brokenmnemonic

I thought that for this week, I'd rec some comics I've liked in past years that I thought might appeal to people on my reading list here.

( Comic Recs )

I got distracted and am running a bit late with this post - partly because I wasn't sure what to do for a Fannish Fifty post. So, I've gone with something simple: some of my favourite zombie-themed comic book series. I actually haven't read as many zombie comics as either my current or former comic dealer would have you beliveve, but it was one of these comics that got me back into reading comics after a long hiatus.

( Zombie Comics! )

So, those are my favourites so far, but I'm always open to reading more if you have any favourites...

I ended up reading more over the holidays than I'd expected, which brought my average up - and reminded me how tired I've felt in general since September. It was nice to get a chance to work through some of the backlog of graphic novels and single issues I built up over the last couple of years of big Comixology sales, although I also hit the same problem I've hit before - no matter how good it will turn out to be, I tend to read graphic novels in a single sitting where possible, and there aren't that many times these days where I'm in the right headspace to sit down and read a 400 page graphic novel, no matter how good it might turn out to be.

( Reading List )

So, it's almost the end of October, and I'm very tired.

( Read more... )

So, more cheerful things. Something that does the rounds on twitter periodically that you may not have seen if you're not a twitter person is that the comic book author Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Red Sonja, Secret Six, etc) made some comments about how great it would be to have a crossover story starring Lara Croft and Wonder Woman. The comic book artist/author Sjepan Sejic (Death Vigil, Sunstone, etc) picked up on this and sketched together almost a dozen comic book scenes, as if he was illustrating that particular series, and they're rather excellent. If you haven't seen them, I recommend taking a look.

I recently watched the final episode of Elementary, a show I've been quietly enjoying since it first started airing. ( Vague Spoilers? )

I've been listening to the original Holmes stories through my local library's audiobook collection, as they have the edition narrated by Stephen Fry, but this does mean listening to them rather out of sequence, depending on the vagaries of what's available at any given time. It did prompt me to think of other reinterpretations of the Sherlock Holmes mythos I've enjoyed over the years. Sherlock seems to crop up in all sorts of things, but one that always springs to mind is the short comic book series Watson and Holmes, written by Karl Bollers. In this iteration, Watson and Holmes are African-American and living in Harlem, New York. Holmes is an eccentric - and, it must be said, very dapper - private investigator, and when Watson meets him, Watson's a war veteran who served in Afghanistan and is now working in a medical clinic. The series was funded as two short runs via Kickstarter, with the first six or so issues making up a single case, A Study in Black, while the second graphic novel is a mix of one short series and some assorted single pieces. I really liked it, and I'd recommend it to anyone who fancies seeing a nicely-done reintepretation set in the modern era.

I don't want to have to go to work tomorrow.

It's September tomorrow? Seriously? Ugh. This month is always difficult at work, because so many people go on leave and there's usually a big event in September each year that causes me a pile of work, but for added fun and games I've been covering my boss' desk (in addition to mine, and the empty post in the team) which has meant that I've spent most of the last couple of weeks desperately trying to deal with the urgent deadlines until the less urgent deadlines become urgent. Unfortunately, that means I keep losing reading time because I'm either dozing during breaks, or worrying about work. Hopefully, the back end of September will be a bit quieter.

( What I read in August )

I have a huge soft spot for the character Elvira. I had no idea who she was until (I think) a screening or vid party at university, where the movie Elvira; Mistress of the Dark aired, and it was just such glorious B-movie fun that I had no means to resist. I discovered some years later that Elvira came to fame in the US for her show about horror movies, replete with sarcastic commentary, through which she built up her own brand. The studio did everything they could to pay her as little as possible, but she negotiated to get the rights to all of the merchandising based on her or the show, and went on to make a mint from it. What's not to respect about that?

When Dynamite announced that they'd be doing a couple of short comic book series featuring Elvira, I decided these were something worth reading, particularly as my local library network gets digital copies of most of the Dynamite titles, and supporting your local library is a good thing, yes? The comics aren't amazing, but they are fun, and there are times where it feels like they've got Elvira's voice right. The latest issue had a few panels that made me crack up, so I thought I'd share them...

(Note for context: these are from the 7th issue of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, where magic shenanigans have ended up dumping Elvira in hell, which she's decided to resolve by journeying through the nine levels to point out to Lucifer that she shouldn't be there. At this point in the comics, she's being guided by an odd person named Glen, because... why not? ... and she's just met the minotaur that runs the level where the wrathful are punished.)

( Comic book images under the cut... )

Song: - Weapon For Saturday
Artist: - LOLO
Comic Book Series: - Queen and Country, by Greg Rucka
Vidder: - brokenmnemonic
Betas: - goodbyebird and cosmic_llin
Spoilers: - Nothing major
Warnings: - Nothing major
Rating: - 15?
Disclaimers: - Not mine, by a long shot. No infringements intended
Downloads: at AngstNRomance.net (right-click and save as)

My VidUKon 2018 Premieré, and my first comic book vid. Tara Chace's friends think that she's a low-level functionary in the Foreign Office. Her friends are wrong.

Queen & Country is a cracking series, based around the work of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Minders of the Special Section, the small team of agents involved in overseas fieldwork ranging from counter-espionage to assassination and back again. It's one of my favourite comic book series, and I think Tara Chace - one of the agents in question - is a fascinating character, flawed and realistic.

( Youtube - Under The Cut )

I've ended up reading a lot of comics this week - half my pull list seemed to arrive in one go, plus I had time to catch up with some random purchases while I spent hours traveling. So ... I thought I'd try putting some thoughts together on them, and not just because I keep putting off the more serious adulting stuff I need to do.

( Comics! )

ETA: I know I use "interesting" a lot, and should probably try and remember some synonyms for it, but honestly? I look for two things in my comics - interesting, effectively told stories, and strong characters. I can forgive weaker characterisation if the ideas are... interesting.