Books:
- Used my iPhone to finally read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
- Nahoko Uehashi’s Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness continues the goodness, and I’d love to see Production I.G. follow up their adaptation of the first book with a 13-episode season covering this, or perhaps a movie.
- Finished the last book in Terry Brooks’s Word and the Void trilogy, which leaves me wanting the Genesis of Shannara trilogy
- Currently working on Steven Erikson’s Toll the Hounds, the Malazan books are always a long project
- Again have a growing stack of unread books, the newest being the first Spice and Wolf light novel.

Comics:
Buying piles of books, usually 10-15 singles per week, plus the occasional trade, its safe to say this is something I’ve been rather focused on…

DC Comics:
- Finished up various minis, most recently the Final Crisis: Aftermath titles and Arkham Reborn
- Reading Batgirl, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman: Detective Comics, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Doom Patrol, The Great Ten, Gotham City Sirens, Green Arrow-Black Canary, Outsiders, Power Girl, Red Robin, Secret Six, and World’s Finest

Marvel Comics:
- Finished up the newest volume of Exiles, Immortal Weapons, War Machine, most of the Soleil titles, and The Wizard of Oz limited series
- Reading Astonishing X-Men, Fantastic Four, Invincible Iron Man, The Marvelous Land of Oz, S.W.O.R.D., Ultimate Comics Iron Wars, Vengeance of the Moon Knight, and X-Force (and Necrosha tie-ins)

Others:
- Finished up Ignition City, Incognito, The Incredibles, North 40, and others I’m sure I’m forgetting.
- Reading Anna Mercury 2, Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love, DMZ, Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep, Doktor Sleepless, Empowered, Ex Machina, Fall Out Toy Works, Greek Street, Madame Xanadu, Northlanders, Phonogram 2, Soulfire, Soulfire: New World Order, Starstruck, Supergod, Underground, The Unwritten, and Viking

And that’s not even counting the trades, where I’ve picked up Paul Pope’s 100%, Batgirl: Year One, Secret Warriors, Kyle Baker’s Special Forces, Brian Azzarello’s Filthy Rich, both volumes of Justice League Elite, continuing to get the Moon Knight hardcovers as the singles go to a friend, started collecting Fables now that its getting the hardcover treatment, and think I’m about to get into the trades for the current runs of Wonder Woman and the various Green Lantern stuff that’s been happening since they got, well, more colorful. So yes, lots of comics for me.

In something of a stroke of awesome, somewhere around the end of September, start of October, Ryan Kelly had a garage sale and I went over and pilfered huge stacks of Batgirl and Ex Machina from him, along with the aforementioned copy of Pope’s 100%.

Manga:
- ARIA vol 5
- Bamboo Blade vols 1-3
- Battle Angel Alita: Last Order vol 12
- Black Lagoon vol 8
- Detroit Metal City vols 2-3
- DOGS vols 1-2
- Gunsmith Cats: Burst vol 4
- The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi vols 2-4
- Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei vol 2
- Soul Eater vol 1
- Yozakura Quartet vols 4-5

A slower affair, as ever, particularly as I’m not up with the scanlation scene, and we’re now at a frustrating point of Alita and Black Lagoon both being essentially caught up with the Japanese releases, meaning new volumes will be slower than ever, le sigh. I also really wish someone would pick up and translate Birdy: The Mighty, as I’ve quite enjoyed the anime.

DC:
Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 – The first of DC’s titles that I’ll be picking up with a co-feature, which looks like its going to be miscellaneous-Gotham-happenings-plus-Manhunter-backup, is off to a solid start, in the front half of the book, we see the straight-for-the-moment Harley Quinn(in a great casual outfit) at the center of a minor scuffle before Commisioner Gordon clears things up, and the new Dynamic Duo give her some words of advice. Then its on to the co-feature, which flashes back and forth just about every other page as Kate transitions to the new role. Setup’s quite nice, the ever-noble attempt to be a DA on the straight and narrow in dirty, dirty Gotham while investigating the murder of the previous DA. Lots of stuff packed into its 10 pages, and well worth the extra dollar to keep her tales going.

