She Hoped a Great Romance Was Waiting for Me to Live It
So this one time I went home for a wedding, and when I flew back to San Francisco, I went to the baggage claim even though I had no baggage. Because I needed to confirm my suspicions that the man I had sat across from before boarding, the man sitting in the first row of the plane, was in fact Rizwan Manji, Rajiv from Outsourced.
It was.
He invited me to attend the Stanford event he was in town for, and I covered it for the blog and also did a short interview with him and Aneesh Sheth, a guest star in the finale.
Sometimes I don't understand my life.
On that plane ride, I continued reading The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss, the sequel to The Name of the Wind. Now, I could write about the book, but that would be rather pointless since I cannot do so in a non-spoilery fashion, really. No one is going to read this book without reading the first one. Suffice it to say that Kvothe sure has more adventures in this book! We do see the origin of more of his nicknames and the story behind at least one of the legends listed in Kvothe's spoilery monologue from the first book. It's very much a middle book, though: for a book that's close to a thousand pages long, it doesn't seem to advance the major plot very much. But there are many little things here and there that hint at payoffs in the final book of the trilogy, which I eagerly await. This one is still a good read but perhaps not as maddeningly engrossing as the first one. It's still addictive and has some fantastic scenes, but it's oddly paced. It still draws you in with its meticulous world-building and its likable protagonist (except when he's being an elitist douchebag). I look forward to re-reading the first two books before the third one comes out and fully experiencing the story of Kvothe!
Brás de Olivia Domingos is a Brazilian obituary writer, son of a famous novelist. Every day he tells the stories of those who have died. He doesn't know that today is the day that he will die. Or is it today? Or maybe...today? What are the most important days of his life? What if any of these days, these days that perhaps embodied that cliché and were the first days of the rest of his life, were the last day of his life?
Welcome to Daytripper, by Brazilian twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (with lovely coloring by Dave Stewart and a worth-mentioning introduction by Craig Thompson), one of the most acclaimed comics of last year.
I find it hard to describe Daytripper. It's a slightly surreal slice-of-life comic that, like so many before it, continues to make the case that comics are fucking art, they are fucking literature, and they should be respected as such.
Each of the ten issues of Daytripper follows Brás through one day of his life in São Paulo (a setting you don't normally see in any medium, let alone comics). Each day examines one of his many relationships with people: his father, his mother, his best friend, his first love, his wife, and so on. As we jump from one point of his life to another, we begin to get a picture of his life and the people in it. Even though I didn't think I'd really gotten to know all the characters in so short a time, they still felt real to me. There are no Shocking Plot Twists waiting for you at the end; this is not that kind of book. It's about the little moments, the moments you remember forever. Brás keeps dying, and it may seem like a gimmick at first, but it becomes a fascinating and tragic "What if?" constantly planted in your mind. What if that really was the last day of his life? What if this day in this issue never even happened to him? Would it be better? Worse? You know it's coming and it still hurts every single time.
I flip through the book and tears come to my eyes.
Daytripper makes me pull out the words I don't use often if I can help it because they need to be saved for the special ones, the ones that can't really be described without them. Daytripper is amazing. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Read this comic.
Finally, I recommend you walk into your local comic book store and plop down six dollars for Jimmy Olsen, by Nick Spencer (of Morning Glories fame) and R.B. Silva. What, a Jimmy Olsen one-shot, am I kidding you? No, I am not kidding you. Spencer's seven back-up stories have been collected into the glorious story of "Jimmy Olsen's Big Week," in which Superman's pal saves the world a time or two just by being himself. Sometimes the normal guy can be useful, you know! This book is so fun. Jimmy's narration is amusing and self-aware, and Spencer's pop-culture savvy is on display. Also his creativity: Jimmy's solutions to problems are clever and hilarious. I laughed out loud many times (Jimmy Olsen on his nemesis: "He is the Biff to my Marty, the Leno to my Conan, the parents to my just don't understand."). Seriously, after Daytripper, you're going to want some pure enjoyment, and here it is.
