which is a third tier play for me. But on the downside, it’s directed by the person who did a not good job with Twelfth Night two years ago. Hmm. Decisions, decisions. (I’m also kicking myself for missing the Folger Theatre’s production of Henry VIII a few months ago, because really, how often is that performed in the DC area?)

For those of you who like that sort of thing in general, what are your feelings on Cymbeline? And if I were to try and read one or two of the “third tier” plays this year, any recommendations? (I suspect Richard II would be an obvious choice.)

Continue reading Brush Up On Your Shakespeare→

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The Tintin Experience: Tintin in America

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!