It's pretty clear that I have been slacking off on my reading and my new years resolution, hard core. Between boxing up all my books for my upcoming move and the alternating Aion Beta testing weekends, I haven't been reading as much as I should.
I do have a forthcoming review of China Underground, the book I read on vacation last month in Japan. I also have started reading People of the Book, so that review should be coming soon as well.
Sunday, July 12
Thursday, July 2
Great New Weekly Comic
Leading off with my random funny - reading a snippet of a random fan fiction this morning I ran across one of the funniest "word choice" errors in recent memory. Instead of using the word "ethereal" the author used the word "urethral". Not even in the same ballpark. These types of errors are absolutely one of my favorites, beating out punctuation, contraction, and spelling by a good measure. I like to imagine the writer hunched over a laptop in the early morning, reaching for one word with their brain, exhausted, and brushing up against another instead. In the obliviousness I find a great deal of enjoyment because I am, at my core, not a very nice person.
Secondly, I've been introduced to a really lovely not-for-kids (but not *really* adult rated) weekly comic called freakangels. I'm not sure where to begin so I'm going to make a short list of the reasons why it's completely awesome, and giving me a new reason (other than my boy mangas) to look forward to Friday mornings.
1) It's very wonderfully British. Not just in setting, but in language and philosophy as well.
2) The art is lovely and detailed. It's at times inconsistent, which I enjoy because it's so clearly drawn by hand. The colors are also lovely.
3) It references true life - real buildings are portrayed in various stages of destruction/repurposing, real people are discussed, real events are mentioned.
4) The characters are very well defined - each serves a specific role - but they don't feel like carricatures. They embody a lot of the philosophical and emotional baggage you might expect to find in young adults with their unique capabilities.
5) It offers excellent commentary on human nature, interraction, psychology, philosophy, science, etc etc.
6) Even at 6 pages a week and no more than 4 panels per page (often less) the story moves forward at an excellent pace and covers all characters rather evenly.
I quit reading comic books some years back, when I became too poor to afford entertainment outside of one monthly MMORPG fee. I also gave up when Grant Morrison's New X-Men run ended and the franchise's growth towards realism and quality art was demolished. I recently revisited the franchise with Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, as it once again combined excellent writing, art, and character choice/growth.
I started reading manga some years back, not only because fan-made scans are free, but because I often find myself appreciating the aesthetics and philosophies of this type of Japanese literature. Aparently I am late to the game in discovering Warren Ellis, but I'm glad to be here now with this excellent horizon ahead of me!
Secondly, I've been introduced to a really lovely not-for-kids (but not *really* adult rated) weekly comic called freakangels. I'm not sure where to begin so I'm going to make a short list of the reasons why it's completely awesome, and giving me a new reason (other than my boy mangas) to look forward to Friday mornings.1) It's very wonderfully British. Not just in setting, but in language and philosophy as well.
2) The art is lovely and detailed. It's at times inconsistent, which I enjoy because it's so clearly drawn by hand. The colors are also lovely.
3) It references true life - real buildings are portrayed in various stages of destruction/repurposing, real people are discussed, real events are mentioned.
4) The characters are very well defined - each serves a specific role - but they don't feel like carricatures. They embody a lot of the philosophical and emotional baggage you might expect to find in young adults with their unique capabilities.
5) It offers excellent commentary on human nature, interraction, psychology, philosophy, science, etc etc.
6) Even at 6 pages a week and no more than 4 panels per page (often less) the story moves forward at an excellent pace and covers all characters rather evenly.
I quit reading comic books some years back, when I became too poor to afford entertainment outside of one monthly MMORPG fee. I also gave up when Grant Morrison's New X-Men run ended and the franchise's growth towards realism and quality art was demolished. I recently revisited the franchise with Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, as it once again combined excellent writing, art, and character choice/growth.
I started reading manga some years back, not only because fan-made scans are free, but because I often find myself appreciating the aesthetics and philosophies of this type of Japanese literature. Aparently I am late to the game in discovering Warren Ellis, but I'm glad to be here now with this excellent horizon ahead of me!
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