Nano-Whores
I'm just feeling LJ-tastic today. So, let's have a random look at stuff I've read in the last year or so.
I'm largely caught up on the Grendel titles. For those of you not familiar with Grendel, it's a series of comics, mostly written by Matt Wagner, which involve a morally ambiguous supervillian, Grendel, with a certain iconic look to his costume and weaponry. The early comics involve the "original" Grendel fighting against an equally morally ambiguous superhero, the Argent Wolf, with the life and love of a single little girl hanging in the balance. The later comics involve inheritors to the Grendel title, and eventually a nuclear war and the Grendel becoming a sort of honorable warrior archetype in the post-apocalyptic world.
Strange stuff. It's not as deep as Wagner obviously wants it to be, being in many ways only a different kind of adolescent than the usual superhero fare, but it's fairly well-written if you don't mind a little high-handedness. Don't expect anything really deep, but it looks cool and some interesting stories are told along the way, and what more can you ask from a comic?
Speaking of interesting stories, since I am a dirty bastard who sometimes downloads his comics, I sometimes see some interesting out-of-print stuff. Take, for example, "Forsaken", a beautiful, well-written science-fiction comic that Image put out for a few issues in 2004 and then, as far as I can tell, suddenly pulled the plug on.
Incomplete as it is, there's only potentialities here. It's about a near-future Earth where some of the problems of Earth have been solved by joining together with a race of aliens with their own problems that humans can help solve. The comic is about a sort of counter-insurgency team put together by a shadowy corporate force to help deal with terrorists who are trying to tear the two worlds apart.
I also read Alan Moore's 1963, a six-issue miniseries that's also available as a graphic novel. This is Moore's homage to the Marvel comics of his youth, complete with fake ads and letter columns. It's very light, much lighter and less bitter than most of Moore's work, and is a great read, especially for anyone familiar with old-school Marvel. I particularly liked "Fury", who is a sort of witty, hilarious but quite heroic cross between Spider-Man and Captain America. (The Fantastic Four clones in the first book, "Mystery Incorporated", are also very amusing.)
The only possible caveat I might have about this book is there is one element of it that might offend some people. Hint: What major American tragedy happened in 1963?
I haven't just been reading comics, of course. I recently finished The Narrow Land, an excellent collection of short stories by Jack Vance. It's tough to describe Vance's style -- it's what Gary Gygax tried to write like, and failed. He manages be breezy and easy-to-read... and erudite and long-winded at the same time. "Chateau D'If" alone is worth the price of admission, and another one of the stories, "Where Hesperut Falls", manages something I think only Vance could: It makes a story about a man trying to kill himself both interesting and convoluted.
Speaking of Vance, I also read his novella "The Last Castle", which I believe won a Nebula award. It's a very interesting tale, in essence being the story of a future, decadent version of humanity finding its feet again after spending too long at the apex of a slave society.
On another note, I read Frank Herbert's The Eyes of Heisenberg. To say this book is not one of Herbert's best is an understatement. It involves a sort of shadow war between a group of genetically-engineered immortals and a group of cyborgs, with humanity in-between, and... Well, the less said about it the better. I was not impressed.
And as I move from comics, I should mention, real quick, various movies I saw in the theatre as they came out, in a belated way:
Hustle & Flow: Okay, I saw this one on video, but it's still excellent enough to be worth mentioning. It's a story of a pimp trying to be something more, trying to make some music and hit it big, using only the life he knows as inspiration. Some might find their knee jerking, but NPR gave this movie a look-see for a good reason: It's a beautiful, gripping tale. Plus the music is catchy. Kill Bill Vol I: Okay, again on video, but not bad. As long as you didn't take it seriously, it was quite amusing. A little overlong, but amusing. And lots of fake, fake blood. A wondrous tale of revenge. Over The Hedge: This was very cute! It's about a bunch of wild animals who wake from hibernation inside a park in the middle of a new suburb, and the slick raccoon who tries to use them to help him avoid death at the hands of a bear. Predictable, but fun, as most animated movies are nowadays. I particularly liked Shatner as the father possum, making fun of himself. X3: Speaking of the comics, the third X-Man movie, while hardly a masterwork, was pretty good, tying up loose ends in the movie universe quite well, and providing a good capstone to the trilogy. If you enjoyed the first two movies, you should be fine here. If you're the sort to complain about how the characters are different from the comics, best to stay away. Clerks 2: This was surprisingly good. By ignoring all the other films that Smith put out since the original Clerks, this movie manages to recapture a lot of the feel of the original, and then move it one step beyond. Again, don't expect a masterwork, but expect to be entertained. Talladega Nights -- The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: Okay, I expected this to be stupid. What I didn't expect was it to attempt to be a semi-serious tale of coming back from adversity. In doing this, it went from something that could have been kinda funny on its own level to something that wasn't very funny at all, on any level. It's a disappointment even if you have low expectations, and that's an impressive feat of suck.
