Traci
I couldn’t hold in my excitement for…Darkseid!! He’ll be showing up in JL #4 coming out in December! Here’s an awesome pic of him to whet our appetites! 🙂
Gail
I am pleased to be talking about teaching graphic novels at the Pure Speculation Conference here in Edmonton this upcoming weekend.
From the website: “Currently in our seventh year, Pure Speculation is a friendly little SF&F festival in Edmonton, AB, Canada held every fall. We give the geeks of Edmonton a chance to celebrate their passion with a weekend packed with authors, panels, merchants, costumes, games, and demonstrations. Please feel free to look around our website to see what we have to offer, and make your plans to join us for this year’s festival!”
Artist guest of honor is Joe Vos but there will be other graphic novel creators there as well.
Robin
For myself, I’m very excited to be able to go visit the R. Michelson Gallery this weekend in Northampton, MA, so I can go see the 22nd Annual Children’s Illustration Exhibit. There’s work from the charming Jarrett Krosoczka (Lunch Lady), Mo Willems (my personal fave is still There’s a Bird on Your Head!), Jules Feiffer, plus book illustration favorites like Trina Schart Hyman, John J. Muth, and Barry Moser.
I’m especially excited to see (in person) Rebecca Guay’s art for A Flight of Angels (just out from DC/Vertigo)
Abby
I recently started reading The Secret Notes of Lady Kanoko and love it. It is so funny and clever. I highly recommend everyone read it, if you’re into shojo manga.
Allen
I’m reading through The Broadcast, a graphic novel about the fallout of Orson Welles’ infamous rendition of War of the Worlds. It’s got a cool “Monsters of Maple Street” vibe to it.
Matt Moffett
Pretty happy about the announcement this week of the new ongoing title from DC: Batman Beyond Unlimited.
Loved the cartoon in the 90’s for it’s mix of sci fi and super-heroing. The recent reboot in comic book form earlier this year was fun, too. The Jokerz are quite possibly the most entertaining band of fumbling street toughs I’ve ever seen. I’m glad to see they’re giving the concept another shot.
Jenny
I’m happy this week to learn that Love*Com‘s Aya Nakahara is starting a new series in December. If the new one is half as superbly funny and sweet as its predecessor, I’ll have no complaints. Wee!
Andrew
I’m happy that I may have found a graphic novel my mom will like. She’s a big reader and book person, but not much for comics, which I can’t help but take as a challenge. To date, the only comic I’ve gotten her to read is Posy Simmonds’s Tamara Drewe, which she liked well enough. However, I think I may have found a real winner with Glenn Eichler and Joe Infurnari’s Mush: Sled Dogs with Issues. Here’s a snippet from the Publisher’s Weekly review: “The universe of this beautiful little book is an isolated pen deep in the northern woods where a team of six sled dogs bicker, run, worry about running, and debate the ontological relevance of why they enjoy running so much.” For my mother, that’s pure gold!
Brazos
I’m excited about starting Habibi by Craig Thompson. He’s one of the reasons I got back into comics (I absolutely adored Blankets and Goodbye Chunky Rice) and Robin seemed to really like it!
Snow
The graphic novel hybrid The Accidental Genius of Weasel High by Rick Detorie (creator of the comic strip One Big Happy) made me happy this week. Comparisons with Diary of a Wimpy Kid are inevitable, but I think that Accidental Genius stands well on its own. Larkin is a solid kid who knows himself pretty well for a 14-year-old. His journal tells the story of the spring semester of his freshman year in prose and comic art. Detorie’s tale is very funny, but a little bit more realistic than Wimpy Kid and he’s created a fun cast of characters that I’d be happy to see again.
Russ
This week, I’m realizing how happy the online version of Phil and Kaja Foglios’s Girl Genius is making me. They’ve just wrapped up the 11th book, and are on page 5 of the 12th as of this writing. Agatha is really coming into her inheritance and every dangling plot and character seems to be coming out of the woodwork. I just hope this doesn’t herald the end of the series and that we have sparky goodness for years to come.
Jennifer
I have discovered that the website Crunchyroll has a free iPad app. Crunchyroll streams online anime like Skip Beat and Naruto Shippuden as well as other live Asian dramas legally because it is a sponsored website. The only commercial is at the start of the video.
Jack
I just heard news that Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon’s excellent run on PunisherMax will be coming to an end this February. Over the course of the last 20 issues or so, they’ve delivered an exceptionally tight, focused, mature, and mean little crime story about the infamous Marvel vigilante, the Punisher, and his vendetta against the Kingpin. By keeping the story small, realistic, and character-driven, Aaron has made me care about Punisher for the first time since I was 12 years old. I’m sad that a great comic will be going off the shelves, but so very glad that the story will get the ending it deserves. The next few issues are guaranteed to be brutal, bloody and FINAL, rather than dragging out into a series of near misses that stretch out ad infinitum. Frank Castle himself would want it this way…
