100 Books: Year, Months 8-9

I’ve really been kicking some book ass the last few months trying to stay on track for 100 books this year! (*=favorites)

41. Hellcity by Macon Blair
42. Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson
43. (reread) The Monster’s Ring by Bruce Coville
44. Hatter M vol. 1 The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, Ben Templesmith, Liz Cavalier
45. Rasl vol 1: The Drift by Jeff Smith
46. Emily The Strange by Rob Reger
47. Funny Misshapen Body: A Memoir by Jeffrey Brown
48. Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson*
49. Scott Pilgrim vol. 4: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together by Bryan Lee O’Malley
50. The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
51. The Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell
52. Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul by Grant Morrison, Fabian Nicieza, Paul Dini
53. Batman R.I.P. by Grant Morrison, Tony Daniel, Sandu Florea
54. X-23: Innocence Lost by Craig Kyle, Billy Tan, Christopher Yost*
55. (reread) Jennifer Murdley’s Toad by Bruce Coville
56. Angel: Revelations by Roberto  Aguirre-Sacasa, Adam Pollina*
57. The Astounding Wolf-Man by Robert Kirkman, Jason Howard*
58. BOP! [More Box Office Poison] by Alex Robinson
59. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 1 by Terry Moore*
60. Amphigorey by Edward Gorey*
61. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 2: I Dream of You by Terry Moore*
62. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 3: It’s A Good Life by Terry Moore
63. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 4: Love Me Tender by Terry Moore
64. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 5: Immortal Enemies by Terry Moore
65. The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack by Nicholas Gurewitch
66. X-Men: Magneto Testament by Greg Pak, Carmine Di Giandomenico
67. Fables vol 12: The Dark Ages by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, James Jean
68. Teen Titans vol 4: The Future is Now by Geoff Johns, Mike McKone, Mark Waid
69. The House With A Clock in its Walls by John Bellairs
70. (reread) Strangers in Paradise vol 6: High School by Terry Moore
71. Catching Fire (The Hunger Games book 2) by Suzanne Collins*
72. Uncanny X-Men The New Age vol 4: End of Greys by Chris Claremont, Chris Bachelo
73. Strangers in Paradise vol 7: Sanctuary by Terry Moore
74. Secret War by Brian Michael Bendis, Gabrielle Dell’Otto
75. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
76. New Mutants, vol. 1: Back To School by Nunizo De Filippis, Christina Weir, Josh Middleton

Reread some old favorites (Bruce Coville’s Magic Shop series, Terry Moore’s SiP), discovered new treasures (love Alex Robinson, Adam Pollina, and anything with X-23), and read plenty of teasers that have left me anxiously awaiting their imminent awesomeness (Fables as always, Jeff Smith’s Rasl, and the final Hunger Games!)

Favorites:

Possible future reads?

To see my full list so far for this year, or my list from last year’s challenge, check out the  “Lists of Bookage” tab I added to my page, listed on the upper right under “Welcome.”

suck it!

Feed Me: Cartoon Library and Museum

This summer I started volunteering at The Ohio State Cartoon Library and Museum and it has been amazing! They have such a great collection and I am in awe of seeing some of the original artwork. geekfest!! My boyfriend wrote his thesis on Winsor McCay, a really awesome cartoonist and pioneer in animation, and did some of his research at the Cartoon Library and Museum.

If you’re in the Columbus area, be sure to check out the Winsor McCay: Legendary Cartoonist exhibition that will be up from September 15th- December 31st 2009. http://cartoons.osu.edu/?q=exhibits/winsor-mccay-legendary-cartoonist

Also on November 3rd, John Canemaker, Winsor McCay biographer, will be giving a presentation entitled “The Art and Life of Winsor McCay” http://cartoons.osu.edu/?q=events/art-and-life-winsor-mccay

Also be sure to check out this great article in the Columbus Dispatch about the Library/Museum’s huge new building for their gigantic collection! http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2009/09/17/1A_IRELAND_LIBRARY.ART_ART_09-17-09_D1_2RF3BD8.html?sid=101

yay for comics!

