I picked this up on a randon recommendation and ended up totally getting sucked in. There is actual plot and character development, along with slick, well detailed art. Some of the story line quirks are pretty fun too: a teen vamp who works in a convenience store for his master, surfer undead, an angsty blood phobic vampire, and awkwardness - good times.

  

The story takes a tongue in cheek approach to Goths without being too insulting.  There are subtle references to vampire lore without it over-whelming the meat of the character history.  These are characters that I want to despise, and yet end up sympathizing with.  Somehow I can relate to their bloodsucking familial ties and workload expectations.  Just another day in the life.

  

The Oregonian says:
The story, crafted by Abel and Soria (whom Abel thanks "for his fantastic ability to spin out tales from the paltriest of beer-sparked sparks"), is clever and funny, and benefits tremendously from not taking itself all that seriously. Warren Pleece's art clearly owes a debt to Nick Abadzis (Laika), and he gracefully acknowledges it.  And, while I'm not rushing off to read Ann Rice or Charlie Huston's turn to the dark side, I can't wait for the next graphic adventure that First Second has in store for us.

the isb says:
There’s a lot of inherent comedy in the idea of a mid-20s slacker trying to balance his life as a minimum-wage Nosferatu–and there are a lot of really good sequences to that effect, especially at the beginning–but like North World, the team behind Life Sucks uses that as a backdrop for more mundane drama. Dave has a job that he hates that he can’t get out of, a crush on a girl that he can’t bring himself to do anything about, and an omnipresent nemesis who seems like he’s had everything handed to him while Dave himself gets stuck with the leftovers. I don’t know about you guys, but those are all things I can identify with–

Click here for a sample.

This graphic novel is like a philosophical trip through a Zelda tale.  Inner demons, self discovery, broken swords, battle with giant bears. Awesome.

  

The style is brush-pen loose a la Scott Pilgrim or Zombies Calling.  The action is dynamic and fighting framed well.  What is the best though is how complete a world Brown created.  It's easy to believe in his premise when each character is distinct and full of back story history.  I look forward to book two.

     

I just finished this after a two day reading marathon. I found myself thinking about it at work and could hardly wait to settle in for a good read when I got home. Now I know what all the fuss was about. With believable characters, nicely layered history, and just enough mystery. And an ending that was actually satisfying.

This was totally absorbing and magical. It's been a long time since I've been so pulled into a story. It's not a hugely complicated tale, and there aren't life changing revelations, but it's good real world fantasy. There aren't any faeries, or orcs, but there is a sense that there's something mysterious just beneath the surface. Not too far beneath, but just enough to draw me in further.

Man, I hope Kay writes some more of this...

I got this book as an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. So I totally love free books. And free books that make me laugh are even better. I begin with that because I feel oddly defensive about reading this book. Maybe it has to do with all the smirks I get when people see that I'm reading Kinsella, and it's not W P. 

The entire plot surrounds the main characters struggle with amnesia.  While it does lead to a few comic misunderstandings, it also lead to way way way too many situations along the lines of:  

"Gee, I don't remember you.  But you're gorgeous, and you say you're my husband so I must be in love with you.  And I'm going to repeat that for the next two hundred pages, or until one of us gives up."  Guess who that'll be.

That said, while I did want to throttle the main character for her shallow air-headedness, laughed for the same reasons. I get a peculiar enjoyment from these pointless shallow books like Kinsella's or MJ Davidson's.

Not bad for a bus ride or airport lay-over book. I think I'll try some more if it's free.

Fforde, Jasper, Lost in a Good Book, 2002, ISBN: 0340733578

Sequel to the fabulous Eyre Affair, LiaGB succeeds in many ways. Fforde maintains his cleverness and witty use of the pun, while still featuring a grand love of literature. He includes such lovely characters as the Cheshire Cat, migrating mammoths, Miss Havisham, a trial set in The Trial (yes, a location can be a character too), Neanderthals, Supreme Evil Beings (SEB's for short), The Red Queen, and more. Then there's the sometimes startling character names original to Fforde such as the two agents Chalk and Cheese, or the Goliath suited thug siblings Jack Schitt and Brick Schitt-Hawse... and the made up words which colored and textured the text like Jurisfiction, Stresspert, Retrosnatch, Mnemonomorph..... Intrigue, mystery, suspense, romance, time-travel, doomsday, murder, cheese... Think Douglas Adams treaming up with Terry Pratchett to write an addendum to Alice in Wonderland with Poe and Dickens. If this hasn't yet piqued your interest, then I suspect you are doomed to remain among the bland. While Fforde was often silly enough to extract a giggle from me, he was also thought provoking, interesting, and well worth my investment in a new book. He now sits firmly among my favorite authors. I very much look forward to more by him.



