Space Cat! Mormon missionaries! Batman! Eldritch gods!

.

069) Space Cat Visits Venus by Ruthven Todd, finished August 19

Just as enjoyable as the first although, now that we are below the obstructuve clouds of Venus, Todd is happy to let his imagination run wild. HOWEVER, my mileage varied a bit. As our heroes were surrounded by sentient plants, I was hella creeped out because it does not take much in the way of willful plants to send me back to the world of Scott Smith's The Ruins.

My kids have started reading these books now too and they're digging them. On to Mars!

one day


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070) Served: A Missionary Comic Anthology edited by Theric Jepson & Mike Laughead & al., finished August 22

Yes, I've been working on this for almost two years, but this is the first time I've read the whole things straight through (including one story I hadn't seen yet in its entirety). My pneumonia worries me that I didn't do the best job proofreading (I left some of the most difficult pages for later), but even reading backwards, I laughed and cried. So that bodes well.

morning


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071) Precious Rascals by Anthony Holden, finished August 24

The last time I read this, I hid it away. I wanted my kids to read it but I also didn't want them to destroy it. Someone they found it and it's been travelling from hands to hands about the house for a while now and it's still in surprisingly good shape. And, good news, it holds up to rereading.

three days


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072) The Peanuts' Guide To Life by Charles M. Schulz (sort of), finished August 25

My mother-in-law gave me this book for my birthday from her box o' presents. You can tell it's older because it has an introduction by Bill Cosby. (Cosby and another EdD, apparently to help make sure the intro would be as boring and soulless as possible?) The new edition was given a new introduction.

These Hallmark-published giftbooks are a weird breed. A couple comics, then a lot of sentences and images ripped from their original moorings to become a "Guide to Life."

I guess it's, you know, cute. And in the tradition of Happiness Is a Warm Puppy, but srsly. Don't you have the stamina to read a volume of the Complete? Give that a try!

ELAPSE


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073) Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham by Mike Mignola et al., finished August 28

Mike Mignola and his team have crossed Batman with Lovecraftian Mythos and come up with something that delivers on both counts. We start at the mountains of madness and we meet our first villain from the gallery, ol' Cobblepot who, naturally, has taken up living with the penguins. Mr Freeze is also there. Eventually we will meet Poison Ivy in a radically new interpretation, Killer Croc (ditto), Harvey Dent. Ra's and Talia are much the same.

One thing I quite liked was having all three Robins (Dick, Jason, Tim) at the same time.

Anyway, eldritch horrors are coming to Gotham and only Bruce Wayne is in position to stop them. Luckily he has Etrigan to help him, but otherwise, it's pretty much just Batman.

There's lots of good Greatest Detective stuff in the mix here, which is nice given otherwise it's a lot of supernatural whatsit---it helps the balance.

Overall, it's a pretty unsettling story, but clean and short and reasonably satisfying. I'm surprised it manages so much so well in so short a space. I think it could have been even better at 150% the length, but no complaints. Good stuff.

one sitting


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The other books of 2018

1 – 4

001) Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 3 by Ta-Nehisi Coates &‎ Brian Stelfreeze & al., finished January
002) The Complete Peanuts 1950-2000 by Charles M. Schulz & al., finished January
003) The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, finished January 10
004) El Deafo by Cece Bell, finished January 12

5 – 9

005) Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice by Mike Maihack, finished January 13
006) Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve by Ben Blatt, finished January 15
007) Glister by Andi Watson, finished January 18
008) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 20
009) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun by J.R.R. Tolkien, finished January 21

10 – 11

010) The Vision by Tom King et al., finished January 23
011) Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds, finished January 24

16 – 16

012) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished February 8
013) The City in Which I Love You by Li-Young Lee, finished February 14
014) Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle, finished February 21
015) It Needs to Look Like We Tried by Todd Robert Petersen, finished March 7
016, 017) Fences by August Wilson, finished March 8

18 – 20

018) The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, finished March 13
019) Star Wars Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to a Galaxy Far, Far Away by Tim Leong, finished March 22
020) Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, finished March 25

21 – 25

021) M Is for Malice by Sue Grafton, finished March 28
022) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany; finished March 31
023) It All Started with Hippocrates: A Mercifully Brief History of Medicine by Richard Armour, finished April 6
024) Don't Bump the Glump by Shel Silverstein, finished April 14
025) Coriolanus by Wm Shakespeare, finished April 16

26 – 32

026) The Trouble with Reality by Brooke Gladstone, finished April 24
027, 28) Coriolanus by William Shakespeare, finished April 26
029) The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost, finished April 28
030) Twisted Tales from Shakespeare by Richard Armour, finished April 28 or April 29 depending on when midnight happened
031) Bless The Child: A Romance of Redemption and Glory in the Ancient World by David J. West, finished May 1
032) The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody by Will Cuppy, finished May 3

32 – 34

032) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, finished May 9
033) Stargazing Dog by Takashi Murakami, finished May 9
034) Vader Down by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato, finished May 18

35

035) The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition edited by Grant Hardy, finished May 23

36 – 50

036) Bad Kitty Camp Daze by Nick Bruel, finished May 24
037) I'm Just No Good at Rhyming: And Other Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups by Chris Harris, finished May 24
038) The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer by Sydney Padua, finished May 30
039) Princess Leia by Mark Waid et al, finished May 30
040) Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral, finished June 12
041) Everything You Need to Know About a Mission by Ralph Thomas, finished June 13
042) The Invisibles by Grant Morrison et al, finished June 14
043) The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe, finished June 15
044) Material Volume 1 by Ales Kot & Will Tempest & al., finished June 23
045) Love & Misadventure by Lang Leav, finished June 30
046) The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins, finished July 7
047) Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier Vol. 1: The Man On The Wall by Ales Kos, finished July 7
048) Monster Verse: Poems Human and Inhuman edited by Tony Barnstone & Michelle Mitchell-Foust, finished July 10
049) Poems Dead and Undead edited by Tony Barnstone & Michelle Mitchell-Foust, finished July 10
050) Mary's Monster by Lita Judge, finished July 11

51 – 57

051) Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, finished July 18
052) Hostage by Guy Delisle, finished July 21
053) The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg, finished July 22
054) Paper Girls, Vol 4 by Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, finished July 24
055) Chocolate: The Consuming Passion by Sandra Boynton, finished July 25
056) [Aelian's] On the Nature of Animals translated by Gregory McNamee, finished July 27
057) Blue Yodel by Ansel Alkins, finished July 27

58 – 63

058) The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater, finished July 31
059) Bandette Volume 1: Presto! by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, finished July 31
060) Legends of Zita the Space Girl by Ben Hatke, finished August 3
061) Darth Vader: End of Games by Kieron Gillen & Salvador Larroca, finished August 6
062) How to Read Nancy by Paul Karasik & Mark Newgarden, finished August 10
063) The Selected Poems of Donald Hall by Donald Hall, finished August 14

64 – 68

064) The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg, finished August 15
065) The Humans by Stephen Karam, finished August 15
066) Space Cat by Ruthven Todd, finished August 16
067) Strip Search: Revealing Today's Best College Cartoonists, finished August 16
068) A Contract with God by Will Eisner, finished August 18

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