A curmudgeon writes.
Clan by Amazing Améziane.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars.
I have a bit of a thing for Japan – I’ve played taiko and I learn the shakuhachi – so I am probably predisposed towards this comic. It’s created by someone who obviously is keen on the collection of islands, and often reads like it’s written for people who share that enthusiasm.
I don’t find this problematic.
Batman: Earth One, Volume 2 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
“Second Earth! Same as the first!” is what The Ramones would’ve sung had they not been into SpiderMan so much.
I could probably end the review there. This second (and final, so far) volume of the Earth One reboot of Batman’s beginnings continues the good things of the first. We’re still shown a Caped Crusader who’s trying to get his head around his role – a man who hasn’t yet attained the level of subtlety or experience that’s needed to become a spooky totem.
Marquis de Sade: A Biography by Maurice Lever.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars.
So let’s have a think about what comes to mind when you think of the Marquis de Sade. You know, Donatien Alphonse François. The famous libertine with a fixation on all things anal. The atheist who shagged anything that moved and put anything that didn’t up his backside. The corrupter of youth, the writer of obscenities. The beloved of surrealists. The perennial prisoner. This guy:
You’d think it would be something to do with sex that’d be the key driver of the guy’s story right?
Well, having read through all 600-odd pages of Maurice Lever’s biography, I gotta tell you that the sex shit is nothing. The real focus of ole DAF’s life was real estate.
I know, right? Mind blown. Continue reading “Book review: Marquis de Sade: A Biography”
Batman: Earth One, Volume 1 by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Lately I’ve been trying to get into reading more comic books. Yeah, mostly graphic novels but also some superhero stuff. Because when I was a kid, I never really read much of that stuff, apart from the occasional Phantom comic. Certainly, I had read a couple of Batman one-offs, but never anything extended.
So I decided to plunge back into the world of rich guy vigilantism with Geoff Johns’ reinvention of the caped crusader’s origins – and man, was I glad I did. Continue reading “Book review: Batman: Earth One, Volume 1”
The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars.
I first began reading Clive Barker’s works when I was a teenager. They were sexy and gruesome and intriguing and I inhaled them. (This is around the time Cabal came out, for reference.) I thought they were edgy and sophisticated and a bit terrifying, especially as they introduced me to ideas I hadn’t really considered before.
I probably should have left it there, in my teenage years. Because slogging through The Scarlet Gospels felt a bit like looking at your old yearbook pictures. You know, the ones with the fucked haircut and a carriage informed by what you believed was cool before you realised cool is bullshit. Continue reading “Book review: The Scarlet Gospels”
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Omnibus Vol. 1 by Clive Barker.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.
I guess I must be a glutton for punishment? I mean, I recently reread The Hellbound Heart (and found it wanting, alas) after forcing myself to sit through all the movies in the Hellraiser series. So of course, it was only natural that the next cab off the cultural rank was almost 600 pages of comics set in the same world, eh?
Thankfully, this collection wasn’t a waste of time or good suffering, which is probably a better deal than you’d get from a Cenobite drop-in.
Continue reading “Book review: Clive Barker’s Hellraiser Omnibus Vol. 1”
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars.
I suppose polishing off a Gothic fancy where death plays love’s fiddle put me in mood for something a little more grim, so I decided to revisit Clive Barker’s novella of puzzles and bad dates, The Hellbound Heart.
Jesus wept, indeed. Continue reading “Book review: The Hellbound Heart”
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Let me in (ah) your window (oh ho ho ho).
C’mon, you were thinking it. I know you were. I was, the whole way through. As the introduction indicates, it’s a rare text that can not only birth film adaptations but also pop chart-toppers. (And accompanying dance routines.)
If you’ve read this blog for a while – I am shocked by the fact that I’ve owned this domain for almost twenty years, just quietly – then you’ll know that I’m something of a fan of a bit of period neck-stabbing action. You know, the Assassin’s Creed series, aka Ubisoft’s procession of Conspiracy Woo and Historical Shoulder-Charging Simulator games.
At one point, I played all of the games in a row on my PS3 – from the first up to the then-new(ish – I have a backlog) AC IV: Black Flag. I had a bit of a break then, because there’s only so much assassination you can stand in a row. But, like everyone else, I was pretty solid on the fact that the second game and Black Flag were pretty much tied for the title of favourite.
That was until I got my hidden blade into Origins. Or, rather, it got its talons into me.
My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
It’s not logical, really, that someone in search of some light graphic novel reading should end up reading a book about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. You know, the guy who killed men and had sex with them. The Milwaukee Monster.
This guy. Yeah, you know the one. Somehow, I ended up thinking that reading something written by one of his friends was A Thing To Do in place of, I dunno, reading about muscled science freaks with superpowers. Continue reading “Book review: My Friend Dahmer”
Yeah nah. 