trashotron says:
...a manic concoction of literary satire, lowbrow humor, mystery, science fiction and speculation that somehow managed to hang together ... It was thought provoking, literate and laugh-out-loud funny, often simultaneously. Lost in a Good Book Book, the further adventures of Thursday Next, ups the ante on every level and succeeds again and again. It's rather astonishing that Fforde can not only keep up his high-wire act, he can string the wire across vast new canyons he conjures up in a few words, then set forth with all the confidence of -- Thursday Next. While this novel can be read without having read the first one, you'd be insane to do so. Of course, insanity gets regular mention in this novel, so you'd be in good company.

Jasper Fforde says:
I was asked yesterday whether Jasper Fforde was my real name because, the questioner observed, it seemed a bit, well, made up. Okay, here’s the truth: It is definitely my name, and has been since I was born. The reason for the double ‘Ff’ is lost in the mists of time and not, as has so often been pointed out, the result of a forefather’s stutter. Naturally, living with a daft surname does mean I have a few stock answers. When someone asks: “Ooh – Fforde, now that’s an unusual name!” I generally reply: “Not in my house. Only the other day we had six people round the dinner table and they all had that surname.” The ‘Jasper’ is a lot easier to explain. I was born in the sixties and it was just one of those trendy names that modern parents gave their children. It could have been much worse. I was nearly called Tarquin. My sister also born in the sixties, was mercifully spared as well. She’s a Cressida, which is a lot better than Jocquaminka, a name that was once a serious contender. While we are on the subject, a ‘Jasper’ is the slang name for a wasp in Devon and Cornwalll, a National Park in Canada and also a brand of cookies. More irksome is the fact that a lot of dogs here in the UK are called Jasper, so I sometimes claim that I was only named thus because my parents wanted a dog. “I got off lightly,“ I explain, “if they’d wanted a cat I might have been called Tiddles.”

sfsite says:
While possessing more than a passing resemblance to some of Discworld's formulas and conventions, and told in a spirit reminiscent of Pratchett's fabrications, as well as that of Adams and Carroll, The Eyre Affair nonetheless established its own ground, becoming a homage as well as satire of both fiction and its readers.... As may be gleaned, Fforde's approach to plot possesses some of the same wide-ranging, constantly shifting absurdism applied by Pratchett, and is told in a tone of similar humor. And I suspect readers who enjoy the latter may enjoy the former equally as well. However, so far this series is centrally focused around literature, both as trope and springboard for exploring the literary themes and conventions of the past while at the same time subverting them to the author's own humoresque intentions. Part parody and part social satire, with a smack of the burlesque, a lack of background in literature will blunt some of the author's barbs, and a passing familiarity with Western literature, especially of the Elizabethan and 19th century periods, will help in picking up on all the various references, literary in-jokes and asides present in the novel. A basic grasp of grammar, sentence construction, and composition will hardly harm one, either. Otherwise fabulations such as the grammasite or the short, brief criticism of Sterne's Tristram Shandy will be lost to the casual reader. The same can be said for certain instances of punning and word play that abound throughout the novel, such as the author Millon de Floss or the chapter entitled "Cardenio unbound," though many of these should appear obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_a_Good_Book
http://www.jasperfforde.com/lostmusing.html

Kibuishi manages to develop a strong character and setting with minimal words. Within a few pages, it’s easily known just who Daisy is and what her views are on the world she lives in. By the end of the issue, it’s as if I’ve been reading stories about this female gunslinger for years. By making Daisy so believable and letting readers relate to her right off the bat, Kibuishi sets up an ending that is both taut and emotional. In the showdown between Daisy and the silent stranger, the quiet tension is palpable. Every moment stretches into eternity in one of the most exciting and suspenseful moments in comic history.



click here for an interview with Kazu Kibuishi

http://www.boltcity.com/
http://www.boltcity.com/daisy.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazu_Kibuishi

Accept who you are and love yourself.



