I've written previously about my ambivalence for the writing of Garth Ennis: while I mostly enjoy his superhero satire / takedown, The Boys, he managed to make his "Boys-verse" nearly as convoluted and contradictory as any decades-long superhero continuity from Marvel and DC, which pretty much defeats the purpose of his satire; and, while I think ( Read more... )

I read The Incredible Hulks: Fall of the Hulks thanks to inter-library loan; this is the deluxe hardcover collecting (most of...) the "Fall of the Hulks" crossover storyline running through Marvel Comics' Hulk family of titles in 2009-10.

Much as I mostly enjoy the Hulk titles (excluding Skaar, Son of Hulk; and what's up with Red She-Hulk being ( Read more... )

Among the many -- many! -- collections of comic books that I checked out from the library in 2011 were the first installments of three edgy series, only one of which is still being published: Garth Ennis's Preacher and The Boys, and Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan.

My first exposure to Ennis's work was a square-bound edition collecting his ( Read more... )

My favorite T-shirt spotted at a Spencer's store a couple of Saturdays ago had this legend on it:

"I used to be fucking stupid, but then we broke up."

*pause*

See, like the best insult comedy, it's applicable to everybody.

Just realized that most of the book reviews I've posted thus far this year have been for graphic novels; here are a couple of shortish reviews of books without any pick-chures*, to try to class the joint up a tad:


( Read more... )

I recently bought (on Wednesday, 21 February) the Barnes & Noble omnibus edition of Peter Gethers' The Norton Trilogy, which is a series of snarkily humorous memoirs about the author's travels with his Scottish Fold cat, Norton. (The trilogy consists of: The Cat Who Went to Paris, 1991, 194 pps.; A Cat Abroad, 1993, 243 pps.; and The Cat Who'll ( Read more... )