Mike Mignola etc, B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth and Other Stories
Hellboy stories sans Hellboy. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense employed Hellboy until he quit, and still employs Abe Sapien and Roger the homunculus, though [as the first story opens] maybe not for much longer. In "Hollow Earth" the two are joined by a disembodied German medium and go in search of Liz Sherman, who took an extended leave of absence in one of the earlier books. "Hollow Earth" is probably the best of the stories in the collection. It's got Nazis ["Those guys were everywhere"], some solid character work [the first few pages with Liz and the monks are some of the best writing Mignola's done in the series], and some great lines ["It's not always like this. Sometimes we play cards"]. Hellboy appears occasionally in flashbacks; the team misses the big red guy, but the story does just fine without him.
There's also two short pieces, a Lobster Johnson story, and then an Abe Sapien story written and drawn by not-Mike-Mignola. Ehh. The storyline itself isn't bad, but the art . . . Abe has scales. Nuf sed.
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Well. I picked this up on a lark one morning at work, and it just kind of drew me in, 'til I finished it that evening. It's about an autistic guy who decides, on his own, to investigate the murder of the dog across the street. Not really. I mean, that's the plot, but the book is really about autism [well, Asperger's syndrome] and seeing the world through the eyes of one of its victims. It's about someone who doesn't -- can't -- realise he's being supremely annoying, who's definitely made great strides since he started therapy [he can at least recognise that other people have minds now] but is far from wholly functional . . . it's an absolutely fascinating read.
See, Christopher [the main character] doesn't recognise that there's anything unusual about what he does at all. He compares having a bad day because of the number of yellow cars that he passes on the way to school to an indoor office worker having a bad day because it's raining. Okay. I can understand that. But it's [for him] a short step from that to refusing to have anything to do with anything that's yellow. . . and explained from his point of view so well that it takes me a second to realise "Wait a minute. This is nuts." I'm cruising along, reading, loving the story and the prose, and all of a sudden I realise that people are shouting at Christopher for the simple reason that, as Adam Cadre put it, he's persistently fucking annoying.
Man. This probably merits a re-read, just so I can talk about something other than the style.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, Batman: Broken City
They put 100 Bullets on hiatus for this? It's a vaguely interesting and well-drawn Batman story that pulls in random Batvillains for no reason, and in fact would have been much better Batless. *sigh* At least they're back to work now.
Hellboy stories sans Hellboy. The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense employed Hellboy until he quit, and still employs Abe Sapien and Roger the homunculus, though [as the first story opens] maybe not for much longer. In "Hollow Earth" the two are joined by a disembodied German medium and go in search of Liz Sherman, who took an extended leave of absence in one of the earlier books. "Hollow Earth" is probably the best of the stories in the collection. It's got Nazis ["Those guys were everywhere"], some solid character work [the first few pages with Liz and the monks are some of the best writing Mignola's done in the series], and some great lines ["It's not always like this. Sometimes we play cards"]. Hellboy appears occasionally in flashbacks; the team misses the big red guy, but the story does just fine without him.
There's also two short pieces, a Lobster Johnson story, and then an Abe Sapien story written and drawn by not-Mike-Mignola. Ehh. The storyline itself isn't bad, but the art . . . Abe has scales. Nuf sed.
Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Well. I picked this up on a lark one morning at work, and it just kind of drew me in, 'til I finished it that evening. It's about an autistic guy who decides, on his own, to investigate the murder of the dog across the street. Not really. I mean, that's the plot, but the book is really about autism [well, Asperger's syndrome] and seeing the world through the eyes of one of its victims. It's about someone who doesn't -- can't -- realise he's being supremely annoying, who's definitely made great strides since he started therapy [he can at least recognise that other people have minds now] but is far from wholly functional . . . it's an absolutely fascinating read.
See, Christopher [the main character] doesn't recognise that there's anything unusual about what he does at all. He compares having a bad day because of the number of yellow cars that he passes on the way to school to an indoor office worker having a bad day because it's raining. Okay. I can understand that. But it's [for him] a short step from that to refusing to have anything to do with anything that's yellow. . . and explained from his point of view so well that it takes me a second to realise "Wait a minute. This is nuts." I'm cruising along, reading, loving the story and the prose, and all of a sudden I realise that people are shouting at Christopher for the simple reason that, as Adam Cadre put it, he's persistently fucking annoying.
Man. This probably merits a re-read, just so I can talk about something other than the style.
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, Batman: Broken City
They put 100 Bullets on hiatus for this? It's a vaguely interesting and well-drawn Batman story that pulls in random Batvillains for no reason, and in fact would have been much better Batless. *sigh* At least they're back to work now.