Graphic Novels for April

The Living & the Dead by Jason
Jason’s art work is simple yet engaging.  The topics he engages range from humor to history to pulp and back.  For this title, he sets his cartoony dog characters in the middle of a zombie infestation.  There is very little dialogue and a lot of funny moments even though the zombies seem to be winning in this tale.

Testament Vol. 1, Akedah by Douglas Rushkoff
Boy, a lot going on in this one.  Rushkoff imagines our world a few years in the future, where there is a perpetual war and most teens have been implanted with an identity chip that makes it easier for the government to track them and use them.  Biblical references abound in this story.  Here, Abraham’s sacrifice to God is compared with a father’s agonizing over whether his unregistered son should get registered.  A whole host of issues get raised in this book.  Unfortunately, the art is a little weak.

Nextwave: Agents of HATE vol. 1 This is What They Want by Warren Ellis
Ellis takes some little used Marvel characters and puts them together on a team.  Most of this is played for laughs, and it generally succeeds, especially when the focus is on Machine Man.  The art is quite good as well.  Ultimately, though, this is pretty slight and forgettable fun.

Project X: Nissin Cup O Noodles by Tadashi Katoh
I’m not a huge manga fan, but I really enjoyed this.  It follows the process that Nissin used to make their signature project, the Cup O Noodles.  Who knew that process was so fraught with tension and suspense.  I knew they were going to succeed, but I was worried for the characters in the book.  They had a lot of obstacles to overcome, and it was impressive when they did.

 Alias vol 2, 3, & 4 by Brian Michael Bendis
Continues the adventures of Jessica Jones, private investigator and former Marvel super hero.  Jessica gets more involved with Steve Lang (Ant Man), while helping a troubled teen deal with her family’s madness.  Book 4 shows Jessica’s origin, ties it to Peter Parker’s, shows why the Purple Man is such a huge threat and leads Jessica to Luke Cage’s door.  Great dialogue as usual with Bendis.  Excellent use of little used characters, adult concepts and past comic mythology.  Great series.

Robin: Wanted by Adam Beechen
This book is something to watch.  Beechen writes the character well and the art is fantastic.  Robin is framed for murder and must stay out of jail long enough to discover who the murderer is.

First Record LP I bought, first CD I bought

Yes, I am old enough to have had records.  My mom had plenty, so I listened to them all the time (you know, cool stuff like John Denver, Barry Manilow & Neil Diamond).  The first records that I remember buying were 45s.  One was a song by Billy Joel that is so forgetable that I can’t remember, but the B-side had a song called “All for Leyna” which I still remember fondly.  The other 45 I remember getting was Donny Iris’s “Ah Leah”.  Leyna, Leah … kindof strange that.

By the summer of 86, I had saved up enough to get the newest technological wonder, a CD player.  Man I loved that thing.  Seems a little clunky now, but it was cool.  I can’t remember which I got first, but the first CD’s I bought were World Machine by Level 42 and The Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby.  Maybe not the coolest bands ever but both CD’s are still listenable, which is not true of some.  Level 42 was even the first over 21 concert I went to my first year of college.  It was at the Stary Night, now known as the Roseland.  I’ve never seen anyone play bass like Mark King.  He only used his thumb and it was impressive.

Best audiobook ever! – World War Z

 

Audiotapes need to be well done to be bearable.  A single narrator has to be very good to pull it off successfully.  But when you have a whole cast of capable narrators rendering a good tale, you can end up with something truly special.  This is the case with the audiobook for World War Z.  The subtitle is An Oral History of the Zombie War, and the set up here is that different survivors from the global zombie war slowly reveal how the war unfolded.  From China to Israel to the United States, each segment reveals more about how the virus spread and what various government’s did to combat the “Z’s”.  Voice actors like Jurgen Prochnow, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins and John Turturro join an international cast to make each segment come alive.  The standouts in my mind are Alan Alda and particularly Becky Ann Baker as Christina Eliopolis.  You can listen for yourself on the Random House website created for World War Z.  Again, a very entertaining audio, I’m convinced now that they have to make a movie of this.

49 Up

I first saw this series when I was substitute teacher back in 95 I think (we all know how teachers love for their subs to show movies).  I was probably watching 35 up I think or maybe even 28 up.  It follows a selected group of 7 year old kids in London back in 1963, and has gotten in contact with them every seven years since.  What a revelation this show is everytime I see it.  To see these individuals grow older you get a sense of how their physical characteristics continue through the years but, at times, it’s their personalities that are shifting a lot.  These people are growing.  It was nice to see how content so many of them are at 49.  A lot of the angst from earlier years is gone and most seem happy.  They all say how hard the show is for them to do, which is interesting.  Most are starting to be grandparents now.  Earlier years featured a lot of divorces, some years had parents dying, others kids being born.  Dredging up these memories every seven years must be very difficult if you’re not used to thinking about it.  It’s almost like therapy for them and for me.  It reconfirms to me that staying home with the kids is the right thing to do because it’s going to go by fast.  It seems like it wasn’t long ago when I started watching these shows and now all the small children I saw in the movie are grown men and women.  I really need to try and enjoy this time with the kids as much as possible.  I hope I can.

Friday Night Lights – best show on TV

Friday Night Lights ended its first season last night in a predictable, satisfying yet ambiguous finale.  Some relationships were mended, some were still broken, but you still cared about every character.  The team went to “State” to play the championship game, yet found out the coach was leaving the program right before the game.  That does not inspire confidence when you’re playing football for someone.  The game ends in a predictable fashion, and the show ended in a place where they could easily continue into another season or simply get cancelled too.  If they do get cancelled, it’s a shame since this is the best show on network TV.  Kyle Chandler and Connie Briton are two of the most appealing actors on TV and they have great chemistry.  Lets hope the show comes back.

