I belong to the Merry Marvel Thieving Society

I've been reading Manga.

There, I said it, sorry.

Naoki Urasawa's Monster to be more precise. Why? Well, I was in Gosh! getting my weekly fix and itching to spend more of my hard earned comic cash. Eschewing those pretty Showcases and Essentials, my mind strayed to an old episode of Around Comics in which someone or other (hope you're appreciating the specifics here) recommended Monster. Before you know it I'm shambling my way down to the Manga lined basement and grabbing some honest to goodness manga. Blimey.

I had no idea that Monster was a sprawling epic that runs to 18 volumes. Sadly after reading volume #1 I'm going to have to lay out more wedge on the remaining books. It's not that it's a particularly amazing piece of comics brilliance or anything, (I kept hearing Miriam Margolyes and Andrew Sachs in my head as I read the rather clunky English translation), but it is a page turner. A bit like an airport novel, very readable trash.

The plot centres around a young Japanese brain surgeon working in a German hospital who saves the life of a boy who turns out to be a psychopath. There's plenty of suspense, a nice (if somewhat hard to believe) look at hospital politics and some interesting characters.

The pictures are also very pretty. There's only one Japanese character in the story and it's interesting to see European characters drawn in the Manga style. Apparently Westerners all have huge noses.

Anyway - well worth a look if you fancy a fun, easy read on the bus to work.

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Finally got round to reading a bit of Back Issue #24. As always, there's a fair bit of filler to plough through, but buried in amongst some of the less interesting stuff there's a nice interview with Gene Colan about his run on Dr. Strange. It turns out that Colan based his Strange on a bunch of old photos he had of Mikhail Baryshnikov. There's one in the eye for all those folk out there who knock the likes of Greg Land for ripping off his art from magazines.

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I've been thieving. Terrible I know, but I was thumbing through the display copy of The Marvel Vault in Borders and was unable to resist the temptation to pocket this...
Gahh, it's only a sticker for Christ's sake. No-one's going to miss it and they'll only bin the display copy in a few months anyway. I might go back tomorrow and pinch The Thing Christmas Card.

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Not that I'm obsessed with Nazis or anything, but when I saw the magnificently titled I Killed Adolf Hitler in Gosh, it was obvious that I'd be slipping it into my nerd sack.

Travelling back in time to kill Hitler is a well worn subject in comics, (see Midnighter and Strontium Dog for famous examples), but it's never been done like this...

Top stuff. Highly recommended.

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That man Dave F has been filling my inbox again. Here's his latest offering...

"Blimey! You thought you’d never see the day when Big D posted something that wasn’t Hulk related. Well I just love this panel and had to share it with the world

When your 12 year old friend ‘Sticks’ goes ‘a missing, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that its gonna have something to do with the wild eyed hillbilly who wears dungarees and makes scarecrows in his spare time… Whadda you think true believers?

And while I'm here please let me treat you to another of my all time fave comic covers from the 70s…. Ooooh now I know Absorbing Man has never been 100 ft tall in any of his incarnations, but I was under 10 years old when I first saw this….

Aaah what magic nostalgia!

Anyone ever read this?

I've never been too bothered what Baker gets up to in his spare time,(unless its screwdrivering Cybermen) and when he shunned his Whovian heritage in the late 80s I boycotted him… Fuckin cunt!

DAVE SMASH!!!!!!!

But he endeared himself to me again when I had a chance meeting with him on Cecil Court. Took me a while to track this bloody book down though, and…. I rather liked it. Baker is a funny man and it shines through in his autobiography. Although not smeared with it, there is a healthy sprinkling of Who related history in there for the discerning fan. I mean come on! He has portrayed himself as the Doctor on the cover and history cant be erased can it Tom? Even a Time Lord knows that…. Or can it? You know I can’t fuckin remember actually. Answers on a postcard please!"

Thanks Dave.