Final Crisis Aftermath Dance #2 – Okay, first, how the hell did I not catch Stanley “Artgerm” Lau on the covers for this? That’s completely awesome. As to the story within? Super Young Team continues to be pimped as the image of Japan to keep everyone’s eyes off of whatever horrible post-Crisis state Japan is in, Most Excellent Superbat continues to be most excellent, and Shiny Happy Aquazon sells out. Another solid issue, and I like the angle of the book, unfortunately, there isn’t really much more say about it.

Green Arrow Black Canary #21 – What’s this, an issue with Black Canary front and center? Quite the pleasant turn for me, and perhaps something of a lead-in to the book splitting into the Feature/Co-Feature format in the nearish future (presumably not before this arc finishes). Unless the run’s supposed to have covered a decent chunk of time, that seems like a mighty quick turnaround from traumatic injury to technological supervillain, but whatever, its a clever gimmick that he’s got and this has probably been my favorite arc of the series’ run so far (help by being about, y’know, the title characters).

Outsiders Vol 4 #19 – I’m still undecided on continuing the book, having started picking it up for Cassandra/R.I.P., but now that it seems clear she’s not going to be a part of it, Alfred is the main thing keeping me with it for now. Its a curious cast, but not one I can completely get behind, so its looking more and more likely that it’ll be slipping by the wayside soon.

Power Girl Vol 2 #2 – Outside of perhaps Booster Gold (which I’ve not been keeping up with) and Secret Six, this is easily one of most amusing books DC has going at the moment, and we’re only two issues in! Lots of Power Girl beating up the giant white gorilla, as the Ultrahumanite tries to make good on his plan to put his perfect brain in her perfect body (made rather difficult with her Kryptonian invulnerability). We also get a look into his past, where its revealed that after overcoming the terminal illness that is his ever growing brain, he made sweet, bloody, monkey love to his assistant post-OP.

Marvel:
Cable Vol 2 #15 – The X-Force / Cable crossover is almost at its conclusion, as Stryfe continues to go on about how much better he is, Apocalypse gets back into form, and the bulk of the X-Force squad (plus Deadpool) come across the wholly unexpected appearance of NYX’s Kiden Nixon. Next X-Force sees the conclusion as our team is out of time, Apocalypse is angry, and Hope is in some serious trouble. The crossover’s been pretty fun, and my only real complaint is that I still don’t like the look of Ariel Olivetti’s artwork, just rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

Invincible Iron Man #14 – Heigh ho, heigh ho, its off to Russia we go. Tony’s slow process of wiping his brain continues as makes his way from base to base, Pepper gets herself a codename and finally decides to track Tony down, and Maria, well, Maria seems to be going a bit off the deep end, as she makes attempts to get in touch with Natasha Romanov, the original Black Widow. Highlight? Russia telling Osborn to go and fuck off. A great read, but the inconsistent art (which I’m mostly attributing to the coloring) continues to gnaw at my eyes, argh.

Marvel Zombies 4 #3 – In true zombie fashion, things quickly continue to go from bad to worse. The zombie virus has become a literal storm of body parts, raining blood and gore as it goes, and then sucking it all back up again to continue on its way as it seems to follow Zombie Deadpool and his silent buddy, yummy. Morbius is having an internal meltdown over this, leaving the rest of the team, and Hood, to try figuring out how to get themselves out of this before A.R.M.O.R. decides to nuke the island from orbit. Unfortunately things just got a bit more complicated, Werewolf-by-Night’s just gotten the hunger (go figure), causing Jennifer Kale to make a rather poor decision… On to the finale (and please let there be something other than that horrid Greg Land cover!).