Please Write in This Book by Mary Amato

 I picked this one up for the kids because it was new and had an eclectic cover illustration.  What good fortune, because this book was hilarious.  The conceipt here is that a teacher has left a blank journal on the reading bookshelf with the message to write in it when you find it.  Before long the kids discover it and each one who writes in it tries to make it his or her own.  The character of each child shines brightly and hilariously as rules are made for the book, then just as quickly broken.  Illustrations about horses and kids vomitting soon fill the book.  I could imagine each and every kid in this book.  My daughter laughed quite a bit during this one, as did I.  Highly recommended.

My new 350 page rule

Can someone please tell the authors of the world that if they want busy moms and dads to read their books that they need to keep in under 350 pages, 300 preferably.  The last 1000 page book I read was after back surgery and I was lying around immoble for a week.  As much as I’d like to do that more often, it’s just not realistic.  I put Dan Simmon’s new book on hold recently.  I just got it and its a door stop.  I love ya Dan, but that one’s not going to get read.  Trilogies are all the rage people, break that book up!  Tolkien had to do it, so please give a busy parent a break.  Spread it out some.

Most requested CDs at the library for March

I find it interesting to see what everyone wants to listen to each month.  This list is very useful for me when I’m ordering.  Of course some of these titles are represented in our system by several copies of the same cd while others have only one or two.  Still, it’s an interesting list.

1. Eyes Open – Snow Patrol
2. Not Too Late – Norah Jones
3. How to Save a Life – Fray
4. Grammy Nominees 2007
5. Wincing the Night Away – Shins
6. Now That’s What I Call Music 22
7. Continuum – John Mayer
8. Like Omigod the 80s
9. St. Elsewhere – Gnarls Barkley
10. Sweet Escape – Gwen Stefani
11. Daughtry
12. Now That’s What I Call Music 20
13. Eye to the Telescope – KT Tunstall
14. Greys Anatomy Soundtrack 2
15. Grammy Nominees 2006
16. Sams Town – Killers
17. Fever You Can’t Sweat Out – Panic at the Disco
18. Corinne Bailey Rae
19. Chutes Too Narrow – Shins
20. Foiled – Blue October
21. Greys Anatomy Soundtrack 1
22. Infinity on High – Fall Out Boy
23. Konvicted – Akon
24. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank – Modest Mouse
25. Soviet Kitsch – Regina Spektor
26. Allright Still – Lily Allen

The last three have really come on in the last month.  There is a lot of curiousity surrounding those acts.  Not on the top 26, but one that is getting close is Kink Live 9, a CD that I bought for the library.  Next year I may buy two.

For the love of Jelly Bellies

We eventually drove far enough south to find some warm weather (Sacramento) for Spring Break.  We even took a tour of the Jelly Belly factory down there which was pretty fun and a great example of excellent customer relations (do you hear me Hershey factory!!  Start doing tours again!!)  I’ll even forgive the effusive love of our recent Republican presidents shown by the Jelly Belly company (I mean Reagan really put them on the map).  We all enjoyed the mosaics created out of Jelly Bellys and the actual creation of the jellybeans was fascinating.  Check out the mosaic of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Graphic novel update for March

I’ve been swimming in graphic novels lately and it seems like there is always more to read.  That’s great when they are good but tedious when they are not.  This month had some highs and not so highs.  Most of these are recent additions to our collection at the library.

Aya by Marguerite Abouet
I’m cautious when opening myself up to stories set in Africa simply because they are often hard to take emotionally.  However, I was delighted to discover this book as it depicts the lives of normal teens in the Ivory Coast during a time of peace and relative prosperity in the 70s.  It was refreshing and novel to see teens dancing and dating without a heavy political story element.  The art is reminiscent of Persepolis with the welcome addition of some great coloring.

DMZ vol. 2  Body of a Journalist by Brian Wood
This series continues to get better.  In a future world where the United States has crumbled and New York is a no man’s land, one man becomes the voice of the disenfranchised.  This series takes a good hard look at what it means to be a journalist vs. a tool for the elite.  It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Jack of Fables vol. 1 The Nearly Great Escape by Bill Willingham
This book complements what the main Fables title does so well by reintroducing an old fable and creating a modern character for him or her that makes sense.  Jack is imprisoned by an evil network that is dedicated to wiping out magic and magical characters by holding those characters in jail indefinitely.  Of course, Jack escapes but not without causing serious chaos.  I have to say that I don’t like Jack much and that doesn’t bode well for a series dedicated to his exploits.

Promethea vol. 2 by Alan Moore
I enjoyed the first book in this series quite a bit, but I think I’m finished after this one.  The mythology gets pretty thick in this volume with one chapter devoted to a detailed description of each card in the tarot deck.  One can also see Moore’s fascination with sensuality depicted in vol. 2 .  A little goes a long way.

Ultimate Invincible collection vol. 1 by Robert Kirkman
This is probably the best super hero comic being published today.  Kirkman builds an intriguing set of characters around his hero and creates some genuinely surprising moments for them throughout the book.  Don’t miss this one if you like hero books.

Seven Soldiers of Victory vol. 4  by Grant Morrison
Morrison wraps up his intricately ploted opus with mixed results.  It’s the same problem I have with many of his stories, there is a great idea at the beginning but the storyline crumbles under the weight of the narrative.  I can honestly say that I’m not sure what exactly was going on by the end.

Manhunter vol. 1 Street Justice by Marc Andreyko
Kate Spencer is a prosecutor who is tired of seeing the villains she puts away walk out of jail, so she puts together a costume from other weapons in police custody to make herself the new Manhunter.  Spencer is barely holding it together, yet she makes a compelling heroine none-the-less.  A great read.