Venneh

Drain 1: So apparently CB Cebulski and Sana Takeda did an image mini in 06 that is now out of print. Thank you internet fairy. Conclusions: Sana Takeda has improved immensely in the intervening ten years, this is truly a story out of the trashy Image era, complete with cliches, and the writing is... real questionable at best. Zines: 15 Single Issues: 322 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 101 Omnibuses: 4

Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher: I didn't get to know this Carrie until the TFA promo tours and towards the end of her life. I wish I had known about her sooner. Reading this is like she's back with us, and god I love her stories and encouragement. Books read: 98

Lie your way to the top. At least it's not rape/harassment/molestation charges?

The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, Phillip Pullman: I've been looking forward to this ever since it was announced, and so nervous about it, because the original trilogy is one of my favorite series, and of course it's nerve wracking to see how a prequel series might turn out. It's worth it and then some. Lyra's in it, but she's only a baby, and it's great to see some of the side characters in the original trilogy take the forefront. Pullman's obviously used the time between the original trilogy and now to do more thinking/world building, and it really shows. He also obviously has Some Shit To Say about things going on currently. If you loved the original trilogy, get this. You won't regret it.

Sherlock Frankenstein and the League of Evil 2: David Rubin continues to do gorgeous shit, news at 11. Also, bless Lemire for coming up with Cthu-Lou and Cthu-Louise. Eternity 1-2: Kindt and Harsine get to go completely Kirby on this. It's solid? Like, not anything particularly special, but it's solid. XO-Manowar 8-9: Crain gets to go full Dune/space opera and it's beautiful and nuts, news at 11. Kindt actually takes a shot at the white savior trope too, which I like. Secret Weapons 1-4: Heisserer does a pretty solid job with the reject totally not mutants story, but what carries this mini for me is the visual language. Allen and Martin continue to blow their colleagues at Valiant out of the water with the art on this; perfect fit. Apparently this is going to be continuing, and I'm interested to see where it goes. Redlands 4: The first arc of sorts seems to have ended and we appear to be moving forward somewhere new. Del Rey's art takes a bit of a slip this time, but it's still gorgeous. Kid Lobotomy 1: Ehhhh? Fowler is good, and yup, that's some Milligan and incest alright. Doesn't feel like anything new from Milligan, which is what this collab over at IDW is supposed to be all about. Runaways 2-3: God it's good to see these kids again. Wasn't sure how I felt about Gert's characterization, but issue 3 went out of its way to explain a lot, which I appreciate. But god did I miss Karolina. Also, Old Lace is the best. Zines: 15 Single Issues: 321 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 101 Omnibuses: 4

FFXII: The Zodiac Age: God bless speed mode forever and ever amen. We didn't finish all the hunts, but we got the vast majority of them in, and it made killing the final clockwork steampunk crazy ass boss pretty damn easy. The improvements and a good dose of time have helped significantly in making people realize how good this game actually is. Dest1ny: My boyfriend has somehow hooked up with a bunch of Italian players who are still playing this. I continue to cuddle next to him on the couch while he does this. No clue what's going on, but I'm cool with that. Getting Dest2ny tomorrow on sale, looking forward to seeing how it compares. Wolfenstein: The New Order: Unsurprisingly the game that had Shit to Say about Nazis this year had some shit to say back in the day and goes in hard. We are going to have to take this in small chunks with a palate cleanser afterwards. Overwatch: I AM NOW A MOIRA MAIN HELL YEAH. Or at least she is coming into my two character rotation of Lucio and Mei (and occasionally Sombra). Love her kit, her Bowie ass designs, and just about everything about her. Nothing more satisfying than draining another Moira to death or killing a Symmetra or Genji or Doomfist with a well placed drain orb and your drain. The Mercy nerf could probably reduce the cast time a bit and still be enough of a nerf that she's not constantly rezzing everyone and their mom, and I like that she's vulnerable during it again.

