April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Graphic novels:

Watson, Andi, writer, Josh Howard, artist: Clubbing
(Minx. This is the second time I tried to read this. I still hate it. I'm really striking out with Andi Watson--of the three books I've tried from him, I've hated two, and Little Star...I should have liked it more than I did, but something about the thought processes of the protagonist kept me at an emotional distance...although I don't think the protagonist of Little Star a bad person, and I sympathize with his frustrations, I don't like him. At all).

Tomine, Adrian: Summer Blonde
(everyone in this book is a jerk! I respect Tomine's craft, but I don't think I like his comics).

Friedman, Aimee, writer, Christine Norrie, artist: Breaking Up
(Didn't finish. This may be a perfectly respectable teen-oriented graphic novels about the changing allegiances of adolescence etc etc, but I don't care and I want to smack the writer for being so goddamned cliched. I'm biased against these the-trauma-of-losing-your-best-friend-to-the-fashion-crowd stories, though; I tire of them quickly because they are not anything like my own high school experience. Oh, it was nasty, to be sure, but it was preferable by far to what had preceded it. I've never yet read a book about the high school experience that has ever made me think that the author would understand mine).


Now, stuff I liked!

Kibuishi, Kazu: Daisy Kutter: The Last Train
(I'm assuming the book was indeed created as black and white, but it throws me, because I'm used to Kibuishi's work in brilliant colors, and I wished this had been colored, too. Other than that quibble, I liked it. And Daisy/Tom OTP, dammit, dammit, dammit).

Lemire, Jeff: Essex County Vol. 1: Tales from the Farm
(damn, this is good. Lemire's style feels like it would be better suited to a horror comic--the white eyes and shadowed faces are unsettling to the point of creepy--but the thing coheres beautifully, heartbreakingly. What an fantastic book).


Pedrosa, Cyril: Three Shadows
(it didn't make me cry, but it made the back of my throat tight.

I found many of the sequences in the second half of the book to be rather odd, almost jarringly out of place with the central theme and the metaphor, but I can't say I didn't enjoy them as a sort of separate adventure story. I would, no pun intended, kill to see another book by Pedrosa focused on the Shadows, doing similar things to what they do here. It'd be awesome).


Niffenegger, Audrey: The Three Incestuous Sisters
( let me get my one qualm out of the way )

Aside from that long caveat--and oh, how I wish I had not read that afterword, because it was a sour note at the end of a magical experience--god, I adored this. It's a weird and stunning work of art; I love to have wall prints of some of these illustrations. The process for creating the pictures was some kind of ungodly difficult acid etching print thing that creates a subtlety of color and texture I can't describe but to say it is captivating. Read this book. Buy this book. This is a wonderful book).

Novels/prose books:

Heyer, Georgette: They Found Him Dead
(Heyer's mysteries are as lively and lovely as her Regency romances. I enjoyed this one particularly, not for any special reason).


Graphic novels/comics/cartoons

Watson, Andi: Little Star
(more Oni Press. I almost put this one down without finishing, although not because it was a testosterone-drenched adventure with a jeep--about the only thing it could be said to have in common with the testosterone jeep adventure was that it was a story about a man trying to find himself. Little Star is a book about a man struggling for balance between his part-time job as a ceramics painter and his role as the father of a fussy toddler and husband to a full-time wife. It is poignant, nuanced, intelligent, genuine, well-crafted, and I didn't love it. I don't really know why, I just didn't).

Runton, Andy: Owly: The Way Home & The Bittersweet Summer, Owly: Just A Little Blue, Owly: Flying Lessons, Owly: a Time to be Brave
(these are horrifically cute. The whole time I was reading these--I think it took me about twenty minutes total--I kept complaining to the friend who owned them about the worm who carries around umbrellas and slings things over his shoulder even though as a worm, he lacks a spine, shoulders, and hands. My friend informed me that there were magically invisible robots to do these things for Wormy. However, I'm a little concerned that the target audience, i.e. kids, will not pick up on this important fact, and will be as confused as I was).

Petersen, David: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152
(gorgeous art; I was distracted while reading and did not pay attention the plot, which may have been gripping).

Morse, Scott: Magic Pickle
(the lame vegetable puns, ow).

Barnes, Bill and Gene Ambaum: Unshelved, Unshelved: What Would Dewey Do?, Unshelved: Library Mascot Cage Match
(this is like a series of really awesome textbook cartoon inserts on how not to handle the reference interview. Don't do what Dewey would do. Plus, WWDD has a foreword by Nancy Pearl, Action Librarian).


Manga:

Gakuen Alice vol. 1
(it's sufficiently in line with the anime that I didn't feel a need to keep reading. It's a bit wacky and sketchy cute, and I do recommend it).