- Showcase Presents Elongated Man - Haven't had time to read this yet
- PS238: No Child Left Behind! - reprinting the issue up through last issue, plus some bonus strips
- Knights of the Dinner Table #116
- Nodwick #33 - ready for this story-line to end, and then some
- Dork Tower #34 - thinking of dropping this, primarily because of issues like this one that advance none of either the characterization or the plot.
- Sgt Frog Vol 11 - Yay! Finally a resolution to the cliff-hanger at the end of last volume
- Prince of Tennis Vol 14 - dropping this, 'cause I just can't care about whether the characters win or lose, and there's nothing to it except whether they win or lose and how they improve their tennis game
- Hikaru No Go Vol 7 - Woohoo! Although you might be tempted to say the same thing about Hikaru no Go go as about Prince of Tennis, in HnG the character's Go playing is used as a metaphor for their maturing psychologically; where PoT would have a player master (or reveal) a new shot, HnG would have Hikaru improve his game by conquering his fear of Sai's overwhelming play.
- Dr Slump Vol 8 - Deeply wacky--probably too anything goes for a lot of people, but it brings a smile to my lips
- Whistle Vol 12 - The opposite of PoT, where with very similar material, Higuchi makes me care deeply about the player's winning and losing.
- Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden Vol 4 - another one I haven't had time to read
- Rurouni Kenshin Vol 28 - The final volume, in which everything is tied up, and there is a nice long coda. This brought a tear to my eye, it did.
Recently in Review Category
I finally saw Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit , and it was spifferiffic. It's hard to say what my favorite part was, though the climactic action sequence was pretty darn neat. Lots of nice little character bits, too. And bunnies. Lots of bunnies. I recall some people being skeptical whether they could really fill out a feature-length movie (though they didn't have any trouble with Chicken Run), but no worries. It entirely made up for my disappointment with The Corpse Bride.
Now I have to decide whether to bother seeing Chicken Little.
Was ok, but the protagonists were all pretty ineffectual, and I thought the story relied too heavily on narrative conventions to drive the relationships. I'd say more but I don't want to spoil anything, since it did have its moments.
The skeleton dance was the most fun in the movie, but like pretty much all of Elfman's music it evaporated from my mind as soon as it was over. Honestly, the only things he's ever written that I can actually call to mind are ones that have been drilled into my skull through sheer repetition (the themes to Beetlejuice, the Simpsons, and Sledge Hammer, to be precise).
Um.
Girl Genius
(you can now read the whole of issue one at that link)
Gold Digger (official fansite)
Knights of the Dinner Table
(the online strips)
Um. I think that's it, at least as far as the 32-page staple-bound pamphlet form goes. Astro City when it appears. A couple more things, once they get collected:
Invincible
(damned if I can find an official web-page for it)
Mostly, though, I'm reading webcomics and manga.
I've been spending some of my vacation time plowing through the archives of various webcomics.
Here's my current daily trawl:
Here's my current daily trawl:
Comics
- Commander Kitty :: Scotty A
- goats
- Angel Moxie
- Modern Tales
- Keenspot
- Wapsi Square
- Questionable Content
- something positive - a webcomic with chocolate sprinkles
- PvPonline.com ｷ Hosted By SPEAKEASY.NET
- InkTank.com - Web Comics and Cartoons
- Military Humor... Evolved: Schlock Mercenary by Howard Tayler
- Sinfest
- Nuklear Power - Home of 8-bit Theater
- Kiagi Swordscat
- Superosity Comic Strip Archives
- Basil Flint, P.I.
- Casey and Andy
- qwantz.com
- Krakow: Now my Obelisk The Tormentor is the strongest card in play!
- The Eight, the Webcomic ... Some sins cannot stay buried forever.
- Home Run
- Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire
- Queen of Wands
- goats
A friend of mine was asking about these, and yes they're still in print, so here they are. The adventures of a weird little super-tough mini-tyrranosaur, wandering around the modern wilderness. Completely wordless, with lavishly illustrated fauna (much more naturalistic and detailed than most manga, or for that matter most american comics).
Another reasonably fun Mary-Sue. This time she's a girl genius in a Pittsburgh that has been accidentally made into a gateway to the Planet of the Elves by imperfect stargate technology. Some neat ideas, lots of people gushing about how special she is, pursuit by several dishy men, a set of hatable baddies. What more could you want?
Third, and least, in the Keeper Chronicles. In terms of character development, I liked the young Keeper, Diana, developing a lesbian attraction, but overall the humor was too forced. Mall culture is just too easy a target, and you need a lighter touch than Tanya Huff was able to muster, or the result is grimaces instead of giggles or guffaws.
The second in the Harry Dresden, wizard-as-PI in modern-day Chicago series. In this one he deals with werewolves of various varieties: if it has some background in legend, it shows up here. More satisfying, I think, than the first, because Harry actually learns something besides the details of lycanthropy. I was bugged by the way the first book had Harry withholding vital information from his friends "to protect" them (actually just so the plot would move forward); in Fool Moon he sees the error of his ways, although he doesn't actually act on that realization. Maybe next book.
More of the same: kinky elf sex, elven magic, elven court politics. A potboiler, not that there's anything wrong with that.
