Shooflypie

Last weekend I had a hard time deciding which of the too-many books in my TBR pile I wanted to start, so I ended up reading some single issues and finishing a trade instead. After that, I made a decision and managed to read a book during a busy week. Oh, and the new issue of Astro City came out. Some thoughts... Astro City: Confession - I love what Kurt Busiek does with this six-part storyline. It's the story of Brian, who moves to Astro City after the death of his father and sets about getting involved in the world of super-heroes. He manages to get noticed and becomes Altar Boy, the sidekick of The Confessor. That's the basic plot and it sounds like a typical type of super-hero comic. It's not. Sure, we are given some scenes of The Confessor training Brian but those scenes are marginally about the nuts and bolts of fighting crime with no powers and a cape. Brian is also learning how to be a detective and about that world of super-heroes he is joining. This story deals...

I started out the year buying single issues of comics but stopped after a couple months. In July, I bought an iPad and started reading single issue digitally, which I liked more than I thought I would. I also continued to read collections and original graphic novels like I usually do. Between all those ways of consuming comics, a few series were clearly my favorites... 1. Saga - Brian K. Vaughan is already responsible for one of my all-time favorite comics, Y: The Last Man , and with this series it looks like he is on his way again. He teams with Fiona Staples to build a SF universe full of magic and bounty hunters and sex planets and ghost babysitters and more that is completely grounded in the relationship between Marko and Alana, who are new parents and should not be together. The comic is gorgeously-drawn and wonderfully-written and I recommend it to everyone. 2. Hawkeye - This Matt Fraction comic with art by David Aja and Javier Pulido began this fall and has quickly become ...

I've written often about my relationship with comics and how I consume them. Back in the middle of March I  made the decision to stop buying single issues of comics again and to once again revert to trades. It was easy to do, especially having well over a dozen trades stacked up and waiting to be read (many are still waiting right now but that's beside the point). A month ago, I decided to buy an iPad with money I received from very generous friends and relatives for my college graduation. I further decided to give digital comics a try. It turns out that I love reading comics on the iPad. Something about the glow of screen mixing with the art just works for me on a level I didn't expect. As an added bonus, reading comics digitally also solves one of my biggest problems with buying single issues - having a pile of comics around all the time. So, I am officially hooked. When I stopped reading single issues in mid-March, I'd read 22 this year. As of last night (the end...

A few weeks back I talked about some summer projects that I would like to do on the blog. You may have noticed that there have been no Fringe Fridays posts, no talk about Unwritten Month, and no entries for Film School. That's because I haven't watched an episode of Fringe , have only read 3 issues of The Unwritten in 8 days, and have not watched a movie. Why? Game of Thrones and Catching Fire , the 2nd book of The Hunger Games trilogy. I watched Game of Thrones as it aired last year and thought they did a great job adapting the book, which I read right before the series started. I told my wife she should watch it but she didn't. When Season 1 came out on Blu-Ray a couple months back, our friend picked up the series and over the last couple weeks we've convinced my wife to watch it. Of course, she loves it. It's been interesting to watch it again and see how much they foreshadowed where the story was going to go. My favorite characters remain the same this seco...

I have a few ideas for consistent content this summer... Fringe Fridays - I started watching Fringe this past season, its 4th, and have since acquired the first 3 seasons. Since the show airs on Fridays, I thought I would post about the episodes I managed to watch in a given week on that day. I hope to have a true introductory post up this coming Friday. Unwritten Month - When I decided this spring that I was going back to consuming my comics in collections, I went back and bought all 5 trades of The Unwritten . I read the contents of the first 4 volumes as they were coming out monthly but the 5th volume is all new to me. As the story is fairly complex, I thought I would read each trade again and write about it. The 5 volumes collect 30 issues, so I thought I would write about an issue a day in June. Could be an interesting experiment. Film School - This list of movies I haven't seen is quite long, longer than one might expect from a pop-culture nerd, but I've al...

I spent 2011 doing what I usually do when it comes to comics - waffling. I've been playing the singles vs. trades game for a decade now and it gets pretty tiring. I started off 2011 buying quite a few series on a regular basis before I decided to stop in late May. I then picked up one comic in July and one again in August. The big DC relaunch drew me back in September and October but I resisted in November before picking up handful this month. In all, I bought 114 single issues. I also read 19 trades, which seems like less than usual. I did take long periods of time to get some trades read. Yet another product of the stress of my two semesters with English classes I wanted to do well in. The trades were mixtures of previously-read collected material and things that were new to me Here's a few of my favorite comics this year, no matter the format... Batgirl - I didn't see this one coming. Conor from iFanboy had been recommending this series, so I took a shot and disco...

Even though I wasn't able to sit down long enough to write this feature last weekend, that's not the main reason it never went up. No, I actually didn't buy any new comics that week because I only left my house to go to the chiropractor. Not a great week in my life. Never mind that, though. I did buy a bunch of comics this week and I'm ready to talk about 'em... Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 - This is not the first issue with this title I've ever bought - such is the cyclical nature of comics. This particular edition is notable for the fact it reunites Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen, who were the creative team that cemented my love for the Legion back in the early 80s. As for the story, it introduces the rise of a new Emerald Empress on Orando and members of the Legion naturally come into conflict with her. It is a solid story and Giffen (along with his inkers, John Dell and Scott Koblish) is in his Kirby-mode of drawing here and it looks a lot like his previo...

I'm still behind the times on some books, though I am current with others. I'm trying to figure out what my pull list will consist of, so I expect a few more weeks of the same sort of mixture. I want to leave some room for flexibility as well. Anyway, here's what I read this week... Secret Six #29 - This is the second part to a story that started in last week's Action Comics . While I was interested in how the story evolved, I was drawn in by the characters. Bane's demeanor is very menacing yet calm and I'd forgotten how much Deadshot's humor works in the hands of a good writer - and Gail Simone definitely qualifies. I've been interested in this title since its inception and maybe this crossover is the impetus I need to give it a go. We'll see. Detective Comics #871 - This comic came out the day before Thanksgiving, I believe. and I've just now been able to get a copy. The cover is very striking and signals two things you get inside - moody art...