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I had hoped for some marvy sci-fi with a twist of Heavy Metal. I was completely disappointed. Perhaps it's a bad translation, because a lot of the dialog came out of left field. There were many plot twists that were nonsensical, and most of the character motivations were utterly unfathomable.

The obvious punchline is, "Are you sure it wasn't like Heavy Metal?" To which I respond that I was referring to Heavy Metal's gonzo flavor rather than its typical execution.

If I had it to do over, I'd give this one a miss.

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A fun little graphic novel. Haven't read the Howard original upon which this is based, so I can't compare the two. I enjoyed the art and the storytelling. There were a couple eye-rolling moments with some sexism, but mild enough that I was willing to overlook it.

I am pleased to have this on my shelf. Thanks to my man Isaac for turning me on to it.

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The writer/artist spent two months in the capital of North Korea and created a graphic novel about the experience. I have a fascination for North Korea, so when I saw this book while idly browsing one day I knew I would have to get it.

I was not disappointed, but neither was I bowled over. It was "only" very good. Very conversational tone and casual presentation, juxtaposed with some heavy subject material. This was not a document about North Korea, but more a story of how visitors are treated in the capital city. Fascinating stuff. A very good read.

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I enjoyed this a lot more than I did Flight. Flight had some good stuff, but was marred by what I like to refer to as "artsy-fartsy horseshit."

I'm quick to point out that I respect art and artists. Some of it, however, is really really not to my tastes, and such was the case with some of the Flight material. I guess I'm just unsophisticated, but at least I know what I like.

But Flight Explorer is geared towards children, which means that there is no artsy-fartsy horseshit, because kids don't like that stuff. Instead, you've just got nifty comics.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb. The densely cross-hatched, scuzzy-looking artwork of the legendary R. Crumb serves to illustrate what we suspected all along: The book of Genesis is spectacularly weird. Recommended.

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. It's fairly brilliant, and I liked it, but not enough to continue with the series. At least not any time soon.

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I picked this up during the Amazon pricing glitch I blogged about earlier. Shock SuspenStories was an EC sampler of sorts, featuring a horror story, a crime story, a science fiction story, and a war story. It quickly distinguished itself from the other EC titles by including social commentary stories about hot button issues like prejudice. Amusingly, these stories were dubbed "Preachies" by the EC editor-in-chief, William M. Gaines.

These are high-quality comics (which I expected from EC), but I didn't enjoy Shock anywhere near as much as the other EC stuff I've sampled — precisely because it incorporated real-world issues. When I sit down for some cheesy pulp 50s comics, I don't want to be reminded that the KKK used to beat people to death. Or that police brutality happens. It's like sitting down in front of a nice warm fire and then getting dashed in the face with a glass of ice water. I'll not be pursuing this line of comics any further; I'll stick to the purer escapism of horror and SF.

I won't be getting rid of this book anytime soon, though, simply because the cover is a perfect storm of exploitation.

So, a couple days ago Amazon experienced a pricing glitch wherein a bunch of graphic novels and comic collections were reduced in price to $14.99. I stumbled across this early on in the crisis. At that time, nobody knew it was a glitch; I assumed it was a big sale. Among the discounted items were the EC Archives (Tales from the Crypt, et al). These are 50 dollar books, and I covet them most highly. But we just don't have the money to throw around, so I limited myself to just one volume. With shipping it was 19 bucks. Score.

A day later, I received my shipping notification and UPS tracking number. Soon after, I learned that I was one of the lucky ones — some people (a lot of people, actually) had their orders cancelled. I also learned that Amazon was giving out $25 credits, which I thought was pretty nice of them.

The day my book was delivered, I received an email that I had been issued the $25 credit. Even though my order was not cancelled. Score again.

I used the windfall to get something for Steph and a couple more comic collections (ones that were unaffected by the pricing glitch and therefore still in stock). You'll be hearing about all of these acquisitions in due time here on the blog.

Link to Sluggy Freelance web comic.

The early days of Sluggy Freelance were wild and woolly, and this book collects the earliest of the early days. These cartoons were published in the late 90s and are things of beauty.

I followed the strip at that time, and read almost all of the strips in this book online as they were published. That was a great experience, particularly because I had some friends with which to enthuse about the comic. Early Sluggy was magical.

Somewhere along the line, the magic wore off. We all stopped reading Sluggy at one point or another. And revisiting these strips was a bit of a let-down after they'd been built up in my memory.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the strips and I'm glad I bought the book, even at its outrageous price.

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Creepy was a magazine put out by Warren Publishing starting in the mid 60s. It was decidedly in the tradition of the EC horror comics of a decade previous. Since Creepy was published as a magazine, it escaped the trap of the Comics Code Authority that stopped the publication of the EC titles. This volume collects issues 1-5 of the magazine.

Printed in stark, glorious black and white, the artwork is on an equal footing with the EC stuff. The writing, sadly, is of markedly lower quality. Despite its shortcomings, Creepy is good fun. The art is mostly excellent, and while the stories aren't great, some of them are quite good. I enjoyed reading this and I'm glad I own it.

I don't know if I'm going to buy more of it, though. Creepy Archives is up to vol. 5, and Eerie Archives, a sister publication, is up to vol. 2. So I guess the good news is, I've got lots of material coming available. As to whether I pick up more Creepy and/or Eerie, I think I'll revisit the question when I have my collection of EC reprints where I want it. Until that time, any spare change for this sort of entertainment must go towards the cream of the crop stuff.

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William Gaines and his company, EC (Entertaining Comics), published horror, war, crime, and science fiction comics in the early fifties, before the Comics Code Authority effectively shut them down. The stories were amazingly consistent and enjoyable; the art was incredibly high quality. These comics are cultural treasures, and I love the crap out of them.

EC had three horror titles: Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, and The Vault of Horror. Haunt of Fear is my favorite, and Vault of Horror is my least favorite. So I didn't enjoy this collection as much as some of the other EC stuff. But it's all good. After the work of Carl Barks, these are my favorite comics of all time, so even the "bad" stuff is awesome.

The EC Archives series reproduces the comics, complete with letter columns and what not (but not ads), with completely refined color, in nice hardbacks. They're a decent value at Amazon prices. Unfortunately, they're getting hard to come by, with further publishing of the series now in question after shakeups at Gemstone, the publisher. So it goes.