Read in April

April was another big month for me; I was trying to read a graphic novel (comic, manga -- whatever the heck you call something with words and pictures and a binding) every day, and succeeded most of the time. In fact, I probably read more books this month (47) than any time in the past ten years. And what did I read? Well...

• Lewis Trondheim with Eric Cartier, Kaput & Zosky (4/1)
• Charles Dickens, adapted by Rick Geary, Great Expectations (4/2)
• Greg Keyes, The Born Queen (4/3)
• Brian K. Vaughan, et. al., Ex Machina, Vol. 6: Power Down (4/3)
• Osamu Tezuka, Dororo, Vol. 1 (4/3)
• Greg Rucka & Chris Samnee, Queen & Country, Vol. 8: Operation: Red Panda (4/4)
• Michel Rabagliati, Paul Goes Fishing (4/5)
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 6 (4/6)
  School days are tough when you're a ninja, and tests doubly so -- this volume is right in the middle of a long storyline about the series of tests Naruto and his friends (along with a large cast of other young ninjas) are taking in their attempt to progress from apprentices to journeymen. This particular part of the test is what you might call the practical section: running around a large, dangerous, fenced-in forest, fighting the other teams for scrolls. It's a pretty nasty case of grading on a curve -- at best, only one-half of the teams can pass. Naruto is demonstrably better than the other manga series in the same, post-Toriyama style; Kishimoto has not just a great sense of story and character (I can usually remember and tell apart his cast of dozens), but also a expressive style that's just Westernized enough to read easily around the world. Guess I'll keep reading these.
• Bob Burden, Rick Geary, & Steve Oliff, Gumby Collected #1 (4/6)
• Emmanuel Guibert, Sardine in Outer Space 5: My Cousin Manga and Other Stories (4/7)
• P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves (4/7)
• Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, & Guy Davis, B.P.R.D., Vol. 7: Garden of Souls (4/7)
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 7 (4/7)
  See above; only at the very end of this volume do Naruto and his teammates get out of the Forest of Death. (Manga rivals epic fantasy in its portentious names, but Kishimoto generally makes his places live up to their monikers.)
• Joann Sfar, Little Vampire (4/8)
• Yukako Kabei & Shiori Teshirogi, Kieli, Vol. 1 (4/9)
• Kyo Shirodaira & Eta Mizuno, Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning, Vol. 3 (4/10)
• Paul Melko, Singularity's Ring (4/10)
• Heather McHugh & David Lehman, editors, The Best American Poetry: 2007 (4/11)
• Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, & Warren Pleece, Life Sucks (4/11)
• Rick Geary, J. Edgar Hoover: A Graphic Biography (4/12)
• Ushio Mizta & Akiyoshi Ohta, Kaze no Hana, Vol. 1 (4/14)
• Jim Steinmeyer, Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural (4/16)
• Tom Pomplun, editor, Fantasy Classics: Graphic Classics Vol. 15 (4/16)
• Jim Salicrup, editor, Tales from the Crypt, No. 1: Ghouls Gone Wild (4/16)
• Ai Morinaga, My Heavenly Hockey Club, Vol. 3 (4/17)
• Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming, Powers, Vol. 8: Legends (4/18)
• Cory Doctorow, Little Brother (4/18)
• Chris Ware, The ACME Novelty Library, Vol. 18 (4/19)
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 8 (4/20)
  The next phase of the ninja promotion test begins in this volume...or, rather, the battles to see who actually gets to take part three of the ninja promotion test. Naruto could be taught as a lesson of how to extend a story to great length and still keep it compelling; Kishimoto's emphasis on his huge cast in the previous few volumes gives him a lot of scope for many different conflicts here (and in Vol. 9), so they all mean something. On the other hand, I am beginning to wonder how much of the series is taken up with this one series of tests -- it's more than half the length of the series to date at this point, with no sign of the end. Those Japanese audiences are evidently very patient...
• James Sturm & Rich Tommaso, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow (4/20)

Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 9 (4/21)
Yet more tests. And, of the ten pre-phase ten single combats that we'll get, there are still two left to go...as I said, Kishimoto is working at his own pace here. But I'm sure Naruto is one of the things manga-haters are thinking about when they talk about stories that go on forever. (As opposed to, say, Spider-Man battling Doc Ock, which he's been doing since about 1965...)
Bob Sehlinger with Len Testa, The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2008 (4/21)
I'm hoping to drag the family down to see "the Mouse" this fall, so this was research. (And it was research, a few pages a day, for the last three months.) So far, the range of choices is bewildering, though I think I've basically decided on an airport and airline.

• Frederik Peeters, Blue Pills (4/22)
• Satoko Kiyuduki, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, Vol. 1 (4/23)
• Jim Butcher, Small Favor (4/23)
• Liza Donelly, editor, Sex and Sensibility (4/23)
• Jeff Lemire, Ghost Stories: Essex County, Vol. 2 (4/24)
• Martin Amis, The Second Plane: September 11: Terror and Boredom (4/24)
• Michel Rabagliati, Paul Moves Out (4/24)
• Adam Warren, Empowered, Vol. 1 (4/25)
  I'm not going to say much about this superhero bondage spoof, since I still have hopes Dark Horse will send me volumes 2 and 3 -- they sent this one, after all -- so I can review them all together at ComicMix. But so far: not as offensive as you might expect, but not for the faint-hearted.
• Alex Robinson, Too Cool To Be Forgotten (4/26)
• Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik, Penny Arcade, Vol. 1: Attack of the Bacon Robots (4/26)
• Eddie Campbell & Dan Best, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard (4/27)
• Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Good-Bye (4/28)
• James Turner, Rex Libris, Vol. 1: I, Librarian (4/29)
• Megan Kelso, The Squirrel Mother: Stories (4/30)
• Jack O'Connell, The Resurrectionist (4/30)

That's a lot of comics, but also ten "real" books, which I think is decent for a month for anybody. Still, the pile isn't getting any smaller -- but I do have hopes of getting into (if not through) one or two big fat books next week, when I'm down in Florida for Sales Conference and away from my usual distractions. (Although I'm sure there will be some new and different distractions there.)