New Banner Desgins

I’ve been working on some new banner designs for the sections on my blog and slowly trying to sort and reorganize everything.

New Feed Me: Comics Reviews banner:

Vote for your new favorite Crafty Creations banner:

I like the top one but I keep going back and forth. Let me know what you think.

Summer of Sci-Fi: part 3

The summer of Sci-Fi is still going strong…

Blindness (2008):

This film takes “an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind” to the extreme!  Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness is about the unraveling of a society plagued with an unexplained epidemic of blindness. I’m such a sucker for dystopian science fiction, and this film really impressed me. Gritty, disturbing, provoking, and overall kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. In a time where visual culture bombards our every waking minute, I found this film especially poignant. Of course it seems like I always find out that behind a great film is a great book, so now I really want to check out the 1995 Portuguese novel by Josè Saramago that inspired the film. If you’re a fan of Children of Men (and who isn’t!?) then I highly recommend this film.

Event Horizon (1997):

Paul W. S. Anderson’s Event Horizon is a British sci-fi horror film about a crew of astronauts’ journey to recover a spaceship that mysteriously disappeared for 7 years.  Although the effects are a little dated, I really enjoyed this film and picked up on the horror and science fiction references right away (The Haunting, The Shining, Alien, 2001, etc…).  Since I’m a huge horror and haunted house fan, I loved the idea of a haunted ship, which was even equipped with a creepy naked dead lady in a bath tub and a tidal wave of blood.  Laurence Fishburne is such a badass in this movie! “Fuck this ship!” and the New Zealand dude from Jurassic Park makes an incredibly creepy villain! Overall I loved this film and if you’re looking for a new guilty pleasure, then this is the film for you.

X-23: Innocence Lost (2005):

I bought a few issues of NYX back in 2003, but between switching teams in the middle and collectors making it hard to find and super expensive, I never got the chance to read the first appearance of X-23. I always thought see looked like a badass so I decided to check out her origin story, collected as X-23: Innocence Lost by Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, and Billy Tan. To my surprise, I found out this story made for me! Part WE-3, part Gunslinger Girls this story is super sweet with its combination of government super weapons and young girl assassins. I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with Wolverine.. I love adamantium skeletons and he’s pretty hardcore, but I also get sick of him being thrown on every X-men team ever and I enjoy reading comics where he gets shot in the crotch. So I think the invention of a girl Wolverine is ingenious and she’s pretty much my new favorite X-Men character.

For more X-23 check out her very first appearance in X-Men: Evolution on hulu: http://www.hulu.com/watch/84367/x-men-evolution-x23#x-0,vepisode,1

The Omega Man (1971):

Boris Sagal’s The Omega Man, is very loosely based on Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend, and is the second film adaptation, after Vincent Price’s The Last Man on Earth.  I think this film started out really well. I loved the opening scene of Charlton Heston speeding around in a hot car (similar to the opening of the Will Smith I Am Legend film) and style and tone seemed pretty dead on. Where this film lost me was with the portrayal of the vampire/zombie plague victims.  When the film stuck to the original story there are some really amazing moments, but when it starts to deviate it just turns into lameville.  Because I’m such a huge Richard Matheson fan, I won’t really be pleased with any film adaptation, and it seems like The Omega Man could’ve been really sweet film, but in the end, I prefer The Last Man on Earth over this.

For more sci-fi reviews, check out my previous posts: Summer of Sci-Fi Part 1, Summer of Sci-Fi Part 2

It’s been a great summer for sci-fi and I think I’ll be able to squeeze in one more round of reviews before classes start. I’m pretty new to the Sci-Fi genre, so if you have any recommendations, please send them my way.

