Book talk: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Library Edition Volume 1 HC

They were just so young. First season 

promo photo. Copyright 20th Century

Fox Television.

I've never made a secret of my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A big, huge, titanic-sized reason for that love is the dialogue of series creator Joss Whedon. Whedon makes the language his characters speak dance, do jumping jacks, and do the shimmy. And for all of that, he has a rare ability to get at emotional truths like few other screen writers I can think of. (And I know there are people out there who don't like Whedon's writer. There's a term for these people. That term is: "wrong.")

Previous attempts to bring Buffy to the comics page failed, in my estimation, because try as they might, the writers couldn't quite capture the voice of the TV series writers. And there were some good writers on that original comics series, Andi Watson among them.

And so, we get a new comics series that starts where the TV series ended, and its original arc is written by none other than Mr. Whedon. Glory be! It's really nice to once again be visiting the world and the characters he created, and to have him, initially at least, at the helm. And Brian K. Vaughn, who takes over after Whedon leaves, does a good job of maintaining that voice.

The art by Georges Jeanty captures the likeness of the actors who played these characters on the show without being slavish to them, and he has a fine eye for storytelling. A bonus, for me at least, is that Cliff Richards gets to draw a stand-alone issue in this collection. Richards was the regular artist on the original back when I was its assistant editor. Seeing his art again is like a blast from the past. In a good way.

The whole tone of the comic just feels right. Seriously folks, this is as close as we're likely to get to another season of one of my favorite shows. And that's close enough.

I like this

I just stumbled upon a review of 100 Girls written by an individual who, I can only guess, is a Buddhist. They look at the book in the context of Buddhism, and the concept of Dharma specifically. I've re-read the review several times and I can't tell whether or not they liked the book.

This interests me because... well, because I know nothing about Buddhism or Dharma and I never intended the book to be a comment on either. The fact that someone who studies Buddhism can find these connects in a book where none were intended. It's a good reminder about how readers can and will supply meanings to your work which you would never in a million years see yourself. In this instance, the meaning is positive and interesting, but there can be instances where that meaning is negative and hurtful to the reader.

And, no, I'm not going to consider the impact of a given story on every potential reader in the world, but it's a good thing to keep in mind, I think.

The Onion AV Club likes 100 Girls

The Onion AV Club, folks who generally have very good opinions about all types of pop culture, have given a very positive review to my and Todd Demong's little tome, 100 Girls. Read the review here.

And please ignore what they have to say about my other book....

The Umbrella Academy

There's a lesson here for me, I think:

When The Umbrella Academy was first announced, I made a point of ignoring it. It was written by a rock star after all. A rock star from a band about which I knew nothing. If this were a movie, you'd call it stunt casting. But all of that changed after I visited Dark Horse Comics with my family and managing editor Davey Estrada gave me a bag of books to take home. Once I unpacked the bag, I found a copy of The Umbrella Academy waiting for me. I figured I'd give it a read before putting it on the shelf and forgetting it forever.

Well, I was blown away. It's inventive, anarchic, angry and funny--a few of the things that comics can do well if they're done right. My friend Phil and I used to talk about how we wanted to do comics that were big and dumb, but that had a core of truth or meaning in them that would give the whole enterprise a depth it wouldn't have otherwise. The Umbrella Academy is that kind of comic. While, ostensibly, it appears to be about a family of superheroes (one of whom has a transplanted gorilla body!), it's really about family dynamics and how children pursue the love of a parent even after that parent is dead. In its way, it's actually quite touching.

Another big turn-on for me is the art of Gabriel Ba, who I know as the artist of the equally anarchic Cassanova (The Umbrella Academy actually reminds me of Cassanova in a lot of very favorable ways). His art is stylized and expressive and fluid. Throw my buddy, Dave Stewart's, colors on top of all of that and you have a near-perfect comic.

I'll tell you honestly, I despair that I could ever write a comic as good as this one. If you're even casually interested in adventure comics, The Umbrella Academy is one to read.

Oh, and the lesson I learned? Stop being a judgmental ass and give things a try.

Promethea

Alan Moore and JH Williams' comics series (along with inker Mick Gray, colorists Jeromy Cox and Jose Villarrubia, and letterer Todd Klein) began life as a pastiche of super-heroine comics, a la Wonder Woman, but it quickly grew into a meditation on the history and philosophy of magic.

The plot concerns college student Sophie Bangs who is researching a character called Promethea who shows up in a number of stories across a number of media throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. But Promethea doesn't just show up in stories, she also shows up in real life, giving aid and comfort to those in need. As a consequence of her research, Sophie actually becomes the latest incarnation of Promethea.

Book one and two concern themselves mostly with Sophie assuming her new role and learning the histories of the Prometheas who came before her. Books four and five focus on Promethea traveling up the Qabbalistic Tree of Life to the God-head. And in book five, we watch Promethea preside over the Apocalypse and what comes after it.

For me, Promethea works best when it acts as a magical primer. Moore can slip easily between scenes of action and instruction. Those few chapters that are purely plot or action driven feel the weakest to me.

