Bat Boy: The Complete Weekly World News Comic Strips by Peter Bagge
Posted: December 18, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Bat Boy is a blast. Peter Bagge’s comic strip from ’04/’05 rocks hell by the amount of sheer fun, madness and stupidity.
Bat Boy, a 12-year-old mutant kid, also Osama Bin Laden’s slayer, becomes the president of the US, Beyoncé becomes his first lady (winning this honor over Lindsay Lohan and Hillary Duff), Dick Chaney gets his arm bitten off, and the new independent state of Freakstown is declared within the borders of Oklahoma! Bat Boy, Bad Boy, oh boy, whatever.
Apocalypse Nerd by Peter Bagge
Posted: December 17, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Seattle nuked by North Korea, and Peter Bagge goes nuts. An office clerk learning to survive in the woods, after the blast and the fallout.
Surprised Peter didn’t go for cannibalism. Burning and looting, yes, going crazy and trigger/knife-happy, yes, killing all, including small babies, yes, well, all sorts of things. Overall, strange book – should’ve been funny, but not funny enough.
This is no Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen, I assure you.
The Book of Human Insects by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: December 12, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
The Insects book, newly translated into English, despite its promising name, is okay but not more. Yes, like most Tezuka’s adult novels, it has abundant violence, sex, murders – this one, even a hostile takeover shareholder meeting (vow, this is 16 years before Gekko!) – and most people are not nice at all – yet it lacks strong and gripping storyline Tezuka’s most prominent books like Adolf, Kirihito or Ayako can surely boast. I guess, sometimes, when you serialize a novel, like Jap manga usually goes out, it can hurt your story.
Written in the 70s, it is a tale of a sick and wicked girl – but other than that, little to add. I wonder whether Swallowing the Earth I backed on kickstarter.com will be of similar disappointment, ’cause for my $75-worth, I will get 10 non-Tezuka books on top of it.
Big Baby by Charles Burns
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Charles Burns, English Leave a comment
Finally got my hands on Big Baby, a recollection of Charles Burns‘ horror stories from late 80s – early 90s. Man, how I like Burns and how I liked this book.
First, it’s like childhood coming back – campfire horror stories mixed with the good old “Alfred Hitchcock presents…” and Tales from the Crypt in one bottle. Dunno about you, but I was totally hooked on monsters, vampires, the undead, all that stuff. Kind of, still am.
Second, his drawings are impeccable and his art is a work of genius, sick minded one, but still. I don’t know how he sleeps at night if these monsters still haunt him – but judging by this very book, little Charlie might’ve had some difficulty with that back in his childhood days.
Third, the Teen Plague story looks like a direct predecessor to Burns’ most respected and awed graphic novel called the Black Hole – which is sooo tense and gripping that it beats a good lot of decent Holly horror flicks. Erotic as well – what else would you expect from a book on an unknown decease that hits teenagers, which is transmitted only via intercourse and that starts an irreversible body mutation process. Grow a tail.
Fourth – black and white. Black and white. People like Burns should fire colorists and always push back on publishers if they propose colored. B&W always.
All in all, one two-pager story and three thirty page ones, barely an hour read – but so much fun. Didn’t really enjoyed as much his recent X’ed Out part 1 – but we’ll see how that turns out.
Spent by Joe Matt
Posted: November 26, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Chester Brown, English, Joe Matt, Seth 1 Comment
And yet again, I had no idea what I was buying. I only knew that Joe Matt is one of the three prominent comic book artists who stayed friends and put each other in their books while they lived and worked in Canada (for those not too familiar with the scene, that’s Chester Brown, Seth and Joe himself) – but just like with Chet’s last book, oh well, who knew.
They all have addictions of a sort. Chester, as I recently found out, is hooked on paid sex, Seth – on collecting comic book strips from early 20th century – and Joe – just to cut it short – this book is about Joe’s addiction to porn and masturbation – and how that drives his life. Too low on self-respect, too deep in self-dissection, too busy with porn collection, too tired from you-know-what. Quite on par with Chester’s very frank book already mentioned above on his dedication and love for the red light industry – but our friend Joe is living in a pre-www world and is focusing on his big VHS porn collection instead, which he even edits! Poor soul, a few more years and it all would come to him in all shapes and colors on the net.
All in all, Joe is funny, he is smart and he is ruthless to himself – no doubt, I need to read more of his.
