bookblogging

Graphic novels:

Goscinny, Rene, writer, Albert Uderzo, illustrater: Asterix vol. 1: Asterix The Gaul, Asterix vol. 2: Asterix and the Golden Sickle
(badass, man. It's just as fun as I was led to believe. And my local library has lots!).

Manga:

Kirishima Takeru: Kanna vol. 1
(despite some fairly nice art, a solid premise and mix of humor, drama, and gore, this so failed to keep my attention that it took me three nights to read it, because I kept drifting off. I don't think I'll hold out for vol. 2).

Kanari Yozaburo, story, Sato Fumiya, art: Kindaichi Case Files: Smoke and Mirrors
(eeeee! This creeped me the fuck out, and not just because I read it at 3am when I couldn't sleep. It may just be familiarity--I mean, if anything, I'm working backwards through the books, not that they have any arc outside their own plots--but I felt rather fonder of both Kindaichi and Miyuki in this book than I have in any other volumes. I think Akechi would have improved the book a bit, but then, I always do. He snarks on Kindaichi, and until the other stock detective guy, Akechi is actually a good detective and therefore a good rival to Kindaichi. But this was a fun read anyway).

bookblogging

Graphic novels:

Various: Rosetta: A Comics Anthology
(This wasn't making much of an impression on me--with a few exceptions, I prefer my anthologies and short story collections to have some kind of theme or common inspiration--but I was doing okay up until I hit the vitriolic racism theming David Collier's piece, "Bringing Up Fathers and Sons." Collier worries that "an incomparably less sophisticated people...will take us down as they did the Romans." For "us," read "western civilization;" his story is a sad, crude collection of poorly imagined stereotypes of Muslims and Arabic civilization, in which all elements of Western and American influence are signs of freedom, open-mindedness, and cultural sophistication, as represented by haute couture and wine and cheese parties. Damn, we're sophisticated. We have wine! You know what I worry about? That this sort of fuckwittery is apparently what passes for sophistication in a commentary on someone else's religion, someone else's culture, someone else's country, and the complications of international politics and hybrid culture. The west is good! Islam is bad! Arabs are decadent and Muslims are hypocrites!

What wisdom, what light, the beauty of this outstretched hand of friendship, this clarion call for understanding between peoples--and we better bomb the fuck out of all the lands of Arabic peoples and rebuild their nations out of legos and corporate franchises before Rome falls again and we can't have wine and cheese parties anymore.

Rosetta! What a lousy stinking metaphor for this book).