Summer of Sci-Fi: Part 2

The summer of Sci-Fi continues…

Silent Running (1972): After gushing to my dad about Moon and Sunshine, he recommended Silent Running to me and I loved it! The film is about one man’s pursuit to singlehandedly preserve the last existing species of plants from earth.  Silent Running is Douglas Trumbull’s directorial debut. Previously Trumbull worked as a special effects supervisor on The Andromeda Strain and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Overall, I think this film is really successful because of the minimalist story, masterful execution, endearing acting, and the psychological exploration of civil disobedience. Although the special effects may seem a little outdated, the story about the Earth’s environmental struggles are as relevant as ever. You can see Trumull’s lasting influence in many contemporary films such as Sunshine (greenhouses), WALL-E (extinct plant life), and Moon (minimalism + robot). Be sure to check out the interview with the director on the dvd! Another brilliant example of great and innovative filmmaking on a limited budget. The robot drones were adorable! (although it kinda freaked me out to learn they were played by four double-amputees).

Star Trek (2009): so I guess I’m a Star Trek fan now (well that’s not true, I’ve always been a LeVar Burton fan, so I guess I’ve always been a ST fan by default). I was a little intimidated at first, not being a die-hard Trekkie (like my mom), but this film brilliantly balances accessibility for new fans as well as not pissing off the hardcore fans too much. So far my mom and I have both seen this film twice in theaters, so it must be doing something right!

Going into this film I thought I would be a Dr. McCoy fan all the way, but Spock totally won me over and the whole Leonard Nimoy thing clenched it. I <3 SPOCK! I’m such a sucker for inner conflict and a Vulcan nerve pinch. The only thing that I thought was really strange was Winona Ryder as Spock’s mother. wtf?? I don’t want to give too much away, but overall this film really impressed me and did a great job of reinventing/relaunching the series for a young audience.

“Dammit, man! I’m a doctor, not a physicist!”

Hater (2009): Hater by David Moody is more horror with a sci-fi twist.  It is the story of Danny McCoyne, an employee of the Parking Fine Processing office, who slowly witnesses the world  becoming overrun with, not quite zombies, but what the media has labeled “Haters,” a person who suddenly snaps and viciously attacks anyone in sight.

I originally spotted the book randomly at the library.  I saw the blood-splattered book-cover in the new releases section and I just had to check it out (check out the great post on Moody’s blog about the evolution of the cover: http://www.djmoody.co.uk/2009/08/03/the-hater-cover-story/).  Reading the little author’s bio on the back of the book I was intrigued to learn that the book had originally been self-published on the Internet, and that Guillermo Del Toro has bought film rights.

Moody cites many influences including Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids, H G Wells’ War of the Worlds, and Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. I definitely see a Richard Matheson influence with the minimal/intimate first-person narration of the protagonist. In contrast to novels like The Stand, I felt that the characters’ reaction to the progressing pandemic felt genuine and convincing. Overall this book quenched my thirst for a great apocalyptic story spiked with HATE.

Little did I know that Hater was the first book in a trilogy (Dog Blood expected out in 2010) and I can’t wait to check out book 2 and the upcoming film.  Follow David Moody on goodreads or on twitter @davidjmoody

District 9 (2009): District 9, in the same vein as Cloverfield and Blair Witch, is a science fiction film presented as a pseudo documentary/found footage.  It is the story about an alien crew that is stranded on Earth when their spaceship stalls above Johannesburg. This film starts out strong, but even though there is always a lot of action, I felt that the second half was a bit disappointing. Overall I really appreciated the balance of comic relief with an otherwise very dark, gritty, and violent film with strong sociopolitical critique.

To me, this film seemed very reminiscent of Romero’s work (Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Toe Tags) with a sort of hybrid character that is able to bridge both worlds and reveal  a redeeming side of the “monsters” to the audience.  I guess my favorite part of the film would have to be the look of the aliens. They had a kind of Doctor Zoidberg meets a grasshopper type thing going on.  Also, the baby alien was adorable!

Be sure to check out my previous post: Summer of Sci-Fi: Part 1 for reviews of Moon, Sunshine, The Hunger Games, and Zot!