Snotgirl 8: Leslie Hung gets to spend most of an issue drawing hot dudes. You can tell she's into it. Plot moves forward a bit too. Glitterbomb: The Fame Game 3: I keep paging through the review copy hoping it's going to improve. Insexts did this better. Underwinter: A Field of Feathers 2: Again, the horror would be way more effective if I could actually tell what the fuck was going on in the art more than half the time. The few effective splash pages really do their job when he takes the time to make it clear, but otherwise it's just frustrating. Zines: 15 Single Issues: 308 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 101 Omnibuses: 4

Doomsday Clock 1: Part subpar Watchmen fanfiction, part jerking off over Trump, part weird setup where I'm willing to bet that Zines: 15 Single Issues: 305 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 101 Omnibuses: 4

Four Kids Walk Into a Bank 5: (Holding thoughts on this until I reread 4, maybe the rest if I can find it in the apartment.) Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow v1-2: The continuation that Tokyopop branded weirdly as part of the second edition. Some intriguing stuff comes into play here, and romance comes more to the forefront, and the queer influence definitely escalates. CLAMP continues to level up here, as well. Falcon 2: Less awful? Still plays into some real unfortunate/racially charged stereotypes, and I'm not so big on the art. Hawkeye 12: Thompson seems to be getting her feet under her, and it's a great team-up with the Wolverines. Walsh and Bellaire definitely help things along. Superman 775: Basically Superman vs the knockoff Authority expy, and Joe Kelly having Some Shit To Say about the state of superhero comics at the time. I like it, a lot. (There's also a point where the art goes very deliberately Frank Miller knockoff to make a point that I also really really quite like.) Also apparently they did an animated film based on this at some point? WicDiv 33: Well fucking hell boys, well done at keeping that twist under the wraps for the last three years. Now I have to go and reread it all to try and work out what the fuck is going on here. Also looking forward to the Christmas issue as a way to unwind from all that. As the Crow Flies v1: First collection of the webcomic by Melanie Gillman. Her colored pencil work on this is gorgeous. The pitch is a 13 year old queer black girl who goes to a Christian backpacking camp that's pretty much all white, and her time there. It's an atmospheric, gorgeous read. I picked this up through the Kickstarter, and can highly recommend getting it. East of West 35: Father/son bonding, as only Death and Babylon can do it. Descender 26: Gorgeous as fuck, even as it goes full horror/genocide. Generation Gone 5: (Holding thoughts until I read the trade.) Angelic 3: Good escalation, just a bit of silliness to take the edge off as well. Art is gorgeous. (There is probably more I'm missing, Jim will probably nudge me as to what I missed.) Zines: 15 Single Issues: 304 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 101 Omnibuses: 4

I haven't!

(Reminder to self to write up all those comics you've read recently)

The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer: they are not kidding when they call this "the Big Book". 1160 pages of stories, 105 stories, and all for $25, you're not going to find a better priced, more wide ranging collection. The standards are in here, but the editors have made a conscious attempt to have representation from every continent (with new and first time translations of work), and women as well, and it shows in the range of what they chose to put in here. There are going to be tons of authors you've never heard of, and stories you may not have read from authors you may know, and odds are this will point you in some new reading directions (hooks for me are Joanna Russ and Stepan Chapman). I've been working on this since about August, and I finally finished earlier today. (The earlier stuff is harder to get through, especially if you don't go for "classic" sci-fi, but stick with it.) Get this. It's worth your time and your money. War of the Foxes, Richard Siken: An early Christmas gift for Jim. This collection is still amazing, but between the two collections of his poetry so far, I like Crush better. Books read: 96

Rolling In the Deep, Mira Grant: Why yes, this is a novella about deep sea mermaids that has a title taken from an Adele song. It's pretty freaking great. The setup is that Totally Not the SyFy channel is making a mockumentary about mermaids near the Marina Trench. They find them. It goes about as well as you'd expect. Orbit bought a full length sequel, Into the Drowning Deep, and it was just published this last week. I'll be reading it soon and looking forward to it. These two excerpts are why you should read it: "“Deep-sea fish frequently demonstrate extreme sexual dimorphism,” said Alexandra, not uncovering her face. “One female to dozens, even hundreds of males. They were taking the bodies over the rail. Why? They can’t eat them all. Can’t store food in the water. But they can feed them to something larger. Something they wanted to impress.” "The female anglerfish is several hundred times the size of the male. They can be found in oceans and coastal regions around the world. The inquiry into what happened on the Atargatis is still ongoing."" 😀 😀 😀 Books read: 94

