I got out to the comics shop on Friday (after a trip to the eye doctor, which made seeing the books I was buying mildly problematical) and then used a particularly good Borders coupon on Sunday afternoon to buy one book (I'd prefer they not go out of business, so I'm going out of my way to buy from them these days).So this is what I got:
The Complete Peanuts 1969-1970
by Charles M. Schulz. Somehow I missed this one -- maybe I'm just getting blase about this great Fantagraphics reprint series at this point? -- but I realized that I did, and went out of my way to correct that. Schulz was one of the great cartoonists of the late 20th century, and his work is full of joys (and sad realizations) both large and small.
The Troublemakers
by Gilbert Hernandez. This is a metafiction, a comics adaptation of a movie that exists only in the fictional world Hernandez usually chronicles, starring one of his central characters. (The back flap goes into more detail about this project, which is even more complicated and odd than that description -- one of his recent projects, Speak of the Devil, is a comics adaptation of the "real" events, in that fictional world, which were turned into a movie that his character then starred in...in that fictional world. If you think too much about it, your head will start to hurt.)Hellboy Vol. 9: The Wild Hunt
by Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo. Hey, it's a new Hellboy collection! Nuff said.
Grendel: Behold The Devil
by Matt Wagner. I do think Wagner is getting diminishing story returns as he goes back to the Hunter Rose well over and over and over again -- though these stories do reliably reinvigorate his art -- and the more he writes about this guy, the more his original story Devil by the Deed is reduced. I'd much rather see Wagner get to work on the third Mage series, or something new and original. But I suspect that opinion is not widespread among comics readers, and that Wagner's current work is better suited to keeping a roof over his head and bread on the table. Still, he's done this before, and it really is time to move on.Animal Crackers
by Gene Luen Yang. This collects his two first comics series, and Yang's an interesting enough cartoonist that I want to read all of his stuff.
And last is Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art (Spectrum (Underwood Books))
, edited as always by Cathy and Arnie Fenner. It's the essential book for anyone interested in fantastic illustration (comics, books, movie concept art, etc.), as it has been for the past decade and a half.----------------
Listening to: The Mountain Goats - How To Embrace A Swamp Creature
via FoxyTunes
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