What Am I Reading Wednesday - February 8
What I Just Finished Reading
Injection vol. 2 - Warren Ellis & Declan Shalvey
Yes, even better on the second read. Injection is my favorite ongoing title and this will probably be my favorite collection in the series. Volume two does the Sherlock Holmes trope right, and the way Ellis' script and Shalvey's illustrations build on each other is second to none. Everybody should be reading this series.
Promethea vol. 4 - Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray
In which our heroines complete their journey through the sephiroth and return to earth for a confrontation that is less dramatic and momentous than it should be. This is my least favorite arc, as its content boils down to “men represent logic, action, wisdom, art, science, and literature, and women have vaginas and are unknowable.” It also contains the “secretly, she wanted to be raped” reference that shows up in everything Moore writes. (One has the sneaking suspicion he's “had sex” at least once with a woman who's cried and begged him to stop, and is trying to convince himself he's not despicable for doing so.)
Promethea vol. 5 - Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray
The series reaches a predominantly satisfying conclusion after stumbling in the previous six issues. Moore tackles Big Issues here-the biggest there are-and by and large does so with sweetness and finesse. It's also amusing (bemusing?) that Moore's pretty much taken a big scenic cruise through astrology, Tarot, kabbalah, and neo-pagan syncretism to essentially arrive at Buddhism with bells and whistles on. So it goes.
アーシアン 2 - 高河 ゆん(Earthian vol. 2 - Kouga Yun )
In which I am struck anew by how much trashier and less coherent manga was back in the day. To wit: an early chapter involves a young man who lives for free in a doctor's clinic (Why? Who knows!) and saves Number 71, a young girl who's mute and randomly bursts into flame because she's been held captive by experimented on in a hospital. Why was the hospital holding her captive? What was the point of making her “ignite,” as the manga puts it? Who knows? In fact, why are you even asking, reader? Kouga may have started to address this in later chapters, but there's so little cohesion within any given episode that it's hard to pick up what, if any, strings thread between them. So it goes.
What I Am Currently Reading
[Placeholder] - [Placeholder[\]
Still for reasons.
Celtic Knotwork - Iain Bain
In this week's chapter, Bain discusses how to break and/or mirror a 1.5-unit interlace to arrive at more complex knots. These are things I'd figured out through playing around and trial and error; it's interesting to see how an engineer arrived at the same results through a systematic, streamlined approach.
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures - various
A decade(!) on, I still love this series so. Damn. Much. This volume anthologizes 28 stories released through DVD inserts, Nickelodeon comics, and Free Comic Book Day issues. The art is top notch and it's an interesting and entertaining look at plotlines that were probably considered for inclusion in the series' episodes.
Jerusalem - Alan Moore
Only another 1200-odd pages left to go. This week's chapter follows a former gangster-turned-homeless-man as he makes his way around the city; about 20 pages in, we begin to realize his narration is not as reliable as it seems. Put another way, this chapter is a 40-odd page remix of the Discworld pantheon and Doug Dorst's Alive in Necropolis, right down to the gods playing parlor games to decide humanity's fate and with 'Puck's Hat' standing in for Root. “Women like rough fucking” makes the obligatory appearance here too, although this time with the consent of both parties. Hurrah for small miracles.
The Aisles Have Eyes - Joseph Turow
This week's chapters discuss the various tactics retailers and groceries have used to try to capture customer information via cell phones. To my mind, it's nowhere near as nefarious as the back copy would lead you to believe, but then again I've only made it to around 2005, and I disable pretty much every feature on my phone unless I'm actively using it, so I'm a step away from the data collection Turow's describing.
The Light and Shadow Tarot - Brian Williams & Michael Goepferd
I covered the 10s through the 8s of the four suites in this week's reading.
What I'm Reading Next
My books owned to books read ratio has returned to Code Red: Humiliating, so I'll probably be looking for easy wins with manga and the like. I will also start Sue Klebold's A Mother's Reckoning, which will probably destroy me long before I finish it. Beyond that, I'll try to wrap up some of the 30-odd library books I've signed out.
