What I Read Last Month…

What I read last…
April 2012

 Beginnings, by many various. 

http://beginningsanthology.blogspot.com.au/

A nicely chunky read, full of short stories of varying length and accomplishment, but most importantly, varying in style and genre. Very nicely printed and finished. 


 The List, Volumes I, II and III, by Paul Bedford, Henry Pop and Tom Bonin. 

http://thelistgraphicnovel.bigcartel.com/

This is quite the arduous horror and gore story. Often sparse and consciously lacking in unnecessary dialogue, completely lacking in captions, and comfortably taking its time to get where it's going. 
Each volume gets progressively thicker, and it's not really until the third of them that I finally felt caught up in the story. 
There's a collected single volume now available. 

The Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes #7, by Christopher Sequiera, Phil Cornel, Dave Elsey and Paul Mason. 

http://www.blackhousecomics.com/the-dark-detective-sherlock-holmes.html

Continuing Holmes' run-in with Frankenstein's monster, this is pretty dense and verbose, relying heavily on dialogue and spoken exposition. Fab if you like the depth and backstory being injected, not so if you want to cut to the chase. Period appropriate art throughout. 

Mongrel #2, by Bernard Caleo. 

http://www.cardigancomics.com/index.php/mongrel.html

http://anislandart.blogspot.com.au/search/label/MONGREL

How does Caleo do it? I just KNOW this is set in Melbourne and no where else. His well-practiced ability to create a Melbourne-centric sense of place goes all the way back to his (and Tolley's) earlier great Yell & Olé and The False Impressionists. 
I favour this issue – a more realist drama served in the 10 or so pages – to the fantastical treatment of historical characters of #1. As Caleo says though, at only 20 pages in, the story's not even begun yet.

The Thing That Should Not Be #s 1, 2 and 3, by Chris Hale, Wen Huang, Joshua Regan, and Mark Withington. 

http://www.thethingthatshouldnotbe.net/

This is a really good little anthology, printing material by the same four contributors each issue. This steady contributor line-up helps with what can often be an odious task when following serial anthologies of getting used to new creators every issue, and the possibility of not getting the same level of quality issue to issue. It also makes it quite obvious that this is to be a showcase for these four, which is a good thing. 
There are four very different styles here, which means the reader's not going to get bored, and they're mostly really good, which means any disappointment, if there is any, is short lived and slight.  

Mongrel #3, by Bernard Caleo. 

http://www.cardigancomics.com/index.php/mongrel.html

http://anislandart.blogspot.com.au/search/label/MONGREL

Caleo deftly outlines a new character (Salvation Jane) in a mere eight pages in this issue: her personality, resolve, determination, allure and attraction, relationships with two men whom she works with, and probably how influential to the developing story she'll be. And really, I don't like her already. But in a good, good way. 

What I Read Last Month…

What I read last… 

December 2011.

Du Plomb Dans La Tête, by Colin Wilson and Matz. 

This time I'm writing about the black & white collection in the original French language, instead of the colour, English translation. 

I love the art so much more in this printing,a despite the smaller, paperback size, but then again I almost always enjoy a b&w version of a story more than a colour version.

Also the lettering is so beautiful this time around. It's by Wilson I believe, instead of a dedicated lettering "specialist". Wilson has hand drawn the gorgeous letterforms, done with brush from the looks of it, as well as hand inscribed the word balloons, all of which makes such a wonderful change from the boring and bland computer lettering and geometrically precise balloons we get in most comics now.

Rocksalt, by Mark Withington

This is a really fun lo-fi sci-fi adventure with great characters and nice style all 'round. Full review coming soon.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, by Hergé.

There's been a sad and embarrassing gap in my comic-reading history. But no more! Finally, after reading comics for 36 years, I've experienced a Tintin comic! There's a full review coming soon to let you know exactly what I thought.