The Amber Spyglass, Phillip Pullman: I've had my copy of this book since middle school, and it's been with me for every move since. This is one of the books you have to read at some point in your life. It was tiny me's first introduction to gay romance, and my first realization that I didn't believe in god. Adult me is impressed at the way everything comes together, the way even tiny details from the first book come back, and the way that everything keeps building and resolves perfectly, even if not perfectly happily. I still cry for Will and Lyra. Cult X, Fuminori Nakamura (translated by Kalau Almony): ARC. On the one hand, the things that this book has to say about conspiracy, philosophy, religion, politics, and the structures of power in nations and multinational corporation are great. On the other, the amount of information delivered via monologue is insane, the author has very little regard for his female characters, and every time sadomasochism comes up in a scene you can tell the author is probably jerking off to what he's writing. There's a plot in there somewhere between all the twists and turns. I got this for free, and for free and read in a bath with beer, worth a page through. PS: Marketers, calling this a romance is a real stretch. Books read: 93

What

Sisters of the Crescent Empress, Leena Likitalo: Man, I am really not sure how I feel about this. They gave Likitalo another hundred pages, which amounts to each sister getting one more chapter, but it just doesn't feel like she did much with it? There's a few false starts to build dread, but a lot of the twists come only in the final chapter, and are never really resolved. I mean, I can see the author trying to make a point about the legends around the Romanov family and whether or not anyone survived, and leaving that ambiguous and all, but after 500 pages between two books, unless she's gunning for a continuation, this is a cop out. She also cops out of describing what are built up to be major events and basic world building, and there's really no excuse for that. There's also a huge Communism is EEEEEEEVIL thing going on that after a certain point just makes me roll my eyes. I'm glad that I didn't pay more than $5 for this digitally, put it that way. These were her first two books, and she has a lot of room to improve, put it that way. Not sure if I would recommend both books at full price (maybe in a digital sale?), but it's a nice light pseudo historical fantasy read, and if you don't think about it too much, you'll be better off for it. Books read: 91

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/dc-comics-editor-eddie-berganza-sexual-harassment?utm_term=.xcGkzlBz5M#.opMRr3Kr41 Berganza's finally been outed.

The Subtle Knife, Phillip Pullman: Still my least favorite book of the trilogy, but still wonderfully plotted. There's a lot of expansion (focus on minor characters/people barely mentioned from last book, expansion of new worlds, and new elements bought in) that feels borderline like bloat, but it's all a part of the bigger picture here. This is definitely the wind up for the final act book. Starting in our world is still super disorienting after last book, and even though there's a lot of movement on a bigger picture, Lyra is directly in maybe a third of this book tops, after being the primary focus of the last book. Fun fact: I read this last originally when I was reading this in high school, so I was super confused when I read Amber Spyglass originally. Books read: 90

He's an amazing writer, just don't expect this collection to be uplifting. Fisher of Bones, Sarah Gailey: This is a hell of a serialized story. Set up in the vein of Moses wandering in the desert, but with a daughter leading her people, vaguely weird magical things, and just a greater sense of despair and loss building through the story, and the final two lines just seals the twist of the story. I do wonder what would come after this, but am content with just this. Good palette cleanser. Short, builds beautifully, and quick. books read: 89

We Were Eight Years in Power, Ta-Nehisi Coates: This is a collection of Coates' best essays from the last eight years of writing he's done for the Atlantic. What I really like about this is that he reframes these essays in the context of the shift towards Jim Crow/the post Reconstruction era in the South in the national pivot away from Obama and to Trump, through the prologue, the intro to each essay, and the final epilogue essay ("The First White President"). I've read most of these already, but the reframing makes you come at them in a new light. A good deal of these essays are especially relevant, especially in light of last week (LAST FUCKING WEEK)'s denial that the Civil War was about slavery, for example. Depressing as fuck, but still a great read. books read: 88

