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Beppe Severgnini, Ciao, America!: This book about an Italian's year in Washington, DC was a bestseller, allegedly in both countries. It's probably only of interest to people who have one foot in the boot, so to speak. Though Severgnini has a light touch, he doesn't really offer many insights about Americans. In a year in Washington, he apparently managed not to ride the Metro, which is actually somewhat unusual even for a white guy; he also appears to have been suckered into the idea that Americans in general like Spam as a picnic meat.
Henry Petroski, To Engineer Is Human: Engineering mistakes often teach us much more than successes. Now you've learned as much as I did from the book -- wasn't that an elegant summary? Oh, there are a few descriptions of particular mistakes, and an interesting detour at the end over whether computer-assisted design is more dangerous because it's too complicated for the human engineer to really feel, but overall this is a waste of time. It's nearly twenty years old now; I'd like to see whether Petroski has new opinions on computer-assisted design.
Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead: What I want to know is, whose bright idea was this? I was expecting something more tongue-in-cheek, so to speak, but the seriousness overwhelms the mockery. There's no parody of the "Survival Guides," as one might expect, just discussion of "solanum," a prion-like virus-type thingummy that creates zombies and sends them after your flesh. Fairly detailed discussion of what weapons and supplies you'd need to defeat actual zombies – here's a hint: not a chainsaw – if they had the characteristics imputed to them by the author. I suppose the one bit of praise is that he's really thought this through. This book is a good example of why it's often wiser to ask "why?" than "why not?"
Batton Lash, The Vampire Brat, and other tales of Supernatural Law: Lawyers and vampires – two great tastes that taste great together, right? Well, maybe in some other graphic novel. Flaccid parodies of everything from Buffy to Ally McBeal – yeah, not that big a range, really; they should both eat a cookie -- left me distinctly unimpressed, and I'm the ideal customer. Hell, I bought The Zombie Survival Guide, though admittedly for $1.
Alan Moore et al., Batman: The Killing Joke: This is an examination of the relationship between Batman and the Joker, not quite love and not quite murder, as played out on the body of one man who stands between them, Commissioner Gordon. The opening dialogue, repeated later, always sends a chill down my spine: "I've been thinking lately. About you and me. About what's going to happen to us in the end. We're going to kill each other, aren't we? Perhaps you'll kill me. Perhaps I'll kill you. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later. I just wanted to know that I'd made a genuine attempt to talk things over and avert that outcome.... I don't fully understand why ours should be such a fatal relationship, but I don't want your murder on my ... hands." (Second ellipsis in original, for very good reasons.) The Joker gets his own killer speech: "That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right?" Eeee. This is the dark chocolate Dark Knight, just like I like him.
Alan Moore et al., Promethea: On the other hand, I didn't warm to Promethea, Moore's attempt to create a goddesslike figure, embodied in various and sundry avatars over the centuries, who comes to life with the power of storytelling. Or something like that; the latest Promethea gets the proverbial gauntlet because she was researching the legend thereof. The avatars are all very different personalities; the goddess works through them, and if she leaves a stamp it is one that combines with all the other colors and scars the woman already bears. That's kind of neat, but otherwise I found it fuzzy and not successful as an epic. Maybe it's a statement against archetypes.
Jeph Loeb et al., Superman for All Seasons: Sigh. I don't quite understand what Loeb et al. were going for here. There are four seasons, yes, and it's a theme, but mostly I found Clark's quiet upbringing boring, Lana merely unlikable and not the subject of my passionate hatred, and the art extremely offputting. I suppose you could see it as an attempt to reach back to earlier portrayals of Superman, but all I could see was that his head was the same width as his neck, never a good look, and he was about twice the size -- length and width -- of anybody in the same frame with him, which distracted me. Once I got past the boring upbringing and the non-crisis of letting Lana know about Clark's superpowers, the villain did liven things up a bit by getting Superman to feel super-guilty, but then he got better. The end.
Warren Ellis et al., Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta: This is more like it, if only because I tend to like the bad/morally ambiguous guys in the comics better. And I love AUs in which superheroes have gone bad. I don't know Planetary, but I know the folks dedicated to fighting them: Clark Kent – they killed his parents. Diana Prince – they exterminated her people. Bruce Wayne – well, he was already fucked up, but he's extra concentrated now. Dark, disturbing, and there are terrible casualties along the way – the last, black and white panel is spectacular, as is the ambiguous last line. Did this alternate Earth rid itself of tyrants, or just switch the pictures?
Superman: End of the Century: I picked this up because it was cheap and had Lex on the cover. This is comics Lex, mired in a relationship with Erica del Portenza, the seemingly immortal woman who, for reasons of her own, bore Lex a daughter – and don't doubt that Lex thinks of her as the bearer, not the parent. He loves his daughter, and for him love is ownership. Meanwhile, del Portenza legacies are popping up all over, as Erica takes on Lex's empire by trying to burn it down, and stranger things are happening on a tropical island with newly discovered treasure. Lois and Clark basically run around trying to keep up with events in this book, and that's okay because happy marriages are all alike, but Luthor marriages are spectacularly interesting.
Henry Petroski, To Engineer Is Human: Engineering mistakes often teach us much more than successes. Now you've learned as much as I did from the book -- wasn't that an elegant summary? Oh, there are a few descriptions of particular mistakes, and an interesting detour at the end over whether computer-assisted design is more dangerous because it's too complicated for the human engineer to really feel, but overall this is a waste of time. It's nearly twenty years old now; I'd like to see whether Petroski has new opinions on computer-assisted design.
Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead: What I want to know is, whose bright idea was this? I was expecting something more tongue-in-cheek, so to speak, but the seriousness overwhelms the mockery. There's no parody of the "Survival Guides," as one might expect, just discussion of "solanum," a prion-like virus-type thingummy that creates zombies and sends them after your flesh. Fairly detailed discussion of what weapons and supplies you'd need to defeat actual zombies – here's a hint: not a chainsaw – if they had the characteristics imputed to them by the author. I suppose the one bit of praise is that he's really thought this through. This book is a good example of why it's often wiser to ask "why?" than "why not?"
Batton Lash, The Vampire Brat, and other tales of Supernatural Law: Lawyers and vampires – two great tastes that taste great together, right? Well, maybe in some other graphic novel. Flaccid parodies of everything from Buffy to Ally McBeal – yeah, not that big a range, really; they should both eat a cookie -- left me distinctly unimpressed, and I'm the ideal customer. Hell, I bought The Zombie Survival Guide, though admittedly for $1.
Alan Moore et al., Batman: The Killing Joke: This is an examination of the relationship between Batman and the Joker, not quite love and not quite murder, as played out on the body of one man who stands between them, Commissioner Gordon. The opening dialogue, repeated later, always sends a chill down my spine: "I've been thinking lately. About you and me. About what's going to happen to us in the end. We're going to kill each other, aren't we? Perhaps you'll kill me. Perhaps I'll kill you. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later. I just wanted to know that I'd made a genuine attempt to talk things over and avert that outcome.... I don't fully understand why ours should be such a fatal relationship, but I don't want your murder on my ... hands." (Second ellipsis in original, for very good reasons.) The Joker gets his own killer speech: "That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right?" Eeee. This is the dark chocolate Dark Knight, just like I like him.
Alan Moore et al., Promethea: On the other hand, I didn't warm to Promethea, Moore's attempt to create a goddesslike figure, embodied in various and sundry avatars over the centuries, who comes to life with the power of storytelling. Or something like that; the latest Promethea gets the proverbial gauntlet because she was researching the legend thereof. The avatars are all very different personalities; the goddess works through them, and if she leaves a stamp it is one that combines with all the other colors and scars the woman already bears. That's kind of neat, but otherwise I found it fuzzy and not successful as an epic. Maybe it's a statement against archetypes.
Jeph Loeb et al., Superman for All Seasons: Sigh. I don't quite understand what Loeb et al. were going for here. There are four seasons, yes, and it's a theme, but mostly I found Clark's quiet upbringing boring, Lana merely unlikable and not the subject of my passionate hatred, and the art extremely offputting. I suppose you could see it as an attempt to reach back to earlier portrayals of Superman, but all I could see was that his head was the same width as his neck, never a good look, and he was about twice the size -- length and width -- of anybody in the same frame with him, which distracted me. Once I got past the boring upbringing and the non-crisis of letting Lana know about Clark's superpowers, the villain did liven things up a bit by getting Superman to feel super-guilty, but then he got better. The end.
Warren Ellis et al., Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta: This is more like it, if only because I tend to like the bad/morally ambiguous guys in the comics better. And I love AUs in which superheroes have gone bad. I don't know Planetary, but I know the folks dedicated to fighting them: Clark Kent – they killed his parents. Diana Prince – they exterminated her people. Bruce Wayne – well, he was already fucked up, but he's extra concentrated now. Dark, disturbing, and there are terrible casualties along the way – the last, black and white panel is spectacular, as is the ambiguous last line. Did this alternate Earth rid itself of tyrants, or just switch the pictures?
Superman: End of the Century: I picked this up because it was cheap and had Lex on the cover. This is comics Lex, mired in a relationship with Erica del Portenza, the seemingly immortal woman who, for reasons of her own, bore Lex a daughter – and don't doubt that Lex thinks of her as the bearer, not the parent. He loves his daughter, and for him love is ownership. Meanwhile, del Portenza legacies are popping up all over, as Erica takes on Lex's empire by trying to burn it down, and stranger things are happening on a tropical island with newly discovered treasure. Lois and Clark basically run around trying to keep up with events in this book, and that's okay because happy marriages are all alike, but Luthor marriages are spectacularly interesting.
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I adore this line. I really do. It gives me a warm glowy feeling of messed-up character love.
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That guy's nuts!
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Everything in THE KILLING JOKE happens for a reason and it was a terrific story, as I recall. But Ms Gordon finds out about it later and brings to bear on Batman the most concentrated look of fury imaginable when she confronts him with what he did in the climactic scene of that story.
Rough paraphrase: So let me get this straight. You caught up with the Joker. The man who crippled me and nearly killed my father. And you... laughed?
It's not often you see Batman taken down a peg or six.
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This is exactly why I could never make myself buy this book. Superman's head is just way too disturbing. And the rest of the art isn't much better. Except I kept hearing how it's a Smallville-like, Clark-centric story, and I'm all about Clark, but now that I'm willing to overlook the art, I can't find the book anywhere. Your review makes me think I'm not missing anything. Which is a relief. Because his head is so wrong!
I do have "Superman: End of the Century" -- bought precisely because Lex was on the cover -- but I haven't read it yet. It sounds promising though.
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Your review makes me think I'm not missing anything. Which is a relief. Because his head is so wrong!
The way Clark's drawn *is* hard to get past, but I love "Superman for All Seasons" *so much*. Because that Lois? *Is* my Lois. Great legs and judo chop action and the man's blazer over the miniskirt and the sultry-as-hell mouth and the wicked wicked eyes...
*girlcrush*
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Yay!
And there's some nice Clark/Lex bits too. You know. If you're into that kind of thing. :)
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alan moore's ups and downs
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I think another perfect example of Bats/Joker connection is Dark Knight Returns. The psychologist there is right -- there is a scary reason to why Joker came out of his comatose after so many years when Bats returned.
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See, I felt the way you did about the figures, but I thought some of the landscapes were gorgeous.