War Machine Vol 2 #7 – Augh, what’s happening with the art! All over the place thanks to the huuuuge number of people on the book, some mandate to make sure it ships on time for some reason(aside from it being a nice thing to do and all that)? War Machine continues his hunt for whoever’s playing with the Ultimo virus, only to find the giant head of Ultimo himself, and really, you can’t go wrong with a fight against a giant robot head. American Eagle shows up again (making Osborn giggle like a little girl over their Thunderbolts tussle), and it seems that War Machine‘s squad of helpers may be getting armors of their own, interesting. Beyond that though, not much to write home about.

Wonderful Wizard Of Oz #7 – The wonderful adapting continues, as Oz grants Dorothy’s companions their heart’s desires (or their heart itself, in one case), while pondering how to get her home (something which the flying monkies are unable to assist with, alas). Finally the balloon is hit upon, but a wayward Toto foils that plan, as they watch Oz disappear forever over the horizon. But all hope is not lost, for its time to go see Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. Though the journey is long and perilous, we at last reach her land’s mighty walls… and have to wait for next time, argh. Its an absolutely delightful and gorgeous book, full of whimsy, and I’m seriously considering double dipping to pick it up in its collected fashion.

Other:
Executive Assistant Iris #1 – Shameless, I know, but I’m a sucker for tough women and new Aspen books. It’s certainly been the subject of mockery around the internet, but the promise of her not staying in that role very long, combined with the idea that there’s be no small amount of dust ups was enough to get me to pick up the issue. Unfortunately, it hasn’t really done anything to redeem itself in the first full issue, and took a step backwards by ending the issue with her showing us just how much of a ‘perfect servant’ she is for her boss, breaking off a date with a board member that he OK’d to have her come back and be his sex toy, which pretty much makes this an entirely misogynistic work so far. That pretty much assured it getting dropped, and they’d have to come up with something epic in having her break from this lifestyle to make it worth even the slightest bit of further attention.

Groom Lake #3 – The scifi hijinks continue as our little drunken Grey pilots his UFO out of the Groom Lake facility with cohorts in tow, evade capture by nonexistant military super aircraft, and make with the sightseeing before deciding that maybe they better do something about the angry spooky secret agents hunting them down. And then its Klaatu, Barada, Niktu time as the giant alien robot gets loose and calls home. Bring on the angry alien invasion!

Incognito #4 – Brubaker’s superpowered pulp villainy continues, as Zack Overkill finds himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, having been discovered letting his frustations out both by his former villainous cohorts and the ‘good guys’ who, after this issue, aren’t nearly so cut and dried good as the would seem. A great read and highly recommended, highly curious to see what other twists are in store as life continues to get worse for the poor man.

Phonogram 2 Singles Club #3 – I’ll get around to reading this eventually, just like the first two issues, I swear… Actually, the nature of the book leads me to think that I’m going to just hold off and read it in one go once its complete.

Red Mass For Mars #3 – Finally! After a 10 month delay, Hickman’s superhero tale sees the light of day once more. It certainly isn’t wasting any time either, as we cover events in 4-5 different time periods showing the sad life of Mars. Given how brutally fast he moved through things here, I can only imagine the remaining issue will deal with his death? Anyhow, go, buy, read. Hickman earns every penny, always. Let’s just hope we don’t have as long a wait on the finale.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #2: Man, it’s been a while since I had a nice bit of head-fuckery like this. Throughout the issue, ‘reality’ continues to change, and the rules along with them, and its not making things any easier for Tresser. Can’t say much more than that though, as the telling doesn’t do the reading justice, and potentially spoils things. I’ve a couple ideas of where it might go from here though, based on some of the dialogue in the issue, but it could just as easily become something other than what I’m thinking, and that’s pretty exciting to me.