And did I mention that it's the DC Comics debut of Chloe Sullivan?!?!
It was.
He invited me to attend the Stanford event he was in town for, and I covered it for the blog and also did a short interview with him and Aneesh Sheth, a guest star in the finale.
Sometimes I don't understand my life.
On that plane ride, I continued reading The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss, the sequel to The Name of the Wind. Now, I could write about the book, but that would be rather pointless since I cannot do so in a non-spoilery fashion, really. No one is going to read this book without reading the first one. Suffice it to say that Kvothe sure has more adventures in this book! We do see the origin of more of his nicknames and the story behind at least one of the legends listed in Kvothe's spoilery monologue from the first book. It's very much a middle book, though: for a book that's close to a thousand pages long, it doesn't seem to advance the major plot very much. But there are many little things here and there that hint at payoffs in the final book of the trilogy, which I eagerly await. This one is still a good read but perhaps not as maddeningly engrossing as the first one. It's still addictive and has some fantastic scenes, but it's oddly paced. It still draws you in with its meticulous world-building and its likable protagonist (except when he's being an elitist douchebag). I look forward to re-reading the first two books before the third one comes out and fully experiencing the story of Kvothe!
Brás de Olivia Domingos is a Brazilian obituary writer, son of a famous novelist. Every day he tells the stories of those who have died. He doesn't know that today is the day that he will die. Or is it today? Or maybe...today? What are the most important days of his life? What if any of these days, these days that perhaps embodied that cliché and were the first days of the rest of his life, were the last day of his life?
Welcome to Daytripper, by Brazilian twins Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (with lovely coloring by Dave Stewart and a worth-mentioning introduction by Craig Thompson), one of the most acclaimed comics of last year.
I find it hard to describe Daytripper. It's a slightly surreal slice-of-life comic that, like so many before it, continues to make the case that comics are fucking art, they are fucking literature, and they should be respected as such.
Each of the ten issues of Daytripper follows Brás through one day of his life in São Paulo (a setting you don't normally see in any medium, let alone comics). Each day examines one of his many relationships with people: his father, his mother, his best friend, his first love, his wife, and so on. As we jump from one point of his life to another, we begin to get a picture of his life and the people in it. Even though I didn't think I'd really gotten to know all the characters in so short a time, they still felt real to me. There are no Shocking Plot Twists waiting for you at the end; this is not that kind of book. It's about the little moments, the moments you remember forever. Brás keeps dying, and it may seem like a gimmick at first, but it becomes a fascinating and tragic "What if?" constantly planted in your mind. What if that really was the last day of his life? What if this day in this issue never even happened to him? Would it be better? Worse? You know it's coming and it still hurts every single time.
I flip through the book and tears come to my eyes.
Daytripper makes me pull out the words I don't use often if I can help it because they need to be saved for the special ones, the ones that can't really be described without them. Daytripper is amazing. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Read this comic.
Finally, I recommend you walk into your local comic book store and plop down six dollars for Jimmy Olsen, by Nick Spencer (of Morning Glories fame) and R.B. Silva. What, a Jimmy Olsen one-shot, am I kidding you? No, I am not kidding you. Spencer's seven back-up stories have been collected into the glorious story of "Jimmy Olsen's Big Week," in which Superman's pal saves the world a time or two just by being himself. Sometimes the normal guy can be useful, you know! This book is so fun. Jimmy's narration is amusing and self-aware, and Spencer's pop-culture savvy is on display. Also his creativity: Jimmy's solutions to problems are clever and hilarious. I laughed out loud many times (Jimmy Olsen on his nemesis: "He is the Biff to my Marty, the Leno to my Conan, the parents to my just don't understand."). Seriously, after Daytripper, you're going to want some pure enjoyment, and here it is.
And did I mention that it's the DC Comics debut of Chloe Sullivan?!?!