click here for an excerpt
http://www.humblecomics.com/
click here for an interview with Gene Yang
Monkey King VS Fireballs Flash Animation Game

The other problem is the lack of reference material. If you don't own the complete run of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, or haven't been reading Marvel comics for at least 20 years you could be hopelessly lost trying to make heads or tales out of this story. I'm grateful that they didn't stick 90 mutants in this epic, and also for the many in-jokes and sight gags, but some of the more obscure people, places and things deserve a footnote of sort so that younger readers wouldn't be completely left out.

http://www.marvel.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Marvel_Comics_characters

2) I think "What the fuck?" How does a giant mantis come to be cruising on the back of a motorbike? This is the kind of image that could tell a hundred stories all by itself. It's an image that creates crazy ideas. Even with nothing else to look at, I can think of numerous cool adventures for these two characters.

Naylor, Grant, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, 1989, ISBN: 0451452011

For any who are already familiar with Red Dwarf, then you know of the fromage for which I have a great and lasting fondness. There are some things that I have grown up with that have had a great effect upon my sense of humour e.g. Monty Python, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Tom Robbins, MASH, and of course Red Dwarf. I was first introduced to Red Dwarf when I was seventeen by one of my best friends. We bonded over the ridiculousity found in last human alive Lister, hologram Rimmer, humanoid-evolved-cat Cat, ship's computer Holly, mechanoid Kryten etc. There was much unsophisticated laughter, line repeating, rude gesturing, and well - ludicrous humour.

I'm not sure I can accurately describe the wonderful stupidity of Red Dwarf in IWCD. This book follows the first two episodes detailing background information, character history, and explaining just how the human race ends and we are left with this motley group of cavorting spacefarers. For people that love the show already, I say give the books a try. You will hear each characters distinctive voices and appreciate what Grant and Naylor (the original creators after all) add to the text. For people who are unfamiliar with the series but do enjoy a good Monty Python or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, then I say give it a whirl. You may just discover a new side of silly culture to explore. However, if you don't like preposterous sci-fi then this is probably not for you. You never know until you try though.

 
From the synopsis:
The first lesson Lister learned about space travel was you should never try it. But Lister didn't have a choice. All he remembered was going on a birthday celebration pub crawl through London. When he came to his senses again, he was living in a locker on one of Saturn's moons, with nothing in his pockets but a passport in the name of Emily Berkenstein.
So he did the only thing he could. Amazed to discover they would actually hire him, he joined the Space Corps - and found himself aboard Red Dwarf, a spaceship as big as a small city that, six or seven years from now, would get him back to Earth. What Lister couldn't foresee was that he'd inadvertently signed up for a one-way jaunt three million years into the future - a future which would see him the last living member of the human race, with only a hologram crew mate and a highly evolved Cat for company. Of course, that was before the ship broke the light barrier and things began to get really weird...

From the first page :
EVERYBODY WAS DEAD
Everybody.
Lister had been in stasis three million years.
Three million years.
Since one drunken night outside the Marie Lloyd off Regent Street, London, every step he'd taken had led him farther and farther from home. And now he was three million years away. Three million years out into Deep Space. And he was totally alone.
The enormity of all this was slowly beginning to sink in when Holly, the ship's computer, dropped his final bombshell. The one about the human race being extinct.
"What d'you mean 'extinct'?"
Well, three million years is a very good age for a species. I mean, your average genus only survives a couple of hundred thousand years, max. And that's with a clean-living species, like dinosaurs. So chances of the human race making it to the big three-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh are practically nonexistent."
Much to his surprise, Lister let out a sob.
"Were you very close?" Holly asked sympathetically. 



the log book says:
One of my favorite things about the novels vs. the TV series is that the books have a little more scope; they have more time in which to deal with the grim reality of Lister being the last human being alive, as opposed to the extinction of the entire human race being reduced to something of a recurring joke onscreen. That grim tone extends to the book's surprisingly downbeat cliffhanger, which takes the second season episode Better Than Life into a whole new - and very, very dark dimension. I actually made the mistake of reading the book before ever having seen so much as an episode of the show, so as hysterically funny as Better Than Life was on TV, it was a bit of a letdown to me compared to the "how're they gonna get out of this one?" ending of the novel.  It may retread a lot of ground you've already covered watching the series, but Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is still very much worth a read.

click here for a detailed summary - WARNING SPOILERS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dwarf:_Infinity_Welcomes_Careful_Drivers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/reddwarf/
http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/

From its outward appearance, this graphic novel resembles more a mass market paperback than anything relating to comic books. The cover and back exhibit no art, just stark white writing on black background. Writer John Wagner composes an interesting introduction while Vince Locke illustrates this black-and-white series. The grainy quality of Locke’s art works well within this tough and dreary tale. With scenes at night and in the rain, the extensive use of streak marks give a foreboding atmosphere to the story.