Red Robin #1: Okay, I lied, looks like I may end up following this one too. While I’m not thrilled by the art, or the actual execution of Tim deciding that Bruce must be alive, there was still plenty of interesting stuff in there. The biggie for me is that unlike Dick, who became independent on his own, Tim’s essentially being pushed to the side here, which, on top of all the other shit thrown his way the last few years- the death of two fathers, his girlfriend (who got better), and some number of Titans- might prove to be the last straw. The word grimdark gets floated around alot regarding the direction a lot of comics went with their characters, but after all he’s gone through, it actually feels right to take Tim in that direction, at least for a while. The other thing that stood out for me was the acknowledgement of his adoption and that his name’s Tim Wayne now, something that I hadn’t really seen acknowledged anywhere (I’ve rather fallen behind with Teen Titans). Unfortunately the issue doesn’t directly get to the detective side of things that they’re talking about playing up, but it was already a somewhat packed issue, so wait and see on that part for now.

Marvel: nada

Other:
Anna Mercury 2: Ultraspacial Dreadnaught Vanaheim #1: Man, the awesome starts right there in the title, doesn’t it? Continuing with the excellently pulpy sci-fi found in the first series, we find another of the splinter-Earths sending a probe to our Earth, and the decision to send Anna in to make sure they’re not the types to send a nuke next time. Lots of action, fun dialogue, a smart concept, and a setting that for some reason was bringing to mind the populace of Blade Runner, if not quite the world itself. Great fun as always, and eager to get my hands on the next issue.

DMZ #42: Following up Zee’s one-shot last issue, we start another small arc that looks to be independent of series protagonist Matty Roth, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. NYC’s a huge place, plenty of people with plenty of stories, even in its currently messy state. This one’s about a member of a group of former police officers (and military?) who watched their families destroyed in front of them at the outset of the fighting. Every day they meet AA-style to relive and recount the horror of the event, they live away from the daylight, and are out to, well, destroy the lives of anyone they come across. Only the lead is realizing that maybe, just maybe, they aren’t as close a brotherhood as they’ve been led to believe, and having second thoughts about all of it. An excellent start, Wood’s writing and Kelly’s art are as sharp as ever, and its always great to pick up something they’ve done together.

The Unwritten #2 – After learning that he may in fact be the fictional star of his father’s bestselling Harry Potter-esque novel series, Tom Taylor begins the search for answers about who he really is and what happened to his father. Meanwhile, the fantastic begins to move in the background, giving gentle nudges and setting things in motion for some mysterious, but likely sinister, purpose down the line. While I wasn’t initially sold on the concept, after reading the first two issues, I’m completely onboard. This is a fantastic story, the art’s quite good, and you’d be wise not to miss it. It may end up reading better in trade, but in being a new Vertigo book, it should probably be picked up by the issue to ensure its survival.

His exploration of the world, and all the varied structures, pinged off a bit of an ARIA vibe for me tonight, something about the way the environment itself is presented, as a character in and of itself. I know that’s certainly been done, and done well, in other places, but ARIA’s what’s popping into my head as I work my way through it, so there you go. A late detail about the megastructure really caught my fancy as well- the system responsible for maintaining the thing started expanding it at random, and has done so to the point that the Authority (something of a master control program) itself no longer knows how large it is. Yeah. I’m gonna need to get to work tracking down the other volumes.

Through it all, and with the prior volumes, this has really been a story about chasing your dreams, taking challenges to it in stride, and working hard to overcome them while always striving to improve. While its a fairly common trope, and is itself an adaptation of the game, the execution here was nicely done, making for a fun read across the entire run. The last line in the book, “This is only one story of many you’ll find at a doujinshi convention,” really stood out for me, at the same time an acknowledgement of how small it is and an invitation to seek out others, or to even end up with one of your own. Its entirely true too- Genshiken and Welcome to the NHK, two of my favorites, also explore otaku culture with a similar scope, but tell entirely different stories in the process. Additionally, the entire culture surrounding fan interaction with others’ works in Japan truly fascinates me, and is one of the things that I would be most interested in exploring if/when I ever get to Japan (someday I may even do a proper writeup exploring that fascination).