Crush, Richard Siken: This is tied with Look for the most affecting poetry I've read this year. My words are insufficient for this. Go pick this up, now. Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys: I got this for free from Tor. I would pay money for this. This includes the short story that starts the universe at the end, and the novel itself is a continuation of that universe. (Imagine if the government had found out about Innsmouth shortly after WW1, and had moved the residents into a concentration camp in the AZ desert. Imagine if the last remnants had been there around the time of the Japanese internment. Imagine the Cold War, but with the potential of Aeonist magic added in.) This is a well plotted story set at Miskatonic, with a main character Im very interested in reading more of, and goes in a direction I wasn't originally expecting from it. Good first novel, directly fucks with the sexist/racist legacy of Lovecraft. I'm in for the sequel. books read: 87

The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman: Rereading these because the first book in the prequels just came out, and I want these fresh in my mind when I go into it. Exquisite world building, and just a wonderfully unfurling plot. Still one of my favorite series. Books read: 85

Thank you for the correction, @Donomark! I don't think I ever heard his name mentioned, so I assumed it was Eli.

Angelic 2: Art continues to be amazing, Spurrier's puns can go to hell, interested to see how this plays out. Deadly Class 31: hey guys, remember Saya? Would sure be nice if the story remembered her. Like, neat interaction between the old and new kids, and nice that it's finally made clear that half this arc was a flashback I guess? I'm rapidly losing my patience with this. Craig's art is gorgeous as ever though. Glitterbomb: The Fame Game 2: Ehhhh. Underwinter: A Field of Feathers 1: Man, this horror would sure be way more effective if I could tell what was going on at all with the watercolors. Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil 1: Spin off of Black Hammer, his daughter is trying to find her dad and is chasing down leads to try and find Sherlock Frankenstein. Black Hammer drinking game for every Marvel/DC knockoff you recognize still holds. Rubin does some gorgeous ass shit. Cardcaptor Sakura v 4-6: Found the second edition Tokyopop put out in the little free library in my neighborhood. Haven't read these since middle school. These each manage to be a good balance of moving the plot forward while doing little one shots, and CLAMP is just nuts on the details. v6 brings things to a head and sets up the sequel in a really good way. Also yeah, these were definitely a formative influence for babby queer me. Crosswinds 5: I keep reading this because we get it with the Image review copies, and man, every issue the art gets worse (but the story's at least kinda trying?). (I take it back this all apparently happened because two people were dicks to a random dude who has the power to body jump in an airport this is real fuckin' stupid) Gravediggers Union 1: Unionized gravediggers/undead fighters try to figure out what the hell is going on with the sudden increase in zombies/ghost storms/etc. Craig's story is intriguing, and the art by Cypress (and a bit by Craig) is gorgeous. I'm in. Lazarus X+66 4: Fun little oneshot, two neat Lazaruses and an infiltration mission. No. 1 With a Bullet: *old man jerking off about social media using a young busty woman to TELL A STORY intensifies* What if social media was BAD, you guys??? This really wants to be Black Mirror, but it's not. Coyotes 1: Alright, this has my attention. The men as wolves hunting down women thing taken literally, but the girls fighting back. Art's good too. Evolution 1: THERE'S SIX FUCKING NAMES ON THIS THING. There's no way this basic ass horror concept took three writers, two artists to execute. Port of Earth 1: Border Patrol, but for aliens. Solid concept, interesting art, I'd page through this. Rumble 1: Restarting with Rubin, and goddamn does he slam it out of the park on the art here. Zines: 15 Single Issues: 295 Trades/Graphic Novels/Anthologies: 98 Omnibuses: 4

Empty Set, Verònica Gerber Bicecci: Another ARC, but one I was super intrigued by. This is basically a novel about the author making sense of various breakups, her mother's disappearance, her father's absence, and various parts of her life, all while using various diagrams and charts and drawings to visualize what she's feeling. It's a quick read (I finished this in three train rides), and has some amazing, beautiful passages. Comes out in February from Coffee House Press, you should get it. Books read: 84