Monday 11 May 2009

I must write something!

I get hit with waves of guilt and paranoia when I don't update this accursed blog. Guilt, that I'm somehow letting my imaginary audience down, and paranoia that those few people who do take the time out to read this bilge will desert me the moment I get lax with the updates. Ridiculous emotions which provide yet more evidence of my fragile mental state. Anyway, I haven't updated much lately because I've been too busy to do so, but the feelings of guilt and paranoia have become too much to bear, sooooooo...

Bought an LED clip-on lamp to read my comics by at night. It throws out a sickly blue glow which gives me a headache. Disastrous purchase.

Found a couple of great books in a charity shop:  

Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman which reprints TONS of Herriman's daily and Sunday strips going right back to 1912! 223 pages and a real treat from an artist who I had vaguely heard of, but never taken the time to check out before. Got a feeling my two-year-old son is going to love this book in a year or two.

Bye Bye Birdie by Shirley Hughes I was amazed to find this as it was only released last month. The copy I found has a press release in the back, so it's clearly a review copy that someone decided they didn't want. Anyway, wow! Hughes is an 82-year-old lady from Liverpool who has been writing and illustrating children's books for many, many years. Now, at this late age, she's decided to turn her hand to graphic storytelling for adults and the result is well worth a look. Bye Bye Birdie is the story of an Edwardian chap who meets a mysterious woman, who subsequently turns into a vicious man-eating bird! It has no words, but that doesn't matter. It looks beautiful + there's no real reason why children shouldn't love it too. Well worth checking out, although it is a quick read/look - a fact which may work against it given that it has a RRP of £12.99. Not that this bothered me, as like the Krazy Kat tome it was priced up at 50p. Absolute bargain. Such a bargain, that I felt guilty and insisted on paying the shop £1. Felt good about myself - for a nanosecond.

Really liked Flash Rebirth #2. Impenetrable DC nonsense it may be, but I just love that Geoff Johns fellah. I don't know, I just enjoy his unashamed continuity whoring and refusal to compromise his love of DC history. If you came to any of his books cold, you'd be like: "What? Who? Huh?" But I vividly recall experiencing those feelings when I picked up random issues of The X-Men or Teen Titans off the newsagent shelf as a kid. Quite enjoy being lost and having to go back to find out what's going on.

3 comments:

mr wheatley said...

interesting, i like a bit of shirly hughs.

Mr A. P. Salmond, esq. said...

That Herriman book is a little gem.

Dom Sutton said...

Mr W - The Hughes book is nice, but a VERY quick nice for £12.99

Mr S - Yeah, it's ace. Definitely a book I'll let the boy loose on in a year or two.