Buddha vol.3: Devadatta by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: November 16, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Buddha, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
By the time I moved into Buddha volume 3 territory, I already got quite used to the story – it seemed just like watching, I dunno, the Walking Dead, Friends or, as some strange people do, House M.D. on the telly. A chewing gum of sorts, of mixed Hindu and Japanese flavors.
The book is divided into two, really – a half is devoted to Siddhartha’s travel to Magadha kingdom, whose king for the first time calls the young monk “Buddha” – and the second half is devoted to Devadatta, an child exiled by people and raised by the wolves – not that much of that story gets confirmed by wiki, but still, this Rudyard Kipling bit is quite amusing.
Oh well, it was for me.
The Other Lives by Peter Bagge
Posted: November 13, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, English, Peter Bagge Leave a comment
Now, this was fun. Expected, I should say. Just to explain – Peter Bagge is one of the guys who got me hooked up on comic books in the first place. Quite a few years ago, I don’t remember for what reason, but Ira got me a copy of Buddy Does Seattle, a paperback collection of the first 3 black and white books (actually, 15 issues) of the Buddy Bradley saga – and I read it while lying under the effect of painkillers in CITO hospital bed after they had taken this bloody screw out of my ankle. The book was hilarious. So cynical and funny, I started to like comic books big time. Bought the rest of the Bradley’s stuff – the three books comprising a later published Buddy Does Jersey collection and the Bradleys book – and it all was all fun, but probably not as fun as the original Seattle Bradley hate saga.
This new book is a page turner as well – a 100+ page story about 4 misfits/losers/whatever-is-the-term who got hooked up on virtual reality games far too much. Acid-spitting and entertaining. The stuff that surprised me, though, was the ending – which was quite on par with the ending of The Valley of Pain performance by Vladimir Epifantsev we attended yesterday, with blam-blam-blam and blood-blood-blood. Now that was unexpected, huh?
Anyways, well done Peter – and we wait for more!
The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes
Posted: November 12, 2011 Filed under: Books, Comic | Tags: Books, Daniel Clowes, English, Masked Vigilante Leave a comment
Insomnia (getting old, huh) and the fact I left my Buddha book vol.3 somewhere else pushed me to read the newly published Death Ray comic. Always liked Daniel Clowes, but rather on the small format story size, like 1-2 paged pieces, where he writes about typical loser type of guys and girls and manages to be as smart-alec and cynical as one can possibly be. Here’s a corny example, but for mature audiences only!
However, it seemed to me that adolescent nihilism that Clowes is renowned for (Ghost World and that kind of stuff) mixed so and so with the masked vigilante story here. My initial feeling is – the book got a bit clumsy, and that’s probably why, though The Death Ray first appeared in Eightball Mag in 2004, it was reissued as a standalone piece just now. However – and that must not be disregarded – that I may be too sleepy and thus not too appreciative of a true cult classic-to-be )))
All in all, Andy the masked vigilante is no Kick-ass, just to be clear – more of a Ghost World meets science fiction movies of the 50s. Wikipedia says Jack Black bought movie rights, so we’ll see.
One thing is impeccable though – art style. Need to read the Wilson book I bought some time ago that keeps lying on the magazine rack in the WC. I will.
And yes, I will continue to buy whatever new book of his that goes out.
Buddha vol.2: The Four Encounters by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: November 11, 2011 Filed under: Comic | Tags: Books, Buddha, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
I keep on slowly reading the Buddha books, however, I more and more realize I definitely like it his less than Tezuka’s ultra gripping Adolf series, or MW (gas attacks do remind of Aum Shinrikyo – published 10 year ahead of the attacks) or my favorite Ode to Kirihito.
Why? Don’t really like this gag element Tezuka adds to drawings and text sometimes, in an attempt to appeal to younger audience – I would prefer Buddha’s life story to develop with all possible seriousness.
Overall – more dead rabbits and dead people, brutality to lower classes (the rising 99% movement, huh?) and finally – Siddhartha becomes a monk. Oh well.
Buddha vol.1: Kapilavastu by Osamu Tezuka
Posted: November 6, 2011 Filed under: Comic | Tags: Books, Buddha, English, Osamu Tezuka Leave a comment
Embarked on a long journey – Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha series is 8 volumes long – over 3000 pages in total – and thicker than Nakazawa’s 10-book-long Barefoot Gen, so I will break my record.
Three main events in this book – suicide bunny, Siddhartha is born, Chapra dies. Oh well.
Btw, one guy made a video for the bunny sacrifice piece. Hm.
PS: Praise for Buddha in Time mag.
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