bookblogging

Novels/prose books:

Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book the Second: The Reptile Room.

Stephenson, Neal: The Big U
(the wheels fell off somewhere in this book. It's still an enjoyable read, but I can see why he was reluctant to let it be brought back into print; god forbid someone should read this and imagine that this level of writing is what made Stephenson famous. Obviously, this is not as ambitious as one of the monster tomes, like Cryptonomicon, or the Baroque Cycle, but as a shorter work, it doesn't live up to the tighter, more focused plotting of Zodiac. Maybe I should excuse the lack of grounding as probably being intentional--it's very much about the university as a place that's insane and closed-off from the real world, higher education as a mental institution--but it was hard to connect to the book because of that).


Graphic novels:

Lemire, Jeff: Essex County vol. 3: The Country Nurse
(Top Shelf).

Campbell, Ross: Water Baby
(Minx. Wow, creepy. Campbell, doing that thing he does, so weirdly compelling and so well-illustrated).

Abel, Jessica, and Warren Pleece, artists (?), Gabe Soria, writer (?), Hialry Sycamore, colorist: Life Sucks
(First Second. Cute, but not exactly a work for the ages. I vastly prefer Abel's other work--La Perdida, Artbabe--which are better written, and frankly, much better illustrated as well. Abel's linework suffers from the coloring here).

bookblogging

Graphic novels:

Pink, Daniel H., writer, and Rob Ten Pas, artist: The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need
(oh gee. Had I but known, Tam Lin, that this was, in fact, a career guide, written by a guy who writes career guides, marketed towards hip young things who read manga, I would have skipped it and reclaimed those twenty precious minutes of my mortal existence. I mean what the hell now.

On the other hand, I did read the whole thing).

Simmons, Josh: Jessica Farm vol. 1
(pluses: it's not just a cheap horror flick in comics form. Minuses: it makes even less sense than Simmons' other work, House. Unless that's a plus? I'm losing track).

Orff, Joel: Thunderhead Underground Falls
(sweet, sketchy, bittersweet).

Blanchet, Pascal: White Rapids
(Drawn and Quarterly. This is the most wonderful thing I have read in a while. I should have jotted down the back cover blurb, which nicely summarized the elements of the art style that entranced me--something about neo Art Deco retro something blah blah fishcakes. And a four or five color palette, and really striking, well-thought out layouts, wonderful use of silhouette, cartooning, great perspectives... It chronicles the history of a small company town in Canada which was founded by a power company for its employees in the 1930s, and eventually abandoned in the 1970s, when the power industry was nationalized. The marriage of style to subject is perfect. It is just so cool. I wish I could have prints of basically all of it to put on my wall).