Special attention has to be given to the art team of Williams, Gray, Cox and Villarrubia. Moore's scripts make so many demands of them and they are up to all of them. During the sequence where Promethea climbs the Tree of Life, each issue is drawn in a different art style; no mean feat for an art team.

Part of me, a small part, wishes it was this series, not League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that was going to be continued by Top Shelf Publishing. But then, where else is there to go after the world ends?

Magic or Madness

Young Adult novels are so much better now than I remember them being when I was an actual young adult. I recall reading some S.E. Hinton, but not much else.

The "Magic or Madness" series by Justine Larbalestier (Magic or Madness, Magic Lessons, and Magic's Child) is one of the best fantasy trilogies I've read; YA or not. All of the books are well-paced, exciting, and feature well-drawn, believable characters.

The story focuses on 15-year-old Reason Cansino who discovers very suddenly that magic is real. More than that, she is a magic user. In the word of the books, however, magic is a double-edged sword. Use it and it will shorten your life; but if you don't use it, you'll quickly go mad. For the most part, we watch as reason figures out how to use her magic, and how she avoids other magic users who would steal her magic so they could lengthen their own lives.

Besides Reason, there's a whole host of supporting characters, some who wield magic, some who don't, but all who lend their support in making this an exciting story.

I would pay heed to the Young Adult label and would share this with kids who are at least in their teens, as there are some plot elements that might raise uncomfortable questions from a younger reader. But once your kids (or you) have finished the Harry Potter series, this is a great series to pick up next.

It cures what ails ya

I stayed home sick today. The first of many, many colds I'll experience this year, I'm sure. When I'm sick, there are a couple of things that never fail to make me feel better: 1) Get plenty of rest 2) drink lot's of fluids and 3) Read comics!



Hellboy, volume 1: Seed of Destruction
by Mike Mignola with script assistance by John Byrne

The first volume of Mike Mignola's awesome Hellboy series. It's amazing to me how much of the series is in place here. Often with a first series you'll feel like the author is trying to find the right tone, the voice of the characters, the correct pacing. But this book sings right out of the gate. This volume shows us some of the origin of Hellboy; introduces many of the characters that will be important later in the series; and shows his first battle with the terrible Rasputin! This is great, Pulp-inspired fun.



Street Angel
by Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca

You are required to love a comic that features a rogue geologist as a villain. Yes.

Street Angel is the story of a homeless 13-year old world-class skateboarder and ninja fighter. She lives in a world of (the aforementioned) ninjas and scientists, but her world is also chock full of Aztec gods, Conquistadores, Irish astronauts, Satanists, and the headaches that come with being homeless. This volume collects the five issues of the series as well as short stories, covers, and a wealth of pinups and sketches. And it is a thing of beauty.

The stories in Street Angel happen free of context and, blessedly, continuity. Each story seems to happen in its own little universe of fun. I suspect that Rugg (artist and co-writer) and Maruca (co-writer) weren't so interested in telling a grand, linear story; they were mostly concerned with figuring out how comics work. They needed to figure out the rules, and then they needed to break them completely.

The collection I own is called "volume one" in the indicia. I pray that there will be a second some day.

Diary of Indignities

Patrick Hughes got his start at the brilliant, yes brilliant, Bad News Hughes. This book is a collection of the best of those blog entries with a few extras thrown in. Hughes documents the absurd, painful and humiliating episodes that seem to hound his life. The back cover describes the book as, "Whimsical stories of soul-melting shame," and that about covers it. It can be amazingly funny (I can't remember laughing out loud so much as I read a book), but be warned; it can also be extremely profane and crude. This book s seriously not for the faint of heart. But for all his bluster and bravado, Hughes always manages to give these stories a lot of heart and some of them can be heart-breakingly bitter-sweet. Don't let that wimpy last line lull you into a false sense of security, though, because the moment you start thinking he's a softy, Hughes will bring you back to reality with a story about something like frying a turd. And God bless him for it.

Crooked Little Vein

This is a nasty little book. Anyone who has read the comics of Warren Ellis will find themselves on familiar ground with this, his first prose novel. The story is simple enough: Mike McGill, our hero, must search through the sordid underbelly of America to find, well, a McGuffin, really. The true highlight of the book isn't the plot, it's watching Ellis debate with himself, using the voice of the book's main characters, about whether or not the future is headed toward hell in a handbasket. Ellis has interesting ideas about the future of our culture and watching that debate can be a heady experience.

Reading this novel brought home a point that I'd always suspected but never quite grasped before: like the best mystery writers, and despite the cynicism and bravado on display in his prose, Ellis is a Romantic. One can see evidence of this is his best comics series, Planetary, Transmetropolitan, et al.

If I have any complaints, it's that this very brief book is paced too quickly. Ellis is writing about the great expanse of America, but the pacing barely gives any sense of the country's size. And the pacing also makes the climax of the book slide by almost unrecognized. But this is a minor quibble and wouldn't keep me from recommending it. This book is not for the faint of heart, but for those who can stomach it, it is well worth the read.