これで以上です。
Injection vol. 2 - Warren Ellis & Declan Shalvey
Yes, even better on the second read. Injection is my favorite ongoing title and this will probably be my favorite collection in the series. Volume two does the Sherlock Holmes trope right, and the way Ellis' script and Shalvey's illustrations build on each other is second to none. Everybody should be reading this series.
Promethea vol. 4 - Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray
In which our heroines complete their journey through the sephiroth and return to earth for a confrontation that is less dramatic and momentous than it should be. This is my least favorite arc, as its content boils down to “men represent logic, action, wisdom, art, science, and literature, and women have vaginas and are unknowable.” It also contains the “secretly, she wanted to be raped” reference that shows up in everything Moore writes. (One has the sneaking suspicion he's “had sex” at least once with a woman who's cried and begged him to stop, and is trying to convince himself he's not despicable for doing so.)
Promethea vol. 5 - Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray
The series reaches a predominantly satisfying conclusion after stumbling in the previous six issues. Moore tackles Big Issues here-the biggest there are-and by and large does so with sweetness and finesse. It's also amusing (bemusing?) that Moore's pretty much taken a big scenic cruise through astrology, Tarot, kabbalah, and neo-pagan syncretism to essentially arrive at Buddhism with bells and whistles on. So it goes.
アーシアン 2 - 高河 ゆん(Earthian vol. 2 - Kouga Yun )
In which I am struck anew by how much trashier and less coherent manga was back in the day. To wit: an early chapter involves a young man who lives for free in a doctor's clinic (Why? Who knows!) and saves Number 71, a young girl who's mute and randomly bursts into flame because she's been held captive by experimented on in a hospital. Why was the hospital holding her captive? What was the point of making her “ignite,” as the manga puts it? Who knows? In fact, why are you even asking, reader? Kouga may have started to address this in later chapters, but there's so little cohesion within any given episode that it's hard to pick up what, if any, strings thread between them. So it goes.
What I Am Currently Reading
[Placeholder] - [Placeholder[\]
Still for reasons.
Celtic Knotwork - Iain Bain
In this week's chapter, Bain discusses how to break and/or mirror a 1.5-unit interlace to arrive at more complex knots. These are things I'd figured out through playing around and trial and error; it's interesting to see how an engineer arrived at the same results through a systematic, streamlined approach.
Avatar The Last Airbender: The Lost Adventures - various
A decade(!) on, I still love this series so. Damn. Much. This volume anthologizes 28 stories released through DVD inserts, Nickelodeon comics, and Free Comic Book Day issues. The art is top notch and it's an interesting and entertaining look at plotlines that were probably considered for inclusion in the series' episodes.
Jerusalem - Alan Moore
Only another 1200-odd pages left to go. This week's chapter follows a former gangster-turned-homeless-man as he makes his way around the city; about 20 pages in, we begin to realize his narration is not as reliable as it seems. Put another way, this chapter is a 40-odd page remix of the Discworld pantheon and Doug Dorst's Alive in Necropolis, right down to the gods playing parlor games to decide humanity's fate and with 'Puck's Hat' standing in for Root. “Women like rough fucking” makes the obligatory appearance here too, although this time with the consent of both parties. Hurrah for small miracles.
The Aisles Have Eyes - Joseph Turow
This week's chapters discuss the various tactics retailers and groceries have used to try to capture customer information via cell phones. To my mind, it's nowhere near as nefarious as the back copy would lead you to believe, but then again I've only made it to around 2005, and I disable pretty much every feature on my phone unless I'm actively using it, so I'm a step away from the data collection Turow's describing.
The Light and Shadow Tarot - Brian Williams & Michael Goepferd
I covered the 10s through the 8s of the four suites in this week's reading.
What I'm Reading Next
My books owned to books read ratio has returned to Code Red: Humiliating, so I'll probably be looking for easy wins with manga and the like. I will also start Sue Klebold's A Mother's Reckoning, which will probably destroy me long before I finish it. Beyond that, I'll try to wrap up some of the 30-odd library books I've signed out.
これで以上です。