Returning to comics, Midnight Nation was a 12-issue miniseries by Joe Straczynski of "Babylon 5" fame, later collected into a graphic novel. Run, don't walk, to get a copy of this series. It's an excellent tale of a man seeking to regain his soul in a strange world that exists between the cracks of our own. Dark, but, as one might expect from Straczynski, with a light at the end. Very much worth checking out. I can't say much more without spoiling it; it's that kind of book.
And while I'm on the subject, check out Dog Moon, a graphic novel written, of all people, by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. This book, about a man who drives a truck which ships the souls of the dead, surprised me by not only not sucking, but by actually being a good read. It's surprisingly down-to-earth for its very allegorical content, and despite its modernistic touches, feels very much like an old-fashioned ghost tale, in its own way, especially at the end.
I'm largely caught up on the Grendel titles. For those of you not familiar with Grendel, it's a series of comics, mostly written by Matt Wagner, which involve a morally ambiguous supervillian, Grendel, with a certain iconic look to his costume and weaponry. The early comics involve the "original" Grendel fighting against an equally morally ambiguous superhero, the Argent Wolf, with the life and love of a single little girl hanging in the balance. The later comics involve inheritors to the Grendel title, and eventually a nuclear war and the Grendel becoming a sort of honorable warrior archetype in the post-apocalyptic world.
Strange stuff. It's not as deep as Wagner obviously wants it to be, being in many ways only a different kind of adolescent than the usual superhero fare, but it's fairly well-written if you don't mind a little high-handedness. Don't expect anything really deep, but it looks cool and some interesting stories are told along the way, and what more can you ask from a comic?
Speaking of interesting stories, since I am a dirty bastard who sometimes downloads his comics, I sometimes see some interesting out-of-print stuff. Take, for example, "Forsaken", a beautiful, well-written science-fiction comic that Image put out for a few issues in 2004 and then, as far as I can tell, suddenly pulled the plug on.
Incomplete as it is, there's only potentialities here. It's about a near-future Earth where some of the problems of Earth have been solved by joining together with a race of aliens with their own problems that humans can help solve. The comic is about a sort of counter-insurgency team put together by a shadowy corporate force to help deal with terrorists who are trying to tear the two worlds apart.
I also read Alan Moore's 1963, a six-issue miniseries that's also available as a graphic novel. This is Moore's homage to the Marvel comics of his youth, complete with fake ads and letter columns. It's very light, much lighter and less bitter than most of Moore's work, and is a great read, especially for anyone familiar with old-school Marvel. I particularly liked "Fury", who is a sort of witty, hilarious but quite heroic cross between Spider-Man and Captain America. (The Fantastic Four clones in the first book, "Mystery Incorporated", are also very amusing.)
The only possible caveat I might have about this book is there is one element of it that might offend some people. Hint: What major American tragedy happened in 1963?
I haven't just been reading comics, of course. I recently finished The Narrow Land, an excellent collection of short stories by Jack Vance. It's tough to describe Vance's style -- it's what Gary Gygax tried to write like, and failed. He manages be breezy and easy-to-read... and erudite and long-winded at the same time. "Chateau D'If" alone is worth the price of admission, and another one of the stories, "Where Hesperut Falls", manages something I think only Vance could: It makes a story about a man trying to kill himself both interesting and convoluted.
Speaking of Vance, I also read his novella "The Last Castle", which I believe won a Nebula award. It's a very interesting tale, in essence being the story of a future, decadent version of humanity finding its feet again after spending too long at the apex of a slave society.
On another note, I read Frank Herbert's The Eyes of Heisenberg. To say this book is not one of Herbert's best is an understatement. It involves a sort of shadow war between a group of genetically-engineered immortals and a group of cyborgs, with humanity in-between, and... Well, the less said about it the better. I was not impressed.
And as I move from comics, I should mention, real quick, various movies I saw in the theatre as they came out, in a belated way:
Returning to comics, Midnight Nation was a 12-issue miniseries by Joe Straczynski of "Babylon 5" fame, later collected into a graphic novel. Run, don't walk, to get a copy of this series. It's an excellent tale of a man seeking to regain his soul in a strange world that exists between the cracks of our own. Dark, but, as one might expect from Straczynski, with a light at the end. Very much worth checking out. I can't say much more without spoiling it; it's that kind of book.
And while I'm on the subject, check out Dog Moon, a graphic novel written, of all people, by Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. This book, about a man who drives a truck which ships the souls of the dead, surprised me by not only not sucking, but by actually being a good read. It's surprisingly down-to-earth for its very allegorical content, and despite its modernistic touches, feels very much like an old-fashioned ghost tale, in its own way, especially at the end.