April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Books

Non-fiction:

Brunvand, Jan Harold: The Baby Train and Other Lusty Urban Legends
(since it's just a reproduction of Brunvand's columns from the 1990s, it's not as interesting as his other books, which are more in-depth explorations of the history of legends cited; nevertheless, this was a good read).

Mystery:

Stout, Rex: Not Quite Dead Enough, and Over My Dead Body
(I think the biggest appeal of these, aside from the fact that they date from, and depict the fascinating world of mid-century New York City, is the extremely witty prose. Archie Goodwin is as funny as he thinks he is, and it's really fun to read).



Graphic novels:

Blanchet, Pascal: Baloney: A Tale in 3 Symphonic Acts
(Drawn and Quarterly. As gorgeous as the last Blanchet I read).

Campbell, Eddie: The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard
(First Second. He was indeed amazing and remarkable).

Kuper, Peter: Mind's Eye: An Eye of the Beholder Collection
(NMB ComicsLit. I wouldn't really call these visual puns, as Kuper does--Furuya's Short Cuts were visual puns; these are more like Jeffery Archer stories with a twist ending, only the twist is often not much of a twist).

Kuper, Peter: Upton Sinclair: The Jungle
(NBM ComicsLit. A more perfect marriage of original work and adapter I cannot imagine. This is so totally up Kuper's alley).

Larcenet, Manu: Ordinary Victories
(NBM ComicsLit. I've identified one of the many draws for me in reading non-US comics is the possibility of seeing a lovely, unfamiliar landscape through the eyes of someone who knows it well, which does happen here).

Maxx: Bardin the Supperrealist
(Fantagraphics. And superreal--and surreal--it is!).

Morse, Scott: Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! vol. 1
(nice use of a metaphor. I remember being put off by something in the book when I read it--I don't know what now, though. Art's fabulous; Morse is extremely talented and knows his way around a comics page).

Stavans, Ilan, writer, and Roberto Weil, artist: Mr. Spic Goes to Washington
(I'm always trying to improve my comprehension of written Spanish, so I had a Spanish/English dictionary while I was reading this. Alas, there were words my dictionary didn't know--like "vato," which I assume is a noun--they're presumably either slang or just not common enough to make it into my little paperback dictionary. Oh well).


Manga/Manwha:

Akino Matsuri: Petshop of Horrors: Tokyo vol 4
(hark! Do I espy arc plot? I hope so! But even if I don't, I don't care. I love all facets of PSOH).


Byung-Jun Byun: Run, Bong-Gu, Run!
(NBM ComicsLit. This is really all about the city landscape, and the harshness of city life, etc, which was perfectly evident to me as I read the book, and was borne out by the afterword. Still, I found the artist's vision of the urban landscape to be lovely, and not frightening or lonely or alienating at all. I don't know whether that's a failure on the part of the artist, to properly convey the perceived evils of the city, or a failure in me to overcome my love of the city and be horrified by a way of life that to me is both acceptable and even desirable, or if it's just genuinely more ambiguous than the person who wrote the afterword realized...

I do see the seeds of alienation, the unnaturalness, the coldness, the artificiality here, and the rare images of the countryside are so much softer and warmer--but some of those lushly detailed splash pages, the delicately colored renderings of the city streets--I can't help but see them as beautiful, and as legitimate sites for human happiness. Sinclair's The Jungle this is not.

By the way, I really loved this book, especially the art. And the aforementioned vision of the city that maybe I'm not supposed to like, but I do. I enjoyed all of the books in this post, but this was my favorite by a mile).

Graphic novels/comics:

Kaplan, Bruce Eric: Edmund and Rosemary Go to Hell
(modern teens are all drug-addicted multi-taskers! Oooh, what bold and inventive social satire. I'm breathless. Memo to Mr. Kaplan: develop a sense of history).

Martinson, Lars: Tonoharu
(AET=JET, I presume, or something functionally identical. This book is kind of funny because I can compare it to Mikkeneko's JET stories. Mikke experienced some of the same issues--language difficulties, awkwardness adapting to Japanese workplace mores, living in the boonies--but as Mikke is A) a real close personal friend, B) not a close-minded, lazy, socially maladjusted twit, and C) also talks about stuff she likes about living and working in Japan, I prefer her stories . Nevertheless, this entertains me, and I'll read more).

Fraction, Matt, writer, Steven Sanders, artist: The Five Fists of Science
(damned silly, but fun. I'm also reading The Devil in the White City at the moment, and I must say, the late nineteenth century was a fascinating period in American history. We sort of skidded through it in my high school American history class, trying to catch up to WWI; I had no idea how much I was missing. Like how Mark Twain and Nicola Tesla built giant robots and J.P. Morgan summoned dark beasts of hell into New York. We definitely skipped that part).

Tetzner, Lisa, writer, Hannes Binder, artist: The Black Brothers
(what a weird hybrid of a story this is! I wish it had more detailed editor's notes on tis creation, since judging by the original publication date--1940--and the date of the birth of the artist--1947--the writing and the illustrations were created independently. Judging by the weird gaps in the text, parts of the story are intended to be told through the illustrations, but they're not consistent or coherent, and it ends up being jerky and confusing. An interesting oddity, but to my mind, not an impressive one).

SOME STUFF I LOVED: all three of the following are highly recommended; I actually read them all in a row and got up and sort of shook the one I'd just finished around in the air, crying, "These comics are so good! I love that these comics are so good! Oh my god!" Yes, really. I get excited about good art.

Briggs, Raymond: Ethel and Ernest
(Briggs' graphic history of his parents' marriage, spanning the 1930s through 1971. It's lovely, kind, affectionate, revealing...gorgeously colored art, with a sense of intimacy, and Briggs is a guy who--unlike Kaplan up there--has a sense of history. The damn thing made me cry, not out of tragedy--Mother Come Home is a tragedy that didn't make me cry, although I don't think it wanted me to--but this made me cry because it is so familial and full of human life and honesty. Life is beautiful).

Hornschemeier, Paul: Mother Come Home
(In a review blurb on the back, Craig Thompson calls this Formalist. I need to look up what that means, because I see it often in comics discussion, but have only a vague idea of its proper meaning. But, um, anyway, this is a sort of stunning work of tragedy which I do not want to explain, because it unfolds itself perfectly without the reader needing an explanation. I really don't know what to say except that Hornschemeier is brilliant).

Kuper, Peter: Sticks and Stones
(another brilliant, vivacious wordless graphic novel without any damned woodcuts. Kuper's drawings are bold and visually interesting; the actions and meanings are perfectly clear. He paces well and knows how to achieve impact; he can achieve emotional depth without sentimentality. This is really one of the niftiest fables about wars of colonization I've read in quite some time).


Manga:

Koike Kazuo, writer, Kojima Goseki, artist: Lone Wolf and Cub vol. 3.