Exciting reads, yall (18-19)

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019) Wonderland by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew, finished February 21


When attempting a Wonderland story of any type, the greatest challenge is making it sufficiently nonsensical without alienating the audience. Carroll did this by having a nonnative to Wonderland tell the story. Burton avoided the question by changing the name of the place to Underland and making everyone down to the Mad Hatter sensible. Kovac and Liew, to their credit, don't avoid the question like last year's blanken film did, but neither do they introduce a character from the Real World. This is a tricky line to walk, but they attempt it by making their Wonderlandian protagonist obsessively sensible. She's still crazy like any good Wonderlandian, but she finds her craziness in her sensibility. Rather brilliant solution, really.

This protag is Mary Ann, the White Rabbit's never-seen maid that Alice was mistaken for in the original book. She cleans everything and that helps keep the story on a proper Wonderland tilt.

Most of the time.

Occasionally, the book forgets how to be wacky and crazy and nonsensical and curious, and, at the end, Mary Ann even loses her obsessiveness. Which I did not like. I don't like that character development was deemed to require that Mary Ann give up, in large measure, the very traits that made her a citizen of her native land.

So this was a good book --- one of the best Alice spinoffs I've read --- but imperfect.

The art's fun the writing's fine; if you're a fan, pick it up. I suppose.

three days or so



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018) Redcoat by Kohl Glass (MS POLICY), finished February 18


I hope this screenplay gets filmed for a lot of reasons, but let's just say this has the potential to go seriously zeitgeist.

a little less time than it will take to watch it



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Previously in 2011 . . . . :

14-17
017) Best American Comics 2010 edited by Neil Gaiman, finished February 12
016) Little Bee by Chris Cleave, finished February 10
015) Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, finished February 2
014) Cursed Pirate Girl: The Collected Edition Vol. I by Jeremy Bastian, finished January 31

13-9
013) Sweet Tooth: In Captivity by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
012) Sweet Tooth: Out of the Woods by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
011) Essex County: The Country Nurse by Jeff Lemire, finished January 30
010) Essex County: Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29
009) Essex County: Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire, finished January 29

8
008) Magdalene by Morah Jovan, finished January 27

7-6
007) Knightfall Part Two: Who Rules the Night by a slew of DC folk, finished January 23
006) Bayou by Jeremy Love, finished January 17

5-1
005) Mr. Monster by Dan Wells, finished January 10
004) The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, finished January 6
003) The Mystery of the Dinosaur Graveyard by Mary Adrian, finished January 5
002) Batman - Judge Dredd: Judgment on Gotham by John Wagner and Alan Grant and Simon Bisley, with lettering by the famous Todd Klein; finished January 4
001) Batman: Venom by Dennis O'Neil et al, finished January 2