Let me tell you about some excellent comics

.

019) Curses by Kevin Huizenga, finished February 4

This is an amazing and beautiful collection of comics not quite like anything I've ever seen before. I picked it up on Noah Van Sciver's recommendation, expecting something unusual but it kinda looks like anything in the genre so, you know, how unusual could it be?

In short, very.

It's a series of short stories, some very short, some quite long. All (except perhaps [perhaps] one) about everyman Glenn Ganges of Michigan. But the stories---especially (but not exclusively) the longer ones---have the rich complexity I would expect from Jimmy Corrigan or Asterios Polyx, not a short. Sometimes the stories are strictly realistic, sometimes they are fantastical---but they are always even-keeled and truthful. Some may stop your heart.

One technique that he employs with aplomb is bringing together seemingly random crap and turning it into coherent and moving poetry. Take the mid-sized piece about missing children and carpet cleaning and Somali refugees and American supermarkets. And it all ties together, yes, but not in the way I would have guessed. Not to say there's some big shyamalanian twist at the end---there is not---but that they do. And he does it by placing the weight of these heavy topics on the least significant of them.

Which sounds almost like a New Testament reference which is appropriate as the final two stories get overtly religious and come at Christianity from opposite ends. The first embeds a theological essay by a side character; the second shares a fictional bit of folk religion that deals with similar concerns. Almost like a superego and id of religious thinking bumping into each other on the sidewalk.

I'm not sure how to insist any louder. Just read the book.

maybe three weeks, tops



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017) Precious Rascals by Anthony Holden, finished January 31

I wasn't aware of Holden until a couple months ago, but now I am exceedingly aware of him. This book collects strips he's made over the years FOR his family, along with some commentary, turning it into an interesting hybrid of memoir and collection. The strips are genuinely funny and the look at his (very Mormon) family life is sharp and nuanced and layered and personal and, worth repeating, funny.

Highly recommended!

(I read a free pdf, but I just bought the paper version. That's how much I mean what I say.)

a week or so



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015 & 016) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished January 31

I've read this book so many bleeding times. It's still useful for getting fourteen-year-olds to pull ideas from story, but the more I read it, the harder time I have accepting the shoddy worldbuilding. At first, it was just a nice fable---a tale short on plot on character but full of ideas. But when you're read it as many times as I have, the holes in Rand's fictional creation become more and more difficult to accept.

The good news: the freshmen are reading it for the first time and are just as amazed at its clever aspects as the first batch of freshmen were.

six nonconsecutive days



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014) Old Boy, Vol. 3 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 30

So far so good. The sex is a bit adolescent-fantasy but development of the mystery is enjoyable.

evening

Previously in 2017

9 – 13

013) On Jupiter Place by Nicholas Christopher, finished January 30
012) Old Boy, Vol. 2 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 29
011) Old Boy, Vol. 1 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 28
010) Summerlost by Ally Condie, finished January 27
009) Heat Wake by Jason Zuzga, finished January 24

4 – 8

008) How the End Begins by Cynthia Cruz, finished January 19
007) Delinquent Palaces by Danielle Chapman, finished January 19
006) Pilot by pd mallamo, finished January 19
005) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, finished January 16
004) I Hate Fairyland Volume 1: Madly Ever After by Skottie Young et al, finished January 14

1 – 3

003) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, finished January 12
002) F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers by Richard Benson, finished January 10
001) States of Deseret by William Morris, finished January 10

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