By story’s end, it comes as no wonder why A History of Violence has reached that esteemed canon of classic graphic novels. Like all other great graphic novels, it strives to depict the human identity. It provides a snippet of human character that we can understand and gives us just one more hint into the mystery of life. And of course, you can read it a zillion times and appreciate it more with each read.

To boil down his storylines in a very condensed form: Cerebus was a wandering warrior, then a kitchen staff supervisor, then a Prime Minister, then a house guest, a husband, a Prime Minister again, then a Pope, and back to being a house guest again-- well, that's the bare bones of it. Scarcely thorough, but accurate. All those pages are rather intimidating, after all. The series has explored such weighty topics as love, death, loneliness, power, organized religion, and state politics. The material may sound ponderous but is handled with great comic timing. Sim's brilliant narrative and dialogue is capably served by his finely rendered cinematic art style. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebus_the_Aardvark
click here for an essay called: Cerebus: An Aardvark on the Edge (A Brief History of Dave Sim and His Independent Comic Book)

WARNING to those that need it:  this book contains many critters.

O'Malley, Bryan Lee, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life vol 1, 2004, ISBN:1932664084

This book was loaned to me recently by a co-worker.  Actually volumes one through three all were, but I'm trying to take it slowly.  PLL is told as Scott Pilgrim's self-aggrandising precocious insular autobiography.  He is cute and wily and utterly self-involved.  The art  reminds me slightly of a more comic format Blankets with the brush and ink artwork, but also tinged with manga stylings and video game influences.  

        

As well, I am reminded of another comic / graphic novel in which an older band member with questionable morals and political leanings dated a high school girl...  but where Pounded failed, Precious Little Life is redeemed in so many ways.  While I admired Rolston's tight attention to detail in Pounded, and Thomson's flowing artful format in Blankets, O'Malley manages to combine both in a devourable little tale that moves smoothly through the twists of Pilgrim's fickle woos.

           

I'm not generally much of a manga fan.  I don't know if that's generational, though I know people both older and younger who love it, but I seem to have missed it almost entirely.  At first the manga roots of cute fashion, big eyes, and spiky hair had me unsure if I would get through this book, but I was quickly pulled in by the geek culture references, classic video game quest sub-plot, and Scott's cute gay roommate.  Yeah ok, I'm that shallow.   I read all of volume one much too quickly so I'm going to wait a day to move on to the next.  Tastey.



the fourth rail says:
Scott Pilgrim, the sophomore effort from Bryan O'Malley, is one odd and thoroughly entertaining little book. It reminds me of any number of things, from Blue Monday to the work of Jeffrey Brown, but it's wholly unique as well, and has a likable energy and personality that makes it an irresistible read....  

What really makes Scott Pilgrim jump for me, though, is the stylistic touches that O'Malley brings to the work. The introduction of the characters comes with these little "name, occupation, age, rating" thing that is hard to describe in text but which really gives a good sense of the flavor when it pops up, as well as being worth a few laughs. O'Malley makes great use of the comic-book format to provide some exposition and character development, with one notably clever sequence being an "ownership diagram" of Scott and Wallace's apartment....  

O'Malley's art style is another difficult thing to categorize, as it could look at first blush like something a little on the amateurish side. O'Malley's artwork brings to mind the work of Jeffrey Brown, not because their styles resemble each other at all, but because the first impression from many will be "Jeez, I could draw like this." However, despite what seems like simple designs for the characters using only a few lines, when you start to examine O'Malley's exceptional storytelling and see how he uses those few lines to really convey emotion and movement, not to mention looking at the detail he puts into the background, most will realize that he's more like Andi Watson, minimalist because it's a chosen style, not because he lacks artistic talent. As an art object, Scott Pilgrim impresses me more and more with each reread, and while the art may not be for everyone, I think O'Malley's talent is clear.

 
http://www.scottpilgrim.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Pilgrim
http://www.myspace.com/scottpilgrim